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On December 04 2018 06:48 Plansix wrote: Given that the title of Duke has been around for well over 1500 years, you kinda need to narrow down what version of a Duke you are talking about. Need to get my chair and popcorn. Somebody called P6 out about history and now he's letting them choose what they hang themselves with.
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I just know enough about history to be aware of how little I know. The title of duke dates back to the Roman Empire(dux) and has held a lot of meanings.
And I didn’t even get called out. But this romanticizing of bygone eras always bothers me. We and a lot of other nations got rid of the aristocracy for some really good reasons.
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On December 04 2018 07:39 Plansix wrote: I just know enough about history to be aware of how little I know. The title of duke dates back to the Roman Empire(dux) and has held a lot of meanings.
And I didn’t even get called out. But this romanticizing of bygone eras always bothers me. We and a lot of other nations got rid of the aristocracy for some really good reasons. It's way easier to wax about past civilizations and pretend they were perfect than to admit that literally every human civilization in history has had its share of major problems. "If only we could go back to insert ancient society here" is a really easy position to have. It abdicates you from actually grappling with the problems we have head-on.
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On December 04 2018 06:28 ReditusSum wrote:
The enlightenment was the worst thing to ever happen to humanity.
Can you elaborate on this?
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I also like the religious part. It is so close to realizing one of the major flaws of that system. It might be kind of okay to live under a theocracy of the specific sect of the specific religion that you personally believe in (If you also believe in that sect in the way that the ruling theocracy or theocratic monarchy does), but it would really suck to be in a theocracy of a religion that you don't believe in. Which makes theocracies really bad as soon as your population is even slightly diverse.
And to realize this you just need to take off your blinders of "Well my religion is obviously the best" and just imagine the tables being turned. If you are christian, try imagining living in a muslim or buddhist or whatever theocracy. And now realize that even if you get your exact right theocracy, a lot of other people will disagree on that religion.
And lets not even get into all of the problems of hereditary regimes. If you have a competent ruler whose main interest is the best of his people, hereditary absolute rulership is probably pretty good. But you can't really choose your ruler. How many people that you personally know would make a good ruler? Imagine throwing the dice and getting a random person you know as absolute ruler. Are they competent enough? Are they benevolent enough? Can they resist the temptation of absolute power? We know that historically, a lot of them couldn't.
Sure, you can sometimes end up with an Alexander (Though that one wouldn't really be a good person to live under either, just an effective ruler in a history book). But if you even get a middling roll at the wrong time, you get a Wilhelm II, Nicholas II or Louis XVI. And beware if you ever get a really bad roll on those dice. A Nero, or Caligula. Not fun.
It should be obvious that we can figure out a better way of choosing who makes decisions than "random luck". And even if that were not the case, the concentration of power in a monarchy seems to lead the monarchs to want to get more powerful by conquering others, which is not a good state for the world as a whole to be in.
Democracy might not be the best. It is working pretty well though, and A LOT better than monarchy ever did. Maybe we can figure out something better eventually. Going back 500 years is not gonna be that better thing.
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Some people enjoy role playing being peasents dieing from random infections and disease. Without any rights or freedoms forced to scratch the dirt their parents did.
I guess we just found one of those.
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Even living within a theocracy of your own religion is no guarantee of happiness. Look at the history of suicide becoming a sin. Very roughly, in the Dark Ages people were so upset at living under a Catholic theocracy that they were comitting suicide so much that it was becoming a problem for the lords (less workers and soldiers to exploit). So the Catholic Church made suicide a sin and said you won’t get into heaven if you do it.
The only people who would care about the Catholic Church declaring they won’t get into heaven are Catholics. So the simple logical leap must be that a lot of Catholics were comitting suicide during a period of Catholic theocracy.
Really doesn’t sound like people were too happy. I think I’d rather stick with a republic or democracy instead of a theocracy of my own religion unless I happened to be placed very high up.
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On December 04 2018 06:28 ReditusSum wrote: This is the second time you've tried to imply I have no understanding of history while simultaneously being unable to accurately represent my original comment and showing that you yourself have a rather basic understanding of history. Do you have a better historical title to analogize a semi-monarchical position over a specific territory that composes a single piece of the greater whole, which is ruled over by the actual monarch (the whole)? Keeping in mind that Count wouldn't work because we already have counties and prince would imply a level of authority (in modern understanding) that would be inappropriate.
I live in the UK.
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Interesting discussion about different state forms. Technocracy is not compatible with capitalism. Capitalism leads to accumulation of wealth,not neccesarily individual wealth but also wealth of groups with the same interest. This wealth translates to power and influence and that will always be a corrupting force with a big influence on policy. This is not necessarily a bad thing btw,though it can be. Closest to technocracy would be communism i guess,though that also has to deal with corrupting forces of power and interests. the plumber experts will never come with a solution that could hurt the pumbling business and the same goes for every other sector out there. But even with plumbers there is devide within. Maybe there is one big plumbing company and many small ones,the big one will have most influence and will never support laws that threathen their position. The more the government relies on experts who have a financial or power interest,the more corrupted the system becomes and the further we get from a technocratic solution. What is even the best solution,impossible to tell for many situations. All depends on perspective. Maybe in far future machine can make decissions,though we will still have to provide a target objective.
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United States41512 Posts
On December 04 2018 08:41 RenSC2 wrote: Even living within a theocracy of your own religion is no guarantee of happiness. Look at the history of suicide becoming a sin. Very roughly, in the Dark Ages people were so upset at living under a Catholic theocracy that they were comitting suicide so much that it was becoming a problem for the lords (less workers and soldiers to exploit). So the Catholic Church made suicide a sin and said you won’t get into heaven if you do it.
The only people who would care about the Catholic Church declaring they won’t get into heaven are Catholics. So the simple logical leap must be that a lot of Catholics were comitting suicide during a period of Catholic theocracy.
Really doesn’t sound like people were too happy. I think I’d rather stick with a republic or democracy instead of a theocracy of my own religion unless I happened to be placed very high up. I dunno. Christianity is kinda a death cult that insists that the world is sinful and full of temptation, toil, and suffering but that the afterlife is pure, blissful and sacred. Killing yourself is an obvious loophole they had to patch. It’s not about the world at the time being bad, it’s that speedrunning the earthly part of existence was the optimal playstyle before they nerfed suicide.
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On December 04 2018 08:49 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2018 06:28 ReditusSum wrote: This is the second time you've tried to imply I have no understanding of history while simultaneously being unable to accurately represent my original comment and showing that you yourself have a rather basic understanding of history. Do you have a better historical title to analogize a semi-monarchical position over a specific territory that composes a single piece of the greater whole, which is ruled over by the actual monarch (the whole)? Keeping in mind that Count wouldn't work because we already have counties and prince would imply a level of authority (in modern understanding) that would be inappropriate.
I live in the UK. I’ve been cackling at this post on and off for three hours.
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On December 04 2018 12:11 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2018 08:49 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On December 04 2018 06:28 ReditusSum wrote: This is the second time you've tried to imply I have no understanding of history while simultaneously being unable to accurately represent my original comment and showing that you yourself have a rather basic understanding of history. Do you have a better historical title to analogize a semi-monarchical position over a specific territory that composes a single piece of the greater whole, which is ruled over by the actual monarch (the whole)? Keeping in mind that Count wouldn't work because we already have counties and prince would imply a level of authority (in modern understanding) that would be inappropriate.
I live in the UK. I’ve been cackling at this post on and off for three hours. Same. No better response needed.
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Canada11177 Posts
I generally think the amalgamation of Church and State was the worst thing that happened to Christianity, Constantine and on. And then the best thing that happened for both Church and State was the separation of the two post-Reformation (though even that took awhile.) The problem is as good as I think Christianity is, people still suck. And people suck enough that they try and enforce their particular denominational differences with the power of the State and the State starts interfering in Church doctrines. My people were on the receiving end of that terrible union with the so-called 'third baptism': drownings in rivers. Human nature is ugly. Best to control the power of the State. Classical liberalism was a good development for everyone.
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On December 04 2018 05:15 Lmui wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2018 05:06 Biff The Understudy wrote:On December 04 2018 04:25 Excludos wrote: Technocracy sounds like a good idea to me.. no one's ever tried it tho so it very well might just be a pipe dream. But at the very least we wouldn't have to fight with our own leaders over scientific stuff like global warming And who choses the technocrats supposed to rule? Themselves? Welcome back to dictatorship. Democracy with technocratic requirements for specific positions (healthcare, transportation, science etc.)? Anyone with a "reasonable" background in those fields can run/be appointed, but there are minimum requirements for each? Sounds like France. All our political elite has come during 50 years from a very selective and competitive school designed to form political elite. It was not compulsory but in practice it’s how it was. The system has (had) plenty of advantages and plenty of flaws, but it certainly didn’t prevent us to have our share of clows at the top. Francois Hollande was a typical example of an extremely brilliant enarque. Really didn’t help.
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On December 04 2018 08:02 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2018 06:28 ReditusSum wrote:
The enlightenment was the worst thing to ever happen to humanity.
Can you elaborate on this?
90% chance he's going to say the enlightenment was when people started turning away from god in largish numbers, given his apparent stated desire to return to a christian theocratic monarchy..
Of course, as anyone who knows their history can attest (I'm sure P6 will agree here), monarchs tended to be very choosy when it comes to which bits of their ostensible religion they actually adhered to. And for my money, monarchies themselves can be blamed a lot for religion's slow decline and putting worldwide society on the path to the enlightenment that Sun detests so much.
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On December 04 2018 19:04 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2018 08:02 Ryzel wrote:On December 04 2018 06:28 ReditusSum wrote:
The enlightenment was the worst thing to ever happen to humanity.
Can you elaborate on this? 90% chance he's going to say the enlightenment was when people started turning away from god in largish numbers, given his apparent stated desire to return to a christian theocratic monarchy.. Of course, as anyone who knows their history can attest (I'm sure P6 will agree here), monarchs tended to be very choosy when it comes to which bits of their ostensible religion they actually adhered to. And for my money, monarchies themselves can be blamed a lot for religion's slow decline and putting worldwide society on the path to the enlightenment that Sun detests so much.
I would agree. Monarchs (any absolute ruler) tends to want to centralise power in their hands. Religion goes against that surprisingly often. When it does they curtail its influence, power and wealth. So either you design a religion where the rulers are the clergy and thus religion centralises power and steers the armies or you get a conflict of interest. Catholicism will not work out since the books they claim to follow would limit the monarch and thus create a power struggle.
The main reason protestantism worked out so well is that it gave more power to the ruler over what is preached in their country. It also allowed taking the catholic church lands into the state instead.
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On December 04 2018 20:29 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2018 19:04 iamthedave wrote:On December 04 2018 08:02 Ryzel wrote:On December 04 2018 06:28 ReditusSum wrote:
The enlightenment was the worst thing to ever happen to humanity.
Can you elaborate on this? 90% chance he's going to say the enlightenment was when people started turning away from god in largish numbers, given his apparent stated desire to return to a christian theocratic monarchy.. Of course, as anyone who knows their history can attest (I'm sure P6 will agree here), monarchs tended to be very choosy when it comes to which bits of their ostensible religion they actually adhered to. And for my money, monarchies themselves can be blamed a lot for religion's slow decline and putting worldwide society on the path to the enlightenment that Sun detests so much. I would agree. Monarchs (any absolute ruler) tends to want to centralise power in their hands. Religion goes against that surprisingly often. When it does they curtail its influence, power and wealth. So either you design a religion where the rulers are the clergy and thus religion centralises power and steers the armies or you get a conflict of interest. Catholicism will not work out since the books they claim to follow would limit the monarch and thus create a power struggle. The main reason protestantism worked out so well is that it gave more power to the ruler over what is preached in their country. It also allowed taking the catholic church lands into the state instead.
Not quite how it worked out, historically.
Obviously, you've just identified the key problem; everyone answers to god, not the ruler. This is where the concept of the divine right of Kings was brought in, via some choice pickings from bits of the Bible (hey, this is sounding familiar...). As god's anointed ruler on earth, the King's authority would be unchallenged and power would in fact be centralised in their hands.
The problem is that religions have a separate leadership and powerbase that derives from sources the King can't touch (the generic faith of the subjects), and ostensibly they serve the same god, only even moar-r-r-r-r-r.
So in other words, the very systems religion came up with to justify having Kings (which were needed) sowed the seeds for those same Kings to tell it to fuck off, since with the exception of the Pope nobody had the right to say them nay ever, and priests were constantly doing that very thing, leading pretty much directly to King Henry the VIII and All His Hilarious Shenanigans.
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Though the struggle between a religious power and monarch and nobles is as old as humanity itself, in many other nations did religion and monarch power coexisted somewhat more happily. For instance the Spanish crown, or the Eastern Roman Empire coexisted with the Catholic Church and Orthodox Church respectively mostly happily together. Anyways, it is somewhat boring to note that reditsun equates humanity with the Catholic Church, and somehow the whole Reformation has passed him by despite claiming to live in USA, a country where the Protestant faith is most dominant faith.
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On December 04 2018 08:02 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2018 06:28 ReditusSum wrote:
The enlightenment was the worst thing to ever happen to humanity.
Can you elaborate on this? Please don’t.
This thread got rid of really vague ideological discussions, it’s not something i miss. The whole “us should be a theocracy with lots of dukes and enlightenment suck » was really funny, but I’m not sure it’s a discussion we need to spend days of your lives on. Unless your plan is to convince RS that his ideas are truly fucking terrible, but if it didn’t occur to him spontaneously, I’m afraid you are losing your time.
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I like vague ideological discussions. We should invite and unban xdaunt and danglars just for this "discussion".
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