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Personal opinion: same reason why it didn't take off in ancient Greece (steam engine was invented back then) , no shortage of cheap labor.
by andi999 5y ago
Personal opinion: same reason why it didn't take off in ancient Greece (steam engine was invented back then) , no shortage of cheap labor.
- rrss 5y agothough Hero’s engine is a steam engine, it is practically useless as anything besides a curiosity and certainly could not have powered an industrial revolution
- andi999 5y agoYes, but I am confident if there would have been demand, they would have improved on it. It can open temple doors so I do not think it is too far away from a useful machine.
- JackFr 5y agoThere’s an argument to be made that the Black Death broke Europe (or especially Britain) out of a local minimum, by killing off labor. This reduced the necessary rate of return to physical capital and innovation. (Why invest in an iron plow, when you can just set more serfs to the task with wooden ones?) and ultimately this planted the seeds of the industrial revolution.