What makes modern societies more advanced than those of the past?

The development that is currently experienced by the world has never been so fast before. Just during the past few decades, the countries have made a bigger step than it was ever possible in the past during few centuries. The change can be observed by looking at the World GDP (click the link to see the OWID data). Until the XIXth century, the world GDP hasn't risen significantly. The biggest changes started in the XXth century, and now we're witnessing the most rapid growth. We can ask a question about the reason behind such a change. Just like social development, economic growth (that is also one of the elements of social development), is a complex occurrence and the reason behind advanced growth will have countless factors too, often influencing each other. I consider the following as one of the main contributors:

  • Industrial revolutions/Technology - the revolutions shows the influence of advanced technology on development. Starting from the First Industrial Revolution that is dated back to the XVIII century that provided a transition from hand production to machines and introduced many new methods. Since then we have gone through other revolutions up to the current times when we are thought to be experiencing the next one - the Digital Revolution. All of them introduced many new inventions that enabled people to produce more efficiently and helped to develop societies. Summing up, more and more advanced technology ease the struggle of the development. 
  • Globalization - it is thought to start as early as the first geographical discoveries. Connecting more and more lands together, introducing colonialism, making the trade global occurrence, etc. All of the steps let many countries to enrich oneself and move further, however often using other territories for their own benefit.
  • Education - educated society performances better. Not only choices of the people are more conscious but also more of them are able to make their ideas happen, because of the knowledge they gained. Each of them is a part of society's development. Their own growth sums up as growth of society. Also, the expansion of academic fields, studies, data let us make better decisions as individuals and societies. 

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