Were the Romans close to an Industrial Revolution? (Part 2) | March 4, 2022 | toldinstone
Were the Romans close to an Industrial Revolution? (Part 2) | March 4, 2022 | toldinstone
16 wheels drove 16 mills. Enough to feed the entire region.The Romans of antiquity did not achieve the achievements of the industrial revolution because of slavery. It made then lazy. It killed their initiative.
They had slaves, and didn’t feel the need for machines. The industrial revolution came about after plagues wiped out large segments of the population, plus people leaving for the new world left a personnel shortage.
Great thought experiment, thanks for posting!
Had they lasted another 200-300 years, maybe. And that is if you consider the fall of the Western Empire to be the fall of the Roman Empire.
U. of Bremen prof. emeritus Dr. Gunnar Heinsohn finds evidence of a cometary catastrophe causing a wave of destruction in the Mediterranean around 300AD which spelled the end of the Roman Empire and left humanity in a dark age that only recovered during the Enlightenment which kicked off the Industrial Revolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYuG8iFEVrc
Will watch, but I remember something about this in college years ago.
Rome was a slave state. So much so, we can’t comprehend it.
It distorted their economy to the point where “labor saving” devices were viewed as a problem since they had some much excess labor, if they weren’t used up they would get restless.
I wish I could find the book we were studying back then.
You try to do complex math with roman numerals....
The ancients in Japan perfected the art of sword-making to a level that has never been equaled even in modern times. Now this is not mass production, but it still entails a carefully designed process, which is a valuable technology (or technique) in itself.
There's a presumption that machines and gadgets are what constitute "technology". But look at the rise of internet. Yes, it was enabled by computing and fiberoptic technology, but the key innovation enabling the net to take over the world was cooperation and language standardization on HTML, CSS, Javascript, search engines, etc.
In the chart below you'll notice that it took quite a number of years for the internet to evolve into what it is today.
Yes, so God had to step in and slow things down a bit so we had 1000 years of the Dark Ages.
And then when technology started back up again, it was still too fast, so God brought in the Black Plague.
But it was still marching along at too brisk a pace, so God gave us The Hundred Years War.............
