Systems of justice vary. “the structure of this system is a system of dispute resolution, to which written law was later appended. But the system is designed for dispute resolution, its purpose is to avoid the feud as much if… Read More »Collections: How to Polis 101, Part IIc: The Courts
And many people died building it (as most shit in the history).
Just don’t get tattoos.
When two states do the same it is not the same. “all of these poleis had the same basic governing institutions, what made an oligarchy different from a democracy or a tyranny? By and large the difference isn’t adding or… Read More »Collections: How to Polis, 101, Part IIa: Politeia in the Polis
Even basic armor makes a lot of difference in a fight. “If a gambeson was all you could afford, it was a lot better than nothing. Assuming you kept moving and made yourself a hard target, there was a good… Read More »Collections: Punching Through Some Armor Myths
People ignoring reality will not bring the future. “if you want to produce 10 exaflops on a chip, you can do that easily — but you will not be able to service it with memory, making it useless FLOPS (the… Read More »Why AGI Will Not Happen
And what we can do about it.
Violence is not the only force in societies. “Trying to reduce all forms of authority in a society to violence or the threat of violence is an ‘boy’s sociology,’ unfit for serious adults.” https://acoup.blog/2021/02/19/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-iii-the-cult-of-the-badass/
Deep bonds are only strange to modern people. “One only needs to look, for instance, at the failure of these intense bonds to hold primacy over the bonds of family, class or tribe when efforts are made to train ‘western’-style… Read More »Collections: The Universal Warrior, Part IIb: A Soldier’s Lot
Guerrilla war is the default. “We may call this the first system of war. It is the oldest, but as noted above, never entirely goes away. We tend to call this style ‘asymmetric’ or ‘unconventional’ war, but it is the… Read More »Collections: The Universal Warrior, Part IIa: The Many Faces of Battle