You know what I love? The State

[C-Mag]

The greatest bureaucracy in history is the Chinese Civil Service that lasted for 2000 years 220 BC to 1910 AD
failed to match the technological advancements of the chaotic and less organized West.

Why was China's highly organized bureaucracy unable to stop frequent famines?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Rome had a highly advanced beauacratic State and the steam engine. Why didn't they spark the industrial revolution ?

a) I struggle with spelling bureaucratic too.
b) A Roman steam engine? Tell me more.

If a highly advanced bureaucracy is all it takes to keep people out of caves, why didn't Rome take this widely known steam engine

the Aeolipile and start the industrial revolution ?

Certainly it isn't "all" it takes. It is a necessary, but insufficient condition.

The inventiveness of Rome is a great example. I can't imagine the disordered barbarians clawing at the gates ever putting together a steam engine.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

The greatest bureaucracy in history is the Chinese Civil Service that lasted for 2000 years 220 BC to 1910 AD
failed to match the technological advancements of the chaotic and less organized West.

Why was China's highly organized bureaucracy unable to stop frequent famines?

They were way ahead of the game for a long time.

Asking "why didn't we get to 20th century technology earlier" is a counterfactual and somewhat absurd question that is impossible to answer.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

To turn the question on her ear, humans had nearly 100,000 years without states. Why weren't they able to invent the internet and space travel if chaos and disorder are superior engines of invention?

[Smitty-48]

To turn the question on her ear, humans had nearly 100,000 years without states. Why weren't they able to invent the internet and space travel if chaos and disorder are superior engines of invention?

The internet and space travel are product of the Second World War, not Westphalia

Westphalian Nation states, what you think of as being a state, have only been around since 1648

There's tens of thousands of years of states before you get to Einstein, they were just not Westphalian

[C-Mag]

Whoa.
You maid the case that complex beauracratic State kept man from eating charred lizards and scrounging for berries.

Yet the greatest bureaucracy in history couldn't stop famines that killed millions.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

To turn the question on her ear, humans had nearly 100,000 years without states. Why weren't they able to invent the internet and space travel if chaos and disorder are superior engines of invention?

The internet and space travel are product of the Second World War, not Westphalia

Westphalian Nation states, what you think of as being a state, have only been around since 1648

Precisely my point.

We needed ordered Westphalian states to invent those things. States that were well organized enough to keep scientists safe from the fighting, and give them research grants, et cetera.

The constant chaos and fighting before the invention of states didn't spark technological revolutions. Why not?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Whoa.
You maid the case that complex beauracratic State kept man from eating charred lizards and scrounging for berries.

Yet the greatest bureaucracy in history couldn't stop famines that killed millions.

They aren't gods. Shit still happens.

Why wasn't there a technological revolution born from the centuries upon centuries of stateless lawlessness?

[Smitty-48]

To turn the question on her ear, humans had nearly 100,000 years without states. Why weren't they able to invent the internet and space travel if chaos and disorder are superior engines of invention?

The internet and space travel are product of the Second World War, not Westphalia

Westphalian Nation states, what you think of as being a state, have only been around since 1648

Precisely my point.

We needed ordered Westphalian states to invent those things. States that were well organized enough to keep scientists safe from the fighting, and give them research grants, et cetera.

The constant chaos and fighting before the invention of states didn't spark technological revolutions. Why not?

It was Sovereignty,

It's the Treaty of Westphalia, the Peace of Westphalia

It ends warlord as the model for a state and replaces it with traders

It's not instantaneous,

but the next big event is 1688 with Britain being taken by printing press rather than guns

Britain then becomes the first modern state,

then sets the standard in growing by trade into the British Empire

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

I love the sovereign Westphalian state, and the ordered, relatively predictable growth it secures.