Main logical fallacy here is definition of “progress”. What is it? Purely material, mechanical sciences? Constant growth of GDP?
Progress, as far as I can understand, is at somewhat constant rate across all human history. But progress can be manifested in many forms. Primarily spiritual. Progress of mind.
You just have no idea how different our ancestors actually were. Their understanding of morality, of good and evil was totally different, for the most part. Romans, for example, openly glorified violence and saw no evil in gladiator tournaments.
Birth of Christianity was immense progress itself. Notions of morality, of good and wrong. All those stuff essential for functional modern society.
Sorry for broken English, guys. I am trying my best.
P.S. And, of course, our modern progress is not exponential. Modern science has its limits, it is just an instrument—not omnipotent.
P.P.S. Answering your question—yes, Industial Revolution was theoretically totally possible in a late Roman Empire. Theoretically.
The point is that these systems are not merely different in degrees, but different in kind, functioning on a very different basis with different potential avenues for growth in production.
IIRC, the aeolipile provided less than 1⁄100,000th of the torque provided by Watt’s steam engine. Practical steam engines are orders of magnitude more complex than Hero’s toy steam turbine. It took a century or more of concerted effort on the part of inventors to develop them.
The whole point here is the idea that society was simply not ready for such innovations. Who needs steam power? You have cheap slaves. Plenty of them. Glorious Roman steel can even bring you more, and so on.
This is not about pure mechanics or mathematics. This is about social development. Civilsational development.
What “civilizational development”, as you refer to it, would you say that The Netherlands lacked during the Dutch Golden Age? What hindered them from industrializing 200 years before England?
Dutch? We are talking about Late antiquity. Again, my point is that Roman empire was a totally different world. In all senses.
About the Netherlands. Do not understand your question. I do not know a lot about Dutch trade empire, but my knowledge is sufficient to conclude that they were a technological leader. Their emipre stretched from Moluccas to South Africa, they basically invented capitalism as it is and created first full-time stock exchange.
But the idea of steam-powered engine was not unknown to Greek philosophers. Of course it was just a mere toy. Still, first commercially developed steam engine (James Watt) had, as far as I remember, something like 1,5 percent of energy conversion efficiency.
Woohoo.
Main logical fallacy here is definition of “progress”. What is it? Purely material, mechanical sciences? Constant growth of GDP?
Progress, as far as I can understand, is at somewhat constant rate across all human history. But progress can be manifested in many forms. Primarily spiritual. Progress of mind.
You just have no idea how different our ancestors actually were. Their understanding of morality, of good and evil was totally different, for the most part. Romans, for example, openly glorified violence and saw no evil in gladiator tournaments.
Birth of Christianity was immense progress itself. Notions of morality, of good and wrong. All those stuff essential for functional modern society.
Sorry for broken English, guys. I am trying my best.
P.S. And, of course, our modern progress is not exponential. Modern science has its limits, it is just an instrument—not omnipotent.
P.P.S. Answering your question—yes, Industial Revolution was theoretically totally possible in a late Roman Empire. Theoretically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile
But ancient society was just not ready for such a huge leap in development.
Deep thinking on why the Roman Empire had no industrial revolution by a professional historian specialized in the Roman military:
https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/
Thanks.
Basically says the same.
IIRC, the aeolipile provided less than 1⁄100,000th of the torque provided by Watt’s steam engine. Practical steam engines are orders of magnitude more complex than Hero’s toy steam turbine. It took a century or more of concerted effort on the part of inventors to develop them.
The whole point here is the idea that society was simply not ready for such innovations. Who needs steam power? You have cheap slaves. Plenty of them. Glorious Roman steel can even bring you more, and so on.
This is not about pure mechanics or mathematics. This is about social development. Civilsational development.
What “civilizational development”, as you refer to it, would you say that The Netherlands lacked during the Dutch Golden Age? What hindered them from industrializing 200 years before England?
Turns out ACOUP’s last week post is precisely about this question. https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/
I swear half my comments on the Internet these days are just links to that blog...
Dutch? We are talking about Late antiquity. Again, my point is that Roman empire was a totally different world. In all senses.
About the Netherlands. Do not understand your question. I do not know a lot about Dutch trade empire, but my knowledge is sufficient to conclude that they were a technological leader. Their emipre stretched from Moluccas to South Africa, they basically invented capitalism as it is and created first full-time stock exchange.
Please elaborate what do you want to ask here.
But the idea of steam-powered engine was not unknown to Greek philosophers. Of course it was just a mere toy. Still, first commercially developed steam engine (James Watt) had, as far as I remember, something like 1,5 percent of energy conversion efficiency.