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We usually do! Hunger, sabre-tooth tigers, malaria, war: everything seems to make civilization stronger in the end
by FredPret 5y ago
We usually do!
Hunger, sabre-tooth tigers, malaria, war: everything seems to make civilization stronger in the end
- yakshaving_jgt 5y agoThe very definition of survivorship bias :)
- wongarsu 5y agoWhat doesn't kill your civilization makes it stronger (or cripples it enough that it slowly fades into irrelevance, with nobody agreeing on the exact cause)
- marcosdumay 5y agoSolving problems makes your civilization stronger. Letting them around while you learn to cope makes it weaker. Nobody agrees on the exact cause because when one is weak enough to fade into irrelevance, there are way too many of those unsolved problems.
- FredPret 5y agoI meant civilization as a giant entity that comprises all of us. There is no “your” civilization. The whole grows steadily stronger and more complex, though the constituent ideologies and individuals fight, grow, and die.
- FredPret 5y agoReality has a survivorship bias. That’s the idea of Nietzsche’s Will to Power.
- newsbinator 5y agoSome version of the anthropic principle? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
- musicale 5y agoIIRC the 14th century was particularly disastrous with both the great famine and the black death wiping out something like 40% and 30% of the population of Europe. In the 17th century the thirty years' war (and associated famines and outbreaks) was similarly devastating. The survivors had more wealth however.