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IluvBsissa OP t1_ja7hipf wrote

Reply to comment by basilgello in "But what would people do when all jobs get automated ?" Ask the Aristocrats. by IluvBsissa

You are absolutely wrong.

EDIT : there are many cultures where Nobles didn't descend from warriors, actually. Some were even "poorer" than the common man. In China, for a long time, the higher class were civil servants who aced competitive exams (Europe started copying their system only 300 years ago).

A lot of great scientific achievements were actually made by egalitarian civilizations who had no kings nor aristocratic class, like the Mohenjo-Daro people or the Minoans and Etruscan. Warrior civilization like the Dorian's and Roman's invaded these peace-loving societies, enslaved them and appropriated their culture and scientific innovations. The necessity to enslave people to get more "spare-time" for science is a fallacy.

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Sol_Hando t1_ja8vjg7 wrote

Not sure where you got the assumption that the Minoans and Etruscans were egalitarian societies? A quick look at the burials of the Etruscans or the gigantic temples and palaces of the Minoans makes it pretty clear that there were class structures with winners and losers.

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IluvBsissa OP t1_ja8xv5f wrote

Etruscan were a peace-loving society. They had kings and nobility, but they were more figure-head than actual sovereign with more economic power. For the Minoan, it is believed the palace was more of a common Temple for the people, rather than a royal palace. Again, Graeber and Wengrow, actual archeologist and anthropologist, explain the latest research on the subject.

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basilgello t1_ja7iknh wrote

OK, change my mind! :)

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H0sh1z0r4 t1_ja7mopo wrote

you base your argument on the thought that in the past society operated on the basis of exchanges, as it does today, and that the nobles needed to have resources to exchange with the poor.

Did you forget about the existence of slaves? 1/3 of the population of the Roman Empire was already occupied only by slaves, you don't need to have resources to give for someone's work if you can force him to work for free

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basilgello t1_ja7tk92 wrote

> The necessity to enslave people to get more "spare-time" for science is a fallacy

I never assumed that.

As for Mohenjo-Daro. I have read a report (maybe a fake but still) that MD kingdom was destroyed in the Viman War with something very close to modern nukes. So we have no clues where and how they started. Even if they were an egalitarian state in their late days, they might arise as an extraterrestrial settlement or use slaves for cheap labor.

Rome in their late times was also a leisure society and de-disciplined their legions and got eventually taken over by barbarians. Chinese emperors entombed 100.000+ bodies in Great Chinese Wall whose length is 22.000 kms according to newer research. And it is predictable - when bureaucracy as a system takes over individual powers-that-be, the state arises. And at the same time, the state usurps the monopoly on violence becoming the universal protector and extortionist at the same time.

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IluvBsissa OP t1_ja7uxtg wrote

Nukes ? Extraterrestrial settlements ? Sorry, I didn't realize I was talking to a loony. My apologies, and don't forget to take your pills !

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basilgello t1_ja7wcct wrote

Perfect :) My dear friend (not a sarcasm!), you wrote before:

> No, the author mentions civilizations from thousands of years before our era, not pre-industrial times.

So the author of the book you recommended interprets some pieces of information about civilizations that lived thousands of years and thinks how they might have been operating. First of all, Minoans culture took 150 years of digging and analysis to decipher Type B writing, and Type A is still not decrypted. Are you 100% sure we can definitely state that we know how Minoan civilization lived? We make educated assumptions based on the newly-discovered facts. And they are only 5000 years from now.

And what's wrong with assumption about ET? It is part of unknown, so it can be possible. You should really be more open to new ideas because you have a curious mind. True scientist does not state "God is dead" or "extraterrestrials are fake" but tries to find proofs of them either existent or not.

EDIT: Your emotional reaction proves another point I had on my mind - our interpretation of the same facts reflects our training. Same as GPT - we interpret the facts to satisfy our goals, and not always this goal is to discover the absolute truth.

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IluvBsissa OP t1_ja80an4 wrote

It is quite easy to know for a trained archeologist if a society was egalitarian or autocratic. The way houses are built and situated, if there are palaces, segregated neighborhood, military barracks, etc. The ones I mentioned had none of that.

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basilgello t1_ja821jb wrote

I agree with this point. Also there was early Christianity whose beliefs were very close to what you would like to achieve. The question is in the other thing: we can not get rid of competition and supremacy from human nature. Unless the totally new biology or robotic bodies is invented, let's assume we can't. So it is natural to fight, kill, extort, rape etc. It is ugly, it is irrational to some point but it exists. The ideal solution from my point of view would be the society of equal opportunities where everyone understands everyone other's motives. But the ruling class will never allow this, because of supremacy loss. In fact, they have no other source of feeling supreme other than keeping others low. What can we do about it? A provoking question, but answering to it will answer your question as well.

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IluvBsissa OP t1_ja839re wrote

I'm pretty sure psychopaths in high places will be curious to know how it feels to be "good". So they will try the treatment, and bam! too late bro, you're a decent loving human being now and shall redistribute your wealth.

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IluvBsissa OP t1_ja83m6o wrote

Also, we can always edict new laws to outlaw "antisocial sentiments". Perpetrators will be summoned to "change their neural pathways" if they had a lil bit too much murdery thoughts lately.

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IluvBsissa OP t1_ja84kcg wrote

Another answer : our version of Aristocracy emerged from the will to cheat Death, to be "immortalized" as someone who accomplished great things, like killing millions of people. If we actually manage to cheat death biologically, once humanity greatest enemy defeated, the idea behind supremacy will be completely changed.

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