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Here is a great article comparing the Chinese and the Portuguese approaches to exploration. The comparison between ship sizes is just stunning. It's the 15th
by bokonist 18y ago
Here is a great article comparing the Chinese and the Portuguese approaches to exploration. The comparison between ship sizes is just stunning. It's the 15th century version of Lisp versus Blub :-) : http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-fail-on-frontier.html http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-f...
Decentralization was a major factor in Europe's success. The Chinese government could issue an edict and ban trading voyages for centuries. No European ruler could afford to be so foolish. There was no single point of failure. When John II of Portugal refused to fund a voyage west across the Atlantic, Columbus simply went to Isabella of Spain and convinced her to role the die.
China was one monolithic civil service state. Europe was divided into a dozen kingdoms that were essentially profit maximizing family businesses. The intense competition between these states propelled Europe forward at a rapid rate.
- dangoldin 18y agoVery interesting! This reminded me of the book "The Starfish and the Spider" where it discusses the power of leaderless organizations and how they can be better in certain instances. Something interesting from the book is that these centralized groups become more and more centralized when they are attacked but the decentralized groups become more and more decentralized. An example would be the RIAA vs Napster. Napster was replaced by more and more decentralized networks while the RIAA started asserting more and more control.
- pg 18y agoIt wasn't so much that no European ruler could afford to be so foolish as Europe could afford to have foolish rulers. There were definitely bits of Europe that were screwed at various times in this period, but breakage tended to be contained by national borders.