Comments by "Chompy the Beast" (@chompythebeast) on "The Birth of Civilisation - The First Farmers (20000 BC to 8800 BC)" video.

  1. In these videos, you assert that social hierarchy is a defining trait of a city, or of civilization. But I don't understand how that's so important as to be defining. That genuinely sounds to me like the bias of a historian/anthropologist who lives in and thrives under a system of inequality. I don't see how egalitarianism is to be considered a thing divorced from civilization―and moreover, if the two things are incongruent, that I fail to see the benefits of so-called "civilization" over egalitarianism and equality. Again, I think that asserting that civilizations could only exist in ways that mirror our own present configuration, or that asserting that anything else isn't technically a civilization, is nothing more than a glaring bias on the part of the author. It essentially says "Humanity can't thrive without exploiting some of its own members in much the same way they exploit cattle," and I simply cannot accept that notion, it is ludicrous on its face. While such was obviously the systems of many early civilizations, once a state of non-scarcity is achieved, there is no obvious benefit to social stratification if the health and well-being of the entire community is considered the number one priority
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  2.  @Adsper2000  Modeling all definitions of civilization based upon the limitations of the past is narrow-minded, to say the least. A post-scarcity society should indeed be able to sustain far less hierarchy and far more equality than systems of the present or the past. I understand judging historical civilizations by these criteria, but continuing to look for them in future societies and deeming them not "civilizations" if they are missing one or more is rather like the builders of Stonehenge failing to appreciate the makers of skyscrapers because their cultures don't make monumental earthen mounds. There is much to learn from the past, but there is no need to carry over all its outdated baggage when we are shaping our future. We don't need to let old prejudices and preconceived notions dominate our understanding of what civilization can or should be. That is the realm of traditionalists and reactionaries, but it is not the lesson that history necessarily teaches us
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  3.  @danielcallahan4825  That book is quite unpopular amongst academic circles, not least of all because it's so popular amongst lay circles despite being a rather poor take on history and colonialism
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