3 ms·

This is an interesting point of view, to me it seems that we are using significantly different approaches. If I understand what you mean I disagree with this a

by afiori 6y ago

This is an interesting point of view, to me it seems that we are using significantly different approaches. If I understand what you mean I disagree with this application of granfalloon. In most modern nations the bond between the people is that of shared trust, there is nothing that links me to someone living in a far away part of my country except a shared implicit assumption that we are probably slightly more predisposed to care about our country than the average random human. A bunch of people loosely connected by this is in my opinion not a granfalloon, as mutual trust is the stuff economies are made of. In this concept then there would be a spectrum of shared trust and cities states are mostly on the "more" side and nations more on the "less" side. I don't have a good name for the country where peripheric cities have little to no connection to their king except sometime paying taxes. I can form arguments for both calling such a city a state and for not calling such a city a state.

082349872349872 6y ago
Something that occurred to me last night: "politics" comes from the greek polis (city). I agree on the spectrum[1] of shared trust. As for the state/non-state status of loosely connected cities, consider the case of my own: in the thirteenth century it got a charter of freedom from the bishop who previously administered it as property of the diocese, and in the fourteenth century its self-administration was formalised to the point of reporting directly[2] to the Holy Roman Emperor. As modern wags have said the HRE was none of the three, I believe that means that a free city was much more on the state[3] end of the spectrum. For an example of how recent nationalism is, Triumph of the Will has a scene[4] where a Nazi repeatedly calls out "where are you from, comrade?" and is answered by another Nazi proudly saying "I'm from X" (where X ranges over locations around the country), which I take to imply that in the 1930s, part of what Hitler had been selling was the notion of a Deutschland that was superior to the sum of its regional[5] affiliations. [1] Pedantically, my usage of granfalloon is consistent with Vonnegut's, as he explicitly uses "Hoosiers" (a demonym for the state of Indiana) as an example of a granfalloon, so if regional identities already count then national ones certainly do. (End of Pedantry) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city [3] During its quarrels in this period with neighbouring Ducs and Freiherren, my city deployed its own military, both building and sacking castles, in pursuit of its own foreign policy. [4] anticipating the Starship Troopers movie's "I'm doing my part" commercials. [5] I don't know where you're from, but although in our day I think the idea of a german nation (especially post-reunification) is very strong, regional dialects remain more actively differentiated than in, say, france.
- afiori 6y ago
  > [5] I don't know where you're from, but although in our day I think the idea of a german nation (especially post-reunification) is very strong, regional dialects remain more actively differentiated than in, say, france. Italy, from my couple of years of experience in Germany we are in a pretty similar situation. A German colleague of mine lived near Trier and he could not understand at all the (strict) dialect of the area, I could predict something similar if I where to move to Venice or Sardinia. I do not have much to contribute to this thread, but I would like to recommend to you a couple of book reviews that you might find interesting: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-the-grain/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-th... https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like-a-state/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-lik... They describe an interesting perspective on the establishment and function of a centralized state.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Grazie! Villagers in my area used to not only live in relatively inaccessible bits of mountain, but were also big on potatoes and cheese (which, like wine and especially schnapps, one could hide in the local caves). I'd made the connection between breeding multi-coloured goats and not-so-attractively-taxable before, but had never considered the tubers might have similar motivations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumance For a more modern productivity czar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz (plant fencerow to fencerow! get big or get out! for contrast, we leave a margin around all fields for wildlife and people to traverse. I had a colleague tell me he had had to go big instead of getting out ... which is why his dairy operation now runs at a whopping 60 head.) In another legibility argument, there's the occupation Lavoisier lost his head over: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier#Ferme_générale_and_marriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier#Ferme_généra... (you get the right to collect taxes from the king, who you owe fixed sums over a fixed period. anything over that amount you manage to collect is the vig.) > "Only wealthy aristocrats tended to have fixed surnames…Imagine the dilemma of a tithe or capitation-tax collector [in England] faced with a male population, 90% of whom bore just six Christian names (John, William, Thomas, Robert, Richard, and Henry)." Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24659609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24659609

by afiori 6y ago

082349872349872 6y ago

Something that occurred to me last night: "politics" comes from the greek polis (city). I agree on the spectrum[1] of shared trust. As for the state/non-state status of loosely connected cities, consider the case of my own: in the thirteenth century it got a charter of freedom from the bishop who previously administered it as property of the diocese, and in the fourteenth century its self-administration was formalised to the point of reporting directly[2] to the Holy Roman Emperor. As modern wags have said the HRE was none of the three, I believe that means that a free city was much more on the state[3] end of the spectrum. For an example of how recent nationalism is, Triumph of the Will has a scene[4] where a Nazi repeatedly calls out "where are you from, comrade?" and is answered by another Nazi proudly saying "I'm from X" (where X ranges over locations around the country), which I take to imply that in the 1930s, part of what Hitler had been selling was the notion of a Deutschland that was superior to the sum of its regional[5] affiliations. [1] Pedantically, my usage of granfalloon is consistent with Vonnegut's, as he explicitly uses "Hoosiers" (a demonym for the state of Indiana) as an example of a granfalloon, so if regional identities already count then national ones certainly do. (End of Pedantry) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city [3] During its quarrels in this period with neighbouring Ducs and Freiherren, my city deployed its own military, both building and sacking castles, in pursuit of its own foreign policy. [4] anticipating the Starship Troopers movie's "I'm doing my part" commercials. [5] I don't know where you're from, but although in our day I think the idea of a german nation (especially post-reunification) is very strong, regional dialects remain more actively differentiated than in, say, france.

afiori 6y ago
> [5] I don't know where you're from, but although in our day I think the idea of a german nation (especially post-reunification) is very strong, regional dialects remain more actively differentiated than in, say, france. Italy, from my couple of years of experience in Germany we are in a pretty similar situation. A German colleague of mine lived near Trier and he could not understand at all the (strict) dialect of the area, I could predict something similar if I where to move to Venice or Sardinia. I do not have much to contribute to this thread, but I would like to recommend to you a couple of book reviews that you might find interesting: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-the-grain/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-th... https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like-a-state/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-lik... They describe an interesting perspective on the establishment and function of a centralized state.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Grazie! Villagers in my area used to not only live in relatively inaccessible bits of mountain, but were also big on potatoes and cheese (which, like wine and especially schnapps, one could hide in the local caves). I'd made the connection between breeding multi-coloured goats and not-so-attractively-taxable before, but had never considered the tubers might have similar motivations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumance For a more modern productivity czar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz (plant fencerow to fencerow! get big or get out! for contrast, we leave a margin around all fields for wildlife and people to traverse. I had a colleague tell me he had had to go big instead of getting out ... which is why his dairy operation now runs at a whopping 60 head.) In another legibility argument, there's the occupation Lavoisier lost his head over: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier#Ferme_générale_and_marriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier#Ferme_généra... (you get the right to collect taxes from the king, who you owe fixed sums over a fixed period. anything over that amount you manage to collect is the vig.) > "Only wealthy aristocrats tended to have fixed surnames…Imagine the dilemma of a tithe or capitation-tax collector [in England] faced with a male population, 90% of whom bore just six Christian names (John, William, Thomas, Robert, Richard, and Henry)." Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24659609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24659609