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Originally Posted by
Petalpusher
You can have that. We only make fun of the countries we like as a rule here.
F-france-san... all this time? Y-you liked us? B-baka!
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This is again the tropism in all this discussion, they didn't invent it first, but later possibly on their own (unlikely completely) great for them either way, like 2500 BC around the yellow river. The earliest farmers who migrated into Europe with agriculture 6000 years before that became the Europeans, or at least big chunk of them is present in every Europeans (yes even very north). Not saying one is necessarily better than the other, yet on one side everything was created or started elsewhere than Europe and everybody else should take full credit for it, until that applies to East Asians in your book.
I don't think you can claim cultural continuity from a people you conquered that form a minority of your DNA, this would be like Amerindians of today claiming Voltaire. As for China, they developed agriculture independently, no one denies this, and they also domesticated a great number of essential crops and animals, and also techniques, like grafting, as mentioned. Ever had an apple? Thank China.
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Europeans had colonies because they were wealthy in the first place, not the other way around. It's the most accepted analysis in serious academia before any cancel culture arose. You can disagree with it for some reasons but you are wrong. It's indeed not a debate:
“It was not colonialism and conquest that made possible the rise of the West, but the reverse—it was the rise of the West (in terms of technology) and the decline of the rest that made possible the full extension of European power across the globe.”
"The Rise Of Western Power: A Comparative History Of Western Civilization" explains it very well beyond that abstract.
It made Europe wealthier. Nice paragraphs.
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Probably one of the best expert of Africa Bernard Lugan demonstrated it brillantly in some of their books like "God bless Africa". Paul Bairoch for India as well in "Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes"
Conversely countries without colonies were better off economically during this era, in many cases that was the reason colonies were abandoned. Germany became a powerhouse when his colonial empire was "a sausage factory in Tanganyika".
Africa after 1880 was unproductive, yes, but the sugar colonies of the Caribbean, for example, were a gold mine. Indirect benefits from colonies like 'control of major shipping routes' and 'economic monopolies on client nations' are also highly relevant. Germany had several major African colonies and more in the Pacific, anyhow.
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I think it mostly took a lot of simple experimentations and dedication to it along with some good fertile soil. There s no geniusery involved even if it turned out that way, like discovering we could actually make fire rubbing rocks together. It likely wasn't the smartest lads of the cave who found out about it. Yet major jump forward. Most humans would have been able to figure it out at some point even by chance. Having a real understanding of nuclear reactions or quantum physic is reserved to a very small fringe of the population, no chance or random try involved. Human intelligence is not limitless and increases as time goes by.
It's unlikely any other burst of the same magnitude than in the last 500 years will happen ever again from humans. It's just gonna be a progression based on these very principles we know now, until maybe AI completely replaces us. in 200 years imo, China won't be dominating anything but somebody's AI might.
Now who's imaginging things?
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That was the point, they couldn't even have invented anything in Iceland until very recently, and even Finland was populated by only a few thousands people not that long ago, so im ok with making fun of north Euro here but they had real severe ballasts if entirely honest. This is just not a very welcoming environement to blossom quickly compared to other places, even compared to many parts of Africa.
Yes, so I mentioned Ukraine instead. China had 57 million people in the 1st century according to their census but that's because they built to it.
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At that time "most metrics" would have included being able to defend yourself, if only they knew it was coming. A lot of bad luck, two times in a row though. If your civilisation disappear each time somebody shows up, clearly you ve lost the dick contest by a lot.
They were perfectly suited for dealing with every single military threat they faced - until people who had access to Chinese weaponry and European steel, whom they had never even heard of, rocked up from a continent that may as well have been Mars. You're being disingenuous. There was essentially a 50-50 coinflip that they'd be horribly outmatched and they lost (probably 80-20 considering they had no cavalry).