Comment by sokoloff
10 days ago
What percent of the population in places which experienced the industrial revolution would be better off if they time-travelled back 200 years? 1%? 0.2%?
10 days ago
What percent of the population in places which experienced the industrial revolution would be better off if they time-travelled back 200 years? 1%? 0.2%?
> in places which experienced the industrial revolution
People experienced the industrial revolution everywhere.
I suspect, when you think "places which experienced the industrial revolution", you think about a small subset of areas where some development happened as a result of that, likely the areas where industrialists lived.
But you would also have to consider other places' experience of industrialization. For instance, Congo under EIC colonial rule did experience industrialization - it was the place where industrial amounts of rubber were harvested to allow for plants elsewhere to produce joints, pipes, motor belts, etc. It's not really hard to believe that, had Congo not experienced that, its citizen would almost certainly have been better off now.
Does Congo lack electricity, modern medicine, and air conditioning?
If the industrial revolution has made their lives worse, it's a double-whammy because they are forced to suffer almost twice as long, as their life expectancy at birth has approximately doubled since 1870.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1071021/life-expectancy-...