How plausible is the concept of accelerated technological progress in alternate history?

[Seaboigium]

As a genre, Alternate-History tends to deal with subjects like "What if ( insert-country-here ) won ( insert-war-here )", "What if ( insert-person-here ) became leader of ( insert-country-here ) instead of ( insert-person here )" and "What if ( insert-event-here ) never happened" among other similar prompts.

A form of alternate-history that I've always enjoyed is fictional universes wherein humanity's technological progress has been accelerated and current and/or future feats of engineering are available to earlier generations. My favorite examples of this are the Bioshock games and the upcoming Lies of P.

In virtually all alt-history accelerated tech universes, the accelerated technological progress is either not explained at all or explained by either time travel, aliens, or the presence of some miraculous force of nature that humanity discovers and promptly exploits.

I'm wondering if there have actually been points in time wherein humanity's technological development could have naturally progressed quicker if things had gone just a little differently.

 

[Metempsychosis]

There's the Song dynasty. They were pretty close to industrial revolution, so some historians have suggested.

 

[Alias_The_J]

The mediocrity principle would suggest that out TL is remarkably average (at least for technological TLs), so most likely, yes.

 

[Lalli]

There's the Song dynasty. They were pretty close to industrial revolution, so some historians have suggested.

Really? They may had technologically more advanced than Europe but close of industrial revolution? And Song hardly could had survived anyway even without Mongols. Chinese history was basically cycles of rise, flourishment, decline, fall of dynasties.

 

[Yorel]

There are several points in time where a technology was nearly discovered or at least where the basis of the tech made an appearance. Based on that, you could say the tech could progress faster than OTL.

Doubt the technology would progress as quickly as it's depicted in some AH fiction though... Not helped that there is a tendency to do steampunk or other things of the like.

 

[Metempsychosis]

Really? They may had technologically more advanced than Europe but close of industrial revolution? And Song hardly could had survived anyway even without Mongols. Chinese history was basically cycles of rise, flourishment, decline, fall of dynasties.

They had a foundation that could have been built upon. Coal and steel, fiat currency, proto-industrial machinery... yes, the Song dynasty had potential, and even the Jurchens and Tanguts could have turned things around and continued the incipient age of early modernity. The Mongols sacking Kaifeng and Hangzhou snuffed that potential out. And coming out of that nightmare, the Chinese of the Ming turned inward and fell into stagnation.

If the Southern Song had turned to the sea instead of trying to unite All Under Heaven...

 

[triscreen]

I'm wondering if there have actually been points in time wherein humanity's technological development could have naturally progressed quicker if things had gone just a little differently.

Any time a war happens is a chance for things to go differently - people who were cut down in their prime in our own timeline before they had a chance to do anything would have a lot of potential had they survived, and different figures might make their way into the narrative. That can be used as a simple justification for plenty of changes!

 

[Arkenfolm]

Very plausible, but not for the usual cliche reasons like Christians burning the Library of Alexandria, the Church holding back progress and creating the "dark ages", etc. Search practically any technology or scientific discovery, and there's a good chance it was already known or could have been known decades in advance. Or at the very least, the groundwork for it was known, like for instance chemistry and metallurgy advances needed to produce it. One could also imagine that with certain technologies in play ahead of time, events might have led to even more progress--for instance, if we had the rocketry knowledge of the late 1950s available at the turn of the 20th century, the Tunguska explosion may have caused a global shockwave and driven more investment in space out of fear that such an event might happen again but in a different place where it would vaporise an entire city.

They had a foundation that could have been built upon. Coal and steel, fiat currency, proto-industrial machinery... yes, the Song dynasty had potential, and even the Jurchens and Tanguts could have turned things around and continued the incipient age of early modernity. The Mongols sacking Kaifeng and Hangzhou snuffed that potential out. And coming out of that nightmare, the Chinese of the Ming turned inward and fell into stagnation.

Despite their reputation, the Mongols also could have been very good for advancing the speed at which tech advanced, particularly if they'd managed to conquer Egypt and India, but the Mongol khanates had the unfortunate tendency to collapse before they truly achieved their potential. To a degree this was due to their own success--perhaps the Black Death would have remained a regional affair without the great trade network the Mongol Empire allowed. And to a degree it was the environment for the mid-14th century was the onset of the Little Ice Age. But I think it is reasonable for the post-Mongol Empire states to last until the 16th century or so before collapsing. Even if they might struggle amongst each other occasionally, perhaps during most years peace (if uneasy) might rule, the world remain connected, and damage from the initial Mongol invasion such as the Mesopotamian irrigation networks repaired.

Although even the Ming weren't totally hopeless. They inherited a lot of governance from Yuan and Song after all and had their own outward looking periods. Or perhaps another figure could have won the struggle for China as Yuan collapsed and created a more outward-looking dynasty like the merchant Zhang Shicheng. There's a lot of PODs in this era which in terms of economic (and by extension technological) advancement would be very helpful.

I guess the key point is keeping the world connected and avoiding the Great Divergence, which I think the latest POD for that is going to be the 14th century or so. I would also add the expansion of this "world civilisation"--be it through direct colonialism or expansion of trade (likely causing indirect colonialism)--into new lands is crucial. It's pretty clear the Americas could have been discovered, interacted with, and settled far earlier than OTL, and the same is true of sub-Saharan Africa, Siberia, and Australia. In general, more population will advance technology faster simply by virtue of there being more intellectuals who have more money to work with from their patrons, even if 95-98% of people are dirt poor peasants or menial urban workers.

 

[PeterEzgo]

I think people tend to underestimate the pain and cost of technological advancement. If you disrupt an industry that means that many people may lose their jobs or have to be retrained. Industry leaders will lose business and money People will fight against change if they can. If its cheaper and easier to suppres your invention than to adopt it, that's what they'll do.

People tend to think of inventions as the result of geniuses but the reality is much more complicated. Ideas are nearly worthless. Anyone can think of an idea. Finding a way to implement that idea in a profitable way is the difficult part.

Or people underestimate all of the pieces that have to come together for an invention to work. Gunpowder was discovered in China long before Europe. Yet it was Europe that invented and used guns on a massive scale first. Why? Lots of reasons. For one thing, guns are expensive. They are also complicated. It is hard to mass produce firearms that aren't going to literally blow up in your face. China had no compelling reason to solve these problems. Europeans did.

The same thing for rifling. People were aware that spirals down the gun barrel would increase accuracy for a long time before they did it. Making a rifled barrel that wouldn't crack down the spiral after the third shot (or whatever) was the hard part.

If what you are doing already works, you will tend to keep doing it. Invention is expensive, hard and disruptive. I think people forget that.

 

[GullibleCynic]

I'm wondering if there have actually been points in time wherein humanity's technological development could have naturally progressed quicker if things had gone just a little differently.

There are a couple of examples that come to mind:

• Henry Cavendish discovered tons of things in the late 18th, early 19th century. But he was so socially reclusive most of his discoveries had to be rediscovered by other people later
• Vacuum tubes were invented not too long before the transistor: "historians consider the vacuum tube as being costly detour that delayed the development of true electronics by 50 years"
• al-Ghazali favouring imitation over interpretation, arguably contributing to the end of the islamic golden age a few centuries later

 

[Metempsychosis]

al-Ghazali favouring imitation over interpretation, arguably contributing to the end of the islamic golden age a few centuries later

When it comes to al-Ghazali, it's complicated. He gave his age the thought it was looking for, and he saw the limits of philosophy when it came to God and the universe. He was but the culmination of the traditional school of Islamic thought, defining his positions against the Mu'tazila and their harsh rationalism. The Islamic golden age ended for a ton of other reasons beyond that, like the Mongols burning the Khwarezmian Sultanate and Baghdad.

 

[Georg von Frundsberg]

This discussion inspired me to ask a related question, that is, can technological development differ between different scientific fields? Or will the advancement in science and technology be more uniform like in OTL. Human history in the 20th century saw innovative progress across multiple areas from medicine to computing, and from engineering to chemistry. Is it possible that we can have a timeline where, let's say, spaceflight technology is more advanced than what it is now but human medicine was still like the 1960s?

 

[Gabingston]

Very plausible, but not for the usual cliche reasons like Christians burning the Library of Alexandria, the Church holding back progress and creating the "dark ages", etc.

Tips Fedora

 

[PeterEzgo]

This discussion inspired me to ask a related question, that is, can technological development differ between different scientific fields? Or will the advancement in science and technology be more uniform like in OTL. Human history in the 20th century saw innovative progress across multiple areas from medicine to computing, and from engineering to chemistry. Is it possible that we can have a timeline where, let's say, spaceflight technology is more advanced than what it is now but human medicine was still like the 1960s?

Its unlikely. Advances in one area tend to be applied to other areas. In your example, you probably need fairly advanced medical technology to have long-term space flight. We already know the health effects of staying in orbit for a few months is a lot. Spending years between planets would be debilitating.

If you develop some technology for one purpose, it can be applied to something else. Plastics were originally developed during the nuclear program, for example. On the flip side, many advancement rely on technology from other fields. You can't really isolate technological advancement like that.

 

[Kerney]

I would also argue that technological progress, the further back you go, the more uneven and schizo it would be. For example, in the transistor over vacuum tubes example, say transistors are discovered in 1903 and starts to be employed over the the next twenty years we end being up to 1970 in computer tech, everything else is starting with 1903 tech, while there will be knock off effects that will speed other technology, it will be uneven.

In atl I'm using in a novel, an expanded Norse world with a PoD of 878 with a 2025 'present' in a lot of ways less advanced.

But they are ahead in the use of psychotropic drugs in the treatment of trauma/mental illness because such drugs were used in a religious setting for a thousand years. (My first cultural misunderstanding is them giving pediatric hallucinogens to kids from our world after a bus crash. It's a standard procedure they don't give a second thought to. It virtually eliminates ptsd).

They are also ahead in theoretical physics because when the religious establishment was challenged in atl equivalent of the enlightenment/renaissance, they funded experiments to prove the existence of other worlds. More recently they are ahead in 'green' tech because they've visited a lot of worlds where environmental degradation led to catastrophe and awareness of just how much mankind has altered the environment has led to a major re-think.

 

[Georg von Frundsberg]

Very plausible, but not for the usual cliche reasons like Christians burning the Library of Alexandria, the Church holding back progress and creating the "dark ages", etc. Search practically any technology or scientific discovery, and there's a good chance it was already known or could have been known decades in advance. Or at the very least, the groundwork for it was known, like for instance chemistry and metallurgy advances needed to produce it. One could also imagine that with certain technologies in play ahead of time, events might have led to even more progress--for instance, if we had the rocketry knowledge of the late 1950s available at the turn of the 20th century, the Tunguska explosion may have caused a global shockwave and driven more investment in space out of fear that such an event might happen again but in a different place where it would vaporise an entire city.

Despite their reputation, the Mongols also could have been very good for advancing the speed at which tech advanced, particularly if they'd managed to conquer Egypt and India, but the Mongol khanates had the unfortunate tendency to collapse before they truly achieved their potential. To a degree this was due to their own success--perhaps the Black Death would have remained a regional affair without the great trade network the Mongol Empire allowed. And to a degree it was the environment for the mid-14th century was the onset of the Little Ice Age. But I think it is reasonable for the post-Mongol Empire states to last until the 16th century or so before collapsing. Even if they might struggle amongst each other occasionally, perhaps during most years peace (if uneasy) might rule, the world remain connected, and damage from the initial Mongol invasion such as the Mesopotamian irrigation networks repaired.

Although even the Ming weren't totally hopeless. They inherited a lot of governance from Yuan and Song after all and had their own outward looking periods. Or perhaps another figure could have won the struggle for China as Yuan collapsed and created a more outward-looking dynasty like the merchant Zhang Shicheng. There's a lot of PODs in this era which in terms of economic (and by extension technological) advancement would be very helpful.

I guess the key point is keeping the world connected and avoiding the Great Divergence, which I think the latest POD for that is going to be the 14th century or so. I would also add the expansion of this "world civilisation"--be it through direct colonialism or expansion of trade (likely causing indirect colonialism)--into new lands is crucial. It's pretty clear the Americas could have been discovered, interacted with, and settled far earlier than OTL, and the same is true of sub-Saharan Africa, Siberia, and Australia. In general, more population will advance technology faster simply by virtue of there being more intellectuals who have more money to work with from their patrons, even if 95-98% of people are dirt poor peasants or menial urban workers.

Regarding Chinese science and technology. I do not deny that the Song Dynasty has some remarkable achievements. But the Chinese never developed a systematic scientific method which enables sustainable innovation progress. The Song Chinese may have created an early compass but they could not explain the mechanism behind it without referencing pseudo-scientific and quasi-magical elements. The same goes for Chinese medicine.

The problem is, technological progress can only go so far without any scientific method. Chinese Confucian culture means Chinese society was overly pragmatic and was not interested in inquiring about the natural world. This is related to the philosophical foundations of the Western World and China. Greco-Roman classical philosophy and later Christianity encouraged people to inquire about reality and themselves while Confucian thinking is more collectivist and only enquires about social norms and order.

 

[Kerney]

This discussion inspired me to ask a related question, that is, can technological development differ between different scientific fields? Or will the advancement in science and technology be more uniform like in OTL. Human history in the 20th century saw innovative progress across multiple areas from medicine to computing, and from engineering to chemistry. Is it possible that we can have a timeline where, let's say, spaceflight technology is more advanced than what it is now but human medicine was still like the 1960s?

Just postulated this in my answer.

 

[danteheadman]

This discussion inspired me to ask a related question, that is, can technological development differ between different scientific fields? Or will the advancement in science and technology be more uniform like in OTL. Human history in the 20th century saw innovative progress across multiple areas from medicine to computing, and from engineering to chemistry. Is it possible that we can have a timeline where, let's say, spaceflight technology is more advanced than what it is now but human medicine was still like the 1960s?

Is our technological progress really uniform? Or is that a bias? Perhaps OTL we are missing one or more foundational insights that will appear obvious in hindsight. Maybe we will discover that we diverted our research and investment into a scientific sideshow of some kind, like the vacuum tubes mentioned above.

Consider medicine. We are pouring immense amounts of money to develop treatments for diseases based on what will be most profitable; we are underfunding basic biomedical research in comparison. In fact, as a policy matter, we should increase funding for basic research in all fields. We don't really even know what we are missing out on.

 

[Metempsychosis]

Regarding Chinese science and technology. I do not deny that the Song Dynasty has some remarkable achievements. But the Chinese never developed a systematic scientific method which enables sustainable innovation progress. The Song Chinese may have created an early compass but they could not explain the mechanism behind it without referencing pseudo-scientific and quasi-magical elements. The same goes for Chinese medicine.

The problem is, technological progress can only go so far without any scientific method. Chinese Confucian culture means Chinese society was overly pragmatic and was not interested in inquiring about the natural world. This is related to the philosophical foundations of the Western World and China. Greco-Roman classical philosophy and later Christianity encouraged people to inquire about reality and themselves while Confucian thinking is more collectivist and only enquires about social norms and order.

Oh please, spare me that cultural determinism dreck. Western science itself has an uneven and messy origin, mixing fields like magic and natural philosophy together into a schizophrenic mess that only really got going with the industrial revolution. Classical philosophy degenerated into navel-gazing, moralizing, and superstition far too often for me to count. Eastern science, given a material impetus, could have moved in the same direction as Western science did.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Tips Fedora

Yeah, there are so many problems with that graph that it doesn't even bear considering, except maybe for comedy.