I'm not a historian of course. But it seems that the empirical evidence is that this has repeated itself historically. You look at historic hubs of innovation a

I'm not a historian of course. But it seems that the empirical evidence is that this has repeated itself historically. You look at historic hubs of innovation and scientific progress and you usually find them in places with migration and relatively wealthy and free thinking populations. But of course there are counter examples and there are probably other factors. London's industrial revolution and the boom of the British empire was driven by trade and a scientific revolution. That started with them cutting loose from the catholic church and limiting the power of royals. The resulting influx of people from all over Europe and later the rest of the world probably helped. Some of the more radical people at the time actually ended up in New England where they helped bootstrap the modern USA. Japan's industrial revolution started with the royals realizing they needed to catch up and importing a lot of knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_era. Japan of course did not keep the foreigners but they did catch up in a hurry by interacting with a lot of them. China is doing an interesting reverse take on this where they send people all over the world and they then bring back knowledge. So, yes it's not all black and white. But this stuff usually starts with places being open to outside influences and importing and generating a lot of new knowledge and skills locally. Typically, with the help of foreigners in some way. London is a melting pot of nationalities from all over their empire. And the US bootstrapped from the British empire and absorbing bits and pieces from other European colonists (Dutch, French, Spanish, etc.).