The Roman Empire had a water system and concrete to make the Coliseum. Relied on slave labour up until the end. Made a plant that was used as contraception extinct.
Given the time they stood, I'd say their scientific/mathematical progress was nimble.
Egyptian empire: invented geometry, still had slaves pushing stones up to form pyramids.
The Portuguese and the Spanish conquered half the world, but still relied on manual labour and got behind when the English started using machine labour.
Like it often is with wealth, we're not special - our current empires just had richer parents and bigger accumulated base of inventions. We can build cooler stuff now than our ancestors - but let's never forget that "what makes one step a giant leap is all the steps before"[2].
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[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)#Connec...
[1] - I think I've seen them on dailymotion; of course I don't encourage copyright infringement, it's very important to keep our most important works unaccessible until everyone who might be interested in them dies off and only archaeologists will care.
[2] - http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/songs/toast-for-unknown-heroes.h... / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zotaRLROtw
> Like it often is with wealth, we're not special - our current empires just had richer parents and bigger accumulated base of inventions. We can build cooler stuff now than our ancestors
Yes, totally agree. But what I'm saying is that those old empires didn't have technological evolution as a goal (maybe the latter ones) hence they didn't really think of it.
Sure, evolution and ideas take time, but it seems it took much less time once the right mindset was in place.
What do you mean by machine labour here?
If you're referring to steam engines I think you're drawing a causal link that isn't justified. The dates at best line up to early steam engines. They were massively inefficient and used for pumping out mines, they weren't exactly transformative to the nation.
