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As to the measurement of human capital, it seems slavery in a monetary economic system would inevitably involve it.
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Nov 10, 2020 20:06
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Weka posted:As to the measurement of human capital, it seems slavery in a monetary economic system would inevitably involve it. Sure, Cato's treatise on farming basically says you should aim to work your slaves hard enough so that they break down by about 2 years, and then you stop feeding them and replace them with new slaves. I think the French came up with the same cost/benefit analysis in Haiti as well. Of course, that only really applies when slaves are cheap to replace, when they're more expensive you make sure they don't die of overwork but you also get real obsessive about preventing them from escaping.
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Nov 11, 2020 00:35
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Almond Crunch posted:The idea of depreciation itself? It has to be as old as the first tool. Interesting! How did they measure success of engineering projects? I guess that makes sense that you don’t need accounting until you have private investment. Weka posted:As to the measurement of human capital, it seems slavery in a monetary economic system would inevitably involve it. That’s sort of the argument made here: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674972094 I am a bit surprised this didn’t pop up early/in another context as well tho?
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Nov 11, 2020 00:38
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Miss Broccoli posted:Patrick Wyman makes the case that they are, because the traders who went between those lands who absolutely needed to know accurately who was who would translate hun and xiongnu into eachother. He makes the case that atillas Huns are a different group but the same thing, pushed west by difficult winters My take would be Wyman is a specialist on that time and I'm not, so he probably has good reason to think there's a connection. But a connection does not mean that the people the Chinese were fighting and calling Xiongnu and the Huns in Europe were the same group of people, which is the original assertion that does not have much support in modern scholarship. Nobody who knows anything takes the old "The Chinese accidentally destroyed the Roman Empire by building the Great Wall" idea seriously. I've also never seen any contemporary records of people using the terms Xiongnu and Hun interchangeably, I don't know of any instance of that hypothesis prior to the 19th century. If he cited something about that I'd be interested, I don't remember hearing that when I listened to Fall of Rome. The Central Asian steppe peoples being tribes constantly in flux and with complex relationships among each other isn't controversial, though.
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Nov 11, 2020 00:46
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Grand Fromage posted:If he cited something about that I'd be interested, I don't remember hearing that when I listened to Fall of Rome. He discusses it in his episode on the Huns.
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Nov 11, 2020 00:55
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:He discusses it in his episode on the Huns. Yeah, I was hoping for a list of citations instead of having to spend an hour on it just to (probably) find out he mentions it but doesn't say the source. My understanding is there are zero sources on Xiongnu language and close to zero on Hun, but again, not a specialist in late antiquity by any means.
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Nov 11, 2020 01:01
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Grand Fromage posted:Yeah, I was hoping for a list of citations instead of having to spend an hour on it just to (probably) find out he mentions it but doesn't say the source. Yeah I don't remember what if anything he cites, sorry, but I can confirm that he does put forward the claim
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Nov 11, 2020 01:16
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I don't know too much about the specifics of the argument but there is definitely discussion about the Xiongnu language by credible academics. Here's a paper by Alexander Vovin for instance where he outright says:quote:the evidence for the fact that at least some part of the Xiongnu confederation (possibly its core or elite) spoke a Yeniseian language seems to be almost indisputable now. Most of his papers are available online (a lot on his academia.edu site) if you're interested in seeing the full argument. I've definitely seen this stuff glanced on by other historians too, although I haven't really absorbed what was said personally. I should probably try to actually learn properly about the steppe sometime; I have the impression that even beyond the Xiongnu->Hun thing (and obviously the Mongols), there's this trend of steppe people starting in eastern Mongolia/west Manchuria and gradually making their way westward cross Eurasia a whole bunch of times in history. Koramei fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Nov 11, 2020 |
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Nov 11, 2020 01:26
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Looks like The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila might be one of the sources, going to check it out. Eventually. I don't want to admit how many unread books I have on my kindle right now.
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Nov 11, 2020 01:37
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tildes posted:I have an economic history question which may or may not be ancient history - I’m not sure what time period this would be. Basically I’m curious when the concept of depreciation of capital became a thing, as well as measurement of human capital. Are these present this far back, or did they really truly only appear until much later on? Most histories I find talk about 20th century versions which are very close to modern conceptions, but it feels like this concept must be older than that even if the words used to describe it might be different. From my understanding, deprecation of value doesn't really matter until income tax becomes a thing. Prior to that, you'd be aware that an asset might have a limited lifetime and you'd need to plan business expenditure around that, but any effect on your income is meaningless because that's not what is being taxed.
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Nov 11, 2020 01:50
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And it has come full circle at least in the UK. HMRC (the IRS) won't let you use your accounting depreciation as they don't trust you not to estimate ridiculous useful lives for tax puposes. Best ancient tax One weird trick (quaestors HATE it)!!!
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Nov 11, 2020 12:40
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sullat posted:Sure, Cato's treatise on farming basically says you should aim to work your slaves hard enough so that they break down by about 2 years, and then you stop feeding them and replace them with new slaves. I think the French came up with the same cost/benefit analysis in Haiti as well. Of course, that only really applies when slaves are cheap to replace, when they're more expensive you make sure they don't die of overwork but you also get real obsessive about preventing them from escaping. Is two years the mean time someone typically lasts at Amazon these days?
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Nov 11, 2020 13:42
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To be fair to Amazon their workers usually get payed for slowly and painfully having the life crushed out of them by the grindstone of their toil.
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Nov 11, 2020 14:47
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Strategic Tea posted:And it has come full circle at least in the UK. HMRC (the IRS) won't let you use your accounting depreciation as they don't trust you not to estimate ridiculous useful lives for tax puposes. haha do you have more about this?
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Nov 11, 2020 15:38
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FreudianSlippers posted:To be fair to Amazon their workers usually get payed for slowly and painfully having the life crushed out of them by the grindstone of their toil. One of my friends worked at an amazon warehouse from like 2015-18 and apparently loved it enough to get to be supervisor at another warehouse, and now she's loving brain-poisoned. Like I don't want to bring modern politics into this but for reference she's one of the mythical bernie 16/trump 20 voters. I expect this is what it feels like when one of your friends buys their way into the equestrian class.
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Nov 11, 2020 16:08
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Strategic Tea posted:And it has come full circle at least in the UK. HMRC (the IRS) won't let you use your accounting depreciation as they don't trust you not to estimate ridiculous useful lives for tax puposes. I like the timelessness of abusing religion-based tax exemptions. Has any society ever managed to tax religious institutions?
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Nov 11, 2020 16:14
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Elissimpark posted:I like the timelessness of abusing religion-based tax exemptions. Tang-Song interregnum saw some success, before the neo-confucian revival in the Song: "Emperor Shih-tsung (r. 954-959) is however said personally to have smashed the Buddha of Great Compassion at Chen-chou, remarking with dry humor to his prime minister 'The Buddhist religion considers that one's head, one's eyes, and one's brains should all be put ungrudgingly at the service of the multitude of living creatures! How much less it should begrudge a copper statue!'" Of course it's important to contextualize this cool quote: when you have a real vigorous contest between multiple POWERFUL religious traditions, this sort of stuff happens all the time. Buddhist monasteries came to hold significant amounts of capital especially during the Tang, as the religion grew in popularity, and were subject to frequent confiscations of property, or occasionally, the whole drat temple complex. The reason I think that these don't 'count' is that succeeding emperors almost always returned these lands, recompensed with lavish tribute, and even commissioned new temples. Almond Crunch fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Nov 11, 2020 |
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Nov 11, 2020 16:30
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I don't think arbitrary seizures count as taxes, even if the state got richer that way.
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Nov 11, 2020 16:47
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How common were those human-powered grindstones anyways? I feel like I don't know a lot about mills in general beyond the wind and water powered ones that founded the mechanical principles that modern generators work on.
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Nov 11, 2020 17:00
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Varies too widely to give an answer. Basically if slaves were cheaper than animals, you'd have slaves do it. If animals were cheaper, you'd yoke up a donkey or whatever. And if you were too poor to have slaves OR donkeys, welp. Get pushin'.
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Nov 11, 2020 18:23
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Elissimpark posted:I like the timelessness of abusing religion-based tax exemptions.
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Nov 12, 2020 01:32
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Nessus posted:Does the jizya count? I thought about that, but it's more an individual thing rather than a church thing. (I'll admit I forgot the name and had to check I wasn't walking into a ligma)
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Nov 12, 2020 01:55
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Elissimpark posted:I thought about that, but it's more an individual thing rather than a church thing. Jizya salvar
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Nov 12, 2020 02:43
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Talk about your clash of civilizations rhetoric.
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Nov 12, 2020 05:47
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Marilyn Frye posted:To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (loving exclusively with the other sex, i.e. women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire... those are, overwhelmingly, other men. Was reading some unrelated stuff to ancient history and encountered this, and the concept sounded familiar...didn’t the ancient Greeks or Romans believe something similar to this? Bro code?
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Nov 12, 2020 15:07
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Elissimpark posted:I like the timelessness of abusing religion-based tax exemptions. I mean, sometimes the religious institution gets to levy its own taxes and is also part of the government. Mediaeval church, tithes, etc.
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Nov 12, 2020 17:16
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Was reading some unrelated stuff to ancient history and encountered this, and the concept sounded familiar...didn’t the ancient Greeks or Romans believe something similar to this? Bro code? The conclusion? No because this author is conflating eros (sexual love) with mostly philia (~friendship). But the preceding paragraph? I'd say a whole heap of societies have lent that way, atleast amongst the upper classes.
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Nov 13, 2020 07:28
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This seemed like it might appeal to this thread's kind of people: https://twitter.com/EndangeredAlpha/status/1327745960949272577?s=20
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Nov 15, 2020 19:09
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Whats are some good, laymen friendly books about ancient life? Id also be interested in anything about how stuff was built.
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Nov 16, 2020 11:27
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Elderbean posted:Whats are some good, laymen friendly books about ancient life? Id also be interested in anything about how stuff was built. https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Engineers-Astonishing-Wonders-Creators/dp/0345482875 is the classic on ancient-world building but it has some age on it now so there may be updated versions.
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Nov 16, 2020 13:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Engineers-Astonishing-Wonders-Creators/dp/0345482875 is the classic on ancient-world building but it has some age on it now so there may be updated versions. Perfect! I'll check it out. Another question for the thread. Hard to articulate precisely what I'm asking for here, but, is there a quick summary of major trends in Roman culture and when they occured? Like, fashion, art, and architecture? As a laymen, when I think "Ancient Rome" a very generic image comes to mind that's not fixed to any particular time. Whereas I have pretty specific images in mind of mid-century America vs 2020.
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Nov 18, 2020 11:18
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I know the blues and the greens are the famous demes, but that there were other colors as well. Did they still exist with supporters at the time of the Nika riots? Or had they been absorbed by the two major teams? Or was it the hipster choice, oh yeah I'm into the Reds, you wouldn't know their charioteers.
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Nov 19, 2020 02:12
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Red and White still existed but were apparently more like feeder teams or an undercard for the big two. Domitian also vanity-founded two more teams which lapsed on his death
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Nov 19, 2020 02:16
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Omnomnomnivore posted:It's been a while since I read GGS but I remember thinking that all the evidence he pulls together was super interesting in its own right, even if the thesis isn't totally convincing. i know this is from months ago in the thread but i always assumed the reasoning was that its wayyy less feasible to get from eastasia to the americas by way of the pacific than to get to the americas from europe by way of the atlantic when you look at the difference in sheer distance
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Nov 21, 2020 09:09
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Kanine posted:i know this is from months ago in the thread but i always assumed the reasoning was that its wayyy less feasible to get from eastasia to the americas by way of the pacific than to get to the americas from europe by way of the atlantic when you look at the difference in sheer distance Couldn't you just hug the coast north and cross the Bering Strait? Is that path too icy even in summer?
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Nov 21, 2020 10:05
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The northeastern part of Siberia is really barren. So much so that there wasn't really consistent contact between the indigenous people there and the rest of the world until the 1600s. It is possible they had contact across the Bering Strait. Unfortunately due to the level of death both intentional and from disease exposure they experienced following Russian contact a lot of that history has been lost.
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Nov 21, 2020 10:18
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If "China" means Chinese rulers or merchants, there's basically no incentive to send ships north to Siberia. Why would you bother when you know Southeast Asia and Indonesia exist and are wealthy as hell?
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Nov 21, 2020 10:22
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Afaik there was a trickle of trade between Siberia and Alaska pre-Columbus. Like a few artifacts. So Siberians were aware of a landmass to the East, but it was occupied, and there was little they wanted. China knew of barbarians to the far north, but they weren't the near enemy, and most of their maritime trade relations were directed to the south and west. Spain and Portugal wanted to cut west through the deep ocean in hopes of getting valuable trade goods of the far east, that was what drove initial expeditions.
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Nov 21, 2020 10:26
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Hmm, so if Siberia had been fertile enough to support larger settlements, the isolation of the Americas after the last glacial period might never have happened in the first place.
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Nov 21, 2020 11:34
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I know it's not strictly relevant but I think a lot of people in the thread might find The Neanderthal Parallax series of novels really interesting.
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Nov 21, 2020 13:16
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