Maynard Handley wrote:
>[snip]
> >
> > Given the start in technology that China enjoyed at the time, and the power
> > of a highly organised and well administered state with a VERY LARGE (for the
> > time, I believe about 300 million is the estimate!) population, the Chinese
> > empire could EASILY have expanded west and cleaned up, much as the Mongols
> > under the Khans had done a few hundred years earlier.
>> Well that's one theory.
> Another theory is that it was precisely their
> >highly organised and well administered state
> that doomed them, that if one guy at the top said "stop the clocks" it
> happened. Meanwhile European states were engaged in a Darwinian struggle
> for survival and those that were stupid enough to attempt to stop the
> clock were soon eaten up.
Indeed, *ALL* empires have within them the seeds of their own downfall. That
is probably just as well as any power structure becomes corrupt over time
(dare I mention Lobby Groups, production subsidies, tax breaks, snouts in the
trough, pork barrelling, etc.) and need to be swept away. The same can be
said of the evolution of species with the most highly specialised (and
successful within the bounds of their environment) closest to extinction!!!
The collapse is not very pretty to watch, and even worse for the
participants...
However, with regards the MotM question, it is not a matter of who did the
thing that 'advanced' humanity most, it's who most 'affected' humanity in the
past 1000 years, be it for good or bad. There are all VERY subjective nouns
the meaning of which depends greatly on where one is standing.
Having some *omnipotent* dick-head at the top say "stop the clocks" when the
10,000 functionaries below him know full well they can't but they will try to
do so anyway, is simply a lesson that we need to learn and hopefully not
repeat. Unfortunately, the number of disasters this century alone caused by
kow-towing to a megalomaniac (political, religious, or economic) is adequate
example of how humans can turn off their critical thinks circuits and become
a mindless flock of "sheep".
Tony