26-11-2002 15:37									#61
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How anyone can be so sure that the "superior" math skills of Indians (do they really have them on a general level?) are related to race instead of culture will remain a mystery to me. What enables you to rule out culture? Indians are no homogenous race btw., but the subcontinent is rather composed by quite a number of races ranging from "aryan" to people who are most closely related to Australian aboriginees...

How the buildiing of the colosseum is a proof for whatever (cultural or racial or climatic) superiority of the Romans is also very mysterious to me, I can find similar achievements elsewhere on this world. Moreover the construction of a "representative building" does exactly tell me what about the superiority of a Roman peasant in comparison to a Ghanese peasant? Couldn't such achievements be better explained by, say, a better educational system for the elites which developed because of some specific historical situation and is also a cultural thing?


And finally, I don't like people who try to tell me that I shall shut up and not state my opinion that racism is nothing but stupid blaming me to "tell people what they shall think". Racism is a primitive theory which tries to explain complex problems with a simple solution that does not allow scientific dispute. Whenever there is some difference between peoples - blame it on race, end of argument. This opinion was immune to be verified or falsified as there's no way to evaluate it - thus it is no scientific opinion according to common scientific theory.
Nowadays, we'd have the chance by genetics to evaluate racial theories, yet no link between intelligence etc. and races could be established. Until then, the theory bares every foundation and is an anthropophobic and insulting belief which should not be accepted.

	26-11-2002 15:46									#62
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Oh for ****s sake, Indians are recruited as computer experts because they are well educated and are cheaper, they are not inherently better or worse at maths, computing, sewing, washing up or paintballing

	26-11-2002 23:20									#63
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quit talking about the stupid math. i know smart people that fails completely in math because its damn boring.

to be rude back at those who say the asians are smarter than us.

how come we got the better jobs?

how come we got better salaries?

why are western states superior to asian ones?

think of these questions and we'll see who's the smarter ones.

	26-11-2002 23:35									#64
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quote: It helps to be big, too.

It's not the size that matters; it's how you use it.

quote: will have no dought embedded themselves in the brains of future generations.

Do you understand how evolution works? Again, technological proficiency isn't a selective agent in human civilization.

quote: quit talking about the stupid math. i know smart people that fails completely in math because its damn boring.

Nah, those people don't have any taste.

	27-11-2002 00:24									#65
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First, i do think climate does have something to do with it:

Where were rabbits most successful? In Australia. Why?, cause they were new to the area and there were no natural limits to them. People are from Africa, which means that the antural environment has brought about a greater equilibrium for mankind (with disease) in those areas mankind has inhabited from the start than those that man moved into relatively recently.

The new colonialism of the 19th century also had much to do with it: Colonialism in Africa was fundamentally different from that in America, since inhabitants of Africa were better able to cope with disease than Europeans, unlike native Americans, who, by being divorcde form the Afro-Eurasian disease chain were utterly decimated by plagues. So Europeans were, in most parts of africa, minus the south and a few places in the center, were rare sights. They rules form distant capitals, and invested capital in ways that did not foster internal development, and created burocracies desinged to feed a single central place than benefit the whole, since Europeans could not live in the whole. So when the colonial powers left suddenly, you had new unprepered governments left to rule still backward areas now infusded with nationalist and marxist political theories. Chaso then insues.

	27-11-2002 00:42									#66
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Those are minor factors at best, considering the fact that great empires existed in the Africa past. Also don't forget the Maya and Aztec civilisations. Central and South America were in much of the same situation as well.

There have been empires, but they have never been as great or advanced as those in Eurasia, because their growth was limited due to the several environmental factors I mentioned before.

	27-11-2002 00:43									#67
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quote: Oh for ****s sake, Indians are recruited as computer experts because they are well educated and are cheaper, they are not inherently better or worse at maths, computing, sewing, washing up or paintballing

Not only that but in India (and Pakistan) there are two MAIN paths to success: Engineering or Medicine. Children are pushed towards those two paths, so the best and brightest end up in one of those fields instead of being in, say, the liberal arts. And thus well educated Indians end up going into Computer Engineering at a higher percentage than well educated Americans.

	27-11-2002 00:50									#68
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I think that the changes in climate created the raise in the importance of europe, and the relative decline of africa. A big chunk of what is now Sahara was covered by forests only 30000 years ago!

a little correction:
Egypt, Carthage, and the moors were african empires by geography only, and are not 'black' by heritage. I could point Rhodesia as a great african civilization as well.

	27-11-2002 01:03									#69
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Will someone please answer my question?

	27-11-2002 02:18									#70
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quote: Originally posted by Viking Berserk quit talking about the stupid math. i know smart people that fails completely in math because its damn boring. to be rude back at those who say the asians are smarter than us. how come we got the better jobs? how come we got better salaries? why are western states superior to asian ones? think of these questions and we'll see who's the smarter ones.

Ahem.... Asia DID lead the world in pretty much everything for most of human history.


Saras:
Actually, if colonialism didn't happen, Africa would have to follow the "old path" to civilization, the one Europe and Asia took, taking them to spaceflight in, say, 4500 AD. So they would be worse off.

	27-11-2002 02:23									#71
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quote: Will someone please answer my question?

Well colonialism of some form was pretty much inevitable. It was the form that was destructive, namely the setting up of a very hierarchical system what was then decapitated at independence due to the complete withdrawl of the apex of the hierarchical pyramid. Of course there's variations, like ex-British colonies tending to do better than ex-Spanish colonies since the French tended to be more hands-on (there were far more French bureaucrats in Indochina then in the far more populous British India).