3,000,000 yrs ago animal human species evolve to a genetic distance close enough for us to probably procreate fertile offspring with.
300,000 yrs ago daily use of Fire
200,000 homo sapiens sapiens, our direct ancestors evolve but can still procreate with other humans
70,000 yrs ago Language (Cognitive Revolution)
45,000 to 16,000 humans expand to every corner of the earth except isolated islands. extinction of large animals.
13,000 yrs ago sapiens kills or drives towards extinction every other human from the entire planet.
12,000 yrs ago Homesteading (agriculture and permanent settlements)
5,000 yrs ago First Kingdoms farm humans in large scale
5,000 yrs ago Austronesians escape to the Ocean to avoid being farmed by valley kings.
4,000 yrs ago first empire (cooperation, if forced, among different “peoples”)
500 yrs ago Science, Circumnavigation
200 yrs ago Industrialization begins
100 yrs Peak horse population
50 Second Cognitive Revolution begins - Space Exploration - Deep Ocean Exploration begins
It would seem that for most of human history we have been nomads.
12,000 years ago for agriculture and houses, and 5,000 years ago for civilized polities is also misleading. The expansion of agriculture has been gradual and the process of urbanization exponential. Up until 50 years ago there still used to be uncontacted tribes that were not completley doomed. Up to this day and in this forum we have lots of people uncomfortable with the idea of highly dense urban areas. (A sentiment I share).
To make the point sink down, unless you can trace your family origin to Sumer it is unlikely your folk has lived farming for kings for the last 5,000 years. Perhaps only 2,000 if Britton. Maybe 400 if Cherokee.
A repeating pattern in Seasteading discussions, both by completely uninformed curious passerbys as well as by technically trained members, is the yearn for completley land like, carpetting of the seas to the very bottom of the surface of the Earth s outer crust. Landfills, Kelong, Venice.
Farming, Houses, and Kings are an artifcial perversion, not a natural state - which is fine, all civilization necessitates perversion - but maybe they are also obsolete systems of human adaptation.
Food, Shelter, and Social Networking are still natural human needs which can take as many varied forms as human languages (have in the past).
Like languages, succesful systems to provide this three needs tend to overpower competing systems and might give the impression of either Panglossian Perfection or Heavenly Balance (might this be why Zheng He’s travels were either ficticious or inconsequential?) but during times of exponentially faster change, established systems rapidly become a drag. This is how English replaced Latin in Science (with many replacements and arguments in between)
In politics it’s been suggested to replace Kings with a Blockchain Democracy
In Shelter let’s suggest replacing the house and estate for the habitat and vessel
In Farming let’s abandon systems created for a radically different planet
What other threads are centered on the topics I touched upon?