AHC/PC/WI: Technology Two-Three Centuries Advanced With a Post-1500 POD

I know I made a similar thread before. But I should've made my intentions more clear so I decided to make an improvised thread here.

Anyways is this possible? What needs to happen and how does this change the world? From my previous thread on this topic I do know how to advance technology but can anything be done on this scale?
 
So your saying with a post1500 POD to have the 2000s with 2200-2300 era technology? And I assume you mean with a continuous progress rather than a 1980s nuclear apocalypse and reset of civilisation?

For one there will need to be an earlier industrialisation of at least printing in order to propagate ideas and develop the scientific method.
I'd also add mass production of glassware to produce lenses and beakers etc for experimentation.
 
Hmmm... Have the town of Grantville West Virginia suddenly appear in Thuringia during the 30 Years War, bringing 20th century tech.

Aside from an ISOT like that, I'm not sure.

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On the other hand, if there is a major nuclear war/global pandemic/ environmental catastophe and the tech in 2200 ends up being roughly Victorian (or worse), the challenge is eminently doable.
 

Deleted member 67076

I keep mentioning this yet this keeps getting ignored. Technology advances through demand, constant use (people will then take the most efficient technological uses) and refinement.

The easiest way to do such all the above is to increase the wealth of the world: the richer your average peasant is, the more he or she can afford the better equipment, and the far likelier they are to improve on the base design.

Additionally more wealth = more infrastructure = more trade/more people = more ideas spreading = more tinkering.
 
I keep mentioning this yet this keeps getting ignored. Technology advances through demand, constant use (people will then take the most efficient technological uses) and refinement.

The easiest way to do such all the above is to increase the wealth of the world: the richer your average peasant is, the more he or she can afford the better equipment, and the far likelier they are to improve on the base design.

Additionally more wealth = more infrastructure = more trade/more people = more ideas spreading = more tinkering.


Make an even worse labor shortage in a region with access to Heron of Alexandria's works. Necessity is the mother of invention.
 
Also, there's already a TL which follows the experience of Song Chinese industrialization following them not losing their coal to the Jin. That's a whole seven hundred years before actual industrialization.
 
I keep mentioning this yet this keeps getting ignored. Technology advances through demand, constant use (people will then take the most efficient technological uses) and refinement.

The easiest way to do such all the above is to increase the wealth of the world: the richer your average peasant is, the more he or she can afford the better equipment, and the far likelier they are to improve on the base design.

Additionally more wealth = more infrastructure = more trade/more people = more ideas spreading = more tinkering.

Interesting. I like your ideas. But where would you put the POD at to put this in motion?

Hmmm... Have the town of Grantville West Virginia suddenly appear in Thuringia during the 30 Years War, bringing 20th century tech.

Aside from an ISOT like that, I'm not sure.

-------
On the other hand, if there is a major nuclear war/global pandemic/ environmental catastophe and the tech in 2200 ends up being roughly Victorian (or worse), the challenge is eminently doable.

Err that's not how I really want it to go.
 
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Get the principles of vaccination established before the late 18th century. Combined with that, have someone messing around with microscopes to discover penicillin and how it works. Then get leaders to take advantage of these medical advances, and it'll spread around the world before ong. Both of this is plausible because vaccination isn't too big of a step to make from what was already being done at the time, and some sort of penicillin was probably the acting agent in some folk cures known for centuries.

This combined will cause a population explosion, and quite possibly result in technology two centuries ahead of time.
 
Get the principles of vaccination established before the late 18th century. Combined with that, have someone messing around with microscopes to discover penicillin and how it works. Then get leaders to take advantage of these medical advances, and it'll spread around the world before ong. Both of this is plausible because vaccination isn't too big of a step to make from what was already being done at the time, and some sort of penicillin was probably the acting agent in some folk cures known for centuries.

This combined will cause a population explosion, and quite possibly result in technology two centuries ahead of time.

Well does it necessary affect the other fields in science and technology?
 
That's pretty much impossible. Getting from the proto-industrial era to today took 250 years, to be very charitable. To be less charitable, make it 420 years, starting from the beginning of the Dutch Golden Age.

The basic problem is that you need to have some impetus for industrialization. In 17c Holland and in 18c England it was high wages; England also had cheap fuel, with various early industrial inventions involving burning coal in order to reduce labor requirements. The inventions that let you do new things, like travel overland faster than a horse or be able to fire guns accurately at long range, came later; initially it was about producing the same amount of stuff with less labor.

Early-16c Europe was underpopulated and had high wages. But it was still an agrarian, Malthusian economy, and once population recovered, wages fell. England was still marginal; the Low Countries were economically central, but needed to expend a lot of energy just to get Spain to stop trying to (re)conquer them.

You can plausibly spin a story in which the Dutch Golden Age doesn't lead to stagnation, but to further innovation. You're not getting 19c growth rates in the 18c this way, but since the Netherlands was richer in the late 17c than Britain was in 1800, you can get away with less initial growth. Probably this accelerates industrialization by around a hundred years, so today's tech level is achieved in the early 20c. Anything more advanced is ASB.
 
That's pretty much impossible. Getting from the proto-industrial era to today took 250 years, to be very charitable. To be less charitable, make it 420 years, starting from the beginning of the Dutch Golden Age.

The basic problem is that you need to have some impetus for industrialization. In 17c Holland and in 18c England it was high wages; England also had cheap fuel, with various early industrial inventions involving burning coal in order to reduce labor requirements. The inventions that let you do new things, like travel overland faster than a horse or be able to fire guns accurately at long range, came later; initially it was about producing the same amount of stuff with less labor.

Early-16c Europe was underpopulated and had high wages. But it was still an agrarian, Malthusian economy, and once population recovered, wages fell. England was still marginal; the Low Countries were economically central, but needed to expend a lot of energy just to get Spain to stop trying to (re)conquer them.

You can plausibly spin a story in which the Dutch Golden Age doesn't lead to stagnation, but to further innovation. You're not getting 19c growth rates in the 18c this way, but since the Netherlands was richer in the late 17c than Britain was in 1800, you can get away with less initial growth. Probably this accelerates industrialization by around a hundred years, so today's tech level is achieved in the early 20c. Anything more advanced is ASB.

It also depended on how willing countries are to invest in innovation. The late-20th Century advanced so quickly because countries put effort into it while the 15th-16th centuries had countries more busy funding militaries to beat each other. So would a more peaceful Europe help settle things?
 
Charles V and Francisc I of France end up as sincere best friends, rule as co-emperors and unite their houses into Valois-Habsburg by having Francis' only son marry Charles' only daughter.

No more squandering Europe's wealth by pitting French vs Habsburg realms, no more destroying Italy through constant warfare.

The new dynasty is powerful enough to centralize the various duchies of the original HRE and manages to keep the Reformation within the Catholic Church, making it less corrupt and more compliant.

A string of competent Emperor-Kings (at least on the level of the 5 good emperors of ancient Rome) wield this unruly state together, and some sort of unifying identity emerges among the upper classes and merchants.

With the English, Ottomans, Poles and Scandinavians comparatively weak and mostly separated by geography from this new state, western Europe enjoys sustained periods of peace, bolstered by its emerging monopoly on world trade. Less killing equals more urbanization. More urbanization plus increased trade and early capitalism equals progress.
 
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