If you think the Industrial Revolution was highly contingent on, say, some quirk of geography, like the nature of British coal reserves…
Suppose that this factor had been different. Would we still be living in a pre-industrial world, 300 years later? (What about in 1000 years?)
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If there is an intelligent alien civilization that has been around for much longer than humans, would you expect that they have definitely industrialized in some form? Or would it depend on the particular geology of their planet?
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There may be *tendencies* to productive development in human history, but whether tendencies are realised as trends depends upon material circumstances. If the Holocene interglacial had not occurred, would farming have developed and spread, or would we still be foragers?
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I buy such arguments more for tribal hunter-gatherers and much less for modern, literate civilizations
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thinks we would have fallen into a malthusian trap. Any surplus would have been consumed instead of invested in the long-term.
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So no Industrial Revolution? Just a bit more agriculture and trade maybe?
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Researchers have tested this question!
The answer is no, coal didn't matter much
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This is contentious though, no? Doesn't Allen still maintain that cheap energy was crucial?
Possibly. 1848 might not have happened and all Europe would be like czarist Russia.
Industrial revolution was based not only on coal reserves, but on free trade too.
Sea was the same importance as coal.
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