- #36
Aquamarine
- 160
- 4
Regarding Sweden:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040425-102740-9436r.htm
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040425-102740-9436r.htm
‘No need to look into future: just look around at courageous efforts such as those taking place in Finland. The Finns have quietly established themselves as the first true information society, with one website per person, Internet access in 100 per cent of schools, a computer literacy campaign for adults, the largest diffusion of computer power and mobile telephony in the world, and a globally competitive information technology industry, spearheaded by Nokia. At the same time they have kept in place, with some fine-tuning, the welfare state.’ (Castells 2000, 72)
Thank you very much! I will.hypnagogue said:I stitched things up for you, Joel. Enjoy!
True.Both Europe and China have relatively high IQs. However, the standard deviation of IQ in Europe is higher, producing more geniuses, and hence inventions.
Aquamarine said:The crucial difference is the lack of competition between states in China and Japan which both had essentially no competition from other states. The intelligent ruling class in China could forbid technology that would have been good for the population as a whole but negative for themselves temporarily.
In the Europe the ruling class was divided. If one the states adapted new technology their ruling class gained at the expense of the ruling class in other countries. And this gain was often enough to more than offset the threat to local ruling class from the technology itself.
Joel said:I can agree with your summary in general, but I have a counter argument to this above quote.
If I remember my history correctly, USA found it self in a somewhat similar situation after their independence. In order to separate it self from the 'old continent' and build a national identity, USA isolated it self from the rest of the world. And once the European colonies had been abolished, USA had no notable competition in North America, just like China in east Asia. Yet, USA became industrialized sometime after Europe. Yes, unlike China, USA had a lot of immigration in the 1800, but still, I have understood that USA became industrialized without regional competition. So, why was it such a big obstacle for the Chinese if not for the Americans?
The US had the great fortune to inherit much of its legal and technological system from England. And England had been in competition with other countries in Europe for several hundred years. A the time of US independence the industrial (capitalistic) revolution was already quite advanced in England. Major changes in the legal system, property laws, agriculture and technology was already in place. The steam engine had been incrementally improved for at least a century before the US become independent.Joel said:I can agree with your summary in general, but I have a counter argument to this above quote.
If I remember my history correctly, USA found it self in a somewhat similar situation after their independence. In order to separate it self from the 'old continent' and build a national identity, USA isolated it self from the rest of the world. And once the European colonies had been abolished, USA had no notable competition in North America, just like China in east Asia. Yet, USA became industrialized sometime after Europe. Yes, unlike China, USA had a lot of immigration in the 1800, but still, I have understood that USA became industrialized without regional competition. So, why was it such a big obstacle for the Chinese if not for the Americans?
chound said:You are definitely wrong. Who invented '0'. You say "book", who invented the printing machine? Guttenberg stole(pardon me) it from Chineese. The art of plastic surgery was known first in India. The English stole the concept and introduced it to world. Gun powder, compass were not Uropean inventions. There are many medicine systems in India that are far better than Allopathy.
Yoga was developed not in Europe. Architectural marvels like the golconda fort where if u clap in the bottm of the hill. You can hear it in the King's Durbar.
The reason why Uropean scientists are famous is becoz, Urope ruled the world for a few centuries. So Uropean ideas are more profound and accepted.
- The United States adopted ancient Indian catamaran-making technology to construct fast ships which were used with dramatic effect in the Iraq war. Among the equipment the Americans used to win the Iraq war were 100-feet catamaran ships to ferry tanks and ammunition from Qatar to Kuwait. The ships, built with technology adapted from ancient Tamil methods to make catamarans, can travel over 2,500 kms in less than 48 hours, twice the speed of the regular cargo ships, and carry enough equipment to support about 5,000 soldiers. Having a shallow draft, the boats can unload in rudimentary ports, allowing troops to land closer to the fight.
- In 1895, eight years before the Wright brothers flew their first plane, Shivkar Bapuji Talpade and his wife gave a thrilling demonstration flight on the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai. Mr. Talpade, an erudite Sanskrit scholar, constructed his aeroplane named 'Marutsakha' based on the description of Vimanas available in the Vedas.
-The theory of the Ion Engine has been credited to Robert Goddard, long recognized as the father of Liquid-fuel Rocketry. It is claimed that in 1906, long before Goddard launched his first modern rocket, his imagination had conceived the idea of an Ion rocket. However, Shivkar Bapuji Talpade used an Ion Engine to take his plane to a height of 1500 ft. in 1895, many years before Goddard.
- A glass-like material which cannot be detected by radar has been developed by Prof Dongre, a research scholar of Benaras Hindu University, based on technology found in an ancient Sanskrit text, Vaimanika Shastra. A plane coated with this unique material cannot be detected using radar.
- Indian astronomer, Brahmagupta, estimated in the 7th century that the circumference of the Earth was 5000 yojanas. A yojana is around 7.2 kms. Calculating on this basis we see that the estimate of 36,000 kms as the Earth's circumference comes quite close to the actual circumference known today.
- Indian astronomer, Aryabhatta was the first to have propounded the theory that the Earth was a sphere in the 5th century.
- Chess originated in India. It was known to Indians as Chaturnaga. It was taken to Persia in the sixth century where it came to be known as Chatrang, which according to the Arabic phonetic system became Shatranj.
- Baudhayana gave the 'Pythagoras theorem' centuries before the Greeks in 800 BC.
- USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the world scientific community that the pioneer of wireless communication was Prof. Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
Integral said:Whats the point of talking IQ? How pointless can you get. Frankly IMHO anyone how argues around IQ shows a serious lack of IQ.
I cannot remember the reference but one explanation of the state of technology in China goes like this.
For centuries they were the cultural and knowledge center of their known world. They became accustomed to being the source of information and civilization. For them to accept input from the "outside" would have meant listening to and learning from barbarians (ie the rest of the world) This simply went against their culture. Even as the Europeans attempted to bring them technology they turned their back. An example was at some point in the late 1800s the English, without proper permission, built a railroad back into some remote resource regions. When the Chinese govnt. discovered the illegal railroad. They did not do as any "normal" European nation would have done. That is to say, "thank you for the railroad, now get out, it is ours". They destroyed it!
The Japanese on the other hand had always lived in the shadow of the Chinese, they were accustomed to accepting imported technology, for centuries it was Chinese technology, when Europeans showed up, they were open to what they had to offer.