re: #131 Fairly Sure I’m Still Obdicut

Being boring for hundreds of years. The clergy had a ton of power and attempts to modernize education got met with “No ‘cuz god” a lot. Everything was entrenched, it was difficult to change any system. There were no strong leaders with great interest in science, whereas there were in the West. Power was more concentrated, which meant more stagnant. Finally, they didn’t rely on naval power as much as the West did, and a hell of lot of the original advances which go the Enlightenment going were solving problems in naval warfare and travel. Ottoman naval science was almost all about mediterranean fleets, which is very different from ocean-crossing fleets.

Very good points, Obdi, and I agree with them. The only thing I’d point out is that the Ottoman’s had little ‘felt need’ to cross oceans. They couldn’t reach the Atlantic because trying to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar would have put them right next to Spain’s ports and far from their own. The only way they could have gone was towards the Indian Ocean and their was nothing there that the Turks needed a fleet to acquire or protect.