almostbasica day ago
I believe we are only scratching the surface of our history.
1659447091a day ago
>> thanks to a 146,000-year-old skull unearthed in Harbin, China, in mysterious circumstances more than 90 years ago
Collaboration with outside scholars plus China willingness to slowly grant access to their rich expansive history is still a century or two behind the same amount of study put into the Roman empire. Imo, time will hold the Chinese empire and its role in human history in the same western revered status of the Roman empire. Having had only a fraction of aeral bombing damage of west Europe has left much more of the historical record intact.
As a child I had a deep lasting fascination with the the Iron Curtin and countries behind it. Particularly China. I have no idea why; my parents didn't understand why I wanted to learn Chinese as a young child in the late 80's-90s. I couldn't say why either, I just did. But that wasn't going to happen in 1980's Texas. I never did learn; also never lost my wonder of the place. Probably fueled by my fantastical projection of historical tales and stories (ok, Shaolin kung fu temples too) onto a country that only opened its doors to the rest of the world 45-50 years ago.
FWIW, my fantastical projections mostly lived up to my historical and daoist fascinations after spending time there. Mostly in Shaanxi province (Xi'an's city wall is something to behold -- after recovering from the absolutely terrifying taxi ride from the airport) + a long days hike on Huashan to middle/east/south peaks followed by a very cold night between the South/West Peak to catch the morning views. Took the north peak cable car down because...stairs. Then a brief visit to Henan province where I met the only other "westerns" during the entire trip (the couple were the only other ones to walk up to the english language historical plaques)
I really wish we could get over this west vs east thing and progress humanity as you know, humans, or maybe earthlings.
wqaatwta day ago
> fraction of aeral bombing damage of west Europe
What specifically does that mean? Yes all major cities in Germany were destroyed. In the rest of Western Europe damage was much more localized.
Regardless China had some period of mass conflict on an extremely high scale.
There was a mass state instigated campaign of destroying historical sites ar artifacts as late as the 1960s and 70s.
165944709111 hours ago
It means the damage done by the massive amounts of aeral bombings destroyed a large amount of historical records, cultural heritage sites & artifacts, libraries, national and academic archives etc. It wasn't only Germany that lost these things. But since you mention it, I wonder how much of the looted artifacts by Nazi soldiers got destroyed in the leveling of Germany in WWII. It's a miracle that da Vinci's Last Supper survived the the bombings and only because someone cared enough to try and put sandbags up, many of the other walls of the church & convent did not
I know the Chinese state destroyed their own culture that they didn't like. That happens everywhere, every culture, it happens to this day (see Buddhas of Bamiyan) -- it's a fact of life. The Longmen Grottoes comes to mind as it was a place I visited. The scale vs bombings is simply not the same, Europe also had its own cultural heritage self destruction over the centuries.
But that is not what I am talking about. That self-inflicted + looting level destruction is not the destruction that comes with carpet bombing cities. Bombs can ruin/degrade future archeological digs sites. An example from personal experience: The Xi'an city wall is the longest & oldest continuous city wall that is still a part of the city. There are older city walls (that I also visited) but they are in sections and are mostly combined archaeological/cultural tourist sites (I mean no one is riding bikes on them), some from time some from bombings and some had parts rebuilt but none (that I am aware of) stand up to the walls of Xi'an. One would get far more historical data from the well preserved Xi'an than from the ones destroyed in bombings.
01HNNWZ0MV43FFa day ago
I wish there was will for a global government
But both the US and China have unacceptable mass surveillance, and the US will not even vote to take care of its own homeless citizens.
A subset of environmentalists will condemn pollution then ask for more roads, cheaper gasoline, and cheaper meat.
I don't think I'll live to even see a good national government
Rodminea day ago
Palentologists are the LLMs in human form. Give them a stick fossil and they will generate a whole story of how everything happened, until another one of these finds a toe, and rewrites everything.
ahazred8taa day ago
> Each specialist, each dry-as-dust And professorial oaf, Holds up his little crumb of crust And cries, "Behold the loaf!"