It hardly isolated and independent. I won’t consider the Inquisition an isolated incident.

The fear is so widespread that intellectuals like Galileo are afraid to speak or publish their works in fear of being branded as a witch or heretic. Under the Church that time, the fear of free speech is even worst than a Communist country, and the punishments even more grievious (burning alive in the stake after being tortured in the rack vs. the gulag).

yes but that werent the rule in europe when the so called ‘new age’ begun…ofcourse the catholics put resistance in individual cases, but they didnt manage to prevent the whole change of athmosphere…

In China the same three elements, the monarchy (absolute rule of the Emperor), the religion (the massive influence of the Confucianists), and feudal nobilities. Like in Europe, all three work to support and strengthen each other and their power bases.

I must add that feudalism itself is very detrimental to progress. One of the real advantages of the Americas had been that it started with a clean slate, and thus, you don’t have feudalism. The closest thing to feudalism in the US are the cotton plantations owning slaves, but the Civil War took care of that.

Well feudalism prevents to its own point the progress of centralization, but all elements of oppressive power structures and factors bringin stress into sosietys horizontal elements have eventually face its own destruction

In many other countries, breaking up feudalism is done in a much more bloodier way, like the French beheading their nobility during their Revolution with the Guilottine, while Communists in Russia and China executed the land owners. If you are rich, you’re dead. Wars also took their share of the feudal barons.

classstruggle….

Some of the Bible people, Jehovah’s Witnesses for example, believed that the universe is less than 10,000 years old. Dinosaur fossils must be the work of the Devil.

I do believe that the future of a nation is determined right in the classroom.

Agree whit that, but the next biggest factor is the entertaiment…In west we are practically numbed whit overdoze of entartaiment that we have lost our ability to collective thinking, thus just believing all the little lies they fed us…and its doesent need to be lies, just impresses and stressing one fact over another, but mostly took almoust all news and happenings out of bigger picture. The basic understanding of world is effectively blurred and people are lead like pigs…
In schools, we should be teached to guestion every auchrority

Its current technological supremacy is for the US to lose. The US has already lost vital leads in automobile technology, in many areas of electronics, and is now only in parity along many areas. Even in commercial aviation this is clearly under assault.

Well the economics can take blows if the governmenr survieves, real sings of fall comes when the govermental or social structures starts to crumble…

For me, the right wing and the Bush administration, particularly right at the very top, is the same reflection of the Ming Emperor (not Zhu Di, the guy who commissioned Zheng He’s voyages; the next guy that replaced him after he died) and his Confucian cronies.

The first similarity is being way out of touch with the rest of the world and living in illusion about their supremacy being forever, while the rot is eating at the foundation. It is amazing to think that the right wing still thinks the US being ahead in areas where they actually are not.

The second is being involved in military campaigns that drained the money away (the Ming fighting the Mongols, fighting in Korea against the Japanese, fighting in Vietnam and so on).

The third similarity is benig surrounded by a certain faction of people who reinforces that isolation and illusions, who promulgates a “we are not accountable to the world” philosophy, while at the same time, trying to put down a faction who promotes diplomatic engagement as a way to deal with problems.

The fourth is the question of religion over science. An important issue is stem cell research, which is fundamental breakthrough in medical science and because of “ethical” issues, facing barriers put up by the Bush government

Intresting accpect, thougth thinking it bit future, is there similar factors that every empires fall? Can we determ as we can genrally determ why empire can rise, how it would fall or is it always too dependaple of the empires individual elements??

Yes im been doing my holiday homework. 😀

:rolleyes:

I just posted my post that i already wrote. Just give me the point in simple form because im not going to read all your post because i wouldn’t have a clue what your talking about.

Well just read the last one i wrote, I sum the things there pretty well

Seeing as how i put my replies in a simple to read format could you use more normal words because the way you assemble your sentences is difficult to understand

Well thats only due the falls of english as language, Not me…it would be lot easyer if i could use my native language…do remember that i have only studied english in schools and I werent exactly a school boy in nature…

Im generalising the main form of communism. I am not refer to imperislm as country to country oriented aggression but people to people like in chinas case. And i stated that commuisn was the next step in human evolution.

Communism isent/wasent any next step, it’s an ultimate step, and when you try to mix the historical devolpment, you go wrong. Class as collective consience cannot take power by revoluition and same time end the era of capitalism, if it isent awaken to its proletaritan awereness. If you try to movefrom feodal agral culutre straigth into highest level of communism, you go wrong…

Maosim the ideology is different from the economic policy. The commune system is not maoism. What really failed was communism itself. It did not fail in china alone it failed all across the world. Because the conditions of its evolution was completely the opposite direction. Communism was a eventual step alone the lines of human revolution and the eventual goal was communism the “classes society”. No country was ever communist it was a socialist country. The means of production was still in government controlled hands. But Mao was preaching Communes as another step to communism to be self suffiecent in production while the russians wanted to create the wealth and then work on their princles which is what Leninism-marxism was about. But the one step was missing was world revolution. There was meant to be a central government which co-ordinates the first moves then eventually lead to the great classless society

Yes, so whats your point, I was only refering that Maoism isent true scientical ideology as Marxism-Lenins was, there is no point of continue if you aknowlidge that yourself…

The logic of the communes are simple. Self reliance. The koreans are practising their own type of socialism more or less based on Maoism called juche. If china did not have to deal with outside problems more or less her commune system would have worked and would have and still is the closet thing to communism we’ve ever seen.

Commune system works in principle but then again when its taken out of its reach and put on use of much wider scope, it fails, As the huge masses devolpment is rather slow…Communes manages in self suficient into some exteem but using its ideas as simply to apply to whole sosiety, you go, again wrong…

Communism was based on the fall of government and no need to sustain a armed force and life would more or less stayed the same but it was a eventual progess. In reality communism was dead to begin with.

Well I, naturally disagree Communism (or Marxism) is in opposite quite lively ideology wheter capitalism and market-economics are in birth contradictic and impossible ideas. The main idea is take the ‘god’ status out of economies and put the human back to its place as only leader, only creator…

Hi there Chinawhite, havent seen you lately…
Anyway, about the topic, nice that you finally dig into it, but again you gave me proximate factors of european becoming first global power but we tryed to find causal affects of it, what made those qualityes of europeans busrt out in first place. Now as I dont have much time to repeat myself, try to read some of my answers to crobato…

but speaking of this communism issue becomes highly prevailing as the EU parialiment is currently trying to pull out act that would criminate communism in par whit nazism…And unfortuanetly that act has huge change to get trough now as those old eastern block little states have entered the union, thougth the act would have unpredictable events in whole europe…

Even the economic progress was different from european communism. China at the start where using Stalinism as the model of economic porgess but proved ineffective because china lacked the economic power or the resources so china moblized her people and did things by hand. Anyway research it up

But the main idea of Marxism was that historical devolpments are nessecity, not just preferable conditions. achieving highest form of capitalism doesent mean that you are victim of imperialism, but that you are conducting it, which china didnt do… I Have read enough Maos writings, perhaps you should read some of Soviet communist partys letters to chinese during the split. Thougth the stalinism had much cripeled soviet ideological ‘purity’ I have found intresting and honest lecturing of basics of Marxism from these writings (and inevitable national pride as finnish guy practically wrote them and took sings of other members of politbyroo along whit it 😀 )

Marxism was based on european conditions where the proletariat would eventually overpower the bourgeoisie through revolution and strike. While Mao Zedongs maoism was about peoples war where armed struggle would follow revolution. If you read both of these theories the only connection is the communsim part.

Again, I know what the Maoism states but again I have to tell you that it doesent work that way, thats why all the horrible mistakes made by Mao, thats why the China had to conduct its own Glanost and arent any longer a sosialistic workers state. The key proximate reason of all sosialistic states troples was the acts that first promised sherfs free land of their own and then took it away to form collectives, way too early. It needs generations to install the ideas of ‘sosialistic people’ into the education and pedagocics, not just mere years. The fact that Maoism was so depended of unrealistic expactations of peoples adjusment to new ways of thinking makes it wery thin ideology. Revolution is a way to conduct a end of capitalism as it cannot achieve sosialism in any otherway, but it isent continious progress…

But if you are future intressed, PM perhaps?

1. Water

best excuses to stay in bed after the alarm has set on…

10. its too cold outside…

well i got all Zeppelin albums… 😎
but generally I tend to loose stuff more often than collect it…im not so keen of order and stuff…

You think Christianity helped?

Christians burned down the library of Alexandria, and with it, much of the knowledge…and science…of the Ancient World. That threw back the world by centuries.

Let us not forget how they treated innovators, free thinkers.

—Stretched in the rack
—forced into the Iron Maiden
—Burned at the stake

yes, there are examples of christian purity movments to prevent sience, but those are more of independent occasions and usually extreme christian movments have remained minor players…The religious playfield in europe has constantly changed, as thougth remaining nominally same christian by heritage, the philoshophyes and views towards power have constantly changed in terms of two catholic churches but more oftenly in multible of protestant movments. Those areas of europe, stalling whit puritan catholism like Iberian penisula and eastern slavics (orthodoxs are greeak-catholics so I like to drawn the term little bit out of its contest and use it as term for the orginal christian churches) werent exactly most potent players in field of innovations.

Europe only began to really progress when secularism started to sweep in Europe. Even in the 16th Century, the Europeans didn’t have techs any better than the Chinese.

yes, but after 16th century, there begun real religious hurricane in europe as protestant movments rose and died and slowly begun way to the new enlighment-philoshophyes begun to rise and devote sciences evolution, approximately same time as China become stagnate…

You have to read early Chinese history from the protohistory and the different cultures that originated right to the Warring States period to fully understand what happened.

propaply, but then again, whitout generalization, we would have to determ the same thing to each cultural phase of china, why did it rose and what made others more viable.

Yes.

But always remember, there is a vital exception that authoritarian rule does not create technological progress. In fact, we saw extremely rapid progress in that one exception. That was Adolf Hitler.

Yes, but when the authoritanity continues for centuryes and becomes ultimate fundamental and that power holders remain in power for long time…off course dynamic and short lived tyrranies can speed up innovative, as does propaply all changes of powerstructure that benefits those minds whit new and fresh idea to become power. In Hitlers reing and in many other like the idea of Europes devolpment comes into microscope; You need innovatives to gain supermacy from your immediate threads, thus achieving a power enough to colonize foreing and alien cultures…after this is acjhieved, fresh ideas and innovative becomes more of a thread to ones power, not nesseserity…

I would say that if they were able to dominate there hemisphere, culturally, politically and economically, they are a world power in their right.

then the proplem is on terms…but these local powers have to ultimately face other parts dominators and one winning that contest is the one i tryed to determ…

Conditions are very ripe that the 21st Century would go to Asia, thanks to the interrelated dynamics between China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, which will spread to the other Asian nations. There is the factor of Russia and India too.

But the reason I say so is because of one factor. Education. The Asians are doing better in math and science, followed by Europe and the Americans trailing behind. In fact more and more the innovators in America are in fact, immigrants. If you want to pooh pooh the value of mathematics and science in our quest to develop the next generation of scientists, engineers, and technicians, go right ahead. Right now, China graduates five times more engineers than the US and rules in programming competitions (IBM listed a Shanghai university as tops in programming).

While in the US, we are producing nothing but lawyers, fast food workers, liberal arts graduates, and various other litigants. At the rate we are losing manufacturing ability, someday we won’t even know how to make a sock.

Forget about wars in Iraq, or super expensive military projects. If the US wants to secure its dominance in the next century—put the effort on the schools.

Education, i think is straighlty relevant from the innovate athmosphere of the domain. In US and in general west, I can see glooming sings of stagnation and decay, thougth not so immediate yet, but still glooming. Wery threathening are the news from US were some masterminds are working effectively against evolution theory and along whit it against all science in order to reinstall their Christian ideas of world creation par whit bible’s writings. Or in other words go back hundrres of years in terms of civilication. When any empire beguns to fight against devolpment and progress of human evolution, they are going wrong, Thougth Im not saying that US is condescend yet that level, but there is fear of that. (So Hats of to all Americans fighting against religious-rigthwingers)

But you got point there, thougth I migth look more into the future prospects of capitalism and can Asia become world power whit old clothes or do it need a changes…

8. Mummon sekamehu

Gollevainen has left the building