Almost all the gains in human well-being in history happened since the Industrial Revolution.
In short, for most of history, all human events — the rise and fall of empires, the spread of plagues, the spread and schisms of religions, the invention of wheels and aqueducts and the printing press — barely affected the typical person’s life span, political freedom, economic productivity, or wealth.
And then, with the Industrial Revolution, all those things changed at once. Within 200 years, the human experience looked very different. Read the story here....
-- Kelsey Piper
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