Quote from: dinofelis on February 28, 2017, 07:00:50 AM

Quote from: iamnotback on February 28, 2017, 03:14:51 AM

All incorrect. In essence you are transposing cause and effect, as well transposing large scale changes ~~from~~with "smaller things grow faster" changes. And the agriculture age required roads for economies-of-scale in commerce thus it was not decentralized. You have numerous errors like that throughout.

Well, this is an interesting subject. Two-wheeled chariots were invented by a "distributed" people, the Andronovo culture in Siberia, about 2000 BC. One of the oldest roads on earth was build in England at about 3800 BC (the Sweet Track) where it is hard to imagine that it was an empire-induced road building operation.

Again I repeat, you are conflating large scale change with "smaller things grow faster" changes.

Yeah those technological innovations and example prototypes occur due to spontaneous diversity in the decentralized (high entropy) wild, but to scale those innovations out to every human on earth at that time required the monopolist state to conquer all the warlords, and to keep order over interstate commerce. Otherwise it diverged into bandits waiting along the side of the road to effective force you into the business of trading contraband, which destroys commerce.

Quote from: francisthecrusher on February 28, 2017, 10:06:48 AM

Quote from: dinofelis on February 28, 2017, 07:00:50 AM

But the idea that you need a *violence monopolist* and a *king* in order to build roads and be able to do agriculture, is the misguided kind of social lie that we have been fed with since we were children.

...but I don't think that the price of giving all power to an aristocratic elite is necessary to achieve this, which is the basic tenet of statists.

Exactly. And even when a central violent monopolist does do things well (e.g. the height of rome), they don't actually need all that much power. For example look at the tax rate in the Roman empire before sh*t hit the fan. It was 2% but they had a huge empire connected with the best roads, agricultural systems and water distribution systems that weren't reached again till the modern era (and with like 30% tax rates). The problem is that central control brings in corruption and waste, somehow the Romans were able to avoid that (for a while).

Missing from your analysis is the fact that thermodynamic processes are irreversible and you can't just replicate into the past. The state of the empire at the end is of course inefficient, but nature didn't build the empire for the end, but rather for all that it accomplished before the end. You can't get all those in the middle without also getting the end. You can't have it both ways and eat your cake too. Sorry.

As the physical economy becomes a smaller and smaller portion of the total economy, we can move away from physical violence as necessary for human progress.

Quote from: dinofelis on February 28, 2017, 07:00:50 AM

I also think that if you are dreaming of a "new economy" (the dematerialized economy you're talking about) before hoping that a distributed society like it was before agriculture, is possible again,

Agriculture was never decentralized. Hunting was decentralized. Agriculture required protection from the bandits. You apparently don't know anything about farming. The Bible says don't mix your field with many kinds of plants and don't produce just enough for yourself. Produce an whole hectare of produce and then trade. This is economy-of-scale and maximum division-of-labor which has been absolutely necessary for the productivity of man to increase above subsistence level.

Quote from: dinofelis on February 28, 2017, 07:00:50 AM

...you will have to wait for eternity.

Dude it is already underway. This is covered extensively in the Economics Devastation thread in the Economics forum.

Quote from: dinofelis on February 28, 2017, 07:00:50 AM

If you are convinced that one needs a king in order to make food, then we will always need a king (in more modern forms of presidents, parliaments, or whatever aristocratic structure). Because we will never be free of material needs and always be prone to physical violence.

Wow. What you smoking?