With Europe being the most developed area in the world,


What do you think is the cause for this?

High IQ and discarding pre-industrial traditions.

Europeans have built the most nature-defying physical superstructures but you can't define success in material terms.

Spengler calls the West the "Faustian" as Western civilization is analogous to Faust in Goethe's play. Faust, and Western Civilization, dealt with the devil to achieve endless physical knowledge and strength at the expense of immortality.

In other words the West is a materially grand civilization that is doomed to be destroyed. Tech promises the ability to kill more enemies more efficiently but also corrupts its patrons, distorting the most fundamental understanding of nature as to turn them away from basic survival; negative birth rates, embrace of social derailment, ephemeral pleasures over long-term investment.

Tabby is mistaken in that neither IQ nor the modern world are causal to the West. The Western Soul presupposes the character of its individuals and society. The IQ and the modern world GO WITH the Wests's material success; they aren't CAUSING the West's success. They are conditions which physically perpetuate what was already in motion; what was already set on by a metaphysical condition.

There are examples of traditional "magical" peoples rivaling the average IQs of "civilized" or purely materially well-off people. Straight up throwing money at people does nothing to improve their IQs. The Inuit have higher IQs than American blacks and Brazilians for example. Materialism breeds stupidity through left-socialism/welfare state and mass consumer capitalism. The intelligent are deluded to pursue meaningless careers instead of family and welfare recipients breed like rabbits.

Edited 3/14/2018 01:56:29

yeah pretty much what Wulfhere said

To be very frank the West/"Europeans" are "successful" materially because "success" is an essence of their being that can't be accounted for by physical causality.

A correct but extremely simplified answer is "they randomly mutated to become this way" which is acceptable to empirical science.

indiscriminate racism

^Racism is an important social technology. Yet it does not often tend to cause more economic success.

On the other hand, discarding memes that are no longer useful is. The key advantage Western Europeans had over the main competitors, namely Middle Eastern Muslims, Indians and Northeast Asians is the simple fact that Europe was more free than these competitors. It were Western Europeans who discovered the concept of individual freedom and hence Western Europeans have been liberated from ancient memes that hamper science or entrepreneurship.

Edited 3/14/2018 06:30:03

The reason why civilization first rose in the Middle East is clear, namely domestication of wheat. Why the center of global civilization shifted from the Middle East / the Mediterranean world to Western Europe is in fact an interesting question.

Europeans are just in another world. They started slavery so, yeah, I doubt anything can out shadow that.
If you disagree, go play in traffic.

Slavery is far older than humanity. Look at ants for example. Geography is a key reason for Europes success. It is the only continent without dissease ridden rainforests and deadly dry deserts.

^Also....communication with what is now Syria and Egypt.

>the West discovered the concept of individual freedom
lol

>Europeans started slavery
Europeans ended slavery.

>indiscriminate racism
"argument reaches conclusion X which I've already determined is wrong, so it's wrong!"

the simple mind.

>the West was liberated from tradition, so it could pursue science
Science is the empirical study of the physical world; it has nothing to do with rationalism. The scholastic theologians were scientists and they used physical observation to support their metaphysical conclusions. In the same vain, rationalism makes grand claims about being that can't be confirmed by physical study. What was pursued with the decline of tradition was greater technics, not greater science.

>Why the center of global civilization shifted from the Middle East / the Mediterranean world to Western Europe is in fact an interesting question.

Lighter European stocks used to inhabit the Middle East and Central Asia.

Edited 3/14/2018 14:08:14

Geography is a key reason for Europes success. It is the only continent without dissease ridden rainforests and deadly dry deserts.

That's just false. Civilization first appeared in Asia: Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Chinese riverlands. That was the best place for civilizations having extremely fertile land, producing surplus, which eventually people started to note down in detail, inventing writing... and so on.
Much of Europe was just a refridgerator at that point, although Cucuteni-Trypilia culture (in todays Romania, destroyed by migration of Indo-European people) was fairly advanced for its time too.
Southern Europe (Greece, Italy) have embraced writing from Phoenicians and then spread civilization northwards.

By Middle Ages, Europe was civilization-wise basically on par with Muslim world of Middle East, and Chinese Far East. However, many centuries of Turko-Mongol invasions, pillages and conquests set one region back, while another was withheld with its own delusion of absolute perfection which stopped any innovation - unlike Europe with thousands of kingdoms, duchies, principalities and so, competing with each other, and the catholic church actually supporting education and science, China was like one big blob with no real threat or competition to it (other than the horse riders to the north which were basically barbaric) - so why change anything? After that, the real push was colonization of the New World and the wealth coming from it, then the enlightment and industrialization eras, and in turn - as Tabby said, invention of rights of man and more personal freedom.

Tabby is mistaken in that neither IQ nor the modern world are causal to the West. The Western Soul presupposes the character of its individuals and society. The IQ and the modern world GO WITH the Wests's material success; they aren't CAUSING the West's success. They are conditions which physically perpetuate what was already in motion; what was already set on by a metaphysical condition.

I agree with that. However, I think that assertion that our civilization is collapsing, and the subsequent argumentation, is a straight propaganda. There surely might be some big changes coming sooner or later, but the civilization will evolve, adapt, not collapse. It already happened in the past, and will happen in the future.

Europeans are just in another world. They started slavery

I hope you are trolling. It's not an invention specific to Europe at all.

Edited 3/14/2018 13:54:12

Onny there seems to be a missunderstanding. I agree with you. Why is my statement false? I said nothing about first development. The European terrain advantage was its saving ground against nomadic invasions.

All civilizations have collapsed; it is as certain as death.

>Evolution
The human anatomy hasn't changed much throughout its existence. What is naturally selected for depends on the cultural context; if barbarians are more adaptable to the modern world then civilization will collapse and the Darwinists will still be happy.

I've heard that some pacific islanders on some island are able to see clearly under water.

The European terrain advantage was its saving ground against nomadic invasions.

Hm... I don't think it was so that much, considering that Huns, Avars and Magyars penetrated pretty hard into Europe. We also saw "natively" european barbarians (Germanic and Slavic) conquering a rather huge chunk of the continent in short time (although they weren't nomads). Mongolians were stopped at Poland and Hungary however. I guess the westernmost parts of Europe were distant enough from the steppe? China, Europe, Middle East all had their foreign threats.

^Yeah. The fucking lawless Eurasian steppe.

Edited 3/14/2018 21:16:54

Well said Wulfhere..

Anyways, someone said that tradition essentially holds back a people from advancing.

This is true however, it is just to an extent. You can have certain traditions but as long as they are harmless and don't affect the way you logically think and repress the general advancement of the people its fine.

For instance, in most Middle-Eastern cultures its a tradition that women should stay at home and not pursue STEM majors... that's absolute garbage this is the type of tradition that ruins societies.

I know it is fiction but I am just using it as an example, the traditions in Wakanda did not stop the advancement of The Wakandan people. That is a great example of how tradition is not harmful to a society

It only affects society if you make it so.
Ex. Seperation of church and state