Earliest possible "modern day"

The earliest, chronologically, we could have post-industrial, technologically advanced societies like today.

For example, if the Song industrial revolution happens, we could have at least early 20th century technology by somewhere between 1400 and 1700, assuming everything goes at a smooth pace. Could this go any earlier? Could we have cars and junk in the year 1000, for instance? What's the earliest we could have modern technology?

Or Rome. Both China and Europe had similar levels of technology, as did most of south & western Asia, right up until the mid 18th century. The main failing was agriculture. It took the British Agricultural Revolution to produce enough food & release enough labour to make the Industrial Revolution possible.

The culture behind the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaistos_Disc perhaps?

I'd think Hellenism without Rome, or a more Hellenised Rome, worth considering.

Surviving Greco-Roman culture might be best change. It was pretty advanced so if Roman Empire wouldn't decline and collapse in west we might be current technology much earlier.

I don't know, isn't the idea that technological sophistication regressed during Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages a fiction created in the Renaissance?

Scherzo said:

I don't know, isn't the idea that technological sophistication regressed during Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages a fiction created in the Renaissance?

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A lot of reasonably advanced ancient technology and science was lost.


Though it could be said that Rome had a hand in this.

iirc, the steam engine has been invented at least five times throughout history. and indeed, there's plenty of technology that was lost and STILL hasn't been replicated. for example, Roman concrete is what has allowed the Pantheon to remain standing even almost two thousand years later; for contrast, modern concrete breaks down and cracks under stress from earthquakes, which Roman concrete (as i understand it) does not. another is flexible glass, a Greek invention which was presented to Tiberius and shown that it dented rather than shattered when thrown against the floor and then was easily restored with a small hammer. story goes that Tiberius had the inventor's head cut off after he confirmed that he was the only one who knew the recipe since he feared that the glass would become more valuable than gold and silver.

A lot of people have been posting 'No Rome'; I think that what is needed is a more stable Rome.

What you need is the idea on Imperial-wide commerce coupled with political stability. Rough outline:

POD - Romans win at Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.

9 AD: Romans bring Germany to Elbe into Empire.

9 AD - 250 AD: Butterflies cause minor changes; Era of Good Emperors continue. Population and Economic growth in a period of long peace, punctuated by the occasional Barbarian raid and war with Persia.

250 AD: Printing type invented. Orginally used as a way to mass-print broadsheets advertising the Games, their use spreads throughout the empire. The use is greatly restricted due to scarcity of paper.

350 AD: Most major Roman cities have at least some for of newspaper. Significant costs due to paper shortages, but refined techniques being developed. Spreading faith of Christianity makes paper almost holy - to Print the Word of God for the masses.

400 AD: Political turmoil in the Empire sees an alt-Constantine adopt Christainity as a way to stabalize the Empire.

475 AD: First industrial paper processes cause greater usage of coal.

500 AD: First steam engine, in Brittanica used to pump out coal mines.

540 AD: War of the Five Emperors. A profligate Emperor leaves five capable sons. Each has regional support, and each declares himself emperor. Multi-way Civil War. Persia takes advantage to grab Mesopotamia.

550 AD: Wars resolved with fractured Empire; Roman remnant in Italy and OTL Switzerland. 'Western Empire' (Spain and France). 'Island Empire' (Britain). 'German Empire' (Germany east of Rhine plus some Balkan bits) and Byzantium. These form the European States after a bit. Note that while the war was awful, it's duration was brief in comparison to what happened to OTL Rome. Also, this timeline Christainity encourages scientific progress (for now), a legacy of the paper quest.

670 AD: Steam process now widespread. Competion amoung Roman successor states spurs innovation. Britain sends ships west away from hostile continent. Americas discovered. Gunpowder samples brought from China.

900 AD: Byzantium hit hard (but survives) new middle eastern religion (alt-Islam); Persia crushed.

1000 AD: European deploying Rifles with steam locomotives.

How's this as a start?

And the Antikythera Mechanism which looks like a Greek device found in a sunken Roman ship, with an estimated date of 2nd BC to early 1st century BC. For example, see this:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/468496a.html

GeographyDude said:

And the Antikythera Mechanism which looks like a Greek device found in a sunken Roman ship, with an estimated date of 2nd BC to early 1st century BC. For example, see this:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/468496a.html

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right, i almost forgot about one. it's fascinating that the first analog computer was invented in the 2nd century BC

I feel like no Rome would have been better? A more fragmented Med might have forced more development (tech and otherwise) so that states could try and compete against one another.

As I've learned it, Rome brought stagnation on many levels that only reversed with its collapse.

I'd also like to float the possibility of a more maritime China that exports/imports its goods abroad to places like E. Africa and the Pacific (to a greater degree), thus leading to a wider spread of ideas and tech.

In the weighted scales I believe errnge wanted a modern day in the 15th century. I think that's the earliest date or around then.

It seems to me that the Greeks (or Greco-Romans) were technologically capable after a point, the main impediment is slavery, because it meant they already had cheap mass labor that was sufficient to provide for their population. So steam power remained a curiosity, only useful for what were little more than parlor tricks. However, if the slave economy dwindled without being replaced with an equivalent serfdom based economy (as happened in the Empire IOTL) then an industrial revolution may be possible.

To go really far back, is there any way to get out of the stone age faster?

HonestAbe said:

It seems to me that the Greeks (or Greco-Romans) were technologically capable after a point, the main impediment is slavery, because it meant they already had cheap mass labor that was sufficient to provide for their population. So steam power remained a curiosity, only useful for what were little more than parlor tricks. However, if the slave economy dwindled without being replaced with an equivalent serfdom based economy (as happened in the Empire IOTL) then an industrial revolution may be possible.

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What about the agricultural surplus?

Rome is worthless in discussion in this thread, at least in its Imperial form. Autocratic regimes are generally useless when trying to spark an industrial revolution. Rome's agricultural techniques were behind that of even the Germans, and it invented nearly nothing - the most impressive and lasting thing Rome did was its public works projects, which are the usual trademark of the autocracies of antiquity.

A lasting competitive Greek situation might be your best crack at this in antiquity. The situation in Song is unlikely to succeed, though it has an outside chance. Perhaps wank the Republican city states of the Middle Ages and prevent plutocrats from subverting the system and you might have something.

The Antikythera Mechanism is pretty neat and yes, I'm willing to call it an analog computer.

I am quite intrigued by this discussion topic. Unfortunately I don't know enough to offer many helpful answers, so instead I'll ask some more specific questions that might give some guidance.

From what I've heard, the Islamic Golden Age from the 600s to the 1200s was a time of great scientific progress in the Middle East and North Africa. What kind of PODs could sustain or accelerate this development? My thoughts (mere speculation) would be that three main hindrances to the Islamic Golden Age were:
1. Christian Europe's vilification of Islam and its Crusades and other "holy wars" against Muslims,
2. Attempts by central Asian steppe nations to dominate the Middle East throughout this period, and
3. The arid ecosystems of the Middle East make for sparse populations and limit the spread of new technologies, as well as decreasing their usefulness.

If I am correct in assuming that these three factors were among many of the difficulties the Muslims faced in their scientific revolution, then the first two could perhaps be limited either by creating "distractions" in Europe and central Asia to curtail their aggression toward the Middle East, or by (somehow?) making them more cordial toward Muslims, and vice versa.

The problem of the Middle Eastern climate (#3) is more difficult to avoid without calling the Alien Space Bats, but perhaps it can be worked around by securing territory for the Caliphate(s) in more fertile areas like Ethiopia, Spain, and Anatolia, where populations can grow to denser levels more easily.

What do you think? How, if at all, could the Islamic Golden Age have been more successful? Or, alternatively, what region of the world could have produced an early scientific revolution even more successfully than the Arab world?

Please call me out on any mistakes I made in my analysis of this topic so that I can learn from them. Thanks!

I think there was a famous Muslim physician sometime around the 1000s. Maybe if he had had one or two colleagues in either Europe or the Middle East --- and progress often comes from having two or three centers working on the same or similar problems --- who knows what kind of progress could have been made.

I mean, microbiology is just grinding lenses for microscopes and growing things in petri dishes. And it's noticed from time to time that the petri dish gets contaminated and this inhibits microbial growth, and it starts occurring to several different people that this is potentially highly, highly, highly useful. It's just a matter of getting the details right.

It would be a big side positive if both Muslim and Christian physicians are working on this. Maybe we get some kind of handle on the black plague and only 10% of the European population dies instead of one third. And all the other crappy diseases. If people's children are more likely to survive to adulthood, people are less likely to be so fervent about religion and are likely to be all around nicer. And there really is a lot of overlap between the two religions anyway. We might even become friends.

Potentially, we run the table. The Middle East, Europe, and North Africa becomes a large trade area. When we send ships across the Atlantic, we follow an ethic of quarantine, with some tragic failures at first, and then we get it right. And the world of 2014 has a substantially higher population, more interesting places, and we are halfway to a Star Trek future. Wow. But just maybe.