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Post by DaveTheFishandChipsGuy on Oct 20, 2008 0:33:45 GMT 12
Yeah, but don't forget, if it weren't for the British empire, there wouldn't have been colonies in America. You guys could've been Spanish, or Dutch, or French.
Also, the British Empire is the only Empire on which the sun never set, since it covered a quater of the globe.
It also spread Cricket around the world......
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Post by thedarkfiddler on Oct 20, 2008 0:35:15 GMT 12
Hate to tell you Dave, but there were a lot of non-British colonies in America. And Columbus, working for Spain, if I recall correctly, was the first European to discover America after the Vikings.
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Post by XAOTL on Oct 20, 2008 1:26:19 GMT 12
Isn't that what all animals do? (predator and prey, competition survival of the fittest e.c.t.) yet bio-diversity still flourished.
and The British isles is actually a mixture of Celtic peoples, (Wales/Scotland/Cornwall/Ireland) Norse raiders, Normans, and Anglo Saxon cultures. When the Romans left many aspects of roman life also left, including money, although there ma be a cultural link ,there are also links to the other invading/existing cultures.
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Post by DaveTheFishandChipsGuy on Oct 20, 2008 1:44:34 GMT 12
I know. But the British beat the rest of them back. Then it became it's own country. My point is, Britain is responsible for the foundation of one of the world's greatest superpowers.
And, Columbus discovered the Americas, not what later became the US. Pretty much every European power was in America at some point, but the British saw them off. If it weren't for that, the world would be drastically different.
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MagmarFire
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Post by MagmarFire on Oct 20, 2008 5:07:34 GMT 12
Isn't that what all animals do? (predator and prey, competition survival of the fittest e.c.t.) yet bio-diversity still flourished. While it is true that they deny their competitors access to food that they themselves are eating, they do not deny them access to food in general. For instance, in the wild, a lion may say, "This gazelle is mine," but it doesn't say, "All gazelle are mine," and deny every other predator of gazelle access to them. They don't wage war with other species, like most humans today do. Here. Maybe this will help me summarize it better:
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Post by timoteyo7 on Oct 20, 2008 7:55:03 GMT 12
holy crap... I have absolutely no idea what the heck any of you are talking about... This is why I asked are any of you apart of the CIA....
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MagmarFire
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Post by MagmarFire on Oct 20, 2008 8:16:45 GMT 12
Read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, and you may have a better understanding of it.
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Post by timoteyo7 on Oct 20, 2008 9:07:38 GMT 12
Hmmm I'll look into it.
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Post by Praetor on Oct 20, 2008 19:41:57 GMT 12
To sum up what Magmar quoted, if any of the species try to eliminate competition from each other (or species), it would result in an imbalanced ecosystem that would doom all the species.
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Post by XAOTL on Oct 21, 2008 8:13:18 GMT 12
No... I'm in MI6.
But according to Quinn all species have a relationship with one another. although through history we have seen many species fall and others rise without mush more than a ripple occur through the ecosystem, take a look at crocodiles as an example, even with the destruction of the dinosaurs, a meteor smashing into the planet, as well as several other cataclysms, and a ecosystem in shreds from the resulting cataclysms, under said theory all life should have ended, and such things like crocodiles as well as a hand full of other species should not exist.
Another example would be the introduction of alien species/plants into an ecosystem. In Britain there is a plant known as Japanese knot-weed, introduced. Without any natural predators/diseases in the local environment it has flourished, decimating local flora/fauna in its path, effectively creating a monopoly in its local vicinity, and destroying all competition for land from the local flora/fauns. It also holds back biodiversity in the area as it dose not have natural predators. another good example of this is the bull frog in Australia.
Yet both invasive species continue to thrive in the foreign environment.
That only really differs to empires in that an empire exists as one single entity, able to be over stretched, and that other nations can attack, and throw the empire to the history books, whilst those species can only truly be held back by human hands.
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MagmarFire
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Post by MagmarFire on Oct 21, 2008 9:23:24 GMT 12
I say that's a rather excellent analysis. But the thing about most, if not all, of the empires today is that these empires wage war against each other instead of simply just competing to the best of their abilities, which, in the end, is self-defeating. The two invasive species, however, are not; they're still simply competing for the same resources with a large advantage over the native species. Natural selection would say that those who are least advantageous would die off, of course. It's, from what I see, a very swift change in the conditions of that portion of the ecosystem and the flora and fauna being balanced out from the change as a result. Hmm... I feel like I'm missing something or that I'm not addressing your point properly.
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Post by XAOTL on Oct 23, 2008 23:26:41 GMT 12
Isn't war in principle, two competing to the best of their abilities? Colinasation, can be related to the two invasve spiecies, competeing for the natural recources with a large advantage over local peoples.
close to all behaviour of man can belinked to the behaviour of our animal counterparts from whom we evolved from. The only real difference is that we have a vast advantage over all other spiecies, and are growing, and becoming more advancead at an accelarated rate.
Altough we could become self destroying, I don't see it happening in reality, maybe happening in fiction(Examples in the books 'brave new world' or '1984') but human nature seems to contradict that.
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MagmarFire
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Post by MagmarFire on Oct 24, 2008 11:51:58 GMT 12
I don't think that competition is the same as war. Competing species do...well, compete, but they don't try to eradicate each other and completely get rid of the other species. close to all behaviour of man can belinked to the behaviour of our animal counterparts from whom we evolved from. The only real difference is that we have a vast advantage over all other spiecies, and are growing, and becoming more advancead at an accelarated rate. You hit the nail on the dot here, though, I think. Indeed, we are becoming more advanced at a greatly accelerated rate. It's so greatly accelerating, in fact, that it's working too well. It's working well to the point of our being able to propagate our species to unimaginable levels, but still, it's at odds with the world's natural laws. Cultures, empires, and what have you today are living a way of life that hasn't been tried and tested to work as long as other ways of life that they're attempting to assimilate. If we look at evolutionary assumptions, it's only logical to state that every species out in the world today is here because it succeeded in staying alive and adapting to any changes that would otherwise prove catastrophic to it. The members of the species couldn't possibly be here if they lived a way of life that defied the law of gravity, for instance. Ever since, say...ten thousand years ago, empires have been living against one of these natural laws. Sure, nothing "bad" has happened yet, but that's because not all laws catch up to you right away. To put it into perspective, there's a story told in Ishmael about a hapless airman. He designed a machine that he says is capable of flight because of its bird-like structure, even though it defies just about all the laws of aerodynamics. As he launches the machine over a cliff, it is in a state of complete freefall. It may be in midair--and from his perspective, everything's in the green because "nothing catastrophic has happened yet!"--but the law of gravity is catching up to him at an accelerating rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. That appears to be the path we're taking. Although it would be quite obvious to us that a "flying machine" like that won't work because of various factors, such as maybe center of gravity, lift, and thrust, we're defying a law that may very well be putting us in a similar situation unless we abandon our flying machine that's in freefall.
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