Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
The Industrial Revolution happened in Britain specifically, and not other parts of Europe, because the precursor technologies were in place to deploy a steam engine at the same time as a real demand for the steam engine(draining coal mines) while a high cost of labor and lack of slavery made conventional means of doing so expensive enough for real demand for a replacement.
The alternate universe where China developed the Industrial Revolution before Britain is one where the cost of labor skyrockets and stays high, while the Chinese invest in researching technologies that precede the steam engine(mostly making better cannon), while switching en masse to the use of coal for fuel.
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