LESSWRONG
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How would you take over Rome?
Nile60

Partially correct, and partially wrong. The great patricians and senators will try to keep down a plebeian, but this is equally true of a fellow-patrician emerging as a dominant power.

But people could and did succeed in Rome: your point is an objection, not an insoluble problem.

I would point out that not getting assassinated - or coming up against a power bloc that can stop you - is a problem with all 'Become Emperor of Rome' scenarios: and it was solved by all emperors.

It boils down to politics. A strong point of the Joint-Stock plan is that you make a lo... (read more)

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How would you take over Rome?
Nile40

It's bad form to reply to my own post, but a strong cup of tea has invigorated me with some ideas that follow on from building the first working beam engine.

I'm introducing a second invention, halfway through, because you need something to pump industrial quantities of capital as well as water.

Firstly, you probably won't have the cashflow to purchase another mine and build another engine for at least a decade. Not unless you're mining silver, or there's a severe economic supply contraint on copper, tin, or whatever you're extracting, permitting you to mak... (read more)

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1Eugine_Nier
You might have infeential distance problems explaining that one.
3see
Before you're wealthy enough to actually have a significant political power base, it's going to be obvious you're getting wealthy. At that point you're going to need political patronage to avoid having, say, joint-stock companies outlawed. If the means by which you're gaining wealth are not seen as legitimate, you won't be allowed to accumulate enough to do you any good—and in a society with no ideology of economic liberty, any new means of accumulating wealth undertaken by anybody who isn't already on top is almost automatically seen as illegitimate by the people who are already on top.
How would you take over Rome?
Nile80

This is wrong, but less wrong than I thought:

" Steam engines, for example, weren't invented until the 1700's because metals were so bad at the time that pressure vessels were impossible to make safe "

Not quite: the development of high-pressure engines was delayed, but the initial deployment if low pressure engines was an immediate success.

The first steam engines were, of course, atmospheric engines: fill a large piston with low-pressure steam, squirt cold water, and - whoosh! - the steam condenses to water and a pretty good vacuum, leaving the p... (read more)

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4Nile
It's bad form to reply to my own post, but a strong cup of tea has invigorated me with some ideas that follow on from building the first working beam engine. I'm introducing a second invention, halfway through, because you need something to pump industrial quantities of capital as well as water. Firstly, you probably won't have the cashflow to purchase another mine and build another engine for at least a decade. Not unless you're mining silver, or there's a severe economic supply contraint on copper, tin, or whatever you're extracting, permitting you to make extraordinary profits. You will have the cashflow to improve - and probably replace - your engine, your workshop, and your craftsmmen in two or three years. You now have a business model. No, TWO business models. Firstly, municipal water supply already exists in the Roman Empire: there's an existing demand for big beam-engine pumps, and you can demonstrate a profitable and reliable working model. Your craftsmen might defect and start up a rival business - if they can get capital (which they can't) or interest a Patrician - but you can let them go, secure in the knowledge that they can only ever copy what you've already done. They cannot compete with your next technological improvement, or the one after: your emerging commercial rivals are no better than the industrial pioneers and inventors who took decades to develop things that you know completely, a century ahead of their best possible learning-curve. Your second business model is that you know where the all good ore lodes are, and how to get at them - flooded or not. Even if you don't, mine-owners with a flooding problem are going to tell you where the few known ones are... ...But developing those resources still needs far more capital than you possess; and your objective is to become Emperor, not just a provider of steam pumps to grand patricians with an ore lode, and Proconsuls with a municipal supply problem. No, you need a second invention: the
How would you take over Rome?
Nile240

Interesting stuff: but I'm going to throw in a few disappointments on technological triumphs, and propose a peaceful takeover by affordable glazed pottery.

Firstly, the printing press: movable type is a great idea but you also need paper. And you'll need the 'killer app' - or rather, the book with a massive pre-existing demand. In 1 AD, that's not the Bible! If you got the authorities interested in the promulgation of official edicts and shool texts, you might be able to scale up the business to kickstart a commercial printing economy - but scaling-up is no... (read more)

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