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Paths of Civilization

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BungieONI said:
Have less regrets basically?

Well how I've kept myself motivated and actually optimistic is well, actually a couple of things.

I know, comparatively, that the Ymaryn are amazing in the field of caring for people. Our public health works and tech, where many children can survive to adulthood. Our half-exile system which, while it can and is going wrong in places is quite good for the time. Our technology enriching the lives of all our citizens slowly. Our literature which clearly shows depth of understanding of the human condition. Our high crime rate makes me unhappy, but I both understand the cause and what we need to fix it. Our social structure needs improving, but it can be improved with time and effort. Our curious religion and wise priests. Our acts of basically saving at least millions of lives over the course of history since we got the Land of Opportunity line.
I can thus look at our neighbors and equivalent societies of the time from RL and I can say, we are actually doing pretty well. And that motivates me to do better because it makes me happy to do that. It's a fun challenge to tackle.

I can look at what we have wrought over time, and realize with joy that even if the Ymaryn fractured into warring states from a societal collapse that the general lot of humanity has actually been improved permanently, outside of this entire region being atomized by an impact. We have left an indelible mark on history and that kinda legacy is encouraging. We have beaten some insane odds to get here.

I can also just take a moment to think about the current state of affairs and realize that, really, it's all opportunities. We are actually doing well. These problems we face right now are rather terrifying and new, but they are actually easy to solve with some elbow grease and Civilizational WD-40. There is a clear solution and path to bringing the TS and RTH into our arms with minimum pain, it is only the exact steps and timing we have to figure out, instead of just fumbling around in the dark looking for even the barest fragment of a solution.


So yeah, I have hope and lots of it free to share.
Hope this helped.
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D'awwww this is making me all giddy and hopeful. Have some hugs!

Yeah, we're not 100% matching modern social values and quality of life yet. That's ok, we're still really damn good for the time. Progress in society is achieved mostly through hard work and resources, according to the peeps in the thread our lowest class is 1/4 of the size of most iron age lower classes, and our laws are specifically made to encourage health and happiness in our community.

If we keep this kind of thing up, I'm hopeful that we'll reach modern standards by our equivilant 1000-1500AD.
 
Dutch said:
With Life of Arete and Love for Wisdom there's a decent chance that in addition to that, you'll need to be able to properly recite the Tales of the Dragon from memory in the near future.
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How so? Life of Arete seems more perfectionist driven in your field then anything and while LoW places some value on learning for the sake of it it doesn't overwhelmingly value any one field like rhetoric. If anything you'd think that the two would help balance each other out, LoA allowing for excellence in your field to be what is prized makes competence highly valued while LoW helps to match the competence with the appropriate profession. While a great poet or artist might be prized they won't get an administrative position on the basis of "this guy is clearly cultured so he's the best fit" because they aren't seen as related.
 
Random thought: I wonder how the Ymaryn would fare against the Greek world, if we replace the Persians as invaders.

The Greeks are mostly heavy infantry, but the Ymaryn are heavily missile based troops backed by shield walls, with knowledge of combined arms warfare. I think we would have defeat the Greeks at Battle of Marathon and Thermopylae.
 
Sugnez said:
D'awwww this is making me all giddy and hopeful. Have some hugs!

Yeah, we're not 100% matching modern social values and quality of life yet. That's ok, we're still really damn good for the time. Progress in society is achieved mostly through hard work and resources, according to the peeps in the thread our lowest class is 1/4 of the size of most iron age lower classes, and our laws are specifically made to encourage health and happiness in our community.

If we keep this kind of thing up, I'm hopeful that we'll reach modern standards by our equivilant 1000-1500AD.
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D'awwws back.

Have a Hippo in thanks.



Modern standards by our equivalent of 1000-1500 AD? Sounds completely doable. *makes a quick estimate* It's been about six months since the quest started? Ish.

Give it about a year and we should get there. We'll have blown PMAS out of the water on page count by that point too!


Anyway on a different topic that just occurred to me, what's your guess on our next metal-based innovation?
Mine is layering of wrought iron and case hardened iron to make really really good blades. This is a cousin of what is used to forge ancient katanas.

Here are two articles about the history of metallurgy if you need/want.

Metallurgy.
HISTORY OF METALLURGY.
 
Like, there's a bunch of nasty stuff that I sort of glossed over/required additional thinking time to work out in full. Like, one of the big tools the patricians use to maintain power is the charge of "Wasting Resources". While this has the good use of whacking people who are doing stupid things, one of its primary abuses is how the patricians maintain their stranglehold on power. In the cities there is more of a balance of power with the guilds, but in rural areas where 90% of the population lives the minor patricians absolutely hoard access to literacy via the charge of "Wasting Resources", which means that they can fine and punish any literate person passing on their skills to a non-family member by claiming that they are wasting time (and thus government resources) doing so. This means that in most places the local headman and his sons and maybe the local shaman are the only ones literate. This gives enormous power to enforce the laws and collect and distribute taxes to the local authorities. Now, in larger settlements the guilds have fought for the right to treat apprentices the same as children for having the absolute right to pass along whatever skills they know, but the guilds are run at the top by the patricians and can be pretty cutthroat in their own right. Pretty much all positions of authority require 'an assessment of literacy by a competent authority (frequently your father/uncle)', and usually local council authority to appoint leaders is more of a process of picking from the sons in a small family than lifting up the truly most worthy member of the community.

Also, while technically they are supposed to recuse themselves if it involves something to do with them personally, the patricians are the ones who assign punishment. In most rural areas this means that the nearest 'impartial' judge is probably a day's walk away and related to the local head man anyway, and few who aren't literate know that they can theoretically force the issue, so doing things that cause harm to the local nobility can easily get you killed. Sleeping around with the patrician's daughter when you're not a good prospect and don't have a strong social network of your own gets him going "You raped my daughter, son (who is also the local leader of the militia), time for an execution!" Literally branding "Rapist" on the face followed by exile is also a popular method.
 
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Academia Nut said:
Like, there's a bunch of nasty stuff that I sort of glossed over/required additional thinking time to work out in full. Like, one of the big tools the patricians use to maintain power is the charge of "Wasting Resources". While this has the good use of whacking people who are doing stupid things, one of its primary abuses is how the patricians maintain their stranglehold on power. In the cities there is more of a balance of power with the guilds, but in rural areas where 90% of the population lives the minor patricians absolutely hoard access to literacy via the charge of "Wasting Resources", which means that they can fine and punish any literate person passing on their skills to a non-family member by claiming that they are wasting time (and thus government resources) doing so. This means that in most places the local headman and his sons and maybe the local shaman are the only ones literate. This gives enormous power to enforce the laws and collect and distribute taxes to the local authorities. Now, in larger settlements the guilds have fought for the right to treat apprentices the same as children for having the absolute right to pass along whatever skills they now, but the guilds are run at the top by the patricians and can be pretty cutthroat in their own right. Pretty much all positions of authority require 'an assessment of literacy by a competent authority (frequently your father/uncle)', and usually local council authority to appoint leaders is more of a process of picking from the sons in a small family than lifting up the truly most worthy member of the community.

Also, while technically they are supposed to recuse themselves if it involves something to do with them personally, the patricians are the ones who assign punishment. In most rural areas this means that the nearest 'impartial' judge is probably a day's walk away and related to the local head man anyway, and few who aren't literate know that they can theoretically force the issue, so doing things that cause harm to the local nobility can easily get you killed. Sleeping around with the patrician's daughter when you're not a good prospect and don't have a strong social network of your own gets him going "You raped my daughter, son (who is also the local leader of the militia), time for an execution!" Literally branding "Rapist" on the face followed by exile is also a popular method.
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Fun.

Can't see many ways of going about fixing this save by teching up or culturing up I fear, but just look in the world today.

This kinda stuff has not gone away.

Academia Nut said:
Several thousand years of technological progress.
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In short not till star trek.
 
Pretty much as predicted. You set up a meritocracy and the people in power WILL restrict access to the types of Merit that matter, and likewise shut down attempts to 'steal' their contact network.
 
Academia Nut said:
Like, there's a bunch of nasty stuff that I sort of glossed over/required additional thinking time to work out in full. Like, one of the big tools the patricians use to maintain power is the charge of "Wasting Resources". While this has the good use of whacking people who are doing stupid things, one of its primary abuses is how the patricians maintain their stranglehold on power. In the cities there is more of a balance of power with the guilds, but in rural areas where 90% of the population lives the minor patricians absolutely hoard access to literacy via the charge of "Wasting Resources", which means that they can fine and punish any literate person passing on their skills to a non-family member by claiming that they are wasting time (and thus government resources) doing so. This means that in most places the local headman and his sons and maybe the local shaman are the only ones literate. This gives enormous power to enforce the laws and collect and distribute taxes to the local authorities. Now, in larger settlements the guilds have fought for the right to treat apprentices the same as children for having the absolute right to pass along whatever skills they now, but the guilds are run at the top by the patricians and can be pretty cutthroat in their own right. Pretty much all positions of authority require 'an assessment of literacy by a competent authority (frequently your father/uncle)', and usually local council authority to appoint leaders is more of a process of picking from the sons in a small family than lifting up the truly most worthy member of the community.

Also, while technically they are supposed to recuse themselves if it involves something to do with them personally, the patricians are the ones who assign punishment. In most rural areas this means that the nearest 'impartial' judge is probably a day's walk away and related to the local head man anyway, and few who aren't literate know that they can theoretically force the issue, so doing things that cause harm to the local nobility can easily get you killed. Sleeping around with the patrician's daughter when you're not a good prospect and don't have a strong social network of your own gets him going "You raped my daughter, son (who is also the local leader of the militia), time for an execution!" Literally branding "Rapist" on the face followed by exile is also a popular method.
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Blegh. Once in a while, I can see the attraction of misanthropy.
 
veekie said:
Pretty much as predicted. You set up a meritocracy and the people WILL restrict access to the types of Merit that matter.
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Well duh :V

Humans are ass holes.

Humans back further in time are arguably bigger ass holes, but that's a whole nother rabbit mine, short answer is that humans tend to inherently trend towards greedy git.
 
gutza1 said:
@Academia Nut

What can we do to fix these issues? Will just having a Heroic Admin king be enough to give us the option to start a legal reform?
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We can't. We can ameliorate them somewhat eventually, but while our society remains primarily agrarian (that is before industrialization) these kind of abuses are unavoidable. The GM outright told us that the system as it is at the edge of plausibility in how egalitarian it is.

Edit: Blackbird'ed... a lot
 
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ctulhuslp said:
I...gueesss it is time for consolidation and a bit of inward focus, we are big enough already.
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NAY, WE MUST CONQUER THE WORLD AND FORCE OUR GLORIOUSLY ENLIGHTENED WAYS UPON THEM!! :(

I guess it's better than chattel slavery, right? And we ARE making progress toward tech that can support higher literacy...

Blegh
 
This is nothing new, guys. For those working up to a brand new round of moralizing. We knew it was going on, that any stable system of power means that the people in charge will work to make sure THEIR friends and family continue to be in charge instead of everyone else.

Any system that did not tended to crystallize into one that did.
If you made the government system so that only the oldest person in the country is king, boy you'd see the life expectancy of everyone outside the ruling family drop by 20 years.
 
DragonParadox said:
We can't. We can ameliorate them somewhat eventually, but while our society remains primarily agrarian (that is before industrialization) these kind of abuses are unavoidable. The GM outright told us that the system as it is at the edge of plausibility in how egalitarian is.
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Eh, my suspension of disbelief is more than strong enough because I try to have an appreciation that we find it hard to understand what an culture was actually like (the past is after all a foreign country).

I think that we're doing quite well and if it becomes a thing we can force on the women front then I say let em in the games.

Even if it's small it'll start things moving and set a good precedent for people to dig up later.

Also any word on homosexuality in the People? Good, Bad indicative of an unbalanced or more souls?
 
pblur said:
NAY, WE MUST CONQUER THE WORLD AND FORCE OUR GLORIOUSLY ENLIGHTENED WAYS UPON THEM!! :(

I guess it's better than chattel slavery, right? And we ARE making progress toward tech that can support higher literacy...

Blegh
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Just remember. We have time. And having time, means you get what you want eventually.

Success is inevitable when one cannot die.
 
Academia Nut said:
Like, there's a bunch of nasty stuff that I sort of glossed over/required additional thinking time to work out in full. Like, one of the big tools the patricians use to maintain power is the charge of "Wasting Resources". While this has the good use of whacking people who are doing stupid things, one of its primary abuses is how the patricians maintain their stranglehold on power. In the cities there is more of a balance of power with the guilds, but in rural areas where 90% of the population lives the minor patricians absolutely hoard access to literacy via the charge of "Wasting Resources", which means that they can fine and punish any literate person passing on their skills to a non-family member by claiming that they are wasting time (and thus government resources) doing so. This means that in most places the local headman and his sons and maybe the local shaman are the only ones literate. This gives enormous power to enforce the laws and collect and distribute taxes to the local authorities. Now, in larger settlements the guilds have fought for the right to treat apprentices the same as children for having the absolute right to pass along whatever skills they know, but the guilds are run at the top by the patricians and can be pretty cutthroat in their own right. Pretty much all positions of authority require 'an assessment of literacy by a competent authority (frequently your father/uncle)', and usually local council authority to appoint leaders is more of a process of picking from the sons in a small family than lifting up the truly most worthy member of the community.

Also, while technically they are supposed to recuse themselves if it involves something to do with them personally, the patricians are the ones who assign punishment. In most rural areas this means that the nearest 'impartial' judge is probably a day's walk away and related to the local head man anyway, and few who aren't literate know that they can theoretically force the issue, so doing things that cause harm to the local nobility can easily get you killed. Sleeping around with the patrician's daughter when you're not a good prospect and don't have a strong social network of your own gets him going "You raped my daughter, son (who is also the local leader of the militia), time for an execution!" Literally branding "Rapist" on the face followed by exile is also a popular method.
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Salinity levels are rising! She can't take much more of this capt'n!
 
Godwinson said:
"Hey, you wanted to play the good guys? Tough shit, you don't get to make that call."
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Article:
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Source: The Gulag Archipelago
 
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