The nature of technology is exponential. 500 years ago (roughly the time of Christopher Columbus sailin' the ocean blue), they might have recognized the general potential of the industrial revolution occurring. Do you think they could conceive of television? The internet?
I had a class in Economic History at Ohio State that was absolutely fascinating. The nature of technology is exponential except not always. The Professor started the class with the assertion that for all of Human History up until about 500 years ago our ancestors lived at or near subsistence. Ie, they barely had enough food to survive so basically their entire lives were a never-ending struggle with famine. There were a few times in a few places where humans advanced somewhat beyond this but they didn't keep advancing.
He pointed out that the Egyptians were pretty far above subsistence as evidenced by the fact that they built the Pyramids. They obviously had enough surplus food to be able to support a substantial labor force building pyramids. Someone in the class then pointed out that the Egyptians used slave laborers and the Professor replied with two things:
- Nearly all cultures of at least 1,000 years ago used slave labor so that doesn't make the Egyptians any different than the others, and
- When you are living at or near subsistence the existence of slavery is basically irrelevant in a macro-sense. It obviously matters to the individuals but for the economy at large one laborer is one mouth to feed irrespective of whether that laborer earns pay and buys food or is owned by someone who has to feed them. Either way one laborer = one mouth to feed.
Similarly, the Romans were quite a bit above subsistence for a while as were the Chinese at one time and other cultures as well but none of them managed to achieve that "exponential technology". Instead, each of the cultures that got themselves above bare subsistence for a while eventually waned and fell back to that bare subsistence level.
It wasn't until Europe starting about 500 years ago that your "exponential technology" started to take hold.
Curiously, one of the major triggers of the industrial revolution was the plague. The Black Death killed around 50% of Europe's population between roughly 1346-1353. One would think, intuitively, that this would be horrific and of course it was for the individuals who died of it and for their survivors but it was a massive economic boon.
Think of it this way:
Imagine that
@betarhoalphadelta and I are brothers and that we have two other brothers, we'll call them Darryl and Darryl. Now suppose that our parents have left the four of us:
- 12 acres of farmland (3 acres each)
- 2 homes (1/2 each)
- 8 oxen (2 each)
- 2 plows (1/2 each)
Now suppose that Darryl and Darryl both die of the Black Death. That is horrible and Beta and I would be very sad burrying our brothers but once we get past that, we will find that Beta and I now own:
- 6 acres of farmland each (up from 3)
- 1 home each (up from 1/2)
- 4 oxen each (up from 2)
- 1 plow each (up from 1/2)
In other words, Beta's and my per-capita wealth just increased by 100%.
Then there is another interesting factor. The Professor asked:
"If you only need 50% as much food due to the plague killing 50% of your people, what percentage of your farmland do you need to farm?"
Someone replied 50%. The Professor thundered "NO". Farmland is not all equal. Some land is more productive than other land. Thus if we only need 50% as much food we can probably get away with farming the most productive third of the farmland that we previously needed.
Taking those together, Beta and I now have more tools (plows, oxen) and we each have a house and now we only need to farm a combined four acres which either of us can handle while only using 2/3 of the acreage that we own leaving the other one free to do something else like go invent stuff.
Ie, in our post-plague reality I can farm four of my six acres and produce enough food for both Beta and I and Beta (the engineer) can go invent stuff to make me even more efficient. This is basically how the Black Death contributed to the exponential increases in technology that started emanating from Europe about 500 years ago.
One other interesting catalyst for the Industrial Revolution:
Britain ran out of wood. Seriously, the British Isles aren't all that big and as their population increased they eventually starting running low on trees. They weren't actually out but the price of wood began to increase because trees were no longer seen as infinitely available. People had known for years that there was a black substance that could be found in the ground in some places that burned hotter than wood (coal) but as long as trees were infinitely available it didn't make economic sense to dig up coal when it was much easier to chop down trees. The use of coal grew in England specifically because they were low on trees. The use of coal contributed to two things that were vital to the Industrial Revolution:
- Because Coal burns hotter than wood it is more effective at making Steel out of Iron Ore. People back at least to the Romans had steel but making it was more of an art than a science. Blacksmiths would make Iron and every once in a while they'd basically get lucky and make steel. (This is an oversimplification but generally true). Anyway, when Blacksmiths "lucked into" steel they would usually use it to make swords, or other high-value items while making horsehoes, plows, and other lower-value items out of iron. The use of coal for heat made MUCH hotter fires which made it much easier to make steel.
- The first steam-engines were built and used to pump water out of coal mines.
Interesting point:
Both the Romans and the Egyptians were REALLY close to the industrial revolution. The Romans had hot-water heat which required a boiler and at least a basic understanding of the idea that when you heat water it turns to steam and expands. They used that for heating homes and baths but that was it. They stopped there. It really doesn't take much to get from that to "hey, we could use this expanding water stuff (steam) to make power and convert it to rotational motion and build a train to take our legions to the front".
The Egyptians actually had a palace toy that was basically a pipe with outlets on opposite sides placed over boiling water. It would spin. That is literally a rudimentary steam engine. Put a pully on top of that sucker and . . . Industrial Revolution. They never did.
Consider where we would be if the Romans or the Egyptians had launched the Industrial Revolution several millennia or more prior to it's historical launch.
Two final points because I find these fascinating. If you go to Rome today you can see the Roman ruins. Parts of the Colosseum and other Roman structures are visible. We consider them to be ancient because they are around 2,000 years old. When the Romans who built those things got to Egypt the Pyramids were older than the Roman ruins are now. Ie, Imperial Rome is closer in time to us now than it is to the ancient Egyptian civilization.
The Spanish under Ferdinand and Isabella famously completed kicking the Muslims out of Spain in 1492. Note that the Umayyad conquest of Hispania began in 711. Ie, Christoper Columbus is closer in time to us than he is to pre-Muslim Spain.
