Would wrathful nature gods logically lead to more ecofriendly culture?

[Metastachydium]

the massive turtle-headed avatar of the nature god comes down and personally wrecks stuff yelling "don't step on baby sea turtles!"

Now I want to see this happen.

There aren't other gods/godlike entities willing to protect the more advanced cultures. A forge god would probably be cool with industrial-scale charcoal production, might even be the guy who told the clearcutters how to do it. A god of civilization or invention might be willing to let nature take one for the team as well.

Well, if we assume such deities can keep their cities, roads &c. safe from the nature god(s), it would stand to reason that the nature god(s) can do the same for the forests &c. and at that point, the great city imploding for lack of resources is just a matter of time: the civilized folks need agricultural lands, building materials and something to keep them warm. Nature, on the other hand, absolutely doesn't need their cities.

[Damon_Tor]

Now I want to see this happen.



Well, if we assume such deities can keep their cities, roads &c. safe from the nature god(s), it would stand to reason that the nature god(s) can do the same for the forests &c. and at that point, the great city imploding for lack of resources is just a matter of time: the civilized folks need agricultural lands, building materials and something to keep them warm. Nature, on the other hand, absolutely doesn't need their cities.

That also depends on how the Gods get their power. In many settings all diefic power derives from prayer, ie, directly correlating to the number and devotion of sapient followers. One god deliberately limiting the growth of his followers to protect nature while the other urges on his followers to plunder the natural world and swell in population will result in the gods of civilization becoming more powerful than the nature gods. So you would see the borders of the cities continue to swell as the nature gods become less capable of defending their domains from the depredations of the mortals.

You could write a dichotomy where the "nature gods" are more like the "primal spirits", a separate type of entity with no reliance on humanoid devotion. So by their very nature the most powerful Gods would have domains of things beneficial to sapient population growth ("social darwinism" is just "darwinism" for such Gods) but they would be opposed by spirits who have oppositional motives, drawing their power from natural places and creatures.

[Metastachydium]

That also depends on how the Gods get their power. In many settings all diefic power derives from prayer, ie, directly correlating to the number and devotion of sapient followers. One god deliberately limiting the growth of his followers to protect nature while the other urges on his followers to plunder the natural world and swell in population will result in the gods of civilization becoming more powerful than the nature gods. So you would see the borders of the cities continue to swell as the nature gods become less capable of defending their domains from the depredations of the mortals.

You could write a dichotomy where the "nature gods" are more like the "primal spirits", a separate type of entity with no reliance on humanoid devotion. So by their very nature the most powerful Gods would have domains of things beneficial to sapient population growth ("social darwinism" is just "darwinism" for such Gods) but they would be opposed by spirits who have oppositional motives, drawing their power from natural places and creatures.

Well, fair, even though I was never really fond of the "gods need worship" trope/line of thought, since it robs supposedly vast, quasi-omnipotent (terms and conditions may apply) creatures of quite some agency and a certain scale, as well as easily leading to the good old (and very inaptly named) chicken-or-egg dilemma and often enough, cosmologies that don't make a lick of sense.

[Damon_Tor]

In any case, the strength of the various Gods will determine the state of the world. If nature gods are strong while civilized gods are weak, nature will defend itself and civilization will remain small. If the opposite is true, the results are reversed. The exact mechanism by which these varying strengths and weakness come about and how they change over time is up to you.

[brian 333]

That also depends on how the Gods get their power. In many settings all diefic power derives from prayer, ie, directly correlating to the number and devotion of sapient followers. One god deliberately limiting the growth of his followers to protect nature while the other urges on his followers to plunder the natural world and swell in population will result in the gods of civilization becoming more powerful than the nature gods. So you would see the borders of the cities continue to swell as the nature gods become less capable of defending their domains from the depredations of the mortals.

You could write a dichotomy where the "nature gods" are more like the "primal spirits", a separate type of entity with no reliance on humanoid devotion. So by their very nature the most powerful Gods would have domains of things beneficial to sapient population growth ("social darwinism" is just "darwinism" for such Gods) but they would be opposed by spirits who have oppositional motives, drawing their power from natural places and creatures.

This also overlooks the many intelligent forest dwellers who may be inclined to pray, have clerics, (druids) and who would take an active hand in defending their homes.

[Metastachydium]

In any case, the strength of the various Gods will determine the state of the world. If nature gods are strong while civilized gods are weak, nature will defend itself and civilization will remain small. If the opposite is true, the results are reversed. The exact mechanism by which these varying strengths and weakness come about and how they change over time is up to you.

Indeed, but that kind of ignores the possibility of having self-sufficient gods of roughly equal strength.

[Damon_Tor]

Indeed, but that kind of ignores the possibility of having self-sufficient gods of roughly equal strength.

In that case you have a divine stalemate, resulting the actions of the mortals being the deciding factor, which would probably lead to greater industrialization, at a rate similar to what we see in the real world.

[Metastachydium]

In that case you have a divine stalemate, resulting the actions of the mortals being the deciding factor, which would probably lead to greater industrialization, at a rate similar to what we see in the real world.

Not neccessarily. Stalemates can come in many favours. Envision this one to the analogy of a fortified port under siege but not a naval blockade. The defenders are at a numerical disadvantage and have no chance of breaking the siege, but the defenses are strong enough that the attackers can't just take the port by storm. This is a stalemate, but not a stable one. The besieged city can resupply itself and evacuate civilians with ships; the expeditionary force conducting the siege, however, is stuck in a war-ravaged tract of land among unfriendly locals and cannot reduce the number of people that needs to be fed without compromising its ability to maintain the siege. Time's on the defenders' side and like I said, in this case, nature plays defense since it can sustain itself and doesn't need anything from the civilized folk.

[noob]

Not neccessarily. Stalemates can come in many favours. Envision this one to the analogy of a fortified port under siege but not a naval blockade. The defenders are at a numerical disadvantage and have no chance of breaking the siege, but the defenses are strong enough that the attackers can't just take the port by storm. This is a stalemate, but not a stable one. The besieged city can resupply itself and evacuate civilians with ships; the expeditionary force conducting the siege, however, is stuck in a war-ravaged tract of land among unfriendly locals and cannot reduce the number of people that needs to be fed without compromising its ability to maintain the siege. Time's on the defenders' side and like I said, in this case, nature plays defense since it can sustain itself and doesn't need anything from the civilized folk.

How did you make a theory explaining how advanced civilisation could be created without agriculture and could you post it here?
If it did not happen (the growth of an advanced civilisation without agriculture) then civilisation is self sustaining.

[Metastachydium]

How did you make a theory explaining how advanced civilisation could be created without agriculture and could you post it here?
If it did not happen (the growth of an advanced civilisation without agriculture) then civilisation is self sustaining.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say correctly, but if what you mean is that advanced civilisations are self-sustaining insofar as we consider their agricultural land use part of what makes said civilisations and advanced civilisations cannot come to be without developing such forms of land use, that's certainly a good point.

Still, I think this is at least in part a function of scale, and, perhaps, of the definitions we use. Advanced, for starters, is a relative term; a society can be comparatively advanced for its age or advanced as compared to preceding societies, and as history shows, horticulture and fishing can go a long way. Moreover, there's more to sustaining a civilization than merely feeding its people. One could argue that, say, quarries, salt or iron mines become as much an integral part of civilisation as agricultural lands do, but the same is not quite correct for forests"raided" for timber or coal. And then there's also a temporal dimension to the existence of a civilised society. Somewhat paradoxically, societies are considered stable (rather than stagnant) when they are growing, and to grow without issue, a society must preempt or manage periods when it cannot proprly sustain itself through territorial expansion, if you wish, into the "wilderness".

[brian 333]

The definition of stable vs. stagnant is somewhat nebulous. Assume a population which remains at 100,000 over many generations. Are they stable?

Do they actively participate in some type of growth? Scientific achievement? Technological innovation? Social development? Exploration of some type?

Have they become decadent, seeking personal pleasure, social dominance, enforced breeding rates? Are they surviving on the accomplishments of their forbearers?

Humans consider population growth to be a critical measure of cultural success because human population has always increased. A culture which does not increase is soon surrounded by numerically overwhelming neighbors who want the resources the smaller culture controls. Absent such pressure, numerical increase of the population is not as important as simply maintaining sufficient population to preserve the social culture.

However, among humans, the psychological need for accomplishments, even if for no better reason than social status, is a primary motivator. Young male humans, for example, have a tendency to perform dangerous stunts. Showing off is a way to differentiate oneself from one's peers. Whether it's doing backflips, or eating laundry detergent, or killing a lion with a machette, young males want to show that they are better than the other young males in their group. Those who succeed are preferred breeding stock for the next generation.

(Human females compete too, but differently.)

Without some arena for humans to challenge themselves, to improve themselves, society stagnates. The arts and sciences are one of the best arenas for this because they have the potential to benefit everyone, while fistfights and laundry pod challenges have negligible societal benefits for anyone.

Human growth is a societal requirement, but absent numerical increase of neighboring cultures, population growth is not.

[Metastachydium]

Young male humans (…) eating laundry detergent (…) are preferred breeding stock for the next generation.

[Shudders.] I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the ramifications of this prognosis.

Without some arena for humans to challenge themselves, to improve themselves, society stagnates. The arts and sciences are one of the best arenas for this because they have the potential to benefit everyone, while fistfights and laundry pod challenges have negligible societal benefits for anyone.

Human growth is a societal requirement, but absent numerical increase of neighboring cultures, population growth is not.

Perhaps, but societies rarely exist in comfortable vacuums that do not offer external threats (such as "competitors"), and, at any rate, modalities of "growth" such as technological innovation have this tendency of precipitating population growth and even beyond that, of requiring new and creative ways of exploiting available resources (case in point, whoever of sane mind would have tried to mine lithium a mere 300 years ago (putting aside that it wasn't yet formally discovered)?).

[thefantodayhtml]

I feel like is a pretty simple question once you take into account that we're talking in relative terms and not absolute ones. Wrathful nature gods might not be able to prevent human civilization from arising or (thousands of years later) industrializing, but in the meantime it's unlikely they would have issues convincing humans that bad things happen when the ecosystem is disrupted. Advancement in areas the god doesn't like will be lag far behind because extra energy spent dealing with the angry nature god offsets whatever advantages you were hoping to get.