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So I am intrigued by the idea of the Axial Age transition - roughly 500BC and worlds big population centres (India China Persia) hit some kind of population ti

So I am intrigued by the idea of the Axial Age transition - roughly 500BC and worlds big population centres (India China Persia) hit some kind of population tipping point, developed massive abusive slavery and wars and then developed much more restrictive religions as a means to control the larger populations. The argument is tenuous but it reminds me a lot of the Shakespeare / Lope de Vega transition- sometimes population is dense enough to chnage something. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age

naniwaduni 4y ago
It's, in brief, the sort of pseudo-anthropology that's very appealing to systematizing minds, but falls apart immediately when you have to engage with the fact that the cultures in questions did not have remotely similar experiences at that time—it's telling that you seized on "big population centres (India China Persia)" in particular. But you have to squint really hard to make them look similar.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  I get the "yeah nah dodgy" concerns about it. But humans have gone through several stages of civilisation that can be defined as "the number of people physically near enough me to be a threat" - from tribes that could go years without meeting others to football stadiums full of thousands. Each of the above civilisations went through a population / density transition - and did so within a few hundred years - and came out with some surprisingly similar religious / cultural rules that were a) different to what had gone before b) similar in some respects to each other I am certainly not arguing there was some shared kernel of religion, just that there was a new economic/ social pressure and the "solution" to it was a new form of religion / social contract. In short - as human economics and civilisation changes, so does the way we govern ourselves (religion is a governing force). It seems reasonable to argue that as different civilisations go through the same pinch points they will find similar solutions. We also should assume we are going through such as pinch point today (either the long term industrial revolution or the near term internet revolution). And yes - systemising minds need to be aware of their own proclivities- a hard won lesson
  - naniwaduni 4y ago
    Mostly, it just proves too much/doesn't predict enough, I think.

naniwaduni 4y ago

It's, in brief, the sort of pseudo-anthropology that's very appealing to systematizing minds, but falls apart immediately when you have to engage with the fact that the cultures in questions did not have remotely similar experiences at that time—it's telling that you seized on "big population centres (India China Persia)" in particular. But you have to squint really hard to make them look similar.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago
I get the "yeah nah dodgy" concerns about it. But humans have gone through several stages of civilisation that can be defined as "the number of people physically near enough me to be a threat" - from tribes that could go years without meeting others to football stadiums full of thousands. Each of the above civilisations went through a population / density transition - and did so within a few hundred years - and came out with some surprisingly similar religious / cultural rules that were a) different to what had gone before b) similar in some respects to each other I am certainly not arguing there was some shared kernel of religion, just that there was a new economic/ social pressure and the "solution" to it was a new form of religion / social contract. In short - as human economics and civilisation changes, so does the way we govern ourselves (religion is a governing force). It seems reasonable to argue that as different civilisations go through the same pinch points they will find similar solutions. We also should assume we are going through such as pinch point today (either the long term industrial revolution or the near term internet revolution). And yes - systemising minds need to be aware of their own proclivities- a hard won lesson
- naniwaduni 4y ago
  Mostly, it just proves too much/doesn't predict enough, I think.