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asr comments on Do Earths with slower economic growth have a better chance at FAI? - Less Wrong
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Why do you find the idea of having the level of technology from the Roman empire to be so extreme? It seems like the explosion in technological development and use in recent centuries could be the fluke. There was supposedly a working steam engine in the Library of Alexandria in antiquity, but no one saw any reason to encourage that sort of thing. During the middle ages people didn't even know what the Roman aqueducts were for. With just a few different conditions, it seems like it's within the realm of possibility that ancient Roman technology could have been a nearly-sustainable peak of human technology.
Much more feasible would be staying foragers for the life of the species, though.
Some good ideas were lost when the Roman Empire went to pieces, but there were a number of important technical innovations made in formerly-Roman parts of Western Europe in the centuries after the fall of the empire. In particular, it was during the Dark Ages that Europeans developed the stirrup, the horse collar and the moldboard plow. Full use of the domesticated horse was a Medieval development, and an important one, since it gave a big boost to agriculture and war. Likewise, the forced-air blast furnace is an early-medieval development.
The conclusion I draw is that over the timescale of a few centuries, large-scale political disruption did not stop technology from improving.
It may even have helped. Consider China...
Sure about that? http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007/07/experimental-history.html http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007/08/lynn-white-on-horse-stuff.html
Although it's still a point worth making that those technologies were adopted, they were not innovations--they were eastern inventions from antiquity that were adopted.
Stirrups in particular are a fascinating tale of progress not being a sure thing. The stirrup predates not only the fall of Rome, but the founding of Rome. Despite constant trade with the Parthians/Sassanids as well as constantly getting killed by their cavalry, the Romans never saw fit to adopt such a useful technology. Like the steam engine, we see that technological adoption isn't so inevitable.
It's not clear stirrups would've been helpful to the Romans at all, much less 'such a useful technology'; see the first Carrier link in my reply to asr.