[madaxe_again]

And do you know how many starved, and how incredibly abysmal the conditions were for workers? Quality of living for the majority of people took a nosedive with the industrial revolution, and the pay-off took generations.

Yes, they had gas street lighting and coal fires, but they no longer had the freedom they'd enjoyed since the end of feudalism, and once more found themselves serfs - just this time ten to a room in disease ridden urban slums rather than in their peasants cottage in whatever village they'd been sucked up from.

Yeah, we're still here, but to assert that everything was positive is equally ridiculous. It took over a century for labour rights to start appearing, and for the system of governance to adapt to economic reality. Do you really want the same again?