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The edge of civilization—a reflection on the historical position of the Chinese and Xia civilization and the progress of human civilization
Author: Bai TongdongBaocai Sweetheart Network
Source: The author authorized the Confucian Network, original article “China href=”https://twpinkhoney.net/”>Politics ScienceEditor’s Third Edition in 2021
Author’s Note: This article was first written four or five years ago due to a manuscript. After several twists and turns, it has also been revised in a (semi) academic article. This is not my professional research article, it can only be said to be an article written by a thought lover to other thought lovers. But it is indeed the crystallization of some of my cross-border thinking in the past few years. It was officially published in the third album of “Chinese Politics” in 2021 (it was not officially released in 2022 in fact). Thank you for your support from the Chinese Politics School and for the first publication of the “Historical Politics School”.
Abstract: The condition for the progress of human civilization is sufficient transportation between a large number of “calving people”. After humans entered the Neolithic era and developed agriculture, which could support the city’s civilization development’s ambition and load, the next step of the advancement requires four inventions of text, copper, (transformed) horses, wheels/cars. They were first developed in the late middle period of human civilization and the two rivers of the storm, and Egyptian civilization. China, which is adjacent to the civilized world, has come from behind, but America and other civilizations outside this world have never entered this stage before suffering from the East. The Chinese civilization’s edge, relatively isolated and unique position has also allowed the Chinese and Xia civilization to continue for a long time, making China an exporter of civilization for a long time. It may not be as rich as the Mediterranean civilization, but it also has its own unique aspects and leading locations. In the future of profound communication with the Mediterranean civilization, we should neither be arrogant nor be self-deprecating. We should assess the gains of different civilizations from a broader perspective and engage in bloodless competition under the conditions of openness. This will enable the continuous development of Chinese and even human civilizations.
1. Conditions for the development of human civilization: people, many people, many people who are in contact and transportation with each other
American scholar Jared Diamond asked him why the East obeyed New Zealand (as well as America and Australia) instead of going against it (Diamond 1999, 13-1Cover the message board5)? Under the stimulation of this problem, he wrote “Gun, Bacteria, The book “Steel” is a picture to answer this question (hereinafter referred to as “The Gun”). It is obvious that human beings are the most important. However, this is not to say that many people can do it, because the progress, development, and even the maintenance of human civilization require a large number of talents to do it. In “The Gun”, Dai wrote a very interesting example (ibid., 312-13) Tasmania is an island south of Australia. When Oriental colonists “discovered” it, there were 4,000 residential residents on the island, and their careers were extremely primitive. As islands, there was no technology or anything for fishing. However, archaeological discoveries have found that people who live on this island had these techniques and things (such as fish pads). This means that the number of people of this level of life is as high as thousands of people. The simple technology of fish mattress cannot be maintained.
So, how did the predecessors of this island have these things? It turns out that before the end of the last ice age, this island was connected to the Australian foreign country, which was relatively more abundant, and these things were brought there. But later the glaciers melted and the sea water rose, hindering the island from the Australian foreign country. Contact. The remaining thousands of lives on the island, the simple things like fish mattresses that are brought cannot be inherited and maintained, let alone developed. We often see a population of only a hundred or a thousand levels in anti-dystopia movies about the future world, using cars and guns, and even more complicated technologies. From the experience of Tasmanian natives, we It can be seen that if the disaster-stricken world has lasted for several times, this description is an absolutely incapable job and will only appear in the movies of Hollywood. Today’s human civilization requires a large number of people (that should be tens of millions, and even hundreds of millions of lives) to maintain it.
But if it only seems that there are many people, but they are separated from each other, Such groups are still practically small and small, and cannot develop their civilization through transportation, propaganda, and competition in the future. (To be honest, the “progress” and “development” applied in this article are both neutral terms, referring to the fact that things are repelled from their original and “natural” states and become complicated. As for whether this kind of recurrence is good or bad for humans, this article will not deal with it.) Moreover, these people need to be decapitated from the pressure of preservation, that is, if “calving people”. These two requests (traffic and calculating) are met through the appearance of the city. This is because compared with hunter-gathering communities and farmed villages, the establishment of the city means excess wealth beyond life, which makes the living part of the body be decapitated from the preservation activities of the late humans that are almost animalistic., and the crowd is more concentrated and the transportation is convenient. These conditions are the serious development and development of human civilization. The brilliant architecture, poetry and literature, technological progress, military development, etc. are often related to the large city Xiexun with the beauty of air, winning in the selection competitions, and singing in the city. Or maybe a developed civilization represents it often in its large cities, not in its villages, or its grassland tribes (if it includes grassland belts). The changes in human agriculture and nomadic careers have not been significant until the industrialized society for nearly two hundred years. Of course, the conditions that emerged in the earliest human cities happened to be the development of agricultural industry after the hunter-gathering career, and production was surplus. In other words, although agriculture and rural areas are not representatives of civilized development, they are the main foundation for the rapid development of human civilization. However, agriculture has developed independently or perhaps under the initiation of other civilizations in almost all regions, and is shared by humans in various regions, unlike the “four-inventions” that play a key role in human development discussed in my opinion, which only appears in some regions.
For the late humans, the traffic between groups depends on foot and on the human beings’ own migration. Speaking of the expansion and spread of humans (and other organisms, including bacteria), similar outlines are trapped here. The conditions for providing relatively convenient conditions for temperature, climate and environment. At this point, the European continent is more generous than other continents, because the European continent (including the northern end of Africa) has the longest convenient transmission belt, from the current major parts of Europe, northern Africa, the two rivers, Iran, and Central Asia, and to the southern part of China tomorrow. Human inventions can be used to transmit, compete and develop relatively agilely, thus benefiting from the progress of civilization in the European continent. Even diseases can be transmitted more conveniently with this transmission, allowing bacteria to evolve, leading to the emergence of various germs of storm. After spending a large number of people who died under various plagues, Europeans have brought a lot of people who are already exempt from the epidemic, but it is a death-prone bacteria for people outside this transmission belt. In fact, most of the Native Americans were killed by bacteria brought by European colonists, rather than gunfire. This is also a discussion of why European civilization has subdued America and the American and Western civilizations in the subject of the “Gun” book, “Bacteria”.
In addition to having the longest propagation advantage in terms of strength and environment, another strong earthly advantage in Europe is the European Grassland. It is a relatively flat and large channel from today’s Hungary to the continents of Mongolia and China. Nomadic peace and life on itThe close race has become the main carrier of technical transportation between Europe and Asia. Of course, this kind of connection requires a major transportation thing, namely, horses. Although it was native to the Americas, it was first transformed and occurred on the European grasslands. Here we should also see the development of human civilization. In