/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20230020]

Any books on dynamics of emergence, growth and collapse of civilizations? Aspects I'm interested in are limiting stages, probabilities, multitude of factors (which are hard to define), stability and equilibria of civilized and uncivilized societies, ethics of existence of civilization opposed to non-civilization, cycles of culture maybe, population dynamics. I'm looking for different opinions, including different schools of anthropologists, luddites vs techno-optimists, authoritarians vs anarchists etc.
I'm convinced that civilization is a stochastic abberation of a mankind birthed under specific unpredictable condition after tens of thousands years of pristine existence of uncivilized people. Advancements to industrial and postindustrial society are likewise perversions of a metastable state before. But with every step forward lives of people become more miserable, chances of self-imposed collapse grow, while those of rebuilding civilization diminish. Examples of this are weapons of mass destruction, poisoning the air and water, climate change (skeptical), digging out all easily accessible minerals. My guess is that after collapse, despite factors mentioned above, industrial or highly developed agricultural civilization will re-emerge due to death of religious mindset and access to neccessary information.

[Anonymous No.20230028]

>>20230020
Too much words. 4chan is not that smart. Make less words for we understand.

[Anonymous No.20230034]

There used to be a discipline based on this in the 50s and 60s but it disappeared. If you search for keywords related to civilization and Quigley and Toynbee you will start to find its old journals and a few books. I have a feeling it was funded by some organization and then the money dried up.

[Anonymous No.20230044]

>>20230028
TL;DR IMO civilization bad and unstable CMV

[Anonymous No.20230093]

>>20230020
>>20230028
>>20230034
>>20230044
Civilization emerges organically, it’s not planned by a team of autists obsessed with obscure topics like these.
Read The Collapse of Complex Societies by Tainter but be warned that you should take anthropological and sociological books like a pinch of salt.
It’s all just guesswork and educated guesses after all.

[Anonymous No.20230095]

>>20230093
Fuck I forgot to have some salt for electrolytes I'm fasting for 72 hours and feeling a bit sluggish thanks for reminding me

[Anonymous No.20230235]

some things that come to mind, probably not quite what you're looking for but at least tangentially related
>The Collapse of Complex Societies - Tainter
>'A Theory of the Origin of the State' - Carneiro
>Sources of Social Power, Vol.1 (chapters 2-5) - Mann
>Against the Grain - Scott
>The Muqaddimah - Khaldun
>Origins of Political Order (chapters 1-5) - Fukuyama

[Anonymous No.20230243]

>>20230020
Read Turchin and Tainter

[Anonymous No.20230353]

>>20230020
I didn't read your post past the first sentence.
You can try 1177 BC.
Here's a video of the author talking about it:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu-ysocX4

[Anonymous No.20230367]

The fact you even added (skeptical) at all shows you are politically biased and seeking an arugement, not knowledge.

[Anonymous No.20230376]

>>20230020
Literally Muqaddimah by Ibn Rushud
>I'm convinced that civilization is a stochastic abberation of a mankind birthed under specific unpredictable condition after tens of thousands years of pristine existence of uncivilized people.
You would be wrong, you'd see that it is a natural progression for any K-species which had discovered agriculture
>>20230353
One of the rare times the Algorithm spammed a video that wasn't shit. I remember 2 years ago it kept popping up in recommendations even on different devices.

[Anonymous No.20230404]

>>20230020
>civilizations
not a thing

[Anonymous No.20230491]

>>20230020
Spengler obviously, although his main opus is pretty fucking long and few people have read him, including me. Here, watch some videos instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsaieZt5vjk

[Anonymous No.20230497]

>>20230020

[Anonymous No.20230519]

Any specific ones on desert people

[Anonymous No.20230536]

Richard Pipes: Property and Freedom

It's a reasonable length, easily accessible in print or digital, and does more to explain why certain civilizations became decent places to live, and others became utter hells, than anything I've seen before or since.

[Anonymous No.20231454]

>>20230020
https://equilibriabook.com/

[Anonymous No.20231463]

>>20230020
Not a book, but C and the Basis of Civilization: An Introduction to Biohistory is worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4-Od8cq5Gk&list=PLXTePDlKDQfSduqPdJ4ZUMDCz_u_k7Uu6

[Anonymous No.20231479]

>>20230020
Anatoly Karlin's article series on the Age of Malthusian Industrialism is worth reading. A big limiting factor to civilizations is average IQ and the size of smart fractions.

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/short-history-of-3rd-millennium/
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/where-do-babies-come-from/
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/breeders-revenge/
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/the-geopolitics-of-the-age-of-malthusian-industrialism/
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/world-population/

[Anonymous No.20231548]

>>20230020
Enjoy it while it lasts. Don’t waste too much time making plans without the power to realize them.

[Anonymous No.20231589]

>>20230095
>'fasting'
>eats salt
Ngmi

[Anonymous No.20231644]

>>20230020
>I'm convinced that civilization is a stochastic abberation of a mankind birthed under specific unpredictable condition after tens of thousands years of pristine existence of uncivilized people.
This is retarded even from an anprim perspective.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-truth-about-primitive-life-a-critique-of-anarchoprimitivism

[Anonymous No.20232306]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20232367]

>>20230497
>Bill Gates basedface blurb

hard pass on this one

[Anonymous No.20232803]

"Collapse" by Jared Diamond?

[Anonymous No.20232835]

>>20232367
Try actually reading it retard, I can tell you Bill Gates didn't. It's not particularly reddit or whatever. It's boring but informative

[Anonymous No.20232845]

>>20230020
Limits to Growth is exactly what you are looking for. I would also suggest Against His-story, Against Leviathan.

[Anonymous No.20232877]

>>20231644
Kaczynski wasn't anprim, that's the whole point of this essay, they genuinely believe that hunter-gatherer society was the original affluent society, a perfectly egalitarian fully unautomated luxury gay jungle communism. Nonetheless, Kaczynski still thought primitive existance was vastly superior to anything that would come after it. He wouldn't take issue with OP's sentance.

[Anonymous No.20232891]

>>20232803
Why would you read Diamond?
His previous book, Guns, Germs and Steel has been thoroughly deboonked by his critics.
He’s a shit anthropologist (a shaky field itself).

[Anonymous No.20232917]

>>20232891
>Diamond
The picrel book was on-topic.
>seethe
cope

[Anonymous No.20232948]

>>20232891
Debunked how? I am looking into OPs topics and Diamond seems pretty relevant. His theories do not seem far fetched either

[Anonymous No.20232994]

>>20232948
He probably means someone looked up his Wikipedia

[Anonymous No.20233029]

>>20230020
Are there any books that interplay between OP’s question and esoterica?

[Anonymous No.20233115]

>>20230020
Pitirim Sorokin - Social and Cultural Dynamics
Pitirim Sorokin - The Crisis of Our Age

[Anonymous No.20233699]

>>20230020
>My guess is that after collapse, despite factors mentioned above, industrial or highly developed agricultural civilization will re-emerge due to death of religious mindset and access to neccessary information
Bro after the collapse, just start up all the same systems that caused the collapse

[Anonymous No.20233732]

>>20233699
With what exhausted fuel sources?
We’re going back to sparse hunter-gatherers if we’re lucky

[Anonymous No.20233825]

>>20232948
>>20232994
https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/guns-germs-and-steel-revisited/

[Anonymous No.20233837]

Elite theory, both Mosca and Pareto, is important

Burnham's The Machiavellians is good, so is his earlier stuff on the managerial class

>>20233115
Sorokin is great, good recs

[Anonymous No.20233848]

>>20232994
>>20233825
>>20232891
>>20232948
Copied from the other thread.
>inb4 made by a white nationalist

https://www.bitchute.com/video/qvaxPH3ftUQ/

Tldr Diamonds main thesis is one of historical and geographic determinism based on small made up narratives about individual situations

[Anonymous No.20233875]

>>20233848
If you want environmental determinism just go read like Hippolyte Taine and whoever his sources were, I forget, and read about the Algerian school of historical geography that influenced Braudel's Mediterranean like Vidal de la Blache
https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_MATE_099_0028--fernand-braudel-and-algerian-geography.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Vidal_de_La_Blache

Of course the granddaddy of all this is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ratzel

[Anonymous No.20234098]

>>20230020
Currently into this book, but it's the 3rd of a trilogy so the 2 before are about how the country got to its shit situation very good but what do I know