Studying the demise of historic civilisations • Hacker News Board

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#201

Post by wallace_f » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:00 AM UTC

xref wrote: post #140

wallace_f wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is misleading. I think when tossing out the credence of people such as Wadhington or Jefferson with the slavery problem, there is very little context understood about the cultural norms, science and religion those people lived in. The problem was that they did not see other races as people as they saw themselves. They saw their lives and societies and thought of them as savages. They further justified th…

> The slave owner like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson was in some ways like an extreme version of the modern liberal -- seeing the person of color as needing an authority to rule over them and provide them with things like welfare, access to education, etc. You’re being downvoted because you chose to regurgitate alt-right theology to lay history’s problems at the doorstep of “liberal guilt” The largest group…

Dont worry, you can almost always use versions of reductio ad hitlerum to invalidate any historical context or facts you come across which you dont like.

Your ad hominen attack seems especially ridiculous to me as I've never even visited an alt right website or community in my life with the exception of voat--when reddit started mass waves of censorship and politicking--which I havent even since returned to in years.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#202

Post by LuciferAdvocate » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:03 AM UTC

mcv wrote: post #163

geowwy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Does it seem to anyone else that they have conflated "civilization" and "political entity" for lack of a better term? They even got that wrong. The Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire are the same political entity. Arguably the Ottoman Empire was as well, since the Ottomans basically left the Byzantine bureaucracy intact. The Sultan even used the title Caesar and declared himself protector o…

They share their origin in the same political entity, but have clearly different cultures and developed in different directions. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire had a massive impact on Western Europe. There's also the medieval Holy Roman Empire which was officially a continuation of the Western Roman Empire, and at odds with the Byzantine Empire because they considered themselves the only legitimate Roman Em…

Sure, but then the western roman empire only begins in the 3rd century with the partition of the unified roman empire (and collapsed in the 5th).

Even if you just want to look at who controls rome (understandable if we're talking about calling something the roman empire), after the reconquest by Justinian, it belonged to the eastern empire about the same amount of time as the west.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#203

Post by Jedi72 » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:07 AM UTC

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…

I think this is a fantastic point, but it leads to the next question which is that are the current world powers any different?

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#204

Post by dustingetz » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:08 AM UTC

digitaltrees wrote: post #24

supernova87a wrote: post #21

You know I lately think that, ok, we're mostly past the age of empires physically conquering one another, we're in the age of economic ebbs and flows of established countries. And in this kind of age, the thing that sinks a country is not aggression by others, but indifference and lethargy as a country "gets old". "Getting old" means the political desired and inertia of a rich, settled population get to dominate the…

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.

honest question when a rich person dies should we destroy all their buildings and companies too so the wealth can’t transfer?

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#205

Post by Fordec » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:10 AM UTC

Jedi72 wrote: post #203

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…

I think this is a fantastic point, but it leads to the next question which is that are the current world powers any different?

See:

> looting of weak environments itself

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#206

Post by dagaci » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:11 AM UTC

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…

I think its easy to be hung up on the meaning of the word, but a Civilization would start with a common governance, and sometimes that includes culture, as the proper Britons and Franks of old will have always had a different culture compared to Rome but were part of Rome. But that's just technical.

Emotionally your Civilization is where you would feel comfortable, and that might be Western Europe and North America, Australia, NZ.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#207

Post by skookumchuck » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:20 AM UTC

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…

> I'll assume you're being glib.

The death tax doesn't apply to everybody, as hardly everybody leave behind a significant estate. Lots of people die with a negative net worth.

The death tax is also often sold as "only affecting estates worth over $xx million", so it safely doesn't apply to the vast majority of voters, it only applies to those they are envious of.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#208

Post by eeZah7Ux » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:20 AM UTC

Jedi72 wrote: post #203

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…

I think this is a fantastic point, but it leads to the next question which is that are the current world powers any different?

Looting for oil thanks to a powerful army, increasing inequality and oligarchy, environmental degradation, climate change.

...it rings a bell.

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#209

Post by LuciferAdvocate » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:23 AM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #56

muse900 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to your point, we have vilified death a bit too much. In the past they had poems about death, sung death, created legends. Dying in the battlefield in an honorable way was seen as a good way to leave this place and go to the next one. The world needs to renew itself, or else there won't be enough resources to feed one another. We are at peaceful times but one thing history can show us is our future, and in histo…

> Dying in the battlefield in an honorable way was seen as a good way to leave this place and go to the next one. Do you really not see that this was sick propaganda, propagated by evil dictators in need of cannon (sword?) fodder? There's nothing honorable about war or battlefields. It's the worst of the human condition, distilled to the highest concentration. War is repugnant, evil, and unnecessary. We humans should…

> Do you really not see that this was sick propaganda, propagated by evil dictators in need of cannon (sword?) fodder?

If this is only propaganda of dictators, how do you explain the existence of these views within the ancient republics and democracies? Or within the earlier pre-settled tribes? (not sure if this was the case everywhere, but I know the attitude was quite prevalent within the tribes of europe)

Re: Studying the demise of historic civilisations

#210

Post by Jack000 » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:35 AM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #164

jlktrl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison of the Roman Empire and the Chinese civilization is very flawed. First of all, Rome did not unite neighboring groups in Italy as a culture, never mind Europe. The lands and tribes they conquered simply used Latin for trade and as a lingua franca. It never became the mother tongue for any of those people. In China, for thousands of years, you have people from every province celebrating many of the same…

"It never became the mother tongue for any of those people." Italy, France, Spain, Romania, Portugal all speak a variation of 'Latin'.

by this standard, Japanese would be a variation of Chinese