> Romans could have invented steam engines if they wanted to.

You invent such things when you have resolved many other problems first. Like water and sanitation, and geopolitical stability. And no, steam engines took a lot more time anyway because advanced metallurgy was necessary to get there.

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Illniyar 3 days ago | parent [-]

If geopolitical stability was a precursor to technology, we would still be living in the stone age :)

	▲	ekianjo 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		There were times where one would be involved in many wars happening at their local level within their lifetime. We have had two big wars in the 20th century but many countries were not directly the theater of war and most frontiers did not change. There is much more stability now, you just get a lot of news that makes you seem that the world is chaos but the reality is the opposite.
	▲	ericmay 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Right - you could almost argue that the opposite is generally true.