What are you most proud of in Western culture?

Being the smartest, most attractive, and most brutal.

>What are you most proud of in Western culture?

>1. Transistors
First post best post.

Fun fact.

After black powder and before digital, smokeless powder and movies were made out of the same material.

Roads are hardly an invention as they are more discovered than invented.

Humans always had roads - if people travel the same path it's a road, animals have roads. Sure romans paved their roads, roads always existed though.

Pic related are cattle roads. Made by cows.

If you have enough foot traffic, and not a well engineered road, you get mud.

The Romans did a really good job at figuring out stone roads, and then you had MacAdam and a couple other guys figure out gravel.

Once people realized you could mix portland cement and asphalt from the new oil refineries, shit got really really real.

>The Romans did a really good job at figuring out stone roads, and then you had MacAdam and a couple other guys figure out gravel.
>Once people realized you could mix portland cement and asphalt from the new oil refineries, shit got really really real.

Yeah but those are materials, not roads themselves. Romans didn't invent roads, no one did.

While I do agree our modern roads are a bloody marvel, the idea was always there.

Parliamentary republic

It's not just the complexity that Romans and modern day western nations build roads that I consider great. It's the scale. The Roman Empire had well built and functional roads that reached all the from Ilberia to Greece which is an amazing achievement ecspecially when you consider the time. Even now America has the interstate highway which is comparable to the Roman roads. Also I guess the Transcontinental and Trans siberian railroads are good too.

You are missing the point, I don't care for their scale I care about how people say romans invented roads, roads were not invented.

>nobody invented roads
>a mud track is a road
user, that is what we call a trail. A road is something that was intentionally constructed.

Trains, I fucking love trains man

oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/trail

Trail
noun

2. A beaten path through rough country such as a forest or moor

Enlightenment philosophy and it's results, i.e. Capitalism, industrialization and the most free societies on earth.

Individualism in general. I think people take for granted the extent to which it permeates out culture. The message we hammer into our children most isn't "do your duty," it's "be yourself." It might be a platitude, but it's revealing which platitudes people focus on. Nonconformity, uniqueness, eccentricity, and freedom are at least nominally encouraged practically everywhere except the military. Even Christianity is a particularly individualistic religion, focusing on God's care for and relationship with each individual. You don't have to allow your parents or siblings any say in how you live your life after 18, women are allowed to live on their own and make their own decisions, people generally think it's okay to do what you want as long as it's not hurting anyone. Even the way things like marriage, employment, etc. are viewed. These are good things that a lot of cultures don't share or have adopted from western influence.

>trail.
Trails are specifically created.

Kek, you really want to argue the difference between trails and roads? No thanks. I will simply bow out.

>proud

Why are you proud? Did you create those things?

No, but Democracy, Renaissance art and racial equality would all disappear if people didn't continue to value them. OP can be proud of upholding cultural norms and ideas that he agrees with.

its one of you autismos again

Change 'proud of' to 'have the most respect for' if you prefer.

Also, pride doesn't need to refer to your own achievements, although it usually does. For instance, I can be proud of the wisdom and humanity in the Buddha's teachings, without being remotely related to the guy.

...

Steam engine.
Industrialization makes my dick hard

the 19th and early 20th century is my jam

feminism

leaving this planet
dominating this planet
it's like western civilization has already beat the earth game and is looking to find something new to play

why are you proud that your brother won the olympics, are you your brother?

Landing on the Moon

The US constitution and bill of rights I suppose.

>Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe,
>Godel, Wittgenstein, Euler,
>Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Mozart
>etc

The immortal science of Marxism.

Good answer

>What are you most proud of in Western culture?
Art, philosophy etc. The creative works. The west has been the only horse in this race for quite a while.

That said I look forward to seeing what the far east, specifically China comes up with in the next century. It's been lonely at the top for a while so it'll be good to have a fresh perspective. Unfortunately I don't think any other civilisation is capable of matching us or the far east. india probably will some day but it's a long way off, same with Africa. Islam will continue to cannibalise itself until it completely collapses and gets swallowed up and balkanised between the west and east.

Abolishing slavery and then sailing around the world to abolish slavery too always struck me as a rather major work of humanitarian aid.

In practice slavery still happens but at least we got most of the world to declare it illegal.

That's a tough one. I can't decide between the stuff that immediately comes to mind so it's one of these:

> The scientific revolution was basically exclusively western so that's a big one
> Rulers being bound by the law
> Capitalism
> Philosophy
> Exploration of the earth and space (though the extent to which space exploration is completely western depends on whether or not you consider Russia to be western)
>Individual freedom and western art, music, literature and architecture are very overused talking points when people discuss western achievements but they are still very important, wonderful achievements of the west.

The decline of the West is such a shame. Such a great civilization deserves to last much longer than this.

>western tech
>catholic church
>goat art, philosophy, literature
>best monarchs
>colonialism
>classical music
>christianity
soon I'll add space colonization

Sort of off-topic, but the OP post made me think.

Is there a way to have a capitalist economy without it becoming consumerist?

I think freedom of association and contract are great principles, but I hate how prolific advertising and the obsession with buying things is, especially in America.

Does this happen in a completely free market?

A society that is not purely materialistic still needs materials and capitalism will always be the superior method of production.

I don't see capitalism and consumerism to be overly-related to one another

kek

can you just fuck off you pedantic faggot

When the fuck is someone a millenial? Is it someone born in the new millenium, because if it is, people seem to be extremely agitated by a bunch of chilluns.

Colonialism. Without it I wouldn't exist, I'm thankful Spaniards cucked everyone. I don't get how people can be upset about something that didn't happen to them and resulted in their current existence

My own personal pulled-out-of-my-ass definition is anyone born between 1990 and 2000.

Actual important shit that affects my and many other lives positively?

Rail transport is definitely up the top.

The factory system and infrastructure is another.

The industrial revolution, which is more an English thing than general western thing, has improved all of humanity in the long run. As much as I dislike those white Anglos. They have done some good.