Your Views on a world Government

[Fyron]

Starhawk said:
Well a major reason Europeans dominated was that most of them figured they had 'The RIGHT" to dominate and thus went out and did it with their advanced technology and rutheless determination.

Except that their technology was often vastly inferior to other greater powers in the world for a long time. Their "advanced technology" was mostly hogwash and did not provide much of a tactical advantage, especially as it relates to weapons technologies (other than ship cannons and naval bombardment, but that doesn't go very far for most of the places they went). For centuries, the firearms they used were not very effective. Sure, they could down the first wave of the enemy, but the rest will be at them long before they can reload... why do you think conquistadors always had steal breastplates and swords? As an example, the only way that Cortez and gang were able to defeat the Aztecs was by allying with a large number of other native tribes that hated the Aztecs, combined with very poor judgement on the part of the then ruler of the Aztecs... Their "superior technology" wasn't of too much use to them.

Also, European naval technologies were dwarfed by those of the Chinese, who had ships that made European vessels look like gnats centuries in advance. Unfortunately for the Chinese, their arrogance caused them to allow their once mighty fleets to fall into disrepair, and they gave up on naval prowess a bit before Portugese and Spanish explorers reached the Indian Ocean...

[Starhawk]

Heh yeah if the Portugese had reached the region just a little earlier then history may have turned out very different, imagine if China decided to use it's fleet for war against Europe back then?

Interesting thing about the Spanish tactics was that they paired a Gunner off with a sworsdman, the gunners would fire and their partners would protect them till they reloaded. Interesting if you ask me.

I was referring mainly to Colonial era tech but I suppose yur right for centuries the Europeans just won out on guts and superior tactics I guess (as well as making allies with one tribe to crush another or one nation to crush another)

[Fyron]

Europe was a piss poor area back then, and China wouldn't have cared less about it. It was too far away to conquer or to make practical its incorporation into the tribute system...

[Starhawk]

Jeeze Fyron it was a "what if" question lol not a "why not"

[geoschmo]

My understanding is that the Chinese hadn't really developed the techniques for deep water (Out of sight of land) navigation. At the time really only the Porteguese had, and later the Spanish and English. The Chinese may have been much stronger militarily, but it would have been extremely difficult to conduct a war by sea against Europe by hugging the coastline around India and Africa. If they had a mind to do it, it would probably have been easier just to march over land like the Mongols did centuries before.