Russian trolls

[GloryofGreece]

And while we are talking about civilizations not getting their due, let's discuss Mexico. They are FAR more interesting than China.

What do you find specifically fascinating about the Mayan or Aztecs?

Would you think that the Mayan were the "apex" civilization in the Western Hemisphere or the Incas?

[BjornP]

700 BC is not before 1450 BC,

Chinese scripts before that were not what we call a written language. They were pictographic. It's literally like what you do when you play Pictionary. If I drew a picture of a fat viking sucking a cock, it could mean that Bjorn is a massive faggot, but it could also mean any number of other things. That's what is meant by pictographic.

Furthermore, trying to tie the date of a civilization to writing is problematic in that civilizations have existed without written languages and plenty of complex cultures have had written languages but are not what we consider civilizations.

If you drew a picture of a fat viking sucking a cock, I'd think it definitely meant you were going to masturbate to it later.

..as for civilization and writing, I agree with that. Incas are a good example, obviously. One of the most helpful attempts at a set of objective qualifers for the word civilization is Gordon Childe's:

Primary characteristics

1. Urban settlements
2. Full-time specialists not involved in agricultural activities
3. Concentration of surplus production
4. Class structure
5. State-level organization (government)

Secondary characteristics

6. Monumental public building
7. Extensive trading networks
8. Standardized monumental artwork
9. Writing
10. Development of exact sciences

So, Incas would definitely sort under the primary characterics needed to qualify as a civilization, even if they don't qualify for all of the secondary ones.

[Speaker to Animals]

And while we are talking about civilizations not getting their due, let's discuss Mexico. They are FAR more interesting than China.

What do you find specifically fascinating about the Mayan or Aztecs?

Would you think that the Mayan were the "apex" civilization in the Western Hemisphere or the Incas?

I would just lump all the civilizations of Mesoamerica into one broad civilization, and those of Peru into another.

As far as which was apex, I suppose that would depend upon your metrics. Andean peoples were typically ahead technologically, but Mesoamericans were really far ahead in pure knowledge. I would slant it towards Mesoamerica in this context only because they were willing to adopt ideas and technology from Peru, but the same does not seem to be the casein Peru.

Also, if there is anything to Julian Jaynes' theory of bicameralism, Peruvians were not even conscious people like Mesoamericans.

[Smitty-48]

Its communist to be concerned about the destruction of the world, or losing a billion people, or wondering just exactly what would be the effect to the eco system, the soil, the climate, the radiation fallout etc. etc. You sound a bit like the caricature Kubrick made in his film.

Ah, well, when Kubrick bought the rights to Red Alert! which was the book that he based his script on, there was no Dr. Strangelove in the story, Kubrick added Strangelove as a caricature of Herman Kahn, who was being castigated by the commie sympathizing leftist fops of the day, but Kahn was actually a brilliant futurist, he didn't get everything exactly right, but much of his work stands up to this day, still very relevant, whereas the commie sympathizing leftist fops; still totally irrelevant.

[DrYouth]

Really for the purposes of our discussion here today...

The West was able to colonize the Americas...
It was also able to colonize Africa and India for the most part.
It colonized much of the Middle East...
It defeated Japan and the Pacific Islands.

But it did not succeed in colonizing China... it subjugated it temporarily... but never fully.

Russia is a unique case.... it has more ties to the west... it was part of the Eastern Byzantine empire which had different dynamics than the Western Roman empire... and was conquered by the Mongols...it's Rule of Law never achieved the capacity to hold the State accountable in the way it did in the west.

[Smitty-48]

The Russians in of themselves are not particularly dangerous, it's the zombie Soviet war machine which has taken on a life of its own that you have to watch out for.

The Russians didn't invent Novichok-5, they wouldn't have the wherewithal, they're just dining out on the Soviet Cold War legacy projects.

The Russian Siloviki are a product of the post Soviet collapse, but they're not the Soviets, they're not ideologically committed, they don't have the dedication, and they only have about a tenth of the resources that the Soviets had centralized at their disposal, the Russians are passengers for all intents and purposes, riding on the Soviet zombie train.

[Smitty-48]

And this is why of course; rational arbitrage will not save you, the zombie Soviet war machine is not subject to rationality, and the Russians are not really in control of it.

[DrYouth]

Really the west has little to worry about except for it's own collapse...

Which the Russians are trying to instigate.

The question is, will we collapse... with or without the Russians help?

[Smitty-48]

No, that's typically fatuous nonsense from a Huffington Post Himbo, there really is only one dire threat to the West, and that remains the zombie Soviet war machine, built as a vengeance weapon with the single purpose of destroying the United States, and it continues to labour in darkness and lie in wait, for the earliest opportunity to do so.

[DrYouth]

I doubt the Soviet mobsters really want to get annihilated by launching this zombie behemoth...

They will rattle it about like the North Koreans... and see how much "protection" money they can score... cause that's what mobsters do.