Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#301

Post by zahllos » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:03 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #40

Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The industrial revolution is in the book, it's the actual antagonist of the story. Tolkien was a devout Catholic distributist and Hobbingen was his ideal Catholic community of self reliant Hobbits who answer to wizards and kings, not to factory floor managers and administrators.

Right, the industrialists are literally right there in the form of Saruman and the Orcs of Isengard: "Together, my lord Sauron, we shall rule this Middle-earth. The old world will burn in the fires of industry. Forests will fall. A new order will rise. We will drive the machine of war with the sword and the spear and the iron fist of the orc." The orcs could be looked at as an allegory of the faceless, dehumanized, i…

It is also clear that the author hasn't actually read the lord of the rings.

It doesn't feature in the films but the scouring of the Shire happens after the defeat of Sauron, in which Saruman and Wormtongue take over the Shire and push the same industrialization they were pushing at Orthanc. They have a small battle, Saruman is killed by Wormtongue, who is killed by Hobbits and then everything is right again for the last chapter.

I'd also say an industrial revolution of sorts is definitely a component of the story and unambiguously considered bad.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#302

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:04 PM UTC

oDot wrote: post #194

timoth3y wrote: post #190

The article presents an engineering answer to s sociological question. The reason technology did not advance in Middle Earth is because innovation was not rewarded. Innovation and experimentation were punished. Mine a little too deeply? You awaken a balrog that kills you an everyone you have ever known. Want to expand into that verdant area across the river? You didn't expect giant spiders, did you? Build a disruptiv…

Compared to the very lucrative job of digging for coal...

Coal mining in the UK was very lucrative, but wealthy people hired armed men to ensure they took the wealth rather than the miners.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#303

Post by najari » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:06 PM UTC

>>>Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

Because they studied physics and understood that the industrial revolution leads to doom.

The exponential GDP growth is us considering natural resources free and unlimited in our economic model, while there is in fact a finite amount of resource (we've passed peak production crude oil in 2018). This very free use of resource leads to climate change, increasing the pressure on the production of 'renewable' resource like food. In physics, no infinite growth in a finite planet.

Their world sustained civilization for 45,000 years because they didn't have an industrial revolution. Our civilization is ~11,000 years old at best, I'm not entirely convinced the GDP curve will continue to grow exponentially for the next 34,000 years.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#304

Post by eru » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

najari wrote: post #303

>>>Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution? Because they studied physics and understood that the industrial revolution leads to doom. The exponential GDP growth is us considering natural resources free and unlimited in our economic model, while there is in fact a finite amount of resource (we've passed peak production crude oil in 2018). This very free use of resource leads to climate change, increasing…

> I'm not entirely convinced the GDP curve will continue to grow exponentially for the next 34,000 years.

Are you willing to bet on that? Perhaps with a somewhat shorter time horizon, so we can close out the bet before we die?

Btw, keep in mind that Lord of the Rings is fiction..

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#305

Post by antifa » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

CrazyStat wrote: post #297

peace4all wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should add that Kirill Yeskov is a paleontologist and science popularizer. Here's his own explanation how he wrote "The Last Ringbearer": one of the reasons he mentions is that Middle Earth was impossible geologically: https://fan-lib-ru.translate.goog/e/eskov/text_0150.shtml?_x... In which he also mentions another famous book: "It would hardly occur to anyone to seriously analyze the functioning of the ecosystem o…

>Being a paleoantologist, he made a question to Tolkien's book: why the Middle Earth had such strange land mass distribution, which is geologically impossible. And this started the "Last Ringbearer" book. Unfortunately he missed the answer: at the time Tolkien was writing, plate tectonics was still considered an absurd hypothesis, the subject of mockery by "serious" geologists. As such the understanding of "geologica…

> the Middle Earth had such strange land mass distribution, which is geologically impossible

I would love to watch a YouTube video explaining the geology of Middle Earth and the geology science explaining why it's impossible.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#306

Post by bricemo » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

najari wrote: post #303

>>>Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution? Because they studied physics and understood that the industrial revolution leads to doom. The exponential GDP growth is us considering natural resources free and unlimited in our economic model, while there is in fact a finite amount of resource (we've passed peak production crude oil in 2018). This very free use of resource leads to climate change, increasing…

I have always had a similar train of thought around zombie apocalypse fiction. If there was a mass zombie outbreak it would be totally solved within five years. Houses would be reinforced with zombie proof doors and walls. Weapons would be available for purchase that are tested as most affective against zombies. Roads would have guard rails and zombie proof walls to keep them out. It would slowly transform from a crisis to a nuisance like wild animals. There’s no reason it would continue going on year after year

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#307

Post by lumost » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:09 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #83

lumost wrote: post #61

When I saw the equation for labor factor of LaborSupply x LaborProductivity / CostOfCoal I couldn't help but think of modern robotics and industrial automation as LaborSupply x LaborProductivity / CostOfSoftware Given the extreme cost of software development, and the diminishing cost of labor due to globalization - it's no wonder we don't have robots everywhere. It will be curious if the current wage spike leads to i…

Robots do not save money. They may optimise some other part of the value chain which could increase profits, but robots are a more expensive workforce than humans.

It depends on the values in the above equation. If the labor cost of reconfiguring injection molding machines rises above 3d printers, then companies will use 3d printers. If the labor cost of having someone click parts together goes to high relative to the cost of building a robot for the same task, then a robot will be developed for the task.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#308

Post by eru » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:09 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #240

smallerfish wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha. Granted I didn't check his footnotes, but that's pretty lazy writing, and feels more like he corrected it as an afterthought rather than editing his core text.

I sort of agree but one of my general regrets with web publishing vs. pages on paper (or even a formatted PDF) is that footnotes which bulletproof, add nuance, provide parenthetical detail, etc. don't work nearly as well because you can't just glance at them.

Gwern does a good job with them on his website.

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#309

Post by goodpoint » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

peace4all wrote: post #246

Angostura wrote: post #241

I highly recommend "The Last Ring Bearer" for people who like to have a bit of fun with Tokien. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer Eskov's version of the story describes Mordor as a peaceful constitutional monarchy on the verge of an industrial revolution, that poses a threat to the war-mongering and imperialistic faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude has been described by Saruman as "crafting…

I should add that Kirill Yeskov is a paleontologist and science popularizer. Here's his own explanation how he wrote "The Last Ringbearer": one of the reasons he mentions is that Middle Earth was impossible geologically: https://fan-lib-ru.translate.goog/e/eskov/text_0150.shtml?_x... In which he also mentions another famous book: "It would hardly occur to anyone to seriously analyze the functioning of the ecosystem o…

> paleoanthologist

You meant "paleontologist" or is it a pun around anthologies?

Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

#310

Post by bombcar » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

DoughnutHole wrote: post #259

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But somehow, despite the fecundity of the Rosie Cotton-Gangees, with 13 children, the Shire had a total population of about 100k, the size of a small (edit: but not that small) town (or the UK population in 3000BC). So either pre-reproductive mortality is through the roof, but never mentioned, they haven't been there long[1], or something bad happened recently (before the events in the LoTR)[2]. [1] Except Hobbits se…

> So either pre-reproductive mortality is through the roof, but never mentioned Well if we're in this framework of assuming middle earth functions (more-or-less) like our own pre-modern world, then pre-reproductive mortality is enormous . If the Gamgees had their children in Europe in the Middle Ages, then only 6-7 of their children would survive to the age of 10. Considering that a Hobbit male is only considered an…

We have some evidence that Rosie is an outlier - Bilbo's parents had one kid, Frodo's parents had one kid (though that was limited). According to a glance at the http://lotrproject.com it seems the known hobbit families are large, but it is possible that they're mainly the "gentry" and the amount of single/small families was larger (however, Sam is "lower class" apparently and is the 5th of 6).