> Selflessness and bravery to that end has always been celebrated throughout human history because it’s necessary to the survival of societies I believe there'

> Selflessness and bravery to that end has always been celebrated throughout human history because it’s necessary to the survival of societies I believe there's more romanticizing in this statement than evidence for it. Ideas are subject to natural selection as much as individuals are. And for an idea to win this natural selection, it's not necessary to be useful for our species. Some ideas spread will because they give their carriers advantage over other people, like Science; some because they just resonate with our minds well and spread fast, like viral videos from Tiktok. Romanticizing of Spartans could easily fall into the latter category. I agree that being able to defeat (and possibly kill) your enemies was important for us throughout history, but I doubt that being a stereotypical Spartan helps one do that. In the next parts of the linked post on Spartans, acoup says that they weren't as strong army as they were believed to be. Their greatest strength was their badass fame advertized by Socrates.