How advanced can you make the world?

[johnreiter]

Using only plausible PODs (as many as you want) how much can the technological advancement of Earth be increased?

Here are some of my ideas:
Euclid's Geometry of a Sphere is not lost, and so non-Euclidean Geometry is invented 2000 years early.
The Great Plague of London does not break out, and Cambridge is not evacuated, so Newton does not lose his early work.
Eilmer of Malmesbury completes his hanglider
Ernest Duchesne does not get sick in 1912, and lives to popularize his discovery
Archimedes of Syracuse is taken alive by the Romans

 

[Lalli]

Intresting ideas altough not sure if Archimedes would change anymore very much. He was already 75 years old so he hardly would be long on this world anyway. And it too depends how willingful he is to help Romans.

But some other ideas: Heron of Alexandria thinks further his ideas and develops something useful. So industrial revolution could occur centuries earlier.

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

I read somewhere that the beginning of mass coffee consumption in Europe coincided with Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrialization of Europe. Idk if correlation equals causation in this case but if we assume that caffeine addiction kicked off the modernization of human civilization then all we need is for the ancient Greeks/Romans to be able to get ahold of a cup of Joe.

 

[Dancing Fool]

but if we assume that caffeine addiction kicked off the modernization of human civilization

This is a lusciously weird and wild branch point!

And we can point out that not only is caffeine legal in western modern economies [whereas relaxing marijuana is only recently or semi-legal], but companies will also provide free coffee to their employees! And other companies run a successful business in providing “coffee service.”

 

[Dancing Fool]

Better metallurgy ? ?

And then the steam age in the 1700s can run faster and further and/or come much earlier.

 

[johnreiter]

Here are some more ideas

Leonardo di Vinci goes through with his plan to publish his notebooks
Lenin dies before the communist revolution
al-Ghazali is never born
Tamarlane is never born
The Library of Alexandria does not burn down

 

[johnreiter]

Better metallurgy ? ?

What POD would lead to this?

 

[Comte de Dordogne]

A hominid eons ago managed to domesticate fire without ending up burnt in his creation.
Boom! Mankind millions of years ahead of its time.

 

[johnreiter]

One of the biggest things holding back an early industrial revolution was the existence of slavery. Slavery means there is no incentive to invest in the development of labor-saving devices. Therefore, if slavery was abolished much earlier, even in part of the world, it could lead to an early industrial revolution

Does anybody know of a philosophic or religious movement before the rise of Christianity which advocated abolishing slavery?

 

[SWS]

One of the biggest things holding back an early industrial revolution was the existence of slavery. Slavery means there is no incentive to invest in the development of labor-saving devices. Therefore, if slavery was abolished much earlier, even in part of the world, it could lead to an early industrial revolution

Does anybody know of a philosophic or religious movement before the rise of Christianity which advocated abolishing slavery?

Zoroastrianism, perhaps.

 

[athgtq16129]

Lenin dies before the communist revolution

I am no communist and no fan of any of the Bolsheviks, but in your opinion, how would Lenin dying early make the world more "advanced"?

(Note: from what I understood OP, this thread is about a more technologically and scientifically(?) advanced world, not an utopian one as in no wars, no dictators, and no genocides per-se, since as everyone knows, as horrific as WW2 was, it undeniably helped technology to advance in several areas.)

The Library of Alexandria does not burn down

This myth will be repeated forever, especially now that this has become a slang for losing important media and objects, but from what I recall, the Library of Alexandria was not burned down to the ground and got all of its important books lost overnight, it was slowly neglected and abandoned over the centuries, until it became completely irrelevant and disappeared.

 

[Whiteshore]

Using only plausible PODs (as many as you want) how much can the technological advancement of Earth be increased?

Song Dynasty Industrial Revolution would be a good start.

 

[johnreiter]

Song Dynasty Industrial Revolution would be a good start.

What would be the best way to cause that? Prevent the Mongol conquest?

 

[johnreiter]

I am no communist and no fan of any of the Bolsheviks, but in your opinion, how would Lenin dying early make the world more "advanced"?

The communist revolution crippled Russia's progress, until they lost all initiative except in a few key sciences like physics and rocketry. A Russia which never fell to communism would likely produce more discoveries and innovations earlier. Plus, there is the possibility that preventing the rise of Lenin and the Russian communist revolution will prevent communism from rising elsewhere, thus leading to more progress in nations like China and Korea.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

By “technological advancement”, I take it the OP means the kind of material prosperity we’ve been able to produce from the Industrial Revolution onward? In which, the question is basically “How do we get an earlier Industrial Revolution?” In which case, my short answer remains, as always -- you start with an earlier Capitalist Revolution.

So -- how do we create an earlier Capitalist Revolution, of the kind seen in Western Europe in the 17th and 18th Centuries? Well, the (seemingly) simplest place to start would be to try to jumpstart maritime globalization, which OTL knows as the Columbian Exchange (but which will obviously be differently named TTL), as early as possible. However, this may be easier said than done - - on the one hand, explorers need a healthy economy will a high demand for import goods, which implies a significant level of economic integration of Eurasia; on the other hand, traders with access to the oceans need incentive to traverse said oceans, instead of relying on the know land routes.

One idea I had along these lines is for Carthage to defeat Rome in the Punic Wars. They were already exploring the west coast of Africa, and had every incentive to develop maritime technology further, since Egypt and the Seleucids controlled access to India and the farther east. The only issue with this, for our purposes, is that by the time the Phoenicians have a chance to get a truly global maritime trade and civilization network going, they’ll only have a couple centuries at most before the Roman Warm Period starts to come to an end.

But what do you guys think?

 

[johnreiter]

By “technological advancement”, I take it the OP means the kind of material prosperity we’ve been able to produce from the Industrial Revolution onward? In which, the question is basically “How do we get an earlier Industrial Revolution?” In which case, my short answer remains, as always -- you start with an earlier Capitalist Revolution.

So -- how do we create an earlier Capitalist Revolution, of the kind seen in Western Europe in the 17th and 18th Centuries? Well, the (seemingly) simplest place to start would be to try to jumpstart maritime globalization, which OTL knows as the Columbian Exchange (but which will obviously be differently named TTL), as early as possible. However, this may be easier said than done - - on the one hand, explorers need a healthy economy will a high demand for import goods, which implies a significant level of economic integration of Eurasia; on the other hand, traders with access to the oceans need incentive to traverse said oceans, instead of relying on the know land routes.

One idea I had along these lines is for Carthage to defeat Rome in the Punic Wars. They were already exploring the west coast of Africa, and had every incentive to develop maritime technology further, since Egypt and the Seleucids controlled access to India and the farther east. The only issue with this, for our purposes, is that by the time the Phoenicians have a chance to get a truly global maritime trade and civilization network going, they’ll only have a couple centuries at most before the Roman Warm Period starts to come to an end.

But what do you guys think?

I think it's a brilliant idea! I can't see anything wrong with it at all from a technologic standpoint. The Phoenicians were a merchant dominated society, on the bleeding edge of naval technology, so they are ideally situated to initiate a columbian exchange.

Another positive side-effect, is that since Carthage will have neither the ability nor the incentive for mass-colonization of the Americas, the natives will have time to recover from the initial wave of diseases and we will see more native states. A greater number of more varied civilizations is also a good way to increase progress.

 

[Aluma]

Does anybody know of a philosophic or religious movement before the rise of Christianity which advocated abolishing slavery?

Ancient Israel would free their slaves every jubilee though they didnt abolish it outright, Alcidamas abhorred it saying "nature has made no one a slave", Aristonikos abolished slavery within his city-state to gather support for his taking of the throne, the Essenes created collectivist communities devoid of slavery where they shared the fruits of their labour, the Xin Dynasty abolished slavery in China for a decade or so and so on
There are not many examples but they tend o appear every now and then, those being the ones I remember

 

[Silver01]

Competition brings progress so I still fully believe in a world were LATAM becomes first world you can have advancements in the otl you had people like Pedro Ruiz gallo or how Pedro paulletkst likely was pioneer in liquid propellant for rockets in a world were LATAM is more stable and advanced you can have more funding for these types of thing

 

[Silver01]

Ancient Israel would free their slaves every jubilee though they didnt abolish it outright, Alcidamas abhorred it saying "nature has made no one a slave", Aristonikos abolished slavery within his city-state to gather support for his taking of the throne, the Essenes created collectivist communities devoid of slavery where they shared the fruits of their labour, the Xin Dynasty abolished slavery in China for a decade or so and so on
There are not many examples but they tend o appear every now and then, those being the ones I remember

I don't think that answer the question if not mistaken even Tim o niell which is a source that I mostly trust in these types of things say a Christian church father can't remember the name was the first one to attack the institution as whole for being inmoral not to a specific people but that slavery as whole was moral evil

 

[jacob ningen]

One of the biggest things holding back an early industrial revolution was the existence of slavery. Slavery means there is no incentive to invest in the development of labor-saving devices. Therefore, if slavery was abolished much earlier, even in part of the world, it could lead to an early industrial revolution

Does anybody know of a philosophic or religious movement before the rise of Christianity which advocated abolishing slavery?

Mazdakism, Zoroastrianism, Mohism.