BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Because of legal and population growth.
Pocket goto answer.
Provide everyone an ID and I'm all for it.
As long as you continue to make them scapegoats, you'll never have a chance.
US Politics III
- Thread starter DaveC
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
- Status
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Can you define what you mean by everyone? Do you mean all US citizens of legal voting age? If so, I agree. If not, who else would you include?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
We agree.
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Gibbon still has a place at the table of historians...(because of his methodology)
I'm open to reading some updated (non PC) material that covers Europe from the time period of Late Rome to the Middle Ages. Do you have any suggestions?
What I respect most about these gentlemen (aside from their rhetorical skills and clear thinking) - is their ability to freely state their conclusions without concern for the PC police. If more liberals did this, they would be easier to engage with.
Last edited:
OP
OP
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
L-O-fucking-L.
my history degree and i find your condescending tone while simultaneously pushing wikipedia and the huffington post as a source hilarious.
Last edited:
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Two terms I hope someday never to hear another adult use: 'fake news' and 'politically correct'.
Fake news - I don't agree with you
PC - but I want to be an asshole
Fake news - I don't agree with you
PC - but I want to be an asshole
Obviously both. Nobody who is sane actually thinks that >10 million people are getting deported.
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
L-O-fucking-L.
my history degree and i find your condescending tone while simultaneously pushing wikipedia and the huffington post as a source hilarious.
I posted the articles simply to show you 1) my statements weren't made up, and 2) they are so non-controversial you can find them on a place like Wikipedia.
OP
OP
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
oh my god 
"it's on wikipedia, it must be true"
just stop. you're so out of your depth.
"it's on wikipedia, it must be true"
just stop. you're so out of your depth.
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
oh my god
"it's on wikipedia, it must be true"
just stop. you're so out of your depth.
DaveC,
Your tantrum emojis make these last few posts by you appear rather childish.
You implied that I was making up my own facts - and I am showing you, that at a minimum, I can quickly cite several Wikipedia articles as sources (which may not prove I am right in my conclusions, but it does prove I'm not making up my own facts).
Wikipedia is a valid source for the level of discussion we are engaging in here- in the same we use a dictionary. It is not meant to be in-depth study of any particular subject - just a high-level review of the essential information.
If I were to write a scholarly paper on the subject, then no - Wikipedia does not suffice. If we want to look at basic, agreed upon facts like "who won the 1964 World Series" or "What was the Battle of Tours" - then it's decent enough...and it's more than what you have offered.
[emoji90]
OP
OP
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
i'm laughing because you're looking at this in the most simplistic shallow way possible and from that drawing extraordinary conclusions for the purpose of shoehorning them in to some narrative that is demonstrably wrong.
but if you insist...
what we refer to (and what you're thinking of) as "the byzantine empire" only controlled the middle east for about 200 years after the fall of rome and the western empire. after the rise of islam it controlled a large portion of the balkans and greece, and parts of asia minor and anatolia, but almost nothing outside of that besides antioch and the bottom part of the boot of italy. it spent the rest of its days fighting the sultanate of rum, crusaders, and turks.
take a look at this and tell us again how the empire stayed "more or less intact for over 1000 years":
constantinople itself was sacked by crusaders in 1204 and not retaken by the byzantines for another 50 years. at that point the city was no longer a centre of culture and education and learning, it was drastically depopulated and barely able to defend itself for the next 200 years despite being the single most strategically defensible location on earth.
constantinople was indeed a highly cultured, educated, scientific city for a few hundred years after the fall of western rome. nobody's denying that. the architectural accomplishments in particular of the eastern empire are nothing short of spectacular in the days when the largest thing built west of constantinople between around 450-1000 was this royal tomb:
nor am i trying to say that the byzantine world contributed nothing to the renaissance either. that would be equally stupid. when the crusaders sacked the city many of the documents in the university were taken off to western europe, even though the vast majority were lost when the university was burned to the ground (there's western europe showing off that "philosophical DNA" you seem to think is inherent).
but what is bugging me most about this is your instant rejection of the islamic sciences being the major force in advancing knowledge in the middle ages, as if even the notion is offensive.
the "house of wisdom" was founded by the abbasid caliph in baghdad in the late 700s. he invited scholars from all over the world to come and study there, and hired huge teams of scribes and translators to copy any written material that could be gathered from all corners of the caliphate into arabic. these included greek texts, chinese texts, indian texts, african texts, and very often these translations are the only surviving copy of the original documents that we still have today. these documents were about every scholarly subject you can think of, from alchemy to medicine to mathematics to architecture. they invented calendars, weights and measures, and methods for keeping time and making measurements that we still use today. they invented the number system we use (we still call them "arabic numerals"). they invented the very concept of "zero". without the islamic caliph founding the house of wisdom, there would quite literally be *enormous* gaps in human knowledge that we would either simply not know about anymore or would have had to rediscover from scratch. that's a fact.
wisdom and knowledge were so highly prized by the caliphate that peace treaties after wars won by the caliphate frequently claimed books and scrolls as the victor's spoils of war rather than the usual gold and grain plunder.
the caliph himself made frequent trips to cairo to sponsor and personally take part in the first archaeological excavations of the great pyramids of giza. the west would not begin to approach archaeology in a scientific way for many centuries.
take a look up in the sky tonight and see if you can find the stars altair, deneb, and aldebaran - those stars and dozens of others were first categorized and named by arab astronomers. the milky way galaxy was first postulated to be an enormous nebula of faraway stars by arab scientists in andalusia (spain), even though this couldn't be proven until hundreds of years later when galileo had a telescope powerful enough to observe it and confirm that they were right.
muhammad al-khwarizmi introduced the decimal system into mathematics, invented algebra, more or less invented trigonometry, greatly advanced geography (building off the work of ptolemy) and accurately (for the time) mapped the world on behalf of the caliph. his latinized name (algoritmi) are where the very word "algorithm" comes from. he was a persian and did all his work in baghdad. again, he invented an entirely new field of mathematics - this is an accomplishment on par with isaac newton inventing calculus.
i could go on and on but this post is already getting way too long and i think (hope) that by now i've proven my point.
basically, for you to claim that emphasizing the vitality of the islamic sciences to the subsequent western renaissance is "revisionist/PC garbage" is laughably ignorant and frankly offensive whitewashing.
take a look at this and tell us again how the empire stayed "more or less intact for over 1000 years":
constantinople itself was sacked by crusaders in 1204 and not retaken by the byzantines for another 50 years. at that point the city was no longer a centre of culture and education and learning, it was drastically depopulated and barely able to defend itself for the next 200 years despite being the single most strategically defensible location on earth.
constantinople was indeed a highly cultured, educated, scientific city for a few hundred years after the fall of western rome. nobody's denying that. the architectural accomplishments in particular of the eastern empire are nothing short of spectacular in the days when the largest thing built west of constantinople between around 450-1000 was this royal tomb:
nor am i trying to say that the byzantine world contributed nothing to the renaissance either. that would be equally stupid. when the crusaders sacked the city many of the documents in the university were taken off to western europe, even though the vast majority were lost when the university was burned to the ground (there's western europe showing off that "philosophical DNA" you seem to think is inherent).
but what is bugging me most about this is your instant rejection of the islamic sciences being the major force in advancing knowledge in the middle ages, as if even the notion is offensive.
the "house of wisdom" was founded by the abbasid caliph in baghdad in the late 700s. he invited scholars from all over the world to come and study there, and hired huge teams of scribes and translators to copy any written material that could be gathered from all corners of the caliphate into arabic. these included greek texts, chinese texts, indian texts, african texts, and very often these translations are the only surviving copy of the original documents that we still have today. these documents were about every scholarly subject you can think of, from alchemy to medicine to mathematics to architecture. they invented calendars, weights and measures, and methods for keeping time and making measurements that we still use today. they invented the number system we use (we still call them "arabic numerals"). they invented the very concept of "zero". without the islamic caliph founding the house of wisdom, there would quite literally be *enormous* gaps in human knowledge that we would either simply not know about anymore or would have had to rediscover from scratch. that's a fact.
wisdom and knowledge were so highly prized by the caliphate that peace treaties after wars won by the caliphate frequently claimed books and scrolls as the victor's spoils of war rather than the usual gold and grain plunder.
the caliph himself made frequent trips to cairo to sponsor and personally take part in the first archaeological excavations of the great pyramids of giza. the west would not begin to approach archaeology in a scientific way for many centuries.
take a look up in the sky tonight and see if you can find the stars altair, deneb, and aldebaran - those stars and dozens of others were first categorized and named by arab astronomers. the milky way galaxy was first postulated to be an enormous nebula of faraway stars by arab scientists in andalusia (spain), even though this couldn't be proven until hundreds of years later when galileo had a telescope powerful enough to observe it and confirm that they were right.
muhammad al-khwarizmi introduced the decimal system into mathematics, invented algebra, more or less invented trigonometry, greatly advanced geography (building off the work of ptolemy) and accurately (for the time) mapped the world on behalf of the caliph. his latinized name (algoritmi) are where the very word "algorithm" comes from. he was a persian and did all his work in baghdad. again, he invented an entirely new field of mathematics - this is an accomplishment on par with isaac newton inventing calculus.
i could go on and on but this post is already getting way too long and i think (hope) that by now i've proven my point.
basically, for you to claim that emphasizing the vitality of the islamic sciences to the subsequent western renaissance is "revisionist/PC garbage" is laughably ignorant and frankly offensive whitewashing.
Last edited:
i'm laughing because you're looking at this in the most simplistic shallow way possible and from that drawing extraordinary conclusions for the purpose of shoehorning them in to some narrative that is demonstrably wrong.
but if you insist...
what we refer to (and what you're thinking of) as "the byzantine empire" only controlled the middle east for about 200 years after the fall of rome and the western empire. after the rise of islam it controlled a large portion of the balkans and greece, and parts of asia minor and anatolia, but almost nothing outside of that besides antioch and the bottom part of the boot of italy. it spent the rest of its days fighting the sultanate of rum, crusaders, and turks.
take a look at this and tell us again how the empire stayed "more or less intact for over 1000 years":
constantinople itself was sacked by crusaders in 1204 and not retaken by the byzantines for another 50 years. at that point the city was no longer a centre of culture and education and learning, it was drastically depopulated and barely able to defend itself for the next 200 years despite being the single most strategically defensible location on earth.
constantinople was indeed a highly cultured, educated, scientific city for a few hundred years after the fall of western rome. nobody's denying that. the architectural accomplishments in particular of the eastern empire are nothing short of spectacular in the days when the largest thing built west of constantinople between around 450-1000 was this royal tomb:
nor am i trying to say that the byzantine world contributed nothing to the renaissance either. that would be equally stupid. when the crusaders sacked the city many of the documents in the university were taken off to western europe, even though the vast majority were lost when the university was burned to the ground (there's western europe showing off that "philosophical DNA" you seem to think is inherent).
but what is bugging me most about this is your instant rejection of the islamic sciences being the major force in advancing knowledge in the middle ages, as if even the notion is offensive.
the "house of wisdom" was founded by the abbasid caliph in baghdad in the late 700s. he invited scholars from all over the world to come and study there, and hired huge teams of scribes and translators to copy any written material that could be gathered from all corners of the caliphate into arabic. these included greek texts, chinese texts, indian texts, african texts, and very often these translations are the only surviving copy of the original documents that we still have today. these documents were about every scholarly subject you can think of, from alchemy to medicine to mathematics to architecture. they invented calendars, weights and measures, and methods for keeping time and making measurements that we still use today. they invented the number system we use (we still call them "arabic numerals"). they invented the very concept of "zero". without the islamic caliph founding the house of wisdom, there would quite literally be *enormous* gaps in human knowledge that we would either simply not know about anymore or would have had to rediscover from scratch. that's a fact.
wisdom and knowledge were so highly prized by the caliphate that peace treaties after wars won by the caliphate frequently claimed books and scrolls as the victor's spoils of war rather than the usual gold and grain plunder.
the caliph himself made frequent trips to cairo to sponsor and personally take part in the first archaeological excavations of the great pyramids of giza. the west would not begin to approach archaeology in a scientific way for many centuries.
take a look up in the sky tonight and see if you can find the stars altair, deneb, and aldebaran - those stars and dozens of others were first categorized and named by arab astronomers. the milky way galaxy was first postulated to be an enormous nebula of faraway stars by arab scientists in andalusia (spain), even though this couldn't be proven until hundreds of years later when galileo had a telescope powerful enough to observe it and confirm that they were right.
muhammad al-khwarizmi introduced the decimal system into mathematics, invented algebra, more or less invented trigonometry, greatly advanced geography (building off the work of ptolemy) and accurately (for the time) mapped the world on behalf of the caliph. his latinized name (algoritmi) are where the very word "algorithm" comes from. he was a persian and did all his work in baghdad. again, he invented an entirely new field of mathematics - this is an accomplishment on par with isaac newton inventing calculus.
i could go on and on but this post is already getting way too long and i think (hope) that by now i've proven my point.
basically, for you to claim that emphasizing the vitality of the islamic sciences to the subsequent western renaissance is "revisionist/PC garbage" is laughably ignorant and frankly offensive whitewashing.
Until now I'd never known that the contributions of the Islamic world to mathematics, science, arts, etc had been cast into doubt. Though I suppose I'm not surprised.
Nicely done response, Dave - thanks for taking the time.
corianderstem
Blue Crack Distributor
OP
OP
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
"invented" was the wrong word choice there. you're right that they are originally from india. but al-khwarizmi was the first to use arabic numerals in a mathematical proof, and they were first widely popularized in his book "the compendious book on calculation by completion and balancing" (little known fact, he also inspired u2's song naming algorithm).
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Doubted? No. Overemphasized and exaggerated compared to the collosal achievements of Western Civilization? Yes. Did Europe require Islam to preserve this knowledge? No. These regions were Hellenestic...with some overlapping Persian influence.
And let's not forget most of those "Muslim" achievements came within 100 years of taking over Hellenestic territories...before the fundamentalists eventually won and Greek philosophy and math lost...
And we got off on this tangent because of references to the now cliche and debunked myths of the European Dark Ages...and the downplaying of the influence of Byzantium...
However, his recent response is certainly worthy of this forum...and I love maps.
Last edited:
OP
OP
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
holy sweet fuck. i give up.
you are literally incapable of giving credit for anything to anyone who isn't a white european.
Last edited:
Moonlit_Angel
Blue Crack Addict
Just going to add to the thanks to Dave for his post. Truly, the amount of forethought and insight those ancient civilizations had is remarkable and impressive. I am in awe of their sheer intelligence and inventiveness, and grateful to them for doing what they could to preserve their findings and explorations in the midst of whatever upheaval they were going through, and encouraging and stressing the importance of learning and education among the people.
Also, that royal tomb looks really cool. It's fascinating to see how many structures from that time period are still standing to this day. I'm glad they still exist.
Also, that royal tomb looks really cool. It's fascinating to see how many structures from that time period are still standing to this day. I'm glad they still exist.
OP
OP
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
if you want to visit it it's in ravenna, italy, strangely right next to a giant rail yard. built in the 520s for the gothic king theodoric. it's also notable that the dome and upper level are built in a uniquely gothic style of stoneworking, and not a copy of roman or greek style (though the pedestal is roman style).
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Te...cf8ce5b7c7beec4!8m2!3d44.4250456!4d12.2091687
but it was built less than a century after the fall of rome so i guess the "goths" didn't really do anything and the credit should go to the romans, or some stupid horseshit like that.
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
i'm laughing because you're looking at this in the most simplistic shallow way possible and from that drawing extraordinary conclusions for the purpose of shoehorning them in to some narrative that is demonstrably wrong.
but if you insist...
what we refer to (and what you're thinking of) as "the byzantine empire" only controlled the middle east for about 200 years after the fall of rome and the western empire. after the rise of islam it controlled a large portion of the balkans and greece, and parts of asia minor and anatolia, but almost nothing outside of that besides antioch and the bottom part of the boot of italy. it spent the rest of its days fighting the sultanate of rum, crusaders, and turks.
take a look at this and tell us again how the empire stayed "more or less intact for over 1000 years":
constantinople itself was sacked by crusaders in 1204 and not retaken by the byzantines for another 50 years. at that point the city was no longer a centre of culture and education and learning, it was drastically depopulated and barely able to defend itself for the next 200 years despite being the single most strategically defensible location on earth.
constantinople was indeed a highly cultured, educated, scientific city for a few hundred years after the fall of western rome. nobody's denying that. the architectural accomplishments in particular of the eastern empire are nothing short of spectacular in the days when the largest thing built west of constantinople between around 450-1000 was this royal tomb:
nor am i trying to say that the byzantine world contributed nothing to the renaissance either. that would be equally stupid. when the crusaders sacked the city many of the documents in the university were taken off to western europe, even though the vast majority were lost when the university was burned to the ground (there's western europe showing off that "philosophical DNA" you seem to think is inherent).
but what is bugging me most about this is your instant rejection of the islamic sciences being the major force in advancing knowledge in the middle ages, as if even the notion is offensive.
the "house of wisdom" was founded by the abbasid caliph in baghdad in the late 700s. he invited scholars from all over the world to come and study there, and hired huge teams of scribes and translators to copy any written material that could be gathered from all corners of the caliphate into arabic. these included greek texts, chinese texts, indian texts, african texts, and very often these translations are the only surviving copy of the original documents that we still have today. these documents were about every scholarly subject you can think of, from alchemy to medicine to mathematics to architecture. they invented calendars, weights and measures, and methods for keeping time and making measurements that we still use today. they invented the number system we use (we still call them "arabic numerals"). they invented the very concept of "zero". without the islamic caliph founding the house of wisdom, there would quite literally be *enormous* gaps in human knowledge that we would either simply not know about anymore or would have had to rediscover from scratch. that's a fact.
wisdom and knowledge were so highly prized by the caliphate that peace treaties after wars won by the caliphate frequently claimed books and scrolls as the victor's spoils of war rather than the usual gold and grain plunder.
the caliph himself made frequent trips to cairo to sponsor and personally take part in the first archaeological excavations of the great pyramids of giza. the west would not begin to approach archaeology in a scientific way for many centuries.
take a look up in the sky tonight and see if you can find the stars altair, deneb, and aldebaran - those stars and dozens of others were first categorized and named by arab astronomers. the milky way galaxy was first postulated to be an enormous nebula of faraway stars by arab scientists in andalusia (spain), even though this couldn't be proven until hundreds of years later when galileo had a telescope powerful enough to observe it and confirm that they were right.
muhammad al-khwarizmi introduced the decimal system into mathematics, invented algebra, more or less invented trigonometry, greatly advanced geography (building off the work of ptolemy) and accurately (for the time) mapped the world on behalf of the caliph. his latinized name (algoritmi) are where the very word "algorithm" comes from. he was a persian and did all his work in baghdad. again, he invented an entirely new field of mathematics - this is an accomplishment on par with isaac newton inventing calculus.
i could go on and on but this post is already getting way too long and i think (hope) that by now i've proven my point.
basically, for you to claim that emphasizing the vitality of the islamic sciences to the subsequent western renaissance is "revisionist/PC garbage" is laughably ignorant and frankly offensive whitewashing.
DaveC,
Nicely done. Thank you for taking the time (and I love maps!) I hope to spend more time on your post this evening. Until then - I did want to you know your reply is very much appreciated.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
You are insufferable and hands down the second most intellectually dishonest poster we've had in this forum.
If you're not having issues comprehending a person's post, you're twisting it to say something you want them to say. When you're not doing that, revision is your last ditch effort.
If this is the only way to hold your worldview, then your worldview is shit.
I've watched you lie, accuse me of supporting slavery, accuse others of genetic superiority, deny, and be completely intellectually dishonest every chance you could.
You will try and play conservative victim, but the truth is; you are neither.
Last edited:
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Well...at least we agree on Voter ID...
Why does this argument have to be an either/or proposition? Don't the contributions of both Western civilization and Eastern thinkers have merit? It seems like some on this forum are so insistent in their defense of non-Western thought that it's become a sort of sledgehammer issue. Certainly these societies made enormous contributions, but it doesn't take anything away from the likes of Rousseau, Locke, Einstein, etc. I personally think Bono's defense of American exceptionalism has a great deal of merit. No, we're probably not the easiest or best country to live in in regards to standard of living, but a lot of that has to do with the American taxpayer's burden of keeping up a strong military.
Aeon, my background is white, American and female. I'm pretty mixed in terms of ethnic background--Scandinavian, Eastern and Southern European. I was raised in a lackadaisical Catholic tradition and have tried to become a better Catholic as an adult, lol. I have family members who live in the middle East by choice--Saudi Arabia and Qatar--and have done so for decades, so I keep up with world events quite well, or at least as best as I can. I'm fairly moderate politically but lean Democrat because I want to see lower and middle class people have a chance to improve their lot. But I do find common ground with lots of moderate folks and don't mind some Republicans, such as John McCain. I am very distrustful of extremists of all stripes. I don't find much of merit in the ideology of S. Bannon for example, but I probably could have lived with Jeb Bush, although I wouldn't have voted for him.
Aeon, my background is white, American and female. I'm pretty mixed in terms of ethnic background--Scandinavian, Eastern and Southern European. I was raised in a lackadaisical Catholic tradition and have tried to become a better Catholic as an adult, lol. I have family members who live in the middle East by choice--Saudi Arabia and Qatar--and have done so for decades, so I keep up with world events quite well, or at least as best as I can. I'm fairly moderate politically but lean Democrat because I want to see lower and middle class people have a chance to improve their lot. But I do find common ground with lots of moderate folks and don't mind some Republicans, such as John McCain. I am very distrustful of extremists of all stripes. I don't find much of merit in the ideology of S. Bannon for example, but I probably could have lived with Jeb Bush, although I wouldn't have voted for him.
Bluer White
New Yorker
AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
All excellent points.
I was certainly picking up the Catholic "vibe"
Very interesting background. Thank you for sharing! We probably don't differ too much on our world view..but I must concede, I am sort of liking Bannon's 60 minute interview...
OP
OP
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
why would the works of medieval islamic scholars take anything away from enlightenment philosophers and 20th century theoretical physicists?
btw, einstein probably wouldn't have gotten very far without algebra...just sayin'
Vlad n U 2
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2008
- Messages
- 28,386
Why do you think American exceptionalism has any merit?
- Status
