> That includes things like clothing, but it also includes more staggering ideas like hand-spinning all the fabric for sails for ships, which is a seriously nontrivial amount of time!
The problem is that there is push and pull.
The Cotton Gin is quite famous about this. Anyone could have invented the cotton gin--and lots probably did. The problem is that nobody needed an order of magnitude more cotton--until they did. And once they did need more cotton--hey, presto--the cotton gin becomes widespread.
The problem is that there is push and pull.
The Cotton Gin is quite famous about this. Anyone could have invented the cotton gin--and lots probably did. The problem is that nobody needed an order of magnitude more cotton--until they did. And once they did need more cotton--hey, presto--the cotton gin becomes widespread.