E Michael Jones Says Without Christianity Europe Would Be Like Africa
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Europe significantly changed after the medieval period. The Alternative Hypothesis had a video essay on large selective changes in the population (like capital punishments for murder, rape, theft) after Christian rule. There's also 2000 years of changes to sexual selection. All of that changes the genetic makeup of the population.
So basically Greco-Roman society was stifling to technological advancement but didn't keep it at a net zero advancement.
The main thing holding back technological advancement was largely based on the slave economy. If a steady set of hands exists to do the work there is no need for you to improve your production methods.
The other reason is rather philosophical. Greco-Roman didn't believe in the scientific methods, it was very much based on thought experiments. Many of the scientific principles at the time could have been easily tested for truth but no one ever did it because of social reasons. Things wee just accepted or were to be argued philosophically instead of through actual experiments.
This philosophical method though could have possibly fallen out of favor over time to a more a scientific method.
But that's not discounting the medieval model which heavily encouraged development because it was very unique. You not only had the external factors of kingdoms who were all relatively on the same level technology wise looking for advantages. You also had the internal factors of nobility, royalty, church, the guilds, all competing against each other for dominance.
But you are discounting 400 years of piracy and slave raids of Europe by mediteranian Muslim states that hobbled kingdoms across the continent and only ended when Christian Europe united in the Crusades.
This. The Greeks believed that humans saw by shooting invisible beams out of their eyes that reflected off things and bounced back. No one ever seems to have asked the question "well, why can't we see in the dark, then?"
Oh my God...
You do realize that slavery was ended by the West because of technology, right?
Like, what? No one invented sails because there were slaves to man the oars? The cotton gin had to be invented because the civil war freed the workers?
Open a book...