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Why didnt Egyptians get industrial revolution or electricity?

danschuller 4y ago
When the same is asked of the Romans a common reply is that they had a mass of slave labour and that removes some of the incentives for automation. But the Egyptians didn't even have much knowledge of making iron until very late - contemporary with ancient Greece or Rome. This is a question I find fascinating too.
lordnacho 4y ago
Are there coal deposits there? And some kind of use for the energy?
- rightbyte 4y ago
  I guess you need mines that are being constantly flooded to need steam machines in the first place. Wind mills were probably good enought for seed?
  - a3w 4y ago
    Ancient greeks did have steam powered toys. It has been discussed elsewhere, that you need a need for revolution to get the progress made on the labour force and market that emerged in the UK to get a first "industrial revolution" started. Egyptians did have batteries, BTW. Another angle, with the TL;DR of "There was no such thing a industrial revolution, ever": Also, if you look at the numeric history of the combined agricultural/industrial throughput of mankind, there was no such thing as a time period for a single industrial revolution. The logarithmic scale of aforementioned output show no peaks, but rather that we made so far made the same speeding up slope in growth every year for all the history we can guess an estimate for.
pvaldes 4y ago
This depends on what we define by industrial revolution. Building the pyramids must involve a lot of advanced techniques in a cooperative effort involving a lot of specialists. They didn't have gas or petrol but managed to develop an advanced technology on glass, quarrying, agriculture and bureaucracy. They had literature, and this is an huge step. Any advance towards making machines or doing science would be diverted towards supporting war and religion and kept secret probably
KoftaBob 4y ago
A very interesting concept tangential to this question is the idea of "The Great Divergence". "The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization, eclipsing the Ottoman Empire, Mughal India, Qing China, Tokugawa Japan, and Joseon Korea. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence
xwolfi 4y ago
Why native americans didnt invade Europe ? These questions are complex to answer and the answer isn't really one: how many things didnt we do in Europe we could have done if this or that guy had not died or whatever. But, usually Europe's industrial revolution is explained by mathematical maturity, political reforms towards individualism, large cross pollination between countries, tolerance of atheism, absence of abudant resources pushing towards mecanisation, outside enemies disappearing, older generation dead or tamed by previous wars liberating the youth,the slow penetration of reading skills in the entire population thanks to the printing press, the liberation of working capital thanks to the transition to paper money, the enforcement of mandatory schooling for more and more children: it's a miraculous convergence of factors, that allowed us to wait for thousands of years before we were ready to seize the opportunity finally to try stuff fearlessly without oppressing traditions to respect. It's like today why the Netherland can innovate in electro lithography almost without caring while China can send billions to loyal political executives and only produce death sentences for corruption after a few years of investment: there needs to be a fertile ground to produce an innovative jump that seems to revolve around letting people experiment without too much red tape and frivolous politico religious constraints. It doesnt require capital as much as it requires relinquishing ownership and credit for invention back to the populace so they sort their stuff themselves.

When the same is asked of the Romans a common reply is that they had a mass of slave labour and that removes some of the incentives for automation. But the Egyptians didn't even have much knowledge of making iron until very late - contemporary with ancient Greece or Rome. This is a question I find fascinating too.

lordnacho 4y ago

Are there coal deposits there? And some kind of use for the energy?

rightbyte 4y ago
I guess you need mines that are being constantly flooded to need steam machines in the first place. Wind mills were probably good enought for seed?
- a3w 4y ago
  Ancient greeks did have steam powered toys. It has been discussed elsewhere, that you need a need for revolution to get the progress made on the labour force and market that emerged in the UK to get a first "industrial revolution" started. Egyptians did have batteries, BTW. Another angle, with the TL;DR of "There was no such thing a industrial revolution, ever": Also, if you look at the numeric history of the combined agricultural/industrial throughput of mankind, there was no such thing as a time period for a single industrial revolution. The logarithmic scale of aforementioned output show no peaks, but rather that we made so far made the same speeding up slope in growth every year for all the history we can guess an estimate for.

pvaldes 4y ago

This depends on what we define by industrial revolution. Building the pyramids must involve a lot of advanced techniques in a cooperative effort involving a lot of specialists. They didn't have gas or petrol but managed to develop an advanced technology on glass, quarrying, agriculture and bureaucracy. They had literature, and this is an huge step. Any advance towards making machines or doing science would be diverted towards supporting war and religion and kept secret probably

KoftaBob 4y ago

A very interesting concept tangential to this question is the idea of "The Great Divergence". "The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization, eclipsing the Ottoman Empire, Mughal India, Qing China, Tokugawa Japan, and Joseon Korea. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence

xwolfi 4y ago

Why native americans didnt invade Europe ? These questions are complex to answer and the answer isn't really one: how many things didnt we do in Europe we could have done if this or that guy had not died or whatever. But, usually Europe's industrial revolution is explained by mathematical maturity, political reforms towards individualism, large cross pollination between countries, tolerance of atheism, absence of abudant resources pushing towards mecanisation, outside enemies disappearing, older generation dead or tamed by previous wars liberating the youth,the slow penetration of reading skills in the entire population thanks to the printing press, the liberation of working capital thanks to the transition to paper money, the enforcement of mandatory schooling for more and more children: it's a miraculous convergence of factors, that allowed us to wait for thousands of years before we were ready to seize the opportunity finally to try stuff fearlessly without oppressing traditions to respect. It's like today why the Netherland can innovate in electro lithography almost without caring while China can send billions to loyal political executives and only produce death sentences for corruption after a few years of investment: there needs to be a fertile ground to produce an innovative jump that seems to revolve around letting people experiment without too much red tape and frivolous politico religious constraints. It doesnt require capital as much as it requires relinquishing ownership and credit for invention back to the populace so they sort their stuff themselves.