As bloody as the world wars were, they weren’t particularly bad by historical standards. The 17th century was uniquely bad for 2nd millennium AD, with Little Ice Age & glut of specie leading to state collapses & population decline across Eurasia.

Falls of Rome & Tang in 1st millennium were worse, but at least they were recorded. Records of the even worse Bronze Age Collapse around 1200 BC barely survived for some areas, & for other regions all we have are archaeological indications that they regressed to the stone age. https://t.co/yK7RTJuQw3
Further back in the 3rd millennium BC, an even worse series of catastrophes occurred - the Indo-European invasions - ending the Megalith Builder Civilization with their urban settlements & leaving much of Europe depopulated for 600 years. https://t.co/6MY752hjXN
By the time of their destruction the Megalith Builders themselves had been in a centuries long decline from their Golden Age in late 5th & early 4th millennium. Their great realms had likely disintegrated around 3500 BC into smaller chiefdoms engaging in endemic warfare. https://t.co/gjaA5fziBZ
The Megalith Builders themselves were the result of WHG chieftains overthrowing the decadent EEF chiefs like those of the Linear Ceramics around 4400 BC & subjugating an 1800 year old neolithic civilization. Possibly related to spread of copper-working. https://t.co/d4SzdRo7gD
The EEFs had settled Europe after the worst catastrophes following the Last Ice Age - the Storegga Slides. A continental shelf collapsed & resulting tsunamis drowned an entire landmass (Doggerland) while floods elsewhere in Europe devastated WHG communities. https://t.co/lfxaKYijEL
The mother civilization collapsed around 8300 BC & only began to recover 800 years later. https://t.co/zk8liJRfdk
There were probably civilizations before civilization that fell but never rose again. https://t.co/qNb4LuAjD7
While mankind does fall, stagnant, & decline - the trend in the long term is progress. Even our declines & falls are getting less worse with every cycle.

More from Economy

In this paper, we study vote choices of voters who are left-wing on economic issues and authoritarian/nationalist on cultural issues, especially immigration. For these voters, there is no often party combining positions in this way.


In the data from the Campaign Panel of the German Election Study 2017, many voters prefer higher social benefits and taxes and want to restrict immigration. @ches_data show that no party bundles issue positions in this way.


In the article, we show that many such “left-authoritarians” perceive the party they voted for to also hold a left-authoritarian position. Interestingly, this includes many AfD voters who report a perceived left-wing economic position of the party.


Our statistical models study the interplay between this (mis-)perceived congruence and issue importance, using an open-ended question on the most important political problem in Germany.

We find that (mis-)perceived congruence and issue importance interactively shape the left-authoritarian vote. Simply, perceived congruence matters more on an important issue—and issue salience matters most if voters accurately perceive incongruent party supply.

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