White People and History

[Mavorpen]

In many cases, it is, although due to geographical isolation there have been many non-white civilizations that developed similar ideas (writing, astronomy, agriculture, domestication of animals, horseback riding, fortifications) independently. What I would say, though, is that the root of the civilizations that have traditionally controlled the world in terms of inventions, trade and cultural and military power lay in the migration out of Africa. From that one migration came, with time, the civilizations of Europe, Asia Minor, most of the Indian subcontinent, South-East Asia, East Asia, North America and South America. On the other hand, groups that remained in Africa or migrated independently (such as certain groups in the south-west of India and in Oceania and Australia) did not typically build such civilizations.

What.

I think you need to do a little research into the history of Ancient Africa.

In terms of technology, culture and trade, there are tribes even today that haven't developed a system of writing and work with wooden, bone or stone tools. And I don't think it is unfair to say that, if man's ultimate purpose in life is to explore his rationality and develop what separates him from the animals, there are certain groups of people who have typically been more advanced and other groups of people who have typically been less advanced. Think of the contrasts between Rome and the Germanic invaders that ended it, or the contrasts between the settled and technologically-advanced Chinese and the nomadic Mongolians of their day. Or think of the contrasts between Spanish, Portuguese and British settlers and the Native Americans or Africans they encountered.

Here's the reasoning that I follow.

If groups of people have had to fight and compete with other groups of people for resources and the ability to live and reproduce in certain areas, and man's distinguishing characteristic as a species is the ability to think and to create complicated tools, then certain groups of people can be considered superior to others for making the best use of man's comparative advantage over animals by developing the tools and social connections that made them able to secure more land and resources for their own reproduction than other groups of people.

Certainly then the 'settled and technologically advanced' Chinese were less able to secure more land and resources for their own reproductions than the Mongols? What about the vastly more meritocratic standards of the steppes, or the inventive siege techniques and weapons they employed? Did the practice of setting orders to verse in order to maintain communication even with a largely illiterate army make them more advanced or less than the Chinese? What about the creation of a universal script to write all languages the Mongols encountered in?

There's a problem with viewing all progress as connected.

This is Quintium. Facts are secondary to reinforcing his own racism.

[Themiclesia]

In many cases, it is, although due to geographical isolation there have been many non-white civilizations that developed similar ideas (writing, astronomy, agriculture, domestication of animals, horseback riding, fortifications) independently. What I would say, though, is that the root of the civilizations that have traditionally controlled the world in terms of inventions, trade and cultural and military power lay in the migration out of Africa. From that one migration came, with time, the civilizations of Europe, Asia Minor, most of the Indian subcontinent, South-East Asia, East Asia, North America and South America. On the other hand, groups that remained in Africa or migrated independently (such as certain groups in the south-west of India and in Oceania and Australia) did not typically build such civilizations.

What.

I think you need to do a little research into the history of Ancient Africa.

In terms of technology, culture and trade, there are tribes even today that haven't developed a system of writing and work with wooden, bone or stone tools. And I don't think it is unfair to say that, if man's ultimate purpose in life is to explore his rationality and develop what separates him from the animals, there are certain groups of people who have typically been more advanced and other groups of people who have typically been less advanced. Think of the contrasts between Rome and the Germanic invaders that ended it, or the contrasts between the settled and technologically-advanced Chinese and the nomadic Mongolians of their day. Or think of the contrasts between Spanish, Portuguese and British settlers and the Native Americans or Africans they encountered.

Here's the reasoning that I follow.

If groups of people have had to fight and compete with other groups of people for resources and the ability to live and reproduce in certain areas, and man's distinguishing characteristic as a species is the ability to think and to create complicated tools, then certain groups of people can be considered superior to others for making the best use of man's comparative advantage over animals by developing the tools and social connections that made them able to secure more land and resources for their own reproduction than other groups of people.

Certainly then the 'settled and technologically advanced' Chinese were less able to secure more land and resources for their own reproductions than the Mongols? What about the vastly more meritocratic standards of the steppes, or the inventive siege techniques and weapons they employed? Did the practice of setting orders to verse in order to maintain communication even with a largely illiterate army make them more advanced or less than the Chinese? What about the creation of a universal script to write all languages the Mongols encountered in?

There's a problem with viewing all progress as connected.

By the end of the Sung dynasty, the Chinese bureaucracy was meritocratic.

[The Batorys]

Pretty much this.

In terms of the scale of human history, Europe has been significant for only a very small percentage of the time.

yes but this is about 'white people' not just europeans.
And though they have been significant for a short time, they have shaped the modern world.
Imperialism, Christianity, Islam, transporting people across continents and either wiping out animals, or giving natives the technology to do so

Who is included in "white people" except Europeans?

Europe only got the lead in imperialism due to geographic luck (their coal deposits were accessible and where much of their industry already was, whereas China's were in an area recently devastated in war at the time, and so other parts of China started industrializing first, giving the Europeans, especially the British, a head start). Where they lived had more to do with it than who lived there.

And yeah, they shaped the "modern world." So what? They affected the world for a three hundred year period? Human history is thousands of years long. And will likely continue for thousands of years more.

[Shaggai]

yes but this is about 'white people' not just europeans.
And though they have been significant for a short time, they have shaped the modern world.
Imperialism, Christianity, Islam, transporting people across continents and either wiping out animals, or giving natives the technology to do so

Who is included in "white people" except Europeans?

Europe only got the lead in imperialism due to geographic luck (their coal deposits were accessible and where much of their industry already was, whereas China's were in an area recently devastated in war at the time, and so other parts of China started industrializing first, giving the Europeans, especially the British, a head start). Where they lived had more to do with it than who lived there.

And yeah, they shaped the "modern world." So what? They affected the world for a three hundred year period? Human history is thousands of years long. And will likely continue for thousands of years more.

There were other factors which made Europe lucky than just coal deposits. China dominated its own area to such a degree that it didn't need to colonize overseas, whereas Europe was filled with competing powers and therefore had to look elsewhere for advantages.

[Quintium]

I think you need to do a little research into the history of Ancient Africa.

Oh, I already did. But nothing, absolutely nothing in Sub-Saharan Africa came quite close to what the Romans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Meso-American nations or the Andes nations had.

Certainly then the 'settled and technologically advanced' Chinese were less able to secure more land and resources for their own reproductions than the Mongols?

No, certainly not. The Chinese had their own land, and that was quite enough for them. They had reached a point of saturation that would last until well into the twentieth century. There was enough land and there were enough resources for them to continue having children and developing new cultural feats and technologies without having to expand into other people's land. And the Chinese cultural heartland, traditionally located towards the east, usually remained safe from non-Chinese invaders.

What about the vastly more meritocratic standards of the steppes, or the inventive siege techniques and weapons they employed?

Did they themselves invent those techniques and weapons? If so, you have one minor advantage, just as the Germanic tribes were renowned for their metalworking and praised by Tacitus for their honour, honesty and fair treatment of women (which he then used in a critique of the decadence of Roman civilization).

Did the practice of setting orders to verse in order to maintain communication even with a largely illiterate army make them more advanced or less than the Chinese?

Less, I'd argue; the Chinese had well-organised armies with commanders and often even ordinary soldiers who could read. They also had a functional bureaucracy to keep detailed records of what was going on and where money was coming from and going to, and where their armies were and where their armies were going and where threats might come from.

What about the creation of a universal script to write all languages the Mongols encountered in?

What, do you mean the Uyghur script they had designed for them by an Uyghur man?
The script that they then left more or less unchanged for centuries, and which is now being replaced even in Mongolia itself?

[Themiclesia]

I think you need to do a little research into the history of Ancient Africa.

Oh, I already did. But nothing, absolutely nothing in Sub-Saharan Africa came quite close to what the Romans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Meso-American nations or the Andes nations had.

Certainly then the 'settled and technologically advanced' Chinese were less able to secure more land and resources for their own reproductions than the Mongols?

No, certainly not. The Chinese had their own land, and that was quite enough for them. They had reached a point of saturation that would last until well into the twentieth century. There was enough land and there were enough resources for them to continue having children and developing new cultural feats and technologies without having to expand into other people's land. And the Chinese cultural heartland, traditionally located towards the east, usually remained safe from non-Chinese invaders.

What about the vastly more meritocratic standards of the steppes, or the inventive siege techniques and weapons they employed?

Did they themselves invent those techniques and weapons? If so, you have one minor advantage, just as the Germanic tribes were renowned for their metalworking and praised by Tacitus for their honour, honesty and fair treatment of women (which he then used in a critique of the decadence of Roman civilization).

Did the practice of setting orders to verse in order to maintain communication even with a largely illiterate army make them more advanced or less than the Chinese?

Less, I'd argue; the Chinese had well-organised armies with commanders and often even ordinary soldiers who could read. They also had a functional bureaucracy to keep detailed records of what was going on and where money was coming from and going to, and where their armies were and where their armies were going and where threats might come from.

What about the creation of a universal script to write all languages the Mongols encountered in?

What, do you mean the Uyghur script they had designed for them by an Uyghur man?
The script that they then left more or less unchanged for centuries, and which is now being replaced even in Mongolia itself?

I don't really think the Germanic honour matters too much when you still sink people into lakes and marshes to appease your deities. Human sacrifice is so passé by the Roman Empire. Besides, commentators often made statements on inferiority of Celtic iron products, which are liable to be bent during battle but could be bent or smashed back into shape as well. If the Celtic tribes, which are miles ahead of the Germanic tribes in that period, didn't have good weapons, I should think it rather unlikely that the Germanic tribes had better metallurgical knowledge.

[Rio Cana]

Then Rome died out and Europe faded back into obscurity until the 1400s, when they started to explore and realized that most people didn't have cannons on their ships, which was really nice because it made sea empire-building really easy.

So, maybe for 1800 out of 5000 years Europeans have been dominant.

The Europeans didn't start to explore the seas for the purposes of getting colonies on a whim, I blame the fact that Arab and north African peoples tried to invade Europe as the root cause for the age of European exploration.

Getting invaded caused the Crusades in retaliation and the crusaders' encounters with certain goods such as sugar created enough of a demand back in Europe for said products to bring about the finance of expeditions to establish trade with the far east, by force if necessary. In searching for trade routes to Asia, European sailors stumbled across the Americas; found technologically inferior peoples and just happened to take gross advantage of that.

Spain was producing Sugar centuries ago.
Read this - http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Su ... &id=972633

[Jetan]

The white 'race' has dominated history, according to some. Is this view ahistorical, whatever its (In my opinion, complete lack of) scientific merit? Whatever one's opinion on race, is it true that the cultural construct we generally recognize as the white race has dominated world events, striving forward where other races merely followed? Is it true that certain races have gotten the short end of the historical stick, so to speak, or is it simply that the bias of some leads them to apply current circumstances to history?

In case my tone didn't make it apparent, I'm not a fan of the idea. I think it's morally unsound and has no basis in history; not even in European history.

Discuss.

It depends on the time period. 1800s and the first half of 1900s were very much white man's centuries but currently it's getting more even, and will swing towards Asia in the future.

[Euphisia]

Well as I view it, Caucasian people have dominated the Western Hemisphere and a little bit of the Eastern Hemisphere, completely due to varying factors, anywhere from the elimination of Natives in the entire New World continent, to the extremely rapid expansion of technology and industry in Europe and the U.S before most countries. (Even older countries such as China couldn't cope with the extreme advancements, plus they were on shaky ground to begin with back then, on subjects such as the boxer rebellion and later, Communist uprisings.) The biggest thing about the supposed "cultural, economic and social supremacy" of us, is our general stability (kind of), our technology (big part here), and our extreme history of imperialistic subjugation and a unusually exaggerated sense of national and racial pride.

>Is aware that WWI and WWII were not examples of stability.
>Just saying that overall stability was sort of a blessing.

I'm white, and I support equality, I'm just putting in my two cents with a limited scope of history that could very well be wrong, and very well be proven wrong.

Sorry for all the extra unnecessary information in advance.

[Conserative Morality]

Oh, I already did. But nothing, absolutely nothing in Sub-Saharan Africa came quite close to what the Romans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Meso-American nations or the Andes nations had.

You're absolutely correct.

Fasilides Castle in Ethiopia

Church of Debre Damo, usually dated around the 6th century

Djingereber mosque, 14th century

Ethiopian Church, 12-14th centuries

Loropeni ruins, Burkino Faso, unknown date

That's without getting into non-structural achievements. But really, those should already be known by someone who's claimed any sort of even casual interest in ancient Sub-Saharan Africa.

Except for that part where you aren't. But of course, the Aksumites had their achievements some three hundred years after the Romans, so clearly they don't matter. And the Romans? Mere imitators of the Greeks! And the Greeks just adjusted the wisdom of the Middle East to suit their little peninsula.

And so on.

No, certainly not. The Chinese had their own land, and that was quite enough for them. They had reached a point of saturation that would last until well into the twentieth century. There was enough land and there were enough resources for them to continue having children and developing new cultural feats and technologies without having to expand into other people's land. And the Chinese cultural heartland, traditionally located towards the east, usually remained safe from non-Chinese invaders.

Oh wow, how amazing! A country's eastern sea border with nothing but a little backwards island nation near it was safe from non-Chinese invaders!

Except, of course, for all those times it wasn't.

Hm.

Did they themselves invent those techniques and weapons? If so, you have one minor advantage, just as the Germanic tribes were renowned for their metalworking and praised by Tacitus for their honour, honesty and fair treatment of women (which he then used in a critique of the decadence of Roman civilization).

In majority. They used engineers from other civilizations, but used traditional military engineering in novel manners. Their methods of sieging a town were varied and employed many distinctly Mongolian ideas that their enemies had trouble adjusting to.

Less, I'd argue; the Chinese had well-organised armies with commanders and often even ordinary soldiers who could read. They also had a functional bureaucracy to keep detailed records of what was going on and where money was coming from and going to, and where their armies were and where their armies were going and where threats might come from.

Source?

I'll accept any synonym of 'often' or above 20% if it's a reputable source.

What, do you mean the Uyghur script they had designed for them by an Uyghur man?

Are empires no longer allowed to claim the works of their subjects working for the empire commissioned for the empire in the empire with implications all over the empire if they aren't of the native ethnicity of the empire's rulers?

Because if so, I think we may have to reexamine a few other supposedly successful civilizations.

The script that they then left more or less unchanged for centuries, and which is now being replaced even in Mongolia itself?

Is that a point against "the Indians, the Meso-American nations or the Andes nations" as well? In ten thousand years, will we be pathetic and backwards because our alphabet was replaced by another?

Don't be silly.

[Gaiserin]

White race has been most prominent group in terms of historical significance, yes.

In good and bad.

[Themiclesia]

No, certainly not. The Chinese had their own land, and that was quite enough for them. They had reached a point of saturation that would last until well into the twentieth century. There was enough land and there were enough resources for them to continue having children and developing new cultural feats and technologies without having to expand into other people's land. And the Chinese cultural heartland, traditionally located towards the east, usually remained safe from non-Chinese invaders.

Oh wow, how amazing! A country's eastern sea border with nothing but a little backwards island nation near it was safe from non-Chinese invaders!

Except, of course, for all those times it wasn't.

I'd like to bring the attention to the issue of the centricity of the Chinese heartland; unlike the Roman empire, China did not have a heartland as strongly accentuated and delineated, as Rome had one, being the city of Rome, since the unification under the Ch'in empire in 221 B.C. Whereas the Chinese polity since then could be said to be a territorial entity, the Roman empire resembled a Roman city-state with lots of land attached to it compared to the situation that defined China. The political centre before the Sung dynasty, during longer and stabler dynasties, usually was situated in either Chang-an or Luo-yang, neither of which are considered in the "east" of the country in modern terms, though Luo-yang was ostensibly more easterly, by about 200 miles, than Chang-an. The cultural heartland of China, if there could be such a thing given that China was almost always a multi-ethnic/cultural nation, should be deemed to include chung-yuan, the "middle plains", which encompasses just about the modern provinces of Ho-nan and the east of Shan-hsi; these are the areas in which the cultures ancestral to mainstream Hwa-hsia culture developed in the neolithic period, and where legendary/proto-historical capital cities of the Hsia dynasties are said to have been.

While it remains debatable whether one could logically speak of a cultural "China" during the pre-Chou period, the areas that today are the most developed, namely the east coast, were not considered "civilized" portions part of China. Shanghai was part of the demesne of the lord of Wu; Che-chiang was part of the state of Yue. Both states were barbarous to the (often self-righteous and important) states in the "middle plains", even though both claimed ancestry from the highest echelons of they royal Chou house, having separated from them from about the 12~11th C. B.C. The remainder of the eastern coast was inhabited by complete foreigners, the Yi in the north-east, where Shan-tung and Ho-pei are now situated, the Pai-yue to the southeast, and Man in the south, generally speaking from about Hu-pei in the austral direction.

It's important to realize that China's present shape was only acquired very recently; for most of her history, she was much smaller and inhabited by a much more culturally homogenous group of people. It is natural that, having enjoyed relative peace from an intercultural standpoint, the southern Sung court could not bring itself to defeat the Yuan invasion; the defeat of the Sung was occasioned as much internal political interference as incompetence of certain generals, as well as a clear lack of vision to resist the invaders. Such a lack of vision could only be attributed to the ingrained contempt for foreign cultures, and the military capabilities of those cultures; when those military capabilities did prove insuperable, the Sung court made concessions with the attitude that they were philanthropic and executing the natural duty of the heavenly/ordained dynasty to assist neighbouring, less developed cultures with money and goods.

[Themiclesia]

[...]
Source?
I'll accept any synonym of 'often' or above 20% if it's a reputable source.

I'm afraid you'd have to provide a stricter definition of 'literacy'; some estimates state that literacy (general capability to read a handful of common characters) during the Sung dynasty was 50% of the adult population. Being able to read simply texts is different from being able to pass imperial examinations.

From contemporary depictions of daily life, we indirectly might have a chance of deducing the literacy of the polloi in ancient China. It's a common thing for stores to have signs that bear the general characteristic and trade of the shop; if literate people were not at least seldom encountered, it would hardly prove sensible to erect lots of such signs. In the 1700s, Chinese chancellor Chi Hsiao-lan was challenged to find metrically identical store signs in the capital city of Pei-ching, and there had to be lots of signs used for that to be a realistic challenge.

It is also quite common for gentlemen's tombs to be adorned with a stele bearing a significant number of characters for onlookers to understand the life of the person inhumed under the stele; if few could read, such steles would probably be spurious. Government offices also typically had public notices posted on the billboards, indicating that the public would probably be able to read such notices. In the late 1390s, the Hong-wu emperor of the Ming printed a guide for litigation against corrupt officials in the interest of the people; he ordered that a copy of this guide be found within each house. If literacy wasn't common, then he scarcely would have wasted public money to do print millions of copies of this guide, being the penny-pinching emperor that he was.

An account states that the Sung dynasty poet and writer Su Shih discovered that the barge pusher on whose barge he was travelling was chanting a passage from the Analects; he does not say whether the barge pusher could actually read, but I think it sensible that the barge pusher was at least somewhat literate because he could answer the traveller's questions about the text.

Rawski in his work published 1979 stated that the literacy rate for males (women were generally not permitted in the military) was about 35~45%, though this is conjectural. If we assume that the literacy rate in the army is the same as it is generally, then yes, you could find about 1 literate soldier in every three on average. The examination for military officers usually included a essay section about strategy, and an illiterate person could hardly have passed.

On the other hand, apparently a popular insult against soldiers was "illiterate". This could be true, or it could be simply a stereotype with a slight chance of being true. But officers at least were expected not only to be literate, but also literary, to be able to cite the Analects when the situation required. A thorough knowledge of Sun-tzu's work was also required.

[Conserative Morality]

I'm afraid you'd have to provide a stricter definition of 'literacy'; some estimates state that literacy (general capability to read a handful of common characters) during the Sung dynasty was 50% of the adult population. Being able to read simply texts is different from being able to pass imperial examinations.

From contemporary depictions of daily life, we indirectly might have a chance of deducing the literacy of the polloi in ancient China. It's a common thing for stores to have signs that bear the general characteristic and trade of the shop; if literate people were not at least seldom encountered, it would hardly prove sensible to erect lots of such signs. In the 1700s, Chinese chancellor Chi Hsiao-lan was challenged to find metrically identical store signs in the capital city of Pei-ching, and there had to be lots of signs used for that to be a realistic challenge.

It is also quite common for gentlemen's tombs to be adorned with a stele bearing a significant number of characters for onlookers to understand the life of the person inhumed under the stele; if few could read, such steles would probably be spurious. Government offices also typically had public notices posted on the billboards, indicating that the public would probably be able to read such notices. In the late 1390s, the Hong-wu emperor of the Ming printed a guide for litigation against corrupt officials in the interest of the people; he ordered that a copy of this guide be found within each house. If literacy wasn't common, then he scarcely would have wasted public money to do print millions of copies of this guide, being the penny-pinching emperor that he was.

An account states that the Sung dynasty poet and writer Su Shih discovered that the barge pusher on whose barge he was travelling was chanting a passage from the Analects; he does not say whether the barge pusher could actually read, but I think it sensible that the barge pusher was at least somewhat literate because he could answer the traveller's questions about the text.

Rawski in his work published 1979 stated that the literacy rate for males (women were generally not permitted in the military) was about 35~45%, though this is conjectural. If we assume that the literacy rate in the army is the same as it is generally, then yes, you could find about 1 literate soldier in every three on average. The examination for military officers usually included a essay section about strategy, and an illiterate person could hardly have passed.

On the other hand, apparently a popular insult against soldiers was "illiterate". This could be true, or it could be simply a stereotype with a slight chance of being true. But officers at least were expected not only to be literate, but also literary, to be able to cite the Analects when the situation required. A thorough knowledge of Sun-tzu's work was also required.

Interesting. I thought literacy in Sung China to be more limited than that, particularly among the lower classes.

[Themiclesia]

I'm afraid you'd have to provide a stricter definition of 'literacy'; some estimates state that literacy (general capability to read a handful of common characters) during the Sung dynasty was 50% of the adult population. Being able to read simply texts is different from being able to pass imperial examinations.

From contemporary depictions of daily life, we indirectly might have a chance of deducing the literacy of the polloi in ancient China. It's a common thing for stores to have signs that bear the general characteristic and trade of the shop; if literate people were not at least seldom encountered, it would hardly prove sensible to erect lots of such signs. In the 1700s, Chinese chancellor Chi Hsiao-lan was challenged to find metrically identical store signs in the capital city of Pei-ching, and there had to be lots of signs used for that to be a realistic challenge.

It is also quite common for gentlemen's tombs to be adorned with a stele bearing a significant number of characters for onlookers to understand the life of the person inhumed under the stele; if few could read, such steles would probably be spurious. Government offices also typically had public notices posted on the billboards, indicating that the public would probably be able to read such notices. In the late 1390s, the Hong-wu emperor of the Ming printed a guide for litigation against corrupt officials in the interest of the people; he ordered that a copy of this guide be found within each house. If literacy wasn't common, then he scarcely would have wasted public money to do print millions of copies of this guide, being the penny-pinching emperor that he was.

An account states that the Sung dynasty poet and writer Su Shih discovered that the barge pusher on whose barge he was travelling was chanting a passage from the Analects; he does not say whether the barge pusher could actually read, but I think it sensible that the barge pusher was at least somewhat literate because he could answer the traveller's questions about the text.

Rawski in his work published 1979 stated that the literacy rate for males (women were generally not permitted in the military) was about 35~45%, though this is conjectural. If we assume that the literacy rate in the army is the same as it is generally, then yes, you could find about 1 literate soldier in every three on average. The examination for military officers usually included a essay section about strategy, and an illiterate person could hardly have passed.

On the other hand, apparently a popular insult against soldiers was "illiterate". This could be true, or it could be simply a stereotype with a slight chance of being true. But officers at least were expected not only to be literate, but also literary, to be able to cite the Analects when the situation required. A thorough knowledge of Sun-tzu's work was also required.

Interesting. I thought literacy in Sung China to be more limited than that, particularly among the lower classes.

To be honest, not all people could join the regular army. Ideally, the candidate for enlistment should have no criminal record and come from a reputable family; of course, during times of war, not all these standards were practical, and prisons were emptied to fill the barracks.

During the Sung dynasty, however, the army wasn't exactly the ideal career option, so the illiteracy rate should be noticeably higher during this dynasty than in other dynasties, in which the army was more respected and commanded better recruits.

If we're really going to explore literacy in the army, you should endeavour to limit the debate to a certain period and a particular formation.

[Sebastianbourg]

No. I'm saying that until you told me you have graduated college, I thought you were a teenager, and a typical one at that.

I think everyone's a teenager here until proven otherwise.

How exactly is that proven? Is permanent scepticism the way?

[Forsher]

Russia is a military super power, it has the ability to project naval power across the oceans. It can stage multiple military interventions, it has client states and overseas military bases.

China is the strongest non white nation, and it doesn't even compare in strength to Russia or America or united Europe.

I'm not sure any of this is correct but whatevs, it's not important.

Even assuming it is true, it is mostly a result of Europe having spent a centuries nobbling all rivals... Japan being something of an exception... not any inherent superior "whiteness". I'm not sure what your actual point is at this stage but that should cover it.

European people may be superior because they mated with neanderthalians, who had bigger brains and created thus smarter descendants with more power and cleverness.

Two issues with this statement. In all likelihood, the larger brains of Neanderthals (whose genes are not solely present I European populations) didn't make them smarter than "us". Is large brain size even associated with any of the passed on (i.e. still extant) genes anyway?

That's not the point, people only hold these idiotic cushioned views toward war because they're padded with massive amounts of consumerist goods. They're padded, they're at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Once things start to get a little hotter, they'll start to see the necessity of war.

"Maslow's hierarchy is a convenient and logical tool for classifying human needs, and many people continue to use it to explain behaviour. However, other researches hav not been able to experimentally very that this is how motivation actually works." (Business in Action, 6th Edition, Bovee and Thill, pg. 222)

War isn't necessary. It arises out of failure to achieve desired outcomes by other means. Often the other means are, in themselves, dubious. For example, many people think the invasion of Afghanistan by the Coalition could've been avoided had more effort been put into negotiating with the Taliban (whose removal, I think we can agree, has had a lot of negatives associated with it as well). Other dodgy tactics (for instance, bribery) could also have been attempted and they would've been better. War can also arrive out of failure more generally... see any war waged because of earlier decisions.

That said, there are some situations (e.g. genocidal dictators) whose attributes mean that there are no real alternatives except for war and assassination (and the latter's not necessarily going to stop the system causing the issue). Another example would be, being invaded... typically a war becomes necessary on some level to maintain independence.

Basically, war is only purely necessary in games whose mechanics don't allow victory in any other way. Think of, for instance, chess. That's hardly war though.

Western Military's are excellent at counter insurgency. Look at the loss/kill ratio in Iraq, by 2011, things had calmed down massively. Restrict RoE is the main problem, soldiers should simply be allowed to target large sections of the population. The French in Algeria had the right idea.

That was after nearly a decade of conflict that was started because of a lie and achieved little other than destabilisation. Very necessary.

They had successful tactics but those tactics were strategically moronic. They forgot the bigger picture and, in the end, that was why Algeria gained its independence. Brutality typically achieves little in terms of the big picture so from a practical (rather than a moral/ethical) perspective it's a bad idea.

But presuming that those countries call the shots solely because of the skin pigmentations of their leadership and the virtues that entails is some ph level 14 retard shi

Race is a lot more than pigmentation. Proto-Europeans mated with neanderthals and developed in a much more hostile resources scare environment than the other races. They are simply more intelligent, more evolved and more capable of building developed structures.

The best empires in Africa would simply fall apart after a 10-200 years because of structure flaws and incapable management. Wide spread agricultural and not even the wheel was developed.

I dispute the factual accuracy of this but it is apparent that a fundamental change of your worldview is in order for me to gain any sense of worth from this conversation so imma stop replying to your posts.

So, no, white people are not historically superior, because of our genes or something like that. It just happened. It could have been anywhere else on earth.

I disagree. I think it was always going to happen in Europe first.

Firstly, Europe is a small continent and it was one which many of its powers tried, repeatedly, to engage in some form of Rome-recreation. That is, Europe existed in a state of competition not replicated elsewhere on the same scale. In Asia, for instance, China was utterly dominant. Societies in other parts of the world had much more space so when larger empires built up they were frequently not near each other. In any case, I consider that all my points are necessary to engage in wide-scale colonialism as Europeans did from the 1400s onwards so that deals with exceptions that my limited knowledge can't cover.

Secondly, Europe itself was, historically, not the wealthiest place. This is a monetary sense... Europeans were aware that by going East there was a lot of wealth that they'd like to be involved with. In a more personal sense of wealth, Europeans considered that the peak of Europe was in the past. These two points provided reasons to be competitive. Furthermore, Europe was close enough to what we might call the forefront of innovation to be able to receive these innovations. It was also able to apply them to its own contexts (i.e. the competition).

Thirdly, the natural route to where the money was, was blocked. The Ottomans pretty much sat in the way of European contact moving eastwards. They were both too powerful for Europeans to do anything about this and too not Catholic for their presence to be seen as good in any way. However, there was, for Europe, an alternative route... around Africa. As a consequence, Europe had the technology to be able to explore a fundamentally different direction without massive expense.

For these reasons, Europe had the starting base to develop the technologies that eventually saw it overtake rivals in other parts of the world. It also had the technologies necessary to enable accidentally realising that there were other areas of the world, and a reason to do that in the first place. It also existed in a context where investing time and money overseas made sense... no European polity was able to achieve dominance over its rivals and Europe was aware that wealth was overseas. I also think that Europe was the only place where these reasons all intersected. Other places certainly would've done massive maritime colonialism but they were either unable to or had no reason to.

That's just a liberal democratic failure, the war was won and France could have kept Algeria.

War is tactical and strategic. To win, you need to win the latter. This is usually done through tactics. In the case of Algeria, French tactics made massive strategic mistakes... disenchanting their own population and that of Algeria. Holding onto Algeria would've been akin to holding a hot ember, at first it's okay and then you get the issues.

Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't reply...

Whites did dominate most of history, although Asians also dominated a big part of history too.

Er, no. Europeans have dominated most of truly global history because their actions created a world where we can speak of all continents being linked rather than existing in smaller sections just doing their own thing. But, for the vast majority of history, Europe was not where things were happening. And, indeed, Europeans only started to dominate global history when they made it really big... when it was Europe, Asia and North Africa they were bit players.

[Forsher]

You know, I really thought this bent of conversation left NSG with the establishment of the Batcavern. Despite my rudeness earlier in the thread, it's better to make no assumptions about the person on the other end of the conversation and just respond to the ideas regardless. The people are for TET.

A year and a half of listening to the same bullshit arguments leads me to believe that the members of the BatCavern had a point in saying that.

I don't agree with several in the BC, but heck, I do think they make several good points too.

If you're bored of rehashing arguments, stop replying to them or make a word document that looks a bit like this:

Abortion
links to good posts

Feminism
links to good posts

Evolution
links to good posts

White Supremacy
links to good posts

etc etc

And just follow the links and quote the relevant posts.

It's certainly true that people NSG to experiment with their wider thoughts... even with people like me whose views were correct to start with (hahaha) have posts that show important but not dramatic/fundamental changes over time. As a consequence, we do get a lot of the same threads and a lot of the same ideas popping up all the time. But the moment this reality makes one jaded and that affects one's posts one becomes nothing but a liability to one's point of view.

There was something very ironic about many early departures of NSG in that they'd complain about whining and maturity, all the time. That's pretty much whining. It gets more ironic when the person on the other end of the conversation invariably became their focus... that's immature and it gets more immature when one turns to abrasion and things like "you're bad at this". Maybe they've made something that is more what they wanted but I think they were a) seeing what they expected to see rather than what was there and b) doing an excellent job at leading by example.

He'd be right if this were Age of Empires, though.

Oh wait...Monument Victory.

Victory by Wonder. Less annoying than AOEIII's victory by trade monopoly (and, in some sense, trade monopoly is more realistic).

I will read the remaining pages later on, I want to go play a game where victory by other means is theoretically possible but invariably boils down to military power.

[Agritum]

Do you just draw your own conclusions based on preconceived notions of someone and false-pretenses?

Would you like me to quote you?

I'm sure you totally care about Swahili folk music.

You kidding?

I listen to Turkish pop, Arabic Orthodox chants, West African soul, American Revolutionary Songs, French anthems, and Mongolian Folk Metal.

I've an interest in human culture. Why wouldn't I care about Swahili folk music?

I listen to about 3/4 of what you listed.

Now this is scary.

[Conserative Morality]

I listen to about 3/4 of what you listed.

Now this is scary.

Which ones are you missing out on?

[Papait]

yes but this is about 'white people' not just europeans.
And though they have been significant for a short time, they have shaped the modern world.
Imperialism, Christianity, Islam, transporting people across continents and either wiping out animals, or giving natives the technology to do so

Who is included in "white people" except Europeans?

Europe only got the lead in imperialism due to geographic luck (their coal deposits were accessible and where much of their industry already was, whereas China's were in an area recently devastated in war at the time, and so other parts of China started industrializing first, giving the Europeans, especially the British, a head start). Where they lived had more to do with it than who lived there.

And yeah, they shaped the "modern world." So what? They affected the world for a three hundred year period? Human history is thousands of years long. And will likely continue for thousands of years more.

Turks, Arabs, Persians, North Africans.
You know... Caucasians

[Agritum]

I listen to about 3/4 of what you listed.

Now this is scary.

Which ones are you missing out on?

I believe the West African soul and Turkish pop.

[Republic of Coldwater]

Whites have made many advancements in human civilization, but so have other races. Arabs, who are a mix of different races invented modern numbers and made other advancements in architecture, the sciences and the maths, while also developing the three major abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. East Asians have invented gunpowder, paper, the compass, the first oil derricks and also made huge ships that could've sailed many oceans. The indigenous tribes in South America have built glamorous cities that are testaments to human ingenuity.

So yes, Whites have made great advancements in history, but it would be asinine to credit every single of the countless advancements to whites, as other races have also made equally great achievements as the white people.

[Conserative Morality]

I believe the West African soul and Turkish pop.

Gotta say, you aren't missing much with the Turkish pop. It's catchy as hell though.

[Immoren]

Arabs... while also developing the three major abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity.

What?