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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

Even in-universe the Hobbits aren't fully "realistic"; they are supported by the Rangers keeping the many and sundry threats of Middle Earth off of their borders. Without that protection the whole system actually fell apart even in-universe. There's not a lot places in the real history of the real world where a society had no defense burden, and they don't tend to be long-term stable either.

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Iceland is one example. They have a coast guard but no standing military. On the other hand, their independence is formally guaranteed by the US (and maybe others, I don't remember), so nobody's gonna be trying to annex them any time soon. On the other hand, Iceland's only been "independent" since slipping out from Denmark ~WW2.

I guess the US guarantee is what kept the "cod wars" limited to shouldering?

(how well might current DDGs stand up to a similar full and frank discussion?)

Never new about that. Fascinating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars

Even without the US guarantee, I strongly doubt the UK would have entered an actual shooting war with Iceland over fish.

But Iceland has decidedly not been stable. They gained de facto independence in 1918 and completely lost their sovereignty only 22 years later when Britain occupied them (that is despite them still having armed forces in 1940). Since WW2 things have obviously been stable-ish (things were really bad in 2009). How long do you think that would last once Iceland tried to exercise their sovereignty, for instance by leaving NATO?

Analogously, how long did the Shire last against a motivated attacker with comparatively little resources?

Sorry, I meant it as an example specifically of this (similar to the Hobbits "outsourcing" their defense):

> There's not a lot places in the real history of the real world where a society had no defense burden

I'm certainly not making an argument that it has signs of long-term stability.

except Icelandic bankers toppled their own government in the 2008 credit crisis due to making a specific haven for certain kinds of crazy leveraged lending in the UK (!) (corrections welcome)

Amish would be an example.

The shire didn't had nothing that would deserve going out of the way to loot it (at least nothing known).

Hobbits had a sort of primitive defense systems against occasional invasions of goblins and wolves and LOTR mention their skills in the use of several weapons. A few chickens or tobacco herbs simply don't not worth the mess, specially when men were richer and can just buy it.

In a pre-industrial society, rich agricultural lands and even just this year's produce would count as something worthy to loot. Heck, they might do so now -- I'm sure Russia wouldn't be unhappy to be able to add fertile Ukrainian lands to their dystopia.

Water too. Loot the land, get the water and all that follows and reserve some arid land elsewhere for the Hobbits.

Costa Rica is a bit like that. They have no military but they do have an armed law enforcement agency which maintains internal security and guards the borders. This has been stable since 1948. In fact, Costa Rica has been more stable than many other countries in Central and South America where the militaries are often a breeding ground for coups and civil wars.

I can only speak to my own interpretations of the text, but this is a setting where magic well and truly exists, if typically in forms that were seldom seen directly. I don't think it's explicitly said, but again, Bilbo the burglar and Frodo somehow sneaking into Mordor, there is a broader underlying implication that hobbits are intrinsically easy to ignore and discount. I was always given the impression this was largely what kept them safe, not any realistic defense mechanism, but a borderline mystical unimportance.

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