Studying the demise of historic civilisations • Hacker News Board

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#341

Post by BurningFrog » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 2:52 AM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #307

BurningFrog wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of (rich) people confuse poverty with slavery. They are nothing alike.

They differ by methods, but little by outcome. (And even the method is often similar. See e.g. [1] ) Poverty, to a large extent, is a deliberate construct because a weak labor force is an exploitable one. Sure, you don't whip people any more. (Well, somewhat. Ask the UAE[2]) You just make sure their life is going to be rather short if they don't work for you, at your conditions. [1] https://www.supplychaindive.com/ne…

> They differ by methods, but little by outcome.

They differ they same way rape and regular sex does: By consent.

Sure, to an outsider watching it can look very similar. But it's not.

Our grandparents were probably just as poor as the third world laborers are today. They were allowed to work their way up and build prosperous countries. The third world is well on their way doing the same.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#342

Post by noopnoop » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #122

noopnoop wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can speak to the Vedic dates. Those are contested but only due to their novelty, meaning they are MUCH older than what western media gives them credit for. And the Vedic civilization exists to this day in India as Sanatana Dharma followers or as the ancient Greeks & the modern Western world calls it - Hindus.

Though most varieties of modern 'Hinduism'/Sanatana Dharma are rather different from 'Vedism'.

That's quite unreasonable to say the least. In any case, I am not familiar with the term "Vedism". Vedas are not the only concept but a very critical pillar of Sanatana Dharma.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#343

Post by crimsonalucard » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 5:28 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #336

crimsonalucard wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still I'm looking for quantitative data, not anecdotal. Things like energy usage measured in joules or Green house gas emissions by weight or climate change by temperature. A philosophy book offers conjecture not evidence.

You want data about energy usage in joules from 100 years before James Joule was born? That's going to be tricky..

I want all the data we can get. Frankly a philosophy book or anecdotal musings about human behavior are not data. It's just a predictive conjecture about how a human will behave in a certain situation and is rarely accurate.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#344

Post by _emacsomancer_ » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 5:28 AM UTC

noopnoop wrote: post #342

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though most varieties of modern 'Hinduism'/Sanatana Dharma are rather different from 'Vedism'.

That's quite unreasonable to say the least. In any case, I am not familiar with the term "Vedism". Vedas are not the only concept but a very critical pillar of Sanatana Dharma.

Why do you think it's unreasonable?

In general we don't expect religious systems to be static.

Certainly -- although Vedic deities are not entirely absent from modern Hinduism/Sanatana Dharma -- the prominence of different deities is very different. The Rgveda focusses largely on Agni and Indra, and yajna rituals (as opposed to modern puja-type worship) have a central importance. Shiva, assuming he can be identified as Rudra, is not invoked, but rather (being feared) appeased. And so on and so forth. So while modern Hinduism is not unrelated to the practices/beliefs of the Vedas (which I'm referring to vaguely as 'vedism'), it largely pays only lip-service to the Vedas. People might read the Gita, Ramayan, Mahabharata, but rarely the Vedas, which really only make an appearance in special ritualised situations (e.g. marriages involve some Vedic hymns).

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#345

Post by benj111 » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 7:18 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #337

benj111 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Newcomen's great achievement was his steam engine, developed around 1712; combining the ideas of Thomas Savery and Denis Papin, he created a steam engine for the purpose of lifting water out of a tin mine." [1] Plus that's 700,000 tons of copper, copper ore typically contains 2%? Copper, so your 700,000 tons of copper represents 35 million tons of ore. I'm undecided whether relative weight is even a good comparator.…

My point is and remains that when England leapt ahead of Spain, one primary driver was a tremendous increase in availability of primary energy. Coal replaced other scarce fuels, largely wood and charcoal, rare in both Spain and Britain, and steam engines themselves bootstrapped that process. The immediate applications of coal may not have been yet more steam power (that waited for Watt in ~1770 and more especially ex…

"When Philip IV succeeded his father in 1621, Spain was clearly in economic and political decline, a source of consternation."

"The Spain that the sickly young Charles II (1661-1700) inherited was clearly in decline and there were more losses immediately." [1]

These are both from before the steam engine was invented. I don't think its reasonable blame steam power for the downfall of Spain. The dates just don't really line up, especially not when you look when steam became a major driving force.

Now I agree with your point that the availability of coal was a huge factor in the industrial revolution.

Ps looking up copper ore concentrations, I got the same 12% figure, I thought it questionable as its so far higher than other concentrations. Apparently modern ore has 0.6% copper.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Empire

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#346

Post by mcv » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:00 AM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #280

reader5000 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continuity existing between separate categories doesn't mean categories are arbitrary nor artifacts of language. For example adults and children really are separate categories for many important purposes yet there is never a single day when a child becomes an adult.

That's an excellent analogy. How a society differentiates adults and children, is often more a reflection of societal norms than it is an objective biological distinction. Similarly, analyses like these cannot help but be a reflection of the society that produced them. This article features a callout in the middle with weirdly axis-ed charts about climate change, inequality and environmental degradation, it's difficu…

It's a decent analogy, but not a great one. Most people grow up in a fairly similar way. Every civilisation develops differently. Also, it's clear where one person ends and the next person begins. With civilisations, that's not so clear.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#347

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 12:46 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #345

dredmorbius wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is and remains that when England leapt ahead of Spain, one primary driver was a tremendous increase in availability of primary energy. Coal replaced other scarce fuels, largely wood and charcoal, rare in both Spain and Britain, and steam engines themselves bootstrapped that process. The immediate applications of coal may not have been yet more steam power (that waited for Watt in ~1770 and more especially ex…

"When Philip IV succeeded his father in 1621, Spain was clearly in economic and political decline, a source of consternation." "The Spain that the sickly young Charles II (1661-1700) inherited was clearly in decline and there were more losses immediately." [1] These are both from before the steam engine was invented. I don't think its reasonable blame steam power for the downfall of Spain. The dates just don't really…

There are, of course, multiple factors. And Spain was in decine, for multiple reasons, as the Industrial Revolution was starting to cook off in the 18th century -- whether you put the start date at the beginning, middle, or end of that period doen't much matter: Spain missed the starting gun, and never really got back in the game until the 20th century.

As to what country took title -- I'd have to check an authoritative source, possibly Maddison's data if it has sufficient granularity, but my money would be on France or the Netherlands, rather than England, at least through about 1755 (Seven Years War).

And by the 19th century, it was previously unorganised states such as Germany who'd utterly surpassed Spain, whilst the (now United) Britain benefitted hugely by avoiding the revolutions and wars that wracked Europe through 1848 (and somewhat beyond), as well as control of India (providing saltpetre for gunpowder) and China (general trade, once the Brits discovered the balance-of-trade leveling properties of opium), Canada, and Australia.

Even modest shifting of fuels away from wood gave compelling advantages. Smil credits Dutch use of peat for prt of that nation's success. Transport systems, ag productivity, attitudes toward invention and discovery (Catholic Spain vs Anglican England & Protestant Holland), canal building, political divisions, domestic resource access, colonial access, etc., etc., all played roles.

But after 1800, ability to access an utilise fossil fuels came to dominate, frequently a self-reinforcing process.

Smil, Weissenbacher, et al, make for fascinating reading (see previous).

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

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Post by magduf » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

hungryhobo wrote: post #340

magduf wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Same with the borrowed Chinese characters in Japanese and Korean. A native Chinese speaker would have little problem reading those, although the pronounciations might be a little different The Japanese pronunciation of Chinese characters is absolutely nothing like the Chinese pronunciation of them, and the meaning is sometimes different too. (The Kanji for "letter" (as in a piece of paper you write a letter on) mean…

sure there are edge cases but at least I know it's paper, and i'd be able to figure its actually letter from context in the rest of the sentence

For many, yes, but you were still absolutely wrong about pronunciation. They're not even remotely the same, as the two languages are not in any way similar and don't share any kind of common root.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#349

Post by tomt2323 » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #107

ddxxdd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a King George Washington would preside over a young America as affluent as President George Washington did. Tyranny has a way of sequestering innovative spirit.

Here's another thought experiment. Take the Russian communist revolution of 1917. Had Lenin been an American and the coup/revolution been american... Do you think that by the late 20th century, the US and Soviet Union's positions would have been reversed? I don't think we can really answer that, but to me, "yes" feels like an old fashioned answer. I don't think a founding philosophy or constitution (or anything reall…

The two situations really aren't comparable as it's more likely that the entirety of the Americas would've been pulled into a unified communist state like the Russian revolutionaries were hoping would happen with the European communist uprisings that were happening at the same time (and quelled by fascist backlash in Germany, Italy, and Spain). At the same time, it's entirely possible that the Axis would've conquered most of Europe and something equivalent to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact would've held without the ideological conflict there. It is possible the anti-Slavic racism would've still pushed Hitler to try to exterminate large parts of Germany, but it may have been a harder sell to the German public than it was when coupled with the threat of communism.

If you're asking the broader question of whither the (self-proclaimed) state capitalist countries that came out of the retrenchment when those revolutions failed, I think there's still an answer there. They developed differently, used their resources, and prioritized different things than more liberal capitalist ones in ways that you can make some broad claims about. But they did so in a context, as did the liberal and non-aligned/miscellaneous blocs.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#350

Post by bsanr » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 12:30 AM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #253

mnm1 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that black people aren't suffering today due to slavery and Jim Crow? How do you explain that the median white household wealth is sixteen times that of black households? Or is that a leftist conspiracy also? https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2015/03/26/the-racial...

You should check a general reference on slavery across the world (including slavery of Europeans during the late middle ages). There seems to be not a single country whose citizens have not enslaved someone or other at sometime throughout history. I am not as rich as Jeff Bezos or indeed hundreds of thousands of other folk. Now how can you explain that? Answer to your question: yes, a leftist conspiracy. If you reall…

Coincidentally, most countries that have had a historically-disadvantaged population still see large socioeconomic disparities between they and the average, even when the populations concerned are racially homogeneous collectivists with a conservative political bent (looking at you, Japan).

Coincidentally, of course. (OR, The phrase "opportunity hoarding" comes to mind.)