Approaching Infinity said:Niall said:FWIW, my first take on it was that they meant the world was 'globalized' then too. The notion that today's civilization is the first to be 'globalized' is a myth arising from the fact that Europeans claim they 'discovered' the world from the late 15th century CE onwards. What they actually 'discovered' was a pre-existing, highly developed, integrated global civilization - what author John Hobson describes as 'the Afro-Asian civilization' - which Europeans proceeded, in stages, to claim as theirs and thus was only born thanks to them.
To what period of time did this refer? Everything pre 15th CE?
I initially thought something similar, that this simply referred to trade routes, cultural exchange, etc. But then this answer came along:
Q: (L) And they came up with these ideas of infinite time and space that far back?
A: And so much more. They were "connected".
Which deals with abstract concepts. Globalization can't account for the origin of an idea like that - that would just lead to an infinite regress, i.e., where did they get it.
I too feel that the connectedness has a double meaning, with the first occurrence leaning more toward the "Globalization" aspect and the second occurrence (in the transcript) more towards the higher "realms" aspect.
In the The great global change game: Our civilization is headed for the fate of the Bronze Age - destruction article there is a mention of the 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed book by Eric H. Cline.
For those who haven't read the book, here is a fun presentation by the author about a part of the late Bronze Age Globalization, keeping in mind that ordinary people were far more mobile than official diplomatic relationships: