Is he right that Rome was only a few centuries away from an industrial revolution were it not for the 3rd century crisis and the christianization of the empire following it? I thought it was fantastical at first, but after seeing what people like Hero of Alexandria were up to I'm not so sure, although I've yet to read the book yet.
>>17987645dis nigga named Dick Carrier
>>17987645>yet to read the book yetMan I should go to bed already.
>>17987645No he's a retard
It would not have; H.G. Wells was righr when he said the RE was an oppressive, intellectually barren slave empire.
>>17987689I assume you haven't read it either?>>17987695Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boTUOgka3LA>SloptubeYes I know, but watch it anyways.
There were significant hurdles in their way. Probably the biggest was metallurgy. A lot of industrial ideas already existed at the time but without modern steel they weren’t really possible. The Greekoid steam engine for instance. You could maybe run a stationary pump with it or a conveyer belt but it would be too heavy and brittle to make a workable train out of. You would have to somehow jumpstart the Greco Roman understanding of metal working.You could have an earlier discovery of electricity if a few things go differently but without high quality copper wire it’s usefulness is limited. >>17987695Stfu germnigger apologist
>>17987645Is this the same Christ mythicist Carrier? Cause this is a harder sell than that. Just because you have pieces that could lead to an industrial revolution does not mean they will be put together. Rome did not have a social or political structure that would encourage such a system, and speculating what they might have done centuries later if things went completely different is fodder for historical fiction, not serious history.
>>17987712I mean if some emperor got hold of how useful the steam engine would have been that could potentially have been taken care of, although that seems quite unlikely to have happen.>>17987715Yes, same guy.
>>17987645Unless someone else did it first for them to conquer. No way
>>17987712>You could have an earlier discovery of electricityThe word electricity is named that because the Greeks discovered piezo-electric effects in electrum. You're right about metallurgy being the barrier.
>>17987712>Stfu germnigger apologistGermanic genes are what made southern Europe great. You can paint a map across which areas have light hair or blue eyes or light complexions and see the IQ skyrocket and the crime rate plummet. But you knew that, hate that because you don't want accountability, and therefore deflect.
>>17987818This isn’t a haploautism thread. Go shit up some other discussion
>>17987822I didn't mention haplogroups. Haplogroups don't display discrete genes.
>>17987826>hurr superior German genes are making everything that good>no I’m not talking about genesOP asked about industrialization in the Roman world. If you don’t want to discuss that then find some other thread
>>17987645>a few centuriesYes, but literally centuries. They were centuries away from a 15th century level with windmills, robust ocean going sailing vessels and the printing press, then it would be 2 or 3 centuries more until the actual industrial revolution.If the Roman empire had not faltered in the 4th century and resisted the Goths and other invaders, managing to preserve the western Roman Empire and restore trade to the level it was in the 2nd century by the 8th century, they probably would have a decent headstart relative to our timeline.However it is worth noting a lot of innovations at this time originated outside Europe, the windmill for example arose in Persia. Of course this is 4chan /his/ so we can acknowledge the fact the European renaissance blew everything before it out of the water, even the Greeks, but Rome could well have sparked a "renaissance" (it would not be called a renaissance of course) probably shortly after the start of the medieval warm period, the 11th century or 12th century would be a reasonable estimate. They could well have 2 or 3 centuries on us by my reckoning, though it might be 1 or just 50 years if progress is slower than expected in other areas.A redditor or a revisionist historian trying to sell books might claim it would be 500 or 1000 years earlier, but this is not realistic if you have a wider perspective.
At best, Rome could have seen a bit more mechanization, but not the kind of systemic technological revolution that happened in 18th century Britain.
>>17987832I'm responding to Europhobic racism posted by someone else. If you're interested in defending Europhobia you can go away instead. >>17987834>They were centuries away from a 15th century level with windmills, robust ocean going sailing vessels and the printing pressI'm increasingly confident that they had all of these things. They had gear mechanisms, they had water wheels preserved at palatial estates, and Plutarch mentions that the Romans had crossed the high oceans and Pytheas back in the 5th century BC had visited Scandinavia.
>>17987843They knew about:>Gear mechanisms, see moving palaces of Rome and antikythera mechanism.>Electricity, discovered since electrum had identifiable piezo-electric effects>Steam operation inside of an enclosed chamber, Heron of Alexandria and Varus>Pneumatic devices and hydraulic screws, see ArchimedesI think it's more likely they invented space travel by 300 AD than never developed an engine.
>>17987645The Romans were already out-putting at industrial levels, they just didn't have the tools that the industrial revolution developed.
>>17987682>thread about interesting subject>makes list of largely unrelated subjects in post without any other discussion about the subject of the OP, nor the subjects he listed???
>>17987645Hero was a temple gimmick. Roman entire economy ran on slave muscle. Why innovate when you can just conquer more barbarians to do the work? They were centuries away from the necessary scientific method and capital markets.
>>17988405Because wood is cheaper than fueling slaves. Duh.
>>17987645Impossible without total extermination of the Romans.
>>17988449?
>>17987645Seems like an overstatement. The metallurgy just wasn't there to produce machines which would benefit from science. Now, it is undeniable that the christianization of Rome did send science and advanced manufacturing back millennia.
>>17987682The Romans actually had a shortage of slaves, so hypothetically that might have incentivized them to embrace automation.
>>17987645>>17987695Hero of Alexandria was a 1st century AD figure, so I think H.G. Wells is right about the late Roman Empire. To put the 500 years of the Empire into perspective, consider how 500 years before present was the pre modern era.I mean, it makes sense. Christianity could only rise in a society where the population has suffered complete dysgenic meltdown into barely sentient creatures.
>>17987645>does not understand metallurgy>writes goyslop about muh Romanz for other idiots to peruse This is my hot take. No, they weren't close to industrial revolution, but they came pretty close to eradicating the ancestors of people who write and read such books
>>17988718The Romans were genetically unfit for the sciences. People don't like to talk about it, but it's a fact.
>>17987712That type of steam engine has abysmal efficiency. You can see youtube videos of them being practically useless for anything else than spinning themselves.
>>17987645I heard somewhere (probably here) that Romans lacked the metallurgical industrial technology necessary for industrialization since they didn't have already have factories churning out gunpowder weaponry.
>>17987834One very important thing which I don't really see mentioned is how the Romans had a very solid philosophical foundation for an industrial revolution, since thinkers in the Epicurean tradition were very popular.
>>17988745Are we talking about Early Empire or Late Empire Romans?
17988740If a post usesReddit spacing, thenI don't reply to itSimple as
>>17988763>Noooo you can't just separate different thoughts into different paragraphs Reeeeee
>>17987645a few centuries is a long time and rome was running from crisis to crisis.my naive guess is that you need some stability at least in the productive regions and trade is probably a good idea.
>>17988794Yeah, but if they hadn't turned to proto-feudalism under Diocletian and later christianised things might have turned out better, if, say, Aurelian hadn't been murdered.
>>17988756Late Empire they also corrupted the Greeks, with no indicator that the Romans got any better for it.
>>17988763Reddit spacing isn't real, you've been duped.
>>17987645i'd say the one thing missing from rome is their lack of rivals of equal power since they beat carthagebritain was under intense heat with many european empires, which compelled them to build fastercompetition breeds progress, and i don't think a few outdoor barbarians are enough to make a pax romana rome worry much
>>17987834The renaissance was a total meme. A handful of artists sculpting statues with indulgence money. Roman and Greek authors were studied throughout the middle ages already.
>>17987645No.
>>17989830>i'd say the one thing missing from rome is their lack of rivals of equal power since they beat carthageThe Parthians.They also gave up on making progress beyond the Rhine-Danube line.
>>17987645no, read pic related.>>17987695I agree
>>17989842Most of those authors were lost untill the 1200s or so, the renaissance began in the 1300s, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
>>17990470I'm planning to, but he seems to make some outrageous claims such as that Archimedes had almost developed full-blown Newtonian mechanics but was later lost by the Romans.
>>17987645>ahhhh Christianity held back progress!!!That was only in Europe. What's the rest of the world's excuse for not having flying cars?
>>17987645No I don't think so. Although they would be a bit weird if you thought of them through the prism of let's say movies or some kind of broad definitions of their economy. For starters just like in high medieval europe, water power was employed quite broadly, and the economic complexity of their trade networks was high enough that they produced ceramic on mass scale, pretty much not seen until maybe 18th century. You just could find a market for these kinds or massive amounts of ceramic objects so what could be called a factory replaced the craftsman.However as far as industrial revolution in a way we know it, they wouldn't have done it and it's actually technology that caused it. Early English industry was very difficult to setup, only after modern precision machining became a thing in the 1820's or so setting up a factory stopped being an exercise in alchemy. The Romans were very, very heavily behind the mechanical, mathematical and physical knowledge in comparison to Europeans circa 1820 and I think that's the nail in the coffin.
>>17991255No Vrill.
>>17987645This is why I always laugh when someone talk about east empire, they never get a chance since they closed schools for favour retarded Christians, and in that period Alexandria was the center of the knowledge, knowledge that they could use to improve society, and also help them in war
>>17989849>needs average leftist meme worth of paper to explain truthUnderstandable
