Tuesday, June 23, 2009
New blog.
I have a new blog, Chesterton of the Valley of the Winds. Pete Takeshi suggested the title a few years ago, but had forgotten it when I mentioned it to him recently -- conveniently enough, so that he got to both propose the joke and enjoy it. I hope to get some suitably disturbing header art soon; it will focus on political, religious, sociological, etc. subjects, while The Critical Fan will be concerned with gaming.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The US in decline...
I remember how my father had once won an argument against the Confederacy by saying that had the South won its war, there would be two Americas, and the South would be the impoverished one. It wasn't until later -- not espirit d'escalier so much as espirit d'different conversation with someone I agree with (I tend to think better when I'm not also having to defend myself) -- that I thought of the refutation that it was better to be a pauper in the Confederacy than an aborted fetus in the Union; but it appears that that argument isn't necessary after all, and perhaps a Confederacy independent of the Union would have lived a little longer than the unified country is going to.
Look at this -- it's a description of decline pure and simple; the failure to comprehend what's going on here (not least among the Slashdot commentors) is staggering but familiar. I'm sure that excavators in Rome will eventually turn up a discussion from the 300s, posted on the famous nook of the Forum wall with the TCP (Tablet Collation Protocol) address of ptht://caesurapunctum.ord, that's similarly uncomprehending about the larger meaning of inviting barbarians to garrison the limes of Gaul.
Anyone who has read the Foundation Trilogy will remember that the heart of the civilization remains warm even after the extremities have fallen off with cold; and if this isn't civilizational frostbite, I'll buy a hat and eat it. I would say that the reader should be on guard -- but I'm not sure what to recommend.
I'm also not sure that I'd argue for the South again, if I had the chance. I had worked on the assumption -- very widely held -- that slavery was on its way out and would have been abolished in a couple of decades, at most, anyways; but more recent research reveals that slavery was becoming _more_ profitable, not less, in the 1840s-60s, with the increase in industrialization. I really should have seen that coming...
Not to mention that, as a columnist on MercatorNet pointed out, had slavery survived to around 1900, it would have gotten a colossal ideological boost from the scientific racism of that era. Now remember that scientific racism was only discredited by the discovery of the Nazi concentration camps; in other words, in this situation, the only thing that would end slavery in the 20th century would be victory in WWII. (If Germany won WWI, European civilization would probably have continued as it was -- slavery continuing, and no general renunciation of scientific racism, but at least also no irresponsible withdrawal from the colonies.)
The thing is, WWII was a nearer-run war than the United States' industrial production (as much in one month of 1943 as the Nazis and Japanese together produced in the entire war, IIRC) would have you believe; counterbalancing our ridiculous advantage in manpower was a ridiculous deficiency in tactics. Without the martial vigor lent to the country by the South, the US might not have succeeded in its objective of overwhelming the Axis Powers with shoddy tanks and inadequately-trained men; even as it was, it was a nearer-run thing than it looked, and ended with staggering casualties.
Perhaps Stalin could have picked up the slack, but I'm not entirely sure -- he conspired himself out of 85% of his ammunition capacity with the massive buildup of resources right on the German border, and had the US not been able to equip him during the war, he might have lost, too. Even had he won, a WWII that was purely a Soviet victory would have done little to discredit eugenics; Buchenwald had a higher rate of casualties among its inmates in Soviet times than when it was run by the Nazis themselves.
(Also, if you're wondering: protocollon transportandi hypertextes; caesura and punctum are the Latin terms for a slash and a period; et '.ord' est TLD ad ordinationibus. Salve!)
Look at this -- it's a description of decline pure and simple; the failure to comprehend what's going on here (not least among the Slashdot commentors) is staggering but familiar. I'm sure that excavators in Rome will eventually turn up a discussion from the 300s, posted on the famous nook of the Forum wall with the TCP (Tablet Collation Protocol) address of ptht://caesurapunctum.ord, that's similarly uncomprehending about the larger meaning of inviting barbarians to garrison the limes of Gaul.
Anyone who has read the Foundation Trilogy will remember that the heart of the civilization remains warm even after the extremities have fallen off with cold; and if this isn't civilizational frostbite, I'll buy a hat and eat it. I would say that the reader should be on guard -- but I'm not sure what to recommend.
I'm also not sure that I'd argue for the South again, if I had the chance. I had worked on the assumption -- very widely held -- that slavery was on its way out and would have been abolished in a couple of decades, at most, anyways; but more recent research reveals that slavery was becoming _more_ profitable, not less, in the 1840s-60s, with the increase in industrialization. I really should have seen that coming...
Not to mention that, as a columnist on MercatorNet pointed out, had slavery survived to around 1900, it would have gotten a colossal ideological boost from the scientific racism of that era. Now remember that scientific racism was only discredited by the discovery of the Nazi concentration camps; in other words, in this situation, the only thing that would end slavery in the 20th century would be victory in WWII. (If Germany won WWI, European civilization would probably have continued as it was -- slavery continuing, and no general renunciation of scientific racism, but at least also no irresponsible withdrawal from the colonies.)
The thing is, WWII was a nearer-run war than the United States' industrial production (as much in one month of 1943 as the Nazis and Japanese together produced in the entire war, IIRC) would have you believe; counterbalancing our ridiculous advantage in manpower was a ridiculous deficiency in tactics. Without the martial vigor lent to the country by the South, the US might not have succeeded in its objective of overwhelming the Axis Powers with shoddy tanks and inadequately-trained men; even as it was, it was a nearer-run thing than it looked, and ended with staggering casualties.
Perhaps Stalin could have picked up the slack, but I'm not entirely sure -- he conspired himself out of 85% of his ammunition capacity with the massive buildup of resources right on the German border, and had the US not been able to equip him during the war, he might have lost, too. Even had he won, a WWII that was purely a Soviet victory would have done little to discredit eugenics; Buchenwald had a higher rate of casualties among its inmates in Soviet times than when it was run by the Nazis themselves.
(Also, if you're wondering: protocollon transportandi hypertextes; caesura and punctum are the Latin terms for a slash and a period; et '.ord' est TLD ad ordinationibus. Salve!)
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