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by Alleniana » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:16 am
by Mushet » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:30 am
Alleniana wrote:Mushet wrote:How were those rivers not significant until a few hundred years ago?
Mississippi, though the centre of many pre-Columbian civilizations, did not really have much of an effect on anything until the colonies came.
Same for Amazon. The native civilizations did not affect a lot.
by Alleniana » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:37 am
Mushet wrote:Alleniana wrote:Mississippi, though the centre of many pre-Columbian civilizations, did not really have much of an effect on anything until the colonies came.
Same for Amazon. The native civilizations did not affect a lot.
Native American cultures have had a fair amount of underestimated influence and the mississipi river happened to be important to the many nations living on it, it was also an important center for the extensive trade networks crossing the Americas and continued the be an important center after colonial invasion.
by Gidgetisms » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:39 am
by Alleniana » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:41 am
Gidgetisms wrote:Amazon
by Gidgetisms » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:43 am
by Alleniana » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:45 am
by Gidgetisms » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:45 am
by Alleniana » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:48 am
by Neo Prutenia » Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:38 am
Arumdaum wrote:Oh please, that's most definitely what you were implying. It's what you fucking said.
Arumdaum wrote:Are you perhaps sensitive about this issue?
I'm sorry that I'm allergic to eurocentrics who happen to be totally ignorant of world history ;'(
Arumdaum wrote:You seem to enjoy things with confidence about a country you clearly know nothing about. Why?
China has a large amount of different ethnic groups, with large minorities including the Zhang, Hui, Tibetans, Manchus, Uyghurs, Miao, and Yi. Of course, there's a lot, lot more. If we go back thousands of years, most of the place didn't even speak a Chinese language. We'd have Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples in Sichuan (which actually developed civilization independently of the main civilization between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers), more of those in Tibet, Austronesian speakers in Fujian and Taiwan, Austroasiatic speakers in Guangdong, and much, much more.
Of course, this is nothing like the relatively puny differences between "Romantic" and "Germanic" in largely culturally homogeneous Europe, but rather more like the massive differences between "Indo-European" and "Semitic," or "Indo-European" and "Dravidian."
Culturally, these people were nothing like the Chinese, although many of them were assimilated into seeing themselves as Chinese.
While some people may like to say that, let's look at
I wonder what this is
You know, this might be because China is a pretty big place. Like, y'know, 150% the size of Europe if you exclude Russia.
It might help to have a size comparison for the size of the Sinosphere. Here's a rough equivalent. China has done a remarkable job of expanding its civilization, border, and culture.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with culture, but the fact that the Industrial Revolution first occurred in Britain, the geographical closeness between the Americas and Europe, and the fact that there were no large mammals able to be domesticated in the Americas.
India is most definitely not a monolithic block of similar culture. The only unifying similarity is Hinduism, which itself is a pretty modern concept. However, even then, there are a significant amount of Muslims in India, and even more before the division of British India.
Assuming that it's a monoculture, as you say, is as accurate as saying that Europe is a monoculture, although Europe doesn't tend to be as diverse.
The number of countries it runs through is irrelevant. India isn't as politically fractured as Europe.
Perhaps because differences are real, whether or not different groups are independent? If all of Europe was united under France, but was then colonized by say, Korea, and then was given independence as a single nation, would you say the same?
How so?
Mesopotamia was pretty diverse with a large number of differing peoples, especially if you consider Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein to be so different.
Of which Syria and Iraq happen to be states drawn with arbitrary borders made by colonial powers.
Together, that's about the size of Egypt alone. If China was fractured into a million different states, would you name every tiny one along the Yellow or Yangtze river?
haha, don't be shitting me
by Alleniana » Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:09 am
by Arumdaum » Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:11 am
Alleniana wrote:On Chinese/Indian monoculture:
Yes, Europe is fractured.
But yes, China is also fractured.
And yes, India is even more fractured.
But not as fractured as Europe.
Neither China nor India are monocultures, which can be proved fairly well by that which is equivalent to a thousand words, or several:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chinese/maps/map2b.html Admittedly most is Han Chinese Mandarin, but a significant amount is not; nearly half, I think
http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/india/i ... guages.jpg Note Hindi is scarcely 50%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_va ... of_Chinese The very existence of this list, and the fact that most aren't mutually intelligible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_gro ... bcontinent Same for this
by Shofercia » Sat Oct 05, 2013 11:05 am
Christmahanikwanzikah wrote:8 pages and not one of you has mentioned "Tam."
I'm ashamed of all of you.
by Arumdaum » Sat Oct 05, 2013 11:57 am
Neo Prutenia wrote:Arumdaum wrote:Oh please, that's most definitely what you were implying. It's what you fucking said.
In your opinion and interpretation. Prove it. I didn't say or imply that, and I don't need another person to explain to me what I said. I don't explain to you what your intention was, do I? As proven below, I specifically asked you if you were sensitive about this.
The Rhine; meeting point of two vastly different civilisation and culture types of the same large oikumene (Catholic/Protestant ; Germanic/Romance)
Well, because all the other rivers are part of larger monocultures - Tigris and Euphrates (Mesopotamia, i.e. all the historic versions of what is now Iraq, inc.), Nile (Egypt only), Yangtze/Yellow (China only), Indus/Ganges (India only).
Arumdaum wrote:I'm sorry that I'm allergic to eurocentrics who happen to be totally ignorant of world history ;'(
Again with the name-calling and accusations. I'm not ignorant of world history and I don't see how you got that impression. We can't talk about "World history" until a "World community" has been established, which happened about 400 to 500 years ago. That's the time frame all humans on the world started sharing one present and one history. Before that it certainly wasn't "World" history.
Arumdaum wrote:You seem to enjoy things with confidence about a country you clearly know nothing about. Why?
You seem to know with 100% certainty what I know and don't know about some topic, and what my intention was. If you're so confident that I know nothing about China, you explain it to me then.
China has a large amount of different ethnic groups, with large minorities including the Zhang, Hui, Tibetans, Manchus, Uyghurs, Miao, and Yi. Of course, there's a lot, lot more. If we go back thousands of years, most of the place didn't even speak a Chinese language. We'd have Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples in Sichuan (which actually developed civilization independently of the main civilization between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers), more of those in Tibet, Austronesian speakers in Fujian and Taiwan, Austroasiatic speakers in Guangdong, and much, much more.
All of which are Chinese now politically, and have been so for centuries, and all of which speak Chinese now. I don't recall multiculturalism being a thing in China.
Of course, this is nothing like the relatively puny differences between "Romantic" and "Germanic" in largely culturally homogeneous Europe, but rather more like the massive differences between "Indo-European" and "Semitic," or "Indo-European" and "Dravidian."
Yes, puny difference. Also, it's "Romance", not "Romantic".
And Europe is culturally homogeneous.
Europe. Because we all share one common language,
one common political organisation,
the exact same civilisational values,
cultural heroes,
religion,
mythology, etc.
Of course. From this statement, one could conclude that you don't know much about Europe.
Even on the macrocultural level, there's Western Europe and Eastern Europe,
which quite differ in values
and have little to no overlapping,
and Northern/Continental/Atlantic Europe and Southern/Mediterranean Europe, which have completely different outlooks on life, actually completely opposite ones.
There's no singular "Europe" beyond textbooks about geography, nor one European culture.
Europe isn't India or China. Maybe some day in the future it will be. Which would be great.
Culturally, these people were nothing like the Chinese, although many of them were assimilated into seeing themselves as Chinese.
No one cares. Especially since yes,
they were assimilated. Now they're a footnote in history. Does anyone care about the peculiarities of Bavarians and Swabians? No, they were assimilated into the common "Deutsch" identity.
While some people may like to say that, let's look at
the vast majority of the Zhou dynasty - Chinese
Warring States period - Chinese
late Han dynasty - Chinese
late Tang dynasty - Chinese
Three Kingdoms period - Chinese
Warlords period - Chinese
hrmmmmmI wonder what this is
An inability to recognise the same pattern repeating itself in a hydraulic empire, where the political establishment changed periodically due to various reasons, but the ethnolinguistic composition, everyday life, and social conditions remained the same for centuries. Mostly the same. Until those drug-peddlers came in their fancy boats and started shooting.
You know, this might be because China is a pretty big place. Like, y'know, 150% the size of Europe if you exclude Russia.
Yes, I figured that out. Thank you captain obvious. Now, look at the scoreboard - these rivers influenced one (large) political entity, while the Rhine influenced more than one. If you had one river starting in Kamchatka and flowing all the way to Saint Petersburg, it would still be relevant for only one country. Size doesn't matter. It's how many it influenced and what the results were.
It might help to have a size comparison for the size of the Sinosphere. Here's a rough equivalent. China has done a remarkable job of expanding its civilization, border, and culture.
I'm not impressed. It's still a localised acheivement, not a global one. It didn't even manage to encompass it's own continent as a whole, nor penetrate any further than that, despite having several opportunities. Again, look at the scoreboard. What we recognise as European or Western has global influence and presence. What we recognise as Chinese is firmly entrenched in East Asia and southeast Asia. Regardless of how big exactly that sphere is, it's not global.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with culture, but the fact that the Industrial Revolution first occurred in Britain, the geographical closeness between the Americas and Europe, and the fact that there were no large mammals able to be domesticated in the Americas.
The Industrial revolution is not a singular event, but a process spanning several decades which mostly simultaneously took place in Great Britain, France, the Low countries, Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark, before expanding further from there all over the continent and later the world. It was started in Great Britain.
Oh, we're talking about Diamond's "Gun, Germs, and Steel"? Yes, the nations which happened to be located in Europe had many, many advantages. We had luck. So? How does that change the facts?
India is most definitely not a monolithic block of similar culture. The only unifying similarity is Hinduism, which itself is a pretty modern concept. However, even then, there are a significant amount of Muslims in India, and even more before the division of British India.
India has been under two foreign regimes before it became the current singular political entity. It's been a monoculture for the past few centuries, with Hinduism being the only local unifying factor, barring the current political unity. Before that it was a collection of warring states, not unlike Europe. Unlike Europe, it never managed to stabilise and become a global power, or several. It's a shame, since they had a good chance.
Assuming that it's a monoculture, as you say, is as accurate as saying that Europe is a monoculture, although Europe doesn't tend to be as diverse.
The number of countries it runs through is irrelevant. India isn't as politically fractured as Europe.
??? And those two thoughts form a coherent whole how exactly? OK, let's see. We have two (actually three) rivers, and we're trying to determine which has more influence. And you say its irrelevant through how many different groups the river passes. Obviously it doesn't matter how many groups said river influences to determine which river has more influence. Yes, I understand.
India isn't as politically fractured as Europe, since India is under one political regime and is a monoculture .
Perhaps because differences are real, whether or not different groups are independent? If all of Europe was united under France, but was then colonized by say, Korea, and then was given independence as a single nation, would you say the same?
Of course I would, I'm not a hypocrite, like some people. ^_^
I'm perfectly aware that the European nations had luck, compared to the Indian nations. I'm merely interested in the results, the scoreboard. What could have been is just a nice intellectual exercise, but nothing more. It literally doesn't matter, the same way the exact groups don't matter. I'm not holding it against some groups that they didn't achieve certain goals or didn't accomplish colonising India. It says nothing about said groups qualitatively. They're still irrelevant on a global scale, so I'm just indifferent towards them. At least in the context of "influence".
How so?
Mesopotamia was pretty diverse with a large number of differing peoples, especially if you consider Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein to be so different.
Similar to China really, it was also mostly a hydraulic empire dominated by various local political powers.
Generally the regimes only changed, while the living conditions, social organisation etc remained the same. The mythology, language, and customs also didn't change much until the arrival of foreigners like the Persians. Mesopotamia had a really lousy location in terms of political survival, but a great location for building a civilisation. Hence why the Persians managed to use that area for their ends, while the people of Mesopotamia didn't do the same with the Iranian plateau.
There's a difference between several sociopolitical entities existing in one location at the same time, and one location seeing different political regimes changing over the course of some time. Hey, Assyria had a good run. They were cool.
Of which Syria and Iraq happen to be states drawn with arbitrary borders made by colonial powers.
So? How does that concern me, you, or anyone else? How does that affect global, world history. You lose, you have to suffer the consequences. Simple as that.
Not to mention, the borders of Iraq were pretty much drawn to take up the vast majority of the river.
And thus it has become irrelevant to world history, no? How about the Mongols diverting that river? How about the time it was under the firm domination of the Islamic Caliphate? How about we stop pretending that just because it's the cradle of civilisation it has any special importance?
If you were born in a mud hut, you wouldn't be proud about it. You'd be proud about the brick house you moved into when you managed to scrounge up the money. No one cares how it started, merely the results affect us.
Together, that's about the size of Egypt alone. If China was fractured into a million different states, would you name every tiny one along the Yellow or Yangtze river?
Yes, since political autonomy largely affects cultural differences. Austria, Lichtenstein, German Switzerland have a recognisably different culture than Germany, or rather South Germany to be specific. They might as well be aliens to North Germans.
by Utceforp » Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:01 pm
Alleniana wrote:Yes, it's a bit random, but it's NSG. So, what was it? The most important and influential river to homo sapiens' history, development and everything about them. Consider all factors; environmental, scientific, war, etc. However, only consider fairly direct effects; no pulling some prehistoric river out of your ass saying without it reptiles and therefore humans would never have been, or something like that.
Here's a list of rivers which I'm fairly sure will make it to the top:
Tigris
Euphrates
Rhine
Danube
Nile
Yangtze
Yellow
Ganges
Indus
I won't be choosing one, merely discussing, by the way. Poll will be up after there's an idea of the main candidates, which I am guessing will be those 9, plus an "Other" option, because the Po or the Rhone or the Mississippi and the Amazon probably aren't quite as important.
by Utceforp » Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:16 pm
Neo Prutenia wrote:Arumdaum wrote:Rhine has vastly different civilizations and cultures, Mesopotamia/China/India are all so similar
sure
keep on thinking that
You're free to try and convince me otherwise, although that's not what I said or implied. Are you perhaps sensitive about this issue?
There's no arguing that China is a monoculture, and has been such for thousands of years. It's the textbook definition of "uninterrupted political continuity", and both the Yangtze and Yellow River are relevant to China only. However, the Chinese civilisation and its values have not gone beyond their immediate neighbourhood, the Sinosphere. It's certainly a great contributor to human history and diversity, but on a global level, it has been outcompeted by other cultures.
India is a rather modern concept, barring a few early attempts to unify the sub-continent. Ashoka's Empire comes to mind. We could talk about a Hindu continuity and oikumene, and a unified Hindu monoculture, but it never achieved any particular success outside of its borders. Again, limited to its immediate neighbourhood. Plus, both Indian rivers run just through two countries each, India and Pakistan for the Indus, and India and Bangladesh for the Ganges. In addition, what do the local differences matter if they never managed to expose themselves and establish politically?
Mesopotamia certainly was a monoculture with shifting political regimes until it, like Egypt, was conquered by foreign political entities. In modern times, those two rivers go through three countries - Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, inc.
The Rhine is relevant to six countries, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, and partially Austria and Lichtenstein. That's already more diversity than either of the six rivers mentioned above, and those came in pairs. How about we properly pair up the Rhine with the Danube over the Main? You'd have a connection from the North sea to the Black sea. Perhaps as pairs, the Indus/Ganges, Tigris/Euphrates etc can be candidates for most important/influential, but the Rhine can hold up to them alone.
by Northwest Slobovia » Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:28 pm
Quintium wrote:For Europe, it's the Rhine. For Africa, it's the Nile. For the Middle East, it's both the Tigris and the Euphrates.
by Freelanderness » Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:49 pm
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by Nanatsu no Tsuki » Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:51 pm
Northwest Slobovia wrote:Quintium wrote:For Europe, it's the Rhine. For Africa, it's the Nile. For the Middle East, it's both the Tigris and the Euphrates.
This is the closest to the truth so far. "Most Important" is a silly thing to worry about for history, period, and for rivers, which ones might make a top-5 list vary with the region and time.
The Mississppi wasn't very significant on a global stage until the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. But after that, it becomes increasingly important to the settlement of North America and the development of the US as an economic powerhouse. Meanwhile, the significance of the Nile has decreased in recent centuries, having been eclipsed by some ditch somebody dug nearby.
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by Rio Cana » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:10 pm
Utceforp wrote:
I'd say that all of the "ancient" ones (Tigris, Euphrates, Nile, Indus, Yellow, whatever American rivers the Meso, Southern and Northern American cultures developed around) all tie the most important, considering they were the place where writing, cities, farming, et cetera were first created. (Fertile river -> Irrigation -> farming -> food surplus -> everything else essential to civilization.)
by Mushet » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:00 pm
Alleniana wrote:Mushet wrote:Native American cultures have had a fair amount of underestimated influence and the mississipi river happened to be important to the many nations living on it, it was also an important center for the extensive trade networks crossing the Americas and continued the be an important center after colonial invasion.
I really can't think of anyway they have affected anything particularly majorly, except for perhaps Incan/Aztec/Mayan gold.
by Shofercia » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:40 pm
Mushet wrote:Alleniana wrote:I really can't think of anyway they have affected anything particularly majorly, except for perhaps Incan/Aztec/Mayan gold.
Contributions in trading, discovery, agricultural technology, industrialization, the culinary field, hunting, realm of politics, the english language, fishing, healing, even where cities are today are largely built over already existing Indian settlements.
by Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:43 pm
Shofercia wrote:Mushet wrote:Contributions in trading, discovery, agricultural technology, industrialization, the culinary field, hunting, realm of politics, the english language, fishing, healing, even where cities are today are largely built over already existing Indian settlements.
You didn't mention calendarmaking.
I wonder why
by Mushet » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:45 pm
Shofercia wrote:Mushet wrote:Contributions in trading, discovery, agricultural technology, industrialization, the culinary field, hunting, realm of politics, the english language, fishing, healing, even where cities are today are largely built over already existing Indian settlements.
You didn't mention calendarmaking.
I wonder why
by Aethrys » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:46 pm
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