Switzerland could one day rule the world - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14565158
Could a small country like Switzerland one day rule the entire world if they are technologically advanced. If they are around larger, less advanced countries they can control them with the use of technology.

Like how the Foundation became the Second Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series.

Switzerland could be the rebirth of Rome as they are the most technologically advanced country or one of at the heart of a struggling Europe.

Switzerland survived the consolidation of nation states and came out the other side. Now they will take it all. Mark my words.
#14565963
When compared to some [i]provinces[/] of America, China, India, etc Switzerland would get stomped out of existence. Sorry OP, it is a minor power surrounded by larger powers who in turn are dwarfed by even larger powers.

The metropolitan regionof Milan in Northern Italy alone has equivalent population (8 mil) and a greater industrial capacity than Swtizerland in its entirety.

Enjoy holding people's money in those banks, I guess.
Last edited by Igor Antunov on 07 Jun 2015 14:40, edited 1 time in total.
#14565967
Britain already exists.


With 8x the population and 50x the industry? Anyway, the British Empire no longer exists, and at its height the closest it came to ruling anything of note was a divided Indian subcontinent. The rest of the territory was unpopulated or home to pre-iron age tribes. At its height britain couldn't even seriously contribute to any major europe-wide land war.

As usual the Mongols are the only valid example, and will forever continue to be. They started off as a tribe of 200,000 and conquered 200 million people, annihilating another 50 million in the process, and this was without a firearms or industrial advantage. This feat will never be surpassed.
#14565977
Igor Antunov wrote:With 8x the population and 50x the industry? Anyway, the British Empire no longer exists, and at its height the closest it came to ruling anything of note was a divided Indian subcontinent. The rest of the territory was unpopulated or home to pre-iron age tribes. At its height britain couldn't even seriously contribute to any major europe-wide land war.

Britain is a very small country which has at least as much influence in the world as USA. It is absolutely that OP talking about.

Igor Antunov wrote:As usual the Mongols are the only valid example, and will forever continue to be. They started off as a tribe of 200,000 and conquered 200 million people, annihilating another 50 million in the process, and this was without a firearms or industrial advantage. This feat will never be surpassed.

Nonsense. In the time of mongols there were about 250 000 000 of the world's population at all. The fairy tales about mighty nomads who conquer all and kill thousands, millions, milliards... Oh, leave it to mongols, maybe that makes them proud, I don't know. The reality is that: there were never 200 000 mongols or even 100 000, because primordial people do not can support enough population's density. When civilized people come, all those nomads, hunters and gatherers misteriously with their 0,001% share of population misteriously vanish, and that is the main reason we do not see any Mongols on the map.
#14565984
Britain is a very small country which has at least as much influence in the world as USA. It is absolutely that OP talking about.

Igor Antunov wrote:
As usual the Mongols are the only valid example, and will forever continue to be. They started off as a tribe of 200,000 and conquered 200 million people, annihilating another 50 million in the process, and this was without a firearms or industrial advantage. This feat will never be surpassed.

Nonsense. In the time of mongols there were about 250 000 000 of the world's population at all. The fairy tales about mighty nomads who conquer all and kill thousands, millions, milliards... Oh, leave it to mongols, maybe that makes them proud, I don't know. The reality is that: there were never 200 000 mongols or even 100 000, because primordial people do not can support enough population's density. When civilized people come, all those nomads, hunters and gatherers misteriously with their 0,001% share of population misteriously vanish, and that is the main reason we do not see any Mongols on the map.

Actually, last time I checked, there's a nation called 'Mongolia' on most maps. The Mongols still exist, and are likely to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Their glory days are over, of course, but in their time they were rather successful. Their low population, of course, was their Achilles heel - they could install themselves as a ruling elite in most of their conquered territories, but they could never actually colonise those territories. Once the political unity of the Mongol Empire was broken, very soon after its founding, it was only a matter of time before it began to fragment and then those fragments got mopped up. Nevertheless, that 'mopping up' process took centuries. Credit where credit is due - the Mongols were badass.

And Switzerland? Take over the world? Wtf have you been smoking...?
#14565999
Potemkin wrote:Actually, last time I checked, there's a nation called 'Mongolia' on most maps.

And Greece. And Egypt. And Brazil. And Germany. And of course Britain.
All that has nothing with genetics, those all are brands and labels. Modern Mongolia is the separated part of China, not anything more.
#14566029
And Greece. And Egypt. And Brazil. And Germany. And of course Britain.
All that has nothing with genetics, those all are brands and labels. Modern Mongolia is the separated part of China, not anything more.

So China is 'real' and Mongolia isn't? How does that work?
#14566052
Potemkin wrote:So China is 'real' and Mongolia isn't? How does that work?

Exactly, China isn't real, China is 'real'. It is the collective label created about XVI-XVII cc. AFAIK (I can be wrong here, Russian language has the specific word for them with interesting etymology too) for the specific group of people. Descendants of their people live on the same or at least similar territory (they've expanded a bit and assimilated some cultures since those times).

Mongolia isn't real at all. The country was created by artifical methods in 1911, the last cut of China, the last colonial crime against them. Before that nobody knew about some Mongols, their problems. If those were Turks who was teared apart in 1911, now we would talk about the great and mighty people of Tamerlans (how you can deny the existing of Tamerlans? There is Tamerlania on the map). Or Seljuks. In the next decades we will see how latinos create their own country of Aztlan on the US West Coast. Oh, yes, I always told you, dogs, don't joke with Azteks. They will come and cut your heart out. What? What is the 'Spain'? You probably wrong, Spain is in Europe, those are Azteks who live in America.

That's how it works.
#14566054
If you simply mean that there was no nation-state called 'Mongolia' before 1911, then I agree with you. There was no such nation-state even in the time of the Mongol Empire. But then, there was no nation-state called 'Turkey' during the time of the Ottoman Empire either. But now there is. Or isn't Turkey 'real' either?
#14566066
Potemkin wrote:If you simply mean that there was no nation-state called 'Mongolia' before 1911, then I agree with you. There was no such nation-state even in the time of the Mongol Empire. But then, there was no nation-state called 'Turkey' during the time of the Ottoman Empire either. But now there is. Or isn't Turkey 'real' either?

It is the other case. Countries rename themselves everytime. It is only the choice of natives to approve or reject those corrections in their language. I, if we talk about it, prefer the old traditional names. Bombay instead of Mumbai, Burma instead of Myanmar and, um, Kyoln instead of Cologne (thanks God Germans are too civilized and polite to learn me about it). If Ottomans by some reasons (obviously nationalistic) renamed themselves into Turks, well done. The rare example when it became customary, by the way). We can easily understand those Turks are really Ottomans or their sons and grandsons.

The different situation is in Egypt. We can really call those people Egyptians when we talk about the modern politics of Egypt and international relations with Middle East. But it will be an error in the historical discussion, because they are really not Egyptians. They are Arabs. Egyptians live in Egypt up to this date, they are only known by the other name. Arabs did not build the Pyramids, no matter what they say. And Egyptians never converted to Islam.

The situation with Mongolia is even more difficult. The poor country with literally NOTHING, even without the access to the sea, created by foreign powers in their big games. They try to live as they can. With no real history (it is happened nobody built something more or less interesting there before) they start to create the legend about their ancestors - half-legendary nomads who conquered all the world and then by some reasons melted away without a trace for 400-500 years.
#14593509
Timerunsout wrote:Could a small country like Switzerland one day rule the entire world if they are technologically advanced. If they are around larger, less advanced countries they can control them with the use of technology.

Like how the Foundation became the Second Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series.

Switzerland could be the rebirth of Rome as they are the most technologically advanced country or one of at the heart of a struggling Europe.

Switzerland survived the consolidation of nation states and came out the other side. Now they will take it all. Mark my words.



I can see it happening, just hang in there...
#14593545
Ganeshas Rat wrote:Exactly, China isn't real, China is 'real'.


Hey another ethnologist in the making.

First of all when you talk about ethnic-continuity you talk about peoples not countries/states.

Secondly, the Chinese people, the Jewish people and the Greek people are the official measure that all other ethnicities/nations are measured against in ethnology.

They are the prime examples of the terminology 'ethnic-continuity' as opposed to 'ethnic-recurrence'(Slavic peoples) or 'nations by design'(FYROM, Bosnia), etcetera.

It is not as simple as 'branding' and from people to people there are major differences. I don't really know about the Mongols particularly but simply branding them as a 'brand' is way too simplistic.
#14595787
What do you mean less advanced? The roman state was less advanced than carthage and greeks (technology wise), didn't stop them from conquering them. If by 'less advanced' you mean militarily less advanced then perhaps you have a point, if you count economy etc, than it doesn't work that way. To rule the world one day, you need to have a really big stick, an advanced military doctrine for your time, decent ammount of recources, population that can endure pain over a large period of time to achieve specific goals... This is only but a few qualities that would be required to 'rule the world one day'.

The only state that i know off, who ruled 'the known world' was the Roman state. It didn't achieve its dominance by trade or multiculturalism or technological superiority... It became the ruler of the world using an iron fist of its legion, had an advanced military doctrine for its time, managed to borrow technologies as soon as the enemy was conquered, was able to pool resources into conquest over centuries to exhaust its enemies (even in cases of heavy casulties), was able to retrain and rearm its forces faster than anybody else in case of colosal defeats ( For example hannibal managed to destroy the romans in 10+ battles while romans needed only 2 or 3 battles to defeat hannibal, this can be said about any roman campaighn, a defeat was a setback not cancelation of their conquest plans ).

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