On Aug 7, 11:48 pm, Immortalist yahoo.com> wrote:

Both China & India have power elites that are doing really well. But
both also have impoverished masses that worry the leadership. There
are about as many in the rest of the world, most obviously Africa.

I rather expect a wholesale abandonment of Christianity. Christian
missionaries are now prime targets in many areas for kidnapping. A
lot of smart people have figured out that the Christian policy of
feeding the babies, but not providing birth control has produced a
situation where indigenous tribal populations have risen so much that
their own traditional way of life will no longer support them in their
own
lands. This has created opposition.

Empires peak. Hadrian realized this. And then, empires begin shedding
unprofitable provinces after having extracted the most profitable
natural
resources. Today, we call these "failed states". Rome lasted 1000
years,
but Europe was never again sustainably organized until recently (that
analysis deserves its own post). Over the last 2500 years, China has
had
10 dynasties, which is to say, 10 empires collapse, with 50 years of
anarchy and warlords in between each empire. (why it repeatedly
reorganized as an empire is another interesting question)

But in both cases, unprofitable provinces were shed. In both cases the
power elites became richer over time as everyone else got poorer. As
the middle classes shrank they were no longer able to maintain their
tools and educate the next generation, so that the infrastucture began
to decline. Arts which had been innovative, began to rework old
designs.

But in China the process was faster, with few empires lasting more
than
200 years, some only 50 or so. And in Europe, we see the shift away
from the notoriously corrupt Rome to a new 'city on the hill'. which
itself
became even more notoriously corrupt and so full of lawyers that we
still have a word for it:"byzantine".

But yes, the situation has a flip side, and Friedman has a lotta
points
well worth considering. I wish I could bring to his attention the
collection
of independent city states in a transnational free market now known as
the "Silk Road". Every city had shipping offices networked with
offices in
every other city. War was bad for business. The Silk Road was not just
1 route, but at least 3, with interconnecting interstates going North
&
South so that revolution could be gone around.

But there is also a clear racism. The Aryans, who founded these
cities,
had Chinese partners, and there are Chinese people buried in Aryan
clothes in the graveyards. The priciest call girls in Xian came from
Kucha (which has something to with the phase "kuchi coo".) And even
today, in Tien Shen province, there are natives who speak Chinese-
with light hair & skin with green or hazel eyes that could pass on the
streets of any Aryan city without notice.

EW Barber, the Mummies of Urumchi" reports Aryans were hired into
the Chinese court as astrologers, magicians, musicians, arttists, etc.
And we now realize that a famous Chinese general to took power for
a time was from Kucha.

But the Persians, Tibetans, Siberians, Mongols, were all regarded as
theiving scum. There's a dialogue between the Gautamid Queen of
Kucha and the living Buddah which makes reference to the "Arrogant
Sakyas" and their mysogeny. The warlords in Central Asia havent
changed a bit in 2500 years.

JP Mallory, "In Search of the Indo-Europeans" reports that the
original
Aryans were not aggressive conquerers, but assimilators. Since he
wrote, there's been a lot more found in the Central Asian deserts. And
out of that I see that across a span of thousands of years, from time
to time, a great, but diffuse, mercantile empire emerged, that for a
long time extended from Iceland to the Baltic, thence down the rivers
of Russia to the Black and Caspian seas, then running east overland
all the way to the Jade Gate.

At the same time that Marco Polo left, someone could have left the
Black Sea, and ended up at Iceland. But either way, this mercantile
culture interbred with other merchant families, and its gone on so
long
that a line of innately entrepeneurial people *evolved*. Yankees
being
one example. I dont see anything in their documents that supported
racist demagogues; that wouldda been bad for business.

And still today, when merchant families marry across the Aryan and
Chinese bloodlines, there isnt any problem; everyone knows that the
kids which result will do fine in the new flat world. But outside of
those
parameters, the bloodlines in the other races arent as well documented
and there is cause for concern.

Like the Aryan colonists, the Chinese have tried investing in Africa,
and
much of that investment is now written off. If all food and oil
shipments
to Africa were stopped, and that looked like it would help stabilize
the
Chinese economy, then the CCP will turn a blind eye.

I dunno if Chinese strategists still read history. But a Chinese
general
and his army once stood on the shores of the Caspian. There wasnt a
lot there at the time, But there's oil there now. China is putting in
new
pipelines. And has deals cooking with Iran, which frankly have not
been
working out all that well. But remember- their own ancestors regarded
the Persians as scum. Maybe there's a reason?

A war to invade Iran, with the US providing the air cover for Chinese
boots on the ground would solve a lotta problems for the global market.