How big a deal was the Industrial Revolution?

Abstract

This page grew out of one of my investigations for Open Phil, but then I got fascinated and put a bunch of personal time into elaborating certain parts of it, and it evolved into something that I think is pretty cool, but which would take more work than it’s worth to vet and edit it such that it would be appropriate for Open Phil’s website, so we decided I should just post it here instead as a personal project. Hence, the below doesn’t represent Open Phil’s position on anything, and should be taken merely as my own personal guesses and opinions.