
How the neo-medieval 21st century will be more like the 12th century - cwan
http://www.paragkhanna.com/?p=956
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Umalu
If you ignore the millions of ways the world has changed since the 12th
century, and focus only on one superficial broad-brushed similarity, then this
article is persuasive. Otherwise, not.

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lukeschlather
It's a good article, with a nice analysis of the 12th century Eurasian system.

Yes, this is clearly not the 12th century, but the parallels can give a good
deal of insight into our present world-system.

I think the most interesting thing about looking at the parallels is how
similar the models are between 12th century and present. Yes, we move and
communicate a lot faster, and there are a lot more of us, but at the core you
can still see the same sorts of organizational units showing up, and the
relationships between those organizational units function very similarly. That
said, you can see some fundamental shifts in the nature of organizations.
Slavery is almost universally shunned, which marks one institution that has
shifted radically in social importance. Democracies are consequently very
different from their historical predecessors.

There's a lot of interesting stuff here. Your post, on the other hand, is
reductive and boring.

~~~
junkbit
Actually, it is said that there are more slaves today than at any point in
history

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=859770>

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alexqgb
One thing the author gets exactly right: loyalty accrues to those who reliably
delivers the goods. And the tendency to trust states, companies, unions, or
even families by default is busy eroding at a remarkable pace.

Different people in different places will find equilibrium in very different
ways. Or they won't. In either case, they're unlikely to share a common
conception about where it 'should' come from.

And once that widely shared framework of "what works for everyone" goes, then
the world does look considerably more feudal and transitional than it did a
generation ago. In that regard, the 12th Century is a useful source of
patterns. So is the late 15th - early 17th. Maybe even more so, since this is
when empirical science, truly global trading operations and commercial
printers all came to the fore.

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middayc
12th century?

Just few day ago I was thinking, that we(people) are loosing some very basic
rights, established for the first time back there in 13th century (1215) in
medieval England by Magna Carta.

For example:

 _\+ (39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights
or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any
other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do
so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

\+ (40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or _delay_ right or justice._

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mjuhl24
I wanted this article to be interesting, but it's quite flawed actually. The
comparisons are weak, at best. You can't ignore how much more ubiquity there
is in the world today. The Middle Ages were a time of discovery, in many ways.
There was no global culture like there is today. This is due, in part to the
fact that the globe is much more accessible, in terms of physical travel and
information distribution (thanks, internet). This article is a great attempt
to make the facts fit the assertion, but that doesn't make the assertion true.

~~~
Retric
There is still no global culture today. Also there are so many more poeple
today that the number of people who don't do _ (ex: "speak English", "have
access to the internet", "know how to read") has dramatically increased.

~~~
mjuhl24
Culture was probably not the word I wanted. There is a global "community", or
"connectedness" that did not exist in the 12th Century. While there may be
many people who don't participate in this community, they are still affected
by it (directly or indirectly) and the world operates in an extremely
different way because of it. In the 12th Century, information traveled one way
(by foot), and the printing press wasn't even invented and wouldn't be for
several hundred years. Now we can share information instantly across the
globe, and if I really wanted to, I could hand deliver a letter to someone
half-way around the world tomorrow.

~~~
Retric
There are probably people 1/2 way around the world you could hand deliver a
letter within 24 hours, but I suspect there are more people you can't hand a
message to within 24 hours now than there where alive in the 12th century. At
the extreme, a random Peasant in North Korea and someone staying at mcmurdo
station in Antarctica are both fairly inaccessible in those time scales, but
so is most of China, and India.

PS: Granted, extend it to a week and the numbers shift, but at the edges the
world is really not all that connected. Getting within 1000 miles of someone
may be easy, but that's not contact.

~~~
chipsy
Yes and no. The world is a lot more populated, but also increasingly urban,
which by its nature(more communication and transportation services in town)
means a larger proportion of people are easy to access.

As well, the proliferation of cell phones into rural areas is a inestimable
breakthrough in communication. We've only started to see the impact of this.

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rwmj
A good time to plug "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy. I'm
some of the way through this and it's a superb book.

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btilly
Yet another comparison is temperature. The 12th century was in the medieval
warm period. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period> for more
on that.

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substack
If America is in a period of Byzantinian decline then how do the great tech-
hub city-states like San Francisco and New York play into this narrative? This
doesn't seem consistent.

~~~
lotusleaf1987
IMO, I don't think America is represented at all by SF or NY, in fact I think
they're the exceptions. Other than a few regions and city-states (New York,
Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Portland) in the US I'd
say the US largely lives in perpetual willful ignorance and continues to pat
itself on its back for World War II.

To quote The Wire, "We used to make shit in this country." Now? Some do, but
not so much anymore. I feel like more than every America is diverging.

~~~
idoh
That's a myth, the US continues to be manufacture ~ 20% of the world's output
(this has held since at least 1982). The real story is that manufacturing jobs
have eroded though.

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pbhjpbhj
Apart from GM corn [I don't want] I can't think of any USA products that I
come in contact with; could you give a list of the major ones or a link to
such?

TBH the same is true of my own country (excepting food). Perhaps it's just
that China market themselves well by ensuring China itself is a global brand
(as in "China" appears on so many products).

Edit: Silly me, TV+Films+Music, what else?

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yummyfajitas
Our industrial production has done nothing but increase (recessions and minor
blips excluded). We make more than just TV shows.

<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO>

Everyday stuff made in the US: cars (e.g., my mom's Toyota), airplanes,
medical devices, construction supplies.

Interestingly, a significant US export is industrial machinery. Many of those
factories in China use industrial machinery built in the US.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Everyday stuff made in the US: cars (e.g., my mom's Toyota), airplanes,
medical devices, construction supplies.

Cars appear generally to be bought/made close to the point of use - "far
eastern" cars are made in the UK for example. I'd guess that Toyotas used in
Europe are mainly made in Europe now, but stand to be corrected. Sp[eculating
further I'd say the same will be true of construction supplies - I've heard of
prefab stuff being moved around Europe a lot but I imagine demand and
transportation costs allow/require production close to point of use.
Aeroplanes and medical devices, yes they should have come to mind.

I've also heard that it is best to have precision dies and things made
elsewhere and then shipped to China for the mass production part of the
process.

WRT the link I wonder how resource use has increased over that time too. How
much of this increased level of production is down to increasing population
confounded with a per head increase in resources?

Thanks for your reply.

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thyrsus
The article's recommendation that the U.S. imitate the "diplomacy and
deception" of Byzantium is a complete non-starter. The commitment (even if
flawed) of the U.S. to an open society plus new technology - emphatically
illustrated in recent months - doubly underscores Benjamin Franklin's quip:
"Two may keep a secret - if one of them is dead."

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rgrieselhuber
Really hard to take this article seriously with sentences like this:

"The 21st century will resemble nothing more than the 12th century."

Nothing more? Like, exactly the same?

~~~
shub
Everything old is new again! Including, like, horses pooping on muddy streets.

~~~
angelbob
Greener than a Prius!

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to_the_top
history does repeat itself!

