Post: #26

(07-17-2015 02:51 PM)Phoenix Wrote:  

(07-17-2015 02:27 PM)fifty Wrote:  The Shanghai index collapse also represents teething problems for the financial markets but what is clear now is that the govt is committed to developing a more sophistical financial system which means easier access to capital in layman's terms.

I'm long China if it isn't clear and I'm long India too. While India started of with services, all the low grade crap has been moved to the Philippines and the have captured the quantitative jobs of the globalized world which benefited from the existing IT infrastructure in their country. The new leader there Modi is a man who means business too so we will see.

I don't get this "the government creates the economy" attitude. The economy is not a government creation, it is the source of their loot. It's hilarious when you hear that their five year plan says "we will have 10% growth", as though economic reality is just a government dictate. Like "we have decided today, that there will be rain", and it rains. Let's not have any of the "this time it will be different" stuff. Let's not have a repeat of the "the Japanese are taking over the world" of the 80s, and replacing the word "Japan" with "China". They have banking rot, empty cities, real estate bubbles, and they are due for a crash. They also don't have an age demographic situation much different to the Japanese either, by the way.

The government is not where "a sophisticated financial system" comes from, it is an inhibitory influence thereof with its piles of regulations issued by know-nothing bureaucrats who demand people call them significant and pay them for their obstructionist 'services'. Financial markets come from businessmen, and those markets becoming "more sophisticated" comes from the competition therebetween.

From what I see, hear, and read, India is corrupt and dilapidated to a truly ridiculous level. Jim Rogers says the same. I remember reading an article about the coal industry, and the level of corruption was eye-watering, like people having to pay local mafia and government officials to permit coal to be loaded/unloaded etc from trains each time. I talked to a Malaysian guy and his description of doing business in India was the most opaque, random, heel-dragging, rent-seeking government regulatory delinquency I've ever heard. Stuff like giving bureaucrats gifts for every random bullshit form you had to fill in to do any kind of business whatsoever, as a condition for the form not remaining on the bottom of the pile till the end of time. I would not put money in India. "Modi is a man who means business" means nothing. Every leader paints themselves as someone who will fix things, and none of them do because they lack the power, the desire, or the ability.

+1 Rep from me, this is a SUPER solid post, there's a LOT of things happening in China now finance that convince me to be bearish on China, I was bullish on them for a bit in 2009 . . .until I got more acquainted with how the Chinese people operate, their government, and their own financial problems. I have been pretty much convinced that the bad banking practices that suck money from the middle class and poor and distributed it to the rich are already in play in China, as was/is in America. The Big banks have already infiltrated China and the government banks have been acting as the big American banks have...since 2009. China is not this big boogey man, and in fact, they're in a bit of a "situation" right now, that if they don't resolve delicately, could turn into a bad situation economy wise.

The bolded is what I honestly think happened to Obama, now I'm not trying to "Zelcorpion" the thread (sorry man haha) but I honestly think that he was VERY idealistic about what he could do for the country, but once he got in that position, he was more or less forced to toe the corporate line or else end up like Kennedy or Clinton, I kind of think that the constant ribbing of him by everyone, from the birthers to the Co-Opted Tea party, was done on purpose to keep him "reminded" of who his masters really are, I think he eventually caved and just decided to "roll with it" instead of enacting the REAL change he truly wanted to.

If China truly were to pull an Iceland, then yeah, I'd be bullish on China, until then, I can't say that I'd be down for China in the long haul, they REALLY need to rein their bankers in.

Post: #27

(07-17-2015 06:01 PM)fifty Wrote:  I think you've spectacularly missed the point being made.

When those civilizations were on top they innovated and pushed the human race forward, when the 'West' ascended to the top they took these contributions and pushed the boundaries forward just as whoever ascends next will continue to push the boundary of what we are capable of.

Before the 19th Century (arguably the late 18th), there was no such thing as being on top in a global sense. The technological superiority of China never approached the heights that Europeans would achieve later. Geopolitically, China never projected her power into other continents, while India's cultural impact on SE Asia is massive yet it remained a primarily cultural force and not a lasting geopolitical one.

Quote:Fun fact : when ancient Hindu scientists had already predicted that the Earth was round and calculated the distance from the Earth to the Sun, Galileo was yet to be born. Kind of puts the western centric education we get in school in perspective eh?

The ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round and quite accurately calculated its circumference...over a millennium before Galileo was born as well.

The western centric education we get (or, more accurately, used to get) in schools is proper, given those schools are in the west. I'm of the opinion that all societies should place themselves at the center of their worldviews, and so Chinese schools should be sinocentric and so on.

Quote:I'm more than aware of Asoka just as I am of the Mughal emperors who came to power after him like Shah Jahan, Jahangir etc after he took to Buddhism. None of these rulers systematically transferred wealth to a different geographical region and more importantly they did not destroy the existing education systems or create a 'false market' that has already been covered in this thread.

Just to clarify, Ashoka wasn't a Mughal emperor, he was part of the Maurya dynasty some 1500 years before the Mughals came to power.

Afghan raiders transferred massive amounts of wealth to their own lands for centuries. Mahmud of Ghazni is only one example. Ahmad Shah Durrani, ransacking India about 700 years later, is another. Here's an account of a Turkic raider in 1200, during his pillaging and destruction of a religious college (such raids all but eradicated Buddhism from the subcontinent):

Muhammad-i-Bakht-yar, by the force of his intrepidity, threw himself into the postern of the gateway of the place, and they captured the fortress, and acquired great booty. The greater number of the inhabitants of that place were Brahmans, and the whole of those Brahmans had their heads shaven; and they were all slain. There were a great number of books there; and, when all these books came under the observation of the Musalmans, they summoned a number of Hindus that they might give them information respecting the import of those books; but the whole of the Hindus had been killed. On becoming acquainted [with the contents of those books], it was found that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindui tongue, they call a college [مدرسه] Bihar.

Comparatively, the British were benevolent conquerors.

Quote:Agreed. They are keen to blame these things too but definitely not at the expense of Euro Colonialism. It is still the defining historical theme in a lot of these nations and it is pointless to argue otherwise.

European colonialism is certainly a defining theme, given its the reason they exist as countries, and the reason they possess modern technology and knowledge. However to blame ex-colonial countries' circumstances on colonialism strikes me as deterministic and incorrect. Argentina prospered after its independence but squandered much of this through governmental bungling throughout the course of the 20th Century; Cambodia was relatively well-positioned to develop peacefully after her independence but unwise leadership in the 1960's and insane/bloodsoaked leadership in the 1970's ruined all that. I'm not for a minute trying to deny the central impact of Spain and France on those countries (nor does anyone else), but you can't seriously blame them for what happened after they upped and left (and in the case of Cambodia, the Khmer would likely have been annexed by their neighbors and denied statehood if not for the intervention of French colonialism).

Quote:The times my friend, they are a-changing.

I fully agree, but history doesn't a-change.

Post: #28

It's best for everyone not to bring up race issues here. I have had threads that as far as I could tell were not race related where things went sideways and members were warned.

Post: #29

(07-17-2015 03:35 PM)fifty Wrote:  The BJP govt has promised clean governance and removal of red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy.

We shall see. Even small-government Reagan grew his.

Post: #30

(07-17-2015 08:19 PM)Saga Wrote:  there was no such thing as being on top in a global sense. The technological superiority of China never approached the heights that Europeans would achieve later

This is false. There is definitely being on top as a global sense. It is why Colombus set out in search of India after hearing tales of it's wealth only to land up in the new world.

Tech superiority never approached the heights because you are looking at it in hindsight which is a horrible tool. It would've been impossible to build a plane in the time period when say the Egyptians were on top given the building blocks were not in place. If the [insert random civilization] were on top now there is no evidence to suggest that they would be incapable of doing what we are doing.

(07-17-2015 08:19 PM)Saga Wrote:  The western centric education we get (or, more accurately, used to get) in schools is proper, given those schools are in the west.

That is fair. It however becomes a problem when it delivers a one-eyed myopic portrayal of the world which unfortunately is what our system is doing. Did you read about the situation lately where schools are moving to remove the period of slavery from HS textbooks because they show America in a bad light? What the actual fuck? This is why people are still getting pissed of in this day and age with the classic revisionism at play. But wait, let's blame the SJW's.

Quote:Comparatively, the British were benevolent conquerors.

You couldn't BE more wrong. The Brits were not benevolent in any sense though i'm not surprised you think so because they did re-write the history books. In fact people are coming out with it more and more.

Here,
Winston Churchill responsible for over 3 million deaths in the Bengal famine.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pol...18317.html

Cases like this were widely spread out though no one seems to speak much about it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre

As Indians become more integrated into the global system and their literature becomes more mainstream in western society we will hear more and more of this.

In fact here is something pretty cool, while Gandhi is a giant of history going down "on par with Jesus and the Buddha" the real hero's of India's freedom struggle were apparently revolutionaries who were laying down their lives, firebombing the British, Allying with axis powers in some cases and were on the verge of taking the fight to Churchill's doorstep. This is when the Brits really sat down with Gandhi and dialogue became constructive. Check out a guy called Shaheed Bhagat Singh. His face is pure disdain for the establishment - very similar to El Che.

BTW good to see some who knows about Asoka.

Quote: the reason they possess modern technology and knowledge. However to blame ex-colonial countries' circumstances on colonialism strikes me as deterministic and incorrect.

These nations would've possessed this technology through trade either way like the Japanese. More importantly they would've been manufactured locally which would've lead to their Industrial revolutions which were denied to them by the chains of colonialism. In fact basically what is happening in China is their manufacturing/Industrial revolution right now.

No one is blaming them for what happened after they left. The state in which they were left in with non-functioning economies, derelict educational institutions etc is something squarely at the door of Euro nations.

Nation states were haphazardly carved out in Africa bringing together ethnicities that had never co-existed before led to so much of the bloodshed we have seem this past half-century. Jews relocated to a land they was inhabited by the Arabs as compensation for WW2 which affected the Arabs even though they played no part in the genocide leading to the big Israel problem, the hastily drawn borders between India Pakistan which led to the largest human migration the world has seen till date, a nuclear arms race, the birth of Bangaladesh and 3 wars.

Belgians introducing a cycle of violence in the Congo and then hiring mercenaries to further exploit wealth. The Brits convincing the CIA to overthrow a democratically elected leader in Iran because he had the gall to try and do right by his people by nationalizing the oil industry which led to the Shah a fucking despot who terrorized his people with Western petrodollars and ultimately led to the revolution of '79 which was hijacked by the Ayatollahs. It is also fucking infuriating when you realize that the Belgians had a bloody museum celebrating their rule in the Congo as a 'civilizing' mission conveniently ignoring the fact that colonial officers were regularly chopping native black limbs for failing to meet rubber quotas.

More importantly when it comes to time-scale for nation building India and China are far ahead of schedule. They've just been around ~75 years and the dragon is breathing fire while India has managed to do what Europe couldn't. Unite a population more diverse than Europe with 150 million muslims , 700 + million Hindus, Christians, Sikhs etc, 1000+ languages and numerous ethnic groups into a single nation.

I apologize for the lack of coherence, I had a lot of thoughts and very little time but I hope you get the gist. I won't be replying anymore because this isn't the right kind of medium for such conversations and two people who I really wanted to hear from have been kind enough to take it to PM as they did not want to derail this tread.

I'll just leave with one of the quotes that resonated heavily when I first heard it - They say when Bonaparte Napolean had a world map in front of him he pointed to China and quietly said "Let her sleep, when she awakens she will shake the world" and I think that it worth a bet that India could be the proverbial tortoise to the Chinese hare.

Post: #31

Why did fifty get banned for "bringing up race issues" because he pointed out the relatively short hegemony of western culture, but when white guys celebrate western superiority, they are allowed to stay? Indirectly, a lot of members on this forum basically imply that western culture is the best, and if only post-modern liberals didn't corrupt it so much, our glory days would return. I think the latter statement is true, but eh, it kind of implies that western culture contains the seeds of its own self-corrosion. That's a knock on western culture, no?

Post: #32

Also, fifty offered a lot of perspective on history. The entire point is that history is very long, while western ascendance is less than 1000 years (and that's being generous), and a lot of the problems of the non-western world (though by no means all of them) do come from a relatively short period of western imperialism that massively fucked up the natural way of things. The nation state is an incredibly modern invention, and when you arbitrarily impose these creations on local cultures, it's kind of inevitable many will chafe under those restrictions, as we are seeing in the middle east.

Post: #33

(07-18-2015 11:48 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  Why did fifty get banned for "bringing up race issues" because he pointed out the relatively short hegemony of western culture, but when white guys celebrate western superiority, they are allowed to stay? Indirectly, a lot of members on this forum basically imply that western culture is the best, and if only post-modern liberals didn't corrupt it so much, our glory days would return. I think the latter statement is true, but eh, it kind of implies that western culture contains the seeds of its own self-corrosion. That's a knock on western culture, no?

Don't even bother.

WIA

Post: #34

(07-18-2015 11:48 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  Why did fifty get banned for "bringing up race issues" because he pointed out the relatively short hegemony of western culture, but when white guys celebrate western superiority, they are allowed to stay? Indirectly, a lot of members on this forum basically imply that western culture is the best, and if only post-modern liberals didn't corrupt it so much, our glory days would return. I think the latter statement is true, but eh, it kind of implies that western culture contains the seeds of its own self-corrosion. That's a knock on western culture, no?

There's a very non-trivial chance that fifty is but a secondary account of OP (whose aggressively phaggoty thread title would have invited a ban in and of itself, although I do get a kick out of foreigners using "Yank" and random All You Zombies references [even if incidental]) with similar names, join times, and being suddenly active on the same thread.

I have no problems with white guys celebrating western "superiority," I find it kind of refreshing. My main issue is with the term "superior," when deployed--it's incredibly vague and unrigorous, and perhaps unnecessarily provocative.

(07-18-2015 11:48 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  Also, fifty offered a lot of perspective on history. The entire point is that history is very long, while western ascendance is less than 1000 years (and that's being generous), and a lot of the problems of the non-western world (though by no means all of them) do come from a relatively short period of western imperialism that massively fucked up the natural way of things. The nation state is an incredibly modern invention, and when you arbitrarily impose these creations on local cultures, it's kind of inevitable many will chafe under those restrictions, as we are seeing in the middle east.

There are two main issues involved in the exercise of trying to attribute the current struggles of Country X or Country Y to Western Imperialism/Colonization, i.e. the claim that if not for Western Imperialism/Colonization, Country X or Country Y would be doing better.

1. Endogeneity / Selection Bias. The set of countries that were later imperialized/colonized are not random relative to the population of countries in the world. Countries looking to do some imperialization/colonization approaches are naturally going to go after low hanging fruit. Countries that were later imperialized/colonized tended to have distinct characteristics (weak nation-states, low technological levels, etc.), that may or may not have improved in the absence of imperialization.

2. Just-So Narratives / Post Hoc Fallacy. Some people see Country A doing well and Country B doing well, and observe that at some point in the past, Country A colonized/imperialized Country B, and thus automatically attribute the relative differences in performances to imperialization/colonization--naturally forgetting the cases where the former imperialist/colonizing country isn't doing so well, and the former imperialized/colonized country is doing well, or they're both doing well or poorly.

Japan ceased colonization of Taiwan around the same time as Britain did with India and the Europeans started pulling out en masse from Africa. Because Taiwan is doing well, people forget about the colonization entirely (fun exercise: quizzing your Taiwanese American friends as to who controlled Taiwan in the first half of the 20th century) or assume the colonization was mildly beneficial. However, if Taiwan didn't turn out so well, people would assume the current struggles were due to the legacy of Japanese colonization.

Arguments attributing country performances (or lack thereof) to the legacies of imperialism should be viewed with the same degree of skepticism as arguments attributing women being less motivated to achieve on the right tail to the legacies of patriarchy. They're both very much possible, but rigor in demonstrating so is wanting.

Post: #35

(07-18-2015 05:00 PM)Kabal Wrote:  

(07-18-2015 11:48 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  Why did fifty get banned for "bringing up race issues" because he pointed out the relatively short hegemony of western culture, but when white guys celebrate western superiority, they are allowed to stay? Indirectly, a lot of members on this forum basically imply that western culture is the best, and if only post-modern liberals didn't corrupt it so much, our glory days would return. I think the latter statement is true, but eh, it kind of implies that western culture contains the seeds of its own self-corrosion. That's a knock on western culture, no?

There's a very non-trivial chance that fifty is but a secondary account of OP (whose aggressively phaggoty thread title would have invited a ban in and of itself, although I do get a kick out of foreigners using "Yank" and random All You Zombies references [even if incidental]) with similar names, join times, and being suddenly active on the same thread.

I have no problems with white guys celebrating western "superiority," I find it kind of refreshing. My main issue is with the term "superior," when deployed--it's incredibly vague and unrigorous, and perhaps unnecessarily provocative.

(07-18-2015 11:48 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  Also, fifty offered a lot of perspective on history. The entire point is that history is very long, while western ascendance is less than 1000 years (and that's being generous), and a lot of the problems of the non-western world (though by no means all of them) do come from a relatively short period of western imperialism that massively fucked up the natural way of things. The nation state is an incredibly modern invention, and when you arbitrarily impose these creations on local cultures, it's kind of inevitable many will chafe under those restrictions, as we are seeing in the middle east.

There are two main issues involved in the exercise of trying to attribute the current struggles of Country X or Country Y to Western Imperialism/Colonization, i.e. the claim that if not for Western Imperialism/Colonization, Country X or Country Y would be doing better.

1. Endogeneity / Selection Bias. The set of countries that were later imperialized/colonized are not random relative to the population of countries in the world. Countries looking to do some imperialization/colonization approaches are naturally going to go after low hanging fruit. Countries that were later imperialized/colonized tended to have distinct characteristics (weak nation-states, low technological levels, etc.), that may or may not have improved in the absence of imperialization.

2. Just-So Narratives / Post Hoc Fallacy. Some people see Country A doing well and Country B doing well, and observe that at some point in the past, Country A colonized/imperialized Country B, and thus automatically attribute the relative differences in performances to imperialization/colonization--naturally forgetting the cases where the former imperialist/colonizing country isn't doing so well, and the former imperialized/colonized country is doing well, or they're both doing well or poorly.

Japan ceased colonization of Taiwan around the same time as Britain did with India and the Europeans started pulling out en masse from Africa. Because Taiwan is doing well, people forget about the colonization entirely (fun exercise: quizzing your Taiwanese American friends as to who controlled Taiwan in the first half of the 20th century) or assume the colonization was mildly beneficial. However, if Taiwan didn't turn out so well, people would assume the current struggles were due to the legacy of Japanese colonization.

Arguments attributing country performances (or lack thereof) to the legacies of imperialism should be viewed with the same degree of skepticism as arguments attributing women being less motivated to achieve on the right tail to the legacies of patriarchy. They're both very much possible, but rigor in demonstrating so is wanting.

This would be a valid argument... but two problems:

1. It's a straw man: nobody is saying colonized countries would be doing better had they not been colonized - that's a baseless counterfactual. We have no idea what would have happened. What we are saying is the existing problems of today's countries can be attributed in many cases to imperialism (note: Many does not mean all, or even most - it could be 40 countries, which would be 'many' but a minority of the entire field of nation states). This is not to say all problems of country x or y are due to imperialism, or that all countries who are struggling today were imperialized, or that all imperialized countries suffered to the same extent (or even at all). But it is saying that a) a lot of countries with massive fuckups have deep roots in imperialism and b) when evaluating said fucked up countries' cultures, it's valid to discount for the wounds of the past. Sure, a Taiwan or India or Singapore might be on the fence when it comes to the record of imperialism; a Congo, Haiti, Rhodesia, and South Africa is pretty black and white. I could understand if the historical record dated several hundred years, but in many cases, the legacy of imperialism didn't end until half way into the 20th century. That's only a few generations for entire countries to get over a) being built on culturally/ethnically dubious foundations often set by their ex-colonizers b) getting over the perverse social, racial, and economic effects of being a colony and c) achieving levels of modernity the western world took 200 years to obtain.

2. The "low hanging fruit" argument - valid in the sense that the countries who were conquered were indeed inferior civilizations at that time. But invalid if you you then take that one snapshot in time and extrapolate to the civilization generally. At least not without proper historical context. It's like saying the Lakers are an inferior franchise while ignoring their 10+ championships historically across multiple decades and eras. So yeah, about 500 years ago the non-west were inferior to the west - they were slow to industrialize, slow to adopt gunpowder armies, etc. But 800 years ago Europe was trembling to at the feet of the mongols, marco polo was marveling at asia, and the arabs lead the way in math and science.

Post: #36

(07-18-2015 11:52 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  Also, fifty offered a lot of perspective on history. The entire point is that history is very long, while western ascendance is less than 1000 years (and that's being generous), and a lot of the problems of the non-western world (though by no means all of them) do come from a relatively short period of western imperialism that massively fucked up the natural way of things.

I hear people saying this with some regularity, but it's actually not true. All of the measurable data (population of cities, extent of trade, technology, energy usage, etc) found by archaeologists and used to measure "social development" is surprisingly consistent. And it shows that the "West", which also includes ancient Mesopotamia, was always far ahead of the "East" since 14,000 BC. The period of Eastern ascendance for 1000 years which began in roughly 500 AD was in fact the anamoly.

There's a book written by Stanford Classicist and Historian Ian Morris called "Why the West Rules- For Now" which offers a well written and thorough treatment of this subject.

Post: #37

(07-19-2015 03:55 PM)Chevalier De Seingalt Wrote:  

(07-18-2015 11:52 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  Also, fifty offered a lot of perspective on history. The entire point is that history is very long, while western ascendance is less than 1000 years (and that's being generous), and a lot of the problems of the non-western world (though by no means all of them) do come from a relatively short period of western imperialism that massively fucked up the natural way of things.

I hear people saying this with some regularity, but it's actually not true. All of the measurable data (population of cities, extent of trade, technology, energy usage, etc) found by archaeologists and used to measure "social development" is surprisingly consistent. And it shows that the "West", which also includes ancient Mesopotamia, was always far ahead of the "East" since 14,000 BC. The period of Eastern ascendance for 1000 years which began in roughly 500 AD was in fact the anamoly.

There's a book written by Stanford Classicist and Historian Ian Morris called "Why the West Rules- For Now" which offers a well written and thorough treatment of this subject.

I agree Mesopotamia is technically the west, but you know that's not what the white race trolls parrot right? Their conception of the west is basically western europe, maybe Scandinavia, UK, and U.S./Canada. If Mesopotamia actually was part of their conception of the west, wouldn't that entail allowing places like modern day Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and Greece into the party?

Post: #38

(07-19-2015 03:55 PM)Chevalier De Seingalt Wrote:  

(07-18-2015 11:52 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  Also, fifty offered a lot of perspective on history. The entire point is that history is very long, while western ascendance is less than 1000 years (and that's being generous), and a lot of the problems of the non-western world (though by no means all of them) do come from a relatively short period of western imperialism that massively fucked up the natural way of things.

I hear people saying this with some regularity, but it's actually not true. All of the measurable data (population of cities, extent of trade, technology, energy usage, etc) found by archaeologists and used to measure "social development" is surprisingly consistent. And it shows that the "West", which also includes ancient Mesopotamia, was always far ahead of the "East" since 14,000 BC. The period of Eastern ascendance for 1000 years which began in roughly 500 AD was in fact the anamoly.

There's a book written by Stanford Classicist and Historian Ian Morris called "Why the West Rules- For Now" which offers a well written and thorough treatment of this subject.

Also, not really sure if Mesopotamia was ever more "civiized" or more advanced than China or India. I was always under the impression they were peers while Mesopotamia was vibrant.

Post: #39

The OP's argument is like listening to a gambler talking about how he won ten thousand dollars fifteen years ago as he puts his last dollar into a penny slot machine.

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Post: #40

(07-17-2015 02:27 PM)fifty Wrote:  

(07-17-2015 01:02 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Calling bullshit on OPs first chart. The calculations do not make sense given Rome and Constantinople were the largest cities in the world during their respective heyday.

The Roman empire ended in 27 BC

Yeah... Roman empire ended in 27 BC? Even a 2 second wikipedia check would have saved you from this embarrassing statement.

Quote: and the chart starts from AD. Constantinople was a city and the chart is for regions demarcated according to modern day national boundaries. It's kind of hard to have a rational conversation with someone incapable of deciphering a simple bar chart.

Claiming "Constantinople was a city" is like saying NYC is a city or Shanghai is a city. These ancient mega-cities were worth more than most countries back then, nevermind the rest of the empire surrounding it. It's a bar chart based on non-existent history and consequently there is nothing to decipher.

He posted non-arguments, horrible history, and some wonder why this troll was banned?

Post: #41

I know the OP is a banned race troll, but the chart he posted is ridiculous as well, since he's talking about Europe, or "The West" but his chart only mentions one Western country. China and India always had higher populations than Europe, especially compared to only one European country, so if you instead measured it by Europe as a whole, the disparity would probably not be as large.

Of course the Western civilization didn't start to become the dominant one globally until around 1500 and even then not overwhelmingly so until the 19th century, the world was far more multipolar, but I just wanted to point that out.

Finally, the OP really didn't mention the extent of how important innovation is to an economy and civilization and erroneously assumes that it was all "because you Yanks broke the backs of other economies." In a way, it's similar to how Marx couldn't really adequately justify his labor theory of value. Both don't put enough emphasis on how important innovations really are.

Post: #42

Race troll is race troll. The OP is 'out' there with his assertions but this sort of topic is always interesting.

Civilizations are built upon each other through commerce and an exchange of ideas. The most marvellous empires took existing ideas and used them in more productive ways to progress themselves.

Instead of racializing the topic, it's more productive to peel back that component and see the ideas and geography that actually helped civilizations propel to dominance, and then, descent back down.

There truly are some powerful ebbs and flows of how civilizations, empires, and peoples flow, evolve, and change during long periods of time.

Globalization today seems to have supercharged the process, with the exchange of ideas now flowing across regions through fiber optic cables.

People are now intermixing at ever greater numbers due to the technological possibility of doing so. The plane, train and automobile will create whole new peoples and empires, fold old ones, and new inventions will furthermore solidify this process, and it will repeat again in the future.

Western Civilizations will one day be a footnote in history books just as past great civilizations, but the ideas that came from them, just like the ideas that came before, will be the building blocks of something new altogether.

The blood that runs through westerners today, whether they are the descendants of African slaves, European colonists, or the Indian tribes that lived in the plains, will one day flow through the veins of another peoples altogether.

Post: #43

New guy here. New guy with a brain.

After reading just this one thread, all race baiting aside, I once again am reminded why I am so glad I joined this forum. So much intellect, so much intelligence, and so many educated minds are all wrapped into one place... and we're all trying to HELP each other pick up chicks on top of that.

Did I die? Is this heaven? Someone pinch me.

A personal perspective on the ups and the downs of civilizations: Afghanistan.

I worked there for a time, and one thing is for certain: tribalism there will always outlast every major empire, political and religious ideology, and major resource war, lest some major form of genocide occurs (and even then, my money might still be on the Afghans). The Pashtuns (not as a race, but as a conglomerate of people within that region), however lacking they may be in some respects, relative to the perspective of an outsider, have outlasted, outgunned, outmaneuvered, and outwitted a lot of serious pipe hitters for thousands of years, with and without the help of foreigners. For all that region's shortcomings, I'd still say a lot can be learned from a tribal culture even in a "modern" world.

I'm white, I'm from the "West," and I'd want nothing more than to live in a more tribal society integrated with the amenities of the "first world." In some ways, forums such as this help create these tribes within our lifetime.

Post: #44

^ Have you read "The Way of Men"?

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Rudyard Kipling

Post: #45

(07-24-2015 05:06 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  ^ Have you read "The Way of Men"?

I have not. I presume this touches on what I have proposed?

Post: #46

It's definitely money well spent. I would get the hardcopy for 12 bucks off amazon, a book that good, you want it in paper.

To summarize, the book describes the essence of masculinity and then it gives you some pointers on how to cultivate it in yourself. If you read the book, you're off to a good start.

I don't want to spoil too much of the book. It was good enough that I read it in one sitting if that means anything.

Post: #47

(07-25-2015 03:10 AM)Hannibal Wrote:  To summarize, the book describes the essence of masculinity and then it gives you some pointers on how to cultivate it in yourself. If you read the book, you're off to a good start.

This I don't understand. How is a homosexual able to write a credible manual on masculinity? Even if he's a genius social scientist, its like taking business advice from a business studies professor versus a self-made billionaire. Sexual attraction towards women is a core aspect of masculinity.

Post: #48

(07-20-2015 12:40 PM)Libertas Wrote:  Finally, the OP really didn't mention the extent of how important innovation is to an economy and civilization and erroneously assumes that it was all "because you Yanks broke the backs of other economies." In a way, it's similar to how Marx couldn't really adequately justify his labor theory of value. Both don't put enough emphasis on how important innovations really are.

Sort of like once you're the only one with a H bomb, all your other ideas are automatically right? USA 1950?

Post: #49

(07-25-2015 03:47 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  

(07-25-2015 03:10 AM)Hannibal Wrote:  To summarize, the book describes the essence of masculinity and then it gives you some pointers on how to cultivate it in yourself. If you read the book, you're off to a good start.

This I don't understand. How is a homosexual able to write a credible manual on masculinity? Even if he's a genius social scientist, its like taking business advice from a business studies professor versus a self-made billionaire. Sexual attraction towards women is a core aspect of masculinity.

That's why I said it was a good start. It's still like taking diet advice from an overweight doctor.

Post: #50

Funny how non-western cultures always seem to dominate whenever hard numbers are not available.

statistics is a form of imperialist oppression.