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Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

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Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#61

Post by scalio »

stcredzero wrote: post #12

The older I get, the more it strikes me that civilization is inherently unstable. It may be metastable, in the way that a predator-prey relationship is stable. A technological civilization like ours is not stable. It's a conflagration . It's subject to a number of exponential processes. Our economy is based on exponentiation. If progress is based on war, then that's just another nail in the coffin. This makes for a p…

I think the instability you're describing is only a result of human nature: aggression is by far the most universally motivating factor because everybody can get behind some camp and feel righteous. This means people can get enormously pumped up to achieve some goal (destroying the bad guys). This is much, much harder with intellectual factors because people need to understand justifications and consequences far more complicated than "they hit us, so we have to hit them in order to {grow,feed,protect,whatev}".

Latest example: Why go to a different planet? Personally, just for the heck of it. The financial problem is entirely artificial, because much larger sums than what Musk is talking about are being played with all the time. This amount of money could be in anybody's pocket tomorrow should the right people feel so inclined (say a couple very wealthy persons taking a fancy). I want to go for the heck of it because fascinating things can, and most probably will, come out of it. What exactly, I have no idea. It's the simple act of doing something new because, why not? What else is there to do except keep bashing each others' heads in?

This is extremely hard to convey to somebody who wasn't born with, wasn't taught, or whose sense of adventure was ripped out in the course of growing up.

My point is, humanity's many civilizations' instability caused by war is an artifact of evolution. Throughout mankind's history, bashing your foe's head in was the best way to survive, and humanity has yet to overcome this rather primitive and impulsive behaviour.

On a side note, not every species survives by war, but by symbiosis.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#62

Post by clock_tower »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #14
ComteDeLaFere wrote: post #13

“It seems warfare created intense pressure that drove these societies.” This seems backwards. Wouldn't the intense pressure of societies bumping up against each other drive warfare, and not the other way around?

The pressure analogy seems reasonable to me. It suggests that this goes both ways: Two societies pushing against each other lead to pressure. This pressure results in military conflict. Whoever wins the military conflict can exert increased pressure. The necessity of winning wars put pressure on the society to develop better ways of winning wars. These better ways put more pressure on external societies, etc. China w…

This pressure has two other implications, laid out in War and Peace and War: 1. Reflux expansion: a society facing an intractable enemy will conquer or merge with more tractable neighbors. When a durable frontier forms, the societies on both sides will become organized. 2. A frontier is a potential space: sometimes, an enemy of both sides moves into the frontier and destroys or subdues both sides. Turchin's textbook example of this is the Breton-French fighting which made it possible for the Vikings to settle Normandy (and a few cities in southern Brittany).

For China, Turchin talks of how the constant confrontations with unconquerable nomads kept the civilization alive much longer than it would've otherwise endured. Toynbee thought that China should've fallen apart for good during the Three Kingdoms -- that the Han Dynasty was its universal state. China eventually stagnated, but has been the same culture since the 200s BC; the only other civilization to endure like that was ancient Egypt.

I'd really strongly advise that you look up War and Peace and War. It sounds like you understand the book's premises well, and could get a lot out of it.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#63

Post by ricree »

jandrese wrote: post #38
mc32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean for the imperfect example of the Danes to take it off tangent, it was only to illustrate a people I could think of for whom raiding was integral but your examples or any other is just as well. I think someone (civ) could have taken it further and been sociopathic and only relied on military force for survival. Obviously there are benefits in diversifying, but I think while not ideal, it's possible and c…

You mean like the Mongols? They didn't stop and farm. Their entire society was built around conquest and pillage.

They didn't raise crops, but still practiced a considerable amount of agriculture based around grazing herds.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#64

Post by clock_tower »

squozzer wrote: post #20

Turchin has made the point elsewhere that agriculture is important because food production is a fundamental constraint on population growth. But it's warfare that provided the impetus for scaling societies past the tribal level.

But tribes fight better than civilizations (less concern for social status, less internal dissention; read War Before Civilization for an interesting discussion of this) -- so over-civilization is self-correcting in a way. Turchin sees his ideas as an elaboration on ibn Khaldun...

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#65

Post by clock_tower »

myf01d wrote: post #26

Things liberals won't like to hear.

Turchin's pretty embarrassing for everyone, except ibn Khaldun of course. Even Hitler wouldn't want to hear it, since race is a rounding error in Turchin's model... (Think of the War Nerd on Eritrea; as he tells it, that's a classic Turchinian story.)

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#66

Post by TheGRS »

Everyone should listen to Dan Carlin's amazing Hardcore History series on Genghis Khan: http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-43-wrath-o...

He makes a case for not just Kahn and his descendants being a huge factor in history, but for every ruler who has gone in and shaken up the foundations of civilization through conquest. Khan, Alexander and Napoleon are prime examples given (and I'm avoiding another key example but you'll know who it is if you listen to the podcast). He speculates that at various times in history, civilization stalled out, but these rulers came in and got things moving again simply by clearing entire parts away and making room for new ideas and new forms of government. Its a fascinating theory and I think this data corroborates that.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#67

Post by ArkyBeagle »

The Old Testament of the Bible is a lot taken up with the rise of kings over judges, with prophets then warning people that the only reason to have kings is conquest, and that this is Hubris That Will Arouse The Ire of $DEITY.

Whether it's really on a timeline or adapted, it's kind of an interesting idea that much of that old book is about that. It's especially interesting when you consider the idea that in order to survive, a system like that has to become ephemeral; that Judaism survived the destruction of various temples because it became much more of an idea than a place or thing.

But we remember the conquerors because the stories are better :)

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#68

Post by ArkyBeagle »

mc32 wrote: post #25
jwtadvice wrote: post #11

Yes: geostrategy is a huge defining factor in the organization of the planet, the movement of people and the evolution of society. It is a primary factor, including resource extraction technologies, agricultural capability, and more. I think rounding that up to "drove the rise of civilizations" is a crude way to put that. For example, the simulation pits "agriculture plus military" against "agriculture". Then they fo…

Wouldn't the "military" only group be able to terrorize the agriculture only as well as the ag plus military ones? Something akin to the Danes at one point? They could just build it up so that they could go pillaging indefinitely, so long as they don't outright destroy their target civs.

The longer you pillage, the more you raise the interest in being opposed. That's why the Mongol approach was so effective - you had a really short conquest period that happened once, then tribute was paid. The tribute was more than made up for by being on the Mongol trading network.

IMO, all empires are small compared to the Mongols. They had it all.

The Danes just had lousy farmland and good boats, especially during long cold spells. The Northmen in general had more impact as traders than as raiders.

A similar pattern emerges in the Americas - the Apache word for the Comanche is Apache for "those a$$holes" because the Comanche were much more predatory of the Apache than the other way 'round.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#69

Post by ArkyBeagle »

TheGRS wrote: post #66

Everyone should listen to Dan Carlin's amazing Hardcore History series on Genghis Khan: http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-43-wrath-o... He makes a case for not just Kahn and his descendants being a huge factor in history, but for every ruler who has gone in and shaken up the foundations of civilization through conquest. Khan, Alexander and Napoleon are prime examples given (and I'm avoiding another ke…

You can point to examples of predator migrations causing rises in the populations of prey species for nearly the same reasons.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#70

Post by ArkyBeagle »

stcredzero wrote: post #12

The older I get, the more it strikes me that civilization is inherently unstable. It may be metastable, in the way that a predator-prey relationship is stable. A technological civilization like ours is not stable. It's a conflagration . It's subject to a number of exponential processes. Our economy is based on exponentiation. If progress is based on war, then that's just another nail in the coffin. This makes for a p…

China's lasted for thousand of years. War itself becomes refined; if it's an arms race of drone strikes, that could be eminently sustainable.

It still shocks me that no one person predicted the carnage of the American Civil War. It shocks me even more than in WWI, the Civil War was studied but not applied to the problem at hand.

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