Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!news.quux.org!eternal-september.org!feeder2.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The joy of actual numbers, was Democracy
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 09:16:32 +0000
Organization: A little, after lunch
Lines: 50
Message-ID: <vfvhtg$2khfc$2@dont-email.me>
References: <pan$96411$d204da43$cc34bb91$1fe98651@linux.rocks>
 <2ItTO.338744$v8v2.95701@fx18.iad> <vfltbc$7ek$1@gal.iecc.com>
 <ASCTO.586560$1m96.217020@fx15.iad> <vfpc6g$a0p$1@gal.iecc.com>
 <B17UO.740251$_o_3.409662@fx17.iad> <GV9UO.301902$kxD8.146393@fx11.iad>
 <loct65F6l90U2@mid.individual.net>
 <199392d0-9628-8177-2f3b-35b23a721dd4@example.net>
 <lodc4vF8rrjU1@mid.individual.net>
 <ddb44c1a-b458-5cce-b4d1-6258677f5621@example.net>
 <vft5ai$24n5h$1@dont-email.me>
 <086607f1-2283-f7fb-ddf9-ac4766b06530@example.net>
 <log009Fm2poU1@mid.individual.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 10:16:32 +0100 (CET)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="cd9f8fdb28045ee05676ae99ea387d4f";
	logging-data="2770412"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19gJKmNJnFW0MSowDxZwBT9PPDBlmpWowQ="
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Cancel-Lock: sha1:xHIRR7ECMntGYBjCR0hf2bbXwt8=
In-Reply-To: <log009Fm2poU1@mid.individual.net>
Content-Language: en-GB
Bytes: 3831

On 31/10/2024 00:06, rbowman wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2024 18:33:25 +0100, D wrote:
> 
>> But as we've done in the past, we learn the lessons, start again. End of
>> civilization? Hardly. A bump in the road, definitely.
> 
> I haven't read Tainter but I have visited most the the Chaco culture sites
> in the US SW. Chaco Canyon is particularly impressive, in the size of the
> primary site and the network of roads to the outliers. The roads are
> enigmatic. There is no evidence the Ansazi used the wheel although there
> are children's pull toys that show they understood the concept.
> 
I wasn't aware of this culture. Amazing and thanks for pointing it out, 
irrespective of the context of this thread.
> The culture is gone. The same can be said for the Mound Builders in the
> eastern US. You might say civilization was alive and well in contemporary
> Europe, but it was vanishing in the Americas about a millennium ago.
> 
Yes. The usual explanation is climate change.

Horses are a sort of 4x4 I supposes.  So it was emissions from horses 
asses what done it, presumably.


> He was a one trick pony but Miller's 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' os the
> more likely account of the future.

I read it amongst several thousand others, but have forgotten the 
plot...googles frantically. Ah yes. akin to the dark ages preservation 
of Classical knowledge in monasteries.

I was thinking of that period. Rome's rule over NW Europe became 
unsustainable as the communications lines of both products and political 
decisions simply got too long.  The NW European states were simply 
uneconomic to maintain, same as the USA was to Britain. Although it 
didn't descend *quite* as far into barbarism...

It took 500 years to begin to re-emerge and 1000 to escape the legacy of 
the Graeco Roman culture and start its own - the Renaissance.

And that lasted about 500 years and now the new Dark Ages are upon us, 
ruled by superstition,  fear and local war lords.

-- 
  “A leader is best When people barely know he exists. Of a good leader, 
who talks little,When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,They will say, 
“We did this ourselves.”

― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching