Open thread 2/4/22
Because this is about a half hour long, I’ve cued it up to only show a portion I think is especially interesting. But of course, you can watch the whole thing at YouTube if you’d like:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
I toured the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in the ’80’s. Heated baths on a large scale. Very impressive.
We have been to numerous Roman sites in England. The Hypocausts are
very interesting. One Roman Villa that we have visited over the years (maybe 30 yrs) has a great system. Been on Roman Road in Yorkshire Dales, the Walls around Chester, ruins in Wales and other parts of England, France, Turkey and of course Rome. Hadrian’s Wall and Vindollandia (not sure of spelling) are amazing. To see what they built gives a perspective to the Romans.
Heron was close to a functional steam engine as he used his “aeropile” to open those temple doors. Joel Mokyr has written extensively about ancient technology. His theory is that the lack of legal ownership and patent laws held back technology until the 19th century. A few advances were accidental such as the Black Death and its mortality in Europe leading to crop rotation because of labor shortages.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/397705.php
We know The Bulwark is financed by Pierre Omidyar. Have the names of the sugar daddies behind David French and The Dispatch ever been revealed?
Mike K,
I haven’t read Mokyr’s book, but the Chinese invented a lot of great stuff with encouragement from the Emperors (including steam) and there was a lot of progress in military technology and shipbuilding sponsored by Monarchs in Europe. As much as I like legal ownership and patent laws I’m not sure they had much to do with the pace of innovation before the 19th century.
I think there are some key concepts that, once they get started, lead to geometric explosions in development.
Using the force of heated fluids to power a piston to do work is one such innovation.
The nature of electricity and harnessing it has led to vast technological expansion. Humans have known electricity existed since there were humans, but we didn’t really get specific regarding its nature until the 19th century.
Plastics; man made materials from petroleum, led to another incredible expansion of technological progress. Oil existed on the Earth’s surface and in the oceans for all of human history, but using it to make solid materials was not done until the mid-19th century.
Once the above, three things were developed, all nations made quick yes of the technologies in manners that were inconceivable at the outset. No matter if the nation was a monarchy, democratic republic, military junta or people’s collective.
Art Deco,
I think David French was associated with The National Review at some time? Ace at ace.mu.nu has outlined how much cash they, and a lot of other publications, get from Alphabet, Google’s parent.
Despite the technical knowledge of the Romans – far superior than anything that bordered their Empire – their Empire eventually fell apart.
That is a very sobering.
Because power corupts, and there was always a lust for this power which led to wealth through graft. Some things never change.
I saw the giant columns at Baalbek 50-some years ago. They are indeed an amazing sight.
His mention of the invention of Greek fire reminded me that there is a good historical novel about this: “Alchemy of Fire” by Gillian Bradshaw.
Wow. I just got disenrolled from UNM. I failed to verify my Covid vaxx/booster record.
I am vaxxed/boosted, but I was unaware that I had to go to a website and upload proper verification.
Apparently it can take up to ten days to clear this up. In the meantime I can go to class, I guess, but I can’t get into the class web site where materials and communications are stored, as well as access to web exercises which must be done.
It’s annoying that the disenrollment waited until Fri 4pm to go through, so I can’t talk to anyone until Monday.
I assume this is a Get Tough policy and as long as I show my papers, it will work out. But I must say Covid really brings out the control freak in bureaucracies.
In the meantime Sarah Hoyt has rung the alarm bell at her site that things could get very hairy real soon now.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/02/04/this-is-the-alarm-bell/
So we should get down with our bad prepper selves and make sure we’ve got enough nuts, berries and essentials stored away to last a month or two or more and fingers crossed.
Hmm. Possibly, but Hoyt seems a bit tightly wound for my taste and she’s been under mucho stresso for the past year or more.
huxley:
There are all sorts of single cause and multiple cause theories about why Rome fell—it eventually encompassed too much land to successfully rule, Lead in the water and in vessels used to cook and hold wine, native Roman’s martial spirit was exhausted, ancient Roman families no longer sent their sons to the military service that was the key to public office, welcoming large numbers of barbarians into Roman territory and the Roman Army, ruinous fiscal policies including “tax farming,” the Roman state was strangled by ever expanding bureaucracy and over regulation, disastrous farming policies, the decline of traditional Roman virtue/decadence, social cohesion collapsed, policies that catered to the mob, the military and especially the Praetorian Guard getting deeply involved in politics and succession struggles, etc., etc.
Many commenters have noted what they see as the decadence overtaking the U.S., and compare Rome’s downfall to what they see as our own similar downfall playing out all around us—and for some of the same reasons.
I have recently commented about our turning from a “high trust” into a “low trust” society, and one of the major factors in this descent is rising crime, and the inability or unwillingness of an increasing number the civil authorities and police to enforce the laws and protect ordinary citizens while giving free passes members of our own nomenklatura.
One apparently increasingly visible and widespread aspect of such rising crime are the “porch pirates” who increasingly prey on citizens, but whose thefts don’t seem to be a priority for police.
And while I thought such thefts were swiftly rising–as indicated by the many reports about them on Youtube, and videos on the subject, rising sales of Ring cameras, and home security systems–I’ve never seen a number put to these thefts until today.
But, today, I ran across one report claiming that 30% of people surveyed say that they have had one or more packages stolen. *
Then, there is the article linked below which reports a study estimating that, just in 2021 alone, 210 million packages were stolen. **
How’s that for helping to change high trust into low?
* https://moneywise.com/insurance/home/porch-pirates-plundering-your-parcels-you-may-already-have-the-protection-you-need
** https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/210-million-packages-stolen-2021-report
neo:
Well … yeah!
I do love “Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade” almost as much as “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
I admit I even got to like “The Crystal Skull” after a few viewings. A bit tired, but hey! Indiana Jones.
@ huxley > “In the meantime Sarah Hoyt has rung the alarm bell at her site that things could get very hairy real soon now.”
She’s tapping into a commenter network that is based, world-wide, and not particularly pessimistic – mostly realists of many different personalities and lifestyle persuasions (I occasionally stroll through the comment threads, as do others here in Neo’s Salon, but they are exhaustingly long, so I don’t do it often anymore).
Another word for intuition is gut feeling, and Sarah explained some of how her gut is throwing things at her brain to get its attention.
Maybe nothing will happen.
Maybe the Canadian truckers will be the tipping point.
Regardless, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared for the worst while hoping for the best (a crib from Neo’s Covid column).
As for the warning bells: if you haven’t listened to Dr. Sowell’s interview yet, please do so soon. He was ringing them decades ago, as were others.
How do nations fall apart?
Gradually, then suddenly.
However, as Sarah usually signs off: In the end we win, they lose. Be not afraid.
I’ve noted in comments here before just how interconnected our complex high technology society is, and we’re seeing some of the proof of that in the empty shelves in our supermarkets, late deliveries, and items that just aren’t available.
Add to this the inflation caused by incompetence at the Fed and wrongheaded economic policy, deliberately caused energy shortages, plus rising levels of crime, coupled with rising levels of citizen distrust of all authorities and we may, indeed, be seeing the start of a chain of cascading failures that could possibly destroy our society as it is currently constituted, with our society “resetting” at a much lower and unsatisfactory level.
AesopFan,
You write: “Regardless, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared for the worst…”
Sure it does. Capacity. I know a few people who were convinced it was all going to collapse years ago, and acted accordingly. One went to live isolated, in the woods, off the grid decades ago. Lost his girlfriend, a wonderful woman, who married someone else. She now has a couple wonderful, grown children, owns multiple homes and has a net worth in the tens of millions of dollars. I haven’t seen him for years, but I imagine he regrets his decision.
Capacity. Doing one thing typically precludes us mortals from doing another. You place your bets. You take your chances.
Rufus,
It’s this thinking from people that I generally agree with on many issues that turns me off.
It’s the ‘zerohedge’ thinking.
Doom is always around the corner. What a miserable way to go through life.
PS in re Sarah Hoyt’s commenters:
They are pretty wide ranging, and covered some of the same territory as Neo’s posts yesterday.
I’ve put some links on those other threads.
@ Rufus > “Capacity. Doing one thing typically precludes us mortals from doing another. You place your bets. You take your chances.”
You are entirely correct, of course, but I was speaking in the context of Hoyt’s post, which was advocating measures that are within the limits of finances, space, and personal “comfort levels,” although I admit she is on the outer edge of most people’s levels, due to her childhood in Portugal and direct experience with cancel culture.
I’m sorry for your friend, but that’s a radical response that is NOT what I and most “amateur preppers” are doing; I meant that it doesn’t hurt to put a couple of extra cases of beans in the basement, which is what we’re doing.
I also kept the wood from the trees we cut down last summer (local AesopSon has a fireplace), and am reducing spending on non-essentials. It helps that we stockpiled a lot of necessities last year, because of the great grocery store hysteria.
We own our house and his house, and a third in Texas, all free and clear, but that one is by no means off the grid, being in a still-mostly-red city.
Our money is in several different banks and investment companies, to hedge the cancel culture that we’ve seen in finance. I never thought we would reach the point of banks refusing to do business with normal, although conservative, companies, but they have.
That’s hedging our bets in a practical manner, I think.
AesopFan,
Your approach seems sound, logical and practical.