[HDThoreaun]

Name some examples of large, militarily powerful groups accepting living conditions that were worse than the previous generation experienced, not due to natural disasters. People have never accepted that. Sure they've had shitty living conditions, but they started shitty, they didn't get worse. Sure they've been enslaved, but the civilians in this country are heavily armed enough to fight back against a government they see as allowing living conditions to slip.

[trealira]

In many societies, the rights of women have declined from one period to the next, although I guess "women" don't constitute a "large, militarily powerful" group.

For example, in Korea during the Joseon/Chosŏn period, the status of women gradually declined due to Neo-Confucianist ideology. Women stopped inheriting property in the seventeenth century. They lost the right to intiate divorce, while men could still intiate divorce under seven grounds (disobedience to parents-in-law, failure to bear a son, adultery, jealousy, hereditary disease, larceny, and talkativeness). Widows lost the right to remarry, and were seen as inconvenient for the family. Women were forbidden from playing games, partying outdoors, and riding horses.

The decline of women's rights happened in other societies, too; I just happened to have a book about Korean history on my desk.

[didibus]

There's tons of examples:

North Korea, after the Korean war, their living conditions got way way worse than when under Japanese occupation, even though their military has improved.

Afghanistan, since it's been overtaken by the Taliban, even though they are mightier from a military standpoint, the living conditions have become worst.

The Soviet Union post WWII, they came out of it as a military superpower, but the damages from the war meant their living conditions were way worse.

[rnk]

You keep coming back to armed civilians will not accept worse living conditions. If some calamity comes, like global warming removes say the us ability to grow enough food or we run out of oil and there's not other energy sources, the guns aren't going to fix things. You are going to have a revolt against the govt because inflation is too high or China nuked us and ruined our country?

[HDThoreaun]

I thought the point of the horse analogy is that total wealth will increase but some large group of people will be so left out that their quality of living actually decreases. Like mass unemployment due to robots doing all the jobs. In that scenario I do believe there would be an armed revolt without the institution of a massive welfare state.