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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 29, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Not-so-small scale question but this is probably the only place I can get an informed answer on this not constrained by political correctness: what’s your overarching theory of why Western Europe and its descendants are the world’s most influential civilization of the past few centuries?

I don't remember whose theory it was but someone proposed that the combination of the black death and the discovery of the new world (and the existence of the necessary technological preconditions) caused the industrial revolution.

The black death caused a excess of capital in comparison to the population size in Europe and the new world sustained it by allowing excess population to migrate if conditions weren't favourable enough in Europe. This was particularly true for England.

This caused economic consolidation and a strong desire for investments that didn't hinge on human capital. This in turn led to everything else, from technological inventions to things like fractional reserve banking.