Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

ua-magazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 101 posts

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

#81

Post by flukus »

dmix wrote: post #80
jmickey wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found the Caspian Report tremendously useful for improving my understanding of global dynamics - https://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport/videos

That's a great channel. Thanks for the link. I just learned how India's economy seems to be crippled by labour regulations, land acquisition laws, and a crazy localized tax system (one truck ride takes 36 checkpoint stops and takes 10 days to go between New Delhi to Mumbai due to paperwork). Made worse by an impotent polticial system. The fact that India is even growing at 7% a year in that environment is the amazing…

I've heard a great saying that goes "China is successful because of it's government, India is successful despite it".

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

#82

Post by GarvielLoken »

douche wrote: post #75
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Europe thought that WW1 would be a repeat of Sedan[1], not Petersburg[2]. The generals of the Civil War studied Clausewitz and Napoleon, and the troops went to war with smooth-bore bronze cannon and Napoleonic fire drill. They were largely tempered in the brief, not-too-bloody, and glorious Mexican-American War. It took them a few years and tens of thousands of casualties to learn what havoc accurate, long-range rifl…

There exists other theories. http://johnsmilitaryhistory.com/cwarmy.html The main reason why the civil war was bloody was because it was fought by armies with no great military history or traditions. There were no hussars, no cuirasses. Neither army had experience fighting a modern enemy. Of course it became a bloodbath, like watching two drunks punch each other tired, no skill.

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

#83

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Random internet comment: in my mind there are three cooperative/adversarial games that drove all of human civilization: trading/commerce, clanning/war, and prey/predator.

Each of these requires vastly different strategies in different circumstances. Each scales out in a way that becomes more nuanced and complex the bigger the system. Each one, and various ones in combinations drive out other complex, emergent behavior like religion or language.

Intelligence, at least on this planet, seems to thrive in a state of stress and moderate, creative chaos. There are a lot of idealists in the world who want to build something totally peaceful where all needs are taken care of and there's very little risk. If I'm correct, this would effectively kill the species over the long run.

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

#84

Post by elcapitan »

jwtadvice wrote: post #55
jordanlev wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A layman equipped with some of this knowledge, for example, will be much more able to understand current events in... Any recommendations on good places to learn / keep abreast of this kind of info? I'd love to read news that was more high-level about what's really going on, but it's hard to find. Many years ago, Stratfor had a free weekly newsletter that had excellent info along these lines, but after they got hac…

Washington Thinktanks are a good start (though they still tend to 'flourish' things in nationalist language). I prefer their publications to their press events, though the latter is easier to consume. The press briefings at the State Department are pretty good from a reporting side, but you need to follow for a long time before you see the forest instead of the trees. A good direct source is the Strategic Studies Ins…

> But let's put that out to Hacker News: what are your sources?

As a German reader, I was surprised about how good "Foreign Policy" is to get a coherent understanding of certain viewpoints in geostrategy. Such publications would be the exception here, because they are not very "journalistic". I think it doesn't necessarily satisfy parents question about "what really is going on", because what's going on is dependent on exactly those viewpoints. That's the nature of political discourse, and I find it more helpful to read about coherent versions rather than a holistic "truth".

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

#85

Post by koliber »

jordanlev wrote: post #46
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…

> A layman equipped with some of this knowledge, for example, will be much more able to understand current events in... Any recommendations on good places to learn / keep abreast of this kind of info? I'd love to read news that was more high-level about what's really going on, but it's hard to find. Many years ago, Stratfor had a free weekly newsletter that had excellent info along these lines, but after they got hac…

"The Grand Chessboard" by Zbigniew Brzezinski opened up my eyes to how countries think. It's a bit dry, but offers the kind of perspective that is normally missing from most people's everyday lives.

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

#87

Post by erikpukinskis »

This seems almost tautological to me. Civilization is violence. Civilization is cultural agreement, agreement generally requires control, control is violence.

How else are you going to centralize a way of life besides killing everyone who doesn't agree to it?

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

#88

Post by onetimepadder »

dmix wrote: post #80
jmickey wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found the Caspian Report tremendously useful for improving my understanding of global dynamics - https://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport/videos

That's a great channel. Thanks for the link. I just learned how India's economy seems to be crippled by labour regulations, land acquisition laws, and a crazy localized tax system (one truck ride takes 36 checkpoint stops and takes 10 days to go between New Delhi to Mumbai due to paperwork). Made worse by an impotent polticial system. The fact that India is even growing at 7% a year in that environment is the amazing…

@Simulation: "Garbage in, garbage out"

@CaspianReport: Another gate-keeping operation(see Noam Chomsky for ref). One dimensionality, designed, produced and moderated(either knowingly or unknowingly .. for the "narrator") to keep _you_ - the curios mind - at a safe distance. If you want to get a glimpse of the real world, you will have to take a dive into the mostly paid disinformation so-called alternative media waters. Among the un-educated, intellectually challenged, psychologically uneven freaks, paid "disinformation agents", double-speak conferences(davos, cfr etc) and gate-keeping (not only)academic speakers from across the globe, you'll have to learn how to distill information these shady organizations(across thousands of yt channels and blogs from 100 to several 100k views) have to use to deliver their disinfo. Pick your world axioms(wisely), learn the contexts, follow links to sources, do your own reading - even though presented by a fool, misrepresented or otherwise intellectually mutilated, sources that were given/sent to that fool may still be valid and _very_ eye-opening. Don't be your own censor, there are a lot of large-scale disinformation operations (like "flat earth", "9/11", "homeopathy-*" etc) you may encounter - but keep in mind, they have to use _something_ to sell their disinfo.. Below 2 operations(yes, they are ops I;m sad to say) are worth visiting for start:

Put your self-censorship hat off and watch at least few of these in-full! In regards to the last one, named after Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope[3] - you can find that book online, jump to site 430+/- for an overview of how it was the UK as the tool behind both WWs (even though there is a lot of self-censorship at best in that book .. and it was written or edited as to be very hard to read)

[0] https://www.youtube.com/user/corbettreport [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/1138Porkins // quality depends on the region/topic cowered, kaukazuz are OK [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/TragedyandHopeMag // especially older pieces [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_and_Hope

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

#89

Post by TeMPOraL »

phkahler wrote: post #31
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…

>> geostrategy is an important factor in the development of human and international relations and that broadly laymen are completely ignorant of it Age of Empires taught me that the key to world domination is control of the natural resources plus growing as fast as possible. To win a long game you must control the remote resources as well as those in your immediate area. Try to consume the non-local resources first.

Lessons from StarCraft:

- if you're not spending as much as you're mining, you're losing

- keep expanding to mine more and simultaneously, so you can spend more simultaneously

- push, push, push

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

#90

Post by TeMPOraL »

stcredzero wrote: post #40
nostrademons wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite possible for civilization to be stable while any given civilization is unstable. Think about life itself. Life is subject to a number of exponential processes - cell division & decay, telomere shortening, growth of parasites, etc. - and as a result, we all die eventually. But life itself continues, because we're (usually) replaced by descendants. So it goes with civilizations. Any given civilization will e…

So it goes with civilizations. Any given civilization will eventually break up and disintegrate, but the idea of civilization itself continues to progress. Which doesn't preclude a circumstance where almost no civilization anywhere keeps its sh!t together long enough to send itself to the next star.

That's why I believe it's crucial to maintain the integrity of current technological civilization. We're close to many important breakthroughs, and if it collapses now, our descendants will face a lack of easily accessible, high-density energy sources they could use to jumpstart another industrial revolution.
Post reply on HN