4 ms·

Zweig yes, but I can't remember it well enough to connect it to this story. Could you elaborate a bit just to give me a clue?

by rixed 9mo ago

aebtebeten 9mo ago
Part of Schachnovelle as I remember it is that Dr. B as Weltbürger is driven crazy by the dual facts that Czentovic is both a primitive brute and yet succeeds at chess via brute force, which perhaps is meant to be compared with his earlier imprisonment in 1938, by people who succeeded at politics not by subtlety but by brute force. The idea that cosmopolitan, educated, and cultivated people could be left like deer in the headlights by brutes setting themselves through by force reminded me of your description of TMT, or at least the ego-protective "helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes" part of your explanation. Does this unpacking make any more sense? (meanwhile, the Melian Dialogue is the source of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479662 )
- gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
  The subtlety of Trump is a "self-stabilizing" meme? Brutality only to outsiders-- see how he handled Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ? https://youtube.com/shorts/dV8wsaaY0oQ https://youtube.com/shorts/dV8wsaaY0oQ I'm sceptical of directly "transpiling" lessons from history-- & in general I find that Austrians are full of it* (sorry! It does feel like they are on the elitist end of the populist-elitist divide) *Earnings Ps: >Be the change yo want to see It's Gandhi's saying that needs (more) elab :) I'll be that hypocrite and leave you to it E- 1974 Lorrance https://jenniferlphillips.com/blog/2021/2/24/origin-story-be-the-change https://jenniferlphillips.com/blog/2021/2/24/origin-story-be... >We but mirror the world >However, the passage was written in the explicit context of animal attacks.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - aebtebeten 9mo ago
    Yeah, I was thinking self-stabilizing while writing that, but generally try to avoid bringing in too many doorknobs with unknown interlocutors :) > Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ? As that old russophone meme went: the diner sits; the waiter stands? (can't find it right now, but along the lines of strategic ambiguity this is an amusing one: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEZLJn8WYAQreU0?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEZLJn8WYAQreU0?format=jpg&name=... ) This is wonderful! Not only does Gandhiji speak on multiple levels, but unlike many who attempt it he carries the conceit through to perfection, offering valid first-aid advice to complete the surface reading. https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/M https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/M... (if one were only to read the first and last few pages, one would miss completely the change of tone in the middle; did EAB pick up this habit from the subcontinent?) Heh. I just noticed DJT literally used the words "extraordinary military operation" during his press conference; does VVP's «специальной» have vastly different connotations in ru from "extraordinary" in en? Unlikely to be intentional plagiarism, maybe just parallel evolution? History repeats But then again, it has to Nobody listens
    - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
      Given that "both sides" are quick to thow the fascist label, one has to be more specific about the lesson that hasn't been learnt. Like: "weaponize constitution against executive branch". https://ash.harvard.edu/articles/why-federal-courts-are-unlikely-to-save-democracy-from-trumps-and-musks-attacks/ https://ash.harvard.edu/articles/why-federal-courts-are-unli... What was it you had in mind? A more effective ICJ? (Some will argue, eg that getting ERII schooled in (nothing but) the subtleties didn't do anything)
      - aebtebeten 9mo ago
        Guess I'd been reflecting on how close CBO and EMO (if I'm doing justice to the ru meaning?) sound to me. But I was already complaining at the formation of the DHS that it sounded remarkably parallel to an infamous organisation: Department Ministerium of für Homeland Staats- Security sicherheit so I'm probably just a whiner and malingerer. There's always the general lesson; even if Hillel[0] didn't get nailed to a stick[1] for preaching it, he doesn't seem to have many followers in, say, Likud. A more specific lesson for the Old Country would be The Frogs Who Desired a King? I've lifted^Wliberated this from somewhere, but can't remember where atm: the trouble with revolutions is that when they succeed[2], you rapidly discover that you didn't need a better government, you needed better people. One reason I haven't finished the Durants' The Story of Civilization yet is that if you binge it, you rapidly discover that despite the pleasant turns of phrase, it's largely 13'549 pages of people treating each other poorly. Pedantry to (nothing but): ERII could at least take a Landy offroad[3], even if in practice, as a lady, she often left it up to her chauffeur. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder#/media/File:Hillel22.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder#/media/File:H... [1] I do love the characterisation in Master & Margherita which makes it sound like Mr. INRI was maybe on the spectrum (come to think of it, M&M is another frame story, but with the fantastic and realistic elements reversed) [2] as the US 1776'ers, the Girondins, and the Mensheviks (to take just 3) might know? [3] making her more accomplished than the modal Chelsea Tractor driver?
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
- aebtebeten 9mo ago
  Note also that Thucydides' Athenians say that if they were to speak to the many, they would not put the matter so baldly, but since they are speaking to the few, they feel they may be frank.
- rixed 9mo ago
  Ok, yes I think it helped me to understand what you had in mind. I'm not interrested in the mind of violent sociopaths as much as I'm interrested in that of the decent people who have to accept to live under their rule, not only because of the numbers involved. Rulers might be a bit shy about their motives at times (although I can apreciate a candid one), but living under one's reign is one of our strongest taboo - thus my interest.
  - aebtebeten 9mo ago
    > ...decent people who have to accept to live under their rule... On one hand, there's the option of voting with one's feet, which Zweig describes in "Die Welt von Gestern" (1942) On the other hand, another alternative is "inner emigration", eg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innere_Emigration https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innere_Emigration On the gripping hand, there might be the possibility of ignoring wanna-be authoritarian leaders but convincing people not to follow them, à la https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278 Maybe there are more possibilities of which I am unaware; of these three, I chose the first.
    - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
      Maybe you've been outside for too long. Both those who voted for Trump or abstained from Harris believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians. (BB was kinda fiction-in-a-fiction and would have provided no clue either for Harris and against Trump-- and 1984 (/Schachnovelle) didn't give a clue on how you might recognise an inner party-goer if you ran into one? Maybe Animal Farm would be better?)
      - aebtebeten 9mo ago
        <anger> Maybe it looks to you as if those who voted for Trump believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians, but I've lived among them. I was still living in their midst when they tarred and feathered the Dixie Chicks (as they were then) for having the audacity to say GWB's Iraq Adventure might not be the most wonderful thing since sliced mayonnaise. (could we say they "cancelled" the Chicks?) Then they claimed to be voting for DJT (a public figure whose bully bona fides go back at least 4 decades, eg https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6131533-trumpdeathpenaltyad05011989/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6131533-trumpdeathpe... ) on an "isolationist" platform. But now they're cheering Operation Southern Spear as if it were a homecoming game, as they did for GHB's Iraq. My local paper even had https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266 https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266 (sorry for the X link) in it this morning. They may say they're voting on a mind-your-own-business-principle, but whenever you look at what they do, they've consistently been voting on a leader-principle. </anger> Q. How do you describe a principled authoritarian follower? A. "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind" Inner Party Pigs Outer Party Dogs Proles the Equal animals

Zweig yes, but I can't remember it well enough to connect it to this story. Could you elaborate a bit just to give me a clue?

by rixed 9mo ago

Zweig yes, but I can't remember it well enough to connect it to this story. Could you elaborate a bit just to give me a clue?

aebtebeten 9mo ago

Part of Schachnovelle as I remember it is that Dr. B as Weltbürger is driven crazy by the dual facts that Czentovic is both a primitive brute and yet succeeds at chess via brute force, which perhaps is meant to be compared with his earlier imprisonment in 1938, by people who succeeded at politics not by subtlety but by brute force. The idea that cosmopolitan, educated, and cultivated people could be left like deer in the headlights by brutes setting themselves through by force reminded me of your description of TMT, or at least the ego-protective "helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes" part of your explanation. Does this unpacking make any more sense? (meanwhile, the Melian Dialogue is the source of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479662 )

gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
The subtlety of Trump is a "self-stabilizing" meme? Brutality only to outsiders-- see how he handled Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ? https://youtube.com/shorts/dV8wsaaY0oQ https://youtube.com/shorts/dV8wsaaY0oQ I'm sceptical of directly "transpiling" lessons from history-- & in general I find that Austrians are full of it* (sorry! It does feel like they are on the elitist end of the populist-elitist divide) *Earnings Ps: >Be the change yo want to see It's Gandhi's saying that needs (more) elab :) I'll be that hypocrite and leave you to it E- 1974 Lorrance https://jenniferlphillips.com/blog/2021/2/24/origin-story-be-the-change https://jenniferlphillips.com/blog/2021/2/24/origin-story-be... >We but mirror the world >However, the passage was written in the explicit context of animal attacks.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- aebtebeten 9mo ago
  Yeah, I was thinking self-stabilizing while writing that, but generally try to avoid bringing in too many doorknobs with unknown interlocutors :) > Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ? As that old russophone meme went: the diner sits; the waiter stands? (can't find it right now, but along the lines of strategic ambiguity this is an amusing one: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEZLJn8WYAQreU0?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEZLJn8WYAQreU0?format=jpg&name=... ) This is wonderful! Not only does Gandhiji speak on multiple levels, but unlike many who attempt it he carries the conceit through to perfection, offering valid first-aid advice to complete the surface reading. https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/M https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/M... (if one were only to read the first and last few pages, one would miss completely the change of tone in the middle; did EAB pick up this habit from the subcontinent?) Heh. I just noticed DJT literally used the words "extraordinary military operation" during his press conference; does VVP's «специальной» have vastly different connotations in ru from "extraordinary" in en? Unlikely to be intentional plagiarism, maybe just parallel evolution? History repeats But then again, it has to Nobody listens
  - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
    Given that "both sides" are quick to thow the fascist label, one has to be more specific about the lesson that hasn't been learnt. Like: "weaponize constitution against executive branch". https://ash.harvard.edu/articles/why-federal-courts-are-unlikely-to-save-democracy-from-trumps-and-musks-attacks/ https://ash.harvard.edu/articles/why-federal-courts-are-unli... What was it you had in mind? A more effective ICJ? (Some will argue, eg that getting ERII schooled in (nothing but) the subtleties didn't do anything)
    - aebtebeten 9mo ago
      Guess I'd been reflecting on how close CBO and EMO (if I'm doing justice to the ru meaning?) sound to me. But I was already complaining at the formation of the DHS that it sounded remarkably parallel to an infamous organisation: Department Ministerium of für Homeland Staats- Security sicherheit so I'm probably just a whiner and malingerer. There's always the general lesson; even if Hillel[0] didn't get nailed to a stick[1] for preaching it, he doesn't seem to have many followers in, say, Likud. A more specific lesson for the Old Country would be The Frogs Who Desired a King? I've lifted^Wliberated this from somewhere, but can't remember where atm: the trouble with revolutions is that when they succeed[2], you rapidly discover that you didn't need a better government, you needed better people. One reason I haven't finished the Durants' The Story of Civilization yet is that if you binge it, you rapidly discover that despite the pleasant turns of phrase, it's largely 13'549 pages of people treating each other poorly. Pedantry to (nothing but): ERII could at least take a Landy offroad[3], even if in practice, as a lady, she often left it up to her chauffeur. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder#/media/File:Hillel22.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder#/media/File:H... [1] I do love the characterisation in Master & Margherita which makes it sound like Mr. INRI was maybe on the spectrum (come to think of it, M&M is another frame story, but with the fantastic and realistic elements reversed) [2] as the US 1776'ers, the Girondins, and the Mensheviks (to take just 3) might know? [3] making her more accomplished than the modal Chelsea Tractor driver?
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
aebtebeten 9mo ago
Note also that Thucydides' Athenians say that if they were to speak to the many, they would not put the matter so baldly, but since they are speaking to the few, they feel they may be frank.
rixed 9mo ago
Ok, yes I think it helped me to understand what you had in mind. I'm not interrested in the mind of violent sociopaths as much as I'm interrested in that of the decent people who have to accept to live under their rule, not only because of the numbers involved. Rulers might be a bit shy about their motives at times (although I can apreciate a candid one), but living under one's reign is one of our strongest taboo - thus my interest.
- aebtebeten 9mo ago
  > ...decent people who have to accept to live under their rule... On one hand, there's the option of voting with one's feet, which Zweig describes in "Die Welt von Gestern" (1942) On the other hand, another alternative is "inner emigration", eg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innere_Emigration https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innere_Emigration On the gripping hand, there might be the possibility of ignoring wanna-be authoritarian leaders but convincing people not to follow them, à la https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278 Maybe there are more possibilities of which I am unaware; of these three, I chose the first.
  - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
    Maybe you've been outside for too long. Both those who voted for Trump or abstained from Harris believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians. (BB was kinda fiction-in-a-fiction and would have provided no clue either for Harris and against Trump-- and 1984 (/Schachnovelle) didn't give a clue on how you might recognise an inner party-goer if you ran into one? Maybe Animal Farm would be better?)
    - aebtebeten 9mo ago
      <anger> Maybe it looks to you as if those who voted for Trump believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians, but I've lived among them. I was still living in their midst when they tarred and feathered the Dixie Chicks (as they were then) for having the audacity to say GWB's Iraq Adventure might not be the most wonderful thing since sliced mayonnaise. (could we say they "cancelled" the Chicks?) Then they claimed to be voting for DJT (a public figure whose bully bona fides go back at least 4 decades, eg https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6131533-trumpdeathpenaltyad05011989/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6131533-trumpdeathpe... ) on an "isolationist" platform. But now they're cheering Operation Southern Spear as if it were a homecoming game, as they did for GHB's Iraq. My local paper even had https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266 https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266 (sorry for the X link) in it this morning. They may say they're voting on a mind-your-own-business-principle, but whenever you look at what they do, they've consistently been voting on a leader-principle. </anger> Q. How do you describe a principled authoritarian follower? A. "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind" Inner Party Pigs Outer Party Dogs Proles the Equal animals