[ExI] Eurocentric Bias in Human Achievement

[Damien Sullivan]

On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 12:53:36AM -0700, John Grigg wrote:
> What were the major factors that caused such a large share of human
> achievement to originate from the Western/European world?  And allowed
> it to dominate the rest of the planet?  I have read such things as
> multiple national rivalries & wars that inspired competition and
> technological innovation, geographic and cultural diversity that made
> it hard for super empires to monopolize everything as seen so often in
> China (and thereby limit competition), many river systems and rich
> farmlands, a wide variety of pack animals and crop plants, and a
> Christian worldview that involved seeing history/time as moving
> forward instead of simply moving in endless cycles of life and death,
> were at least some of the key advantages of the West.

"at least some" might well be the right idea.  Someone, I forget whom,
suggested that a search for a single explanation is completely
misguided; rather, the European explosion should be seen as a complex
phenomenon easily derailed by entropy.  Basically, everything went right
for (northwestern) Europe, or more right than anywhere else at least.
Exactly what might have been needed, well, that'd be a complex question.

Other factors: the alphabet, which made the printing press that much
more useful; coal deposits in England, making the industrial revolution
more feasible; fast-moving rivers in New England, helping that phase of
the revolution; not getting sacked by the Mongols; Dissenters, a class
of well-educated people outside the mainstream of English society.

One suggestion has been that China was in an efficiency trap, so good at
doing things with human and animal labor that there was no path allowing
the profitable development of industrial machinery.  And consider that
steam engines started life pumping water out of coal mines, an oddly
circular endeavor.  (The coal being initially wanted either for house
heating or for coke for steel production, or both, I think.)  Crappy
steam engine, needing lots of coal, but hey, it's right by the coal
mine!  A fairly specific bootstrap.

-xx- Damien X-)