How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate
acoup.blog
acoup.blog
The author also did a guest appearance on Drachinifel's Youtube channel about the Punic war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVnXG0Yrfns
Btw, Tonio Andrande's 'How Taiwan Became Chinese' is available for free online at http://www.gutenberg-e.org/andrade/intro.html
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 matters, while the greatest speak on but a few."
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 do that, you should assume that the other side is equally willing. Otherwise why would they waste money on nuclear weapons if they are not prepared to use them?
Much of the cold war was basically figuring out what you are allowed to do in a proxy war, so that the other side still interprets your actions as a legitimate proxy war rather than escalation.
I.e. identifying a future possibility and loudly proclaiming that if (and only if) it happens, then this nuclear action will take place (and stop there)
Essentially, trying to avoid surprise and uncertainty by tying specific actions to reactions, with the hope of avoiding runaway escalation-begats-escalation scenarios.
Which is notably the opposite of what Russia has been doing, which is more along the lines of "If the West pushes us too far... they're in for it", which is more the kind of bluff you'd make if you never intended to actually escalate (because you create the fear without establishing any requirements to escalate on yourself).
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.)
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...
(If a side could credibly commit to testing an unbiased (pseudo-) random sample of nukes, they would be able to convince the world that a large portion of their nukes work.
But I am not sure how you would do that without revealing all of your nukes?)
We now have treaties to inspect each other's nukes. So unlike other things we have a good idea of what how many exist and are working - or at least a floor on the number (that is either side may decide to risk the treaty with secret nukes elsewhere. Between the potential of the program being discovered and the costs I doubt it, but I must allow this for completeness). As such it is generally believed that Russia's Nukes are in mostly in good shape - those who should know all seem to be acting like they are.
You are right that wholly non-existent nukes would be harder to fake. But covering up bad maintenance isn't quite so hard.
In your point's favour: Looking at the Russian military budget, they do seem to spend a lot on those nukes. Of course, funds could still be siphoned off. But having a big budget is at least necessary, even if not sufficient.
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.
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.
"Since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the bombing of its energy infrastructure, Snyder has spoken and written widely on the history of Ukraine and its worldwide importance for democracy, on the disastrous geopolitical effects of the invasion, and on the need for other nations and individuals to stand for the protection of territory belonging to that state."
which seems reasonable to me.
It's far too much "trust me I'm an established intellectual" and far too little evidence-based reasoning for me. To each their own.
So you're probably looking at mostly historians to be able to do something like what Devereaux puts out. The closest I could think of would be:
Derek Lowe
Neil deGrasse Tyson (when not playing for camera)
Adam Savage
Nigel Braun (NileRed)
Salman Khan
Dianna Cowern (Physics Girl)
Grant Sanderson (3Blue1Brown)Ive been reading a lot because that’s about the only thing I can do so I read the original Gallic wars from Julius Cesar and its funny because he’s painted like a bad guy today for becoming a dictator but the Senate was at that point so corrupt and inefficient and everyone hated it so he wasn’t the only one trying to get rid of democracy. Julius Caesar had actually been involved in four attempted coups before he got it done. And he was popular with the public even after his death so that makes sense
I’m sure a lot of here think of the Roman Empire almost obsessively. How bad is this turn toward extrémeme censorship and surveillance? At what point do people say to hell with it and bring back kingship?
Also, one thing that struck me about the Republic is that it worked right up until people stopped upholding the social norms that made it work. And while one might say the lesson is "make your system of government work without social norms", I wonder if such a thing is possible. Looking at the US government it seems damaged (not broken yet, at least) precisely because we have stopped upholding the social norms that made it work. This being despite the fact that the US constitution seems to be more robust than what the Romans had! It really makes me wonder if any form of government, no matter what, absolutely relies on social norms to work well (and breaks down when those norms do).
A phrase to summarize the phenomenon is: "Politics is downstream from culture."
We focus too much on slapping bandaids on society through increasing bloat of government and adding more laws to the pile, when the real root of the problem is our culture is falling apart. No amount of laws is going to fix that.
I parallel it to medications. You get one illness, so you get prescribed a medication. But then that medication causes an unusual reaction with your body, so you're given another medication to fix that one. But that medication has adverse effects when taken in conjunction with the first one, so now you need to take another medication to fix that... and it continues until you have a daily ritual of popping 20 pills to solve a trivial health condition.
The US is taking way too many medications, and not going on the proper diet to solve its health issues. That can be said both literally, and in the metaphorical sense.
The country freezes in rigor mortis, and can no longer take actions.
Politics or governance often feels like its experience brain death.
You get bloat and deflating effects, bubbles that inflate and pop.
You get a lot of social events that humans would describe as "putrid".
You get flight or escape of those that can leave for a new host, others flee to the remaining healthy areas.
You have external "parasites" / enemies removing portions of the empire/nation.
The process usually results with breakup and collapse in prior body segments.
So it is similar to how a government that tries to grab more power and become larger is a red flag for corruption or inefficiency. The problem isn't that it tries to grow, the problem is that it is corrupt and inefficient in the first place, the country is then dying no matter what.
Countries can be replaced however, and small governments are easier to replace than large ones, so ideally should fix the government before it grows too large and powerful to easily be replaced.
And as you say, history directly plays into the shift of possible actions by social elites/leaders. Once change starts, change itself can become as social norm and seen as acceptable by society at large (at least to a point in a given time period).
(Carlyle's history of the French Revolution)
I'm currently listening my way through The Rest Is History, the podcast he does with Dominic Sandbrook. Very entertaning, highly recommended!
The populares welcomed Caesar and Augustus because they saw no other alternative. Sulla had effectively ended the office of the tribunes who represented the poor. From the essay below, A tribune couldn’t even guarantee his personal safety: the murder of the Gracchi brothers is the best example. This office itself was an outcome of the political compromise in the early Republic. Its seemingly supreme and sacrosanct power was based on the compromise, or to say, tolerance of the Senate. When the symbiotic relationship between the nobles and the commoners on the political stage of the early Republic collapsed after drastic economic changes, the compromise of the Senate automatically vanished, so it was only a matter of time to weaken the power of the tribunate. Thus, the Roman commoners must find new strength for their political struggles. https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125967046.pdf
In other words, the people will rise up if they believe the political class no longer represents them and are actually opposed to them. I see a parallel between the enslaved Carthaginians working the latifundium and all the immigrants our politicians want to bring in to "fix our economy." I believe this is playing with fire.
Ironically if we radically legalized immigration it'd make it harder for Big Ag to exploit migrant workers, since they'd have access to legal immigration and the protections therein. But that's assuming Big Ag doesn't do to that program what they did to the Bracero program back in the 70s.
That seems to be well in progress, though I don't think anyone is actually using the term 'king' yet.
Had a lot of fun conversations with other peasants about whether this is the kind of privilege that the french revolution was fought over. The nobility didn't have as much time to stand around and water the seeds of revolution. Seemed fitting.
But Yarvin and the "Dark Enlightenment" people seem to be using it seriously (so far as I understand them).
I would still 100% support a more lean, highly qualified leadership versus a large pool of untalented career-driven nitwits which is what most western governments have to offer.
It's as if history rhymes.
Isn’t this the exact thing we see in the USA where the economically disadvantaged seek solutions from the right whose policies aim to further concentrate wealth and opportunity?
Little does she know we get a post from acoup every week!
Reference (for those out of the loop): https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/09/18/how-ofte...
If you're in the US, how can you not be? It's everywhere! The fledgling US was desperately in need of authority and gravitas, so they essentially cosplayed as the inheritors of the ideals of Rome, and put that shit everywhere.
Why does Washington DC look the way it does? Why are there pillars and obelisks and domes and white marble everywhere? Why is there Latin on the money? Why does every US courthouse look like a Roman temple, and why is there a Roman goddess on it?
The trend is popular because it's laughing at men for being "nerdy", but I think it's sad how ignorant a lot of people in the US are for not knowing about or recognizing the absolutely enormous amounts of references to Rome that exists in modern US.
Europeans also have Latin on our money too. Our alphabet is the Latin alphabet.
They were still teaching primarily IN Latin at universities around the war of independence. Yes, you read that right, you spoke and read Latin as your primary learning language. The American universities copied the practice from their home countries.
Until the 1960s in the UK you had to know Latin to learn Medicine or Law. It was still taught in many schools, and I think has been having a resurgence.
I was taught Latin at school.
The Americans didn't cunningly adopt it to lend themselves legitimacy. It's as simple as the European settlers brought it with them. It was the culture of European intellectuals.
This is all true for much or most of Europe, the West, and Western-affiliated countries. (Also, the marble in Rome, and Greece from whom the Romans took much of these styles) was generally painted, so not quite the austere white of DC.)
Of course by the time europeans got into the rennaisance all these temples had been pilfered and regular repainting had ceased for centuries. So because of this huge misunderstanding, neoclassical architecture is always boring and beige despite us knowing better today.
Edit: also Catholicism.
And some would say that, philosophically, while we have the potential benefit of hindsight and therefore the opportunity to exceed the Greeks (you just need to crack open the right books), our typical modern, academic philosophy, is in many ways, inferior to it.
I wouldn't say that about comparing Hilbert to Pythagoras, and this is not putting down history of knowledge.
For problems where the scientific method doesn't help however we probably aren't that much better than the ancient Greeks, maybe we are even inferior there.
Edit: Why downvote a genuine question? How else would I learn why people find that funny?
Hundreds of thousands of women realizing that unbeknownst to them ALL the men in their lives secretly think about the Roman Empire all the time is hilarious.
Of course, the more specific this phenomenon is, the funnier it is: all men think about history isn't fun. All men are thinking about the Roman Empire is pretty funny. All men are thinking about Pliny the Elder and none of the women in their lives had any idea much funnier.
This is classic benign violation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_humor#Benign_viola... The reason I think its a hit because it scales and its totally silly/fun/harmless, relatable beyond expectations, and a welcome distraction to the usual hellscape that is the internet in 2023.
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So the next question is why is it happening, and I have two theories for this:
1. History is stranger than fiction. There's a lot of history geeks out there and there always have been. See stereotype about dads reading WWII books.
2. The Roman Empire is a gateway drug to history for a lot of people. And why not? It's a fascinating period full of whacky characters, and there's been so many movies/shows/plays/games about it that you probably already know enough to dive in and generally know to expect some togas and a dude shouting "I'm Spartacus."
Most "trends" from TikTok are made up, stupid, fake, or highly exaggerated. This one is funny because it's actually kinda true for a LOT of people, and has nothing to do with TikTok.
If you ask men how often they think about different manufacturing processes you will probably get similar numbers, or even higher, for the same reason.
But I guess it is similar to the old meme where a woman worries why the guy is so distant that day and if he doesn't like her any longer, and the guy is just thinking hard about why his motorcycle isn't starting.
But that explains it: it is funny the first time you see it, but these differences aren't funny when you already are aware of them. Everything is a first to people. So I don't find it funny since I have seen similar things many times before and have grown tired of it, while others here finds it funny since it is new to them.
I have an Italian American friend who weirdly into the Roman Empire, kind of in a weeb kind of way but he’s a tatted up (Roman Republic full back piece!) Army veteran who would Kimura my ass if I he sees this.
I have a friend just nerdy as shit and into history. He constantly talks about this podcast or that.
I have an ex-roommate / philosophy major, so it comes up a good bit.
I have a friend into Stoicism. Oddly not a philosophy major.
I have a friend rich in small arms, ammunition, and those rice ration buckets because we’re destined for a failure of the Republic as they had.
I have a friend with the same belief, except he just wants to fiddle so I’m pretty sure I won’t bother raiding his house if either of them are correct.
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.
Like, would it be funny if men asked women how often they think about celebrity relationships and drama? People just think about different things.
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.
Is it typical? I don't know.
In the time since then you may have stopped thinking about sex/gender differences, but most people haven't.
I personally wouldn't find your proposal funny, but it might be more well received if you asked men vs women a question like "How often do you think about Taylor Swift's relationship with John Meyer?". That would probably get more views on your tiktoks. IMO part of the humor is that women are so surprised that men frequently think about the Roman Empire [and republic], but for the men it's a matter of course.
Since at least the days of the Roman Empire!
> I thought we stopped doing that.
Hollywood would love you to think so, but no, human nature is unchanging. This trend is huge exactly because it reminds us that men and women are different, and humans have derived humor from that fact since the dawn of time.
If it's been in development hell that long, I don't know how likely it is that it'll ever see the light of day.
when 1/8th of the planet knows about a trend and i'm out of the loop...
Most people self-identifying that they think about the Roman Empire don’t seem to know the difference between the Roman Republic & Roman Empire (much less the period of Kings)…it’s all just the Roman Empire.
> I don’t think there’s much difference between our concept of empire and what Polybius called “ἀρχή” in his Histories (“dominion”, perhaps)
Yes there is. You could write a doctorate thesis on the differences.
> 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.
What is 'the Roman war machine'? How did it absorb territories? Which territory? Are we talking italic peninsula, client kingdoms, consular provinces or imperial dominions? From which time specifically? Efficiency is an entire topic in itself. The levels of corruption, the predatory nature of the tax collection enterprises (it was typically farmed out to private investors), were all very inefficient.
Saying Roman Empire and Persian (Seleucid?) Empire is a didactic simplification and I don't think there's any grounds to equating ἀρχή (which is also the root in archaic, archaeology, archetype, among others) to the modern concept of Empire or the the ancient concepts used in ancient polities to handle the intricacies of moving around troops, collecting taxes and dispensing justice across millions of square miles in Roman, Persian, or any Hellenistic state contemporary to Polybius for that matter.