My objection here is the same as to your last post. You suggest a kind of natural and eternal meritocracy, which generates a natural and eternal aristocracy (Natural aristocrats are naturally only ever replaced by other natural aristocrats). You believe that everything good clumps together, martial valour, beauty, intelligence, charisma, appreciation for higher things etc. Likewise everything bad clumps together, and that what is good and what is bad is more or less consistent throughout history. These valuable traits are invariably introduced by bandit conquerors tempered by war, nomadic lifestyles and harsh climates. In your system class mobility may take place, but only after the natural elite has lost its valuable genetic material, and only after the natural inferior class has acquired it from that elite. It seems you even believe that good artisans and merchants have aristocratic ancestry, so the virtues of the middle class (conscientiousness, prudence, industriousness etc) also flow from the loins of the warrior aristocracy. Is that the history of our planet? I dont think so. China has been conquered by countless nomadic peoples and the sum contribution of all these barbarians to what we could call higher Chinese culture is zero. The Chinese culture was not generated by heroic conquerors with high IQ scores, it preexisted and outsurvived the intruders, and indeed assimilated these barbarians into the Chinese ideology. Elites come and go. Bandits overcome sedentary bandits to become sedentary bandits, this is just the fate of human societies.
Bandit conquerors do have some virtues, in the way that cartel bosses have virtues, cunning and military acumen, a proficiency for deception and spectacular cruelty. Meanwhile, I should think many of the traits and virtues highly valued in modern societies, and which you ascribe to the warrior nobility, probably ended up on the tip of a high pole.
This mountain may be a metaphor but it is certainly a bizarre one. A 60% unemployment rate! The structure reminds me more of something like South Africa than Uruk. Where are the slaves, the working class? Only a very prosperous society could afford to keep a ”shoal” alive.
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My objection here is the same as to your last post. You suggest a kind of natural and eternal meritocracy, which generates a natural and eternal aristocracy (Natural aristocrats are naturally only ever replaced by other natural aristocrats). You believe that everything good clumps together, martial valour, beauty, intelligence, charisma, appreciation for higher things etc. Likewise everything bad clumps together, and that what is good and what is bad is more or less consistent throughout history. These valuable traits are invariably introduced by bandit conquerors tempered by war, nomadic lifestyles and harsh climates. In your system class mobility may take place, but only after the natural elite has lost its valuable genetic material, and only after the natural inferior class has acquired it from that elite. It seems you even believe that good artisans and merchants have aristocratic ancestry, so the virtues of the middle class (conscientiousness, prudence, industriousness etc) also flow from the loins of the warrior aristocracy. Is that the history of our planet? I dont think so. China has been conquered by countless nomadic peoples and the sum contribution of all these barbarians to what we could call higher Chinese culture is zero. The Chinese culture was not generated by heroic conquerors with high IQ scores, it preexisted and outsurvived the intruders, and indeed assimilated these barbarians into the Chinese ideology. Elites come and go. Bandits overcome sedentary bandits to become sedentary bandits, this is just the fate of human societies.
Bandit conquerors do have some virtues, in the way that cartel bosses have virtues, cunning and military acumen, a proficiency for deception and spectacular cruelty. Meanwhile, I should think many of the traits and virtues highly valued in modern societies, and which you ascribe to the warrior nobility, probably ended up on the tip of a high pole.
This mountain may be a metaphor but it is certainly a bizarre one. A 60% unemployment rate! The structure reminds me more of something like South Africa than Uruk. Where are the slaves, the working class? Only a very prosperous society could afford to keep a ”shoal” alive.
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