How people get food dictates structure of a society in a major way. “one of the best ways to start thinking about any historical society is to begin with the subsistence foundation it is built on, because how people get… Read More »Collections: How to Raise a Tribal Army in Pre-Roman Europe, Part I: Aristocrats, Retainers and Clients
Slow mo is cool not only on screen.
Accountability in tech industry is almost nonexistent. “Three years and $70 billion later, the metaverse is dead, and everybody acts as if it didn’t happen. Whoops! In a sane society, investors, analysts and the media would never trust a single… Read More »This Is Worse Than The Dot Com Bubble
This is the closest thing you can see in modern times to ancient battle formation and warfare. Also, who wins is not the one who kills the most but the one that breaks morale of the other side. That is… Read More »Riot Policing and Ancient War
Most stuff that seems wrong is the way it is for a reason. “Large software companies have real problems. Some are structural. Some are cultural. Many are self-inflicted. But many of the behaviors people complain about are not pathologies –… Read More »Common misunderstandings about large software companies
Morale is not one number. “Morale is the commitment the combatants have to their leadership and their cause. To simplify a bit, we might say that soldiers with good morale believe three things: that their cause is a worthy one,… Read More »Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part IIIc: Morale and Cohesion
Having an army is expensive. “expense of doing this would have been in most cases enormous and of course those are resources that could be deployed to any number of other uses, including simply raising a larger army of less… Read More »Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part IIIa: Discipline
Seems simple, yet we tend to forget this. The more different other people are from us, in terms of culture, background, knowledge etc., the more differently they will evaluate our actions from what we think they will. We might think… Read More »Different People See You Differently
Leading in battle is sometimes more important than commanding. “We have to start not with tactics or the physics of shouting orders, but with cultural expectations. First, we need to establish some foundations here. First, in a pre-modern battle (arguably… Read More »Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part II: Commands
In Slovak, there is a great term “šuchtať sa”. It is hard to translate directly, to drag one’s feet or to dally are probably the closest but are not exact. You can also “šuchtať sa” when you are working. You… Read More »To Drag One’s Feet