Thanks for the book list. The dawn of everything confirmed everything I suspected about humans to be true. What I suspected was that the way we govern ourselves is not inevitable, that we have choices, that we can do it well or badly. I’ve got against the grain on order at the library can’t wait until it comes in.
Whose gonna tell the children we have been supporting the bad guys for 30k years. That when we found the Americans were we had the chance to join the native Americans in utopia and we blew it.
Thank you for an optimistic view of post collapse including some very fruitful sources that you referred your reader to. I remember that Ian Bremmer when he came out with his landmark (I think) book Net-Zero reminded people that it's not about America, it's about all the people on the planet. It's possible I have been brainwashed by my western perspective that I can't go beyond my image of the dark ages where no central authority was visible. But I'm concerned that even an intellectual powerhouse as Dr. William E. Rees reminds people that there has never been an agrarian society without an underclass of some sort to provide the muscle power. Remember the old adage that the only two things that are certain in life are death and taxes? Sooner or later a peaceful village belongs to the local who can get the most effective group of enforcers (could be soldiers or just locals that can get together when needed to do the bidding of the boss). Does this sound too much like a mafia? But that's the point, any imaginary village with no visible means of defending themselves from outside raiders will have to invent a system. And that system will need funding even if in the form of bartered food and goods, and that is a visible form of taxes. I'm glad you're optimistic about post collapse, Counter, but I still don't share it. Under the duress of more and more difficulty in agriculture (even way after the collapse) which will persist for centuries if not millennia (per the IPCC) humanity will have the conditions for dire consequences in the governance of the community, no matter how local.
Hey hi ... As you said "But I'm concerned that even an intellectual powerhouse as Dr. William E. Rees reminds people that there has never been an agrarian society without an underclass of some sort to provide the muscle power.." That is correct, when we read 21st century anthropology - William Rees, could also speak about Scale. Not 8 billion or 8 million. But smaller. As a norm, barbarian society or those who were non-sedentary were small in numbers. This does not include the Mongol nomads. But small as in, not like a megacity or city or even a township of 500,000 people. Muscle power and governance works, at a scale, where benefits are ecologically distributed and policies are collectively created, beyond that, we can be sure that, violence or coercion or some divine superior force or technology will be forced on common people, to work.
Thanks for the book list. The dawn of everything confirmed everything I suspected about humans to be true. What I suspected was that the way we govern ourselves is not inevitable, that we have choices, that we can do it well or badly. I’ve got against the grain on order at the library can’t wait until it comes in.
Hi Glen.. I have a few of those book in PDF. If you want?
Whose gonna tell the children we have been supporting the bad guys for 30k years. That when we found the Americans were we had the chance to join the native Americans in utopia and we blew it.
Whose gonna tell the children we have been supporting the bad guys...
We, who else. And I would say 100s of years. But then, we cannot believe in Utopia anymore.
Is like Disney movies. The utopia of the native and indigenous is mostly gone.
Thank you for an optimistic view of post collapse including some very fruitful sources that you referred your reader to. I remember that Ian Bremmer when he came out with his landmark (I think) book Net-Zero reminded people that it's not about America, it's about all the people on the planet. It's possible I have been brainwashed by my western perspective that I can't go beyond my image of the dark ages where no central authority was visible. But I'm concerned that even an intellectual powerhouse as Dr. William E. Rees reminds people that there has never been an agrarian society without an underclass of some sort to provide the muscle power. Remember the old adage that the only two things that are certain in life are death and taxes? Sooner or later a peaceful village belongs to the local who can get the most effective group of enforcers (could be soldiers or just locals that can get together when needed to do the bidding of the boss). Does this sound too much like a mafia? But that's the point, any imaginary village with no visible means of defending themselves from outside raiders will have to invent a system. And that system will need funding even if in the form of bartered food and goods, and that is a visible form of taxes. I'm glad you're optimistic about post collapse, Counter, but I still don't share it. Under the duress of more and more difficulty in agriculture (even way after the collapse) which will persist for centuries if not millennia (per the IPCC) humanity will have the conditions for dire consequences in the governance of the community, no matter how local.
Hey hi ... As you said "But I'm concerned that even an intellectual powerhouse as Dr. William E. Rees reminds people that there has never been an agrarian society without an underclass of some sort to provide the muscle power.." That is correct, when we read 21st century anthropology - William Rees, could also speak about Scale. Not 8 billion or 8 million. But smaller. As a norm, barbarian society or those who were non-sedentary were small in numbers. This does not include the Mongol nomads. But small as in, not like a megacity or city or even a township of 500,000 people. Muscle power and governance works, at a scale, where benefits are ecologically distributed and policies are collectively created, beyond that, we can be sure that, violence or coercion or some divine superior force or technology will be forced on common people, to work.