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How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

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Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#101

Post by nullindividual »

Jensson wrote: post #64
nullindividual wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might think that an individual who thinks about an empire that has been “dead” for nearly 1500 years is a bit strange. Why would anyone care about a dead empire, after all? The reason why it’s funny is because of how common people say they do think about the Roman empire (which for me is also quite often). It’s subverting expectations— you think no one thinks about the Empire— in reality, all of your family and n…

> Why would anyone care about a dead empire, after all? Because it isn't dead culturally. When you see a medieval castle you think about medieval things, when you see Roman architecture you think of Roman things, and since you see Roman architecture all the time in the news, like every time they show the white house etc, it makes sense your brain thinks about the Romans now and then.

The question was rhetorical. And the article does go into detail about why people like Roman things-and-stuff.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#102

Post by henrikschroder »

12907835202 wrote: post #61
henrikschroder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rubicon by Tom Holland I'm currently listening my way through The Rest Is History, the podcast he does with Dominic Sandbrook. Very entertaning, highly recommended!

Worth starting from ep.1 or just diving in where it's at now?

Every episode is pretty stand-alone and specific, so pick episodes with topics that interest you.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#104

Post by eru »

philipov wrote: post #18

I hope he does a series like this on civic governance in Han China next!

Yes. Though I'd be more interested in Song China, ever since reading The Gunpowder Age by Tonio Andrande.

Btw, Tonio Andrande's 'How Taiwan Became Chinese' is available for free online at http://www.gutenberg-e.org/andrade/intro.html

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#105

Post by thom »

namaria wrote: post #85
thom wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the Roman Republic had an empire so you can see where it gets confusing.

If you want to get technical, the Roman Republic controlled provinces and ally states. Emperor was the title of a victorious general, and a notion of a "Roman Empire" is an artifact of modern scholarship.

I don’t think there’s much difference between our concept of empire and what Polybius called “ἀρχή” in his Histories (“dominion”, perhaps). He compares Rome to Persia and yes, some smaller states like Sparta, but it’s clearly in the context of acquiring and controlling large territories. That the Roman war machine had a particularly efficient and (for the most part) inclusive manner of absorbing territories doesn’t really change the nature of the resulting entity even if we use different words.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#106

Post by eru »

jltsiren wrote: post #99
ethbr1 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His modern stuff is more... eh. E.g. I thought there were a lot of flaws in his early-war "NATO can't supply X, because Russia will threaten nukes" positions, as he completed ignored the obvious opposite "Russia can't escalate, because NATO will threaten nukes" 110% love his Roman-period deep dives though. There's probably a smarter quip than me out there to the effect of "Great people share their brilliance on many…

Wasn't the standard model for how a nuclear war would start basically "if you escalate, the reasonable expectation is that the other side will escalate as well"? If you escalate despite the nukes on the other side, it would be risky to assume that the other side is unwilling to do the same. If you escalate, you signal your intent to start a nuclear war if the other side does not back down. But if you are willing to d…

While the Cold War was still raging, Thomas Schelling, of 'Strategy of Conflict' fame, pointed out that while the war stays cold thanks to the 'mutually assured destruction' consensus, it would be an optimal strategy in terms of bang-for-your-buck to pretend to have many more nukes than you actually have.

Concretely, since no one ever wants to call your bluff and test your nuclear arsenal, it's natural to expect that unless there are strong countervailing pressures, one can expect that many nukes will be badly maintained and turn out to be duds.

Given what we learned about the state of the Russian armed forces since February 2022, it would not surprise me, if Russia barely had any working nuclear capabilities in practice.

(However they would still be dangerous enough. Even a nuclear payload that doesn't explode properly would still be a very dirty bomb.)

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#107

Post by eru »

galaxyofdoom wrote: post #98
ethbr1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a shoe fits on one foot, it fits on the other too. Aka the "M". The "Russia is a madman, but we're not" is... difficult to square logically and historically. Beneath all the political and PR charades, during the Cold War the Soviet Union was generally as terrified of the West pre-emptively nuking them as vice versus.

Presently, it is not during the Cold War. The idea that Putin is terrified of nuclear annihilation is ridiculous.

Just speculating: I'm fairly sure Putin knows that the West won't do any nuclear first strikes.

But if he tries anything even remotely nuclear, the West would just annihilate his empire. And the West wouldn't even need to go nuclear.

(Especially if the West got serious and opened the money floodgates. I suspect even in the current state of the Ukrainian war, if they offered any Russian defector 100k USD and a new identity under a EU passport, they could meld away the Russian army fairly quickly.)

Russia would most likely also lose the tacit support of India and China, if the bear were to use nukes first.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#108

Post by xg15 »

eru wrote: post #106
jltsiren wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the standard model for how a nuclear war would start basically "if you escalate, the reasonable expectation is that the other side will escalate as well"? If you escalate despite the nukes on the other side, it would be risky to assume that the other side is unwilling to do the same. If you escalate, you signal your intent to start a nuclear war if the other side does not back down. But if you are willing to d…

While the Cold War was still raging, Thomas Schelling, of 'Strategy of Conflict' fame, pointed out that while the war stays cold thanks to the 'mutually assured destruction' consensus, it would be an optimal strategy in terms of bang-for-your-buck to pretend to have many more nukes than you actually have. Concretely, since no one ever wants to call your bluff and test your nuclear arsenal, it's natural to expect that…

Without wanting to do any speculation how the current situation will ever end, but I always assumed that the first stage of nuclear escalation would be weapons tests - to exactly call this kind of bluff of the other side and to signal that the own side would be actually capable of performing a nuclear strike.

From what I know this was also what happened in the cold war - the nuclear threat back then was a lot more "palpable" than it is now, possibly because both blocks were already constantly launching nukes - they just weren't launching nukes at each other:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_s...

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#109

Post by rufus_foreman »

Jensson wrote: post #65
Rebelgecko wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people find it humorous because it's an unexpected instance of sexual dimorphism. Like a "Men are from Mars [not Ares]" kind of thing.

Since when is making fun of sexual dimorphism a thing? I thought we stopped doing that. Like, would it be funny if men asked women how often they think about celebrity relationships and drama? People just think about different things.

>> would it be funny if men asked women how often they think about celebrity relationships and drama?

No, that would be completely unsurprising to most men. Not funny. It would need to be something obvious to women and surprising to men, and surprising to women that it wasn't obvious to men. Then, yes it would be funny.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#110

Post by waihtis »

hef19898 wrote: post #40
waihtis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re super close to it given how many states have abandoned and spat on the contributing class in favour of egalitarianism.

In a Monarchy, or Oligarchy, not everyone who thinks they can make into the ruling class will manage to do so.

thats exactly how it should be. only a small percent of people have any business in being rulers of people.
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