No, only lovers or enemies. Very much a binary.

Lots of good answers here - it’s the kind of question where lots of explanations are partly correct. For me, the decision by early communists to advocate for violent revolution as the only or main way of bringing about communism is a key factor.

It’s pretty common for revolutions to produce dictators, going right back to the fall of the Roman Republic. Ironically, the Roman Civil War that preceded the fall was won by the populares - the people’s movement, as opposed to the optimates, the aristocracy. And yet, the end result was the abolition of the tribunes, which had been the people’s branch of the legislature, and the establishment of the Dictatorship of Julius Caesar, then the Principate of his nephew, Augustus, who we now regard as having been the first Roman Emperor. It wouldn’t be accurate to project back our exact ideas of democracy or class politics to the Romans, but it’s pretty telling that one of the first explicitly ‘class-based’ civil wars in history turned out this way.

Many centuries later, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the British Isles had a similar outcome: the royalists were defeated by the parliamentarians, only for the victorious generals to set up one of their own as what we would now call a dictator (Oliver Cromwell as ‘Lord Protector’), who was virtually a king himself.

(Worth noting here that many people assumed George Washington would turn out to be another Cromwell. The fact that he didn’t and the question of why he didn’t, is not something I know enough to even begin to speculate about, but is definitely something to look into when trying to understand this topic.)

Most relevant for the early communists was the French Revolution, which led to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte who, more or less explicitly imitating Caesar and Augustus, made himself sole ruler of France, first as ‘Consul’ (a title also borrowed from Classical Rome), then Emperor. He was also followed, a little later, by his nephew doing a very similar thing, again explicitly imitating the Romans.

Ironically, Marx himself wrote about this exact tendency, even calling it ‘Bonapartism’, to warn revolutionaries to try and avoid it. I don’t know how exactly he missed the point that the very thing he elsewhere advocated for - violent revolution - was itself the cause of Bonapartism but it seems he did. Plainly, the early Marxists didn’t sufficiently heed this warning, for whatever reason (and see other replies in this thread for many good suggestions!).

Basically, if you’re going to advocate for the violent destruction of a system of government, you are running a major risk that in the ensuing chaos, someone very good at being violent and decisive will end with far too much power.

I’d like my corpse to be used to frame someone for murder. Obviously I can’t name names, because that would undermine the plot, but I trust my loved ones to frame up someone who has it coming.

Totally agree with you. One of the things that I love about LDS is that it’s not just by and for fans of the show - that’s more or less a given with any longstanding franchise - but that it’s about fans of the show.

[Spoiler tag here because I’m talking about the most recent episode and I know some people won’t be caught up yet!]

Great notes, as always!

Freeman sends Purple Data back through the fissure in a photon torpedo tube, much like how Spock’s body was shot towards the Genesis Planet at the end of ST II.

Along with the use of the torpedo tube, I thought Mariner’s off-key flute playing in this scene was a homage to Scotty playing the bagpipes at Spock’s funeral.

This is also yet another reason SUVs are bad: bigger tyres, higher weight, more wear, more pollution.

It’s also another reason to have lower speed limits: less friction, less wear, less pollution.

Yes, particularly difficult with clipless pedals, such that strictly speaking I think it’s illegal to ride at night with them!

As others have said, this depends on the jurisdiction.

In the UK, you have to have lights on at night: white at the front, red at the back. They can either be steady or blinking.

Easy: live by the Venusian calendar. Each ‘day’ is 243 Earth days, so you only have to ‘write code and read book’ once every 243 days, and ‘lift weights and run’ once every Venusian ‘week’, i.e. every 1,701 Earth days. Your calendar is always open because no one understands it.

These interviews are really interesting! I’m going to have to go and read the book now.

Only three, huh? And people say he can’t change.

🖖

If us Star Trek nerds can’t get our facts straight, what hope for humanity?

Measure of a Man is season 2!

I’d start with Strange New Worlds. It’s very classic Trek in terms of its themes and stories, but as it’s still being made it has contemporary audiences in mind. If you like it, I would then go to TNG.

Yeah, you’re right about the footnotes. I read someone the other day saying they felt like Kuang was writing with an imaginary social justice scold hovering over her, and I think that’s about right. I find it odd that someone feels they have to say ‘racism — which is bad, by the way — exists in this society’. We know it’s bad! Even racists don’t like being called racist!

I started reading it yesterday, so I’ll let you know.

Why did you dislike it?

My advice is to try it out at an indoor gym first! And also never to free solo anything! Ever!

Yeah, free soloing is the one. I climb all the time, totally happy doing anything at any height with a rope but without one? Nah.

I don’t think this is true at all. She has a lot of media appearances coming up, as does Tim Walz.

But as other people have said, if you’re worried about, you can do something about it!