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One day we will be able to test political ideas in a realistic simulator. Then we will have the ability inform citizens of the effects of what they are being to

One day we will be able to test political ideas in a realistic simulator. Then we will have the ability inform citizens of the effects of what they are being told. When that happens, they will realize that the low merit ideas of authors such as this guy are useless. The decline of Sparta was due to the greed of the elite, who became self-serving at the expense of the rest. Not because of the merit of Spartan soldiers.

EA-3167 3y ago
Then some day after that, we'll realize that our simulations aren't as realistic as we imagined, and we'll be faced with entrenched ideas which enjoy the imprimatur of having "passed the simulator test" despite the questionable value that provides. All models are wrong, some are useful; humanity will be dead long before that changes.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  Even successful people have a success rate below 100%, and the more things you try the more failures you will accrue. For any successful person that has ever lived you can cherrypick all their failures and write an article like this. The only person that doesn't fail is the person that never tries anything. Being successful is not about never failing. This article completely ignores the Battle of Thermopylae which is probably one of the things Spartans are the most known for. In that sense, the author himself failed to portray Spartans fairly, making him a failed historian. In 100 years this historian will be completely forgotten.
  - santoshalper 3y ago
    Imagine being so sensitive to criticism of people who you never met, existed thousands of years ago, and you only really know about through an absurd pop-culture portrayal. Somebody has taken way too much of his identity from 300.
    - 29athrowaway 3y ago
      It's very clear that the aim of the article is not talking about Sparta. It's talking about how modern society should fit the expectations of this historian more. And his aspirations would be to have a society less like Sparta. Meaning less fit, respected people that get mobilized to protect their territory and more of the opposite perhaps? The semantic opposite is flaccid, laughable people that get invaded all the time. Perhaps that would be more aligned with the author's preferences.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
brazzy 3y ago
>When that happens, they will realize that the low merit ideas of authors such as this guy are useless. Which ideas are you specifically talking about? >The decline of Sparta was due to the greed of the elite, who became self-serving at the expense of the rest. Not because of the merit of Spartan soldiers. Did you even read the article? Spartan soldiers were the elite. One major reason why Sparta declined was that this severely limited the size of armies they could field. And, as the article argues (supported with lots of hard historical facts), their military merit was, overall, rather mediocre.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  > Sparta declined was that this severely limited the size of armies they could field. Agreed. That is a scalability problem, it does not mean they were a failure at large in every aspect. Rolls Royce, Ferrari and Lamborghini products also don't scale as much as Toyota products but many people aspire to have them. > their military merit was, overall, rather mediocre. Their merit is studied in military academies around the world. Those are the types of studies that actually matter and can be tested in real situations of life and death.
  - brazzy 3y ago
    > Agreed. That is a scalability problem, it does not mean they were a failure at large in every aspect. No, but the fact that they weren't actually winning most of their battles means they were not exactly a success in the military aspect, which was kind of the only thing they had going for them, seeing as their society was otherwise pretty shit (admittedly, their upperclass women had a few more freedoms than those in other Greek states). > Their merit is studied in military academies around the world. Those are the types of studies that actually matter and can be tested in real situations of life and death. Excuse me, which military academies these days are fighting battles using spears and shields? Please tell me you're not talking about Steve Pressfield "Warrior Ethos" bullshit.
    - orwin 3y ago
      Their upper class women had more than 'a few more freedom', especially after their husbands died: they basically controlled merchants and foreign policy.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Isn't this kind of what the author was saying? Spartan Military and Elites were a closely overlapping Venn-diagram, and they both were corruptible. I'm not seeing a wide enough divergence in what you are saying compared to the author to justify that the author has 'low merit ideas'. Unless you are thinking the ruling class elites and the soldiers were very distinct groups? But that wasn't really the case was it? It was a military society right? So Soldiers and rulers were the same group. So why are you stating the decline was because of 'elite's but not the 'soldiers' thus the article was 'low merit', when those were same group?
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  Read this first. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephor
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Guess we're both wrong. Ephor's were Neither Elites nor Soldiers exclusively. Or probably in the middle. History is lot more messy than the movie. The wiki does agree that they were pretty corrupt, but also makes point that Ephor's came from the general population. "The ephors were elected by the popular assembly, and all citizens were eligible." Think this comes back around to making same point as article. That Ephors weren't some exclusive class of elites, but more that the general population were kind of corrupt and fought to get these plumb corrupt positions. "According to Aristotle, the ephors frequently came from poverty because any Spartan citizen could hold the position, and it was not exclusive to the upper-class. Aristotle stated that because of this they were often liable to corruption.[19]"
    - 29athrowaway 3y ago
      Of what movie are you talking about? Did I ever reference a movie? If you want to watch anything watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGCbh8ggUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGCbh8ggUs

EA-3167 3y ago

Then some day after that, we'll realize that our simulations aren't as realistic as we imagined, and we'll be faced with entrenched ideas which enjoy the imprimatur of having "passed the simulator test" despite the questionable value that provides. All models are wrong, some are useful; humanity will be dead long before that changes.

29athrowaway 3y ago
Even successful people have a success rate below 100%, and the more things you try the more failures you will accrue. For any successful person that has ever lived you can cherrypick all their failures and write an article like this. The only person that doesn't fail is the person that never tries anything. Being successful is not about never failing. This article completely ignores the Battle of Thermopylae which is probably one of the things Spartans are the most known for. In that sense, the author himself failed to portray Spartans fairly, making him a failed historian. In 100 years this historian will be completely forgotten.
- santoshalper 3y ago
  Imagine being so sensitive to criticism of people who you never met, existed thousands of years ago, and you only really know about through an absurd pop-culture portrayal. Somebody has taken way too much of his identity from 300.
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    It's very clear that the aim of the article is not talking about Sparta. It's talking about how modern society should fit the expectations of this historian more. And his aspirations would be to have a society less like Sparta. Meaning less fit, respected people that get mobilized to protect their territory and more of the opposite perhaps? The semantic opposite is flaccid, laughable people that get invaded all the time. Perhaps that would be more aligned with the author's preferences.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

brazzy 3y ago

>When that happens, they will realize that the low merit ideas of authors such as this guy are useless. Which ideas are you specifically talking about? >The decline of Sparta was due to the greed of the elite, who became self-serving at the expense of the rest. Not because of the merit of Spartan soldiers. Did you even read the article? Spartan soldiers were the elite. One major reason why Sparta declined was that this severely limited the size of armies they could field. And, as the article argues (supported with lots of hard historical facts), their military merit was, overall, rather mediocre.

29athrowaway 3y ago
> Sparta declined was that this severely limited the size of armies they could field. Agreed. That is a scalability problem, it does not mean they were a failure at large in every aspect. Rolls Royce, Ferrari and Lamborghini products also don't scale as much as Toyota products but many people aspire to have them. > their military merit was, overall, rather mediocre. Their merit is studied in military academies around the world. Those are the types of studies that actually matter and can be tested in real situations of life and death.
- brazzy 3y ago
  > Agreed. That is a scalability problem, it does not mean they were a failure at large in every aspect. No, but the fact that they weren't actually winning most of their battles means they were not exactly a success in the military aspect, which was kind of the only thing they had going for them, seeing as their society was otherwise pretty shit (admittedly, their upperclass women had a few more freedoms than those in other Greek states). > Their merit is studied in military academies around the world. Those are the types of studies that actually matter and can be tested in real situations of life and death. Excuse me, which military academies these days are fighting battles using spears and shields? Please tell me you're not talking about Steve Pressfield "Warrior Ethos" bullshit.
  - orwin 3y ago
    Their upper class women had more than 'a few more freedom', especially after their husbands died: they basically controlled merchants and foreign policy.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Isn't this kind of what the author was saying? Spartan Military and Elites were a closely overlapping Venn-diagram, and they both were corruptible. I'm not seeing a wide enough divergence in what you are saying compared to the author to justify that the author has 'low merit ideas'. Unless you are thinking the ruling class elites and the soldiers were very distinct groups? But that wasn't really the case was it? It was a military society right? So Soldiers and rulers were the same group. So why are you stating the decline was because of 'elite's but not the 'soldiers' thus the article was 'low merit', when those were same group?

29athrowaway 3y ago
Read this first. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephor
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Guess we're both wrong. Ephor's were Neither Elites nor Soldiers exclusively. Or probably in the middle. History is lot more messy than the movie. The wiki does agree that they were pretty corrupt, but also makes point that Ephor's came from the general population. "The ephors were elected by the popular assembly, and all citizens were eligible." Think this comes back around to making same point as article. That Ephors weren't some exclusive class of elites, but more that the general population were kind of corrupt and fought to get these plumb corrupt positions. "According to Aristotle, the ephors frequently came from poverty because any Spartan citizen could hold the position, and it was not exclusive to the upper-class. Aristotle stated that because of this they were often liable to corruption.[19]"
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    Of what movie are you talking about? Did I ever reference a movie? If you want to watch anything watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGCbh8ggUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGCbh8ggUs