europe is confusing to non-europeans because of so many countries
But the main problem of the "cradle of society" is similar to that on the balkans: too many differences betwen tribes who are stong enough to defend their land but not strong enough to conquer one another. Yes I know this sounds kinna cruel, but if Rome managed to survive the attack of the German tribes and conquer the entire Europe (what little he didn't control) by the year 1500 all the europe would have accepted their culture and language, everyone would be the same and there would be no wars on europe soil, no deaths, we would evade the MIDDLE AGES wich were born because the civilized rome fell and barbarians made their kingdoms based mostly on narrow-minded ideas and violence AND in the end because of their rational thinking many inventions would be discovered earlier because Romans weren't narrow minded church fanatics who saw everything they didn't understand as the work of the devil
To conclude, If the roman empire survived it's fall, by the year 1500 europe would be a single nation of non-violence with technowlodgy from the year 1900...
Oh and the genocide of the native americans probably wouldn't have happened, nor the 1st World War, nor the 2nd world war nor the nuclear bombing of Hyroshima and Naggasaki
Curse you stipid Romans for not surviving! CURSE YOUUUU!
Sorry, had a divine intervention on ma brain cells for a moment there
There is a lot of errors and wrong assumptions in your post.
First off, I'll tell you that there is a very good reason why Rome didn't conquer the Germanic tribes: Because there wasn't much to gain there when Rome was in it's expansive phase. Then by the time Rome started to crumble to it's own weaknesses (constant civil wars, religious unrest and unstable slave based economy) the Germanic tribes had grown strong, and opportunity along with Hunnic pressure put them on the move.
Now, If Rome controlled all of Europe, wars and bloodshed wouldn't still cease. We know that the Romans fought against each other fairly often, as rival generals attempted to instate themselves as emperors.
Also, Romans were not religiously tolerant during the later phase. In fact, there was a lot of religious unrest going on in the empire at that time, with mainly Christians attacking the religious places of other religions. The Germans only invented the conversion by the sword.
Europe did not get technologically stagnated because of the empire being conquered. Dare I say, it was actually a relief for Europe as it was Rome itself that was stagnating technology. A big empire without competition for advancement to work, and slave based economy making people see no reason in making use of new technology.
Also, the Roman empire never really fell in the dark ages. The western half did, but the eastern half continued existence until 1453.
So to conclude my post, the Roman empire of the antiquity was destined to fall, and it was stagnating the Europe with it's lack of advancement. It's fall was our saving grace and allowed us to reach this level.
I completley dissagree with your conclusion.
rome may have been destined to fall, but what came out of that fall (medieval times) was a hundred time worse that rome itself and from the dark times nationalism was born and europe cut betwen not 1 but several powerfould forces. If you ask me it is better to have 1 bully (Rome) constantly keepeng the others down, than to have 3 bullies (England,Germany,France) constantly fighting over who gets to be the biggest bully and killing each other and the weak states in the process...
Plus, I don't think you understand what the end of "Republic" and "Medieval Ages" mean.
-both are based on slavery
-BUT republic has laws,certan democracy and so on
-Feudal kingdoms work like this:
-King is ruler and he does mostly what he wants
-King relies on nobles who stop him from being absolute ruler and they have a certan ammount of power
-King and the Nobles train soldiers
-King and nobles control all the lands and all people of those land are there to serve them. What do people get from serving them? They get to *keep some of the food that they gathered themselves and EAT it in the morning and evening!
luxurious lifestyle*
-King and nobles also have the right of life and death over others, also they can *call to war* the pesants and servants, making them accompany the army wearing nothing but their chlotes and maybe a woodcutter's axe (if they have one) and act as living shield for the rest of the army -front line-
that being said, all the technowlodgy and inventions from 1000 bc and 1000 ac have been greek or roman. No new inventions from feudal countries in this period, because the kings and nobles were afraid that some invention would change the way of life that is so kind to them...
Now religion... Romans were *rationaly religious* most of their history, I admit they didn't tolerate christians too much in the end because they saw a political threat out of it. Now the pope on the other hand, is like the emperor from star wars, using deception and cunning time after time in history to get what he wanted (i got lotta examples) and the chatolic relligion is the worst thing to happen in human history, because catholic fanaticaly listen to the pope and the pope is basicaly evil.
The bible sais don't kill, but the pope calls children of god to go slaughter "infidels" the muslims, and then the faimous seige of constantinople by crusaiders, who then raped,killed and stole for several days before leaving.
chatolicizam = hipocracy
right now im so lost in this post that im just gonna end it
xD
The dark ages did not lead to the rise of nationalism on commoner level, that happened after the Napoleonic wars. If we were in one single state, our technology would be severely restricted. Do you know of what China was like during the ancient and medieval times? It didn't become light years more advanced that Europe because of being the majority of it's time in peace. It instead ended up being worryingly backwards when the Europeans showed up, since there hadn't been many conflicts that would have spurred forward technological invention, never mind if the Chinese actually wanted to progress anymore.
Regarding the second post
First off, slavery and serfdom are two different things, and serfdom is not nearly as bad. The serfs would be treated as people, though of less value than their superiors, while slaves were essentially property. And not all European medieval states even practiced serfdom, such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
Laws existed in feudal societies as well. They were based on a combination of Roman laws and old Germanic laws. Certain democracy also existed in the middle ages as there were many republics and elective monarchies around.
Feudalism isn't a phenomenon exclusive to middle ages either. It has been practiced in the ancient age as well, by such people as Celts, Persians and Chinese. An average peasant in the middle ages also probably lived a healthier life than a poor Roman citizen trying to survive with free wheat in the cold and filthy streets of cities. Only a small part of the people in the empire lived a life of luxury.
Again, wrong. Many inventions were created during this time in other places than Greece and Rome. In fact, the Romans rarely invented anything, they mostly copied everything from others. The Celts were known to be very inventive, as they had cities, fortifications, paved roads (mostly wooden, though stone pavement existed too) and good hygiene (having invented soap and had severs in their biggest cities) and they also invented many military equipment, such as chain-mail armor. Medieval times saw inventions too. Crop rotation, wind mills, eye glasses, and printing are just some of the inventions of that time.
Once the Romans adopted Christianity, they too became "irrational" as you put it. The Christians were persecuted in the start because they refused to be part of the system (not worshiping the emperor, or joining the military) And you shouldn't ignore the good things catholic church did during this time either. They maintained many well fare services during the middle ages, including healthcare and education.
oh come on, you just took every single of my arguments wich are perfectly true in global, and found a minor exception for it...
1. nationalizam we face today that "rose" from napoleonic wars as you say it, is based on old medieval kingdoms... you can't be a french nacionalist if there isn't a medieval kingdom of france
2.technowlodgy: yes romans rarley invented everything, they took from others (often greeks), but that's the whole point of my argument. As you say Celts are inventive, but if Rome conquers their land they dont magicaly turn into Romans, they stay inventive, and they contribute to the empire, and the empire in return spreads all the technowlodgy over its vast teritorry making everyone equal in tech (a little bonus)
-Also i think romans live with every-day conflict on some part of the empire, thus the need for tech and the china argument doesn't apply here in my opinion for fiew reasons (more about that later)
-OF COURSE slaveoury isn't same as serfdom, but I think Roman slaveoury is FAIR compared to medieval serfdom. If you fight a war with romans (i.e. refuse to submit) they fight you and take the spoils of their victory (slavez), but if you are a serf you are born as such, and SERFS make 70% of the kingom (it's own people) while Romans at least respect their own and enslave others by certan rulez
-There were SLAVES in medievil times too (i think england being the lead in slave trade, not sure)
-Norway,Sweden and Denmark never had serfdom? That's admirable. But 90% of europe did have them
-Laws in Rome are based on well-though design and are 90% practical and just 10% ritualistic and they focus on material conpensation not personal revenge, i know because i study it. Medievil laws are retarded in one word (example thieves get arms cut off, rapists get killed, bandits get killed, those who owe money get limbs cut off, those who offend others especialy a noble get their arms cut off) i study them too :)
- Feudalisam isn't exclusive in medieval ages but 90% of the feudalizam's timeline is in medieval states. And even if it was present before, Rome certanly wasn't fudal until it's downfal and even then unwilingly
-bout the comment of serf being healthier than a citicen: frankly i got no idea who ate what or so on, but mentaly serf is worse of, being born to serve others and all...
(again slaves may be worse off than serfs,but serfs are the base of fudal society, i.e way of life, not punishment or rotten fate like a slave)
-the comment about hygene makes me laugh. Romans and their successors byzantines were the ones to discover bath tub, warm water and stuff like that, in early medieval times today's western europe were barbarians who hated to bathe and it didn't get any better in the future. Note the event when the crusaders were welcomed by byzantine emperor. he passed out from the western men's smell
-Romans knew of plate armor wich is superior to celtic chain armor, they would also discover crop rottation, wind mills , eye glases and so on in near future (if they hadn't by the time you mention this at celts) because other people who are out of celtic influence knew of this things by the mid- medieval time.
-Let me tell you something: catholics never did anything for anyone if it had not served any purpose. Although I believe catholics did good for catholics (yes only among each other, others they hated, slaughtered, or converted either through influence,force or politics) so although that may be true you must remember how and why catholicism' became a seperate relligion and that it, like a pocket clock, has certan mechanism's and rules of functioning that are unwritten but very much accepted and moslty un-christian...
Caatolicisam did acts of unspeakable hypocracy, i shal name my top 3:
1. Pope-Emperorizam: A syndrome of great thurst for power from wich popes suffered one after another. They preach the words of god but want riches of and power. Once when german emperor declared war on the pope (because he saw that catholic fanatics are dangerous as much as narrow-minded drones of the pope), the pope released all of the emperor's vassal nobles with his "divine words" and took them for himself and so pope took over germany
2.The catholics helped those who were their own, but despised and plotted against those who weren't (the resentment is mostly strongest after a failed conversion). This would not be so bad if we were talking about some fanatic soldiers or so on, but the pope himself was ussualy in charge of conversions, various deceptions and would often visit a chatolic kingdom and ask the king to start a war with their non-chatolic neighbours in the name of christ
(jesus said a lot of things, but i doubt any of them were turn on your brother christians and hate others who are not like you)
3. Sacking of Constantinople: to keep it short there was rape,butchering, crusaider deception involved as well as plundering on a GLOBAL scale such as it was never seen before (as the city was never breached in his history until then)
There's a quite a lot of nations that did not have a medieval kingdom as a base of their nationalism. This includes my own country: we only got a state of sorts in the 19th century.
Actually, they tend to do turn magically into Romans, especially when their culture is destroyed by Romans. Only the Greeks were allowed to maintain some cultural features, which the Romans adopted themselves (though for example the Spartan culture disappeared). Most other cultures disappeared when the Romans conquered them (This happened to Gauls. Caesar hunted down all their druids, who were responsible for maintaining all of their people's knowledge of themselves.)
And the Romans did not live in everyday conflict, especially not in the scenario you described. The Romans did adopt new weapon inventions to counter some features of the enemy warfare, but since their enemies did usually either have the resources or the willingness to evolve their own military, the Romans didn't need it either.
What do you base on your statement that Roman slavery was fair? Most slaves had to work in uncomfortable and unhealthy situations to mine metal, farm land and other works. They had even less human value than the serfs. And the children of slaves became slaves as well.
Feudalism has been practiced much longer than the period of middle ages. Ancient Persia was basically a feudal kingdom, with autonomious satrapies everywhere, while the Zhou dynasty of China was very feudal and the both of them existed during the Mychenean and Archaic Greek ages. (that is 1000-600 BC)
Plate armor (Lorica Segmentata) was never superior to chainmail armor (Lorica Hamata) as it had it's own flaws as well. It's weight wasn't spreaded out, it was uncomfortable to breath with, and it was expensive to create and maintain. That's why it never became the main Roman armor, even at it's peak of use. The chainmail armor was always the more common one.
About the Catholic church, we should agree on, that things that were done in the times of past should not be judged with modern morals, as morals back then were different from ours. And you cannot ignore the good things catholic church did (which I have mentioned above)
Plus, the fourth crusade was not endorsed by the Papacy to sack Constantinopole. It was the Venetians who drove it there.
goddamn it >:(
you find holes everywhere don't you xD
enough. I surrender.
(I'm actualy a fan of middle ages but since I wrote that comment in a moment of weird mental state, i figured i might as well practice my debating skills by taking a side :P)
ok you win
good debate
This map is very wrong, at least I can speak for my country. Those communities marked in Spain are not minorities, native peoples or ethnic groups. And if we're to consider all slight differences in the current Spanish genetic variety then the map lacks Old Castille, New Castille, Ceuta and Melilla, and the Canary Islands. In the case of Spain this map is very subjective.
Now what if all those groups became independent countries?
europe is confusing to non-europeans because of so many countries
But the main problem of the "cradle of society" is similar to that on the balkans: too many differences betwen tribes who are stong enough to defend their land but not strong enough to conquer one another. Yes I know this sounds kinna cruel, but if Rome managed to survive the attack of the German tribes and conquer the entire Europe (what little he didn't control) by the year 1500 all the europe would have accepted their culture and language, everyone would be the same and there would be no wars on europe soil, no deaths, we would evade the MIDDLE AGES wich were born because the civilized rome fell and barbarians made their kingdoms based mostly on narrow-minded ideas and violence AND in the end because of their rational thinking many inventions would be discovered earlier because Romans weren't narrow minded church fanatics who saw everything they didn't understand as the work of the devil
To conclude, If the roman empire survived it's fall, by the year 1500 europe would be a single nation of non-violence with technowlodgy from the year 1900...
Oh and the genocide of the native americans probably wouldn't have happened, nor the 1st World War, nor the 2nd world war nor the nuclear bombing of Hyroshima and Naggasaki
Curse you stipid Romans for not surviving! CURSE YOUUUU!
Sorry, had a divine intervention on ma brain cells for a moment there
There is a lot of errors and wrong assumptions in your post.
First off, I'll tell you that there is a very good reason why Rome didn't conquer the Germanic tribes: Because there wasn't much to gain there when Rome was in it's expansive phase. Then by the time Rome started to crumble to it's own weaknesses (constant civil wars, religious unrest and unstable slave based economy) the Germanic tribes had grown strong, and opportunity along with Hunnic pressure put them on the move.
Now, If Rome controlled all of Europe, wars and bloodshed wouldn't still cease. We know that the Romans fought against each other fairly often, as rival generals attempted to instate themselves as emperors.
Also, Romans were not religiously tolerant during the later phase. In fact, there was a lot of religious unrest going on in the empire at that time, with mainly Christians attacking the religious places of other religions. The Germans only invented the conversion by the sword.
Europe did not get technologically stagnated because of the empire being conquered. Dare I say, it was actually a relief for Europe as it was Rome itself that was stagnating technology. A big empire without competition for advancement to work, and slave based economy making people see no reason in making use of new technology.
Also, the Roman empire never really fell in the dark ages. The western half did, but the eastern half continued existence until 1453.
So to conclude my post, the Roman empire of the antiquity was destined to fall, and it was stagnating the Europe with it's lack of advancement. It's fall was our saving grace and allowed us to reach this level.
I completley dissagree with your conclusion.
rome may have been destined to fall, but what came out of that fall (medieval times) was a hundred time worse that rome itself and from the dark times nationalism was born and europe cut betwen not 1 but several powerfould forces. If you ask me it is better to have 1 bully (Rome) constantly keepeng the others down, than to have 3 bullies (England,Germany,France) constantly fighting over who gets to be the biggest bully and killing each other and the weak states in the process...
Plus, I don't think you understand what the end of "Republic" and "Medieval Ages" mean.
-both are based on slavery
-BUT republic has laws,certan democracy and so on
-Feudal kingdoms work like this:
-King is ruler and he does mostly what he wants
-King relies on nobles who stop him from being absolute ruler and they have a certan ammount of power
-King and the Nobles train soldiers
-King and nobles control all the lands and all people of those land are there to serve them. What do people get from serving them? They get to *keep some of the food that they gathered themselves and EAT it in the morning and evening!
luxurious lifestyle*
-King and nobles also have the right of life and death over others, also they can *call to war* the pesants and servants, making them accompany the army wearing nothing but their chlotes and maybe a woodcutter's axe (if they have one) and act as living shield for the rest of the army -front line-
that being said, all the technowlodgy and inventions from 1000 bc and 1000 ac have been greek or roman. No new inventions from feudal countries in this period, because the kings and nobles were afraid that some invention would change the way of life that is so kind to them...
Now religion... Romans were *rationaly religious* most of their history, I admit they didn't tolerate christians too much in the end because they saw a political threat out of it. Now the pope on the other hand, is like the emperor from star wars, using deception and cunning time after time in history to get what he wanted (i got lotta examples) and the chatolic relligion is the worst thing to happen in human history, because catholic fanaticaly listen to the pope and the pope is basicaly evil.
The bible sais don't kill, but the pope calls children of god to go slaughter "infidels" the muslims, and then the faimous seige of constantinople by crusaiders, who then raped,killed and stole for several days before leaving.
chatolicizam = hipocracy
right now im so lost in this post that im just gonna end it
xD
Regarding the first post
The dark ages did not lead to the rise of nationalism on commoner level, that happened after the Napoleonic wars. If we were in one single state, our technology would be severely restricted. Do you know of what China was like during the ancient and medieval times? It didn't become light years more advanced that Europe because of being the majority of it's time in peace. It instead ended up being worryingly backwards when the Europeans showed up, since there hadn't been many conflicts that would have spurred forward technological invention, never mind if the Chinese actually wanted to progress anymore.
Regarding the second post
First off, slavery and serfdom are two different things, and serfdom is not nearly as bad. The serfs would be treated as people, though of less value than their superiors, while slaves were essentially property. And not all European medieval states even practiced serfdom, such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
Laws existed in feudal societies as well. They were based on a combination of Roman laws and old Germanic laws. Certain democracy also existed in the middle ages as there were many republics and elective monarchies around.
Feudalism isn't a phenomenon exclusive to middle ages either. It has been practiced in the ancient age as well, by such people as Celts, Persians and Chinese. An average peasant in the middle ages also probably lived a healthier life than a poor Roman citizen trying to survive with free wheat in the cold and filthy streets of cities. Only a small part of the people in the empire lived a life of luxury.
Regarding the third post
Again, wrong. Many inventions were created during this time in other places than Greece and Rome. In fact, the Romans rarely invented anything, they mostly copied everything from others. The Celts were known to be very inventive, as they had cities, fortifications, paved roads (mostly wooden, though stone pavement existed too) and good hygiene (having invented soap and had severs in their biggest cities) and they also invented many military equipment, such as chain-mail armor. Medieval times saw inventions too. Crop rotation, wind mills, eye glasses, and printing are just some of the inventions of that time.
Once the Romans adopted Christianity, they too became "irrational" as you put it. The Christians were persecuted in the start because they refused to be part of the system (not worshiping the emperor, or joining the military) And you shouldn't ignore the good things catholic church did during this time either. They maintained many well fare services during the middle ages, including healthcare and education.
oh come on, you just took every single of my arguments wich are perfectly true in global, and found a minor exception for it...
1. nationalizam we face today that "rose" from napoleonic wars as you say it, is based on old medieval kingdoms... you can't be a french nacionalist if there isn't a medieval kingdom of france
2.technowlodgy: yes romans rarley invented everything, they took from others (often greeks), but that's the whole point of my argument. As you say Celts are inventive, but if Rome conquers their land they dont magicaly turn into Romans, they stay inventive, and they contribute to the empire, and the empire in return spreads all the technowlodgy over its vast teritorry making everyone equal in tech (a little bonus)
-Also i think romans live with every-day conflict on some part of the empire, thus the need for tech and the china argument doesn't apply here in my opinion for fiew reasons (more about that later)
-OF COURSE slaveoury isn't same as serfdom, but I think Roman slaveoury is FAIR compared to medieval serfdom. If you fight a war with romans (i.e. refuse to submit) they fight you and take the spoils of their victory (slavez), but if you are a serf you are born as such, and SERFS make 70% of the kingom (it's own people) while Romans at least respect their own and enslave others by certan rulez
-There were SLAVES in medievil times too (i think england being the lead in slave trade, not sure)
-Norway,Sweden and Denmark never had serfdom? That's admirable. But 90% of europe did have them
-Laws in Rome are based on well-though design and are 90% practical and just 10% ritualistic and they focus on material conpensation not personal revenge, i know because i study it. Medievil laws are retarded in one word (example thieves get arms cut off, rapists get killed, bandits get killed, those who owe money get limbs cut off, those who offend others especialy a noble get their arms cut off) i study them too :)
- Feudalisam isn't exclusive in medieval ages but 90% of the feudalizam's timeline is in medieval states. And even if it was present before, Rome certanly wasn't fudal until it's downfal and even then unwilingly
-bout the comment of serf being healthier than a citicen: frankly i got no idea who ate what or so on, but mentaly serf is worse of, being born to serve others and all...
(again slaves may be worse off than serfs,but serfs are the base of fudal society, i.e way of life, not punishment or rotten fate like a slave)
-the comment about hygene makes me laugh. Romans and their successors byzantines were the ones to discover bath tub, warm water and stuff like that, in early medieval times today's western europe were barbarians who hated to bathe and it didn't get any better in the future. Note the event when the crusaders were welcomed by byzantine emperor. he passed out from the western men's smell
-Romans knew of plate armor wich is superior to celtic chain armor, they would also discover crop rottation, wind mills , eye glases and so on in near future (if they hadn't by the time you mention this at celts) because other people who are out of celtic influence knew of this things by the mid- medieval time.
-Let me tell you something: catholics never did anything for anyone if it had not served any purpose. Although I believe catholics did good for catholics (yes only among each other, others they hated, slaughtered, or converted either through influence,force or politics) so although that may be true you must remember how and why catholicism' became a seperate relligion and that it, like a pocket clock, has certan mechanism's and rules of functioning that are unwritten but very much accepted and moslty un-christian...
Caatolicisam did acts of unspeakable hypocracy, i shal name my top 3:
1. Pope-Emperorizam: A syndrome of great thurst for power from wich popes suffered one after another. They preach the words of god but want riches of and power. Once when german emperor declared war on the pope (because he saw that catholic fanatics are dangerous as much as narrow-minded drones of the pope), the pope released all of the emperor's vassal nobles with his "divine words" and took them for himself and so pope took over germany
2.The catholics helped those who were their own, but despised and plotted against those who weren't (the resentment is mostly strongest after a failed conversion). This would not be so bad if we were talking about some fanatic soldiers or so on, but the pope himself was ussualy in charge of conversions, various deceptions and would often visit a chatolic kingdom and ask the king to start a war with their non-chatolic neighbours in the name of christ
(jesus said a lot of things, but i doubt any of them were turn on your brother christians and hate others who are not like you)
3. Sacking of Constantinople: to keep it short there was rape,butchering, crusaider deception involved as well as plundering on a GLOBAL scale such as it was never seen before (as the city was never breached in his history until then)
There's a quite a lot of nations that did not have a medieval kingdom as a base of their nationalism. This includes my own country: we only got a state of sorts in the 19th century.
Actually, they tend to do turn magically into Romans, especially when their culture is destroyed by Romans. Only the Greeks were allowed to maintain some cultural features, which the Romans adopted themselves (though for example the Spartan culture disappeared). Most other cultures disappeared when the Romans conquered them (This happened to Gauls. Caesar hunted down all their druids, who were responsible for maintaining all of their people's knowledge of themselves.)
And the Romans did not live in everyday conflict, especially not in the scenario you described. The Romans did adopt new weapon inventions to counter some features of the enemy warfare, but since their enemies did usually either have the resources or the willingness to evolve their own military, the Romans didn't need it either.
What do you base on your statement that Roman slavery was fair? Most slaves had to work in uncomfortable and unhealthy situations to mine metal, farm land and other works. They had even less human value than the serfs. And the children of slaves became slaves as well.
Feudalism has been practiced much longer than the period of middle ages. Ancient Persia was basically a feudal kingdom, with autonomious satrapies everywhere, while the Zhou dynasty of China was very feudal and the both of them existed during the Mychenean and Archaic Greek ages. (that is 1000-600 BC)
Plate armor (Lorica Segmentata) was never superior to chainmail armor (Lorica Hamata) as it had it's own flaws as well. It's weight wasn't spreaded out, it was uncomfortable to breath with, and it was expensive to create and maintain. That's why it never became the main Roman armor, even at it's peak of use. The chainmail armor was always the more common one.
About the Catholic church, we should agree on, that things that were done in the times of past should not be judged with modern morals, as morals back then were different from ours. And you cannot ignore the good things catholic church did (which I have mentioned above)
Plus, the fourth crusade was not endorsed by the Papacy to sack Constantinopole. It was the Venetians who drove it there.
goddamn it >:(
you find holes everywhere don't you xD
enough. I surrender.
(I'm actualy a fan of middle ages but since I wrote that comment in a moment of weird mental state, i figured i might as well practice my debating skills by taking a side :P)
ok you win
good debate
Hehe, well that's what debating usually is according to my experience. Picking on holes of the opponent to crumble their argument as a whole. ^^
Good debate. Thank you.
This map is very wrong, at least I can speak for my country. Those communities marked in Spain are not minorities, native peoples or ethnic groups. And if we're to consider all slight differences in the current Spanish genetic variety then the map lacks Old Castille, New Castille, Ceuta and Melilla, and the Canary Islands. In the case of Spain this map is very subjective.