The history of our modern technologies certainly stretches back to the beginnings of what has been called the first industrial revolution dating from the invention of the first mechanical devices such as those used in weaving and spinning in the early 18th century. The development of this kind of automation rapidly spread throughout England in the rest of that century and by the turn of the 19th, the addition of steam power to the first portfolio of mechanical inventions was rapidly changing the speed and distances over which production and consumption could be organised. To an extent, these developments enabled cities and society to grow. To that date, all cities in history had never had the technologies to break out of the one million population straitjacket that constrained their growth, and it was only after new modes of travel were invented, first the railway and then in the early 20th century, the car (and the plane), that cities began to spread out: in short, the creation of the urban society we now have is entirely consistent with these revolutions in technology that have been taking place during the last 250 years.

中文翻译：

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数字革命的不可预测性

我们现代技术的历史当然可以追溯到所谓的第一次工业革命的开端，其历史可以追溯到第一批机械设备的发明，例如 18 世纪早期用于编织和纺纱的机械设备。在那个世纪剩下的时间里，这种自动化的发展迅速遍及整个英格兰，到 19 世纪初，第一批机械发明中增加的蒸汽动力正在迅速改变生产和消费的速度和距离。被组织起来。在某种程度上，这些发展使城市和社会得以发展。迄今为止，历史上的所有城市都没有突破限制其增长的百万人口束缚的技术，只有在发明了新的出行方式之后，