And some fact to round it out:
Showing posts with label Other People's Stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Other People's Stuff. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
The Ladder of Saint Augustine
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.
The low desire, the base design,
That makes another's virtues less;
The revel of the ruddy wine,
And all occasions of excess;
The longing for ignoble things;
The strife for triumph more than truth;
The hardening of the heart, that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth;
All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes
The action of the nobler will;--
All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.
We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.
The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.
The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern--unseen before--
A path to higher destinies.
Nor deem the irrevocable Past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.
The low desire, the base design,
That makes another's virtues less;
The revel of the ruddy wine,
And all occasions of excess;
The longing for ignoble things;
The strife for triumph more than truth;
The hardening of the heart, that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth;
All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes
The action of the nobler will;--
All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.
We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.
The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.
The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern--unseen before--
A path to higher destinies.
Nor deem the irrevocable Past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
And the White House burned, burned, burned!
Anything on the heels of the last post is bound to be flippant. So it goes.
So why not go the full flippant? I finally came across a youtube clip of the Canadian song about 1812 that Gary Brecher referenced in his series of posts on the War of 1812.
To fully appreciate it, you need to know the original 'Battle of New Orleans', by Jimmy Driftwood (although I grew up with the Johnnie Horton version), celebrating the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
Anyway, let's just say that the Canadians focus on some of the more neglected bits of the war. Without further ado, 'The War of 1812, by 'Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie' (safe for work, despite the strange band name):
Comedy gold!
The real humor is not actually any disagreement on the events of the war, but on how you choose to label the belligerents. From the American perspective, they were fighting the British, and it's respectable to take a bit of a beating from them, even getting your capital burned down, because the Brits were, after all, the major superpower at the time.
But from the Canadian perspective, the Americans invaded Canada, and were repelled by Canadians. As such, it was Canada beating America, which suddenly sounds a lot funnier. America lost to Canada? Really? You can seen why the Americans aren't keen to remember that part of the tale.
Of course, the distinction is entirely a modern one. What was invaded was British North America, which later became Canada, but at the time was part of the British Empire.
As long as you understand both views, I find it funnier to describe them as fighting the Canadians, because the failed invasion of Canada is one the more farcical bits of North American history. Although nothing beats the Fenian Raids. Now that was ridiculous!
So why not go the full flippant? I finally came across a youtube clip of the Canadian song about 1812 that Gary Brecher referenced in his series of posts on the War of 1812.
To fully appreciate it, you need to know the original 'Battle of New Orleans', by Jimmy Driftwood (although I grew up with the Johnnie Horton version), celebrating the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
Anyway, let's just say that the Canadians focus on some of the more neglected bits of the war. Without further ado, 'The War of 1812, by 'Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie' (safe for work, despite the strange band name):
Comedy gold!
The real humor is not actually any disagreement on the events of the war, but on how you choose to label the belligerents. From the American perspective, they were fighting the British, and it's respectable to take a bit of a beating from them, even getting your capital burned down, because the Brits were, after all, the major superpower at the time.
But from the Canadian perspective, the Americans invaded Canada, and were repelled by Canadians. As such, it was Canada beating America, which suddenly sounds a lot funnier. America lost to Canada? Really? You can seen why the Americans aren't keen to remember that part of the tale.
Of course, the distinction is entirely a modern one. What was invaded was British North America, which later became Canada, but at the time was part of the British Empire.
As long as you understand both views, I find it funnier to describe them as fighting the Canadians, because the failed invasion of Canada is one the more farcical bits of North American history. Although nothing beats the Fenian Raids. Now that was ridiculous!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Miscellaneous Joy
-Mark Steyn gives a rousing defense of free speech following the scandalously underreported assassination attempt on Danish free speech advocate (and critic of Islam) Lars Hedegaard.
-A great model demonstration of herd immunity.
-Theodore Dalrymple talks about how breast cancer screening may end up killing more people than it saves, due to risky treatments being undertaken after false positives. At a minimum, the overall cost/benefit aspect is rather unclear. I'm always reminded of this when people insist that the current healthcare systems don't engage in enough preventative screening of disease. This is certainly possible, but it's usually just taken as given that more screening is always better. Proponents rarely seem to countenance the possibility that you can have too much testing, even just considered in terms of health effects, let alone costs.
-You know how you can tell that a band is awesome? When you go through odd songs from their back catalogue that you've never heard of, and they turn out to be totally sweet.
-The Last Psychiatrist is one of those bloggers with the rare distinction that they usually have something truly different to say about the world (other examples here). He doesn't post regularly, but his stuff is invariably interesting. He had a ripping sledge of people who ostentatiously insist on comforting mourners at funerals a few months back, and another post about a month ago ranging from why women wear makeup to why slaveowners were able to maintain control of such a large population of slaves. Read 'em both.
-I'm certainly no conspiracy theorist, but after both Waco and now Chris Dorner, it's a fair bet that if you find yourself in an extended siege situation with the police, the following might occur:
a) the cops will be throwing flash grenades into the building
b) these may set things on fire
c) when that happens, the police may well prevent the fire department from actually putting out the fire based on the claim (not unreasonable, but also self-serving) that it would be too dangerous to let them approach a building filled with madmen, and hence
d) you'll burn to death, and nobody will much care.
Update: Apparent vocal evidence of the police demanding to 'burn that f***ing house down'
As usual, Chris Rock's advice on "How to Not Get Your Ass Kicked By the Police" is apposite.
-A great model demonstration of herd immunity.
-Theodore Dalrymple talks about how breast cancer screening may end up killing more people than it saves, due to risky treatments being undertaken after false positives. At a minimum, the overall cost/benefit aspect is rather unclear. I'm always reminded of this when people insist that the current healthcare systems don't engage in enough preventative screening of disease. This is certainly possible, but it's usually just taken as given that more screening is always better. Proponents rarely seem to countenance the possibility that you can have too much testing, even just considered in terms of health effects, let alone costs.
-You know how you can tell that a band is awesome? When you go through odd songs from their back catalogue that you've never heard of, and they turn out to be totally sweet.
-The Last Psychiatrist is one of those bloggers with the rare distinction that they usually have something truly different to say about the world (other examples here). He doesn't post regularly, but his stuff is invariably interesting. He had a ripping sledge of people who ostentatiously insist on comforting mourners at funerals a few months back, and another post about a month ago ranging from why women wear makeup to why slaveowners were able to maintain control of such a large population of slaves. Read 'em both.
-I'm certainly no conspiracy theorist, but after both Waco and now Chris Dorner, it's a fair bet that if you find yourself in an extended siege situation with the police, the following might occur:
a) the cops will be throwing flash grenades into the building
b) these may set things on fire
c) when that happens, the police may well prevent the fire department from actually putting out the fire based on the claim (not unreasonable, but also self-serving) that it would be too dangerous to let them approach a building filled with madmen, and hence
d) you'll burn to death, and nobody will much care.
Update: Apparent vocal evidence of the police demanding to 'burn that f***ing house down'
As usual, Chris Rock's advice on "How to Not Get Your Ass Kicked By the Police" is apposite.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
She's a Flight Risk
Jwz recently posted about this blog called 'She's a flight risk', which ran from 2003 to 2006 and is diary of sorts claiming to be written by a twenty-something woman who is on the run from her family. The story is that her father is a very rich and well-connected member of a small European country, and he was trying to get her to marry some guy she didn't want to marry. Afraid of his power and influence, and with a fair amount of money stuffed away, she decided to go on the run.
It subsequently got taken down from the net, but jwz thankfully downloaded it and posted it.
It's definitely a great story - I read it all, and really liked it.
The question is, is it real?
Firstly, it's worth reading even if it's not. The author writes really well.
But on the substantive question, it's hard to say. The initial presumption is probably not - Occam's razor says that the more unusual a story is, the less likely it is to be true. Most people live rather boring lives, and some narratives are just too good to be true.
Beyond that, the two biggest points against it are the following. First, the idea that a rich daughter would escape pressure towards an arranged marriage by becoming a fugitive for several years, rather than just giving her father the middle finger. Sure, he'd cut off your money, but is this really better? Some people do crazy things, but this is pretty extreme without more explanation.
Second, if you were going to run away, would you start a blog to describe your experiences? It seems a bit unlikely. Then again, I can imagine that the need to connect to somebody would be pretty strong when you spent months on the run knowing nobody.
So that's the starting presumption against it being real, which seems fairly strong. But there's a reasonable amount of evidence in favor of it actually being true. At a minimum, if it's a hoax, it's clearly one that someone spent quite a bit of money and thought on, and one without a clear motivation.
First, she managed to convince a reporter from Esquire (linked at the jwz site), by at least having someone who matched her description and acted like her meet him in a very expensive hotel room with an armed guard. That on its own doesn't prove anything, but it's pretty serious commitment to a hoax. In addition, I presume that Esquire reporters are not entirely gullible, since the guy knows he'd look like a real fool if it turned out to be proven false.
There are other signs as well that are less visible. For instance, the Esquire article discusses some of the early investigations into the place where the domain was registered:
That quite a bit of planning, no? Not only do you drop enough cash to set up a company in Panama to hide the domain registration, you give it a name that's a coded version of the website.
The other problem with the hoax theory is that there's no clear payoff. Not only was the author not angling for a book or movie deal, but she turned down a number of offers of such (reported in the Wired and Esquire articles at the time). The website wasn't selling any products, and ended up just drifting off without a clear end. This fact becomes even more stark in hindsight - we now know ex-post that there really was no obvious financial payoff to the whole thing.
For my own part, there's two other small aspects that also point to the 'genuine' side. First, there's an odd tendency for hoaxes that involve a female protagonist to be written by a man. E.g. here and here. Being male fantasy, they tend to eventually end up focusing on male fantasies of female sexuality, with the characters being lesbian, bisexual, or that kind of thing. She's a flight risk had virtually none of that, other than one or two very references that weren't particularly sexualised and instead focused on the charisma of the men in question. In that regard, at least, it suggests a female writer, or a male writer very committed to representing the protagonist as sounding more female.
Second, there's one detail in particular that seems plausible in hindsight that would have been harder to come up with at the time. Here's a line from the April 2003 entry on some of the people she encountered:
The point is that if I were to think of a name to add now about someone who might have been travelling in the Caribbean back in 2003, I'd pick a description of McAfee. But this one predated by many years the publicity that made him famous as a rich guy living in tax haven countries.
You add all this up, and you're left to choose between two scenarios, both of which would seem highly unlikely on their own, but one of which is very likely true. Odd, huh?
Hard to say. Overall, I'd give it about a 70% chance of being true. Then again, I'm rather gullible.
It subsequently got taken down from the net, but jwz thankfully downloaded it and posted it.
It's definitely a great story - I read it all, and really liked it.
The question is, is it real?
Firstly, it's worth reading even if it's not. The author writes really well.
But on the substantive question, it's hard to say. The initial presumption is probably not - Occam's razor says that the more unusual a story is, the less likely it is to be true. Most people live rather boring lives, and some narratives are just too good to be true.
Beyond that, the two biggest points against it are the following. First, the idea that a rich daughter would escape pressure towards an arranged marriage by becoming a fugitive for several years, rather than just giving her father the middle finger. Sure, he'd cut off your money, but is this really better? Some people do crazy things, but this is pretty extreme without more explanation.
Second, if you were going to run away, would you start a blog to describe your experiences? It seems a bit unlikely. Then again, I can imagine that the need to connect to somebody would be pretty strong when you spent months on the run knowing nobody.
So that's the starting presumption against it being real, which seems fairly strong. But there's a reasonable amount of evidence in favor of it actually being true. At a minimum, if it's a hoax, it's clearly one that someone spent quite a bit of money and thought on, and one without a clear motivation.
First, she managed to convince a reporter from Esquire (linked at the jwz site), by at least having someone who matched her description and acted like her meet him in a very expensive hotel room with an armed guard. That on its own doesn't prove anything, but it's pretty serious commitment to a hoax. In addition, I presume that Esquire reporters are not entirely gullible, since the guy knows he'd look like a real fool if it turned out to be proven false.
There are other signs as well that are less visible. For instance, the Esquire article discusses some of the early investigations into the place where the domain was registered:
AeroBeta, Sociedad AnonimaAs another commenter pointed out, the name 'AeroBeta, Sociedad Anonima' is comprised of 'Aero', meaning flight, and 'Beta', the measure of financial risk, with 'Sociedad Anonima' in companies being abbreviated 's.a.'. So hence you have 'FlightRisk, s(he's).a.'
Apartado Postal 0832-0387
World Trade Center
Panama, Republica de Panama WTC
That quite a bit of planning, no? Not only do you drop enough cash to set up a company in Panama to hide the domain registration, you give it a name that's a coded version of the website.
The other problem with the hoax theory is that there's no clear payoff. Not only was the author not angling for a book or movie deal, but she turned down a number of offers of such (reported in the Wired and Esquire articles at the time). The website wasn't selling any products, and ended up just drifting off without a clear end. This fact becomes even more stark in hindsight - we now know ex-post that there really was no obvious financial payoff to the whole thing.
For my own part, there's two other small aspects that also point to the 'genuine' side. First, there's an odd tendency for hoaxes that involve a female protagonist to be written by a man. E.g. here and here. Being male fantasy, they tend to eventually end up focusing on male fantasies of female sexuality, with the characters being lesbian, bisexual, or that kind of thing. She's a flight risk had virtually none of that, other than one or two very references that weren't particularly sexualised and instead focused on the charisma of the men in question. In that regard, at least, it suggests a female writer, or a male writer very committed to representing the protagonist as sounding more female.
Second, there's one detail in particular that seems plausible in hindsight that would have been harder to come up with at the time. Here's a line from the April 2003 entry on some of the people she encountered:
Also amongst the exiles was a fairly famous software magnate who had elected to leave the United States "not so much for the tax issue, though that played a part, but more for the everyday nonsense of regulation."A software magnate, living in a sunny tax haven type country, back in 2003, who left due to "the tax issue" and "the everyday nonsense of regulation"? Tell me that doesn't sound an awful lot like John McAfee, who recently managed to get out of Guatemala and escape back to the US to avoid questioning by the Belize police over a murder. (Previously discussed by me here).
The point is that if I were to think of a name to add now about someone who might have been travelling in the Caribbean back in 2003, I'd pick a description of McAfee. But this one predated by many years the publicity that made him famous as a rich guy living in tax haven countries.
You add all this up, and you're left to choose between two scenarios, both of which would seem highly unlikely on their own, but one of which is very likely true. Odd, huh?
Hard to say. Overall, I'd give it about a 70% chance of being true. Then again, I'm rather gullible.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Brecher's Back!
If I had to nominate my favourite aspect of the internet, it's the ability to come across writers with uniquely interesting perspectives on the world that aren't likely to be covered in the popular press. Lots of the time, you won't agree with everything (or even most things) they write, but you'll usually at least learn something new.
Sailer, Derbyshire, and Heartiste rank highly in that department. But my two favourites both sadly were not very active recently. Moldbug was my favourite overall, with truly unusual reactionary perspectives on history and politics, but he doesn't write much any more. (The archives should be read in full). The other was Gary Brecher, a.k.a. The War Nerd, whose perspectives on military matters are both hilarious and insightful. He's been on a bit of a hiatus.
But he's back! Now writing regularly over at NSFWCorp (which is, incidentally, entirely safe for work). Initially they put it all behind a paywall, but now they've opened it up. Which, in the end, caused me to read them and subscribe - score one for freemium-based content.
Where else are you likely to read:
-An account of living in Saudi Arabia as an ex-pat, including discussing the character traits of different Muslim peoples that's neither a hagiography nor a 'they're all terrorists' screed?
-About uprisings against the Saudis that don't make the media?
-An attack on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from someone who actually wants a strong air force?
-A genuinely funny discussion on Turkey's historical relationship with Syria?
Huzzah! I don't think I've read many of the other NSFW writers (although Pancho Montana's descriptions of the drug war in Mexico are great too), but I've signed up for a subscription purely for Mr Brecher.
Go, read!
Sailer, Derbyshire, and Heartiste rank highly in that department. But my two favourites both sadly were not very active recently. Moldbug was my favourite overall, with truly unusual reactionary perspectives on history and politics, but he doesn't write much any more. (The archives should be read in full). The other was Gary Brecher, a.k.a. The War Nerd, whose perspectives on military matters are both hilarious and insightful. He's been on a bit of a hiatus.
But he's back! Now writing regularly over at NSFWCorp (which is, incidentally, entirely safe for work). Initially they put it all behind a paywall, but now they've opened it up. Which, in the end, caused me to read them and subscribe - score one for freemium-based content.
Where else are you likely to read:
-An account of living in Saudi Arabia as an ex-pat, including discussing the character traits of different Muslim peoples that's neither a hagiography nor a 'they're all terrorists' screed?
-About uprisings against the Saudis that don't make the media?
-An attack on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from someone who actually wants a strong air force?
-A genuinely funny discussion on Turkey's historical relationship with Syria?
Huzzah! I don't think I've read many of the other NSFW writers (although Pancho Montana's descriptions of the drug war in Mexico are great too), but I've signed up for a subscription purely for Mr Brecher.
Go, read!
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Praying for victory
The setup has been done many times (Bob Dylan's 'With God On Our Side' being a classic example), but the mark of a great comedian is what they do with it. The great George Carlin:
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Great Question
From Pax Dickinson:
"Mr. President, would the US be better off today if you'd been prosecuted for smoking pot as a youth, or are you a total hypocrite?"Don't hold your breath waiting for it to be asked, let alone answered.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
Immature, But Hilarious
Every now and again, I worry that this site may be at risk of being too self-serious.
So with rectification in mind, I laughed hella hard at this one:
Ha!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled high-brow pomposity.
So with rectification in mind, I laughed hella hard at this one:
Ha!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled high-brow pomposity.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
The People's Kleptocracy of China
An interesting theory of the Chinese economic system.
It includes answers to the questions of 'why do the Chinese keep buying US T-Bills', 'why do the Chinese build so many worthless buildings' and 'why do Chinese peasants riot over inflation', among others.
I don't know if I buy the whole thing (if the SOEs are so efficient, and the peasants only earn negative real returns on bank deposits, how would they be so badly off if the SOEs do worse under low inflation? Economic contraction, perhaps, but that seems to imply that the house of cards may have some positive value).
Still, it makes oddly compelling narrative
It includes answers to the questions of 'why do the Chinese keep buying US T-Bills', 'why do the Chinese build so many worthless buildings' and 'why do Chinese peasants riot over inflation', among others.
I don't know if I buy the whole thing (if the SOEs are so efficient, and the peasants only earn negative real returns on bank deposits, how would they be so badly off if the SOEs do worse under low inflation? Economic contraction, perhaps, but that seems to imply that the house of cards may have some positive value).
Still, it makes oddly compelling narrative
Thursday, May 31, 2012
What you should be doing
Every now and again, I find myself reading somebody else's writings, and I'm filled with the urge to yell out to everyone 'Stop reading my stuff, it's all junk anyway. Put down whatever you're doing and go read this guy instead, he's much better!"
This is one of those times.
I've said it before, but go read Mencius Moldbug. Right now. Go here. Start with the posts at the top (the 'How Richard Dawkins Got Pwned) posts which I linked to earlier, and work your way down. You'll find out, for instance:
-Why the complaints that the American revolution were founded on were largely nonsense (and why reasonable people should have supported the Loyalist position).
-How you might organise a system of government where the sovereign is a profit-making corporation, and why it might work a lot better than you'd think.
- The most interesting 13 paragraph summary of the last 300 years of world history that I've read. It reads nothing like the standard narrative at all - the events are the same, but the interpretations are probably unlike anything you've encountered.
These are just to whet your appetite - it's probably better to read them in order.
I don't agree with all of it - his views on Austrian economics seem unpersuasive, and I'm not sure that his patchwork theory of sovereign corporation-states wouldn't turn into tyranny in the hands of the wrong set of shareholders. The biggest weakness to the argument, I think, is that it doesn't explain how the massive scientific and industrial revolutions occurred over the same time span that the forms of government were (in his view) going to hell. I'm about halfway down the list of posts, and maybe he has an answer to that, but the conservative in me retains a nervousness that we might be throwing out the baby with the bathwater if it turns out that economic and scientific progress are more entwined with current forms of government than he seems to assume. I imagine Moldbug might retort that the Nazis and the Soviets were both pretty good at scientific advances as well, and there's no reason to assume that democracy has any special advantage in this area. But still - we're left with the big mystery of the scientific revolution, which needs some explaining before you ought (IMHO) start meddling with current forms of government.
But that's all detail. The bottom line is that this is the most interesting stuff I've read in years.
Go read it now. Don't have time? Shut up, I don't care. Trust me on this, just do it right away.
This is one of those times.
I've said it before, but go read Mencius Moldbug. Right now. Go here. Start with the posts at the top (the 'How Richard Dawkins Got Pwned) posts which I linked to earlier, and work your way down. You'll find out, for instance:
-Why the complaints that the American revolution were founded on were largely nonsense (and why reasonable people should have supported the Loyalist position).
-How you might organise a system of government where the sovereign is a profit-making corporation, and why it might work a lot better than you'd think.
- The most interesting 13 paragraph summary of the last 300 years of world history that I've read. It reads nothing like the standard narrative at all - the events are the same, but the interpretations are probably unlike anything you've encountered.
These are just to whet your appetite - it's probably better to read them in order.
I don't agree with all of it - his views on Austrian economics seem unpersuasive, and I'm not sure that his patchwork theory of sovereign corporation-states wouldn't turn into tyranny in the hands of the wrong set of shareholders. The biggest weakness to the argument, I think, is that it doesn't explain how the massive scientific and industrial revolutions occurred over the same time span that the forms of government were (in his view) going to hell. I'm about halfway down the list of posts, and maybe he has an answer to that, but the conservative in me retains a nervousness that we might be throwing out the baby with the bathwater if it turns out that economic and scientific progress are more entwined with current forms of government than he seems to assume. I imagine Moldbug might retort that the Nazis and the Soviets were both pretty good at scientific advances as well, and there's no reason to assume that democracy has any special advantage in this area. But still - we're left with the big mystery of the scientific revolution, which needs some explaining before you ought (IMHO) start meddling with current forms of government.
But that's all detail. The bottom line is that this is the most interesting stuff I've read in years.
Go read it now. Don't have time? Shut up, I don't care. Trust me on this, just do it right away.
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