Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!news.moat.net!news.glorb.com!postnews.google.com!z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: "drydem" Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american,soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.china,fj.life.in-japan,soc.culture.korean Subject: Re: Why are white people so ridiculously superior? Date: 18 Oct 2005 03:17:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 42 Message-ID: <1129630636.788039.281820@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> References: <1129264394.851181.131310@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1129472073.113387.92300@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1129525528.337907.171310@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.249.102.9 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1129630642 15726 127.0.0.1 (18 Oct 2005 10:17:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:17:22 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <1129525528.337907.171310@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/0.2 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com; posting-host=4.249.102.9; posting-account=qc8sDwwAAACC9XLSXNlt-ZbNTkIOjRDw Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:30020 Delberto Umbiortole wrote: > the ability to recognize and assimulate the best from around the world > is admirable attribute that leads to world dominance. > > china became inferior because it refused to adopt positive outside > influences. Dr. Diamond's "Guns,Germs, and Steel" Book says that in so many words.... ============================= Dr. Diamond does address the why europe overtook china's great technological lead by the 1600-1800 in his book's epilogue. Diamond also goes on to hypothesizes that europes multiple and fragmented coastline/ sea lane/sea ports prevented political and military centralization which foster greater competition (that promoted the improvements in technologies that later gave european government an edge). Diamond argues that the historical inability for any governments to create a stable centralize european empire as supporting this conjecture. OTOH he says that the lack of multiple seaport/sealanes and a smoother coastline of the far east made it easier for a stable centralize government to control China; he points out that the weakness of such a powerful and far-reaching centralized government was that one error in judgement (like a policy of isolation and technological stagnation) could create a large scale disaster or mistake from which would make any recovery problematic. Diamond considers China's central government halt all seagoing exploration and its dismantling of its ships and shipping industry as the turning point its golden age. Diamond also addresses why the Middle East Ancient Civilizations in the Golden Crescent Region lost its lead to europe. In a nut shell, Diamond argues that the overforestation and erosion lead to the downfall of the agricultural economies of of the Golden Crescent.