Still Early—first mover advantage?

So right now I'm in bed and was thinking about the map "ancient world" and more importantly the ancient world, like ancient civilization.

There are flickers of civilization dating as far back as 10 or 20 thousand years ago. But civilization only really started to emerge when the institutions we associate with it were remembered and passed on from one generation to the next, until it became something that the average person simply could not live without—like the shell of a hermit crab, although the crab can survive without it, the shell is all but necessary to its existence.

Literacy, law, and laundry—the three pillars of civilization (among other things)—were ingenuously combined at one point or another in Rome. Although the contours of civilization are far from mathematical, Rome got it right. Whether they knew it or not, they embraced it and used it to conquer half the world. There were others like Carthage, which I think was established even before Rome, but for one reason or another, Carthage failed. Even after the battle of Cannae where Rome lost like 20% of its male population, Rome persevered as a testament to the fact that they were the first to put the "puzzle of civilization" together, which gave them a huge first-mover advantage.

For this reason, a lot of subsequent nation-states emulate Rome. The United States, for example, has senators and toxic politics, just like the late Roman Republic! Of course, democracy originated from Greece, but Greece did not get things quite right, otherwise we'd be writing in Greek letters: "delta alpha omega omicron delta delta sigma alpha, copy that?"

So, that was prelude to my main point. Chew on this: the first civilizations started only a few THOUSAND years ago. Rome was not destroyed until just a few GENERATIONS ago. We are still so early. And it's scary. Imagine how things will evolve from here? Think about the hermit crab that I used in an earlier analogy. It will usually find a shell, but sometimes it will use a bottle of plastic or a tampon. Do new paradigms lie ahead akin to the "tampon"? We are so, so early in the history of mankind… eerily early. It's no surprise that we have not gone extinct and have not discovered alien life. We've been around for only like 2000 years. I will live for 100 years. There are only twenty 100s in 2000! TWENTY.

I think we are entering a new paradigm that I would like to call the tampon aeon of mankind. Looking to the history of Rome is most useful in solving perennial social issues, but in time they will no longer persist as we venture from the shell to tampon.

Written by Tribune Aquila, 27.11.2021 at 22:19

So right now I'm in bed ....

What are you wearing?

Written by brianwl, 27.11.2021 at 23:56

Written by Tribune Aquila, 27.11.2021 at 22:19

So right now I'm in bed ....

What are you wearing?