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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1254881" data-attributes="member: 812">I didn't realise I was misunderstanding you. What was the nature of that misunderstanding?I dislike giving up on debates and would welcome further clarification from you as to how I'm missing your points. I'm greatly enjoying this discussion, so I certainly don't feel we're circling.As far as social inertia goes -- that's exactly a symptom of social power. Social power selects for stability, inertia and tradition. Which is why I'm proposing that D&D power would create a society vastly different from our own -- because it does NOT select for these things.It seems like you're taking the qualities that CONTRIBUTE to a society's longevity and taking them as EVIDENCE that societies always behave this way. Whereas the fact is that societies may or may not be long-lived, depending on to what degree they possess those qualities. So while, yes, a society formed of people who dislike change will itself typically resist change, a society formed of people who love change will not. The point being that a society that does not possess the qualities you speak of will not last very long -- but it is just as likely as any other society to get formed in the first place.And it is precisely the nature of D&D power that it renders those "stabilizing" qualities less important, and thus inhibits the creation of stable societies. This is the very crux of my argument. D&D power changes the rules by which societies are maintained, because it is a different sort of power than the social power we're familiar with.Again, if I'm misunderstanding something you're trying to say, I'd appreciate a second effort from you to explain it to me. I don't claim to be the brightest bulb on the string, but if you use small words (pictures help, too) I can usually muddle through.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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