Originally Posted by
Humanface Huggah
all true. i'd also like to add in more general terms that the emergence of a planet-dominating culture was inevitable once humans acquired complex language and advanced tool-making skills. the truth is, we're all organisms struggling for our own survival, as well as the survival of our family members, loved ones, friends, and to some degree the community with which we identify. peaceful, non-dominating communities may exist for short periods but these will always be conquered by more aggressive societies, if only for the fact that resources are limited and wars result when humans compete for those resources, particularly those tied to land.
so why white people? why weren't the people of africa the ones to sail to plymouth, break bread with the native americans and then wipe'm out? or vice-versa?
well, geography is destiny.
among the first significant milestones in the quest for global domination is developing agriculture and domesticating livestock. this allows for food surpluses that hunter gatherer societies could only dream of, which in turn leads to rapid population growth and specialization of labor. this is essential for developing the hierarchies necessary to support beauracracies and eventually empires.
africa, fragmented with extreme variations in climate from north to south, is poorly suited for the spread of such domestic industries. eurasia, in contrast, with its long east-west latitude was much better suited, and as it turned out, the best collection of plants and animals suitable for domestication was found in mesopotamia (iraq), which europe was able to adopt and spread across the continent through trade and war. the people of the americas and australia simply didn't have access to species as well suited for domestication so they lagged europe and asia in developing agriculture.
thus eurasia was able to support larger, denser populations which made trade easier and technological progress faster than in other regions. these economic and technological advantages were crucial in allowing europeans to conquer the peoples of the other continents, but what actually ended up doing most of the killing was the diseases they brought with them. when people live in such close proximity as they did in europe, germs evolve to become more resilient to the human immune system. so when europeans landed in the isolated, sparsely populated lands of the americas and australia, these super germs slaughtered indigenous populations by the millions.
and although technologically the europeans lagged behind asia for a while, the nation-states that developed in europe were ultimately more advantageous for global domination than the monolithic, stagnant chinese or inca empires because the intense competition for resources between nation-states resulted in heavy trade and communication of ideas. and thus the europeans, due to the demands of their geography, just became more ruthlessly resourceful.
one last point: one neighborhood has an average income of $200,000 per household, the other $20,000. which neighborhood is more "peaceful?" which has more violence? if the people who live in an area with more intense competition to survive are all of one race, is it ok to presuppose that all people of that race are more violent?
we're all a product of our environment.