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from the Wait-long-enough-and-sc-fi-always-becomes-sci-fact dept.
In 1951 Isaac Asimov inflicted psychohistory on the world with the Foundation Trilogy. Now, thanks to data sets going back more than 2,500 years, scientists have discovered the rules underlying the rise and fall of civilizations, after examining more than 400 such historical societies crash and burn - or in some cases avoid crashing. More here:
Turchin's approach to history, which uses software to find patterns in massive amounts of historical data, has only become possible recently, thanks to the growth in cheap computing power and the development of large historical datasets. This "big data" approach is now becoming increasingly popular in historical disciplines. Tim Kohler, an archaeologist at Washington State University, believes we are living through "the glory days" of his field, because scholars can pool their research findings with unprecedented ease and extract real knowledge from them. In the future, Turchin believes, historical theories will be tested against large databases, and the ones that do not fit – many of them long-cherished – will be discarded. Our understanding of the past will converge on something approaching an objective truth.
Discuss. Or throw rocks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DutchUncle on Monday November 18 2019, @03:03PM (4 children)
Even in the hard physical sciences, we understand that it is impossible to have complete information, and therefore impossible to be completely accurate. Consider how much LESS information we have about human history. Not only is history written by the victors after the victory; we know of numerous instances of the victors systematically eradicating past historical traces that the vanquished ever existed. We know of information lost because of the active suppression of regional languages and cultures, continuing through contemporary times even in modern "civilized" "1st-world" nations. The only consistent valid results of parsing this dataset will be that technology leading to greater firepower always wins.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday November 18 2019, @03:36PM (3 children)
Not always greater firepower, unless you incorporate tactical and strategic advantages as force multipliers to firepower. (Better communications = better strategic changes in the midst of battle. Better observation = better placement of resources. Better accuracy = greater damage per shot). You did say, "greater technology..." which means you inherently understand this.
But the General who wins is more often the one who has better understanding of what can happen and is happening and formulates more correct reactions to what does happen. Good book detailing this. [npr.org] The intelligent General is the one who if knowing he will lose chooses not to fight (unless losing serves some greater strategic purpose), and where if victory is possible will have shaped conditions to make it that way.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 18 2019, @03:40PM (2 children)
And, the intelligent society controls their Generals because winning the war is just a small piece of the overall picture.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 18 2019, @05:50PM (1 child)
Which is why it was proper to court-martial Gen. Douglas MacArthur, even though he was the proper governor for Japan.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 18 2019, @06:33PM
Can't blame 'em (Generals) - they have a very important job to do and the consequences of them not doing it to the best of their ability are tremendously dire. However, once a society is "out of the soup" and no longer requires war to survive, the best and only valuable function of the Generals is to reassure enemies who would plunge the society into War again that it would be a mistake.
🌻🌻 [google.com]