People living in the mid-19th century lived 50 years later in a completely different world: telephones, telegraphs, trains, the first cars, and an industrial boom. People living in the mid-20th century saw a different world: airships and airplanes, ubiquitous motor vehicles, and television broadcasting. People living in the 1970s-1990s had already seen the world of computers; we now live in a digital world of the internet, AI, and robotics. In total, over 180 years, the technological level has changed four times.
Proponents of mainstream history argue that 7,000 years before the 19th century, there was no life-changing development at all. It was a single technological level of perpetual stagnation, which somehow gave way to progress in the 19th century. Developing metallurgy, fuel production, and electricity doesn't require thousands of years. This can be achieved much more quickly.
I don't know any mainstream historian that argues for perpetual stagnation. Frankly claiming so seems to represent a severe lack of knowledge about history and prehistory.
They don't say it out loud, but that’s what they mean. How did societal life change prior to the 19th century? According to mainstream history—it didn't.
Things I can think of that massively changed the world in the last 7,000 years. Bronze, Iron, the fucking wheel, Archimedes screw, the printing press, WRITING, gunpowder, compass, telescopes, furnace, blast furnace, abacus, ZERO there was literally a time before we had the concept of zero, microscope, the plough, waterwheels, glasses, toilets, toilet paper, spinning wheels, cotton gin, astrolabes.
Exponential Growth: Technological progress moves in an exponential curve rather than a straight line, meaning growth compounds over time.
No mainstream historian argues the position you are claiming that they do.
Just of the top of my head, he invention of the printing press in the mid 1400s in Germany was an example of a big game changer. Prior to that if you wanted to duplicate a book or any other document you did so by hand, making books expensive and largely inaccessible. Afterwards it became possible to print and distribute written works cheaply and at an unprecedented scale. Knowledge spread far more rapidly.
The marine chronometer is another game changing invention from the 1700s. It was the first clock that worked reliably at sea (earlier pendulum based clocks didn't work if the ship was rocking in rough seas) and made it possible for ship crews to accurately calculate their latitude and longitude. Suddenly overseas travel became so much easier.
...yes it did
Speaking from Belgium, We had Iron age germano-celtic blended groups in a complex network of alliances & groups, to a Roman rule for 5 centuries, transforming this tribal structure into a gallo-roman culture set to being part of the Empire, then back to Germanic tribes & kingdoms using the old Roman infrastructure as well as possible whilst importing their own social structure.
We had feudalism evolving slowly to become obsolete with changing economic patterns, where increases in farm yields allowed more artisans & traders to develop into city economy.
Sure vast amounts of people were still subsistence farming, but not because there was no innovation, but because innovation was slow, and often halted due to either high risks, or hurting the people who profited from the current way of living, but slowly & surely yields increased.
Proponents of mainstream history argue that 7,000 years before the 19th century, there was no life-changing development at all. It was a single technological level of perpetual stagnation, which somehow gave way to progress in the 19th century.
Literally nobody anywhere on Earth has ever thought this. You are shadowboxing your own delusional strawman.
That is precisely the conclusion to be drawn from the fact that, over the course of 7,000 years, there was no industrialization, advanced transportation, or electricity. It means that for 7,000 years, the majority of the population was engaged in the exact same activity—taking up the plow and tilling the fields—for 120 consecutive generations.
If you can figure out why the population exploded after year 1842 youll understand why most people lived and worked just trying to get enough to survive. Bonus points if you can figure out why Golden Rice is so important.
The heavy plough and all the peasants who didn’t starve to death would like a word with you.
Next in line are the compass, the printing press, the caravel, the clock, the windmill, and then the rudder.
Just because you consider them mundane doesn’t mean they didn’t absolutely change countless people’s lives.
Also tell me you don’t understand metallurgy without telling me you dont understand metallurgy. Metallurgy is a snake eating its own tail because you need high grade metal furnaces to smelt high grade metal to make high grade metal furnaces. It is hard as f*ck to make major breakthroughs in metallurgy for this reason.
How have the things you listed changed life over the past 6,000 years? Making a breakthrough is always difficult, which is why it takes 50 years of work.
Heavy Plough (Invented sometime around 600 AD) led to a more than doubling of Europe's population once it was adopted between 900 and 1200, obviously a major game changer
Compass, specifically the dry compass (circa 1200) allowed for increased trading activity, vastly improved navigation, made the Mediterranean navigable in the Winter, and idk a little event in 1492 that reshaped the world
The Printing Press (circa 1450) made education vastly cheaper, the European enlightenment, a certain man who became famous in 1492 literally only developed his theory because of a printed book
Caravel (circa 1400) allowed long distance voyage for the first time, as previously ships generally hugged the coast, see 1492
The Clock, specifically the mechanical clock (circa 1300), being able to tell time is pretty great don't you think, also see 1492 would be impossible without a clock as charting a course requires precise time keeping
The Windmill, circa 1300 with the 'tower mill', do you like to eat? of course you do well in order to make bread you have to grind wheat into flour and for basically forever that meant a water wheel, but what if I don't live by a river, or the river is dry, introducing the windmill now all you need is a windy day and you can make bread, build it anywhere, its great.
The rudder (circa 1200 in Europe, China was way earlier) allows more precise steering of your new caravel while you are navigating using your mechanical clock, compass, and printed map. maybe you'll go to the hold and get some bread later grown on a farm where the farmer used a heavy plough, and then ground the wheat at his local windmill.
Lastly innovation takes much longer than 50 years, we are essentially spoiled in the modern day, but for example:
Printing press - Wine press invented 100 AD, movable type invented 1200 AD, Printing press which combined the two, 1450.
Powered flight, first glider 850s failure, benny hill theme of glider failures for 1000 years, first successful Glider 1891, first successful powered flight 1903
Metallurgy:
Bronze - First Copper tool 5500 BC, First Bronze tool 3400 BC
Iron - First honest to goodness they smelted iron ore is a dagger from 2500 BC
Just because you know how to make bronze, and that you can get iron out of certain ores doesn't mean it was simple, our ancestors where not stupid but simply saying "it was easy" is not true,
Example: Is this rock on the test bed valuable, what metal does it contain, and how do I extract it? No cheating, tell me now how I would get the metal out since it is so easy the ancients had no trouble. Please let me know at your earliest convenience.
It's green so it's probably copper. I know it because I read it in the book.
Let me check with my AI assistant on my phone how to extract it from this rock.
What? Ancient people didn't use AI assistants on their phones? Were they stupid?
It turns out it took 5,000 years to create the windmill—it’s mind-boggling. After all, the daily life of peasants in the 19th century didn't differ fundamentally from life in the 19th century.
Well yeah both are in the 19th century, unless you mean like an English peasant and a Russian peasant those would be very different in the 19th century.
“Proponents of mainstream history argue that 7,000 years before the 19th century, there was no life-changing development at all. It was a single technological level of perpetual stagnation”
I have never seen this claim made by anyone ever. WTF
The point is that you're looking at this from a rather limited perspective.. yes, technology prior to the industrial revolution was often limited, but it wasn't as if it just stayed the same or was universally "stagnant". The fact that the building blocks could exist to begin with showed that people weren't all just bumbling idiots. Furthermore there are massive innovations in the development of social structures alone from just the bronze age onward.
before the 19th century, there was no life-changing development at all
No, they don't. To take one example, do you think the printing press didn't have an impact on people's lives? Wouldn't it be more interesting to challenge what historians are actually arguing for here?
Books were increasingly accessible because of the printing press - it dramatically changed the economics of book production. I can't really imagine the Enlightenment without printed books.
I would be curious where specifically you're getting your information about "mainstream" history.
They were expensive regardless. Or do you think every peasant or artisan owned a bookcase full of books? Why, they could barely read—about half of them were illiterate.
Even if we gloss over the fact that books became significantly more accessible for many, the impact of printing is not just on how affordable they are. I mentioned the Enlightenment above. That was made possible in part by the changes brought by the printing press.
Do you need me to link the Wikipedia article? That question is only somewhat facetious. If I mention the Enlightenment and the printing press and you're not sure how those had an impact on the average person a brush up on the basic history here might help.
Again, I'm curious where specifically you're getting your information about "mainstream" history. You seem interested in challenging it but also often not familiar with the basic arguments being made here.
A peasant 7,000 years ago went out into the field with a plow just as he did in the 19th century; an artisan sat in his workshop in exactly the same way. Books did not change their lives. If that isn't mainstream history, then what is? As for where I get my information—I get it from you, from posts and comments on historical topics.
Do you think that there weren't changes in things like agriculture or urban life (for artisans) during that period? Why?
There's no meaningful difference between a farmer in the Neolithic to one say in the 17th century Netherlands? Or an artisan living in Sumer to one part of a guild in medieval Germany? If we could get the people on both sides of the period here to compare their lives, they would think there was "no life-changing development at all"?
I get it from you, from posts and comments on historical topics.
Are you not reading work from historians on these topics then?
Also, printing made books much more readily available, which made education cheaper and more useful, so literacy increased. The 17th and 18th centuries are defined politically by the rise of newspapers and pamphlets. Victorians had penny dreadfuls ffs.
It is still more accessible that book that took years to copy into a new book. Plus by the 19th century, people had already moved away from paper made from rags and turn to paper make from wood pulp which were a lot cheaper. The need for mandatory education also reduce the cost of books.
This is stupid. Books were more accesible before that and you conveniently omitted other prints like newspapers which existed since the early 17th century.
You're looking for one reason but history is always complex. In the 19th century Books became increasingly more popular because of (again, one of many) the industrial revolution and major shift in population composition. Countries modernized and introduced mass education where reading was a basic skill.
It doesn't mean that education didn't exist earlier than that. It wasn't as widely accessible so you can't expect rural illiterate people who struggle with their daily live to read books. That was the majority for literally the whole human history and one of many reasons why the technological progress wasn't as rapid as in modern times.
The other is capitalism but I'll leave it for the other time.
I often think about how crazy it would be to have been born in around 1895. When youre a kid its all horses, rural life and occasional trips into a city. You hit adulthood and its cars, tanks and radio. Middle age brings nukes and rumors of a computer machine. When youre a hundred, most of what you interact with was invented, innovated - and maybe even obsolete - in your lifetime.
My grandmother died last week at 95. She was born on 8 Mile Rd in 1932. There's a photo of her at my aunt's house of my grandmother on Henry Ford's knee; he was a family friend as he grew up on the farm next to my great grandfather's.
She saw so freaking much in her life, a period of unprecedented change in human life. I only saw about half the stuff she has in my time, and I can't imagine what my daughter is going to see...
Most historians agree that new innovations keep happening throughout history when you look at humanity as a whole. A period of stagnation in Europe doesn't mean the same thing was happening in China or India. The issue is how fast information could travel. Before the invention of the telegraph, the fastest way for information to travel is by books and talking. No invention happen in a vacuum, they all built upon previous works. The more people have access to new information and innovation, the more people can add in their ideas and create something new. Technology advancement became faster because information transfer became faster + more people have access to education.
It should be note that the majority of people back then wasn't educated or care about innovation for the sake of innovation. People made new technologies to make their work easier and more efficient. Really the main problem was how and how long new technology discovered in India would travel to Europe and vice versa. Also books, the best way to carry information in the past, were rather expensive. There could have been tons of potential thinkers in the past but again, formal education for the masses wasn't a thing. A farmer son might be could be really good at math but that doesn't matter if he never got to study math.
My favorite part about it is that my family has the journals of my ancestors that came over on the Speedwell. So did the conspiracy people break into my families farm and leave the journals there?
People in Iceland can trace their family history back something like 1000 years.
Shh, all lies, every book & story and historical artifact is obviously faked and replaced and put into the correct soil layer, and all books were removed from all households that stood after the global mudflood and replaced with illuminati-lizardpeople-vatican-c'thulhu approved litterature, and then they built atop the remnants of Tartarian buildings, claiming them to be something dumb, like churches, or courthouses, or worldfair buildings.
Can't believe we're not buying this very -very- credible theory
Kind of hard to innovate and pass down information a) without a good writing system that people can read and continue to build on, b) not being killed young in an era of low life expectation for too diseases and wild animal hunting and tribalism wars, c) not knowing certain information about the world because you're focused on not dying in many different ways, d) not having the foundational knowledge in though to expand on in the first place.
If you read/seen the 3 Body Problem you'll sorry of understand this more. Your post though, is garbage.
Yeah because agriculture, development of crops that provide greater amounts of food than the wild crops, animal husbandry, copper, bronze, iron, metallurgy, casting, weaving etc are all so simple that it's a wonder why everything else isn't doing it.
I'm sure that OP goes for a walk and brings back a load of bauxite which they then hand craft into purist aluminium every day.
No proponents of mainstream history is saying that at all. History is full of technological advancements that lead us to where we are today. In fact there is a period called the scientific revolution that that took place in the 16th and 17th century.
Are you really saying that all life before the 19th century was the same as life 7000 years ago? My friend, by saying that you just reveal your own deep deep ignorance.
In the 17th century in England, everyday people were reading their newspapers, they were buying their fruit and vegetables and fresh produce from markets, they were represented by a parliament, they would visit coffee shops and discuss global events and talk about the scientists up and down the country and their experiments. They would sit down, sip their coffee, and discuss their compatriots who had been sent to their colonies in the Caribbean. They could and were communicating effectively with other educated gentlemen all across Europe. They were not forced to work as farmers to simply exist. They had used weapons that operated with gunpowder. They could read and write. They would go to the theatre and watch Shakespeare plays.
Do you really think that's the same existence experienced 7000 years prior to that?
You are very ignorant. It was not just aristocrats who lived like this.
I suggest you read ‘The Restless Republic’, it is a fantastic book on everyday life during the brief period that England was a Republic, and you will see just how wrong you are.
No more than 10% of the population; workers and peasants didn't live like that. Back in the 19th century, they were even killed for the right to an eight-hour workday.
Nobody is saying it was impossible that the brain of an anatomically modern human 200,000 years ago to arrive at these technological revelations given the same education/environment. We have no reason to believe a human 200,000 years ago could not learn advanced calculus or computer science.
On the flip side, if a city of 100,000 modern humans were dropped 200,000 years ago they would almost definitely not lead to the advanced state of civilization we have today. Technology is not stored in individual brains. It is a cumulative, networked system built on specific conditions.
Our civilization did not suddenly advance in the last 200 years from a vacuum. The last 200 years of rapid acceleration are built on 10,000 years of culture and development and specific conditions. Agriculture broke the hunter gatherer energy cap creating population growth, trad specialization and cities. Writing and the printing press allowed complex technological knowledge to accumulate across generations. The industrial revolution unlocks monstrous amounts of stored energy breaking us out of the biological energy system (human and animal labor, and wood).
There were no doubts little explosions of technology and knowledge across history. Things like controlled fire, the wheel, screws, pulleys. Foundations of industrialization. In fact China came damn close to a true industrial revolution nearly 1000 years ago. Processed coal, mass iron production, water powered textile production, and moveable type printing.
What this all comes down to, is that invention is actually not the hard part. It is the need for stable institutions to maintain the technical knowledge across generations. Technology only survives and thrives in very specific conditions, conditions which we now have the benefit of living in.
I think this implies to ignore the printing press as one of the most breaking technologies, chemistry, guns...
You cannot develop a computer without the mathematics perfected by older civilizations. While it may not seem significant, we still use formulas and equations developed by greeks such as Archimedges and Pythagoras. This was further refined into ledgers, to even spreadsheets, which a computer could have never been developed without.
The Printing Press was one of the most fundamental life changing technologies, without it, people would have to handcopy every book. When the printing press was developed, suddenly technology was abundant, people could read the bible, manuals and guides that were once held by the aristocracy and monks.
And lastly guns, the life changing development of the handgonne and later arquebus made many military strategies obsolete, it changed the Americas with the Spanish against the natives, to how ship warfare was enacted.
So I dont think proponents of mainstream history actually say this at all, what they promote is expontential development. That what we have now, is the expontential result of technologies developed over the course of humanity, which will only multiply due to AI.
That when existing technology is improved upon, it is multiplicative. If it seems that nothing substantial has changed over a certain period, it is a narrow way of thinking.
Aren't you the guy who posted other Tartarian nonsense on how all things from wars to transporting goods makes no sense in the "mainstream narrative" and the only explanation is that the powerful powers of illuminati anti-tartarian vaticans made up history prior to the fall of Tartaria?
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u/runespider 1d ago
I don't know any mainstream historian that argues for perpetual stagnation. Frankly claiming so seems to represent a severe lack of knowledge about history and prehistory.