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Italians looks Italians “Roman” is a bit broad
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Feb 25, 2021 00:49
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Epicurius posted:This just in: Ancient Roman looks Italian. Jesus was 6' tall, had blue eyes and light brown hair, and spoke English.
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Feb 25, 2021 00:51
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Epicurius posted:This just in: Ancient Roman looks Italian. Oh yeah. Some interesting discussion of this phenomenon with regard to Greece in this article by Mary Beard: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n16/mary-beard/don-t-forget-your-pith-helmet Mary Beard posted:The level to which this controversy has occasionally descended can be seen from a marginal comment scrawled by a racist reader in a copy of the first (1966) edition of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece held by the Cambridge University Library. Where Leigh Fermor refers to the modern Greek language as being the ‘undisputed heir of ancient Greek’, the anonymous scribbler has added: ‘Nonsense. It is the barbarous pidgin of the Albano-Slavs who defile the land of their occupation with the deformity of their “dago” bodies and the squalor of their politics.’ See also this blog post: https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/02/08/are-modern-greeks-descended-from-the-ancient-greeks/ Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Feb 25, 2021 |
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Feb 25, 2021 00:53
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if you qualify the legacy of the ancient greeks to their habit of loving children then yes the two cultures who have inherited that legacy are the aristocratic class of england and the hill tribes of afghanistan
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Feb 25, 2021 02:16
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https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/future-monetary-theory?fbclid=IwAR3_FOBSoFxoMQbuUWte2KqAtCgjDNLV2mZSmWBeywcz9V5twWWiMZVm8BE Interesting article on the historical illiteracy of modern economics. (As it refers to ancient history.) At first you think it's going to be an article boosting MMT but it's really just pointing out that no branch of orthodox economics makes a serious attempt to engage with modern knowledge about early economies.
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Feb 27, 2021 00:53
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Arglebargle III posted:https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/future-monetary-theory?fbclid=IwAR3_FOBSoFxoMQbuUWte2KqAtCgjDNLV2mZSmWBeywcz9V5twWWiMZVm8BE Interesting stuff, I've been reading a lot more about economics and it's history and it's sort of amazing how much even supposed academic sources get wrong on a basic level. As for MMT, I've never heard the actual term before but was familiar with the concept, in all honesty there's nothing surprising to me that they use bad history to support their claims, the whole thing seems to be theory tying itself into knots to justify their obviously false claims.
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Feb 27, 2021 04:10
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Silver2195 posted:Oh yeah. Some interesting discussion of this phenomenon with regard to Greece in this article by Mary Beard: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n16/mary-beard/don-t-forget-your-pith-helmet "It is easy to forget that the Greeks are not, and could not possibly be, on any objective calibration, more hospitable than any other people in the world." Mary Beard: the Greeks are no more hospitable than the inhabitants of Sentinel Island. The blog post I mostly agree with but the author seems to be reaching when the claim "There has even been a continuous national identity of some kind that has existed for Greek people since antiquity." and suggest this took the form of "(Rhōmaîoi), or “Romans"" for the Byzantines. Surely this included decidedly non-Greek peoples who spoke Greek. Weka fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Feb 27, 2021 |
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Feb 27, 2021 04:40
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Economics hasn't been a science for over a century.
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Feb 27, 2021 07:55
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Gaius Marius posted:As for MMT, I've never heard the actual term before but was familiar with the concept, in all honesty there's nothing surprising to me that they use bad history to support their claims, the whole thing seems to be theory tying itself into knots to justify their obviously false claims. That seems like an odd thing to say about an article that says "their claims are correct, even though their conclusions are off."
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Feb 27, 2021 17:33
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Fuschia tude posted:That seems like an odd thing to say about an article that says "their claims are correct, even though their conclusions are off." Surprisingly I can agree that they're using bad history while also disagreeing with the core conceit of the article.
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Feb 27, 2021 17:48
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mmt reflects an underlying truth about money, which is very simple: it isn't wealth. the wealth of a nation can be commanded by the state well, or poorly. directly through centralization, or indirectly through monetary policy, money is an instrument of the state that can accomplish anything the state wishes, within the restrictions presented by the available real wealth of goods and labor. this is something that you pick up on if you learn enough history across different times and places, especially looking at the same places during the various stages of monetization, but it can be hard to articulate. their specific conclusions can be argued about endlessly but it cuts to the heart of something that modern mainstream economic thinking barely even seems to recognize, that is, that the economy is subordinate to society rather than the other way around. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Feb 27, 2021 |
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Feb 27, 2021 17:55
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I'd agree that economics is a social science, but I don't think anything it says in regards to how to utilize this fact are particularly useful. States may be overwhelmingly more powerful than the average person, but it pales to the power of the billions of irrational actors all making horrible decisions every day. Is there a sort of easy overview of mmt out there. It seems interesting but I find it difficult to believe it's particularly useful
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Feb 27, 2021 19:41
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Economics is the least social of the social sciences, because it has access to all these relatively easy to quantify things that it can pull a bunch of numbers out of to run through charts and graphs and statistical analysis. This often leads to overlooking more qualitative analyses like you'd get in the other social sciences. Less charitably, a lot of economists are weird and antisocial and don't really understand people on a fundamental level. From the perspective of the "harder" sciences that use lots more math, like physics, Economics is sort of built on a foundation of sand. There aren't the same kind of easily provable, constantly reproducible rules. Despite their pretenses towards objectivity, economists can also be prone to getting caught up in subjective notions that they will end up interpreting the data to support. I think the less math-focused European branches are especially prone to that, but there are plenty of mathematical models based off of bad, misinterpreted, or purely theoretical data that get trundled around just to prove a point.
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Feb 27, 2021 21:51
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economics is one of the humanities
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Feb 27, 2021 22:24
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Economics is occultism.
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Feb 27, 2021 22:31
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I was listening to the latest In our Time and it was about Marcus Auerlius.They were going through some of his letters and I couldn't shake the feeling that his stoicism made him either incredibly passive or capable of doing awful poo poo. Also he came across as super awkward in general but I guess we will never know.
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Feb 27, 2021 23:13
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Economics is extremely well funded pseudo science. Music and poetry are both harder and truer sciences than economics. There isn't a single axiom of economics that isn't entirely hokum and bullshit from top to toe. Most of what economists say is mostly true though.
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Feb 27, 2021 23:30
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Lawman 0 posted:I was listening to the latest In our Time and it was about Marcus Aurelius. They were going through some of his letters and I couldn't shake the feeling that his stoicism made him either incredibly passive or capable of doing awful poo poo. Also he came across as super awkward in general but I guess we will never know. The question of Stoicism being passive has come up several times in classical social justice circles in the past year. In general, that depiction is a reflection of public consciousness and not of the actions that Stoic emperors took. From Donald Robertson, who has done some research on this subject: quote:The rights of slaves were generally improved throughout Marcus’ reign. Indeed, it was Antoninus Pius, with Marcus serving as his right-hand man, who first decreed that owners should stand trial for the murder of slaves, granting them protection under the law in that regard for the first time.
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Feb 27, 2021 23:42
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Gaius Marius posted:I'd agree that economics is a social science, but I don't think anything it says in regards to how to utilize this fact are particularly useful. States may be overwhelmingly more powerful than the average person, but it pales to the power of the billions of irrational actors all making horrible decisions every day. There isn't a easy overview because it's all inside baseball, but this might help. MMT are basically cranck keynesians, which in itself is a non dominant tradition of economics, but the main takeaway is that they are only mildly wrong since 2008, while orthodox economics, especially macro, have been staggeringly wrong. Also I'm gonna put the most fun and usefull paper on macroeconomics here. Paul Romer is a big deal in economics and more people should listen to him. Then for further fun just Google "austerity spreadsheet error" and live in perpetual rage.
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Feb 27, 2021 23:46
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Pompeii: Archaeologists unveil ceremonial chariot discoveryquote:Archaeologists in Italy have unveiled a ceremonial chariot they discovered near the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.   
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Feb 27, 2021 23:49
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Pompeii closed? I thought they've been open with limited capacity since last summer?
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Feb 28, 2021 00:08
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Fell Fire posted:The question of Stoicism being passive has come up several times in classical social justice circles in the past year. In general, that depiction is a reflection of public consciousness and not of the actions that Stoic emperors took. Interesting.
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Feb 28, 2021 00:10
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I remember some anecdote from Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire and was trying to remember which emperor this was so I can figure out what happened. I recall the given emperor being pretty good but having a crisis planning for succession. His family were fuckups but there was a successful upstart he really liked. So he sent out a summons to get this guy so he could try to adopt him, only to find out this guy's patriarch beat him to death when he had come back home. The patriarch just hated the guy.
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Feb 28, 2021 02:21
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SlothfulCobra posted:Despite their pretenses towards objectivity, economists can also be prone to getting caught up in subjective notions that they will end up interpreting the data to support. This is not limited to soft sciences
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Feb 28, 2021 02:27
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cheetah7071 posted:This is not limited to soft sciences As far as I can tell though, Economics is exclusivity used for political power and using it as a political weapon (to keep the rich and powerful, more rich and powerful), In Roman/Ancient times: Soothsayers and Priests. Asking Jupiter would be more useful and less harmful than relying on an Economist for anything. Cheaper too - I think Jupiter would be happy with a goat or some chicken.
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Feb 28, 2021 04:07
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Lawman 0 posted:I was listening to the latest In our Time and it was about Marcus Auerlius.They were going through some of his letters and I couldn't shake the feeling that his stoicism made him either incredibly passive or capable of doing awful poo poo. Also he came across as super awkward in general but I guess we will never know. Didn’t he do a genocide at one point during Marcomannic wars?
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Feb 28, 2021 04:17
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Lawman 0 posted:I was listening to the latest In our Time and it was about Marcus Auerlius.They were going through some of his letters and I couldn't shake the feeling that his stoicism made him either incredibly passive or capable of doing awful poo poo. Also he came across as super awkward in general but I guess we will never know. It's worth noting the man had 13 children and only 5 of them survived, and the only male was Commodus. And he spent an incredible amount of time on the front, you should read his meditations he was definitely turning towards stoicism to deal with what must've been crushing amounts of stress.
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Feb 28, 2021 04:21
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I’m remembering the first time I read meditations. The words: “I have given it back” struck me as a profound sadness. Now having kids I can’t imagine losing eight and being gone for so long.
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Feb 28, 2021 07:16
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Didn’t he do a genocide at one point during Marcomannic wars? The Romans did them all the time, killing/enslaving the entire tribe of people was kind of their go-to.
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Feb 28, 2021 08:22
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The romans were very inclusive. Everyone could be a slave.
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Feb 28, 2021 08:49
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LingcodKilla posted:The romans were very inclusive. Everyone could be a slave.
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Feb 28, 2021 09:19
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I honestly can’t imagine the amount of background stress that must have been common in the pre-modern world. So much randomness. I suppose if you go to dangerous parts of the world now you would find people shaped by the same kinds of forces but it’s still hard for me to imagine. Contrast that with Ea-Nasir ripping people off with shoddy copper ingots, which is completely relatable and humanising, and you have in a nutshell why history is the most interesting subject for me. Familiar elements and then bugfuck crazy alien mindsets.
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Feb 28, 2021 11:16
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Not the best analogy given for most people even in the 'modern' world they still face the anxiety of everything they have going up in smoke from the slightest mistake or misfortune.
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Feb 28, 2021 12:52
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Comstar posted:As far as I can tell though, Economics is exclusivity used for political power and using it as a political weapon (to keep the rich and powerful, more rich and powerful), I mean, economics is a way to model economic behavior....to try to figure out how people make decisions to distribute limited resources. It can be used as a political weapon, but so can everything else,
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Feb 28, 2021 16:03
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Not the best analogy given for most people even in the 'modern' world they still face the anxiety of everything they have going up in smoke from the slightest mistake or misfortune. We've also got bugfuck crazy in spades.
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Feb 28, 2021 16:18
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:The Romans did them all the time, killing/enslaving the entire tribe of people was kind of their go-to. The interesting thing here to me isn't that they would wipe out whole tribes, since that happened plenty--pretty much any ancient empire you can think of did that, but that we have a fair number of surviving records of other Romans being ripshit about it and saying Romans were trash people for what they did to tribes they conquered. Caesar got a ton of criticism for his behavior in Gaul, Tacitus famously shits on Roman imperialism. I would like to think every empire had its anti-imperial citizens, but I've never read anything from say, a Chinese historian talking about how Chinese people are monsters for wiping out Steppe Tribe X. If anybody has please do link or post names, I'd love to see it.
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Feb 28, 2021 16:54
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cheetah7071 posted:This is not limited to soft sciences My current take on economics-as-a-science was basically shaped by watching the aftermath of the 2008 crash. Every right wing economist on the planet started demanding austerity and predicting that stimulus would destroy everything forever and never work, and were saying outright that if the stimulus package worked at all, it would discredit right-wing economists. Paul Krugman made a blog post saying "This stimulus package is inadequate, I expect anemic growth for the next two years and then we'll probably see GDP at around [y]" . I said to myself "ok, real world experiment." Two years later GDP was within [y] to a couple decimal places. Krugman was proved at least roughly correct, experimentally. So that shows 1) economics can have accurate predictive power and 2) it usually doesn't because political factors usually overwhelm the analysis for most economists.
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Feb 28, 2021 17:12
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The problem is also that while micro econ is pretty useful and accurate for the limited scope where they can be reliably applied, macroeconomics, the thing that basically influences everything in our society is little better than reading chicken entrails. Compounded by the fact that most politicians , if they have any economics training at all and helps them push their desired perspective, it's in macro. If you want a example, just check nordhaus nobel prize winning work and how it was profoundly wrong and a disaster for climate change.
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Feb 28, 2021 17:31
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Epicurius posted:I mean, economics is a way to model economic behavior....to try to figure out how people make decisions to distribute limited resources. It can be used as a political weapon, but so can everything else, Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary but competition for limited resources remains a constant. Need as well as greed has followed us to the stars and the rewards of wealth still await those wise enough to recognize this deep thrumming of our common pulse.
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Feb 28, 2021 17:35
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Part of the problem with macro is that there are entire schools of macro being funded to advance clearly incorrect ideas to justify political actions by people advancing hidden civic religions. Edit : and this is done openly and in the case of the Koch’s they talk about it a lot.
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Feb 28, 2021 17:37
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