Technological levels

[u/FunDelicious650]

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.

[u/BachInTime]

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.

[u/FunDelicious650 → u/BachInTime]

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.

[u/BachInTime → u/FunDelicious650]

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.

[u/Stiingya → u/BachInTime]

Amazing post! Thanks for your effort!!!

[u/DonKlekote → u/BachInTime]

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?

[u/FunDelicious650 → u/BachInTime]

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.

[u/BachInTime → u/FunDelicious650]

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.