Originally Posted by
Hexachordia
The much popularized propaganda of the 4 Great Inventions of China, paper, compass, gunpowder, printing have been debunked by chinese posters, I may cite their points here, for example the case about paper, the chinese poster says: 以前,蔡伦一直被视为造纸术的发明者,后来发现了更早的纸以后,于是就改称其为造纸术的改进者,但是仍然被 看作是该发明最重要的关键人物,因为其开创了使用树皮,破布,麻头,鱼网来造纸,使得原料的来源广泛,纸的 成本下降,得以更广泛地普及。既然这种原材料的改变被看作是一个重要的技术创新,那么同样的,西方人开创了 用木材造纸也是一个重大的技术创新。总之,现代造纸术是很多国家共同发展出来的技术,不是单个国家的功劳。 (Cailun has been long considered as the inventor of paper, but after we found out that papyrus is actually a kind of paper, we should call Cailun as an improver, neverthlessly an important status within the history of papers development. His innovations in making use of various sources of materials such like tree-barks, rags of textiles, hemp, fishing nets that are aboundant to make paper pulps, no longer just using a few species of plants, thus the cost of production becomes widely affordable and practical. If we take the change in raw materials as an important technological innovation, we should consider the innvention of papyrus making use of plants fibre as an equally important invention. Generally, we should see that papermaking today is developed by many cultures thoughout the history, not just one single cultures effort. )
The communist propagandas endlessly insult chinese people with feeding up the media with flatteries and ignorant prides. These are more debunkings about compass(chinese design compass is almost useless on navigation), gunpowder(western yellow powder is not a derivative of chinese black powder), printing(chinese did not use metal movable typographies, koreans use metal typographies first).
The only truly world-class contribution is the innovation in materials in papermaking, even the metal movable typographies were pioneered by the koreans. We are not all that village rednecks that only gobble up the useless flatteries, the soulless flattery is an insult, we do not appreciate(稀罕) groundless flattery, if I have a chance, I would respond with a spit. There are many books that exaggerate chinese civilization on western markets, most of them are garbages.
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