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Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by bambax on Friday February 16, 2018 @08:09AM (#16392032)
> One animal [the horse] was so decisive in shaping human history...

What a Western-centric view.

Entire human civilizations developed for centuries or millennia, without horses -- they really don't conform to the phases of "pre-horse, horse and post-horse" because they were never "horse".

It's possible (although ill-conceived and wrong) to argue that there is no history and no culture outside of Western civilization; but then one should make an argument about it, not simply ignoring immense parts of the human adventure.

Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by Spooky23 on Friday February 16, 2018 @12:03PM (#16393748)
Pretty much all of the horseless civilizations got rolled over by people with horses.

The quote wasn't that "no civilization existed without horses", it was that the horse was "decisive in shaping human history".

When you consider what happened to advanced civilizations like the Aztec and Inca when they interfaced with horseborne civilizations, the point makes sense, and isn't doing so by marginalizing people who didn't have horses.

Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by xkcd-sucks on Friday February 16, 2018 @08:32AM (#16392164)
Mongols are considered "western civilization?"
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by bambax on Friday February 16, 2018 @10:02AM (#16392768)
You seem to be inferring that I said that no non-western civilization ever used the horse?

I said no such thing.

I said that a great number of civilization and cultures, that lasted for many centuries, developed without ever using horses, and that therefore, the horse cannot be considered to define all of human civilization.

Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by toasterlovin on Friday February 16, 2018 @10:14AM (#16392858)
Domestication of the horse shaped human history pretty much everywhere except Africa and Southeast Asia.
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by bambax on Friday February 16, 2018 @11:17AM (#16393375)
And America(s) before the Europeans. And all the brillant cultures of the Pacific islands. Etc. So, really not "everywhere".
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by toasterlovin on Friday February 16, 2018 @11:43AM (#16393576)
Yeah, but the Europeans showing up is part of history in the Americas. Thus, the horse influenced human history throughout most of the world. And the cultures of the pacific islands aren't really capable of proving or disproving any broad generalizations about human history. The pacific islands are separated from the mainland by thousands of miles and constitute a tiny land mass.
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by tacomonstrous on Friday February 16, 2018 @11:10AM (#16393305)
Also, the Americas till the Europeans showed up.
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by toasterlovin on Friday February 16, 2018 @11:47AM (#16393615)
The Europeans showing up is part of history. And the horse is one of the things which gave Europeans a huge advantage over the native populations here. Hence, I, a descendant of Europeans, am writing this to you from the Americas.
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by samastur on Friday February 16, 2018 @12:02PM (#16393738)
Not nearly as much as germs and muskets.
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by jessaustin on Friday February 16, 2018 @01:10PM (#16394344)
Everyone has germs, but they wouldn't have had the muskets and more notably the boats to get here without the horse.
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by philwelch on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:25PM (#16395159)
If it wasn't for germs and muskets, the Comanche would have conquered North America just like the Mongols conquered Eurasia.
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by jerf on Friday February 16, 2018 @09:05AM (#16392352)
One way in which horses shaped the world is precisely that they only existed in certain places: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo Absence vs. presence is an effect too!
Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by mathgeek on Friday February 16, 2018 @10:04AM (#16392785)
"[H]uman history" is generally considered to be the sum, rather than the individual cultural parts.

For a non-Western chunk of data, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_East_Asian_warfare

Re:The Horse Helped Shape Our World at Great Expense to Itself by woodandsteel on Friday February 16, 2018 @04:02PM (#16396220)
You're absolutely correct. The West is entirely evil, and non-Westerners are entirely good.

If I am misrepresenting your political philosophy, then you should say specifically what it is.