Not Actually Politics EP 1: Thucydides and the Melian Dialog

[@new-machine0]

Please come back and make more videos! Your channel is a light in the darkness.

[@georgepantzikis7988]

>Sees new Actually video is posted at last >It's 1 hour long I'm getting the popcorn.

[@woddlyoats]

Please come back

[@riotousfervor]

Hope you make more videos! Really love your channel

[@modimi]

I miss that dude

[@keyofdoornarutorscat]

Favorite channel

[@shmoosmith]

you gonna do another video anytime soon lol

[@brianferreira2460]

Really had me reconsider the foundations of democracy in the west. When you described how the Athenians organized their political structure I couldn't help but think of an oligarchy that just had quite a bit more people

[@nestormakhno9266]

You’re content is amazing please come back

[@hyperontic]

Based podcast arc

[@sgroetsch3482]

He's back! Thrilled to see it.

[@accumulateandanalyze8736]

8:00-8:18 Fun tangent between Thucydides and Herodotus: Bernard Williams contrasts the two by arguing that each had a different temporal (time-based) structure of truth, with Herodotus' "legendary times" of any particular myth having no temporal structure directly connected to our present temporal experience in terms of how we relate our past to the past of other humans, while Thucydides' "historical time" "provides a rigid and determinate structure for the past. Of any two real events in the past, it must be the case either that one of them happened before the other or that they happened at the same time" (Truth and Truthfulness, pgs 162-163). Any explanation that didn't fit this standard was described as myth explicitly by Thucydides. While you can argue that these present two modes to truth, Williams argues that historical truth is not audience-relative, while mythical truth is (see pg 165).

[@ConeyIslandLow]

Really looking forward to ep 2. This was great!

[@SaintJames14]

I'm still waiting on that teleoplexy vid...... Hope you're alright though man. Your vids are informative, unbiased, precise and insightful. I've shilled this channel for years now. Be well, God bless, and get back to work here. This is the acc channel so go faster gogogogogog

[@w4st3m]

I love this content. Please keep going with this channel.

[@thescrawl6594]

Always excited to see a video from you, high quality as always

[@greenjuche8338]

Great video, I agree with how scary it is that 700 years of history just gets turned into a single sentence like that. Will the next video be over the Republic or something else?

[@luisimy]

Agreed ,love your videos, Plato's republic is a must, really has some good counter points to ours liberal/humanist dogmas . At around you said you were only aiming to in regard to it's historical context,but you can do an appendix to counter arguments in relation to other texts/authors. So now that you started with an historian you need to finish this "lectures" with mark fisher end of time ,and Fukuyama end of history...lol

[@meglang675]

Another please!

[@watcher8582]

This was great. I don't know what practical takeaway this leaves us with. I suppose the keyword here was risk consideration?

[@SaintJames14]

The strong do what they want Weak suffer what they must It's good to be strong Morals are irrelevant Lots of takeaways

[@Eliel20117]

you should do a voiceover instead of the facemask video that i can barely hear

[@BinaryDood]

best montage

[@uuuvvv8299]

hey fella where the HECK are the next episode

[@ddddddddd345]

In repeated, iterative games, rationally submitting is rarely a good strategy. Once you submit, you prove to the other side that you'll act "rationally" so they (and anyone else with enough power) can push you around anytime they appear stronger without any expense. Was there anything preventing Athenians from slaughtering them at first convenient opportunity after they surrender? These 600 settlers probably were waiting no matter what was the decision. Maybe the reason why these people survived for 700 years was exactly because they were known to fight no matter what.

[@SoaringSuccubus]

"rationally submitting is rarely a good strategy" I'm assuming some simulated games? Did they take into account the fact that just one loss may be final? Athenians didn't care about killing the Melians, the whole maneuver was simply done out of internal concerns (not wanting to project weakness to citizens and allies). Kinda like during cold war nobody really cared which way some backwater leaned, east or west, except to avoid losing confidence of populace and allies and maintaining prestige. Back then Greece was divided between two alliances as well and it wouldn't have made any sense to slaughter people who joined your side, lol. The Melians weren't asked to "surrender" during the negotiations, more like "play our game," which is more like coercion or subjugation. "Surrendering" happens only when the war breaks out after failed negotiations, which happened only later. The colonists were prolly just some volunteers who got offered "hey wanna start a new life? We got this empty city waiting", not some people that absolutely had to "colonize" no matter what lol. The Mongols were known to absolutely decimate any population that resisted them as well, while sparing cities that submitted.

[@ddddddddd345]

@@SoaringSuccubus > I'm assuming some simulated games? Yes, I'm just describing some game theory stuff, which I'm not even an expert in. They do however apply to real world decisions. > the fact that just one loss may be final The genetic / cultural finality of this decision is debatable. A culture of "never surrender" mentality might be at advantage, even if sometimes it leads to parts of it to be destroyed whole. One polis gets destroyed, the whole "spartan" culture and genes stick around with a reputation. > not some people that absolutely had to "colonize" no matter what lol That's what I'm unsure about. I would be guessing that population pressures/availability of fertile land around the shore (so transporting produce is efficient) would be a plausible reason for warfare. But I have no expertise to debate historical context here, I was just wondering aloud.

[@SoaringSuccubus]

@@ddddddddd345 Idk sounds a lot like group selection, which is a really contested theory. It often seems that those who know how to "get by" without problems, eg. thriving under all rulers, the opportunistic types, do better overall. But that's just opinion on my part.

[@naitzab]

When will you be on Infrared show??

[@DJJerrypowa23]

Let’s gooooo

[@speculativesodomy]

YES

[@colin2626]

face reveal!!!!

[@smugli3012]

show them what for

[@athko]

the mask makes you very hard to hear, good video otherwise

[@SaintJames14]

The Athenians were materially right. The Melisians were materially wrong. Empires are good.

[@keemstarkreamstar7069]

Are you right wing yet?

[@dom9057]

Please come back