Oh and another reason for my question was this: I visited a Hopi village in AZ Sunday, they had a kachina dance. It was probably the weirdest fusion of cultures I've ever seen -- the "primitive" kachinas dressed up as various gods dancing to tribal beats and exchanging foods as per custom -- except the foods were Coca-Cola bottles, jell-o's, and other stuff with brand name labels... I was the only white person there among a few hundred village people. The Hopi tribe is one of the best culturally preserved tribes in America -- but the conflicting messages that I got from watching the ceremony were endless...
Uhh no, there were millions that came into this country in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The large influx of immigrants is a large contribution to the current populations of North America.
A great many people are not wired that way. But it only takes some who are, and those makeup a disporportionately large part of the subgroup which will actually get on ships or on horses/camels and travel a thousand and a half to see what's over there... and so it almost always happens...
Right. While I was thinking more sociological/anthropologial: how would cultures have evolved without the influence of Europe, and for that matter, how would Europe have evolved without having spent so much time and energy on colonizing the whole bloody planet? Would they have spent more time on the arts, or figured out new and creative ways of killing each other? Would football have even existed if the Portuguese hadn't made it to modern-day Brazil?
I've been thinking of taking over some of my next door neighbor's lawn so I can expand my territory. I figure I'll kill him and his wife, plus their two eldest kids. I'll just capture his youngest kid though - I'm going to need to have someone cut the extra grass for me. Of course I'm not wired that way. I didn't mean that on an individual basis. I meant at a tribal level or community level. Maybe it's just an accident that civilizations that have the most power seem to have gotten that way by killing off rival civilizations. But I don't think so. Oh, and if you're going to turn your sneakers into beer, pick something that tastes better than Heineken.
I suppose-- but the country was post-colonial by then... and even then there were fewer than you might think... about 33 million between 1851 and 1930, split almost evenly at 1900. Works out to about 400,000 a year. It hardly seems like Europe would have been constricted too much; a famine here, smallpox there and the problem's all gone... and remember many of those were not coming from Europe.
Famines, plagues, wars, and emmigration are all most often symptoms and consequences of overcrowding.
It was sort of a joke-- the point being that even if Europe's share of 400,000 proved too much, it is to some degree a self regulating problem...
It's self-regulating in that it causes massive catastrophes. Anyway, what do you guys think the N.Americans or the Africans would live like today had it not been for the European influences? Could the European influences have brought them the benefits of European advances without the cultural catastrophes?
That is a good book; I'm also re-reading his COLLAPSE, right now. I agree with about 55% of his assertions, but his historical/factual presentation is superb, imv.
Would love to read your review of it. Another superb Diamond book is The Third Chimpanzee. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...2/sr=2-3/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3/103-0485082-5331801
but how many millions? 10, 20, 50? Even 50 million extra people in Europe wouldn't result in it being "overcrowded" - it'd be about 10 people per square mile. Nor can it be assumed that if they'd stayed they'd have grown into the 200+ million people with european ancestory the US has today, because the population in europe that stayed behind didn't breed at anything like that rate, or there'd be several billion people here now.
Descendants of the colonialists, or perhaps descendant of latter immigrants. But the latter immigrants probably wouldn't have come if Europe hadn't colonized first. Lets face, it. Most of us here would not have been born had European colonization not happened. And the gene pool wouldn't have mixed so much. Maybe that is the one main benefit of colonialism. People are less likely to have thick eyebrows.
Breeding habits change with the change of diet, climate and the degree of attractiveness of the local population.
Colonialism is morally wrong. I think we could all agree on that. But the process of colonizing the known and unknown world at the time did bring about rapid changes and intense competitions which created impetus for unpresedented technological innovations and revolutions. In this narrow sense it does have positive legacies.
I'm not sure what the world in general would look like without colonialism. I do know that Holland would have been a lot worse off. Natural gas was only discovered in the early 1970s over here, and prior to that there were no natural riches. Before the 17th century more than a third of Holland (the part below sea-level) constituted of mosquito-infested swamps. Then a couple of adventurous Dutchmen 'went East', settling in places like Kaapstad (Capetown) and Indonesia with all its riches and spices. And there you have it, the Dutch Golden Age. Everybody knows about the paintings, but our Golden Age also financed swamps being pumped dry and land being created: without colonialism Holland might literally be two thirds of the size it is now, and cities like Haarlem would not even exist. Not that I want to get romantic about this. I wonder if there would have been slavery without colonialism, for example. I also think formerly colonised countries and regions would now be more politically stable, as colonialists prevented them from building up any democratic traditions (that said you do have to take into consideration that there were different brands of colonisation). I also think the global christian movement wouldn't be as strong and powerful as it is now.
Football existed in the Middle Ages,so yes. "Jogo bonito" ?probably not. Finishing my studies this week.Can't wait to get my hands on the Diamond books.
Yeah, but there'd probably be no MLS. At least in the US, many people would be logged onto www.biglacrosse.com
What if Europeans never colonized the world? Then this thread would be titled "What if Chinese/Aztecs/Japanese never conquered the world". Can we stop the phony guilt about "European colonization"? Europe developed a technological and administrative advantage and exploited it. Same as every other civilization has done in every time period and in every part of the globe. And when no such advantages have taken place, we get incessant tribal skirmishing like in aboriginal Australia and tropical Africa.
Hadn´t that huge Chinese fleet quit of discovering Africa and the world in 1420s(?) because they tought the world had nothing to teach them and probably most of Africa and Americas would had been colonized by the Chinese.
Background info of the Chinese admiral, Zheng He. http://www.muslimheritage.com/day_life/default.cfm?ArticleID=218&Oldpage=2&yearlist=1 Background info of the history. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/features/chinam.php
Ermm, the Chinese isolationist policies happened first, the European colonialist policies happened later. And Japan wasn't much of a power until the Meiji (began in 1867) when it started learning Western warfare and within 20 years turned its guns against China. And the Aztecs? Haha.