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[Karnewarrior]

Most death throughout the ages from war was from disease.

This is true, but most of those deaths would probably be as a result of collapsing infrastructure and poor hygeine caused by the war rather than deliberate bio-warfare (such as the massive flu outbreak following WWI).

I've heard about an anthropologist (I think) that had a theory about why the Europe became the dominant continent. There was the fact that it was all in latitude with Asia, etc, which permitted an adaptation of technology, etc.
But another off his point was that, there was lots of diseases in Europe, that came from everywhere. Thus, the europeans were more resistant to disease.
And if you look at colonization, it makes quite a bit of sense, because most deaths caused by colonization were caused by germs (brought voluntarily or unvoluntarily). A bit like Europeans used diseases as biological weapons, without even wanting so.

I read somewhere that Europeans also had slightly better diets than most of the other continents, which helped give them an initial edge, which is all you need with Technology.

[misko27]

I read it was because of their animals. EU had almost all the animals traditionally seen as farm animals. i.e. produces food, easy-ish to take care of, also does work, mammal, etc.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'm pretty sure all of those arguments are in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. It seems like a pretty solid theory (and is basically saying that how the world ended up was because of geography and luck). Even if you don't buy into it, it's worth reading for its explanations of early humanity and its spread and other interesting tidbits.

[Sheb]

Although it still didn't explain "Why not China?" Given they were technological leaders for most of history, we're really lucky (as European, I don't think the rest of the world would have had a worse time under Chinese domination) some random fluke apparently gave us the edge.

[Digital Hellhound]

In the book, he talked about Chinese political unity, and the Emperors who ended Zheng He's awesome trading fleets and turned the country isolationist. There were other reasons as well, but Chinese unity seemed to be the most important in regards to exploration and colonization.

[Zangi]

Heck, considering the population of the Chinese around the time of Zheng He and its many many subcultures...  maybe they have had enough problems taking care of internal affairs.

Around that time, China has roughly been one unified country under one government... while the Europeans were many different countries under separate governments at the time.  Zheng He was part of the Ming Dynasty, which apparently held a heck of a lot of territory and with it a lot of population and subcultures.

I can see why China decided that they didn't need to expand to take insubjugate even more people and even more wildly different cultures.  Plus, I suppose there is a difference in the way of thinking, in a cultural way.

Europeans have the advantage of several distinctly different and much smaller gov'ts and populations that have far less diversity, each competing amongst themselves for more power and influence abroad.

[Descan]

It's the same principle (Though I think this principle is in doubt lately) as an island population of species being less adaptable than a continental population. Because the continental population has to deal with new species a whole lot more because of migration from the other side, they have to compete more and adapt faster, while an island population is more leisurely.

To wit, Europe had to compete amongst themselves for any little edge they could get, while China had like, Japan. And the Mongols. That's it. Korea was too small to be a threat, and all the Indian and Indochinese minors were too small too.

(All of this was pulled out my rump. In fact, you should probably ignore me. :3)

[PanH]

I read it was because of their animals. EU had almost all the animals traditionally seen as farm animals. i.e. produces food, easy-ish to take care of, also does work, mammal, etc.

Well, most animals (and domestication of animals) don't come from Europe. I think that horses come from Middle East, and so on.

I'm pretty sure all of those arguments are in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. It seems like a pretty solid theory (and is basically saying that how the world ended up was because of geography and luck). Even if you don't buy into it, it's worth reading for its explanations of early humanity and its spread and other interesting tidbits.

Yes, it's Diamond, thank you, didn't remembered him.

[Sheb]

Diamond's point was that those animals could easily be used in Europe. You cannot readily breed cows south of the Sahel becaus eof Tse-Tse for exemple, and genrally it's easier to transmit livestock or crops along an Eat-west axis than along a north-south axis.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

there's also the rice\wheat thing. from what i read somewhere, rice is very labour intensive, but you can grow a lot of it in a small portion of land, while wheat is comparatively less labour intensive but requires a lot more land to feed the same people. because of this, asian nations had very large populations dedicated mostly to agriculture and could support only  a small elite, resulting in a highly rigid and stable society, while europe had far less people and a smaller percentage of them were peasants, this allowed more social mobility and encouraged more individualistic philosophies, ambition, and competition

[Sheb]

Except the wheat is a staple in much of northern China too.

If I had to pull one factor off my bump, I'd say we're closer to America. Europe's supremacy started when we discovered the Americas, and the subsequent flow of gold, silver and other expensive stuff underpinned much of the explorations of the 16th and 17th century.

[Another]

What about an idea that ancient Greece's approach to sciences was something unique to the era and enabled Europeans to build on that foundation?

Aristotle may have made us a disservice by being smart an knowledgeable in several fields and swaying people into "follow the authority" type of thinking for several centuries like Confucius did in China.

[scriver]

Europeans did not build on the Greek/Roman sciences. The Arabs built on the Greek/Roman sciences. The Europeans then built on the Arabian sciences in return.

And the Arabian sciences were all about uniting old Mediterranean Thought with Indian Thought, which was basically more advanced to begin with.

[Owlbread]

To get back on topic after that hearty derail, North Korea is experiencing another famine. Or the last one just didn't end, as seems to have been the case;

http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/cannibalism-reports-in-famine-hit-north-korea-1-2762761

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/north-korean-cannibalism-fears-amid-claims-starving-people-eat-children-and-corpses-16266788.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/28/north-korea-cannibalism-north-korea-cannibalism-famine-corpses-eat-_n_2565100.html?utm_hp_ref=uk?ncid=GEP

http://www.globalnewsdesk.co.uk/middle-east-asia/north-korea-cannibalism-hunger-reports/03138/

There's a lot of stories circulating about alleged cases of cannibalism in a particular district struck badly by the famine. It's interesting that the media would be picking up on this now though when stories 10 times worse have been in circulation for nearly 20 years, alongside similar stories that were published in books several years ago. Let's not get into the (better founded) stories of human experimentation, people eating bark and grass just to put something in their stomach or when they can't they just die in the street where people just step over them or try to ignore them. There's also the fact that there are barely any frogs left in the country because they were all eaten.

I've noticed a lot of people in the comments sections for articles/news items on the hardships in the DPRK saying things like "Oh well, what about the BRITISH/AMERICAN/(Insert western country's name here) REGIME? Yeah... what about the cuts, gap between rich and poor blah blah blah"

It also really disheartens me when I see good, compassionate Communists/Socialists/Marxists whatever really trying to defend the DPRK, describing the stories as lies and propaganda. Listen, we're not perfect. Our governments lie and obscure things. We do need change and people like the ones who make these comments are essential for expanding our minds, but for god's sake, if you really believe that the majority of the stories are lies then I suggest to you that you go and live in North Korea for about 5 years. I know that sounds a lot like that horrible old insult "Go back to Russia", but hear me out. Experience their brand of socialism, then come back and tell me how it went. Try and explore the country while you're there - including alleged prison camp sites. Before you do that though - make sure you speak to several refugees from the country. While you're at it - tell the government you met them and spoke to them. I'm sure the government of the DPRK would love to have you.

[SalmonGod]

What does socialism really have to do with the behavior of North Korea's government?