POTF 21 - Nominations

[Lord Thesaurian]

POTF is about recognising the very best posts, the best arguments and discourse in the D&D, and appropriately rewarding it.


You shall progressively earn these medals once you achieve enough wins, but first you must be nominated in threads such as this one. And it works like this.

Post of the Fortnight - Rules

-Each user can nominate up to 2 posts per round, and the only valid form of nomination is by quoting with a link as shown below the chosen post in the PotF thread designated for it.

Looking forward to getting this kicked off for real!

-Each 15 days there will be a new Nomination thread put up, and all the posts written during this period are considered eligible, if properly nominated. Exception are posts who are somewhat breaking the ToS; upon being acted by Moderation, they are always considered uneligible.


- Remember: It is possible to nominate up to 2 posts each round of the competition; it is also possible to change a nomination anytime before the actual round of nominations ends.


- There will be two competitions held every month, with a period for nominations followed by a period of voting. The submitted posts can be discussed in a dedicated space.


- Only posts that have not participated in a previous poll and that have been published in the current period of given time in any section of the D&D area may be nominated.


- The authors of the nominated post will be informed so they can withdraw the candidacy if that is their wish.


- The maximum number of participating posts in the final vote will be ten. If more than ten nominations are submitted, seconded nominations will take priority. After seconded nominations are considered, earliest nominations will take priority. If the number of posts submitted to the contest is less than ten, the organizing committee may nominate posts if it considers it appropriate.


-The members of the committee will never nominate a post belonging to one of them, but the rest of the users can nominate their posts (organizers posts), and vice versa.


-In the event of a tie, both posts will be awarded and both posters will receive rep and 1 competition point.


- Public or private messages asking for a vote for a candidate post are forbidden. Violators (and their posts) may not participate in the running contest.


- People are expected to consider the quality and structure of the post itself, more than the content of the same. While it's certainly impossible to completely split the two aspects when making our own opinion on a post, it remains intended, as also explained in the Competition Commentary Thread, that commenting and discussing on the content rather than on the form/structure of the post is considered off-topic for the purpose of this competition. You are free to nominate and vote for whatever reason you want, but what happens in public has to strictly follow up with the competition rules.


A nominated post should:


1. Be focused and relevant to the topic(s) being discussed.
2. Demonstrate a well-developed, insightful and nuanced understanding of the topic(s) it is discussing.
3. Be logically coherent, well organized and communicate its points effectively.
4. Support its contentions with verifiable evidence, either in the form of links or references.
5. Not be deliberately vexatious to other users.

Good luck everyone!

[Flinn]

Tend to suggest the authors are also using the traditional view of the classical world as trapped in the same crappy system as not Britain/Dutch in the 17-19 the centuries. I pretty suree for example the high efficiency and effectiveness of Roman livestock management - From manuring, crop rotation and animal size increases makes no ticks on what must be some scale of innovations because its largely confined to specialist journal where as Finnely's dead hand looms large over all things with Roman Technology or Economy.

Most historians are not farmers anymore and very few bother to actually talk to any. To be fair its only been 20-30 years that some archeologists and historians have cared to look at the evidence but roman mixed farming in Italy was very sophisticated and rivaled the Dutch in their not Industrial revolution escape from the Malthusian trap. But nothing about is flashy like having a seed drill. A consderation of using over a dozen perennial forage crops and using them does not really have the same bang.

In the last several decades, people have discovered that inventions that previously had thought to have been medieval ones (crankshaft, for example) actually were Roman ones.

Still, the Roman technology for the most part merely represented the refinement of technologies that had previously been invented elsewhere. Except for concrete as a substitute for stone and brick, I can't think of any technology that was an entirely Roman invention. Roman agriculture represented the refinement of thousands of years of agricultural tradition. In some areas, it would take Western Europe up until the 19th century before they matched and exceeded some of the skills the Roman had, such as building large scale public stadiums or public baths.

What made Europe different after the early medieval collapse was the overall advancement of technology that has continued on to the present time. Many civilizations have a burst of creativity followed by periods where you see more refinement of technology rather fundamentally new inventions. Medieval Europe was different. In agriculture, in ship building, in warfare, we see advances in various fields throughout. In some cases, medieval Europe was starting from a point well behind what the ancient Greco-Roman civilization had achieved, and it took centuries to for Europe to catch up and surpass it. But in others, by the High Middle Ages, Western Europe had already surpassed the Classical World.

Take shipping and ship building. As I already cited, 13th century Genoese were building ships capable of carrying a 1000 passengers, which surely must have rivaled the largest Roman ships in size. More over, advances in navigational methods helped by inventions like magnetic compasses and portlan charts led to revolutionary changes in the thousands year old practice of Mediterranean shipping from just one voyage a year to 2 round trips a year.

The development of the design of great galleys, cogs and carracks may beseen as an indication of superiority in terms of ship building technology because it is
safer to set sail in the winter, and more suitable for open sea crossing by thesestronger ships. It is known that the Great Council of Venice of 1292 decided that theships could make two round trips in a year instead of one, as a result of these newtechnical advantages of ship design "LATE BYZANTINE SHIPS AND SHIPPING1204-1453" Master Thesis paper EVREN TÜRKMENOĞLU http://www.thesis.bilkent.edu.tr/0008006.pdf

A further indication that Gautier Dalché’s early time estimate {of portlan charts} is not improbable is provided by John H. Pryor, who extensively investigatedthe logistics of Crusader transports.1 Pryor notes that in the First Crusade allhorses were brought to Palestine by land, but that a major revolution tookplace in transporting horses and troops by sea between 1096 and 1204. Duringthis period horses were increasingly, and in increasing numbers, transportedby ship. Furthermore, night sailing was developed by the Christians, but wasnot practiced or at least not widely so by the Mediterranean Muslims. Pryorconcludes that this maritime revolution was most probably introduced byimprovements in navigation, rather than by, for example, developments inshipbuilding or rigging. Night sailing clearly requires knowledge of the watersahead. Pryor also noticed that the average speed of transports increased bysome 400 percent, suggesting that Crusader fleets were able to navigate withgreater confidence, using more direct routes than before.2 Chapter 12 "Synthesis" The Enigma of the Origin of Portolan Charts Roel Nicolai file:///D:/_book_9789004285125_B9789...13-preview.pdf

It is what made Western Europe different starting from the High Middle Ages and going forward, was the continue advance in technology seen across abroad range of areas. It is not just shipping, we see it in warfare. The plate armor of the 13th and 14th century is different and more protective than the mail armor of the 12th century, and the armor of the Norman soldiers in the Bayeux Tapestry is more extensive and protective than the armor shown shown for Charlemagne's soldiers a couple centuries earlier. The windlass cranked crossbows were more powerful and more sophisticated than the earlier hand drawn medieval crossbows.

I just don't see that kind of advancement occurring in China. Nothing I have seen shows me Zheng He's ships were fundamentally more advanced or even larger than those of the Song dynasty. After a burst of creativity during the Song dynasty, China, like the Hellenistic Greek Classical world, settle into a period where there really wasn't much fundamental technological advance, more refinement on existing technology. (Guns and gunpowder, printing, magnetic compass all were invented in previous dynasties from the Ming.). The sailing ships of the late Roman empire were not fundamentally different from those of the Classical Greek world of centuries earlier, just perhaps bigger on the average, and the same could be said for China of the Ming dynasty. What advances in gun technology the Ming possessed were from borrowing, such as the matchlock mechanism, or their breech loading small cannons (from the Portuguese), and refining those technologies. The Chinese did not come up with new mechanisms comparable to the flint lock, percussion cap, or the self contained bullet themselves. Nor can it all be blamed on China's resources being too diverted to having fight the Mongols and others. Wheellocks, and snaplocks (predecessor of the flintlock), and percussion cap were the result of private individuals. And many of the astronomical discoveries and use of the telescope were by amateur astronomers, like Herschel, who did astronomy as a hobby. It can't seriously be maintained that China lacked individuals with sufficient wealth to the same (and it if were true, in would undermine the claim that China was comparable to Europe up until the 18th, 19th centuries.)

There is no classical counterpart to the medieval European reading glasses, or the all mechanical clocks, or magnetic compass, or the late medieval printing press. These were more than a simple refinement of existing technology. And instead of the rate of invention slowing down, it just seem to accelerated in the following centuries up until today.

&

Cyclops,

Of course it doesn't say it directly but since it was a separate feature put onto the land one can see that it was a type and shadow of heaven otherwisw why place it there? The rivers that ran through it would I suppose be withdrawn when the garden was so to try to evaluate them as with the rivers left doesn't follow.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say the Garden was withdrawn. Your version of events is not supported by Scripture.

All creation was punished by the change in nature that took effect when the curse was placed on it so why would snakes be any different?

Nowhere in Genesis does it say God cursed the whole world, he cursed three individuals and their offspring. Your version is not scriptural.

Satan was not speaking the truth because in the day that the twosome ate the fruit death did come upon not just them but all creation yet not immediately why? Because it was ordained that Jesus Christ would come into the world to save a certain body of people from out of it. That body have there names written in the book of life even before the worlds were made and shall be unfolded when Jesus Christ comes back to finalise all things. The overall story has already been finished from the heavenly timescale so in our time we are living it out until that heavenly time is fulfilled here.

Genesis 2:17 "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die". Now I agree with other posters the KJV is a flawed translation but you hold it to be God's Word and that statement is not equivocal. "in the day that thou eastest thereof thou shalt surely die". There's no context or flow here, God lies.

As for Darwin's theory one can accept it as real or not. I don't believe it.

You deny Darwin wrote a theory of natural selection? Bizarre, you can go to Cambridge and see his manuscripts.

As for the "truth" of the theory, well its a series of propositions you can test for yourself. I would never be so arrogant as to suggest you cannot understand science. many of Darwin's propositions have been tested and found wanting by others, so the theory of natural selection has been modified in light of these observations. That's how science works, you can see if the propositions are true.

By contrast religion requires faith, often blind faith. We are capable of amazingly strong belief. We can even believe we follow a religion we think is based on a set of scriptures, when the scriptures don't really support our religion. This is a testable proposition BTW. In this thread you've been presented with mutually agreed facts about Scripture, facts you can check for yourself, yet you maintain your own beliefs about Scripture despite the facts not cohering with your beliefs.

[Aexodus]

If I may do a little nitpicking of my own:

British foreign policy was centered on old fashioned cultural domination and direct resource extraction. From a purely cynical standpoint, the US just wants to do business and let soft power handle the speed bumps. That doesn’t require physical possession in order to be profitable. To whatever extent the US took up Britain’s geopolitical role in a given region, the motivations and goals were fundamentally different. Violent authoritarian regimes destabilizing their respective spheres isn’t good for business, arms dealers notwithstanding. Clumsy diplomacy is the backstory to far more of US foreign policy than either she or her critics would like to admit. As I pointed out earlier, the US aided and was ready to work with Khomeini’s regime, and he conveyed his willingness to do so - until he didn’t. His decision to place holy war over his own country’s interests made that impossible.

Tehran “started it” by attacking our embassy before proceeding to destabilize the region in the name of Islamic Revolution. To the extent aid in the form of weapons sales can be geopolitically consequential to the story, becoming one of several countries to sell weapons to Saddam during his war against the country which attacked Americans would be part of the US’ containment policy against the Ayatollah’s external ambitions, not contradictory to it. The external destabilization Tehran had already caused during the Revolution and the war was deemed intolerable compared to the bad PR suffered by betting on Saddam. As Kissinger famously said, “It’s a pity they [Khomeini and Saddam] both can’t lose.” For his part, Khomeini certainly didn’t regret his naked attempts to foment Islamic revolution against a would be ally in Iraq which got his country attacked in the process. For him, holy war was worth any cost, and he remained committed to the overthrow of Saddam to the very end of the conflict.

As for the KSA, like I said, Wahhabism was used for internal control by the House of Saud, until it became something else in the wake of Tehran’s Revolution. One can theorize about how the Muslim Brotherhood, Arab nationalism, or internal extremism might otherwise have pushed the formerly isolationist doctrine focused primarily on obedience to the King to become the externalized political force that Wahhabism is today. Three things are certain: The Shah was on good terms with the Saudis. Lots of countries sell weapons to and buy oil from KSA. The Ayatollah’s Islamic revolution and calls for the overthrow of especially neighboring Sunni governments provided both the inspiration and the fear which drove Tehran’s Sunni/Wahhabist rivals to copy her model for religion as a low cost, high impact foreign policy tool.

My frustration with the Ayatollah is that his regime continues to attack Americans, US allies, and anyone else who might be standing nearby, throughout the region and the world. Whatever he does inside his own country is his own concern, and I’m not a fan of the Israeli lobby’s pull in US politics, nor the use of accusations of anti-semitism as a cudgel to silence criticism of Israel’s policies.

The Ayatollah’s theocratic supreme rule over pre-approved political candidates is not dependent on actual voting. I wouldn’t associate democratic themes with his detainment, torture and murder of Iranians that continues to this day, including the recent massacres of his own people. I may be guessing, but I’d wager the Iranian getting tortured to death doesn’t care if the man holding the knife is an Islamist or a monarchist or a communist.


This would appear to be a non-sequitur that conflicts with the course of events in the region since 1979, to say the least.

This is a Marxist perspective if one wants to label it. Equating the US to the British in Iran only makes sense in such terms. The US was ready to deal with Mossadegh or the Shah or the Ayatollah, or frankly any government not aligned with Moscow. Distribution of monetary profits from oil production is at best a tertiary concern. The geopolitics of averting a British invasion of Iran or rumors of Soviet intrigue in exchange for lending the support of US intelligence services to the Shah is not the watershed moment claimed by Tehran or her apologists. It is merely a part of the post hoc narrative used to assign nefarious god-like power to the US government, and deflect criticism of a brutal theocracy whose arrival was by no means preordained.


I would classify the above as a non-sequitur given the Ayatollah and his regime considered the export of Islamic Revolution to be the existential goal of Tehran’s Islamic Republic, power dynamics be damned; a philosophy she has turned to action since inception, independently of any subsequent response by the US or neighboring Gulf States.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Post 1

Ep1c_fail’s post quoted for context:

Israel has used proxies to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program and keep Iranian proxies at a distance from its borders, but it isn’t really Israel that is driving conflict between the two states. Even after the 1979 revolution, Israel tried to maintain its alliance with Iran by supporting Iran in the Iran–Iraq War. The last thing Israel wanted was another enemy in the region. Ultimately though, Israel’s foreign policy is constrained by the need to maintain a good relationship with the US, and Iran saw greater benefit in providing support to Israel’s nearby enemies than to maintaining a relationship with a county allied to the Great Satan.

There is very little benefit for Israel to be had in its conflict with Iran compared to a great deal of risk, with the exception that Israel has become closer to some of its other neighbors due to having a common enemy. This latter fact arose long after Iran had initiated conflict with Israel, and was largely mediated by the US. Hezbollah is the enemy with the best chances of overwhelming Israel’s missile defense system precisely because of Iran’s assistance. There is likewise little for Israel to gain in maintaining its conflict with Hezbollah. The Israelis feel trapped in a conflict with Iran and its proxies because they feel they can’t risk preventing a buildup of forces intent on their destruction. Even with current disparity in military strength, Israelis (rightly to some degree) see themselves as vulnerable. They have learned not to assume that threats amount to nothing more than rhetoric, so they maintain an aggressive stance in degrading their enemies’ capabilities.

While the pro-Israeli lobby does have a fair amount of influence, it's a myth that US has aligned its foreign policy to Israel's interests. In fact, Israel has largely adapted its foreign policy to maintaining good relations with the US, by building relationships with US regional allies. When there is friction between the US and Israel, it's largely due to Israel seeing a particular threat as of greater importance than the US does, because to Israel it is. Although this is not always the case, for example, the Israeli defense establishment was (behind closed doors) opposed to the US invasion of Iraq.

Post 2

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts”
- -William Shakespeare

“The history of the world is but the biography of great men.”
- -Thomas Carlyle

"Not the Son of Achilles, but Achilles himself."
-Plutarch on Alcibiades.


Alcibiades (450–404 BC)

He has been called an Alexander in the wrong place at the wrong time [1][2]. To more serious-minded historians, he was a traitor, a demagogue, and a scoundrel. In his own time however, he may have been known as the greatest Athenian of his generation, while also an archnemesis to Athenian religion and democracy. Born with a huge assortment of many positive traits, including personality, charm, good looks, physical prowess, perseverance, and above average intelligence, along with a privileged background that connected him with the likes of Pericles, Socrates, and members of the Athenian elite, there can be no doubt that Alcibiades fits Thomas Carlyle’s depiction of a great man. However, given the many variations of Alcibiades, including representations by Plutarch, Thucydides, and Plato, along with one of the more bizarre roles ever played in the Peloponnesian War, we are still left to wonder, who was Alcibiades? Did he influence events or did events influence him? Was he all that important? And why, this most colorful figure of all of antiquity, did he fail? Alcibiades biography of course, is as dense and as complicated as the Peloponnesian War, and historians like us will never be satisfied with less than complicated answers.

Some discussion points:


Love of Preeminence or Self-Indulgence?

Any serious discussion on Alcibiades must begin with his love of preeminence, his most important trait. However, it’s not clear if Alcibiades was a megalomaniac hellbent on ruling the Athenian Empire or just a typical aristocrat predisposed towards fame and self-indulgence. In his youth of course, he stood apart from others, hogging the limelight at every opportunity. Whether it was hosting extravagant dinner parties, racing chariots at the Olympics, accepting bribes and gifts, outsmarting teachers, wrestling with other boys, or punching politicians on a dare (then marrying that politician’s daughter), and making spectacular donations before the assembly, it’s quite clear Alcibiades had all the fame and confidence he would need to be a leading man in Athens. His tutor, Socrates, even famously asked a young Alcibiades if he wished to conqueror the world, to which he replied yes. While the exact nature of Alcibiades relationship to Socrates is still somewhat debatable (and may have been a bromance), the character contrast -to the modest but virtuous philosopher- is clear; Alcibiades was a man of notable ambition (along with many passions) and may have seen himself as an anointed successor to Pericles.



Scoundrel or Loyal Athenian?

The most interesting parts of Alcibiades biography are the many roles he played in the Peloponnesian War, where he effectively served on all sides. In fact, we can even say there were four sides to the Peloponnesian War; Athens, Sparta, Persia, and Alcibiades.

While his mercenary roles in Athens, Sparta, and the Ionia are all too lengthy to describe here (along with the many accusations of treason), the most notable event in Alcibiades’s life is arguably the Peace of Nicas.

Here a debate begins, was Alcibiades a scoundrel or a loyal Athenian? The Peace of Nicas was supposed to mark a 50 year ceasefire between Athens and Sparta, yet Alcibiades (according to Plutarch) seized an opportunity to trick the Spartan delegation into saying things that would offend the Athenian assembly. While the result of Alcibiades treachery was a restoration of hostilities that eventually accumulated into the Battle of Mantinea, it did also push Argos, Mantinea, and the Eleans into Athens’s sphere of influence, a remarkable alliance at the time. Alcibiades, for his part, was also appointed general, and his rival, Nicas, was soundly trashed and humiliated before the assembly. While it is clear that Alcibiades had always planned to benefit politically at Nicas expense, a case can be made that Athens had benefited too. The alliance with Argos was arguably the closest Athens came to directly winning the Peloponnesian War, and it had gained a powerful land army inside the Peloponnese. And if Athens would have won the Battle of Mantinea against Sparta, who knows what would have happened. Alcibiades might have gone down as one of the greatest conquerors of all time. Instead, we’re left to wonder, was Alcibiades really trying to benefit Athens, or was he always planning to benefit himself? Its a question that reoccurs constantly throughout Alcibiades career, along with his many shifting loyalties and power grabs.


Risk taker or Opportunist?

Another way to begin deciphering Alcibiades’s character is to argue whether he was an opportunist or a risk-taker. The difference is subtle but can be helpful for choosing how we choose to interpret Alcibiades. An obvious risk-taker, like Alexander for instance, engages in reckless behavior in hopes of generating a positive outcome. Complicated maneuvers, set piece battles, and suicidal cavalry charges of course, only serve to generate a chance of going either right or wrong. The exact odds that come with risk taking, very importantly, are also, more or less unknowable; which is why gambling can never be considered completely brilliant. Opportunists on the other hand, is more closely related to genius (and less so to courage) because it is about spotting and seizing advantages that arise through circumstances. Rather than rolling the dice, opportunists find more dice to roll, which deterministically increases the odds of success. An example of opportunism is Leonidas choosing to hold a narrow pass at Thermopylae, which offered a clear advantage when defending against a larger force.


When these definitions are applied to Alcibiades, the best case study is the Sicilian Expedition, of which Alcibiades is the principle author. The Sicilian Expedition of course, has a legacy that is comparable to Gallipoli and the Schlieffen Plan; brilliant conceptionally, but flawed in its logistical assumptions. An opportunity for sure at the strategic level, that played to Athens’s naval strength, but a gamble in that it required a huge investment, along with plenty of manpower and an aggressive timetable. Had it succeeded though, Athens would have been the first trans-Mediterranean Empire in history, and probably would have lasted against Macedonia and maybe against Rome. Instead, because of either poor execution, or just ridiculous planning, we’re left to wonder if the whole thing was a blunder.


Tyrant or Demagogue?

Its interesting that Alcibiades never tried to take the state, especially when he was more than once accused of crimes while heading an army. Despite this fact, we do know that Alcibiades represented a rebellious and imperialist faction that constantly struggled for more power in Athens. Prior to returning Athens, Alcibiades did help orchestrate a coup that put wealthy Athenian oligarchs in power. Given more time, would Alcibiades have made himself first citizen in Athens? Would he have completely done away with the last elements of democracy to the benefit of his supporters? Or, despite his ambition, would he have been okay to share power with the same citizenry who had once accused him of impiety and high crimes against the state. Its not clear what Alcibiades would have done with more power.



Competent or Mediocre General?

Alcibiades made himself useful for each side he fought for. He had a strategic mind and could conceptualize long-term strategies. On the tactical level, he distinguished himself as a naval commander. He was personally brave in battle, yet never reckless. Given the opportunity, he would use deceit and deception to outsmart his opponents. The naval battle of Cyzicus, along with his activities in the Hellespont, show some evidence of military genius. Though he was clearly an imaginative commander, the question is whether he always had the right ideas. Would the Sicilian Expedition had worked had he personally led it? It’s the ultimate stain on an otherwise decent military record, along with the fact that he never quite achieved unity of command.


Significance to History

Its hard to say what Alcibiades true legacy is. His skill and acumen in the political area is obviously complicated by a record that was absolutely terrible for Athens. More than once he steered the assembly into war, often for his own personal gain. Having said that, Alcibiades was a survivalist and showed he could reinvent himself and his city after failure, even when limited by a system that did not favor a single leader. Many historians think, in the long run, Alcibiades faults simply outweighed his positives. A point that is backed by his habit for making enemies. Yet, in the end, it was perhaps Alcibiades failure to control events that were too big for any one person to control. A rivalry between Athens and Sparta would have continued with or without Alcibiades. But without Alcibiades, there might not have been a Sicilian Expedition, and Athens might never have lost so much of its navy. For one person, capable of so much, and then so little, perhaps Alcibiades ultimate legacy is to show us how the virtues and vices of great people can and cannot influence history.

------------------------------------------------
Comparison to Alexander

[1] Edmund F. Bloedow 'AN ALEXANDER IN THE WRONG PLACE' ALCIBIADES 'THE ABLEST OF ALL THE SONS OF ATHENS'?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/241...108cbdb9548d42

[2] Adolf Holm. The History of Greece from Its Commencement to the Close of the Independence of the Greek Nation (1893).
http://www.historydiscussion.net/his...to-sicily/5756

That Alcibiades was a man more sinned against than sinning goes without saying. His ambition was unbounded no doubt, but in ability and intellect, in generalship and statesmanship he was unrivalled. He anticipated matters which came to be realised later in time. He was an Alexander in the wrong, place as Athens was premature Macedonia.

Henderson and other writers of his opinion feel that if Alcibiades had been left in his command the expedition to Sicily, he would have indubitably captured Syracuse. As to the question whether the Sicilian expedition was justified from Athenian interests, it must be said that it was a policy of Alcibiades’ willful ambitions. It had no shadow of moral justification. After all, Alcibiades sought to rule more than Athens. – Adolf Holm (1893)