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> greeks and romans seem to have been technologically capable of creating an industrial civilisation This is highly speculative, and almost certainly false. Th

> greeks and romans seem to have been technologically capable of creating an industrial civilisation This is highly speculative, and almost certainly false. The requisite developments in chemistry and metallurgy were nowhere close to realized during classical antiquity. > quite some low wage work wouldn't actually cost 10x a single person's wage to automate What about the rest of it?

Kim_Bruning 5y ago
I'm not sure that chemistry or metallurgy are strict requirements for industrialization. My impression is that any form of mechanization is very helpful. For example, the Netherlands started out industrializing on wind power using wood and rope and cloth, ...actually they still use a lot of wind power today, though now with exotic composites. (At some point in between there were traditional windmills that were still being updated with odd things like aviation leading edge slats made of aluminium up to something like the 1950s! ) So -while speculative and certainly open to discussion- in some alternate history Romans could have had some sort of industrial system, though it might not look like something we would immediately recognize. I'm trying to convey the intuition that if you have a perfectly workable society based on slavery (the cheapest form of labor), you don't have as strong an incentive to start using machines instead. Conversely, I have the impression that the abolition of slavery in the 19th century is one of the big contributors to our modern industrial society. I'm just being cautious wrt saying that most low wage work wouldn't cost 10x to automate. One can never be sure one hasn't missed an example somewhere. Of course, if we find some examples of low wage work that really do cost more than 10X the cost of the work needed to automate it, possibly we've been under-valuing those tasks all along.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  I'm not sure I would count Dutch windmills, impressive as they are, as industrialization. People have been building windmills and watermills for a very long time. Industrialization started in Great Britain in the 1700s. Advancements in chemistry and metallurgical process had enabled the production of iron with coke, which can be mined much more cheaply than charcoal can be produced. Emerging global trade networks incentivized producers to scale up indefinitely. The resulting innovations transformed the textile industry. Textiles are always in demand, and their non-mechanized production is extremely labour intensive. The lessons learned from mechanizing this industry were applied everywhere else. It's true that competition with cheap Indian labour was a major factor in textile automation in the UK, but these global trade networks could not have been sustained without massive advancements in stellar navigation provided by the invention of the telescope. This in turn was only made possible by advancements in chemistry that enabled the production of clear glass. All of these processes were well underway before the abolition of slavery in the US. It should be noted that innovations such as the cotton gin were eagerly adopted by the slave-powered US cotton industry. There's nothing like efficiency for an industrialist. With regards to automation, I think all of the low-hanging fruit has been picked. We're left with things that seem simple, but are in fact horribly difficult, and require near-human levels of dexterity and situational awareness, such as driving or construction work or food handling. That however doesn't mean that our society would be just fine if we provided workers in these industries an alternative to their jobs.
  - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
    https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industrial-windmills.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industria... WRT windmills, don't take my word for it.

Kim_Bruning 5y ago

I'm not sure that chemistry or metallurgy are strict requirements for industrialization. My impression is that any form of mechanization is very helpful. For example, the Netherlands started out industrializing on wind power using wood and rope and cloth, ...actually they still use a lot of wind power today, though now with exotic composites. (At some point in between there were traditional windmills that were still being updated with odd things like aviation leading edge slats made of aluminium up to something like the 1950s! ) So -while speculative and certainly open to discussion- in some alternate history Romans could have had some sort of industrial system, though it might not look like something we would immediately recognize. I'm trying to convey the intuition that if you have a perfectly workable society based on slavery (the cheapest form of labor), you don't have as strong an incentive to start using machines instead. Conversely, I have the impression that the abolition of slavery in the 19th century is one of the big contributors to our modern industrial society. I'm just being cautious wrt saying that most low wage work wouldn't cost 10x to automate. One can never be sure one hasn't missed an example somewhere. Of course, if we find some examples of low wage work that really do cost more than 10X the cost of the work needed to automate it, possibly we've been under-valuing those tasks all along.

thegrimmest 5y ago
I'm not sure I would count Dutch windmills, impressive as they are, as industrialization. People have been building windmills and watermills for a very long time. Industrialization started in Great Britain in the 1700s. Advancements in chemistry and metallurgical process had enabled the production of iron with coke, which can be mined much more cheaply than charcoal can be produced. Emerging global trade networks incentivized producers to scale up indefinitely. The resulting innovations transformed the textile industry. Textiles are always in demand, and their non-mechanized production is extremely labour intensive. The lessons learned from mechanizing this industry were applied everywhere else. It's true that competition with cheap Indian labour was a major factor in textile automation in the UK, but these global trade networks could not have been sustained without massive advancements in stellar navigation provided by the invention of the telescope. This in turn was only made possible by advancements in chemistry that enabled the production of clear glass. All of these processes were well underway before the abolition of slavery in the US. It should be noted that innovations such as the cotton gin were eagerly adopted by the slave-powered US cotton industry. There's nothing like efficiency for an industrialist. With regards to automation, I think all of the low-hanging fruit has been picked. We're left with things that seem simple, but are in fact horribly difficult, and require near-human levels of dexterity and situational awareness, such as driving or construction work or food handling. That however doesn't mean that our society would be just fine if we provided workers in these industries an alternative to their jobs.
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industrial-windmills.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industria... WRT windmills, don't take my word for it.