Studying the demise of historic civilisations • Hacker News Board

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#91

Post by muse900 » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:03 AM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #56

muse900 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to your point, we have vilified death a bit too much. In the past they had poems about death, sung death, created legends. Dying in the battlefield in an honorable way was seen as a good way to leave this place and go to the next one. The world needs to renew itself, or else there won't be enough resources to feed one another. We are at peaceful times but one thing history can show us is our future, and in histo…

> Dying in the battlefield in an honorable way was seen as a good way to leave this place and go to the next one. Do you really not see that this was sick propaganda, propagated by evil dictators in need of cannon (sword?) fodder? There's nothing honorable about war or battlefields. It's the worst of the human condition, distilled to the highest concentration. War is repugnant, evil, and unnecessary. We humans should…

I am not too narrow minded so I see war as a not good thing and a as a not bad thing. I don't like seeing anything in this world as a good or a bad thing.

War is something that comes to us by default. Its in our nature, as its in every animals nature for survival. Its not something pushed to us by dictators and what not.

Also I don't agree with your sentence of removing poems, legends and whatever from the internet. Let each person decide for himself whats to be filtered in his head or not. The internet should be free, accessible and non filtered.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#92

Post by tanilama » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:04 AM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #21

You know I lately think that, ok, we're mostly past the age of empires physically conquering one another, we're in the age of economic ebbs and flows of established countries. And in this kind of age, the thing that sinks a country is not aggression by others, but indifference and lethargy as a country "gets old". "Getting old" means the political desired and inertia of a rich, settled population get to dominate the…

> Too many rich, old, soft people who now have settled and moneyed lives, and don't want to make the same sacrifices ....Too happy with their 2nd homes and retirement plans.

Really? That is at least not what I saw happens in the US, most of the old people could be impoverished by unexpected disease. What you described isn't like 5% of the whole population really...

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#93

Post by wallace_f » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #86

wallace_f wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other nations such as China or Russia have comparable or arguably better cheap labor stocks or natural resources. Then Japan has almost zero natural resources and nearly had a shot at taking over the world...

> Then Japan has almost zero natural resources and nearly had a shot at taking over the world... Did they? Or was that just something American businessmen liked to scare each other with in a post-war era?

Also during the war, they put up a pretty good fight for it all things considered.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#94

Post by agumonkey » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

muse900 wrote: post #45

supernova87a wrote: post #21

You know I lately think that, ok, we're mostly past the age of empires physically conquering one another, we're in the age of economic ebbs and flows of established countries. And in this kind of age, the thing that sinks a country is not aggression by others, but indifference and lethargy as a country "gets old". "Getting old" means the political desired and inertia of a rich, settled population get to dominate the…

More to your point, we have vilified death a bit too much. In the past they had poems about death, sung death, created legends. Dying in the battlefield in an honorable way was seen as a good way to leave this place and go to the next one. The world needs to renew itself, or else there won't be enough resources to feed one another. We are at peaceful times but one thing history can show us is our future, and in histo…

not vilified, just avoided it, as with regular struggle that makes your existence more scary but more dense and your spirit less complacent

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#95

Post by crimsonalucard » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:07 AM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #21

You know I lately think that, ok, we're mostly past the age of empires physically conquering one another, we're in the age of economic ebbs and flows of established countries. And in this kind of age, the thing that sinks a country is not aggression by others, but indifference and lethargy as a country "gets old". "Getting old" means the political desired and inertia of a rich, settled population get to dominate the…

People bitch and moan about how unfair everything is and while it is unfair the wealth the poorest individual has in the united states is light years ahead of what kings had in the middle ages.

According to all observations the most likely end to modern civilization is over exploitation and over usage of natural resources.

The amount of resources available and the amount we use point to a trend that has one conclusion.

The irony is that even with the knowledge of our impending doom we are still unable to see it despite the obviousness of it. The original poster makes a chancy prediction on how wealth inequality will take us to our ends while all trendlines and data point to the real way our civilization will end.

One day there will not be enough oil in the world for you to drive to work or fly to another state.

Technology is not our savior. The trendlines in tech are far too slow do make any meaningful difference. What you're actually observing with technology like the tesla is the trendline in hype.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#96

Post by remarkEon » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:08 AM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #77

remarkEon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact opposite of this is true. Great leaps forward in Civilization have come from things like Empire, explicitly run by hereditary ruling classes, and technological advances. In today’s world the latter now eclipses the former. There’s no reason, in my mind, to think that that ratio will (or should) remain.

and yet the largest improvements in life quality have occurred in the last century, when most of the great empires have fallen.

And you attribute this fact entirely - as in 100% - to the fall of Empires, and not the technological advancements that happened in parallel?

I find it strikingly hard to believe that democracy, which is what I assume you’re referring to, is the actual imperative that caused this. If we had managed to avoid WWI it’s really difficult to imagine that we’d still be using a horse drawn buggy and a typewriter.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#97

Post by crimsonalucard » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:09 AM UTC

wallace_f wrote: post #80

bsanr wrote: post #27

Let me throw a wrench into things with a provocative statement (which I have no intention of citing support for): The affluence of Western Europe and the US was not built on hard work and ingenuity so much as the exploitation of cheap labor and the sudden access to deep veins of basic resources or economic/industrial efficiencies which were either already extant but inaccessible without a critical mass of capital, or…

Other nations such as China or Russia have comparable or arguably better cheap labor stocks or natural resources. Then Japan has almost zero natural resources and nearly had a shot at taking over the world...

nah they were dead in the water. Resource embargo was basically a death sentence. The Nuke was done to end it quickly.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#98

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:14 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #78

ajross wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example of a lasting empire that... did not do all of that stuff? I mean, honestly that statement seems kind of laughably wrong.

Compare the evolution of the big empires of the past with the evolution in the last 500 years or even the last 250 years. The Roman Empire had a water system and concrete to make the Coliseum. Relied on slave labour up until the end. Made a plant that was used as contraception extinct. Given the time they stood, I'd say their scientific/mathematical progress was nimble. Egyptian empire: invented geometry, still had s…

Have you ever seen Connections[0]? Do watch it if you haven't[1]. They communicate well what's IMO a crucial point: almost never a single person had invented the "whole solution". The story of civilization is one of individual inventions being made over time, and then coming together to click into place and create something pushing us forward even further. It did happen in the past like it is happening today; both then and now it seems to work better under a stable governance - hence big empires do in fact contribute to scientific progress by their very existence. It's happening faster today than it was then because we're further along the exponential curve - but it's the same curve, the same process, we've been following for thousands of years.

Like it often is with wealth, we're not special - our current empires just had richer parents and bigger accumulated base of inventions. We can build cooler stuff now than our ancestors - but let's never forget that "what makes one step a giant leap is all the steps before"[2].

--

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)#Connec...

[1] - I think I've seen them on dailymotion; of course I don't encourage copyright infringement, it's very important to keep our most important works unaccessible until everyone who might be interested in them dies off and only archaeologists will care.

[2] - http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/songs/toast-for-unknown-heroes.h... / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zotaRLROtw

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#99

Post by jacobush » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:16 AM UTC

wallace_f wrote: post #74

pjc50 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington was a slave owner. Tyranny, but only for some people.

I think this is misleading. I think when tossing out the credence of people such as Wadhington or Jefferson with the slavery problem, there is very little context understood about the cultural norms, science and religion those people lived in. The problem was that they did not see other races as people as they saw themselves. They saw their lives and societies and thought of them as savages. They further justified th…

And nothing in your argument, addresses the claim that wealth was amassed through slavery.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#100

Post by raverbashing » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:21 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #98

raverbashing wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare the evolution of the big empires of the past with the evolution in the last 500 years or even the last 250 years. The Roman Empire had a water system and concrete to make the Coliseum. Relied on slave labour up until the end. Made a plant that was used as contraception extinct. Given the time they stood, I'd say their scientific/mathematical progress was nimble. Egyptian empire: invented geometry, still had s…

Have you ever seen Connections[0]? Do watch it if you haven't[1]. They communicate well what's IMO a crucial point: almost never a single person had invented the "whole solution". The story of civilization is one of individual inventions being made over time, and then coming together to click into place and create something pushing us forward even further. It did happen in the past like it is happening today; both th…

Oh I loved Connections

> Like it often is with wealth, we're not special - our current empires just had richer parents and bigger accumulated base of inventions. We can build cooler stuff now than our ancestors

Yes, totally agree. But what I'm saying is that those old empires didn't have technological evolution as a goal (maybe the latter ones) hence they didn't really think of it.

Sure, evolution and ideas take time, but it seems it took much less time once the right mindset was in place.