# What if all continents had been in regular communication since ancient times? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 12, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053 "2011-04-12T03:22:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/1 "2011-04-12T03:22:53Z")
Until the Portuguese began the [Age of Exploration,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_exploration) the world always had several cultural centers that developed largely uninfluenced by, and even in ignorance of, each other. The Western Hemisphere might as well have been on another planet from the Eastern. Africa south of Ethiopia was almost as isolated. Australia, too. China was only vaguely aware of and not even vaguely interested in India, let alone lands further west. And then all that changed rather abruptly, on the historical time-scale. Imagine that in the Sixth Century B.C., the Greeks win the [Battle of Alalia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_alalia) (Corsica) against the Etruscans and Carthaginians, strengthening their colonizing position in the western Mediterranean – to the point where Greeks are able to get more or less safely through the Pillars of Herakles, and then they can sail up and down the coasts and colonize. Soon Greek colony towns dot the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Spain and Gaul – all in continuous competition with the Carthaginians, breaking out in war periodically – which spurs technological progress. Eventually one nation or the other – doesn’t matter which, the other soon copies it – hits on the essentials of deep-sea sailing technology, and the Age of Exploration is off and running. (And if Rome rises in this timeline, then the Romans will get deep-sea sailing technology too.) But, it goes rather differently than in the 15th Century in our timeline: Neither the Greeks nor the Carthaginians are numerous enough or technologically advanced enough to conquer the native empires everywhere they go. What each does, instead, is found a global network of politically independent (at least, the Greek ones are, that’s the Greek custom) coastal colony towns, each farming the immediate neighborhood, and trading (for slaves among other things, no doubt) with the “inland barbarians,” and trading with the rest of the world. The Old World diseases spread to the New World before they get the chance to grow quite so virulent as they did in OTL – probably a lot more Indians survive contact. The introduction of Old World crops and animals to the New World and vice-versa happens in antiquity, so gradually perhaps that nobody is really sure where the potato came from. China is no more isolated than any place else, it is regularly exposed to the wider world – and to the fact/idea that other, powerful civilizations exist – from the Warring States period on. And, any idea – whether technological or scientific or philosophical or religious or political or artistic – that once becomes current in one of the world’s centers of civilization, will soon be known or known of in all the others. Greek philosophers are thoroughly exposed to the philosophies and religions of India and China. Everybody the world over hears about this Greek thing called democracy. If anyone invents the printing press or the stirrup or the rigid horse collar, the whole world has it before long. Greek musicians will be exposed to Indian and Chinese music. And the “inland barbarians” – in the Americas, in Africa, everywhere – might not be such pushovers, because they get exposed to everything their Greek or Punic neighbors on the coasts have and, not being in immediate or constant danger of being conquered by them, have the space and leisure to copy it. How does history, generally, go in this timeline? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/2 "2011-04-12T03:59:32Z")
Wouldn’t it just mean that the native Americans were wiped out sooner due to diseases introduced by this contact? I don’t see how you can avoid that part, and that’s going to have a large impact on their population. Same with the native Australians, if we assume they are part of this wide spread contact, as well as the Polynesians. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/3 "2011-04-12T04:56:17Z")
The first thing to clarify is that the world was not quite a isolated as your OP seems to assume. The Chinese were vicariously aware of the existence of Australia, and Australian products, notably trepang, turtle shell and mother-of-pearl, were being regularly sold in Chinese market places. Similarly the Romans, and I assume Hellenistic Greeks, were quite aware of the existence of southern Africa. Alexander pushed his armies into Pakistan, employed Neplaese mercenaries and fully intended to occupy the whole Indus valley, so we have to assume that the Greeks were well aware of the existence of and value of India. The thing is that they knew of these places and they did not give a shit about them. They just did not care. It wasn’t an issue of deep sea sailing technology. You can get from England to Australia, China or South Africa and never leave sight of land. The only real difference to your time line is that the Americas are discovered earlier. it would not make any difference at all to Australia, Africa or China. The Greeks could have set up colonies of the type you propose in India, Africa or Australia using the technology available to them. Colonies cost money to set up, and since the Indians and Chinese were at least as technologically advanced as the Greeks they could never set up colonies there. It was only with the invention of the firearms and gunboats that Europeans had any real ability to set up colonies in those regions. Maccassans did set up colonies in Northern Australia, but they were short lived for various reasons. Heck, the first English colonies almost failed multiple times, so it’s impossible to believe that they could have succeeded any earlier. As for the Americas, it’s hard to see how that works out. Your idea that disease would have less impact makes little sense. From Columbus’ voyages alone it seems the population of the Americas was halved by disease. The Greeks would have had the same impact. Smallpox, influenza, diptheria and measles were all fully developed pandemics by the bronze age. The only disease the Americans might have been spares is Black Plague. That would probably have spread from the Himalayas at about the same time in both timelines, so devastating both New and Old World to the same degree. So the Greeks reach the Americas, disease still devastates the natives. The Greeks will find an empty land just as the English did. They may or may not colonise that land. They still have steel armour and weapons and horses, so they can still subjugate any native people they like. The big difference will be that they will not be colonising at the same time as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions as the English were doing, so there rate of growth will be more like of the English colonies for the first hundred years: initially struggling, then slowly expanding, but nothing like the rate from then on that was made possible by the Revolutions. So the locals away form the initial colonisation sites will have time to rebound from the new diseases and assimilate the new technology, especially horses, cattle and crops. The result will be many more intra-Indian wars as a new balances of power are established based on the technology. It seems highly likely that the European settlers will be facing Indians with cavalry and probably metal weapons within a hundred years.So the regions west of either the Rockies or the Great Plains are likely to remains autonomous, at least to the extent that India did under British rule. IOW rather than simply becoming a European land, the regions is likely to be a European colony populated almost entirely by Indians. > [@xtisme](#): > > Wouldn’t it just mean that the native Americans were wiped out sooner due to diseases introduced by this contact? I don’t see how you can avoid that part, and that’s going to have a large impact on their population. Same with the native Australians, if we assume they are part of this wide spread contact, as well as the Polynesians. Australia actually provides a very good example of the likely outcome. The people of Northern Australia had a long history of contact with the rest of the world, at least 5, 000 years. For at least 500 years prior to European contact there was a large annual migration of Malyasian and Indonesian fishermen and traders into Northern Australia. The result was that Northern Australians were largely immune to most diseases. There was a substantial decrease in reproduction, but that seems to have been due entirely due to sterility induced by venereal disease. That may have ben due to limited sexual relations between the groups, or it may have been symptomatic of social breakdown brought upon by colonisation, or more likely a combination of the two. Had sexual contact been more frequent or prolonged and the idnigenous social structure remained more intact the Australians probably would have seen no incraese in death rate due to European contact. The upshot of this is that Northern Australia remains largely an Aboriginal land. Aborigines make up about 40% of the population and about 80% outside the major urban areas. So in the scenario proposed here, that is the scenario that would have been sen worldwide. With only exposure to small trading colonies the local populations would crash due to disease, but they would then rebound. They would then evolve the same disease resistance as Eurasians have to those diseases, aided by the inevitable interbreeding with the outsiders which provides a good gene pools for disease resistance. Within a few hundred years populations would rebound to original levels and that population would be as disease resilient as the Eurasians. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/4 "2011-04-12T07:02:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > China was only vaguely aware of and not even vaguely interested in India, let alone lands further west. That’s not exactly true. There was quite a regualr exchange of monks and other scholars, at least I know of Chinese ones going to Indian universities to study and some Buddhist missionaries the other way. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/5 "2011-04-12T09:21:44Z")
> [@jonusb3](#): > > Only when we have our own ideals, can we find the origin of energy and enthusiasm in life, and become active and perseverant. Whatever your ideal is, careful plan and preparation is vital to its realization. Of course, the path from where you are to where you want to get is not always smooth and straight. Therefore, an optimistic, positive mind is indispensable in the process of your persevering your ideal. Even when I remove your whores, your point is nonsensical. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/6 "2011-04-12T10:13:04Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > Even when I remove your whores, your point is nonsensical. Removed spam post above. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/7 "2011-04-12T13:25:06Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Wouldn’t it just mean that the native Americans were wiped out sooner due to diseases introduced by this contact? No. Because Old World diseases in 535 B.C. are not the same as Old World diseases in 1492 A.D. Less time to evolve, less virulent. > [@xtisme](#): > > I don’t see how you can avoid that part, and that’s going to have a large impact on their population. Same with the native Australians, if we assume they are part of this wide spread contact, as well as the Polynesians. > > -XT In this timeline, there is probably no Polynesian culture. Simply because the Greeks or the Carthaginians or the Romans or the Chinese or even the Olmecs reach the Pacific islands centuries before the Polynesians did in OTL. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/8 "2011-04-12T14:23:33Z")
The problem with the americas and disease was that it was a double whammy - diseases put pressure on the americas just as euros were set on colonizing them. If the pattern of contact was different and more gradual, the populations of the americas could have had time to acclimatize to the diseases and recover from demographic collapse … and absorb and diffuse old world technologies. That being said, the Greeks were historically pretty aggressive colonizers. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/9 "2011-04-12T14:46:18Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > That being said, the Greeks were historically pretty aggressive colonizers. But as far as I know, they didn’t have the crusading-Christian “we have the one true god(s) and everyone else must convert or be destroyed” attitude of the Europeans. I wouldn’t expect them to be as irrationally aggressive\* or to go with the European program of systematically destroying every native culture they could, destroying the records and so forth. And if the populations do have time to rebound then I think they are highly unlikely to do what the Europeans did and essentially annihilate the local populations. The Europeans didn’t do that in Africa, India or China after all. - Conquer for profit, yes, ruthlessly slaughter and enslave for their own benefit, yes. But they’d be less likely to bother with conversion by the sword, or to engage in wars of outright extermination. No profit in it when you can just enslave and exploit instead, or demand tribute. Especially when you don’t have as overwhelming a technological edge. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/10 "2011-04-12T15:02:28Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > But as far as I know, they didn’t have the crusading-Christian “we have the one true god(s) and everyone else must convert or be destroyed” attitude of the Europeans. I wouldn’t expect them to be as irrationally aggressive\* or to go with the European program of systematically destroying every native culture they could, destroying the records and so forth. And if the populations do have time to rebound then I think they are highly unlikely to do what the Europeans did and essentially annihilate the local populations. The Europeans didn’t do that in Africa, India or China after all. > > - Conquer for profit, yes, ruthlessly slaughter and enslave for their own benefit, yes. But they’d be less likely to bother with conversion by the sword, or to engage in wars of outright extermination. No profit in it when you can just enslave and exploit instead, or demand tribute. Especially when you don’t have as overwhelming a technological edge. “Convert or be destroyed” was hardly a universal european approach to colonization - it certainly was not main item on the menu for the French, Dutch or English colonizers. They had plenty of problems because they were very aggressive, and they certainly enjoyed converting natives, but they hardly murdered off their non-Christian subjects for being non Christian. The Greeks (and of course later, Romans and Cartheginians) were quite capable of murdering off locals on occasion - read Herodotus on the history of early Greek colonization - one Greek colony murdered off the entire male population of a place they were colonizing, and forcibly “married” (that is, mass raped and enslaved) the women … this wasn’t a unique event, as it famously happened again in Messina (this time _to_ a greek colony) - which triggered the Punic wars: > **[Mamertines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamertines)** > > The Mamertines (Latin: Mamertini, "sons of Mars", Greek: Μαμερτῖνοι) were mercenaries of Italian origin who had been hired from their home in Campania by Agathocles (361–289 BC), Tyrant of Syracuse and self-proclaimed King of Sicily. After Syracuse lost the Seventh Sicilian War, the city of Messina was ceded to Carthage in 307 BC. When Agathocles died in 289 BC it left many of his mercenaries idle and unemployed in Sicily. Most of them returned home but some, liking the climate and the prospect o... ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/11 "2011-04-12T15:23:33Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s not exactly true. There was quite a regualr exchange of monks and other scholars, at least I know of Chinese ones going to Indian universities to study and some Buddhist missionaries the other way. Also [court diplomats](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Xuance). The Indian king Arjuna, overthrown and taken as a prisoner back to the emperor as a result of Sino-Tibetan interference, would have had good reason to know who the Chinese were ;). For that matter further west the Abbasid Caliphate that had defeated the T’ang at Talas in 751, sent troops to aid them in 756. Late the Caliph Harun al-Rashid made further overtures to the T’ang, including a diplomatic mission to Chang’an in 798 that led to a brief anti-Tibetan alliance between the two dominant world powers of their day. China’s isolation and indifference to the outside world is an oft-repeated meme, but a very exaggerated one based mostly on the stagnant late Ming and elements of the late Qing dynasties ( and ignoring early Ming and Qing expansionism ). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/12 "2011-04-12T15:37:18Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > China’s isolation and indifference to the outside world is an oft-repeated meme, but a very exaggerated one based mostly on the stagnant late Ming and elements of the late Qing dynasties ( and ignoring early Ming and Qing expansionism ). And based on official policy of the Chinese at the point where they began to intrude more clearly on Western consciousness. From [url=]_The Problem of China,_ by Bertrand Russell: > [@](#): > > In the year 1793, a British ambassador, Lord Macartney, arrived in China, to request further trade facilities and the establishment of a permanent British diplomatic representative. The Emperor at this time was Chien Lung, the best of the Manchu dynasty, a cultivated man, a patron of the arts, and an exquisite calligraphist. (One finds specimens of his writing in all sorts of places in China.) His reply to King George III is given by Backhouse and Bland.[25] I wish I could quote it all, but some extracts must suffice. It begins: > > > [@](#): > > > > You, O King, live beyond the confines of many seas, nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to partake of the benefits of our civilization, you have despatched a mission respectfully bearing your memorial… To show your devotion, you have also sent offerings of your country’s produce. I have read your memorial: the earnest terms in which it is cast reveal a respectful humility on your part, which is highly praiseworthy. > > He goes on to explain, with the patient manner appropriate in dealing with an importunate child, why George III’s desires cannot possibly be gratified. An ambassador, he assures him, would be useless, for: > > > [@](#): > > > > If you assert that your reverence for our Celestial Dynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our civilization, our ceremonies and code of laws differ so completely from your own that, even if your Envoy were able to acquire the rudiments of our civilization, you could not possibly transplant our manners and customs to your alien soil. Therefore, however adept the Envoy might become, nothing would be gained thereby. > > > > Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State; strange and costly objects do not interest me. I … have no use for your country’s manufactures. …It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter. > > He can understand the English desiring the produce of China, but feels that they have nothing worth having to offer in exchange: > > “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce. But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial Empire produces are absolute necessities to European nations and to yourselves,” the limited trade hitherto permitted at Canton is to continue. > > He would have shown less favour to Lord Macartney, but “I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial Empire.” He concludes with the injunction: “Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!” Now, I suggest that not even Qin Shih Huangdi would have been so peremptory with a Greek or Roman or Carthaginian delegation if it had arrived in China in **his** time. The obvious superiority of his civilization to all barbarians’ would not have been quite so . . . obvious, then. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/13 "2011-04-13T03:30:59Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No. Because Old World diseases in 535 B.C. are not the same as Old World diseases in 1492 A.D. Less time to evolve, less virulent. … You don’t know anything at all about the history of plague, do you? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/14 "2011-04-13T13:35:12Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > … > > You don’t know anything at all about the history of plague, do you? An impression I formed from [The Master’s Column:](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/995/why-did-so-many-native-americans-die-of-european-diseases-but-not-vice-versa) > [@](#): > > Why were the natives so vulnerable? The best guess is that Europe had been a crossroads for war and commerce for millennia and so had encountered an extraordinary number of pestilences, while the Americas were isolated and had not. Europeans had also spent a long time around domestic animals, which were the source of many of the most virulent diseases to afflict humans in the Old World. In contrast, native Americans had few domestic animals. As a consequence Europeans had developed some resistance to disease but native Americans hadn’t. Time is a factor in all that. The diseases Greeks of Socrates’ day carried would have been deadly to Native Americans, but **less** deadly to them than the deseases Spaniards of Columbus’ day carried. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/15 "2011-04-13T14:16:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And based on official policy of the Chinese at the point where they began to intrude more clearly on Western consciousness. > > From [by Bertrand Russell: > > > [@](#): > > > > In the year 1793, a British ambassador, Lord Macartney, arrived in China, to request further trade facilities and the establishment of a permanent British diplomatic representative. The Emperor at this time was Chien Lung, the best of the Manchu dynasty, a cultivated man, a patron of the arts, and an exquisite calligraphist. (One finds specimens of his writing in all sorts of places in China.) His reply to King George III is given by Backhouse and Bland.[25] I wish I could quote it all, but some extracts must suffice. It begins: > > > > Quote: > > You, O King, live beyond the confines of many seas, nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to partake of the benefits of our civilization, you have despatched a mission respectfully bearing your memorial… To show your devotion, you have also sent offerings of your country’s produce. I have read your memorial: the earnest terms in which it is cast reveal a respectful humility on your part, which is highly praiseworthy. > > He goes on to explain, with the patient manner appropriate in dealing with an importunate child, why George III’s desires cannot possibly be gratified. An ambassador, he assures him, would be useless, for: > > > > Quote: > > If you assert that your reverence for our Celestial Dynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our civilization, our ceremonies and code of laws differ so completely from your own that, even if your Envoy were able to acquire the rudiments of our civilization, you could not possibly transplant our manners and customs to your alien soil. Therefore, however adept the Envoy might become, nothing would be gained thereby. > > > > Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State; strange and costly objects do not interest me. I … have no use for your country’s manufactures. …It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter. > > He can understand the English desiring the produce of China, but feels that they have nothing worth having to offer in exchange: > > > > “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce. But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial Empire produces are absolute necessities to European nations and to yourselves,” the limited trade hitherto permitted at Canton is to continue. > > > > He would have shown less favour to Lord Macartney, but “I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial Empire.” He concludes with the injunction: “Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!” > > Now, I suggest that not even Qin Shih Huangdi would have been so peremptory with a Greek or Roman or Carthaginian delegation if it had arrived in China in **his** time. The obvious superiority of his civilization to all barbarians’ would not have been quite so . . . obvious, then. the response **BrainGlutton** quotes is just the sort of dumb arrogance that you would expect from incompetent leaders of powers that are about to go down the toilet. The same Macartney is quoted as saying: [George Macartney - Wikiquote](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Macartney)](]_The Problem of China,_[/url) > [@](#): > > The Empire of China is an old, crazy, first-rate Man of War, which a fortunate succession of and vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these hundred and fifty years past, and to overawe their neighbours merely by her bulk and appearance. But whenever an insufficient man happens to have the command on deck, adieu to the discipline and safety of the ship. She may, perhaps, not sink outright; she may drift some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shore; but she can never be rebuilt on the old bottom. superiority indeed! Guess who was proven right by the historical record of 19th century, the above-mentioned “superior” Qing emperor or Lord Macartney? And I bet there are plenty of dispatches of the same nature nowadays from the White House to Beijing as that one from Beijing to London 200 years ago. Historical circumstances change, but the sheer arrogance and cluelessness of the dumbbells keeps knowing no bound. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/16 "2011-04-13T14:54:49Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > the response **BrainGlutton** quotes is just the sort of dumb arrogance that you would expect from incompetent leaders of powers that are about to go down the toilet. The same Macartney is quoted as saying: [George Macartney - Wikiquote](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Macartney) > > superiority indeed! Guess who was proven right by the historical record of 19th century, the above-mentioned “superior” Qing emperor or Lord Macartney? > > And I bet there are plenty of dispatches of the same nature nowadays from the White House to Beijing as that one from Beijing to London 200 years ago. Historical circumstances change, but the sheer arrogance and cluelessness of the dumbbells keeps knowing no bound. Yes, all true, no doubt. But, [Bertrand Russell (writing in 1922) adds the following editorial comment](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13940/13940-h/13940-h.htm#CHAPTER_III) to his account of Emperor Chien Lung’s reply to Lord Macartney: > [@](#): > > He would have shown less favour to Lord Macartney, but “I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial Empire.” He concludes with the injunction: “Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!” > > What I want to suggest is that no one understands China until this document has ceased to seem absurd. The Romans claimed to rule the world, and what lay outside their Empire was to them of no account. The Empire of Chien Lung was more extensive, with probably a larger population; it had risen to greatness at the same time as Rome, and had not fallen, but invariably defeated all its enemies, either by war or by absorption. Its neighbours were comparatively barbarous, except the Japanese, who acquired their civilization by slavish imitation of China. The view of Chien Lung was no more absurd than that of Alexander the Great, sighing for new worlds to conquer when he had never even heard of China, where Confucius had been dead already for a hundred and fifty years. Nor was he mistaken as regards trade: China produces everything needed for the happiness of its inhabitants, and we have forced trade upon them solely for our benefit, giving them in exchange only things which they would do better without. > > Unfortunately for China, its culture was deficient in one respect, namely science. In art and literature, in manners and customs, it was at least the equal of Europe; at the time of the Renaissance, Europe would not have been in any way the superior of the Celestial Empire. There is a museum in Peking where, side by side with good Chinese art, may be seen the presents which Louis XIV made to the Emperor when he wished to impress him with the splendour of Le Roi Soleil. Compared to the Chinese things surrounding them, they were tawdry and barbaric. The fact that Britain has produced Shakespeare and Milton, Locke and Hume, and all the other men who have adorned literature and the arts, does not make us superior to the Chinese. What makes us superior is Newton and Robert Boyle and their scientific successors. They make us superior by giving us greater proficiency in the art of killing. It is easier for an Englishman to kill a Chinaman than for a Chinaman to kill an Englishman. Therefore our civilization is superior to that of China, and Chien Lung is absurd. When we had finished with Napoleon, we soon set to work to demonstrate this proposition. Today, the Chinese are no longer inferior to the Western world in science or technology. And, if the hypothetical described in the OP had come to pass, it may be that China would have kept pace with scientific/technological developments elsewhere in the world every step of the way. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/17 "2011-04-13T23:01:31Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Time is a factor in all that. The diseases Greeks of Socrates’ day carried would have been deadly to Native Americans, but **less** deadly to them than the deseases Spaniards of Columbus’ day carried. I’m afraid here, the Master is wrong. Europe was indeed a crossroads of disease, but there’s nothing new in _that_. Plague was an off-and-on problem since Roman times (at least), and its effect on populations over that time was pretty constant. The Black Plague was merely a particularly nasty edition in an old book - but one which the Europeans weren’t adjusted to at that time. It, and previous plagues, would have roughly the same effect on completely new populations. Evolution here has an effect in its ability to penetrate the resistance of a specific population. Barring some amazing coincidence, the diseases of the +15th century would be no more effective against the AmerIndians than thos of the -5th. In any case, diseases weaken in virulence over time, though they tend to improve in ability to spread. But plagues were notable for that problem in ancient times. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/18 "2011-04-14T00:37:26Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Wouldn’t it just mean that the native Americans were wiped out sooner due to diseases introduced by this contact? > -XT Native Americans were wiped out only in North America, particularly in the U.S., and not precisely by contagious diseases but genocide. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/19 "2011-04-14T00:40:02Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > As for the Americas, it’s hard to see how that works out. > > Your idea that disease would have less impact makes little sense. From Columbus’ voyages alone it seems the population of the Americas was halved by disease. The Greeks would have had the same impact. Smallpox, influenza, diptheria and measles were all fully developed pandemics by the bronze age. The only disease the Americans might have been spares is Black Plague. That would probably have spread from the Himalayas at about the same time in both timelines, so devastating both New and Old World to the same degree.. It is hard to believe educated people gives so much credit to the idiotic theory of the diseases, invented by Europeans and Americans to hide the genocide that happened in the Americas. Yes, blame germs, not the European invaders! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053/20 "2011-04-14T00:44:11Z")
Why can’t they have died by both, like the late Earl Warren? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-all-continents-had-been-in-regular-communication-since-ancient-times/578053.md?page=2)