Civilisation
Sometimes it is both interesting and useful to see the history of the world as a collection of arbitrary periods defined by the retrospective highlights. Lots of people do that, and to this chronological spectrography, they add the dimension of space. This means that you can say 'Early Bronze Age' and have it mean a different time period depending on where the artifacts have been found.
Of course, civilisation isn't really like that. Even this concession to the factual solidity embodied by an artifact does not allow us to adequately capture the movement of memes – symbols, ideas, concepts – and the people who carry them, the memephors (if you like). The problem does not go away as we come closer to our present age in time, simply because events have a larger footprint and the implications of each event (and the significance of such events) multiply beyond our horizon of understanding.
In the past, the ocean of history was large and relatively empty. A person invents a tool in what is modern Spain and there is a very long while before it has any impact in what is now Canada. In the present, this is not so. Canada and Spain are no distance away at all, in terms of the Information Age.
If you play games like Sid Meier's Civilisation (currently in its fourth edition), you will see this replicated to some extent. Until you encounter another civilisation, there is absolutely no mutual impact from technological or social innovation on your part or on someone else's part. However, as civilisations begin to encounter each other, exchanges of information and technology occur and the world is wrenched asunder for some, improved for others. Nobody benefits from insularity or from trying to maintain superiority alone.
There is one exception: a power that grows exponentially by conquest without pausing to consolidate can possibly win by eliminating all significant rivals within the sphere of consideration. Even for this exception, the effects of human social behaviour will sooner or later act to brake expansion and cause revolution. The resulting centripetal force and its consequents will cause civilisations that expand too rapidly to fracture, decline in quality, or disastrously contract.
And all this you get by playing computer games for hours. How come? Because good computer game designers learn from history and try to model things so that they happen as they always have (in general) with a bit of random and unexpected stuff (as in real life). The problem is trying to guess the right proportion.
My guess is that there is no right proportion. Nothing is new under the sun; what most people won't guess, somebody has already guessed. The correct guesses are always in the minority, and often made for the wrong reasons when you look at the specifics. The wrong answers are always the majority, and they are often bolstered by retroactive creativity and plain self-deception, so that they look somewhat right.
Eventually, most of us will shake our heads, wave our hands, give a wry smile, scribble something down and call it a day. This is the foundation of history.
Of course, civilisation isn't really like that. Even this concession to the factual solidity embodied by an artifact does not allow us to adequately capture the movement of memes – symbols, ideas, concepts – and the people who carry them, the memephors (if you like). The problem does not go away as we come closer to our present age in time, simply because events have a larger footprint and the implications of each event (and the significance of such events) multiply beyond our horizon of understanding.
In the past, the ocean of history was large and relatively empty. A person invents a tool in what is modern Spain and there is a very long while before it has any impact in what is now Canada. In the present, this is not so. Canada and Spain are no distance away at all, in terms of the Information Age.
If you play games like Sid Meier's Civilisation (currently in its fourth edition), you will see this replicated to some extent. Until you encounter another civilisation, there is absolutely no mutual impact from technological or social innovation on your part or on someone else's part. However, as civilisations begin to encounter each other, exchanges of information and technology occur and the world is wrenched asunder for some, improved for others. Nobody benefits from insularity or from trying to maintain superiority alone.
There is one exception: a power that grows exponentially by conquest without pausing to consolidate can possibly win by eliminating all significant rivals within the sphere of consideration. Even for this exception, the effects of human social behaviour will sooner or later act to brake expansion and cause revolution. The resulting centripetal force and its consequents will cause civilisations that expand too rapidly to fracture, decline in quality, or disastrously contract.
And all this you get by playing computer games for hours. How come? Because good computer game designers learn from history and try to model things so that they happen as they always have (in general) with a bit of random and unexpected stuff (as in real life). The problem is trying to guess the right proportion.
My guess is that there is no right proportion. Nothing is new under the sun; what most people won't guess, somebody has already guessed. The correct guesses are always in the minority, and often made for the wrong reasons when you look at the specifics. The wrong answers are always the majority, and they are often bolstered by retroactive creativity and plain self-deception, so that they look somewhat right.
Eventually, most of us will shake our heads, wave our hands, give a wry smile, scribble something down and call it a day. This is the foundation of history.
Labels: Civilisation, History, Society
etched with acid at 11:08:00 am
4 Comments:
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is especially interesting, because it explores the question, "are there some things in the human condition we cannot change?" As you might know, in the plot a bunch of colonists abandon the doomed Earth, hoping to found a new civilisation free of Earth's old plagues, but even before they land the colonists start fighting amongst themselves.
That's a... VERY old computer game. *grin* Well, there are always other things to read, each thing exposing some facet of the multifarious human condition.
So you do play (or once played) it!
There's still a thriving online community. In fact, I'm still spending a disproportionate amount of time with the game (when I should be tying loose ends for graduation).
At this moment I'm at M.Y. 2226 with Iron Man as Domai (expansion pack!) where I did share a rich continent with Deidre, who I've gone to Pact to Vendetta in two moves. Size 14 bases in the monsoon jungle, mind worms, gatling rovers and probe teams waiting to be unleashed from both sides, a race for the Xenoempathy Dome -- now this should be interesting...!
Hmm, this reminds me of a Chinese strategy -- I had to search all over Wikipedia to find it: 远交近攻. And it's true -- at this moment my current ally is far away, haha.
Although, can someone update me on Chinese military history? How exactly do you wage war on Qi on the other side of the Central Plains when other states are blocking you? Airdrop? Orbital insertion?
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