Ways we could have been technologically advanced/backward?

[Plotinus]

The library of Alexandria not burning down would be a good start I suppose.

Would that really have affected technological development? If the material in the library had survived we'd have a lot of literature and philosophy that has been lost, but I can't imagine there would be much technological difference. Any technology that existed in antiquity existed in the form of actual devices or practices being used, not in the form of books and scrolls.

 

[Virote_Considon]

If Hitler had been assassinated, then there'd have been no time travel.

 

[Plotinus]

Moderator Action: I've moved the argument about Islam to here.

 

[Squonk]

If the crusades had not happened we would not have the hostility between the West and the Middle East.

Yeah, sure, because Byzantium, Visigoths, Ethiopians, Armenians and Georgians all lived happily in peace with muslims until crusades

 

[Lord Baal]

Yeah, sure, because Byzantium, Visigoths, Ethiopians, Armenians and Georgians all lived happily in peace with muslims until crusades

And the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and others all got along splendidly with the Middle East before it converted as well.