That being said, the early Christian church criticized the lending of money at interest too. The Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 published the proceedings of their council in the form of 20 canons. Here's the text of Canon 17:
Canon 17. Forasmuch as many enrolled among the Clergy, following covetousness and lust of gain, have forgotten the divine Scripture, which says, He has not given his money upon usury, and in lending money ask thehundredth of the sum [as monthly interest], the holy and great Synod thinks it just that if after this decree any one be found to receive usury, whether he accomplish it by secret transaction or otherwise, as by demanding the whole and one half, or by using any other contrivance whatever for filthy lucre's sake, he shall be deposed from the clergy and his name stricken from the list.
If you don't want to read a technical treatise on neanderthal society or its possible differences from human society, may I recommend a trilogy of novels? Robert J. Sawyer wrote the very good and fun trilogy Neanderthal Parallax. The individual titles are: Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids. He posits a quantum physics experiment that connects two realities via a gateway: (1) our modern Earth with homo sapiens as the ascendant intelligent species, and (2) a world in which neanderthals became the ascendant species.
In particular, I thought Sawyer did a good job of describing the social differences between the humans and the neanderthals in a way that was both interesting and plausible.
On the whole, I found Neanderthal Parallax to be an entertaining and satisfying story that fully delivers in all three books.
Maybe you could get that 5 kb/s of information about other players just for the players immediately around you. You'd need detailed info about what their doing and saying and so forth. But for players you couldn't immediately observe or interact with, say people farther away, you might need only 1 kb/s of information. I realize that this would require a kind of "fog of war" where you see clearly what's right around you and what's farther away is blurry and indistinct.
There are considerations of overall bandwidth too. In a 1000-player battle, the information (i.e., bandwidth) requirements for a user who's in a pit up to his eyeballs and can barely see half a dozen people (total requirement = 6 nearby people x 5 kb/s + 0 other people x 1 kb/s = 30 kb/s) is a lot lower than a user who's stationed on a hilltop and has a telescope in his hand (total requirement = scores of people in his immediately eyesight x 5 kb/s + 100s of others who are less distinct x 1 kb/s = 500 kb/s). Maybe unless you have a broadband connection, don't position or maneuver yourself to where you will require more information about the battle than you can conveniently download. ("I ain't runnin up that hill--my system will crash!")
If someone told you they loved you and advised you to stay within the yellow and white lines on a highway or else you'd crash and die, would you ignore their advice?
I don't know about a network of subterranean conduits, but if a customer wants to pay for it, he can get a human to courier a package from one city to another, even hand-deliver the package to its recipient. If the customer paid for a charter plane, the package's route wouldn't be limited to scheduled flights. (I suppose you wouldn't need the human courier/escort, but a dedicated courier might be simpler than arranging for a separate person to intercept and babysit the package at each point.)
Expensive courier services for original documents, transplant organs, valuables, etc. will persist for the time being because there just isn't widespread demand for a 4-hour L.A. to N.Y. run for physical objects.
On a sidenote, has anyone tried to send a telegram recently? The yellow pages has listings for this service. I called Western Union a few years ago checking into it and they said it cost $30. (I wish I knew for sure whether that included hand-delivery to the door; I think it did.)
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That being said, the early Christian church criticized the lending of money at interest too. The Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 published the proceedings of their council in the form of 20 canons. Here's the text of Canon 17:
(The text of all 19 canons is available at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3801.htm, and of course in other places on the Web.)
If you don't want to read a technical treatise on neanderthal society or its possible differences from human society, may I recommend a trilogy of novels? Robert J. Sawyer wrote the very good and fun trilogy Neanderthal Parallax. The individual titles are: Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids. He posits a quantum physics experiment that connects two realities via a gateway: (1) our modern Earth with homo sapiens as the ascendant intelligent species, and (2) a world in which neanderthals became the ascendant species.
In particular, I thought Sawyer did a good job of describing the social differences between the humans and the neanderthals in a way that was both interesting and plausible.
On the whole, I found Neanderthal Parallax to be an entertaining and satisfying story that fully delivers in all three books.
Maybe you could get that 5 kb/s of information about other players just for the players immediately around you. You'd need detailed info about what their doing and saying and so forth. But for players you couldn't immediately observe or interact with, say people farther away, you might need only 1 kb/s of information. I realize that this would require a kind of "fog of war" where you see clearly what's right around you and what's farther away is blurry and indistinct. There are considerations of overall bandwidth too. In a 1000-player battle, the information (i.e., bandwidth) requirements for a user who's in a pit up to his eyeballs and can barely see half a dozen people (total requirement = 6 nearby people x 5 kb/s + 0 other people x 1 kb/s = 30 kb/s) is a lot lower than a user who's stationed on a hilltop and has a telescope in his hand (total requirement = scores of people in his immediately eyesight x 5 kb/s + 100s of others who are less distinct x 1 kb/s = 500 kb/s). Maybe unless you have a broadband connection, don't position or maneuver yourself to where you will require more information about the battle than you can conveniently download. ("I ain't runnin up that hill--my system will crash!")
If someone told you they loved you and advised you to stay within the yellow and white lines on a highway or else you'd crash and die, would you ignore their advice?
I don't know about a network of subterranean conduits, but if a customer wants to pay for it, he can get a human to courier a package from one city to another, even hand-deliver the package to its recipient. If the customer paid for a charter plane, the package's route wouldn't be limited to scheduled flights. (I suppose you wouldn't need the human courier/escort, but a dedicated courier might be simpler than arranging for a separate person to intercept and babysit the package at each point.)
Expensive courier services for original documents, transplant organs, valuables, etc. will persist for the time being because there just isn't widespread demand for a 4-hour L.A. to N.Y. run for physical objects.
On a sidenote, has anyone tried to send a telegram recently? The yellow pages has listings for this service. I called Western Union a few years ago checking into it and they said it cost $30. (I wish I knew for sure whether that included hand-delivery to the door; I think it did.)