I'v asked certain people(family friends) this question and i'v not got anything of a good answer( most of them have been duno) so i'v decided to ask a wider community.

Why did the europeans develop all of the cars, wepeons, electricity. Where as if we had put a massive wall around afiaca certain parts of both north and south america then we would still have tribes roams around in mud huts and not the huge skyscrapers and stuff that we see today. So why did we develop first.

Some clues that may help as they'v helped me when i'v pondered on this question.

The romans had lots of culture and organistaion and stuff maybe it was them who pushed the ball of knoledge down the hill.

may it's somthing to do wit the weather.

Maybe it's to do wit the massive war like state which europe had been in since about 200bc-1980.
(cold war)

Who knows if u can think of a good answer plz post and ask eveybody u konw

Electricity-Benjamin franklin

weapons-bows(huns)gun(ottomans)cannon(europeans)"guerilla tactics"(american indians)

cars......america and europe at pretty much same time....I'm pretty sure America developed the first gas combustion engine though

Point is, the reason no one can answer the question is because it's a false question. That would be like me asking you why is it that Americans have lead the world in every field since the 1920's..... There would be no answer because the subject that the question assumes is true, is actually false, thus there IS no answer to the question.

And it is not that the europeans were the first to develop these things or americans or anything like that because it does not matter. I would actually attribute it to industrialization. Once there was an active movement to start having cities and towns specialize in making a certain product, there became more time to develop things and advance far more quickly than previous generations.

Also, some people contribute the discovery of electricty to the Egyptians because they had pots that actually generated electricity. We just don't know what they used them for....

quote:

Originally posted by mugglewump0:
I'v asked certain people(family friends) this question and i'v not got anything of a good answer( most of them have been duno) so i'v decided to ask a wider community.

Why did the europeans develop all of the cars, wepeons, electricity. Where as if we had put a massive wall around afiaca certain parts of both north and south america then we would still have tribes roams around in mud huts and not the huge skyscrapers and stuff that we see today. So why did we develop first.

Some clues that may help as they'v helped me when i'v pondered on this question.

The romans had lots of culture and organistaion and stuff maybe it was them who pushed the ball of knoledge down the hill.

may it's somthing to do wit the weather.

Maybe it's to do wit the massive war like state which europe had been in since about 200bc-1980.
(cold war)

Who knows if u can think of a good answer plz post and ask eveybody u konw

I had no idea what the question really comes down to.... romans cars? Industries.... I woul say ask something a bit more specific. Maybe I am just thinking things far too much, but I dont get the "the romans pushed the knowledge down the hill" what doy ou mean by that exacly???

Well the Chinese were pretty good in medicine in ancient times, so to hell with your skyscrapers if everyone is dieing.

Our location globally, population density compared to our size and the resources avaliable to us meant that we (eurpoeans ) "developed Faster"(the people around mesopatomia developed first.)
The Romans borrowed their culture heavily from the Greek colonies in the south of italy and the Greeks used mesopatomian culture as a base for their own.

Azy i dont think anyone can really lay claim to the bow
'guns'where invented by the chinese (hand cannon) and rifling the British.

thank you for the correction kida, and yea I would have to agree with you that the invention of the bow would be a very hard to pinpoint the inventing civilization....my point was only that mugglewump is asking a very vague question that implies a false reality...

It's not that the europeans developed anything first, it's just that they started the industrialization movement, which lead to higher population density, which lead to higher population, which eventually lead to exploration and colonization.....

not really industrialisation early on since most European countries didn't start untill the 18th century more to do with terrain and density of population easier for ideas and theories to travel and easy access to valuable resources etc.


EDIT: to clarify industiralisation gave us a GREAT advantage once we'd worked it all out i'm talking about pretty early since all cultures (with a few exceptions) had basic mastery of iron the fact that we where able to get into an industrial age first was sue to the above points.

not to mention andrew carniagy (sorry about the last name cant spell it) was the first person to find a way to make steal cheaper and quicker. and he was an american immagrant

by industrialization i'm not talking about factories....I'm talking about specialization of craft for the majority of cities or towns. Where instead of each city or town sustaining itself, a large grouping of cities would work together to increase production of specific materials or goods. Like one town would make clothing, another would make wooden furniture, etc.... this made it so that instead of a couple people in each city working in a specific field, a large group was, and thus new methods were created on a regular basis.

For example, they discovered better ways to work with cotton much quicker than if a small group of people had been working on it. It is the same reason America is so far advanced in military technology....because america has such a LARGE group of people working in weapons research in comparison to other countries, so when you consider the statistics, it is inevitable that they will have more advances at a faster rate.

This is essentially what the europeans did. I guess you could really just contribute this to currency, because with a currency you focus on the task you are best at, and whatever extra's you sell(you make an awesome rocking chair...you only need one, but you can make 2 every week...) so that you can buy what you normally would have made or gathered for yourself otherwise. But it ultimately frees up a persons time so that instead of being a "jack of all trades", they could be a master of their trade. It made progress much easier to achieve.

Well my thought is that since europe is all close together it didn't take long for inventions and ideas to spread...also more of a localized language and that some times the situation called for it

All Americans are immigrants

most of the posts here are missing the basic points:
geography, most of why we "won" in civilization is based on the lay of the land. this theory is explained nicely in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond
Basically here is why the western european culture is nominate is from a few points, first the fact that it goes east to west instead of north to south like africa (which had a big head start in very early times) this means that the latitude does not change much though out europe. So crops and farming tech works basicly the same across the whole area. also we had better food stuffs than other parts of the world, barley, wheat, goats, cattle. these also, because of us living in close proximity to them, gave us immunities to them.(ex. black death-milk maids)
europe also has good metal deposits, iron with the correct impurities for the creation of steel.

There is one thing that i think Diamond missed, the importance of open trading of idea. china was amazingly further in the early centuries but they cut themselves from the outside. Then nice thing about the trading of ideas is that you only need to invent the wheel once.

quote:

Originally posted by Reconning_GRSC6:
All Americans are immigrants

Not all, what about Native Americans?

I probably think Britain was ahead in weapons for some time because when you think about it throughout the Roman era and the middle ages they were more or less constantly in war and had to develop new weapons to beat their opponents. Except for the chinese and their discovery of gunpower/guns.

quote:

Originally posted by Reconning_GRSC6:
All Americans are immigrants

If you are born in america your are a native american, decendents of immigrants maybe but still a native.

no kida. were americans. not native americans. natives are people who were here before the immigrations of other cultures to a region. the indians migrated across to the americas back when the land bridge (the ice bridges that stretched across the waters) was still around. then it either melted/sank under the water when the waters rose. so really all the people b*tch and complain about imigrants comming in from mexico and cuba causing people to have to move. and no one remembers how we moved the indians from 1000 of acres of open land to maybe a squard mile patch called a reservation. (my grandma is sue (how ever you spell it)) so i hear the diffrence between an american and a Native american all the time lol

if your american you're native to the continent of america therefor a native american, i think your mixing heritage up with being native to a continent if your born somewhere your native to that place reguardless of your heritage eg.

bobby's dad is from africa his mother from china they move to america and have bobby. bobby is native to america
but he is of african and chinese decent

or

bobby's dad is of american indian decent and so is his mother they move to france and have bobby boby is european he is native to europe.
bobby may be european but he is still of american indian decent.

true but i thought we were talking about heritage... maybe i miss understood this whole thread lol

No cod, you've misunderstood life....haha jk jk jk jk. I'm so bored and we are starved for some new info, VERY badly..lol

quote:

Originally posted by The_Real_Azrael:
No cod, you've misunderstood life....haha jk jk jk jk. I'm so bored and we are starved for some new info, VERY badly..lol

true nothin good has come out for ages ut back to the question...

Well maybe it's somthing in te main lands blood it's just america has had massive technological advancements since the imagrants have been coming from europe and been mating with americans(i know how bad this sounds but it could be ture). And how i mean by the Romans pushed the ball of knowledge that the started all of this thinking thing it's just to and acient european what is their to think about minus food sleep and fighting. And then the Romans come along and suddenly theres this tihnking thing. It great u get lots more done. u see what i'm saying