@zelcorpion
@foo1sgold
@ samseau.
You mentioned as an example: rome, library of alexandria, the dark ages, the jews during nazi regime, regressive islamic republics, soviets and chinese scientists, etc. Examples, illustrating how war can be destructive to the progress of science.
Let me see if i get the gist of your argument:
The thrust of your argument is that since the dark ages happened before, it can happen again in the West. And you think this will be triggered by financial collapse. and that the idea of scientific progression will be untenable under such a condition, because scientific progress requires the right political climate (which will not exist in a dark age). And any notion of other races carrying on scientific progress is unlikely because only the white men has been able to create this kind of civilization. So, you think it stands to reason, to therefore assume that only the white men can carry on the torch. Therefore, with the white men handicapped in a dark age precipitated by financial collapse. science will come to a halt.
I take it that is the gist of your post?
#1. I dont know if the "dark ages" was actually a dark age. I will have to read more about the issue to competently reply to you. Different scholars speculate on the nature of the "darkness" of it.
#2. the Chinese and soviets killed dissident scientists which is unfortunate; but they also provide incredible amount of financial support to the research conducted by non-dissident scientists. That is why the soviets were able to go from mainly agrarian society to launching the sputnik(of course, they build upon the work of the captured german scientist like the americans did.)
The Arabs destroyed the library of alexandria, but the arabs innovated in terms of weapons and military techniques in order to conquer north africa and spain. The same with the Gauls in the sacking of Rome.
One person loss is another person gain, unfortunately. You cannot rigorously give an example of life and death struggle that doesnt involve innovation. Unfortunately, sometimes the innovation of the winning party maybe less than the innovation of the losing side. The best dynamic is when both fighting party are almost evenly matched e.g. europe during ww2. Of course, i would rather take the library of alexandria over whatever the fuck the islamic arabs innovated.
But i fear this is turning into reductio ad absurdum argument and detracting from the issue: is such a return to stone age possible in this modern world?
The only thing i can imagine reducing civilization to stone age is global atomic wars. I doubt this will even do it. why? Too much redundancy. Random people will gather the info that is present and settle in different parts of the world, and civilization will continue there. In various pockets where people settle there will sprout different political climate; some of it will support scientific innovation, others wont. France contigently supports somatic genetic engineering; america outright banned it.
Which leads to your next point of only white men can truly innovate. i will say this in reply:
#3. I know plenty of asians in graduate level studies that are creative and publish innovative scientific studies in research publications. This is easy to verify. Just look through any random issues of Nature or Science. So, i am not sure that creativity is purely the domain of white(men).
Even if we were to grant you the position that only whitemen can innovate, what makes you think in a potential global financial collapse, whitemen will be completely handicapped? the reason why i said this is because of:
#4. The ease of transportation and communication that we have today, makes a return to stone age unlikely. Yes, there are civilizations that were destroyed in the past, but that is the past where their mobility and communication is highly limited. If mexico is burning to the ground, in the past most likely they will all be fucked. In modern times, they will simply immigrate their arses across the border on cars, planes, boats, etc. Volcanic destruction of pompeii comes to mind versus the modern efforts in hurricane katrina new orleans. If this was the past, majority of people in new orleans or fukushima Japan or Tsunami asia will be dead. Modern mobility and communication prevents this catastrophic death.
So, if some form of stone age-causing event miraculously fell on the western world for whatever reason; and if only the whitemen can carry on civilization as you claim; why wont the whitemen simply move to another continent to continue his innovation? Unlike the past where whites stayed in europe during the bubonic plague, westerners will simply immigrate away to other continents. again, too many redundancies.
Today, if the library of alexandria gets burned down, it doesnt matter because copies of the information would have been made and distributed. Redundancies.
Current human civilization has developed enough to be anti-fragile. Not even a meterorite can wipe us out, unless it is large enough to split the entire planet earth into 100 pieces in space.
@foo1sgold
@ samseau.
You mentioned as an example: rome, library of alexandria, the dark ages, the jews during nazi regime, regressive islamic republics, soviets and chinese scientists, etc. Examples, illustrating how war can be destructive to the progress of science.
Let me see if i get the gist of your argument:
The thrust of your argument is that since the dark ages happened before, it can happen again in the West. And you think this will be triggered by financial collapse. and that the idea of scientific progression will be untenable under such a condition, because scientific progress requires the right political climate (which will not exist in a dark age). And any notion of other races carrying on scientific progress is unlikely because only the white men has been able to create this kind of civilization. So, you think it stands to reason, to therefore assume that only the white men can carry on the torch. Therefore, with the white men handicapped in a dark age precipitated by financial collapse. science will come to a halt.
I take it that is the gist of your post?
#1. I dont know if the "dark ages" was actually a dark age. I will have to read more about the issue to competently reply to you. Different scholars speculate on the nature of the "darkness" of it.
#2. the Chinese and soviets killed dissident scientists which is unfortunate; but they also provide incredible amount of financial support to the research conducted by non-dissident scientists. That is why the soviets were able to go from mainly agrarian society to launching the sputnik(of course, they build upon the work of the captured german scientist like the americans did.)
The Arabs destroyed the library of alexandria, but the arabs innovated in terms of weapons and military techniques in order to conquer north africa and spain. The same with the Gauls in the sacking of Rome.
One person loss is another person gain, unfortunately. You cannot rigorously give an example of life and death struggle that doesnt involve innovation. Unfortunately, sometimes the innovation of the winning party maybe less than the innovation of the losing side. The best dynamic is when both fighting party are almost evenly matched e.g. europe during ww2. Of course, i would rather take the library of alexandria over whatever the fuck the islamic arabs innovated.
But i fear this is turning into reductio ad absurdum argument and detracting from the issue: is such a return to stone age possible in this modern world?
The only thing i can imagine reducing civilization to stone age is global atomic wars. I doubt this will even do it. why? Too much redundancy. Random people will gather the info that is present and settle in different parts of the world, and civilization will continue there. In various pockets where people settle there will sprout different political climate; some of it will support scientific innovation, others wont. France contigently supports somatic genetic engineering; america outright banned it.
Which leads to your next point of only white men can truly innovate. i will say this in reply:
#3. I know plenty of asians in graduate level studies that are creative and publish innovative scientific studies in research publications. This is easy to verify. Just look through any random issues of Nature or Science. So, i am not sure that creativity is purely the domain of white(men).
Even if we were to grant you the position that only whitemen can innovate, what makes you think in a potential global financial collapse, whitemen will be completely handicapped? the reason why i said this is because of:
#4. The ease of transportation and communication that we have today, makes a return to stone age unlikely. Yes, there are civilizations that were destroyed in the past, but that is the past where their mobility and communication is highly limited. If mexico is burning to the ground, in the past most likely they will all be fucked. In modern times, they will simply immigrate their arses across the border on cars, planes, boats, etc. Volcanic destruction of pompeii comes to mind versus the modern efforts in hurricane katrina new orleans. If this was the past, majority of people in new orleans or fukushima Japan or Tsunami asia will be dead. Modern mobility and communication prevents this catastrophic death.
So, if some form of stone age-causing event miraculously fell on the western world for whatever reason; and if only the whitemen can carry on civilization as you claim; why wont the whitemen simply move to another continent to continue his innovation? Unlike the past where whites stayed in europe during the bubonic plague, westerners will simply immigrate away to other continents. again, too many redundancies.
Today, if the library of alexandria gets burned down, it doesnt matter because copies of the information would have been made and distributed. Redundancies.
Current human civilization has developed enough to be anti-fragile. Not even a meterorite can wipe us out, unless it is large enough to split the entire planet earth into 100 pieces in space.
.
A year from now you will wish you had started today.....May fortune favours the bold.