[ElJefe]

(01-23-2012 06:14 PM)Athlone McGinnis Wrote:  

This isn't debatable. Alexander's Greece was the most powerful military force of its day-this was proven after it simply laid waste to the only other polities at the time that could quite conceivable lay claim to that title (most notably, Persia) before building one of the largest empires Earth has ever seen and laying the foundation for an entirely new, widespread, and long lasting (the influence persists heavily to this very day) cultural age.

Greece was only a cultural super power because of its status as a military superpower-it was conquest that brought about the Hellenistic Age, however short (roughly two centuries) that was.

This was obviously the zenith of Greek power-its modern equivalent is a shadow of this.

I can't say I totally disagree. Using Greece as an example is strange, though. It was such an ephemeral phenomenon.

The Roman Empire would've suited your point far better. I won't explain in detail, because long-winded explanations are dull to read. But if we think of super-powers as institutions, Greece does not seem to me as impressive example as the Roman Empire.

(01-23-2012 06:14 PM)Athlone McGinnis Wrote:  

You don't know anything about Native American history-I can already tell. Your conclusion is inaccurate for all of the examples I listed. American Indian history is VASTLY more complicated than this, and it includes many diplomatic, political, economic and social shifts in power between Native American groups and European powers, as well as between different Native American groups themselves.
There is much more to it all than "Smallpox ---> Indians had no chance!". Anyone with a background in this subject would know that.

Books:

Colin Calloway, First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History (Boston-New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012).

Timothy Shannon, Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier (New York: Penguin , 2008).

Pekka Hemalainen, The Apache Empire.

These three books should do for a start-read them, and get back to me. While you're at it, read up on Cahokia as well.

If you insist on calling me out as you've done and getting into a debate such as this, then make sure you have an intellectual leg to stand on..

The "calling" out was quite mild. I said your examples were strange, and argued back with statements, you can agree or disagree.

I didn't throw out three books for you to read and then arrogantly tell you to "read them, and get back to me". I'm sure you've got a huge dick, and whatnot... We can go ahead and discuss without keyboard jockeying our way to alphadom. I'm 25, you're what... 20? This is dumb.

I will have a look at those books sometime, I promise.

But I will say one thing: I have a general tendancy to mistrust any reference to a single work as a final answer. While a single book might be good, I find people who eagerly cite one work as having all the answers are off the mark. A book on the Apaches will necessarily make them out to be a bigger deal than they were in the grand scheme of things.

I'd prefer several references which puts things in their proper perspective. I'm not saying Native American nations are uninteresting, but seriously: in the grand scheme of things, they never had a chance. Too few people, too weak, against too many, too strong. Sooner or later they would've been beaten. The Duke of Wellington (while he was just Wellesley) conquered India with very few Europeans. Cortes conquered Mexico with very little as well. The defining characteristic of the colonial period was how just a small detachment of disciplined, well-led European soldiers could subjugate what you might've thought were mighty empires.

I've read a lot of great books too, you know...

(01-23-2012 06:14 PM)Athlone McGinnis Wrote:  

They aren't pure-they're economically expedient. China's model is designed to benefit itself economically.

It just so happens that China's way of things benefits Africans more than the Western way. This isn't because the Chinese love Africans and hold a moral supremacy over Westerners. It is because the interests of the two sides just happen to align quite closely (at least, relatively more so than other relationships have in the past).

For the west, perhaps.

For much of the developing world, maybe not.

Now this is an interesting discussion about which I know little. However, the legacy of the West in Africa included a great deal more than just economic plundering.

I happen to think the West screwed Africa over, but for reasons different than most people.

Africa was a jungle before, it's a jungle now, except now they have modern medicine and weaponry without any of the organization of institutional discipline of the West (funnily enough... a legacy of antiquity). No fault of their own, mind you. I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of unperceptive missionaries and docteurs sans frontieres.... Now you have billions of people in economies designed to feed far fewer and it's taken hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of Western aid to keep things afloat.

In a world without Western aid, how many millions would've died, given how many did die in a world with aid? Do you see the Chinese doing for Somalia or Ethiopia what the West did?

Only if it's economically expedient.

They will also sanction the slaughter and enslavement of millions of Christians in the Sudan (Darfur) if it suits them.

To say that China is good for the Africa is... short-sighted.

As far as karma is concerned, I think Athlone would agree - all Empires carry the seeds of their own destruction within them. In that way, you might say karma manifests itself. But from a dealing out destruction then receiving it from former victims, well... I don't know. By the time it happens populations have moved and it's no longer the same people doing it anymore. Take Britain, for example:

Picts wipe out whoever's there first, then Celts bash the Picts, then the Romans bash the Celts, then the Angles and Saxons bash the Celts until they've only got Wales and Scotland left. Then the Vikings bash the Saxons, but for some reason the Saxons end up conquering the whole frigging world. Who would've thought the descendants from an obscure tribe from Northern Germany would go on to dominate the entire world?