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hence...this
You got me thinking about what conditions are required to make investment in major technological advancements worthwhile
I mean if you're a ruler of a feudal society, you need to make sure your people don't completely starve, don't get conquered, and generally aren't living in constant fear for their lives
And then you need to have enough political stability that you don't need to devote your resources to maintaining a grip on power
And then you need a merchant class that can take the efforts of specialized labor (miners, foresters, farmers) and turn them into complex goods
I think that the hypothesis I'm inevitably heading toward is that religion was what provided most of these necessary conditions in Europe. It gives (some) rulers one less reason to try and topple one another. It provides opportunities for alliances rather than wars. It creates a power structure that outlasts any particular ruler or dynasty. It opens up the concept of a non-laboring class (the clergy) that can reallocate resources.
I am too sleepy to elaborate on it much more, and I'm also sure that I'm not the first to think of it.
when the indigo children come
Well, basically, there are two options there:
1. Wait for the merger to complete, then pursue relocation.
2. Look for work elsewhere.
when the indigo children come
why do you care when the peasants starve as long they pay their taxes
She puts out though.
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Mort-ZA/
@MortNZ
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
From what I recall, and I am not an expert, but wouldn't the labor pool of peasants have to drop rapidly due to plague and/or massively destructive, indiscriminate civil war to force feudal lords to invest in the ones left standing who then enjoy greater status and standard of living
Because starving peasants are unhappy peasants, and unhappy peasants are more likely to storm your keep, rape and cook your wife, then feed her to you prior to killing you.
Anglo-Saxon Britain had a generally less directly adversarial relationship.
I think you overestimate the power of a starving peasant mob
this is why you have a cadre of higher class knights who have sworn oaths of loyalty to you, have their own plots of land on your land and peasants to work it, and an incentive to fight for you in order to maintain that cushy job
Examples: late bronze age Mediterranean (ie: New Kingdom Egypt, imperial Hatte, Mari, Kassite Babylon etc...). They managed larger populations, had more complex international relations and long distance trade than medieval Europe. And yet come the 12th century BCE they were doomed to collapse and 500 years of darkness.
SOCIALISM
WE'VE BEEN WARNED AMERICA
dead men pay no taxes
and can't be conscripted to defend you
and the religion argument makes this marginally less self-interested. The divine right of kings is just the thin end of the wedge
when the indigo children come
Gonna use 12% of my newfound timeoff to do valuable work
And 84% on vidya
And 30% on studying maths so I don't fail my repeat exam.
because those societies derived strength from taxing a resource that wasn't amenable to continual innovation and reinvestment, be it hydraulic empire or locking down a strategic trade route
for all the glory and strength of the great cities of the middle east, these were fundamentally still relatively small cities surrounded by vast territory which they had much less power over. If these were grasslands, forget it. At best you got hydraulic despotism of the Fertile Crescent, since that gave an effective way of projecting power.
the staggering difficulty of keeping herders in line meant that even the Ottoman Empire would not be able to achieve it, two and a half millenia later
And in Europe where resources were less scarce, feudalism largely dwindled as rulers utilized them to make life more stable. This happened in fits and spurts and slowly, but the rise of a merchant class and investment in capital such as mines and mills made serfdom less necessary
I'm not saying that they did this out of benevolence. If nothing else, having mines (or a trading partner with them) is a prerequisite for making pikes.
when the indigo children come
Russia is a pretty good point against the notion that feudal lords have any interest in non-starvation, actually
the relationship between the merchant class and the landed nobility was never particularly friendly.
I can dig it. *shrug*
Damn it. I agree.
Have you considered drugs from the not strictly legal class of drugs?
Ich weisse nicht.
Please, since when has anybody involved with third level education ever taken illicit substances?
I find that odd.
I'm getting old : /
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Mort-ZA/
@MortNZ
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
OK I can figure this out
Ich is German for "blech, that is gross" right?
Yes, they want to watch the Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action" through inbuilt Netflix functionality!
Francis Fukuyama had some interesting things to say about why Eastern Europe generally had a bunch of dickbgs at the top.
I can't remember what those things were though. I think it was partially influenced from the Mongols, partially a result of the relatively hard-to-defend terrain of wide-open Russia relative to the more physically divided Western Europe. Or something. I have the book at home.
At the moment paracetamol is my best friend.
Time for some more, methinks...
Literally it translates to "I know not".
So in other words,
Google Translate says
"I'm Not White"
They ain't answering the phone anyway. No running shoes or Quarriors today!
Where you sit in a dark room and make sounds for monsters you can only imagine and not see. You hope.
But how will you participate in the Belfast Marathon now?
Did you recently watch Berberian Sound Studio?