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Comment Threads

• Ioan commented on Crib Notes: Empire Games
  Why does the old world need the new world's crop package for industrialization to occur?...
• anonemouse commented on Crib Notes: Empire Games
  An example: check out food imports from Ireland to Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution, then remember the cottier class who paid their rent in farm labour to raise that food subsisted entirely on potatoes and buttermilk....
• Ioan commented on Crib Notes: Empire Games
  Yes, but was that necessary for industrialization? Another way of asking this would be: would industrialization have happened even without that potato. It's like the discussion we had above about Mormon farmers. They were crucial to settling the West in our timeline, but I already demonstrated that there were alternatives other timelines could have pursued. I don't know enough about the history you mention to propose alternatives, but they probably exist?...
• Tomas Nau commented on Crib Notes: Empire Games
  Increasing the food surplus enough to at least give a halfway decent shot at industrializing. China OTL after 1500 shows that new world crops were helpful but not a guarantee....
• Robert Prior commented on Crib Notes: Empire Games
  Not just things like the potato. Lumber was extremely important for things like masts — so much so that the British worked hard at organizing commercial lumbering to create an industry that could provide them masts and spars. (Especially important after Napoleon blockaded the Baltic and the American Rebellion limited access/control to former colonies like New England.)...