What is meant by Industrial Revolutions?

- In the 13 billion years that the universe has existed, us humans, or Homo sapiens, have occupied a really short period of that time. It's around 200 to 300,000 years in total. Through that time, we discovered how to make fire. We invented mathematics and money, created the written word, built cities, cured diseases, went to war many times, and ended the 20th century sending and returning humans to another world. For most of our history, human populations remained small and lived in tight and largely disconnected communities. Barely 200 years ago, the entire population of our planet was less than one billion people. Today, we have just surpassed eight billion, and we will likely reach 11 billion by the end of this century with the majority living in an urban context. In the 21st century, we expect access to electricity, schools for our children, a system of law and order, efficient transportation systems, and economic opportunity from factory jobs to office occupations. Today, few of us in the developed world have any appreciation for a pre-industrial world. It's as unrecognizable as the 21st century would look to someone who lived 200 years ago. The modern world, as we know it, is barely a few hundred years old. For over 99% of the time humans have existed, progress was painfully slow, then everything suddenly changed. The significant transformation of the human experience in just a brief few centuries is a consequence of a series of monumental revolutions. In this course, we'll narrowly focus on the industrial revolutions. The world that entered each revolution looked and behaved differently on the tail-end of that revolution. Change occurred particularly from the perspective of technologies, socioeconomics, and culture. Each resulted in massive disruption. The emergence of mass production factories, for example, resulted in a whole range of remarkable outcomes from leaps in the standard of living and the adoption of the 40-hour work week to trade unions and cheaper goods. We are still struggling with the negative impacts of these revolutions, too. For example, the first industrial revolution, which originated in Britain in the late 1700s, saw the beginning of widespread use of coal. Today's scientists believe coal has contributed significantly towards human-caused climate change, and it continues to do so. These revolutions also produced an even distribution of winners, and unfortunately, a large number of losers. Some nations and continents benefited early while others only began to prosper in the late 20th century. A few remaining nations have yet to see the socioeconomic benefits. Each of the three industrial revolutions have been periods of notable consequence. The emergence of a fourth revolution must be seen through the same lens. The world that enters this revolution will look different on the other end. Its effects may be unevenly distributed, and yes, there will be winners and losers. We must proceed with caution. It may be a mistake to believe that most fundamentals will remain intact, to believe that core human experiences will be, perhaps, only marginally altered. Nobody can say with any certainty what will happen next. However, I'm making a bet that the scope, impact, and velocity of change ahead will far exceed what most expect.