Talk:Hydraulic empire

Marx and hydraulic empires

I thought they were mentioned by Karl Marx. --Anon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.3.237 (talk) 11:36, 20 September 2004 (UTC)

On the analysis section

Can this term apply to despotism of the developed world, with its monopoly on technology-development, the "water" of industrialized economies, in its relationship to the developing world? This concept is likely anathema to citizens of the developed world

The analogy is strained. If you look at technology development, you don't see a fixed size resource. Education, invention, and the application of technology all aren't limited in any fundamental way. Knowledge in particular can be replicated indefinitely. I grant it's possible for a group to control a critical aspect of technology just through their advanced knowledge, but that knowledge can be reinvented or stolen.

Perhaps a better consideration would be security and control. With the increasing power of technology, it is both harder to be secure from harm and harder to control people, society, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KarlHallowell (talk • contribs) 05:53, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

This sentence should be removed as an empty theoretical toss-away that betrays a developing world POV. Absent a specific argument to make for a western hydraulic despotism based on technology, it's little more than a backhanded rhetorical slap.

To include it, specific reference should be made to someone else's argument, with the logic of the argument summarized in a way that doesn't present the article as supporting it. JJ 18:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Water empire merged here

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Water empire. Johnleemk | Talk 05:39, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Deleted this section

In The Constant Feud: Forest Versus Desert, the late Israeli author E. G. Ban used the "hydraulic empire" theory to explain the hostility between the Middle East and Western civilizations, starting with the Persian invasion of Greece, leading through the Punic Wars, the Jewish rebellions against Rome and eventually to the conflicts between the Islamic world and the Western world. In E. G. Ban's view, Middle Easterners hated the Western world because of a feeling of deprivation and envy resulting from the desertification of their own environment.

Deleted this because it's not relevant - how does the idea of envy on the part of "Middle Easterners" (a questionable term) resulting from the desertification of their own environment, relate to the concept of the hydraulic empire, as defined elsewhere in the piece?

As well as being irrelevant, it's a highly questionable thesis (I would say, "drivel"), and not substantiated or supported by third-party references - the work of a non-canonical author included seemingly arbitrarily; furthermore it links within the paragraph (not in the footnotes) to an external site, so I'm frankly suspicious of the motives behind its inclusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.93 (talk) 13:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Terminology

Is esper a word? I didn't see it in the dictionary. --Anon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.3.146 (talk) 15:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Neither did I. I've only ever seen it in sci-fi and Japanese contexts. --maru (talk) contribs 02:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's a word; linguistic consensus, AFAIK, is that it's a re-capitalization of "ESP-er", "ESP" plus the occupational suffix. It's a rare term, and it primarily shows up in SF and associated contexts, but it was not invented for Final Fantasy 6, which popularized it among the Wikipedia set; in fact, it's probably a more familiar word in Japanese than it is in English -- the original (Japanese-language) version of Final Fantasy Legend 2, five or six years before Final Fantasy 6, used "ESUPAA BOI" and "ESUPAA GAARU" for male and female magic-users ("Mutant M" and "Mutant F" in the English localization) -- which indicates that the term "ESUPAA" ("Esper") was familiar enough that Japanese teenagers and even children would understand what it meant or at least would be able to look it up.

By the way, what in heck does this have to do with hydraulic despotism? :) 96.237.71.42 (talk) 03:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

SF

I removed some parts from the "Examples in SF" section. It's simply too long compared to the rest of the article and while that concept is common in SF which may merit a section it shouldn't dominate the article.

When brought to planetary level, hydraulic despotism exists in its purest form among the Fremen of Arrakis. Water among the Fremen is life and can be seen from the fact that Fremen recycle water from their dead's blood. A quote from the O.C. Bible in the novel states "From water does all life begin".

the society of the Fremen was tribal, not a hydraulic empire

Destiny's Road by Larry Niven (1998) is another example: the seeds called "speckles" contain a nutrient missing in the colonized planet's biosphere. Deficiency of said nutrient results in dimnished mental capacity which may be permanent if prolonged or it occurs early during a child's development, and can also result in death.

The Sten Chronicles series of books by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch (8 books): Anti-Matter Two is a safer, more controllable form of anti-matter, and only the Eternal Emperor knows the manufacturing process and is zealous in its sale and use.

Also in the movie Total Recall the oxygen injected into the Martian colonies where humans live is controlled by a totalitarian government.

In the film adaptation of Tank Girl, the tyrannical Water & Power company controls Earth's remaining fresh water.

A section with examples from movies/sf etc. on wikipedia opens Pandora's Box. The first two examples are elaborate and fitting and after that comes an overly long list of obscure and pointless examples put in in later edits. I don't doubt that there are hundreds of works that have something remotely resembling a hydraulic empire but we don't have to mention every single one because the section says "Examples" not "Exhaustive List". I left the (probably) most well-known example -Dune- and the example that seems to best fit the topic. 62.245.161.201 17:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

No, Destiny's Road is definitely the better example as it's central to the plot. A World Out of Time is barely memorable, though I do agree that the Pak/TlO is totally off the mark. Other examples in Niven's bibliography are Smoke Ring and Building Harlequin's Moon --Belg4mit 06:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

This section should be put back in: I came to this page looking for these references and didn't find them... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.63.184.134 (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The long list of science fiction novels in an article on a theory of Eastern despotism seems incongruous to me. Shouldn't the focus be more on how the concept has fared in academia? Rstinejr (talk) 15:12, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The existence of "in fiction" sections is standard in Wikipedia. They can get over the top sometimes and should be trimmed, but this seems a pretty good list of works which explore the issue as a central theme. But to be sure it would be great to have more academic discussion and sources added. ··gracefool☺ 23:19, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

There were books by L. E. Modesitt Jr. where a major premise was water empire [different resources not just H20] where big data mining and control of production was essential in gov't control. 199.46.199.230 (talk) 13:59, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Additions

Arguably, the Incas should be a see also, but probably not until that entry is updated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Belg4mit (talk • contribs) 07:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

SO..What do we call oil controlled empires?

I just read this article, and I couldn't help but think of my countries current total dependency on oil production. The entire thing would collapse almost overnight it oil production stopped. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.46.213.19 (talk) 23:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please sign your comments. If you wanted to make the argument, you could call them hydraulic empires. As the article clearly explains, not all hydraulic empires are about water. Regardless, IMHO our dependence upon oil does not equate to a hydraulic empire. "Lifeblood" though it may be, it is not *required*, and the suppliers do not possess comparable levels of control regarding distribution and use. --Belg4mit 20:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Skyland?

Should it be here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.232.3 (talk) 07:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE

It's undue weight to have the section on influence in science fiction longer than the rest of the article combined. It's also trivia. TallNapoleon (talk) 02:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I recommend it either be deleted or move to its own article, something like "Literary allusions to the concept of 'hydraulic empire' ", at least the parts which are not original research. Trilobitealive (talk) 04:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I think we should trim out a few of them, make sure they all link (in the original articles) here, and keep the important ones, specifically Dune & Niven's Known Space for SF, and maybe Total Recall and Mad Max since they were somewhat popular Hollywood productions. --Gwern (contribs) 17:23 21 January 2009 (GMT)

Gwern and TallNapoleon, I looked at the article again when I saw Gwern's response here and the back and forth edits. What do you think about the presence or absence of original research in this section? Does it fall within the guidelines of WP:OR? (Looking for perspective of one who wants to keep and one who wants to remove.) Trilobitealive (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, but I speak from the perspective of an old-timer who remembers when WP:OR was only for use against Usenet cranks like Timecube, not for trivial inferences and identifications... --Gwern (contribs) 14:51 30 January 2009 (GMT)

Complete re-write

From what I can understand just from reading the article, and some of the comments here in the discussion, the original concept is from a semi-racist socio-history excercise, and is mainly significant in Sci-fi rather than history. I suggest it be re-ritten to reflect that, unless it really is a common term in historical analysis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.210.158 (talk) 00:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Relationship to Palace economy?

Should there be a link to Palace economy? From my understanding, they refer to pretty much the same thing, maybe Hydraulic empire focusing on the political organisation and Palace economy focusing on the economic system. Should they be merged? --Wtrmute (talk) 01:01, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Indus irrigation

There's a brief mention here of the Indus Valley civilisation, and it says that there is little evidence of irrigation being used. I've definitely read that they had irrigation - it's mentioned the book History by DK Press, edited by Adam Hart-Davis, and I'm sure I've read it elsewhere too. Thanks just thought I should mention it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.31.126.184 (talk) 14:21, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Western movies and TV series

Hydraulic despotism has long been a common plot in movies and episodes of TV series set in the 1800's in the American southwest. The basis of the plot is a person who owns a lot of land installing dams or diversions in a river or creek to attempt to starve out farmers or ranchers down stream. Then there's another person or group who first attempts to reason with the one controlling the water. When reason fails, the protagonist usually turns to violence. The denouement involves either the despot character getting killed or something happening to make him see the error of his ways and releasing the water or sometimes his other illegal activities result in incarceration. Bizzybody (talk) 09:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I discovered this page from the "See also" section of Dune. I am thinking along the same lines as your comment, there have got to be many works in popular culture that explore this idea, another one being Mad Max Fury Road.Spheroidite (talk) 21:50, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Untitled

• Recherches sur l'origine du despotisme oriental, 1761. Réédition : Paris, Hachette, 1972 [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Felix Folio Secundus (talk • contribs) 10:05, 15 November 2012 (UTC)