> reader wrote:   
   >   
   >> It has been observed that social organization and ideology change when   
   >> technology changes.   
   >   
   >What you didn't "Observe" -- you lack of reading   
   >comprehension -- was the fact that Roman had   
   >the technology to power machinery & fuel an   
   >industrial revolution. It never happened.   
      
   They had at most water wheels for grinding.  This was an established   
   technology in pre-roman cultures from about 400 BC.  >   
      
   Another observation cross culturally is that as the amount of energy   
   capture via new technology increases; the complexity of the culture   
   increases.   
      
   The romans like every other culture of the time used primarily animal/human   
   based technology for energy conversion.  The romans had nothing inherent in   
   their material culture that made the industrial revolution potential any   
   greater then the other cultures of its time.   
      
   >> At any given time the ideology is sufficient to rationalize what is   
   >> happening.  It is the tail of the dog; not the dog.   
   >   
   >Your standard idiocy.   
   >   
   >It didn't happen in most of the world. They needed   
   >western industrialization transplanted to their   
   >cultures. They never developed it themselves.   
      
   It happenned for the most part in the small n.w. corner ofeurope.  The   
   other parts of europe andd n. america were also on the recieving end like   
   the rest of the world.   
      
   It involved the new energy capture technology based on coal fired steam   
   driven machines.  Steam engines were first used to pump water from coal   
   mines.   
      
   That steam power technology produced vastly more energy then did water or   
   animal motive technology.   
      
   The advances in machines was also related to the coke based blast furnaces   
   which made cheap iron and other metallurgy processes possible at largr   
   scales.   
     Iron cannon  production drove much of this interest in blast based   
   Technology.   
      
   It was a synergy of these elements coming together at a point in history   
   and place at the same time that made it possible in n.w. europe and not   
   rome.   
      
   >Maybe you recall the subject line   
    ? Hello?  China?   
      
   China was using water wheels to drive bellows based blast furnaces in the   
   11th century.   
      
   The knowledge and use of advanced metallurgy was common in china.   
      
   Use of coal was presentt in the middle ages, as was to be natural gas from   
   drillled wells.   
      
   The major difference was that using the elements above steam power was not   
   developed in china as a power source.   
      
   The basic elements were present in china and elsewhere before the 18th   
   century in the industrial revolution.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)