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Studying the demise of historic civilisations

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Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#211

Post by ciceryadam »

bilbo0s wrote: post #32

Does it seem to anyone else that they have conflated "civilization" and "political entity" for lack of a better term? Serious question. It just seems that a lot of entries on this list are actually part of the same civilization. In the same way that I would consider the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, and the American Empire to be really all a part of the same Western Civilization. But maybe my thinking is totall…

Theoretically, yes. But Spanish Empire, the British Empire, and the American Empire were waging wars against one another.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#212

Post by eeZah7Ux »

remarkEon wrote: post #42
digitaltrees wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get rid of multi generational transfers of wealth. Make each generation start from scratch. I know it's easier said than done as not all assets are fungible or distributable (social networks, geography etc) but it would make a difference. I read recently that the same families that controlled most the wealth in Florence in the 1600 still control most the wealth now, that's probably not good for scrappy innovation.

>...it would make a difference. It sure would. If I wanted to design a system to throw society into abject chaos, basically permanently, I can’t think of a better way than a rule of “make it impossible to build something for your children”. That idea is anti-family, it’s anti-civil-society, and it’s anti-civilization.

Inequality fueled the French revolution. Getting rid of aristocracy led to modern democracies.

Most European countries have steep inheritance taxes to prevent going back to oligarchy.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#213

Post by hnnmzh »

prevedmedved wrote: post #149
hungryhobo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly this is just not?true. the Chinese script have evolved, but one can still look at inscriptions from thousands of years ago and understand it. it might be hard for people to understand different dialects in China but they all use the same writing system, standardized in the Qin dynasty. Same with the borrowed Chinese characters in Japanese and Korean. A native Chinese speaker would have little problem reading…

Are you seriously claiming that you can understand seal script inscriptions? Are you Indiana Jones?

Yes for me. Of course I don't know every single character by heart but with a little bit practice and the help of a dictionary you can read a lot. You can even download some seal script fonts and make all the Chinese websites shown in seal script.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#214

Post by eeZah7Ux »

Mbioguy wrote: post #193
retsibsi wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes, as sad as it is to imagine, I think you need a good war to refresh a country... Please think about this in concrete terms. Not just the abstract concept 'war', but the specific instances of brutal violence, intense prolonged suffering, anguish and grief that happen thousands upon thousands of times in any war. What do you hope to gain that would make this worthwhile? Even accepting all of your dubious pr…

This. I'm gonna cut to the chase: that line is probably the most fascist thing I'm going to read all day, and excepting you, Hacker News has failed to call it out. This idea that war can somehow mythically rejuvenate the ethos or spirit of a country isn't unique to fascism though. It was also common in the jingoist imperial western european powers, and partly used as justification for aggression against neighbors and…

> the most fascist thing I'm going to read all day ... Hacker News has failed to call it out

Yes, and the same happens in other posts on HN. This says a lot about HN's Overton window.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#215

Post by Frqy3 »

avinium wrote: post #53
skookumchuck wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair tax is one that lands on someone else.

I'll assume you're being glib. One of the most attractive features of a death tax is that it applies to everybody. After all, nobody escapes death. Of course, that doesn't mean it'll be loved universally. Some people just hate taxes. Others don't like the idea of not being able to pass on their life's work to their children. But most reasonable people understand the need for taxation. It's a lot easier to stomach the…

Nobody escapes death, but the wealthy can still escape an inheritance tax using a trust fund.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#216

Post by eeZah7Ux »

wallace_f wrote: post #66
pjc50 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite hiding it well, this is an extremely fascist post in ideology - the idea that the west is decadent and needs a bit more violence was very prevalent in the 30s.

This reasoning does not substantiate your accusation: The idea was prevalent not just in the facist countries.

Those ideas were at the core of the fascist ideology and that should be enough to allow using the word.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#217

Post by agent008t »

mnm1 wrote: post #145
kolinko wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forbidding people from passing on wealth (or anything else) to their children seems inhumane - and wealthy people are still people with emotions and feelings. Personally, I would sooner accept 90% tax to the rich&living, than 100% tax upon death. Both are theoretical of course - there is no way to enforce them really without hurting overall society. There is also no need I think. A better solution is to make sure tha…

To be practical, I would allow some transfer of wealth actually but put a marginal tax rate of 100% over say 5 to 10 million, gradually increasing from say 0% at 250k. That seems like a fair compromise. Sure, guaranteeing basic living conditions would be nice, but as we can clearly see right now, there isn't much support for it. This tax would provide plenty of money to get to that goal, however.

Really bad idea. That would encourage people to consume wealth over 5 to 10 million during their lifetimes, i.e. destroy real wealth, instead of investing it in productive enterprises, i.e. building real wealth.

You want a situation where wealthy people build a lot more wealth than they consume. The last thing you want is for them to consume their wealth, making themselves better off but the society overall much, much poorer.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#218

Post by dalbasal »

dagaci wrote: post #194

Many of these great "empires" were simply extended looting machines, once they ran out of looting opportunities they collapsed in the same way that a Ponzi collapses when it run out of new "investors". While things were good, it was all golden, glitter and glam, and many tall buildings. Loot of course takes many forms, gold, silvers, the work of serfs, the work of slaves, monopolies on trade routes, monopolies on tra…

The bronze age civilisations of the middle east (Akkad, Hati, Egypt) didn't follow this pattern. Egypt, for example, was a Nile + delta empire for most of the three kingdoms/periods. It's only towards the end of the new Kingdom that they expanded into nearby Canaan, and fought frontier wars against hittites along the Phoenician coast (eg, the famous battle of kadesh).

Rome definitely did have an expansion imperative. Land grants and the slave trade were to legions what exits are to tech startups.

Most ancient (and into modernity) armies did self fund by looting though. Even looting fallen enemies for weapons was a substantial motivator. Even in the Roman period, owning a helmet, shield and such equated to moving up a social class.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#219

Post by hutzlibu »

guelo wrote: post #57
remarkEon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...it would make a difference. It sure would. If I wanted to design a system to throw society into abject chaos, basically permanently, I can’t think of a better way than a rule of “make it impossible to build something for your children”. That idea is anti-family, it’s anti-civil-society, and it’s anti-civilization.

Civilization has been a long struggle to prevent powerful people from passing on their wealth and power to their children. I mean, most of the history of civilization has indeed functioned the way you describe, but many of the achievements of the past few hundred years has been thanks to the monumental effort to strengthen meritocracy, rule of law and democracy in order to limit the transfer of power hereditarily.

"Civilization has been a long struggle to prevent powerful people from passing on their wealth and power to their children. "

The opposite. Civilization invented laws so people could pass their wealth and power to their children, to the point that the absolute head of the state was determined by birth and not by skills.

In precivilized tribal cultures there was inheritance of weapons, tools, tents etc. to childrens and of course it played a role beeing born the chieftains son, but no ruler was born that way. They had to directly earn the respect of the tribe, by proving they are good leaders, before they were accepted. Direct democracy, long before the greek "invented" the concept.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#220

Post by agent008t »

coldtea wrote: post #188
pasabagi wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point. One thing that speaks for the relative harmlessness of hereditary wealth is, what happens when it gets passed on to an insane/idiotic/psychopathic heir. In these cases, it normally gets rapidly redistributed, as the heir wastes their fortune. In the case of normal 'power', it doesn't get really redistributed, so everybody has to deal with Emperor Caligula.

> Interesting point. One thing that speaks for the relative harmlessness of hereditary wealth is, what happens when it gets passed on to an insane/idiotic/psychopathic heir. In these cases, it normally gets rapidly redistributed, as the heir wastes their fortune. We are past that now. Now we have advisors, funds, elite accountants, and all kinds of dead easy ways to invest and keep huge wealth long term, for even the…

Wrong. Keeping wealth long term is difficult.

1. Advisors and accountants do not own the wealth - you set the goals. If you want to spend it or mismanage it, they are not going to stop you.

2. The wealthier you are, the more difficult it is to maintain the real value of your wealth, in general.

3. If you have 3 children, they have 3 children and so on, and you split your wealth equally among your children, even a billion turns into only 5 million within 5 generations - and that is if they manage to maintain its real value over time.

And if they do manage it cleverly and get to keep the real value of the wealth? Great! Society is better off, because that means they allocated capital productively within our society, making the economy more efficient.

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