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yellowdaddy
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Saoir-Ebhor, Sasainn a tuath, Rialtas Aontach
Apr 2003
time: 05:15
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i was joking!
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i disagree totally about race.
It's not arbitrary, and should certainly not be a taboo.
http://racialreality.shorturl.com/
You might the forum as enlightening as the pages, it's not a kook site, it's genuinely neutral, and well-referenced
for a start I'm talking about the Dawn senario in particular ...
(though assigning races and faces to later EGs is not a problem as the face generater is loads of sets of face parts, specifically designed to simulate mixing, and assigning categories of face parts to the characters of modern nations like Mauritius and Brazil are no problem in that respect).
As for:...
India.
In the Dawn scenario, it doesn't exist.
The Indus civilisation is a Dravidian one, Dravidians being one of the original "Peoples" in the ethnic evolution tree.
In later scenarios characters faces would be contructed from selected elements from the bank of face elements in the Caucasoid and Australasoid banks. I guess for accuracy you might want to assign the Dravidian EGs with more of the Australasoid elements, and the Indo-Iranians with more of some of the Caucasoid elements.
On the Race thing, it would say "mixed Caucasoid-Australasoid or Mixed: A, C".
Basques.
Are Caucasoid, not treated as a separate race but one of the "tribe" branches of the "Iberian" people (not strictly accurate historically, but good enough for this game).
Reunion, Mauritius, Brazil
Being modern nations, they not on the immediate agenda, but, they would clearly in terms of the characters' faces have a wide range of face elements they could be generated from.
In the race box it would say "Mixed Race: N, C, M,"
This is only about accuracy, nothing more.
Whilst I accept your point about race which has been researched into in Brazil. It's neither completely true to say that race is not about colours.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
In the Dawn scenario, it fair to say that most EGs are going to be assignable to what can be called a "race".
I understand it's a loaded term (if you can think of another...) but for me it's primarily relating to the face generator for characters... we want Ethiopian faces for Ethiopian characters, Japanese faces for Japanese characters, and Irish faces for Irish characters, and if they through conquest or immigration mix, then I'm hoping it can be shown by an admixing of the face elements, as posted earlier.
It needs revising, because I found more up to date research which shows there are actually 6 races not 4, which all evolved at different times.
Negroid 120,000 BC
Mesopotamoid 100,000 BC
Australasoid 60,000 BC
Caucasoid 40,000 BC
Mongoloid 80,000 BC
Amerindian 20,000 BC
(I think, it's in a tree in an encyclopaedia downstairs)
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Gary Thomas
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New Zealand
Mar 2001
time: 17:15
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quote:
India.
In the Dawn scenario, it doesn't exist. |
Neither does Australia or South America. This scenario is set in the Middle East at the time of the development of agriculture. Why on earth should India (or China or New Guinea) be included?
quote:
The Indus civilisation is a Dravidian one, Dravidians being one of the original "Peoples" in the ethnic evolution tree. |
The term Dravidian is a language tern, not a race one. There has been a assumption that the language group of the Indus valley civilizations is Dravidian, by some authorities, but it is unproven. Many authorities prefer other possibilities.
I have to go from memory, but I believe the earliest settlements in the Indus area date from about 4600 BC. This is around four and a half thousand years after the Dawn scenario. The Indus civilizations reached their peak around 2500 BC. And that is around four and a half thousand years from the present day.
Forget the Indus valley.
There are some pretty good books on the "race" issue that you appear to be obssessed with. I suggest that you read them.
quote:
It needs revising, because I found more up to date research which shows there are actually 6 races not 4, which all evolved at different times.
Negroid 120,000 BC
Mesopotamoid 100,000 BC
Australasoid 60,000 BC
Caucasoid 40,000 BC
Mongoloid 80,000 BC
Amerindian 20,000 BC
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This goes close to the silliest nonsense I have seen on this forum. It hardly deserves further comment. And has nothing to do with Clash anyway.
I have no particular difficulty in having various physical types available for the purpose of constructing faces - in fact I think it a great idea. But I do believe that they should be based on a somatotype system, with a considerable number of options. Then each area (not civilization) could have assigned a series of somatotypes to construct protraits from.
Cheers
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yellowdaddy
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Saoir-Ebhor, Sasainn a tuath, Rialtas Aontach
Apr 2003
time: 05:15
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Number One, I don't appreciate the insinuation that this idea is in any way racist - that's absolutely potty.
quote:
Neither does Australia or South America. This scenario is set in the Middle East at the time of the development of agriculture. Why on earth should India (or China or New Guinea) be included? |
Alright then, let me rephrase that, "I'm talking about a fairly standard Dawn scenario where there's an entire world map as in Civ", which i suspect is what a lot of people are likely to be expecting as one scenario option.
and as I suspect you're well aware, I'm talking about Indian as a recognisable EG (and please try and resist the temptation to go off on one about that, it's a diversion) - surely my meaning was clear enough in the first place anyway?
quote:
The term Dravidian is a language tern, not a race one. There has been a assumption that the language group of the Indus valley civilizations is Dravidian, by some authorities, but it is unproven. Many authorities prefer other possibilities |
Yes, I know, yes I know, and yes, I know
This is not a competition.
If you reread what I said, you'll see that I didn't refer to Dravidians as a race.
For the purposes of the game I'm talking about the Dravidians being assigned a particular set of face elements. And also for the purposes of the game, as with the Basques, blanks can be filled with plausible theories.
You might happen to believe that the Indus civilisation has no connection with the people I refer to as Dravidian, I'm not especially bothered, but most (as opposed to "many") credible sources regard it as the most plausible possibility and that'll surely do for a computer game.
sources:
http://www.iias.nl/host/himalaya/abstracts/ait.html
http://inic.utexas.edu/asnic/subjec...dlanguages.html
If you've been to that part of India then you'll know that they do have a certain "look" and do not usually resemble Norweigians, Koreans or Tutsi... (no doubt you'll argue with this but I would prefer not to, because it seems really quite counterproductive).
As for the Indus valley, yes in real history that may be what happened, but I'm talking about a scenario where everyone starts off from the same point and changes history, a standard scenario in almost every Civ game there's ever been.
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quote:
There are some pretty good books on the "race" issue that you appear to be obssessed with. I suggest that you read them... ...This goes close to the silliest nonsense I have seen on this forum. It hardly deserves further comment. And has nothing to do with Clash anyway.
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I think that's an unnecessarily hostile and patronising response. I'm not "obsessed" with anything. I'm talking about some ideas for the game which are relevant to some of the features of the game, and help fill in a plausibility gap that appears to be missing. The data is from a credible not a crackpot source, and is not part of any views I have, and when I find the source I'll post it.
{this isn't it, but these refer to the same stuff
http://www.uchicago.edu/aff/mwc-ama.../ayala_eve.html
http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~mcvean/D...n_diversity.pdf
{Note the Ingman et al. chart from the Oxford site}
http://www.behavior.org/journals_BP/2001/Rushton.pdf
There was a controversial thing by S.J. Gould which also brought up the evolution of races scale i posted before Gary's reply}
(argue with them, not with me!}
I don't know what books you've read, but youd don't seem to be entirely up to date with current thinking on the matter, there's are more than one school of thought, I chose the most prevalent that I could find.
I try and make sure I base what I say on academically supported and credible sources specifically because I don't want to sound like an idiot.
Take the Basque question for instance, I exchanged e-mails with a leading academic at a UK university on the subject to work out how they should be manifest in the game (there's a balance to be struck between historical rigour and simple playability), so I don't just make up rubbish to suit my own tastes.
On the other hand, following SIL.org's list of languages would be a little pedantic, and a certain amount of "rounding up" is, IMO, fine for a game.
And BTW, somatotypes are body shapes in general , the character pictures are portraits, so I don't see how that's supposed to work...
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quote:
In the design of the social model we intentionally, as an explicit design decision, decided not to include race. The thinking at the time was that we could easily get things in the game happening that would have the potential to upset people. YMMV. |
"Race" probably isn't the right word, but it's tricky to find another word to describe something that we all can see around us every day.
There's a funny taboo over race, the fashion is now to pretend that it doesn't exist, perhaps a legacy of 20th century history, I dunno. My wife's a different race to me, so what?! That's why i posted that site which seeks to inform people using proper academic data and research to show not only that racial differences exist , but what race actually is: of a spectrum of difference, much like language.
Here's some of the dryer sources
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...3&dopt=Abstract
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/anth372.html
http://www.racearchives.com/ (amateur but interesting)
http://www.lifesci.utexas.edu/cours...3/virginia.html
[IMGhttp://www.lifesci.utex...ng98/13/map.gif[/IMG]
And if those are too wordy, try this one:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/first/race.html
for both sides of the debate.
none of the sites i've posted as sources have anything to do with revolting white power sites.
Just to reiterate, for me, it's about continuity, and wanting to make the characters look like they're supposed to, and also to include a factor which is part of history, like it or not - namely the discrimination factor.
Apart from that the little things that I've heard non-white players of these kind of games complain about - most of the human units don't match their Civ. I'm thinking of the Zulus in Civ as a for instance.
If you're making a game which is about humanity, which you appear to be, and have all these models with the aim of some degree of plausible accuracy, then to pretend that any East Asian is no different to any West European or vice versa just to satisfy a PC prejudice, for instance, is ridiculous!?
Moreover I think rather than appeasing non-white players, you'll just end up having the opposite effect on them because they are likely to want to play as a civ which they can identify with.
Not having a fair and accurate depiction of the world and all it's diversity.
That's what's likely to upset people.
I hope i am not being misunderstood.
Last edited by yellowdaddy on 15-03-2004 at 15:43
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yellowdaddy
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Saoir-Ebhor, Sasainn a tuath, Rialtas Aontach
Apr 2003
time: 05:15
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quote:
Language is in there, but near the bottom. |
It's certainly not near the bottom (how long is you list anyway?).
Although this is the riots thread, I'm fascinated to hear how you could place it at the bottom.
I'd put it near the top, it's one of the main three: religion, language, race.
eg. Arabs. Not all arabs are muslim, or share exactly the same racial traits (Yemenis, and Lebanese), but they are still Arabs. Why? because their language is Arabic, and so there's still a cultural bond there.
"wayoflife, customs beliefs and history seem adequately covered by the term 'religion' IMO"
I accept that race in discrimination is probably not so important in early periods, hence i'm less bothered. Though I may not be alone in suggesting it should be a feature in more modern scenarios.
(I suppose this is still relevent, as we're discussing what kind of things people can riot about in the game)
quote:
its better represented as used with people being of a geographical region and different "races" there being different EG within them |
this is correct, BUT, (to use the racial spectrum analogy) the five or six main colours of the racial spectrum, all come into existence before civilisation starts.
If we're using real human ethnic groups (based on the language tree and racial spectrum) you have to assign each people with it's appropriate attributes.
You could have a game scenario whereby all the names of peoples and languages are random, then assign racial traits to geographical starting points, but that seems like more input than output so to speak - i.e not worth the effort.
quote:
For a face generator, again much of what you want can be shown with geographical referances...ie regionality...the clothing would be nationality or EG based. So you could achieve the same result of having racially distinct peoples without terming them as differnt races... |
Did you see the faces I posted last year?
Clothing's a cultural thing. The only cultural aspect EGs seem to have at the moment is religion, and maybe regime? It's mainly a mugshot, so i dunno what people want to do about clothes, i did mention it ages back.
I can see the sense in not overtly saying this tribe is Capoid-Negroid, that one Mongoloid-Caucasoid - who cares! but in the nuts and bolts behind the GUI there should be a bit of that.
Regionality... those new "ality" words make me cringe, and i find them unsatisfactorily vague, but if it means something akin to an assigned mixture of "colours" (i.e. elements) from a "racial spectrum" to an EG then ok.
If you're trying to say that region x tends produce people with racial traits a,c,d, and f; well then I don't think it works quite like that.
Northern Chinese are very distinct from southern Chinese. The Southern Chinese share an awful lot of racial traits with Vietnamese, and in fact they are largely assimilated people, as China expanded from its more northerly heartland.
some Northeast Chinese bear a lot of similarity with peoples of Siberia, as the Yuan and Qing dynasties led to a lot more commingling.
The Japanese, Burmese, Indonesians and Thais have similarly unsimple stories.
I currently beieve they all have one thing in common, that there was an orignal set of racial traits for each language-defined people.
Like a spectrum of groups from Altaic to Mon-Khmer, but which mixed and shifted around post 9000BC
Last edited by yellowdaddy on 15-03-2004 at 23:31
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Gary Thomas
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New Zealand
Mar 2001
time: 17:15
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quote:
Because their is signifigant that Chinese civilization developed before the mesopatamian ones...at the very least at the same time and before those outside mesopatamian valley. |
The Chinese civilization developed over a thousand years later than the Mesopotamian one. Anyway, how can we fit China into a middle eastern scenario?
quote:
Number One, I don't appreciate the insinuation that this idea is in any way racist - that's absolutely potty. |
I did not accuse anyone of racism. The general comments in your posts in fact tend to suggest the opposite. An obsession with including race in the game has nothing to do with racism.
As Mark has said, there was a specific decision to exclude race as a factor in Clash. This decision would have to be reversed to change that.
The valid argument for having race as a factor relates to pictorial representation of characters in the game. This is eye-candy. We have a game that is struggling to get the very basics operating. Eye-candy can come later. Particularly as, in this case, there are no immediate plans to have characters in the game. I will be amazed if they are included in the next five years. As usual, the bottleneck is coding. And finally, discussion of facial types does not fit into a riots thread.
Another factor is that, at the present level of development, the game is resticted to what we would describe as the classical ancient world, in which the bulk of populations are relatively similar.
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Lord God Jinnai
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St. Louis
Sep 1999
time: 23:15
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quote:
It's certainly not near the bottom (how long is you list anyway?).
Although this is the riots thread, I'm fascinated to hear how you could place it at the bottom.
I'd put it near the top, it's one of the main three: religion, language, race. |
To me its near the bottom because language is a by-product of localized ethnic groups.
The most important to me are: Customs/Tradtions, Daily way of life, Religion/Beliefs. Race/geography might go right below that.
And most of that isn't covereved by religion...espcially in the east where plurality in religion is the rule, not signulatity. It is true though that they do intermingle, but not always...i mean, is the fact that you say "Hello" when you answer the phone a tradition based on religion? Is the belief that being in a city is better than a rural area based on religion? Is the hisotry of the Swiss neutrality tied to religion (as their neutrality sets them apart)? While in many cases religion and belief/custom sturcture were closely tied, as more and more religions and beliefs spread they slowly became divorsed. Today, yes they still are in places closely linked, but even there its not 100%.
Ultimatly language is among thw worst tools to use...we had a big discussion on the Europa Univeralsi 2 forum about this. Langauage while imporant in developing nationality was of little consiquence because local practices would bind or seperate people togehter much more than language barriers (or lack thereof) would and that language always followed a split, never preceded it.
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The Chinese civilization developed over a thousand years later than the Mesopotamian one. Anyway, how can we fit China into a middle eastern scenario? |
What????? Where do you get your sources from???? That is a load of bull...it was defitaly way before even egypt had a civilization...i can cite stuff probably tomorrow or wednesday as i'm getting ready to sleep and i got a busy day tomorrow, but I know that what you claim is a old information that has long been discredited.
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yellowdaddy
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Saoir-Ebhor, Sasainn a tuath, Rialtas Aontach
Apr 2003
time: 05:15
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1. yes, none of this is in the right thread.
2. missing out race as a factor is a continuity gap.
3. yes, faces are eye-candy, but i thought there may be coding implications in where you put the people at the start of the game.
4. i thought there was some development going into the idea of a whole world generator, as opposed to purely restricting it to a particular area. In this scenario, I still think there's as good a reason for having race as there is for other things with or without a pic, but more for simulating human population movements, than discrimination per se, but I'm not entirely sure whether it doesn't exist.
quote:
There was racism in the ancient world, after all. This groundbreaking book refutes the common belief that the ancient Greeks and Romans harbored "ethnic and cultural," but not racial, prejudice. It does so by comprehensively tracing the intellectual origins of racism back to classical antiquity. Benjamin Isaac's systematic analysis of ancient social prejudices and stereotypes reveals that some of those represent prototypes of racism--or proto-racism--which in turn inspired the early modern authors who developed the more familiar racist ideas. He considers the literature from classical Greece to late antiquity in a quest for the various forms of the discriminatory stereotypes and social hatred that have played such an important role in recent history and continue to do so in modern society. |
http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/7737.html
here's a book for you...
amateur link:
http://www.geocities.com/ru00ru00/r...rlyhistory.html
academic link:
http://www.howard.edu/library/Snowden/Blacks.htm
5. LGJ, I studied ancient oriental history and language at university (a lot of Chinese history - yawn!), and I have to concede that while it's probably a safe bet that there were ancient chinese round the Huang He at 9000BC, there's no conclusive evidence (according to my lecturers). I'm similarly unmoved by your thoughts on language. If you need argue with either, I think it ought to go on another thread. Read this if you like, if you're interested in China:
http://www.authorama.com/ancient-ch...plified-32.html
But let's all try and maintain the integrity of the threads.
6. apologies for my oversensitivity, and for veering off topic.
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Gary Thomas
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New Zealand
Mar 2001
time: 17:15
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quote:
What????? Where do you get your sources from???? That is a load of bull...it was defitaly way before even egypt had a civilization...i can cite stuff probably tomorrow or wednesday as i'm getting ready to sleep and i got a busy day tomorrow, but I know that what you claim is a old information that has long been discredited. |
Here are some of my sources (I have many more). Where are yours?
Egypt was about contemporaneous with China, but the Middle East was considerably earlier.
Large empires:
From the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History (published 2000):
Middle east: Sargon, 2350 BC
China: Shang Dynasty, 1766 BC
Farming:
Here is some information from “The Emergence of Agriculture” by Bruce D. Smith (1994), published by the Scientific American Library. Dates have been converted from BP, the carbon dating date to normal BC dates.
Fertile crescent:
Early settlement: at Abu Hureya, 9000 BC (p69)
First cultivation or domestication of:
Wheat: emmer wheat: 8700 BC (p69), einkorn wheat: 8600 BC (p69)
Barley: 8600 BC (p71)
Sheep: 7250 BC (p56)
Goats: 8000 BC (p61)
Pigs: 7000BC (p63)
Cattle: 6000 BC (p66-67)
China:
Farming settlements:
in North China: 5500 BC (p116)
in the Yangtze area: 6500 BC (p116)
First cultivation or domestication of:
Rice: 7400 BC (p130) the site was only discovered in 1988, previously the earliest was 2000 years later
Millet: between 8000 and 6300 BC, but towards the later end. (p136)
Pigs: about 6200 BC (138)
Writing:
http://www.ancientscripts.com/chinese.html
Jia-gu wen, or Oracle Bone. This is the earliest form of Chinese writing, used probably from the Middle to the Late Shang dynasty (approximately 1500 BC ?? to 1000 BC). Most of the time, this script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were then used for divination in the royal court. Consequently, scholars have been using oracle bones as historical documents to look at the reigns of later Shang monarchs.
http://www.ancientscripts.com/sumerian.html
Subsequently, the ancient Mesopotamians stopped using clay tokens altogether, and simply impressed the symbol of the clay tokens on wet clay surfaces. In addition to symbols derived from clay tokens, they also added other symbols that were more pictographic in nature, i.e. they resemble the natural object they represent. Moreover, instead of repeating the same picture over and over again to represent multiple objects of the same type, they used diferent kinds of small marks to "count" the number of objects, thus adding a system for enumerating objects to their incipient system of symbols. Examples of this early system represents some of the earliest texts found in the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr around 3300 BCE.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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Wow... What a can of worms.
I just wanted to have 'something' which would tell the Greeks they are Greek rather than barbaroi, without their being necessarily either Spartan or Theban or...
I believe that in terms of Greek vs. barbaroi scenario, race doesn't help. Culture or language would. so an ethnic group's nationality is a bit limited for the purpose of differentiating Greeks from other cultures. I'm just asking for soomething which lets me relate two ethnic groups as being part of a family (of language/culture/way of life) so I can have something which lets me model Greeks without needing a Greek nationality.
About races: My concerns are mostly genetic. I have some biology background after all, and consider that there's no reason why a deep difference in terms of genotype would necessarily lead to a visible difference in phenotype. That is why I chose the Basque example: If you restrict yourself to Middle Ages Europe, and decide to implement races in the game, Basques would be genetically different form the rest and thus from a genotype point of view a different race. But from the visible phenotype (their face, colour...) that's not relevant. So we could pick a more or less arbitrary number of races, but if the game evolves in such a way that two of them mingle which we didn't have in real life (e.g. pygmies and caucasian), you'd have to do a lot of extrapolation to guess what they'd look like, and whether this particular mix would look different enough from another one to allow discrimination between the groups to occur.
The point about Reunion and Brazil is not a negation that races exist, but a negation of the fact they are useful in the game: When people have similar culture, way of life, religion (not necessarily, depending on the importance of this one), they interbreed whatever their race may be. Thus it's more interesting to have an ethnic group or culture object than a race object in-game, because race will remain unchanged only if the cultures reamin unchanged. Thus race can be seen as a byproduct of culture in game terms (it's actually retaining the race the people started with X generations ago which is a byproduct, since race predates that, but I'm not being academic, I'm talking about the game).
Again, races don't help me in Greek/barbaroi scenario (particularly if you consider that Philip's Macedonians were not always considered true Greeks by Athenians, Spartans, etc.).
So to sum it all again: I want something (I'd call it culture for lack of better word) which lets me have families of cultures. Language is certainly part of culture, and race too, but neither is the whole of it. And I need a function which lets me tell whether two of these cultures are near or far one from another.
That may just be that, by comparing all elements (traditionalism, importance of religion, individualism, etc.) of the ethnic group, I can infer that two EGs are mostly the same. This would mean that I need to compare all these values when checking ethnic riotting/discrimination, though, which is a bit bad as they may slightly vary inside the same nationality.
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yellowdaddy
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Saoir-Ebhor, Sasainn a tuath, Rialtas Aontach
Apr 2003
time: 05:15
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LGJ
quote:
And i am similarly unconvinced that language is. |
1. I don't understand what you mean.
2. You haven't managed to refute what I'm saying or support what you're saying.
e.g.: The example of Lebanon and Yemen... what makes them both Arabs?
And I don't get your opint about "language being a by-product of ethnic groups". Language is a defining factor of an ethnic group whether it's a street slang or a totally unrelated language, you certainly can't put it lower than race, and you can't really generalise that it's less a defining factor than "WOL", Religion, and Customs - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, they're all variables - isn't it obvious?!
3. Your post about China doesn't appear to disagree with me or Gary.
4. Is any of this really helpful?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Laurant
..........................................................................................
incidentally, the Basques share an awful lot of mDNA with the Welsh and Cornish of SWern Britain. I think it's a bit of a stretch to call them a different race though.
..........................................................................................
I think we may solve the problem by making a set of factors which add up to "Culture".
Way of life is down to environment I would say.
Language is fairly easy to use as a tool do link and differentiate ethnic groups; it's also not dependant so much on the other factors, the way languages diverge is almost random in terms of the initial sound divergence, but gathers a kind of momentum to consolidate the changes, rather like how water find's it's way down towards the sea, sometimes forming a large "delta" of daughter languages, other times feeding into a lake (?!) .
What could we have? Here's some ideas:
LANGUAGE:
Homologue (L0)
Accent (L1)
Dialect (L2)
Language (L3)
These are like three different levels of language, so you could call them "L1 L2 and L3", you can then map an EG with the "L factor" (Linguistic Divergence), so that those around the capital have a low L factor, and the more disparate populations have a tendency to gradually increase their L factor, to the point were they can evolve to L3 and have a different language, making their propensity to become a new EG greater.
RELIGION:
Shamanistic
Polytheistic
Monotheistic
Atheistic
like language this is kind of both a cultural and ethnic feature innit? I think it's more cultural than ethnic though. (to me ethnicity is to do with aspects of humanity which can't change - race, mothertongue, birthplace)
WRITING:
alphabet (syllabic like Hiragana and non-syllabic like Cyrillic)
pictograph (Maya, Chinese, Egyptian)
phonograph (like Korean)
countries which share writing systems often share cultural affinity.
WayOfLife:
Settled Agriculturalists
Nomadic Pastoralists/Hill Tribes
Coastal and Riverdwellers
I imagine this affects the economy, the kind of trade that can take place, among other things. It seems to depend almost entirely on environment.
SOCIAL TRADITIONS/VALUES:
Kinship Society
Class Society
Matriarchal
Patriarchal
Individualist
Group-oriented
Militaristic?
This must be similar to politics, i'm not sure how much of this is in the social model. It's definitely culture.
AESTHETICS (a way of summing up clothes & buidings!?)
Oriental
Hindu
Classical
Gothic
Monolithic
...
a bit of an intangible, especially if you're dealing with random non-historical scenarios - i.e. the WorldDawn scenario.
Maybe including what kind of Artefacts, Monuments, you build, and frilly things like "artistic trade"... i suppose this is the kind of thing "Wonders" were supposed to cover in Civ.
The idea being that maybe you could have a set of factors to define the term:
"Ethnicity"
And a set of factors to define the term "Culture".
implicit is the idea that two or more ethnicities can share the same culture, and one ethnicity can have two or more cultures.
Can that work? Or are they the same thing really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture
I suppose Culture is:
Aesthetics, Values, Religion (bit of overlap), Writing System, Economics, Politics
and Ethnicity is:
Way of Life (bit of overlap) Language, Race, Nationality/Tribalism,
Last edited by yellowdaddy on 21-03-2004 at 17:34
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Gary Thomas
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New Zealand
Mar 2001
time: 17:15
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quote:
Xia Dynasty 2183-1769 BCE (There is archeological evidence to support this since 1959)....This sites are too numerous to list, but suffice it to say, they've found several tombs dating to this period.
Hsia Dynasty: circa 2100 - 1800 BCE |
This dynasty (Xia and Hsia are the same word) is essentially mythological, acceptance of it as a real dynasty is still limited. However, even if existed it was confined to a small area in northern Henan, and could not really be termed an empire (though its greatest ruler is often called the first Emporer of China - this is misleading).
By contrast the cites of Uruk (later called Erech, and now called Warka) and Ur date from around 5500 BC, 3000 years before the Xia dynasty.
Were they domesticated though? In any case, it is later than the development of agriculture in the Near East.
quote:
Rice: 15 000 - 12 000 BCE http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3207552.stm[quote]
This is based on a news report - I can find no reliable references. It is also based on only 59 grains of rice and no other evidence whatsoever. And finally, the (single) find was in the central area of South Korea, very far from China.
[quote]circa 9500 BCE Permenant fishing cities established in Japan (Jomon culture) (i mention this because japanese culture has been traditionally more fishing based than agriculture based) |
So what? We were talking about China. Anyway the Mediterranean has much earlier fishing villages.
quote:
I have some offline resources but that'll take some time to site. |
No doubt.
In effect, the "references" you cite, tend to support my contention that the Near East civilizations arose around a thousand years before those in China.
To save you the trouble, I am aware that the earliest pottery predates the Mesopotamian civilization and has been found in Japan (not China). This proves nothing - I did not claim that every human advance began in the Near East.
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Lord God Jinnai
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St. Louis
Sep 1999
time: 23:15
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Well one of the major problems is that there has been much WESTERN digging into the middle east and the surrounding area, but not nearly so much in china for the similar time period and most of those people tend to disreguard most, if not all the records done by chinese historians, partly because they didn't use similar methods, but mostly because it doesn't fit with their "idea" of how the world worked. They will only if there is enough evidence to not only support it, but its so glaring in your face obvious that they haveto accept it.
FE the fact of the neadertals not being part of humans today...there are still people who believe this based solely on bone data. Bones can tell a lot, but not everything and can be misleading. But hey, because they were the first find, everything else had to have a much higher threshold of proof than that original find because it didn't fit into "the view." There are other reasons and each situation has its own unique circumstance, but basically "the view" montra prevails everywhere.
Unfortunalty, online, most cites use referances from people with "the view" or are so totally relgious/philosophically biased toward china being the "original" and cite stuff that even i, someone who as i said doesn't always accept "the view" think is totally bogus.
Which is why i will post stuff later from offline sources if you still want me to (i'm in school right now srudying for middterms and doing some intense reasearch papers which takes away time, but i will post my referances if you still want me to.
As to the Xia, there is as i say archeoligical proof of their extistance, including undisturbed tombs found as late as last year. Yea, they're definatly hyped up, but you know at one time people laughted at a man who thought Troi existed (note: the manner he actually went about excavating the site is another matter). Before 9000 BCE things do get sketchy i'll admit in china, but most of that is because of industrialization of china, lack of iterest as opposed to mesopatamia and egypt and closed nature of the previous chinese communist nation (this has changed because they like promoting stuff they can now find they were first in as opposed to ignoring it...FE the recent promoting of the 500 year anniverary of Zheng He's first voyages).
quote:
2. You haven't managed to refute what I'm saying or support what you're saying.
e.g.: The example of Lebanon and Yemen... what makes them both Arabs?
And I don't get your opint about "language being a by-product of ethnic groups". Language is a defining factor of an ethnic group whether it's a street slang or a totally unrelated language, you certainly can't put it lower than race, and you can't really generalise that it's less a defining factor than "WOL", Religion, and Customs - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, they're all variables - isn't it obvious?! |
Arabic is a western term used to simplify the arabs into 1 group. Ask a Yemenis and Lebanese if they think they're the same group and most of the time you'll here the answer "no" mention they both speak arabaic, and depending on the person you may get something like "americans speak english so does that mean they're the same as all enlgish people?" or some other way of saying "so what?"
Laguage is a by-product because it always (except in forced situations) follows cultural splits or absorbtions. Forcing cultural absrobtion by langauge adaptation can work, but so can by propogranda, commerce, non-language based inistutional education. Thus language is always a lagging indicator when done naturally of cultural divergance and convergance, espically the latter.
Language doesn't help shape a society or culture, although it can help to reinforce values. More important than langauge is geography (not race as georgraphy, but geography as to where a person lives at a time). This, along with other things, shape the language around them, but only after a long time, long after the changes have happened. Oh a few words, terms and phrases may change or crop up, but not enough to make me unable to speak with most other people who speak english as a first language. I mean using the 3 things you list: Race, language and religion, england would have the same culture as US...ask any american or enlgishman if they share the same culture and after maybe laughing/chuckling, they'll tell you they don't, even though they share 1. Same dominat religionous background 2. Same dominat race background and 3. Same language background, Better yet, Mexico and Spain. Both have a very heavy Roman Catholic background and still is heavily incluced even today in both countries. Both have the same language (the variations are within the allowed variance paramaters to at most be called sub-language) and finally they are bothas far as who makes up the real culture of the same stock or Spanish origin, non-moorish chiristan people.
Or what makes Rural japan different from someplace like Kyoto or Tokyo? Can't say its race...Japan is 98% "pure" in that for long enough their generations are all japanese born. Its not language or religion...the Meiji Restoration saw fit to that as did the American occupation to the latter. But there is a differance based on where you live.
Last edited by Lord God Jinnai on 23-03-2004 at 10:26
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yellowdaddy
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Saoir-Ebhor, Sasainn a tuath, Rialtas Aontach
Apr 2003
time: 05:15
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quote:
Well one of the major problems is that there has been much WESTERN digging into the middle east and the surrounding area, but not nearly so much in china for the similar time period and most of those people tend to disreguard most, if not all the records done by chinese historians, partly because they didn't use similar methods, but mostly because it doesn't fit with their "idea" of how the world worked. They will only if there is enough evidence to not only support it, but its so glaring in your face obvious that they haveto accept it. |
that's an emotional generalisation if ever i heard one.
I've studied at Chinese university, their standards (for the most part) aren't as rigourous as British universities in my view (a lot of bribery and nepotism), there's a lot of political milage in history, which taints a lot of research in China. Whittering on about western methods being somehow less effective or even dramatically different to non-western methods is twaddle. "western" methods involve things like peer review and openness of results and data, things which aren't always present in corrupt states like China, where practically everyone seems to be back-scratching.
Most serious asian academics use "western" methods.
quote:
Unfortunalty, online, most cites use referances from people with "the view" or are so totally relgious/philosophically biased toward china being the "original" and cite stuff that even i, someone who as i said doesn't always accept "the view" think is totally bogus. |
this is also an emotional generalisation. i've found most academics of western colleges that i've read or asked are surprisingly dispassionate and unwilling to assume links between anything that might seem obvious to us amateurs. There is a lot of pseudo-history on the internet, thee's also a good amount of serious research which often too dry for most amateurs like us to digest.
quote:
As to the Xia, there is as i say archeoligical proof of their extistance, including undisturbed tombs found as late as last year. |
i think there are tombs at Banpo, of the Yaoshan culture, but as Chinese writing didn't exist until the mid Shang dynasty, and there's no records from other civs, then i'm afraid you can't pin the name "Xia" on them just yet. Most reputable books will probably say something like "there is now some evidence that the Xia dynasty MAY have existed", meaning they've found Longshan and Yaoshan artefacts in the right place at the right time, but it's not the same as saying they definitely are the Xia. They're "semi-mythological" as far as I can tell.
quote:
Arabic is a western term used to simplify the arabs into 1 group. Ask a Yemenis and Lebanese if they think they're the same group and most of the time you'll here the answer "no" mention they both speak arabaic |
not in my experience. in my experience Lebanese and Yemenis regard themselves as Arabs. they often cite the fact that Arabic is their mother tongue as a main reason. they could be wrong, of course.
quote:
I mean using the 3 things you list: Race, language and religion, england would have the same culture as US...ask any american or enlgishman if they share the same culture and after maybe laughing/chuckling, they'll tell you they don't |
I;m getting the distinct impression that nobody reads anything i post
I'm talking about Ethnicity not Culture - it's on a different thread now.
By the way it was YOU who listed Religion as a definition of ethnicity, not me.
quote:
Laguage is a by-product because it always (except in forced situations) follows cultural splits or absorbtions. |
I'm not sure Language always follows.., sometimes it leads: the dialect arises within a community for cultural reasons and a divergence of people can arise. It's not always a by-product of relocating some people.
I'm differentiating between Cutlure and Ethnicity, see the other thread.
I think when you talk about language as a "by-product"
you're on about colonial type scenarios, where one branch of people is divided geographically, and subsequently evolves their own
accent->dialect->language.
Dialects can evolve without necessarily having people being separated by significant geographical barriers or distances. Contact with alien languages FE. In England the english dialect of the Scottish lowlands is a direct descendent of the English of a different tribe which existed alongside the Angles and Saxons who evolved into the English, there is never been a geographical gulf between them, or lack of interaction, yet they are still after over 1000 years two distinct dialects of the same language. But returning to my point, language is a major defining factor of an ethnicity: a people splitting into 2 tribes can start off having only the "nationaism" distinction, and perhaps a accent or L1 linguistic difference to make them split into two named tribes, they can then evolve as separate EGs defined by their sense of separate tribal identity (natioalism), and perhaps land connection to a locality where they have lived for a while, and some degree of linguistic difference. I agree that differing racial traits are not essential, nor religion. The Nat. LC, and L factors do seem to me to be the most important to make a distinction between ethnicities, though I concede some of the other "Cultural" things CAN also form part of that, but I don't seethat they're any more essential than racial difference.
quote:
Both have the same language (the variations are within the allowed variance paramaters to at most be called sub-language) and finally they are bothas far as who makes up the real culture of the same stock or Spanish origin, non-moorish chiristan people. |
Mexicans are mostly of mixed race are they not? and plenty of native amerindian peoples still exist.
Their language has become an "L1/L2" using the proposed language scale - am accent approaching becoming a dialect.
Race and Language, Land Connection and Nationality are the biggest factors there - see the other thread.
quote:
Or what makes Rural japan different from someplace like Kyoto or Tokyo? Can't say its race...Japan is 98% "pure" in that for long enough their generations are all japanese born. Its not language or religion...the Meiji Restoration saw fit to that as did the American occupation to the latter. But there is a differance based on where you live |
Japanese is a mixed race ethnicity (Ainu, Korean, Malayo-Polynesian speakers...), the northern half of the country (excluding Ryukyu Is, Sapporo and surrounds) have different origins to the south - evidenced by skull analysis. The difference is less apparent now as a lot of mixing has gone on. But often you'll find southern Japs in Kyushu, Shikoku and the south-west of Honshu tend to be fairer skinned (akin to Koreans) than those from Tohoku.
I don't understand the point though.
the "other thread" I mentioned:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...302#post2835302
Last edited by yellowdaddy on 23-03-2004 at 17:17
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Lord God Jinnai
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St. Louis
Sep 1999
time: 23:15
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quote:
But returning to my point, language is a major defining factor of an ethnicity: a people splitting into 2 tribes can start off having only the "nationaism" distinction, and perhaps a accent or L1 linguistic difference to make them split into two named tribes, they can then evolve as separate EGs defined by their sense of separate tribal identity (natioalism), and perhaps land connection to a locality where they have lived for a while, and some degree of linguistic difference. I agree that differing racial traits are not essential, nor religion. The Nat. LC, and L factors do seem to me to be the most important to make a distinction between ethnicities, though I concede some of the other "Cultural" things CAN also form part of that, but I don't seethat they're any more essential than racial difference. |
But does it nessarily? It can happen, but it can also and is more likely that the seperatiion of the language will be minor impediment if geographic locations allow them to keep in contact, thus geogrpahy plays more of a role than language.
quote:
Japanese is a mixed race ethnicity (Ainu, Korean, Malayo-Polynesian speakers...), the northern half of the country (excluding Ryukyu Is, Sapporo and surrounds) have different origins to the south - evidenced by skull analysis. The difference is less apparent now as a lot of mixing has gone on. But often you'll find southern Japs in Kyushu, Shikoku and the south-west of Honshu tend to be fairer skinned (akin to Koreans) than those from Tohoku. |
Yes, everyone is a mixed heritage, however, after some time people of different backgrounds can tend to collase into 1 group though either common ideals or by force. I will admit that in the northern provinves where the Ainu people live they'd still qualify as a distinct cultural minority, but the rest of the area has been erased in so far as background/heritage idenfity to be unimportant. What i meant by that statment is that reguardless of the pevious backgrounds in past generations there would by the standard of absorbtion, both natural and forced, be 1 japanese culture under that system, except for the Ainu and post-war influx. What i am saying here is that geographical location is also a key factor, moreso than race on par with with what you consider language should be.
AS to my first parts, i do have to admit some of my stuff was somewhat emotional, but it has been a pattern you cannot deny that theories developed in the early days, reguardless of how well the science was, require more evidence to disprove than those theories originally required to prove. Not all mind you, but important key ones have.
And my point about the online resources was to point out that most of the sites that would "support" my idea i do not find credible either for the same reasons. I just don't find for eastern part of the world the dates listed very credible because most scientist refuse to budge from their ideas without substanial proof, more than is needed. And yes, there are in some cases egoes on both sides.
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14-03-2004 23:05
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