this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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It was the black death.
It caused wages to rise due to the reduction in available labour force, and increased social mobility (through the amount of positions it left available) and personal wealth of the survivors (through inheritance and looting), kick-starting the renaissance.
From there, it was all dominoes. More wealth allowed more commerce and innovation (here's where the naval technology comes in), which led to the discovery and ransacking (and eventual colonisation of America) which led to more wealth and commerce and innovation and social mobility, which led to less social stability, wars, more innovation, a series of political, social, and industrial revolutions, a vicious circle of runaway capitalism devouring everything in its path, the ideal of eternal growth, and the raping to death of the only world we have.
No black death, we'd probably still be living in the middle ages (with better plows and bigger cathedrals, sure, there was still plenty of innovation back then), and complaining about the cold instead of the ever rising heat.