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Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

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Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#41

Post by aswanson »

phkahler wrote: post #31
jwtadvice wrote: post #11

Yes: geostrategy is a huge defining factor in the organization of the planet, the movement of people and the evolution of society. It is a primary factor, including resource extraction technologies, agricultural capability, and more. I think rounding that up to "drove the rise of civilizations" is a crude way to put that. For example, the simulation pits "agriculture plus military" against "agriculture". Then they fo…

>> geostrategy is an important factor in the development of human and international relations and that broadly laymen are completely ignorant of it Age of Empires taught me that the key to world domination is control of the natural resources plus growing as fast as possible. To win a long game you must control the remote resources as well as those in your immediate area. Try to consume the non-local resources first.

Isnt there an associated penalty for consuming non-local resources first?

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#42

Post by mc32 »

jandrese wrote: post #38
mc32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean for the imperfect example of the Danes to take it off tangent, it was only to illustrate a people I could think of for whom raiding was integral but your examples or any other is just as well. I think someone (civ) could have taken it further and been sociopathic and only relied on military force for survival. Obviously there are benefits in diversifying, but I think while not ideal, it's possible and c…

You mean like the Mongols? They didn't stop and farm. Their entire society was built around conquest and pillage.

I suppose so, I forgot western civ was one battle loss away from not existing as a continuous entity. So yeah, military only seems to be possible, even if the Mongols were not 100% faithful to this strategy, I think someone could have been successful.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#43

Post by jwtadvice »

jandrese wrote: post #38
mc32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean for the imperfect example of the Danes to take it off tangent, it was only to illustrate a people I could think of for whom raiding was integral but your examples or any other is just as well. I think someone (civ) could have taken it further and been sociopathic and only relied on military force for survival. Obviously there are benefits in diversifying, but I think while not ideal, it's possible and c…

You mean like the Mongols? They didn't stop and farm. Their entire society was built around conquest and pillage.

Until they established city centers, trade routes, spread religious freedom to among their subjects, developed population centers and their agricultural output, standardized exchange rates and quality bars, created systems of news and material delivery, and all that other stuff.

Their empire was, of course, extremely short, as it collapsed with the death of their Great Kahn soon after it established itself and its following leaders abandoned the previous inroads in the West to focus on the prize of capturing China (that ultimately failed).

Our history tends to focus on the expansion of their empire rather than its subsequent administration, I think in part for that reason.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#45

Post by neaden »

jandrese wrote: post #38
mc32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean for the imperfect example of the Danes to take it off tangent, it was only to illustrate a people I could think of for whom raiding was integral but your examples or any other is just as well. I think someone (civ) could have taken it further and been sociopathic and only relied on military force for survival. Obviously there are benefits in diversifying, but I think while not ideal, it's possible and c…

You mean like the Mongols? They didn't stop and farm. Their entire society was built around conquest and pillage.

And raising horses, nomad's still practice agriculture.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#46

Post by jordanlev »

jwtadvice wrote: post #11

Yes: geostrategy is a huge defining factor in the organization of the planet, the movement of people and the evolution of society. It is a primary factor, including resource extraction technologies, agricultural capability, and more. I think rounding that up to "drove the rise of civilizations" is a crude way to put that. For example, the simulation pits "agriculture plus military" against "agriculture". Then they fo…

> A layman equipped with some of this knowledge, for example, will be much more able to understand current events in...

Any recommendations on good places to learn / keep abreast of this kind of info? I'd love to read news that was more high-level about what's really going on, but it's hard to find.

Many years ago, Stratfor had a free weekly newsletter that had excellent info along these lines, but after they got hacked that went away (and with all the weird things leaked about them it got a little sketchy trying to understand where their biases lay).

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#47

Post by kowdermeister »

wyager wrote: post #23
stcredzero wrote: post #12

The older I get, the more it strikes me that civilization is inherently unstable. It may be metastable, in the way that a predator-prey relationship is stable. A technological civilization like ours is not stable. It's a conflagration . It's subject to a number of exponential processes. Our economy is based on exponentiation. If progress is based on war, then that's just another nail in the coffin. This makes for a p…

This is why it's critical to become starfaring as soon as possible . Every year we delay carries tremendous risk.

Do you think we can get rid of this once we leave the planet and go multi-planetary? We will bring our gray matter with us. May a few generations grow up and they will repeat our mistakes.

Possibly the only solution is to get way smarter by gene editing and preserve as much data as we can from our age.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#48

Post by Swizec »

jwtadvice wrote: post #11

Yes: geostrategy is a huge defining factor in the organization of the planet, the movement of people and the evolution of society. It is a primary factor, including resource extraction technologies, agricultural capability, and more. I think rounding that up to "drove the rise of civilizations" is a crude way to put that. For example, the simulation pits "agriculture plus military" against "agriculture". Then they fo…

> A layman equipped with some of this knowledge, for example, will be much more able to understand current events in the South China Sea, the infrastructure projects across Eurasia, the proxy war in Syria, the importance of the Crimea to Russia, the crisis in America over its policies toward Cuba, and much more.

"never get involved in a land war in Asia"

That about sums it up for Russia vs. USA.

Re: Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

#50

Post by mc32 »

jwtadvice wrote: post #43
jandrese wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like the Mongols? They didn't stop and farm. Their entire society was built around conquest and pillage.

Until they established city centers, trade routes, spread religious freedom to among their subjects, developed population centers and their agricultural output, standardized exchange rates and quality bars, created systems of news and material delivery, and all that other stuff. Their empire was, of course, extremely short, as it collapsed with the death of their Great Kahn soon after it established itself and its fo…

True, but I think it tentatively proves it's possible, if not effective, long term.
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