RedRalph
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2007
- Messages
- 20,708
Odd - I know for a fact it's pronounced as written in the UK... ah well, who cares. the man's a dickhead.
Niall Ferguson
- Thread starter RedRalph
- Start date
- Status
Odd - I know for a fact it's pronounced as written in the UK... ah well, who cares. the man's a dickhead.
Zardnaar
Deity
I'm about to read the How Britian mad ethe Modern World book. IS there anything to look out for ir is it just the overall tone of the book some people don't like?
I've never heard it pronounced other than "Neil" or imagined any other pronunciation. I did go to one of his lectures, and while it was a long time ago, it must have been pronounced that way then or I'd wouldn't have pronounced it that way in my head ever since.
Not that I spend a lot of time pronouncing Niall Ferguson's name in my head. I want to make that clear.
As did I once upon a time (though his name was spelt Nyall) hence my confusion.
Plotinus' dark secret has been revealed. Now we all know you pronounce Niall Ferguson's in your head constantly. Probably alone in your home with the lights low.
Fayadi
Technocrat
If British Empire is bad then there is no empire that is good. Every empire has history of genocide of some sort.
It is unscientific to judge thing without assessing how it stands on relative-terms.
British Empire certainly has its flaws but its fruits by objective measures certainly outweighs the bad.
The founding of Industrial Revolution and its promotion of global trade and its financial system are certainly good things. For all fairness and purposes, before the ascent of British superpower, yes a number of European powers are already doing inter-continental trade but British helped bring about global trading to a new level. Before 1750, GDP per capita of the world has mostly been stagnant. There are many factors that contributed to the meteoric rise of economic growth for the past 250 years. British Empire plays an important role in the creation of a global system that promotes growth. It also implanted civil administration system in its colonies. Prosperous economies like United States, Hong Kong and Singapore are off-springs of the British Empire.
If you are against industrialisation, if you are against economic-growth, if you are against rationalism then you would probably think British Empire is bad.
But if scientific progress and economic progress are not important metric of what is good and what is bad, then there is absolutely nothing to measure how we should measure progress. Life would be so meaningless in the views of these nihilist. Frankly, I think the world is better without nihilist thinking. Mankind need a sense of direction of how human existence and energies should be directed and nothing would be better than the expansion of economic and scientific level.
Mankind can land on the moon, can use the internet and has access to countless modern-necessities because of the belief of economic and scientific progress. Here is a thought, economic and scientific progress do make humans survive better. Humans can survive random natural events better with better economic and scientific condition. Heck, even 50 years ago mankind has zero-chance to survive a meteor-armageddon scenario that wiped out the Dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Right now, we probably have some chance to survive with the ability to nuke the meteor.
It is unscientific to judge thing without assessing how it stands on relative-terms.
British Empire certainly has its flaws but its fruits by objective measures certainly outweighs the bad.
The founding of Industrial Revolution and its promotion of global trade and its financial system are certainly good things. For all fairness and purposes, before the ascent of British superpower, yes a number of European powers are already doing inter-continental trade but British helped bring about global trading to a new level. Before 1750, GDP per capita of the world has mostly been stagnant. There are many factors that contributed to the meteoric rise of economic growth for the past 250 years. British Empire plays an important role in the creation of a global system that promotes growth. It also implanted civil administration system in its colonies. Prosperous economies like United States, Hong Kong and Singapore are off-springs of the British Empire.
If you are against industrialisation, if you are against economic-growth, if you are against rationalism then you would probably think British Empire is bad.
But if scientific progress and economic progress are not important metric of what is good and what is bad, then there is absolutely nothing to measure how we should measure progress. Life would be so meaningless in the views of these nihilist. Frankly, I think the world is better without nihilist thinking. Mankind need a sense of direction of how human existence and energies should be directed and nothing would be better than the expansion of economic and scientific level.
Mankind can land on the moon, can use the internet and has access to countless modern-necessities because of the belief of economic and scientific progress. Here is a thought, economic and scientific progress do make humans survive better. Humans can survive random natural events better with better economic and scientific condition. Heck, even 50 years ago mankind has zero-chance to survive a meteor-armageddon scenario that wiped out the Dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Right now, we probably have some chance to survive with the ability to nuke the meteor.
I don't really think the ends justify the means, though. It's debatable whether economic growth and expanded trade largely predicated on slavery (and general exploitation) is a 'good thing'. Would economic growth and trade have developed without the utilisation of such methods? If so, how it was developed surely represents a rather negative path.
aelf
Ashen One
Fayadi
Technocrat
Slavery is an ugly part of history for any nation that takes part in them. I don't want to defend it. As to your question, yes Industrial Revolution probably would not be financed or would be severely postponed without the gains of slavery. But I do know that globalization and Industrial Revolution gives us the modern world that we have today.
The topic is whether the good outweigh the bad. I do recognize the "badness" of slavery. But the "goodness" of Industrialization and Globalization in which Britain takes an important role in promoting, carry greater net gain to mankind as a whole. Increased wealth and productivity are what that better-fund and better-equip scientific progress.
Of course I would have preferred mankind can advance to where it is today without history of slavery. But, it is just not scientific to say the existence of British Empire is bad and carry negative-net gain to mankind as some here have said.
aelf
Ashen One
Um, there is nothing scientific about this topic. Glad to see you're back to entertain.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
I use a computer. Therefore, I think the British Empire is excused for slavery, genocide and other injustices.
... I'm not seeing it.
... I'm not seeing it.
aelf
Ashen One
In any case, the extremely simplistic view of technological diffusion that is being displayed there seems to run counter even to the most simplistic conventional wisdom of today. It implies that new technologies can only be or are best introduced through invasion and occupation rather than by trade or even aid, which seems incompatible with free market ideals and liberal assumptions about rationality and agency. But, really, what else can we expect but incoherence and contradiction?
"Your civilization is based on the technology of industrialization. Our technology. By using it, your people develop along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of human life. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it."
I also don't see how the prosperity of the US, Singapore, and Hong Kong derives from their former roles as parts of the British Empire. Especially the US and Singapore, which became prosperous only after leaving the British Empire, didn't they?
Zardnaar
Deity
They had the foundations of prosperity laid during the empire though, and Singapore had infrastructure built. USA inherited the colonial economic resources and the schools the Empire built pre 1776.
Actually, the American education system was much more a result of post-independence trends in the first four decades of the nineteenth century. Horace Mann and all that. By midcentury the USA probably had some of the best and most widely available primary school institutions in the world.
Zardnaar
Deity
The point being the USA had schools right fomr the get go including a good chunk of the modern Ivy league colleges. The USA was reasonably literate and economically prosperous by the standards of the day. Technology wise they were on par with the UK, France etc.
aelf
Ashen One
I don't think any self-respecting liberal can look back on the British Empire and say that it was really a good thing because it helped to develop the territories it acquired. And that's because, well, that's simply such an illiberal sentiment.
And I could have sworn that Fayadi was a liberal. It might not be surprising coming from a professed fascist though.
And I could have sworn that Fayadi was a liberal. It might not be surprising coming from a professed fascist though.
ParkCungHee
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2006
- Messages
- 12,921
I'd also add that a good deal of our most prosperous parts were never British owned.
The Ivy League schools weren't that much to talk about in those days. The reason the Ivy league is respected is because of Yale and Harvard, and the reason Yale and Harvard are respected is because of their post-independence development.
- Status
