There is not always an LED. It just turned that way off. Look at these two graphs. Same information, part of global GDP over thousands of years. The first is the version you usually see. Year 1 to 1500 crammed into a tiny corner, then 1820, 1870, 1913, 1950, 1973, 2003 spread out like any that mattered as a whole thousand. Suddenly the West looks like half the time has arrived. The second table puts time on a fair scale. The story changes. Towards the end of history, ASIA was the world's India and China together accounted for about half of the world's output for most of the past millennia. Western Europe hovered around ten percent. The US was barely a line on the floor by 1800. Then came a short window. Industry, colonies, opium wars, unequal arts, the flight of wealth from India, a century of invasion and civil war in China. Asia's share collapsed. West fired. In the fair chart, the western high is a spike. Almost 200 years. boring. What we see now is not bad. This is RETURN. Look at the extreme right. China's red line is climbing again, India is starting to follow. For me it is not a threat anywhere. The world goes back to how it searched for most of recorded history. I am not saying that the West has done nothing. Science, industry, a lot came out of Europe. How to pull the hinge decides what people think is normal. Many in the West still think their two centuries are the natural order. They are not. They were the exceptions. Update, not entertain.

There is not always an LED. It just turned that way off. Look at these two graphs. Same information, part of global GDP over thousands of years. The first is the version you usually see. Year 1 to 1500 crammed into a tiny corner, then 1820, 1870, 1913, 1950, 1973, 2003 spread out like any that mattered as a whole thousand. Suddenly the West looks like half the time has arrived. The second table puts time on a fair scale. The story changes. Towards the end of history, ASIA was the world's India and China together accounted for about half of the world's output for most of the past millennia. Western Europe hovered around ten percent. The US was barely a line on the floor by 1800. Then came a short window. Industry, colonies, opium wars, unequal arts, the flight of wealth from India, a century of invasion and civil war in China. Asia's share collapsed. West fired. In the fair chart, the western high is a spike. Almost 200 years. boring. What we see now is not bad. This is RETURN. Look at the extreme right. China's red line is climbing again, India is starting to follow. For me it is not a threat anywhere. The world goes back to how it searched for most of recorded history. I am not saying that the West has done nothing. Science, industry, a lot came out of Europe. How to pull the hinge decides what people think is normal. Many in the West still think their two centuries are the natural order. They are not. They were the exceptions. Update, not entertain.