Member-only story
How Many Slaves Work for You?
Energy consumption converted into manpower
For the most of our history, each person had to work for their food and shelter. Basically, all their day was dedicated to survival, and there wasn’t much time to do anything else. Some plain art and artistry did develop, but nothing on the scale we know today.
With the advent of agriculture, society’s structure slowly stretched too far ends; some increasingly had a lot more, some substantially less. Then the rich came up with an invention; they could enslave the poor, gain even more resources, and buy themselves leisure time for pursuing art and science to expand our collective mental horizons. Slavery was a cheat code.
There would be no ancient marvels, no Plato, no Aristotle, no Cicero, no Newton, and indeed no enlightenment without slavery. The energy equation was ruthless; if one man (and it was mostly the male) was to be free to pursue anything other than agriculture and logging, another one had to do their share in the field or in the woods. Draft animals did provide some relief, but those had to eat and be maintained too.
But then, something miraculous happened. People discovered fossil fuels and began to tap into an energy source that accumulated sun energy over millions of years. Once they figured out how to make use of it in engines…
