In which ways human progress could had been speeded up ?

For "progress" I mean the economical, technological, scientifically variety.

1- Less barbarian invasions ? Nomadic raids bring a lot of destruction, but
are we sure that unchallenged Roman, Chinese, Indian and Sassanid
empires wouldn't stagnate and turn to a narrowminded path?

2-Less wars? Wars bring a lot of destruction and waste of resources, but at the same time they're sources of innovation (see WWII), and promote government efficiency and centralization.

3-Early discovery of the Americas (how?): so the huge resources of these two continents could had been exploited earlier by the more advanced Eurasians civilizations.

4-Russia and China didn't turn to communism and followed a more traditional
authoritarian path without destroying private property. So economic
prosperity comes earlier and mankind is globally richer at the present date.

5- No caste system in India?

6- Less / no imperialism? But weren't the english better masters in India than the past native autocrats? The Europeans modernized their african subjects
the hard way... What would the Africans had done if left alone?

7 - Certain inventions could simply had been invented and mass produced earlier. What about the printing machine and the steam engine?

8- No slavery?

9-Could the use of phonetic instead of idiographic language had helped greatly Chinese research in the past? It's hard to run a manual printing press when you need several thousand seperate characters.
Which keyboard do the chinese use for their computers today?

10 - Industrious minorities like Jews, Huguenots, Chinese and Indians not
persecuted or expelled?

11- Found a cure against Bubonic plague before its historic time (was it even remotely possible?). It cannot be excluded that deadly epidemics could benefit certain strata of population and be agent of change





Thanks in advance for eventual contributions...