Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesis to the test

Re:Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesi... by Gud on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @03:58AM (#39600970)

>Geographical factors would seem to be this kind of importance that establishes a long dominance and strong chance of success, sure, but what Geographical factor allowed for Industrialism to be established in Western Civilization, with all the force multipliers that Industrialism gives? Almost all countries nowadays are industrialized therefore there is no geographical factor that prevents industrialization in those nations.

the Industrial Revolution started because Great Britain had an over abundance of coal, so another point for the geographical theory?

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Re:Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesi... by bryanrasmussen on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @04:33AM (#39601194)

China is the largest coal producing country in the world. Why did China not have an industrial revolution?

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Re:Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesi... by ben_w on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @05:18AM (#39601514)

Not that it changes your point in the slightest, but China is about the size of all western Europe, so that should be more like "why didn't Shaanxi[0] have an industrial revolution?"

[0] picked for size, not mineral abundance; I don't want to waste time delving into exactly which part of China is currently mining however much coal.

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Re:Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesi... by Log_out_ on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @12:35PM (#39606650)

China has a very centralized structure, he who holds the central planes is king of the hill. So technological competition like in the battle sponge of Europe never took off.

Centralization is then arch nemesis of progress.

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Re:Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesi... by bryanrasmussen on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @04:51AM (#39601319)

also Rome had access to Britain's coal, there were steam turbines available in 1 B.C, in other words the geographical requirements for industrialism existed a long time ago and the people who had access to these things were not idiots and had a relatively strong organizational system.

I would say Printing is the most important explanation for the Industrial revolution, allowing spread of science through the West, and at the same time providing an example of a technology that was successful and financially beneficial. If you're smart, coming up, and see that other smart people became financially successful by building tools it drives your ambition.

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Re:Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesi... by Jedd on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @06:38AM (#39602097)

Printing didn't require a lot of power. The Romans didn't have the precision (though arguably could have acquired that skill) to build decent steam engines, but more importantly they had no use for that power.

The most compelling explanation I've read about the convergence of trade, textiles, free-energy (coal), and engines is one that comes up on HN periodically:

https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...

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Re:Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesi... by eigenket on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @10:39AM (#39604777)

Saying they had access to steam turbines is wildly overstating the case. They had toys that span round and round, but nothing that could produce useful horsepower.

You need metallurgy considerably more advanced than the Romans had in order to make a useful steam engine.

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Re:Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesi... by Qem on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @08:57AM (#39616005)

> the Industrial Revolution started because Great Britain had an over abundance of coal, so another point for the geographical theory?

One thing that bothers me is, before that Netherlands had an abundance of windmills. So why was the industrial english and coal powered and not dutch and wind powered?

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