Thursday, May 2, 2024

If You Have Peasants, They Are Revolting

 If it wasn't depicting swordsmen as black swordswomen or insisting that Envy isn't a sin and instead racism is the worst, it would be something else. Peasants are always revolting.

 Eating bugs isn't nearly as bad as "rightists" make out. They're politicking because they're bored. Bugs are suboptimal, sure, but not a big deal. Mud houses are in fact a good idea. Using dung for fuel is a big deal. Never do that. It's just a shitty solution. Go cold instead. Eat it raw. These are better ideas. If your mud house uses manure as a binder...find a different binder. Something exists. Use it.
 Peasants do these things to be gross on purpose, not because they have to. 

 London had a Roman sewer system they could have augered out and used. However, London was full of peasants. "What? Do more work so I can be cleaner? Are you stupid?" Go look at the toilet in the house of middle-middle classer. Staying clean is not a priority. Why do church potlucks give you food poisoning so often? Well...

 I low-key expect the upper-middle class trade physical uncleanliness for moral uncleanliness. "My toilet isn't full of brown bacterial mats...better go abuse my daughter."


 They also feel entitled to rule. They keep dying if they try to rule themselves, so they desperately attempt to "rule" a group, by which they mean acting way they perceive nobles to be acting: eating without working. If a peasant is doing anything except trying to overthrow you, it is because you are currently putting down their revolt. Peasants get especially uppity with kind, merciful, and cooperative rulers because they perceive it as weakness. "I would never not be a tyrant, if they're not being a tyrant, that must be because they can't be a tyrant." 

 The issue is when aristocrats are born to peasant families.

 If you don't oppress the peasantry, they will cause tremendous damage to your society.
 If you do oppress the sui generis aristocrats, they will cause tremendous damage to your society. Perhaps they will institute Democracy. "If I can't have it, nobody can." 

 A peasant who refuses to know his place might as well get executed. If you try to execute a lowborn noble, they will pretend to know their place and undermine you while you're not looking. For peasants, Envy is just normal, even if it's occasionally fatal. For aristocrats, Envy is extremely dangerous.

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