Which Civ5 civilisation had the biggest impact on history?

I think it is messed up to pick on anybody for their physical appearances. You know who else did that? Hitler.

Evil Americans insult others for their appearances, and does not respect its own peoples. It must be destroyed and replaced with a more equal nation, that being the glorious Democratic People's Republic of Korea

While Americans were still trying to figure out how to SPELL THEIR COUNTRY'S NAME, China was conquering NATIONS.

Sonereal said:

The Chinese didn't need to dominate a world economy when most of that economy already revolved around trading with China.

Secondly, the Mandate of Heaven is just an idea of legitimacy, and the fact that Chinese dynasties often lost the mandate under circumstances often similar to circumstances that led to similar breakdowns of western governments means that there isn't a gigantic difference in the first place.

Or are you saying that China derived legitimacy from a different source than most European governments prior to 1800, namely a higher power?

Thirdly, the United States exists in the first place because the English wanted to trade with China.

It seems like Westernphiles just can't accept that their idea of what constitutes "great impact" is setup to favor Western governments. Ideas are cute, but hard trade and demographic trends are more important and always will be more important than ideas.

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First of all, I`m not a "Westernphile", and I`m not even from a Western country. I also raise my eyebrows when I see those votes to US.

Looks like we are struggling to identify what was the impact and what was the aftermath. From your perspective China's presence was an impact that resulted in the West going crazy in order to trade with it. From my perspective it was the West's, but mostly England's, actions that created the state of affairs we have now, including the euro-centrism and people calling others "Westernphiles".

EDIT: If this will make my point clearer, that's how I handled the poll:

The most impressive civs:

1. China
2. Babylon
3. Egypt

Civs with the most impact:

1. England
2. Rome
3. Greece

Sonereal said:

Thirdly, the United States exists in the first place because the English wanted to trade with China.

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Ok, first off, this is wrong. American colonization was spurred initially by the search for precious minerals, such as gold. Later, it became a supplier of furs, cotton, and tobacco.

Sonereal said:

Secondly, China. Even then, the first century of that three hundred years of rising power was still an unequal relationship between China and the Western colonial powers. The shift wasn't decided until the Opium War.

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So was the Chinese global domination during the centuries of it being a failed state, or the centuries of it being conquered territory of the steppe peoples, like the Mongols, or other various Asian civilizations, like the Koreans?

Sonereal said:

#Murica.

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Bashing a culture while also being influenced by it... irony is hilarious.

Sonereal said:

First of all, what American culture? You mean the one that has only started to take shape since the 1920s, and only began the mass exportation we see today in the last six decades?

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First of all which Chinese culture? I mean, c'mon, I do believe I made a post inquiring about this on page two or something. Was it the Han culture? The Zhuang? The Manchu? Seriously, you're criticizing the ridiculousness of our claims yet you don't see the gaping hole in one of the integral parts of being a dominant culture: having a central, unified base culture.

Sonereal said:

Secondly, Greece isn't a baseli-oh. I get it. You are screwing with me.

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Seriously? Democracy? Philosophy? The idea of the importance of the individual over the need to sacrifice for one's government? Oh, I get it, you're ing with us too! Oh my God, this is so embarrassing, we wore the same outfit to the party. Honestly, it looks better on you, I have to say.

PhilBowles said:

Not true at all - modern states have one thing almost no ancient civilizations have: global impact. Ancient civilizations were highly regionalised - ancient Egypt had effectively no impact outside the Mediterranean, for instance, and it's overrepresented in polls like this for little other reason than French archaeology and British occupation made it better-known than other ancient societies. Without Rome, little of the Greek world would have become known outside its immediate borders and those areas of Asia Alexander reached. Ancient China and India were influential over huge geographical areas by the standards of their time, but their direct impact on the rest of the world was extremely limited and the result of much later export by Arab and European visitors.

EDIT: As stated immediately above this post, societies like China that were the original innovators of many things can claim to be very impressive, as can other early societies like Assyria (why on Earth isn't that in the poll?), and no one would deny that Egypt and Greece are impressive, but as also mentioned in that post, that's not the same as influential. Of course, the question is actually "which is the most impressive?", but for many here (myself included) the answer given has been "which is the most influential?" - hence votes for America. I'd certainly say America is overrated in the poll, but it definitely deserves a high place in the list.

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The thing is, societies nowadays are influential and (some) can have global actions. But they didn't, and won't shape civilization - the english/french/spanish who colonized america and the way of their colonization made them what it is today, wherever america drops its bomb next doesn't shape history more than the barbaric deeds done by the new settlers upon ariving in N/S America.

Scientists? Nikola Tesla was one of, if not the greatest minds of humankind. Serbia changed history forever? I don't think so.

LyricalAssassin said:

Ok, first off, this is wrong. American colonization was spurred initially by the search for precious minerals, such as gold. Later, it became a supplier of furs, cotton, and tobacco.

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I took high school world history. Did you actually finish the book and figure out why they wanted those goods?

So was the Chinese global domination during the centuries of it being a failed state, or the centuries of it being conquered territory of the steppe peoples, like the Mongols, or other various Asian civilizations, like the Koreans?

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Your high school textbook is very plebeian. Very plebeian indeed.

Bashing a culture while also being influenced by it... irony is hilarious.

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i·ro·ny1
ˈīrənē,ˈiərnē/
noun
1.
the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

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First of all which Chinese culture? I mean, c'mon, I do believe I made a post inquiring about this on page two or something. Was it the Han culture? The Zhuang? The Manchu? Seriously, you're criticizing the ridiculousness of our claims yet you don't see the gaping hole in one of the integral parts of being a dominant culture: having a central, unified base culture.

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First of all which American culture? I mean, c'mon. I do believe I made a post inquiring about this on a page two or something. Was it the New England culture? Virginian? Westerner? Seriously, you're criticizing the ridiculousness of our claims yet you don't see the gaping hole in one of the integral parts of being a dominant culture: having a central, unified base culture.

Seriously? Democracy? Philosophy? The idea of the importance of the individual over the need to sacrifice for one's government? Oh, I get it, you're ing with us too! Oh my God, this is so embarrassing, we wore the same outfit to the party. Honestly, it looks better on you, I have to say.

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I am being serious. Believing that democracy and philosophy are more important than trade routes and hard demographic trends is something Westerners are forced to believe in or else they have to admit that Europe is only the center of the map because they made the map a century or so ago.

The only reason why the United States is a democracy is because it is a useful tool to get the proles to not go on strike and leave the country. That is it. There is no other intrinsic value in being a democracy over a proper unitary authortarian state.

Sonereal said:

Several centuries weren't driven by a desire to hold Jerusalem. Monarchs weren't waking up across Europe actively trying to grab Jerusalem.

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The point being that being an objective is not an accomplishment, not to compare the Crusades with the Silk Road. European colonialism was initially prompted by the Portuguese desire to locate Prester John - by your logic Prester John's kingdom was one of the most influential in history. If it's sufficient to have influence that people devote their own efforts to looking for you, it doesn't much matter whether you actually exist. It was no Chinese achievement that Europeans crossed the Atlantic looking for the Orient (not explicitly for China, as the name that stuck to the American natives attests - for much of this period China's existence was very unclear, and the trading point the Europeans knew about was India. So much so that when Portugal got there, the Portuguese were surprised to find that the spices came from islands further east).

Out of six thousand years of civilization.

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What matters is the impact, not the duration - the Maya lasted almost a millennium but few would call them as influential as, say, Rome. The French have lasted about the same, but as noted European global dominance has only been apparent for the past few centuries (and France, one of the oldest states on the continent, was not the leader).

Too bad that Europe has only "dominated" for the last two hundred years.

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The key words in that sentence being "the last". Any discussion of the influence of a society on the world has to define a temporal reference point for the world. Everything in this thread has quite reasonably assumed that the reference point is the modern, European-derived world.

Again. It comes down to India, China, and maybe Egypt and Babylon.

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Babylon may have been less influential than Assyria, and while impressive in terms of its monumental architecture Egypt is hardly a contender. It is itself a Western-centric view that gives such prominence to Egyptian society because it's better-known to Westerners than contemporary ones. And none of these had their golden ages during a period when they were in a position to influence the world as anything more than an objective - and that's a game-changer. Rome only scores highly because the religion it spread came to dominate the planet; as a power in its own right and time it would only score as a regional power along the lines of Byzantium - the same applies to China and India.

Thirdly, the United States exists in the first place because the English wanted to trade with China.

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Not correct at all; by the end of Colombus' own lifetime it was accepted that America was nowhere near China - by the time European settlement began there was no attempt to reach China by going west (the idea of a northwest passage was later revived, but was not an incentive for settlement). Though the first English colony in America was founded by Walter Raleigh, whose interest in the New World generally was inspired by the myth of El Dorado. So, we can add El Dorado to the list of the world's most influential civilisations.

EDIT: Having read a later post, I see that you intended this to indicate a desire to obtain trade goods for China. This too, however, is incorrect - by far the most important resources prompting initial expansion of English settlements in America were furs and cotton, neither of which was destined for Chinese markets but which were harvested for European consumption. England never heavily-exploited the American colonies for mineral wealth.

Sonereal said:

While Americans were still trying to figure out how to SPELL THEIR COUNTRY'S NAME, China was conquering NATIONS.

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Mongols. Koreans. Manchurians. Japanese. British. French. Americans. Etc.

Infiltrator said:

The thing is, societies nowadays are influential and (some) can have global actions. But they didn't, and won't shape civilization - the english/french/spanish who colonized america and the way of their colonization made them what it is today, wherever america drops its bomb next doesn't shape history more than the barbaric deeds done by the new settlers upon ariving in N/S America.

Scientists? Nikola Tesla was one of, if not the greatest minds of humankind. Serbia changed history forever? I don't think so.

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Nikola Tesla, who did most of his work in America. Sounds pretty American to me. Oh, btw, the difference is that an army can't annihilate our entire species in two minutes, a few hydrogen bombs can.

LyricalAssassin said:

Ok, first off, this is wrong. American colonization was spurred initially by the search for precious minerals, such as gold. Later, it became a supplier of furs, cotton, and tobacco.

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Not being American and thus not celebrating it I'm not entierly sure but I do believe that America was discovered by people searching for a route to China

First of all which Chinese culture? I mean, c'mon, I do believe I made a post inquiring about this on page two or something. Was it the Han culture? The Zhuang? The Manchu? Seriously, you're criticizing the ridiculousness of our claims yet you don't see the gaping hole in one of the integral parts of being a dominant culture: having a central, unified base culture.

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I'm pretty sure that this comes down to the real heart of the matter. What do we define as a civilization. Going by the game definition it is reasonable to assume that a civilization is not just a single nation or time. Looking at the real definition of the word Civilization brings to mind ideas like the Greek civilization or the Egyptian civilization a concept that a civilization is an idea of a shared culture throughout several nations and periods of time.
You might as well ask in response to your last question what is Greek culture? Is is Athenian or Spartan or suchlike. Greece was far from unified but was definitely a civilization so this argument falls flat on its face that civilization cannot be influential without being unified.

LyricalAssassin said:

Mongols. Koreans. Manchurians. Japanese. British. French. Americans. Etc.

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I can read Civopedia too.

Remember that time Mongolian culture completly displaced all Chinese culture? Yeah, it happened around the same the British sacked Washington and America adopted Mercantilism in a peace treaty, right?

Nikola Tesla, who did most of his work in America. Sounds pretty American to me. Oh, btw, the difference is that an army can't annihilate our entire species in two minutes, a few hydrogen bombs can.

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I see you subscribe to the Prole Delusion of the Nuclear Bomb.

How very shallow and pedantic of you, my good sir. [tips fedora]

Sonereal said:

While Americans were still trying to figure out how to SPELL THEIR COUNTRY'S NAME, China was conquering NATIONS.

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Korea was influencing actions in the most glorious way so as to lead to the events that meant that the Eternal President was born.

Sagax said:

First of all, I`m not a "Westernphile", and I`m not even from a Western country. I also raise my eyebrows when I see those votes to US.

Looks like we are struggling to identify what was the impact and what was the aftermath. From your perspective China's presence was an impact that resulted in the West going crazy in order to trade with it. From my perspective it was the West's, but mostly England's, actions that created the state of affairs we have now, including the euro-centrism and people calling others "Westernphiles".

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Your perspective is clearly wrong. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has made the biggest impact, and has been countering evil American imperialism since the beginning of time. Great Koreans have ruled China since the beginning of time, and any attempt to say otherwise is an evil lie and american imperialist attempt to rewrite history in their favour. Do not believe them.

LyricalAssassin said:

Ok, first off, this is wrong. American colonization was spurred initially by the search for precious minerals, such as gold. Later, it became a supplier of furs, cotton, and tobacco.

So was the Chinese global domination during the centuries of it being a failed state, or the centuries of it being conquered territory of the steppe peoples, like the Mongols, or other various Asian civilizations, like the Koreans?

First of all which Chinese culture? I mean, c'mon, I do believe I made a post inquiring about this on page two or something. Was it the Han culture? The Zhuang? The Manchu? Seriously, you're criticizing the ridiculousness of our claims yet you don't see the gaping hole in one of the integral parts of being a dominant culture: having a central, unified base culture.

Seriously? Democracy? Philosophy? The idea of the importance of the individual over the need to sacrifice for one's government? Oh, I get it, you're ing with us too! Oh my God, this is so embarrassing, we wore the same outfit to the party. Honestly, it looks better on you, I have to say.

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American colonization was spurred by evil imperialism that is endemic to their evil population.

China was never a ''failed state'', for it has always been glorious and always been lead by glorious Koreans.

All base culture of the world is Korean culture, and there are no base sub-cultures. Therefore, this claim of a ''base culture'' is ridiculous, as it only refers to the culture of the glorious Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Democracy, philosophy, and individualism were created by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and merely show how the shining beacon of glorious joy that is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea organizes it's ideas. Here's an example of a great idea that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea created, the greatest song in the world:


Link to video.

Let morning shine on the silver and gold of this land,

Three thousand leagues packed with natural wealth.

My beautiful fatherland.

The glory of a wise people

Brought up in a culture brilliant

With a history five millennia long.

Let us devote our bodies and minds

To supporting this Korea forever.


The firm will, bonded with truth,

Nest for the spirit of labour,

Embracing the atmosphere of Mount Paektu,

Will go forth to all the world.

The country established by the will of the people,

Breasting the raging waves with soaring strength.

Let us glorify forever this Korea,

Limitlessly rich and strong.

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Sonereal said:

First of all which American culture? I mean, c'mon. I do believe I made a post inquiring about this on a page two or something. Was it the New England culture? Virginian? Westerner? Seriously, you're criticizing the ridiculousness of our claims yet you don't see the gaping hole in one of the integral parts of being a dominant culture: having a central, unified base culture.

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Ok, I have to admit, you did turn that around on me a bit haha. Kudos. But one of the central parts of the American culture is the combination of many different cultures into a society that feeds and reacts off of the different desires of the pieces it is made up of.

Sonereal said:

I am being serious. Believing that democracy and philosophy are more important than trade routes and hard demographic trends is something Westerners are forced to believe in or else they have to admit that Europe is only the center of the map because they made the map a century or so ago.

The only reason why the United States is a democracy is because it is a useful tool to get the proles to not go on strike and leave the country. That is it. There is no other intrinsic value in being a democracy over a proper unitary authortarian state.

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I wasn't saying that these ideas were more important, but they do make up a basis for European culture, which was what you were refuting. Also, the reason why the U.S. is a "Federal Constitutional Republic" is because the New Englanders didn't enjoy being told what to do by a government which they had no influence in. It's a republic because the citizens like being able to change what is wrong with our government, whether it is suppressing the rights of the individual or getting involved in conflicts we don't believe we have a dog in. Now what was that? Was that the sound of the Tienanmen Square protests?

So, no real arguments against American culture being the only truly global culture then?

The Chinese didn't need to dominate a world economy when most of that economy already revolved around trading with China.

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The idea of such a thing as a 'world economy' - and indeed global influence as a whole - is itself a derivative of the European world view. It was by no means historically commonly the case that the powers that became dominant were economically or technologically the strongest - Rome was quite often short of cash, Portugal and Spain became major powers while still rather poor (including relative to the societies they came to destroy or dominate, and those such as Venice and the Ottomans that they outcompeted), England relied on trade with the wealthier Morocco and the Ottomans as it rose to prominence in the Tudor period, etc. etc. As recently as Napoleon, being a 'nation of shopkeepers' was intended as an insult - it was only half a century and an industrial revolution later that shopkeepers (and high technology) came to rule the world.

China was very wealthy at a time when Europe was not, but even seeing that as a measure of Chinese influence is a modern invention coloured by the fact that there was a British Empire - it's not a measure of influence that would have been understood as relevant at the time. Even now, with the resurgence of an economically fragile Russia, the greater political clout of America than the economically larger European Union, and the rise of China while it's still a developing country challenges the notion of a tripartite power relation between geopolitical, economic and technological priority - that's less a novelty than a reversion to a state of affairs that has been the historical norm.

It seems like Westernphiles just can't accept that their idea of what constitutes "great impact" is setup to favor Western governments.

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Of course it is. The concept of having a great impact on the world as a whole has only been possible in the era of globalisation, which was started by and continues to be led by Western powers.

So, no real arguments against American culture being the only truly global culture then?

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Apart from this entire thread. The only truly global culture is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which already permeates everywhere

EDIT:

Portugal and Spain became major powers while still rather poor

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LyricalAssassin said:

Nikola Tesla, who did most of his work in America. Sounds pretty American to me.

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This would be hilarious if it wasn't pathetic.

west india man, you are seriously busting me up. I mean I can't decide if your posts are sarcastic or not, but I do know one thing: I can't stop laughing XD

I don't know what you're talking about, all of my posts are completely serious.

Infiltrator said:

This would be hilarious if it wasn't pathetic.

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He identified himself as an American. But maybe you know better than Tesla himself?

Edit; "On 30 July 1891, at the age of 35, Tesla became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He told many of his companions that he valued the citizenship more than any scientific honors that he had acquired."
From Wikipedia.