re: #16 Tigger2005

“Some blots on the record” indeed.

I’m willing to stipulate that European civilization helped bring about a lot of social progress. But what does color have to do with that? Europe’s success was due largely to a stable climate and a series of happy historial accidents (like the preservation of Greek learning by Islamic societies, and the failure of the Mongols to invade). It had nothing to do with skin color or with any inherent mental/physical superiority on the part of Europeans.

A lot of it is also due to The Plague — when 1/3 of the population died they couldn’t be pursuing Crusades anymore, and labor shortages led to the rise of specialized guilds that could command a fair price for their work (UNIONS OMG!!).