Category: quotes
conflict theorists
People who vie for power are locked in the most obvious zero sum game in existence, and so they’re necessarily conflict theorists. People who have no lust for power themselves and try to explain the world in terms of mistake theory are basically forced to speculate that Power does not exist at all except as epiphenomenon of some poor coordination or whatever, or does not matter. It exists and matters a great deal, however, and shapes the way they live and think, and seeks to triumph over them ever harder. They just don’t know yet.
TheMotte pre-Ukraine
Lot’s of IR stuff in this thread:
What I am wondering is whether our eagerness to expand NATO is having more drawbacks than benefits. Russia’s weakness (which they are well aware of) is that because much of their land is currently tundra, the majority of their civilization is in the west, uncomfortably close to NATO. The Kremlin doesn’t want NATO forces within “rapid striking distance” of Moscow, which I can totally sympathize with, because I wouldn’t want Russian or CCP forces situated in Mexico. They’ve made it absolutely clear that this is a red line for them. I don’t think they particularly want to invade the Ukraine, they just don’t want the Ukraine to join NATO because they perceive that as a threat, and they’re probably going to do whatever they have to in order to stop that threat
US Capitol attacks
Honorable Mentions:
Various duels and fights conducted in the Capitol or by Senators and Congressmen. Special plaudits go to: the duel in which Representative William J. Graves of Kentucky killed Representative Jonathan Cilley of Maine; the incident on February 6th 1858 in which a debate over the Kansas Territory grew into a fistfight that included over 30 Representatives; “The Battle of the Reed Rules,” in which newly-elected Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed attempted to count Democrats in the chamber who were present but remaining silent to defy a quorum, after which Democrats attempted to flee before Reed had the doors ordered locked; the infamous Brooks-Sumner affair, when Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Charles Sumner with a cane on the Senate Floor over a heated debate on slavery (which only ended when several Senators pulled pistols to restore order); and, less-famously, the caning in 1866, when Lovell Rousseau of Kentucky (a Union general during the war) caned Josiah Grinnell of Iowa, after which Rousseau was censured, resigned, and then re-elected handily in the same seat.
america - europe - national identity and divorces
There is no “America”, and anyone who tells you there is hasn’t travelled enough.
thich nhat hanh died
To live, we must die every instant. We must perish again and again in the storms that make life possible.
links January 2022
The Internet Changed My Life (2022)
A search engine that favors text-heavy sites and punishes modern web design
Why russia’s economy is immune to western sanction - Money & Macro (2022)
/r/WaxSealers . a subreddit for people who like to seal their letters the old fashioned way
“Everyday a fool and a smart person wakes up. When they meet, business are made” - Brazillian saying
“What’s the silliest thing you staunchly believe, support, or will do to support what you know is an otherwise unreasonable stance?
For instance, I refuse to read The Infinite and the Divine because I think Necrons are boring and I don’t want to find them interesting. I’ve heard its really good and but I just can’t risk it.”
“GPS”. or how Viet spent 15 minutes manipulating a rope
“Research is just learning something no one knows yet”
The shortest tallest building by state is in vermont at 38m. It has 11 floors.
How a democrat turns Republican. - /u/VelveteenAmbush
How a Trump voter turned on Trump cause of Jan 6. - /u/VelveteenAmbush
ribbonfarm
lol, a big problem for governance. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-called-legibility/
you are not the tool
he is not the tool, he is the developer of the tools
- Amichay Oren
comparison is the thief of joy
the shopping cart
The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it.
No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you, or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.
A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it.
The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.
As To Minh Son says: “4chan shit”
baby boomer christmases
- some guy on reddit
god laughs and decides
Darwin spends five billion years optimizing your genes for reproduction, and God laughs and decides that whether or not you mate will depend on which weird parties you go to, or whatever.
- some user on /r/TheMotte
the man who mistook his wife for a hat
https://www.reddit.com/r/theschism/comments/rt0pe4/selected_anecdotes_from_the_man_who_mistook_his/
friends come and go
“Friends come and go, but a good enemy stays with you forever.”
- Hagar the Horrible
no one witnessed their heroism
Taken from Dan Abnett’s Sabbat Martyr in the “Gaunt’s Ghosts” series:
“Gaunt?” Biagi yelled from the walkway above. “Now?”
Gaunt paused and consulted his data-slate. They were all inside Old Hive now, all the surviving Regiment Civitas, the PDF and life company. All that could be expected anyway.
On his own list, the Tanith list, one unit was missing. Sergeant Skerral’s number nineteen, last seen in a firefight with the death brigades on Neshion Street.
“Sir?” Corbec gazed at Gaunt. “I think we have to draw the line now.”
Gaunt nodded.
“Seal the gates!” Biagi yelled. Leger placed his hand on the gene-reader plate and declared his authority. The massive blast shutters of the Old Hive gates clanged into place.
Nineteenth platoon were about five hundred metres from Old Hive’s north entrance when they saw the gates close.
Skerral stopped in his tracks, and pulled the men up. Half his unit were dead. He ejected a cell from his lasrifle and slammed in a new one.
“Come on,” he said, turning back to face down the slope at the waves of assault sweeping in. “Let’s see how many we can kill.”
The remnants of nineteenth lasted seventeen minutes from the times the gates closed. They accounted for one hundred and eight-nine enemy casualties. No one witnessed their heroism.
this without that
Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile.
- Tony Blair
We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.
- Mikhail Bakunin
The First Axiom of Victory is to be other than where the enemy desire you to be. The First Axiom of Stealth is to be other than where the enemy believes you to be. The First Axiom of Freedom is that justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyranny.
- Corvus Corax, Axioms of the Legiones Astartes, Raven Guard Legion
are americans the bad guy in foreign films?
Q: are americans the bad guy in foreign films?
A: they’re called documentaries
eldritch sun
why do you suppose we're here?
Thomas Hobbes, Hobbes’s namesake, didn’t believe in “Divine Providence.” He believed everything had a logical, natural explanation, and that men had a tendency to apply God to anything they couldn’t answer. John Calvin, meanwhile, believed that everything was ordained by god, that all things were predetermined and followed a plan. This is basically a microcosm of how they differ. Calvin is asking “why,” for what purpose, and Hobbes responds with an answer, but it is a reason. They have starkly different views on the metaphysical nature of the universe.
why don't MC change the world
As for the newly appointed Duke of Star Lake, due to his gentle attitude towards governance (he did not care about it), his lack of taxation (he had no ambition), and his freedom (he had no sense of existence), he soon gained a good reputation in the fiefs and villages.
However, this made some people rather dissatisfied.
“That’s it?”
During a martial arts class one day, Mallos was summoned to the capital for something at the last minute. D.D, who was in charge of training, relaxed and complained to the prince in the “lumberyard”. “I thought that with your courage, wisdom, and knowledge, you would do something… different in Star Lake Castle?”
Thales raised his wooden sword and exchanged blows with Wya as he replied,
“Very good, Wya. I like this move—something different, like?”
D.D. flicked his armor, feeling bored.
“I don’t know. Reform, improve, innovate, and improve? Just like some knights’ poems said, a knight with broad horizons obtained his own fiefdom, enacted a new policy to sweep away all of his lingering problems, accumulate land troops and food, and finally become a developed and advanced country. He swept through the world and created history?”
a bad mood
‘I remember,’ Brod writes, ‘ a conversation with Kafka which began with present-day Europe and the decline of the human race. “We are nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts that come into God’s head,” Kafka said. This reminded me at first of the Gnostic view of life: God as the evil demiurge, the world as his Fall. “Oh no,” said Kafka, “our world is only a bad mood of God, a bad day of his.” “Then there is hope outside this manifestation of the world that we know.” He smiled. “Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope – but not for us.”
The quote above seems to be the accurate quote. But I like the rendition I found on Reddit:
“Kafka said to his friend Max “We are only suicidal thoughts in the mind of God. Our entire world is just a bad mood he’s having. We live in God’s bad day.” Max, not sure if his friend was joking, replied “Well then, there must be hope, outside this manifestation of the world we know.” Kafka smiled and agreed. “Yes, an abundance of hope, an infinity of hope…for God. But not for us.””
Stalin believed he was a social scientist
Gradually their loyalty to the ideas became more and more instrumental, more and more a matter of what the ideas would let them grip in their two hands…
Stalin had been a gangster who really believed he was a social scientist. Khruschev was a gangster who hoped he was a social scientist. But the moment was drawing irresistibly closer when the idealism would rot away by one more degree, and the Soviet Union would be governed by gangsters who were only pretending to be social scientists.
- /u/FCfromSSC quoting Red Plenty by Francis Spufford
are we the baddies
We are always the good guys in our own story. The trick is to look at the situation from someone else’s point of view and ask “Are we the baddies?”
If yes, annihilate them.
enlightenment
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” - Denis Diderot
“Denis Diderot (/ˈdiːdəroʊ/;[3] French: [dəni did(ə)ʁo]; 5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie”
Philosophers are very opinionated.