"Make raids costly" -- In "The Art of Not Being Governed" historian James C. Scott describes the context of medieval Southeast Asia, where the topology created a division between "Hulu" -- mountain people -- and "Hilir" -- valley people.
Governments could control the hilir people because they were tied down to wet rice agriculture, thus were a fixed target for taxation and control. In contrast, "hulu" people were nomadic and lived at higher elevations, thus making raids costly in terms of time, manpower, energy, etc.
Encrypted comms, Bitcoin, etc -- these are "hulu" tech. They raise the costs for State intervention, potentially on a mass scale.
Globe99
npub147…paq44
2025-04-05 17:42:25
in reply to nevent1q…72e2
Author Public Key
npub147fp2j606qpfysp38phhzvempt7ewsdqwm6uww9uycp6tdvavu0s5paq44Published at
2025-04-05 17:42:25Event JSON
{
"id": "045a5915d6aa33700d3be3cdbfc67f39bdbec78bfd29195f493a72f23e515639",
"pubkey": "af92154b4fd002924031386f71333b0afd9741a076f5c738bc2603a5b59d671f",
"created_at": 1743874945,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"p",
"b7ed68b062de6b4a12e51fd5285c1e1e0ed0e5128cda93ab11b4150b55ed32fc",
"wss://nos.lol/",
"Max"
],
[
"e",
"900c071b8f67624a133373abf8a62896ebe7e428bca1f7a4c7d25c4664ca72c8",
"wss://nos.lol/",
"root",
"b7ed68b062de6b4a12e51fd5285c1e1e0ed0e5128cda93ab11b4150b55ed32fc"
],
[
"client",
"Coracle",
"31990:97c70a44366a6535c145b333f973ea86dfdc2d7a99da618c40c64705ad98e322:1685968093690"
],
[
"nonce",
"27",
"5"
]
],
"content": "\"Make raids costly\" -- In \"The Art of Not Being Governed\" historian James C. Scott describes the context of medieval Southeast Asia, where the topology created a division between \"Hulu\" -- mountain people -- and \"Hilir\" -- valley people.\n\nGovernments could control the hilir people because they were tied down to wet rice agriculture, thus were a fixed target for taxation and control. In contrast, \"hulu\" people were nomadic and lived at higher elevations, thus making raids costly in terms of time, manpower, energy, etc.\n\nEncrypted comms, Bitcoin, etc -- these are \"hulu\" tech. They raise the costs for State intervention, potentially on a mass scale.",
"sig": "bb194b450f320ab644f8f56c8883323a05cae13ef256986137c5548704424d255ec60fc8246864f66d5b74cbfb7659817c6626604fe3122ebc130ded73d0c610"
}