I was having this conversation with a friend. Albert Einstein was known for saying the following…
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
By that, he was referring to the idea that atomic and nuclear power would complicate human development so much we would have it thrust back at us, unless we reached a point we could manifest a cycle. And frankly, especially with current events, I’d believe him over Oppenheimer, that movie was just modern political fuel (people might also argue that the constant act of trying to make war obsolete through more powerful weapons ignores the fact that our very goal is to learn from history).
I get a few takeaways from this, one of these being that progress, people foresee (or think they foresee), will turn out to be a merely forward thing, where we can only get better at inventing, which means better tech, which means the ability to improve how we destroy, and another being that nation states, themselves having been a can of worms on their own when tribes contemplated no longer being tribes, will be targeting other nation-states, but that tribes, being nomadic and not as technologically in-tune, would have less incentive to be struck down by a nuke, as would city-states to a lesser degree due to the second thing and/or the fact that everyone existing in the form of city-states might make people more careful. I personally am intrigued by both ideas albeit particularly the city-state one, as it would allow for a larger pool of identity.
My friend, however, says that people who hold this view are assuming all the factors they see are all the factors that exist, and that there are factors unforeseen (by adherents) that would have no reason to be seen by most people talking about this that would amount to unexpected developments that would render a return to tribalism (or city-states) to be in vain. Bringing the matter here as it comes to a draw, being someone who questions whether they’re assuming all the natural factors can be inferred, I’d like to ask you, would you say yay or nay to the idea of reverting to tribes, and/or yay or nay to the idea of reverting to city-states (if we consider them separate ideas)?
I have a hard time picturing how a “return to nomadic tribes” would even work. How would you turn a densely populated country like, say, the Netherlands, into nomadic tribes? The planet could never sustain 8 billion people living as nomads. Not to mention, it wouldn’t stop war or conquest in any way. See the Mongols, Scythians etc.
Areas with lots of city states have historically been hotbeds of war and chaos. Ancient Greece or the HRE constantly had tiny states squabbling. It would also make large infrastructure projects much harder. Building a highspeed railway line through Europe is hard enough right now, imagine the same thing but instead of 5 countries, it goes through 50. It would also be a mess to get any unified environmental policies through.
So no, I don’t think either option is realistic or desirable.
we can have civilization that isn’t self-destructive – instead of breaking apart into tribal groups, one factor that would have a bigger impact is to re-separate the direct connection we have between wealth and power
What about the civilizations that currently exist that don’t have that connection but are still destructive?
the civilizations that currently exist that don’t have that connection
Like which?
North Korea is perhaps the biggest example that comes to mind. They aren’t particularly known for anything having to do with capital (at least not in my side of things) and never had such a profound wealth-power connection as we associate with ourselves, yet they’ve been the most concerning part of the world of diplomacy for a while.
I get a few takeaways from this, one of these being that progress, people foresee (or think they foresee), will turn out to be a merely forward thing, where we can only get better at inventing, which means better tech, which means the ability to improve how we destroy, and another being that nation states, themselves having been a can of worms on their own when tribes contemplated no longer being tribes, will be targeting other nation-states, but that tribes, being nomadic and not as technologically in-tune, would have less incentive to be struck down by a nuke, as would city-states to a lesser degree due to the second thing and/or the fact that everyone existing in the form of city-states might make people more careful.
This … is all one sentence. It’s … beautiful.
/me weeps in linguistic nirvana
See, if we as a world hadn’t put up with each other up to now, we would’ve never been able to witness this grammatical marvel.
Damn straight.
You know how many random cities wold have nuclear weapons in that case?
This would just be a speed run to self destruction.
How many cities would even be capable of having any?
Probably none, so even if they wouldn’t fuck around with them, the accidents due to lack of maintainance would be terrible already.
One word solution: tolerance. If you expect others to live and believe as you do … or else … there’s no solution. Just centuries of feuding.
Historically, tribes, city-states, they all had problems just as or more severe than ours.
We have living examples - today - of countries in the world which are faring very well. (Oh of course, some would say, they’re all doing something wrong. Uhm, no.)
It’s yea or nay. Yes, I know it’s confusing because they rhyme and they’re spelled differently, but that’s how English is sometimes. A lot of the time.
I guess my non-native-English is showing here then :/
I wouldn’t worry too hard about that one. The difference is one of the things a person only picks up on by seeing it written like that over and over for years. I’d probably have to stop and think about it too.
You should join the solarpunk community! This question is like the core conversation over there, and would be very welcome
Sure, you mean [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected]?
Yeah, [email protected], I didn’t know about the smaller ones
Removed by mod
Alright, where do I schedule my appointment?
