4 ms·

I think (US perspective) mostly that along with Hagar the Horrible and a generic connection between vikings and Scandinavian ancestry (that is common in some pa

I think (US perspective) mostly that along with Hagar the Horrible and a generic connection between vikings and Scandinavian ancestry (that is common in some parts of the northern US). Although many racists are really into the vikings so it isn't always seen as cool. For that matter, I think the British Empire is unfortunately often seen as cool also.

secondcoming 6y ago
I wouldn't consider the British Empire to be 'cool' but I can appreciate that it was a phenomenal military and logistic machine. One tiny country conquered most of the world that was worth conquering. There's something impressive about that.
- chmod775 6y ago
  Worth conquering? Not really. Arguably there was a lot more to conquer, but the rest of the world might've fought back. So more like: "One country grabs a lot of land too underdeveloped to fight back." The only noteworthy resistance was mounted by other western powers. Whether one slave-master triumphing over another is something to be applauded, I'll leave to the reader to decide.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    India does not strike me as particularly underdeveloped.
    - tadhgf 6y ago
      From wiki: Trading rivalries among the seafaring European powers brought other European powers to India. The Dutch Republic, England, France, and Denmark-Norway all established trading posts in India in the early 17th century. As the Mughal Empire disintegrated in the early 18th century, and then as the Maratha Empire became weakened after the third battle of Panipat, many relatively weak and unstable Indian states which emerged were increasingly open to manipulation by the Europeans, through dependent Indian rulers.
      - inglor_cz 6y ago
        Yes, India was unstable. That is not the same as underdeveloped. USA has had several peaks of instability during its existence, arguably is on such a peak right now, but is fairly developed, though very unequally so.
        chmod775 6y ago
        > Yes, India was unstable. That is not the same as underdeveloped. And it's valid to point that out. But at the end of the day for what reason India was unable to fight back against the western powers doesn't really matter. In India's case there still was no heroic conquering. Just bullying. And then bullies fighting against each other from relative safety with their colonies as pawns.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      Indeed, India represented about a quarter of the world's economy in 1700: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_economy_of_the_Indian_subcontinent#East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_economy_of_the...
    - chmod775 6y ago
      It was not at the time from a purely economical point of view, but it had other, political, problems that made it fall to the British (and other colonial powers) without resistance. Let's also not forget that British controlled a lot of that economy, which they pivoted into political control.
  - vixen99 6y ago
    It was underdeveloped to start with. Later the British economy was actually dependent on India. Why? Because India became Britain’s main market for her manufactured goods with 60% of British exports going to India by 1913. Employed Indians were buying that stuff! British investment in India totalled around £400 million or 10% of overseas investments before WW1, Like it or not, the British modernized India during their rule. They built 40,000 miles of railway track plus postal and telegraph systems with employment of millions. It's an unpalatable truth for many that a significant number of Indians found benefit and were willing to accept the rule (at that time and in those circumstances) rather than rebel against the British presence. All this doesn't add up to a PR job for the British because we're all very well aware of the cons of British Rule but objectively we know that's not the whole story. In history we need to see that the past is a done deal which we should examine in all its aspects, pros and cons.
    - chmod775 6y ago
      Modernized some of their infrastructure, yes. But India's economy was also destroyed. Whether India would have been able to modernize themselves with a functioning economy and under their own rule is another question. "There is no doubt that our grievances against the British Empire had a sound basis. As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6% in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3% at that time, to as low as 3.8% in 1952. Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income." — Manmohan Singh https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_India https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_India > They built 40,000 miles of railway track plus postal and telegraph systems with employment of millions. I mean, okay? How nice of them to share some technology progress that was made during colonial rule. It's not like India got a chance to built any of that under their own rule. I'd call developing the land you are ruling doing the bare-minimum. And we can't exactly say the British did a good job at that considering the state India was in at the end of colonial rule. After freeing a slave you just don't get to pat yourself on the back and say: "I've been feeding him for 25 years, given him clothing, and even work! What would he have done without me!"
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    > One country grabs a lot of land too underdeveloped to fight back If they were just grabbing a lot of "land too underdeveloped to fight back" then why weren't other empires able/willing to grab up the same amount of underdeveloped lands? Do we really believe that other empires were simply too morally upright to exploit underdeveloped lands? Or is there a more interesting, nuanced explanation? In whichever case, I find it fascinating that the British Isles went from being an irrelevant archipelago at the end of the known world to being the dominant superpower and the largest empire in human history. One can simultaneously appreciate that historical narrative and also condemn the atrocities accumulated along the way.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Are you doing an efficient market hypothesis for imperialism?
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        Rejecting the notion that the British were uniquely evil is not the same as supporting any particular hypothesis.
    - chmod775 6y ago
      > then why weren't other empires able/willing to grab up the same amount of underdeveloped lands? Except there were. There were dozens of conflicts and wars over the span of multiple centuries for control over territory.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        I think you’re mistaken. The British empire was the largest empire that has ever existed. That other empires existed (and had centuries-long conflicts/wars) does not refute this fact.
        chmod775 6y ago
        I tried to interpret your sentence in the only way it would have addressed your quote of myself in a coherent manner. I tried to be charitable. Okay. So let's interpret it as it was written instead. > If they were just grabbing a lot of "land too underdeveloped to fight back" then why weren't other empires able/willing to grab up the same amount of underdeveloped lands? Whether or not there were other empires able or willing to grab up that same amount of land doesn't affect the statement in the slightest. The sentence is nonsense. If you strike "same amount of" the sentence actually does make some sense, which is why I chose to respond to that when I wrote my first response. Whatever X may be, you will always find countries that did/have the most X, which however doesn't change the nature of X. "You are mistaken. China has the highest mountains and also a lot of them. Therefore mountains can't be made of stone!" doesn't make much sense, does it. Neither does: "Britain grabbed more land than everyone else. Therefore the land that everyone was grabbing can't have been underdeveloped!" And let's face reality here for a second: Open up a map of the British Empire and tell me straight to my face that the vast majority of that land wasn't underdeveloped.

secondcoming 6y ago

I wouldn't consider the British Empire to be 'cool' but I can appreciate that it was a phenomenal military and logistic machine. One tiny country conquered most of the world that was worth conquering. There's something impressive about that.

chmod775 6y ago
Worth conquering? Not really. Arguably there was a lot more to conquer, but the rest of the world might've fought back. So more like: "One country grabs a lot of land too underdeveloped to fight back." The only noteworthy resistance was mounted by other western powers. Whether one slave-master triumphing over another is something to be applauded, I'll leave to the reader to decide.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  India does not strike me as particularly underdeveloped.
  - tadhgf 6y ago
    From wiki: Trading rivalries among the seafaring European powers brought other European powers to India. The Dutch Republic, England, France, and Denmark-Norway all established trading posts in India in the early 17th century. As the Mughal Empire disintegrated in the early 18th century, and then as the Maratha Empire became weakened after the third battle of Panipat, many relatively weak and unstable Indian states which emerged were increasingly open to manipulation by the Europeans, through dependent Indian rulers.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Yes, India was unstable. That is not the same as underdeveloped. USA has had several peaks of instability during its existence, arguably is on such a peak right now, but is fairly developed, though very unequally so.
      - chmod775 6y ago
        > Yes, India was unstable. That is not the same as underdeveloped. And it's valid to point that out. But at the end of the day for what reason India was unable to fight back against the western powers doesn't really matter. In India's case there still was no heroic conquering. Just bullying. And then bullies fighting against each other from relative safety with their colonies as pawns.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Indeed, India represented about a quarter of the world's economy in 1700: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_economy_of_the_Indian_subcontinent#East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_economy_of_the...
  - chmod775 6y ago
    It was not at the time from a purely economical point of view, but it had other, political, problems that made it fall to the British (and other colonial powers) without resistance. Let's also not forget that British controlled a lot of that economy, which they pivoted into political control.
- vixen99 6y ago
  It was underdeveloped to start with. Later the British economy was actually dependent on India. Why? Because India became Britain’s main market for her manufactured goods with 60% of British exports going to India by 1913. Employed Indians were buying that stuff! British investment in India totalled around £400 million or 10% of overseas investments before WW1, Like it or not, the British modernized India during their rule. They built 40,000 miles of railway track plus postal and telegraph systems with employment of millions. It's an unpalatable truth for many that a significant number of Indians found benefit and were willing to accept the rule (at that time and in those circumstances) rather than rebel against the British presence. All this doesn't add up to a PR job for the British because we're all very well aware of the cons of British Rule but objectively we know that's not the whole story. In history we need to see that the past is a done deal which we should examine in all its aspects, pros and cons.
  - chmod775 6y ago
    Modernized some of their infrastructure, yes. But India's economy was also destroyed. Whether India would have been able to modernize themselves with a functioning economy and under their own rule is another question. "There is no doubt that our grievances against the British Empire had a sound basis. As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6% in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3% at that time, to as low as 3.8% in 1952. Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income." — Manmohan Singh https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_India https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_India > They built 40,000 miles of railway track plus postal and telegraph systems with employment of millions. I mean, okay? How nice of them to share some technology progress that was made during colonial rule. It's not like India got a chance to built any of that under their own rule. I'd call developing the land you are ruling doing the bare-minimum. And we can't exactly say the British did a good job at that considering the state India was in at the end of colonial rule. After freeing a slave you just don't get to pat yourself on the back and say: "I've been feeding him for 25 years, given him clothing, and even work! What would he have done without me!"
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > One country grabs a lot of land too underdeveloped to fight back If they were just grabbing a lot of "land too underdeveloped to fight back" then why weren't other empires able/willing to grab up the same amount of underdeveloped lands? Do we really believe that other empires were simply too morally upright to exploit underdeveloped lands? Or is there a more interesting, nuanced explanation? In whichever case, I find it fascinating that the British Isles went from being an irrelevant archipelago at the end of the known world to being the dominant superpower and the largest empire in human history. One can simultaneously appreciate that historical narrative and also condemn the atrocities accumulated along the way.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Are you doing an efficient market hypothesis for imperialism?
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Rejecting the notion that the British were uniquely evil is not the same as supporting any particular hypothesis.
  - chmod775 6y ago
    > then why weren't other empires able/willing to grab up the same amount of underdeveloped lands? Except there were. There were dozens of conflicts and wars over the span of multiple centuries for control over territory.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      I think you’re mistaken. The British empire was the largest empire that has ever existed. That other empires existed (and had centuries-long conflicts/wars) does not refute this fact.
      - chmod775 6y ago
        I tried to interpret your sentence in the only way it would have addressed your quote of myself in a coherent manner. I tried to be charitable. Okay. So let's interpret it as it was written instead. > If they were just grabbing a lot of "land too underdeveloped to fight back" then why weren't other empires able/willing to grab up the same amount of underdeveloped lands? Whether or not there were other empires able or willing to grab up that same amount of land doesn't affect the statement in the slightest. The sentence is nonsense. If you strike "same amount of" the sentence actually does make some sense, which is why I chose to respond to that when I wrote my first response. Whatever X may be, you will always find countries that did/have the most X, which however doesn't change the nature of X. "You are mistaken. China has the highest mountains and also a lot of them. Therefore mountains can't be made of stone!" doesn't make much sense, does it. Neither does: "Britain grabbed more land than everyone else. Therefore the land that everyone was grabbing can't have been underdeveloped!" And let's face reality here for a second: Open up a map of the British Empire and tell me straight to my face that the vast majority of that land wasn't underdeveloped.