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Late Bronze Age Collapse

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Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#231

Post by fc417fc802 »

marssaxman wrote: post #159
tsimionescu wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caturday -> Saturday enjoyed with or similar to a cat LBA -> probably supposed to be LBAC, Late Bronze Age collapse Civ -> Civilization, a series of historically inspired strategy games, where you play as the historical leader of a civilization through the ages of human development Hatshepsut -> an Egyptian Pharaoh who is one of the leaders you can play as in Civ VII Deity -> the name of the highest difficulty level…

> Caturday -> Saturday enjoyed with or similar to a cat There's a well-known underground nightclub in Seattle which has a monthly event called "Caturday" - I had no idea there was another meaning for the portmanteau! Makes sense, though.

I don't think that's "another meaning" but rather assume their name is a reference. Caturday is a widespread and long standing online meme event (20+ years) to post pictures of cats on saturdays. I have no idea what community it originated in or even when.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#232

Post by yongjik »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #189
Brendinooo wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. > witness something that defies all natural explanation > write about it > people say it cannot have happened because it was a supernatural element You see this too with stuff like "anything that predicted the destruction of the temple must have been written after because no one can predict the future." Like, the whole point of huge chunks of the Bible is that world-altering supernatural events actually happene…

I think that this arises from one of two presuppositions: Either 1) the physical universe is all that exists, or 2) science is the only way to learn truth. (These two presuppositions are not strictly independent of each other.) These are presuppositions . They are assumptions that you make at the start of the game, that you build your interpretation of the world on. They are not empirically proven in any way. (For #2…

Well, I guess that makes a certain philosophical sense, but if we allow for the existence of an extra-physical god (or gods) that we can't test for, there's no reason to believe that one particular story is more likely than others. Maybe it was alien gods that built Pyramids, and the Hebrews took forty years to reach Jericho because they had to first go through a couple of Stargates.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#233

Post by wangii »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #110

Have to mention this talk by Jonathan Blow, which maps the LBAC onto software development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko

yep, that's my first thought came to my mind as well. it's a great talk fueled with the passion of engineer, especially relevant in the era of LLM.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#234

Post by cogman10 »

Amezarak wrote: post #225
cogman10 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a totally unfruitful line of inquiry It's really not. This is the line of inquiry that leads you to understand the founding myth of Rome and what the motivations might have been to create such a myth. It also helps to place in time when the myth was concocted. > Is there any negative evidence? Is there any negative evidence against unicorns? Things that don't exist don't leave evidence. But yes, there is ev…

> what the motivations might have been to create such a myth. These are almost always absurdly simplistic, when they're not simply projections of how modern peoples think and what motivates them. It's really not useful to speculate about motives because you feel events resemble patterns of myth. > Further, the fact that his story is a mishmash of common tropes and that his very name is a derivative of Rome is a prett…

> It also conveniently explains why there is an ancient temple under the Forum with an empty sarcophagus dated to the 500s BC that appears to be dedicated to Romulus.

Bad article.

Here's a better one [1]. What the archeologists found was a shrine to a "holy king". Because of it's location and time, the title of "Romulus" was given to it by the modern archeologists.

> So who was the first king of Rome?

Who knows. That could easily be lost to history. After all, Rome started small before it grew to it's historical peek size. But if a figure like Romulus existed, there would be additional documentation that didn't show up 1000 years later.

> And somehow magically convinced everyone else all the history they knew was wrong. And convinced all the people in the cities around them. Interesting hypothesis.

Not really magic or hard to believe. It's not as if the entire population was literate. And a founding myth is quite useful for current politics. For example, using the founding myth of Romulus allowed for the ancient Romans to claim the Senate was created by him and thus divinely inspired.

The parallel to this is the Bible, where the creation of Abraham and Moses served the original authors in endowing their king with supernatural power and origin. Much like the Egyptians did with their Pharaoh. It was a common practice in the region and at the time.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/possible-shrine-ro...

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#235

Post by Amezarak »

cogman10 wrote: post #234
Amezarak wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what the motivations might have been to create such a myth. These are almost always absurdly simplistic, when they're not simply projections of how modern peoples think and what motivates them. It's really not useful to speculate about motives because you feel events resemble patterns of myth. > Further, the fact that his story is a mishmash of common tropes and that his very name is a derivative of Rome is a prett…

> It also conveniently explains why there is an ancient temple under the Forum with an empty sarcophagus dated to the 500s BC that appears to be dedicated to Romulus. Bad article. Here's a better one [1]. What the archeologists found was a shrine to a "holy king". Because of it's location and time, the title of "Romulus" was given to it by the modern archeologists. > So who was the first king of Rome? Who knows. That…

There’s no evidence it was done “all the time”; the most logical explanation is that all these figures were based on real people, even if their exploits and histories were exaggerated and mythologized over time, just as we see with figures like George Washington.

The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story was true and central to their identity - and it worked time after time AND everyone else bought into it - is clearly absurd. Just pointless cynicism with no basis in actual human psychology.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#236

Post by cogman10 »

Amezarak wrote: post #235
cogman10 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also conveniently explains why there is an ancient temple under the Forum with an empty sarcophagus dated to the 500s BC that appears to be dedicated to Romulus. Bad article. Here's a better one [1]. What the archeologists found was a shrine to a "holy king". Because of it's location and time, the title of "Romulus" was given to it by the modern archeologists. > So who was the first king of Rome? Who knows. That…

There’s no evidence it was done “all the time”; the most logical explanation is that all these figures were based on real people, even if their exploits and histories were exaggerated and mythologized over time, just as we see with figures like George Washington. The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story was true and central to their identity - and it worked time af…

> The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story was true and central to their identity - and it worked time after time AND everyone else bought into it - is clearly absurd.

It's really not. It's exactly how Romans changed from their Roman worship to christianity. It's how they converted the pagans. It's how Muslims were able to rewrite Christianity into their own religion. It's how Mormons did the same.

This is such a fundamental part of humanity, it happens all over the place.

Having a charismatic and/or politically powerful person say "This is how things are, believe it or die" does wonders to spread belief.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#237

Post by throwaway27448 »

The_Blade wrote: post #48
Amorymeltzer wrote: post #26

Patrick Wyman—of the Tides of History podcast—just put out a new book, Lost Worlds , which is worth a read if this is your bag. The basic premise is that the way ancient history is typically taught, "that we moved linearly from foraging to farming, and then from country farmers to city-dwelling, tax-paying subjects of kings and emperors," is essentially wrong. He goes on: >All of those developments occurred in an ord…

> "Oh yeah here's a 1,500 year-old city, but it was 7,000 years ago and then disappeared so you've never heard of it." pull it in a bit and you have Ugarit :) i am convinced if / when AI leads to the collapse of civilization it will be akin to the Late Bronze Age collapse; i.e., not with a bang but a whimper. it was a very delicate economic ecosystem complete with circular dealing; but 3500 years ago people were figh…

Why would you blame AI when there are dozens of other crises with far more evident impact already?

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#238

Post by ux266478 »

Brendinooo wrote: post #176
ux266478 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taken as an intentional insult though, it could be very historically literate. The south of Canaan seems to have peaked in prestige in the Neolithic and early bronze age. Afterwards, other than a handful of Canaanite sentinel cities, it was kind of an irrelevant rural backwater, and those cities fell off drastically in the iron age. The kingdom of Israel was a regional player with a lot of manpower, but compared to i…

> The kingdom of Israel was a regional player with a lot of manpower, but compared to its neighbors of Aram-Damascus and the Sidonians, it didn't really amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Not sure if you mean it this way but: I don't think the Tanakh itself claims otherwise. Its portrayal is basically an ~80-year run of David and Solomon accumulating a ton of land, wealth, and prestige; then the kingdom sp…

No, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I'm contextualizing for why that framing of the book is eyebrow raising.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#239

Post by userulluipeste »

tsoukase wrote: post #199

As a Greek I feel proud that we passed through all history tides during our high times: multiple cycles of thriving and decline, the last one being the Classical century of 5th BC, then the Hellenistic period of Alexander until we passed the baton of civilization to the Romans. This lasted for a full thousand years until a little before Jesus birth and it continued in Europe and the rest of the world in the same way…

"we passed the baton of civilization to the Romans"

As a tongue-in-the-cheek retort, if the Greeks were really doing that (i.e. only playing ball in the grand building up of civilization), then the Roman Empire wouldn't ended up speaking Greek and looking so different in the period in which it is nowadays being called "Byzantine". Romans revered various Greek aspects, and somehow that privileged status that (everything) Greek enjoyed inside the empire played a role into the movement of the empire's capital to the Greek city of Byzantium (renamed Constantinople). It surely feels more like taking (the reigns, and not doing much afterwards, other than holding out for as long as possible).

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#240

Post by whall6 »

marking-time wrote: post #202
whall6 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very curious what part of the article you're drawing on to suggest that their reliance on copper and tin was the cause of the collapse. The article that I read seemed to suggest it was climate related. I have no idea where you're from, but oil is not what it once was, especially in the United States. In fact, we have a very recent case study substantiating this claim: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Stra…

As mentioned by the other commenter,it is called the _bronze age_, so the components of the bronze alloy are part of the discussion. My point is that extended supply chains are vulnerable. And yes, in my view climate was a proximate trigger. However, once triggered, the collapse became more impactful because of the extended supply chains. > I have no idea where you're from I'm from the US and looking out my window to…

I don’t think we’re disagreeing. I am saying the prime mover was probably climate change and you’re saying the disruption of supply chains exacerbated the collapse. Both can be true. I was focused on the cause.

To follow the red herring about crude oil, you’re making my point for me: you’re looking down at a busy road full of petroleum-fueled automobiles when 20% of the world’s oil supply has been completely eliminated.

To be more specific, the difference between now and 20 years ago is the United States is a net exporter of oil. Horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing and other nearly unbelievable technological leaps have turned the United States into an oil superpower within less than 2 decades. Aside from all of that, I truly believe that in 10 years everyone with a home (rented or owned) and a daily commute will be driving an EV. Consumer demand is far less than transportation/travel/industrial demand for oil, but it is the tail that wags the dog.

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