How do they explain western dominance in other world regions?

[TCO]

Originally posted by paiktis22
Thanks.

And now the US is delivered and he's in Japan. Where he is also perceived for the spineless dork he is. He can't really escape himself. I mean he works in a place full of women but none of them even dares approach him.
He gets rejected all the time then comes to an internet gaming forum and begs for advice on how to "score" with a Japanese babe.

pathetic anyway you look at it. The perfect duo with Turd sruker. W@nkers extraordinaire, one in the dumpsters of some texan hole the other all alone and miserable in Japan.

were you drinking?

[TCO]

Originally posted by paiktis22
and the US certaintly isn;t a part of the very very very lose definition of a european culture, which the closest that can come to the non existant "western civ"

and as i said even that european civ isnt really apparent and unified to a degree that it would differantiate it from others.

What is this US of which you talk. We are hunter-killer pioneers here. Not euro-civilized latte drinkers.

[TCO]

Originally posted by JohnT
And I thought the political arguments were blatant trolls on the parts of some people. Paitkis:

Gotta love somebody who denies the evidence of the world around them!

I think Paiktis is making some interesting points. Of course, when he claims that the Iraqis support the attacks of the Baathist holdouts, I think he is smoking ganja...

[TCO]

Originally posted by paiktis22


It wasnt developed in the US. It hasnt spead to the continent. you have one kind of state functioning which you accomodated to your preconditions.

Read some of the writings of Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, Henry, etc.

[TCO]

Originally posted by VetLegion
The myth about dark ages being "dark" has been debunked long ago.

Ned, this is the first time I hear patent laws preceded growth of invention acitivity. Can you back it up a little better?

Btw, who'd say it takes 8 pages for a discussion to acquire a reasonable tone?

That was because I was not there to try to heal the schism...

[JohnT]

Diggin' through the archives I came upon this thread title:

How would our life looked if copyrights and patents were invented 2000 years ago

"Title" 'cause I didn't read it. But it might pertain to this discussion.

[debeest]

I consider molly bloom's list of pre-Columbian "inventions" to be unimpressive and perhaps inaccurate (since I think some of those things had previously been done/created elsewhere, but I make no claim of certainty there). More importantly, though, it has little to do with the initial question in the thread, "why has Western civ dominated in the last 500 years?" I'd still be interested in seeing the comprehensive list of world advances in the last 500 years, with dates and attribution, to see whether we agreed that most of them were initially generated by Western civ.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
Molly Bloom, that was quite a rendition of the history of invention during the Middle Ages. I compliment you.

But it does show that the something very unique was going on in Europe during the late Middle Ages and early Rennaissance that was different that at any time and place before. The Romans may have discovered the battery and the steam engine, but nothing was done with these inventions of any importance, and they were lost to history when the Empire fell. In contrast, one invention piled on another in Europe.

Thank you for your kind words Ned. I am very much interested in the history of technology and the evolution and transmission of knowledge. As the Roman Empire, various Chinese empires and parts of the Islamic Empire indicate, inventions and devices are possible in slave economies, but labour saving devices are not a priority.

In Western Europe following the Black Death, there was a shortage of labour; there had been widespread famines, unemployment, and brigandage before the disease struck. After, you get peasant revolts, the beginnings of trade unions, the first recorded strike, and an interest in scepticism and enquiry, replacing acceptance of church absolutes and dogma. Coincidentally, we have all those paper mills, the network of universities spanning Europe from north to south and east to west, and trading networks from the Black Sea via Italy through transalpine routes into the County of Champagne and Burgundy, and Iceland, Norway and England through the Hanseatic League and Flanders reaching as far south as Spain and Tuscany.

You also have the rise of merchant banks, double entry bookkeeping (so much more efficient than abacuses), insurance, and improvements in agriculture such as crop rotation and horse drawn improved ploughs.

It has been estimated that pre-plague Europe of the thirteenth century reached a population level of 50 million, which is on a par with the peak of the Roman Empire- thanks in part to agricultural improvements, weather fluctuations and the absence of a widespread lethal disease of any sort for the better part of that century. There was also no great war in that century, between 1214 and 1296, but equally no great advancement in theoretical science- only in optics and clockmaking. The groundwork for Renaissance humanism was partly the pessimism and scepticism engendered by the social disorder of the Black Death, and partly the ideas (algebra, decimals, zero) transmitted through the hybrid cultures of Islamic Spain and the court of Frederick II, grandson of Barbarossa, in Sicily- another meeting point for the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish worlds, and the worlds of northern and Mediterranean Europe.

[debeest]

Dismissing capital as a critical factor in innovation is a serious mistake. Inventions can have little impact because they have no obvious use at the time (Greek steam engine or Celtic reaping machine), or because they have no market, but often it's because there is no capital to develop them. Even if the New World wealth initially constituted only a small fraction of European GDP, that wealth stimulated a whole lot of investment that led directly to some developments (e.g., clock-making). But far more importantly, that wealth allocould be invested in any innovative activity, whether related to the New World or not. To imagine that the value of the New World depended on corn and potatoes is absurd.

Far more important than the immediate value of the New World in 1500, and far more important than Spain's failure to seize and maintain a lead in innovation, was the growing impact of the New World itself. The "West" dominates nowadays because it includes North America and South America and Australia. Europe alone does not dominate the rest of the world in population, in economics, in military might, or probably in technological innovation. The fact that the New World and Europe are broadly culturally similar and politically friendly to one another (compared to other parts of the world) explains any domination by that inclusive grouping.

[debeest]

In answer to the original question in this thread, I have suggested that the answer lies very prominently in the geography of the natural world. Ned has suggested that it lies predominantly in patent law. Offhand, I don't recall anyone suggesting any other explanations. Anyone?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by debeest
I consider molly bloom's list of pre-Columbian "inventions" to be unimpressive and perhaps inaccurate (since I think some of those things had previously been done/created elsewhere, but I make no claim of certainty there). More importantly, though, it has little to do with the initial question in the thread, "why has Western civ dominated in the last 500 years?"

Well poor old Nicholas of Cusa and Ramon Llull. You're quite welcome to check the dates- I have.
I wasn't claiming that these were purely 'European' inventions, or discoveries; I actually used the word rediscovered in a post. Inventions and discoveries are always being forgotten and rediscovered- the Phaistos disc would indicate through its use of repeated identical characters that someone knew about moveable type in Classical antiquity. The Antikythera device indicates the Hellenic world 'knew' about complex astronomical computations and how to make cogwheels. Hero of Alexandria could utilise steampower.

All gone for centuries after their invention/discovery. You cannot isolate European invention and discovery from Islam, or India, or China. Marco Polo reported the use of oil from the Baku area for fuel and lamps, and indicated that it was not suitable for cooking purposes (presumably he meant as a cooking fuel). indian advances in steelmaking (ukku, or wootz steel) eventually reach Spain through Damascus, and we end up with Damascene and Toledo blades. Similarly with zero, and algebra, and all those other products of trade with the East that had nothing to do with Columbus. Improvements in Venetian glassmaking came about through the use of better quality soda/potash exported from Islamic Egypt- where there was already a sophisticated glass manufacturing industry.

Doesn't seem much in itself, but better glass=better lenses=advances in optics- the development of precision instruments, improved glass flasks, retorts and tubes=growth of alchemy, then chemistry. Glass cloches and greenhouses= improved market gardening.

Clear glass windows illuminate the interior of houses, spectacles increase the study time of scholars and monks, storm proof lanterns, watch glasses, enclosed coaches, all improve the quality of life.

From the humble pre-Columbian spectacles, improved glass and lenses eventually we get the microscope in 1590, the thermometer in 1593, the telescope in 1608, the barometer in 1644. And we get to see ourselves clearly with silvered mirrors, invented again in Murano.

Seemingly trivial things can have great consequences- just ask the flea that spread Yersinia pestis, or the Aedes aegypti mosquito- which caused France to make the sale of territory in North America known as the Louisiana purchase.

[GePap]

Molly:

Again, on that list- you are correct, small inventions add up, and in fact, that is the way science moves. But as I and debeest have said, A receptive socio-economic climate is necessary- who cares about better optics unless someone has a reason to employ them- people are saying patent law leads to technology. Well, one, you cna patent devices but not ideas- so patent law has didly to do with the invention of broad concepts which can NOT be turned into economic gain- And besides, the most fundamental human iventions (agriculture, animal domestication) had nothing to do with individuals trying to get rich with patents.

Europe in the 16th century was a continent in upheaval- why was it in upheaval and what helped fuel this? Again, I find it beyind imagination that the opening of two continents to expliotation would have no consequence on the politics and society of Europe- and in afct they did- I don;t know if Leonardo ate corn- that is not the point of what I said- American crops and good revolutionized European diets, European trade routes, European balances of power, upset everything- and as debeest added, it made the Americas part of the West, as opposed to the "East".

If the West is victorious today, the exploitation of the Americas and thier beocming "the West" themselves in beyond central- it was paramount- and that conquest was the result NOT of some great technical knowledge held by Europe and no one else in Eurasia at the time, but geography (happens to be the bit of Eurasia closest to the Americas) and the general Eurasian legacy.

[debeest]

molly bloom, thanks for supporting my point. As you say, many of the items on your list were not "Western" discoveries, you "cannot isolate European invention and discovery from Islam, or India, or China," and "Western civilization" was not a particularly more inventive culture than many others of its time.

As to the importance of the items you list, I didn't mean they weren't important, and I fully understand the importance of small advance building on small advance -- one of my main points in this thread is that modern Western innovativeness could only have occurred when it did, because before then, world culture was not prepared to support it. I simply meant that, in the context of all of the myriad advances in human history or during that particular period, they don't stand out compared to those made elsewhere.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by GePap
Molly:

Again, on that list- you are correct, small inventions add up, and in fact, that is the way science moves. But as I and debeest have said, A receptive socio-economic climate is necessary...
Europe in the 16th century was a continent in upheaval- why was it in upheaval and what helped fuel this?

I think the Reformation has less to do with the Americas than you seem to think....

[Ned]

As I pointed out, Leonardo was employed to "invent." Did such a thing ever happen before? The Greeks were long aquainted with the pursuit of knowledge and did come up with some very basic inventions. But, as far as I know, people investing money in developing new technology was unheard up in the classical world, or in other parts of the world. But it did occur in Italy during the 1400s.

Part of the reason, if not the entire reason -- an arms race is the another -- has to be government support of and recognition of invention. People who did invent new technology were given patents and were asked to teach everyone else their techniques. The patent provided the inventor wealth. The teaching spread technology far an wide so that it 1) would not die out as many inventions of antiquity were lost and 2) the invention could form the foundation of still further advances. As Molly points out, one invention led to another at an ever increasing rate. This indicates that new techniques were published and not hidden as they probably were in all other times and places. Publication of inventions is a unique aspect of patents.

(Just seeing glass or a lens does not teach one how to make it. The only way knowledge of the technique could spread is if it were published. But that is exactly what happens with patents.)