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The demographics of freedom and slavery

1/ A graph of historical significance, when US is sleepwalking towards losing its fundamental constitutional freedoms.

2/ Demographics of ancient Athens, at the point where democracy was coming to an end. Easy naturalisations & illegal enrolments. The “sons of slaves” took over democracy.
Source: The Greek City and its Institutions, G. Glotz, 2010 p358

3/ Demographics in Rome.
In 376, barbarians forced to leave their territories (Eastern Europe), pushed by the Huns, “a race savage beyond all parallel.” (Marcellinus) (Huns like modern ISIS)
IMMIGRATION CRICIS → Rome accepted + protected barbarians (system of hospitalitas)

4/ Rome did NOT fall because it was attacked by the OUTSIDE. Rome fall because INSIDE barbarians enjoyed imperial protection (hospitalitas) and demanded FULL INDEPENDENCE.
In 418 AC – Hospitalitas + Federation (European Union of Barbarians)
In 476 AC – Fall of Rome

60 years

Source

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Why do we find 300+ references to the word “Roman” in The Alexiad?

Since the latest debate is spread all over the place, let’s do a thread.
1/ Q. Why do we find 300+ references to the word “Roman” or “Romans” in the most famous work of Byz Princess Anna Komnene (“The Alexiad”)? https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/AnnaComnena-Alexiad00.asp

2/ The book is written in greek.
In introduction she poses her credentials: she characterises her Hellenic (Greek) education as TOP/EXTREME (Ἑλληνίζειν ἐς ἄκρον) quoting Greek authors (e.g. Plato Dialogues & Aristotle) and citing ZERO Roman / Latin scholarship.

3/ Can you imagine a capitalist proudly inspired by Marx? A Marxist proudly inspired by Freedman?
Why did the most well-educated “Roman” princess, proudly introduced her most famous work, with Greek scholarship & zero Latin/Roman citations? Something looks out of place here.

4/ On top of that, Anna characterises Latins (Λατῖνοι) as “arrogants”.
To summarise: she’s a “Roman”…

– that studies greek literature
– uses in the introduction only greek authors (Homer, Plato, Aristotle)
– and considers the latin culture as inferior & arrogant

5/ However, she routinely uses the word “Roman”.
Examples (in english):
– Emperor of the Romans
– Roman Empire
– Roman Army

All references come straight out of the ROMAN CIVIL CODE. They are state titles. Official [legal] references.

6/ That’s why I use the UN-China analogy. United Nations is based in New York. Byzantine christian citizens in greek territory (mostly Greeks) using titles like “Roman” 300 times is like Chinese Buddhists using the title “United Nations” 300 times. It doesn’t make them yankees.

7/ All this, to rephrase what most scholars already agree:

Byzantine “Romans” = Roman State Titles + [mainly] Greek cultural identity.
That’s why back then they called them… Greeks.

8/ Since Anna Komnene has a clear, acute, no-BS style of writing, she makes clear reference on the culture she represents.
But first of all, what is the greek word for culture? It is “παιδεία”. Meaning both “culture” and “cultural education” or just “education”.

9/ So, when Anna criticises Nilus as illiterate heretic, she claims he is “UNINITIATED INTO HELLENIC CULTURE”. (Ἀμύητος δὲ πάσης ἑλληνικῆς παιδείας).
She considers the Hellenic as the ONLY culture necessary for the initiation to the “deep meanings of the Divine writings”.

10/ And here she talks about her father, the Emperor Alexios Komnenos (named after Alexander the Great).
I let you guess what kind of culture her father was promoting throughout the “Roman Empire”.

11/ Note: The Komnenian dynasty ruled the Byzantine Empire for a period of 104 years, from 1081 to 1185. The “Grand Komnenoi” ruled in Trebizond for over 250 years, until 1461. The Palaiologoi (closely related to the Komnenoi) ruled until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

12/ In 2019: Non-Greek Macedonia. Non-Greek Byz. Non-Greek Aegean sea (natural resources). Homer from Turkey (by MIT database).
A market for carnivores eating Greece (heritage, econ, territory).
However, I explore the space of good intentions of all.

Source

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On “Macedonia” (2)

Things are not so complicated.
– Tsipras typical marxist agent for Germany (see Lenin)
– He signs a treaty with pseudoscientific claims: e.g. Macedonian language doesn’t exist in linguistics, it’s Bulgarian.
– 70% Greeks disagree. Ask for REFERENDUM. Gassed by Tsipras’ regime.

Imagine if nationalists in US claimed “we are Parisians speaking the Parisian language”. 1st they aren’t in Paris, 2nd they speak English, 3d NOT such thing as “Parisian”, it’s French. Similarly the Greeks say “you’re Albanians/Bulgarians crazy nationalists, you speak Bulgarian”.

The irony is this. The majority of Greeks disagree and are labeled as “white nationalists”, while the same media support the ACTUAL white supremacists of “Macedonia”, w/ pseudo-historical claims & grandiose national rhetoric similar to Hitler Aryan race.

As I’ve already shown in previous thread, George Soros is not hiding his excitement for the “Macedonian” nation. In his NYT article he promotes the map for the “United Macedonia” ultranationalist project to exploit Greek history & N. Greek territory.

Macedonia is a region “bought by Soros” writes Helene Ahrweiler, Principal of Sorbonne, Paris.

It’s also a strong investment by Germany. 1) download “Soros leaks” to see how Open Society Foundation lobbied Merkel. 2) Lenin was FINANCED by Germany to deceive the Russians in favour of Germany. Tsipras with same marxist BS deceived the Greeks.

1944, the US Secretary of State under President Roosevelt made a clear evaluation about the “Macedonian” issue.

Today Nimetz, the Representative of UN openly warned (threatened?) Greece for “negative consequences” if refuse to sign the treaty. He used “Google translate” as scientific argument that “Macedonian” is a distinct language. Well… you can take the quiz:

Comment

My theory is this: nobody won a battle against Alexander. It’s more probable for nato & europe to go down than to survive by stealing the memory of Macedonia. Nobody dared this level of Hubris, not even Hitler, without nemesis hitting the door.

Source

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Objection vs. Disrespect

1/ Distinguishing the fine line between Objection & Disrespect was a key to western culture. Tyrants around the world, for 1000s of years, rejected any serious objection as a form of disrespect.

no objection = no progress.
radical objection = chaos

2/ The most ancient text in western civilisation is Iliad, by Homer.
Epic poems from other cultures praised their glorious leaders. Iliad kicks off with a DEBATE in a COUNCIL & OBJECTION to the leader. According to Homer ignoring objections & warnings is payed by a high price.

3 / The fathers of the church combined Jesus’ OBJECTION to Pharisees, with Socrates OBJECTION to Sophists. Teaching kids how to respectfully object.
That was called as Ecclesiastic Paideia (christian education), combined with Thyrathen paideia (non-christian, classics).

4 / Christianity evolved as the strongest movement of objection to Roman authority.
Today the most illiterate generation in the planet believes that you couldn’t object the Pope. That’s False. Stalin was the true archetype of leader that you could NOT Object.

5/ Example: Today, it’s “common knowledge” that Copernicus was going against the Church w/ his heliocentric model.
In fact it was the Pope & Cardinals that financed him gave him ancient manuscripts & URGED him to publish radically new ideas, OBJECTING the scientists of his time.

6/ Modern constitutions, parliaments, civil liberties & institutions come from British Royalty & Aristocracy, inspiring the french enlightenment. The British moved forward with new levels of objection to the Pope (externally) and objection to their King (internally).

7/ We can summarise the heart of modern civil culture in one phrase “His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition”. Notes:
– Opposition was written with capital “O”.
– Opposition is NOT disloyalty.

It’s part of being loyal and serving the public interest with opposing views.

8/ German products are superior because in German culture there is a brutal honesty in judging efficiency & productivity. It’s the healthy objection to trash products that makes productivity superior. BS is called out.

9/ Greek philosophy is superior because in Greek culture there was (and still is) a brutal honesty in criticising sources of abstract ideas. Modern ideas by major European philosophers (like Voltaire) are called out as naive wishy-washy culture (θολοκουλτούρα) by the greeks.

10/ China is full of ghost cities. Buildings with materials falling over & elevators breaking so often that some prefer to take the stairs for precaution. Why? Chinese IQ is supposed to be high. Science & tech is thriving. What is missing?No literature of healthy objection!

11/ The phrase “Radical progressive” is oxymoron. Radical opposition is AGAINST healthy opposition, thus against progress.As @promulgatus phrased it “revolutions don’t scale”. They can scale into tyranny quickly since INEPTITUDE survives better by SILENCING OPPOSITION.

12/ When freedom of speech is silenced (like we gradually see in US) there is a major symptom through time: “ACCIDENT ACCELERATION”.
USSR fell from within, after Chernobyl disaster. It was a wake up call that communist kids can’t play with matches without burning the house.

13/ Tsipras is textbook example of marxist accident acceleration. After selling Macedonia, removing classics from examinations, by ignoring all warnings he let a local fire become the 2nd deadliest fire of the 21st century WITHOUT any ALERT or EVACUATION.

14 / We can’t review the topic of OBJECTION in western history without mentioning J. Chrysostom: Archbishop of Constantinople, pillar of Christianity, most prolific Orthodox author, introduced Christmas. He was finally EXILED for his constant OPPOSITION to ABUSE OF AUTHORITY.

Source

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On Georges Soros and Macedonia

Helene Ahrweiler is a prof of history, the first woman to become Principal in the 700-year history of Sorbonne, Paris. In her book Μια ζωή χωρίς άλλοθι (A life without an alibi) she mentioned #Macedonia as a project of George Soros. It is a region “bought by Soros” she writes.

It’s not a secret that George Soros financed NGOs & politicians related to the “Macedonian” cause. On his twitter account, he literally celebrates. Nothing secret here. He openly uses power & influence to change the narrative of Greek History & destabilise northern greek borders.

Now take a closer look on the map that Soros shows on twitter & his NYT article. It’s a map of the SuperNational dream of the “Great Macedonia”, a project of the “Macedonian nation” to take over N. Greece. #Macedonia is a linguistic scam made by marxists, taken over by Soros.

Apparently I missed a clue today. Kudos to @promulgatus A tearful article of #Macedonia propaganda circulated today by a lecturer of Westminster Uni, founded by George Cayley. It’s not only the website promoting Soros. Guess who is donating to the Uni?

So, there is a “Macedonia Human Rights Movement”. The Soros boys found the gift that keeps on giving: Human Rights. It’s a matter of Human Rights the freedom to steal, scam, manipulate & lie. Take a look at the MHRMI logo. Again, the same Soros map including Northern Greece.

Tsipras’ gvment body promoted 90 individuals from 2015 (ministers, deputy-ministers etc.) 50 of whom come directly from Communist Parties. Among the rest, 22 w/ similar background. Source The non-Greek Macedonia is a traditional communist indoctrination.

So in Greece the hardcore Communist Party has indoctrinated prominent members of the Conservatives! And journalists / editors in the most widespread CONSERVATIVE journal!

Source

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Explanations on Byzantines

1 / “Rome vs. Greek” complexity of Byz Empire.

Rome was like United Nations today, a title that everybody would love to appropriate. Charlemagne, King of Franks, in 800AC was crowned Emperor of Romans. The Byz King claimed he was King of Romans.

Who was the true Roman King?

2 / Keep in mind that:
– phrase “Byzantine Empire” didn’t exist
– word Rome is actually greek. From Ρώμη (power)
– Greeks never called themselves Greeks
– Byz called themselves Ῥωμηοί (modern greek national symbol) with 20+ nationalities in a central culture. Complex enough?

3 / Imagine this scenario: a Byz emperor writes a letter in greek, the official language of Byz empire, claiming the true Roman identity of his title. Now imagine a Frank cardinal or Pope answers in LATIN, from the CAPITAL of OLD ROME. What would his identity be? Chinese?

4 / Of course the Pope would answer: “c’mon man! you may be rich and all but you don’t even latin! I crowned my pal Charlemagne, King of Franks as Emperor of Romans & we’re visiting you soon for funny crusades, we’ll steal the sh*it out of your treasures. Kisses. The Pope.”

5 / And that’s why if you’re latin speaker you would name the Byzantine fire as “Greek fire”, not “Roman fire” (πυρ ρωμαϊκόν) as some Greek intellectuals would like you to say.

6 / Now the irony. Descendants of those who challenged the “Romanity” of Byz empire for 100s of years, in 2018 claim that actually the Byz empire was old-school Roman! Why? Stealing treasures is not enough. The rich Byz culture has to be stolen also. Big $$ geopolitics.

Source

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The most serious historical fallacies in western academic textbooks

It’s a topic we can’t avoid any more. Let’s start….

(2) Among the most serious historical fallacies:
A. Whig Fallacy (Whig History) dominating western culture after the 19th century
B. Judeo-Christian fallacy, recently dominating UK&US academy after WWII

(3) A – Whig Fallacy
Sir H. Butterfield, Prof of History & Vice-Chancellor of Uni of Cambridge wrote The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) on how historical positivism of the Whigs (political fraction in UK) was based on a series of assumptions creating a western myth.

(4) The “Whig history” sees ancients as having primitive minds, unlike our own, painting certain periods of history with brighter or darker colours (e.g. dark ages).
Butterfield considered this Whig tendency as a “mental trick” drawing false lines of historical causation.

(5) “The fallacy of the whig historian lies in the way in which he takes his short cut through this complexity. […] and impute lessons to history which history has never taught and historical research has never discovered” ~ Sir H. Butterfield

(6) In the 19th century historians deified ancient Greeks & Romans rejecting the significance of the evolution of the christian world with one catchy phrase: dark ages. As if modern institutions (e.g. Universities, Hospitals, Civil Code) appeared suddenly out of thin air.

(7) Of course behind the “Whig history” we have strong political motivation. Friends of democracy & parliament had reasonable bias against a visible & powerful “enemy”: the Catholic Church, representing not only the heritage of the middle ages, but also a strong political actor.

(8) Modern atheistic arguments (e.g. Sam Harris, Dawkins) are almost exclusively based Whig history… on steroids.
Tim O’Neill, an atheist himself, does extensively good job on debunking the BS of pop-scientists spreading their historical ignorance

(9) example: the Greco-Roman values are considered ideal but lost in christian world. Is this true?
Greeks had a temples with 100s of girls pushed to holy prostitution. Romans brutally crucified & killed in arenas. The christian world legally introduced something new: humanism.

(10) B – The Judeo-Christian fallacy
Many people are shocked when they learn that the word “judeo-christian” was introduced in christian scholarship after the WWII and the concept was not used by the fathers of the Church. It was coined by some Jewish converts to Christianity.

(11) In fact Chrysostomus, the greatest father of Byzantine Christianity (Orthodox), also known for introducing Christmas, was explicitly clear on the anti-Judeo nature of Christianity.

(12) The Judeo-Christian myth plays on the ignorance of the masses who falsely believe that:
a. [modern] Judaism is based on Old Testament (it’s not)
b. in a certain time & place a culture was transformed from following the Mosaic law to follow Jesus. This never happened.

(13) The Jewish culture NEVER transformed to Christian. In contrast, the Greek culture transformed to Christian. In the west there was a cultural shift from Plato/Aristotle to Jesus. The Mosaic Law was used only as a reference, never as a cultural or religious belief system.

(14) The proximity between Plato & Christianity (using the SAME greek vocabulary & key-concepts) was explicitly taught by the Church Fathers even by Protestants and philosophers during the enlightenment.

(15) In Voltaire’s philosophical dictionary, in the lemma of “Plato” his first sentence goes like this:
Les Pères de l’Église des quatre premiers siècles furent tous grecs et platoniciens
(The fathers of the Church, of the first four centuries, were all Greeks and Platonists)

(16) The church taught the Greco-Christian history of the west:
Examples from the New Testament
word “prophet” is NOT Jewish, it’s Greek coined by Plato
word ψυχή (soul) coined by Thales (mathematician)
word αμαρτία (sin) used by philosophers
word Genesis is greek
etc.

(17) St. Paul had an amazing Greek education, openly acknowledging this reality. Addressing to the Athenians he quotes a Stoic poet on God, presenting “Christian God” as the “Stoic god” of Greeks.
Note: God – Zeus related to Δίας [greek], Deus [latin], Dieu [french]

(18) Both Whig & Judeo-Christian fallacy are products of the same basic assumption: the greeks suddenly disappeared from historical scene (maybe abducted by aliens), deleting 1000 years of Greek Byzantine culture, building a gap in western history. A gap filled with BS narrative.

Some comments:
Western Scholars during the last 300 years copy-paste the same narrative: Greeks where deductive (mathematics) and the west does Science (inductive). This criticism grew out of proportion presenting Greeks as cartoons picking up axioms (models) & blindly believing them.

So this story can be traced back to Descartes & Francis Bacon (Scientific Method) criticising the dogmatic approach of the Aristotelian establishment of their time.
Today it’s different. Scientists don’t read Plato or Aristotle from the original, thus spreading misinformation.

Both parents of Aristotle came from great families of doctors, his father had written a book on medicine. Alexander the Great also had studied medicine. Yes, the greeks proposed crazy medical models but tested them through time. They knew how to play with induction & deduction.

So, it could be essentially anchored in the perceived axiomatic nature of The Elements and its multi millenia influence I guess.
Exactly. The shadow of Euclide was heavy but selecting axioms wasn’t an arbitrary choice. The Greeks examined where axioms lead. The verb άγω (lead somewhere) is found in both induction (επ-αγωγή) & deduction (απ-αγωγή) like athletes trained to run in both directions.
Aristotle:

Source

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On Taleb’s Romans vs. Greeks (3)

That’s accurate. Note that “diehard” here is not metaphorical, it’s literal. The Greeks literally died massively for 100s of years defending the Byzantine territories e.g. Even after 1453 (fall of Constantinople) the Ottomans couldn’t take over Crete for the next 2 centuries.

According to the original byz sources of Phrantzes or Sphrantzes (Φραντζής) the Cretans where the last to abandon the battle defending Constantinople and among the first rising against the occupation (1771). The Cretan style (& music) remains the symbol of “national” in Greece.

That’s why the most famous Byzantine national song (ΑΚΑΘΙΣΤΟΣ ΥΜΝΟΣ, Τη Υπερμάχω Στρατηγώ) remains the strongest inspiration for Greek military, of course in greek language, lasting from 626 AC! Byzantines were in the most LITERAL sense DIEHARD Greeks.

Source

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On Taleb’s Romans vs. Greeks (2)

Monsieur Taleb, all summer you’re sliding one degree per day. You don’t like models unless…. they’re your own & for 6-year-olds?

Romans were the COPIERS & CENTRALISERS of history. To be Roman is to copy what Greeks invent, centralise it & dehumanise it e.g. theatres to arenas.

Did Cato expelled greek doctors also? Medicine was (and still remains) the ultimate test of BS models, developed by Greeks throughout the Roman & Byzantine period. The inability of Romans to form & test new models is evident in their low-innovation copy-paste legalistic culture.

Medicine was (and remains) the ultimate test of BS models. It needs COURAGE equal to Achilles to propose a radical new model against old wisdom. For every 100 models (hypotheses) only 1 may be useful. It’s safer to play the Roman Rationalist & reject all models as BS.

To sumarize:

– Romans: centralisation + deductive reasoning (legal science)
– Greeks: decentralisation (demos) + testing models with high-level semiotics & inductions (medicine)
– Byzantines: deductive (legalistic) + inductive (modern hospitals)

Some more comments
So this story can be traced back to Descartes & Francis Bacon (Scientific Method) criticising the dogmatic approach of the Aristotelian establishment of their time. Today it’s different. Scientists don’t read Plato or Aristotle from the original, thus spreading misinformation.

I remember the time when a doer was judged by the roughness of his hands, not by his best-selling books against tawkers. I also remember the time when hard-working Protestants were recognised as the pillars of modernity. Things have changed.

Source 1, Source 2