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Secessio plebis

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Re: Secessio plebis

#41

Post by jahaja »

Shaddox wrote: post #12

This is a very interesting social phenomena and I'm glad someone randomly linked to it since I never heard of it. I imagine the effectiveness of it stood in the fact that cities were self-sufficient. Since cities are no longer self-sufficient, a protest like this in the modern age would be meaningless. All the plebs of New York could leave the city and nothing would change, except that some patrician would get richer…

Now I'm really confused. Surely it's the other way around? Do you mean that nothing would change during a general strike because there would be plenty of scabs around?

Re: Secessio plebis

#42

Post by pjc50 »

golergka wrote: post #36
pjc50 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working for intelligence saves civilian lives Well, apart from all those airstrikes on schoolbuses.

You have to look at the net result. If you're 50% certain that a schoolbus with 30 children has a leader of a terrorist cell that will on average perform one attack with ~100 casualties 1-2 times a year, and otherwise this terrorist is expected to have a life expectancy of 3-5 years, and without him this cell has a 60-70% probability of disintegrating, it's a very clear cut case. I don't personally work in intelligen…

I find it hard to imagine it ever being that clear-cut, even with the panopticon. Besides, the Geneva convention doesn't allow you to do this, on either side; the US has simply unilaterally declared that "terrorist" is a new category of person who's neither military nor civilian, so they can be murdered at will (as if they were military) but aren't subject to the laws relating to PoWs (which would affect Guantanamo).

The "double tap" practice of murdering first responders with a second missile strike is definitely a war crime. The whole thing relies on the certainty that nobody in the US will ever be prosecuted no matter how gratuitously they murder those deemed to be "enemy".

Re: Secessio plebis

#43

Post by maxxxxx »

DrJones1098 wrote: post #15
John_KZ wrote: post #11

I think it's terrifying how sooner than later the plebians won't even have that miniscule amount of power because all the work that needs to be done will be automated with machines they have no control over.

Capitalism is basically over at that point when there's like 80% unemployment because most jobs are automated. The idea of your survival based on a job is a terrible idea anyway. I can't wait until this happens because then people will get serious about income inequality and have to figure out how to properly distribute the wealth that the machines create.

Get ready for some serious upheaval and misery though. The powerful won't give up anything without being forced and people revolt only when pushed really far.

Re: Secessio plebis

#44

Post by bb101 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #38

It should be noted that Roman history of this period is highly mythologized. Rome was sacked in 389, and it is commonly believed that most of the records from before that date were destroyed during the sack. This would make the earliest source possible come from a century after the major events, and our primary source, Livy, was using those sources three more centuries later. Our current versions of these events are…

The Arabs had translated many Greek and Roman works into Arabic, and then these were translated back into Latin by monks hundreds of years later during the time of the crusades.

So not the original works, but not anecdotal either.

https://aeon.co/ideas/arabic-translators-did-far-more-than-j... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_of_the_Greek_Clas...

Re: Secessio plebis

#45

Post by [deleted] »

andrepd wrote: post #39
atemerev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working on drones saves soldiers’ lives. Working for intelligence saves civilian lives by preventing terrorist plots. People who work for the military and the intelligence usually see themselves as paragons of high ethical standards.

>Working on drones saves soldiers’ lives. Working for intelligence saves civilian lives by preventing terrorist plots. You seem to regard us as the "good guys". I suggest you read more on the atrocities committed by the United States and by the allies it arms and supports, both historical and those happening right now. Was it last week that our dear democratic ally the Saudi Arabia bombed a schoolbus full of children…

[deleted]

Re: Secessio plebis

#46

Post by Fnoord »

golergka wrote: post #36
pjc50 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working for intelligence saves civilian lives Well, apart from all those airstrikes on schoolbuses.

You have to look at the net result. If you're 50% certain that a schoolbus with 30 children has a leader of a terrorist cell that will on average perform one attack with ~100 casualties 1-2 times a year, and otherwise this terrorist is expected to have a life expectancy of 3-5 years, and without him this cell has a 60-70% probability of disintegrating, it's a very clear cut case. I don't personally work in intelligen…

This downright rational coldness where a human life gets a value based on where their father and mother were born or located during birth is the kind of escalation due to racism, discrimination, and other forms of bigotry which is the disguised reason of why we had WWII and its aftershocks in the first place. The bigotry Hitler suffered during his childhood and the discrimination the German people suffered from WWI (receiving the blame solely) and the Jewish people suffered before and during WWII (receiving the blame for poverty of the German people) is what, ultimately, lead to WWII in Europe at least just like ISIS is the result of the American misbehaviour in Iraq which is proven te be started for fictitious reasons (WMDs) as Scott Ritter already claimed back in the days. And those are the overt operations. "A 2016 study by Carnegie Mellon University professor Dov Levin found that the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000, with the majority of those being through covert, rather than overt, actions" [1] You reap what you sow. It does not have to be this way. The world doesn't have to be this way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_U...

Re: Secessio plebis

#47

Post by boomboomsubban »

bb101 wrote: post #44
boomboomsubban wrote: post #38

It should be noted that Roman history of this period is highly mythologized. Rome was sacked in 389, and it is commonly believed that most of the records from before that date were destroyed during the sack. This would make the earliest source possible come from a century after the major events, and our primary source, Livy, was using those sources three more centuries later. Our current versions of these events are…

The Arabs had translated many Greek and Roman works into Arabic, and then these were translated back into Latin by monks hundreds of years later during the time of the crusades. So not the original works, but not anecdotal either. https://aeon.co/ideas/arabic-translators-did-far-more-than-j... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_of_the_Greek_Clas...

You're talking about events nearly a millennium after the ones being discussed. Rome had no great influence in 389 BC, and it's incredibly unlikely that the Persians maintained copies of those records.

Re: Secessio plebis

#48

Post by palerm »

Angostura wrote: post #25
dmurray wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last garbage workers strike in New York lasted two weeks before the city caved.

But did it have any actual effect on the modern-day equivalent of the patricians? I imagine they just took a private jet to Monaco until it blew over.

This. Most modern strikes affect other working class people instead of the "1%" (?) they are supposed to be targeting.

Re: Secessio plebis

#49

Post by woodruffw »

monetus wrote: post #16

On the other side of the coin, the machinations to divide and defeat the interests of the plebeians were horribly fascinating. Beware the promises of a Drusus. In my mind, the failures of the gracchiae seem to echo for hundreds of years until Rome itself was sacked. Granted, the gracchiae were fighting for the latins, but the lack of compassion shown to visigoths undoubtedly played a role in the impetus behind their…

I'll be that guy: Gracchi is already plural (-ī is the plural masculine nominative for the singular Gracchus).

You can also see in in their gens: they're each Sempronius, so the family is gens Sempronii ("the Sempronius clan", "the family of the Semproniuses").

Re: Secessio plebis

#50

Post by maze-le »

bb101 wrote: post #30

For anyone interested in this, the Roman Empire series on Netflix is very good. Presented in a mini-series format, the primary characters, events and dates end up sticking in one's mind. Crassus's death at the hands of the Parthians is particularly brutal but some may say he deserved it after crucifying 6,000 men, one every 10 yards, on the road to Rome.

I found it to be pretty sensationalist and ripe with historical inaccuracies. Senators with beards in full military attire in the senate house is only the most obvious one. The portrayal of most costumes is not accurate. Rome itself was not yet the city of marble depicted in the series (that came 50-150 years later).

The interviews with historians are interesting, and they are are not wrong per se. The problem here is more that the content its very curtailed and not detailed enough.

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