5 ms·

Just where I'd put a marketplace: in a large linear formation on top of a mountain ridge.

lumost 11mo ago
There were a large number of of Incan markets at elevation in the Andes. If your civilization was built around the productivity of terrace farming - then people will be living at high elevation.
- baggy_trough 11mo ago
  What you describe has no relationship to the photos in the article.
lostlogin 11mo ago
I mostly agree, it’s weird. However the region has little in the way of flat ground and the nice flat valley floor is very very flood prone.
lovich 11mo ago
When the barbarians come to raid, it’s much easier to tip a rock over to stop them. “I have the high ground” became a meme because of the Star Wars prequels but it was a legitimate force multiplier. The US has a military strategy of air supremacy, notably different from air dominance, because of how easy it is to win when you can just let go of a rock and it’s guided to your enemy by gravity.
- ramses0 11mo ago
  You need to read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"...
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - lovich 11mo ago
    I don’t, libertarian ideals like that book die the first time they meet an organized group of bears[1] Also if I recall they were in underground cities in that book and not clinging to the edge of a mountainside like invaders would be doing in regards to the content of the original post [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...
    - Ancapistani 11mo ago
      Funny how even TNR recognizes that the bears were not the cause of the group’s fizzling out, nor has the state managed a solution.
      - lovich 11mo ago
        Oh I’m sorry, that was a tongue in cheek reference to a known event that I assume /u/ancapistani is familiar with unless you have the luckiest random user name ever. The point was that libertarian ideals fail whenever faced with a problem that requires a societal level response since the members are incapable of working together due to their own selfishness, e.x. Someone feeding the bears that were causing their neighbors harm And the state hasn’t managed a solution to bears? They mustered the banners and had their hunters kill them all back when it was a problem. The libertarians are the ones arguing that I should be allowed to run a bear farming factory next to the kindergarten with a suspiciously high number of bear related deaths per capita for children.
        Ancapistani 11mo ago
        Your perception of my username is correct. I’m quite familiar with the failings of these sorts of social experiments. I followed the Free State Project from its inception, watched Anarchon happen in real time, etc. I get what you’re saying. I have two points to make in response. The first is that libertarian experiments in the last 20 years or so in the Western world have tended to draw the most extreme and outspoken members of the group. Those people also tend to value what they consider to be ideological purity over effectiveness, and tend to have strong/abrasive personalities. There’s a good deal of selection bias happening here. The second is that I personally believe that the more extreme an idea is, the more consistently educated and motivated the participants must be in order for it to work. As an extreme example: I want to see the US government disappear. That’s a bold statement, but hear me out for a moment. If we all woke up tomorrow morning and government at all levels from municipal to federal were gone, it would be a disaster. The same would be true of any sort of coup. The only way for a stateless society to exist and be functional is if the people no longer need or desire a state. To put it another way - I don’t want a government that we can “drown in a bathtub”, I want us to move toward a world where one day we realize it’s no longer serving a purpose. I’m in no way threatened if you disagree with me here, I’m just compelled to clarify when I see libertarian beliefs being dismissed because a specific problem exists when the same problem exists in the status quo. No political system is perfect. Our current system _certainly_ isn’t. It’s intellectually lazy to oppose a change on the grounds that it doesn’t solve everything.
- SideburnsOfDoom 11mo ago
  > “I have the high ground” ... was a legitimate force multiplier. There are a huge number of places in Europe where the town has grown around the Old Castle, and the Old Castle has been a fortification of some sort since a very long time ago (often pre-Roman), and it's on a hill near a bend on a river - high ground, defensible and also transport links. Everywhere from Edinburgh to Kraków.
cwmoore 11mo ago
Top photo looks like mining to me.
- AlotOfReading 11mo ago
  There are easier ways to mine gravel and sedimentary rock than a long series of shallow holes you've lined with stone walls and stored produce in. Notably, if you go about 10m to the side along parts of the wall, you can just mine the erosive slope for gravel without even digging. There are no notable mineral deposits in this area and it doesn't follow a geologic layer.
  - cwmoore 11mo ago
    I was thinking of a vein along the ridge, and a particular digging technique, along with the wear depressions on the slope. But it seems someone actually read the article. Though corn pollen is not proof of produce and wicker baskets could carry anything.
kjkjadksj 11mo ago
Schizophrenic hermit starts digging holes 4000 years ago. Archeologists today: marketplace! I joke, a little. But it also makes me think of findings like all those ancient voluptuous “Venus” figurines found the world over. Signs of a global fertility goddess as archaeologists theorize, or merely an early form of Hustler magazine?
stackghost 11mo ago
It's 1.5km long. It would sure suck to be the guy selling products at the far end. Idk I'm not an archaeologist or an anthropologist but the idea it's a market sure seems farfetched to me.
- AlotOfReading 11mo ago
  The holes don't have to be the physical location where the goods were sold. It's just where they're stored. Think of the lots at a big auction, arranged in rows behind the bidding house/tent. You bid on a standardized lot and when you win it you go collect your goods from stall X, which you might have inspected before the sale. That's similar to what the authors are proposing here for markets, which is only one of a number of possibilities they offer.

lumost 11mo ago

There were a large number of of Incan markets at elevation in the Andes. If your civilization was built around the productivity of terrace farming - then people will be living at high elevation.

baggy_trough 11mo ago
What you describe has no relationship to the photos in the article.

lostlogin 11mo ago

I mostly agree, it’s weird. However the region has little in the way of flat ground and the nice flat valley floor is very very flood prone.

lovich 11mo ago

When the barbarians come to raid, it’s much easier to tip a rock over to stop them. “I have the high ground” became a meme because of the Star Wars prequels but it was a legitimate force multiplier. The US has a military strategy of air supremacy, notably different from air dominance, because of how easy it is to win when you can just let go of a rock and it’s guided to your enemy by gravity.

ramses0 11mo ago
You need to read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"...
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- lovich 11mo ago
  I don’t, libertarian ideals like that book die the first time they meet an organized group of bears[1] Also if I recall they were in underground cities in that book and not clinging to the edge of a mountainside like invaders would be doing in regards to the content of the original post [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...
  - Ancapistani 11mo ago
    Funny how even TNR recognizes that the bears were not the cause of the group’s fizzling out, nor has the state managed a solution.
    - lovich 11mo ago
      Oh I’m sorry, that was a tongue in cheek reference to a known event that I assume /u/ancapistani is familiar with unless you have the luckiest random user name ever. The point was that libertarian ideals fail whenever faced with a problem that requires a societal level response since the members are incapable of working together due to their own selfishness, e.x. Someone feeding the bears that were causing their neighbors harm And the state hasn’t managed a solution to bears? They mustered the banners and had their hunters kill them all back when it was a problem. The libertarians are the ones arguing that I should be allowed to run a bear farming factory next to the kindergarten with a suspiciously high number of bear related deaths per capita for children.
      - Ancapistani 11mo ago
        Your perception of my username is correct. I’m quite familiar with the failings of these sorts of social experiments. I followed the Free State Project from its inception, watched Anarchon happen in real time, etc. I get what you’re saying. I have two points to make in response. The first is that libertarian experiments in the last 20 years or so in the Western world have tended to draw the most extreme and outspoken members of the group. Those people also tend to value what they consider to be ideological purity over effectiveness, and tend to have strong/abrasive personalities. There’s a good deal of selection bias happening here. The second is that I personally believe that the more extreme an idea is, the more consistently educated and motivated the participants must be in order for it to work. As an extreme example: I want to see the US government disappear. That’s a bold statement, but hear me out for a moment. If we all woke up tomorrow morning and government at all levels from municipal to federal were gone, it would be a disaster. The same would be true of any sort of coup. The only way for a stateless society to exist and be functional is if the people no longer need or desire a state. To put it another way - I don’t want a government that we can “drown in a bathtub”, I want us to move toward a world where one day we realize it’s no longer serving a purpose. I’m in no way threatened if you disagree with me here, I’m just compelled to clarify when I see libertarian beliefs being dismissed because a specific problem exists when the same problem exists in the status quo. No political system is perfect. Our current system _certainly_ isn’t. It’s intellectually lazy to oppose a change on the grounds that it doesn’t solve everything.
SideburnsOfDoom 11mo ago
> “I have the high ground” ... was a legitimate force multiplier. There are a huge number of places in Europe where the town has grown around the Old Castle, and the Old Castle has been a fortification of some sort since a very long time ago (often pre-Roman), and it's on a hill near a bend on a river - high ground, defensible and also transport links. Everywhere from Edinburgh to Kraków.

cwmoore 11mo ago

Top photo looks like mining to me.

AlotOfReading 11mo ago
There are easier ways to mine gravel and sedimentary rock than a long series of shallow holes you've lined with stone walls and stored produce in. Notably, if you go about 10m to the side along parts of the wall, you can just mine the erosive slope for gravel without even digging. There are no notable mineral deposits in this area and it doesn't follow a geologic layer.
- cwmoore 11mo ago
  I was thinking of a vein along the ridge, and a particular digging technique, along with the wear depressions on the slope. But it seems someone actually read the article. Though corn pollen is not proof of produce and wicker baskets could carry anything.

kjkjadksj 11mo ago

Schizophrenic hermit starts digging holes 4000 years ago. Archeologists today: marketplace! I joke, a little. But it also makes me think of findings like all those ancient voluptuous “Venus” figurines found the world over. Signs of a global fertility goddess as archaeologists theorize, or merely an early form of Hustler magazine?

stackghost 11mo ago

It's 1.5km long. It would sure suck to be the guy selling products at the far end. Idk I'm not an archaeologist or an anthropologist but the idea it's a market sure seems farfetched to me.

AlotOfReading 11mo ago
The holes don't have to be the physical location where the goods were sold. It's just where they're stored. Think of the lots at a big auction, arranged in rows behind the bidding house/tent. You bid on a standardized lot and when you win it you go collect your goods from stall X, which you might have inspected before the sale. That's similar to what the authors are proposing here for markets, which is only one of a number of possibilities they offer.