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This is classic survivorship bias. We don’t know about the things that didn’t get invented because someone somewhere didn’t do a critical breakthrough, because

This is classic survivorship bias. We don’t know about the things that didn’t get invented because someone somewhere didn’t do a critical breakthrough, because those things don’t exist. Therefore, it’s easy for people to assume that everything eventually gets invented, and nothing really hinges on a single person. We could have had a steam engine during the Roman Empire and thus an Industrial Revolution thousands of years earlier, but no one did it. It was just a toy. Imagine having the vision.

ufmace 2y ago
> We could have had a steam engine during the Roman Empire and thus an Industrial Revolution thousands of years earlier, but no one did it. It was just a toy. Imagine having the vision. No, we couldn't. The Romans were missing several other critical technologies that were necessary to make steam engines more than a toy. https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...
ahtihn 2y ago
> We could have had a steam engine during the Roman Empire and thus an Industrial Revolution thousands of years earlier My understanding is that no, it couldn't have happened at that time because metallurgy wasn't good enough at the time for anything beyond toys.