[TDoS]

Works fine maybe for anything under Dunbar's number.

Wrong.  Dunbar's Number is ~150.

I know what Dunbar's number is. Duh.

Pacific Northwest tribes were upwards of 1500 people, and their Polatch system served upwards of 250,000 for distributing resources among the tribes.
RE

And were as happily murdering their neighbors to take their lands as any happy go lucky Western Europeans were when they arrived on the East coast. I include the disposition of larger groups of folks to do all the bad social consequences  you are complaining about in modern society. Sure the modern scale is larger, and the social sub-divisions more extensive, but native Americans weren't busy living in peace when someone wanted someone elses land.
I love the resource stress claim myself. All the peak oilers thinking they were original with running outs and peaks and stuff. Resource stress is a nice way of saying we CAN'T sustain our people in a nice calm way, but rather want to be like those crazy proto-Americans and bumpm off those who have more! Basic humans behavior, creating haves and have nots.

That is the main beef with this entire "lets all be socialists like <fill in capitalists aiming for socialism or socialists who turn into communists etc etc) idea. Basic human behvaior.


How dare socialist like American Indians kill/maim/steal happily with their wonderful social harmony!! They sound like capitalists!

Crow Creek Massacre (c. 1325 CE): Located in South Dakota, this pre-Columbian site contains the remains of at least 486 individuals showing extensive signs of violent trauma, scalping, mutilation, and trophy-taking, pointing to severe inter-tribal conflict likely driven by resource stress.

I find the Central Americans more interesting though. You think the Mayans and slavery makes for good socialism ideals? All those uninfected by European ideas seemed to have invented it independent of those slimey European types.

How about debts among the Aztecs? Don't pay your bills...slavery for you! Sounds WORSE than capitalism, how did all those living in peace and harmony types ever invent this on their own?

My guess is this shit is because people be people. Once above Dunbars number there is no structure that doesn't involve winners and losers, one way or another. 

[RE]

The Mayans & Aztecs were Ag-Slave civilizations, with all the concommitant problems.  Far as conflict between tribes, yes that's usually there but much more limited in scope.  Far as the North American tribes are concerned, it mostly occurred when the Europeans forced one group off their land and they moved onto land another tribe occupied.  We're not talking about inter-tribal conflict, but intra-tribal distribution of wealth.

Far as numbers go, in 16-1700 there were estimated to be 25,000 Sioux, 30,000 Huron, 50,000 Apache, 30,000 Navajo.  2 orders of magnitude above Dunbar's number.  Your knowledge of anthropology is pathetic.

RE

[TDoS]

The Mayans & Aztecs were Ag-Slave civilizations, with all the concommitant problems. 

What? So the storyline told by back-to-earthers and folks using ancient tribes and peoples as a socialist model are WRONG? Slavery is a-okay among the folks who hadn't yet been polluted by European ideas, let alone basic capitalism?

Is the Nordic model of capitalism the best socialism has to offer, besides the socialist systems that are communist in nature?

Far as numbers go, in 16-1700 there were estimated to be 25,000 Sioux, 30,000 Huron, 50,000 Apache, 30,000 Navajo.  2 orders of magnitude above Dunbar's number.  Your knowledge of anthropology is pathetic.

RE

Well, I can't be a certified expert in EVERY topic I dabble in.

It wasn't just North America that was populated before the western European infestation occured. Cherry pick better. Before their continent was taken from them by fine white folk there were somewhere between 8-100 million of them. All happy folks busy killing each other for land and riches (of the time) and whatnot.

[RE]

Meso-American cultures were more like the Egyptian or Sumerian civilizations.  They weren't H-Gs.  They don't fit a socialist model.  Not all pre Columbian aboriginals were the same.  That's why Mayans & Aztec are referred to as ""civilizations" and not "tribes".  North America, South America and Africa were primarily tribal cultures up to about 1600.

The fact there were conflicts between tribes is irrelevant.  This discussion is about how the tribe takes care of its own members.

RE

[TDoS]

Meso-American cultures were more like the Egyptian or Sumerian civilizations.  They weren't H-Gs. 

Ok. So...I will grant that sub Dunbars number folks can easily be the type of socialist that you and K-Dog seem to think is possible above Dunbar's numbers.

Is the Nordic example of capitalism the best example of the "socialism" that you and K-Dog think will work? Or do you have an example from somewhere in the past half a millenia or so you would prefer, Dunbar number plus of course.

The fact there were conflicts between tribes is irrelevant.  This discussion is about how the tribe takes care of its own members.
RE

Fine. I will grant that sub-Dunbar number tribes of yore can be happily socialist. Until some larger than Dunbars numbers plus gang comes along, kills and/or enslaves them nd takes their stuff anyway.

Humans naturally build Dunbar Number PLUS civilizations. Do you have an example of a socialist culture/society sometime in the last 500 years that fits you and K-Dogs criteria as actual socialist, as compared to capitalist socialist like the Nordic model? Is there a better example than the Capitalist Nordic example?

[RE]

Fine. I will grant that sub-Dunbar number tribes of yore can be happily socialist. Until some larger than Dunbars numbers plus gang comes along, kills and/or enslaves them nd takes their stuff anyway.

I already identified 4 tribes with numbers 2 orders of magnitude larger than Dunbar that meet  socialist criteria in many respects.

The tribes of the Pacific Northwest which included  Coast Salish, Makah, Quileute, Quinault, Chinook, Tillamook,  Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Haisla also cooperated in a loose federation with a population total estimated anywhere between about 500K to 2M that used Potlatch to distribute wealth between the tribes.  That's 4-5 orders of magnitude over Dunbar.  They were peaceful folks before the invasion of the Europeans.

I don't buy the argument that because of "Human Nature" a large society must always have "winners" and "losers".  That's like saying you can't have Justice in a large society.  it's just a matter of setting up the laws and then enforcing them.

RE

[TDoS]

Fine. I will grant that sub-Dunbar number tribes of yore can be happily socialist. Until some larger than Dunbars numbers plus gang comes along, kills and/or enslaves them nd takes their stuff anyway.

I already identified 4 tribes with numbers 2 orders of magnitude larger than Dunbar that meet  socialist criteria in many respects.

You are hedging. I don't care about "in many respects", I was specific. You and K-Dog have an idea about what socialism is (probably NOT including the perspective offered in the article I presented because it is basically irrefutable) and I asked about which ones met you and K-Dogs requirements for your version of socialism. I can just argue that the evidence previously provided is socialism from someone's personal experience, as opposed to just folks hopoing for something else on a web forum somewhere.

I care about what is the closest reasonably large scale example over the past half millennia.

The tribes of the Pacific Northwest which included  Coast Salish, Makah, Quileute, Quinault, Chinook, Tillamook,  Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Haisla also cooperated in a loose federation with a population total estimated anywhere between about 500K to 2M that used Potlatch to distribute wealth between the tribes.  That's 4-5 orders of magnitude over Dunbar.  They were peaceful folks before the invasion of the Europeans.

Perhaps consulting a deeper search in their history might have helped?


------------------------------------
Peoples of the Region
Coastal Nations: Included the Haida, Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu chah nulth, Cowichan, Tlingit, and Tsimshian. Their societies were built around a rich subsistence economy centered on salmon and cedar, enabling some of the densest and most complex hierarchical hunter-gatherer societies in the world.

Interior Nations: Included the Kootenay, as well as various Interior Salish and Athapascan speakers who lived a varied hunting and gathering lifestyle in the mountainous interior.

Warfare and Motivations
Economic and Social Drivers: Among west coast societies, warfare was driven significantly by the desire to acquire material goods and slaves through raiding.

Wealth Accumulation: The captured goods and slaves served as crucial avenues for individuals and leaders to build up sufficient wealth to host potlatches and other give-away ceremonies, which were central to their social and political structure.

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/military-history/history-heritage/popular-books/aboriginal-people-canadian-military/warfare-pre-columbian-north-america.html

I don't buy the argument that because of "Human Nature" a large society must always have "winners" and "losers". 

I never said you did. I don't believe that a "winners and losers" angle is a requirement either. I just want some examples of a thing you and K-Dog THINK is possible, having happened somewhere, sometime, with some people. I certainly think that humans do have a nature, and maybe, just maybe, it doesn't align with what you and K-Dog think is a system that can be achieved.

That's like saying you can't have Justice in a large society.  it's just a matter of setting up the laws and then enforcing them.
RE

Yes. Exactly what America has today. Setting up laws and enforcing them. Allegedly. More importantly, has ANY nation ever set up laws, and applied them equally and fairly as Americans seem to think their system does? They are wrong of course, but methinks it might be in part because no such system is infalliable....perhaps humans are humans. Human nature just can't be divorced from the social systems we build. Above Dunbars number anyway.

[K-Dog]

Looks like they go what they voted for.  Why do I not feel sorry?  Because when adults are idiots it is a choice. 

I do feel their pain, that is different. 

I can feel it, but I have to ask.  How many more times will these class traitors have to starve before they learn?

So poor people, who don't have your education, wealth or life experience, are "class traitors"? Because...they don't agree with your politics?

You've misunderstood the term, and I want to clear that up, because it matters.

"Class traitor" is not a moral insult. It's not me calling someone a bad person, or stupid, or uneducated. It's a statement of fact about a relationship. A worker who votes for a billionaire who will cut their food aid, gut their safety net, and hand their jobs to the coal bosses is acting against the interests of their own class.

That's what the phrase describes. It's not a slur; it's a description of what the vote does.

And you made my point for me, more precisely than I could.

You said the people of Appalachia "may no more believe that anyone's political system will cure their living conditions," because they've been pitched the same promise since Johnson's War on Poverty and seen it come to nothing. That's exactly right. And that's the tragedy. They've been betrayed so many times by the Democrats, by union leadership that told them how to vote.  By every politician who said: "vote for me and I'll give you stuff" , that they've decided no political system can help them. So they vote for the man who promises to bring back the mines, and they get starvation for swallowing his lie.  Learning too late that lying is all this man ever does.

You've described a working class that has been systematically lied to and abandoned by the very institutions that were supposed to represent it. And then you've concluded that the workers are therefore justified in voting against themselves because what else could they do you think? That's where we part ways.

The fact that someone has been betrayed doesn't make their self-destructive vote any less self-destructive. It explains it. And the explanation is not "they're idiots".

It's that the organizations that were supposed to give them a political alternative sold them out. The United Mine Workers, which you remember from your uncle's generation, didn't just fade away. It was deliberately hollowed out.   Its leadership.  People like Richard Trumka, sabotaged strikes and made deals with the coal companies.  They delivered the miners to the Democratic Party, which did nothing for them.

The union told them how to vote, and the union told them to vote for a party that was cutting their throats. The Democrats became the party of Wall Street, and workers had nowhere to go.  Unions had spent decades making sure there was no independent working-class party, no socialist alternative, nothing but parties that are two sides of the same rich coin.

When a West Virginia town votes 76 percent for Trump, I don't see idiots.  I asked when will they learn.  Idiots can't learn.

The end of a century of betrayal by the union bureaucracy and the Democratic Party and the vote is a vote for a billionaire against their own survival.

Calling that "class treason" is not contempt for the workers. It's contempt for the people who put them in that position.  To pretend that voting for your own starvation is somehow a rational or defensible choice just because the alternatives were also putrid shit is on the other side of crazy.

You and I can afford our choices, you say. That's true, and it's the whole point. The working class can't afford to keep making the stupid choice.  Because unlike us they unlike us have no margin left.

People who can afford to be cynical about politics are people like you and me. Not the people starving in West Virginia.  They can't afford it.

They need a political answer, not resignation. And the answer is not "vote for the other party of the rich."

It is not to be a class traitor.

An independent political movement of the working class is the answer.  Built on the understanding that no capitalist party.  Democrat or Republican, will ever cure their conditions.  The only way out is to fight for their own interests, as a class, against both of them.

I'm not bashing poor people. I'm taking their situation more seriously than you are and calling it for what it is.

You've written them off as people who can't be expected to know better. I'm saying they've been robbed of the chance to know better and through despair or bad guidance they continue to make the same bad choice.  A robbery was committed by the very people who told them how to vote.  And the robbery is still in progress.

[RE]

I don't believe that a "winners and losers" angle is a requirement either.

Once above Dunbars number there is no structure that doesn't involve winners and losers, one way or another. 

You can't even keep your arguments consistent.  🙄

Debating you is pointless.

RE

[K-Dog]

The cognitive limit of Dunbar's number is overcome by redefining who counts as "family" and "neighbor." A strategy to extend the natural, primate-like bonds of kin and tribe to a broader, kinship network is fictive yes, but it is a practical approach, and has been the norm at times in history.

Sadly, for many people the bumps and bruises of typical American life experience render them mentally unfit to entertain the concept.  And when an empire is falling, many find the notion quaint and foolish.  In our chaotic time of inverted role models, it takes a strong disposition to keep the faith.

[TDoS]

You've misunderstood the term, and I want to clear that up, because it matters.

"Class traitor" is not a moral insult. It's not me calling someone a bad person, or stupid, or uneducated. It's a statement of fact about a relationship. A worker who votes for a billionaire who will cut their food aid, gut their safety net, and hand their jobs to the coal bosses is acting against the interests of their own class.

That's what the phrase describes. It's not a slur; it's a description of what the vote does.

FINALLY....an excellent description of the term. I deal with science and mathematics, the entire shifting/changing/arbitrary/shifting sands of politics stuff is like sandskrit. Thank you.

And you made my point for me, more precisely than I could.

Not a surprise. I've lived it. As with most of my success in life, it is a combination of the normal theoretical schooling requirements (YAWN...), intellect, and then EXPERIENCE in the DOING of things, ALWAYS with the delivery of RESULTS. Those lecturing fools who tell students how to drill wells without ever having held a pipe wrench in their lives. 

You said the people of Appalachia "may no more believe that anyone's political system will cure their living conditions," because they've been pitched the same promise since Johnson's War on Poverty and seen it come to nothing. That's exactly right. And that's the tragedy.

The fact that someone has been betrayed doesn't make their self-destructive vote any less self-destructive. It explains it. And the explanation is not "they're idiots".

You are incorrect in this regard. I grew up among them. Started in the 1st grade and went to school with them until the 9th grade. My step-father was one. His family were ALL that way. All my parents friends were the same. And "idiots" is a strong word, true, how about "unthinking in their decisions"?

Once Mom fled my murdering drunk father and we were on our own, her entire goal was to get educated. Her origins put here married to another guy from Appalachia. He was a good man, unlike my far more intelligent father. So my genes are somewhat biased, compared to my friends from those days, whom I visit regularly. They still live in the same houses they were born into. Live the same way they were when they graduated high school.

Like or not, these are my people. So..idiots was a poor choice..."unthinking in their decisions" I like better.

When a West Virginia town votes 76 percent for Trump, I don't see idiots.  I asked when will they learn.  Idiots can't learn.

A reasonable operating perspective. But there ARE enough idiots in the mix to not discount them outright. Bred, born and raised in this environment doesn't create folks who naturally think for themselves. Sure they learn...and the 1 in 10 who do tend to flee the place. They don't stick around to make things better.

People who can afford to be cynical about politics are people like you and me. Not the people starving in West Virginia.  They can't afford it.

And folks who can't be bothered or don't have the minimum numbers of neurons to flee their circumstances leading to doom are no different than lemmings. All it takes is a Pied Piper. PRESTO! Off the cliff we go! The few with brains who didn't flee when the opportunity arose? You go with the herd you grew up with.

An independent political movement of the working class is the answer. 

Yeah, they tried that, they were called Democans.

I'm not bashing poor people. I'm taking their situation more seriously than you are and calling it for what it is.

I take the situation as seriously as you do. From Jim Crowe in Appalachia all the way through unions and school teachers getting at least a little (black lung benefits for my aunt after her husband died of it being one example and Mom is being taken care of pretty well). I just happen to have taken another path to get out of Dodge.

I've got no objection to someone firing up a different Pied Piper routine in Appalachia, or anywhere else.

You've written them off as people who can't be expected to know better.

A reasonable statement. Based on direct experience in being raised there, having family still there, and spanning half a century now seeing the rest of the country. Perhaps you HAVEN"T written them off because you are familiar with them theoretically? Not an uncommon thing among the intelligent. RE presents his ideas on how to be La Longue Carabine at PO.com from experience based on punching paper targets when he was 12.

You are willing to suppose that these people, that raised me, can be convinced of something better, if only their were American politics that were better. Not an unreasonable presumption. I discount their ability to stop marrying their cousins, but will grant that they could certainly follow another Pied Piper. The issue is why would they follow YOURS rather than the next used car salesmen in line?

I'm saying they've been robbed of the chance to know better and through despair or bad guidance they continue to make the same bad choice. 

Quite true. But you appear to discount the very belief systems, and overall lack of intelligence, that makes them vulnerable to ANY half wit who comes along pitching another New Deal.

Us hill folks don't trust outsiders much to begin with. Your general socialistic ideals, while appealing to quite a few I imagine, have to at the very LEAST overcome the natural barriers in America to anything other than 2 party system, as both those 2 parties are arrayed against you from the start. And selling anything that resembles Communism in name or appearance is a no-go right out of the gate.

Ideas/slogans/claims that might work among the intelligentsia of suburban Seattle of LA or DC or NYC is one thing, but there is no guarantee it'll work among that swath of folks in Appalachia.

[K-Dog]

In America to anything other than 2 party system, as both those 2 parties are arrayed against you from the start. And selling anything that resembles Communism in name or appearance is a no-go right out of the gate.

True is that, communism and Jews, in the pocket of the Midwest I grew up in people did not hate them or really anybody else.  For a while the small towns and harsh winters only made good people. Community was real.  My mother told me when the first black people showed up (around WWII) that her mother said to her.  "They are working people just like us." I can assume that was in response to what was being said by some others.

So I don't get why other Americans are so committed to foaming at the mouth, and hating.  The hate and self aggrandizement others seem to take as part of the DNA of being an American I do not have.

[K-Dog]

Is the Nordic example of capitalism the best example of the "socialism" that you and K-Dog think will work? Or do you have an example from somewhere in the past half a millenia or so you would prefer, Dunbar number plus of course.

The Nordic model is unstable and owners will over time usurp the will of the workers.  And that is exactly what is happening there now.

Ownership of Capital Equals Power: Under the Nordic model, the primary means of production remain privately owned. As long as private ownership exists, the capitalist class retains structural leverage over state policy and things are never 50/50.  The ownership class maintains a small advantage in the most equitable of situations.  Over time that sliver of advantage grows into...

Into the shit we have now.

[TDoS]

In America to anything other than 2 party system, as both those 2 parties are arrayed against you from the start. And selling anything that resembles Communism in name or appearance is a no-go right out of the gate.

True is that, communism and Jews, in the pocket of the Midwest I grew up in people did not hate them or really anybody else.  For a while the small towns and harsh winters only made good people. Community was real.

Same here. Faith all over the place as well. But no Jews and VERY few colored folk. Can't recall a single synagogue I've ever seen, my county or any other. Pretty much as Appalachia is generally represented. We were all happily poor is the best way to put it. Did it change as folks in general became less rural and more and more ended up in the big shitties and burbs?

So I don't get why other Americans are so committed to foaming at the mouth, and hating. 

Me either. I only ever discovered foaming at the mouth and hating anyone who dared contradict it when I ran into the true beleivers of peak oil. And by then, we're talking the internet and online stuff, where all kinds of just jack shit stupid behavior and ideas has become the norm in general.

I blame the internet for a bunch of things. Faux expertise accepted as truth because you BELIEVE whatever it is, the concentration of not just bad ideas but anti-science, anti-fact, anti-knowledge first and conclusions later....it was almost like small churches of nuttery suddenly revealed the sheer volume of crackpottery that existed under the surface of normality in America.

[RE]

I only ever discovered foaming at the mouth and hating anyone who dared contradict it when I ran into the true beleivers of peak oil.

Oh come on.  You never discovered ANYONE who was a Mouth Foaming Racist from the 60s to the 80s anywhere in Amerika?  You missed George Wallace when he ran for POTUS?  You missed it when the KKK burned the crosses and the black kids in Mississippi?  It took until Peak Oil for you to discover hatred in the FSoA? 🙄

RE