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Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?

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

#241

Post by Angostura »

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 the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem") and the racist elves.[2] For example, Barad-dûr, Sauron's citadel, appears in chapter 2 as

...that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic. The shining tower of the Barad-dûr citadel rose over the plains of Mordor almost as high as Orodruin like a monument to Man – free Man who had politely but firmly declined the guardianship of the Dwellers on High and started living by his own reason. It was a challenge to the bone-headed aggressive West, which was still picking lice in its log ‘castles’ to the monotonous chanting of scalds extolling the wonders of never-existing Númenor.

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

#242

Post by jcranberry »

jleyank wrote: post #213

LoTR had an industrial revolution. It was called Isengard and people didn’t like how it turned out. Elves were anti technology so there would be downward pressure until they upped and left. Dwarves probably reproduced slowly and were recovering from being orc and dragon chow. Numenorians reproduced slowly and they were also recovering from the plagues and wars. This leaves hobbits who were idyllic. Oh, and the wizard…

The Numenorians actually also had a technological revolution, although I don't know whether it was industrial. They unfortunately faced the setback of being almost entirely wiped out when their continent was sunk by Illuvatar.

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

#243

Post by littlestymaar »

schoen wrote: post #72
avmich wrote: post #57

From https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n21/francis-spufford/ope... : It was around this time that an encounter took place between two outlooks almost equally marginal to the spirit of the times in Britain. Arthur C. Clarke, by now a well-established science fiction writer as well as the author of the pioneering paper on satellite communications, had been growing increasingly irritated by the theological science fic…

> They all got pissed. I.e., drunk (British English), not angry (American English)!

Thank you!

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

#244

Post by panick21_ »

danjac wrote: post #238
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…

How is that different from real world history? Grow some crops? An invading army will come and steal and trample them. Mine for coal? A coal heap will bury your town or you'll die in a collapse. Start a trading enterprise? Your ship will get raided by pirates or you die of tropical diseases.

> Grow some crops? An invading army will come and steal and trample them.

That actually didn't happen the waste majority of cases.

> Start a trading enterprise? Your ship will get raided by pirates or you die of tropical diseases.

Again, most of the time that didn't happen. And you often didn't die of tropical diseases either.

> Mine for coal? A coal heap will bury your town or you'll die in a collapse.

Most towns were not buried and most coal miners don't die in collapses.

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

#245

Post by mcv »

Amezarak wrote: post #222
gostsamo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the whole thread is trying to find plausible reasons why the population does not recover after disasters. The elves are leaving and gondorians have issue reproducing. Everyone else should've been totally capable of taking those big chunks of land and building new societies there. Orcs should've just made them build more warlike cultures and not just hide, because orcs are raiders, not an well organized force whi…

The entire area from the Shire to Bree IS settled, mostly with farms. There were also towns around Bree: they did! Edit: with the exception of the Old Forest, which is actively hostile, and the Downs, that are inhabited by evil wights.

But it also seems to be one of the very few places in Middle Earth that are settled. Everything between Bree and Gondor is pretty much empty wasteland with the occasional elven stronghold. The Rohirrim strike me more as steppe nomads than western knights; with all their hiking through that land, how many farms and villages to they encounter?

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

#246

Post by peace4all »

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 of a barren desert inhabited by predatory worms the size of a multiple unit train that feed on walking excavators and then sweat psychedelics: fantasy is fantasy, what do you want from it?"

He also wrote a great book on the Earth evolution and life evolution, in which he also explains how science works and worked earlier, and what were older theories, and Popper criterium as well.

Here are some of his lectures for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEp7o0-w-uU

..and an interview with some charts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdyW9V10IEQ

(unfortunately, auto-translated automatic captions aren't readable, giving just an idea of what the talk is about)

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

#248

Post by puranjay »

panick21_ wrote: post #244
danjac wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that different from real world history? Grow some crops? An invading army will come and steal and trample them. Mine for coal? A coal heap will bury your town or you'll die in a collapse. Start a trading enterprise? Your ship will get raided by pirates or you die of tropical diseases.

> Grow some crops? An invading army will come and steal and trample them. That actually didn't happen the waste majority of cases. > Start a trading enterprise? Your ship will get raided by pirates or you die of tropical diseases. Again, most of the time that didn't happen. And you often didn't die of tropical diseases either. > Mine for coal? A coal heap will bury your town or you'll die in a collapse. Most towns we…

> That actually didn't happen the waste majority of cases

That's literally the reason for practically all empires and imperial expansions.

Rome didn't conquer Spain because they liked the weather.

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

#249

Post by samus »

raducu wrote: post #130
gostsamo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mordor was starting an industrial revolution which couldn't have been older than 60 years. Nothing explains the lack of development the previous few millemnia.

> Nothing explains the lack of development the previous few millemnia. But it also took many, many thousands of years for us to get to the industrial revolution. And we did not have magic, we did not outsource stuff to elves and dwarves, we did not have wars with orcs and dragons and other monsters and no extremely powerful transcedental/imortal beings actively involved/shaping the development of history. And we only…

Capitalism and the European Enlightenment overcame feudalism. Precursors of both can be found already before the discovery of the Americas.

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

#250

Post by b112 »

iso1631 wrote: post #159
actionfromafar wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the Shire had enough hobbiton population for an industrial revolution. Estimates I have seen are below 200 000, maybe much fewer. Britain had about 10 million in the 18th century.

Before the industrial revolution and the move of work from fields to factories, there was the agricultural revolution, which trippled domestic food production, and coupled with increased imports allowed population to start increasing from about 1650 to reach 9 million by 1801 without increasing the number of agricultural workers required, giving millions of surplus population to work in those factories

Plus, pre-modern age agricultural revolution, no created fertilizer, no pesticides, poor storage (no refrigeration, limited preserves, pest control), and no forced irrigation.

So a drought, cicadas, pest explosion, shorter growing season, fungus/etc, wildfires, on and on, would immediately lend to famine, and perhaps war.

Lots of additional people die during famine, fighting each other for scraps.

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