[ghaff]

The Roman Empire is presumably the point (in the Western core) where an alternate history could have plausibly accelerated the industrial revolution if maybe not by a millennium at least some number of centuries. If you dig into the social development data the fall of Rome is where social development actually significantly regressed in the West and the East was even arguably ahead for a stretch.

[bpiche]

Wasn’t it Philip K Dick, in VALIS, who wrote “the Empire never ended”? Not in the sense that it didn’t end; it did in the 14th c. to the Ottoman Empire, but that the past is laminated onto the present.

[deutschew]

yes it feels a bit like today, the society increasingly became complex due to ever-changing norms and social morality.

[ghaff]

The videos upthread pretty much argue that a lot of pieces were in place but the cultural, economic, and societal pieces mostly weren't. Which, presumably, the right leadership could have shifted to some degree over time.