4 ms·

I dunno, maybe they should look into if maybe Europe invading the rest of the world and killing off various percentages of the populations could be a factor?

• gaius 18y ago
  Uhh, dude, if you read your history then pretty much everywhere has invaded everywhere else at some point, and populations that aren't being invaded are just as often killing each other. So while it happens, it's not a data point here.
  • m_eiman 18y ago
    Sure, but I'd guess that there's a difference if resources are transferred back and forth within a small region, i.e. neighboring countries warring for a few hundred years, compared to some other country far away taking the resources with them after a successful invasion. And then continue to take everything they can get their hands on for the next few hundred years... It pools the resources in a single place, and as a result it also pools the ability to refine those resources in the same place (because its pretty hard to learn refining if you don't have anything to refine). Maybe it could be compared to how a town supported by resource producing villages made it possible to specialize in a trade that wasn't viable in a village setting. And the killing off part was mostly a reference to diseases brought (without intention) to the Americas that more or less killed the civilizations there. But maybe I'm just brainwashed by the people on the left.
    • gaius 18y ago
      Consider Zimbabwe. Its wealth was well, wealth, not money that's easy transferred, but fertile farms and abundant mines. Stuff that's inherent to the country itself. But Mugabe has brought it from the "breadbasket of Africa" to the brink or ruin (in fact, perhaps given the latest news from there, over the brink). Where did that wealth go? It wasn't transferred out by fleeing Europeans. It didn't even go into his Swiss bank account. It was simply destroyed.
      • m_eiman 18y ago
        I don't see a connection. You're saying that the only people capable of constructing a functioning society are us Europeans? I really hope I'm reading you wrong.
        • gaius 18y ago
          No, it doesn't matter that they were European per se. Let's say they were people from planet X who showed up on planet Y, built a load of stuff and then left, and the people from planet Y have no idea how to operate any of it. You know, like in Stargate: SG1. The point is that the people who built it are often the only ones who can operate it.
          • cambellg 18y ago
            Singapore would disprove that theory. :)
            • gaius 18y ago
              :-)
            • DabAsteroid 18y ago
              How?
          • m_eiman 18y ago
            Hehe, I guess we're in big trouble now that China is building all our stuff now then ;) (Yes I know, most of it is still designed/developed in the west..)
  • msluyter 18y ago
    Uhh, dude, if you read your history then pretty much everywhere has invaded everywhere else at some point Not really. Europeans essentially invaded and colonized the western hemisphere, Africa, India, Australia, etc... and yet none of the reverse happened. The Aztecs did not land on the shores of Spain. The Zulu did not invade France. (About the closest you can point to is the Turks besieging Vienna.) If you've ever wondered why europe dominated the new world & africa and not vice versa, I highly recommend Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
    • kingkongrevenge 18y ago
      Guns, Germs, and Steel falls apart if you examine the world after 1800. Why did economic growth go geometric in Europe and European colonies while many societies did not grow at all? It is not a matter of animals or steel or resources, because by the 19th century all this was widely disseminated. A Farewell to Alms is a much better book with way more hard data than Guns, Germs, and Steel. It builds a solid and excruciatingly researched case that beginning in the middle ages unique demographic forces shaped the European genome and culture (eugenic forces). Diamond's conclusion that it was geography and nothing else pales in comparison to Gregory Clark's case.
      • m_eiman 18y ago
        Maybe it had something to do with the Europeans controlling much of the resources in the world since their successful invasions, and we're now seeing the rest of the world catch up at last? I guess we'll know in a few decades if the balance of power has shifted over to Asia or not.