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A comment on Ancient Eastern European mega-sites: a social levelling concept?.

Re:Ancient Eastern European mega-sites: a social levelling c... by bjornsing on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @05:17AM (#40364714)
Interesting. Perhaps the first example of so called “social engineering” that we’re so familiar with in the Nordics?

Also plays nicely into a pet theory of mine, that “social engineering” typically has very different short term and long term effects. It seems in the short term you can change social roles radically by changing rewards and punishment (e.g. communist revolutions). But then people’s personalities start adjusting to the new environment. After 2-3 generations you have radically different personality structures and behaviors in the population.

Sadly politics is about the immediate results, and does not even attribute the long term consequences to the policies introduced 2-3 generations ago.

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Re:Ancient Eastern European mega-sites: a social levelling c... by dsign on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @07:37AM (#40365534)
Social engineering has been along for ... well, since we ended prehistory. The convergence to monotheism with very specific demographic outlooks and group self-identification ("we are the chosen people, the others are not") is early evidence of social engineering.

> Sadly politics is about the immediate results, and does not even attribute the long term consequences to the policies introduced 2-3 generations ago.

Our modern political systems at the current scale have been around for only a few short hundred years. Time will tell how they work out, but I doubt they will be eternal.

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Re:Ancient Eastern European mega-sites: a social levelling c... by ponow on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @10:20AM (#40367314)
> early evidence of social engineering

Or early adaptation of culture to nature.

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