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Not to be coy, but what do you mean by that? The reason I ask is because I think many of us use these terms, but without ever thinking about exactly which behav

Not to be coy, but what do you mean by that? The reason I ask is because I think many of us use these terms, but without ever thinking about exactly which behaviors we're critiquing, or how they relate to what we truly value. For instance both the Roman and Greek Empires deserve immense respect, yet they were both often imperial empires ruled by dictators. The same is no less true of many societies that played key roles during The Renaissance, and patrons of the talents of the era. I hold immense respect for China, because I think they're achieving great things. I also think there is a high probability that they will be the first society to start creating permanent off-planet colonizations, which is what will probably signal the birth of the next era of humanity, so that in the future a name like Wang Yie might lie right alongside Neil Armstrong. On the other hand I certainly don't think the US should emulate them. It's important for the world to be multipolar, not only in alliances, but also in ideology, perspective, and behavior. What will happen to China once they inevitably find themselves with a leader who is not socially motivated, or who is incompetent? In such a centralized system outright collapse is not out of the question. Or perhaps they'll be just fine? Who knows? By maintaining a wide diversity of systems across the world, I think we maximize our chances of collective success and minimize our chances of collective failure.

andrewflnr 1y ago
Indeed, I think Rome, Greece and other conquering powers get more respect than they deserve. There's no actual reason so many people have to die for these countries' national ambitions. Feel free to generalize to the US, etc.
- foxglacier 1y ago
  Didn't Rome save a lot of lives by pax romana? Perhaps it was actually better in terms of loss of life to be conquered by Rome than have endless wars among yourselves. Applies to the US too.
  - curbedsidewalk 1y ago
    The conquest of Gaul was essentially genocide. Ceaser killed one third of the population, enslaved another, and left the rest to live under Roman rule. My suspicion is Gauls would have been better off having petty wars among themselves than this.
  - plopilop 1y ago
    You can defend a lot of atrocities by arguing "for the greater good" and comparing to uchronic hypotheticals. I could as well argue that without Rome, the greek democracies would have been much more prevalent, and lead to modern democracies much sooner. Or that a world leader would have emerged, leading the ancient world to endless peace and prosperity.
coffeebeqn 1y ago
> who is incompetent I just hope we never go back to Mao-levels of incompetence
- ggm 1y ago
  Must.. resist.. temptation.. Killing all sparrows, compared to defunding vaccine science in the wreckage of a pandemic.. Village Steel making compared to literally cancelling construction projects for advanced wind turbines
  - yanhangyhy 1y ago
    Maybe this is a surprise. Nowadays, young people are increasingly fond of Mao. He wasn’t a perfect person, but he spent his entire life exploring communism and trying to finally eliminate wealth inequality and privileged classes. Older people might not like him as much, because they were more influenced by the West and dislike China’s system more. But with China’s rise and Trump’s hypocrisy, I can predict that Mao will become increasingly popular in China.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
      It's worth acknowledging that Mao became increasingly erratic with age. Some of his early achievements are still very much seen in a positive light (eg. as a nation builder).
      - yanhangyhy 1y ago
        yes. in my earlier age, the offical statement from CCP of him is 70% achievement and 30% fault. but as the inequality increase in china, people has more positive view of him.
        grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
BrenBarn 1y ago
I wouldn't think the Roman empire was a good thing if we had it today. We can "respect" those older cultures in their context while still recognizing that they were in many ways horrifying by modern standards.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  In what way would they be horrifying? The Romans advanced public works, infrastructure, and other such things on an absolutely monumental scale. Many roads built by the Roman Empire are still even in use today! And I think Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the best example in history of a genuinely socially motivated leader. And the lands under their rule were completely able to maintain their own unique identity so long as it did not lead to attempts at rebellion/revolution. Of course one practical issue you run into is that while Aurelius was perhaps one of the greatest leaders of all time, his son and heir - Commodus, was perhaps one of the worst of all time. But at least if we speak of the eras prior to its decline, Pax Romana in particular, I don't really see how the Roman Empire would be horrifying. And in any case dramatic deterioration of the quality of public leadership, probably presaging a more broad decline, is clearly not limited to systems of minority rule.
  - walkingthisquai 1y ago
    Well 25-30% of the population was enslaved in the Roman empire so that's not ideal.
    - triceratops 1y ago
      Did slavery not exist in the lands outside the Roman empire at the time?
  - zelos 1y ago
    Yeah, but apart from all that, what have the Romans ever done for us?
  - throw0101c 1y ago
    > In what way would they be horrifying? When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul it was said he killed one million people and enslaved another million, and was celebrated for it. The actual numbers may not be accurate, but the sentiment probably was. Moral relativism aside, would you like to live in a society where killing civilians during war and enslaving survivors were both acceptable? Or how about the the abandoning of unwanted babies: * https://academic.oup.com/book/6954/chapter-abstract/151225098?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/book/6954/chapter-abstract/15122509... * https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15d74av/how_widespread_was_the_roman_practice_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15d74av/how_... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columna_Lactaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columna_Lactaria
hunglee2 1y ago
this is the way - 'multi-polarity' is another word for 'diversity' which is another way to understand resiliency. We have seen in recent days what over dependence on single point of failure looks like (AWS outage), so from a species level perspective, it is better that we have many different forms of organisation and narrative. We just have to ensure that these narratives are not evangelical and intolerant!
- jcattle 1y ago
  I think hackernews might be the only place on the internet where a commenter uses an AWS outage as an example for why authoritarianism is a good thing.
- libertine 1y ago
  That's not what multipolarity means, at least by those leading such propaganda. By their standards multipolarity means control ove different circles of influence without interference. That's what Russia wants for example, they want to secure the regime by controlling nearby countries (ideally turning them into Belarus, or by threat of destruction, like Georgia and Moldova, or by annexation, like Ukraine). China wants to control territories surrounding them as well. So don't be fooled by multipolarity, it's just a repacked imperialism and colonialism by right, not by earned influence.
citizenpaul 1y ago
We are 1000+ years from permanent off planet settlements. If its even possible for us to biologically live off earth. Which we don't actually know. China might not be a country by then.

andrewflnr 1y ago

Indeed, I think Rome, Greece and other conquering powers get more respect than they deserve. There's no actual reason so many people have to die for these countries' national ambitions. Feel free to generalize to the US, etc.

foxglacier 1y ago
Didn't Rome save a lot of lives by pax romana? Perhaps it was actually better in terms of loss of life to be conquered by Rome than have endless wars among yourselves. Applies to the US too.
- curbedsidewalk 1y ago
  The conquest of Gaul was essentially genocide. Ceaser killed one third of the population, enslaved another, and left the rest to live under Roman rule. My suspicion is Gauls would have been better off having petty wars among themselves than this.
- plopilop 1y ago
  You can defend a lot of atrocities by arguing "for the greater good" and comparing to uchronic hypotheticals. I could as well argue that without Rome, the greek democracies would have been much more prevalent, and lead to modern democracies much sooner. Or that a world leader would have emerged, leading the ancient world to endless peace and prosperity.

coffeebeqn 1y ago

> who is incompetent I just hope we never go back to Mao-levels of incompetence

ggm 1y ago
Must.. resist.. temptation.. Killing all sparrows, compared to defunding vaccine science in the wreckage of a pandemic.. Village Steel making compared to literally cancelling construction projects for advanced wind turbines
- yanhangyhy 1y ago
  Maybe this is a surprise. Nowadays, young people are increasingly fond of Mao. He wasn’t a perfect person, but he spent his entire life exploring communism and trying to finally eliminate wealth inequality and privileged classes. Older people might not like him as much, because they were more influenced by the West and dislike China’s system more. But with China’s rise and Trump’s hypocrisy, I can predict that Mao will become increasingly popular in China.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
    It's worth acknowledging that Mao became increasingly erratic with age. Some of his early achievements are still very much seen in a positive light (eg. as a nation builder).
    - yanhangyhy 1y ago
      yes. in my earlier age, the offical statement from CCP of him is 70% achievement and 30% fault. but as the inequality increase in china, people has more positive view of him.
      - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago

BrenBarn 1y ago

I wouldn't think the Roman empire was a good thing if we had it today. We can "respect" those older cultures in their context while still recognizing that they were in many ways horrifying by modern standards.

somenameforme 1y ago
In what way would they be horrifying? The Romans advanced public works, infrastructure, and other such things on an absolutely monumental scale. Many roads built by the Roman Empire are still even in use today! And I think Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the best example in history of a genuinely socially motivated leader. And the lands under their rule were completely able to maintain their own unique identity so long as it did not lead to attempts at rebellion/revolution. Of course one practical issue you run into is that while Aurelius was perhaps one of the greatest leaders of all time, his son and heir - Commodus, was perhaps one of the worst of all time. But at least if we speak of the eras prior to its decline, Pax Romana in particular, I don't really see how the Roman Empire would be horrifying. And in any case dramatic deterioration of the quality of public leadership, probably presaging a more broad decline, is clearly not limited to systems of minority rule.
- walkingthisquai 1y ago
  Well 25-30% of the population was enslaved in the Roman empire so that's not ideal.
  - triceratops 1y ago
    Did slavery not exist in the lands outside the Roman empire at the time?
- zelos 1y ago
  Yeah, but apart from all that, what have the Romans ever done for us?
- throw0101c 1y ago
  > In what way would they be horrifying? When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul it was said he killed one million people and enslaved another million, and was celebrated for it. The actual numbers may not be accurate, but the sentiment probably was. Moral relativism aside, would you like to live in a society where killing civilians during war and enslaving survivors were both acceptable? Or how about the the abandoning of unwanted babies: * https://academic.oup.com/book/6954/chapter-abstract/151225098?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/book/6954/chapter-abstract/15122509... * https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15d74av/how_widespread_was_the_roman_practice_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15d74av/how_... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columna_Lactaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columna_Lactaria

hunglee2 1y ago

this is the way - 'multi-polarity' is another word for 'diversity' which is another way to understand resiliency. We have seen in recent days what over dependence on single point of failure looks like (AWS outage), so from a species level perspective, it is better that we have many different forms of organisation and narrative. We just have to ensure that these narratives are not evangelical and intolerant!

jcattle 1y ago
I think hackernews might be the only place on the internet where a commenter uses an AWS outage as an example for why authoritarianism is a good thing.
libertine 1y ago
That's not what multipolarity means, at least by those leading such propaganda. By their standards multipolarity means control ove different circles of influence without interference. That's what Russia wants for example, they want to secure the regime by controlling nearby countries (ideally turning them into Belarus, or by threat of destruction, like Georgia and Moldova, or by annexation, like Ukraine). China wants to control territories surrounding them as well. So don't be fooled by multipolarity, it's just a repacked imperialism and colonialism by right, not by earned influence.

citizenpaul 1y ago

We are 1000+ years from permanent off planet settlements. If its even possible for us to biologically live off earth. Which we don't actually know. China might not be a country by then.