Empires, Democracy, Autocracy, and Bureaucracy || Society & Culture Worldbuilding Guide Part 5

[@Jpteryx]

Another great resource! There's other worldbuilding resources that talk about things like "how do empires work" and "how do nomadic societies work" but this is invaluable for actually putting types of societies onto a map in the first place.

[@h2otote]

This channel and artifexian have been a GOD SEND, I have been trying my hand at worldbuilding with hopes of writing a story and you guys have both been instrumental in that. Thank you so much for all your work

[@madelinejameswrites]

So glad you're finding it helpful! The worldbuilding journey is a fun one. And I totally agree about Artifexian, he's great!!

[@HelotOnWheels]

Thanks for another in-depth video. When you mentioned that 25 people per square mile forms a rough boundary between democracy and autocracy, I quickly checked my D&D world’s Moradian Kingdom, whose parliamentary limited monarchy is the most democratic of all my world’s major powers, and kind of breathed a sigh of relief to find it was only 12 elves per square mile. The “cost of dispersion” concept is new and fascinating to me, but makes instant sense. Confucius wrote of meeting a woman grieving the deaths of three family members from tiger attacks. He asked her why she didn’t leave her tiger-haunted home, and she answered, “There is no oppressive government here.” Tigers were part of the “cost of dispersion” for her. How do we quantify the cost of dispersion? The most obvious cost of leaving a state behind is losing whatever protection it provides from criminals and outside raiders. So the cost of dispersion is less for a large family or group, that can more easily fight off criminals and build refuges from raiders. Dispersion may also mean losing access to the state’s markets, so the cost varies with how productive and costly those markets are, compared to how much the dispersers can create on their own. Dispersing into an uninhabited or sparsely inhabited area is cheaper and safer than into a thickly settled one. Predators, like Confucius’s tigers, raise the cost, and in a fantasy world with dragons, vampires, giants, and other superpredators with intelligence and technology similar to humanity’s, the cost may be prohibitive. Ironically, egalitarianism may lead people to tolerate more oppression without dispersing, so long as suffering is equal; as the campaigning Spartiates say in *Gates of Fire,* the difference between them and their king is that they sleep in the shithole over here and the king sleeps in the shithole over there. I’m a bit puzzled by the description of proto-democracy. The only ancient polity I know that worked like that was the Roman Republic, assuming leader=consuls, council=Senate, and local assemblies=the tribal assembly. And the Greeks didn’t know anyone else who did things that way. I’ve read that really early egalitarian government was on the very small-scale tribal level, usually had a group of respected “wise men” but no single formal leader, and decisions by the free adult males of the tribe had to be *unanimous,* rather than merely majority-approved as in Athens, because it was so important not to split the group. And even in that case, not everybody was equal. Women might have their own council, like with the Iroquois, but they almost never were allowed in the men’s council, usually had different responsibilities from the men, and in some tribes the women had no vote at all. And slaves couldn’t vote - and even stateless societies normally had at least a few slaves.

[@madelinejameswrites]

That example with tigers is fascinating, but definitely fits! And I highly recommend you check out the book The Decline and Rise of Democracy, it will help with a lot of your questions

[@jaycee945]

I've been so excited for this part! Thank you for all the time and research you put into these videos. Can't wait for the next!

[@madelinejameswrites]

Thank you!! I'm so glad you're enjoying them ☺️

[@SpookiNdungeons]

THIS IS SO GOOD

[@kentario1610]

I'm basically live reacting to this video in my worldbuilding friend's DMs and writing down various ideas and thought processes (like my instinctual inclination that my winged people would tend towards being nomadic and democratic while my humans would tend toward sedentarianism and statehood, which ended up being justified in this video), like how human states could further extend their power by using winged people as faster messengers than humans would be; hiring one, or many, would be a luxury a smaller state wouldn't be able to afford but might be necessary for a large state or empire to enforce its power and prevent disorder. Heck, if a democracy had the cooperation of winged people, they could conduct democracy over a distance through writing, authentication like seals, and offices. Going to continue watching now!

[@madelinejameswrites]

@@kentario1610 that's awesome!

[@kentario1610]

I finally watched Artifexian's video on rocks, then came back to give your two parter another shot but I didn't see this new one!! I'm so excited!!! I will consume this promptly.

[@madelinejameswrites]

@@kentario1610 hope you enjoy!

[@mmardh799]

thank you! very interesting

[@dayalasingh5853]

15:29 sorry I'm having trouble finding this, how is this empire's name spelled? Great video btw this is very helpful 🙏🏽🙏🏽

[@madelinejameswrites]

That's the Xiongnu Empire

[@dayalasingh5853]

@madelinejameswrites ah ok thank you

[@Vlad_Ibarr]

Hello, nice video.

[@madelinejameswrites]

Glad you liked it!

[@gregwochlik9233]

Nice video, lots of information. I hope that @Artifexian references this video when he gets to that stage in his world build! Information was nice and concise, well delivered.

[@madelinejameswrites]

Thank you!! I think the people in Artifexian's world will be coming from elsewhere, so I'm not sure how much he will do these kinds of steps but it would be fun if he did!