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How transportation technologies shaped empires

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#161

Post by stjohnswarts »

macspoofing wrote: post #153
meatyloafy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is quite a difference between conquering (and thereby assimilating) versus killing almost all natives and then populating the place with your own settlers..

>versus killing almost all natives and then populating the place with your own settlers.. The native population was not killed but rather decimated by disease. Pre-colonial population of North America was on the order of 60 million - there was zero chance European powers being able to hold that size of population over a period of time. Contrast that to Africa, which today has a minimal population of European descenda…

However the natives where still wiped out by European diseases nonetheless, a direct result of Europeans coming here, I'm sure the Europeans of the time were grateful for that even if it wasn't a result of direct action on their part, they would have been fine with it happening.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#163

Post by malfist »

notch656c wrote: post #155
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…

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

What part of the US is more than a month's travel from Washington DC?

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#164

Post by jimmytidey »

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…

"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 'playing by the rules' and 'fair play', as inculcated through sport. Not to mention never breaking your word. All handy traits if your goal is breeding administrators you can trust without supervision.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#165

Post by prottog »

malfist wrote: post #163
notch656c wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What part of the US is more than a month's travel from Washington DC?

The GP already pointed out that the "month's travel" rule doesn't apply in all cases. The poster you're replying to does have a point about increasing amounts of decisions being made at the federal level in this country, as opposed to state or local levels closer to the people affected.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#166

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

kgeist wrote: post #118
wintogreen74 wrote: post #107

A lot of counter-cases are conflating specific conquests with the the overall empire. There will be exceptions (in both directions of closer & further) but I think what the author is trying to do is set the radius of the empire, relative to a one or a few epicenters. I don't think the exact value is that important vs. the logistical impacts of distance and their influence on all aspects of controlling a geopolitical…

If you take Russian Empire/USSR for example, most of the territories which have been lost are much closer to Moscow (Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Belarus, Georgia etc.) than the territories still under Moscow control (Siberia), so at least in the Russia's case, it's not about transportation at all.

Canada de facto owns a huge amount of territory. Nobody else wants it.

Vladivostok is desireable to many powers in the region, but it's also changed hands many times in recent history.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#167

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

krisoft wrote: post #75
xrd wrote: post #46

Interesting how geography limited empires before the advent of instant communication. It would be fascinating to see a comparison of the impact on empires when instant communication is possible. What kind of regime change is possible when you can instantly spread propaganda and no longer need Paul Revere riding around telling everyone the British are coming.

> before the advent of instant communication. But! Instant communication is not possible. :) This sounds like a nitpicking but this might become important if we spread out in space: We still have the light speed limit on communication. Which of course means that our communication is practically instantaneous around all of earth. (at least when measured against human reaction times.) But if we would spread ourselves t…

Is there enough matter for a serious political faction to subsist off of?

The total mass of the asteroid belt is calculated to be 3% that of the Moon [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt

We only use a small fraction of matter on the Earth, so maybe a good sized comet can host habitation. But the solid planets and moons are where humanity could thrive. The gas giants have too a gravity well, we'd need some seriously advanced propulsion to make it off, but there's 317x more matter on Jupiter than Earth.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#168

Post by Balgair »

jimmytidey wrote: post #164
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…

"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…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSGWoXDFM64

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#169

Post by meatyloafy »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #160
jameshart wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a funny definition of ‘not killed’ you’re using.

They died, but they were indeed not killed. You may say something flowery like "the diseases killed them", or "the arrival of the Brits killed them", but the British empire or its subjects did not kill the vast, vast majority of Native North Americans who died as a consequence of their arrival.

They were killed by what the settlers brought with them. No, it was not deliberate (#), but nevertheless, their arrival is what killed most of the natives.

(#) Obviously the settlers would have preferred to keep the natives alive since then they would not have needed to ship vast quantities of Africans across the ocean to enslave, but could have just done that with the locals.

Re: How transportation technologies shaped empires

#170

Post by notch656c »

jimmytidey wrote: post #164
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…

"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.
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