If freedom and democracy were universal values then they would have shown up in some of the earliest cultures, which they did not. You also wouldn't get large groups of people who don't think democracy is a good idea, and yet we have China.

Universal values are closer to, don't have sex with your mother or don't eat people and we still have notable exceptions for those

> If freedom and democracy were universal values then they would have shown up in some of the earliest cultures ...

Certainly there is plenty of writing throughout recorded history in many cultures about freedom and oppression, and democracy as a form of government at least goes back to ancient Greece and Rome (a republic).

We have no idea how often it was implemented on a small scale (a village, etc.), but I find it hard to believe that nobody thought of taking a vote until 1776.

Implementing those things in government might have been difficult, but so was developing physics, literacy and the Internet. That doesn't mean people didn't want those things throughout history.

> Universal values are closer to ...

I don't think it's worth debating the meaning of 'universal'.

Greece and Rome are nowhere near early cultures, they came thousands of year after organized civilizations. It's also not useful to point to them when their democracy's were short stints in their historys and overtaken by authoritarian governments.

Based on the responses I've had to this post I think people might believe I am against democracy. My point was that it's not a universal value of humanity and so if we want democracy it needs to be supported. It will not be supported by base human instinct

> If freedom and democracy were universal values then they would have shown up in some of the earliest cultures, which they did not.

TIL that the Greeks were nei bother. Rome was also originally a Republic.

Why is this entire thread full of bollocks history and bollocks sociology?

Because it's the internet. Please don't make the threads even worse by posting unsubstantive comments. Annoying as things may be, this is not the way to raise the quality of this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

you complain at this point? I feel like this is complaining about someone sneezing during a flood.

Perhaps; we don't see all the comments. But other people breaking the rules doesn't make it ok to break the rules.

Rome and Greece showed up thousands of years after early cultures. Rome also had its democracy replaced by a dictatorship.

Id go as far as to say that someone thinking that Rome and Greece are early cultures might be the person with "bollocks history"

Rome was still ~BC, Alexander the great was ~300 BC. How early counts in your book?

Are you suggesting that Christ's birth was the marker for early history? There was the Egyptians, the Akkadians, the Hittities, Sumerians, the early Chinese, and the early Indian just to name a few organized civilizations that are thousands of years older.

Additionally you are using Alexander the Great as your earliest marker? How was he democratic at all. He was a literal military dictator as were the Hellenic kingdoms that's descended from his empire

oi. Lets not forget you start with:

> If freedom and democracy were universal values then they would have shown up in some of the earliest cultures, which they did not.

We have a ton of resource from the Greeks because they wrote shit down. By invoking "the earliest" civilizations you're hiding behind a greater unknown because we lack an equivalent level of written resource until ~3500 BC. So written resource becomes available 5,500 years ago and democracy has written examples available 2,000 years ago, 3,500 years after written record. Ergo, according to your bullshit if something occurs 3,500 years after writing is established even though that was 2,000 years ago that means _nothing_ toward "universal values".

I can't believe you'd twist history like this to much such bollocks points. What the fuck does "universal values" even mean? We can barely trust the tablets we have and we have limited to no written record of societies beyond 3,500 years ago. But because of this window of 3,500 years between writing and democracy not appearing you classify it as "non-universal". You're full of shit by basing your entire argument on this window that conveniently fulfils it. Humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years yet this 3,500 year window is all that matters to you. Dwell on that.

For reference, I am not arguing that democracy IS a universal value but just against that you can prove what is or isn't a universal value by cherry picking our patchy written record like you do.

Alex is a shit marker to be fair but gives a general gist for the rise of the Hellenic world. Examples of democracy within city states existed prior to 6 BC Athens but 6 BC Athens is the best known one.

Since we just asked you to stop breaking the site guidelines and then you posted this, I've banned this account until we get some indication that you will use HN as intended in the future. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] with that.

In HN comments, it's more important not to turn this site into a flaming pit than it is to be right about Hellenic antiquity.

First off, you can calm down, no need to call me full of shit because you don't like my arguments.

As to your points. We have written history from thousands of years before the Greeks. The code of Hammurabi predates them significantly. We also have scattered historical records from other ancient cultures and it's not like their government system was a mystery. They had Kings and emperor's, not elected leaders.

Even with the Greeks, how many of the city states had any sort of democratic system and weren't a monarchy or oligopoly? Youre accusing me of cherry picking but all you can point to is a single geographic area in a relatively small span of time and even then, only a few of the population centers had any sort of democracy.