Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

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>I can't think of a single example of a heterogeneous society that has lasted a comparably long time.

Comparable to what?

I mean, just as one well known and google-able example, the Roman empire was obviously thoroughly heterogeneous. Maybe the key is that most people couldn't really travel? So no one from Lutetia ever really knew any woman from Alexandria for instance. Whereas today in Paris, obviously, a large number of people know people from Alexandria.

EDIT: I realize that if you were in the Roman Army, you were an exception to the general rule of people not knowing people from other parts of the empire. Obviously, Romans had to fight together against the barbarians. (Or rather, against the other future Romans.) But that would be an example of one of the few ways your average Joe in Marseille would get to know your average Joe in Leptis Magna.

But I digress. Most large, long lasting empires were not only enormous, but heterogeneous by necessity. Rome, China after warring states (even before actually), definitely Persia. In fact, I can't really think up any examples of contemporaneous homogeneous societies that could have even dreamed of competing with the historic behemoths.

I think the heterogeneity of empires is a contributing factor to their eventual dissolution though. They tend to last a century or two at their height, and then start to break apart as more cohesive nations emerge. That’s not such a long time as far as societies go.

And the issue at hand isn’t whether homogenous societies could “compete” with empires, but whether they’re more likely to persist (and have less alienation among the people).

But China, Persia, and Rome lasted a whole lot longer than a century or two.

If memory serves, most of the college books considered the height of Roman quality of life, as well as Roman influence in the world, to be the time of Diocletian's reign. (I think he was the tetrarchy guy, but people are free to correct me if there are real historians out there.) In any case, obviously Rome was heterogeneous, again just going by memory here, but it must have been at least before the first century BC. (Assuming the Bible is to be believed. Also, why else would we call it "BC" and "AD"?) So that's like, at least 4 centuries right there.

Persia you can probably go what? At least a thousand years. And that's assuming you only start at Cyrus the Great.

China is China. Different dynasties like the British, but even if you only counted the dynasties that ruled uncontested over all of the different ethnic groups, you'd be talking about a millennia or two at least as a political grouping whether by birthright, marriage or usurpation.

Just pointing out that while some heterogeneous empires certainly fail, all of the empires in mankind's history that were great and long lasting, were unquestionably heterogeneous. I mean, some people may correct me on some details here and there, but in essentials that can't even be debated. It's extremely difficult to take out these empires. And despite what is generally believed, the historical evidence indicates that well run empires are not at all likely to fail on their own. (Even in the face of élites fighting each other, well run places just stand by and watch the old emperor get assassinated, and then, Hey! New emperor in Rome today!) Even at their heights, unless you have a few millennia to wait for failure, they typically just haven't gone away as fast as the homogeneous empires have.

Subjugation is not multiculturalism though. Those cultures weren’t free

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