One precursor to the Industrial Revolution was the bubonic plague. When the Black Death wiped out so much of Europe, labor became more expensive, and farming required the invention of tools. Did Rome have any similar events?
I've come to the view that any networked system will co-evolve pathologies which are fitted to that network's specific niche: cities, civilisations, transportation systems, communications systems, social networks, etc., etc.
One challenge is that the growth of such systems occurs in the absence of such pathologies. When they do emerge, things often become quite ugly.