What if the Industrial Revolution had gone differently?

Mechanised production compounds output per person for the first time in history.

If it had gone differently: Growth stays flat and Malthusian; most people alive in 1900 live about as their great-grandparents did.

The real history on Wikipedia ↗

Later turning points that leaned on the Industrial Revolution. Change it in the game and the ripples reach all of these.

1. 1804The Jacquard loom. Without it, The punched card is never invented; computing loses its oldest idea and its first physical form.
2. 1830The railway boom. Without it, Interiors stay isolated; cities stay walkable-sized and national markets never really knit together.
3. 1839The Opium Wars. Without it, China is never prised open by force; it meets the industrial world on its own terms, or stays closed to it.
4. 1859The first oil wells. Without it, The world runs on coal and whale oil; there is no cheap liquid fuel waiting for the engine that needs it.
5. 1870The first globalisation. Without it, The world economy stays a patchwork of regions; no belle-époque boom, and no 1914 shock when it unwinds.
6. 1882Electric power grids. Without it, Factories stay chained to their own steam plants; there is no clean power in the home and no electronics to come.