Protecting harvests from raiders

[godelian]

So, very soon in the Neolithic revolution, when people started farming ten thousand years ago, it became clear that you could end up with a good harvest, if:

(1) You are good at farming
(2) You are good at raiding farmers

It was better, however, as a raider not to kill too many farmers because that would reduce the loot next year.

There was also a third option.

In exchange for, say, 10% of the harvest, you could protect farmers from raids.

There was a problem, however.

Imagine that you were too successful at protecting the farmers from pillaging raiders. There would be no more raids. The raiders would leave, or even die out, and therefore, there would be no more need for your protection.

The solution is simple.

You regularly raid other farmers.

That makes sure that these other farmers need protection from raiders. Furthermore, your raid triggers their protector to retaliate against you by in turn raiding your farmers. That guarantees that your own farmers keep needing you for protection.

Without the risk of raids, there is no need for protection.

Therefore, the protectors must keep raiding. That is why protectors were so good at inventing all kinds of new reasons as a pretext to raid the enemy's farmers.

So, in this setup, it is absolutely necessary to regularly pillage, rape, and burn the villages of the enemy.

If you forget to do that, sooner or later the farmers will stop paying you for a service that they no longer need.

This principle is called "chivalry". As a true gentleman, you protect the weak and the vulnerable who happily pay a fee for your protection from other gentlemen.

[LuckyR]

Did you figure this out on your own or did you read it somewhere?

[godelian]

Did you figure this out on your own or did you read it somewhere?

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There must be somewhat similar ideas floating around on the internet. However, I don't believe that anybody is as cynical as me. But then again, if there is, I will just write something even more cynical as to defeat the contender in terms of cynicism. It is not that humanity is particularly evil-natured. It is biology itself that is spectacularly ruthless and merciless. I don't need to run faster than the bear. I just need to run faster than you!

[Gary Childress]

Bad will seems to rule the world right now. Hopefully, George Bush Jr. is happy that he destroyed civilization.

[Impenitent]

don't grow crops in Oakland

-Imp

[LuckyR]

Did you figure this out on your own or did you read it somewhere?

https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker

Plagiarism Checker

Ensure every word is your own with Grammarly’s AI-powered plagiarism checker, which uses advanced AI to detect plagiarism in your text and check for other writing issues.

We didn’t find any plagiarism, but we found 10 writing issues.

Conciseness: 4
Punctuation: 6

There must be somewhat similar ideas floating around on the internet. However, I don't believe that anybody is as cynical as me. But then again, if there is, I will just write something even more cynical as to defeat the contender in terms of cynicism. It is not that humanity is particularly evil-natured. It is biology itself that is spectacularly ruthless and merciless. I don't need to run faster than the bear. I just need to run faster than you!

Ah yes, the "I am the most (fill in the blank) person in the world" syndrome.

But seriously, isn't the Interwebs great? Before it, only one person in all the world knew about your musings, but now four do!

[Belinda]

So, very soon in the Neolithic revolution, when people started farming ten thousand years ago, it became clear that you could end up with a good harvest, if:

(1) You are good at farming
(2) You are good at raiding farmers

It was better, however, as a raider not to kill too many farmers because that would reduce the loot next year.

There was also a third option.

In exchange for, say, 10% of the harvest, you could protect farmers from raids.

There was a problem, however.

Imagine that you were too successful at protecting the farmers from pillaging raiders. There would be no more raids. The raiders would leave, or even die out, and therefore, there would be no more need for your protection.

The solution is simple.

You regularly raid other farmers.

That makes sure that these other farmers need protection from raiders. Furthermore, your raid triggers their protector to retaliate against you by in turn raiding your farmers. That guarantees that your own farmers keep needing you for protection.

Without the risk of raids, there is no need for protection.

Therefore, the protectors must keep raiding. That is why protectors were so good at inventing all kinds of new reasons as a pretext to raid the enemy's farmers.

So, in this setup, it is absolutely necessary to regularly pillage, rape, and burn the villages of the enemy.

If you forget to do that, sooner or later the farmers will stop paying you for a service that they no longer need.

This principle is called "chivalry". As a true gentleman, you protect the weak and the vulnerable who happily pay a fee for your protection from other gentlemen.

Border Reivers used to control the lawless Borders country between Scotland and England. Your explanation of the economics of the culture may apply to Border Reivers.
The tradition is commemorated in the Borders towns to this day.

In uncivilised societies the fighting man whose job was to protect the tribe was high status and he was called a knight. The British aristocracy used to be run on chivalric lines and in many cases still is. The second son of a traditional aristocratic family would become a soldier or a churchman. I seem to remember the House of Windsor sent proportionately many sons to be soldiers, sailors, or airmen.It still is important princes can all ride horses and carry swords.