Discussion on answer by Graham: How might a science-fiction world's technology advance faster than our own?

You see, these are the problems when you are cherry-picking, and go so far as to mix up things from many centuries apart, only to push an ideological agenda.

@Graham And this is not true either. Indeed now there is a focus on building houses as cheaply and quickly as as possible, because you can install AC, but this does not mean not knowing how to build better insulation. There were Europeans peasant houses with pretty good insulation and placement (direction of the courtyard, other buildings, trees, to use the prevailing wind directions for temperature regulation, etc.)

@Graham Again, not true. Do you even know when the Enlightenment was, and what it would mean a century after that?? Europe already had better naval technology in the early 1500s, circumnavigating the globe and having trade outposts, and later colonies, all across the globe. Just because some corsairs kept raiding, it does not hint at better technology. There are plenty of similar examples of raiding even today.