# What historical events could have happened differently to maximize current human development? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 26, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649 "2016-12-26T15:27:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/21 "2017-01-09T08:45:02Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > But some people believe that it’s the competition between small states (and the possibility for innovators to knock at another door if rejected at the first one) that resulted in Europe entering the modern era. And that it didn’t and wouldn’t happen in a large united empire. I believe that the biggest leap forward for europe, the most essential ingredient, was the invention of the printing press. It allowed for an easy spread of ideas to a large number of people, who could then build on those ideas. In the Roman empire they made extensive use of copyists, to fill the libraries of the well off, and technology was getting quite advanced. It is the ability to work with the accumulated knowledge,of those that have come before, that is the foundation of progress. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/22 "2017-01-09T13:13:20Z")
Seems to me that if the Roman Empire had had a more orderly decline and we’d avoid the 1000 year dark ages, we’d be a lot more advanced and enlightened now. Europe’s descent into barbarism and theocracy after the fall of Rome really held progress back. Of course, there were other civilizations doing better at the time, and small changes in the way they operated would have helped immensely. What if the Chinese had been more willing to explore as the Europeans did? What if the Islamic world’s advancements in science hadn’t been curtailed for reasons I have never seen adequately explained? As far as a change that would have the most people living well right now in the present, a commitment to democracy and free markets in the 2nd half of the 20th century, rather than realpolitick, would have improved human development considerably. Instead, most first world governments prized stability and foreign aid. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/23 "2017-01-09T13:28:12Z")
If someone had whacked Mohammed while he was hanging out iin the cave of Hira, Islam might not exist today. That’s assuming some other fanatic didn’t step up and do much like he did. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/24 "2017-01-09T19:34:52Z")
In general, I think monotheism trumps paganism in terms of its conduciveness to human development, so I’d have to count Mohammed as a plus for human development. It sure worked well for them for the first 700 years or so. If the Middle East was just a collection of various pagan tribes, then it’s just an extension of Africa and the poorer parts of south Asia. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/25 "2017-01-18T12:58:33Z")
Generally speaking, I disapprove of this game. Not just because it’s a relative waste of time to ever say “yeah, but what IF everything had been different??!!??”, but because it is logically impossible to conclude anything. And perhaps the biggest flaw to the way most people play this game, is that the Histories they use to start their “what if” scenarios are not the pure recitations of fact that they assume that they are. If you study History _as a discipline,_ and not just as a label for the stories about the past that you enjoy, you will realize (among other things) that most histories are a combination of _partial_ factual descriptions of actual events from one (and occasionally two) point(s) of view, **and the assertion of a causational guess.** ``` The causational guesses are often later recognized to be flawed and (usually unintentionally) biased, and therefore wrong. That means that if you try to play this game based on an existing flawed causational guess, you will come to an even more flawed alternate version of things. ``` By the way, the Greeks DID invent steam engines. They used them to perform magic tricks. Another error above: there were no “Dark Ages.” That’s a myth, created by a generation of historians who were so enamored of the brutal form of unity provided by the Roman Empire, that they pretended that no progress was made after that muckish conflagration was nominally overthrown. And the idea that Islam overrunning Europe would have resulted in greater technological process, is obviously belied by the fact that Islam failed to bring said progress to the areas they DID overrun and dominate for hundreds of years. The best we can ever do with games like this, is expressed best in the old adage “if things had been different, they just wouldn’t have been the same.” ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/26 "2017-01-18T13:48:31Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > In general, I think monotheism trumps paganism in terms of its conduciveness to human development, so I’d have to count Mohammed as a plus for human development. It sure worked well for them for the first 700 years or so. If the Middle East was just a collection of various pagan tribes, then it’s just an extension of Africa and the poorer parts of south Asia. If Mohammed wouldn’t have existed (and no Mongol invasion) there is no reason to believe the Middle east would have been a ‘collection of pagan tribes’. It would have continued to be part of either the Roman(Byzantine) Empire or the Persian Empire. Probably only some parts of Arabia would have remained outside. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/27 "2017-01-18T13:53:35Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > Another error above: there were no “Dark Ages.” That’s a myth, created by a generation of historians who were so enamored of the brutal form of unity provided by the Roman Empire, that they pretended that no progress was made after that muckish conflagration was nominally overthrown." This is correct for the term “Middle Ages”. The Dark Ages are so called because there is very little written information from the period. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/28 "2017-01-18T14:27:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > In general, I think monotheism trumps paganism in terms of its conduciveness to human development, so I’d have to count Mohammed as a plus for human development. It sure worked well for them for the first 700 years or so. If the Middle East was just a collection of various pagan tribes, then it’s just an extension of Africa and the poorer parts of south Asia. He resents the high school Algebra still. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/29 "2017-01-18T15:23:31Z")
So they made a toy [which could move when steam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile) was heated. Big fucking deal. That steam trapped under pressure was capable of doing work had been known for much before Heron of Alexandria. Next you’ll be saying that Indians could have gone to the moon, since they had [Mysore Rockets in the 18th century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysorean_rockets). ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/30 "2017-01-18T16:04:37Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > …snip… > > The best we can ever do with games like this, is expressed best in the old adage “if things had been different, they just wouldn’t have been the same.” Sounds like “The Game of Blood and Dust”. > **["The Game of Blood and Dust" by Roger Zelazny - Paperblog](https://en.paperblog.com/the-game-of-blood-and-dust-by-roger-zelazny-1059080/)** > > First Publication: Galaxy, April 1975Cover Artist: Jack Gaughan I remember reading this in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine when it originally was published. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/31 "2017-01-18T19:02:09Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > I read in a book once about how if Alexander the Great had lived to cement his empire the Greeks would have unified the known world and invented the steam engine. Don’t know how realistic that is, though. Doubtful. The Aeolipile really had no practical applications. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/32 "2017-01-18T19:11:54Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Better fire prevention in the Library of Alexandria: huge improvements in culture, politics, technology, medicine, etc. Maybe not. Sure, we might have all of certain manuscripts- Homer’s Margites, rest of the epic saga of Troy, _Ab urbe condita libri_, by Livy, etc, but those really arent technical. True, _On Sphere-Making_, by Archimedes may have contained some lost scientific gems. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/33 "2017-01-18T19:16:26Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > At least one classic historian has said that the Battle of Tours changed world history. Had Islam conquered Europe, there would have been no “dark ages” and we would be a thousand years further ahead in cultural and scientific development. Doubtful, since most historians say the “Dark Ages” werent really “dark”. Not to mention, the Islamic world currently is pretty much behind the Western World. > **[6 Reasons the Dark Ages Weren’t So Dark | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/6-reasons-the-dark-ages-werent-so-dark)** > > The centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D. are often referred to as the Dark Ages—but were they really? > **[5 Ridiculous Myths You Probably Believe About the Dark Ages](https://www.cracked.com/article_20615_5-ridiculous-myths-you-probably-believe-about-dark-ages.html)** > > In the name of correcting some popular misconceptions about the period, let's take on myths you almost certainly have been led to believe. > **[The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western...](https://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason-Christianity-Freedom-Capitalism/dp/0812972333)** > > The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success \[Stark, Rodney\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/34 "2017-01-19T06:56:18Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > At least one classic historian has said that the Battle of Tours changed world history. Had Islam conquered Europe, there would have been no “dark ages” and we would be a thousand years further ahead in cultural and scientific development. Yet the Islamic world never achieved the Scientific or Industrial revolutions on their own. Not to mention that universal empires (cf. Rome, China) are not necessarily conducive to advancement of technology due to lack of interstate competition. > [@adaher](#): > > Seems to me that if the Roman Empire had had a more orderly decline and we’d avoid the 1000 year dark ages, we’d be a lot more advanced and enlightened now. Europe’s descent into barbarism and theocracy after the fall of Rome really held progress back. Unlikely, the classical economy was a slave economy and thus had little impetus for industrialization. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/35 "2017-01-19T10:42:42Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > I tend to think inventions and ideas come about when the environment is ready for them, which is why ideas so often seem to pop into the zeitgeist from multiple directions. Bingo! Just dropped in to say that. It is fun and imaginative to consider alternative histories. However nothing flowing forward can ever be assumed. Our world at its simplest is governed by chaos. Fractal theory and quantum uncertainty. Eg. we can never know what would have happened if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed his shot. If Russia and China had remained benign in the 20th century, would anyone have gone to the moon? Would teflon (from NASA) have been discovered? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/36 "2017-01-19T10:58:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Doubtful. The Aeolipile really had no practical applications. Until metallurgy improved, steam engines were never going to be useful for much. An Ottomon inventer described a steam turbine in the 16th century, incidentally. Again, impractical. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/37 "2017-01-19T11:24:11Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > If Russia and China had remained benign in the 20th century, would anyone have gone to the moon? Well yes. The Russians. They started the spacegoing thing, remember. The US decided to turn it into a race to the moon. The Russian moon programm was only slightly behind. Mainly because they were develloping better rocket engines. Engines that are bought by the US and used by NASA. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/38 "2017-01-19T18:33:29Z")
It is a very interesting question why the Scientific Revolution came when it did. China, Alexandrian Greece, Rome, India and Islam all had powerful prosperous empires with very smart thinkers. Why did scientific knowledge never accelerate swiftly until the time of the Europeans Bruno, Kepler and Galileo? As **Latro** points out, the printing press was definitely one very key advance; with the writings of old and new scientists suddenly available, it was possible to “stand on the shoulders” of others. Paper was a prerequisite for printing and, although it was known to the ancient Chinese, the craft of papermaking advanced only very slowly: Baghdad about 800 AD, Spain about 1100, France 1200, Italy 1300, northern Europe as late as 1500 or 1600. Telescopes and microscopes were also key inventions that accelerated science. But all this still leaves the question: Why didn’t China or the Islamic Empire, powerful and prosperous with very smart scientists and mathematicians, and paper long before Europe, create modern science? > [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > S M Stirling’s \*\*Conquistador \*\*posits a world where Europeans never traveled to North America because Alexander lived long enough to let the Greeks unify the known world, and therefore the scientific impetus that wars engender never existed, and the need for expansion and exploration stagnated. > [@clairobscur](#): > > But some people believe that it’s the competition between small states (and the possibility for innovators to knock at another door if rejected at the first one) that resulted in Europe entering the modern era. And that it didn’t and wouldn’t happen in a large united empire. Perhaps. Other factors were the heightened senses of curiosity and ambition that developed due to Columbus’ discovery of a New World (and Marco Polo’s book etc.). The Roman church opposed the teachings of Bruno and Galileo, so I wonder if the Protestant Reformation also played a role in the sudden flourishing of science. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/39 "2017-01-20T15:59:29Z")
I’ll say that if the colonies that eventually became the United States had all prohibited slavery from the very beginning, it would have been much better for human civilization. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649/40 "2017-01-20T17:58:25Z")
> [@August\_West](#): > > I’ll say that if the colonies that eventually became the United States had all prohibited slavery from the very beginning, it would have been much better for human civilization. Or not, since the USA might not have had the economic ability to break free of GB. The idea of Constitution based democracy may have never caught on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-could-have-happened-differently-to-maximize-current-human-development/775649.md?page=1)