domain:astralcodexten.substack.com
felis-parenthesis
21m ago
The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert. This is my second attempt to learn about the French Revolution, having previously read Mencius Moldbug's recommendation, same title, written by J. F. Bosher. I'm starting to think that there is so much going on that a single volume treatment leaves stuff out and the reader notices the gaps and goes "Wut!"
Hibbert is great on how terrible the Terror is. I've read as far as the execution of Danton, and now Robespierre is getting nervous. His denunciation of atheism as aristocratic has gone down poorly. I'm feeling a little lost. Is calling something aristocractic a general purpose insult, like calling some-one a NAZI is today? Was there an actual link, with atheism arising due to wealthy aristocrats sponsoring philosophes. Did the denunciation upset atheist sans culottes?
Ten years ago I wouldn't have had a problem with Hibbert's description of the Terror. But in recent years I've read the line "They tell you what happened to them, but they don't tell you why." too many times. Perhaps The Terror is warning me that we live on a frail raft bobbing on a sea of psychopathic cruelty and must be careful that it doesn't capsize. Perhaps The Terror is darkly hinting that the outbreak of unhinged violence is a response to previous horrors, too terrible to mention.
I have a weak clue that it might be the later. I recently blundered across this paragraph
In early 1726, Guy Auguste de Rohan-Chabot taunted Voltaire about his name change, who retorted that his name would win the esteem of the world, while Rohan would sully his own.[40] A furious Rohan arranged for his servants to beat Voltaire a few days later.[41] Seeking redress, Voltaire challenged Rohan to a duel, but the powerful Rohan family arranged for Voltaire to be arrested and imprisoned without trial in the Bastille on 17 April 1726.[42][43] Fearing indefinite imprisonment, Voltaire asked to be exiled to England as an alternative punishment, which the French authorities accepted.[44] On 2 May, he was escorted from the Bastille to Calais and embarked for England.
in Voltaire's wikipedia page. This hints that aristocrats in pre-revolutionary France abused their power unconstrained by any sense of honour or proportion. And general principles suggest that the lower classes would have got it a lot worse than Voltaire. But by page 257 Hibbert hasn't yet addressed the issue, so I don't think he will.
I am particularly troubled by the executions of nuns. If The Terror had involved gang raping the nuns, in an attempt to fuck some hedonism into them, the gears in my head would have turned and I would have computed: wait, I'm on Earth, this is a mammal thing isn't it?
But execution? Is this the Lizard People resenting that mammals are viviparous? No. I have turned aside from reading science fiction (worried that it is just made up) and I'm reading orthodox history, stuff that really happened. Yet it makes no sense. Hibbert doesn't notice that it makes no sense and makes no attempt to explain it. Hibbert is doing his job correctly; as a historian he should be telling me what happened and not filtering out the bits that make no sense. There is a dark abyss containing peoples motivations. I don't know how to look inside it, and rather suspect that it will be better for my sanity that I never do.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
23m ago
I mean, I could do both.
But I still can’t tell what part you find so inflammatory. Is it the assertion of higher Russian casualties? The specific ratios? Use of the word “favorite”?
That’s the kind of thing I’d have liked in your response. What specifically were you hoping to see? It’s very hard to respond to someone who’s just asking “what?”
It's real. In the sense that this looks like a tit-for-tat draw down preceded by a mad smash and grab. It is not real in the sense that "ceasefire" means ceasefire. The two nations haven't conducted open diplomacy for 40+ years. I don't think anyone believes a "ceasefire" looks anything like peace. Iran will mostly get its airspace back after the launch missile quota, the US gets to leave for a moment, and Israel must be satisfied with the operation. None of these things prevent future actions or new phases. If you require a "ceasefire" be a ceasefire, then it's not real. It's still a meaningful change in posture.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
30m ago
Do I need to quote Blood Meridian again?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
31m ago
If we want to torture this particular metaphor to death: historically war is poker with extremely high blinds and extremely high rake. The cost of maintaining a war footing has always been high, high enough to bankrupt players without sufficient stacks, high enough that players are quickly forced to go all in or lose without ever playing a hand.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
55m ago
Tournament and cash poker are equally zero-sum.
In poker, if you are strong you want to hide your strength so people pick fights with you and lose. In war, if you are strong you want to advertise it so nobody is stupid enough to pick a fight with you.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
56m ago
It really is a shame. I find politics occasionally interesting to argue about, but I find myself dismayed when people can't do it without becoming heated. "It's only a game (of thrones), why you gotta get mad?"
HorthyMiklosKatonaja
1hr ago
We still have /r/shitpoliticssays to carry the anti-progressive flag.
My gut reaction is that there are some things I will never compromise on, particularly being a stepfather, but on consideration my reasoning extends beyond mere prejudice to further self-doubt. My prima facie reasoning for not wanting to raise another man's child is that I've seen too many relationships of that sort (no, not just online, but among friends and acquaintances) devolve into volatile and ultimately catastrophic affairs for everyone involved, but with the bulk of legal censure & penalty falling onto the man, and so I believe that no amount of mutual compromise will make it worth my trouble when women are given legal advantages (again, not just online drek, but personally known), and they are also prone to leveraging those advantages on what externally appears to be a whim - presumably due in part to the fault of the men for their lack of assertiveness and charisma.
But it is this latter point that most concerns me, because it implies a lack of male assertiveness and charisma is a catalyst for dooming relationships. As I fall into that category, that would make any relationship an anvil over my head: I can't play the odds because I bring the disaster with me. Put another way, even if the catalyst for poor outcomes isn't "single mothers" but "the sort of man who shacks up with them," the outcomes are still poor, I have reason to suspect I share a lot in common with those unfortunate men, I have no interest of participating in those outcomes, and those outcomes would have increased odds of occurring regardless of who I shack up with, single mother or no.
In short, it creates the possibility that that sort of low-charisma, low-assertiveness man will have long-term problems with any relationship, and perhaps out of a prejudice against single mothers or perhaps out of circumstance, I've only noticed the problems with relationships involving them.
Some things aren't worth taking risks on, especially when the payoff is low, the risks are enormous, and my disposition is the catalyst for those risks, meaning I may as well go double-or-nothing hoping to both overcome my own issues and satisfy my desires, rather than compromise because of those issues, and still court disaster long-term regardless of the compromise.
As for overweight women, well, that is just prejudice. I'm in the USA. Our fat is a special kind of fat, and the fatter that fat gets the more viscerally I am repulsed by it. If a woman can't establish herself as capable of maintaining a healthy weight, I'm going to assume that she's just going to keep getting fatter over time - again, based on experience, the sorts of people I see either maintain a healthy weight or proceed to obesity. And I cannot overstate how repulsed I am by obesity, to the point that I struggle not to grimace when I see obese people in public. I nervously peruse NIH & CDC obesity & overweight projections and wistfully browse coffee table books full of pictures from when such was not commonplace.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1hr ago
A lack of revolution is understandable
Critically, this is a federalism issue with no important underlying policy disagreement. Non-consensually cutting people's hair (except in specific situations like the military draft) is uncontroversially illegal everywhere. In the modern US, nobody cares whether the same policy is implemented by the States or the Feds except in so far as it works as a litigation maneuver. (This isn't true in Europe, where the EU is not a country and the member states are still seen by their electorates as countries, and a substantial minorities of people are deeply attached to the idea that certain types of decision are made at country level)
Since America became a country and the individual States ceased to be countries (which a lot of people date to the Civil War, but I think happened somewhere between the Monroe and Jackson administrations) federalism ceased to be a principle people actually believed in and became a peace treaty. (Compare the infamous Yonatan Zunger essay making the same argument about liberal tolerance.) And right now, politically engaged Americans on both sides unfortunately don't seem to believe in abiding by the long-standing peace treaties between the Red and Blue tribes.
felis-parenthesis
1hr ago
It's possible the US would be more cohesive if public education was centralized and everyone was taught the same value system, and parents were not allowed to go against it.
My analysis of this kind of proposal is based on what I call the riddle of the flute children. The ordinary concern is that power is abused. The riddle of the flute children is that power is fought for. The optimum amount of Government power is less than you think, because it is only the survivors of the fighting that live to suffer the abuse.
The idea that you mention takes the lid off a power honey pot of such extraordinary sweetness that opening it will attract more hornets than wasps and lead to fighting on the scale of the Thirty Years War. I think that the Thirty Years War is the appropriate comparison because it too was about which value system, Protestant or Catholic, was to be the sole value system, regardless of parental wishes.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1hr ago
Plausible deniability isn't in practice about plausibility to the other side's leadership, although it is possible that the Truman administration (who coined the phrase and initially developed the doctrine) were stupid enough to think it was. It is about plausibility to a sympathetic audience (primarily your own domestic audience, but also sympathetic neutrals). The Soviet leadership was rarely fooled by US denial of responsibility for obvious US covert ops. The US people frequently were.
Sometimes it provides a face-saving exit for the victim - if the USSR pretends to believe a "plausible denial" from the US then the domestic political consequences of not retaliating are mitigated.
In the modern sense, "plausible deniability" generally means "everyone knows I did it but if it can't be proved in a formal quasi-judicial process my dittoheads can go on pretending to believe that I didn't"
kky
1hr ago
Looks to me like Trump imagined that because the US is large, it has magical powers to compel others to do what it says. I’m getting a strong feeling that this is the same exact thing as happened with Russia and Ukraine. Wasn’t he supposed to end that war? What happened there?
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1hr ago
I wonder if that's how presidents had to be in the past, and the rest of us reading the newspaper listening to radio watching on TV following social media real-time feeds just weren't as knowledgeable about those realities until recently.
jkf
1hr ago
Any logically correct argument against "immigration" needs to be robust under switching the word "immigrant" with the word "native"
"Any logically correct argument needs to be robust under switching the variable 'A' with '¬A' or 'B' " is quite a take, logically speaking -- I understand the argument you are making, but it is not a logical one.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1hr ago
They both want victory, but Iran clearly cannot achieve it. Israel can't either, though they may think they can. Peace may be the next-best-option.
Blueberry
2hr ago
Nearly 3,000 soldiers were killed between 5:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. – all because the Allied commanders refused to end the fighting immediately. Instead of letting the war end as soon as the papers were signed, they decided that the war had to officially end at 11:00 a.m., supposedly to give the news time to spread. In reality, it was a decision based on pride – a final show of force against a beaten enemy.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Trump’s bombastic, over the top rhetoric has always been his strongest spot. The average person doesn’t check geopolitical realities and likelihoods, they check ‘who’s shooting at whom’.
why is it unreasonable for me to set as conditions my own characteristics (not with children, not overweight/obese)?
Well, both of those features are much, much more important to men than they are to women. Some women may care, don't get me wrong - but numbers of women irl don't mind a potbelly if the guy is kind/confident/funny, and could cheerfully learn to love somebody else's cute kid in the right circumstances. So in saying "She shouldn't have 25BMI, because after all I don't have 25 BMI, and no kids because I don't have kids," you're trying to buy two things that are somewhat rare and highly valued, with two things that are nice but not especially highly valued. By contrast, charisma and good social skills do matter a lot for women's attraction, so your challenges there also align you at a somewhat lower percentile on the global scale, where to match properly you might have to make corresponding concessions in some domain of male attraction.
But surely that's just self-awareness, not despair? You're saying "My 1010 SATs/2.8 GPA didn't get me into Duke, guess it's miserable NEETdom and food stamps for me," but millions of people are living happy, fulfilled lives with community-college degrees. You're a good writer, you seem intelligent; you worry about long-term prospects with a "low-value" woman, but many of those plump ladies and single moms are very nice, smart and kind people who would at minimum be fun to get to know. Is it really better that you and all the plump/ slightly older/ kid-having ladies in your vicinity should be lonely and celibate, rather than compromise your standards to connect with each other?
I kept popping up to say that "Unless you view this as a fully-general argument against any sort of minority view?" is missing a major caveat. I wouldn't consider it an argument against the minority view on a 45/55 split issue. I would on a 5/95 split issue. The degree of unpopularity is the issue here. At a certain point it is fair to tell the tankie that the Communist Revolution of America isn't happening in his lifetime.
In say 1860 someone would have plenty of evidence to predict the end of slavery. The election of Lincoln, Bleeding Kansas, etc. In 1864 there was an entire war going on over it.
Mantergeistmann
2hr ago
Because it's easier for a right-handed man to button his own shirt, and easier for a woman's right-handed maid to button hers, is the story I heard.
According.
to.
Whom.
So these Hamas rockets that have barely been able to kill anyone leveled an entire hospital during Israeli bombing. Seems like something AIPAC cooked up.
There were ample photographs of the rocket impact site
It didn't even hit the hospital proper. By most appearances, it landed in a parking lot and set a bunch of cars on fire. Even the trees in the immediate surrounding area are still intact.
It was the Gaza side that was alleging it was a mass casualty event at all.
So yes, this absolutely looks like a Hamas rocket flew off course, set things on fire, and Hamas decided to cast blame away from themselves since this would inevitably make them look like idiots.
Same thoughts here. I've defended the concept of dueling in here quite a few times.
― Mike Tyson
And ironically with cell phone cameras everywhere, its actually EASIER to have evidence of whether a given confrontation was in fact 'mutual combat' or not.
We've got a whole generation of kids growing up on the idea that you can antagonize people incessantly and then cry immediate victim if they retaliate... as long as you do it on camera!
I'm reminded of that one guy being let off by a jury after he shot a youtube prankster.
If it were legal to throw hands when confronted like this, you MIGHT to avoid it escalating to shooting.
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