[HN Gopher] How transportation technologies shaped empires ___________________________________________________________________ How transportation technologies shaped empires Author : agomez314 Score : 279 points Date : 2023-01-06 15:25 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com) (TXT) w3m dump (unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com) | shae wrote: | This is why you need more mass transit where you live. | micro_charm wrote: | See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti's_constant IMO | there is a clear analogue for this with organizational size and | the extent of your product offering, the further off from your | core offering you extend the worse your entire offering becomes | drbeast wrote: | Ghengis Khan, Queen Victoria, and Alexander the Great have | entered the chat. | gadtfly wrote: | The Macedonian and Mongolian Empires shattered into more | manageable bits almost immediately. | | For Victorian Britain: | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Isochron... | sayrer wrote: | 1914 and 2016: https://www.rome2rio.com/labs/isochronic- | travel-times/ | quartesixte wrote: | Eventually collapsed. | | Collapsed eventually. | | Collapsed immediately upon his death. | sorokod wrote: | Pretty much anything happens eventually. | | Dinosaurs lasted 179 mil. years. The Roman state, between one | and two thousand (depends on how you count). | AnimalMuppet wrote: | OK, but England maintained Australia for centuries. Spain | maintained the New World for centuries. I'm not sure | "eventually collapsed" is proof that "it didn't work". | | I mean, the Soviet Union eventually collapsed, and that | wasn't because of communication delays. _Everything_ | eventually collapses. But "stood for centuries, despite the | communication delays" kind of disproves the hypothesis. (Or | if it doesn't, given the things that collapse after centuries | without the communication delays, it means the hypothesis has | no predictive power.) | readthenotes1 wrote: | The same argument could be made for Great Britain and the | United States as well since the colonies were a part of GB | for centuries. | | I think the same argument for Canada applies to Australia: | there must be a critical mass of well weaponed insurgents | before the time delay makes too much of a difference. | zopa wrote: | All empires collapse eventually. | pessimizer wrote: | Past performance isn't a guarantee of future results. With | modern technology, the next empire will never collapse. | csomar wrote: | The heat death will guarantee the collapse of all and any | empire. | gsich wrote: | Until it does. | meatyloafy wrote: | All except the last. | Beltalowda wrote: | Alexander the Great and the Mongol empire are specifically | addressed in the article. Maybe read before "entering the | chat"? | drbeast wrote: | RTFA and not write commentary off the cuff? | | Hahahahahahahaha! You're funny. | readthenotes1 wrote: | he addressed all those didn't he? | | "Queen Victoria, Chinese Gordon is on line one. Shall I tell | him to hold?" | insane_dreamer wrote: | Alexander the Great wouldn't count as his empire fractured upon | his death almost immediately after his conquests | [deleted] | kybernetyk wrote: | So no Mars province? | kcb wrote: | You can travel to Mars in 5 minutes so I don't think so. It's | clear even in todays world you don't need "boots on the ground" | to exert social or military influence. | layer8 wrote: | Another relevant factor is self-sufficiency regarding basic | needs. But yes, if/when a Mars colony becomes self-sufficient, | secession probably isn't far off. | RodgerTheGreat wrote: | Put another way, a mars colony that is not _mostly_ self- | sufficient is a death trap, because the lead time on any | supply shipments or rescue attempts is monumental even if | funding is unlimited. There will be ever-present pressure to | increase self-sufficiency. If complete self-sufficiency is | technologically achieved (and there aren 't inherent, | unavoidable issues with propagating humans on mars or | obtaining resources/energy), earth-based corporations and | governments have virtually zero leverage over mars, so | independence follows naturally. | manv1 wrote: | That's not true, as evidenced by many, many empires, past and | present (Spanish, British, Roman, American) that spanned more | than a month of travel. | | What they're trying to say is that the span of control is limited | by the ability to project power/information to the extremities of | the empire. That makes sense, but the way they measure the limits | is wrong. | | The way the empires get around this problem is by putting people | who have drunk the kool-aid in positions of power. While this can | lead to abuse (ie: the Spanish), it can also lead to surprising | amounts of consistency (all of the above). | | Empires that fail are empires that require centralized decision | making...and that's due to the communication limits posited and | the generally poor quality of the staff in those types of | organizations. | nickelcitymario wrote: | Empires that expand beyond the 30 day travel limit tend to | fizzle out and crumble. | | Today, of course, we travel the whole planet roughly 30 times | in that time frame. So it's not a limit on Earth anymore. But | it was definitely a problem for all previous empires. The ones | you listed prove the point. They all crumbled when they | expanded too far. | | The reason is kinda obvious: If it takes 30 days to travel, it | takes 60 days to travel there and back. Which means there is, | at minimum, a 60 day delay between the start of a rebellion or | war and your ability to respond to it. That's assuming you were | ready for the news the moment you got it. Good luck with that. | | It's just one of many reasons why wars are won more by | logistics than bullets. | | So I think it raises two really interesting questions: | | (1) Here on Earth, the elimination of this limit is pretty | recent. Should we anticipate an empire that spans the globe | truly taking over? (No need to sarcastically comment about | America today.) | | (2) How does this impact space travel? Based on current and | foreseeable technology, there's no planet we can regularly | reach in that amount of time, because at any given time, the | other planet could be on the other side of the solar system. | Can we really colonize new areas if we can't reach them faster | than 30 days? Maybe we can. Communication is nearly instant | (relatively speaking), and there are no enemy combatants to | deal with. But they'll still be stuck on their own if any | unforeseen emergencies arise. Those never happen, right? Would | we most likely see the formation of a new nation on each planet | we colonize? | [deleted] | mcguire wrote: | Can I introduce you to the British Empire, pre-steamships: | https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/sailingtimes.htm | | Or in 1914: | https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter1/the- | setting... (post-steamships) | | The Spanish Empire was probably worse at its height. | [deleted] | [deleted] | Bouncingsoul1 wrote: | It is for the Romans though, | https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2609654 as | for the others I'm a bit sceptical but haven't to knowlegde | about them either | derefr wrote: | > The way the empires get around this problem is by putting | people who have drunk the kool-aid in positions of power. | | I always understood the aphorism as taking delegation of power | into account -- it's "one month of travel" not because of the | needs of top-down command-and-control, but rather because | delegated power that's more than a month away falls past some | threshold of latency required to "keep them in hand." | | The aphorism might make more sense flipped in perspective and | inverted: as a magistrate/governor, if you see your colonists | suffering under the tyranny of a remote power, you'd better be | at least a month away from that power to be able to quietly | rebel under the nose of that remote power. Otherwise a quiet | rebellion will never work -- any closer, and they'll be | constantly watching/auditing you. At a closer distance, if you | want to rebel, the only option is an active, bloody rebellion | -- and if that's unpalatable to you, then you'd better just not | rebel! | bobthepanda wrote: | There's an old Chinese proverb for this that's pretty | succinct: | | "The mountains are tall and the emperor is far away." | jimmytidey wrote: | "Drunk the cool aid..." In the UK case I've heard the idea that | the Publc School system emerged for exactly this reason. | ('Public' schools being the most elite schools in the UK). | | A relatively small number of schools shaped a class of people | who all thought in exactly the same way, so they would behave | predictably even when far away and in a new context. | | Public schools, are not coincidentally noted for a focus on | 'playing by the rules' and 'fair play', as inculcated through | sport. Not to mention never breaking your word. All handy | traits if your goal is breeding administrators you can trust | without supervision. | kwhitefoot wrote: | > Not to mention never breaking your word. | | You surely jest. A substantial proportion of British | politicians, on the right mostly, were educated at public | schools. They don't all have a shining record when it comes | to integrity and honesty. | | Twenty one (I think) of Britain's prime ministers went to | Eton including Johnson and Cameron. Are we to believe that | those two scoundrels are exceptions? | flerchin wrote: | Johnson and Cameron hardly led the Empire. | scotty79 wrote: | You can't give word to the public. It simply doesn't count. | But you can give word to people that made the public vote | for you and that's rarely broken. | im3w1l wrote: | There is lack of integrity and then there is _lack of | integrity_. Like imagine a minister only hiring relatives, | embezzling billions, taking bribes, extorting for bribes, | selling information and influence to foreign adversaries. | Imagine people that don 't even pretend to care about their | duties, to the point that are indifferent to their people | starving (what's it to me, if they riot we can always shoot | em dead?). | notch656c wrote: | I think they meant trustworthy to superiors and possibly | peers. British populace are the subjects of their | politicians, and thus no trust need be proffered. | newsclues wrote: | Just because some public school graduates go on to become | dishonest politicians, does not mean that the school itself | isn't there to educate and select honest administrators of | the state/etc. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Sometimes its i.protant to understand the culture | correctly- perhaps the institution has degraded now. Or | perhaps your word only matters if it was goben to an equal, | and Joe the public doesn't count? I dont know | jimmytidey wrote: | The system doesn't work anymore. I don't think There is a | country-specific elite culture now. | ikrenji wrote: | playing by the rules and fair play is good for society at | large, not just prospective administrators lol | Balgair wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSGWoXDFM64 | jfk13 wrote: | For another awesome rendition, try the Simon Gallagher | production, with Derek Metzger as the Major-General; the | entire show is (in my opinion) utterly fantastic. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DJaNbD6R2s&list=PLXRhW- | jVlF... (shame about the video quality, but it's still well | worth watching) | jimmytidey wrote: | Amazing reference! | unsui wrote: | I've never seen the source, but was reminded of this | excellent homage: - https://youtu.be/BQXbbWVJ4sA?t=133 | notch656c wrote: | Being trustworthy seems like an important trait in the older | agrarian societies that depended on long-term planning and | exchange, whether you were a farmer or an administrator. | wolverine876 wrote: | It seems very important if you are talking to me today. Why | should I listen to you? | jimmytidey wrote: | Yes, although I'm not sure they had the capacity to | institutionalise eduction to that end. | notch656c wrote: | >centralized decision making | | Which bodes poorly for increasing federal power in the US. | malfist wrote: | What part of the US is more than a month's travel from | Washington DC? | prottog wrote: | The GP already pointed out that the "month's travel" rule | doesn't apply in all cases. The poster you're replying to | does have a point about increasing amounts of decisions | being made at the federal level in this country, as opposed | to state or local levels closer to the people affected. | ssnistfajen wrote: | Hello? This is year 2023, not 1542. Communication happens at | the speed of light and the only bottleneck is the human | processing said communication. Obsessively devolving power to | nesting lower levels of decision making bodies is just about | the worst thing to do when technology has increasingly | enabled organizations that are slim at the top to effectively | manage complex systems at scale instead. | notch656c wrote: | Can you explain why more local decision making must be the | worst thing to do? | bilbo0s wrote: | The thing is, sometimes, centralized decision makers take | decisions that are bad because they are too far removed | from the consequences of the decisions. For instance, | decisions on, say, water rights, made by the federal | government in the US. The federal and state governments | have effectively collaborated to create a slow rolling | disaster across the entire west. | | (Of course, now I think about it, local and state | governments also take terrible decisions. Slavery and Jim | Crow spring to mind. So there really is no "good" way to | solve the "decision making" problem. I guess you're | basically screwed if you have to allow other people to make | decisions for you.) | prottog wrote: | > So there really is no "good" way to solve the "decision | making" problem. | | Insofar as humanity hasn't yet figured out how to make | good decisions all the time ;-) that's true. However, I | posit that keeping decisions at as low a level as | possible lets mistakes be more easily undone by higher | levels in the hierarchy; hence Justice Brandeis's | laboratories of democracy. | prottog wrote: | > the only bottleneck is the human processing said | communication | | You said it yourself. I don't care if the ansible lets you | communicate faster than the speed of light; the capacity of | leaders at the top to understand lower-level facts and | needs has not changed much from 1542 to 2023. | wolverine876 wrote: | The local decision-makers know much better the local needs: | Local people can communicate with local decision-makers, | they have far more experience with local needs (lifetimes | worth), and human cognitive capacity is limited - nobody | single federal decision maker can learn and know what all | the local mayors know. Nobody a thousand miles away can | know my neighborhood the way I do. | | That's a reason decision-making in business is often pushed | to the lowest level - the central people can't know as | much. | UncleMeat wrote: | History of Empire, History of Travel Technology, and History of | Communications Technology are _huuuuge_ fields with tons of | professionals working today. I 'm a little concerned about huge | claims being made about empire by a Stanford MBA and a | community of people mostly experienced in software and tech. | | The historians would love for you to read their books! AHA is | literally happening _right now_! Go to bars in Philly and talk | to them! | Karrot_Kream wrote: | You don't even need to talk to someone. Pick up any book on | European colonialism, the Roman Empire, Japanese imperialism, | Chinese Imperial dynasties, medieval South Asia, pre-Islamic | Persian empires, etc etc. Reddit's r/askhistorians is a great | reference for sources on the more popular topics. | renewiltord wrote: | Yeah, but software engineers are better at many things than | professionals in their fields. The classic example is Jeff | Bezos and gang stopping their companies from flying people | to/from China a month before US authorities reacted to | COVID-19. They also cancelled conferences two weeks before | shelter-in-place and asked people to work from home. | | Tech professionals said that masks would help in the early | stages while the US Surgeon General said "Masks don't work!" | and Dr. Fauci said that you shouldn't be wearing any. | | This is the magic of tech: the people there are there for | comparative advantage. They would be better than | epidemiologists at epidemiology and better than public health | experts at public health. But they're _much_ better at tech | than epidemiologists and public health experts are at tech, | and so they go to tech. | | In a similar vein, I would be unsurprised to find that new | insights about history come from technologists. Of course, I | don't think this is one. | UncleMeat wrote: | I.... | | Software Engineers are not better at making accurate | historical claims than historians. I'd be fucking _baffled_ | if "new insights about history come from technologists" in | any meaningful quantity. Like, it'd be among the most | surprising thing involving human behavior I could imagine. | Like, what software engineers do you know that have spent | even a _minute_ working in an archive? | | I see no way that this comment could be made without just a | complete ignorance of the profession of history. | nostrademons wrote: | I was assuming satire, but it really is hard to tell on | the Internet... | kcartlidge wrote: | I couldn't decide whether/how to vote as I couldn't work | out if it was sarcasm. It seems like it _must_ be, but it | 's written so earnestly. | wolverine876 wrote: | I always look first for the reason I should trust them (how | frustrating to look after reading a long article!). Don't | forget they are also a highly trained engineer in SV, and | made products used by lots of people today. Why not | collaborate with a historian? | | > Go to bars in Philly and talk to them! | | ? What happens in bars in Philly? Nobody does it elsewhere? | UncleMeat wrote: | The American Historical Association Annual Conference | (colloquially, AHA) is happening in Philly this weekend. | Academics like to go out to drink after a day of talks. | | Mostly tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually think the best way | to meet historians is to go to random bars in the cities | hosting major conferences. | dcow wrote: | https://www.historians.org/annual-meeting | onion2k wrote: | This will significantly limit humanity's ambitions to colonize | outer space. | kranke155 wrote: | Depends on the velocity. 1 light month is pretty big. | onion2k wrote: | _1 light month is pretty big._ | | So is the universe. In fact, 1 light month gets you across | 0.00000000061% of it. If your empire on Earth was the same | size it'd be 300 square meters. About the size of a big house | with a nice garden. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Within one light month of earth, there is only one solar | system - the one containing Earth, obviously. | nextaccountic wrote: | Unless the settlers form a democratic and self-governing | society, not an authoritarian empire | PeterisP wrote: | A society can easily be democratic and self-governing within | itself but do authoritarian subjugation of other societies, | or be subject to such. | jerf wrote: | Fortunately, while this study may exist, imperial ambitions | know no bounds, so we'll colonize just fine. Sure, decades | later, they may break away, but that's decades later's problem. | | Plus, this analysis is implicitly in the context of a world | where the regions have the ability to be self-sustaining on at | least the basics of life, so breaking away is a viable option. | If the "empire" is also "your supply of oxygen", breaking away | will be a lot trickier. For a space colony or set of colonies | to be able to break away, they _first_ have to be truly 100% | self-sufficient, and that 's a tall bar for the forseeable | future. They then have to be able to militarily match what the | empire is willing to throw at them to retain them, and that's a | very complicated analysis, made all the more complicated by not | knowing what the exact technologies will be at the time. | | (Plus, not all empires are complete buffoons. They at least | begin being competently run. The empire will _know_ that to | break away the colonies must be self-sufficient, so they will | take steps to _ensure_ they won 't be self-sufficient. And the | colonies will take steps to become secretly self-sufficient. | Long before open rebellions occur, there will have been a | clandestine war of self-sufficiency.) | glitchc wrote: | Those colonies would simply become independent in a relatively | short period of time. | zopa wrote: | Why? Settling new places doesn't have to mean expanding the | existing polity: the settlements can be self-governing. See the | Polynesian expansion through the Pacific, which to me is a | closer (and more hopeful) analogy to space colonization than | anything nineteenth-century Europeans or ancient empires did. | | And so long as we're just thinking of this solar system, | there's also the question of whether what's important is | transit time or communication time. Historically those were | identical; now very much not. | stakhanov wrote: | Or increase them? Presumably some portion of humanity might be | motivated by trying to get away from existing empires (maybe | creating new ones, maybe not), rather than expanding existing | empires. | asah wrote: | Travel? or communication? | | (in the ancient world, they were the same but in the modern world | they're obviously different for example if we colonize Mars) | FredPret wrote: | So... the moon, or even Venus? | shagie wrote: | Not sure Venus is within 1 month travel time. | | Granted this is with Apollo era technology... but we're still | talking Saturn V | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_flyby | | > The proposed mission would have used a Saturn V to send three | astronauts on a flight past Venus, which would have lasted | approximately one year. | | > ... | | > Phase C would be the actual manned flyby, using a Block IV | CSM and an updated version of the Venus flyby S-IVB which would | carry a large radio antenna for communication with Earth. | | > ... | | > The Phase C mission was planned for a launch in late October | or early November 1973, when the velocity requirements to reach | Venus and the duration of the resulting mission would be at | their lowest. After a brief stay in Earth parking orbit to | check out the spacecraft, the crew would have headed for Venus. | ... After a successful S-IVB burn, the spacecraft would have | passed approximately 3000 miles from the surface of Venus about | four months later. | | Of note https://trajbrowser.arc.nasa.gov/traj_browser.php is | fun to play with. - Custom list (Venus), one way rendezvous, | minimize duration, all trajectories. | | The shortest one is an 80 day one "burn straight there" | approach. | | I'm not sure that NASA has that updated for more recent years | (its a search - not a compute) - still gives you an idea of | what is doable and the inner solar system opportunities are | fairly consistent (compared to the Grand Tour | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour_program which is once | every 175 years). See also | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Netwo... | and if that sounds like fun, then High Frontier board game | might be up your alley ( current edition | https://iongamedesign.com/products/high-frontier-4-all | https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/281655/high-frontier-4-a... | ). | shagie wrote: | The Venus missions... | | One way rendezvous - 80 days is the minimal - https://trajbro | wser.arc.nasa.gov/traj_browser.php?NEAs=on&NE... | | If you're just doing a flyby and letting the ship then get | lost, it can get down to 48 days https://trajbrowser.arc.nasa | .gov/traj_browser.php?NEAs=on&NE... | | The one way flyby is not likely one that would be good for | human travelers as you aren't really stopping (or even | slowing down enough to get captured). | | The shortest round trips are just over a year long. https://t | rajbrowser.arc.nasa.gov/traj_browser.php?NEAs=on&NE... | | The trip _there_ is only 90 days, but the return leg is one | of the least optimal options with a 280 day "climb back out" | trip. You could do a 96 day there, and 80 day back, but to | get the right orbital arrangement it then means that you'd | need to stay at Venus for 1.3 years. | | It is a neat thing to play with and see what options exist. | TomK32 wrote: | Never knew those cataracts were are thing | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataracts_of_the_Nile | [deleted] | scythe wrote: | I'm tempted to dispute whether the Carolignian Empire was too big | _per se_. If you put the capital at Lyon (or Geneva), everything | is fully reachable in a month on this graph. The problem, rather, | was that Lyon was never made the capital (rather Metz in the far | north), or at least not in time to prevent fragmentation. | [deleted] | BurningFrog wrote: | By this logic, the Mars colonies _will_ be independent. | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | [deleted] | swagasaurus-rex wrote: | With better propulsion, trips to mars could be shorter. There | are times where Mars is on the opposite side of the sun, and | times when Earth and Mars are close. | aj7 wrote: | Somebody calculate a light month. | PeterisP wrote: | In essence, one star system. Planet orbits are generally much | less than a light month, and distance between closest stars is | generally much larger than a light month. | carapace wrote: | Kind of a tangent, but uh, this is my personal favorite | argument for why Bitcoin et. al. aren't needed (yet): the | diameter of the Earth is small compared to the speed of light. | Maybe when we colonize interstellar space we will need | blockchain. | shagie wrote: | 30x distance to Voyager | | 1/50th the distance to the nearest star (Proxima Centauri). | awb wrote: | 1 light year = ~0.3 parsecs | | 1 light month = ~0.025 parsecs | [deleted] | xwdv wrote: | It's about 5000 AU. | | That means an Earth based space empire could encompass the | entire solar system, but the limit of its reach would only | extend part way into the Oort Cloud. Beyond this would be a | lawless frontier. | | Since this is based on the speed of light, it could be the | maximum size for any empire in the universe without the use of | some kind of FTL technology. | randomdata wrote: | _> it could be the maximum size for any empire in the | universe without the use of some kind of FTL technology._ | | But perhaps communication with the capital isn't even | necessary if you could clone the function of the capital? | Imagine, for example, a cluster of AI agents, that are | programmed to think just like the capital compromised of | humans would, spread out throughout the universe. Each clone | site may be limited to a solar month of reach, but the system | as a whole would theoretically remain a single empire. | krisoft wrote: | > Since this is based on the speed of light, it could be the | maximum size for any empire in the universe without the use | of some kind of FTL technology. | | That assumes that the "1 month from capital" is universal. | Maybe humans are just quarrelsome, and if uplifted capybaras | would rule an empire they could keep it together even if | their empire has a 2 year radius. Who knows. | xwdv wrote: | I think you're right. There must be some more variables to | a formula that determines max empire size. | | Beings that live twice as long as humans would feel that | the trip to Alpha Centauri is only half as long as what a | standard human of equivalent age would perceive it. This | could potentially mean their empires could also be double | in size at max even if they have the same disposition as | humans. | | Therefore, as an advisor to an emperor of an interstellar | empire, I would strongly encourage lengthening lifespans as | the key to increasing the reach of government. The longer | the people can live, the more tolerant they will be of long | voyages and high latencies. | Someone wrote: | Also, aliens could live a lot slower (say if they evolved | in a relatively cold corner of the universe where there's | less energy to burn per second) and/or longer. | | Looking at some 'aliens', I don't think ant colonies can | cover an area equal to a month's travel. | | = I would guess "1 month" isn't the limiting factor. "1/p | of the life expectancy of a grownup" makes more sense to | me. _p_ then would be around 500 (500 months is about 42 | years) | jameshart wrote: | "England with its American colonies" as an example of | overstretching this limit? | | Once again, when explaining a historic trend or event in terms of | what happened in the US, we forget about the existence of the | control case: Canada. | SoftAnnaLee wrote: | I would say that Canada managed to stay loyal to the crown | because for two major reasons. The first being the founding | "myth" of Canada being the British loyalist colonists of the US | migrating as a result of the US' revolution. Them fleeing north | to a major seat of political power likely had a strengthening | effect on being a willing subject to the crown than most | colonies. | | Secondly, Canada is something of an imperial power unto itself. | There are countless stories of armies marching under the crown | violently clashing with nations that existed on the continent | prior to European colonization. Likewise, even other European | descended colonist as well as the Metis were subjugated by | British rule as the Anglophone powers expanded across the | continent (e.g. Queen Anne's War, Red River Rebellion, and | Fenian raids). Gaining the ability to exploit the natural | resources that these other nations and colonies held. | | The crown was a convenient way to gain both legitimacy from the | British loyalists who settled in Canadian territory and a | reliable trading partner to receive resources from in the | British Canadian bids for expansion. Compared to the US, who | used democratic rule to gain its own legitimacy; and who's | natural resources were abundant enough to be a valuable trading | partner. | [deleted] | macspoofing wrote: | >we forget about the existence of the control case: Canada. | | Is it though? England did lose Canada to home-rule. In fact, I | contend that a major reason why a newly independent (but also | broke and fledgling) Canada was not annexed by the US was | mainly because of the American preoccupation with civil war and | Reconstruction, and the diplomatic efforts of John A. | Macdonald. | cma wrote: | They lost it to home rule only after it took less than a | month to travel there with steam ships, right? | dsr_ wrote: | And also after communication time dropped from 2 weeks to 2 | minutes (telegraph, 1866). | macspoofing wrote: | The point was they couldn't hold the Canadian colony. | Britain didn't give home-rule to Canada because of their | good-will. American belligerence towards European presence | in the New World, and their rise as a major military and | economic power, made holding Canada practically impossible | by the mid 1800s (for example, it was untannable for | Britain to maintain a large military presence in Canada | anymore). Britain fully expected Canada to be annexed. | Without the civil war and reconstruction preoccupying | Americans during the critical early and fledgling years of | the Canadian Dominion, I don't think Canada would have | survived as a nation. | | In another thread, I also made an argument for another | major mitigating factor with respect to Americas, namely, | the native populations were wiped out by old-world diseases | which prevented local rebellions from succeeding and | allowed Europeans to establish large population centers. | jameshart wrote: | But the article literally argues that the British loss of | the American colonies in 1776 is an example of how an | empire can't retain territory at a month's remove. | | To which the existence of British colonies in Canada | after 1776 is kind of a direct rejoinder, right? The | eventual loss of those colonies is irrelevant to the | point that you can't explain the American revolution as | being an inevitable consequence of remoteness. | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | An empire can't retain _hostile and unpacified_ territory | beyond a certain limit - which may be set by time, | communications, access to local resources and imported | logistics, other factors, and all of the above. | | If the territory is fully pacified with no significant | resistance and/or it's run by dedicated loyalists with | plentiful local resources the limit doesn't apply. | | Basically an empire can only retain territory _against an | active threat or resistance_ within certain limits. If | there is no active threat, or the threat is too minor to | be a concern, the territory can be considered stable and | fully colonised. | jameshart wrote: | Aha. So the rule is: empires can only hold territory that | they are able to hold. Got it. Useful predictive | principle. | jameshart wrote: | Canada was still subject to the legal authority of the UK | parliament until 1982, and was certainly considered fully | part of the British Empire until WWI | mymythisisthis wrote: | Canada was essentially independent since WWI. | bee_rider wrote: | I think the article was discussing actual facts-on-the- | ground empires, rather than polite legal fictions invented | to spare the UK from having to face their loss of global | status. | [deleted] | i_love_cookies wrote: | wasn't the war of 1812 partly/mostly driven by a US desire to | annex canada? | macspoofing wrote: | The American state by the mid-1800s was not that same as | the one in the early 1800s. America grew into a major | economic and military power by then, the point where it was | untenable for Britain to maintain direct control over | Canada, or to even maintain a major military presence | there. The British were ostensibly kicked out of North | America by America. | meatyloafy wrote: | There is quite a difference between conquering (and thereby | assimilating) versus killing almost all natives and then | populating the place with your own settlers.. | macspoofing wrote: | >versus killing almost all natives and then populating the | place with your own settlers.. | | The native population was not killed but rather decimated by | disease. Pre-colonial population of North America was on the | order of 60 million - there was zero chance European powers | being able to hold that size of population over a period of | time. Contrast that to Africa, which today has a minimal | population of European descendants ... because that native | population had immunity. | stjohnswarts wrote: | However the natives where still wiped out by European | diseases nonetheless, a direct result of Europeans coming | here, I'm sure the Europeans of the time were grateful for | that even if it wasn't a result of direct action on their | part, they would have been fine with it happening. | jameshart wrote: | That's a funny definition of 'not killed' you're using. | kspacewalk2 wrote: | They died, but they were indeed not killed. You may say | something flowery like "the diseases killed them", or | "the arrival of the Brits killed them", but the British | empire or its subjects did not kill the vast, vast | majority of Native North Americans who died as a | consequence of their arrival. | klibertp wrote: | Well, news outlets are perfectly comfortable with saying | that this or that COVID policy "killed" millions and will | kill even more... If only the British instituted | lockdowns, quarantine, and mass testing for diseases, the | Native Americans could have lived! | | (Not saying this is the right perspective, but I | understand why people would argue for it, especially when | using ahistorical lens of today's diseases handling) | meatyloafy wrote: | They were killed by what the settlers brought with them. | No, it was not deliberate (#), but nevertheless, their | arrival is what killed most of the natives. | | (#) Obviously the settlers would have preferred to keep | the natives alive since then they would not have needed | to ship vast quantities of Africans across the ocean to | enslave, but could have just done that with the locals. | macspoofing wrote: | >They were killed by what the settlers brought with them. | No, it was not deliberate (#), but nevertheless, their | arrival is what killed most of the natives. | | That's all I meant to clarify. You'd be surprised how | many people today actually think that the native | population was wiped out through deliberate and | intentional action. Your wording made it seem you | believed that as well, but that seemed to not be the | case. | | >Obviously the settlers would have preferred to keep the | natives alive since then they would not have needed to | ship vast quantities | | That's a caricature. | ldh0011 wrote: | It may not be the case that deliberate and intentional | actions alone could have wiped out the natives but it | seems pretty clear that there _were_ a lot of deliberate | and intentional actions both to kill them and take their | land (Trail of Tears, Spanish conquests in South | America). Those actions just wouldn 't have been as | successful without the diseases. | 8note wrote: | It was intentional though. The bison didn't disappear | because of western disease, they were hunted out to break | up the natives ability to resist, so they could be killed | and corralled, and the land be granted to settlers. | | Canada intentionally withheld food it owed to natives as | part of treaty agreements, with the understanding that if | a bunch of people starved to death, Canada wouldn't need | to send as much food. | | Similarly, disease was spread intentionally through small | pox blankets, with the intention listed | bbarnett wrote: | And even more so, re: distance, Australia. | macspoofing wrote: | The article contends that the reason why the 'month rule' is | in play is because of the logistics of ruling over a local | population which will attempt to rebel. | | So I think a mitigating factor for US, Canada, Australia was | that the local native population was wiped out by old-world | diseases, so there was minimal capability for local | population to rebel. This is also the major factor of why | those nations' population is largely made-up of the | descendent of the colonists. Contrast that with Africa, which | suffered from similar attempts at colonialism, was much | closer to Europe, but because its native population was not | susceptible to European diseases (and in fact, the colonists | were decimated by native diseases like malaria), Africa today | has a tiny number of colonial descendants (around 5 million | European descendants out of a population of ~1 billion) | | The population of pre-colonized North America was on the | order of 60 million (European population was on the order of | ~70 million). Had that population been maintained (i.e. not | wiped out by old-world diseases), there was zero chance of | European powers being able to establish large colonial | populations. In that scenario, once the technological | advantage was removed (due to trade, for example), I think | you would have seen successful native rebellions. | | I would say South America also follows this pattern. No | chance of the Spanish being able to establish large colonial | populations or maintain hold over native South American | populations had they been not wiped out by old-world | diseases. | mardifoufs wrote: | You are right of course but I think Canada is a pretty unique | case. Canada exists in huge part _because_ of the american | revolution. British-american loyalists have basically founded | upper Canada, which is now Ontario, so it makes sense that they | were particularly close to the throne and the British homeland | and government. French-canada was also just recently conquered | and placated by the Quebec Act, but still tried a couple of | uprisings during the Patriot wars of 1837-38. | | I don't think Canada would've stayed british without the | loyalist escaping here, since they made it an inherent part of | their identity to _not_ revolt against the british as opposed | to the americans they left behind. But agreed, there are too | many exceptions in general to the article 's point. | jameshart wrote: | So... empires can't retain territory over a month away from | its capital, unless it's populated by people loyal to the | empire? | | Isn't the point of the month rule that it's hard to maintain | a loyal population at that distance? So this amounts to | saying 'well the rule doesn't apply to Canada because the | rule doesn't account for Canada'. | | Right. So it's a bit of a rubbish rule then? | mardifoufs wrote: | I agree that the rule is basically worthless, but my point | was more that Canada had an exceptionally loyal population, | and disproportionately so compared to what we coule expect | from a "normal distribution"! It can, in part, explain the | rift between the US and Canada :) | [deleted] | masklinn wrote: | > You are right of course but I think Canada is a pretty | unique case. | | As opposed to Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa? | mardifoufs wrote: | Yes, if you read the rest of my comment I explained why. | Canada has had a very big (relatively speaking) influx of | deeply loyal british-american refugees that often directly | fought the revolutionaries down south. | | That meant that the early history of english canada was | very deeply influenced by an almost identity defining | loyalism to britain, because those refugees often left | everything behind in the US to stay loyal the crown. In a | way, being british was the entire point of early | anglocanadian identity. | | I think that makes it pretty different from Australia, a | penal colony and South Africa which was conquered more than | colonized (and was very hard to hold on for the british). I | was more trying to explain why Canada was an outlier in the | Americas, and how Britain managed to hold it very easily | for so long, even with a free population and little direct | military occupation. | wintogreen74 wrote: | I'm a 10th+ generation Canadian of German ancestry, whose | relatives had both an affinity for the British Empire | (initially fleeing persecution to England) and a practical | one: rich farmland in exchange for fighting with the | loyalists against the upstart colonists. It's hard to | determine which had the bigger impact. | bregma wrote: | The influx of loyalists was a couple of generations before | the 1837 rebellions in both Upper and Lower Canada. Yet | another generation elapsed before home rule with responsible | government was devolved from Westminster and a few more | before Canada was considered "independent" from the | centralized Empire by the Statute of Westminster in 1931. | | A century is a pretty long time for your argument about the | beliefs of some individuals to stay valid. | mardifoufs wrote: | Yes that's my point though. The patriot wars happened after | the loyalists were well settled, and at a point when upper | canada in general was almost as established as lower | canada. French-canada was barely loyal, and would've | probably been a huge torn in the backside of Britain if it | wasn't balanced by a super loyal anglo population that | counterbalanced the animosity of french canada. | | The loyalists shaped the relationship Canada had with | britain, and while I'd guess even their descendants were a | minority (relative to immigrants) by the mid 19th century, | it still defined Canadian identity even to this day. If | Canada hadn't seen that initial influx of usually rich, | upper class loyalists that became the founding stock of | upper canadian politics/elite, we might have had a very, | very different outcome. One that is more in line with most | other colonies in the New World. | tgv wrote: | Or Spain and South America? | frr149 wrote: | Evwn better, Spain and the Philipines | charlieyu1 wrote: | Russia to Far East? | mardifoufs wrote: | Almost lost it during the russo-japanese war because it was | way too far and very hard to deploy troops to, even with the | fledgling trans siberian line. Though I agree that it's a | good example! | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | adolph wrote: | There are some interesting ideas in there that should be more | fully worked out. Perhaps they have and folks could suggest | further reading? | | Travel is a suitcase word in that Pueyo doesn't distinguish among | what is being moved: material, people, information. In the | earliest days maybe there was less of a difference, except for | the cases where there was a significant difference such as the | Inca chasqui which operated as a relay race. | dudeinjapan wrote: | Civilization the game needs to re-add travel along rivers. If I | remember correctly you could do it in Civ II because rivers were | tiles. | jkingsbery wrote: | If the hypothesis includes the stipulation "from the capital," it | would have been useful to see some commentary on what the author | thought about the Roman Empire moving its capital (or having | multiple emperors each with a capital). | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | Travel time is more important in wartime. It's quite hard to | conquer a place if your supply lines are too long. But if you do | conquer, you can hold it for a long time with much less effort. | | I found this part of the article to be nonsense: | Alexander the Great conquered most of the "known world" of his | day. But his conquests took them 10 years, and after his | death, the empire was split in six. Which further proves | that a strong army, without proper transportation technologies, | can't hold an empire together. | | Uhhh..... first of all dude, only taking 10 years to conquer the | entire known world (when the conqueror is _20 years old_ ) is | pretty fucking insane, let's give the kid some credit. But yeah, | his empire was split in six when he died. Why? He had no heir, he | was the king of the entire known world, and he died suddenly. | Conflict was bound to happen. This in no way provides any | evidence to this point that transportation is critical to keeping | an empire. | [deleted] | Quarrelsome wrote: | Excellent article generally but I don't think the point about | Napoleon was very strong and rather diminished the article as it | conflates the concept of military supply with Imperial | administration and I think the two subjects differ in practice. | | (i.e. in another reality where Napoleon had superior temporarily | military supply in Russian held territories then he could have | conquered Russia. If that happened; whether he could hold the | territory for the years that follow would however be an argument | for this article). | golemotron wrote: | Our last planet, Neptune, fits neatly within one light-month. The | rest of the heliosphere does too, but not the Oort cloud. | | Looks like empires are purely solar system affairs. Sci-fi | authors take note. | cactacea wrote: | Article is a little light on details with regards to why the | author believes this effect exists. I have to imagine that | their thinking is that application of force is limited to the | distance you can travel one month instead of anything that | would relate to the application of soft power (e.g. | communication). | | Supplying a ground based force follows more of a square-cube | law. You need to feed your horses to transport your food to | feed your soldiers. Going further means more food for the | horses to carry the food for the horses to carry the food for | the soldiers. There is an excellent post here that explains | this far better than I ever could: | https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-wago... | | Any limitations on space based empires, while similar, are | going to follow somewhat different rules depending on the tech | involved. Unlike horses, once you launch you don't really have | an opportunity to resupply a space based force going a long | distance without inordinate energy expenditure. I'm not | convinced force projection over a galaxy would be a problem for | a civilization capable of travel at a significant fraction of | the speed of light. Solving one problem (travel) necessarily | solves the other (distribution of force). | | I think the bigger question is more, why bother? What possible | reason could a civilization have to go to war at that scale? | Human civilization would need to change so much to get to that | point that I'm not certain these are questions are explorable | at our place in the timeline. We'd be like Romans dreaming | about a better abacus. | 082349872349872 wrote: | My understanding is that the British Raj was several months away | from London? | Beltalowda wrote: | From what I can find: In 1858 - when the British Raj was | established - it took about half a year since you had to go | around cape the good hope. After the Suez canal opened in 1869 | it took only ~2 months. In the following two decades expansion | of the train network and faster steamboats further reduced it | to about 2 weeks. | | So it really depends a bit on which period you're talking about | as there were lots of things going on during the period, but | for a substantial part of the British Raj's existence you could | get there in a month or less. | | I expect the "law" is not as simple as "1 month travel time", | but rather a calculation that factors in both travel time + | communication time. For much of history these two value were | mostly identical, but this changed with the adoption of the | telegraph (and later, radio). | masklinn wrote: | > I expect the "law" is not as simple as "1 month travel | time" | | Aka the article is complete bullshit. | Beltalowda wrote: | No, I didn't say that. It holds up for most of history, | except for a fairly small window of ~50 years where | communication was faster than travel (after that travel was | fast enough that almost anywhere was less than 1 month | away). | ComputerGuru wrote: | I agree. Imagine a future where we find a way to send | messages at/near the speed of light intergalactically but | can still only travel at some fraction of it. | danenania wrote: | We can already send messages at the speed of light. The | problem is that's still way too slow for intergalactic | communication (the nearest galaxy is 2.5 million light | years away). | notahacker wrote: | The British Raj succeeded the East India Company, a London- | headquartered enterprise that had effectively ruled most of | India for the previous 100 years, and fought numerous wars - | usually successfully - in India in the century before that. | The Raj was actually a reaction to Indian rebels _failing_ to | achieve independence and more power being transferred to the | British Crown as a result. | eesmith wrote: | Here's a data point for you - Galton's Isochronic Passage | Chart, showing the time in days to travel from London to the | rest of the world, in 1881. (12 years after the Suez opened, | and the map shows how useful that canal was.) | | Map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map linking to | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map#/media/File:Isoc. | .. . | | Eastern Indian is 20-30 days. Batavia is about 30 days. Perth | and Hong Kong are in the 30-40 day range. Sydney and most of | the interior of Australia is in the 40+ day range, as is New | Zealand's South Island. | | "It assumes that there are favourable travel conditions and | that travel arrangements over land have been made in advance. | It assumes travelling methods of the day within a reasonable | cost." | | EDIT: https://archive.org/details/friendsreviewrel06lewi/page | /702/... from 1853 lists routes from London to Calcutta | ("Friends' review; a religious, literary and miscellaneous | journal", p702): | | "The distance from London to Calcutta, by the Cape of Good | Hope, is 15,000 miles requiring 150 days. With steam say 70 | days." ["150 days" agrees with your "about half a year."] | | "The distance from London to Calcutta, by Cape Horn, is | 21,500 miles requiring 215 days. With steam say 90 days." | | "From Liverpool to Calcutta, by Isthmus of Panama, 14,00 | miles requiring 140 days. Steam, say 60 days." | | "London to Calcutta, overland route, five trans-shipments, | 6,000 miles, 58 days" | | "Liverpool, New York, and Railway to San Francisco, two | transhipments, 12,000 miles, 35 days." | | It's from a piece arguing for the usefulness of building a | railway across the US (New York to San Francisco), to shorten | the London/Calcutta route. That last route didn't exist until | 1869, the same year the Suez Canal opened. | | EDIT #2: https://archive.org/details/sim_the- | lancet_january-3-june-26... has someone leaving London June | 1817 and arriving Calcutta 2 December 1817, so about 5 1/2 | months. (The Lancet January 3-June 26, 1852, p384, | "Biographical Sketch of James Ranald Martin, Esq., F.R.S.") | | EDIT #3: The clipper ship Jane Pirie, built 1847, could do | the round-trip in "eight months and a half ... the ordinary | time occupied over the voyage being ten to eleven months." | https://archive.org/details/sim_illustrated-london- | news_1851... /mode/2up?q=%22London+to+Calcutta%22 | ("Illustrated London News 1851-04-05: Vol 18 Iss 477"). As I | understand it, clipper travel would have been fast and | expensive. | shagmin wrote: | One could argue the British augmented that by creating better | local institutions in the far away places. | karatinversion wrote: | Let alone that the Portuguese were in Brazil, and the Spanish | in the _Philippines_, for some 300 years | jollyllama wrote: | There's so many exceptions. Does the article address any of | these? | jameshart wrote: | The Philippines is a great example of how to break this rule; | it was almost more a colony of New Spain than of Spain. | | Basically converting the empire into a franchise operation? | Or maybe a pyramid scheme? To enable it to scale out beyond | that range? | | The VOC played a similar role in extending the Dutch empire's | reach. | notch656c wrote: | The Philippines has never been easy to grasp though. Even | now the government maintains poor control of many of their | thousands of islands. Colonization efforts there can be | profitable but are also weak. To the extent the Philippines | has been colonized they must generally satisfy themselves | to control of major ports and trade routes and naval bases. | ekam wrote: | British Raj is a great argument for the article, started in | 1858 and lasted less than a century, a blip in the historical | context, as power projection was a recurring problem. | readthenotes1 wrote: | were they ruling it or plundering it for most of that time, and | after they started ruling, how long did it last? | imbnwa wrote: | >This also helps explain for example why feudalism was so | prevalent in Europe during the Middle Ages. Without well- | maintained Roman roads, the time needed to go from one place to | another extended, which made it that much harder to control big | empires. Small, local warlords emerged. They were the ones with | enough money to afford a horse and armor | | This point is another reminder for me that Game of Thrones' | Westeros, the Seven Kingdoms, should've collapsed the minute all | the dragons were lost in the Dance of Dragons, particularly the | North, where it takes months to get to Winterfell from King's | Landing. This writer[0] also noted how impossible Westeros as a | united entity should be along with other issues with GRRM's world | design. | | Nevermind that the size of Westeros should have a _significant_ | impact on its anthropology. This is a needlessly nerdy analysis, | and most are aware of GRRM 's well-known disclaimer about his | faults, but no one even comments on anyone having an accent in | Westeros, except for that of the Dornish (which is kinda sketch | IMO). | | * The relative isolation of the North and the Iron Islands | would've seen them continue to speak and evolve the First Men's | language, though with far more Andalic influence than the | language spoken north of the Wall. | | * Dorne would speak a spectrum that goes from the Andalic of the | Marches to the Andalic/Rhoynish patois most people would speak in | Sunspear | | * The Sea Lords, much like the Channel Islands IRL, would've | continued to speak a dialect of High Valyrian that would've had a | strong Andalic influence and the Targaryens would've spoken this | dialect. Its a bit strange that the Targaryens basically just | stopped speaking Valyrian though where IRL it took the Normans, | also a dominant political minority, almost 400 years to start | speaking English conversationally. The royal court and the high | lords would all have learned to speak it. | | * The Riverlands' dialect would be most related to the | Stormlands' dialect since the Storm King ruled there for 300 | years. | | * The Vale, also relatively isolated since its accessible over | land through a scant few mountain passes, like Portugal and Spain | IRL where Portuguese has more in common with vulgar Latin, would | speak the 'purest' dialect of Andalic that has more in common | with the Andalic that was spoken in Essos. | | [0]https://medium.com/migration-issues/westeros-is-poorly- | desig... | nostrademons wrote: | Also the stability of the Kingdoms of Westeros is ridiculous | given their ages. Supposedly they were divided into the | Kingdoms of the North/Vale/Iron | Islands/Reach/Rock/Stormlands/Dorne in the Age of Heroes - | 10,000 years before the Targaryen conquest. 10,000 years is | twice as long as all of recorded human history. In that time on | earth, dozens of empires have risen and fallen. The center of | civilization moved from the Middle East to Egypt to Greece to | Rome to Byzantium & Arabia to western Europe to Britain to | North America. Independent civilizations with equal claims to | greatness sprung up elsewhere on the globe. Civilizations got | conquered, technology advanced, genocides and plagues and | famines happened, languages changed, and dynasties typically | lasted a couple hundred years, if that. | | Meanwhile, over in Westeros, the same 7 kingdoms have been | ruled over the same geographic extent by the same 7 families at | roughly the same level of technological development for 10,000 | years. It took outsiders with dragons to conquer them. No | explanation is given over how you could maintain what appear to | be feudal structures over a 3000+ mile continent with bronze | age technology. | ozim wrote: | It is something I read before in a book: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_and_Communications | jfzoid wrote: | Chinese saying: "the mountains are high, and the Emperor is far | away" (Shan Gao Di Yuan ) | thriftwy wrote: | Russian saying: be further from higher ups, closer to the | kitchen (podal'she ot nachal'stva, poblizhe k kukhne) | lkrubner wrote: | Portugal conquered Goa in 1510 -- that's more than a month of | travel. | | The Netherlands conquering Java in 1619? A lot more than a month. | | And these conquests lasted for centuries. | [deleted] | Quarrelsome wrote: | sure but I imagine the argument here is that the grip on power | of provinces so far away was considerably weak and likely to an | extent devolved to the local agents of the crown. And likely as | long as the ships with goods sailed limited questions were | asked and limited checks occurred. | | I imagine that those who worked on the colonial extents of the | Empire were given the largest freedoms to be monstrous as long | as it benefitted the crown. I would even argue that the | cultural descendants of these agents are the same forces that | encourage ideas such as Brexit; hoping to return to times of | significantly less oversight from the home nation. As an | example of this internal discord between territories of | European empires and home states I think the abolition of | slavery in the 19th century was a scenario where the electorate | didn't align with these colonial interests to create an | internal discord. Agents then shifted to an evil interpretation | of contract law to replace slaves with indentured servants. I | appreciate that this might not seem immediately irrelevant but | I hope it might show how a discord between the competing | interests of the society at "home" and the society "abroad" | might slowly result in the "transport time" fractures this | article discusses as the interests of the two populations | diverge. | tarentel wrote: | I'm not sure capturing and holding an island would constitute | an empire. | alephnerd wrote: | Java is a pretty big island just saying. | dalbasal wrote: | what does and how do you measure its size, in a sense | pertinent to this thread? | TheRealPomax wrote: | History is though. That's empire. But hey, France took a | whole bunch of islands that to this day still speak french | and are literally "more France, outside of Europe", not | "colonies". | beebmam wrote: | Just want to be clear here: Are you claiming that Portugal | and the Netherlands were not empires during those time | periods? | | Here's the definition of empire used by Wikipedia: 'An empire | is a "political unit" made up of several territories and | peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a | dominant center and subordinate peripheries' | hammock wrote: | Britain? Sardinia? | | Java is the world's most populous island, by the way, and was | roughly as populated as England in the 1600's | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Fine. How about New Spain? And the Philippines? | alephnerd wrote: | To be fair, Dutch control of Java was more on paper than it was | in reality. Most governance was devolved to local Rajahs who | paid tribute to the VOC. Actual guns on the ground control | across Java and most of what became Indonesia didn't really | happen until the late 19th century | | Also, Goa's existence was because it was so marginal. The | Mughals, Marathas, and various regional kingdoms didn't care | enough about the Portuguese, and also it was de facto treated | as a factory (a free trade zone) - just like Surat was for the | English | FlyingSnake wrote: | > The Mughals, Marathas, and various regional kingdoms didn't | care enough about the Portuguese | | Sorry to be that guy, but Marathas cared deeply about Goa and | they constantly waged wars against them and liberated most of | the territory by 1739. Except tiny enclaves like Daman, Diu | and Velha Goa most of the _Provincia do Norte_ including the | crown jewel of Bacaim (Vasai) was lost. Velha Goa, Anjidiva | etc were saved by a stroke of luck due to the arrival of | fresh Portuguese Armada with a new Viceroy. | | The current boundaries of Goa were only extended later when | the Rajas agreed to merge with Portuguese during Maratha | civil war period on 1790s, however the Hindu elites retained | most of the autonomy like the Visconde of Pernem. | [deleted] | rsynnott wrote: | > The Netherlands conquering Java in 1619? A lot more than a | month. | | For practical purposes this was more the VOC than the | Netherlands. Similar situation with British India until they | killed off the British East India Company; before that, well, | you could call it an empire, but it was really more a separate | country ruled by a _company_. | | Goa is probably a better counterexample, granted. | FlyingSnake wrote: | > Goa is probably a better counterexample, granted. | | Velha Goa, the territory that was with Portuguese was really | tiny and just contained Salsette, Tiswadi and Bardez | concelhos. It is not a big feat to hold on to these coastal | holdings given the total domination of Armadas. | somenameforme wrote: | It seems to me that distance would just be a correlation to the | real variable. If a government could keep a people 5,000 miles, | or even 50 million miles, away content enough to not undermine | them, then obviously that government could continue to rule this | group of people indefinitely. | | So it seems that the real variable here is contentedness, which | distance correlates strongly against. The further someone is away | from their government, the less likely they are to feel that it's | "their" government or have any sort of shared "camaraderie" for | lack of a better word. | | There are plenty of examples of empires having at least tentacles | stretched well beyond 3000 miles sustainably, even at the | beckoning of the colonies, as in the case of e.g. Anguilla with | the Brits. Yet no empire can maintain stability, regardless of | their size, in the face of rising discontent. | wintogreen74 wrote: | Discontent seems (to me) implicit in foreign rule though, the | degree just being a matter of with what and for how much the | local population is being bought off. | | Are there any examples where an empire doesn't treat it's outer | reaches as second-class citizens and survives? | somenameforme wrote: | I'd say that discontent is implicit in _any_ sort of rule. | The smallest of villages will have discontent, and at | extremes may even splinter - a collapse of an "empire" on | the micro scale. It's all a matter of _how_ discontent people | become. Basically I 'm arguing a tautology: when people | become discontent enough to fight against their rulers, they | will do so. | complex_exp wrote: | Russia. All the asian russians are very much treated as | second class citizens, from the top (deciding where to draft | mobiks from) to the bottom (a much worse case of what | americans today would call police brutality / bias). We have | to see if it survives though. | cs702 wrote: | The logic seems sound to me, with a few obvious caveats: | | * The number of samples is small. There aren't a lot of empires | throughout history. | | * The definition of "empire" is somewhat subjective, because | empire sizes exhibit a Zipf distribution, and the cutoff is | arbitrary. | | * Surely there have been other factors at play besides time to | travel from the capital. | | One implication is that empires that span the globe are much more | feasible today, thanks to modern travel, communications, and | surveillance technologies. | masklinn wrote: | > The logic seems sound to me | | It seems less than unsound. It's barely a just-so story. | notahacker wrote: | The logic is fine, it's just massively overstated with the | clickbait headline, and travel time in a region is an | _endogenous_ factor which depends on where the boundaries of | the empire are drawn, because empires build roads, chop down | forests, drain swamps and make rivers navigable. | | As the article acknowledges, travel times within the Roman | Empire tended to be less than a month. But they conquered land | regions (where possible) before they built the roads that let | them supply them that fast. Certainly there's nothing about | lowland Germany that should make it more difficult to reach | than Hadrian's Wall, but they effectively subdued the British | tribes and built roads all over that particular faraway island, | and didn't have as much success against the Germanic tribes who | inhabited desirable land closer to their capital that could | have been reached in a shorter time with a nice lowland road | from Gaul, if they'd ever been able to build it. | humanistbot wrote: | The "logic" or lack thereof is in trying to find a universal | "hidden rule" in large-scale human behavior across literally | all of recorded history. This is pure physics envy, and it | never ends well. | tgv wrote: | But for future interplanetary colonization, the rule would | become one light month. Not very far. But imagine any form of | communication taking years to bounce back and forth. That could | not be centrally governed. It might not just be travel time, | but it probably does correlate. | tablespoon wrote: | > But for future interplanetary colonization, the rule would | become one light month. Not very far. But imagine any form of | communication taking years to bounce back and forth. That | could not be centrally governed. It might not just be travel | time, but it probably does correlate. | | The rule seems too simplistic. What's so special about 1 | month? Is the significant value time to communicate, time to | move military forces, or something else? | | For instance, for your hypothetical interplanetary empire: | How could a capital, with a military that can move at 1% | light speed, effectively rule over a colony one light month | away if the worst it could do for ten years is send a nasty | letters over radio? Having local forces isn't a good answer, | because one of the easier paths to rebellion is for the | leader(s) _those forces_ to declare independence and make | themselves kings. | brians wrote: | Well, yes. There are plenty of takes on this. The | "Traveller" RPG has a nice one: distributed feudal | confederation. There's a nominal emperor, but it's hugely | important that he never do _almost anything_ , because | "his" empire is a lifetime across. | | Nearly the only law is that you don't impede the mail | system, and that you pay a small tax to support the fleet | that will hammer you into the ground if you impede the | mail. | kqr wrote: | You can hypothetically keep 120 military ships en route to | the colony at all times so that a forceful response is | always at most one month away. | meatyloafy wrote: | Anybody dreaming of Mars colonies should keep that in mind. | As long as the Mars colony will be dependent on supplies from | Earth, they will do what Earth wants. Once they are self | sufficient, this will change. | | C.f. the immigration-friendly early U.S. and its "close | borders" and PR lottery approaches of today. | shaoonb wrote: | Have you read much Le Guin by any chance? This is a theme | I've seen in her work. | nindalf wrote: | Could you mention some books? | lantry wrote: | It's a big part of "the word for world is forest". A | colony on one planet has essentially become self | governing, until one day a ship delivers an instantaneous | communication device, at which point the planet is back | under imperial control. There's more to the story than | that ofc | | There's also "The Dispossessed", where an anarchist | movement travels to a distant planet in order to set up | their own government. | ldh0011 wrote: | > anarchist movement > set up their own government | | I'm pretty sure I get what you mean but I found that | funny. | mymythisisthis wrote: | It's really about trading routes. Today different regions of | the world specialize in different industries. You get | competition between people vying in the same industry and | between trading partners. Communication really doesn't help | when it comes to corporate/national power struggles. This is | also why so many 'brother' countries tend to fight; Ukraine and | Russia, Yeman and Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Ethiopia. | pifm_guy wrote: | > empires that span the globe are much more feasible today | | A lot of people would argue that ~half the world is part of the | US empire today... | | In that the US has power to strongly influence/make decisions | in about half the world, extradite people from about half the | world, and enforce IP/anti drug/monetary controls in about half | the world. | | And by some definitions, it might be 80% of the world. | arthurofbabylon wrote: | I'm wondering how to apply this in my life. | | People -> Should the contracted teams I work with have more | frequent or deeper touch points? Can I make it even easier for | customers and strangers to contact me? Do I generally signal that | I'm open and willing to listen to the people in my life? | | Places -> Is there a convenient way to get around town that I'm | neglecting? | | Ideas -> How can I create rapid channels of info from more | distant communities or corners of the internet? What newsletters | should I subscribe to? | | The idea here is that we need to manage our space - geographic, | social, conceptual - and that it may serve us to expand our zone | of access. | [deleted] | logifail wrote: | This is another click-baity title submission which doesn't | remotely match the title of the source ("How Transportation | Technologies Shaped Empires") :( | [deleted] | xrd wrote: | Interesting how geography limited empires before the advent of | instant communication. | | It would be fascinating to see a comparison of the impact on | empires when instant communication is possible. | | What kind of regime change is possible when you can instantly | spread propaganda and no longer need Paul Revere riding around | telling everyone the British are coming. | rcarr wrote: | Communication obviously plays a big part but I think time to | action is probably the better metric. You need to be able to | act quicker than your opponent, and if you can't, you need to | be able to absorb the damage they can inflict in the mean time | whilst still having enough resources to inflict more damage | than you sustained when you can eventually act. | krisoft wrote: | > before the advent of instant communication. | | But! Instant communication is not possible. :) This sounds like | a nitpicking but this might become important if we spread out | in space: We still have the light speed limit on communication. | | Which of course means that our communication is practically | instantaneous around all of earth. (at least when measured | against human reaction times.) But if we would spread ourselves | to let's say the Oort cloud you would see very serious lag in | communication. Not just between Earth and the cloud, but | between points on the Oort cloud. | | Could the whole cloud ever be controlled by a single empire? Or | would it break into a Voronoi diagram of "1 light month" large | cells around points of interest? | swagasaurus-rex wrote: | Is there enough matter for a serious political faction to | subsist off of? | | The total mass of the asteroid belt is calculated to be 3% | that of the Moon [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt | | We only use a small fraction of matter on the Earth, so maybe | a good sized comet can host habitation. But the solid planets | and moons are where humanity could thrive. The gas giants | have too a gravity well, we'd need some seriously advanced | propulsion to make it off, but there's 317x more matter on | Jupiter than Earth. | irrational wrote: | What about the sun never setting on the British Empire? Wouldn't | that mean the British empire was larger than 1 month of travel | from the capital? | jameshart wrote: | Why, I'd wager that, with modern Victorian transportation, a | man could travel all the way around the world in less than | eighty days. Meet me on the steps of the Reform club! | | Phileas Fogg's example Suggests that at the height of the 'sun | never sets' era, nowhere should have been more than _40_ days | away from London. And with a significant chunk of that time | stuck transiting the pacific, brings the majority of the world | into the 30 day window for a single month. | JustLurking2022 wrote: | No, it suggests that there was an optimal path around the | world in 80 days. The geography of many regions would have | made them more remote than the optimal path. | PeterisP wrote: | The geography of those many remote regions (e.g. the | interior of Africa or Australia or parts of Asia) meant | that they were not really governed by the empires - it's | just that they were linked to the wider world through | various port cities, and _those_ were generally governed by | some empire and within a month of its capital, so the value | of their trade was captured tehre. | jameshart wrote: | In seriousness, the article's final thesis is literally | that steamships and trains and telegraphs broke the 'month' | rule by bringing essentially the whole world inside the one | month range, which is what enabled a 'sun never sets' | empire and then broke empires in general. | | Around the World in 80 days is set almost exactly at that | inflection point. | GalenErso wrote: | "The regional governors now have direct control over their | territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line." | | Delegation of authority seems to partially help solve the | problem. | soundmasterj wrote: | They're saying we can have the moon. | belter wrote: | Let me introduce the Treaty of Tordesillas... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas | wintogreen74 wrote: | A lot of counter-cases are conflating specific conquests with the | the overall empire. There will be exceptions (in both directions | of closer & further) but I think what the author is trying to do | is set the radius of the empire, relative to a one or a few | epicenters. I don't think the exact value is that important vs. | the logistical impacts of distance and their influence on all | aspects of controlling a geopolitical entity. | kgeist wrote: | If you take Russian Empire/USSR for example, most of the | territories which have been lost are much closer to Moscow | (Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Belarus, Georgia etc.) than the | territories still under Moscow control (Siberia), so at least | in the Russia's case, it's not about transportation at all. | swagasaurus-rex wrote: | Canada de facto owns a huge amount of territory. Nobody else | wants it. | | Vladivostok is desireable to many powers in the region, but | it's also changed hands many times in recent history. | notch656c wrote: | What lands are de facto Canada but not de jure Canada's? | ComputerGuru wrote: | Siberia is kind of its own exception, though. I'd say they | managed to keep Siberia - for reasons solely to do with | Siberia - despite how bad they were at keeping the empire | together, relatively speaking. | thriftwy wrote: | It's just that Siberia is predominantly populated by ethnic | Russians and USSR did not succeed in growing any regional | identity there. | hprotagonist wrote: | This neatly explains Afghanistan, i think. Fundamentally | unnavigable for the entirety of written history! | ARandomerDude wrote: | The interior of Africa, too. | FlyingSnake wrote: | Afghanistan was part of large empires like Kushans, Graeco- | Bactrians, Achaemeniens, Mauryas, Mughals, etc for long | periods. It was also a part of the Silk Route to India through | Khyber pass and was the epicenter of Graeco-Buddhist art | centers like Bamyan and Mes Aynak. It was not un-navigable. | hprotagonist wrote: | Babur was probably the last man to hold the mountains with | any seriousness, and he only held on for about a generation. | | My general feeling is that "We control Afghanistan" is more | honestly something closer to "I am the mayor of Kabul!" | charliea0 wrote: | I think there's an xkcd on modeling complex systems with a single | parameter: https://xkcd.com/793/. | | More seriously, I think the predictive power of this hypothesis | is low. Clearly travel time is important to maintaining a | connected empire but it's probably not the limiting factor. | paxys wrote: | The rise and fall of empires is a _way_ more complex topic than | the author paints it to be in this post. Yes distance to the | outer reaches is an important factor, but so are a hundred | others. Economics, religion, trade, climate, technological | progress, and above all leadership - all play an important role | in the shaping of civilization. | badrabbit wrote: | This was true before the 20th century but my opinion is that | instant communication, payment and relatively fast weapons | delivery meant for over a century now this rule is no longer | valid. Your empire can be as big as you want it to, even expand | to the moon but probably not beyond. The limiting factor now is | the appetite for war and conquest by a population that can | communicate and organize efficiently to overthrow or change | rulers as well as interference from global nuclear powers. | miovoid wrote: | Does this rule works for information signal speed in general? | Does empire in space cannot be large than 1 month light in | radius? | drexlspivey wrote: | You can get around that by turning the empire into a federation | which is the case in most sci-fi novels | perihelions wrote: | The article mentions but doesn't discuss Mesoamerican empires. I | think those should have some interesting idiosyncracies. There | was a total absence of horses/oxes/draft animals before the | Columbian exchange, so transportation and notions of geographic | distance might have been very different. | mymythisisthis wrote: | I don't see this as a case of 'information speed'. | | It's more like, who wants to wait more than 30 days for a package | to get delivered. Each yearly task takes specific tools and | ingredients, that you can't wait for. | | There is a certain yearly rhythm, so people are on 30 day | schedules. 1 month of harvest in the fall (October) 1 month of | processing the food (November) 1 month of swapping and trading | food (December) 1 month of keeping animals alive in winter | (January) 1 month of animal husbandry (February) 1 month of | winter planting (March) 1 month of birthing new animals (April) 1 | month of spring plating (May) 1 month of early harvests (June) 1 | month of tending to planted crops (July) 1 month of travel | (August) 1 month of making clothing and other things (September) | dalbasal wrote: | I feel like there's some cherry picking going on. I mean, issues | with germanic tribes and inland conquests did play a role but... | what about upper egypt, paetrea, britannia, etc. The edge of the | empire was the edge of the empire... with frontier problems. Why | did germania fail, but not those other ones. | | I mean size is an issue. Travel & messaging are issues. Empires | are very much defined by these things, etc. I just don't see | where the clear watershed is. | | Early modern european empires colonized the americas, SE Asia, | the african coast... Those were months of treacherous sailing. | "Empire" in those cases meant something totally different than | for Rome. Rome marched in with troops and took political control. | Portugal & the Dutch, England and such established small colonies | that grew in power until they were hegemons. Sometimes just a | small port or town. | | Anyway... I think Rome's limiting factor in germania and the | european frontier was barbarism. NW europeans didn't have | civilization: states, monarchies, temples, senates, roads, | nations. The germans didn't even know they were germans until | Romans told them. Rome's empire was based on assuming political | control over existing political institutions. It's economy was | dependant on this approach. Rome's African and Asian territories | had been civilized for Millenia. Jerusalem, Carthage, Luxor, etc. | Europe had no cities. How do you tax? | | In northern europe, arabia and such Rome's empire looked like the | early days of early modern colonialism. Slave export & frontier | plantations supporting a Roman villa lifestyle for a small number | of colonists. Most of the natives didn't pay tax, or participate | in Roman life. | | Egypt, under rome, shipped grain to the capital and enriched | Roman officials. In "the colonies," it worked in reverse. Rome | had to ship _them_ soldiers and money to keep the colony going. | [deleted] | vondur wrote: | Barbarism is certainly a factor in the Roman expansion into | Germania, but if you look at how the Romans were able to | colonize Gaul completely. I think originally they thought they | could follow the same playbook into both Germania and Britain. | Britain was never full pacified and required a large occupation | force to keep the province under control. After the defeat of | Varus during the reign of Augustus, I think Roman leadership | looked at the area using a cost/benefit analysis and decided it | wasn't worth the amount of money that would be needed to fully | pacifiy the region. The Romans should have pulled out of | Britain after Claudius, the invasion was a vanity project and | had no real value as a province. | dalbasal wrote: | Idk... | | Lots of conquests were hard, but time did them. Then they put | down rebellions as necessary. | | I think the difference was that there was no way for time to | "win" as they we used to. No palace to install governors in. | No temple to place Roman statues in. | | How do twin? What do you win when you win? Rome wasn't after | a tax base or plantations for cash crops. They were after a | tax base. Most of their empire consisted of territories that | had all these things for yonks. They had been conquered by | many empires and knew the drill. Britannia and Germania did | not. | mjcohen wrote: | This is not written in English. Maybe AI? | btilly wrote: | "Pacified" is a bloodless word to hide a bloody reality. | | According to Julius Caesar's own figures, when he conquered | Gaul he killed roughly a third, enslaved a third, and left | the last third under Roman rule. Thus did the future dictator | create the power base with which he overthrew the Republic. | (Though it took his nephew Octavian, better known as | Augustus, to make that stick.) | | Even in modern times, autocrats seek to glorify their power | with titles that derive from his name. Titles like "king", | "kaiser" and "tsar". | | Calgacus, as quoted by Tacitus, purportedly said of the Roman | Empire, "They make a desert, and call it peace." The | authenticity of the quote is questioned, but the description | is historical fact. And so I prefer calling a spade a spade, | and replacing "pacification" with the more accurate", | "conquest, genocide and oppression". | ClumsyPilot wrote: | you are all wrong people, | | Roman legions were co posed of Roman citizens, they had to | procure their own sword and shield, and could be called up to | serve. | | As the Roman empire grew, they captured many slaves and | territory. Wealthy romans could buy up slaves and land. They | accumulated large holsings farmed by slaves and could | outcompete ordinary romans in agricultural production. | | This was a problem because they were bacrupting the very same | people who formed the legions. All the legionairs would recoeve | for their military success, was increasing poverty. | | This led to decreasing quality of troops and political | instability | notahacker wrote: | > Anyway... I think Rome's limiting factor in germania and the | european frontier was barbarism. NW europeans didn't have | civilization: states, monarchies, temples, senates, roads, | nations. The germans didn't even know they were germans until | Romans told them. Rome's empire was based on assuming political | control over existing political institutions. | | I think you could get a job writing excuses for Roman emperors | ;) | | The Romans might have assimilated _some_ sophisticated | civilizations like Greece and Carthage, but outposts like | Britannia were nothing like that, and Romans built their own | roads and cities and villas to extract wealth from the land and | set up their own institutions everywhere they went. Germany had | no shortage of potential as a source of agricultural produce | and slaves, but what made it uneconomical compared with other | fringe parts is the pesky Germans kept fighting back, and in | particular wiped out the three remaining legions in Germania | after eight others sent there to pacify it had been withdrawn | to stave off rebellions elsewhere. (They lost a legion to | Boudica in Britain too, but they 'd built roads and cities | there by that time and had a different emperor calling the | shots). | amelius wrote: | Human travel? Or information travel? | sbaiddn wrote: | That's a fascinating question. I guess the answer is both. Fast | info gives you extra time since you don't suffer the latency to | send the shock troops. | kcb wrote: | I think it's further than that. If the drones, satellites and | if necessary the humans with guns that get their paycheck | wired from earth are already prepositioned then the latency | becomes minutes. | AntiRemoteWork wrote: | [dead] | hammock wrote: | The article's conclusion is validated by the deployment times of | US aircraft carrier groups around the world... To deploy from the | Pacific to the Persian Gulf is approximately one month. | | Historical data backing that up: | https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-7633a527c8e2a2228fcdd... | ErikCorry wrote: | Interesting, but almost all the examples are from before the | invention of the telegraph. | blululu wrote: | This is taken from Caesar Marchetti's work on the invariance of | certain parameter, related is his work on city size: | | http://www.cesaremarchetti.org/archive/electronic/basic_inst... | diordiderot wrote: | Very entertaining read | haunter wrote: | Case in point: Crusader Kings 2/3. Both games are insane and if | you say start with the Holy Roman Empire you can see how things | can fall apart quickly when you want to extend beyond the already | enourmous territory. | nathias wrote: | it probably depends on the tickrate of the governance | maw wrote: | Unrelated to the article's thesis: the use of both colors and | numbers in the static map of the Roman Empire is very clever and | I wish this technique were used more often. | | I don't in general have trouble distinguishing colored areas when | they're adjacent to each other. But when they're separated from | each other -- as is often the case with a map and its legend -- | it becomes a lot more difficult. | | Using colors to show extent and numbers to match up with the | legend is a great solution to this problem. Take note! | uwagar wrote: | who wants to know this? and why? | jonplackett wrote: | There goes intergalactic empires then... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-01-06 23:00 UTC)