JTarrou
1d ago
Deranged internet leftists have never been able to stampede major institutions into implementing their demands? It's all online screeching until the DOJ mandates the screeching.
So yeah, I'm gonna stay in the pocket on this one too.
JTarrou
1d ago
The steelman is that a 30-yo man having a normal, consensual relationship with a legal adult female age 24 is something that currently can fall under "pedophilia" in the national discourse. The issue isn't that "real" pedophilia has some redeeming quality (it doesn't), it's that because of that very evil, we will never be able to define it narrowly enough to stay pure evil. People will always be looking to smear that taint onto stuff that isn't quite, or even close to pedophilia.
And anyone who argues the minutia (e.g. "ephebophilia") just gets bulldozed as "pro-pedo".
JTarrou
3d ago
We're seeing a lot of caretaker governments by nonentities in Europe these days. They get these unstable coalitions to try to keep the "far right" (usually the center left actually) out of power, which are unpopular and constantly lose elections, but always staple together the ruling class to keep the troglodytes out. Meanwhile parties on the actual right are forming to outflank the relatively liberal (Reform, AFD, FN etc) opposition parties.
The opposition becomes steadily less controlled.
JTarrou
5d ago
I was speaking very generally. To staff their military, administrative posts and sensitive staff like harem guards, they used slaves who at least early on could not pass down property for one reason or another. Some were physically made eunuchs, Janissaries early on were forbidden to marry, etc. Over time these restrictions broke down as the slave class gained power. Point is, the Ottomans had a pipeline of carefully selected, above average slaves directly owned by the Sultan and educated at great expense for personal loyalty and professional competence. That's the sort of selection process you need to staff an empire, but it isn't stable long term.
My point is that all these societies are trying to solve the same problem. You need competent and relatively low-corruption staff, preferably not from the existing elites and preferably not that can pass on anything they do accumulate to any family. How you get there is any combination of sterilization, religion, legal restriction etc. It often changes over time, as everyone wants to make a little something to pass on to their kids, and no system is totalizing enough to prevent all offspring. It just needs to be a high enough rate of churn in this administrative class to keep it from becoming its own political entity. Of course, this never works long term, and isn't in our case or that of the Ottomans.
But it is a problem that has to be solved to even have an empire past the lifetime of one great man. This is what Alexander and Ghengis Khan lacked. The jump from feudally-organized personal loyalty of military commanders to ability-selected and specially trained professional bureaucrats. This is why Rome, Egypt and China created lasting civilizations, while Alexander and Ghengis changed out the CEO for a generation. There was no underlying structure loyal to the state itself.
Back in the seventies there was a series of "Death Wish" style vigilante movies that served as a B-movie critique of the dominant liberal legal order and its criminal consequences. No doubt something will serve that role in our current reprise of that history. Not sure it will all be movies, that seems a dead medium to me, but the ability to get it banned suggests otherwise.
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