Global savepoint ? When would you reload ?

[Traitorfish]

Sadly, settled agricultural societies and the states they inevitably breed had such a decisive edge over the non-settled peoples that humanity was basically locked into living the rest of its history under some kind of authoritarianism from then on.

I'm not absolutely convinced how true that really is. The supremacy of the agricultural states may seem inevitable in the long run, but it's a long run. In my country, the agriculturalists only fully subjugated the [edit: pastoralists] in 1745; that's only eight or nine generations ago, a long march from the age of ziggurats. It's not until the emergence of a bundle of practical and institutional technologies in the last two or three hundred years that the agricultural states are able to impose themselves irresistibly upon the rest of the human race.

This tends to be distorted because the agricultural states were the ones who got to build most of the monuments and produce most of the documents, and therefore got to place themselves centre-stage in historical narratives, and because they have for the last two thousand years or so represented the majority of the species, and because most of us identify with cultures and institutions which identify (however credibly) with the lineage of the ancient grain states, we have a habit of differing to this narrative, to lend what amounts to the self-propagandising of pharaohs the weight of historical inevitability, but it doesn't mean that we should.

edit: forgot a pretty important word.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm not absolutely convinced how true that really is. The supremacy of the agricultural states may seem inevitable in the long run, but it's a long run. In my country, the agriculturalists only fully subjugated the in 1745; that's only eight or nine generations ago, a long march from the age of ziggurats. It's not until the emergence of a bundle of practical and institutional technologies in the last two or three hundred years that the agricultural states are able to impose themselves irresistibly upon the rest of the human race.

This tends to be distorted because the agricultural states were the ones who got to build most of the monuments and produce most of the documents, and therefore got to place themselves centre-stage in historical narratives, and because they have for the last two thousand years or so represented the majority of the species, and because most of us identify with cultures and institutions which identify (however credibly) with the lineage of the ancient grain states, we have a habit of differing to this narrative, to lend what amounts to the self-propagandising of pharaohs the weight of historical inevitability, but it doesn't mean that we should.

Doesn't that ability to build all the monuments and keep all the records portent that when they got around to it they would also have an overwhelming share of the ability to impose their will on others? Sure, pastoralists were allowed to do their thing in places that the agriculturalists couldn't really be bothered with, but that doesn't really make the eventual outcome any less inevitable.

 

[Phrossack]

I'm not absolutely convinced how true that really is. The supremacy of the agricultural states may seem inevitable in the long run, but it's a long run. In my country, the agriculturalists only fully subjugated the in 1745; that's only eight or nine generations ago, a long march from the age of ziggurats. It's not until the emergence of a bundle of practical and institutional technologies in the last two or three hundred years that the agricultural states are able to impose themselves irresistibly upon the rest of the human race.

This tends to be distorted because the agricultural states were the ones who got to build most of the monuments and produce most of the documents, and therefore got to place themselves centre-stage in historical narratives, and because they have for the last two thousand years or so represented the majority of the species, and because most of us identify with cultures and institutions which identify (however credibly) with the lineage of the ancient grain states, we have a habit of differing to this narrative, to lend what amounts to the self-propagandising of pharaohs the weight of historical inevitability, but it doesn't mean that we should.

The way I see it, a society that can muster tens or hundreds of thousands of warriors and vast economic power can always eventually beat down hunter-gatherers, who will almost always have fewer people and resources than a settled society. True, steppe and sometimes desert nomadic pastoralists could shake the world, but there's a reason Mongolia was increasingly outmatched as the centuries wore on and is now nothing more than an obscure has-been, albeit one with excellent music. Against the sheer numbers of settled people, hunter-gatherers could only delay their undoing. Early agriculturalists like Eastern Woodland American Indians or the Jomon were likewise outclassed against the Europeans and Yayoi, or the Khoisan against the Dutch and Bantu, or the first Australians against the British settlers. These repeated themselves all over the world. The numbers of the settled agriculturalists grew and grew, while the hunter-gatherers' numbers did and could not. Survivals like some Inuit or San people retain their lifestyles, if at all, solely by not having anything the settled peoples deem worth taking.

That's why I think that once the agricultural and state society genies were out of the bottle, the fate of hunter-gatherers was sealed.

 

[innonimatu]

Going backward in time: when Kennedy won from Nixon. Was that not that TV debate that made the difference ? Kennedy's confident and charming presence into every household livingroom. The TV changed rapidly over time from info to more entertainment, and politicians had to be better in PR. That changed the properties needed for politics and therefore the kind of politics.

And yet Nixon went on to be elected later. The disruptive effects of technology, often oversold, are also temporary. People adjust and do not change that much.

Mussolini had the radio available to reach with his speeches all citizens, also in the many smaller villages of Italy. Hitler's demagogue speeches to mass manifestations, also on the radio... all citizens united in those moments.

You are falling for the futurist's fallacy: that tech had created a new world. Reenactments of Caesar or Napoleon, poorer ones at that, are not a new world. How very ironing that these two were looking backwards in terms of ideology even as they sued the new technologies as tools.
These tools also proved useless to effect changes on other countries. Spain had its politics at the time decided in by then traditional spanish way: civil war with foreign intervention. The UK went on as it had. Radio in the US only became a political factor, if it did, with Roosevelt when it was nearing the end of its era. Etc.

When William embarked to the UK for the Glorious Revolution, he had with him mobile printing presses, and used them for printing his propaganda pamphlets, tuned to the latest development all the time.

And the counter-reformation had its own presses. And the whole thing was a draw in Europe after the initial split. Technology changed everything and nothing after all.

At the start the techs went slowly and were still coupled to the individual CIV's. Astronomy here, the wheel there, etc. The Roman Catholic Church for a while an inhibitor of some Science insights and therefore techs.
But with our globalisation of tech exchange, anything developed anywhere is rapidly everywhere for the masses.

I wish that myth made, out of what was actually a geographic accident leading to "protestant" ascendancy in the 19th century (coal and iron, coal and iron), finally died. I could point out catholic France and Belgium as counter-examples. What did they had? Coal and iron. And the catholic church. Damn Weber, he was the Jared Diamond of his time. Making undue generalizations just because they would sell well to his target audience.

This "globalization" thing is just another go at it. Mankind had placed telegraph lines around the world 100 years before someone coined the term "globalization". Politically, had world-spanning empires "where the sun never set", and we can even go back to mongol times, silk road and all that. The change was much bigger then. And someone just felt a need for this concept in the 1980s?
It sold, ok? That's it.

I'm not trying to deny that technological evolution has an impact on society, of course it was. But is is widely overrated. Steam would revolutionize the world. Chemicals would revolutionize the world. Nuclear power would revolutionize the world. AI would revolutionize the world. Oh it didn't. But it will. But it didn't again. But it will, the singularity is just there, I have to live forever.
It turned into a religion.

Thinking of religion and having written a comment in another thread, it is worth saying here also: there are choices about how any new technology will be used. The idea of technology as a driver of inevitable change usually comes together with the idea that change is pre-determined by the technology, a denial of choice. It is not true, but if people believe it then the few who happen to be in leading with that new technology set their way alone. It has been the cause of numerous problems we have suffered and suffer from.

 

[Hrothbern]

And yet Nixon went on to be elected later. The disruptive effects of technology, often oversold, are also temporary. People adjust and do not change that much.



You are falling for the futurist's fallacy: that tech had created a new world. Reenactments of Caesar or Napoleon, poorer ones at that, are not a new world. How very ironing that these two were looking backwards in terms of ideology even as they sued the new technologies as tools.
These tools also proved useless to effect changes on other countries. Spain had its politics at the time decided in by then traditional spanish way: civil war with foreign intervention. The UK went on as it had. Radio in the US only became a political factor, if it did, with Roosevelt when it was nearing the end of its era. Etc.



And the counter-reformation had its own presses. And the whole thing was a draw in Europe after the initial split. Technology changed everything and nothing after all.



I wish that myth made, out of what was actually a geographic accident leading to "protestant" ascendancy in the 19th century (coal and iron, coal and iron), finally died. I could point out catholic France and Belgium as counter-examples. What did they had? Coal and iron. And the catholic church. Damn Weber, he was the Jared Diamond of his time. Making undue generalizations just because they would sell well to his target audience.

This "globalization" thing is just another go at it. Mankind had placed telegraph lines around the world 100 years before someone coined the term "globalization". Politically, had world-spanning empires "where the sun never set", and we can even go back to mongol times, silk road and all that. The change was much bigger then. And someone just felt a need for this concept in the 1980s?
It sold, ok? That's it.

I'm not trying to deny that technological evolution has an impact on society, of course it was. But is is widely overrated. Steam would revolutionize the world. Chemicals would revolutionize the world. Nuclear power would revolutionize the world. AI would revolutionize the world. Oh it didn't. But it will. But it didn't again. But it will, the singularity is just there, I have to live forever.
It turned into a religion.

Thinking of religion and having written a comment in another thread, it is worth saying here also: there are choices about how any new technology will be used. The idea of technology as a driver of inevitable change usually comes together with the idea that change is pre-determined by the technology, a denial of choice. It is not true, but if people believe it then the few who happen to be in leading with that new technology set their way alone. It has been the cause of numerous problems we have suffered and suffer from.

I said what I said in my post, and that is explaining enough.
Our culture is the lagging behind amalgame of techs and our human nature.
Exchange of knowledge, techs and trade secrets were besides essential minerals, the biggest direct benefit of trade routes. The CIV's alongside. The more connections, the more effect. And calling those far away connections globalisation in hindsight seems pretty much ok to me. Not because of empires, but because of the network of exchange.

 

[metatron]

Who is your avatar?

I'm being rude and i'm sorry.

Right now i'm having way too much fun with this:

He has a woman dressed in traditional '40's or '50's attire as his avatar...

*snicker*

Do not kill Hitler ! According to Hrothbern's post, for every Hitler, there is another Hitler, and the other one could be more competent.
It's extremely dangerous to meddle in the timeline before 1945.
WW2 in the fifties and Nazis with nukes.


But feel free to poison Stalin after the Battle of Stalingrad, and don't forget to frame Beria for it.

Erm...are you really concerned with us messing with stuff in, like, spring '43?
Like, is there really that much of a danger?

I'm still parked here with Tom an Sophie.
So, just sayin'.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm being rude and i'm sorry.

Right now i'm having way too much fun with this:

*snicker*

It was honest question. I get curious about people's avatars sometimes.

 

[Yeekim]

Bonobos are dumb, a waste of space and have weird fetishes with frogs.

You're thinking of the French.

Spoiler :

sorry, couldn't resist. Both Bonobos and French are cool

 

[Broken_Erika]

I wouldn't reload, i'd delete all savepoints and uninstall the program since it's obviously poorly designed and corrupt.

 

[Traitorfish]

Doesn't that ability to build all the monuments and keep all the records portent that when they got around to it they would also have an overwhelming share of the ability to impose their will on others?

It's not self-evident. The ability to write books and build triumphal arches does not, in itself, tell you anything about a polities ability to project power outside of densely-settled agricultural flatlands.

The way I see it, a society that can muster tens or hundreds of thousands of warriors and vast economic power can always eventually beat down hunter-gatherers, who will almost always have fewer people and resources than a settled society. True, steppe and sometimes desert nomadic pastoralists could shake the world, but there's a reason Mongolia was increasingly outmatched as the centuries wore on and is now nothing more than an obscure has-been, albeit one with excellent music. Against the sheer numbers of settled people, hunter-gatherers could only delay their undoing. Early agriculturalists like Eastern Woodland American Indians or the Jomon were likewise outclassed against the Europeans and Yayoi, or the Khoisan against the Dutch and Bantu, or the first Australians against the British settlers. These repeated themselves all over the world. The numbers of the settled agriculturalists grew and grew, while the hunter-gatherers' numbers did and could not. Survivals like some Inuit or San people retain their lifestyles, if at all, solely by not having anything the settled peoples deem worth taking.

That's why I think that once the agricultural and state society genies were out of the bottle, the fate of hunter-gatherers was sealed.

There's a lot of space between hunter-gatherers and complex agriculture. Genuine hunter-gatherers have been mostly pretty marginal for most of the last four or five thousand: outside of the agricultural areas, most peoples practice some combination of hunting, foraging, herding and horticulturalism. It took thousands of years for complex agricultural systems to emerge in their original river-valley homes, and thousands more to spread beyond them, a slow and uneven process, with frequent setbacks as people reverted to more flexible modes of life.

The ability to raise ten thousand warriors does not, in itself, represent more than the ability to convince ten thousand men to stand in one place wearing funny hats. There's a question of how that force is deployed, and imposing a particular mode of life onto distant lands has historically been very difficult, and gets more difficult with the terrain. A pre-modern state can perhaps force people into settled, manageable agricultural societies along the flatlands of a river valley or coastal plain, but their rule falters when it encounters hills, wetlands, forests or steppes. Braudel observed that empires which spill across thousands of miles of flatland can struggle to assert themselves up a few hundred yards of sudden elevation. There's a reason that most early wars were glorified slave-raids; it's always easier to bring the barbarian to the grain core than the grain core to the barbarian.

At best, the flatland states could make occasional military interventions, and these may produce formal relationships of vassalage, but that itself is a state-centred narrative; the "barbarian" societies are more likely to regard it as a form of patronage, a useful tool in their own local politics. And, of course, the "barbarian" polities may periodically make military interventions of their own and acquire the homage of flatland polities. It's only in the last few hundred years that the grain states have been able to consistently impose themselves on "barbarian" cultures in any consistent way, which required the development of a number of practical and institutional technologies, none of which were inevitable, none of which we can assume to be the necessary and irresistable outcome of, like, the Bronze Age.

 

[Phrossack]

It's not self-evident. The ability to write books and build triumphal arches does not, in itself, tell you anything about a polities ability to project power outside of densely-settled agricultural flatlands.


There's a lot of space between hunter-gatherers and complex agriculture. Genuine hunter-gatherers have been mostly pretty marginal for most of the last four or five thousand: outside of the agricultural areas, most peoples practice some combination of hunting, foraging, herding and horticulturalism. It took thousands of years for complex agricultural systems to emerge in their original river-valley homes, and thousands more to spread beyond them, a slow and uneven process, with frequent setbacks as people reverted to more flexible modes of life.

The ability to raise ten thousand warriors does not, in itself, represent more than the ability to convince ten thousand men to stand in one place wearing funny hats. There's a question of how that force is deployed, and imposing a particular mode of life onto distant lands has historically been very difficult, and gets more difficult with the terrain. A pre-modern state can perhaps force people into settled, manageable agricultural societies along the flatlands of a river valley or coastal plain, but their rule falters when it encounters hills, wetlands, forests or steppes. Braudel observed that empires which spill across thousands of miles of flatland can struggle to assert themselves up a few hundred yards of sudden elevation. There's a reason that most early wars were glorified slave-raids; it's always easier to bring the barbarian to the grain core than the grain core to the barbarian.

At best, the flatland states could make occasional military interventions, and these may produce formal relationships of vassalage, but that itself is a state-centred narrative; the "barbarian" societies are more likely to regard it as a form of patronage, a useful tool in their own local politics. And, of course, the "barbarian" polities may periodically make military interventions of their own and acquire the homage of flatland polities. It's only in the last few hundred years that the grain states have been able to consistently impose themselves on "barbarian" cultures in any consistent way, which required the development of a number of practical and institutional technologies, none of which were inevitable, none of which we can assume to be the necessary and irresistable outcome of, like, the Bronze Age.

The extermination of or forced changes to the lifestyle of non-agriculturalist peoples took time--but where are they now? Where are the American Indians, or the Jomon? Where are the first Australians or the Tasmanians? Where is the horse and the rider? Where are the San and the Sami?

They've been driven to the most marginal and least valuable land by the settled, or have been assimilated or exterminated. History is in many ways a story of these peoples losing ground steadily to the settled peoples, and only remaining in areas that the settled peoples did not want. When they lived in good farmland or fishing grounds, or atop other rich resources, the settled people took what they wanted, when they wanted in the end. The settled peoples have exploded in number and have taken almost everything, but I can't point to hardly any examples of the opposite where hunter gatherers / horticulturists invaded and seized core territories of settled peoples forever.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The extermination of or forced changes to the lifestyle of non-agriculturalist peoples took time--but where are they now? Where are the American Indians, or the Jomon? Where are the first Australians or the Tasmanians? Where is the horse and the rider? Where are the San and the Sami?

They've been driven to the most marginal and least valuable land by the settled, or have been assimilated or exterminated. History is in many ways a story of these peoples losing ground steadily to the settled peoples, and only remaining in areas that the settled peoples did not want. When they lived in good farmland or fishing grounds, or atop other rich resources, the settled people took what they wanted, when they wanted in the end. The settled peoples have exploded in number and have taken almost everything, but I can't point to hardly any examples of the opposite where hunter gatherers / horticulturists invaded and seized core territories of settled peoples forever.

To be fair sometimes the more nomadic populations won in direct conflict, only to become settled populations themselves. Every continent in the eastern hemisphere aside from Australia/Antarctica has examples of this throughout history, with recorded history before the 1400's/1500's in the western hemisphere too limited to know.

 

[Hrothbern]

To be fair sometimes the more nomadic populations won in direct conflict, only to become settled populations themselves. Every continent in the eastern hemisphere aside from Australia/Antarctica has examples of this throughout history, with recorded history before the 1400's/1500's in the western hemisphere too limited to know.

Kublai Khan an excellent example as nomadic Mongolian to founder of a Chinese dynasty.

In Western Europe before 1400
Would the Visigoths, a branche from the Goths, not count as an example. Germanic nomadic tribes, coming from north of the Black Sea, settling all over Europe incl West Europe.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

India, Iran, and Turkey have examples of this too. Multiple times in some cases.

 

[Imaus]

I'm a simple young man. I'll go back and tell Bush everything which happens from his terms, that the CIA is right and we have an imminent attack coming that'll hit the US on Sept 11, 2001 that'll kill thousands of Americans, the Norks are making nukes, a half-assed intervention in MENA will only produce a forever war, global warming statistics, that stuff.

I wouldn't be able to stop the Neocons from fudging over *someone*, but if the US doesn't go War-on-Terrorism crazy but focuses on Afghanistan /Taliban/AlQaida a bit and then later on North Korea while Iraq gets handled by someone else (internal revolution? Cia-backed revolution?), the current world, or the US at least, might be a little better. The Culture Wars might be a little tamer, that sort of stuff.

 

[Phrossack]

To be fair sometimes the more nomadic populations won in direct conflict, only to become settled populations themselves. Every continent in the eastern hemisphere aside from Australia/Antarctica has examples of this throughout history, with recorded history before the 1400's/1500's in the western hemisphere too limited to know.

I made an exception for steppe and sometimes desert nomads, as their way of life was uniquely suited for excellence in warfare when they stuck together.

But it makes my point when the only way nomads could win in the long term was to join the settled peoples. The Turks are the best example of this. The Manchus weren't quite as nomadic but they conquered China militarily and politically, only to be completely absorbed culturally. Even the horse nomads fell to civilization eventually. Ukraine and southern Russia are no longer home to them. Bedouins and Mongolian nomads are allowed to exist only because they live in land that is completely worthless to the settled peoples. Everywhere in history, hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists were in retreat for thousands of years until now their lifestyle is an obscure curiosity.

My whole point with this discussion is that, after Traitorfish said we had a good thing going with hunting, gathering, and limited farming, I said that sadly, those days were numbered the moment that agricultural states appeared. In the five or six thousand years since then, hunter-gatherer-horticulturalists (there has got to be a less clunky word for this) went from being almost all of the human race to almost none of it. They never took ground from the homelands of agricultural states but lost their homelands and exist purely on the very margins now, where their lifestyles are often threatened with extinction.

 

[Lexicus]

Again though the argument isn't that the agriculturalists were inevitably superior from ca 3000BCE, it's that they were inevitably superior from perhaps 1650 or so, around the time that reliable cannons and firearms were introduced which allowed puny farmers to fight nomadic horse archers on favorable terms.

 

[Phrossack]

Again though the argument isn't that the agriculturalists were inevitably superior from ca 3000BCE, it's that they were inevitably superior from perhaps 1650 or so, around the time that reliable cannons and firearms were introduced which allowed puny farmers to fight nomadic horse archers on favorable terms.

Again...I'm not really talking about steppe nomads, but hunter-gatherer-horticulturalists. And again, the latter did nothing but lose land, or at the very best could briefly hold onto it, once agricultural states appeared.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Again though the argument isn't that the agriculturalists were inevitably superior from ca 3000BCE, it's that they were inevitably superior from perhaps 1650 or so, around the time that reliable cannons and firearms were introduced which allowed puny farmers to fight nomadic horse archers on favorable terms.

But wasn't it inevitable, given their economic advantage, that the puny farmers were eventually gonna develop something that would put paid to the horse archers? I hate to cite strategy games as a predictor of world events, but since this is a Civ game forum we all know that population cures all ills. Research too slow? More population. Military too expensive, too weak, or both? More population. No matter the game, early rapid population growth is the surest path to victory..and the farmers locked up the faster population growth. Game was over before it got started good.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I was going to say go back and overpay for some of Hitler's paintings, but I wiki-ed it and I can't get far enough back.

So I'll have to keep thinking.