For most of recorded history "the East" was vastly superior to "the West" in every material and scientific field. By a stroke of luck, the American continent was inhabited by technologically inferior people and for geographical reasons was accessible only to Europeans. It was raped by them and provided the resources for the West to buy technological parity from the East. Then the British-led Industrial Revolution started (sparked by British profits from the slave trade), and resulted - say from 1750 to 1950, give or take some decades - in world domination by Europe and the US. After this, the historic pattern seems to be starting to reassert itself, with the "East" again taking its place.
The West has been superior since man crawled out of the mists of time. Compare Rome's economic output with Han China's.
>>478052
As I showed, Rome's industrial output was fooking immense.
>>478026
>The West has been superior since the Hellenes figured how to create a truly modern system of government
FTFY
>posts pepe
>is a weaboo
hmm
>>478069
Annual metal output means fuck all. May as well compare the silk output between China and Rome.
>>478098
>civilizations don't run on metal
>metalworking hasn't been vital for military endeavors since the Bronze Age
>measurable economic indicators don't provide a proxy for general economic activity
>>478098
Metal has more uses than silk. You can make clothes and maybe rope from silk, what can you do with metals?
>currency
>plumbing
>strengthen wooden constructs
>mining
>cooking instruments
>agricultural and mechanical implements
>weapons & armor
>etc, etc.
>>478098
>metal output means fuck all
>>478126
Revisionfags love saying the west sucks but when their pet civs fall short its all >greentext and frogs
>>478106
>>measurable economic indicators don't provide a proxy for general economic activity
They don't.
>>478140
They're the best GDP measure we have.
>>478144
"Metals" isn't a gdp indicator. GDP isn't a good measure. GDP doesn't apply to precapitalist societies.
>>478014
>and for geographical reasons was accessible only to Europeans
What is the Pacific Ocean?
>>478040
The 5,000 tons per annum figure is highly suspect,Needham himself even stated that this figure was a guess.(Despite him using different variables than what was shown in the text)
http://historum.com/ancient-history/41856-ancient-industry-4.html
>>478040
Just a devil's advocate, isn't this graph playing by Roman standards? Couldn't it be argued Han dynasty had different priorities rather than metallurgy?
>>478161
Well, if you want to compare societies, that's the best you're likely to do.
>>478014
Fuck this stupid jared diamond resources meme
>>478250
kilo of corn per acre?
percentage of population not engaged in agriculture?
km of hardened road?
accumulation of proto-value form?
>that's the best you're likely to do
Posten, MM.
>>478014
Dumb frogposter
>Rome
>Greece
>not offshoots of eastern civilizations
>>478304
I'll give you roads, but everything else is unlikely to be accessible to a modern society.
>>478234
>playing devil's advocate
back to reddit
The west (as in Europe) rose to prominence in the early iron age and never really looked back.
>>478014
Go read Needham.
>>478206
We have nothing else to go on, though, so we have to rely on what we can tell by traditional industry in China. I appreciate the find greatly though, desu.
>>478234
Metallurgy and agriculture are probably the two most important things to an ancient economy. Metallurgy allows the refinement of the latter, as it allows you to reap, sow, and plow more easily.
>>478329
>but everything else is unlikely to be accessible to a modern society.
Corn per acre is available in UK from about the 1100s due to monastery records. Similarly parish records gives us evidence on not engaged in agriculture, more so from the 14th c or so where gentry property transmission is written.
Accumulation of proto-value form is relatively easy to detect as a binary (Goldsmith's notes) and often crisis trials result in an airing.
If you want to play big boy economic history you have some catching up to do.
>>478424
Well, do you have surviving census data from Han China or the Pax Romana?
>>478454
No, but nor does that make 1000kg of metal production a proxy for overall social activity in that society.
>>478507
It kind of does.
The amount of iron you can produce is a direct correlate of your military capacity, and a pretty good indicator of heavy industry in general.
>>478533
>The amount of iron you can produce is a direct correlate of your military capacity
Within the limits of an equipment system. Which is dependent upon OPFOR. And without logistics. And without recruitment.
Piss fucking poor proxy.
>heavy industry in general.
Iron became industrial around 1850.
>>478545
The Romans were kind of protoindustrial.
The evidence from air pollution in ice core samples suggests that it took until the 1700s for Europe to start smelting as many metals as the Romans did circa 100 AD.
They also produced obscene amounts of wine and pottery.
>>478576
Kinda, yeah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_economy
At any rate, it's pretty much totally indisputable that Rome outperformed China in every quantifiable economic metric.
You can keep shitposting, but all you're doing is admitting defeat.
>>478588
Oh, I'm the guy who posted the Roman industrial output, I know Rome had a better economy, I just saw "proto" and had to do the "WE FINNA BE SOME KINA..." meme.
>>478611
Giant-ass ancient industries give me kind of a brain-boner.
>>478588
>At any rate, it's pretty much totally indisputable that Rome outperformed China in every quantifiable economic metric.
Oh I'm not going to disagree with you on that point, I'm disputing the usefulness of these economic metrics.
There are people who claim GDP values for the Roman Empire and Republic. I mean, did they intend to burn their career?
>>478617
>>478389
>We have nothing else to go on, though, so we have to rely on what we can tell by traditional industry in China. I appreciate the find greatly though, desu.
If you scrutinize Needham/Wagner's estimate it doesn't match up with their own assumptions/data. They assume that a furnace has a annual output of 100 tons(Wagner believes that 245 tons is one the low side for annual output per furnance), one furnace per ironwork and one ironwork per iron office.
There's a rough idea of where the 46 or so iron offices recorded in the Book of Han(Treatise of Geography) are located. The Treatise of Geography is an incomplete list of the Western Han,the Eastern Han repealed the Iron monopoly.
Large iron offices(Hedong commandery etc.) were known to have multiple ironworks(of which there may be multiple furnaces),textual evidence shows that Nanyang commandery has more than 8 ironwork sites. Li Jinghua believes that large iron offices with 3 or 4 ironworks may have 5 or 6 instead.
>>478304
>percentage of population not engaged in agriculture?
Literally laughing my ass off right now. Do you really think a civilization built on a low yield crop like rice is going to have less people farming than a civiliziation built on high yield grain? Not to mention china untill 2006 had more people living outside the cities in farming communities than in the cities.
>>478014
>People actually believe this
Egyptians, Greeks and Romans shit all over the East.
>All these buttmad eternal anglo fags rightfully fearful and in desperate denial of the Rising Dragon
delicious anglo tears.
>>479492
This whole topic is pretty retarded to begin with since there's no way in hell we can do anything than do than let educated people make extremely shitty guesses.
Still interesting tho.
>>478014
"For geographical reasons only accessible to the Europeans." What, the rest of the world couldn't build a fucking boat and take a chance on the ocean? What's wrong with people from the Far East making a journey to America's West coast for example? You've also missed out millenia of European history, its power didn't suddenly burst from nowhere when a few ships hit America. You sound like another bitter islamic/reddit poster of utter shite to me.
More like the West has been superior since the Scientific Revolution.
>>480082
More like the West has been superior since the Gothic Renaissance.
>>480085
More like the West has been superior since the Crusades.
>>480088
More like the West has been superior since Rome.
>>480092
More like the West has been superior since Alexander.
>>480094
More like the West has been superior since the Aryan expansion.
>>480095
More like the West has been superior since Lascaux.
>>480096
Yakub made Europe you fucking plebs
>>478014
Still thinking about the history in terms this reductionist.
>>478014
Ian Morris you fuck, please stop using such super generalizations to airbrush out the holes in your argument. Also please stop using that ridiculous formula you came up with to compare civilizations there is not nearly enough data.
>>479459
Han China (and ancient Korea and Japan) mostly cultivated wheat and other cereals, you know.
Not that rice is a particularly low-yield grain in tropical regions anyway.
>>478166
>>480069
The Pacific Ocean is fucking huge. The journey is literally two to three times the distance to North America on the Pacific Ocean vs the Atlantic Ocean, and even further than that to South America. This is a technological and logistical problem, not to mention just discovering the American continent exists in the first place. In addition the Atlantic currents operate in a convenient anti-clockwise fashion making ocean travel significantly easier logistically and significantly less perilous.
>>481763
The polynesians got there by boat
>>482226
congratulations
>>478014
The only difference between east and west is the Roman Empire had a massive population boom on their frontiers Germania, causing mass migration forced along by horse nomads.
China was just lucky their northern neighbors had shit land.
>>483283
>China was just lucky their northern neighbors had shit land.
>Lucky
That shit land is causing those shit people to turn into vicious nomad shits. That no matter what Nomad Empire you destroy, it only means one rival clan/tribe gets to take over.
What's lucky really is that these same people have a high regard for Chinese culture than whenever they conquer a piece or all of China, they continue it anyway.
