ParagonExile
Posts: 210
Joined: 6/9/2014
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Before I say anything else, plese keep in mind there is a language barrier here.
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ORIGINAL: Nanaki
As for evidence that there are other cosmopolitan species other than humans, here you go.
This was never an issue and I never objected to this. :3
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As for the brain, unfortunately, the only answer I can definitively provide is 'I do not know', the brain is by far the least understood organ, and there is still a lot of unaswered questions as to what exactly is necessary to have a sentient species. Note that there are likely a huge number of factors and brain-to-body ratio is only one of those, other major factors likely include total body mass and how the brain is wired/subdivided. Infact, you can create a non-human with exactly the same brain-to-body ratio and body mass as humans, but they may not necessarily be sentient due to how their brains are wired. However, it is not unreasonable to say that a non-human race can have the same brain-to-body ratio and body mass and can possibly be sentient as well.
You mirror my own thoughts.
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This is largely a product of the agricultural revolution, and later the industrial revolution. Prior to the industrial revolution human population stayed below a billion, and before the agricultural revolution (and civilization), human populations were only in the 5-10 million level. sauce
Absolutely correct.
Our ability to shape both the world and our tools (including clothes lol) is what gives us an edge. Again, no complaints.
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No, it cannot. The British, French, Portugese, Spanish, Dutch, and German empires came to span most of the globe. The Chinese empire never went past mainland China, and the Japanese empire never expanded far past its shores.
One Two and Three maps that show that most of the world, aside from China, Turkey, part of the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, were 'colonized' by Europeans at some point or another.
In case you forgot, that's an immense number of people and huge tracts of land, and those areas never being dominated is a huge part of why they are distinct today.The map also includes Russia there, even though Russians are culturally, ethnically, linguistically and (mostly) geographically not European. Coincidentally, Russia is by far the world's largest nation, and much of Siberia is more-or-less ignored by everyone. You also neglected to mention Japan.
Even people that were colonized, such as the Native Americans or Indians, still maintained to keep their cultural identity and spread that to hundreds of millions of people, despite a foreign power nominally ruling over them.
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The Japanese empire only had about ~70-80 million people at its height, and then it was defeated, occupied, and culturally changed by the US in the aftermath of World War 2. You mention that they were never overtaken by Europeans, this is wrong, the US (European in itself) had.
The Area formally controlled by Japan (Manchuria, parts of Korea, and the home islands) was that size, you're entirely correct. However, the extent of their conquest from the 1930s to 1943 put almost every nation on the Pacific at their mercy. Australia and the United States were only saved by sheer dumb luck that the American carrier groups were not docked when Hawaii was bombed. They also occupied and dominated much of coastal China.
The United States had its beginning in British settlers, but to call them Europeans is akin to calling me Arab because my 10th great-grandparents were from Arabia. It's strictly-speaking correct, but it's still wrong from a practical point of view. The Americans, Canadians and the remainder of the south are wholly distinct entities now.
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Even to this day European-descended culture and values dominate the world.
There are about twice as many Asians living in the south-east of their continent, with a wholly different culture from us, than there are white Europeans and Americans total.
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The places where Western culture does not dominate outright are few, and even in those places western culture is slowly seeping in with exception of violently isolationist cultures like the Sentinelese. Aside from a massive catastrophic collapse, like which would happen in a global nuclear war, that trend will continue.
If you're talking about capitalism or consumerism, then you're correct. That is, however, not the province of the countries we refer to as the west, it's an economic policy. Traditional cultures still exist in greater numbers than what we have here, and they incorporate that into what they already have.
I can imagine homogenization of culture in hundreds of years, or much sooner if we continue to improve interconnection, but I highly doubt it will be what we consider western.
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You are forgetting Egypt, alongside the Tigris/Euphrates rivers set in the equally inhospitable Middle East, is where civilization originated. You are correct in that it was not the place of the industrial revolution, but we are not talking about the industrial revolution, we are talking about civilization.
What's the point of a civilization if it just ends up floundering in the sand?
You can invent math, build huge monoliths, dream up incredible pantheons and pioneer sweeping social change, but if you lack the ability to use them due to your circumstances you may as well not exist (Ignoring the obvious benefits they gave us with their experience).
Anyways, I don't understand why we're having this conversation, and I don't understand the relevance to Distant Worlds :D
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