New Civilizations III ( OOC, Always Open )

[Ralnis]

So I'm going to steal something important from the Emperor.

[G-Tech Corporation]

There has been no military action yet. These men have done nothing like you have described. They may be foreigners or mercenaries or locals. They are not revealing their identities to anyone. They are acting in support of Aesop.

Given that these men are essentially the closest thing the League has to a military elite, I'm pretty confident it won't exactly be difficult to guess their identities. Especially in a small settlement.

You also have to look at what he has done for the council. He has helped them escape, providing them with transport out of the city. He also has provided an escape route for some of the councilors. He has not attacked anyone. He has also provided fishing boats for the Varna First to get to the countryside. None of this is as you have described it ideologically. He has provided funding for them to print circulars and flyers which have been posted. He has no need to use mercenaries or most of his men to do these actions.

Escape? Was there a slaughter of Councilors I missed? This plays back into Rule 4, I'm afraid. It would be unrealistic of these men who despise the League to simply accept aid from a man beholden to the League without any suspicions of his motives - because they would suspect he has an ulterior agenda, and indeed he does. They might take his money, but they won't trust him, and their trust will only be further undermined once they realize the men they are being asked to help smuggle into the city are soldiers of the League.

You come in and promise a blessing to the people of Troy with help from Dotos. Dotos once again is not completely trustable. He has pushed out Ina's daughters Leivas husband, Deiphobus and is claiming to be high lord of the city. They would probably not say anything about this. Dardanus son could have been high lord. He has royal blood and Dotos does not. The issue of royal blood once again rears its head.
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=460193&p=37676147&hilit=ina+daughter#p37676147

I'm still bemused you're promulgating royal blood as if we were in Classical Antiquity, not the Neolithic.

To further add to it, Dardanus has been an ally of the Nestos League for over a decade. The Imperium has visited once. It does not make sense at all. They have sent some of their sons to study with the scholars.

And I specifically remember Dardanus joining for power, for knowledge, out of ambition. An ambitious man will not discard his ambition simply because he has a little - he will crave more. The Imperium offers him more power, more land, the ability to conquer those around him and make Troy greater. He does not have to love the Imperium, or even trust them, to seize this power. It is clear that the League's ability to respond to his conquests is limited - now is the time to strike.

If as he said, he would, he visits Ur, the whole thing falls apart completely. Ur can offer trade, wants help with conquering Turkey, has the variolation, has a royal house and royalty that can offer marriage. Ur would have a much more complete offer than the Imperium.

It might even add to the coming invasion by Ur.

Ah, but is Dardanus enough of a fool to visit Ur, a polity he thinks is trying to conquer all of Anatolia? I'll note that this is, indeed, the aim of the Sumerian expansion into Asia Minor - to seize all lands to the Bosphorous. What better way to conquer a city than to seize her ruler, and strike while the sheep are leaderless? And what king will abandon his city in time of plague and the perfect time for his ambitions to be realized to make a journey of over a year to and from Ur?

This is, of course, even assuming the Holy Empire even makes such an offer. I have yet to see that offer.

[Orostan]

Alright but that’s a far cry from “I own this place so you must pay rent to me for using it.”

You wouldn’t own something you aren’t using.

Well, not exactly. A yearly round takes, as you might expect, a year to travel through. But if you were to kill game in a forest the band claims, even if they were at that point a hundred miles away harvesting shellfish, you’ll still provoke a conflict. Ownership is very much a thing, even if speculative owning of properties for rent and the like isn’t - people might agree to loan a tool in exchange for a portion of the proceeds for instance, but it doesn’t become the tool of the borrower because they are using it.

No you would not provoke a conflict lol. If they’re a hundred miles away they might as well not be using the land at all. How would they even know if their “territory” was being used?

[G-Tech Corporation]

Well, not exactly. A yearly round takes, as you might expect, a year to travel through. But if you were to kill game in a forest the band claims, even if they were at that point a hundred miles away harvesting shellfish, you’ll still provoke a conflict. Ownership is very much a thing, even if speculative owning of properties for rent and the like isn’t - people might agree to loan a tool in exchange for a portion of the proceeds for instance, but it doesn’t become the tool of the borrower because they are using it.

No you would not provoke a conflict lol. If they’re a hundred miles away they might as well not be using the land at all. How would they even know if their “territory” was being used?

You mean, aside from the fact that the game was depleted and signs of human usage were in the area when they returned? Nomadic bands claimed territories precisely because of competition for resources - not defending your yearly round meant you risked starvation, or worse yet, more bands stealing your resources when you appeared weak after not responding to the first incursion. Taking food and thus endangering the health of another band is exactly what would have provoked conflict in the Neolithic, Orostan.

[Orostan]

No you would not provoke a conflict lol. If they’re a hundred miles away they might as well not be using the land at all. How would they even know if their “territory” was being used?

You mean, aside from the fact that the game was depleted and signs of human usage were in the area when they returned? Nomadic bands claimed territories precisely because of competition for resources - not defending your yearly round meant you risked starvation, or worse yet, more bands stealing your resources when you appeared weak after not responding to the first incursion. Taking food and thus endangering the health of another band is exactly what would have provoked conflict in the Neolithic, Orostan.

Is one tribe going to be able to completely drain an area of resources? How big is this area? Maybe signs of human habitation would be noticeable but I doubt an area would be absolutely depleted of resources. If a tribe is staying in an area they are defending they aren’t really nomadic and might as well be settled.

Besides that none of this is anything like our modern concept of land ownership and is dependent on use. A tribe saying “we own this” and not doing anything with the land or being far away from it at all times does not really own it, and the individual members of that tribe are not owning individual plots of land.

[G-Tech Corporation]

You mean, aside from the fact that the game was depleted and signs of human usage were in the area when they returned? Nomadic bands claimed territories precisely because of competition for resources - not defending your yearly round meant you risked starvation, or worse yet, more bands stealing your resources when you appeared weak after not responding to the first incursion. Taking food and thus endangering the health of another band is exactly what would have provoked conflict in the Neolithic, Orostan.

Is one tribe going to be able to completely drain an area of resources? How big is this area? Maybe signs of human habitation would be noticeable but I doubt an area would be absolutely depleted of resources. If a tribe is staying in an area they are defending they aren’t really nomadic and might as well be settled.

Besides that none of this is anything like our modern concept of land ownership and is dependent on use. A tribe saying “we own this” and not doing anything with the land or being far away from it at all times does not really own it, and the individual members of that tribe are not owning individual plots of land.

Completely depends on context. A large tribe moving near the carrying capacity of a region where it is difficult to move into new territories, like the densely populated strips of the Yellow River, certainly could effectively exhaust an area of resources - or at the very least move it to the edge of annual regeneration, meaning additional tribes stripping that area of resources would push it over into diminishing yearly returns. Many nomadic societies have a very acute sense of what the land can support and what it can't, and would certainly go to war if another band pushed their land past that limit, as it endangers their future.

In the modern day we think of nomads as drifting from here to there with no set pattern, but that isn't anything like the case historically; some anthropologists would argue it has never been the case. Nomads move from place to place as the seasons dictate, perhaps foraging from blooming fruits in one area during the spring, hunting game in a river valley during the summer, and wintering in a set of deep caves, before returning to forage in the same area again come spring. That's exactly the definition of a yearly round, and we certainly wouldn't describe such a tribe as sedentary, but they have defined territories they utilize and defend.

The tribe would certainly say they 'own' those lands, if asked. Possession would belong to the tribe, absolutely, not the individual, but there is a world of difference between saying that property is collective at the tribal level and saying property is collective at all levels. That's the very nature of the kinship group - to delineate between us and them. Traditional Chinese tribes and polities aren't going to hand over their resources for no equivalent exchange to another polity, no matter how much a constitution might demand they do so.

[Orostan]

Is one tribe going to be able to completely drain an area of resources? How big is this area? Maybe signs of human habitation would be noticeable but I doubt an area would be absolutely depleted of resources. If a tribe is staying in an area they are defending they aren’t really nomadic and might as well be settled.

Besides that none of this is anything like our modern concept of land ownership and is dependent on use. A tribe saying “we own this” and not doing anything with the land or being far away from it at all times does not really own it, and the individual members of that tribe are not owning individual plots of land.

Completely depends on context. A large tribe moving near the carrying capacity of a region where it is difficult to move into new territories, like the densely populated strips of the Yellow River, certainly could effectively exhaust an area of resources - or at the very least move it to the edge of annual regeneration, meaning additional tribes stripping that area of resources would push it over into diminishing yearly returns. Many nomadic societies have a very acute sense of what the land can support and what it can't, and would certainly go to war if another band pushed their land past that limit, as it endangers their future.

In the modern day we think of nomads as drifting from here to there with no set pattern, but that isn't anything like the case historically; some anthropologists would argue it has never been the case. Nomads move from place to place as the seasons dictate, perhaps foraging from blooming fruits in one area during the spring, hunting game in a river valley during the summer, and wintering in a set of deep caves, before returning to forage in the same area again come spring. That's exactly the definition of a yearly round, and we certainly wouldn't describe such a tribe as sedentary, but they have defined territories they utilize and defend.

The tribe would certainly say they 'own' those lands, if asked. Possession would belong to the tribe, absolutely, not the individual, but there is a world of difference between saying that property is collective at the tribal level and saying property is collective at all levels. That's the very nature of the kinship group - to delineate between us and them. Traditional Chinese tribes and polities aren't going to hand over their resources for no equivalent exchange to another polity, no matter how much a constitution might demand they do so.

If the carrying capacity of a region has been reached they’d probably be doing agriculture. The Yellow river likely had very few nomads.

You have a point that nomads might claim specific areas but it would be very difficult to enforce such claims if they weren’t there for half the year and the area wasn’t near carrying capacity. Traditional Chinese limited - at least on the north China plain - are settled agricultural societies that benefit from the Chinese empire and are part of its economy. However, on the peripheries of china there would absolutely be situations where a nomadic tribe finds their territory occupied by a new Chinese agricultural town or being used for iron mining. Some nomadic tribes I imagine might choose to integrate into Chinese society as they can just start working and get almost free access to food and the like. Territorial claims stop meaning so much when the tribe’s existence is no longer predicated on enforcing those claims.

Next post I will write about China’s contact with nomadic societies and the conflicts that might emerge because of it.

[G-Tech Corporation]

If the carrying capacity of a region has been reached they’d probably be doing agriculture. The Yellow river likely had very few nomads.

Not really. It took, if anthropological evidence from the West Coast of America can be considered relevant, about four thousand years of being at carrying capacity for nomadic bands to begin the process of becoming sedentary. The Yellow River in this period, aside from a very small minority of settled peoples along the river itself, is likely almost exclusively nomadic.

You have a point that nomads might claim specific areas but it would be very difficult to enforce such claims if they weren’t there for half the year and the area wasn’t near carrying capacity. Traditional Chinese limited - at least on the north China plain - are settled agricultural societies that benefit from the Chinese empire and are part of its economy. However, on the peripheries of china there would absolutely be situations where a nomadic tribe finds their territory occupied by a new Chinese agricultural town or being used for iron mining. Some nomadic tribes I imagine might choose to integrate into Chinese society as they can just start working and get almost free access to food and the like. Territorial claims stop meaning so much when the tribe’s existence is no longer predicated on enforcing those claims.

Well, no. It isn't really that nomads might claim specific areas - I'm not actually aware of any nomadic bands on record that didn't claim specific areas. Carrying capacity isn't a precise determination, nor one the tribes would have been empirically aware of. All they know is that you using their traditional hunting grounds takes meat out of the mouths of their kinsmen and children, and that is a grave affront. Given China extends far far beyond the Yellow River Valley and her tributaries at this point, it isn't just the periphery of China where nomads roam - nomads compose certainly the vast preponderance of her land area.

There's also a bit of a problem with assuming that settled societies are simply going to offer the nomads free food and then those nomads will settle down and allow the YRS to take over their territories. Are you familiar with the agrarian paradox?

[Ralnis]

I'm glad I don't rule a nation anymore. Just be a master criminal and kingpin in China. More freedom to do what he wants and able to use his power in more creative ways. Soft power for the win.

[Speyland]

Author Applicaiton
Name: Shingo Osaka
Age: 19
Height and Weight: 5'9", 89 lbs
Skin, hair, and eye description: Shingo is a young man of medium height with brown hair and brown eyes. His skin is fair, and his face is pleasant to see.
( Optional ) Picture:

Prior Profession: Student
Level of education ( specify degrees or note worthy classes ): Secondary education
Physique description: Besides going to a gym class at school before then, Shingo's body is in good shape, allowing him to run longer than an Olympics athlete. Otherwise, his physique is good.
Useful skills: Shingo is an excellent runner, having gone to a gym class at his school several times. In addition, he is partially skilled in combat as a result of him attending a kendo class. Having read Sun Tzu's The Art of War once, Shingo is a skilled tactician, and his intelligence of coming up with complex but understandable plans explain it all.

National Origin: Japan
What were you doing prior to falling asleep and awakening in the past?: Shingo was working on homework before accidentally falling asleep.
Description of personality: As a result of being bullied by his classmates, Shingo used to have a loving personality at first, but he evolved into being cruel, brutal, unstable, manipulative, psychopathic, relentless, bloody, and sadistic from being a victim of bullying. While acting to be loyal and sympathetic, he tends to keep his intention to attain something bigger a secret. He will use that advantage to get what he wants, such as pledging allegiance to a chieftain and then betraying them afterward when the time is right for him. But only time will tell when the opportunity comes around, as it'll take a while to get to that point, nor is it likely to transpire. Before then, he dreams of becoming a member of the nobility, possessing mass wealth, and that he doesn't have to suffer through bullying anymore. Well, that dream is yet to come true.
Where in the world are you landing?: Kerala, India

Autobiography/Biography ( paragraph minimum ): Shingo was born and raised in Uruma, Okinawa, to a single mother on January 2, 2002. It's unknown who his biological father was, nor has his mother brought it up whenever Shingo asked her about him. In 2008, he attended an elementary school and met some bullies along the way, which continues to senior high school; he was considered an outcast. In 2017, Shingo attended a kendo class in the hopes of defending himself against his bullies, but nothing worked the way as expected. The same year, his mother bought him a book called Sun Tzu's The Art of War for Christmas, and he read it within a week, gaining knowledge about the principles of war strategy.

In 2019, his mother was diagnosed with motor neuron disease, causing him to feel depressed but not suicidal. In 2020, he got into a fight with one of the bullies after they threatened him to commit suicide, and he got held back for a year but not suspended. The same year, the bullying continues and has worsened his reputation with other classmates. Today, Shingo was working on homework before accidentally falling asleep, and his dream of becoming the most distinguished person who has ever lived begins in the past.

Writing Sample: N/A


( Optional on down)
What are your intentions for this RP, what's the long term goal?: I'm not sure at the moment, but I'll say that it has something to do with treachery and achieving glory.
What people or places are you taking inspiration from?: Probably this one.[/url} [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_dynasty]Or this.
Why did you chose to land where you did?: N/A
What vibe should we get from your civilization and it's culture?: Either this one or this.
What are your character's motivations?: To gain a chieftain's trust and to be respected by everyone.
Theme Song?: N/A
What do you wanna see in this RP? What would make it better?: N/A

[Orostan]

If the carrying capacity of a region has been reached they’d probably be doing agriculture. The Yellow river likely had very few nomads.

Not really. It took, if anthropological evidence from the West Coast of America can be considered relevant, about four thousand years of being at carrying capacity for nomadic bands to begin the process of becoming sedentary. The Yellow River in this period, aside from a very small minority of settled peoples along the river itself, is likely almost exclusively nomadic.

You have a point that nomads might claim specific areas but it would be very difficult to enforce such claims if they weren’t there for half the year and the area wasn’t near carrying capacity. Traditional Chinese limited - at least on the north China plain - are settled agricultural societies that benefit from the Chinese empire and are part of its economy. However, on the peripheries of china there would absolutely be situations where a nomadic tribe finds their territory occupied by a new Chinese agricultural town or being used for iron mining. Some nomadic tribes I imagine might choose to integrate into Chinese society as they can just start working and get almost free access to food and the like. Territorial claims stop meaning so much when the tribe’s existence is no longer predicated on enforcing those claims.

Well, no. It isn't really that nomads might claim specific areas - I'm not actually aware of any nomadic bands on record that didn't claim specific areas. Carrying capacity isn't a precise determination, nor one the tribes would have been empirically aware of. All they know is that you using their traditional hunting grounds takes meat out of the mouths of their kinsmen and children, and that is a grave affront. Given China extends far far beyond the Yellow River Valley and her tributaries at this point, it isn't just the periphery of China where nomads roam - nomads compose certainly the vast preponderance of her land area.

There's also a bit of a problem with assuming that settled societies are simply going to offer the nomads free food and then those nomads will settle down and allow the YRS to take over their territories. Are you familiar with the agrarian paradox?

1. What are you talking about? China during this period has a bunch of settled cultures.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longshan_culture

Nomads exist but they’re not going to be absolutely everywhere like you suggest.

2. I disagree, every source I can find about Chinese Neolithic cultures on the northern plain mentions agriculture very prominently. Nomads may occupy significant positions of land on the peripheries of China but they will not compose a majority of the population anywhere except for border regions.

I am not familiar with the agrarian paradox, please explain. I said that nomads are going to understand that it’s significantly easier to take work in settlements than be nomads.

[G-Tech Corporation]

1. What are you talking about? China during this period has a bunch of settled cultures.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longshan_culture

Yes, as I said, directly adjacent to specific river basins. We have plenty of historical information on the settled cultures because they produce material culture artifacts which we can study in large numbers - but pound for pound Neolithic nomadic hunter gatherers outweigh sedentary societies by a factor of nearly two hundred to one before 2000 BCE. I'm sure Aaron has been busy changing that, as has essentially every Author, since settled societies are much easier to control - but saying that even a significant minority of China is settled is pure fiction.

2. I disagree, every source I can find about Chinese Neolithic cultures on the northern plain mentions agriculture very prominently. Nomads may occupy significant positions of land on the peripheries of China but they will not compose a majority of the population anywhere except for border regions.

Agriculture is very prominent in our histories of this era because it is new, not because it is widespread - nomadic cultures, not in the sense of horse cultures or pastoralists like we term nomads, but anthropological nomads in terms of hunter-gatherer bands, compose an absolute majority of both land area and population in China, and indeed in the entire world, even including areas we think of as 'settled' like Mesopotamia.

I am not familiar with the agrarian paradox, please explain. I said that nomads are going to understand that it’s significantly easier to take work in settlements than be nomads.

Ah, but you see, that's exactly the nature of the agrarian paradox - it isn't actually easier to obtain calories through agriculture than it is to be a nomad gathering the fat of the land. Here's a good article on the topic. The summary is that sedentary cultures are actually less efficient at creating food than simple hunters and gatherers - there were much more diverse reasons for settling down than that, and indeed it appears to have not actually been one of the reasons our ancestors started building villages and farming. Amusingly, agrarianism is fundamentally linked to the development of private property - so if Aaron intends to build a large agrarian society, he better start polishing up those land rights and shelving Marx.

[G-Tech Corporation]

\
Level of education ( specify degrees or note worthy classes ): Secondary education
Physique description: Besides going to a gym class at school before then, Shingo's body is in good shape, allowing him to run longer than an Olympics athlete. Otherwise, his physique is good.
Useful skills: Shingo is an excellent runner, having gone to a gym class at his school several times. In addition, he is partially skilled in combat as a result of him attending a kendo class. Having read Sun Tzu's The Art of War once, Shingo is a skilled tactician, and his intelligence of coming up with complex but understandable plans explain it all.

Most of your application is good, but I'd like some clarifications/expansions on these bits. Running longer than an Olympic athlete seems... implausible, and I wouldn't categorically say someone is a notable runner or combatant or tactician if the criterion are going to a class a few times, or a single time, or reading a single book.

[Orostan]

1. What are you talking about? China during this period has a bunch of settled cultures.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longshan_culture

Yes, as I said, directly adjacent to specific river basins. We have plenty of historical information on the settled cultures because they produce material culture artifacts which we can study in large numbers - but pound for pound Neolithic nomadic hunter gatherers outweigh sedentary societies by a factor of nearly two hundred to one before 2000 BCE. I'm sure Aaron has been busy changing that, as has essentially every Author, since settled societies are much easier to control - but saying that even a significant minority of China is settled is pure fiction.

2. I disagree, every source I can find about Chinese Neolithic cultures on the northern plain mentions agriculture very prominently. Nomads may occupy significant positions of land on the peripheries of China but they will not compose a majority of the population anywhere except for border regions.

Agriculture is very prominent in our histories of this era because it is new, not because it is widespread - nomadic cultures, not in the sense of horse cultures or pastoralists like we term nomads, but anthropological nomads in terms of hunter-gatherer bands, compose an absolute majority of both land area and population in China, and indeed in the entire world, even including areas we think of as 'settled' like Mesopotamia.

I am not familiar with the agrarian paradox, please explain. I said that nomads are going to understand that it’s significantly easier to take work in settlements than be nomads.

Ah, but you see, that's exactly the nature of the agrarian paradox - it isn't actually easier to obtain calories through agriculture than it is to be a nomad gathering the fat of the land. Here's a good article on the topic. The summary is that sedentary cultures are actually less efficient at creating food than simple hunters and gatherers - there were much more diverse reasons for settling down than that, and indeed it appears to have not actually been one of the reasons our ancestors started building villages and farming. Amusingly, agrarianism is fundamentally linked to the development of private property - so if Aaron intends to build a large agrarian society, he better start polishing up those land rights and shelving Marx.

1. The Longshan wasn’t the only culture in China, there were many more and they were spread out over a wide area - particularly the northern plain my state is based around. I don’t see any reason or evidence why on the northern plain should have majority nomadic societies. This seems like another retroactive change that would weaken me for no reason like the time you tried to reduce me to the size of Belgium or remove my ability to make iron.

For thousands of years people have been farming in China especially along the yellow river and on the northern plain - and you want to say that this just isn’t happening?

2. Do you have any evidence of this at all?

3. That is no longer the case with metal tools, plows, irrigation, and other technologies that have been introduced. Farming is now most likely superior to being a nomad - it is more reliable for sure.

The reason why private property developed with agriculture is because if you controlled the granary you controlled the people. Agriculture’s improving productivity also began to incentivize taking slaves to grow food for you. Marx wrote about this transition from primitive communism to slave society.

Of course, it was always in the interest of the average subsistence farmer to kill his landlord or the slave to get rid of his master. I have put a lot of effort into developing systems of land and resource control that make the development of slave society or a transition to feudalism very difficult and keep resources held in common. Of course given the times this can’t last forever and that’s why Aaron has spent the last ten years trying to start an industrial revolution. Part of the reason why taking even a small bit of silk or bar of soap as a bribe gets an administrator the death sentence and massive efforts are made to keep the population politically aware is because Aaron believes that without industrialization his civilization is doomed. You cannot have democracy in a society where most people are peasants who have no concept of freedom beyond “less taxes = more freedom”. This is why Aaron has been pushing urbanization and a transition from villages to farming towns that share equipment and fields as well.

[Endem]

\
Level of education ( specify degrees or note worthy classes ): Secondary education
Physique description: Besides going to a gym class at school before then, Shingo's body is in good shape, allowing him to run longer than an Olympics athlete. Otherwise, his physique is good.
Useful skills: Shingo is an excellent runner, having gone to a gym class at his school several times. In addition, he is partially skilled in combat as a result of him attending a kendo class. Having read Sun Tzu's The Art of War once, Shingo is a skilled tactician, and his intelligence of coming up with complex but understandable plans explain it all.

Most of your application is good, but I'd like some clarifications/expansions on these bits. Running longer than an Olympic athlete seems... implausible, and I wouldn't categorically say someone is a notable runner or combatant or tactician if the criterion are going to a class a few times, or a single time, or reading a single book.

Hmm, this is unrelated, but I wonder, why did all authors get knocked out and transported back doing something peaceful and calm, why was no one knocked out cold during running for example.

[Ralnis]

You know, with how the YRS treats tribes coming in. Luther can make big money stealing for these tribes and see about getting them out before the provincial mitlia come in to surround them.

[Orostan]

You know, with how the YRS treats tribes coming in. Luther can make big money stealing for these tribes and see about getting them out before the provincial mitlia come in to surround them.

He can, but not every tribe is going to do that. A large number will stick with China rather than try and betray it.

[Ralnis]

You know, with how the YRS treats tribes coming in. Luther can make big money stealing for these tribes and see about getting them out before the provincial mitlia come in to surround them.

He can, but not every tribe is going to do that. A large number will stick with China rather than try and betray it.

Because they have free stuff which they can steal from the ignorant Chinese for letting anyone in their lands not knowing if that tribe has hidden agendas.

[G-Tech Corporation]

1. The Longshan wasn’t the only culture in China, there were many more and they were spread out over a wide area - particularly the northern plain my state is based around. I don’t see any reason or evidence why on the northern plain should have majority nomadic societies. This seems like another retroactive change that would weaken me for no reason like the time you tried to reduce me to the size of Belgium or remove my ability to make iron.

Well, this isn't just about you. If anyone wants to claim their society is majority agrarian in 3000 BCE outside of very particular circumstances I'm going to chuckle. The conditions and contexts for the entrenched development of agrarianism are peculiar, not common.

2. Do you have any evidence of this at all?

I'm mainly drawing from anthropological memory, but there are good dialectic looks at the topic you can easily find online - here's one of the first I came across that addressed the issue in terms you might be familiar with: https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/ ... d/266/278/

3. That is no longer the case with metal tools, plows, irrigation, and other technologies that have been introduced. Farming is now most likely superior to being a nomad - it is more reliable for sure.

It certainly could be in some areas - and in other areas it won't. Irrigation is hardly new to Neolithic China, after all. Remember, China is a society bootstrapping itself into the future - and it has innumerable demands for those manufactured metal goods. Every halberd manufacture is one less hoe that goes to the agrarians, and China now spans a logistical morass of nearly a million square miles of territory. The distribution and adoption of those introductions will be a Dostoevskyian nightmare, and there will be wide swathes of China that simply fall through the gaps.

It's also worth mentioning that agriculture is actually the less stable of the two food systems. I don't really want to take the time to teach you Anthropology 102, but suffice to say that agriculture is reliant on highly variable energy inputs and climatic conditions, over which the agrarians have no control - whereas nomadic bands possess the ability and tools to alter their position in those conditions and inputs, creating more favorable conditions.

The reason why private property developed with agriculture is because if you controlled the granary you controlled the people. Agriculture’s improving productivity also began to incentivize taking slaves to grow food for you. Marx wrote about this transition from primitive communism to slave society.

Of course, it was always in the interest of the average subsistence farmer to kill his landlord or the slave to get rid of his master. I have put a lot of effort into developing systems of land and resource control that make the development of slave society or a transition to feudalism very difficult and keep resources held in common. Of course given the times this can’t last forever and that’s why Aaron has spent the last ten years trying to start an industrial revolution. Part of the reason why taking even a small bit of silk or bar of soap as a bribe gets an administrator the death sentence and massive efforts are made to keep the population politically aware is because Aaron believes that without industrialization his civilization is doomed. You cannot have democracy in a society where most people are peasants who have no concept of freedom beyond “less taxes = more freedom”. This is why Aaron has been pushing urbanization and a transition from villages to farming towns that share equipment and fields as well.

All I can say is that you better get on the train. Property given to everyone, and asking tribes to respect the other which doesn't matter to them, is a perfect storm for lopsided consumption and conflict.

[Orostan]

1. The Longshan wasn’t the only culture in China, there were many more and they were spread out over a wide area - particularly the northern plain my state is based around. I don’t see any reason or evidence why on the northern plain should have majority nomadic societies. This seems like another retroactive change that would weaken me for no reason like the time you tried to reduce me to the size of Belgium or remove my ability to make iron.

Well, this isn't just about you. If anyone wants to claim their society is majority agrarian in 3000 BCE outside of very particular circumstances I'm going to chuckle. The conditions and contexts for the entrenched development of agrarianism are peculiar, not common.

2. Do you have any evidence of this at all?

I'm mainly drawing from anthropological memory, but there are good dialectic looks at the topic you can easily find online - here's one of the first I came across that addressed the issue in terms you might be familiar with: https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/ ... d/266/278/

3. That is no longer the case with metal tools, plows, irrigation, and other technologies that have been introduced. Farming is now most likely superior to being a nomad - it is more reliable for sure.

It certainly could be in some areas - and in other areas it won't. Irrigation is hardly new to Neolithic China, after all. Remember, China is a society bootstrapping itself into the future - and it has innumerable demands for those manufactured metal goods. Every halberd manufacture is one less hoe that goes to the agrarians, and China now spans a logistical morass of nearly a million square miles of territory. The distribution and adoption of those introductions will be a Dostoevskyian nightmare, and there will be wide swathes of China that simply fall through the gaps.

It's also worth mentioning that agriculture is actually the less stable of the two food systems. I don't really want to take the time to teach you Anthropology 102, but suffice to say that agriculture is reliant on highly variable energy inputs and climatic conditions, over which the agrarians have no control - whereas nomadic bands possess the ability and tools to alter their position in those conditions and inputs, creating more favorable conditions.

The reason why private property developed with agriculture is because if you controlled the granary you controlled the people. Agriculture’s improving productivity also began to incentivize taking slaves to grow food for you. Marx wrote about this transition from primitive communism to slave society.

Of course, it was always in the interest of the average subsistence farmer to kill his landlord or the slave to get rid of his master. I have put a lot of effort into developing systems of land and resource control that make the development of slave society or a transition to feudalism very difficult and keep resources held in common. Of course given the times this can’t last forever and that’s why Aaron has spent the last ten years trying to start an industrial revolution. Part of the reason why taking even a small bit of silk or bar of soap as a bribe gets an administrator the death sentence and massive efforts are made to keep the population politically aware is because Aaron believes that without industrialization his civilization is doomed. You cannot have democracy in a society where most people are peasants who have no concept of freedom beyond “less taxes = more freedom”. This is why Aaron has been pushing urbanization and a transition from villages to farming towns that share equipment and fields as well.

All I can say is that you better get on the train. Property given to everyone, and asking tribes to respect the other which doesn't matter to them, is a perfect storm for lopsided consumption and conflict.

1. Alright, fair enough. Could we consider that maybe 40% of China is Agrarian, and that along the yellow river and other major rivers that this is as high as 60%?

2. I will read this later, thank you.

3. Fair enough. However, the type of irrigation that is now being introduced only is comparable to the irrigation that exists in the Liangzhu culture which is part of China now anyways. At least along the yellow river where better quality tools and more fertile land is I think it is reasonable to say that agriculture is more dependable than nomadic living. The farther someone is from a Chinese city the more likely they are using stone tools and the less likely agriculture is to be superior to hunting and gathering.

4. I'm not "asking" tribes to do anything. They either agree to this system that benefits everyone as much as possible or they get out. Property isn't just given to everyone - the commons always have to be regulated by some authority. In China's case this is the provincial and central government.

[Orostan]

He can, but not every tribe is going to do that. A large number will stick with China rather than try and betray it.

Because they have free stuff which they can steal from the ignorant Chinese for letting anyone in their lands not knowing if that tribe has hidden agendas.

You do understand that China watches out for this sort of thing? If a tribe keeps asking for tools and other goods without providing much themselves the entire group can be found guilty of economic parasitism and relocated to somewhere where they will work. If they try and leave after that they're going to be stopped.

The Chinese approach to dealing with tribes coming to live in Chinese territory is to try and make them want to stay rather than forcing them to stay. If they come and treat China badly however China has plenty of iron mines that need more workers.

[Ralnis]

Because they have free stuff which they can steal from the ignorant Chinese for letting anyone in their lands not knowing if that tribe has hidden agendas.

You do understand that China watches out for this sort of thing? If a tribe keeps asking for tools and other goods without providing much themselves the entire group can be found guilty of economic parasitism and relocated to somewhere where they will work. If they try and leave after that they're going to be stopped.

The Chinese approach to dealing with tribes coming to live in Chinese territory is to try and make them want to stay rather than forcing them to stay. If they come and treat China badly however China has plenty of iron mines that need more workers.

You watch for that, but how successful is it?

[UniversalCommons]

The entire premise of the word despised is not reasonable. Not once does the word despised appear in any of my posts. There are many of the Imperium using this word. There is a problem of interpretation of going on where you are describing how people are despising each other when there are very few instances of this happening in any of my writing. There are some other examples like this.

In fact many of the posts are describing things which I have never done in terms of the way people are interacting. They interpret how my people will react to the plague, or specific events which is favorable to the Imperium. My people are not the Imperium and in many instances the reactions which are being described don't make sense. Interpreting the way the faction will act in support of the Imperium makes sense, but not the whole population.

Also, the argument about ambition is a straw man argument. It goes because the man is ambitious he will follow the Imperium. The Imperium has made a better offer than the Nestos League. This was done twice. It is an assumption. It is used to change a persons opinion over to the Imperium. We have a better offer. In one instance, with the Imperium meeting with Troa for one hour. It does not remotely hold water. I read the offer and it did not convince me. I don't think it would stick. I could go back to Dotos and say it was very similar. In both cases ambition outweighs reason and breaks Rule 4. You asked me to not make appeals to emotion. This is an emotion, greed and ambition.

Specific instances are magnified to apply to everything across the board. If I say one thing once it gets magnified to hundreds of times. There is a pattern making specific instances into general or broad statements. This is not logical. It is entertaining in its execution. It is also bad logic and unreasonable.

This seems to be happening a tremendous amount in Varna. Everyone hates the League, they are hated. It goes from a few people to the entire population. This is a generalization fallacy. The conspirators may hate us, but the assertion that everyone else does is not logical and there are not enough examples for this to be true. Please be more specific. Things have become too generalized.

An example of this is stating that the Council hates us and would not help us. This is a good example of Rule 4 applied to you. I have stated that the council opposes us. I have never once stated that they hate us. This is purely your interpretation. It assumes there is a general consensus that everyone on the counsel hates us 100%. This is not a totalitarian state, it means that a larger percentage of people dislikes us, than like us 60-40, or 70-30 for example.

There seems to be a consistent pattern of Faulty Generalizations: A lot of your arguments are based on this.

The hasty generalization fallacy is sometimes called the over-generalization fallacy. It is basically making a claim based on evidence that it just too small. Essentially, you can't make a claim and say that something is true if you have only an example or two as evidence. Constanta is a perfect example of this. Constanta suddenly appears on the map with little evidence. There seems to be a growing map where first there is the Danube, then parts of the northern Romania, then Constanta.

Lets talk about what it means when the Imperium tells them Dotos is the lord. It means someone else who could have been in that position is not there. That person could well have been Dardanus's son or Daughter in law. He does not know and is probably not quick to ask. There might be a desire to find out what is happening, send someone to Varna. These are dangerous foreign men.

[Orostan]

You do understand that China watches out for this sort of thing? If a tribe keeps asking for tools and other goods without providing much themselves the entire group can be found guilty of economic parasitism and relocated to somewhere where they will work. If they try and leave after that they're going to be stopped.

The Chinese approach to dealing with tribes coming to live in Chinese territory is to try and make them want to stay rather than forcing them to stay. If they come and treat China badly however China has plenty of iron mines that need more workers.

You watch for that, but how successful is it?

Reasonably successful I'd guess. Local Ministry branches are going to like to keep track of tribes - they are a good source of labor after all.

Any tribe that wants to trade with China will have to engage with the Ministry while those that don't can cross the border in a remote part of China and basically go unnoticed. Those guys are going to be fun for you to deal with!

[Ralnis]

You watch for that, but how successful is it?

Reasonably successful I'd guess. Local Ministry branches are going to like to keep track of tribes - they are a good source of labor after all.

Any tribe that wants to trade with China will have to engage with the Ministry while those that don't can cross the border in a remote part of China and basically go unnoticed. Those guys are going to be fun for you to deal with!

True and I will be using those as a source of recruitment and trade. But still, the Local Ministry would be a hit with the Dong Wang for the local tribes that pay tribute to the King.