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How transportation technologies shaped empires

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#211

Post by mymythisisthis »

I don't see this as a case of 'information speed'.

It's more like, who wants to wait more than 30 days for a package to get delivered. Each yearly task takes specific tools and ingredients, that you can't wait for.

There is a certain yearly rhythm, so people are on 30 day schedules. 1 month of harvest in the fall (October) 1 month of processing the food (November) 1 month of swapping and trading food (December) 1 month of keeping animals alive in winter (January) 1 month of animal husbandry (February) 1 month of winter planting (March) 1 month of birthing new animals (April) 1 month of spring plating (May) 1 month of early harvests (June) 1 month of tending to planted crops (July) 1 month of travel (August) 1 month of making clothing and other things (September)

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#212

Post by wolverine876 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #188
manv1 wrote: post #132

That's not true, as evidenced by many, many empires, past and present (Spanish, British, Roman, American) that spanned more than a month of travel. What they're trying to say is that the span of control is limited by the ability to project power/information to the extremities of the empire. That makes sense, but the way they measure the limits is wrong. The way the empires get around this problem is by putting people…

History of Empire, History of Travel Technology, and History of Communications Technology are huuuuge fields with tons of professionals working today. I'm a little concerned about huge claims being made about empire by a Stanford MBA and a community of people mostly experienced in software and tech. The historians would love for you to read their books! AHA is literally happening right now ! Go to bars in Philly and…

I always look first for the reason I should trust them (how frustrating to look after reading a long article!). Don't forget they are also a highly trained engineer in SV, and made products used by lots of people today. Why not collaborate with a historian?

> Go to bars in Philly and talk to them!

? What happens in bars in Philly? Nobody does it elsewhere?

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#213

Post by tablespoon »

tgv wrote: post #17
cs702 wrote: post #3

The logic seems sound to me, with a few obvious caveats: * The number of samples is small. There aren't a lot of empires throughout history. * The definition of "empire" is somewhat subjective, because empire sizes exhibit a Zipf distribution, and the cutoff is arbitrary. * Surely there have been other factors at play besides time to travel from the capital. One implication is that empires that span the globe are muc…

But for future interplanetary colonization, the rule would become one light month. Not very far. But imagine any form of communication taking years to bounce back and forth. That could not be centrally governed. It might not just be travel time, but it probably does correlate.

> But for future interplanetary colonization, the rule would become one light month. Not very far. But imagine any form of communication taking years to bounce back and forth. That could not be centrally governed. It might not just be travel time, but it probably does correlate.

The rule seems too simplistic. What's so special about 1 month? Is the significant value time to communicate, time to move military forces, or something else?

For instance, for your hypothetical interplanetary empire: How could a capital, with a military that can move at 1% light speed, effectively rule over a colony one light month away if the worst it could do for ten years is send a nasty letters over radio? Having local forces isn't a good answer, because one of the easier paths to rebellion is for the leader(s) those forces to declare independence and make themselves kings.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#214

Post by UncleMeat »

wolverine876 wrote: post #212
UncleMeat wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History of Empire, History of Travel Technology, and History of Communications Technology are huuuuge fields with tons of professionals working today. I'm a little concerned about huge claims being made about empire by a Stanford MBA and a community of people mostly experienced in software and tech. The historians would love for you to read their books! AHA is literally happening right now ! Go to bars in Philly and…

I always look first for the reason I should trust them (how frustrating to look after reading a long article!). Don't forget they are also a highly trained engineer in SV, and made products used by lots of people today. Why not collaborate with a historian? > Go to bars in Philly and talk to them! ? What happens in bars in Philly? Nobody does it elsewhere?

The American Historical Association Annual Conference (colloquially, AHA) is happening in Philly this weekend. Academics like to go out to drink after a day of talks.

Mostly tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually think the best way to meet historians is to go to random bars in the cities hosting major conferences.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#215

Post by xwdv »

krisoft wrote: post #87
xwdv wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s about 5000 AU. That means an Earth based space empire could encompass the entire solar system, but the limit of its reach would only extend part way into the Oort Cloud. Beyond this would be a lawless frontier. Since this is based on the speed of light, it could be the maximum size for any empire in the universe without the use of some kind of FTL technology.

> Since this is based on the speed of light, it could be the maximum size for any empire in the universe without the use of some kind of FTL technology. That assumes that the "1 month from capital" is universal. Maybe humans are just quarrelsome, and if uplifted capybaras would rule an empire they could keep it together even if their empire has a 2 year radius. Who knows.

I think you’re right. There must be some more variables to a formula that determines max empire size.

Beings that live twice as long as humans would feel that the trip to Alpha Centauri is only half as long as what a standard human of equivalent age would perceive it. This could potentially mean their empires could also be double in size at max even if they have the same disposition as humans.

Therefore, as an advisor to an emperor of an interstellar empire, I would strongly encourage lengthening lifespans as the key to increasing the reach of government. The longer the people can live, the more tolerant they will be of long voyages and high latencies.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#216

Post by dcow »

wolverine876 wrote: post #212
UncleMeat wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History of Empire, History of Travel Technology, and History of Communications Technology are huuuuge fields with tons of professionals working today. I'm a little concerned about huge claims being made about empire by a Stanford MBA and a community of people mostly experienced in software and tech. The historians would love for you to read their books! AHA is literally happening right now ! Go to bars in Philly and…

I always look first for the reason I should trust them (how frustrating to look after reading a long article!). Don't forget they are also a highly trained engineer in SV, and made products used by lots of people today. Why not collaborate with a historian? > Go to bars in Philly and talk to them! ? What happens in bars in Philly? Nobody does it elsewhere?

https://www.historians.org/annual-meeting

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#217

Post by Bouncingsoul1 »

manv1 wrote: post #132

That's not true, as evidenced by many, many empires, past and present (Spanish, British, Roman, American) that spanned more than a month of travel. What they're trying to say is that the span of control is limited by the ability to project power/information to the extremities of the empire. That makes sense, but the way they measure the limits is wrong. The way the empires get around this problem is by putting people…

It is for the Romans though, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2609654 as for the others I'm a bit sceptical but haven't to knowlegde about them either

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#219

Post by wolverine876 »

notch656c wrote: post #170
jimmytidey wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Drunk the cool aid..." In the UK case I've heard the idea that the Publc School system emerged for exactly this reason. ('Public' schools being the most elite schools in the UK). A relatively small number of schools shaped a class of people who all thought in exactly the same way, so they would behave predictably even when far away and in a new context. Public schools, are not coincidentally noted for a focus on 'pl…

Being trustworthy seems like an important trait in the older agrarian societies that depended on long-term planning and exchange, whether you were a farmer or an administrator.

It seems very important if you are talking to me today. Why should I listen to you?

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#220

Post by wolverine876 »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #202
notch656c wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>centralized decision making Which bodes poorly for increasing federal power in the US.

Hello? This is year 2023, not 1542. Communication happens at the speed of light and the only bottleneck is the human processing said communication. Obsessively devolving power to nesting lower levels of decision making bodies is just about the worst thing to do when technology has increasingly enabled organizations that are slim at the top to effectively manage complex systems at scale instead.

The local decision-makers know much better the local needs: Local people can communicate with local decision-makers, they have far more experience with local needs (lifetimes worth), and human cognitive capacity is limited - nobody single federal decision maker can learn and know what all the local mayors know. Nobody a thousand miles away can know my neighborhood the way I do.

That's a reason decision-making in business is often pushed to the lowest level - the central people can't know as much.

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