jlc

Even more appropriate that you chose Anomalocaris, the apex predator of the Cambrian, to represent the Democrats...

Jan, loves Cambrian critters

Sorry. I got caught in a patronymic fugue.

Jan

Wow! Lest Darkness Fall is 99 cents? I have a hardbound copy - want to get one for my Kindle! ( Iam in the middle of rethinking Kindle accounts right now).

Jan

It is an overlooked classic, knowledgeably and capably written. I am glad that you are enjoying it.

Jan

This thread seems to be showing some sense!

It is a valuable thread. Thank you for posting it.

Jan

I had not thought of that. Good idea.

Jan

I am actually relieved to see relatively little gun-boasting going on in this thread, SBilko. It makes me squirm when people detail their firearm possessions online.

The discussion of 'how much ammo' is entirely different. I am really mulling over the advice 'to add an extra clip' when carrying, since the assumptions of use cases have changed.

Jan, moot for the CA gal, but still interesting

Admittedly, the English strategy was superior at Crecy than at Agincourt - where their hand was more or less forced. But by 'battle tech' (as opposed to 'tech') I also include unit discipline. The French defeated themselves at Agincourt by their poor discipline as well as by their tactical arrangement of resources.

And Napoleon was a hellova exception.

Jan

That is fun. I wish I had your jolly relationship with numbers. It was my lack of comfort with numbers that inclined me towards a bio degree - I love science, but find numbers a bit baffling. (I memorized well enough to pass Calculus; I had a prof who was an incredible teacher, so I do actually understand some of the basis for Calculus, but I can't work with it worth a darn.)

Jan

Ha. Bad image. Gave you a point anyway.

Jan

Obscure history books, especially if you want to look at the actual text images, excepts from manuscripts, paintings, hieroglyphs, etc still do not display well on most electronic devices. Other than that, the ability to stuff a few hundred books in your carry-on is a treasure.

Jan

Thank you for teaching, and for including what should be common knowledge in your education.

Jan

I think that this is an actual example of tech shortening the time, not of tech making the difference between winning and loosing. If you imagine the Colonists having the same impetus and population pressures that happened in the real world, but take away their gunpowder, I think that the ranks of cavalry with six-shooters would have been replaced by ranks of Welsh bowmen...and the same results would have happened.

The 'battle tech' of an organized military unit, even with comparable weaponry, would have won. Face it: the French armored cavalry were considered by the people of that time to be higher tech than the English at Crecy and Agincourt. It is also theorized that the organized fighting of the North, in addition to its far superior logistics, were what resulted in Northern victory even against the brilliant generalship of the South. In the cases of Crecy, Agincourt, and the South, those armies set a higher priority on individual accomplishment than 'marching in ranks'. But - much as I (a fan of the heroic) hate to say it - marching in ranks can win battles. Not always, but most of the time.

Jan

Russia is a very emotional country. I have confirmed via my own research (and discussions) that Russian troops lept out of airplanes...without parachutes. As long as they landed in snowbanks, they apparently had a decent survival rate (and Russia could not afford parachutes). They actually DID this. Hard for me to imagine. The German response? Paint bare dirt fields with white paint.

Any army that can do this can hold for a very long time.

Jan

I agree. Germany is half the size of Texas and about 1 1/2 times the size of Britain. Even with its European conquests, it had most of two continents (Russian and the US) and an empire (Britain's offshore territories/allies) arrayed against it. It had a non-pacified interior (French/Dutch/Polish).

In Asia, the Chinese hated the Japanese bitterly. Japan invading China was a true example of the Prince trying to rule 'in the face of the direct opposition of the people'; fleeing Chinese refugees stopped to build airstrips with their bare hands to provide the Allies with a means to strike back against their enemies.

Wars are won by logistics. They can, however, be marvelously shortened by the correct application of technology.

Jan

There is probably a real answer to that: Has individual and non-conforming opinion increased or decreased since the Internet? I would suspect that it has functionally 'increased', since the Internet allows one to find low-incidence opinions in other parts of the world and interact with them.

Jan, typing in the Gulch

Not so bad for me, but then I keep my internal organs internally...

Jan

This is quantum mechanics, not free speech, MichaelA. OUCarl is talking about a Schrodinger's Cat sort of situation where someone could potentially time travel back into the past and change it, but only if he did not bring with him the knowledge of the original outcome.

Jan

There are various classes of 'parts that did not work'. Some things that were known at the time to be problems but were glossed over, some things that were not thought of.

If I had a re-write coupon for the Constitution, I would add things such as a 'definitions' page: man = sentient being (irrespective of race, religion, species, gender); tax = money taken by force for use by any level of government (including fees, permits, tariffs, etc); war = any encounter to which the US sends men or equipment for other than health related purposes.

I would also add that all government departments must use good accounting practices, those budgets are on public record annually; no bill may be modified in any respect after it is voted on; any public vote for an allocation of money for a particular purpose must be used for that purpose, even if it is not specifically so stated in the individual bill; all judgements are subject to appeal, even if the individual regulations do not include an appeal process.

Jan

You are right. I have a fairly good level of security against burglars; I can take a few easy steps and get to a decent perimeter against rioters/looters (I am waaaay out in the boonies of LA County, so not likely to get much of that). What I cannot defend against is 'tanks'. When the guys with the tanks come, I have to cave...which is what this Gulch is all about.

Your emails have inspired me to increase the priority for 'gates across my main driveway', however. I used to have some gates there [insert long story] but now do not. I will see if I can rectify that again, since having them really does help in perimeter security.

Jan

I think this is an important point, term. I agree with what MikeM said - that empires die from complex causes, not simple ones - but one of the things we have noticed is that the 'detritus' of our society is increasing. There are more laws, more paperwork, more power groups that get in the way of 'producing something'. The metaphor in my mind is that of a young person who shrugs off bronchitis, but an older person gets pneumonia from the same bug. The US has been a strong and hardy society - as was Rome - but as our culture ages it is easier for drought or migration to become 'the straw' that breaks us.

Fortunately, we are both younger than Rome and higher tech. We still have some time.

Jan

I agree with you, MikeM. For years I have heard Dire Predictions...and mostly they just Y2K themselves into fizzled nothingness. The USA comprises most of the arable region of a continent. Our population is mostly literate and tech savvy. We have an established infrastructure. With the addition of distributed power, internet, and (eventually) 3D printing we can have a lot of physical resilience. (This is one reason that the agendas to move us into dependent urban warrens are dangerous.)

We are waging a philosophical war. If we had another 'new world' open to us, it would be possible to shed the accumulated parasites and power groups, and start over. We can improve on the Constitution, because we now have 200 years of watching what parts of it do not work.

We do not have the option of just taking flight and starting anew, so we have to deal with the fact that much of our population is so removed from reality that they do not see the cause-and-effect relationship between freedom and progress. But this may not matter. If we have sufficient technological momentum, we may be able to make non-production meaningless. We may, simply speaking, be able to out-produce the ballast of society.

Jan

I think that MikeM has the right of it. It is a lot more difficult now to suppress an opinion. One example of this is e-publishing of fiction, non-fiction, and scientific articles (and a lot of hogwash too, admittedly). The traditional 'Press' is still trying to pretend that it has a gatekeeper function with respect to news, for example.

Jan

For hundreds of thousands of years, parents could teach their children 'all they needed to know' about the technology of the world in which they would live as adults. We cannot even guess what technology we will ourselves be learning a decade from now, in a scramble to keep up with our rate of progress.

Ten years from now, if they lock down the Internet, it might be equivalent to currently 'stopping the mail' and assuming you have therefore cut off communication.

Jan

Ha. Not THAT kind of charging!

Jan