I was on DMT 2 days ago I have no idea.

Turns out to have warring tribes you need to be organized enough to carry out a war.

Jericho had walls when most of the rest of humanity was nomadic hunter-gatherers.

City walls generally weren’t built because people feel safe and secure already.

The only real solution is intentional population control. But I don’t have high hopes we ever get there though.

Everyone could have way more resources than we’d ever want to even use. But instead, we seem focused on maxing out the world population leaving the least amount possible for each person.

The first written evidence of slavery in the ancient world comes from ancient Mesopotamia. However, slavery was in practice much longer than that. Slavery most likely began when the first cities needed labor to keep food production up to feed growing populations.

Because with capitalism, the greed is out in the open. Everyone understands it. It is clear and legal to push against the greed of those who have more.

In a system that incentivizes “virtues”, greed will hide behind those virtues. And when you then fight against that greed, you are accused of attacking those virtues instead.

The cutoff is between 200 and 1000 people.

That was well said. Recontextualization is exactly the thing; it’s not that I think the Soviet Union was absolute evil with zero redeeming features. They got more right during the early years although I’m not necessarily a huge fan of that period either, and to a large extent it was Stalin who fucked them up pretty severely with the frankly sociopathic system that the Union turned into.

Russian political culture has been outright brutal for a long time. Eg. these KGB-like secret police organizations have been around for a while and have invariably had brutal methods of dealing with politically displeasing individuals or just who-the-hell-ever in many cases. This, coupled with the cultural ethos that Russia and Russians – and specifically meaning ethnic Russians – are superior to anyone outside their borders and a tendency for imperialism, means that Russian rule has nearly invariably been a shitty time, with Finland being one of the few exceptions as we mostly faced little repression or cultural erasure compared to other Russian “colonies” and this was done intentionally; most of the Russian Emperors during our time as a Grand Duchy in some ways thought of Finland as way to show the European powers that they can run things in a “western” way, and to work as a kind of window to the West. For the last 20 or so years they did try to Russify us, which we – being stubborn fucks – did not take well. We also kept our previous Parliament for the most part even though even starting from Alexander I the Emperors wanted to have autocratic rule, but – again in parts thanks to us being stubborn fucks – it took something like 4 emperors for it to happen. Their other historical or the currently existing colonies (nobody seems to think of Russia as a colonialist empire because their colonies are inside contiguous borders) weren’t quite so lucky, as Russification and “Russian supremacy” has been the standard.

This political culture played a large part in the problems with the Union. It was nominally multicultural (and korenization was briefly a thing until they went back to Russification as usual) but it wasn’t exactly unclear who were ultimately in charge.

And before some smartass barges in asking me why it’s OK if the US/UK/France/whoever does this stuff: I don’t like imperialism any more regardless of who’s doing it.

Socialism != Communism you moron.

I’m actually all for socialism.

Removed by mod

“These individuals and groups synthesise radical far-right politics with environmentalism,[5][6] and will typically argue that overpopulation is the primary threat to the environment and that the only solution is a complete halt to immigration or, at their most extreme, genocide against minority groups and ethnicities”

You’re just a fascist…with a fancier label.

You’re welcome.

There’s nothing pedantic about it. The comment makes no sense.

What fantasy land are you living in where working class individuals are learning survival skills? What the fuck is even a modern skill?

I’m well off and spend thousands of hours being a mechanic for fun. You think someone with less time and resources than me can fix their car better because they had to figure it out to get to work a few times?

You think some random dude working two jobs is going to be better prepared than a guy with the time to have a dedicated hobby?

You think buying a car for 35k makes me rich? You do realize that even middle class people are just as much a few missed paychecks away from being homeless just as much as you are?

Actual rich people make so much money they’ve never worked a day in their life, and they most definitely want us distracted fighting eachother instead of thinking about how they assfuck us ever day with this fucked up system.

Edit: Just to drive my point home. I grew up poor as dirt with a single mother, and eventually a drunk violent asshat step father. The only reason I have any money at all is bcz I went to university and have a decent job now.

The whole meme is about capitalism my guy XD

Reading through people’s comment history and judging them based on it is super toxic. Let’s leave that behavior on previous platforms? Also, $35k for a new car is unfortunately lower than average ($46k). I wouldn’t call anyone rich merely because they bought a modest car.

Your blanket opinion of “rich people” is naive and reductionist. There are plenty of smart and capable rich people. They also have the resources to actually go out and train in hobbies, which commonly include survival shit. I’m sure whatever bullshit survivalist skills you are trying to be vague about are pale in comparison to a rich person with time and resources.

Christianity became a world religion at the end of a spear

… But at which end…

Sometimes corporations get bigger, sometimes they get toppled by new competitors. A lot of them that we think of as unstoppable are barely hanging on by a thread. Twitter/X and Facebook are examples that come to mind. People don’t realize how much power they as consumers have.

Everyone went from feudal backwater to something else in that era. The US was poorer than Argentina per capita. That’s not really saying that much. It’s also not saying that much because of course if you have a strong central authority you can divert resources from more valuable production toward national pride vanity projects like a space travel. What really matters is how productive your economy is, how much it can produce for its society, and on that front the US defeated the Soviet Union soundly.

I have nothing against a space program, I just don’t see that as a very strong indicator of the success of a society.