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Every tribe of nomadic or semi nomadic hunter gatherers have been, by defninition, sustainable societies...and history has shown time and time again that a natural disaster, even a small one by our standards is enough to send them into extinction.
Every sustainable anything has demonstrated that by sustaining.
Until they failed. The societies that succeeded..the ones we read about, are those that provided more for their citizens. Those are the societies that had a built in safety margin.
The ones you talk about are those that we know of thanks to archeology.
Every sustainable anything has demonstrated that by sustaining.
Until they failed. The societies that succeeded..the ones we read about, are those that provided more for their citizens. Those are the societies that had a built in safety margin.
The ones you talk about are those that we know of thanks to archeology.
It would help the discussion if you provided references.
Old Rocks and I have already provided reference disproving your hypothesis:
Romans , Mayans, Rapa Nui, Anazasi, none of them were sustainable.
Mongols were sustainable in a rather uncanny manner, to date they have been the only civilization to successfully conquer Russia in a winter campaign.
Until they failed. The societies that succeeded..the ones we read about, are those that provided more for their citizens. Those are the societies that had a built in safety margin.
The ones you talk about are those that we know of thanks to archeology.
It would help the discussion if you provided references.
Old Rocks and I have already provided reference disproving your hypothesis:
Romans , Mayans, Rapa Nui, Anazasi, none of them were sustainable.
Mongols were sustainable in a rather uncanny manner, to date they have been the only civilization to successfully conquer Russia in a winter campaign.
Really? The Romans existed for longer than the US has been around. The Eastern Roman empire lasted for 5 times longer than the US has been around. They were marcher states for the majority of that time. They failed when they stopped working and became welfare (sustainable) states. The Mongol Empire was the least "sustainable". So long as Temujin was around they were THE marcher state to end all marcher states. They conquered more than the known world...but, by the time of Kublai, they were no longer Mongol, they were Chinese. They had adopted the Chinese culture completely and once again became a welfare state and failed. Though as an interesting aside it was a law that a direct blood descendant of Temujin be in the government till the present day. Se HE was sustainable in a bizarre way.
Read some history.
Really? The Romans existed for longer than the US has been around. The Eastern Roman empire lasted for 5 times longer than the US has been around. They were marcher states for the majority of that time. They failed when they stopped working and became welfare (sustainable) states. The Mongol Empire was the least "sustainable". So long as Temujin was around they were THE marcher state to end all marcher states. They conquered more than the known world...but, by the time of Kublai, they were no longer Mongol, they were Chinese. They had adopted the Chinese culture completely and once again became a welfare state and failed. Though as an interesting aside it was a law that a direct blood descendant of Temujin be in the government till the present day. Se HE was sustainable in a bizarre way.
Read some history.
Really? The Romans existed for longer than the US has been around. The Eastern Roman empire lasted for 5 times longer than the US has been around. They were marcher states for the majority of that time. They failed when they stopped working and became welfare (sustainable) states. The Mongol Empire was the least "sustainable". So long as Temujin was around they were THE marcher state to end all marcher states. They conquered more than the known world...but, by the time of Kublai, they were no longer Mongol, they were Chinese. They had adopted the Chinese culture completely and once again became a welfare state and failed. Though as an interesting aside it was a law that a direct blood descendant of Temujin be in the government till the present day. Se HE was sustainable in a bizarre way.
Read some history.
The Romans were a simple city-state for longer than the US has existed.
By 330 they were not much more than a handfull of provinces tied together. No surprise Alexander the Great didn't bother in conquering them.
It was not until 260 BC that they became a respectable power with the punic wars.
By 400 AD there was not much left of the Roman Empire.
Romans down was mainly caused by war and corruption . They were not sustainable they depended largely on Egypt for grain and on their conquests for cheap labour (slaves) and gold.
The Byzantine empire lasted very long, but by 718 it was reduced to Greece , southern Italy and modern Turkey after several years of wars with the Arabs.
In spite of your rant you fail to make the point on how historic "sustainable" societies from the past have collapsed.
Where you the one that cited Jared Diamonds book? As good an explanation as I've seen on why civilizations who fail, do so. They don't consider sustainability and consume without thought necessary resources until they're gone. They fail because they don't plan to be sustainable.
Where you the one that cited Jared Diamonds book? As good an explanation as I've seen on why civilizations who fail, do so. They don't consider sustainability and consume without thought necessary resources until they're gone. They fail because they don't plan to be sustainable.
Though I've read the book , the one who quoted it was "old rocks".
An enticing reading.
It would help the discussion if you provided references.
Old Rocks and I have already provided reference disproving your hypothesis:
Romans , Mayans, Rapa Nui, Anazasi, none of them were sustainable.
Mongols were sustainable in a rather uncanny manner, to date they have been the only civilization to successfully conquer Russia in a winter campaign.
Really? The Romans existed for longer than the US has been around. The Eastern Roman empire lasted for 5 times longer than the US has been around. They were marcher states for the majority of that time. They failed when they stopped working and became welfare (sustainable) states. The Mongol Empire was the least "sustainable". So long as Temujin was around they were THE marcher state to end all marcher states. They conquered more than the known world...but, by the time of Kublai, they were no longer Mongol, they were Chinese. They had adopted the Chinese culture completely and once again became a welfare state and failed. Though as an interesting aside it was a law that a direct blood descendant of Temujin be in the government till the present day. Se HE was sustainable in a bizarre way.
Read some history.
How could you have done all of that reading if you don't know simple word definitions like the difference between "welfare" and "sustainable"?
Really? The Romans existed for longer than the US has been around. The Eastern Roman empire lasted for 5 times longer than the US has been around. They were marcher states for the majority of that time. They failed when they stopped working and became welfare (sustainable) states. The Mongol Empire was the least "sustainable". So long as Temujin was around they were THE marcher state to end all marcher states. They conquered more than the known world...but, by the time of Kublai, they were no longer Mongol, they were Chinese. They had adopted the Chinese culture completely and once again became a welfare state and failed. Though as an interesting aside it was a law that a direct blood descendant of Temujin be in the government till the present day. Se HE was sustainable in a bizarre way.
Read some history.
The Romans were a simple city-state for longer than the US has existed.
By 330 they were not much more than a handfull of provinces tied together. No surprise Alexander the Great didn't bother in conquering them.
It was not until 260 BC that they became a respectable power with the punic wars.
By 400 AD there was not much left of the Roman Empire.
Romans down was mainly caused by war and corruption . They were not sustainable they depended largely on Egypt for grain and on their conquests for cheap labour (slaves) and gold.
The Byzantine empire lasted very long, but by 718 it was reduced to Greece , southern Italy and modern Turkey after several years of wars with the Arabs.
In spite of your rant you fail to make the point on how historic "sustainable" societies from the past have collapsed.
Where you the one that cited Jared Diamonds book? As good an explanation as I've seen on why civilizations who fail, do so. They don't consider sustainability and consume without thought necessary resources until they're gone. They fail because they don't plan to be sustainable.
Though I've read the book , the one who quoted it was "old rocks".
An enticing reading.
I gotta go with "If a civilization failed, it wasn't sustainable" as a sweeping, vague, over generalization. If we just have to make vague and generalized statement, that seems right.
I consider anything at the 60% level as being an over generalization. It is 10% over fifty fifty, 20% more than the lesser 40%. 90% is my minimum for a generalization.
I am sure, if we listed civalizations and the reason for failure, it will be a hard caae to say that 90% of them failed because of being sustainable. I am sure it would be a hard case to be made that most sustainable civilizations failed for reasons of being sustainable. If anything, and I am not a historian by any stretch of the imagination, I still feel confident in suggesting that any societies we might find that were "sustainable" failed when they were obliterated by some outside invading army.
, Having problems with coherence I see...
I gotta go with "If a civilization failed, it wasn't sustainable" as a sweeping, vague, over generalization. If we just have to make vague and generalized statement, that seems right.
I consider anything at the 60% level as being an over generalization. It is 10% over fifty fifty, 20% more than the lesser 40%. 90% is my minimum for a generalization.
I am sure, if we listed civalizations and the reason for failure, it will be a hard caae to say that 90% of them failed because of being sustainable. I am sure it would be a hard case to be made that most sustainable civilizations failed for reasons of being sustainable. If anything, and I am not a historian by any stretch of the imagination, I still feel confident in suggesting that any societies we might find that were "sustainable" failed when they were obliterated by some outside invading army.
4. Sustaining our quality of life, economic prosperity, environmental health, and long-term survival demands that we adopt new ways of doing business. We need to remake commerce to encourage diversity and variety, responding to the enormous complexity of global and local conditions. Big business is not about appropriateness and adaptability, but about power and market control. Greens support small business, responsible stakeholder capitalism, and broad and diverse forms of economic cooperation. We argue that economic diversity is more responsive than big business to the needs of diverse human populations.
Sustainable = Broke-ass subsistence dirt farmers.
An utterly simplistic read. No wonder you like it. He ignored vast amounts of information just on the Greenland Vikings in one case, just so he could make his case.
Cherry picking in the extreme. I suggest you look at some of the more recent peer reviewed archeological information that has come out over the last ten years.
That's the problem with all of you. You read something that just touches the surface and somehow think you're experts all the while ignoring the vast ocean of information that's out there.
Sustainable = Broke-ass subsistence dirt farmers.
You were soooo close..
Sustainable = Broke-ass HAPPY subsistence organic HEMP farmers...
An utterly simplistic read. No wonder you like it. He ignored vast amounts of information just on the Greenland Vikings in one case, just so he could make his case.
Cherry picking in the extreme. I suggest you look at some of the more recent peer reviewed archeological information that has come out over the last ten years.
That's the problem with all of you. You read something that just touches the surface and somehow think you're experts all the while ignoring the vast ocean of information that's out there.
Although I can't vouch for his research on Vikings, I have several books and documentaries on the mayans. And his findings coinceed with the current arqueological findings of Mayan decadence.
Also, in Rapa Nui the harsh truth is self-evident if you take a look at the island: it has no trees at all. The explotation of their forests was not sustainable and brought them to a civilizational collapse.
What I find so unsettling about your comments is the fact that you haven't provided a single reference to support your statements.
Sustainable = Broke-ass subsistence dirt farmers.
You were soooo close..
Sustainable = Broke-ass HAPPY subsistence organic HEMP farmers...
Discover the 10 most sustainable countries | SWU Starts with you
Sure , those darn lo-tech swiss farmers ... I am sure they will be the main cause of a near-future contrywide collapse.
