AHQ: "Science" outside Europe
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Source? India wasn't "poor". In fact during the reign of Aurangzeb it surpassed Qing China to be the world's largest economy and produced about 25% of the worlds industrial out put(Which by the way was larger than all of Western Europe). All of this after Akbar's reign. How for the love of god does this count as a decline?
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Of course, that is the reason both India and Brazil are stuck in the dreaded "Middle Income Trap". People joke about the two countries the same way, that is, that "they are the Superpowers of the future.....forever".
Now we know the real reason. It's the bloody tropical breeze, and warm ocean currents.
Only one way to solve this, rejoin India and South America to Antarctica (they were all connected as one supercontinent Gondwana once, along with Africa and Australia).
That should make the climate nice and cold, and bring much needed economic development. 😁
My god, you've got it! All this time, we've been trying to develop India, but we just needed to move it somewhere else!
So thats what the brits were doing all along!
All they wanted was to move India to Britain!
How kind of them, and of course to do that they had to start with the key resources first...
Well of course! How else would they ensure they had them all nicely developed in time for the humans? Very kind of them to house all those jewels, too.
I agree that "enlightened ideas" was the wrong term and does not reflect Ukolova's careful formulations as a scholar (albeit mixed with a bit of pro forma and/or ironically intended Soviet ideological phrases). I should have said "classical ideas, now embedded in Christianity, that remained influential and gradually encouraged new thinking in the West." The period Ukolova was writing about was before Islam emerged and I do not recall any comments she made about the classical influences transmitted and creatively reframed by Islamic thinkers.
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And, of course, this is why the Inuits are the most advanced civilization of them all.
Kick
No, the ultimate defence against skepticism (before Descartes even) was that a benevolent God existed therefore He did not create the world as a "trick" or "mirage" and since we were made in His image, the world could be understood. In areas without a strong monotheism tradition (China), there was a far stronger undercurrent of skepticism associated with say Taoism.
The Platonic reading of the role of the Church dates from Augustine.
Ming was technologically less sophisticated than the Song Dynasty despite being several hundreds years later than them chronologically. The Islamic Golden Age was ended by the Mongols.
The new national accounting method (far superior than the past hypothetical guessing based on "source obvservation) says that India's GDP per capita was 60% of England in 1600. And England's GDP per capita at that time was slightly behind Italy's and well behind the Netherlands at that time. So no.
But there is less civisational continuity and ONE reason for their lack of consistent success (Golden Age followed by obscurity) is their climate.
GDP per capita according to the new far more objective national accounting methodology is based on silver wages for grain/food, which is the main staple for 95+% of people living back then. It is a good indicator of the standard of living. Only in advanced modern times when agriculture is a tiny percentage of our GDP can you argue that it doesn't accurately measure standard of living.
It's undeniable that the civilisations mentioned above were far less consistent, had less civilisational continuity (Golden Ages followed by long periods of obscurity), basically their relative success was not sustained over long periods of time.
If you took any history of philosophy, the one consistent argument against skepticism in the West was always that a benevolent God must have created a rational and observable universe (rather than deceiving us) and that humans were made in God's image therefore capable of grasping it blah blah.
Literally Aquinas and many early Church figures argued that parts of the bible were figurative. Again, the main founding principle of the Qu'ran is that it's the literal word of God.
Saint Augustine on Figurative Language in Scripture
It’s true that when trying to understanding Scripture we need to establish an analysis of concrete terms. But if we aren’t careful, we just might explain away the beauty of descriptive language in the Bible. Saint Augustine of Hippo encountered the same issue, and not just among his youngest...
theimaginativeconservative.org
I guess you haven't read the very influential works of Aquinas and Augustine which argue the exact opposite. But regardless, the fact that "modern Christianity" was able to become influential in this way proves my point over Islam which had a far more difficult time doing the same.
And beyond what the Church claimed historically, the adherents were capable of pushing back based on Church doctrine ITSELF as well sections of the New Testament in which Jesus talks about rendering to Caesar and God different forms of tribute, the distinction between earthly and heavenly kingdoms, none of which is present in Islam.
And this is scientific/cultural influence and not philosophical influence which was what I was discussing? Where are the influential Egyptian and Babylonian texts regarding the scientific method, logic, methods of reasoning? Were they known at the time and were they influential throughout history? Even their language was lost to us until the 19th/20th centuries therefore their literature was not influential.
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Egypt is not temperate, full of malaria, and very very hot climate-wise.
India's large GDP is a result of their massive population. Their standard of living was clearly behind that of Europe. Also, previous GDP estimates are seriously problematic as the methodology was not scientific at all. The study below shows GDP per capita decline starting after 1600.
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No, the climate linked to development thesis I brought up dates before the advent of modern medicine, air conditioning, and other forms of technology that now make tropical climates 100% great to live in today. (Btw, malaria is a severe blight on Africa today but the problem technically could be solved with modern technology).
And remember, I brought up climate as only one of TEN factors that gave the West an advantage. Therefore, it is obviously not the single factor that separates them.
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I mean if we are going into blaming population for everything then I could easily argue that the reason for Europes better GDP was because of its comparatively tiny population, which is still true in the modern day. Just look at the Scandinavian countries.
None of the nations you mentioned went extinct though. The Primary ethnic group in Cambodia are literally known as the Khmer for instance.
Egypt is not that hot. At least, not before climate change. I also don’t know where you got the idea that it’s full of malaria? Currently at least, there is a very low risk of you getting malaria in Egypt.
I don’t even understand what you think temperature has to do with this. It’s just complete pseudoscience. I’m reminded of Katie Hopkins who claims that children with working class names are more likely to be “bad kids” without much justification or defense.
To add to the irony, the idea that temperature dictates civilization success isn’t unprecedented. Ancient Greeks claimed that those in warmer climates were lazier, less intelligent, and less creative than those in colder climates. Way to revive a dead ideology, one as valuable as phrenology is today. That is to say, at most, a cautionary tale.
Any evidence? Your study just discusses compares India’s GDP relative to Britain. It does not prove that India’s GDP is due to its population size. Especially since comparatively, if I remember correctly, Britain had a much larger population during the 1600s to early 1700s.
In fact considering China whose population was even larger than India's at the time was overtaken by it in the mid to late 17th century so India's huge share of the world economy clearly can't be chalked up to population.