It has been suggested that if the Roman Empire had not fallen, we would have advanced as far as 500 years more than where we are today. What are you thoughts? Agree/Disagree?

Ifs and ands were pots and pans. If the Romans (in all likelihood at least) hadn't burned down the fabulous library at Alexandria we would have possibly been on the Moon by the "Dark Ages" as well. So there are two sides to each story I feel.

I can't say I fully agree though for a few reasons.

One it will never happen as civilisations rise and fall. Advances shift around the globe, the dark ages in europe were periods of great advance in the east (e.g. China and India). Even today we can see economic growth shifting away from western countries to developing nations. No-one stays top for ever and everyone is in competition so you don't get passed a baton of "everything we know up to this point" when you become top dog. Good example is Nazi Germany. In 1940 they were top dog more or less, certainly in Europe. By 1946 it was the USA, UK and other allies. But we still pinched the Nazi rocket scientists because they were better at it. We may have won out (via war in this case) but Germany was still more advanced technologically in some aspects. So it is easy to see that some advances may be lost, although in this case it was a bit different as we knew the impact the technology could have.

Secondly I don't think the "Dark Ages" were anywhere near as dark as they are made out to be. Part is a sociological thing; the collapse of the Roman Empire was greatly studied in Victorian England (Britain if you will - the terms were the same in meaning more or less at the time) as Britain was sitting on rather a large empire herself. The Dark Ages were almost "spinned" into being a time of backwardness because they wanted to show the fall of a great empire was the WORST thing that could happen. The second part is we have a good deal of evidence showing there was still advancement and civilisation in Europe following Rome's collapse.

Finally, terrible events can be the catalyst for huge development. The (Pre)Cambrian explosion was probably due to a disaster which killed about 90 odd% of all life allowing the bits that remained to 'advance' more in a few million years following this than they had in the previous billion. I think the same happens sociologically, the renaissance in Europe being an example. Great upheaval in the political climate of east vs. west led to a shift in power and as such, a massive burst in technological advancement in Europe. Necessity being the mother of invention and all that. Not that there wasn't advancement anyway but the condition came good for MASSIVE advancement. Stealing ideas is also relevant here, gunpowder as an example. The Chinese had it but it took until it reached the west to realise its full potential for destruction.

I am not saying that social upheaval does not upset or somehow alter progress, it does. But I think the scale of the problem is overstated as regards the Dark Ages, it ignores advances in other areas of the world and finally ignores that cataclysms can be a driving force for innovation.

EDIT: also a final point: Part of the reason Rome fell, militarily at least, was the pressure from "barbarians". We tend to think of these as uncivilised but we are looking through Roman eyes. The Huns for example had FAR superior bow technology to Rome. They were not primitives. They were is some aspects MORE advanced than Rome. So Rome may partially have fallen BECAUSE they were NOT the most technologically advanced people about :)

Interesting question :)

Butterfly effect... of course we'd be different to how we are now, but we wouldn't have progressed in the same way either... No iPods, no Europe, no America, totally different societies, morals, priorities, currency... It's not that we would be 500 years more advanced, it's that we would have advanced in a totally different way - but no one can say how that would have gone, and you definitely cannot predict that we would be better off if the Roman Empire hadn't fallen (we might have regressed after a while, who knows).

My best guess is that that figure (of 500 years) was calculated using the rate at which the Romans were inventing new and technically advanced things, which was fast. And that is assuming that they wouldn't stop inventing new things at that rate.

Since many libraries containing the knowledge of civilizations that had gone before were destroyed..books were burned..massive eradication occurred..I have to say "yep"..what a tragedy..destroying our past..destroying our bridge to ancient times..even then there were madmen whose wanton destruction negatively affected generation after generation. Bookburners..evildoers! :(

I think we would be more advanced. Think about it, the Roman Empire, had pluming, had a bathing house's, had medicine, had doctors, had great architecture, etc. Then jump ahead to the Mid Evil times. What The F happened? They had nothing of that. They where super unsanitary, not advanced people. So I think we would be way more advanced, because it seemed we lost all our technology after the Roman Empire fell.

A more interesting question, in the same vein, is "what would the world be like if the Roman Republic had never fallen (into Empire, then into dust)?"

If the Roman Republic had never fallen into Empire, and then further into anarchy, we would probably be 1000 years more "advanced" than we are today.

It is quite possible they were very advanced.

Well, I don't think the dark ages were quite as dark as their reputation might suggest, but even so I think it likely that we might be more technologically advanced. On the other hand, we might have wiped ourselves out by now.

She has collapsed under barbarous blows that is was weak. And how weakness could stimulate us for 500 years forward in development? Though destruction to the basis of the old world never was a progress guarantee.

When you watch programs about the history of things, it'll start off in B.C. and go until shortly after the empire fell. Then all of a sudden the narration picks up again in like the 1400s. I always wondered what humanity was doing in all those dark centuries.

I think that in the long term, we are better off without the Roman Empire although it was a great Civilisation in its time.

Had things been slightly different, the Roman Empire might have survived like the Chinese Empire into modern times and covered all of Europe.

However, the EuropeanMiddle Ages were not all bad. Many of our values and institutions have derived from the fragmented societies of Medieval Europe.

The Eastern Roman Empire survived until the mid 1400's and modern Russia and Eastern Europe are its legacy.In this Empire, therewas no pluralism and an authoritarian political regime.There was no political or religious freedom.

In Western Europe, with the Empire gone, things were different.The Church and State were unable to control each other permanantly.In Feudal Europe,pluralism developed due to autonomous nobles and later a middle class.

Since there were many states, it was imposible for one ruler to impose conformity everywhere.Although we owe the Romans a lot,I suspect that much of the freedom that we take for granted comes from the Barbarians.

Lots of interesting answers above... they were certainly into trade, which drove a lot of invention, but were they "capitalist" per se, which helped even more? Would basic freedoms and education have spread across Europe to provide the foundation for a general rising of the tide lifting all boats? If so, maybe we would be more advanced, although it's hard to believe 500 years' worth of advancement.

If you look at our development during the middle ages, there was to some extent a very minimial amount. I don't know so much about Rome, but the Greeks certainly were quite ahead of the time - things like steam engines had already been conceptualized.