What makes a civilization better than another?
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What makes a civilization better than another?
What makes a civilization better than another?
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monumental stone structures
wrong answers
then what is the right answer mister smartypants
This. Cultures are only worthwhile if they have pretty old stone things you can visit.
a lot of things that are interconnected and may not even do much at all. Some factors are ridiculous like by chance
Human flourishing
River + trade routes = Civilization
If i like their buildings and think their women are worthy of sexxo
skin color
Depending on whether I like it or not
Level of development
Doesn’t matter, really. Great civilizations are all just ruins that people admire. Society is what makes civilization great and nobody really cares about that when they think of history.
Nobody remembers how great the 1950s America was because Americans are obsessed with Black folk. Hilariously enough, nobody is going to remember the “plight” of American Black folk
>blah blah *rambles*
>muh Black folk
Obsessed.
lmfao stay asshurt. Black personlover.
Rent free
Happiness and quality of life.
Scandinavia looks warm
Personal opinion/perspective. Since better is subjective.
Lack of hubris before the divines.
it's all relative. the problem comes when different civilizations collide with each other.
suddenly the differences are made apparent, and people start to judge themselves based on those apparent differences.
our entire concept of empirical observation is an idea created from our culture. the very ability to take two different civilizations that exist in two different places that develop under different circumstances and judge between them is an artifact of western civilization.
so when I sit here and say European-derived civilizations are better than all the other ones, that's me showing my bias as a descendant of that culture.
and it's also empirically true. 😉
>European-derived civilizations
What do you define as European-derived exactly?
Because technically Kenya, the USA (which euros have this weird complex over for centuries by claiming them and denying them simultaneously) and Albania all fit the definition of "European-derived".
He's not going to reply to you, he's a snotty European with a god complex.
>you wuz poor n scheisse
>so you are not allowed to complain when i oppress you
do they really?
The problem is most Amrican blacks(and even some actual africans) think they were egyptian. Also, Those picks are highly varied and cherry-picked. Most were tribals(which is not a bad thing)
Where'd you hear that from? Twitter? Most people don't give a shit about Egypt and Twitter users are a minority.
He thinks Hoteps are a huge thing despite a ton of Black bashing and mocking them.
WE WUZ MESOAMERICAN WAKANDA N SHIET
Except these huge mesoamerican cities did exist
and promptly disappeared.
OP's picture is almost a complete fabrication
cope harder
ah yes, I'm sure the aztecs were building castles and fortified towers
Impulse control in societal norms.
>Impulse control
That term has lost all actual meaning.
My point still stand in the general sense.
Not really. Especially when impulse control is extremely context sensitive.
Define "better". From a sustainability point of view bottom picture can be maintained for the next 900 million years until the sun gets too hot for life on Earth. The top picture already will cause runaway release of CO2 through slash/burn agriculture of natural forests and trigger catastrophic collapse within 10 or 20 thousand years.
Are individuals allowed to express individuality while conforming to the well being the collective? If yes, that’s a great civilization
Diaper wearing psychopatic e-girls.
Survival.
the only valid criterion is the utility of its output
Does it love truth, strength and justice?
it's ability to solve problems for the most people
The amount of corn they have stored and can produce, nothing more. The civlization with the most corn is the most powerful and most developed, I for one welcome our HATO American HFCS overlords.
You do realize that corn can in fact be a healthy crop once nixtamalized, right? It's only relatively recently that corn has been unhealthy for us, and that can change almost instantly once we start soaking corn kernels in an alkaline solution before processing.
quabity of life
Quality of life, monuments, beauty of art, and influence on culture even years after their fall.
interesting approach:
to rate civilizations by their legacy, rather than their duration and range
Could any except the Roman and Chinese qualify?
Apart from those you listed I can think of a couple other Ancient/Medieval civilizations that could maybe fit.
Greekoids
Vikings (debatably)
Egyptians
Japanese
Aztecs (debatably)
If we count modern stuff shit really gets to be murky though since I would count America since so many countries consume it's media but it is also undoubtedly on the decline.
Japan is extremely self-contained within itself.
He said, posting on an anime image board that people claim to have influenced American politics
that doesn't really counter my point. Also IQfy as an image board extremely deviated from how Japanese imageboard function and operate. Sage isn't even visible.
Sage never has been visible, and it exists for people who want to post in a thread without bumping it, like just saying "I agree." It didn't become an aggressive anti-thread action (which is a misunderstanding of what sage even does) until American IQfy
Well I'll just say that Japanese art, the concept of Samurai, and a lot of it's culture are recognizable enough for it to be considered a civilization that could be rated by legacy.
and that is contained within Japan. Meanwhile you have British and French court systems allover the world decades after they have left.
>and that is contained within Japan
There are plenty of western people who unironically think nippon steel was way better than European swords or people that overly fetishize their culture. They are even given a name since there are so many of them - weebs. Japan is just a weird case because a frick ton of their ancient or medieval culture is just based around isolationism. I can't think of any other civilization besides pre 40's America that was similar and even then pre 40's America was a huge industrial and economic power
>claim
Its just the media stirring up shit. IQfy's influence is limited to the internet, nothing more.
>vikings
>quality of life
>monuments
That's why I said debatably. I don't consider them noteworthy whatsoever but shut up LARPagans and people who for some reason think they are ultra cultured
Then why are the Aztec also "Debatably"?
>In terms of quality of life, commoners had basically the same living conditions as commoners in the other civilizations you mentioned, and with arguably more diversity of crops for food (albiet also less meat); plenty of access to clean drinking water, bathing was done daily or near daily, ready access to communal canals and gardens, and public education; while nobles lived in palaces akin to noble villas that the romans and chinese had, with dozens of rooms, courtyards, and gardens built into them; with an education intellectual and the high arts
>In terms of monumental architecture and beauty of art, you had large temple/pyramids, palace complexes, ball courts, and large botanical gardens with pools and shrines, these had painted frescos, carved reliefs and decorative sculptures. etc which looked like pic related, Nahuatl as a language was praised as lyrical and disguished even by Conquistaors, witth a long tradition of philosophical poetry and
>In terms of influence, basically every major global crop today was cultivated by them/other Mesoamericans, and Tlaxcala etc basically are what enabled Spanish colonialism in the Americas and European global supremacy by extension
I think plenty of norse metalwork is really pretty and cool, but that anon said "quality of life" and "monuments", and they didn't really do monumental architecture
To be clear I think trying to quantify what society is "more advanced" is inherently dumb, but those are the metrics that anon said
>What is "quality of life" anyway?
I take the term to mean things like how comfortable day to day life is and it's convinences. Like what conditions was the average commoner or the noble's home is, what sort of utensils did they have, what goods did they have access to (both food, tools, luxaries, etc), what was their life expectancy, what sort of medical treatment, access to clean water, protection from the elements, etc
>top right is literally minecraft
Kek, come on anon
Yeah, and?
I don't understand why people freak out over this. Why is using recreations people made in minecraft as a visual example any worse then using paintings or 3d models? TlatoaniMC's work is one of the best recreations of Tenochtitlan there is, it deserves to be there. Frankly more then the Voyages D'alix piece in the lower right which I really only have there for artist variety.
Without access to Potatoes and Maize Europe would not have been able to expand and economically prosper as much to keep up with their growth they had historically. And if not for dstates like Tlaxcala and Texcoco helping Spanish conquests, Spain never would have gone as balls deep with colonialism an by extension neither would have France, Britain, etc, and Europe as a whole wouldn't have had as much much colonial and by extension global influence.
I agree that in terms of RECGONIZED influence, there's not much, but as I explained you can actually arguably draw way more of a direct and major line with how the world is today to the Aztec then a fair amount of Classical and Ancient civilizations in Eurasia, since it's thanks to Aztec crops and city-states that European successes both domestically and in terms of colonialism was able to happen: Without Tlaxcala, Texcoco, etc helping Cortes, he never succeeds, and Spain never gets the incentive or the local manpower/resources to pursue further colonization. Without maize, potatoes, etc, Europe isn't able to support it's explosive success and development, etc.
I also think "relvenance on a global stage" is sort of a inherent meme prior to the 1500s. The Mesoamericans and Andeans may not have been relevenant to Eurasia, but the Romans and Chinese weren't relvenant to the Americas either. The former only matters more if you view Eurasia as the defeault to begin with; and the Aztec in particular WERE involved with the very first and some of the most important global events.
europe's technological advantage allowed global supremacy not potatoes and maize, moron
>potatoes and maize
Access to potatoes and maize a lot of Euro states to heavily grow their populations off those crops. Especially when potatoes could be grown everywhere and both crops were energy rich. Rice bring so bountiful in output. Spanish introduction of new world crops into Europe extremely benefitted European nutrition and cuisine as a whole.
Aztecs are debatable because they don't have much cultural relevance outside of the Americas, and more specifically, central America. Their legacy to most people is that they human sacrificed a bunch and that's all most people know about them. They made cool monuments, their art is interesting, and their quality of life was probably decent but they just don't have the same impact as the other civilizations, partially because native Americans in the U.S have never really been relevant on the global stage and the few times they have that relevance has mostly been because of the tribes like the Cherokee. I do think they are an interesting civilization but frankly they haven't left much of a legacy compared to even isolationist states like Japan. Even the Vikings are arguably more relevant since some are inclined to see them as explorers that even found their way to America.
TLDR The Aztecs haven't really influenced culture for basically anyone since natives are basically irrelevant and the most famous natives (those in that were under America's jurisdiction) interacted with them little. They probably meet all other criteria though for the most part.
Japan wasn't isolationist until it adopted many important aspects of chinese culture and technology. Japan is mostly still an offshoot of china
I think there are enough distinctions to differentiate them, like the Byzantines vs. the Romans
They were pretty cultured with all their oral sagas, legalism, and complex customs. What is "quality of life" anyway? Also, they're Norse not vikings.
Not to mention beautiful works of intricate arts
Could this be elden ring?
anglo saxons, my ancestors, were so advanced
>racebait thread
Many authors have books on this. Recently examples like Peter Zeihan among many others, discuss this as ecological and geological realities. In history, empires rise and fell on droughts and climate into recent memory. Aztecs had a drought and a plague as a result, the Romans in the crisis of the 3rd century suffered continued climate failure. Each time, in history, as we get better evidence of climate and ecology it is obvious this is the case.
The only thing surpassing human stupidity is human arrogance. It is that arrogance that presumes mankind can fashion itself without the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. That is, in war and in civilization, the only real "secret" to it.
Lack of people who steal bicycles.
Unironically race. I'm from Singapore, one of the only countries in SEA with the highest concentration of Chinese people, and we're the most successful despite having the least amount of land/resources. It's even a perception in Indonesia that the Chinese owned all important businesses to the point it culminated in the May 1998 riots of Indonesia.
nice meme.
How much a society allows a person to be free and happy.
Number of twinks per km2
aestetics
God.
Start with the greeks.
Their monuments and art, things ppl can admire.
culture
geography
proximity to other civilizations
Western Africa
>only connected to the rest of the world through Sahara trade routes until the 1300s
>didn't have the knowledge to specialize due to being isolated
>found out that there is a huge demand for African slaves in foreign lands
>the most powerful and successful western African empires were ones that conquered and enslaved their neighbors
>African kingdoms that tried to specialize were robbed and enslaved, and the ones who had the means to defend themselves couldn't spare any human capital to specialize
>West Africa became a giant thunderdome completely devoid of any innovation and progress up until the post-colonial era
>found out that there is a huge demand for African slaves in foreign lands
Yeah in the 16th century
They still hadnt progressed past prehistorical level of developments (architecture, society, writting...etc) at that point
>West Africa became a giant thunderdome completely devoid of any innovation and progress up until the post-colonial era
Until the colonial era*
West African slaves were being sold to MENA since at least the 800s and the Portuguese starting in the 1400s. And before then, slaves were being used to mine silver and gold for foreign markets
You dont watch to attract my attention on that pic
I can recognize half the pics (the imaginary city of Loango by a Dutch nerd, the imaginary Ashanti castle, the actual Ashanta barn-looking palace, the walls around the Benin city mudhuts drawn by a British soldier, the meme zimbabwe, the castle built by arabs in Ethiopia....)
This shit is cherrypicking at finest (and even then, half of them are fake)
Just add the Djenne mosque and the meme is perfect
>the imaginary city of Loango by a Dutch nerd,
Anon it's not imaginary when he consulted and worked with actual Dutch merchants and official who travelled and lived there. Hell what I said applies to a massive frickton of accounts llover the world so if you say that Ditch Historian "doeant count" then you might as well toss out everything written and recorded before the modern camera lmao
>Anon it's not imaginary
It is
The only actual building that existed there was a church built by the portuguese
No photograph of that city exist anywhere
There actual physical eyewitness accounts. Also Olfert Dappers work was the first instance of the Benin Bronzes bring detailed in high detail which is why people even knew of it in the first place.
>the castle built by arabs in Ethiopia
It was built in the Portuguese style using local labour. Arabs didn't even exist in that area as a power
>cherry picked
>most populous parts of Africa as examples
None of those civilizations could even compare to the romans, the chinese, the arabs or others.
They cant even compare to Crete or Sumer either thats how zebrashit black societies really are.
The people who actually visited thought they were pretty good
>muh trade routes
West Africa is basically an alien world like Mesoamerica so shut the frick up leftist moron also have a nice day.
that's why super rich kangs like mansa musa went on frivolous trips across MENA with his massive gold convoys Black person
>West Africa is basically an alien world like
They had contact with NA and ME for ages. Ajami used to write African languages in Western Africa uses Arabic text. Several ME crops were traded into West Africa like Sorghum.
So Black folk are morons who needed arabs to hold their hand while injuns are intelligent and did everything from scratch, got it. Also have a nice day progressive scum.
You really just want to seethe at everything. Not even sure why you have such a sill hate boner like this. No one even brought up injuns.
I brought them up you moron
Because you seemed to spin cultural exchange as bad thing in Western Africa when literally every part if the world engaged in it.
> like Sorghum.
Ah no it was domesticated in West Africa
Aww frick I mixed it up. Was it pearl millet that came from ME or lentils?
You’re likely thinking of cotton and bananas
Better aligned economic incentives. That's why western civilization mogged every other civilization in the past 300 years because of the development of market economies.
Sadly the west is regressing by changing the incentives to be more state-government oriented, thats why the west is collapsing and far east countries that have been embracing markets for the past few decades will without a doubt surpass the west.
Economic incentives are everything, not only for humans but for all sentient beings in existence.
Technological progress
The majority of civilizations don't have much influence except outside of whatever region they resided in.
>TenochTITlan
>always a schizo doodle
I heckin' cringe every time
Longevity.