Social Technologies

[Lord God Jinnai]

Beör:

On monastisism, not that i disagree with what your saying at all, but because it deals almost entirely with religion which isn't covered here, i think its best posted in the social thread.

Also Hinduism does have the type of monks your refering to, to an extent. Only the Braahman class can become them and those that do are usually much more self taught (there may be institutons for beginning levels, if level is the word....um initiates who decide on that part is prob better. Anyway after that though, you'd probably classify them more as 'wondering monks'.

Neo-Confuscianism i think has a variant on this also.

[Beör]

Some thoughts

Monasticism

I agree that if monks are going to be a separate social class they should be covered in the Social Model. If I understand Rodrigo correctly he is working on a family of social classes, one of which could be monks. (In OOA terms I guess he is designing a class which can have several different instances FE clergy, monks, augurs, druids or whatever depending on the scenario).
However, IRL Christian monasticism was very akin to an invention: Although some monasteries existed in both the western and the eastern church (I stand corrected re my previous post) the western monastic movement accelerated greatly after the writing of the Rule of Sct Benedict in the mid 6th century in Italy. This enabled orders of monks living by the same rules in a tightly knit hierarchical organisation, where each monastery founded other monasteries. Large wealth was accumulated over the years, and monasteries were close to having a monopoly on producing and copying all sorts of litterature, biographies, political manifests etc. This is exactly what makes monasticism worth modeling: Great power yielded by a well-organized social institution. But it probably would not have happened this way if not Benedict had procured his Rule.
In other words what in the game I could imagine a social tech 'Monasticism' being a requisite for a specialised social class 'Monks' being modelled as an instance of a Social Class Class (appropriate OOA term?) of the subtype Religious Class.

Enclosure movement:

This is a term describing a fundamental process in European farming. I believe it took place during the 18th and 19th century. Prior to this farmers had been living in villages and all inhabitants farmed the land collectively. Each farmer had his own fields but they were often very small and spread out everywhere around the village. Crops were divided among the inhabitants of the village in a very complex manner according to their holdings. Around the land worked by the village livestock were grassing.
This production method was not very efficient. The enclosure process was actually a local land reform where land was redistributed. The holdings of a single farm were now placed adjacent, and the farm was typically placed in the middle of the holdings. This proved to be very much more efficient.

In short it is a tech increasing agricultural production (this is why Richard mentions Factories which are the manufacturing parallel).

It had immense social impact: the Increased productivity in the long run led to a significant population surplus in rural areas, thus enabling a transfer of work force from the country to the growing cities of early industrialisation. I am not sufficiently familiar with the social, economic and population model (if there is one ) to tell if these affects could be covered there.


Cooperative movement

No it is more than just Kibbutzes which in a way are more akin to monasteries, when you think about it. I will briefly (if I can )outline what happened in my country during the second half of the 19th century.
As production techniques improved and farmers became independent production units (enclosure - remember) it was possible for the farmers to produce more than was needed in the local community. In other words they started producing for the market rather than for local consumption. At the same time agricultural techniques became more sofisticated, fertilizer instead of manure, machines instead of people or animals. It was no longer possible to run the farm as a single unit (in fact closing the circle begun by the enclosure movement), so farmers had to unite their efforts in co-operative societies buying machines, fertilizer etc and selling their products. Previously farmers had to a great extent sold the product of their land directly, but now they refined the products by establishing dairies, mills, breweries, plants for butchering and canning animals. These cooperations where owned jointly by the farmers of a local area. In this way the increased profit from selling refined products were kept in the agricultural productive aparatus, enabling further investment, sofistication and refinement of products. In a spiraling way this led this country from a primarily agricultural society with a 90-95% rural population to a highly urbanised, industrialised country where approximately 1% of the population produce enough food to feed between 10 and 20 times the entire population. This was done in less than 100 years, and the coops are still very much functioning (FE Arla Foods is the largest producer of dairy products in Northern Europe).
As with the enclosure movement this seems primarily to be a tech increasing agricultural production, but the social ramifications of the vast rise in productivity might make it qualify as a social tech as well.

For the moment I will not go into a discussion on Emancipation, I have to read your prior thoughts first, But:

Social mobility

How do you like this term - it is growing in my mind? LGJ made it grow even faster when he mentioned the Brahman class. How could the Cast System of India have been overlooked. One billion people are locked in a society with little if any social mobility. Similar social constructs are abundant: the metoik system of the Athenian city-state, the way citizenship was granted to Roman allies, the guild system, slaves, serfs, thralls, feudalism. Could this be a social tech or is it covered in the social class modeling of the social model?


I will return

Civilization is European Civilisation. There is no other.
General Mustafa Kemal Pasha 1881-1931

[Richard Bruns]

Beör:

Don't forget that the enclosure movement had a lot of short term negative consequences, just like factories. Sometimes the peasants were forced off their land, especially when the efficiency meant they were no longer needed. In fact, the peasants ususally opposed enclosure, and it was forced on them by the landowners and nobles.

But that didn't have to be the case. The lower class could have chosen it, or no one might have adopted it. So in addition to discovering the tech, the social model has to determine who wants it and what they are willing to do to get it. The same thing is true of a lot of techs, actually.

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: Monasticism I agree that if monks are going to be a separate social class they should be covered in the Social Model. If I understand Rodrigo correctly he is working on a family of social classes, one of which could be monks. (In OOA terms I guess he is designing a class which can have several different instances FE clergy, monks, augurs, druids or whatever depending on the scenario). However, IRL Christian monasticism was very akin to an invention: Although some monasteries existed in both the western and the eastern church (I stand corrected re my previous post) the western monastic movement accelerated greatly after the writing of the Rule of Sct Benedict in the mid 6th century in Italy. This enabled orders of monks living by the same rules in a tightly knit hierarchical organisation, where each monastery founded other monasteries. Large wealth was accumulated over the years, and monasteries were close to having a monopoly on producing and copying all sorts of litterature, biographies, political manifests etc. This is exactly what makes monasticism worth modeling: Great power yielded by a well-organized social institution. But it probably would not have happened this way if not Benedict had procured his Rule.

I might haveto disagree with you on the point of the definiation, depending on how you define power. Budhist monks do not live like that (the lesser branch ones atleast which is closer to the christian monks than the greater branch). None play politics, not try to tell anyone what they do is right/wrong, etc. And with the exception of Zen Buddism they live in humble lives that make even christian monks look like kings (FE everyhting....i mean everything, they get is donated. They must go out and beg for food each day to eat (some monks to this for the rest of them) and if no one gives them anything, they don't eat.

Now wielding power, they don't do openly and not really even forcefully, but their power is much more deeply rooted in the culture of the people.

quote: Enclosure movement: This is a term describing a fundamental process in European farming. I believe it took place during the 18th and 19th century. Prior to this farmers had been living in villages and all inhabitants farmed the land collectively. Each farmer had his own fields but they were often very small and spread out everywhere around the village. Crops were divided among the inhabitants of the village in a very complex manner according to their holdings. Around the land worked by the village livestock were grassing. This production method was not very efficient. The enclosure process was actually a local land reform where land was redistributed. The holdings of a single farm were now placed adjacent, and the farm was typically placed in the middle of the holdings. This proved to be very much more efficient. In short it is a tech increasing agricultural production (this is why Richard mentions Factories which are the manufacturing parallel). It had immense social impact: the Increased productivity in the long run led to a significant population surplus in rural areas, thus enabling a transfer of work force from the country to the growing cities of early industrialisation. I am not sufficiently familiar with the social, economic and population model (if there is one ) to tell if these affects could be covered there.

OK...see its these we're looking for in the tech model (which this one would belong under). These 'application techs'.

quote: Cooperative movement No it is more than just Kibbutzes which in a way are more akin to monasteries, when you think about it. I will briefly (if I can )outline what happened in my country during the second half of the 19th century. As production techniques improved and farmers became independent production units (enclosure - remember) it was possible for the farmers to produce more than was needed in the local community. In other words they started producing for the market rather than for local consumption. At the same time agricultural techniques became more sofisticated, fertilizer instead of manure, machines instead of people or animals. It was no longer possible to run the farm as a single unit (in fact closing the circle begun by the enclosure movement), so farmers had to unite their efforts in co-operative societies buying machines, fertilizer etc and selling their products. Previously farmers had to a great extent sold the product of their land directly, but now they refined the products by establishing dairies, mills, breweries, plants for butchering and canning animals. These cooperations where owned jointly by the farmers of a local area. In this way the increased profit from selling refined products were kept in the agricultural productive aparatus, enabling further investment, sofistication and refinement of products. In a spiraling way this led this country from a primarily agricultural society with a 90-95% rural population to a highly urbanised, industrialised country where approximately 1% of the population produce enough food to feed between 10 and 20 times the entire population. This was done in less than 100 years, and the coops are still very much functioning (FE Arla Foods is the largest producer of dairy products in Northern Europe). As with the enclosure movement this seems primarily to be a tech increasing agricultural production, but the social ramifications of the vast rise in productivity might make it qualify as a social tech as well.

I disagree...this seems to be an effect of technology on a largely agricultural society. Just like the discovery of farming move people from hunter/gatherer and nomadic stages.

quote: Social mobility How do you like this term - it is growing in my mind? LGJ made it grow even faster when he mentioned the Brahman class. How could the Cast System of India have been overlooked. One billion people are locked in a society with little if any social mobility. Similar social constructs are abundant: the metoik system of the Athenian city-state, the way citizenship was granted to Roman allies, the guild system, slaves, serfs, thralls, feudalism. Could this be a social tech or is it covered in the social class modeling of the social model?

if it is/isn't/could be, it will be covered in the social model as social mobility is more or less brought on by human nature since before civilizations emerged.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Beör

Caste systems have not been overlooked. They are modeled simply using the Traditionalism attribute in the social model.

quote: Traditionalism: This represents the people's ties to the past. Its role is force culture to stay as it currently is.

That means with very high traditionalism there is virtually no social mobility, and more respect for authority because "that is the way it has always been and should be".

This is about as well as I think we can model such things. I think modeling caste systems more carefully than this will give little return in gameplay while adding lots of excess bagage to the already Very complicated models.

[roquijad]

Enclosure: Thanks for the explanation. Since it was a new way to handle agricultural activity, I see it then simply as management. A normal tech like Management should increase agricultural productivity, so I don't see a need for a social tech associated with the enclosure. The main social effect of the enclosure was a migration to cities, which will appear in the game with ot without enclosure.

Monasticism: I disagree with seeing it so intimately related to Benedict. The clergy has tended to create these groups where study, philosophy and/or economic activities are under a "monastery" from almost the beggining of time ans in several different cultures. In anciet Egypt these forms of monasteries existed in the sense that they did pretty much the same europeans did. The feudal-like living ways created around monasteries found in middle ages existed also in Egypt in some periods, thousands of years before Christ. Science, religion, economy and govt-making tend to become one when religion has a very high value in a culture, so the very essence of a monastery is something we can find almost anywhere given the right conditions. Monasticism is a "natural" outcome of these conditions. Of course, as LGJ says, some characteristics in the religion itself must also be considered, so christians can be much more inclined to control lands and economic resources than buddhists.

Cooperative Economy: I see your point, but I can't find more examples in the world of this than the one you mention in your country, at least I can't find any example with such strong implications. Why it happened in Denmark, but not in other places? Wasn't it maybe something that couldn't happen anywhere but in Denmark?

Social Mobility: I'm with Mark when he says modeling in more detail something like the Castes System would be too much trouble with little in return. In India, as in every place in the world, what we've seen is some sort of discrimination based on different things. So far, in Clash we have the possibility for religious, ethnic and economic discrminations. These discriminations vary as the game evolves, so people in ethnic minorities, FE, can become "normal" citizens or slaves can be freed, FE. So, there is social mobility in the game, but managed in a more flexible way than simply using a SocialMobility tech. In the economic field, discrimination takes the form of more political power to social classes controlling capital as opposed to those who only provide labor.

I don't think we need something as general as a SocialMobility tech because of the different forms discriminations can take. We can have a tech like that, but for more specific things if deemed necessary.

It should also be noted that many social issues can be derived from already existent variables. In the case of social mobility in the economic field (how difficult it is for a worker to become an aristocrat, FE) we can use, as Mark says, Traditionalism from the cultural profile, and the political privileges of the aristocracy in the govt model, since privileges usually tend to preserve the status quo. Computing these two in some way we can measure social mobility in this particular field if we need the info for who knows what.
What I'm saying is we don't need to add social techs or things like that for everything. In many cases it'd be simpler and cheaper to simply "read" this info in a certain way from already existing data in the models. Let's take advantage of the data we already have!

[Beör]

I see now that you are absolutely right. Most of these techs - if needed - are ordinary techs.
The reason why we were all kind of lured into thinking 'social techs' for a moment is that some of these techs have devastating effects on society, and particularly demographic composition and degree of urbanisation.

Will it be possible for the present social and economic models to incorporate the effects of urbanisation and the like on society?

[roquijad]

I know the very concept of "social tech" is tricky, but is undoubtly needed. Some social issues will appear in the game "indirectly" with no particular tech or anything handling it, like social mobility. The social techs we need to include and model directly are those things that wouldn't appear in the game if not explicitly distinguished. If you re-read now my post dated sept.7 4:24, you'd see, uder this perspective, what of your ideas IMO are good candidates for "explicit" social techs.

About your question on urbanization, I believe we'll treat it like the social mobility, that is, checking other variables to indirectly know if people is mostly living in the countryside or in cities. I believe we'll do this checking economic production variables. The econ model handles people and locate them automatically according to needs in the production of food, raw materials, manuf. goods and services. The realative amounts of people working in food/raw_mat compared to those working in manuf_goods/services is IMO the right way to measure how many people live in cities. As techs evolve, chances are less people will be needed in the food/ra_mat area and we'll be able to say "people have migrated to cities".
It's important to note that so far in Clash cities aren't explicitly modeled. We only handle provinces where many cities can exist. Mark probably knows better how necessary it's going to be to include cities as entities of their own in the game.

[Lord God Jinnai]

So what are the social techs now? This is currently my take on the basic groups and subgroups
Basic Social Techs:
Philosophy --
The Arts -- Visual Arts -- Sculptures
------------------------------ Drawing/Painting -- Animation
----------- Architectural Arts --
----------- Performing Arts -- Theatre -- Motion Picture
------------------------------ Music --
------------------------------ Literature --
Governing -- Administration --
------------ Laws --

Well all pretty much get better the higher they are, though maybe some negatives for higher governemnt tech if extremely high such as in modern terms ineffiencet beauracracies.

Anyway i think plilosophy and government are missing something. Right now i don't have any social application techs to insert and i need to get to my job here soon.

Again this is only my idea and its open for debate, just don't try adding things like Chivalry which is a social application tech, not a Social Basic Tech.
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited September 13, 2000).]

[Mark_Everson]

The discussion here is relevant to what I hope to start coding in a few weeks, so... *Bump*

I think we don't need exact social techs necessarily defined yet. But it would be useful to talk about how breakthrough social techs like 'Invention' would work within the context of the overall Tech system.

[Richard Bruns]

Possible Quick Temporary Solutions:

For normal social techs, we can have them grow normally, via the standard tech model only. Make applications like Republic or Libraries available as an option for the player to propose implementing. Use the gov/social model to determine whether the thing can be implemented.

That lets us test growth and effects now. Of course, it won't be complete since social conditions will have no effect on tech growth, but it lets us start.

For breakthrough techs, we can temporarily set them as applications, available with some tech level. Obviously this would tend to make players rush down certain techs, but disciplined playtesters would avoid that. We can then see what they do to the game.

[Mark_Everson]

Good suggestions!

I especially like the fact that we could handle breakthroughs like applications. At first I thought it was cute, but a kludge in that breakthroughs and applications are very different. But if you look at breakthroughs as a tool (like a rifle) whose purpose is to revolutionize some aspect of the game like tech (as opposed to warfare) then it seems to work fine.

I am getting very close to having all the econ stuff we need for demo 5. Perhaps I'll be able to jump right into tech soon...