[archibaldJ]

So you think cities and villages just magically got built because people would come together and interact like some kind of brownian motion?

I already laid down my arguments from an anthropological perspective. There was something very special about the past 2000~4000 years (since the beginning of stone age 3 million year ago, and anatomically modern humans 300,000 years ago) and that is why at the year 2024AD, things have progressed into the current state. (Or why have we not progressed faster as a civilization/species?)

It's about cost and the sustaining of people's attention and work. Even for communities that started so to speak "organically", they would have dependency on some form of leadership at some points, if not throughout, or it would not be self-sustainable and grow to scale up e.g. into a village/city.

[piloto_ciego]

There are a lot of assertions in your post. Again, take an anthro class or at least read about the origin of cities.

Hell, we don’t even know if all the early ones were inhabitated year round. Nor do we know if many of the early cities required “leadership” in any real way.

Also, there may be more ways to measure “progress” than you’re aware of. Depending on the metric you choose… we may not be doing as well as you’d think.

Is this Steven Pinker’s nephews HN account?

[archibaldJ]

you are totally missing the point. whatever. At this point none-technical discussion on HN has become almost like reddit.

[piloto_ciego]

What are you talking about?

This actually is a technical discussion.

You’re asserting things about the formation of cities that aren’t just unknown or mysterious, you’re asserting things that are patently untrue, then upset when someone calls you out for it lol. How Reddit is that?

You’re saying, “cities require strong leadership, planning, cost, and sustaining people’s attention, and work.” (To roughly paraphrase). I’m saying, “that’s not necessarily true, we don’t know enough about this to assert this. You should read some more about it or take an anthropology class.”

This is a highly technical subject, it’s just not one about computers or math or physics. Like, for some early cities we are unsure if they were even inhabited year round, for some cities it appears that there was absolutely no leadership. Maybe megalopolises requires strong central authority but I’m not so sure.

Even if you spend $8b and start your own version of Fordlandia you still may not succeed at building utopia because how do you maintain things how “you want them” when people like me exist who will try to flaunt your rules? Violence?

[archibaldJ]

At this point it sounds like I'm talking to gpt3.5 with the system prompt as "angry troll on the internet". Won't be surprised if I am.

If you are not a chatbot, here is my advice after reading this incoherent thing you wrote: go work on something to make the change you want to see in your life.

It saddens me that discussions on HN are now turning into dumpster fire like this.

[piloto_ciego]

You aren’t entitled to have people agree with you on the internet - especially when you don’t know what you’re talking about and you’re just making wild claims about society.

I disagree with you, but sure “I’m a chat bot.” This conversation saddens you? Lol, ok. That clearly elevates the discourse.

[archibaldJ]

I don’t care if someone on the internet agrees with me. It saddens me to see more and more trolls on HN.