Push the button already

[Doktor Howl]

2. i think one fundamental change would be to refocus our attention from productivity and technological progress to efficiency and social progress -

One leads to the other.  Never at a uniform rate, but it's still true.

You aren't anyone's chattel property.
You are not by law bound to the land you live on.
You are not bound by law to a religion.

All of these things were caused or partially caused by increased technology.

Example:  Slavery prior to the invention of the horse collar was an economic necessity, if you wanted food to be available.  Not necessary for profit, but actually necessary.  Further explanation as requested.

Necessary to support (ab)users of what kind of system?

Early agriculture?

Horses and oxen without a horse collar can do the work of 3 men on 7 quarts of wheat.
A man requires one quart of wheat.

Horses or oxen WITH horse collars can do the work of 11 men on 7 quarts of wheat.


So without the horse collar, you had to have humans pulling a plow, because horse and oxen used more grain that could be managed for the amount of work done.

After the horse collar, humans could generate enough excess food to support artisans.  Which is a hell of a lot better than literally hauling a plow.

[Nibor the Priest]

Example:  Slavery prior to the invention of the horse collar was an economic necessity, if you wanted food to be available.  Not necessary for profit, but actually necessary.  Further explanation as requested.

I'm not seeing this. So many humans can produce so much food in so many days, with or without horse collars (or combine harvesters or crop spraying planes, etc.) How they split the labour and the food isn't a matter of technology.

If a small percentage of them are "enslaving" the rest, i.e. doing no work and eating more than their share of the food, why and for whom is that a necessity?

[Junkenstein]

For those not doing the work, there is nothing more important.

[The Johnny]

Example:  Slavery prior to the invention of the horse collar was an economic necessity, if you wanted food to be available.  Not necessary for profit, but actually necessary.  Further explanation as requested.

I'm not seeing this. So many humans can produce so much food in so many days, with or without horse collars (or combine harvesters or crop spraying planes, etc.) How they split the labour and the food isn't a matter of technology.

If a small percentage of them are "enslaving" the rest, i.e. doing no work and eating more than their share of the food, why and for whom is that a necessity?

You should join Freeky's farm, I'm sure you could "produce so much food in so many days".

[Nibor the Priest]

You should join Freeky's farm, I'm sure you could "produce so much food in so many days".

I think you've misunderstood me, I'm not sure if "so many" is a local dialect thing. It means a fixed amount, not a large amount. I'll rephrase.

X number of people can produce Y amount of food in Z days. If you don't have any technology, Y is small, but I don't see how it gets any better if there's an X+1th person enslaving all the rest.

[Doktor Howl]

You should join Freeky's farm, I'm sure you could "produce so much food in so many days".

I think you've misunderstood me, I'm not sure if "so many" is a local dialect thing. It means a fixed amount, not a large amount. I'll rephrase.

X number of people can produce Y amount of food in Z days. If you don't have any technology, Y is small, but I don't see how it gets any better if there's an X+1th person enslaving all the rest.

If you are supporting the farmers themselves, nothing is necessary.

Only there's those nomad bastards up in the hills, just waiting for harvest, so they can come get some.  So you have to have some guards.  Those guards need metal weapons.  Someone has to dig up that metal, and someone has to smelt it, and someone has to forge it.  Also, someone has to run the granaries, etc.

So you have two options:  Either use some of those bastard nomads you caught as surplus labor, or put all of your people in the fields, so those nomad bastards can have a nice meal come September.

Then someone comes along and makes horses and oxen suddenly economical.  Now you don't have to put nomad bastards in the fields, if you have better things to do with them.  Such as trade them back for captured villagers, or just teach them a lesson they're never gonna forget.

[Nibor the Priest]

So you have two options:  Either use some of those bastard nomads you caught as surplus labor

But now you've got to feed them as well. The ratio of "people available to work" to "people who need to eat" hasn't changed.

[Doktor Howl]

So you have two options:  Either use some of those bastard nomads you caught as surplus labor

But now you've got to feed them as well. The ratio of "people available to work" to "people who need to eat" hasn't changed.

Assuming of course that one person generates enough food for precisely one person.

But you're right, of course, the observable data supports that we are still 300 dirt farmers along the Tigris River.

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to unng you now.

[Nibor the Priest]

So you have two options:  Either use some of those bastard nomads you caught as surplus labor

But now you've got to feed them as well. The ratio of "people available to work" to "people who need to eat" hasn't changed.

Assuming of course that one person generates enough food for precisely one person.

I haven't assumed that at all. The ratio of food produced to people who need to eat hasn't really changed either. You're the one saying there was no surplus in the first place.

(Ok, maybe it has a little because now a higher proportion of the population is farming. But you could have set that proportion among your own people in the first place.)

But you're right, of course, the observable data supports that we are still 300 dirt farmers along the Tigris River.

Dude, if I wanted to see someone burning strawmen I'd go hang out in the desert with 70,000 stoners.

[Doktor Howl]

UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NG

[Doktor Howl]

You're the one saying there was no surplus in the first place.

Please quote me on that one.

[Doktor Howl]

Dude, if I wanted to see someone burning strawmen I'd go hang out in the desert with 70,000 stoners.

Okay, I think we're done here.

[Nibor the Priest]

Thank fuck for that.

[Doktor Howl]

Thank fuck for that.

Kiss my ass until it blisters.   

[The Johnny]

Look Nyborj, im by no means the greetings committee on the forum nor i can speak for anyone else, but your schtick of being the "feelings police"... that job is already taken by Cramulus, and he's way better at it due to him knowing all parties involved here with the plus of not being condescending in a passive aggressive manner, nor doing some performative virtue signaling.

And the fault in communication is not about "not understanding what youre saying". Its not fucking quantum physics, we all can read well beyond 3rd grader levels of complexity. The point is not about how production and distribution of labour CAN work, but how it HISTORICALLY has worked.