03-31-2019, 06:17 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-31-2019, 06:37 AM by Bill the Piper.)
A challenge from Personality Cafe. I'd be glad to see how you'd do it 
My attempt:
History on the Earth begun about 100 000 BC, when humans first achieved the status of basic sophont. Humans originated in Africa, but soon they spread throughout the planet, assimilating related hominid species. For tens of thousands of years, people lived in bands of 50-150 individuals. Life in this era was mostly about satisfying basic survival needs. Art existed in a rudimentary form, the prevalent form of religion was worship of nature spirit and ancestors. There was a lot of violence, though it was disorganised, without states there was no possibility of orderly warfare. This is the lifestyle the human species is biologically adopted to, there are still people who retained the Paleolithic lifestyle in Africa and South America.
Eventually, about 10 000 BC in the Middle East humans learned to purposefully cultivate certain plants and domesticated species of animals like dogs, horses, cows and pigs. Agriculture was born. This guaranteed better supplies of food, although hunger remained a menace for a long time. Still, for the first time a few people could devote most of their time to something else than survival. Division of labour appeared. The result was development of more complex arts, as well as further progress in practical abilities. This progress was however very slow. People still lived in small tribal communities, though perhaps they were slightly better organised than during the hunter-gatherer period.
Only about 3000 BC human beings started to create larger and more integrated communities known as states. First states appeared in Egypt and Iraq, then about 2000 BC the same thing happened in China and India. Since that time, political organisation started dominating Eurasia and northern coasts of Africa, while the rest of the world was stuck on tribal level. This form of organization made life more peaceful, since tribal warfare was no longer possible. It was good for culture. However the early states had an important drawback. They were autocratic. They tyrants and their acolytes guaranteed themselves a relatively high standard of living compared to their subjects. To prevent the subjects from rebelling, the tyrants had to use brutal physical punishments. They also claimed descent from gods, necessitating a more sophisticated theology, although the basis of religion remained nature worship. But religion did not stay this way for ever. About 1500 BC, two monotheistic religions appeared, venerating a single God as the creator of all reality and supreme lawmaker: Echnaton's in Egypt and Abraham's in Israel. Echnaton's system died off within a generation, while Abraham's one remained confined to one small ethnic group, the Jews. An important practical achievement of the era of early states was metallurgy, at first working on bronze, and later iron.
From 500 BC to 0 AD civilized humans' relationship with the universe was revolutionized. In Greece, India and China philosophy was invented, more or less at the same time. Its beginnings were naive but eventually it developed into more reasonable systems of thought. Plato's philosophy in Greece, Gautama Buddha's doctrine in India and Confucius' one in China were among the most influential schools of philosophy, and stayed relevant for many centuries. In Israel, Jesus enriched Abraham's monotheistic religion, teaching that God represents not only creative power and justice but also universal love. For His teachings, Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion, but the new faith could not be erased. He started to be regarded as God Incarnate and originated the most successful religion in human history. Greek medicine, science, mathematics, poetry and sculpture of this era also achieved heights unknown to any earlier human civilization. The Greeks, as well as Romans who imitated their civilization, were the first to conceive a democratic political system, though it did not last very long.
In the meanwhile, the most successful political structures: the Chinese Empire in the Far East and the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean have dominated very large areas and achieved levels of prosperity unknown before. The spiritual revolution was complete when Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and declared it state religion, resulting in development of hierarchical Catholic Church. Eventually both empires faced barbarian invasions. The Romans were defeated completely, while the Chinese responded to the invasions by developing an isolationist attitude. It should however be noted that China continued to progress and remained for many centuries the most cultured nation on the planet.
Cultural achievements of Greece and Rome were preserved by the Catholic Church, which has by the time of the invasions assimilated them. Despite this fact, Europe suffered a period of cultural regression known as the Dark Ages, which lasted for several centuries. During the era of eclipse, a militaristic and theologically simplified form of Abraham's monotheism, known as Islam, inspired a nomadic nation known as the Arabs to invade large parts of northern Africa and southwestern Asia. The nomad's way of life was considered the only one approved by God. For a long time, this Islam remained a threat to more developed peoples, although its adherents sometimes adopted a more civilized way of life derived from Christianity and Greek philosophy.
About 1500 AD, another revolution happened. European scholars rediscovered Greek science, leaving to an intellectual movement known as Renaissance. The Catholic Church, who had at this time wielded political power, tried to suppress it, but these persecutions were not brutal enough to stop it. Scientists of the Renaissance defined basic laws of physical reality and humans' place in the Cosmos. Copernicus discovered that Earth revolves around the Sun. Newton described fundamental principles of mechanics. Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered America. This resulted in a wave of colonization. Soon European states governed almost the whole globe. Europeans spread their cultural and technological achievements, but they also committed many acts of violence and injustice. They caused the native population of America to die off by introducing new diseases to the continent. In Africa, they started kidnapping the natives and forcing them to work as slaves on new plantations in America.
After 1700, a new intellectual movement appeared, known as Liberalism. It called for rational thinking and rejected the authority of tyrants and the Church, which has by this time fragmented into three major branches. These authorities were to be replaced by democracy. In America, British settlers rebelled against the rule of Britain and set up a new nation known as the United States of America, whose laws were based on Liberal principles. This new nation attracted settlers from the whole world. In Europe, the process of democratisation was longer and only after a few generations tyrants were removed completely. During this period, science continued to unravel the mysteries of the Cosmos. Darwin explained the development of life including the origin of humans. Einstein described relativistic phenomena. Progress of astronomy enabled human civilization to realize the immense size of the observable universe.
During the same era, Feminist movement, one of the offshots of Liberalism, demanded treating women as equal to men. Women's position in society indeed improved, though the process was quite slow.
There was also a dark side to Liberalism. It rejected Jesus' ethos of universal love and put in its place the idea of rational but innately selfish individual. This resulted in growth of economic competition between wealthy men, which made technological progress speed up, but left the working masses in miserable conditions. Democratic states tried to mitigate the effects by introducing systems of state charity, but many workers thought they were doing too little.
New political movements started to appear, promising the workers a more equal distribution of material goods by means of total government control of all economic activity. After 1900, these movements succeeded in two countries: in Russia there were the Bolsheviks and in Germany the Nazis. The Bolsheviks tried to undermine the power of Liberal governments and businessmen by inciting workers of the world to violent uprisings. The Nazis, whose ideology was more militaristic and tribalistic, attempted a worldwide military expansion, causing the greatest war in the planet's history. They also murdered millions of Jews, accusing them of being worse exploiters of the German working class. The Nazis were eventually defeated by combined effort of Bolshevik Russia and democratic states led by America, but the war was so brutal that its traumatic effects were visible in human culture for many decades. The generation born after the war was especially prone to selfish hedonism and naive mysticism.
Science however continued to develop, the two greatest achievements of the post-war period were invention of computers, which revolutionized both communication and entertainment, and a manned expedition to the Moon. Development of effective contraceptions made it possible for humans to enjoy real sexual freedom. In the same period European powers abandoned their colonies in Africa and the Middle East, creating a power vacuum soon filled by tyrannies inspired by either native traditions or Bolshevism. Some of these states supported terrorist attacks against America and its European allies. Before 2000, Bolshevik Russia collapsed under the weight of its own economic incompetence, making America the dominant political power in the world, although its position is contested by China. Culturally and economically the planet is heading toward full unity, although the process is disturbed by some tribalistic movements.
My attempt:
History on the Earth begun about 100 000 BC, when humans first achieved the status of basic sophont. Humans originated in Africa, but soon they spread throughout the planet, assimilating related hominid species. For tens of thousands of years, people lived in bands of 50-150 individuals. Life in this era was mostly about satisfying basic survival needs. Art existed in a rudimentary form, the prevalent form of religion was worship of nature spirit and ancestors. There was a lot of violence, though it was disorganised, without states there was no possibility of orderly warfare. This is the lifestyle the human species is biologically adopted to, there are still people who retained the Paleolithic lifestyle in Africa and South America.
Eventually, about 10 000 BC in the Middle East humans learned to purposefully cultivate certain plants and domesticated species of animals like dogs, horses, cows and pigs. Agriculture was born. This guaranteed better supplies of food, although hunger remained a menace for a long time. Still, for the first time a few people could devote most of their time to something else than survival. Division of labour appeared. The result was development of more complex arts, as well as further progress in practical abilities. This progress was however very slow. People still lived in small tribal communities, though perhaps they were slightly better organised than during the hunter-gatherer period.
Only about 3000 BC human beings started to create larger and more integrated communities known as states. First states appeared in Egypt and Iraq, then about 2000 BC the same thing happened in China and India. Since that time, political organisation started dominating Eurasia and northern coasts of Africa, while the rest of the world was stuck on tribal level. This form of organization made life more peaceful, since tribal warfare was no longer possible. It was good for culture. However the early states had an important drawback. They were autocratic. They tyrants and their acolytes guaranteed themselves a relatively high standard of living compared to their subjects. To prevent the subjects from rebelling, the tyrants had to use brutal physical punishments. They also claimed descent from gods, necessitating a more sophisticated theology, although the basis of religion remained nature worship. But religion did not stay this way for ever. About 1500 BC, two monotheistic religions appeared, venerating a single God as the creator of all reality and supreme lawmaker: Echnaton's in Egypt and Abraham's in Israel. Echnaton's system died off within a generation, while Abraham's one remained confined to one small ethnic group, the Jews. An important practical achievement of the era of early states was metallurgy, at first working on bronze, and later iron.
From 500 BC to 0 AD civilized humans' relationship with the universe was revolutionized. In Greece, India and China philosophy was invented, more or less at the same time. Its beginnings were naive but eventually it developed into more reasonable systems of thought. Plato's philosophy in Greece, Gautama Buddha's doctrine in India and Confucius' one in China were among the most influential schools of philosophy, and stayed relevant for many centuries. In Israel, Jesus enriched Abraham's monotheistic religion, teaching that God represents not only creative power and justice but also universal love. For His teachings, Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion, but the new faith could not be erased. He started to be regarded as God Incarnate and originated the most successful religion in human history. Greek medicine, science, mathematics, poetry and sculpture of this era also achieved heights unknown to any earlier human civilization. The Greeks, as well as Romans who imitated their civilization, were the first to conceive a democratic political system, though it did not last very long.
In the meanwhile, the most successful political structures: the Chinese Empire in the Far East and the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean have dominated very large areas and achieved levels of prosperity unknown before. The spiritual revolution was complete when Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and declared it state religion, resulting in development of hierarchical Catholic Church. Eventually both empires faced barbarian invasions. The Romans were defeated completely, while the Chinese responded to the invasions by developing an isolationist attitude. It should however be noted that China continued to progress and remained for many centuries the most cultured nation on the planet.
Cultural achievements of Greece and Rome were preserved by the Catholic Church, which has by the time of the invasions assimilated them. Despite this fact, Europe suffered a period of cultural regression known as the Dark Ages, which lasted for several centuries. During the era of eclipse, a militaristic and theologically simplified form of Abraham's monotheism, known as Islam, inspired a nomadic nation known as the Arabs to invade large parts of northern Africa and southwestern Asia. The nomad's way of life was considered the only one approved by God. For a long time, this Islam remained a threat to more developed peoples, although its adherents sometimes adopted a more civilized way of life derived from Christianity and Greek philosophy.
About 1500 AD, another revolution happened. European scholars rediscovered Greek science, leaving to an intellectual movement known as Renaissance. The Catholic Church, who had at this time wielded political power, tried to suppress it, but these persecutions were not brutal enough to stop it. Scientists of the Renaissance defined basic laws of physical reality and humans' place in the Cosmos. Copernicus discovered that Earth revolves around the Sun. Newton described fundamental principles of mechanics. Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered America. This resulted in a wave of colonization. Soon European states governed almost the whole globe. Europeans spread their cultural and technological achievements, but they also committed many acts of violence and injustice. They caused the native population of America to die off by introducing new diseases to the continent. In Africa, they started kidnapping the natives and forcing them to work as slaves on new plantations in America.
After 1700, a new intellectual movement appeared, known as Liberalism. It called for rational thinking and rejected the authority of tyrants and the Church, which has by this time fragmented into three major branches. These authorities were to be replaced by democracy. In America, British settlers rebelled against the rule of Britain and set up a new nation known as the United States of America, whose laws were based on Liberal principles. This new nation attracted settlers from the whole world. In Europe, the process of democratisation was longer and only after a few generations tyrants were removed completely. During this period, science continued to unravel the mysteries of the Cosmos. Darwin explained the development of life including the origin of humans. Einstein described relativistic phenomena. Progress of astronomy enabled human civilization to realize the immense size of the observable universe.
During the same era, Feminist movement, one of the offshots of Liberalism, demanded treating women as equal to men. Women's position in society indeed improved, though the process was quite slow.
There was also a dark side to Liberalism. It rejected Jesus' ethos of universal love and put in its place the idea of rational but innately selfish individual. This resulted in growth of economic competition between wealthy men, which made technological progress speed up, but left the working masses in miserable conditions. Democratic states tried to mitigate the effects by introducing systems of state charity, but many workers thought they were doing too little.
New political movements started to appear, promising the workers a more equal distribution of material goods by means of total government control of all economic activity. After 1900, these movements succeeded in two countries: in Russia there were the Bolsheviks and in Germany the Nazis. The Bolsheviks tried to undermine the power of Liberal governments and businessmen by inciting workers of the world to violent uprisings. The Nazis, whose ideology was more militaristic and tribalistic, attempted a worldwide military expansion, causing the greatest war in the planet's history. They also murdered millions of Jews, accusing them of being worse exploiters of the German working class. The Nazis were eventually defeated by combined effort of Bolshevik Russia and democratic states led by America, but the war was so brutal that its traumatic effects were visible in human culture for many decades. The generation born after the war was especially prone to selfish hedonism and naive mysticism.
Science however continued to develop, the two greatest achievements of the post-war period were invention of computers, which revolutionized both communication and entertainment, and a manned expedition to the Moon. Development of effective contraceptions made it possible for humans to enjoy real sexual freedom. In the same period European powers abandoned their colonies in Africa and the Middle East, creating a power vacuum soon filled by tyrannies inspired by either native traditions or Bolshevism. Some of these states supported terrorist attacks against America and its European allies. Before 2000, Bolshevik Russia collapsed under the weight of its own economic incompetence, making America the dominant political power in the world, although its position is contested by China. Culturally and economically the planet is heading toward full unity, although the process is disturbed by some tribalistic movements.
