White People are... Better?

[Johann610]

Regarding Kinguendo:
If you saw Movie Bob's essay on African lost cities, you may remember that Africa, trading its working class AWAY to the Europeans in exchange for wealth, then eventually became unable to do much of anything because they HAD no working class, warrior class, or anyone else, when the time came to fight back. That was when colonization began. The slave trade started in the 1400s!

Chinese culture evolved slowly, some say, because of hidebound culture and a desire not to trade with barbarians for anything (their dog breeds are a fine example of this un-trading).

American Indians had splendid civilizations enough, with grain and things, but lacked draft animals (until Spaniards let their horses run wild) and a few other critical natural resources. The Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs were able to put up quite a fight but lacked gunpowder and such animals. Meanwhile, "New England" natives lost their numbers primarily due to a plague that swept the coast of a large portion of its people, including its warriors (before the Europeans tried to do it with Smallpox--I digress).

There's also the matter that the White history writers tended to depict not-them as savage, foolish, ignorant, unclean, etc. in order to justify genocide, resource harvesting, and interbreeding.

 

[SciMal]

So how were the Caucasians able to steal away inventions from other cultures if they were not in some way much more cunning or had some means to be better than the culture they stole from? If the cultures they stole from were advanced then they must of had a blind eye turned when the Caucasians picked their pockets.

This may be a stunning thought, but I do believe trade between major empires existed. Better yet, some nations even touted their creations and educated peoples of other empires during peacetime. At worst, perhaps refugees during times of war helped the less advanced side for safety or profit.

You know, kind of like some recent examples of brilliant German scientists who escaped Nazi Germany and helped end WWII.

And you're saying the Romans weren't European, great way to miss my point and a fact of what the Romans were.

I said they weren't "White." They were European, though I had to delineate the two lineages somehow, and the easiest was "European" vs. "Mediterranean."

And on your last point, you still failed to notice that I had already mentioned the Chinese. And Australia suffered from the same cultural isolation as the Native Americans, mostly keeping to small regions. So even though their culture may be older, they still did not develop utilizing technology and inventions like other nameable parts of the world, such as CHINA and parts of EUROPE.

It's all relative. The Aborigines didn't evolve on Australia, they got there. Several thousand miles in elaborate kayaks several thousand years before Vikings crossed the Atlantic. You say "they didn't develop technology" when you're always looking in hindsight. The first humanoids to figure out how to bash rocks together to get sharper rocks to make a primitive knife was the pinnacle of innovation... like 35,000 years ago.

Modern civlization is made possible by no single country, ethnicity, or culture. Every single one has contributed something, some bit of innovation. It's just that, in our current era, American/European innovations have had more impact than any others.

What I am trying to tell you, but you don't seem to want to grasp, is that humanity has lived in portions of the world for far longer than in Europe, yet the Europeans somehow advanced culturally faster than MOST others.

I understand exactly what you're saying, and I'm telling you you're wrong (but especially when you use "culturally").

Produce some metrics. Throw some numbers at me. Do something besides reiterate your point, because I understand your argument - I just don't believe it.

The Chinese were also ahead way before the European region by already having a massive unified nation, at most, the European side were still under Roman influence and at the same time, the Native Americans, Africans, Aborigines, and peoples of South and Central America, while having some beautifully crafted cities, were still living agrarian lives while other areas had developed long range sea travel, politics, and math.

Right. The Aborigines - who didn't evolve on the island-Continent thousands of miles from any other Continent - hadn't developed long-range sea travel.

Or politics.

Or fucking math. Because, sure, they developed a complex language and tribal system complete with a culture rich in music and art... but they couldn't count.

Or the Central American natives, who had absolutely zero problem creating a calendar several times more accurate than any other in use at the time, built pyramids, and had a very well documented number system couldn't do fucking math.

Thank Pete they didn't develop politics, otherwise they might have waged elaborate sporting events (perhaps using stone circles and a ball you hit with your hips) to settle diplomatic disputes. Might have made some of the most active trade routes in the world at the time meaningless.

I could go on, but I can simplify this: You're fucking wrong. Not just a little wrong, but really wrong.

What definitions are you using for maths, politics, and long-range sea travel anyways? Maybe if we start out under the same roof I can stop slapping my forehead in shame.

And just so you know, the Ottoman Empire was not that old, developing sometime in the late 1290's AD, not like the European tribes and Chinese who had been around since practically the 17th century BC (for the Chinese) and for Europe around 8000 BC (based only on Stone Henge, I don't really have a clue on what structures might be older).

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. Please restate.

And I'd like to know what you think the Caucasians actually stole from other cultures in order to as you seem to think got ahead of everyone else.

During what time period? What do you mean by "ahead"?

I've been saying all along that the only reason Whites/Caucasians/Europeans are better off at the moment is because we're not on the other side of the hump yet. EVERY culture/civlization has had periods of growth, innovation, and eventual decay. It's a cycle, and one that's very well known. Leading countries in the world stand on a podium composed of the innovations and accomplishments of other countries before them, until they are eventually displaced.

No single culture or ethnicity has an inherently superior rate of advancement. Any perceived differences are made with an unavoidable and strong bias from your current frame of reference in modern society.

If you believe otherwise, feel free to show me a chart of the innate rates of development demonstrated by different ethnicities.

 

[SpAc3man]

White civilisations didn't magically appear from nowhere. As various groups grew and developed from their mutual ancestors that came out of Africa they developed different physical traits that set them apart. Several groups just happened to develop lighter skin colour from living in cooler climates. I would imagine the faster rate of development was due to a number of factors including better land for farming, the need to out pace neighbouring civilisations and the larger populations compared to groups scattered around more remote areas further away from rival groups.

Also Europe has had quite a large number of large Civilizations in a relatively small area. China and Japan has also been very advanced in terms of technology advancement. It would seem gains are made by civilisations and empires inheriting developments made by predecessors.

Africa and remote parts of Asia are disadvantaged due to lack of some resources that proved vital to fast development in Europe. Really it all comes down to population concentration. In places where there was a large number of people concentrated in one area there was fast development. Asia and Europe had the biggest cities so they had the best technologies. Land that provides plenty of resources is able to support large groups etc.

 

[Talvrae]

If ou look at the middle age, actually the middle eastern contry where more advenced then the european contry

 

[Winthrop]

Radiation is indiscriminate and bombs do horrendous damage. The majority of deaths from both nuclear drops were instant, with people vanishing in the blink of an eye from the heat--they evaporated, even leaving behind burned in shadows that you can still see to this day--the rest of the deaths come from being crushed, inhaling smoke, burning alive, radiation and blast waves turning people's organs into liquid. The U.S. didn't just "drop a bomb" and "nuclear" isn't a pop word used for impact. The damage done with those two bombs is unfathomable. The sheer heat from such radiation created a scene I heard one man describe as apocalyptic, with thousands of people running to the lakes around the city to cool their melting skin.

To even attempt to disregard or play down the horror America caused is sickening. People didn't just die, they went through unimaginable hell--human beings are still suffering from radiation.

As opposed to the many thousands of civilians killed or maimed by conventional bombs?

Yes, the effects were horrific (I'd point out that most people didn't die immediately), but the same is no less true of bombing a city to bits using conventional munitions, which for some reason nobody seems to care about.

You can condemn the US government and military for a great many things, but what methods they use to kill and maim untold thousands of civilians is an odd choice.

It never fails to baffle me how few people care or know about the Fire-Bombing of Tokyo or understand the point of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombing of Tokyo was more destructive and had many more casualties. The point of nuclear bombs was to illustrate what one bomb could do. It was a threat. If a fleet firebombing Tokyo could be as devastating as it was, imagine a fleet with nuclear bombs. That was the point they were trying to make. One bomb could do the same as one fleet, a fleet with those bombs could destroy Japan.

Thats not to say the effects weren't horrible, but I wouldn't even say its necessarily the worst thing the US did in the war. It was horrible that people suffered, but I don't believe the lasting effects were expected. As such the holocaust is unfathomably worse as that was an intentional way to damage huge amounts of people for little to no reason.

 

[RandV80]

Nothing to see here really, it's just how the deck ended up getting shuffled. Consider how our society has transformed more over the past 100 years than it did over more than a 5000 year span in history. It's not like we've had a sudden jump in evolution either, humans have been more or less the same for a while.

What this indicates is that once you reach a certain point in civilization, your progress increases exponentially to the point that you leave everyone else in the dust. So basically the winner is the first to reach that stage. Africa has a distinct disadvantage due to their nature difficulty, much harder to conquer the wilds of Africa with low tech than Europe. In Asia, at one point China has a civilization well ahead of the rest of the world, during which I believe the invented gunpowder, but before they could realize their full advantage the Mongols came through and destroyed everything, probably setting them back a few centuries. The Middle East was ahead as well, but Europe won the Crusades pushing them back and taking their progress. The heart of post Roman Empire European civilization on the other hand, the Catholic Church, was never challenged in this same manner.

If the Mongolians had struck West making their way all the way to Rome and the Vatican before Ghengis Khan kicked the bucket, instead of conquering China, then Asia probably would have won the civilization race.

 

[TAdamson]

Well there was a period where China India and the Middle East were about 1000 years ahead of Europeans.

China due to internal political and military reasons (Great Wall) stopped Navel exploration in about 1400AD. They also never developed the technology of glass due to being satisfied with their porcelain, a major barrier to progress.

China was also a monolithic Empire. Unlike Europe with it's myriad of small states and fiefdoms there was little socio-political experimentation that leads to innovation and occasionally personal freedom.

Europeans and Asians also had access to many more domestic crops, and work and food animals, that could exist right across Eurasia. The domesticable products from the Americas, Sub Saharan Africa, or Australia, where limited in range by latitude.

 

[Xanadu84]

Read, "Guns, Germs and Steel". Seriously, the ENTIRE book does nothing except answer this question.

For a ridiculously simplified explanation...Humans evolve around Eurasia. Surrounding animals evolve to deal with humans hunting abilities, large herd animals survive. Humans migrate elsewhere, and when they arrive they completely outclass the large herd animals, and hunt them to exinction. Shortly later, Eurasians, with there domesticated herd animals, are able to start farming because herd animals allow for plowing, fertilizer, and transport of large numbers of crops, the VAST majority of the most useful to human crops(Mainly cereal grains) originated in Eurasia. This led to tribes finally being able to settle down in one location. Eurasia is the continent with the most land mass, capable of pulling together the most people in the largest towns. This led to not everyone needing to make food, which led to specialized individuals working on technological advancements, which led to the most useful bits of civilization. Because Eurasia is rounded and is wider then it is tall, the spread of crops didn't have to go through bottlenecks like Panama, big deserts, or drastic weather changes from moving south to north. So there farming technology and crop choice was the best. Because they lived near farm animals, they developed and evolved diseases that would wipe out any Civilizations they encountered. Because they had herd animals, they had horses, which were basically the tanks of early battle.

Eurasians had every single advantage imaginable over every other civilization, particularly in those areas where an advantage early on would increase what that civilization is capable of achieving exponentially.

 

[Tanis]

I blame ADD/ADHD.

There's been test that have shown that 'whites' have a MUCH higher ADD/ADHD then other ethnic groups.

This is PROBABLY because the vast majority of folks who ran out of Africa/Asia into Europe had some form of 'wanderlust' and then bread with other humans who had the same thing.

Over time this genetic 'disorder' lead to European humans not willing to 'settle' on current technology or whatever.

Asians can use the same damn road for 1,000 years and only improve it after a flood or something.

Africans take 100 years to build something and they're cool with it.

Europeans get prissy if it takes 1 year to do something, 'fix' the roads because they're uncomfortable, and only take 100 years to build something because the damn PLAGUE get in the way.

So, yeah, I'd say ADD/ADHD contributed to a different sort of cultural mindset.

 

[TrevHead]

IIRC skin pigmentation has much to do with climate and how much sunlight they get. So a black mans descendants living in Europe would eventually have white skin even without interbreeding.

I find it quite fitting to mention this to any racists I come across

 

[BNguyen]

IIRC skin pigmentation has much to do with climate and how much sunlight they get. So a black mans descendants living in Europe would eventually have white skin even without interbreeding.

I find it quite fitting to mention this to any racists I come across

I think it has more to do with the genes, in this case, how much melanin is formed in the skin cells. A Black man would naturally have much more melanin in his cells which take in the sunlight and cause the cells to darken. If his genes that allow for high production of melanin is dominant, then it will continue to persist through his descendants no matter who his descendants marry, unless his descendants marry someone else who has a dominant gene for light skin coloration or less melanin in the skin, then his descendants would have a skin tone that lies in between his and his spouse's.

 

[Azurian]

I find your lack of context... disturbing. Also, it was 70 years ago. Seems silly to hold that against the US for so long.[/quote]

If you find that weird I know a guy who is barely in his 20s who hates the Japanese because of Pearl Harbor. He didn't have in family who lived there or died in the attack but he just plain old doesn't like them because of it.

 

[FallenTraveler]

I'm well aware that many factors contributed to this I personally believe that the european/white man and his tendency to ignore tradition in favor of science is somewhat to blame. Before going off on me, look at it this way, galileo, davinci, the fucking GREEKS, they all made progress by ignoring traditions and religions. While the "asians" or eastern cultures tended to stick to their tradition, very rigidly. Same goes for the African countries. There is a noticeable adherence to cultural traditions in these two cultures while the "whites" shirked off that tradition and pushed "forward" to the logical end point of domination over the "lesser" developed countries.

Basically whites decided to ignore their parents and that led to them dominating, while eastern and african cultures listened to their parents and held to their beliefs.

Or white people are just war mongering and conquest happy assholes.

 

[direkiller]

I've been on a history bent lately and have noticed something odd that I've never thought about in detail. It seems white countries (countries either predominantly run by or founded by Caucasians or Europeans) have it a great deal better than black nations (those occupied mainly by African descendants) and a fair deal better than Asian countries. Not saying the individual people are better or worse, smarter or dumber, just that overall the nations seem vastly different. We're all aware of the "privileged white" status. But have you ever really thought about it?

If we look through history, time and time again white people (usually some form of Anglo Saxon) show up on the scene, rape and pillage the vastly worse off native population of black people, then install their own technology and culture. The English did it, the Germans did it, the French did it, the Spanish did it, etc., etc. People with a massive technological advantage, all whom happen to be white, demolish and replace nations. Why? How?

Guns germs and steel

if you got 2 hours it will probably answer most of the questions you asked

it's basically luck of the geography, plants and large animals able to be tamed to work the land.

 

[BNguyen]

OP's knowledge of history is severely lacking. The very first civilizations, the ones that "got ahead" were the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Chinese. If you want to count the Greeks and Romans as "White", that's probably your own bigotry talking, but between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, the world center of learning and technology was the Ottoman empire. White people really only controlled the world in the last 200 years, and only because they had fortuitous socioeconomic conditions for the Industrial Revolution, which put Europe on the fast track to world dominance. If you're wondering why the Industrial Revolution didn't happen simultaneously in every corner of the world, and placing the answer on the fact that the people who started it were white, then you're a very naive person.

The Ottoman Empire didn't technically exist until about 1209 AD, it's pretty young compared to most European cultures, and are you trying to say that the British Empire didn't have any power till 1812? You do realize that the British started colonizing the Americas albeit at first unsuccessfully in the 1600's and in the mid 1700's practically had economic control over India, right? In the late 1700's the British were already establishing Australia as a colony too. Trying to say that Europeans (at least white Europeans) had no power until just recently is a rather ignorant statement.

 

[Watcheroftrends]

My theory is that a breed of "man" ended up with a mutation that made them smarter. At some point, though, the extra resources required to feed a larger brain began to impact the physical abilities of these humans. They migrated to less hospitable climates (colder) because they couldn't compete with their phyiscally stronger counterparts. As they entered more dangerous terrain, they were forced to cooperate with each other more. They learned how to make more effective clothing, shelter, and how to hunt where food is scarce. They continued to develop until they reached a tipping point where they formed something akin to society. The humans left in the warmer climates were never challenged to the same degree, so their average intelligence developed slower.

In modern times, though, it is much easier for people with less than perfect mutations to survive. Therefore, it's easier to end up with people who are exceedingly intelligent from any race. It's simply a numbers game.

 

[David Farnell]

Guns, germs and steel?

Thank you. Yes, addressing the initial post (and pointedly ignoring the enormous thread hijacking of arguing about who's worse, Americans or Nazis...holy crap): Read Jared Diamond's excellent book Guns, Germs, and Steel. It answers Clearing the Eye's original question, definitively.

To summarize, Europeans were incredibly lucky to be on on the continent they were on. They were lucky regarding the climate, the shape of the continent, the variety of domesticable animals and plants available--and (ironically) lucky not to have a single, relatively peaceful government dominating the continent at a crucial point (as Asia did), which slowed down progress. Africa and the Americas were just unlucky in geography.

The book clearly and convincingly argues that Europeans had no racial advantage at all--it was just a lucky location. If black people had occupied Europe and white people had occupied Africa, black people would dominate the planet now.

 

[David Farnell]

No single culture or ethnicity has an inherently superior rate of advancement. Any perceived differences are made with an unavoidable and strong bias from your current frame of reference in modern society.

Excellently put!