this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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If you ran humanity in thousands of simulations how often would we end up in the same capitalistic situation?
Very frequently, but it is exactly just as likely it would have moved on to Socialism and eventually Communism, or retained feudalism, it all depends on when in development.
Is it always a linear path?
Fantastic question! The answer is no, not necessarily. The PRC is Socialist, and never had a true "Capitalist" phase. It currently has a Socialist Market Economy, but never really had a stage dominated entirely by Capitalism.
There are also reversions. Russia reverted to Capitalism, and Germany almost became Communist, but was stopped by the Nazi Party coming to power.
However, all of that being said, history does generally progress alongside technological development, and the Mode of Production follows suit.
Well, let's hope the great filter isn't something we encounter before we see some cool shit.
Far less often than we end up with communalist hunter gatherers and early agrarian communes and evidently for a much shorter time. Does that mean feudalism can never work? Capitalism is never at any point of productive development possible?
Edit: deleted a section that assumed you were the same guy who said communism was against human nature. Apologies.
Your words make no sense to me. If you want to convey ideas use the common tongue. It feels like you have some neat ideas though.
Edit: Can anyone please decipher what this guy said?
people share goods and culture naturally. the prevailing historical models are cooperative. anticooperative, competitive societies are rare.
Thanks man. So this guy is an expert on economies but not on psychologies. Is that fair?
If you wanna talk psychology, the ultracompetitive demands of modern capitalism have to be drilled into each of us from birth, and most of us resist it all the same. Mark Fisher elaborates on this in Capitalist Realism, this learned behavior is in large part responsible for the mental health crisis in the world.
You're assuming way too much about my motives. I haven't even stated a conclusion. But from what I gather, you think our behavior is (almost?) fully formed from external forces. That's a valid take, but, I believe to be highly debatable, which I have no answer or conclusion for.
You're right, I got confused and assumed you were the guy arguing that it was against human nature. I apologize for the mistake and have edited my comment.
Behavior is learned, but as far as anyone can tell, if there's such a thing as "human nature" we seem to be wired very much in favor of empathy and cooperation with other humans, Matthew Lieberman has a book on the subject which I admittedly haven't read yet.
this rather shows the untestability of the hypothesis. this is no test at all.
It's an unanswerable question. Just something to think about. My intention was to ponder how much external forces dictate our society rather than the internal expressive ones.
So many it would be hard to count, at least 4 or 5. But numbers don't really go much higher than that. Any caveman could tell you that.