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Nobody complains about the lack of diversity in China


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2017 Dec 16, 9:52pm   10,821 views  43 comments

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1   WatermelonUniversity   2017 Dec 17, 6:42am  

Not apples fault all Asians look the same!
2   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 17, 8:46am  

I think almost 90% of China's population are Han Chinese. That's accounting for all the Turkic Muslims, Hill Tribes, etc.. It's less diverse than 1950s USA.

That country has made great strides. Just like we did during the Mercury-Apollo Programs, not a non-White face to be seen at Mission Control, IBM, Grumman, etc. No Indians, No Asians, No Hispanic faces, and yet, we went from not having a man in space to landing on the moon in little more than a decade.

Diversity: Oversold.

PS Sorry, Han Chinese are 92% of China's population:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese
3   alpo   2017 Dec 17, 9:08am  

Well, I don't think anyone is discounting the achievement of white americans, but let's not forget that rockets were first invented in China, then they were weaponized in India where the british picked it up and brought it to UK. From there the "hail hitler" germans further improved upon the rocket and after the end of the war many of these german rocket scientists moved to US. So if you take the entire history of rocket development it is very diverse (just like history of mathematics and science which ultimately lead to white americans of the 50s and 60s putting man on the moon). Nice two scoops by the way, would love to put my hands on those.
4   Shaman   2017 Dec 17, 9:54am  

Diversity isn’t doing Baltimore any favors.
5   alpo   2017 Dec 17, 9:55am  

Well the Native Americans were here much longer than anyone else, but from some of the stuff that I am reading, the black population in US is genetically older than the white population in the US. Let's not forget that "colored immigration" was banned for many years while hordes of whites were poring in from Europe as a result the black population has a longer history in US then most whites and most of the people who are referred to as "Blacks" have some White blood in them.

As far as diversity is concerned, unfortunately this country is already fucked. I guess what trump and his supporters are hoping for is that it doesn't get more fucked for them, LOL but then there is the rest of the globe and 1+ billion people each sitting in China, India, and Africa. The shape of the world as we know it will change, just like it changed when the europeans first discovered asia, americas, and africa.

But yeah, if people werent trying to make slaves of each other and take advantage of each other then there will be no fun.
6   anonymous   2017 Dec 17, 10:11am  

anonymous says
Nobody complains about the lack of diversity in China


China is composed of many ethnic backgrounds, but I guess they all look alike to you, and that's all that matters.
7   anonymous   2017 Dec 17, 10:11am  

They don’t have the fag and division party... aka Democrats... to solve made up problems.
8   anonymous   2017 Dec 17, 1:42pm  

I remember watching the 1974 World Cup soccer finals between Netherlands and West Germany. The two teams lined up while the national anthems were played. Camera zoomed in on the faces of the players. I recall thinking they all look alike. Now White people don't look alike to me anymore. White people have not changed. It's just that I have a lot more exposure to White faces.
9   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 17, 2:23pm  

anon_b5ceb says
China is composed of many ethnic backgrounds, but I guess they all look alike to you, and that's all that matters.


Again, 92% of Chinese are Han People.
10   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 17, 2:28pm  

"Hey, Asshole, look what your ancestors did to the Native Americans."
"Uh..."
"Horrible, what have you learned from all this?"
"Don't allow mass numbers of people from another continent to migrate"
11   anonymous   2017 Dec 17, 2:56pm  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
Again, 92% of Chinese are Han People.


You do realize that this only means they are descendants of people who lived in the Han dynasty, an empire that conquered countless ethnic groups. It's like saying that 92% of the people in the United States are Americans.

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/20/11763.long "Despite the fact that extensive variations among Han Chinese populations and minority populations in China have been observed (2–7), such populations are usually underrepresented in genetic studies of worldwide populations (8–10)."

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/07/how-chinese-genetics-is-like-chinese-food/ "The Han Chinese are genetically diverse, due to geographic scale of range, hybridization with other populations, and possibly local adaptation."

China in a huge area, far bigger than Europe. and even bigger than the US when comparing land area. It's population is ancient and most of its history is from times when people simply could not move around a lot and were very isolated. Common sense alone would say that their population would be genetically diverse.

Patrick says
Japan is perhaps even more homogeneous than China


Japan is absolutely more homogeneous than China. Japan is composed of a few islands whose land area is a grand of sand compared to China.

Anyway, the failure of facial recognition software to distinguish between Chinese faces has nothing to do with genetic diversity and everything to do with demand. Western governments are the ones buying such software to keep track of every citizen. So software companies develop against European and African faces.
12   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 17, 3:02pm  

anon_01022 says
You do realize that this only means they are descendants of people who lived in the Han dynasty, an empire that conquered countless ethnic groups. It's like saying that 92% of the people in the United States are Americans.


And did you know that the Germans are actually a combination of various ethnic groups and that under a few centuries ago, there were at least 3 major versions of German?

This is dancing around the point. 92% of Chinese are Han Chinese, consider themselves Han Chinese, have a unified culture, offical language, values, et/c.

anon_01022 says
China in a huge area, far bigger than Europe. and even bigger than the US when comparing land area. It's population is ancient and most of its history is from times when people simply could not move around a lot and were very isolated. Common sense alone would say that their population would be genetically diverse.


Much of it some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world, like the Qaidam Basin or Aksai Chin. The vast, vast majority of Chinese live within a few hundred miles of the Pacific; much of the rest of China is sparsely inhabited.

The point is that China and Japan are amazingly non-diverse. So was the USA in the 50s compared to today, yet the US of the 50s and 60s was no less - possibly more - dynamic than today.

Therefore, diversity is not necessarily the magic potion it's advertised to be.
13   anonymous   2017 Dec 17, 3:39pm  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
And did you know that the Germans are actually a combination of various ethnic groups and that under a few centuries ago, there were at least 3 major versions of German?


Yes. But this still is nothing compared to the genetic diversity in China, yet Germans have many different eye color and hair color. Genetic diversity cannot be measured by easily visible external traits. And there is no need to do this. Recording genetic code is cheap and easy today.

TwoScoopsMcGee says
This is dancing around the point. 92% of Chinese are Han Chinese, consider themselves Han Chinese, have a unified culture, offical language, values, et/c.


Culture and language have nothing to do with genetics. Values are influenced by genetics, but also far many other things. Considering oneself to be part of a single tribe has nothing to do with genetics either.

TwoScoopsMcGee says
The point is that China and Japan are amazingly non-diverse.


That may be your point, but it is not supported by a genetic argument. My point is that their gene pool is diverse, at least as far as human gene pools are, and for obvious reasons.

Genetic diversity and cultural diversity have little, if anything, to do with each other.

TwoScoopsMcGee says
Therefore, diversity is not necessarily the magic potion it's advertised to be.


True, but neither is the tribalism and racial bonds advertised by the right. Nonetheless, I'll take a society with a free market of ideas over a homogeneous one any day.
14   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 17, 4:26pm  

anon_01022 says
That may be your point, but it is not supported by a genetic argument. My point is that their gene pool is diverse, at least as far as human gene pools are, and for obvious reasons.


When did I ever say that the diversity being spoken of is anything but the typical use of diversity, which is "Different Cultures"?

Indeed I thought I made that clear when I referred to common culture and language.

Today I also pointed out that proclaiming "DNA" in a headline about Whites makes an article specifically about racism, to the point the author cannot dodge that he merely meant "Whiteness" as some kind of Cultural/Social trait.

anon_01022 says
True, but neither is the tribalism and racial bonds advertised by the right. Nonetheless, I'll take a society with a free market of ideas over a homogeneous one any day.


It only works if the academics agree to a free market of ideas. How many in the "Gender Studies" Department disbelieve in Patriarchy? Do you think somebody opposed to notions of Patriarchy and "Whiteness" would ever get tenure at such a Department (or in any Department, even if it had little to do with Social Science)?
15   Reality   2017 Dec 17, 10:03pm  

Japanese are indeed quite homogeneous, except for the aborginal Ainu living in northern Hokaido. The Chinese OTOH are an entirely different story. The Chinese government may prefer to promote the misconception of homogeneous "Han" as a race or ethnic group. In reality, the "Han"/Chinese are composed of at least 2-3 different groupings. The coastal Chinese are genetically and linguistically more closely related to Japanese and Vietnamese than to interior continental Chinese. The "Mandarin" Chinese language the world knows today is not even a language of Chinese origin, but that of the Manchu/Mongo/Turkic/Altaic origin, especially in pronounciations. The Chinese revolutionaries in the early 20th century narrowly voted to keep Mandarin as official language (instead of adopting a Vietnamese-like dialect/language as official language) after Manchus imposed that language on Chinese bureaucracy for 300 years. It's just like the founding fathers decided by a narrow margin to keep English instead of adopting German as official language despite most (white) Americans before 20th century were of German origin not English. Then radio and TV reinforced the dominance of Mandarin in China in the 20th century, just like internet reinforced the dominance of English worldwide since the 1990's. Most people with internet access can read English now, but that doesn't make the entire world ethnically English or American.

People in particular locales in the old world often look similar to outsiders, simply because many generations have lived in the same region resulting in most people there becoming genetically related to each other. We see that even when visiting Britain.
16   WatermelonUniversity   2017 Dec 18, 9:06pm  

In my experience, among Asians, many, many Chinese consistently boast about two things: their superior genes and their super secret and lethal Kung Fu.

Funny because they are known in the world not for innovations but for chow mei and Kung pao chicken and knock off, inferior products. Their huge country has been crushed by much much smaller armies in the last century it’s quite an embarrassment.

Even more laughable, they spend hundreds of millions a year brainwashing their own with make believe movies show casing impossible “deadly”moves. The reality is there has not been single Chinese champion in any leading MMA organization. There have been many world famous champions from Japan Korea Thai and heck even a couple from Vietnam. Alll Chinese fighters have shown a sub standard performance and went down usually very quickly, by one punch. You think with 1.5 billion and super secret deadly Kung fu maybe one of them has gotten a belt by now?

Yet YouTube and Chinese TV are full of documentaries of shaolin monks showing off their super natural abilities breaking bricks stones metal with their flesh and bones. Chinese say their martial arts are for self defense and not for show. Then why appear in documentaries in the first place? It’s all a scam, just like most things that came out of China.
17   Strategist   2017 Dec 18, 9:14pm  

BorderPatrol says
In my experience, among Asians, many, many Chinese consistently boast about two things: their superior genes and their super secret and lethal Kung Fu.

Funny because they are known for in the world not for innovations


You have no idea how innovative they are when it comes to stealing patents. They are numero uno.
18   alpo   2017 Dec 18, 11:19pm  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
Therefore, diversity is not necessarily the magic potion it's advertised to be.


Not sure what you mean by "magic potion" here or how it is even relevant. The fact is that diversity exists. How you choose to deal with it is a different issue.

Strategist says
Chinese consistently boast about two things: their superior genes and their super secret and lethal Kung Fu.


Shaolin Temple, which gets a lot if not most of the credit for development or martial arts in China, was started by an Indian Buddhist monk. So just like rockets, diversity played a role in development of martial arts as well.
19   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 19, 9:49am  

alpo says
Not sure what you mean by "magic potion" here or how it is even relevant. The fact is that diversity exists. How you choose to deal with it is a different issue.

Of course diversity exists. The point of contention is how much? The point is also that very homogenuous societies right now are among the world's most dynamic, and many "diverse" countries are hellholes with constant warfare, famine, and disease.

i read a Sociological Paper from the Classic Era (when science, not autoethnography, ruled) that perceptions of Trust, Corruption, and Good Order declined when minorities exceeded 15% in a city.

The idea that Diversity fuels progress/dynamism is highly debatable.
20   anonymous   2017 Dec 19, 11:24am  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
alpo says
Not sure what you mean by "magic potion" here or how it is even relevant. The fact is that diversity exists. How you choose to deal with it is a different issue.

Of course diversity exists. The point of contention is how much? The point is also that very homogenuous societies right now are among the world's most dynamic, and many "diverse" countries are hellholes with constant warfare, famine, and disease.

i read a Sociological Paper from the Classic Era (when science, not autoethnography, ruled) that perceptions of Trust, Corruption, and Good Order declined when minorities exceeded 15% in a city.

The idea that Diversity fuels progress/dynamism is highly debatable.


Are you sure have the correlation/causation correct?

Could you also say that the dynamic societies are largely secular, democratic socialist, while the hell holes are strongly religious Conservatives?
21   NuttBoxer   2017 Dec 19, 11:39am  

Two different points here:

1. Biometrics are a terrible form of security.
2. Only racist or self-loathing countries give a fuck about diversity.
22   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 19, 12:30pm  

errc says

Are you sure have the correlation/causation correct?

Could you also say that the dynamic societies are largely secular, democratic socialist, while the hell holes are strongly religious Conservatives?


Yuuuup. North Korea is a hell hole, but so are places like Somalia, Rwanda, the Congro and Myanmar. Yet lots of diversity. In fact the violence in the DR of the Congo is probably the bloodiest since WW2 in terms of both combat and civilian massacre, yet gets little play.

We're being bombarded with a message that Diversity=Strength. It's not necessarily so.

HUTU Power, Tutsi Cockroach!!

"Kaffirs (blacks) are as a rule uncivilized. They are troublesome, dirty & live almost like animals." - Mahatma Ghandi

Speaking of India, riots where scores die are quite common. Probably 100s of people have died in Pograms and Riots in India over the past few years. In 2002 the death toll from one 3-day riot was over 1,000.

Feel the Love - and Hindus and Muslims have been co-habitating for centuries upon centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots_in_India
Finally, an unreported fact. Not only are Americans better at Managing Europe than Europeans - evinced by the fact that about 80 years of US Dominance has resulted in NO wars, whereas when it was run by Euros there was an insanely bloody war every 20 years almost like clockwork, but the huge expulsion of Minorities, carried out by BOTH the Reds and Allies, happened after WW2. No more Poles in the Bloodlands, No more Germans in the Czech Republic, or Holland. Except for a few areas, Germans were forcibly removed from outside East or West Germany.
23   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 19, 1:09pm  

More about the forced transfer of Minority Germans from non-German areas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944–50)

The US even encouraged the explusion of Germans from Latin America, to camps in Louisiana.

The Czechs reject compensation for expelled (mostly Sudentenland) Germans at 86% (see above)
24   Reality   2017 Dec 19, 1:34pm  

The real issue is not diversity vs. mono-culture, but market freedom vs. government intervention. Both government-imposed diversity and government-imposed mono-culture are bad.

Diversity in the market place facilitates trade, and diversity in gene pool helps fend off diseases. However, the word "diversity" in these two context means having dissimilar participants, not necessarily ethnic diversity as defined by governments.

Switzerland is a very diverse country, with German-, French- and Italian- speaking cantons . . . and it is a model of good governance. Likewise, the tiny city-state of Singapore cramming numerous different ethnic groups (mainly Muslim Malays, Chinese and Hindus, but also numerous smaller groups from the former British Empire) into a tiny area less than 1/3 of Rhode Island, yet people there don't run around killing each other or burning down neighborhoods due to "racism."

Institutional efficiency usually decline when scaling up in size. In fact, it can be argued that the primary beneficiary of building a big empire are those who can benefit from corruption and lack of transparency; it is little wonder that they are fond of stirring the pot in hopes of benefiting from the resulting chaos and government imposition.

The efficiency of Northern European states is not due to mono-culture, just like the efficiency of Switzerland and Singapore is not due to diversity. They all benefit from being small and readily answerable to the people living there.
25   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 19, 1:39pm  

I don't entirely disagree with above.

My main point is to simply spread doubt on the simplistic equation that Diversity=Strength. It can also equal Civil War, Corruption, and host of ills.


Reality says
Likewise, the tiny city-state of Singapore cramming numerous different ethnic groups (Muslim Malays, Chinese and Hindus) into a tiny area less than 1/3 of Rhode Island, yet people there don't run around killing each other or burning down neighborhoods due to "racism."


Much of it is due to the fact that's it's a one-clan state run like an Estate by Yue, and that they insist on total obedience from Malay Muslims. Yue has been very strong on the point that Muslims MUST assimiliate and not disobey, or they get the boot. He has expressed doubts about Muslims' ability to integrate, and it's the reason why Sinapore separated from Malaysia in the first place: The Chinese were going to be the Malay Muslim's milk cow kaffirs to exploit, since SIngapore was already mostly Chinese, they left.

In the book, Mr Lee, when asked to assess the progress of multiracialism in Singapore, said: “I have to speak candidly to be of value, but I do not wish to offend the Muslim community. “I think we were progressing very nicely until the surge of Islam came, and if you asked me for my observations, the other communities have easier integration - friends, intermarriages and so on, Indians with Chinese, Chinese with Indians - than Muslims. That’s the result of the surge from the Arab states.” He added: “I would say today, we can integrate all religions and races except Islam.” He also said: “I think the Muslims socially do not cause any trouble, but they are distinct and separate.”

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/singapores-lee-we-cant-integrate-muslims/news-story/f7064e21e9803db2f7139a119607c64c?nk=784e0b75a5ab8d9ac4c8cc26d6050a8d-1513719600
26   Reality   2017 Dec 19, 1:46pm  

I agree with you that Diversity =/= Strength (Diversity != Strength), especially government-imposed diversity policies, which are often little more than government-imposed racism against specific groups.

OTOH, government-imposed Mono-Culture doesn't equate to strength (as in prosperity) either; if strength means military strength, then there might be an argument for that, as proven in WWI (the birth of nation state as an efficient infantry recruitment tool), but then WWII quickly proved that racially-based militarism doesn't stay "strong" for long either as it would take on too many enemies.

As for the specifics of the Lee clan in Singapore, they were historically necessary for fending off Communism (just like Pinochet in Chile), but in the long run if they don't fade into the background over the next generation or become ceremonial head of state like the British Royal Family, they would in the long run hold their country back. The irony is that the leftist intellectual agitations both made such somewhat right-wing dictatorships lesser-of-two-evils and making their retirement difficult (such as the ill treatment of Pinochet in his retirement after bringing economic prosperity to Chile and peacefully handing over power to newly elected government will of course make the next dictator reluctant to retire).
27   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 19, 1:50pm  

Yes of course. I personally believe an ideal state has between 2-20 Million People and be 80% "Something".

The US is built on Civic Nationalism, but that can only be maintained if there is a fundamental agreement over Civics. If it gets to a point where substantial minorities say "Shari'a is more important than the Constitution", and vote accordingly, problems will manifest itself. So in a way, some ethnic groups entry into the county has to be limited somehow. Many ethnics, be they Kenyan, Chinese, Gujarati, Parsi, Jamaican etc. have no problem integrating with US Civic Nationalism. Others however, create issues.

I should also mention for completeness, that "Bumiputera"(sp? "Son of the Soil"=Malay) laws are the official laws of the land in Malaysia. Indian or Chinese who have been residents for 300 years are still not "Sons of the Soil". Malays get extra points to enter universities, get grants, get government contracts, etc. by official Malaysian law. That is why so many "Malaysian Immigrants" to Singapore or Australia tend to be Chinese or Indian.
28   Reality   2017 Dec 19, 2:16pm  

Malaysia and Singapore are two different countries. The racist/discriminatory policies of Malaysia upon its independence after WWII was the reason why Singapore in turn demanded and won its independence from Malaysia. The separation cost Malaysian economy dearly.

Immigrants who believe "Sharia is more important than the Constitution" should obviously have their citizenship and voting rights stripped due to violation of their naturalization oath. In practice, selection on having a more productive immigrant demographic (and a more productive domestic demographic) can be done by reducing the welfare state.

BTW, I'm not hostile to Islam per se. The civic religion experiment in the US (and in much of post-modern West Europe) does seem to have a defect in its post-Modern form: drastically declining birth rate (after giving women equal opportunity, making the opportunity cost of raising babies too high). Perhaps we have to limit voting rights to property owners and net tax payers. Due to biological difference, women have much shorter time preference than men do. Populations embracing civic religion and gender equality eventually get replaced by populations emphasizing men's leadership over women (which actually meshes with women's instinctive hypergamy; a woman would be very reluctant to mate with a man who is not her leader); e.g. Romans replaced by Christians. Traditional religions became traditional religions precisely because they deliver that reproductive advantage in giving men the nominally advantageous position and fool the women's hypergamy into believing she is mating with her superior. It's entirely possible that Islam might take over the world in a few hundred years . . . unless we figure out a way to encourage girls to have babies before they waste their best years on social media and being corporate "wage slaves."
29   Shaman   2017 Dec 19, 4:35pm  

Unfortunately Islam taking over the world would be just about the worst case scenario, with the worst case belonging to nuclear holocaust.
There is no more backward or flat out wrong ideology than that expressed by Islam.
30   zzyzzx   2017 Dec 19, 4:38pm  

Tim Aurora says
It is not the fault of Native American and African Americans to be in USA


I'm not preventing blacks from moving to Africa.
Most blacks in the US are immigrants, or descend from immigrants, not descendants of slaves.
31   Reality   2017 Dec 19, 9:24pm  

The year was 415AD. The location was outside the world's top university. The lead character was the female president of the university. She was being carved to pieces by a fanatical religious mob on her way back from advising the governor and her military escort provided by the governor had been chased away by the religious mob. Her name was Hypatia, President of the University of Alexandria, which at the time was the world's largest university. The religious mob were early Christians.

Post-Modernists tend to portray Hypatia as a martyr of science. That she may have been. OTOH, her and her fellow intelligent Roman women's refusal to have children doomed themselves: the Christians rapidly out-reproduced the non-Christians in those first 3 centuries after Christianity was introduced to gentiles. Meanwhile, the rapidly rising cost of running a bureaucratic Empire was squeezing efficiency and vitality out of Rome.

We are not sure how Hypatia became the president of the largest university in the Roman world. She didn't seem to have accomplished anything in math or science or philosophy beyond regurgitating those came generations before her. It wouldn't be surprising if she had climbed up the academic social ladder via affirmative-action and feminine wile, just like what we are familiar with in today's academia. She and other relatively smart women like her simply squander their youth and intelligence on social networking and virtual signaling by reciting old knowledge, and selectively wiped out the intelligent genes on the female side of the population, leaving themselves vulnerable to mob lynching by the sons and grandsons of the relative more idiotic but far more reproductive women.

The arrival of benighted religious fanatics was not the only reason behind the fall of Rome and the onset of the Dark Age. The rapidly increasing tax and regulatory burden of the bureaucratic empire and the self-sterilization of the intellectual class (both in terms of their ideas and their genetic vitality) made the arrival of dark age only a matter of time. We are doing essentially the same thing today when encouraging girls to spend their most fertile 20's on pursuing PhD's in nonsense like global warming "science" while racking up student debt and making them unmarriageable.
32   alpo   2017 Dec 19, 10:36pm  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
The idea that Diversity fuels progress/dynamism is highly debatable.


If by progress, you mean search for knowledge, truth, and comfortable life, then to make progress you must be able to accept and respect ideas and developments that come from diverse sources. The Chinese also follow Newton's law of gravity which Newton, a European, developed on the back of "Hindu-Arabic" numeral system - apparently the Arabic recognized a good idea when they saw "Hindu numerals" and happily passed it on to their other neighbors in Europe where it became known as Hindu-Arabic numeral system. Instead of continuing to live the dream and sing the praises of "Roman Numerals", the European quickly dropped Roman Numerals like a hot potato and adopted the Hindu-Arabic numerals.

If you want to shut out a section of society, then do it at your own peril because the other guy won't wait for you to before exploiting diverse ideas and connecting them. What do you think is preventing Indian and Chinese now from directly collaborating with each other to invent the next great tech? Because right now all the collaboration happens when Chinese, Indians, Europeans, South Americans, and everyone else moves to Silicon Vally and try creating the next big tech. Reverse or shut off this diversity and rest assured you will find that Singapore is where people from all over the world come and meet to invent the next great idea while you are singing the songs of your homogeneity which no one will bother to hear as everyone will be on their way to Singapore.
33   Shaman   2017 Dec 20, 8:46am  

The Arabs have contributed almost nothing to society or progress since the advent of Islam. Even their number system they stole from people they encountered or conquered.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindu-Arabic-numerals The best thing they ever did was allow Jews and Christians to live relatively unmolested in their lands and steal the results of their labors, which included technologies. Islam is a force for submission, not progress or development. It’s a system of oppression not a system of freedom or choice.
34   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 20, 9:06am  

My quick response:

In the 19th Century, the British Population of India was a fraction of 1%, yet huge amounts of technical knowledge was transferred. Vice-versa was true with Religious/Cultural info from India. We have no record of a Europeans in 14th Century China or vice-versa in any quantity, yet Gunpowder. Humphrey Davies, Lavoissier, etc. never left Western Europe. You don't need physical presence to exchange information.

Again, mostly Midwestern Whites with a handful of Brooklyn Jews and Germans (from whom many Midwesterners are descended) from when we went to having bupkiss in space to a man on the moon in little over a decade.
35   anonymous   2017 Dec 20, 12:04pm  

i'm not too sure about man on the moon accomplishment. most likely a cold war psych op.
36   alpo   2017 Dec 20, 8:54pm  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
n the 19th Century, the British Population of India was a fraction of 1%, yet huge amounts of technical knowledge was transferred. Vice-versa was true with Religious/Cultural info from India. We have no record of a Europeans in 14th Century China or vice-versa in any quantity, yet Gunpowder. Humphrey Davies, Lavoissier, etc. never left Western Europe. You don't need physical presence to exchange information.


If you are trying to say that the world has largely lived in isolation, then the facts simply don't support that. Europeans, in particular, are hardly what you would consider "isolationists"

The Romans were actively trading with Asia thousands of years back. Alexander took a large multi-national army that inter-breeded all the way from from Greece to current day Afganistan/Pakistan region. Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam started in one part of the world, but spread to other parts of the world. Gengiz Khan attempted to homogenize everything from China to eastern Europe to middle east.

As far as America is concerned, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus took money from Spanish queen to fund his voyage to Asia, but ended up discovering Americas. Boston Tea Party happened when Chinese tea sitting inside East India Company ships was thrown into the Boston harbor. British General Charles Cornwallis after surrendering American colony to George Washington, traveled to the other side of the world and became the Governor General of Indian colony. The Nazis borrowed an alien "Aryan" culture (Swastika and Aryan aren't German words) to justify turning Europe upside down.
37   FortWayne   2017 Dec 20, 9:11pm  

alpo says
If you are trying to say that the world has largely lived in isolation, then the facts simply don't support that. Europeans, in particular, are hardly what you would consider "isolationists"


Oh yes they are, they don't want to mix with others. It's why there are so many borders and nations.
38   Reality   2017 Dec 21, 3:05pm  

Western Europe has/had so many borders and states/nations because of:

1. Geography. With the Alps in the middle of Western Europe and major rivers radiating from there to seas all around, it was easier for defenders to supply their troops (often in casles built at narrow choke points on the fragmented landscape) than for invaders that had to transport food supply forward with advancing army. The vast central plains and major long riverine "highways" of East Europe (mostly inside the state/empire Russia now), Middle East, India and China made military/political unification by a power sitting on a plain upstream (like Moscow region in Russia, Northwest India and Northwest China) conquering the rest of the regions by floating transport boats downstream much more easily than in Western Europe. Roman Empire could have absorbed Germania if the Rhine River flowed west-east from Belgic plains to German plains, instead of north-south from the Swiss Alps to North Sea.

2. Another aspect of Geography: England being a big island off-shore but very close to major commercial centers on the continent, so England could play balance of power, without which the Habsburg Austria/Spain, Bourbons (Louise XIV), Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin each could have united Western Europe. The islands of Ceylon and Formosa were too small and too far away from their nearby continental commercial centers to play balance of power role. Japan was even farther away from Asian continent to influence matters on the continent before 20th century, at which point the culture of unification (and corruption benefiting scholar administrators at the expense of the free market, essentially paternalistic communism/totalitarianism) had advanced to such a degree that Japanese attempted to unify the continent instead of playing balance of power to keep the continental powers from unifying.

3. Lessons from Roman Empire. Compared to the vibrant scientific and economic progress during Classical Greek City States (Phoenecian city states being contemporaries), the unification by Alexander then later Roman Empire on an even larger scale were slow-motion disasters that eventually made the Dark Age inevitable. By the time of Odocer (5th centuiry), after half a dozen emperors being replaced and murdered in less number of years, it finally became amply clear that being an Emperor was not beneficial to the individual. Odocer killed the sitting emperor, but refused to become emperor himself thereby avoiding death within a year or less. That was the start of Feudalism in Western Europe. Each military commander would have his own little fief to govern, so as to have more efficient and responsible local government than the bloated imperial government. Towards the end of Roman Empire, the citizens were literally selling their own freedom (so as to avoid exhorbitantly high taxes) to become serfs to big estates, which were essentially the smallest units of feudal fiefs ("Manor"). It would take almost 1500 years for the follies of re-uniting Europe into an empire to be taken seriously again: Napoleon, Hitler and the current EU project; even then, England got in the way every time.

There were always significant migration in Western Europe. Many residents in Britain trace their ancestry to continental forebearers that arrived on the island long after William the Conqueror. Many residents in France had Germanic ancestors, as do many residents in Germany having Frankish ancestors. It's the political entities (essentially feudal lords for most of the 1500 years) that jealously guarded their own political independence while trying to attract high productivity serfs and free artisans and merchants from each other's domains. People could move around throughout Western and Central Europe without passport until WWI. The concept of nation-state has been around for only about 150 years, essentially as a result of infantry conscripts defeating mounted aristocrats in the rifle age, so the idea of nation-state became a useful tool for recruiting a lot of infantry cheaply via conscription.
39   Reality   2017 Dec 21, 3:09pm  

Both ethnic diversity and ethnic mono-culture can work. However, neither government-imposed diversity, nor government-imposed mono-culture would work. Why? Because the bureaucrats don't work for free. They will insist on being paid and paid pension for many many decades even after there's no one left to deport.

That's why a far more efficient way to slow down and reverse the unproductive part of immigrantion is reducing/removing welfare benefits.
40   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Dec 21, 3:21pm  

alpo says
If you are trying to say that the world has largely lived in isolation, then the facts simply don't support that. Europeans, in particular, are hardly what you would consider "isolationists"


I'm not. You've got this idea that I'm saying that all developments happened in some kind of cocoon, which I'm not.

I'm refuting the idea that the world has always been a melting pot of ethnicities, and only melting pot areas had massive bursts of intellectual/literary achievement. Again, in the Roman Golden Age (and Silver Age), it was all in Latin and the greats were all Greeks and Latins. In the 19th Century Golden Age of Science, pretty much wholly Europeans in a Europe with very few non-Europeans living there. In the Athenian Golden Age, Aristotle, Plato, Xenophone, Socrates, etc. --- mostly Athenian Greeks in Athens.

Another myth is that the Muslims set off the Renaissance. Most Muslims were copying Greek books provided to them by Greek-Speaking Christians (remember that the Eastern Med was almost totally Hellenized and Christian when Muslims took over and remained so for centuries, since Muslims actually discouraged conversion, like they later did in East Africa, because Muslims don't pay the Jizya tax nor can they be slaves). Be that as it may be, it was Byzantine Refugees fleeing Islamic Turks, that brought most of the old Latin and Greek books to Italy (along with sculptures and art and a host of architectural and artistic knowledge, as well as Silk and a ton of other things the Eastern Empire had) that fired the Renaissance.

Interest in Buddhism and Hinduism took the UK by storm in the 19th Century, but there was hardly a Subcontinental to be found in the UK. Absolutely fractional compared to the numbers of South Asians there today.

You didn't need Mongols or Chinese living in Europe to spread the stirrup or Gunpowder. Just like railroads and steam engines went to India and China without British people emigrating there by the millions.

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