williams_482
@williams_482@startrek.website
- Comment on The best thing *you* can do for the fediverse is *just be kind* 2 weeks ago:
Nomadic people don’t just wander around aimlessly, and there are big differences in how desirable different territory is for nomadic hunter-gatherer humans. The principle is the same as with nomadic pastoralists: your group has a territory which can sustain them when hunted on/gathered from/grazed/etc over the course of the year, and your group will wander within that space in a deliberate pattern. If some other group decides to “just move on to” your group’s territory, hunting the animals and foraging the plants that your group knows they are going to need to survive the year, that’s an existential threat to you. And you can’t “just move on” yourself without wandering into the territory of yet more groups whose territory borders yours, and who will react violently to your presence for the same reasons.
Given the choice between fleeing to who knows where and fighting who knows who for the privilege of moving, or staying right where you are and fighting for the land you know your group can survive on, you stay and fight.
Humans spread out across the earth as the losers of these conflicts (those who survived, anyway) fled until they stumbled on new-to-humans territory, often displacing or eradicating groups of more “primitive” hominids they found there. This process continues until just about everywhere which humans can reach and which can support human life has humans in it. But expanding populations, the occasional natural disaster, and normal human frustration that their territory sucks while their neighbors have it great (which was often true; again, not all land is the same to a nomadic hunter/gatherer) meant that these conflicts were constantly reignited.
- Comment on The best thing *you* can do for the fediverse is *just be kind* 2 weeks ago:
There was organized violence deployed by groups of humans against other groups of humans long, long before anything we would recognize as warfare. Particularly brutal violence too, because the objective was not to conquer other people (something which only makes sense once agriculture is the dominant mode of sustinence), but to either drive off or exterminate a rival group so you can use their territory for yourself.
And we don’t even need to talk about people here: we have records of chimpanzees fighting small scale wars of harassment and extermination against neighboring groups.
Pre-modern, pre-civilization, pre-aggriculture, pre-you-name-it human life was far more violent than what we deal with today.
- Comment on Civilization 7 Outlines Crucial 1.1.1 Update as It Struggles to Compete on Steam Against Civ 6 and Even the 15-Year-Old Civ 5 4 weeks ago:
Civilization 4 was good at launch. Naturally it got even better over time.
Worth a mention that 4 is the most recent of these games released primary on physical hardware. That meant patching was a more difficult process so they actually had to hire a bunch of play testers to test stuff (and fix the problems they found). Contrast that to the approach of the most recent three games, which had their customers pay $70 for the privilege of being beta testers.
This is a shitty way to develop games. We should be mad about it because we deserve better.
- Comment on The Stars of Star Trek: Section 31 Know Why You're Nervous About the Movie 2 months ago:
Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Barclay?
Yes?
Lieutenant Barklay and the huge, powerful, and successful paramilitary organization who employs him are exactly who is supposed to guard Federation worlds. Which is what they do.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x05 "Starbase 80?!" 5 months ago:
I really liked this one. I think it did a good job making Starbase 80 fit into the universe as more than just a joke (why does starfleet have a starbase that everyone knows just totally sucks? Well, because of a bunch of weird circumstances, and also it’s more complicated than the reputation).
Interesting, although unsurprising, that Mariner apparently didn’t hang around SB80 long enough to figure out that there was more there than met the eye. A lot of the stuff uncovered in this episode should have been noticeable to a new transfer.