Althouse: "200 years that changed the world."

May 28, 2009

"200 years that changed the world."

(Via Tigerhawk.)

12 comments:

KCFleming said...: And the US, a la Norma Desmond, readies for its close-up.; 5/28/09, 9:48 AM
bearbee said...: software website; 5/28/09, 9:57 AM
paul a'barge said...: most excellent graphics; 5/28/09, 10:22 AM
Prosqtor said...: Thanks for posting this. I thought I would only watch it for a few seconds but I found it so interesting I could not turn it off.; 5/28/09, 11:19 AM
David said...: Fabulous graphic presentation. Great cause for long term optimism for the world. Vindication of "western" medicine. Another warning that USA must adjust to not being dominant anymore.; 5/28/09, 11:20 AM
Anonymous said...: What is shows is that economic growth is indespensible to better health, so we should help the world gain economic wealth (which we have.)

But Obama wants to tax our way to better health.

This shows that Obama's strategic approach is exactly backwards.; 5/28/09, 11:29 AM
traditionalguy said...: That Red Blob is now the site of America's industrial might. What's wrong with that picture? Reminds me of the PacMan game that's now become the ChinaMan game. Now why did North Korea suddenly decide it's OK to escalate and stretch the already thinly stretched American Military world deployments? I still think we should offer to sell California to China for debt reduction. They couldn't run it any worse, and they have been indiginous there for 160 years already.; 5/28/09, 1:38 PM
William said...: That was truly interesting. Thanks for posting.....When Gibbons wrote Decline and Fall, the living standards of Western Europe were inferior to what they had been during the reign of the Antonines. This was particularly so for the aristocrats. The common people probably lived in such abject poverty that it did not much matter. However, unlike the Roman Empire, there was an infrastructure, i.e. Christianity, in place that allowed for the linear upward movement of ordinary people. Gibbons got it wrong when he idealized the Roman Empire and disparaged his own....For most of the past 4000 years China has had a higher level of civilization and a higher standard of living than the rest of the world. They had a bad two hundred years but maybe they will find a way to revert to the mean. I've got no objections if the Chinese discover a cure for cancer and an inexpensive way of astral flight.; 5/28/09, 1:52 PM
William said...: Since Gibbons, maybe even before, intellectuals and artists have disparaged Christianity and capitalism. It is wise to recall that it was the algorithm of these two great forces that moved mankind from its endless cycles of generation and collapse.; 5/28/09, 4:53 PM
the quietist said...: Interesting. Hmm...what was changing in western Europe and the US around 1800 -- which according to the chart spread later on to most of the rest of the world --that could account for these developments?

Clearly, it was the rise of command-and-control centrally planned economics that accounts for the unprecedented rise in wealth, prosperity, health, and quality of life over the past two hundred years.

Clearly, the innovations in agriculture and mechanization that liberated us from the agrarian-dominated societies of the past and freed up more people to move to cities -- thereby allowing for industrialization and mass education, antibiotics, air-conditioning, and refrigeration -- were brought about by a political vanguard telling individuals where to work and what to do according to their own relative standards of "fairness."

It's the only answer. With the American and French Revolutions, we finally threw off the chains of individual liberties and limited government and embraced total state control of the means and modes of production! And look at the results! Praise Goddess!

And the troglodytes think that environmentalists are just Luddites who, due to a misguided and aimless moral compass, want to drag humanity back into the squalor and misery that was its normal state for thousands of years! Now we know that's just silly. Locally grown organics now! Like people had before the industrial age!; 5/28/09, 7:10 PM
rhhardin said...: Mechanized green tractor cuts hay for the horsies of the modern world.; 5/28/09, 9:31 PM
Anonymous said...: целебный электрошокер шалунья; 1/27/10, 10:44 PM