"Why didn't the romans invent the internet?" Simply put you could't beat the bandwidth a messenger, traveling on a transcontinental network of roads (http://en

"Why didn't the romans invent the internet?" Simply put you could't beat the bandwidth a messenger, traveling on a transcontinental network of roads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana), changing horses every few hours. Semaphore communication would've been a lot slower. Oh, and it wasn't any good for bringing things. "Imagine what the world would be like if we'd had a 2,000 year head start on the principles of the Internet?" Most likely the same it is today. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages for reference. I think the article is built on the false premise that the existence of knowledge per se, guarantees it is going to be used. To paraphrase Kenneth Clark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilisation_(TV_series) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilisation_(TV_series)) you need a flourishing civilization to utilize the knowledge you have. Western Europe effectively UNLEARNED Roman knowledge and didn't "discover" it again for a whole millenium. Although never forgotten, Eastern Europe (represented by the Byzantine Empire) didn't have the scale or resources to take advantage of this knowledge. So there you have it, knowledge alone is not enough.