I'm really a secret Shadow plant, and we're really just rogue Vorlons;
shhhhh. :)
> Not war as much as competition. Acient China probaply was in as many war as
> the european community during the last last millineum and started with a much
> higher level of technology, but eventually lost the technology war to europe.
> I beleive this is due to the internal competition (between states and on a
> local economic level) prominent throughout europe. Competition sustains
> growth (change) during time of peace, and creates the base and momentum for
> growth going into wars. Such competition also permited those european
> societies to better capitalize on the technologies developed during war, when
> the war ends.
This is all true; war, however, brings competition home to the cradle,
as it were. In a sense, all competition /is/ war, if not of the flesh
then of memes, millions of which are killed or mutate beyond
recognition when pressed by a superior foe. We are, however,
conditioned by thousands of years of bred memetics, culturization and
genetics to need a good killing every once in a while and in such
times that the war of memes spills over into the realm of the flesh,
we see competition distilled.