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Play posted:internal Chinese records would need to be purposefully fudged (for what? why? why would the government record MORE deaths than actually took place in a natural disaster? Just to try and fool smart guys like you 500 years after the fact?) Nothing needs to have been purposely or malevolently altered, as was said before it was common in historical recordkeeping to put a really high number in order to mean "a shitload." I could just as easily reverse this question and ask how recordkeepers could possibly know with any level of certainty the casualties from the earthquake if it was as large as it was, using pre-modern accounting methods, especially if the damage was so widespread that it could have covered that much territory? Play posted:At the end of the day it was a large earthquake taking place in a very populous country where a huge amount of people would be vulnerable to the collapse of buildings, caves and mountainsides and where the effects would be felt (to some extent) across the entire country, I just don't see where you're going with this. Frankly, the earthquake itself is incidental and the only reason it's being litigated right now is because someone brought it up as an example of how China must have easily been #1 in everything, mostly because they were using the casualty records as a proxy for China's total size, probably under the assumption that the earthquake was limited into a small area (which, if you're right, isn't true, and the casualty numbers would have been because a large area was affected, not because of high population density.) Where I've been going with all of this is a question of historiography, particularly as far as China is concerned, and how statements like "China was wealthy" or "China was big" are actually insanely loaded despite their simplicity. What is China? When are we talking about? Big relative to who? What was considered wealth? Can these concepts be easily translated into what we understand them as in a modern society? How many sources do we have and how reliable are they? You know, the science of history. And it irritates me that people, including very smart academic people who should know better, are so willing to give ancient China a free pass when it comes to these questions, usually because of either some sense of orientalism or a desire to form a revisionist narrative, usually a nationalist China-centric view of history, either for the purposes of modern political interests or business interests (China will inevitably be the biggest and strongest because it always was, so better bend the knee now/Xi Dada is making China great again and restoring its place at the center of the world!) Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Feb 21, 2020 |
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Feb 21, 2020 22:23
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it turns out the real china was the enemies we made along the way
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Feb 21, 2020 23:41
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I think fojar is being too skeptical of deaths from earthquake. I know for a fact that we have plenty of evidence of just how dangerous cave dwellings were in China: We have the crushed and buried skeletons from ancient disasters to prove it. Possibly the most destructive earthquake in China's history didn't primarily kill by crushing people to death though. Instead it triggered a landslide into Jishi Gorge in the upper reaches of the Yellow River. This formed a natural dam which first completely blocked the river, cutting off water downstream. It then collapsed, unleashing a crushing wall of water in a monster flood that would have swept all before it destroying towns and crops alike. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/08/china-yellow-river-great-flood-xia-dynasty-yu/#close  Bodies buried in a collapsed cave dwelling estimated to be ~4000 years old. These people are believed to have died in the earthquake that dammed the Yellow River. quote:Soon after, Wu found his smoking gun: remnants of an earthen dam knocked into the Jishi Gorge by a landslide. He published his discovery in 2009—but only afterward did he realize that the natural dam had been much bigger. Reexaminations of the area revealed additional dam remnants, suggesting that it was a behemoth about half a mile (800 meters) wide, three-quarters of a mile (1,300 meters) long, and 660 feet (200 meters) tall. The Yellow River is a real scary feature. It's quite plausibly the most dangerous river on the planet, maybe the Ganges-Brahmaputra is the only one that can compare.
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Feb 22, 2020 00:55
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You going to need a better excuse than people like to inflate numbers. If you are a minister doing a census overestimating the population means you will owe the state lot of money. Likewise you get to keep poo poo if you underestimate the total. China is an "exceptional" (all things are in some way) country. It was usually the biggest country and occasionally "the best." We have a 200 year old superpower ruling the earth for all the poo poo that gets you.
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Feb 22, 2020 01:15
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Yeah, I have no problems believing the earthquake numbers. China was definitely the most populous country and often the wealthiest for most of history. It's just the army numbers I have issue with because there are hard physical restraints on how big they can get in a preindustrial society.
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Feb 22, 2020 02:01
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Despera posted:You going to need a better excuse than people like to inflate numbers. If you are a minister doing a census overestimating the population means you will owe the state lot of money. Likewise you get to keep poo poo if you underestimate the total. Oh, here is a good reason to over estimate deaths though. Corruption. Over estimating deaths has the same effect as under reporting population, no?
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Feb 22, 2020 06:41
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The answer to tankies asserting that China can do no wrong and is the inevitable inheritor of the world is not to just do the same thing but in the opposite direction. Well I mean it's p funny but aside from that.
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Feb 22, 2020 07:27
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbHxeOQA1Mc
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Feb 22, 2020 08:23
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Grand Fromage posted:People haven't gotten Despera's gimmick is pretending to be incredibly dumb. It is absolutely not a gimmick
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Feb 22, 2020 09:41
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A beautiful world with beautiful places to visit
Barudak fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Feb 22, 2020 10:08
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Agreed. Future posting must conform to pre-regulated thread guidelines. I would suggest topics like the irrefutable 4000 years of history of China or China's undeniable territorial claims to the Diaoyu Islands.
Shut up and JAM! fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Feb 22, 2020 |
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Feb 22, 2020 10:16
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I have not yet successfully convinced a person new to China that "钓鱼岛是日本的" ...means "I am a foreigner who does not speak much Chinese.", but one day it will work.
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Feb 22, 2020 11:43
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Who cares if China was "the most powerful" at some point in time, or Romans had more bridges or better armor and speaks. All power was local, so it doesn't matter. Here are the only facts that matter. 1. Recorded history of civilization (and likely civilization itself) in North Africa, Levant and the Middle East is, what, at least 1000-2000 years older than in China. Heck, even India might be older. And that means that the most important and relevant instances of everything were likely first invented there. 2. These nations and cultures have, over the generations, had an infinitly greater impact on Western and overall culture today than anything in Chinese culture. In conclusion, China will never be as cool, but always drool. It gives me immense pleasure to award Arabs/Levantines/Egyptians (edit: Anatolians as well!) as first and #1 culture and people in the world, forever. China will always be #2 in the world, and can only salivate at the prestige of these nations. This fact is recorded in history for all eternity. Please send your complaints and tears directly to my office via this thread, thank you. Edit: In fact, since according to China all these are cultures that are separate and should not be considered in unison like China, China itself is now officially ranked #117 in the world forever. Thank you. Haramstufe Rot fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Feb 22, 2020 |
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Feb 22, 2020 11:59
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I'm still pissed about the burning of Baghdad - those Bismaritans were inspired.
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Feb 22, 2020 12:01
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i find it interesting one of the first western books translated into Chinese by the Jesuits was Euclid -- which suggests he was still relevant over a thousand years after writing. In the 17th century China had a number of Europhiles into stuff like christianity and cannons and astronomy and the like.
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Feb 22, 2020 13:05
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Haramstufe Rot posted:Who cares if China was "the most powerful" at some point in time, or Romans had more bridges or better armor and speaks. All power was local, so it doesn't matter. yeah but the Babylonian empire isn't making modern territorial claims based on this history. if china wants to appeal to history they should give the south china sea to mongolia
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Feb 22, 2020 13:13
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hey guys stop talking about this thanks starting to smell gas
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Feb 22, 2020 14:40
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Ever since China locked everyone up in their houses and stopped working there hasn't been much to discuss 
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Feb 22, 2020 15:57
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Things are actually starting up again. Several nonessential industries were back to work this week just gone, provided that the companies were big enough to be able to meet certain "we'll gently caress you up if you get this wrong" requirements from the government, and at least in this area all businesses that can run via delivery instead of in-person will be permitted to open from Monday. I think the news might have calmed because the government absolutely will not let anything get in the way of this reopening, and is leaning hard on the "no surprises" thing. Edit: to clarify, regardless of the actual existence of surprises or not, there will be 'no surprises'.
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Feb 22, 2020 16:03
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Q1 growth is still 6% though
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Feb 22, 2020 16:31
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Chocolate ration going up next month as well.
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Feb 22, 2020 16:47
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Just wanted to remind everyone that the oldest continuous culture is Aboriginal Australian, and it's not close.
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Feb 22, 2020 17:36
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I mean beneath a very widespread but relatively thin and fragile layer of markets, the economy is basically run by the government if it has to be, so the main thing to worry about in that regard is the government loving up, which is obviously a ridiculous thing to imagine of the Chinese government, or circumstances resulting in the inability to import necessary food, given that China is not self-sufficient in that regard. Stuff can get bad here, but unless that causes a breakdown in government authority (which it totally could but that's a different discussion) then in terms of production and consumption the economy can continue to chug away.
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Feb 22, 2020 17:39
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 This happens for every disease outbreak. People just salivating to ban foreigners. It must be nice to have the Korean immune system that prevents all diseases.
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Feb 22, 2020 18:02
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Not sure if this has already been posted here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot1ejwUeFpI
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Feb 22, 2020 18:43
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Grand Fromage posted:
Ugh, I look forward to not being able to eat out anywhere when I have to go to Seoul for the brother in law's wedding in 3 weeks. Especially as I have no intention of bothering with masks and the like. Also: Jesus freaks spreading the virus https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/22/coronavirus-south-korea-sees-huge-jump-cases-china-hubei-wuhan-outbreak- Wife is worried and beg/borrow/stealing all the surgical masks she can get a hold of, as she is staying on in Seoul and Jinhae for a month after the wedding.
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Feb 22, 2020 18:45
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StevoMcQueen posted:Ugh, I look forward to not being able to eat out anywhere when I have to go to Seoul for the brother in law's wedding in 3 weeks. Especially as I have no intention of bothering with masks and the like. Because of Wuhan pneumonia it is temporarily Unable to provide service to Korean Wedding Only foreigner may stay at home and read/watch TV/ play video games
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Feb 22, 2020 19:23
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Dragging the whole family to South Korea right now for a gathering is a pro strat to get your hands on that inheritance ASAP
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Feb 22, 2020 19:25
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Man that sucks about Korea. I spent a year there, my brother spent two, and he was stationed right outside of Daegu. I was up by Pyongtaek. No news is coming out of North Korea, but I gotta wonder how they're doing with the kung flu there. By the time this is overwith their populace might be down to a non-starving level. Fatty Kim 3 has been pretty quiet on the world stage lately. Won't someone think of the juicy girls? CRUSTY MINGE fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Feb 22, 2020 |
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Feb 22, 2020 19:37
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Is esports cancelled?
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Feb 22, 2020 19:38
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Squalid posted:I think fojar is being too skeptical of deaths from earthquake. I know for a fact that we have plenty of evidence of just how dangerous cave dwellings were in China: We have the crushed and buried skeletons from ancient disasters to prove it. Sounds like China actually could have benefited from some of that Egyptian/Greek/Roman/Indian/Mesopotamian engineering expertise if everyone was getting smashed and buried by cave dwellings or drowned by rivers in the millions. Beachcomber posted:Just wanted to remind everyone that the oldest continuous culture is Aboriginal Australian, and it's not close. Yep. And Northern African/Mesopotamian cultures won the record keeping and agricultural civilization game by a pretty wide margin. But none of them are making absurd claims about owning the seas. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Feb 22, 2020 |
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Feb 22, 2020 20:04
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Little deviation from earthquake and ancient census chat. Friend of mine who I met in China just texted me, and we had a chat for almost an hour. It was one of the scariest most  experiences I have ever had.He got married in China 8 years ago, they moved to Canada 6 years ago, and have been living in Toronto for that time. He's a upper-middle level manager at some Bay Street financial company and she was an accountant for some hotel supply company. They both had well paying jobs and have a house together. His family is really well off, and her family back in China likewise. So much so that they were considering buying a place in Toronto to make visits more convenient. Anyway. So his grandfather dies, and has been sitting on a shitload of money since he was a partner in some road maintenance company (Pioneer I think). He only had one son (my friend's father) who only had one son (my friend). Last year the lawyer finishes the process of doling out the estate and my friend outright gets a 2 million inheritance. Him and his wife divide that among their accounts, and he uses the bulk of his share to pay off the house they live in. She has her half invested in various TFSAs and savings accounts. They're thrilled, and life for them is pretty much on easy street as they have managed to pay off a house in their mid 30s. They have been planning various vacations since their living expenses have dropped a ton and they have lots of throwing around money (not even counting the inheritance). Thursday his wife is not feeling well, calls in sick to work and stays home. He gets home after work and his wife is not there. There are some things missing from their home (passport, jewelery, some clothes, etc.) He calls her a few times but no answer. He uses the trace my iPhone app, gets no result. Is about to call the police, but sees an Uber receipt to the airport when checking his email. Checks out their credit card statement and sees a $1600 ticket booked few days prior. Checks out their bank statement (he can only see their shared account) and sees that the maximum amount per day has been withdrawn from it for for a week. About $50k. Dude was completely blindsided, and at points I could barely understand him over the phone. He kept grasping for plausible (or less so) reasons for her departure that didn't involve their relationship being over, but I kept steering him back to reality. I managed to walk him through the process of canceling their credit cards (reporting stolen) and putting a freeze on their shared accounts. I also had him change all his passwords for everything, as well as cancel her sim card and any of the online pay things like paypal that are connected to their credit cards and accounts. He was desperate for a reason, and the only one I could give him was pressure from her parents to come home, and maybe she thought it would be easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Honestly, I don't see her ever coming back to him, but possibly coming back to Canada since she did become a citizen a year or so ago. I don't know what it is about me knowing so many people who have been massively betrayed by spouses in the most bizarre ways, and now I'm getting paranoid about my own marriage, despite not being rich and us having a child. The only thing that even comes close to this was a friend of my cousin who married a guy in the Dominican Republic (lived there for 4 years) and the moment she turned her back in Pearson International Airport he was gone and she never saw or heard from him again. Even though it's still literally less than a week, I've told him that he might have to start going through the pre-divorce process, to make sure she doesn't try and claim half of the remaining money in this and their shared account. Just loving WOW!
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Feb 22, 2020 21:32
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Strategic Tea posted:it is their turn did u know
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Feb 22, 2020 21:49
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Divorce with Chinese characteristics. Also I swear I’ve read a story exactly like that in the r/relationships thread.
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Feb 22, 2020 22:12
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CRUSTY MINGE posted:No news is coming out of North Korea, but I gotta wonder how they're doing with the kung flu there. By the time this is overwith their populace might be down to a non-starving level. Fatty Kim 3 has been pretty quiet on the world stage lately. There are scattered reports about the outbreak being real bad in the north but as usual, nobody really knows. Also they haven't been in famine since the 90s, that is almost as out of date as saying Ethiopians don't have food.
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Feb 22, 2020 22:33
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MarcusSA posted:Divorce with Chinese characteristics. prc was completely 100% in every way shape and form ahead of usa and the entire rest of the world on no fault divorce because mao zedongs divorce sucked absolute balls for him
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Feb 22, 2020 22:51
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Warbadger posted:Sounds like China actually could have benefited from some of that Egyptian/Greek/Roman/Indian/Mesopotamian engineering expertise if everyone was getting smashed and buried by cave dwellings or drowned by rivers in the millions. I know you were going for some kind of sarcastic gotcha with this but this poo poo is weak. You're just coming off as someone who doesn't know what they are talking about. The Chinese were expert river engineers and in terms of the scale of their projects and technical sophistication of river management they far exceeded anything that existed in Mesopotamia and Europe until the modern era. I'd be tempted to say the world here but I don't really know much anything about the history of the Ganges so I'll have to leave that history an open question. As far as earthquakes go I certainly don't think China stands out as particularly unsafe, although to my knowledge Japan does stand out as having an architectural tradition that is remarkably robust against quakes compared to both China and Europe. When it comes to water the scale of flood disasters in chinese history is primarily a function of geography, geology, climate, and population density. The Yellow River flood plain is vast and broad putting huge areas at risk, the monsoonal climate makes large scale torrential downpours common, and the highly erosive silty soils in NW China mean the Yellow River has just about the highest bed loads relative to flow of any major river in the world. Add in quakes powerful enough to block entire canyons with landslides, and it should be clear why northern China has such a long and tragic history of disastrous floods. Given all this its actually remarkable that it is able to support such a dense population at all, when one bad year could destroy all crops in the whole yellow river floodplain. However, in response to this threat, the Chinese state has developed and maintained for millennia one of the largest and most comprehensive systems of river control structures. There is a large body of writing on the subject from Chinese officials and engineers going back almost 2000 years. By comparison, as far as I am aware at the height of it's empire Rome had absolutely no levees or protection from floods of any sort. As a result, several neighborhoods of the city were cyclically and predictably flooded, without any kind of attempt to mitigate the risk until the 19th century. Here is a detailed quote on the traditional chinese approach to river management, which in its broad strokes is the same as modern river management. CHAPTER XX: Huanghe, the Yellow River posted:In 8 BC an advisory committee led by the engineer Jiarang suggested three steps toward control: to "channelize" the river, improving its rate of flow to the sea; to divert enough water down irrigation canals and into diversion basins that floods would be mitigated; and last, to build higher levees. All three methods have been applied, with less than complete success. A Han successor Wangjing, working from about 58 AD to 76 AD, was able to stabilize the Yellow River with levees in a way that lasted for centuries. He was lucky, however, because the river had shifted its course about 11 AD, and had been wandering uncontrolled across the flood plain. Wangjing therefore inherited river flow across low land, and low levees were enough for temporary control while higher ones were built. It took the river a long time to silt its bed back to the critical levels that Jiarang had faced. edit: here's a picture of an ancient chinese levee. Why is it underground now, you might ask? Well simple, it was buried under floods. Dealing with these problems is a serious challenge even in the modern era. 
Squalid fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Feb 22, 2020 |
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Feb 22, 2020 23:12
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Squalid posted:I know you were going for some kind of sarcastic gotcha with this but this poo poo is weak. You're just coming off as someone who doesn't know what they are talking about. 2000 years is cute, but that's Roman time, and those guy were better engineers than China is now (shopping malls, developments and hospitals are literally falling to pieces as we speak). Compare Rome or Istanbul etc. to Bejing. Do it. Where is that engineering to be found hm? You know what's up. And Mesopotamia was building wonders of the world long before China was doing anything other than low grade pottery. Yo I don't wanna hate, but China is not even in the top 10. That's fine, neither is my country, hell we were essentially cave making GBS threads Barbarians not so recently ago. The difference is, we don't feel like we gotta dunk on every other nation and impose fictional history and arbitrary international boundaries on other people just because our dear leader has a small dick. Or do you really think anyone gives a poo poo who dug the first irrigation channel? I sure don't But it was the Egyptians anyway, just sayin
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Feb 22, 2020 23:31
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Haramstufe Rot posted:2000 years is cute, but that's Roman time, and those guy were better engineers than China is now (shopping malls, developments and hospitals are literally falling to pieces as we speak). Compare Rome or Istanbul etc. to Bejing. Do it. Where is that engineering to be found hm? You know what's up. nah its a good post and has made an important point. the Nile river has a maximum discharge of 49,000 cu ft/s, the yellow river on the other hand has a maximum discharge of 2,000,000 cu ft/s that's like Krillin vs Freeza, its not even the same ballpark! being able to control that river took some major feats
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Feb 22, 2020 23:43
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Haramstufe Rot posted:2000 years is cute, but that's Roman time, and those guy were better engineers than China is now (shopping malls, developments and hospitals are literally falling to pieces as we speak). Compare Rome or Istanbul etc. to Bejing. Do it. Where is that engineering to be found hm? You know what's up. sorry, but i'm afraid i rate countries based on pork dumplings, and by my rigorous and scientific set of objective criteria I rate China solidly at number two (Russia/Uzbekistan split first for Manti)
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Feb 22, 2020 23:56
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