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Frozen Inward
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-42.8°C = -45°F
That is the temperature in part of northern Finland today. Thankfully, I am further south so it is twice as warm and only -20°C (-4°F). Is that twice as warm? I am not sure if that is the way it goes, but it doesn't matter. Suffice to say, it is pretty cold at the moment and being outside requires rugging up a little more than usual. Granted, I am Australian, so unlike my Finnish counterparts, I actually wear less clothing than the average, regardless of the temperature. Our puppy though is suffering, as his little paws can't stand outside for long.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
I think the weather has a profound effect on culture that reaches far beyond the obvious. For instance, I believe that one of the reasons the northern hemisphere has done better financially, is that it is more accustomed to planning for the future when winter arrives, because *not planning means death. Winter requires having stores of non-perishable food saved away from when food was available in the summer, which means more than just saving, but also technological advancement for storage. Holes dug into the ground, ice storage covered in straw, salting and curing of meats, drying of fruits and vegetables, lots of vinegar. The food might not be delicious, but it provides sustenance through the cold months.
Translate this into other aspects of life, where housing advancements lead into more permanent residence locations, the sense of personal ownership, the need to protect and then the push for all kinds of weapon advancements, and that "saving" mentality becomes one that is far more investing into growth. Growth that goes far beyond what is needed also. Whereas in warm climates it is possible to follow the food meaning only needing to take what is able to be carried, cold climates are about protecting the food, by expanding the ownership footprint.
Over the space of centuries, it means that colder climate cultures became more organised and structured, but also more ownership orientated and hungry for more, which led to professional armies and other systems that leveraged the culture, like taxes. In some ways, being "prepared for the winter" has meant that we have created reasons to hoard resources and become more capable to aggressively defend what we have saved. This in turn also means we are more capable and incentivised to attack to acquire the resources of others.
This is my theory, anyway.
I don't know how accurate it is or whether there is any truth in it at all, but I do believe that the climate has heavily affected how we organise ourselves and our capabilities. For instance, just being able to grow and secure food supplies is going to impact on how large an army can be gathered and mobilised, because soldiers require food to operate. This also means that food transportation at scale has to advance also, which advances all kinds of transport. Faster, larger, safer.
Those that are prepared will outperform the unprepared.
For instance during the Winter War where Russia attacked Finland, the estimate is that despite far more numbers and tanks, the Russians were defeated 4:1, with about 400K losses compared to 100K on the Finnish side. The war was only 105 days long and this was despite the Finnish side having a largely unprofessional army. One of the main reasons for the imbalance was that it was a very cold winter and the Russians were wholly unprepared for it on many levels. The Finns, even though only the professional soldiers had "proper" equipment, the rest had all of their normal winter gear, so didn't freeze to death. On a side note, this was also when the molotov cocktail was invented - which was to deal with tanks. Russia technically won the war due to the land negotiated, but it is historically seen as a loss.
War is stupid.
But the reason for war is almost always the same, wealth. It comes back to those same tenets of saving and investment, protection of ownership and excess resources. Wealth itself in the general terms we use it, comes through preparedness for the future. It is about being able to save and expand, by building the structure and systems that enable it. And while there have always been battles over resources, now that resources are not just physical, not just human, the battles can be waged for resources that don't even exist.
We are shaped by our environment, because our environment provides challenges to overcome. Severe environments require innovative growth to overcome them and we as humans are uniquely suited to create what we must to survive. But we are also greedy and expansionist, so we do not end our innovation at the level required to survive, we expand to thrive. But thriving as a species and thriving as a subset group are two different things.
We have divided ourselves in so many ways, created so many subsets, so many mechanisms for conflict, that everything has become a battle for survival. We have created an environment of constant challenge against each other and the climate we have built encourages increasing amounts of violence to protect and expand our resource footprint. On top of this, there are still all of the natural challenges we face with the weather and climate change and water and heat resources.
At the end of the day, we all die and nothing we have can be taken with us, yet we have created a global culture that keeps wanting for more, despite this fact. We keep preparing to expand our resource holdings, our ownership, even though it brings nothing more to us, but takes away from others. There is an imbalance in what we have created that at a species level holds us back, but at a human level, is part of our nature.
We might be preparing, but for the wrong conditions.
Taraz
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