How Globalization and Climate change destroyed Ancient Civilization

jimmyx
Asian and Indian society were far more advanced than those in the "west" in 3200 BC....the middle eastern and European cultures gained an enormous amount of knowledge with the limited contact they had back then with the far east. it is highly arrogant to think that human advancement depended on middle eastern and European societies.

edit on 30-3-2014 by jimmyx because: spell

i agree
and i would like to add that it is also highly arrogant to think that "Living With Technology" is more advanced than Living WithOut Technology".

peace

Of course, there are significant correlations to be found between ancient civilisations and our own of today, the difference being that contemporary civilisation is far more globalised and interconnected, and probably more fragile because of its dependence on fossil fuels, electricity, and technology. Therein will lay the demise of our globalised and interconnected civilisation. We can also add another ingredient to the mix that will also lead to the current civilisation's demise, and that is the need for fresh water.

The world is undergoing global climate change, shifting weather patterns, and the destabilising of normal and temperate expected seasons. We already see areas of the planet that are becoming uninhabitable to humans and other life forms on land and sea, and this will cause migrations, and in human terms...conflict. As the technological countries seek to maintain their technological grip, and to maintain the resources to feed that technology, and thus to retain their levels of lifestyle, they will need to seek the resources elsewhere, other than local. Again, this will lead to conflict. It will be either your country or my country that falls. It is inevitable, because the resources we all similarly need are finite, and are quickly coming to the point where we cannot extract them with ease or low cost. Fracking, for instance, is a measure of desperation, bringing with it local seismic and contaminating problems, and is a sign of normal resource depletion. Fracking wouldn't be happening if normal resources were not coming to depletion levels.

Of course, no one will be told that resources are depleting, but that everything is fine, continue as normal. We've already seen the West make resource grabs in Iraq, but disguised as a humanitarian action, and we'll no doubt see a few more.

History repeats because of human needs and wants, and the problem for our species is that we are not advanced enough with philosophical maturity, nor capable of summoning up the will to act correctly and empathetically towards each other. All the ways we have become globally connected will eventually fracture and become disconnected out of resource necessity. Economies will eventually contract and shrink, and you will see this through the continued adjustments made to them. Eventually, conflict will take us by the scruff of the neck and take us out, probably within the next century.

Our species is not advanced enough to take to the stars, so we are stuck for the foreseeable future on this planet scrapping for the resources. The current global civilisation is at the beginning of its end, and that end will come at us ever more rapidly, unless we can find a way to stave it off, but that would require the will to correct action, and I won't hold my breath on that score.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Good one. And then there's that thing about lead water pipes in Rome.

F&S

reply to post by SLAYER69


There's a guy named James Demeo that talks about desertification causing the rise of war and social classes. I'm reading a book called "the fall" by Taylor. Same concept but you can read Demeo online free. The thesis is that prior to this climate change people were egalitarian, living in advanced communities that did not have much violence. It's pretty far out of my zone so I have no clue to the veracity of these claims.

Quauhtli
I think this is an interesting subject that needs a closer look. For instance, what are the natural tendencies that bring us to this predicament over and over? What civilisations, or communities have designed their cultures to avoid this conflict? How can we focus on these destructive natural tendencies and try and absolve them, or use them to our benefit?

Some Native folklore warns against this very thing. Some of these same people seem to have avoided this conflict as well, but that same strength seems possibly to have been their downfall as well, because these types seem to be easily absorbed by other less friendly peoples.

There is definitely something worth learning here.

I think the best example is Easter Island, a small island out in the Pacific where one civilization broke down into competing factions for resources. They end up having "bird man" races to determine who took priority over resources. Their demand for trees for heating fuel, building boats, building homes, building those stone monuments was so much that they cut down every last tree - meaning that they just couldn't even build a canoe and go out and fish. They effectively trapped themselves in a Logan's Run type dome.

The Sea Peoples were thought to be Greek. But there were so many wars and battles between the city states, as well as invasions from the North, it is hard to identify any group. They may have formed an alliance to bring peace between themselves by attacking the Egyptians and Hittites

upload.wikimedia.org...

They say history repeats itself, someone said it rhymes, I think it's cyclical.
But I also think trying to wrap your head around a concept like that requires higher levels of consciousness.
A greatly expanded mind.

All I get is a hunch, a rudimentary ghost compared to the true understanding that I know is out there.

Very interesting stuff nonetheless.

ABNARTY
I was thinking about something similar earlier today.

3200 years ago humans were much closer to their environment. They most likely had a better understanding of their natural world. They were also much more self reliant. No electricity, most food was locally grown, folks made what they needed, community was critical. Granted, through trade,they were interdependent to a degree but not like a modern human who gets 99% of what they need off a store shelf and would have no clue how to procure the same goods if that store was to disappear.

If similar circumstances befall humanity today, it sure would not take decades for a decline. More like months.

The short version: the greater degree humans are reliant on technology they do not understand, the greater the impact of periodic social collapse like you mentioned.

But they were entirely dependent on weather conditions for a good harvest to provide food to eat during Winter. Today, every variety of food is traded internationally, so a bad harvest in one region hardly affects the price. One volcanic eruption back then, there's a bad harvest, and next thing there are wars, pestilence, famines and plagues if they couldn't find something to trade.

Cool thread, as usual.

Both history and nature do seem to be repeating themselves, and maybe one does follow the other.

Regarding globalization, as with anything it's all about balance and priorities and for some reason the priorities always seem to lean toward weapons rather than caring about people. I will never get this. Voting once more for a global prime directive.

Regarding climate change, rumor has it that Africa will be the new happening spot again, and watching the actions of some of the heavy players seems to be bearing this out.

reply to post by stormcell


While I have no argument weather did have significant effect on local populations we need to put in a broad perspective. Perhaps I was not clear.

For a modern American living in an urban area, their external needs are daily. Water, heat, light, shelter, etc. Remove those and the impact is immediate. What's worse is our urban American most likely is clueless how to make any of those things happen outside of Walmart or a switch on the wall. While it is true weather effects parts of the globe differently as far as food production is concerned, duplication of agricultural sources is a very shallow stop-gap.

For most of human history, this is not true. Early humans spent a lot of time on the move. If the food was sparse or conditions poor in one area, they could move. The point is they had the skills to make it happen. Granted the globe was far less populated and this was easier to accomplish.

With regards to the OP and early human settlement, those skills were still rich in the culture. They were not quaint, foggy notions our modern urban American read about in a book someplace, inaccessible tools of unknown utility.

One has to be careful not to conflate the two major bronze age collapses, one centered in Mesopotamia in the 22nd century bc, and the later one at 1620's in the eastern med.
Both events manifest themselves as climate induced, but they are way more complicated than just that.

The identity and history of the Sea People is largely lost to us due to the utter destruction of ancient repositories of knowledge by invading armies, such as the Mongols in China and modern day Iraq, and religious decree such as with the great library and museum complex in Alexandria. Stored knowledge is a huge obstacle for up-and-coming groups Hell-bent on power grabs and has happened all over the world on many occasions, wiping out a huge portion of human history which leaves us with excavating pottery fragments and ancient latrines as the primary means of understanding our past.

zardust
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

There's a guy named James Demeo that talks about desertification causing the rise of war and social classes. I'm reading a book called "the fall" by Taylor. Same concept but you can read Demeo online free. The thesis is that prior to this climate change people were egalitarian, living in advanced communities that did not have much violence. It's pretty far out of my zone so I have no clue to the veracity of these claims.

There is some validity in that assertion but it has to be taken within the context of the dessication being a 'normal' cyclical event, punctuated by subpluvial periods. As a species we adapted to those periods of dessication by developing technologically to allow us to store food and water, and thus, insure against shortage and hardship. This in turn led to agricultural developments, which in turn led to the adoption of sedentary lifestyles, and it is in this combination, of storage and fixed territories, that social disparity emerged as ownership and control of resources became a social factor, and which laid the foundations for sustained conflict both within the group and from those outside of it.

Conflict for resources has always been a part of human history though, settled lifestyles simply exacerbated, as well as targeted, that conflict.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


Do you think that these "pre-fall" people were non-violent (as far as war and retribution go)? The concept of a global neolithic civilization seems to keep coming up. This is all pretty new info to me.

zardust
reply to post by KilgoreTrout

 

Do you think that these "pre-fall" people were non-violent (as far as war and retribution go)? The concept of a global neolithic civilization seems to keep coming up. This is all pretty new info to me.

Evidence suggests that they could be very violent when the need arose. Much depends upon the environment of course, natural selection demands conflict in the harshest of environments. Northern Europeans, for example, would battle it out for mating rights and in doing so, they ensured their survival. There is also certainly some evidence of humans hunting other humans too, during the ice age, when resources were at a premium. In most human groups, when times were hard, the weakest or least productive were 'exposed' or left to die in order to ensure the survival of the group. Once we became settled, it became easier to raid the stores of other groups, even wiping out the that other group, in order to gain access to food. However, even in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic evidence has been found of violent competition for resources, prime fishing, gathering and hunting spots, particularly during periods of environmental change, sea and land levels rising, changes in weather cycles.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


Thanks. Have you read any of the authors that posit overall non-violence in Pre-Historic peoples? From what I've seen they tend to fall in "feminist" studies.

To me it's depressing to think that the more things change the more they stay the same and many peoples outlook on this subject is that we are destined or forced to make the same mistakes of the past. I would like to remain hopeful that the human race is ultimately in control of it's own destiny and that we can find solutions to the problem's confronting the world today. There will always be those who try to prevent change in order to hold on to material things that they have become obsessed with in their lives. Change happens one way or the other whether we like it or not and nothing at least in this plane of existence lasts forever but we can at least try to make it to the next stage after all that is human nature to evolve and change. We are just a tiny fragment of a huge cosmos which is proven by scientist's to date back far before we even existed and will continue long after our sun has died and the earth is gone it must be possible for a species to advance far enough and fast enough to be able to transcend this finality. I Think therefore I am.

punkinworks10
One has to be careful not to conflate the two major bronze age collapses, one centered in Mesopotamia in the 22nd century bc, and the later one at 1620's in the eastern med.
Both events manifest themselves as climate induced, but they are way more complicated than just that.

Sure, there was climate change going on in Mesopotamia c. 2200 BCE, but I've read a great number of Mesopotamian texts dealing with that era.

The people in Sumer and the Agade weren't griping about climate change; their god, Enlil, had become infuriated because the king, Naram Sin, had dared to damage Enlil's temple in Nippur. Enlil went on the rampage and ordered the "Guitian hordes" (the mountain tribes) to attack the people of Sumer and the Agade. The texts report that they burned all the orchards and fields to the ground, killed all the cattle, and destroyed all the viaducts and canals that supplied the cities with water.

That sure doesn't sound like climate change to me…

Today, the elites are not only maintaining that global warming is taking place they are inventing new taxes based on CO2 emissions, so regardless of what happens, they're gonna make some money off it. And to prove that they have truly taken our human welfare to heart, the scumbags are actively buying up the world's water rights. And I do mean everywhere!

Though climate change has had and will continue to have a huge impact on civilizations, as often as not the culprits causing the human devastation has been the elites.

zardust
reply to post by KilgoreTrout

 

Thanks. Have you read any of the authors that posit overall non-violence in Pre-Historic peoples? From what I've seen they tend to fall in "feminist" studies.

Not sure that I have, I am not a huge fan of authors that cherry pick information to suit their pet theories, they tend to lack wider social context. There was certainly less violence, but that should be applied to the context of available living space. At times of climatic change, during the Last Glacial Maximum for example, when competition for resources becomes more prevalent, and populations become more concentrated in some areas, you get a proportional amount of violence reactive to such stresses. We have more violence now because we live on top of each other, but even so, in societies that live by tribal laws, violence, as a means of behavioural control and conformity can be quite horrifying to our Westernised mentality of justice and mercy, so much is relative to the environment, be it modern overcrowding or ensuring that the group survival is not threatened by individualism. I am not in favour of donning rose tinted spectacles when viewing the past, it is counterproductive to adapting to the challenges that we face in the future.

Riddles
Sure, there was climate change going on in Mesopotamia c. 2200 BCE, but I've read a great number of Mesopotamian texts dealing with that era.

The people in Sumer and the Agade weren't griping about climate change; their god, Enlil, had become infuriated because the king, Naram Sin, had dared to damage Enlil's temple in Nippur. Enlil went on the rampage and ordered the "Guitian hordes" (the mountain tribes) to attack the people of Sumer and the Agade. The texts report that they burned all the orchards and fields to the ground, killed all the cattle, and destroyed all the viaducts and canals that supplied the cities with water.

That sure doesn't sound like climate change to me…

Today, the elites are not only maintaining that global warming is taking place they are inventing new taxes based on CO2 emissions, so regardless of what happens, they're gonna make some money off it. And to prove that they have truly taken our human welfare to heart, the scumbags are actively buying up the world's water rights. And I do mean everywhere!

Though climate change has had and will continue to have a huge impact on civilizations, as often as not the culprits causing the human devastation has been the elites.

Yes and no. It is all too easy to simply blame elite classes, and of course, due to the resources available to them they have a much better chance of bouncing back and adapting to such change. After all, how many of us, now in our current time, can simply up sticks and move to pastures new? However, in many cases, it is the role of the leadership to meet the needs of a dependent population that requires feeding. The onset of agriculture, even in the initial stages of slash and burn techniques, changed ecosystems and upset the balance. While farming, in the Near East, began during the subpluvial period, as that ended, due to the movement of the ITCZ, many had to move closer to the river valleys, or abandon farming and return to more nomadic patterns of life. The concentration of populations in the river valleys led to the development of irrigation based farming, which is only feasible if labour can be organised, therefore requiring leadership and management of that labour force. In Sumer, those irrigation practices led to widespread salination of the land, which initially was countered by the adoption of barley, which is more saline tolerant, but eventually led to a mass exodus to the cooler climate of Babylon. Lives were saved because of the existence of a strong leadership.

Although I agree with you entirely that the buying up of water rights is reprehensible, investment is however needed in order to process water to make it safe, and to transport it, via pipelines, installation of infrastructure, to where it is needed. While in an ideal world communities should be empowered to come together to make that investment themselves, that is seldom accomplished without leadership. It is a catch 22 situation and obviously, there are sharks that see a situation to profit from, who will employ local labour that they can pay peanuts and not concern themselves with the health and safety of those workers, thus increasing their profit margin, but moreover, water is an increasingly finite commodity, and there are plenty of people at the top of the heap who are investing in that future. Most analysts are predicting that the future of conflict will be based upon water rights. We are already seeing that future in Palestine/Israel and emergent in Southern California/Mexico.

It is easy to blame the elites because they seem to have the power to avert disaster, but how different is that to the mentality that waits for God to intervene and make things better, or to claim that such disasters are divine retribution for wrong doing. Social control mechanisms exist because of mass passivity due to our increasing inability to adapt to change and take responsibility for our own actions. We want someone to tell us what to do, but when they do, and we don't like the idea of the solution because it means modifying our lifestyles, we balk and claim that the elites are lying to us for their own gain. And, of course, some are, but we can recognise them by their fruits. Some elites, the intellectual, rather than financial ones, are really trying to help us to move forward and adapt to this change. Either way, pointing the finger of blame is not going to make the problem go away.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


Thanks again for the reply. Like I said, its so new to me, I'm relying totally on others take on things. My main focus in studying these things is on the mythology, which reflects on the practices of the people.