Latest from Yuval Harari

[Jim Cross]

Lou,

One thing that does occur to me that actually may be similar to what you are suggesting.

Perhaps all sorts of societies are possible even with large groups of people and agriculture. In other words, all kinds of possibilities are actually open to us as humans even now.

So why are there hierarchies, disparities in power and wealth, nation states everywhere we look in the modern world?

It could be a simple Darwinian explanation. Organizations of people with hierarchies and power disparities assimilate organizations of people organized in a different way, probably because they are better able to concentrate and mobilize more resources with more unified a purpose.

Actually the more I think about it, the more sense this makes.

If group A is larger and/or more organized than group B then various things could happen:

1- group B joins group A
2- group B, if large enough to threaten group A, will be eliminated by group A
3- some combination of peaceful and non-peaceful assimilation
4- group B will move to another area (where they might encounter group C) or fail to adapt to the area (especially if it is marginal)
5- group A and B live peacefully together following their own ways

But the problem is that option #5 we know from history almost never happens, probably because the traits that made group A larger and better organized also lead to it to be needing to expand. As a result we find no group Bs. Our history is almost entirely a history of group As exterminating or assimilating group Bs: Greek, Roman, Persian, and Egyptian empires, Holy Roman Empire, Western colonialism, Maya, Aztec, Inca Empires, the takeover of the Americas by the Europeans.

[Lou Gold]

Lou,

One thing that does occur to me that actually may be similar to what you are suggesting.

Perhaps all sorts of societies are possible even with large groups of people and agriculture. In other words, all kinds of possibilities are actually open to us as humans even now.

So why are there hierarchies, disparities in power and wealth, nation states everywhere we look in the modern world?

It could be a simple Darwinian explanation. Organizations of people with hierarchies and power disparities assimilate organizations of people organized in a different way, probably because they are better able to concentrate and mobilize more resources with more unified a purpose.

Harari loves to give the example of money, "Give a monkey a dollar and he won't give you a banana." Belief in this fiction and a banking system now allows for the coordinated efforts of hundreds of thousands of strangers. This is power. Check out how it came into existence.

"When the Venetian merchant Marco Polo got to China, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, he saw many wonders—gunpowder and coal and eyeglasses and porcelain. One of the things that astonished him most, however, was a new invention, implemented by Kublai Khan, a grandson of the great conqueror Genghis. It was paper money, introduced by Kublai in 1260. Polo could hardly believe his eyes when he saw what the Khan was doing:

He makes his money after this fashion. He makes them take of the bark of a certain tree, in fact of the mulberry tree, the leaves of which are the food of the silkworms, these trees being so numerous that whole districts are full of them. What they take is a certain fine white bast or skin which lies between the wood of the tree and the thick outer bark, and this they make into something resembling sheets of paper, but black. When these sheets have been prepared they are cut up into pieces of different sizes. All these pieces of paper are issued with as much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver; and on every piece a variety of officials, whose duty it is, have to write their names, and to put their seals. And when all is prepared duly, the chief officer deputed by the Khan smears the seal entrusted to him with vermilion, and impresses it on the paper, so that the form of the seal remains imprinted upon it in red; the money is then authentic. Anyone forging it would be punished with death.

That last point was deeply relevant. The problem with many new forms of money is that people are reluctant to adopt them. Genghis Khan’s grandson didn’t have that difficulty. He took measures to insure the authenticity of his currency, and if you didn’t use it—if you wouldn’t accept it in payment, or preferred to use gold or silver or copper or iron bars or pearls or salt or coins or any of the older forms of payment prevalent in China—he would have you killed. This solved the question of uptake."

Crypto currencies are next. Who is going to control the algorithms? And so forth.

I think Mark Vernon offered a good critique in the video posted on the other thread discussing G&W. People do not only gather for food resources alone, they gather for spiritual events like a pilgrimage to Mecca and return to other ways after the event (analogous to the Lakota returning after the buffalo hunt). There are surely choices involved in all of this. Different authority structures as well. Time at Mecca has different rules than time at home and both can be disrupted by a tiny virus as Nature continues to bat last.

[Lou Gold]

Lou,

One thing that does occur to me that actually may be similar to what you are suggesting.

Perhaps all sorts of societies are possible even with large groups of people and agriculture. In other words, all kinds of possibilities are actually open to us as humans even now.

So why are there hierarchies, disparities in power and wealth, nation states everywhere we look in the modern world?

It could be a simple Darwinian explanation. Organizations of people with hierarchies and power disparities assimilate organizations of people organized in a different way, probably because they are better able to concentrate and mobilize more resources with more unified a purpose.

Actually the more I think about it, the more sense this makes.

If group A is larger and/or more organized than group B then various things could happen:

1- group B joins group A
2- group B, if large enough to threaten group A, will be eliminated by group A
3- some combination of peaceful and non-peaceful assimilation
4- group B will move to another area (where they might encounter group C) or fail to adapt to the area (especially if it is marginal)
5- group A and B live peacefully together following their own ways

But the problem is that option #5 we know from history almost never happens, probably because the traits that made group A larger and better organized also lead to it to be needing to expand. As a result we find no group Bs. Our history is almost entirely a history of group As exterminating or assimilating group Bs: Greek, Roman, Persian, and Egyptian empires, Holy Roman Empire, Western colonialism, Maya, Aztec, Inca Empires, the takeover of the Americas by the Europeans.

Too simple Jim. There are lots of ways the sands shift and everything changes. Consider now how covid is disrupting supply chains (trade is the peaceful form of war) and how climate change may force new forms of global governance or how bioengineering may bring about a new top predator among earthly species. Option #5 doesn't have more than a temporary chance because war-and-peace like action-and-repose are part of an ongoing evolutionary dynamic. It feels to me like you are trying continuously to reduce it all to some permanent fundamental thing, which I, being a both/and process kinda guy, doubt is possible.

[Jim Cross]

[

Too simple Jim. There are lots of ways the sands shift and everything changes. Consider now how covid is disrupting supply chains (trade is the peaceful form of war) and how climate change may force new forms of global governance or how bioengineering may bring about a new top predator among earthly species. Option #5 doesn't have more than a temporary chance because war-and-peace like action-and-repose are part of an ongoing evolutionary dynamic. It feels to me like you are trying continuously to reduce it all to some permanent fundamental thing, which I, being a both/and process kinda guy, doubt is possible.

Too simple?

We have recent history on all of this. This isn't lost somewhere in prehistory. The Europeans went around the world subjugating, displacing, or assimilating states and peoples. What happened to those wonderful indigenous societies that G&W write about? Why do they no longer exist except perhaps in the few remaining small cultures of hunter-gatherers isolated in marginal areas? That's scenarios 1, 2, 3, and 4 and I haven't read of an example of 5 yet.

I don't expect the chains to fall off because of COVID, climate change, and supply chain problems. The modern state and economic order has been very adaptive and it can afford to lose a few billion.

[Lou Gold]

[

Too simple Jim. There are lots of ways the sands shift and everything changes. Consider now how covid is disrupting supply chains (trade is the peaceful form of war) and how climate change may force new forms of global governance or how bioengineering may bring about a new top predator among earthly species. Option #5 doesn't have more than a temporary chance because war-and-peace like action-and-repose are part of an ongoing evolutionary dynamic. It feels to me like you are trying continuously to reduce it all to some permanent fundamental thing, which I, being a both/and process kinda guy, doubt is possible.

Too simple?

We have recent history on all of this. This isn't lost somewhere in prehistory. The Europeans went around the world subjugating, displacing, or assimilating states and peoples. What happened to those wonderful indigenous societies that G&W write about? Why do they no longer exist except perhaps in the few remaining small cultures of hunter-gatherers isolated in marginal areas? That's scenarios 1, 2, 3, and 4 and I haven't read of an example of 5 yet.

I don't expect the chains to fall off because of COVID, climate change, and supply chain problems. The modern state and economic order has been very adaptive and it can afford to lose a few billion.

Do you not believe that the modern nation state is being transcended by the modern transnational corporation? Do you believe that modern nation
states are well adapting to the need for effective collective global climate action? Where do you see in G&W that they saw a permanent peaceful coexistence in that past or expect one in the future? I see them defending diversity and the many possibilities it carries. Monocultures and monocrops are both powerful adaptations and vulnerable in that they depend on maintaining the normal conditions for which they were designed like ocean level and how the gulf stream flows. Nature, on the other hand, favors diversity as an insurance policy generating alternative forms for variable conditions. Smaller units have more flexibility. Large vessels are slow to turn.

[Jim Cross]

Do you not believe that the modern nation state is being transcended by the modern transnational corporation? Do you believe that modern nation states are well adapting to the need for effective collective global climate action? Where do you see in G&W that they saw a permanent peaceful coexistence in that past or expect one in the future? I see them defending diversity and the many possibilities it carries. Monocultures and monocrops are both powerful adaptations and vulnerable in that they depend on maintaining the normal conditions for which they were designed like ocean level and how the gulf stream flows. Nature, on the other hand, favors diversity as an insurance policy generating alternative forms for variable conditions. Smaller units have more flexibility. Large vessels are slow to turn.

If smaller units had won out, then the indigenous would still have the Americas and we wouldn't be speaking English in the United States. As elsewhere, the indigenous cultures are mostly gone or confined to marginal areas and we live in a single nation from sea to sea. Of course, with transnational corporations and the Internet, we may be trending toward a world culture, the ultimate monoculture, but it looks to me like it will just be a super-sized version of a nation state with rich oligarchs running the show . Given a catastrophe of large enough proportion, it could all collapse but I wouldn't bet on that happening anytime soon.

[Lou Gold]

Do you not believe that the modern nation state is being transcended by the modern transnational corporation? Do you believe that modern nation states are well adapting to the need for effective collective global climate action? Where do you see in G&W that they saw a permanent peaceful coexistence in that past or expect one in the future? I see them defending diversity and the many possibilities it carries. Monocultures and monocrops are both powerful adaptations and vulnerable in that they depend on maintaining the normal conditions for which they were designed like ocean level and how the gulf stream flows. Nature, on the other hand, favors diversity as an insurance policy generating alternative forms for variable conditions. Smaller units have more flexibility. Large vessels are slow to turn.

If smaller units had won out, then the indigenous would still have the Americas and we wouldn't be speaking English in the United States. As elsewhere, the indigenous cultures are mostly gone or confined to marginal areas and we live in a single nation from sea to sea. Of course, with transnational corporations and the Internet, we may be trending toward a world culture, the ultimate monoculture, but it looks to me like it will just be a super-sized version of a nation state with rich oligarchs running the show . Given a catastrophe of large enough proportion, it could all collapse but I wouldn't bet on that happening anytime soon.

Jim,

It's variable and not one way. If larger units prevail the US would have easily the war in Vietnam. Yes, now in a long period of a militarized state what you say about centralized state structures seems as inevitable. Indeed, as we seem trending toward a world culture run by transnationals, you might consider this along with Harari's concerns about AI and bioengineering. If you really want to argue that this is all inevitable, then so be it. I'd prefer a broader vision of possibilities.

[Jim Cross]

It's variable and not one way. If larger units prevail the US would have easily the war in Vietnam. Yes, now in a long period of a militarized state what you say about centralized state structures seems as inevitable. Indeed, as we seem trending toward a world culture run by transnationals, you might consider this along with Harari's concerns about AI and bioengineering. If you really want to argue that this is all inevitable, then so be it. I'd prefer a broader vision of possibilities.

Vietnam was just where the United States fought China and the Soviet Union with Vietnamese lives. It wasn't some little guy beating the big guy, although that certainly could happen on rare occasions.

The big trend may not be inevitable but I don't see what stops it. What do you think will or are you just thinking hopeful thoughts? Seriously, if you have a scenario that takes the current trend and changes it to something more positive, I'd like to hear it. Hopefully it is not some vague faith in spiritual evolution.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Jim and Lou ... As you're the only two seemingly still interested in the topic, since it's about what you truly prefer to talk about, rather than metaphysics which you're no doubt tired of, can I now stop following this thread, and safely assume that you will continue to make attempts to occasionally toss in what might be at least loosely construed as a metaphysical reference?

[Ben Iscatus]

Drat! Just when I thought Lou was going to enlighten us on the forthcoming spiritual enlightenment. <sob>