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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?

#341

Post by boringg »

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…

There just wasn't any need - they had a world filled with magic.

Why would you ruin the natural world for industrial gains? In fact the Orkai and the white wizard was quite industrious with their forges and their war machine production and the natural world pushed back.

That and I don't see the start up world being that different from a risk perspective just the outcomes are different. And maybe middle earth was still to early.

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

#342

Post by Danieru »

gostsamo wrote: post #176
Amezarak wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Bilbo's youth, the Fell Winter took place, and "White Wolves" invaded Eriador. The Great Plague some time before and the Long Winter are explicitly said to have depopulated Eriador and left it "desolate." The Rangers were also not infallible. Obviously they did nothing to stop the Nazgul or large numbers of Saruman's agents in the time of the Lord of the Rings, nor did they stop the Orc-band that invaded the Shire…

See though that all of these disasters are spread over 1500 years. Most of them supposedly kill people, but they don't make the land uninhabitable and nothing stops from next generations repopulating them. Keep in mind that Europe suffers at least two big plagues, migration waves, a mini ice age and lots of other disasters. The main depopulation factors are hunger and food logistics collapse.

You are missing the point in the fictional history which will change everything: the age of man. Of humans.

Yes humans can repopulate. And thus their era arrives. Thus your objection isn't a plot hole but part of what makes Tolkens work so interesting.

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

#343

Post by klik99 »

bernawil wrote: post #330
klik99 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is fun, but I have my own theory - necessity is the mother of invention. In a magic world, where's the necessity?

This is pretty much it but it's larger than that. It's not just "magic", it's the whole nature of Tolkien's world. The world has a creator-all-powerful God and everybody in it knows it. He created all sentient creatures in it for his own entertainment. Everything that "is", is however he wants it to be and that's the nature of things, there's no Science to "discover". The world was flat like a thousand years ago unti…

I was just joking but this interpretation is a great metaphor for our modern world.

A meme (not the 4chan kind) going around lately is the history of the modern world is us as a society knowing less - as opposed to esotericism which is a belief that sometime in the past all the knowledge existed and then we forgot it, it got fragmented, and we find the origin, the center, then we can be free or make gold out of lead or whatever. Scientific revolution, postmodernism etc starts from the assumption we don't know anything and we can't know anything - instead of an origin, knowledge permeates everything.

So if we have a fantasy world where there are actual immortal beings and magic really exists (even though rare as mentioned by another poster) then how can you ever start with the assumption that nobody in the world knows? If you want knowledge, it's a matter of finding the right person or the right ancient scrolls or artifact.

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

#344

Post by DennisP »

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's why so many great civilizations were founded in places with good geographic barriers around a productive interior. Ancient Egypt for example had the Nile and was surrounded by vast deserts, which weren't feasible to cross at the time. On the other end of history, the US has similar advantages.

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

#345

Post by Wowfunhappy »

hguant wrote: post #334
antifa wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>geology science explaining why it's impossible. Mordor is...it just doesn't work. It's a hard scrabble plain with a large inland sea bounded on 3 sides by jagged, abrupt mountains that are entirely isolated from any other ranges, and form right angles with each other...oh and the surround a cone volcano that just emerges from the ground. Any one of these things (minus the, I repeat, NEAR PERFECT RIGHT ANGLES formed…

...are we just going to ignore the fact that Middle Earth also has wizards and mind-controlling rings?

I don't mean this dismissively, I just think more imagination is called for. If Mordor couldn't have arisen via normal plate tectonics, then geology must work differently on Middle Earth, or there must be other magical forces at play. (If I remembered anything significant about LoTR I would suggest a more specific theory.)

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

#346

Post by colinmhayes »

Maursault wrote: post #137

Seems clear the author: 1) knows next to nothing about Middle-Earth or Tolkien's larger work and honestly admits it, though continues to make sweeping generalizations about a subject they admittedly know little about; 2) knows nothing about classics, ancient history nor history of technology except perhaps bullet points gleaned from a pop documentary, iow, author displays extremely pedestrian and shallow knowledge or…

> anyone's ability to take them seriously

It's a joke. You're not supposed to take it seriously.

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

#347

Post by [deleted] »

max-zanko wrote: post #325
antifa wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not a video but still a good read on this: https://www.tor.com/2017/08/01/tolkiens-map-and-the-messed-u...

[deleted]

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

#348

Post by dingosity »

peace4all wrote: post #324
goodpoint wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

no, just my mistake, corrected, ty

Brian Eno had these "Oblique Strategy" cards with pithy sayings printed on them. He would famously refer to the card deck when in need of inspiration. My favourite card says "Honor thy Error as a hidden intention."

Paleoanthologist is one of the best Freudian slips I've seen in a while. GO WITH IT!

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

#349

Post by CrazyStat »

peace4all wrote: post #323
antifa wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Here's Kirill Yeskov's own explanation how he wrote it, Google-translated: https://fan-lib-ru.translate.goog/e/eskov/text_0150.shtml?_x...

Here's a proper human translation of the same essay: https://www.salon.com/2011/02/23/last_ringbearer_explanation...

Note how he discusses plate tectonics and Tolkein's ignorance, having forgotten (or never realized) that plate tectonics was not taken seriously in Tolkein's time.

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

#350

Post by Symbiote »

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 liked the idea of The Last Ringbearer, but I found the writing pretty awful, like something written by a teenager for an English assignment.

> Mordor then made its second mistake ... although, as it always is with strategic decisions, that could only be judged post factum: had the move worked, as it had every chance of doing, it would no doubt have been recorded as brilliant.

> That was when the Mirror first made a difference; imagine a contemporary fast-moving war in which one side has the advantage of spy satellites.

https://archive.org/details/TheLastRingbearerSecondEdition

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