Advancing Science by 100 years.

I have always thought that this argument is fallacious. Many years ago, I created a spreadsheet containing many thousands of inventions, from can-openers to revolving doors, sorted by year. In the twentieth century, there were two massive dips in the rate of invention, corresponding to WWI and WWII. The fact that a relative handful of developments with military applications still happened in those years, does not change the fact that the overall rate of invention sharply dropped in those years. Not to mention that millions of potential inventors also died during those wars, slowing the future invention rates for decades after.

Thank you.
But where did you take the samples of this many thousand inventions?

Just randomly? or from a certain wiki list? or rather from your personal library?
 

katchen

Banned
Maybe somehow Spain or Sicily or France rechristianizes the Mahgreb?
North Africa is one of the most underrated areas for potential early industrialization. It has coal and iron in close proximity to each other and to the ocean. And it has extensive grazing land for sheep once one gets beyond the coastal littoral.
The thing that got England going into the Age of Steam was the need to pump water out of coal mines, since initially, pumping water was the only thing the earliest steam engines were good for. It was pumping water that got English mechanics tweaking and refining steam engines to the point they could be using them for other things. And it was textile mills that were those other things. And it was closeness to water that made those mines economical--which is the real reason those Chinese coal mines flamed out after a point--they were too remote from their demand.

We have all that in a very few places in Europe. England and Scotland. The Ruhr in Westphalia--best if it is included in the Netherlands. Belgium--best if Netherlands stays together. The Basque Region. Best if that area is independent of both Spain AND France. The Mangreb. Best if it somehow gets reChristianized. Albania. Might be best if Skanderbeg can keep it independent. And Bithinya-Zongulak, east of Istanbul. Best for that if the Byzantine Empire somehow survived.
More substantial industrialization in more of these places eiarlier might give the English some real competition and spur more rapid indistrualization and technology development.
 
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