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United States43842 Posts
On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:
And how do you value or compare advances like gunpowder, crop rotations, the breeding of horses, steel, a number system, writing, accounting, nuclear fission, electricity, geometry, ploughs, irrigation, vessels capable of braving high seas, a sextant, telescopes, computers, mustard gas, sewers and many more? I don't see any metric which makes any sense for that.
The whole premise is just nonsensical, and not meant to be thought about to hard or to critical. It is only about telling that "we" are better than "those people" with pseudohistorical nonsense. It's similarly intelligent as phrenology. Of course white people are better than other races, just take a look at how their skull is slightly different here and there, that shows that the others are of lesser intelligence and impulse control.
This is what I was aiming for.
These things just cannot be meaningfully compared. The statement is meaningless and demonstrates the lack of understanding of the person making it. You cannot take any specific thing in isolation. And I say this with full understanding and pride in the role my country played as the midwife of the modern era. But it just doesn't work the way the white supremacists would like it to work.
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We weren't a globalized society until a couple centuries ago, so arguing dominance by those standards is kind of stupid. I mean, the Chinese had the biggest empire by land area and population and the biggest cities for a really long time... there's all sorts of criteria, reasonable and not, to evaluate civilizations by.
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See what I mean when it appears how empty that place is. There are open areas even on the ground floor.
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On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:52 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan). So the according to your metrics, it only matter who was the last dominant power. Because they will surely have contributed the most advances in the recent past, and foundations don't matter. This is patently ridiculous.
China never achieved global dominance. The extent of its power and influence never strayed far beyond its current borders today. The simple fact is that no civilization projected power and influence at a global level like Western civilization did, both in terms of global reach and in terms of sustained influence (you can make a case for Muslims, but even they clearly fall short). That fact, combined with the fact that modern civilization is largely a product of Western civilization makes it very to conclude that Western civilization is the most dominant historically.
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On July 20 2016 08:09 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:07 RoomOfMush wrote:On July 20 2016 08:02 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 08:01 RoomOfMush wrote:On July 20 2016 08:00 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:58 RoomOfMush wrote:On July 20 2016 07:52 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan). No country has ever had global dominance at any level. Most any country has ever achieved was 1 continent and maybe large parts of 1 or 2 others. China had its prime time some thousands years ago. So had Rome, the british empire, the spanish empire, the nazis and many more. We aren't talking about countries, we're talking about culture. Before WW1, Western culture literally controlled the entire fucking planet. I heavily doubt that. How do you measure that? Where are your sources? Go read up on European/Western imperialism and then come back here and argue with the big boys. Is that supposed to be an argument? Or a sign of resignation? I'm merely pointing out that there's no point arguing with you when you don't even understand the historical record. That's a bare minimum. It's an undeniable fact that that the West owned the world prior to WW1. If you are unaware of that fact, then there isn't much to discuss.
You are not pointing out anything. You simply dont know what to say and you give up.
I know very well how the political landscape of the world looked like before and after the WWs. But I still dont agree with your assessment that the west dominated the world. I disagree with your statement and you are unable to produce any arguments to back it up.
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On July 20 2016 08:14 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:
And how do you value or compare advances like gunpowder, crop rotations, the breeding of horses, steel, a number system, writing, accounting, nuclear fission, electricity, geometry, ploughs, irrigation, vessels capable of braving high seas, a sextant, telescopes, computers, mustard gas, sewers and many more? I don't see any metric which makes any sense for that.
The whole premise is just nonsensical, and not meant to be thought about to hard or to critical. It is only about telling that "we" are better than "those people" with pseudohistorical nonsense. It's similarly intelligent as phrenology. Of course white people are better than other races, just take a look at how their skull is slightly different here and there, that shows that the others are of lesser intelligence and impulse control. This is what I was aiming for. These things just cannot be meaningfully compared. The statement is meaningless and demonstrates the lack of understanding of the person making it. You cannot take any specific thing in isolation. And I say this with full understanding and pride in the role my country played as the midwife of the modern era. But it just doesn't work the way the white supremacists would like it to work.
That's it right there. Between the realizing of society as one giant safe space for white people, and the concept of why this civilization talk is tainted with white supremacy I'm loving some of the posts recently.
@xDaunt Dominance =/= contribution though just fyi.
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On July 20 2016 08:14 ticklishmusic wrote:
We weren't a globalized society until a couple centuries ago, so arguing dominance by those standards is kind of stupid. I mean, the Chinese had the biggest empire by land area and population and the biggest cities for a really long time... there's all sorts of criteria, reasonable and not, to evaluate civilizations by.
It's why no historian would ever make the argument. The accomplishments of humanity are cumulative, not individual by race or culture. The argument is only made by those attempting to claim their race is superior by claiming they contributed more. Which is idiotic, but most arguments made by white supremacist are.
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On July 20 2016 08:16 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:On July 20 2016 07:52 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan). So the according to your metrics, it only matter who was the last dominant power. Because they will surely have contributed the most advances in the recent past, and foundations don't matter. This is patently ridiculous. China never achieved global dominance. The extent of its power and influence never strayed far beyond its current borders today. The simple fact is that no civilization projected power and influence at a global level like Western civilization did, both in terms of global reach and in terms of sustained influence (you can make a case for Muslims, but even they clearly fall short). That fact, combined with the fact that modern civilization is largely a product of Western civilization makes it very to conclude that Western civilization is the most dominant historically.
Which means your criterium boils down to "Europe was dominant in the phase when global powers became technically possible" At no point before that time was it possible to sustain an empire that large, simply due to logistics and communication speeds.
Of course no other civilisation beforehand was capable of that, it was technologically impossible. And in 200 years, when humanity has spread out further into the solar system, you can argue that any civilization before that point was not important, because they could only ever influence one planet.
I do not think that is a reasonable criterium to measure "contribution to humanity" by.
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See what I mean about empty...
Also:
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On July 20 2016 08:14 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:
And how do you value or compare advances like gunpowder, crop rotations, the breeding of horses, steel, a number system, writing, accounting, nuclear fission, electricity, geometry, ploughs, irrigation, vessels capable of braving high seas, a sextant, telescopes, computers, mustard gas, sewers and many more? I don't see any metric which makes any sense for that.
The whole premise is just nonsensical, and not meant to be thought about to hard or to critical. It is only about telling that "we" are better than "those people" with pseudohistorical nonsense. It's similarly intelligent as phrenology. Of course white people are better than other races, just take a look at how their skull is slightly different here and there, that shows that the others are of lesser intelligence and impulse control. This is what I was aiming for. These things just cannot be meaningfully compared. The statement is meaningless and demonstrates the lack of understanding of the person making it. You cannot take any specific thing in isolation. And I say this with full understanding and pride in the role my country played as the midwife of the modern era. But it just doesn't work the way the white supremacists would like it to work.
But it's so boring and meaningless to say that everyone's the same and that no culture is better than any other (not to mention that it's a judgment call in and of itself).
I also think that it is a dangerous line of thinking when it comes to the self-preservation of Western, liberal tradition.
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On July 20 2016 08:16 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:On July 20 2016 07:52 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan). So the according to your metrics, it only matter who was the last dominant power. Because they will surely have contributed the most advances in the recent past, and foundations don't matter. This is patently ridiculous. China never achieved global dominance. The extent of its power and influence never strayed far beyond its current borders today.
It's not the power projection today that is bigger, it's that the world has gotten smaller. It probably took you three months to go from one Chinese village to another when the Chinese were dominant. It's a meaningless comparison really. It's the same thing 'culture clash' advocates bring up when they talk about immigration. It's faster to travel accross the whole globe today than it was to visit the next city a hundred years ago. So accordingly, power and cultural dynamics have sped up.
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On July 20 2016 08:22 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:14 KwarK wrote:On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:
And how do you value or compare advances like gunpowder, crop rotations, the breeding of horses, steel, a number system, writing, accounting, nuclear fission, electricity, geometry, ploughs, irrigation, vessels capable of braving high seas, a sextant, telescopes, computers, mustard gas, sewers and many more? I don't see any metric which makes any sense for that.
The whole premise is just nonsensical, and not meant to be thought about to hard or to critical. It is only about telling that "we" are better than "those people" with pseudohistorical nonsense. It's similarly intelligent as phrenology. Of course white people are better than other races, just take a look at how their skull is slightly different here and there, that shows that the others are of lesser intelligence and impulse control. This is what I was aiming for. These things just cannot be meaningfully compared. The statement is meaningless and demonstrates the lack of understanding of the person making it. You cannot take any specific thing in isolation. And I say this with full understanding and pride in the role my country played as the midwife of the modern era. But it just doesn't work the way the white supremacists would like it to work. But it's so boring and meaningless to say that everyone's the same and that no culture is better than any other (not to mention that it's a judgment call in and of itself). I also think that it is a dangerous line of thinking when it comes to the self-preservation of Western, liberal tradition.
Which is also something noone has talked about but you. When you say that you can't compare something does not mean it is the same. I find it hard to compare an apple to a shaving razor in any meaningful way. That still does not mean that they are the same.
Neither was any value judgement made by anyone.
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If we're really going to continue this inane discussion, I will simply note that for the majority of history up until 1850, China was the gravitational center of the world economy, and took the forcing of Opium upon the population and massive internal rebellions to change that.
Up until the introduction of opium reverse the trade balance, most of the world's silver poured into China.
Making the argument that "Western civilization has contributed more to civilization than anyone else" is ultimately a useless phrase and of no historiographical value. If he were to say that Western civilization has been integral in shaping the modern/post-modern era, I would agree. The French Revolution, for instance, can be safely said to be the event of the modern era. But having a dick-measuring contest about which geographical center has contributed more to "civilization" is stupid and ultimately rubbish.
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On July 20 2016 08:22 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:14 KwarK wrote:On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:
And how do you value or compare advances like gunpowder, crop rotations, the breeding of horses, steel, a number system, writing, accounting, nuclear fission, electricity, geometry, ploughs, irrigation, vessels capable of braving high seas, a sextant, telescopes, computers, mustard gas, sewers and many more? I don't see any metric which makes any sense for that.
The whole premise is just nonsensical, and not meant to be thought about to hard or to critical. It is only about telling that "we" are better than "those people" with pseudohistorical nonsense. It's similarly intelligent as phrenology. Of course white people are better than other races, just take a look at how their skull is slightly different here and there, that shows that the others are of lesser intelligence and impulse control. This is what I was aiming for. These things just cannot be meaningfully compared. The statement is meaningless and demonstrates the lack of understanding of the person making it. You cannot take any specific thing in isolation. And I say this with full understanding and pride in the role my country played as the midwife of the modern era. But it just doesn't work the way the white supremacists would like it to work. But it's so boring and meaningless to say that everyone's the same and that no culture is better than any other (not to mention that it's a judgment call in and of itself). I also think that it is a dangerous line of thinking when it comes to the self-preservation of Western, liberal tradition.
Yeah, seeing the accomplishments of other cultures as meaningful and maybe equal to your culture is very dangerous. Not like seeing our own culture and race as superior and having accomplished more. That is a perfectly safe line of thought. No one has ever used that to do terrible things.
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Already 523 delegate votes against Trump. More than any other GOP nominee in modern history, combined.
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On July 20 2016 08:20 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:16 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:On July 20 2016 07:52 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan). So the according to your metrics, it only matter who was the last dominant power. Because they will surely have contributed the most advances in the recent past, and foundations don't matter. This is patently ridiculous. China never achieved global dominance. The extent of its power and influence never strayed far beyond its current borders today. The simple fact is that no civilization projected power and influence at a global level like Western civilization did, both in terms of global reach and in terms of sustained influence (you can make a case for Muslims, but even they clearly fall short). That fact, combined with the fact that modern civilization is largely a product of Western civilization makes it very to conclude that Western civilization is the most dominant historically. Which means your criterium boils down to "Europe was dominant in the phase when global powers became technically possible" At no point before that time was it possible to sustain an empire that large, simply due to logistics and communication speeds. Of course no other civilisation beforehand was capable of that, it was technologically impossible. And in 200 years, when humanity has spread out further into the solar system, you can argue that any civilization before that point was not important, because they could only ever influence one planet. I do not think that is a reasonable criterium to measure "contribution to humanity" by.
To be more accurate, my point is that Western culture created the technological developments that, in part, allowed global domination and the current Western-liberal world order. You can't really divorce the technological development from the culture creating it.
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On July 20 2016 08:25 Lord Tolkien wrote:
If we're really going to continue this inane discussion.
Please continue, it's much better than talking about Melania Trump's speech
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Texas went full on for Ted Cruz.
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On July 20 2016 08:24 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 08:22 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 08:14 KwarK wrote:On July 20 2016 08:11 Simberto wrote:
And how do you value or compare advances like gunpowder, crop rotations, the breeding of horses, steel, a number system, writing, accounting, nuclear fission, electricity, geometry, ploughs, irrigation, vessels capable of braving high seas, a sextant, telescopes, computers, mustard gas, sewers and many more? I don't see any metric which makes any sense for that.
The whole premise is just nonsensical, and not meant to be thought about to hard or to critical. It is only about telling that "we" are better than "those people" with pseudohistorical nonsense. It's similarly intelligent as phrenology. Of course white people are better than other races, just take a look at how their skull is slightly different here and there, that shows that the others are of lesser intelligence and impulse control. This is what I was aiming for. These things just cannot be meaningfully compared. The statement is meaningless and demonstrates the lack of understanding of the person making it. You cannot take any specific thing in isolation. And I say this with full understanding and pride in the role my country played as the midwife of the modern era. But it just doesn't work the way the white supremacists would like it to work. But it's so boring and meaningless to say that everyone's the same and that no culture is better than any other (not to mention that it's a judgment call in and of itself). I also think that it is a dangerous line of thinking when it comes to the self-preservation of Western, liberal tradition. Which is also something noone has talked about but you. When you say that you can't compare something does not mean it is the same. I find it hard to compare an apple to a shaving razor in any meaningful way. That still does not mean that they are the same. Neither was any value judgement made by anyone.
Refusing to engage in the conversation is no different than giving the equivocal answer to the question. You can argue about the value of the inquiry, but that doesn't mean that there isn't an answer.
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EPT
