Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders
Here's an interesting talk on science and technology in the ancient world. These people knew the distance to the moon, that the moon had an eccentric orbit, how large the world was... they had a a grain-grinding mill with 16 large water wheels that produced flour for an entire region, they had automata that could perform plays... maybe it would be more appropriate to put them at TL3 and the Dark Ages at TL 2?
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Why don't we just ditch some of the Whiggish assumptions and say that the tech level rose and fell in historical times. We could also note that the Romans did things we can't repete today
in the same way. If we allow the Helenistic east had a TL3 or even TL4 capassity, which they didn't apply to practical needs, because of their vast supplies of slaves, then we can say these techniques were lost when they became simply outdated luxuries. Luxuries that no one could afford or be bothered to care about. Remember, the first steam engine was just a noisy expensive toy with no practical use. It was the cruder steam engines used to pump water out of coal mines that lead to a technolgical revolution.