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Riptor posted:You like saying nade huh Do you nade something? I could nade more posts about nades that has nothing to do about the nades, launching nades or throwing nades. I just nade this up. I am nading an exit stage left. nade.
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Feb 20, 2020 01:19
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oohhboy posted:I would say China has only been "Top dog" over the Romans etc if you are going by singular items like GDP. This is based on the assumption that "China" as we know it has always been a singular entity How technologically advanced the people in the place you live were 1000 years ago is an extremely stupid thing to dickwave over, and chinese people doing it look very silly. But you are basically sounding just as weird as the hyper-nationalists jacking off over gunpowder and noodles or w/e. Nobody had any "periods of explosive scientific growth" before the 18th century, because science as we understand it barely existed. Before 1500 nobody did any more than tool around the coast, and after that Europeans would ruthlessly enforce their monopoly of long distance trade. Comparing technological development between East and West is surprisingly complicated and fraught. However up until 1400 or so glass making is really the only major field Europe had a technological advantage over China in that I can think of. From the classical period onward East Asia would produce many innovations that would only slowly diffuse west over hundreds of years. Everybody knows about paper and gunpowder. However in the early middle ages China, and India as well, were also using much more sophisticated techniques for the industrial production of iron, textiles, and ceramics. China didn't just have technological advantages, it was also able to maintain significantly better infrastructure than Europe basically up until nearly the 19th century. If you read accounts of travelers in 17th century England, one of the most remarkable things they describe is that there literally aren't any real roads. Just mud tracks 100 meters wide, weaving around obstacles with only ferries if you're lucky to cross many rivers. By contrast, while Chinese roads declined after the classical period, they were much better about maintaining efficient internal transport system than Europe or India. This is not a small thing, one economic historian I read described how China in the medieval experienced famine much less frequently as a result, because food could be effectively moved across the country in the event of shortages. The logic of comparative advantage suggests this should also have made the Chinese wealthier, since it would enable economic specialization. For example, Sichuan became a major salt exporter, and developed sophisticated methods for boring deep brine wells that Europeans wouldn't be able to match until the 19th century. The grand canal left many European observers in wonder when they first saw it. After 1400 Europe catches up with China in most fields and begins surpassing it in many. By 1700, Europeans successfully recreate Chinese porcelain and effectively surpass China technologically in every respect. Still Chinese businesses remained highly globally competitive in industries like porcelain for a long time. Workshops in Canton had sophisticated systems for taking large international orders, and tailored their inventories to fit the tastes of regional markets. Products were tailored to fit the tastes of Japanese, Thai, western, and Islamic buyers.  Here's an example of Chinese export porcelain, circa 1750. Canton exported many tens of millions of pieces of porcelain in the Qing, and it was common for wealthy Europeans to place custom orders for whole armorial dinner sets bearing their coats of arms. In a different direction, here's a cup produced for the Siamese court in Bangkok: 
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Feb 20, 2020 01:36
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Chomp8645 posted:I mean, kinda yes, but really no. Western nations of that time went to war with others and each other all the time for all kinds of poo poo, including trade rights. Also up through the 17th century, every time China went to war with a European nation, China won. It's not an accident that they now speak Chinese in Taiwan, instead of Dutch. The Portuguese had to beg and grovel for the right to set of fortifications in Macau, and had absolutely no illusions regarding who wore the pants in their relationship with the Imperial court.
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Feb 20, 2020 01:45
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Mozi posted:everything went south after the warring states period anyways Things didn't go south; it was more of a journey to the west.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:07
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I think you're making the mistake of drastically underestimating the development of technology in Medieval Europe, which is a common error to make largely due to the post-Enlightenment consensus of the Middle Ages being uniquely horrible and terrible with no redeeming qualities regardless of the accuracy of the position. To say nothing of the innovations that Medieval Europe inherited from the Roman Empire. Areas where Medieval Europe were equivalent or excelled compared to their contemporaries, in addition to glasswork, were in masonry and construction techniques, hydropowered manufacturing, shipbuilding, metallurgy, and in tons of military sciences. Machinery in general advanced considerably during the period and anyone who thinks that people in the middle ages were backwards idiots has clearly never looked at how things like counterweight trebuchets are designed and operated. And lots of things were, as it turned out, invented independently from one another. The Chinese compass ended up becoming the standard for instance, but the Europeans had their own kind of compass prior to its adoption and in some cases the European version of these ended up being superior to the Chinese version, such as in the case of crossbows.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:12
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Mozi posted:my original point was just that the US hasn't been around for very long, that's all, not to suggest china reigned supreme over all of history There have been Americans for well over 20,000 years. Like China (and pretty much everyone else) they just got invaded and dominant cultures got kicked over, set on fire, and intermixed with said invaders a bunch of times. Squalid posted:Nobody had any "periods of explosive scientific growth" before the 18th century, because science as we understand it barely existed. Before 1500 nobody did any more than tool around the coast, and after that Europeans would ruthlessly enforce their monopoly of long distance trade. Pacific Islanders were definitely not tooling around the coasts before 1500. Hell, even the Western Europeans were landing in the Americas and sailing all over the Pacific halfway across the globe by 1500 - which was really loving late given the Vikings already made it across the Atlantic some 500 years prior. This is only worth mentioning because just loving LOL at the idea of China discovering a bunch of islands in the middle of an alread-inhabited-by-oceangoing-islanders ocean. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Feb 20, 2020 |
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Feb 20, 2020 02:13
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norton I posted:I dunno, not letting people in is in a slightly different league than not letting them out. "Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in."
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Feb 20, 2020 02:14
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Also it should be noted that basically all the information that we have about Chinese technology throughout history comes from one guy, Joseph Needham, who was a card carrying communist who loved the CCP, and is known for making some, uh, generous extrapolations from the texts that he translated, my favorite still being that China invented helicopters because a religious text that he translated made vague references to "flying returning blades" in describing what is possible with properly aligned qi
Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Feb 20, 2020 |
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Feb 20, 2020 02:16
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Eh saying China #1 for most of history is accurate. From a pure geographic persepective it had the most favorable combination of people and resources.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:22
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Despera posted:Eh saying China #1 for most of history is accurate. It's not. Even if you ignore pressing questions like "What is China"
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Feb 20, 2020 02:24
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A beautiful world with beautiful places to visit
Barudak fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Feb 20, 2020 02:24
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It should also be noted that as far as referencing technological origins, a lot of inventions credited to China are credited to China because it was assumed that if the Chinese talked about something, then the thing must have originated in China even though it very well could have come from India, or Arabia, or Southeast Asia, or Korea, or Japan, etc. That Chinese records barely even acknowledge the existence of things that aren't China make them particularly susceptible to this.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:27
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Fojar38 posted:It should also be noted that as far as referencing technological origins, a lot of inventions credited to China are credited to China because it was assumed that if the Chinese talked about something, then the thing must have originated in China even though it very well could have come from India, or Arabia, or Southeast Asia, or Korea, or Japan, etc. That Chinese records barely even acknowledge the existence of things that aren't China make them particularly susceptible to this. I was in a Korean museum that seemed to indicate that most of China's innovations came from there. Grand Fromage can back me up on this.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:35
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Blistex posted:I was in a Korean museum that seemed to indicate that most of China's innovations came from there. TBH some of them probably did, because Asia is a big place and lots of it isn't China. But of course there's no winning in a conversation between Chinese nationalists and Korean nationalists.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:37
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Blistex posted:I was in a Korean museum that seemed to indicate that most of China's innovations came from there. Grand Fromage can back me up on this. I cannot. Korean museums state that all innovations come from Korea, not most. You loving anti-Han bigot.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:42
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The chinese empire should be broken up and it should return to being a number of self-governed independent states.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:51
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Barudak posted:If you are American and dont mention your countries 5,400 years of history at every opportunity are you really American? I've been seeing "5,000 years of history" in print for a while now, and it seems like China is still stuck at 5,000. You think they would be up to 5,012 or so by now.
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Feb 20, 2020 03:10
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Fojar38 posted:Also it should be noted that basically all the information that we have about Chinese technology throughout history comes from one guy, Joseph Needham, who was a card carrying communist who loved the CCP, and is known for making some, uh, generous extrapolations from the texts that he translated, my favorite still being that China invented helicopters because a religious text that he translated made vague references to "flying returning blades" in describing what is possible with properly aligned qi i'm pretty sure the state of our knowledge has advanced a bit since this guy died like 20 years ago. also note i didn't once attribute the invention of any technology to the chinese. Who invented what is basically always pointless dickwaving. Who had access to what, and when, is an interesting historical question. Countweight trebuchets are a bad example of a technological advantage Europeans had over the Chinese because within almost 100 years of their invention the chinese had them too, even if they were introduced via angry Mongolians. comparing technology advancement between regions is difficult since obviously it changes a lot over time, and differs depending on the field you are talking about. Still I think its pretty clear that it wasn't until after the Renaissance of the 12th century mentioned in that article that Europe could really be said to match China technologically. I'll even be bold and say I think China was more technologically advanced than the Romans, although not as much more advanced than they were over the post Roman Carolingian empire. I think Romans and their successors were probably better at using the arch than the Chinese, but it's hard to compare since taste and culture has such a big influence on the kind of monumental architecture that requires them. I mean nobody NEEDS a cathedral, even if they are cool. And if you're in an earthquake zone you might be better off without them.
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Feb 20, 2020 03:12
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Just in case anyone's interested, a couple of China academic friends of mine have started up a regular news brief on China issues. They're both Aussies (and if you live in Canberra perchance, you can go meet them as they periodically have discussion nights at a bar there) so there's a slant towards the effects on Australia. They basically email once or twice a week with some news highlights and less-covered things they think are important, and a bit about each. https://neican.substack.com/ has the most recent ones (click "I want to read it first" under the sign-up form) if you feel like checking it out. Disclaimer: they didn't pay or even ask me to post about it. I just have been reading it and found some interesting stuff.
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Feb 20, 2020 03:28
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Squalid posted:i'm pretty sure the state of our knowledge has advanced a bit since this guy died like 20 years ago. I wish it had but his work is by far the most common citation for anything regarding the history of Chinese science.
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Feb 20, 2020 03:36
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Squalid posted:I think Romans and their successors were probably better at using the arch than the Chinese, but it's hard to compare since taste and culture has such a big influence on the kind of monumental architecture that requires them. I mean nobody NEEDS a cathedral, even if they are cool. And if you're in an earthquake zone you might be better off without them. Italy is in an earthquake zone and even sports a bunch of active volcanoes. The various roman/greek/egyptian structures still standing have been through more than their fair share of quakes. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Feb 20, 2020 |
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Feb 20, 2020 03:40
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Warbadger posted:Italy is in an earthquake zone and even sports a bunch of active volcanoes. The various roman/greek/egyptian structures still standing have been through more than their fair share of quakes. well then its worth considering the structures that aren't still standing. A lot of the colosseum is still standing, but it was repeatedly damaged in earthquakes that destroyed large portions of it. I'm not sure when China first applied arch technology, I know they were using it by the 7th century, but its hard to argue Chinese people are definitively worse off because they didn't have gothic cathedrals.
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Feb 20, 2020 04:03
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Fojar38 posted:It's not. Even if you ignore pressing questions like "What is China" China being the han state (or the state that ruled the han) post 221 b.c. Each of the dynasties was at its peak the most powerful nation on earth.
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Feb 20, 2020 04:34
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You are missing the point here. It's not really about who invented what first or in parallel etc. There is a misunderstanding as to what *Gunpowder.jpg* is. It's about the rest of the world taking this invention then improving upon it well beyond what China thought possible. Some guy went and systematically found the optimal ratio, then corning. Combined it with flints, percussion caps, better metallurgy, minie balls, tactics of mass fire, portable artillery etc while China remained well behind the curve. It wasn't about whether open ocean travel was invented 1300, 1400, 1500 or 1600. It's that China did nothing with it. Had they done so America could very well be Chinese. Instead of Britain owning 1/4 of the world it could have been China. They made some very nice plates as shown but completely failed to recognise the power of industrialisation. Time and again they have stagnated relying on China BIG. Science happened in the rest of the world, just because it didn't use the scientific method as we know it doesn't mean it wasn't science or that they didn't have technological explosions. The system of government discouraged innovation as it was perceived as a threat to the ruling class power, something they couldn't control. An endless line of Emperors up to Qing ruling from heaven while elsewhere governments changed, evolved for the better. So many people yet it didn't translate to more advances that sheer luck should produce. For all the advantages China had it goes to show how much they massively under perform. That is the underlying point. Squalid posted:Also up through the 17th century, every time China went to war with a European nation, China won. It's not an accident that they now speak Chinese in Taiwan, instead of Dutch. The Portuguese had to beg and grovel for the right to set of fortifications in Macau, and had absolutely no illusions regarding who wore the pants in their relationship with the Imperial court. Home field advantage is a hell of a thing.
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Feb 20, 2020 04:47
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There are two ways to look at the 5000 years of history brag. One refute it based on facts. China is not a 5000 year old country. Any dynasty pre Qin is speculative at best and certainly didnt dominate outside the yellow river valley area. So at best you got 2000 years of up and down history. That said those ups were greater than most countries ups. Saying China didnt have 5000 years of history is correct but it does have a long and proud history, where it was largely the most powerful and advanced country on Earth. The second is to allow the point but deny its implications. You know what country actually has 5000 years of history? Egypt has reliable records well into the 3rd century b.c. They were a superpower for many of those millennia. But like the decaying stone statues of Ramses ii that inspired 'Ozymandius' all that history means gently caress all. Nobody goes to looking for tips on stability from Egypt.
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Feb 20, 2020 05:06
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Grand Fromage posted:I cannot. Et tu, Brute?
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Feb 20, 2020 05:18
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Squalid posted:Also up through the 17th century, every time China went to war with a European nation, China won. It's not an accident that they now speak Chinese in Taiwan, instead of Dutch. The Portuguese had to beg and grovel for the right to set of fortifications in Macau, and had absolutely no illusions regarding who wore the pants in their relationship with the Imperial court. If you listen long enough, they don't
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Feb 20, 2020 05:25
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No one here is saying China is 5000 years old or believes in it outside of telling a joke. If anything we have been mocking the idea by playing with this assumption. 5000 years of China just means it has been rear end backwards for 5000 years.
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Feb 20, 2020 05:37
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Squalid posted:Also up through the 17th century, every time China went to war with a European nation, China won. It's not an accident that they now speak Chinese in Taiwan, instead of Dutch. The Portuguese had to beg and grovel for the right to set of fortifications in Macau, and had absolutely no illusions regarding who wore the pants in their relationship with the Imperial court. Not true; the Portuguese conquest of Malacca in 1511 saw a failed Chinese intervention (although China usually prefers to credit ultimate victory over its navy to pirates)
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Feb 20, 2020 05:42
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It turns out that it's really boats that turned out to be loving OP
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Feb 20, 2020 05:45
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Pointing to China kicking around some minor European powers' outposts on local islands is kind of lol. Because the truth is, the fact that basically all examples of European/Chinese conflict occured within China's self-defined sphere of interest, and absolutely none of it was ever remotely near the European continent, tells you all you need to know about the power dynamic.
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Feb 20, 2020 05:46
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Is it true that Chinese people horde cash and precious metals in their homes like that rap says? Is that a mainlander thing or Taiwan thing?
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Feb 20, 2020 06:21
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Something something if so superior, why is it scrambling to steal IP even though it had a 3000 year head start.
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Feb 20, 2020 06:23
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China is the classic super senior who will adamantly assert their superiority over underclassmen because they've been there longer and are thus obviously smarter and wiser. It's always hard to tell whether they honestly believe that they're hot poo poo or are just compensating for knowing full-well that their own pitiable shortcomings got them where they are.
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Feb 20, 2020 06:58
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Cugel the Clever posted:China is the classic super senior who will adamantly assert their superiority over underclassmen because they've been there longer and are thus obviously smarter and wiser. It's always hard to tell whether they honestly believe that they're hot poo poo or are just compensating for knowing full-well that their own pitiable shortcomings got them where they are. So basically matthew mcconaughey in dazed and confused
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Feb 20, 2020 07:00
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I kind of admire the fact that the WSJ seems to be going full scorched earth on the CCP - the day after 3 of their reporters got kicked out of China, they're running a guest editorial that ends its first paragraph: "There is no cure for Chinese communism except the collapse of the party." https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-facade-of-stability-11582156842
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Feb 20, 2020 07:29
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The WSJ pissing off the Chinese government is like a wasp landing on a stinging nettle. Also: VPN companies have only today fully gotten over the response to last week's 'methodology shift' in virus case reporting.
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Feb 20, 2020 08:04
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Despera posted:China being the han state (or the state that ruled the han) post 221 b.c. Each of the dynasties was at its peak the most powerful nation on earth. Roman Empire was more powerful than the Han dynasty. Umayyad caliphate was more powerful than Song China.
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Feb 20, 2020 08:53
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Atopian posted:Also: VPN companies have only today fully gotten over the response to last week's 'methodology shift' in virus case reporting. Sorry can you clarify this I've gotten two really strange emails from two VPN companies in the last day
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Feb 20, 2020 09:41
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Last week VPNs were chugging along just fine, less interference than normal. Then, the day after the big spike in reported viral infections, the government unleashed the sort of measures you normally only see for public disturbances or Party events, and most VPNs stopped working. For the one I use, took three builds before it finally started working late last night.
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Feb 20, 2020 10:15
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