History and Culture

As always, these discussions are educational for me. And I do run out of depth with you pretty fast.

But if you allow me, I will like to continue from tomorrow. It is already very late here for me.

Afif said:

As always, these discussions are educational for me. And I do run out of depth with you pretty fast.

But if you allow me, I will like to continue from tomorrow. It is already very late here for me.

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It's alright. Forgot to mention that you are right that many other factors are involved. Mate choice is not as simple as I make it out to be and resource accumulation also doesn't necessitate patriotically as such, but you gotta do toy models first to then be able to engage with nuances.

Rooxbar said:

Within the purview of primatology, the mate choice lies with females in a neutral environment, because women make almost all of the investment in the reproduction process. Competition is between males. Cultural practices stemming from neolithic farming transition which facilitated accumulation of resources, made that accumulation and access to it the main resource instead of babies. And males due to physical strength got to occupy the top of the pyramid of hierarchy as they were those who could gather and hold the resources which they could amass. This made mate choice in humans gravitate towards an organization more like chimps, as in harem organization. This primatological premise is corroborated by works in anthropology which show when such an accumulation doesn't exist, mate choice lies with females and whenever farming and accumulation start to appear there is a shift towards patrilocality and harem organization.

The reversal of this will get us back to a more primal position (as noted above by our friend Shearer in the works of Gimbutas and many others) where the choice lies with females. Females try to choose mates which will stay with them throughout pregnancy and lactation and possibly longer. Since the choice is with females, males have to compete among each other to get access.

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Yes, so I am aware of this basic concept of primatology. But don't know anything about Gimbutas's works. (I know somebody who read her. Maybe I will ask him for a crash course.) For now, I assume it to be about the return of ancient 'neutral' environment and women having the mate choice, consequently, societies becoming more and more dominated by women again like primitive era.

Your argument, if I understood correctly, is along the similar line.


a. The immediate issue I would point out to, is the accumulation isn't going anywhere. It is just women also get to accumulate now. And as long as men accumulate (and frankly today we can and do accumulate a lot more than grains ) this will continue to be their main resource instead of babies. (because we aren't going back to pre farming societies where we need to make lots of babies to go outside with us for hunting or fighting predator/other tribes)

So, this new economic independence of women and increasing parity is not the return of the primitive age's 'neutral environment' where babies where the priority resource.

And I think this is the single most strongest counterpoint.

b. To build on that, today's Human civilizations power structure and its complexities has progressed way beyond of very simple mate choice priority that was central to the power dynamics of primitive hunter gatherers. Now we have nation states, industrialization and soon we are going to Mars and on our way of becoming multiplanetary species. And these grand complex collective power structures and priorities are influenced and shaped by who has the most resources/wealth. Which is frankly Men. As there is a big disparity in the accumulation of resources/wealth between men and women and it will likely continue, even when true equality is achieved. See why-


c. Last but not the least, trying to compete equally with men for the accumulation of resources and economic independence while at the same time-

Rooxbar said:

making almost all of the investment in the reproduction process.

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Isn't really sustainable. If it were up to men they couldn't do it either. So, this creates a new paradox for women.

In the end, my understanding is we are not going to see a reversal of the historical role of male domination in principle. Instead we are going to see a third evolution, a new/middle way gradually taking shape in front of us.

@Rooxbar are you around today?

1,700-Year-Old Roman Mosaic Discovered by Farmer Planting Cherry Trees in Turkey​

Sultan Ahmed Square (the Hippodrome) - The photograph was taken by James Robertson around 1853–1854....

This rare 19th Century view of Sultan Ahmed Square in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) shows two of the surviving monuments of the ancient Byzantine Hippodrome. The taller monument on the right is the Obelisk of Theodosius, originally erected by Pharaoh Thutmose III in Egypt around 1450 BC and transported to Constantinople by Emperor Theodosius I in AD 390. On the left stands the Walled Obelisk, a Byzantine structure believed to date to the 10th Century.

The Hippodrome was the social and political center of the Byzantine Empire, capable of seating an estimated 100,000 spectators for chariot races, public ceremonies, and imperial events. Construction began under Emperor Septimius Severus around AD 203 and was greatly expanded by Emperor Constantine the Great in the 4th century.

By the late 19th Century, when this photograph was taken, the Hippodrome itself had long since disappeared, but several of its monuments remained standing as reminders of Constantinople's imperial past.

The Obelisk of Theodosius is one of the oldest human-made objects still standing in Istanbul, having been carved nearly 3,500 years ago during Egypt's 18th Dynasty.

#archaeohistories

Ryder said:

View attachment 1072

Istanbul is not Constantinople.

See how the city grew overtime.

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Istanbul is more Greek than Constantinople which comes from a Latin name.

You name the city "εἰς τήν πόλιν" instead of "Flavius Valerius Constantinus". One is Latin, the other is Greek.

Here the village in Messinia, Peloponnese where I was born, used to have a clearly Turkish name more than 100 years ago. At one point at the end of 19th, start of the 20th century they changed the Turkish names that had remained to Greek ones.
It was called Kurtaga, because the area had an Ağa, Kurt Ağa. And Istanbul/Constantinople still has a Greek/Latin name.

Istanbul like many other big cities has grown on top of old stuff. Istanbul with it's population of more than 14 million is bigger and has grown and changed more than anything.

Sure if you dig you can find old stuff, but that will never change the fact that Istanbul is a giant metropolis.

Göbekli tepe with it's temple dating 10000 BC is testament to what can appear if you dig deep enough.

So ask yourself this, what might appear if you dig past all that ancient Roman/Greek history, you'll definitely find something.

But despite that some will never change the way they view things.

Like for instance how the Greek will never get over losing it all and dream of thos old times.