Yes I inverted it to burning coal is called the industrial revolution because I think it’s neat way to look at it.

I’m thinking through the history of energy: We burned wood. Then we burned coal. Then we burned oil. Then we burned atoms.

  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    Many people think of industrial developments in slightly different terms. Industry 4.0 is a fairly modern way to look at it.

    “The First Industrial Revolution was marked by a transition from hand production methods to machines through the use of steam power and water power. “

    “The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, is the period between 1871 and 1914 that resulted from installations of extensive railroad and telegraph networks, which allowed for faster transfer of people and ideas, as well as electricity.”

    “The Third Industrial Revolution, also known as the Digital Revolution, began in the late 20th century. It is characterized by the shift to an economy centered on information technology, marked by the advent of personal computers, the Internet, and the widespread digitalization of communication and industrial processes.”

    Burning coal was common in stage 1, oil gradually became more common in stage 2, nuclear in stage 3 etc. In this system, the power source wasn’t really the defining feature, but what you could do with it was.

  • SSTF@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Either of the first two Industrial Revolutions were not named because of the burning of coal in and of itself. Coal burning was part of the widespread and rapid transformation of society. Coal played a part in facilitating previously unthinkable changes in a short time.

    The adoption of cars has been more iterative and gradual. In the U.S. there are certain periods important for them such as, depending on how much you think it had an effect, the General Motors streetcar conspiracy. There was also the post WW2 push by Eisenhower to building National highways. But those didn’t radically and quickly change life in the way industrial revolutions did. There was the post-war boom, which if you want to view it through a certain lens, was a kind of revolution for the U.S., in that people found themselves with much more buying power thanks to the U.S. having assumed superpower status.

    Similarly nuclear power production has not caused widespread fundamental change in a short period. Nuclear weapons did become a major part of geopolitics, but nuclear power is as far as society is concerned just another way to make electricity.

    • someguy3@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 days ago

      Yes I inverted it to burning coal is called the industrial revolution because I think it’s neat way to look at it.

      • SSTF@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I’m not sure what you mean by this. The industrial revolutions were not just about burning coal.

        • someguy3@lemmy.worldOP
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          4 days ago

          It’s useful to think about things by turning them on their head, aka inverting them. In this case: Burning of coal facilitated the industrial revolution. Yes, yes, yes, I know all the things that it was not caused by the burning of coal, it as not “just about burning coal”, it was not named because of the burning of coal, things were iterative, etc, etc, etc. But it behooves you turn things on their head and think through them in different ways.

          In the bigger sense of turning things on their head, we can look at energy sources as we go through history: We burned wood. Then we burned coal. Then we burned oil. Then we burned atoms.

  • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    At least in the USA, it is known as the Robber Barron period as the extremely wealthy monopolized everything.

    • SSTF@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Robber barons were in many ways also tied to coal.

      Robber barons are just a more evocative way of framing the period compared to the dry Industrial Revolution term, similar to calling it the Gilded Age, but all the terms are roughly talking about the same time period.

  • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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    3 days ago

    The industrial revolution is when we went from mostly normal farmers to industrial scale production in factories, hence the name. The next “revolution” will either be a “renewable revolution” or there will be no revolution, only devolution

      • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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        3 days ago

        I don’t like his question since its a stupid question that ignores basic history. There have been only a couple of true revolutions, and oil and cars ain’t one imo

  • marcos@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    There has been a Second and Third Industrial Revolutions.

    It would be the Second one, but it’s not the oil that marks it. It’s electricity.