There's An Open Pit In The Middle Of Our Office Plan That Drops Down Into A Bunch Of Very Sharp Spikes

Rome in its Republican period was undoubtedly the predominant military force of its time. Something about its religious and military practices, combined with its republican form of government, made the Romans do war unlike anyone else. For this post, the most important point I want to make is that Rome conquered most of its territory as a republic. In its imperial period, Roman territory did grow some, but ultimately the Empire was unstable and fractured into multiple autocratic states.

In 1789 the Estates General met in France. Called by the king and then elected by the people of France, this body rejected their monarchical mandate to address the state deficit and instead wrote a new constitution for France, establishing a democratic order on the European continent. The kingdoms around France reacted to this affront to monarchical power by bringing troops to French borders. Fired by nationalism and democratic enfranchisement, the new French state mustered an army exponentially larger than any of its neighbors. The wars that dominated the next twenty(ish) years of European history would see the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and a large expansion of French territory.

During World War II the United States mobilized to an enormous degree to fight European fascist states and the empire of Japan. Huge numbers of young men were conscripted to fight, entire industries were devoted to military production, and all over the nation families rationed food in order to support the war effort. This just twenty years after women were granted the right to vote. At this point the United States was the oldest democratically elected national government in the world, invoking its national fervor for the cause of mass violence. In the half century after and then some, the United States dominated the world economically and militarily.

All this to say that for a very long time democracy and military power have been bound together. The most democratic nations have been the ones able to muster the largest armies, engage the most industrial production, demand the most sacrifice from their populations. On a geopolitical scale, democracy has meant power.

But here's the twist, and what terrifies me about the current moment: with the rise of machines and machine learning, and the consolidation of server ownership into the hands of just a few oligarchs, it's unclear whether that power dynamic still holds. Drones and other remote, even autonomous, technology have made both factories and battlefields less human. The human crowds that filled Roman or Parisian plazas can be atomized and identified by automated surveillance networks. Mao says that political power flows from the barrel of a gun. What happens when the guns aren't in human hands?

Enjoying westerns but keeping a shocked look on my face so people don’t think I’m pro-Manifest Destiny

“liking something in fiction doesn’t mean you condone it in real life” but instead of dark fanfiction tropes it’s about liking jeeves and wooster while being a socialist

Luminescent digital fish flickering in the server sea

ok i just got this thought out of nowhere but blog divers (people who scroll through a blog and reblog things that were posted YEARS AGO) are actually a super important part of the tumblr ecosystem

With people going inactive and deactivating, a lot of classic tumblr posts and also missed gems get lost because those connections get broken. Even on my own blog I forget about posts I made until I see someone in my activity reblog one of them- which then inspires me to reblog it myself because it was a good post and I want my new followers to see

do not feel bad about diving through someone's blog and reblogging shit from years ago, it keeps dashboards alive

(and if anyone has a problem with that, they can just block you or they can delete the root post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, two things that have absolutely no effect on the grand scheme of our lives)

I get such a kick out of the prefix 'cis'

getting a book cislated: yup, still can't read it

cisition timeline: just a selfie

cisformation: make a bunch of super saiyan sounds and walk away

cisubstantiation: by the power of god this bread has remained bread

idk its just neat

“What came first, the chicken or the egg?”

Now a definitively answerable question: the egg. That’s how evolution works.

sapphic saturday

Political power grows out of the head of a drone

In the first years, herds of over a hundred pigs would sweep through the farms and homesteads of Indian territory in eastern Oklahoma, devastating the land and driving rural people into nearby towns. They quickly armed themselves and formed militias to fight the hogs, but progress was slow. Over the next decade they pushed herds out of open land and into more vegetated areas. The hogs found enough shelter and forage in the forests and shrubland to breed at still alarming rates. Hunting parties started regularly scouting open ground for any pigs daring enough to venture out of cover. Over time these parties became more systematic and economical, figuring out how to anticipate and capture entire herds. Although they still had no usable farmland, the people developed efficient butchering and processing techniques and found safe routes through the landmine fields to trade for Texan crops. Initially devastated by the hog invasion, the east Oklahoma nations eventually fought back and carved out a niche for themselves in the new American order.

The US government, hollowed out, has all but collapsed. The east coast states down to Georgia have mostly held together and still recognize the authority of Washington DC. California, Oregon, and Washington have formed an independent coalition on the west coast. Texas' influence captures the whole coast of the Gulf of Mexico, now called the Gulf of Texas by several hundred million people. The Great Lakes states have merged with Canada. And the Great Plains in the middle of the continent are overrun by feral hogs, and war.

tbh i think the funniest phenomena that's been happening in the last couple years is "youtuber, having gone too deep into the research hole, has been made an investigative journalist against their will"

doing the obligatory atla rewatch rn, and so far the main rewatch-value takeaway has been Uncle POV Unlocked