Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Does this list of causes of death make sense? (I.E. could a society still last on this basis?, https://www.nationstates.net/nation=cha ... id=1314953), why or why not?

People die eventually.
Sparta was famous for having women own property, and so they would marry the strongest warriors who would either return with plunder or die, thus Sparta was slightly matriarchal.

Of course it depends on probability of death per period of life.

Thanks. In Sharifistan a male officer's older wives often exercise financial management whilst he's busy on deployment.

[Austrasien]

Does this list of causes of death make sense? (I.E. could a society still last on this basis?, https://www.nationstates.net/nation=cha ... id=1314953), why or why not?

Proportions are out of wack. In the kind of society you are illustrating, we would expect murder to be a major, maybe the leading, cause of death for young men without a wife or child. But you have given way too much weight to sanctioned violence (war/duels/self-defence/police) when unsanctioned violence would be far and away the leader. And men don't drive? Risk-seeking behaviour is all correlated.

And self-defence/police should if anything be replaced with revenge killings. Murder has an enormous first-mover advantage. Only a tiny fraction of murderers or would-be murderers are killed by their intended victim or law enforcement. The "balance of terror" between armed people is maintained by the implicit or explicit threat of retaliation, not by people actually defending themselves. Because it usually doesn't work.

[Danternoust]

Risk seeking behavior is not correlated. There is rational risk and irrational risk. There is lemming-like and the opposite. The preceding statements are based upon Freudian psychology, which possibly has no value given that people are rationalizing actors, not rational.

There is no balance of terror. People are driven by a series of emotions and expectations. Historical medieval blood feuds have lasted for centuries. Obviously these feuds aren't acted through murder that often.

[Gallia-]

yeah all those atomic wars we had proved the balance of terror doesnt exist

oh

wait

[Danternoust]

yeah all those atomic wars we had proved the balance of terror doesnt exist

oh

wait

If they did occur, their descendants will eventually evolve to not use nuclear weapons.

Or not.

[Austrasien]

Risk seeking behavior is not correlated. There is rational risk and irrational risk. There is lemming-like and the opposite. The preceding statements are based upon Freudian psychology, which possibly has no value given that people are rationalizing actors, not rational.

I think you are crossing a lot of different wires here. I referring to rational risk and reward, not personal feelings about what constitutes "reasonable" risk. The correlation between different risk-seeking behaviours is empirical and well documented. The people who are most likely to fight and die in a war, die in a car accident and commit or be victims of homicide are all the same people: Young adult men.

Why they do that is neither here nor there so I didn't discuss it. But it is observable true that if you have a lot of young men who are prone to high-risk behaviour like duelling to death you will definitely have a lot of young men who will murder people and drive cars at dangerously high speed. There is no evidence or compelling reason to believe these behaviours can be decoupled.

There is no balance of terror. People are driven by a series of emotions and expectations. Historical medieval blood feuds have lasted for centuries. Obviously these feuds aren't acted through murder that often.

It is the "fear" of this that prevents people from murdering each other willy nilly. Not the fear in the individual sense mind you, what a particular individual feels prevents them from killing someone else at a particular time is neither here nor there, but that populations which are prone to fall into unending cycles of revenge killings tend to suppress themselves. A family that has been caught in a two-century murder feud is in all probability a lot smaller than it would be if it wasn't being periodically murdered.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Does this list of causes of death make sense? (I.E. could a society still last on this basis?, https://www.nationstates.net/nation=cha ... id=1314953), why or why not?

Proportions are out of wack. In the kind of society you are illustrating, we would expect murder to be a major, maybe the leading, cause of death for young men without a wife or child. But you have given way too much weight to sanctioned violence (war/duels/self-defence/police) when unsanctioned violence would be far and away the leader. And men don't drive? Risk-seeking behaviour is all correlated.

And self-defence/police should if anything be replaced with revenge killings. Murder has an enormous first-mover advantage. Only a tiny fraction of murderers or would-be murderers are killed by their intended victim or law enforcement. The "balance of terror" between armed people is maintained by the implicit or explicit threat of retaliation, not by people actually defending themselves. Because it usually doesn't work.

Added careless driving deaths under the manslaughter category.

Sanctioned violence is used in Sharifistan to overcome unsanctioned violence (providing an outlet for aggression) also the police have superior training to juvenile offenders (having police+military combat training in general) and even most adult offenders (who are have rusty combat training but not continuing police training and the police are also military trained) and are actually more confident in using deadly force in Sharifistan than many criminals (due to having a get out of jail free cards).
I will add more murder statistics.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Proportions are out of wack. In the kind of society you are illustrating, we would expect murder to be a major, maybe the leading, cause of death for young men without a wife or child. But you have given way too much weight to sanctioned violence (war/duels/self-defence/police) when unsanctioned violence would be far and away the leader. And men don't drive? Risk-seeking behaviour is all correlated.

And self-defence/police should if anything be replaced with revenge killings. Murder has an enormous first-mover advantage. Only a tiny fraction of murderers or would-be murderers are killed by their intended victim or law enforcement. The "balance of terror" between armed people is maintained by the implicit or explicit threat of retaliation, not by people actually defending themselves. Because it usually doesn't work.

Added careless driving deaths under the manslaughter category.

Sanctioned violence is used in Sharifistan to overcome unsanctioned violence (providing an outlet for aggression) also the police have superior training to juvenile offenders (having police+military combat training in general) and even most adult offenders (who are have rusty combat training but not continuing police training and the police are also military trained) and are actually more confident in using deadly force in Sharifistan than many criminals (due to having a get out of jail free cards).
I will add more murder statistics.

Another reason for the high number of deaths due to sanctioned violence is that most men have served in the military.

[Danternoust]

Risk seeking behavior is not correlated. There is rational risk and irrational risk. There is lemming-like and the opposite. The preceding statements are based upon Freudian psychology, which possibly has no value given that people are rationalizing actors, not rational.

I think you are crossing a lot of different wires here. I referring to rational risk and reward, not personal feelings about what constitutes "reasonable" risk. The correlation between different risk-seeking behaviours is empirical and well documented. The people who are most likely to fight and die in a war, die in a car accident and commit or be victims of homicide are all the same people: Young adult men.

Why they do that is neither here nor there so I didn't discuss it. But it is observable true that if you have a lot of young men who are prone to high-risk behaviour like duelling to death you will definitely have a lot of young men who will murder people and drive cars at dangerously high speed. There is no evidence or compelling reason to believe these behaviours can be decoupled.

There is no balance of terror. People are driven by a series of emotions and expectations. Historical medieval blood feuds have lasted for centuries. Obviously these feuds aren't acted through murder that often.

It is the "fear" of this that prevents people from murdering each other willy nilly. Not the fear in the individual sense mind you, what a particular individual feels prevents them from killing someone else at a particular time is neither here nor there, but that populations which are prone to fall into unending cycles of revenge killings tend to suppress themselves. A family that has been caught in a two-century murder feud is in all probability a lot smaller than it would be if it wasn't being periodically murdered.

1. Well... I guess it is good one can only die in a certain way once.

2. People in general are not afraid of dying, they are afraid of dying in a stupid way or in a way that society tells them is bad. It is likely that the family history of feuding families is predominated by infant mortality, not other types of feuds. The end to feuds usually is by proclamation by a respected authority.

[Austrasien]

1. Well... I guess it is good one can only die in a certain way once.

Our inner world serves to, among other things, reify otherwise abstract threats including those which are larger than an individual. If we simply made rational calculations as individuals we would be prone to engaging in behaviour that inflicts harm greater than our own death e.g. sacrificing your children to protect your own life.

2. People in general are not afraid of dying, they are afraid of dying in a stupid way or in a way that society tells them is bad. It is likely that the family history of feuding families is predominated by infant mortality, not other types of feuds. The end to feuds usually is by proclamation by a respected authority.

You are interpreting balance of terror as reflecting an individuals state of mind... I was not attempting to describe any one individual's state of mind. People by-and-large are afraid of killing each other and afraid of being blamed for it when they do. Innately. Humans do not learn to not kill each other and they do not learn to kill each other (they can be encouraged to do so but this is quite different than learning)*.

Humans already have a strong innate inclination to avoid behaviour that would invite retaliation and to seek ways to halt cycles of retaliation when they do begin. But these cognitive mechanisms are certainly much older than anatomically modern humans. A true, unconstrained, cycle of retaliation is not one we can actually experience. It is part of the logical sequence of the argument not a real state humans ever actually existed in or could exist in.

From an absolute perspective human behaviour when it comes to avoiding and ending conflicts is rational. But it is metarational because we do not experience most of the actual operation of our rational inclinations as rational thoughts. Our fear at the thought of killing someone else unprovoked (more accurately: antisocially) is what it is, so is our guilt when we do it and our fear of being caught and accused of it.

*It is of course wrong to say humans are innately inhibited from killing other humans. We are innately inclined to kill when it is prosocial - when we calculate our group will reward our behaviour. Absolute refusal to kill is a profoundly antisocial trait just as absolute willingness to kill antisocially is. Not in the least because it robs the group of its best defence against antisocial killing, the implicit threat of retaliation. But as social censure, a killing being judged by the group as antisocial rather than prosocial, is itself a risk, an individual's global risk tolerance will still govern both their likeliness to kill antisocially and prosocially.

[Gallia-]

1. Well... I guess it is good one can only die in a certain way once.

Our inner world serves to, among other things, reify otherwise abstract threats including those which are larger than an individual. If we simply made rational calculations as individuals we would be prone to engaging in behaviour that inflicts harm greater than our own death e.g. sacrificing your children to protect your own life.

rat and shrimp brain be like

eat the bbe

[Danternoust]

I think energy consumption can be cut by a substantial amount if smart household cogeneration was used. Well, not necessarily smart, sampling voltage from the mains would be a strong indicator of when it might cause a grid overload, no need for elaborate internet orchestration.

Of course this leaves some interesting issues, it would be simplest to focus on storing heat in a thermal mass so that it may be possible to ensure a reliable flow of electricity. Thus the heat could be drawn upon later to warm the inhabitants.

[Austrasien]

I think energy consumption can be cut by a substantial amount if smart household cogeneration was used. Well, not necessarily smart, sampling voltage from the mains would be a strong indicator of when it might cause a grid overload, no need for elaborate internet orchestration.

An inverter on every lot, a battery pack in every basement, a solar panel on every roof, 12-24V DC in every smart outlet. Now that LED lighting is clearly a viable alternative to incandescent the only things in a home that need anything like 120v AC are kitchen appliances. Back in the 80s when America was still trying to improve itself there was a standard pushed for a new DC/AC smart home where each plug would sense what kind of load was plugged in and deliver the correct power supply.

May as well run the home network through the powerlines too. Especially if you want to use LiFi or 60ghz or some other exotic short-range wireless.

Of course this leaves some interesting issues, it would be simplest to focus on storing heat in a thermal mass so that it may be possible to ensure a reliable flow of electricity. Thus the heat could be drawn upon later to warm the inhabitants.

District heating and cooling are both very promising... Converting heat to electricity when the thermal gradient is low is usually not worth the trouble of doing it. Thermal heat storage at a nice, efficient, temperature is not a realistic prospect for the average end user.

I am aware of the irony of getting more your heat and cooling through the wall and your electricity from your roof/basement.

[Danternoust]

District heating and cooling are both very promising

Why? People already have natural gas, and even if they didn't, transporting steam or chilled water in sufficient volume and pressure is more complex, with the requirement of a multitude of pumps for the latter.

Thermal heat storage at a nice, efficient, temperature is not a realistic prospect for the average end user.

Depends on real estate costs. Doubling the size of a refrigerator only to have the increased volume be taken up by thermal mass would simplify load following.

It ultimately depends on where the slack is in the system.

As well as the definition of useful work.

[The Akasha Colony]

An inverter on every lot, a battery pack in every basement, a solar panel on every roof, 12-24V DC in every smart outlet. Now that LED lighting is clearly a viable alternative to incandescent the only things in a home that need anything like 120v AC are kitchen appliances. Back in the 80s when America was still trying to improve itself there was a standard pushed for a new DC/AC smart home where each plug would sense what kind of load was plugged in and deliver the correct power supply.

Seems like there are still enough high-draw devices in the home that a voltage standard above 24v might be desirable; powering something like a hairdryer or a vacuum at the 60+ A needed to run at 24 V seems like it would be both relatively unsafe and require a lot thicker wiring than the current 10-15 A standards.

[Austrasien]

Seems like there are still enough high-draw devices in the home that a voltage standard above 24v might be desirable; powering something like a hairdryer or a vacuum at the 60+ A needed to run at 24 V seems like it would be both relatively unsafe and require a lot thicker wiring than the current 10-15 A standards.

Fair enough but I think some of this is down to the fact they are readily available. Central vacuums have a lot going for them for example.

The wiring would be thicker but the low voltage has some pretty significant advantages,

In a "very bad case", wet skin and the current grounding through the hand and out the foot (passing by the heart), you can expect resistance of about 1400 Ohms. At 24 volts this will only permit ~17.14 milliamps to flow. This is definitely in the danger zone. But it is a lot better than the ~80 milliamps which will flow in the same conditions with a 120-volt source. I know of some nasty accidents which have occurred working with high-current, low-voltage devices but it takes some effort. With dry skin you could hold a terminal in each hand and the current would be below perceptibility.

In the old smart house they were experimenting with either 12 or 24v ribbon wires that would be taped (?) to the drywall.

The much higher copper losses of low voltage would be a serious issue though. Though using a small multiplicity of inverters/battery packs located around the residence and connecting them by conventional 120-240v AC (or potentially even high frequency AC which is mostly used in planes ATM) seems promising. OFC you might decide to begin connecting the whole block on high frequency AC...

[Danternoust]

40% of the time, alternating current is equivalent to direct current.

Why not use capacitors and sleep the power consuming components for the remainder of the time? It would of course mean monitors are limited to half the frequency of the power supply.

[Austrasien]

This is what happens if you combine a half-wave rectifier with a smoothing capacitor. But a bridge rectifier and smoothing capacitor is generally a much better option. Half-wave rectifier lose a great deal of power because they only admit half of each AC cycle. Pulsed DC also smuggles in many unfortunate harmonics because it takes many extra frequencies (compared to the original sine wave) to create the chopped-in-half sine wave a half-wave rectifier outputs.

What we want to avoid is having to perform the AC step down and rectification at every device. Because it isn't a very efficient process, inherently, and the smaller voltage regulators used in electronic devices including LED lighting are not efficient even compared to other, bigger, voltage regulators.

[Great Nortend]

Mooting a three tier senior schooling system with high schools, grammar schools and common schools:

High schools are publicly run by the government, whilst grammar schools and common schools are independent. Pupils in high schools normally leave at the end of the fourth form, at age 15, with the option of completing the fifth form. Pupils in grammar schools normally leave at the end of the fifth form, which is a two-year form with a lower and upper fifth, at age 17, with the option of completing the sixth form. Pupils in common schools leave at the end of the two-year sixth form (lower and upper), at the age of 19.

High schools are all day schools. Grammar schools are usually day schools, with some weekly boarding in remoter areas. These would be like your bog-standard Catholic school in Australia, perhaps. Common schools are usually full boarding, sometimes with some day pupils. These would be like your fancy private schools (the ones the newspapers in Australia call “elite private schools”, if that helps).

Going to university at one of the three universities in GN is dependent mostly on one's grades in the sixth form Exhibition Examinations. Outstanding candidates receive an exhibition whilst those who pass are entitled to attend as commoners. Otherwise, it is possible to pay extra fees to attend nonetheless, though at the college's discretion. This more or less means pupils who attend state schools are ineligible to attend university, as they leave school at the end of the fifth form at the latest.

Those leaving after the fourth form would generally proceed into some sort of apprenticeship, whether in a craft or trade, or in labour like husbandry or mining or the like. Those leaving after the fifth form would have taken their General Examinations, which would mean clerical or professional occupations would be open to them, such as in insurance or accounting or a doctor's office or a solicitors' firm or the like. They could also join the police constabulary or fire brigade or the army as a volunteer officer.

Whatever their education though, at the age of 19 (that is, before attending university) they would be required to perform one year's national service. Those who passed the sixth form would be entitled to serve as an officer. Otherwise, they would be assigned a regiment or corps based on which village or town they lived in. This generally means pupils from high schools and most grammar schools would mostly serve in the ranks whilst some grammar school pupils and common school pupils would serve as officers. Afterwards, they would be in the active reserves for eight years and in the inactive reserves thereafter until retirement.

Boys would be mostly forced to join the Cadet Corps at the age of 11. These are formed with companies based on where one lives, so for day boys this would be their village or district, whilst boarding schools would usually have their own companies. Even after leaving school, boys would be encouraged to stay in the Corps until their national service time, as initial rank, pay and privileges are tied to leaving age, rank and qualifications. Obviously, there would be difficulties for boarding pupils if they leave school, given their companies are located at distance from their residence. They would likely join their local company.

Thoughts?

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Would polygamy work in a society were bravery in battle was valued even more amongst women than wealth?

[Danternoust]

Would polygamy work in a society were bravery in battle was valued even more amongst women than wealth?

Yes, because bravery is a historical event and is not an indicator of future inability to raise children.

Battle wounds excepting.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Could Spartan women choose who to marry?

I'm asking because they tended to marry the best warriors and I want to see if it's possible for that to be such a huge consideration for marriage ina society.

[Ideal Britain]

Could Spartan women choose who to marry?

I'm asking because they tended to marry the best warriors and I want to see if it's possible for that to be such a huge consideration for marriage ina society.

Will someone answer my history question?

[Danternoust]

Water is incompressible. I have discovered a superior means of plumbing - having the bend to block sewer gas from escaping should be one meter down from the opening, thus water pressure would be at least one PSI, automatically unclogging most issues.

Alternatively, most sinks could have the stopper be hydraulically lifted when a faucet is turned, allowing water in most instances to drain, except for cases where the sink operator would have to repeatedly push down to open the stopper.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Would a Maturidi Islamic country consider rape hirabah? (hirabah is punishable by death whether the criminal is married or unmarried whereas zinah* is not punishable by death for unmarried people although some scholars advocate it for adultery)
This sources thinks rape is hirabah:
https://studentsofknowledge.org/fiqh-of ... -in-islam/, https://www.learnreligions.com/what-doe ... pe-2004208
*fornication or adultery