[QUOTE=ThePinkPanzer;47786441]It's a shame that the Eurocentric 'we are the only developed people ever' idea has won out in most places, despite how wrong it is.[/QUOTE]
Are you equating a tiny African tribe that was effortlessly conquered by European powers just like the rest of the entire African continent with Western civilization?
[QUOTE=HerrWolf;47790637]Are you equating a tiny African tribe that was effortlessly conquered by European powers just like the rest of the entire African continent with Western civilization?[/QUOTE]
Oh my god I can't believe somebody with a Nazi avatar is now going to try and debate about non-western civilizations.
Are you going to try and tell me that the many military, cultural and social innovations of the African people somehow didn't happen? That no civilization touched this land, like the Mali or Egyptian empires? And what about outside of Europe? Asia? Oceania?
Just because we happened to get advanced enough first through our constant inter-warfare does not mean we are somehow more superior and the only developed people's. If we hadn't gone around the planet merrily conquering all these civilizations, they would have continued to develop much as we had, because you know, they already were.
[QUOTE=ThePinkPanzer;47792646]Oh my god I can't believe somebody with a Nazi avatar is now going to try and debate about non-western civilizations.
Are you going to try and tell me that the many military, cultural and social innovations of the African people somehow didn't happen? That no civilization touched this land, like the Mali or Egyptian empires? And what about outside of Europe? Asia? Oceania?
Just because we happened to get advanced enough first through our constant inter-warfare does not mean we are somehow more superior and the only developed people's. If we hadn't gone around the planet merrily conquering all these civilizations, they would have continued to develop much as we had, because you know, they already were.[/QUOTE]
Well to be honest I'm not really sure what you're trying to argue. If you are suggesting that other cultures outside of Europe were developing then what you're stating is obvious and there are not a whole lot of people who would deny it, especially given that countries like Japan and China exist. If what you're arguing is that the Zulu were on par with European cultures then no, they obviously weren't.
[QUOTE=ThePinkPanzer;47792646]Oh my god I can't believe somebody with a Nazi avatar is now going to try and debate about non-western civilizations.
Are you going to try and tell me that [b]the many military, cultural and social innovations of the African people somehow didn't happen?[/b] That no civilization touched this land, like the Mali or Egyptian empires? And what about outside of Europe? Asia? Oceania?
Just because we happened to get advanced enough first through our constant inter-warfare does not mean we are somehow more superior and the only developed people's. If we hadn't gone around the planet merrily conquering all these civilizations, they would have continued to develop much as we had, because you know, they already were. [/QUOTE]
Pretty much. Nobody is going to realistically claim that civilization only developed in Europe, but the cold hard fact is that sub-Saharan Africa has always been severely under-developed compared to the rest of the world. Northern Africa under Islamic rule was easily equal to (if not more advanced in some respects) Europe around the 1100s, but (outside of Ethiopia, which was Christian) the only place major powers developed in sub-Saharan Africa were in areas that adopted Islam (and by extension, written language and all the other technological benefits that came with conversion). African cultures that didn't convert to Islam were pretty much stagnant by the time Europeans encountered them and even then they didn't advance much in the 300+ years of trade between first contact with Europe and the colonial period. Sure they might have improved on their own eventually, but the fact that as late as the 1900s Europeans had to FORCE basic things like roads and a monetary economy on large portions of Africa because they simply hadn't existed there makes me skeptical, to say the least.
[QUOTE=Alan Ninja!;47793514]Pretty much. Nobody is going to realistically claim that civilization only developed in Europe, but the cold hard fact is that sub-Saharan Africa has always been severely under-developed compared to the rest of the world. Northern Africa under Islamic rule was easily equal to (if not more advanced in some respects) Europe around the 1100s, but (outside of Ethiopia, which was Christian) the only place major powers developed in sub-Saharan Africa were in areas that adopted Islam (and by extension, written language and all the other technological benefits that came with conversion). African cultures that didn't convert to Islam were pretty much stagnant by the time Europeans encountered them and even then they didn't advance much in the 300+ years of trade between first contact with Europe and the colonial period. Sure they might have improved on their own eventually, but the fact that as late as the 1900s Europeans had to FORCE basic things like roads and a monetary economy on large portions of Africa because they simply hadn't existed there makes me skeptical, to say the least.[/QUOTE]
We're assuming here that things like the Europeans helping start the slave trade and depopulating most of the southern areas has absolutely no effect on their development. There were major empires and kingdoms in the south of Europe, and they were effectively in the Middle Ages (and no they hadn't been stuck there, they had been growing and expanding). The only reason they seemed 'basic' to us is they were behind Europe, and the only reason they seem stagnant is because by the time we started caring about them, we were already trying our best to fuck them as hard as we could.
If you go to almost all of the empires and kingdoms of Africa, they only collapsed when the Europeans noticed them.
[editline]24th May 2015[/editline]
Also I can easily say that if I looked at Europe for many periods of its existence that any hope of it advancing was iffy at best. Europe stagnated on its own several times, and only made sudden bounds thanks to a propensity to try to outdo the speed at which we could kill each other.
[QUOTE=Qbe-tex;47795423]We've had this argument before wheter european intervention in africa made it so the continent was never able to develop. The truth is that while it did disturb it, african tribes were far to busy killing each other to be able to make any progress. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that tribes usually wiped each other out, and africa never got a chance to be left alone (either by the romans, arabians and eventually, the europeans). Africa is a shitty place to live, there's alot of thriving diseases and deserts (probably due to, in this case, the lack of intervention), and most tribes didn't really establish anywhere that would give them long lasting time (there are some expections, but none notable). I belive that's the reason an empire never emerged from africa (aside from the zulus since that's the topic of the thread by the way). For there to be any development there needs to be food and people, and africa simply did not have any of it (or rather not enough to support a big city), or atleast not at the time. Not to mention the europeans weren't the only ones having fun slaving the africans. Arabian people were doing it has early as the 7th century.
In conclusion I think africa has been just a big warzone, that has managed to settle down a bit in the last few years.[/QUOTE]
So many things wrong with this post.
- Everyone was busy killing each other, this isn't exclusive to Africa. And killing each other can actually encourage technological progress.
- The Romans and Arabs only conquered a tiny fraction of the continent, they didn't really disturb sub-Saharan Africa. And before the Romans arrived there was a very prosperous kingdom there called Egypt.
- Yeah there are deserts in Africa, but that doesn't magically make living conditions hard in areas where there are not.
- The Zulu empire was far from being the only one. What about Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Aksum, Ethiopia, the Almohad Caliphate, etc?
- Of course Africa had enough population to support large cities, what the hell? I'm not an expert in medieval African cities but Timbuktu and Mogadishu come to mind. (And I assume you're excluding North Africa because there countless great cities were built there: Carthage, Fes, Alexandria...)
I'm not denying that Africa has been less advanced than Europe since at least the 1500s but your post doesn't make a lot of sense.
[QUOTE=HerrWolf;47790637]Are you equating a tiny African tribe that was effortlessly conquered by European powers just like the rest of the entire African continent with Western civilization?[/QUOTE]
They did commit a genocide after all.
[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mfecane[/URL]
[quote] The death toll has never been satisfactorily determined, but the whole region became nearly depopulated. Normal estimates for the death toll range from 1 million to 2 million.[/quote]
[QUOTE=ThePinkPanzer;47793718]
If you go to almost all of the empires and kingdoms of Africa, they only collapsed when the Europeans noticed them.
[/QUOTE]
The only sub-Saharan empire worth mentioning is Mali and that only really existed due to the fact that it was able to trade with the rest of the world and the fact that it had a ton of gold, which by the way was destroyed by Arabs. Other than that the only other Empires are Ethiopia, Songhai and states that literally only existed because the triangle trade.
Slaves -> American plantations -> European goods (modern weapons to conquer) -> Slaves...
[QUOTE=ThePinkPanzer;47793718]We're assuming here that things like the Europeans helping start the slave trade and depopulating most of the southern areas has absolutely no effect on their development..[/QUOTE]
The reason for African backwardsness is hardly the fault of the Europeans or even the fault of Africans. Look at Africa. That place is literally shit for building civilization. The animals are hard to domesticate, the bugs kill farm animals, crops and people and they're far away from everybody else. The only reason that Europeans were able to properly farm in that place was due to technologies invented by industrialization, something that can't happen without civilization, something that requires abundant food.
Also, I recommend you read about slavery in Africa. Slavery seems to have always been a widespread thing down there, the elites being happy to sell their own people away to Europeans and Arabs to enrich themselves.
[QUOTE=Asgard;47786415]Must've missed something, can you explain?[/QUOTE]
AFAIK they said in a video a while back basically saying that we need to change the gaming industry so that the market isn't flooded by the same shit and indies have more of a chance based on merit and not who can advertise the most and that it'll be a long and hard battle and blah blah blah. Then when Gamergate popped up with the goal of doing exactly that they condemned it. So a lot of people now see them as hypocrites with no backbone because of that.
And yeah, all that stuff accusing TB of stuff with absolutely zero evidence.
didnt the extra credits guy make a 20 minute video about how great scientology is?
[QUOTE=theseltsamone;47799636]didnt the extra credits guy make a 20 minute video about how great scientology is?[/QUOTE]
As far as I can tell, that's an entirely different Daniel Floyd.
[QUOTE=HerrWolf;47790637]Are you equating a tiny African tribe that was effortlessly conquered by European powers just like the rest of the entire African continent with Western civilization?[/QUOTE]
The Eurocentric view of history is trash, any historian could spend all day explaining why. [url]http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/[/url] [url]http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/[/url] Incase people want to learn.
[QUOTE=Demoness;47786989]As far as I recall James (who is the main 'game developer' guy of the show) had a panel where he claimed that TotalBiscuit was both the leader of GamerGate and took cash from developers to speak positively about their game.
This all without providing any sort of proof of these accusations. When TB confronted him about it James demanded that HE had to prove that he HADN'T done it, not the other way around, and was overall incredibly childish about the whole thing.
Correct me if I'm wrong though, it's been a while.
Video: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3QZqD3OQbM[/url]
TB's response: [url]http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1skam53[/url]
And I assume you can look up the rest of the ordeal yourself, it's not hard to find.[/QUOTE]
Why is this even being brought up? "Heres a video teaching people about history" "yeah but what's their opinion on gamersgate!!!" who honestly cares?
[QUOTE=bobsynergy;47800693]Why is this even being brought up? "Heres a video teaching people about history" "yeah but what's their opinion on gamersgate!!!" who honestly cares?[/QUOTE]
Someone asked why another person didn't care about EC's videos any more, I gave a possible answer.
I'm not giving an opinion in my post, though it personally is the reason I have stopped watching EC's content. Sorry for trying to inform people?
[QUOTE=bobsynergy;47800693]The Eurocentric view of history is trash, any historian could spend all day explaining why. [URL]http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/[/URL] [URL]http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/[/URL] Incase people want to learn.
Why is this even being brought up? "Heres a video teaching people about history" "yeah but what's their opinion on gamersgate!!!" who honestly cares?[/QUOTE]
Ah yes, the SRS satellite subs that regularly tout up the Noble Savage trope and bans anyone who has a different opinion than the mods, no matter the evidence or argument.
[QUOTE=Qbe-tex;47800760]I felt I got a few things wrong with the post. Thanks for correcting me.
EDIT:
I was thinking more of south africa btw. North Africa, atleast in the early ages, faired relatively well has far as I know. Egypt and Carthage, like you said, come to mind. I refered below south africa, which is where I thought europe was more busy colonizing because it was sort of empty (or rather filled with tribes, but easily conquered once the maxim gun came). If I recall correctly, only 2 countries had independence in africa in the early 20th century, though I may be off.[/QUOTE]
South Africa had barely anything in it outside of KwaZulu-Natal before European settlement. It was rough land, often Arid or Desert. It's sort of what made Die Groot Trek so notable. It was a migratory pattern where these farmers went off and literally built cities in the middle of nowhere and under really harsh conditions. They weren't that well armed either, but they had some pretty decent light cavalry focus and tactics.
[QUOTE=Demoness;47807066]Someone asked why another person didn't care about EC's videos any more, I gave a possible answer.
I'm not giving an opinion in my post, though it personally is the reason I have stopped watching EC's content. Sorry for trying to inform people?[/QUOTE]
Idk I get it if people want to stop watching their gaming content due to w/e their opinions regarding games are but for a thread explaining history, it's just a weird reason not to watch it, I guess thanks for explaining that's why but it's still weird.
[QUOTE=Nikota;47807605]Ah yes, the SRS satellite subs that regularly tout up the Noble Savage trope and bans anyone who has a different opinion than the mods, no matter the evidence or argument.[/QUOTE]
??? What's with redditors claiming something is SRS affiliated when they don't like it? The whole "we are waging war against the SJWs" thing on reddit is so dumb but on topic have you ever even read those subs? Both completely rip into people who tout the Noble Savage crap. AskHistorians only deletes posts if you make a non serious post or you post something and don't include a source, sure you can claim censorship or whatever like I have seen people do but no source then your post is irrelevant.
Only way BadHistory is "SRS like" is that they call out racism when people make posts using history to claim why other people are inferior so......
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