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Source: https://radgeek.com/feed/

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<title type="text">Rad Geek People's Daily</title>
<subtitle type="text">official state media for a secessionist republic of one</subtitle>
<updated>2024-03-20T21:14:35Z</updated>
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<link rel="license" type="text/html" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" /> <entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[What I’m Reading (Mostly March 2024 Lazy Linking edition)]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/03/20/what-im-reading-mostly-march-2024-lazy-linking-edition/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10755</id>
<updated>2024-03-20T21:14:35Z</updated>
<published>2024-03-20T20:30:11Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Joseph Schumpeter (1942/1950), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (3rd edition). Paul M. Sweezy (1943), Professor Schumpeter’s Theory of Innovation, in The Review of Economics and Statistics 25.1 (February 1943): 93-96. Hebert Giersch (1984), The Age of Schumpeter, in The American Economic Review 74.2 (May 1984): 103-109. Bret Devereaux (2024), Phalanx’s Twilight, Legion’s Triumph Part Ia at […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/03/20/what-im-reading-mostly-march-2024-lazy-linking-edition/"><![CDATA[<ul>
<li>Joseph Schumpeter (1942/1950), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism,_Socialism_and_Democracy"><cite>Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy</cite></a> (3rd edition).</li>
<li>Paul M. Sweezy (1943), <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1924551"><cite class="article">Professor Schumpeter’s Theory of Innovation,</cite></a> in <cite class="journal">The Review of Economics and Statistics</cite> 25.1 (February 1943): 93-96.</li>
<li>Hebert Giersch (1984), <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1816338"><cite class="article">The Age of Schumpeter,</cite></a> in <cite class="journal">The American Economic Review</cite> 74.2 (May 1984): 103-109.</li>
<li>Bret Devereaux (2024), <a href="https://acoup.blog/2024/01/19/collections-phalanxs-twilight-legions-triumph-part-ia-heirs-of-alexander/"><cite class="article">Phalanx’s Twilight, Legion’s Triumph</cite> Part Ia</a> at <cite class="blog">A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry</cite> (2024-01-19). This is the first part of a long multi-part series that’s aimed at — as far as I can tell — a squarely tactical look at possible answers to the <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0234">classic old question from Polybius</a>;[<a href="#what-im-reading-mostly-march-2024-lazy-linking-edition-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-mostly-march-2024-lazy-linking-edition-n-1">1</a>] or, as Devereaux sees it, <q>why was the Roman legion able to decisively defeat the Hellenistic sarisa-phalanx?</q></li>
</ul>
<ol class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-mostly-march-2024-lazy-linking-edition-n-1">[1]From <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0234">Plb 1.1</a>: <q>Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years? Or who again can be so completely absorbed in other subjects of contemplation or study, as to think any of them superior in importance to the accurate understanding of an event for which the past affords no precedent….</q><a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-mostly-march-2024-lazy-linking-edition-n-1">↩</a></li></ol>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[That which is not mandatory is forbidden (Atlanta BeltLine Zoning Edition)]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/21/that-which-is-not-mandatory-is-forbidden-atlanta-beltline-zoning-edition/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10752</id>
<updated>2024-02-21T19:34:25Z</updated>
<published>2024-02-21T19:34:25Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I wanted to just post this story here with a quick comment to the effect of, Well, good. Parking minimums are stupid and they’re especially unneeded around neighborhoods that are growing vigorously precisely because of the huge, pleasant walking trail that they’re growing alongside. Of course, municipal government being what it is, the Atlanta City […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/21/that-which-is-not-mandatory-is-forbidden-atlanta-beltline-zoning-edition/"><![CDATA[I wanted to just post this story here with a quick comment to the effect of, <q>Well, good. Parking minimums are stupid and they’re especially unneeded around neighborhoods that are growing vigorously precisely because of the huge, pleasant walking trail that they’re growing alongside.
<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;">
<h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from planetizen.com</h3>
<div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.planetizen.com/news/2024/02/127395-atlanta-eliminates-parking-mandates-near-beltline"><img src="https://www.planetizen.com/files/images/AdobeStock_447083879.jpeg" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.planetizen.com/news/2024/02/127395-atlanta-eliminates-parking-mandates-near-beltline">Atlanta Eliminates Parking Mandates Near BeltLine</a>
Developments near the city’s popular greenway will no longer be subject to minimum parking requirements to make way for more effective development.
planetizen.com
 
</div>
Of course, municipal government being what it is, the Atlanta City Government can’t just let the City of Atlanta alone; yet another foray into <q>urbanism</q> is immediately moving forward with a deep, abiding and utterly ridiculous suspicion that people in a city can’t just work it the fuck out on their own. We’re doing some City-Building and Neighborhood Planning here, and if cars are no longer required to get around, then by god we’ll take steps to forbid them:
<blockquote>
New legislation passed by the Atlanta City Council will remove parking minimums in the BeltLine Overlay District, a half-mile zone on either side of the BeltLine trail and light rail system.
According to an article by Josh Green in Urbanize Atlanta, the new rules, introduced by Council Member Jason Dozier, will also ban new gas stations and drive-throughs.
<q>The theory goes[<a href="#that-which-is-not-mandatory-is-forbidden-atlanta-beltline-zoning-edition-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-that-which-is-not-mandatory-is-forbidden-atlanta-beltline-zoning-edition-n-1">1</a>] that less space (and less upfront money from builders) devoted to parking will allow more room for less expensive housing, restaurants, shops, offices, and other vibrant uses, while encouraging neighborhood planning focused on pedestrians, not drivers.</q>
— Diana Ionescu, <a href="https://www.planetizen.com/news/2024/02/127395-atlanta-eliminates-parking-mandates-near-beltline?utm_source=pocket_saves"><cite class="article">Atlanta Eliminates Parking Mandates Near BeltLine</cite></a> In <cite>Planetizen</cite> (2024-02-08).
</blockquote>
For God’s sake. If nobody needs gas stations and drive-throughs, they won’t use gas stations and drive-throughs, and you won’t have them to kick around anymore. If gas stations and drive throughs can stay in business within the arbitrary <q>Overlay Zone</q> then city-dwellers must have some use for them after all.
Let it be, let them pass.
<ol class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="that-which-is-not-mandatory-is-forbidden-atlanta-beltline-zoning-edition-n-1">[1][Sic. Of course there is no real <q>theory</q> here, just the arbitrary guesswork of neighborhood <q>planners</q> who figure they know ahead of time how people are going to use the places that they live and go. —R.G.]<a class="note-return" href="#to-that-which-is-not-mandatory-is-forbidden-atlanta-beltline-zoning-edition-n-1">↩</a></li></ol>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[There were also / Witticisms, platitudes, and statements beginning / “It seems to me” or “As I always say.” / Consider the courage in all that….]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/21/witicisms-platitudes-and-statements-beginning/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10748</id>
<updated>2024-02-21T19:21:49Z</updated>
<published>2024-02-21T19:21:49Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[From Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day podcast (2022-12-25), rather belatedly listened to: Life Cycle of Common Man Roughly figured, this man of moderate habits, This average consumer of the middle class, Consumed in the course of his average life span Just under half a million cigarettes, Four thousand fifths of gin and about A […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/21/witicisms-platitudes-and-statements-beginning/"><![CDATA[From <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/75532/life-cycle-of-common-man">Poetry Foundation’s <cite>Poem of the Day</cite> podcast (2022-12-25)</a>, rather belatedly listened to:
<blockquote>
<h3><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52768/life-cycle-of-common-man">Life Cycle of Common Man</a></h3>
Roughly figured, this man of moderate habits, 
This average consumer of the middle class, 
Consumed in the course of his average life span 
Just under half a million cigarettes, 
Four thousand fifths of gin and about 
A quarter as much vermouth; he drank 
Maybe a hundred thousand cups of coffee, 
And counting his parents’ share it cost 
Something like half a million dollars 
To put him through life. How many beasts 
Died to provide him with meat, belt and shoes 
Cannot be certainly said. 
But anyhow, 
It is in this way that a man travels through time, 
Leaving behind him a lengthening trail 
Of empty bottles and bones, of broken shoes, 
Frayed collars and worn out or outgrown 
Diapers and dinnerjackets, silk ties and slickers.
Given the energy and security thus achieved, 
He did …? What? The usual things, of course, 
The eating, dreaming, drinking and begetting, 
And he worked for the money which was to pay 
For the eating, et cetera, which were necessary 
If he were to go on working for the money, et cetera, 
But chiefly he talked. As the bottles and bones 
Accumulated behind him, the words proceeded 
Steadily from the front of his face as he 
Advanced into the silence and made it verbal. 
Who can tally the tale of his words? A lifetime 
Would barely suffice for their repetition; 
If you merely printed all his commas the result 
Would be a very large volume, and the number of times 
He said <q>thank you</q> or <q>very little sugar, please,</q> 
Would stagger the imagination. There were also 
Witticisms, platitudes, and statements beginning 
<q>It seems to me</q> or <q>As I always say.</q> 
Consider the courage in all that, and behold the man 
Walking into deep silence, with the ectoplastic 
Cartoon’s balloon of speech proceeding 
Steadily out of the front of his face, the words 
Borne along on the breath which is his spirit 
Telling the numberless tale of his untold Word 
Which makes the world his apple, and forces him to eat.
— Howard Nemerov (1977), <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52768/life-cycle-of-common-man"><cite class="poem">Life Cycle of Common Man</cite></a> From <cite>The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov</cite>.
</blockquote>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Technological Civilization is Awesome (New Epicurean Scroll Just Dropped Edition)]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/09/technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10735</id>
<updated>2024-02-09T19:11:07Z</updated>
<published>2024-02-09T19:08:10Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[col. -8, ll. 2-14: 2 ...]ι̣μ̣εν τοὺϲ̣ [πα]ρ̣[ὰ Ξ]ε̣- νοφάντωι το̣ιούτου[ϲ, ὃ καὶ ὑπ’ ἄ̣λλων δοκεῖ 5 γείνεϲθαι, παραπλη- ϲίωϲ δ̣’ ο̣ὐδὲ παρ̣’ ἑτέρωι ἴδι̣ον το̣ῦ δ̣οκοῦ̣ντοϲ̣ εἶναι καὶ παρὰ πλε̣ί- οϲ̣ι̣ν̣ ἥδιο̣ν, ἀλλ’ ὡ̣ϲ̣ καὶ 10 ἐ̣π̣ὶ τῶν βρω̣μ̣άτ̣ων ο̣ὐ̣κ ἤδ̣η τὰ ϲπάνια πάντωϲ̣ καὶ ἡδ̣ίω τῶν δ̣αψιλῶν̣ ε̣ἶναι̣ 14 νομίζ̣ο̣με̣ν· οὐ γ̣ὰρ̣ —Author […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/09/technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition/"><![CDATA[<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;">
<h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from Smithsonian Magazine</h3>
<div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-students-decipher-first-passages-2000-year-old-scroll-burned-vesuvius-eruption-180983738/"><img src="https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/FDqjuMwMsFx6EhzH0Aqlflug-LE=/fit-in/1600x0/filters:focal(1000x752:1001x753)/https%3A%2F%2Ftf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffiler_public%2F3b%2Fdf%2F3bdf846f-c28f-4afd-8534-4024eef0db20%2Fscrolls.jpg" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-students-decipher-first-passages-2000-year-old-scroll-burned-vesuvius-eruption-180983738/">Three Students Just Deciphered the First Passages of a 2,000-Yea…</a>
The trio used artificial intelligence to decode sections of the text, which appear to be a philosophical exploration of pleasure
Margherita Bassi @ smithsonianmag.com
 
</div>
<blockquote>
<pre><code> col. -8, ll. 2-14:
2 ...]ι̣μ̣εν τοὺϲ̣ [πα]ρ̣[ὰ Ξ]ε̣-
νοφάντωι το̣ιούτου[ϲ,
ὃ καὶ ὑπ’ ἄ̣λλων δοκεῖ
5 γείνεϲθαι, παραπλη-
ϲίωϲ δ̣’ ο̣ὐδὲ παρ̣’ ἑτέρωι
ἴδι̣ον το̣ῦ δ̣οκοῦ̣ντοϲ̣
εἶναι καὶ παρὰ πλε̣ί-
οϲ̣ι̣ν̣ ἥδιο̣ν, ἀλλ’ ὡ̣ϲ̣ καὶ
10 ἐ̣π̣ὶ τῶν βρω̣μ̣άτ̣ων
ο̣ὐ̣κ ἤδ̣η τὰ ϲπάνια
πάντωϲ̣ καὶ ἡδ̣ίω
τῶν δ̣αψιλῶν̣ ε̣ἶναι̣
14 νομίζ̣ο̣με̣ν· οὐ γ̣ὰρ̣
</code></pre>
—Author Unknown, possibly Philodemus; decoded by the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423/https://scrollprize.org/grandprize">Vesuvius Challenge project</a>
</blockquote>
<ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins>
<blockquote>
<pre><code> col. -7, ll. 4-10:
λ̣ει παρὰ τὰ δαψιλῆ.
5 θεωρηθήϲεται δὲ τὰ
τοιαῦθ’ οὕτω{ι} πολ̣λά-
κιϲ πότερον ὅ̣ταν πα-
ρῇ τὸ δαψιλέϲτερον
ἡ φύϲιϲ ἥδιον ἀπαλλάτ-
10 τει το̣ύ̣τ̣ο̣υ̣ καὶ πάλ̣ι̣ν̣ ̣ ̣
</code></pre>
—Author Unknown, possibly Philodemus; decoded by the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423/https://scrollprize.org/grandprize">Vesuvius Challenge project</a>
</blockquote>
<ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins>
<blockquote>
<pre><code> col. -2, ll. 2-8:
2 ἑ̣κάϲτηϲ κριτηρίων
θεωροῦνται. πρὸϲ δὲ
οὔτε καθόλου περὶ
5 ἡδονῆϲ ἐχόντων τι
λέγειν οὔτε περὶ τῆϲ
κατὰ μ̣έ̣ρο̣ϲ̣, ὅ̣τε ὡ-
8 ριϲμένον τι, ἀλλ’ οὖν
</code></pre>
—Author Unknown, possibly Philodemus; decoded by the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423/https://scrollprize.org/grandprize">Vesuvius Challenge project</a>
</blockquote>
<ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins>
<blockquote>
<pre><code> col. -1, ll. 1-6:
1 ὰρ ἀπ̣εχόμ̣ε̣θ̣α̣ τὰ
μὲν κρίνειν, τὰ δὲ
κατέχειν καὶ ἐμφαί
νoιθ’ ἡμῖν ἀληθῆ λέ-
5 γειν ὥϲπερ πολλά̣κιϲ
ἂν ἐ̣μφανε̣ίη̣{ι}.
</code></pre>
—Author Unknown, possibly Philodemus; decoded by the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423/https://scrollprize.org/grandprize">Vesuvius Challenge project</a>
</blockquote>
The text has to do with some notable Epicurean themes, in particular the relationship of pleasure to the scarcity or abundance of goods, perhaps especially aesthetic goods or goods of sensory experience (Per the translators: <q>… As too in the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant.</q>)
The in-house scholars at the Vesuvius Challenge have confirmed that the text is new, unattested text from an ancient writer. Right now they seem inclined to think that the author might be the Epicurean philosopher and poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philodemus">Philodemus</a> (ca. 110 BCE – ca. 40 BCE).[<a href="#technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition-n-1">1</a>] He wrote extensively on ethics, music, and the philosophical controversies between the Epicureans and the Stoics.
It is hard to express just how immensely exciting this is. This is the first major passage to come from a cache of books that, in a series of really horrific disasters and insane accidents, has been preserved down to our present distant future, where we can use frickin’ X-rays, 3-D modeling and artificial intelligence to peer through the body of burnt, sealed scrolls and read off the letters from their carbonized insides without unrolling them. This would be an awesome enough story as it is, but the technological feat also has a lot of promise to heal a real and massive loss. Most — the vast majority — of writing from the ancient world is lost to us.[<a href="#technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition-n-2" class="footnoted" id="to-technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition-n-2">2</a>] For the next phase of the project, ]Vesuvius Challenge’s goals are](https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423/https://scrollprize.org/grandprize):
<blockquote>
In 2023 we got from 0% to 5% of a scroll. In 2024 our goal is to go from 5% of one scroll, to 90% of all four scrolls we have scanned, and to lay the foundation to read all 800 scrolls.
The primary goal for 2024 is to read 90% of the scrolls, and we will issue the 2024 Grand Prize to the first team that is able to do this. More details on the exact grand prize judging criteria will be available in March.
&#8212<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423/https://scrollprize.org/grandprize">Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize Awarded</a>
</blockquote>
Every lost scroll that is recovered shines new light into the corners of a world covered in deep shadow, which we have only seen with the briefest, strobe-light glimpses. The Villa of the Papyri is a lost library from the high point of classical civilization; there are more than 800 carbonized scrolls which the project may be able to recover. It offers once of the most exciting chances in decades to recover lost works and add new primary sources for understanding and debating ancient history and ancient philosophy.
<a href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2009/08/17/technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd/">Technological civilization is awesome.</a>
<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;">
<h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from web.archive.org</h3>
<div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423/https://scrollprize.org/grandprize"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423im_/https://scrollprize.org/img/social/opengraph.jpg" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209172423/https://scrollprize.org/grandprize">Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the scr…</a>
The 2000-year-old scroll discusses music, food, and how to enjoy life’s pleasures.
web.archive.org
 
</div>
<ol class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition-n-1">[1]This is a pretty good bet even aside from the topics in the passages decoded; the scroll was taken from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, which seems to have had a really large collection of Philodemus’s work.<a class="note-return" href="#to-technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition-n-1">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition-n-2">[2]This is true even of the most famous and celebrated authors. All of Aristotle’s dialogues and the second volume of the <cite>Poetics</cite> are famously lost; volumes of Livy; every poem by Sappho except for one or possibly two which were preserved in the work of others who quoted or translated them; etc. etc.<a class="note-return" href="#to-technological-civilization-is-awesome-new-epicurean-scroll-just-dropped-edition-n-2">↩</a></li></ol>
]]></content>
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<entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[hunched as though deciding / some minor point …]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/04/hunched-as-though-deciding-some-minor-point/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10731</id>
<updated>2024-02-02T22:34:50Z</updated>
<published>2024-02-04T18:34:34Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Turkey Vultures Since the wind knocked down power lines and lightning set a birch aflame from within, three turkey vultures roost along the topmost branches, matted black feathers with small red heads, unfortunate harbingers of death, though really, almost comically alive— hunched as though deciding some minor point before slipping off on the umbrellas of […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/04/hunched-as-though-deciding-some-minor-point/"><![CDATA[<blockquote>
<h3><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/01/13/turkey-vultures-maya-popa/">Turkey Vultures</a></h3>
Since the wind knocked down power lines 
and lightning set a birch aflame 
from within, three turkey vultures roost 
along the topmost branches, 
matted black feathers with small red heads, 
unfortunate harbingers of death, 
though really, almost comically alive— 
hunched as though deciding 
some minor point before slipping off 
on the umbrellas of their wings to rid 
the roads of evidence of violence not theirs.
— Maya C. Popa (2022), <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/01/13/turkey-vultures-maya-popa/"><cite class="article">Turkey Vultures</cite></a> In <cite>The New York Review of Books</cite> (January 13, 2022)
</blockquote>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Reading: Jack Wright (2023), “The Hierarchy in Economics and Its Implications”]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/02/reading-jack-wright-2023-the-hierarchy-in-economics-and-its-implications/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10729</id>
<updated>2024-02-02T22:27:25Z</updated>
<published>2024-02-02T22:27:25Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[The paper is available as Open Access, so you should be able to read it for free either in HTML form or by downloading or printing a full-text PDF. Is the way that economics is organized conducive to the production of economic knowledge? James Heckman and Sidharth Moktan (Reference Heckman and Moktan2020) recently highlighted the […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/02/02/reading-jack-wright-2023-the-hierarchy-in-economics-and-its-implications/"><![CDATA[<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;">
<h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from Cambridge Core</h3>
<div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philosophy/article/hierarchy-in-economics-and-its-implications/D3CC2CDC6C6602E2093D3562C2FC3C62"><img src="https://static.cambridge.org/covers/EAP_0_0_0/economics_& philosophy.jpg?send-full-size-image=true" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philosophy/article/hierarchy-in-economics-and-its-implications/D3CC2CDC6C6602E2093D3562C2FC3C62">The hierarchy in economics and its implications | Economics &amp…</a>
The hierarchy in economics and its implications
cambridge.org
 
</div>
The paper is available as Open Access, so you should be able to read it for free either in HTML form or by downloading or printing a full-text PDF.
<blockquote>
Is the way that economics is organized conducive to the production of economic knowledge?
James Heckman and Sidharth Moktan (Reference Heckman and Moktan2020) recently highlighted the dominance of economics’ ‘Top 5’ journals. Others have noted the outsize representation of economists from top-ranked departments among the authors and editors of those journals (Fourcade et al. Reference Fourcade, Ollion and Algan2015; Colussi Reference Colussi2018). I collect these issues together with others to highlight the many asymmetries of power, status and influence that exist between economists. In addition to (i) the dominance of the Top 5 and the concentration of (ii) authors and (iii) editors from a few universities in those journals, the top-ranked departments also train most of the discipline’s (iv) governors and (v) awardees, (vi) individual star economists dominate networks of coauthorship and (vii) the discipline exhibits a strong prestige factor in hiring. Together these asymmetries constitute the hierarchy in economics.
I give reasons to believe that the hierarchy in economics is both steeper – the asymmetries are greater – than it could be and steeper than hierarchies in other fields. I then highlight four reasons to worry about this increased degree of hierarchy in economics. Through (a) reinforcing conservative selection biases and (b) disincentivizing innovation, the steeper hierarchy in economics constrains the development of new beliefs from the discipline. By (c) restricting the exploration of alternatives, the steeper hierarchy reduces the justification we have for believing the outputs of economics. By (d) discouraging criticism, the steeper hierarchy makes it less likely that errors and faulty reasoning will be spotted. This reduces the likelihood that the outputs of economics will be true and so further reduces the justification we have for believing them. My descriptions of (a–d) will be qualitative. I will describe how the present organization of economics leads to (a–d) and describe the negative impact (a-d) have on the production of economic knowledge. I will not measure the effect size of (a–d) or weigh them off against trade-offs. My argument will, consequently, not constitute an all-things-considered judgement on the health of economics. The point is rather to describe the asymmetries that exist between economists (i–vii) and to spell out the mechanism by which these social features of economics impact the epistemic virtues of its outputs (a–d).
— Jack Wright (2023), <cite class="article">The Hierarchy in Economics and Its Implications</cite> In <cite>Economics & Philosophy</cite>. Published online 2023:1-22. doi:10.1017/S0266267123000032
</blockquote>
The top-line argument of the paper as a whole is pretty interesting; there is also an interesting passage off to one side later on in the paper in response to a possible objection that there may be convincing countervailing reasons why economics should be strongly hierarchical or as hierarchical as it actually is or…. Maybe so! But even if so, these considerations still have to be considered as a real cost, even if they are the cost of something that is worth having for other reasons.
<blockquote>
A second way of responding to the points I have raised could be to suggest that I have been too one-sided. Are there not circumstances in which steep hierarchies can be beneficial? To this I offer a clarification. The issues I describe should be considered pro tanto reasons to worry about the present degree of hierarchy in economics. I have argued that the steeper hierarchy in economics encourages four mechanisms that lower the uptake and supply of new beliefs in and the justification of the outputs of the discipline. I have not argued that the hierarchy in economics has no other effects. Thus, although (a–d) should give us reason to worry about the present organization of economics, they do not constitute an all-things-considered judgement on the health of the discipline. (a–d) are best thought of as tendencies worth paying attention to in discussions of how economics should be organized. An all-things-considered judgement on the organization of the discipline should consider (a–d) in conjugation with calculations of their effect sizes and also consider trade-offs from changing the present situation – including any beneficial effects of the hierarchy in economics.
— Jack Wright (2023), <cite class="article">The Hierarchy in Economics and Its Implications</cite> In <cite>Economics & Philosophy</cite>. Published online 2023:1-22. doi:10.1017/S0266267123000032
</blockquote>
If it’s not worth having for other reasons, then the paper closes with some really interesting and thoughtful (if not especially decisive) considerations of things that might be done within the discipline.
<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philosophy/article/hierarchy-in-economics-and-its-implications/D3CC2CDC6C6602E2093D3562C2FC3C62?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork">Read the whole thing</a>, as the kids of my generation used to say.
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Reading: Chelsea Follett, Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World (2023, Cato Institute)]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/01/22/reading-chelsea-follett-centers-of-progress-40-cities-that-changed-the-world-2023-cato-institute/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10721</id>
<updated>2024-01-22T21:23:14Z</updated>
<published>2024-01-22T21:13:35Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Reading: Chelsea Follett, Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World (2023, Cato Institute) The chapters for each city are mostly short vignettes more than in-depth portraits or deep-dive investigations. These are pretty light and enjoyable; for more details, you might want to work through the bibliographical entries for each city in the Suggested […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/01/22/reading-chelsea-follett-centers-of-progress-40-cities-that-changed-the-world-2023-cato-institute/"><![CDATA[Reading: Chelsea Follett, Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World (2023, Cato Institute)
<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;">
<h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from Cato Institute</h3>
<div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.centersofprogress.com/"><img src="https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Centers-of-Progress-Cover-71lymSC6pVL._SL1500_-150x150.jpg" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.centersofprogress.com/">Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed The World</a>
“In this superb book, Chelsea Follett takes the reader on a time-travel cruise through the great flash points of human activity to catch innovations…
Chelsea Follett @ centersofprogress.com
 
</div>
The chapters for each city[<a href="#reading-chelsea-follett-centers-of-progress-40-cities-that-changed-the-world-2023-cato-institute-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-reading-chelsea-follett-centers-of-progress-40-cities-that-changed-the-world-2023-cato-institute-n-1">1</a>] are mostly short vignettes more than in-depth portraits or deep-dive investigations. These are pretty light and enjoyable; for more details, you might want to work through the bibliographical entries for each city in the <q>Suggested Reading</q> at the back of the book, which usually give about 2-4 secondary sources (some scholarly, others popular) on each city’s story. Follett is a lively writer and, to her credit, has a pretty decent sense for trying to depict both the development of things that are now familiar to us from our own world, while also keeping in mind just how strange and different places in the past might seem to us. The other day was the vignette on Abbasid-era Baghdad (for <q>Astronomy,</q> and international / multilingual scholarship more broadly); today is the vignette on Heian-era Kyoto (for <q>The Novel</q> and literary movements driven by court women like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murasaki_Shikibu">Murasaki Shikibu</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sei_Sh%C5%8Dnagon">Sei Shonagon</a>.
<ol class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="reading-chelsea-follett-centers-of-progress-40-cities-that-changed-the-world-2023-cato-institute-n-1">[1]Or, in some cases, for what were really prehistoric settlements, villages, or gathering places, like the lost megalithic buildings at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe">Göbekli Tepe</a>.<a class="note-return" href="#to-reading-chelsea-follett-centers-of-progress-40-cities-that-changed-the-world-2023-cato-institute-n-1">↩</a></li></ol>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[What I’m Reading: The Roman Republic Is My Roman Empire Edition]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/01/20/what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10713</id>
<updated>2024-01-22T21:43:34Z</updated>
<published>2024-01-20T21:41:52Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[I’ve been thinking and reading some about the old archaic and classical Roman institution of Dictatorship. Rome had no kings (after they supposedly got rid of them in a political revolution), but sometimes it had Dictators, who held unlimited power of life and death, led armies into battle, could pass sentences that could not be […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/01/20/what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition/"><![CDATA[I’ve been thinking and reading some about the old archaic and classical Roman institution of Dictatorship. Rome had no kings (after they supposedly got rid of them in a political revolution), but sometimes it had Dictators, who held unlimited power of life and death, led armies into battle, could pass sentences that could not be appealed in court, and who had no colleagues who could check or veto their actions. As victorious generals they could celebrate triumphs in purple and gold robes with painted red faces, and they would stand in during religious ceremonies for the old sacral offices of the king, or for Jupiter himself. Almost everything else about the old Roman political system seems pretty thoroughly designed to disperse and check the powers of political magistrates and war leaders, precisely to avoid having the kings return under some other title (whether <q>Consul</q>, <q>Tribune</q> or <q>Head of the Senate</q>); but this one institution looks a lot like the temporary appointment of an Emergency King, for practical as well as ceremonial purposes.
But the office of dictatorship was also weird in its timing: it seems to have been used sometimes during the early centuries of the Roman Republic, then used little in the middle centuries and never at all after the second Punic War. Then, centuries later, it was brought back, in the midst of a couple horrendous political crises (first for the domination of Sulla, then for the capture of sole power by Julius Caesar) in which warlords used the revived title of Dictator (or, then, Perpetual Dictator) to consolidate unlimited one-man power and forcefully choke off ordinary republican politics while maintaining a pretense of respecting the republican constitution. You might think that this would be of interest to Emperors like Augustus, but there were no more Dictators named in Rome after the death of Caesar. The office was abolished by a law sponsored by Mark Antony. Later when Octavian / Augustus had taken sole power, he formally refused the title despite a couple of apparent attempts to revive it for him. In many ways, the actual political structure of Imperial Rome is something that we wouldn’t hesitate to recognize as a propagandistic cover over a 1,500 year reign of dirty, grubby military dictatorship; and there are a lot of propagandistic reasons why the old title of <q>Dictator</q> ought to have been attractive to them for propaganda and traditionalist purposes; but nevertheless the Emperors didn’t actually use the title.
Here’s a couple things I’ve been reading in the last few days about the institution of dictatorship in Archaic and Classical Rome:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41244992"><cite class="article">The Origin of the Roman Dictatorship: An Overlooked Opinion</cite></a>, Ronald T. Ridley. In <cite>Rheinisches Museum für Philologie</cite>, 1979, Neue Folge, 122. Bd., H. 3/4 (1979), 303-309.
This begins from <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Liv.%202.18.3&lang=original">a passage of Livy</a> about the creation of the first dictatorship in the early Republic, during a social and military crisis around 501 or 498 BCE.
<blockquote>
<q>Supra belli Latini metus quoque accesserat, quod triginta iam coniurasse populos concitante Octavio Mamilio satis constabat. In hac tantarum expectatione rerum sollicita civitate, dictatoris primum creandi mentio orta</q> (<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Liv.%202.18.3&lang=original">L. 2.18.3-4</a>).
[Dread also was increasing about the Latin wars, because now the thirty nations[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-1">1</a>] stood well enough together as they were being whipped up by Octavius Mamilius to swear to an alliance. The expectation of so many matters having shaken the City [of Rome], for the first time there was mention of appointing a Dictator. —R.G.]
<ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> The reason for the new office is hardly varying. It was a military crisis. Dionysios has been misunderstood to imply political reasons (5.70f.). He says the plebeians were bringing up economic grievances (5.63f.), but these were important only because they might imperil the conduct of the Latin war (5.61). He simply wants to explain the dictator’s freedom from provocatio [provocatio ad populum[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-2" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-2">2</a>]]. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Yet no-one who is conversant with the history of the monarchy and early Republic would put too much faith in the annalist-cum-jusrists’ versions. We are dealing with what has been shown to be a most ancient office which went out of use just at the time of the earliest Roman historians, at the end of the third century. Thus almost the entire historical tradition was referring to an office it had not seen in operation.
</blockquote>
That is, the paper stresses, there’s are questions to pursue about what the dictatorship was like in the archaic period, when it was used from time to time during emergencies in the City of Rome’s early foreign wars against its neighbors — not what it became much later at the end of the Republic, when it was had become old-fashioned title, not used in hundreds of years, that was suddenly revived and substantially reinvented in the midst of the Crises of the First Century. The archaic dictatorship was an office with extraordinary powers to suspend normal constitutional protections, mostly connected to its military role, but old-time dictators in the Republic were appointed for a particular purpose, with a time-limited half year term, expected to resign if the emergency passed or the purpose was accomplished, and ringed around with limitations and taboos intended to prevent them from exercising law-making power or taking on the trappings of kingship.[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-3" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-3">3</a>] Sulla and Caesar both had themselves appointed <q>Perpetual</q> Dictators without limited terms, and they immediately used the dictatorship to ruthlessly punish domestic opposition and to exercise sweeping and unchallenged power to rewrite Roman constitutional law without traditional restraints on their ambition.
The center of the paper is a really interesting and thorough lit review of scholarly writing up to 1979 on the nature and origins of the archaic Republican dictatorship — (1) where it came from, (2) what it was supposed to do, (3) what relationship it had to the ordinary powers of constitutional magistrates during the republic, and (4) drawing on all this, why Romans would go ahead and create an institution with sole role and extraordinary powers, so like the power of the old kings, just a few short years after they had fought a revolution to get rid of those guys. Ridley’s most interested in looking at debates over:
<ul>
<li>Whether the institution of a <q>dictator</q> had origins peculiar to Rome and its local history, or whether you might find a more common Latin institution in other Latin towns outside Rome; or</li>
<li>Whether it might have come from an office (called <q>dictator</q>) that was used by Rome and other Latin towns to command allied forces in leagues between the many Latin towns; and</li>
<li>Whether the archaic form of dictatorship was really an organic part of the republican Roman constitution, or a special procedure for temporarily suspending or breaching the republican constitution in cases of emergency. (This may be a semantic question; but it’s a pretty pressing one, given both the tensions around the old dictatorship, given the dictator’s seeming similarity to a king; and also given what ended up happening in the final decades of the republic, once Roman warlords started getting themselves named dictators again.)</li>
</ul>
The <q>overlooked opinion</q> in the title is short and towards the end, and really kind of less interesting than the long literature review and discussion of major debates about the nature of the dictatorship under the Republic. But, for the record, Ridley opines that the origin of the office may have been Latin, or at least that Livy is suggesting that it was, and that the Romans may have adopted and adapted the idea from the office of a <q>Dictator</q> to command allied Latin towns. Moreover that the reason for Livy’s interest in the institution may have had something to do with the political debates over the titles and honors for the newly triumphant Augustus, who <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:The_Achievements_of_the_Deified_Augustus">says that he was offered a dictatorship twice and refused it</a> (but somehow managed to go on finding ways to exercise autocratic power for the rest of his life anyway, even without the title[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-4" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-4">4</a>]):
<blockquote>
<ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Thus the modern discussions. But an <q>overlooked opinion</q>? In none of the above discussions can I find understanding of what seems to me the main thread of Livy’s account. The Latin league led by Octavius Mamilius was coming against Rome. Then for the first time the Romans thought of a dictator. Is not Livy’s implication clear that the Roman dictator was inspired by, even modelled on, the Latin federal dictator? Not even de Sanctis and all the others who have seen the connection with the league have adduced this text in their support.
Admittedly, it is only Livy’s implication. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> We mentioned at the beginning of this note, that for the later annalists the dictatorship was an office long in disuse, the classical dictatorship, that is. In fact, as many scholars have seen, that existed only in the fifth and fourth centuries, and was being phased out even in the third. The Sullan and Caesarian revivals were completely different, but excited historical and antiquarian interest. Macer’s comments were undoubtedly part of his popularis reaction to Sulla. After Caesar’s autocracy, the office was abolished by M. Antonius in 44 (<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0021%3Aspeech%3D1%3Asection%3D3">Cic. <cite>Phil</cite> 1.3</a>[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-5" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-5">5</a>] etc). But then in 22, there was clamour in Rome that Augustus should assume it, from both the senate at the people (<a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/augustus/Res_Gestae/1*.html#5">RG 3</a>). More pertinently, we may assume that there was much talk of dictatorship in 28/27 (note <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D9">Tac. Ann. 1.9</a>[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-6" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-6">6</a>]). And Livy was writing books 1-5 between 27 and 25 B.C.
— Ronald T. Ridley (1979), <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41244992"><cite class="article">The Origin of the Roman Dictatorship: An Overlooked Opinion</cite></a>. In <cite>Rheinisches Museum für Philologie</cite>, 1979, Neue Folge, 122. Bd., H. 3/4 (1979), 303-309.
</blockquote></li>
</ul>
Anyway, remember that bit about folks who suggest that Dionysios of Halicarnassus offered an alternative theory, focused on domestic political conflicts (specifically, class conflicts) within Rome as the reason for instituting the archaic dictatorship? Ridley doesn’t think much of that reading. But this guy does:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20452569"><cite class="article">The Tyranny of Dictatorship: When the Greek Tyrant Met the Roman Dictator</cite></a>, Andreas Kalyvas. <cite>Political Theory</cite> 35.4 (Aug. 2007), 412-442.</li>
</ul>
In particular, Kalyvas wants to argue that Dionysius[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-7" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-7">7</a>], and also, in a later century, Appian[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-8" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-8">8</a>], were engaged in a more or less deliberate effort to challenge traditional Roman views of the Dictator, by viewing it in light of classical Greek political writing on the rule of Tyrants. Modern writing about authoritarianism typically treats dictatorship and tyranny as two roughly equivalent words for the same sort of violent, extralegal, unaccountable and one-man or closed-circle political regimes. But ancient Roman (Latin) writers mostly saw these as two very different things. Kalyvas wants to argue that Dionysius and Appian may actually be ancient forerunners to the modern view — that they wrote about the older and newer Roman dictatorships as a form of <q>elective</q> tyranny[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-9" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-9">9</a>] and that this may reflect a critical assessment that the Roman institution of dictatorship was repressive and dangerous from the start, more like tyranny than patriotic Roman authors seemed to realize, and that it always carried within itself the poisons that would ultimately seep out into republican political institutions and send them down into warlord violence, civil war and authoritarian rule.
<blockquote>
For most of the twentieth century the concepts of dictatorship and tyranny were treated as synonyms, two names for one form of autocratic political rule. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> The dictator and tyrant were fused together in a single figure, that of illegality, violence, and arbitrariness, and perceived as a common threat to political freedom, constitutionalism, and the rule of law, a threat the ancients had formulated as political enslavement. Accordingly, throughout the century, the conceptual identification provided normative resources to those who opposed the modern revival of dictatorship. Denunciations of the many forms of dictatorship, both of the Right and the Left, which emerged over the course of the last century as modern manifestations of tyranny mobilized repeatedly these resources.
The equation of dictatorship and tyranny is not, however, unique to the twentieth century. It appeared as well in a preceding historical period in the shifting political context of the revolutionary upheavals of Europe and its oversees colonies and the decline of the monarchical order. Claude Nicolet rightly observes that <q>since the eighteenth century,</q> the term dictatorship <q>has served to refer to despotisms or tyrannies—in other words, essentially powers which are far from having been regularly conferred, and instead had been usurped through force or deceipt. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Nicolet’s narrative accurately captures the modern blending of the two terms and correctly relocates it within the broader historical movement and diffusion of republicanism. But his story is incomplete. It disregards a still earlier moment in Western political history when the dictator began to look dangerously like a tyrant. In the turbulent transitional period between the Roman republic and the Principate, Sulla and Caesar, and their struggle for supreme power gravely tested the institution of dictatorship. The <q>abuse</q> of this emergency institution, its exercise outside the limits delineated by the established legal framework, its appropriation for the advancement of personal ambitions, and even its use against the republic itself, prompted a profound reconsideration of its nature, function, and value.
Two Greek historians of the early and high Imperial periods, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (60 BC-after 7 BC) and Appian of Alexandria (95-165 AC) undertook such a radical reassessment. While most of the annalists and <q>republican historians</q> cherished the memory of the republic and its institutions, among which dictatorship was held in the highest esteem, the writings of the two Greek narrators followed a different path. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> In their Greco-Roman synthesis dictatorship is re-described as <q>temporary tyranny by consent</q> and the tyrant as a <q>permanent dictator.</q> This historical and conceptual revisionism inaugurated a comparative study of the Roman institution of dictatorship and Greek theories of tyranny with some crucial implications [… for …] its very capacity to preserve the constitutional order. Was the abuse of Roman dictatorship accidental, the effect of moral decline ,or the result of its own unruly nature? <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Unlike Livy and Sallust who ascribed the fall of the republic to various external causes and their corrupt effects, Dionysius and Appian’s diagnoses suggested the preponderance of internal reasons for the inherent instability, decline, and ultimately fall of the Roman republic. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins>
Certainly, I am not suggesting to oppose Dionysius and Appian against more renowned and influential historians of their times in the name of some objective, <q>true</q>[<a href="#what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-10" class="footnoted" id="to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-10">10</a>] factual attributes of the Roman institution of dictatorship. Rather <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> I examine how the two concepts gradually came to be associated with new meanings as they were increasingly fused. I consider Dionysius and Appian’s unprecedented equation by focusing on the historical narratives, conceptual translations, and theoretical arguments that permitted the identification of the two terms. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins>
<ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Dionysius and Appian’s Greco-Roman synthesis altered the normative connotations associated with [the] classical ideal of dictatorship. It demystifies the republican portrayal of dictatorship and exposes the monster lurking beneath the hero, the wolf inside the soldier, the anomie [inhabiting] the law. The towering reputation dictatorship enjoyed with its martial aura of nobility, an ethical emobodiment of civic virtue and patriotism, are now all cast aside as institutional and oratory ornaments to reveal that dictatorship is another name for tyranny. As a consequence their histories disclosed a tyrannical kernel hidden inside the institutional fabric of republican government.
Furthermore, an additional ramification is that both Dionysius and Appian’s views question much later attempts, such as those of Mommsen and Carl Schmitt, to distinguish between two different dictatorships: an older, ancient dictatorship and its irregular, radical reinvention by Sulla and Caesar. Against this influential interpretation of two types of dictatorship, the one commissarial and the other constituent, the two Greek historians point to the historical continuity and institutional consistency of Roman dictatorship. jFor instance, in their historical revisions of Roman history, Sulla’s dictatorial tyranny loses all of its exceptional or innovative charactger. It is neither an unfortunate anomaly nor an erratic occurrence. His dictatorship does not signify a break in the history of the institution Instead, it is regarded as the repressed but permanent, endemic tyrannical possibility of dictatorial powers. Tyranny, therefore, is seen as an integral part of dictatorship. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Here, one cannot help but notice the tragic irony, even poetic justice, of Dionysius and Appian’s histories. Although the Romans took pride in overthrowing the monarchy, <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> they were ultimately unable to rid themselves of the (bad) king. And along with praising themselves for their devotion to the law and their patriotic respect for tradition and custom, the Romans opened up a permanent gap, an internal fissure in the legal edifice of their republic. To save the city, the constitution created this void, this empty space of the law, the space of a-nomia, where the dictator comes to encounter the tyrant in their common ambition to fill it up with the power once owned by the kings. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins>
— Andreas Kalyvas (2007), <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20452569"><cite class="article">The Tyranny of Dictatorship: When the Greek Tyrant Met the Roman Dictator</cite></a>. <cite>Political Theory</cite> 35.4 (Aug. 2007), 412-442.
</blockquote>
<ol class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-1">[1]Really, small independent Latin towns or city-states. —R.G.<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-1">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-2">[2]The right of a free citizen to to a court of their peers over a magistrate’s sentence. Ordinary magistrates could have their decisions questioned in court; a dictator could not. —R.G.<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-2">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-3">[3]For example, the Ridley paper doesn’t get into this, but old Roman dictators were <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0043%3Achapter%3D4">traditionally forbidden from riding into battle on horseback</a>.<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-3">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-4">[4]I guess even without the title, the name <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus#Name">Generalissimo Right-Reverend Son-of-God Caesar</a> has to count for something. Auctoritas!<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-4">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-5">[5][ad singulare enim M. Antoni factum festinat oratio. dictaturam, quae iam vim regiae potestatis obsederat, funditus ex re publica sustulit; de qua ne sententias quidem diximus. scriptum senatus consultum quod fieri vellet attulit, quo recitato auctoritatem eius summo studio secuti sumus / <q>… I am hastening to come to a very extraordinary act of virtue of Marcus Antonius. He utterly abolished from the constitution of the Republic the Dictatorship, which had by this time attained to the authority of regal power. And that measure was not even offered to us for discussion. He brought with him a decree of the senate, ready drawn up, ordering what he chose to have done: and when it had been read, we all submitted to his authority in the matter with the greatest eagerness….</q> Cicero; translation by C.D. Yonge, 1903. —R.G.]<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-5">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-6">[6][In the days just after Augustus’s death and funeral, Multus hinc ipso de Augusto sermo <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> multa Antonio, dum interfectores patris ulcisceretur, multa Lepido concessisse. postquam hic socordia senuerit, ille per libidines pessum datus sit, non aliud discordantis patriae remedium fuisse quam ut ab uno regeretur. non regno tamen neque dictatura sed principis nomine constitutam rem publicam / <q>Then followed much talk about Augustus himself <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> . He had often yielded to Antonius, while he was taking vengeance on his father’s murderers, often also to Lepidus. When the latter sank into feeble dotage and the former had been ruined by his profligacy, the only remedy for his distracted country was the rule of a single man. Yet the State had been organized under the name neither of a kingdom nor a dictatorship, but under that of a prince.</q> Tacitus; translation by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. —R.G.]<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-6">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-7">[7]A Greek-speaking historian of the Roman world, from the west coast of what’s now Turkey, who was writing about Roman history for Greek readers at the start of the Imperial period, around roughly the same time as Livy.<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-7">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-8">[8]Another Greek-speaking historian, from Alexandria in Roman-occupied Egypt, who wrote a lot about Rome’s civil wars and the collapse of the Republic, during the relatively stable dynasty of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-8">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-9">[9]Classical Greek writers sometimes talk about popular support as a component of tyranny, but typically classical Greek tyrants were seen as taking power through usurpation or violent coups, not through elective processes.<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-9">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-10">[10][Sic, for our sins. I can take a lot in the course of academic prose, but, pet peeve here, good lord how I look forward to the day when everyone, lo even unto the most affectedly postmodern fuzzy-wuzzy theory-heads, stop putting pointless scare quotes around the yeomanlike old word true. —R.G.]<a class="note-return" href="#to-what-im-reading-the-roman-republic-is-my-roman-empire-edition-n-10">↩</a></li></ol>
]]></content>
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</entry>
<entry>
<author>
<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
</author>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[New Perspectives on American History, 2023 GOP Edition]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2023/11/28/new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10700</id>
<updated>2023-11-28T17:20:20Z</updated>
<published>2023-11-28T17:12:50Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Here is a recent post seen on the Ex-Birb Site from Kevin Owen McCarthy, onetime Speaker of the House and current Representative in the so-called House of Representatives of the United States Congress. This was posted at 7:06 PM on November 26, 2023: @SpeakerMcCarthy: Think for one moment. In every single war that America has […]]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2023/11/28/new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition/"><![CDATA[Here is a recent post seen on the Ex-Birb Site from Kevin Owen McCarthy,[<a href="#new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-1">1</a>] onetime Speaker of the House and current Representative[<a href="#new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-2" class="footnoted" id="to-new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-2">2</a>] in the so-called House of Representatives of the United States Congress. This was posted at <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerMcCarthy/status/1728950835084747159">7:06 PM on November 26, 2023</a>:
<figure>
<a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerMcCarthy/status/1728950835084747159"><img src="https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/KevinMcCarthyOnTwitter-20231128.png" alt="Here is a screenshot of a post to X / Twitter dot com by Kevin McCarthy's official account, @SpeakerMcCarthy. There is a paragraph of text providing a caption for a video of McCarthy saying the same thing in a speech. The paragraph reads:" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10701" srcset="https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/KevinMcCarthyOnTwitter-20231128.png 598w, https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/KevinMcCarthyOnTwitter-20231128-245x300.png 245w" sizes="(max-width: 598px) 100vw, 598px" /></a>
<blockquote class="for-context">
@SpeakerMcCarthy: Think for one moment. In every single war that America has fought, we [sic] have never asked for land afterward—except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.</blockquote>
</figure>
Think for one moment.
Kevin O. McCarthy was born in Bakersfield. He currently represents the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_20th_congressional_district">20th Congressional district in the state of California</a>.
The State of California became part of the internationally-recognized territory of the United States of America in 1848, and then became a U.S. state in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_for_the_Admission_of_the_State_of_California">1850</a>, as a result of Article V of the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231128164256/http://www.quaqua.org/guadalupehidalgo.htm">Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo</a>.
<figure>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession" rel="attachment wp-att-10702"><img src="https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Wikipedia_Mexican_Cession.png" alt="Here is a map of the Mexican Cession (1848), highlighting all of the present-day states of California, Nevada and Utah, and parts of the present-day states of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico." class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10702" srcset="https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Wikipedia_Mexican_Cession.png 1920w, https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Wikipedia_Mexican_Cession-300x199.png 300w, https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Wikipedia_Mexican_Cession-768x508.png 768w, https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Wikipedia_Mexican_Cession-1024x678.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></a>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<h3>Article V</h3>
The boundary line between the two Republics shall commence in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, otherwise called Rio Bravo del Norte, or Opposite the mouth of its deepest branch, if it should have more than one branch emptying directly into the sea; from thence up the middle of that river, following the deepest channel, where it has more than one, to the point where it strikes the southern boundary of New Mexico; thence, westwardly, along the whole southern boundary of New Mexico (which runs north of the town called Paso) to its western termination; thence, northward, along the western line of New Mexico, until it intersects the first branch of the river Gila; (or if it should not intersect any branch of that river, then to the point on the said line nearest to such branch, and thence in a direct line to the same); thence down the middle of the said branch and of the said river, until it empties into the Rio Colorado; thence across the Rio Colorado, following the division line between Upper and Lower California, to the Pacific Ocean.
The southern and western limits of New Mexico, mentioned in the article, are those laid down in the map entitled “Map of the United Mexican States, as organized and defined by various acts of the Congress of said republic, and constructed according to the best authorities. Revised edition. Published at New York, in 1847, by J. Disturnell,” of which map a copy is added to this treaty, bearing the signatures and seals of the undersigned Plenipotentiaries. And, in order to preclude all difficulty in tracing upon the ground the limit separating Upper from Lower California, it is agreed that the said limit shall consist of a straight line drawn from the middle of the Rio Gila, where it unites with the Colorado, to a point on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, distant one marine league due south of the southernmost point of the port of San Diego, according to the plan of said port made in the year 1782 by Don Juan Pantoja, second sailing-master of the Spanish fleet, and published at Madrid in the year 1802, in the atlas to the voyage of the schooners Sutil and Mexicana; of which plan a copy is hereunto added, signed and sealed by the respective Plenipotentiaries.
In order to designate the boundary line with due precision, upon authoritative maps, and to establish upon the ground land-marks which shall show the limits of both republics, as described in the present article, the two Governments shall each appoint a commissioner and a surveyor, who, before the expiration of one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, shall meet at the port of San Diego, and proceed to run and mark the said boundary in its whole course to the mouth of the Rio Bravo del Norte. They shall keep journals and make out plans of their operations; and the result agreed upon by them shall be deemed a part of this treaty, and shall have the same force as if it were inserted therein. The two Governments will amicably agree regarding what may be necessary to these persons, and also as to their respective escorts, should such be necessary.
The boundary line established by this article shall be religiously respected by each of the two republics, and no change shall ever be made therein, except by the express and free consent of both nations, lawfully given by the General Government of each, in conformity with its own constitution.
— <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231128164256/http://www.quaqua.org/guadalupehidalgo.htm">Treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and settlement between the United States of America and the United Mexican States concluded at Guadalupe Hidalgo</a> (English version).
</blockquote>
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and ratified in 1848. In the treaty the United States government demanded the accession of 525,000 square miles of land formerly claimed by the Mexican Republic after invading Mexico, killing about 25,000 Mexicans, and finally conquering and occupying the capital city, in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War">declared war from 1846-1848</a>.[<a href="#new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-3" class="footnoted" id="to-new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-3">3</a>]
<blockquote>
<h3>Mexican-American War</h3>
Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War">Mexican-American War</a>
Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México were captured soon after the start of the war and the last resistance there was subdued in January 1847, but Mexico would not accept the loss of territory. Therefore, during 1847, troops from the United States invaded central Mexico and occupied the Mexican capital of Mexico City, but still no Mexican government was willing to ratify the transfer of the northern territories to the U.S. It was uncertain whether any treaty could be reached. There was even an All of Mexico Movement proposing complete annexation of Mexico among Eastern Democrats but opposed by Southerners like John C. Calhoun who wanted the additional territory for their crops but not the large population of central Mexico.
Eventually Nicholas Trist forged the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, explicitly redefining the border between Mexico and the United States in early 1848 after President Polk had already attempted to recall him from Mexico as a failure. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins>
The Mexican Cession as ordinarily understood (i.e. excluding lands claimed by Texas) amounted to 525,000 square miles (1,400,000 km2), or 14.9% of the total area of the current United States. If the disputed western Texas claims are also included, that amounts to a total of 750,000 square miles (1,900,000 km2). If all of Texas had been seized, since Mexico had not previously acknowledged the loss of any part of Texas, the total area ceded under this treaty comes to 915,000 square miles (2,400,000 km2).
Considering the seizures, including all of Texas, Mexico lost 55% of its pre-1836 territory in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.[<a href="#new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-4" class="footnoted" id="to-new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-4">4</a>] <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins>
— <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession">WikiPedia: Mexican Cession</a> 
</blockquote>
About 27% of the current American population — including Kevin O. McCarthy, when he is not in Washington, D.C. — lives in states that were partly or entirely transferred to the United States as part of the Mexican Cession. If you think for one moment, you might notice that the reason Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, Alta California is a U.S. Congressman and not a Mexican national, is precisely because he was born and grew up and worked and lives on land that the U.S. government, which I have to presume is what he means by <q>America</q> <q>asked for</q> in a list of treaty demands at the end of a crushing victory in a years-long war of conquest and occupation. After a moment, you might wonder what the point of these kind of statements, patriotic guff that is just obviously and wildly non-factual, counter-factual, perhaps basically anti-factual in its presentation, could possibly be.
<ol class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-1">[1]The Roger H. Sterling Jr. of American politics.<a class="note-return" href="#to-new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-1">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-2">[2][Sic. —R.G.]<a class="note-return" href="#to-new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-2">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-3">[3]In point of fact, a lot of the land that the U.S. government asked for after the war was only claimed by Mexico, but not really settled by Mexican people or controlled by the Mexican government. Other people lived there at the time, in communities of their own — most of them tribal Indians. Article XI of the same treaty actually acknowledges this, when it provides for U.S. security guarantees to Mexico against the other people living in the territory, <q>Considering that a great part of the territories, which, by the present treaty, are to be comprehended for the future within the limits of the United States, is now occupied by savage tribes [sic], who will hereafter be under the exclusive control of the Government of the United States….</q> As a result both of the guarantees made in this article, and also the U.S.’s own efforts to control and settle colonies of Americans in the interior of the territory, they spent the next three decades or so repeatedly fighting wars with Indians in the southwest territories they patrolled, taking over control of the land from the defeated nations, and forcing them to migrate to new territories or to settle on reservations.<a class="note-return" href="#to-new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-3">↩</a></li>
<li class="footnote" id="new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-4">[4][<a href="https://www.blm.gov/natacq/pls02/pls1-1_02.pdf">Table 1.1 Acquisition of the Public Domain 1781–1867</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060929200726/http://www.blm.gov/natacq/pls02/pls1-1_02.pdf">Archived</a> September 29, 2006, at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine">Wayback Machine</a>. —Wikipedia]<a class="note-return" href="#to-new-perspectives-on-american-history-2023-gop-edition-n-4">↩</a></li></ol>
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<name>Rad Geek</name>
<uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri>
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<title type="html"><![CDATA[Trust No One Comix]]></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2023/11/17/trust-no-one-comix/" />
<id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10695</id>
<updated>2023-11-17T19:50:01Z</updated>
<published>2023-11-17T19:48:46Z</published>
<category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/>
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Cat and Girl: The Truth Is Out There (14 November 2023) (By Dorothy @ CatAndGirl.com. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License..)]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2023/11/17/trust-no-one-comix/"><![CDATA[<figure>
<figcaption>Cat and Girl: The Truth Is Out There (14 November 2023)</figcaption>
<a href="https://catandgirl.com/the-truth-is-out-there/" rel="attachment wp-att-10696"><img src="https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2023-11-07-cg90conspiracy.gif" alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-10696" /></a>
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(By Dorothy @ CatAndGirl.com. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231117194815/https://catandgirl.com/the-truth-is-out-there/">Licensed</a> under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.</a>.)
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<h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from Cat And Girl</h3>
<div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://catandgirl.com/the-truth-is-out-there/"><img src="https://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2023-11-07-cg90conspiracy-150x150.gif" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div>
<a href="https://catandgirl.com/the-truth-is-out-there/">The Truth Is Out There</a>
The World Might Be Far ...Er Than We're Allowed To See
Dorothy @ CatAndGirl.com @ catandgirl.com
 
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