In reading your message, it gradually dawned on me that we have completely
different conceptions of technological and knowledge development - my own
conception is probably unusual and may not accurately reflect the true nature of
technological development, but I think it has the potential to model the actual
progress of civilizations very well.

If I understand you correctly, you conceptualize knowledges as levels which are
achieved in a more or less binary fashion. I view knowledge on a sliding scale;
for instance, the early Germans who planted crops, harvested them, and then
burned everything and moved on, had a low "level of agriculture," whereas Romans
who made use of aqueducts and the three field system had a much higher "level of
agriculture."

Feel free to skip through this if you like (I think I had some aspects of
CULTURE and GOVERNMENT switched), but here is the full text I originally wrote
on each of the "five factors," just so that you can get a better idea of what I
mean:


________________________


AGRICULTURE

Level 0: Foragers who eat what nature gives them. While a few scattered crops
are grown in a haphazard fashion, organized farming is unknown to your people.
(Move is 1 to start out with.)

Level 1: Simple farming has developed, along with the wheel, pottery,
domestication of food animals, and horses to allow for cavalry; your pieces get
+1 move. You may have 1 development token on any land, and build farmsteads to
increase your lands’ max population.

Level 2: City structures have advanced, allowing for basic sanitation and
medicine, the three-field system, and advanced breeding techniques allowing a
wide variety of crops and well-bred mounts. Your pieces get +2 move, you may
have level 2 developments on your lands, and you may construct aqueducts to
further increase the maximum population of your lands.



INDUSTRY

Level 0: Your people have no understanding of metallurgy or stonemasonry, and
only very simple crafts, making exchanges through barter, or occasionally with
feathers, shells, or some other natural currency. They wear furs and skins, and
use tools fashioned from bone, rock, and wood. Warriors wield slings, fire
hardened spears, and knives of bone. (Warrior strength is 2 to start out with.)

Level 1: Your people have learned to cure wood and leather, and to work with
soft metals such as copper or tin, allowing them to develop shortswords, axes,
and bows. They use precious metals such as silver for money, weave cloth and
fashion attractive clothes out of simple dyes, and construct light armor for
their warriors. Warrior strength is at +1, and you may build walls to reduce the
strength of enemy attackers by 1.

Level 2: Specialists have learned to work with steel and fashion machines. Coins
are stamped with your visage. Your rich wear silks and delicate jewelry, the
poor benefit from of all manner of metal tools, and your soldiers wield elegant
swords, polearms, crossbows, and catapults. Warrior strength is at +2, and you
may construct guild-run marketplaces which produce 1 extra labor per turn.



CULTURE

Level 0: A savage, illiterate society, passing knowledge through folk songs and
fireside tales. Your people are ignorant of mathematical, literary,
philosophical and ethical systems. Females are treated like chattel and the sick
and elderly do not last long. (Unity is 3.)

Level 1: This is a barbarian society with rudimentary musical theory and art, a
broadly monogamous social system, simple writing, and basic arithmetic
principles. Your unity is +1, and you may build libraries.

Level 2: Your civilization has developed high culture, with knowledge of
advanced mathematical concepts like zero and pi, humane treatment of children,
women, the elderly, and the lower classes, extensive literature, and a
rudimentary science. Unity is at +2, and you may build universities.



GOVERNMENT

Level 0: A chaotic society lacking consistent laws and governmental or military
traditions. Warriors are disunited and follow their own individual whims. Morale
is +0 (that is, 3 at the start of the game).

Level 1: A caste structure has developed with well understood traditions
governing punishments and the levying of fines. The military has a simple
command structure with loyalty given to established commanders, and trade is
well regulated. Your morale is +1, and you may build roads.

Level 2: The society has developed an intricate code of laws and customs
including trial by jury, mandatory service in the army, a budding bureaucracy,
moneylenders and tax collectors, and an efficient military chain of command.
Your warriors are drilled, disciplined soldiers; morale is therefore at +2, and
you may build courthouses to decrease the stealth of enemy agents by 1.



NAVIGATION

Level 0: Your people do not enter water except to fish, or possibly to swim for
recreation. (Your agents have a basic stealth of 2.)

Level 1: Small boats and rafts have been developed, allowing for swift movement
along coastlines and rivers. Rudimentary navigation is carried out by sighting
the sun and stars. Trade flourishes with nearby nations, and your people begin
to learn foreign languages from frequent contact with other population. Your
agents are +1 stealth, and you may use longboats.

Level 2: Your people know how to navigate using lodestones and have extensive
maps of land and sea. They build great sea vessels and trade with faraway
nations, developing embassies and economic contracts allowing for effective
espionage. Your agents are +2 stealth, and you may build docks whence ships can
set sail.


_________________________



> > also the Mayans seemed to have good mathematics
> > and literacy, but I
> > thought they were also highly superstitious and
> > uncultured in other ways...)
>
> ams: Yes. For example, they, like the Aztecs and
> Inca, practiced human sacrifice.

Come to think of it, so did the ancient Celts, who also had good mathematics and
literacy. Do you think that our conceptions of humane treatment are an outgrowth
of some other technological advancements, then, or do you see them as a result
of leisure or some non-knowledge-based condition?


> 1. AGRICULTURE - Farming and domestication. Until a society learns
> to subsist through agriculture, it cannot remain stationary for long
> enough or in large enough groups to build any improvements onto a
> land. Knowledge in the Agriculture domain increases the travel speed
> of your units (via domestication).

> ams: It also can't accumulate lots of possessions, or libraries,
> or support either large populations or substantial numbers of
> persons involved in activities other than food acquisition.

Right. (Actually in the game I allowed races without agriculture to have roads,
walls, and other developments in their homelands, mostly just to smooth
gameplay, but also to symbolize close adaptation to the environment. For
instance, a race which evolved for the last thousand years in a stretch of
deserts could build developments desert regions, but not other areas.)


> There are no disease epidemics, because sanitation is
> not a great problem in nomadic societies, and because
> our most serious diseases were acquired from the
> enslavement--oops, I mean "domestication"--of animals
> which is based on a agrarian and herding economies.

(Seekers are always talking about domestication/slavery issues. It's obvious
that animals and children are slaves. For the most part, they seem to enjoy it.
So why is "slavery" viewed with such horror? Modern society is deeply confused.
You may remember that my amateur research discovered a large correlation between
a society's average IQ as reported by Lynn & Vanhanen, and its PDI as reported
by Hofstede. Low E, low O, and high C also make for higher PDI scores. I'll bet
that the average American with an IQ below average, an E score below average, an
O score below average, and a C score above average, would probably take very
well to the life of a slave. If you look at it that way, Americans had it all
wrong - they should have used Amerindians rather than Africans.)


> However, I would make farming and domestication separate
> factors. Nomadic herdsmen can and do exist without farming,
> and farmers (hoe agriculture) can and do exist without
> domesticated animals.

It does seem that farming and domestication tend to be related, though,
especially in light of your previous comment. Do you believe that the exceptions
are so common as to suggest that there is no trend?


> 2. INDUSTRY - Crafts, metalworking, and trade.
>
> crafts and trade are innovations of pleistocene hunter-gatherers.
> Metalworking was later and many societies never developed it.
> Mining and metalworking seem to depend on the development
> of agriculture and settled lifestyles. I think it should be a
> separate factor from industry, because manufacturing and trade
> have often existed without metals of any kind.

I am aware of this, and it doesn't by itself mean that metalworking and crafts
are separate; I interpret it to mean that mining and metalworking represent more
advanced development in industry. Obviously societies with a strong
metallurgical background would have far more advanced tools for cutting stone,
blowing glass, tailoring clothes, cutting gems, producing money, and creating
machines. And, trade should benefit from more goods of better quality and
greater variety.


> (BTW, I believe we are still in the Pleistocene and this
> renaming of our era as the "Holocene" is a purely
> anthropocentric conceit based on no objective criteria.)

Eh, I don't know what either term means.


> I would add these three as separate factors to your list:
>
> MONEY
> LITERACY
> NUMERACY

> See below for my reasoning on literacy and numeracy.

I read through your post, and I don't think literacy and numeracy are separate
factors.

I do think you make a good case for changing the nature of GOVERNMENT and
CULTURE, or possibly splitting one of them into more factors. I agree that
religion fits very nicely in with government. Perhaps nationalism could be a
factor of CULTURE, or even vice versa? (Probably one smart thing to do would be
to have Culture boost combat morale, and government boost domestic unity and
obedience.)


> The arts in particular may have originated as a human equivalent
> to the peacock's tale (sexy son hypothesis). Religion seems to
> serve a fundamentally different social function from art, one
> that is more fundamental to collective survival, so I would make
> ART and RELIGION separate factors.

The comparison with art and peacock feathers is common among Seekers. Do you
think they heard of that from somewhere else, or is it merely an obvious
connection to make? (By the way, my own argument that aesthetics is a natural
outgrowth of intelligence seems to have become widespread throughout
Millennium.)


> Until very recently in human history (and no doubt prehistory),
> RELIGION and GOVERNMENT/LAW were very closely related. Art and
> religion are both of great antiquity and human universals.
> Science (not the same thing as technology) is not. It's
> basically a European invention of the 17th century. I would
> make SCIENCE a separate factor.

This is what clued me into the fact that we're conceptualizing these issues
differently. True science, or even rudimentary science, is obviously an advanced
invention, yes. However, I conceptualize science as an outgrowth of other,
earlier "intellectual" developments such as literacy, numeracy, religion, and
philosophy, and therefore as a higher level of development in the same area. No
society with even rudimentary science (of which we are aware) ever lacked
literacy, numeracy, religion, or philosophy.


> (Nationalism) was an amazing innovation, one which forever
> eluded the ancient Greek city-states. There is also a close
> relationship between nationalism and popular participation or
> representation in government; basically, I think the sustenance
> of national solidarity requires some form of popular
> representation.

This does seem related to what I'd conceived of as "CULTURE." Do you agree that
art, literature, philosophy, and similar breakthroughs also help to foster or
lead up to nationalism? If so, nationalism would work well as an aspect (or
"sub-factor," if you like) of CULTURE.


--Mark


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