Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution? • Hacker News Board

Re: Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution?

#61

Post by posterboy » Tue, Nov 14, 2017, 11:21 AM UTC

orbat wrote: post #38

saalweachter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serfdom was completely ended in England 200 years before the Industrial Revolution, and while slaves were still present in England, they were never a significant part of the labor pool. What other conditions had to be met, or is it simply a matter of waiting two centuries after eliminating slaves/serfs from the labor pool?

My point was that it sounds likely that something like the industrial revolution would happen after the abolishment of slavery, when there's more pressure on people to be inventive. Not that it has to happen immediately

indeed, if you look at how long it took for segregation to happen, centuries seems a good measure of delayed effect.

Re: Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution?

#62

Post by posterboy » Tue, Nov 14, 2017, 11:32 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #59

posterboy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analog to the ancient times would be the libraries of Alexandria, Pergamon, Constantinopel and later the Vatican, and probably many smaller ones before. The name Byblos is pretty significant, too. But even today, word of mouth is going strong. In terms of language, riding on horse and camel has had an exponential effect over river shipping on the areal expansion and consequent interchanges.

Libraries don't hold a candle to the printing press for dissemination of knowledge. It's hard to overstate the importance of the press.

Yes, but we were initially talking about Rome.

Re: Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution?

#63

Post by jacques_chester » Tue, Nov 14, 2017, 12:42 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #34

The article doesn't mention the printing press. The invention of the press fueled explosive growth, because printers printed handbooks on anything and everything, and so knowledge became cheap and widely available. My personal view is the IR started with the printing press. We're in the middle of a second IR caused by the internet, for analogous reasons.

> The article doesn't mention the printing press.

I believe the novel does. By the time of the story, the Romans have advanced as far as television.

More generally, historical shifts are typically a collection of necessary but insufficient causes.

Re: Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution?

#64

Post by mercer » Tue, Nov 14, 2017, 8:15 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #57

WalterBright wrote: post #34

The article doesn't mention the printing press. The invention of the press fueled explosive growth, because printers printed handbooks on anything and everything, and so knowledge became cheap and widely available. My personal view is the IR started with the printing press. We're in the middle of a second IR caused by the internet, for analogous reasons.

I heard a great argument once, that I can no longer find on the internet. That it was the cannon that lead to the industrial revolution. The first cannons were awful. Short range, extraordinarily expensive to build, and just as likely to kill you as the enemy. There was an arms race in Europe to develop much stronger and cheaper metal. And once that exists, steam engines are much more practical.

I'm curious to hear if people can confirm this, but it sounds like a 'Gladwellian' type of argument, for lack of a better way of putting it.

Re: Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution?

#65

Post by sassenach » Wed, Nov 15, 2017, 11:38 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #46

sassenach wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One factor often overlooked is energy availability (the link touches it somewhat). EDIT: Wikipedia on coal, for instance, states "The development of the Industrial Revolution led to the large-scale use of coal" - rather than coal being the enabler what, with forests probably being exhausted at the time... Important in automation is work done by a machine, enhancing or replacing labor. Machines require energy, both fo…

I think that energy availability is overlooked because it doesn't seem to be an especially proximate cause of the Industrial Revolution. Many other countries have coal. People in the UK knew of the existence of coal for centuries (millennia?) before the IR. A lot of times and places had fossil energy stores available in the abstract. Why did it take so long before any people performed mechanical work with fossil fuel…

Yeah, it is an ultimate cause I suppose, with other factors mentioned above my post as proximate causes. One needs to know how to utilize the resource, and to have the incentive to use it, economically and culturally. A lot of knowledge was lost after the Romans retreated, and coal is, even if more energy dense, more polluting than wood, for ordinary urban heating purposes and thus in less use.

Looking forward, Germany started industrializing some time after, and China is now reducing their coal-dependence. Now we are asking how India will industrialize without coal - underlining the importance of energy in industrialization.