Darkpriest667
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2009
- Messages
- 59
As a History major, I'm just going to politely bushwhack your argument on two points:
1) Its not as if everyone started at the same time.
2) The Native Americans were not 'nations' and according to their life philosophy had no need to be more scientific.
In sum, you're right. Population does not IMMEDIATELY mean technologically advanced. There has to be an impetus and a will for improvement - however, population does facilitate research to a great degree, so yes, it does make sense for it to be tied to population.
Im a history major too.. Population does not = technologically advanced
The Chinese had an earlier start than the euros... then they became isolationists.... and even up into the 20th century were not technologically equivalent to their European counterparts... Before Isolationism they were considered one of the most technologically advanced civilizations. I'd argue that communication between different types of societies breeds technological innovation more than raw population.
That was the example you purposely skipped over...
The example of the American Indians.. again.... Aztecs, Incans, these were NATIONS with leadership hierarchies and traditions rooted back at least several thousand years.. They both had a very sound understanding of astronomy. Yet no use for the wheel.. They never developed past the neolithic period yet used gold and silver as precious metals never experimenting with the ability to make bronze or iron.
The League of Peace and Power (also known as the Iroquois Confederacy during the 7 years war or the War for Empire) Would also be considered a NATION even by its own admission as such. The League of Peace and Power still exists TODAY. The Confederacy dissolved eventually.
"The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War"
Now that is a quote from a textbook. I underlined and emphasized the part thats important.
Lets move onto Africa... Universally Recognized in the Scientific Community as the oldest known ORIGINS of man. Abyssinia also known as the Ethiopian Empire dated to 925 B.C. (and possibly earlier) was one of the first empires. Never advanced beyond the stone Age. And In fact up to 1100 A.D. was still considered a stone age civilization.
So the amount of time a society or nation exists and its population are both not factors for technological advancement in any shape way or form. I would say war is the major factor for technological advancement but there are also examples where that doesn't seem to be the case (mainly african nations warring)
A better question for discussion on the subject is... What does breed technological innovation? How should it be implemented in Civ VI? As we can formulate that Population nor Time of existance are major contributing factors in how much a nation or civilization advances technologically.