The Castration of Sima Qian (2022)
ijtihad.substack.com
ijtihad.substack.com
" Ijtihad ( lit. 'physical effort' or 'mental effort') is an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question."
Democracy works best when the population is dumb, scared and disengaged.
> Without democracy, revolts just result in more revolts because new rulers have no special claim of legitimacy.
No. It works the same way with or without democracy.
Sounds like Bridgewater in the book The Firm.
It's a pity about Sima Qian but today we know the optimal survival strategy in his place as the Kolmogorov Option.
Thats what the Kolmogorov option is according to Scott Aaronson ——-the originator of the term?
>Hilbert said that science, unlike religion, has no need for martyrs, because it’s based on facts that can’t be denied indefinitely. Given that, Hilbert considered Galileo’s response to be precisely correct: in effect Galileo told the Inquisitors, hey, you’re the ones with the torture rack. Just tell me which way you want it. I can have the earth orbiting Mars and Venus in figure-eights by tomorrow if you decree it so.
Justin Martyr et al didn’t believe their deaths affected the truth of their theology. But their Matrydom spread awareness to others in a morally helpful way (assuming Christianity is true).
Similarly, scientists who sustain viewpoints through difficult times don’t impact the truth of the underlying science. But they do help spread correct beliefs about germ theory etc in a morally helpful way (again, assuming their theory is correct - this part cannot be overstated).
This could apply to physics, but history (another kind of "truth") can still be written by the victors even in the long-term. Look at Carthage, etc.
The old joke is that "all science disciplines are either physics or stamp collecting." The physics can always be re-discovered per Aaronson, but stamps (or entire civilizations) can be destroyed, leading to some parts of historical knowledge being lost irrevocably.
tl;dr, I think it was a real thing, but mattered much less in actual imperial politics than many suggest. It's also very much not a factor in current Chinese politics, despite what I regularly read in the media. No one talks about Macron's divine right to rule France.
G-d (Heaven, Aliens, AI Superintelligence, etc.)
Shepherd¹/King (Mandate of Heaven - G-d's proxy on Earth)
dogs/generals (Shepherd's proxies)
flock (Meta-Agent)
sheep/subjects (individuals/agents)
Maybe there are even different classes of Aliens or SAI.
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To keep things relatively simple, my thoughts is that obtaining the Mandate is really what the Chinese and their philosophers call obtaining the hearts/minds (心) of the people. Emperors and their advisors all knew that their position was nothing without the people's backing as e.g. stated by Mencius, and therefore when there's tons of rebellions and famine/starvation, etc. going around this was considered a huge sign that the emperor was losing the mandate and if he didn't change his ways that he would outright lose the mandate. The Chinese have a proverb stating that the ruler was basically a boat in a vast ocean (the people), and that the ocean can easily capsize the boat.
The right to rule China/rebellion was justified because it was believed that if a person truly had the heart of the large majority of the people he would actually win, because the ruling class was considered quite small compared to the ruled populace. And despite what people think, China didn't have large standing armies. Their armies were called up from basically the peasant class. The peasant class will not fight for a king who is a tyrant. Even Mao didn't want a professional army and wanted basically a civilian militia army that largely did farming work, etc., and would only be called up if they needed to fight some enemy thinking that standing armies were a waste of money. So this tradition was pretty well entrenched even to modern times.
When the Zhou first came up with the idea of the Mandate of Heaven they cited the fact that the Shang king had become a tyrant, and that he lost the heart of the people, and therefore those people flocked to Zhou ruler instead and that the Shang king had barely anyone to protect him and therefore was easily defeated. Now this is probably mere ancient propaganda from 3000 years ago, but it became basically canon in terms of how the Mandate was said to work.
There's actually more to this, e.g. Heaven is not a deity in Chinese thought. Heaven actually means nature, or a sort of natural law... but I'm trying to keep this simple.
I think it is rare for any ancient empire to have a professional standing army (where soldiering was their profession) as you'd require a large agricultural surplus to support non-productive members of society.
That also explains why nomadic empires were such an effective enemy against agrarian civilisations.
The issue is that usually the standing army stations at either the borders, or at the capital. Rebellions usually start at some place that's far away from where most of the standing army is stationed.
Nomadic empires were effective enemies because they had the "optionality" to wait until the agricultural empire was weak (for whatever reason), and then strike. The nomads don't get wiped out at bad times because nomadic tribes don't have cities or capitals that can be raided or sacked, and they usually live in a vast depopulated land.
Also, after a long time of peace, nobody knows how to fight battles in agricultural societies (or at least there's no way for military officers to prove themselves), and then one or two bad military appointments could just end a civilization. Nomadic people at least get ample training on how to ride horses and hunt.
I think your interpretation is much closer to the truth.
To state the obvious, in general it's a bad idea to directly contradict your "boss", especially so if he is the Emperor and can sentence you to death if he's displeased.
That said, the aggravating factor in Sima Qian's case was that, the campaigns against the Xiongnu was kind of the Emperor's "personal" project, which was generally conducted outside of the government's bureaucratic system. For example, the Emperor appointed various relatives of his wife (i.e. the Empress) into high positions within the military campaigns, and he was personally involved in all sorts of strategic planning. I think this could mean the Emperor was personally involved in the chain of decisions that got Li Ling a bad situation with the Xiongnu.
So then, imagine you have a choice between saying it was the general's fault for losing tens of thousands of soldiers, or it was the Emperor's personal fault. I mean, you don't really need to understand the complicated philosophy of "Mandate of Heaven" to realize there's only one answer that doesn't risk your life.
Even among Emperors in Chinese history, the Emperor Wudi was actually quite notorious for being rather ruthless. In the end even his son the crown prince feared him enough that the son hastily staged a rebellion when the son perceived his political enemies were going to smear him in front of Wudi. In the aftermath, the Wudi killed his son and his wife for the rebellion, appointed another son as successor, and then killed the successor's mother (because, he said, he didn't want to risk the mother's relatives taking power).
Pretty brutal stuff.
So IMHO it wasn't so much the "Mandate of Heaven" that got Sima Qian in trouble, but rather it's the old adage of "don't contradict your boss" (especially if he has a license to kill), and the fact that Wudi was more ruthless than the average Emperor by a fair bit. Of course in the Anglo-sphere it's more eye catching to link historical events to exotic concepts like "Mandate of Heaven"... but reality is sometimes a bit more boring than they'd like you to believe.