The cough is still hanging on, but I'm mostly as good as new although with little reserve.
Its seems like some of my recent post titles resemble sociological papers which makes sense as I'm trying to describe the various ways one can build a society across the Multiverse.
Societal Types:
1. Hunter-gatherer
This breaks down into two types, nomadic and largely sedentary. The nomadic is the purer form. The most likely size is small tribes, but large spread out tribes are not uncommon. There is no major scaling difficulty to prevent a dispersed mass of small tribes from turning into a Horde like the Mongol Horde.
Conflicts with Agrarian or Agricultural societies started by this type tend to be of two types. One, if the agrarian society is weak, and rich then greed lures the barbarian forward (see the Fall of the Roman Empire). More likely, the barbarian horde is being driven before some huge natual force like famine. Or famine is driving another tribe which drives another tribe which drives them.
Conflicts started by Agrarian societies tend to be focused on the land, and on resource competition.
In such conflicts, a 100-1 and a 10-1 principle may be stated. The agrarian society has inferior fighters due to poor food, and little practise. Oftentimes, the hunter-gatherer is worth ten of the farmers, but his problem is that there are a hundred farmers to the one hunter-gatherer.
However, a concentration of force may be arranged, and such a Horde may well sweep the world.
While the agrarian society has an advantage, its not a clear-cut advantage. This is a point that reoccurs.
Some people imagine that conflict between civilizations neccessarily yields a victory for the more highly advanced one. This is not the case.
2. Agrarian
3. Industrial
4. Information
5. Post-Scarcity