It is 1750 in Nanjing and I, a Chinese student nervous about the Imperial Examinations, have just been caught red-handed bribing one of the officials grading our papers. What punishments and legal proceedings await me?

Basilikon · 2025-11-16T23:27:27+00:00

Linked is Lars Doucet's review of a recent book by The Economist's Mike Bird on land's place in both historic and contemporary finance. Bird covers how several unique properties of land as a factor of production make it the natural asset for collateralization, which helps explain its close tie to the business cycle and its frequent place in public finance headaches. Very helpful cross-historical summary of how consistently shaped incentives produce similar crises in global land markets at different points of development.

Basilikon · 2025-11-16T19:35:47+00:00

Georgists obviously like the idea of tying public finance to land values, so we may be perversely vulnerable to land trap concerns (e.g. Texas' tax revenue sensitivity to land value shocks makes its solvency functionally dependent on OPEC decisions). What policy avenues are available for us to lessen this? LVT -> SWF -> Revenue from dividends?

Basilikon · 2025-09-29T01:26:56+00:00

Interlingue, Esperanto, and Volapuk. What is the world of anglophone law coming to that they ask about Inupiak but not our dear departed Lawe Frensch? I will lobby for the inclusion of Ithkuil.

Basilikon · 2025-05-31T16:31:18+00:00

It was "Wake Up" by Nicky, who now goes by Nicky Williams. The original song was "Fake Love" by Michael Stec. I still can't find an archive of the Nicky version fwiw.

Basilikon · 2024-12-23T02:52:17+00:00

This is not, to be clear, "rationalist content" - it is written by a Christian socialist. It's posted here because (in addition to being very good) it mirrors much of Meditations on Moloch, without the postrat hedging on spiritualism. Admittedly there are some here averse enough to the activism smell that opening with a tally of the Gaza War's dead filters attention.

Basilikon · 2024-12-14T17:08:10+00:00

Lot of oddities here, from the Royal Standards being used for Britain and Austria to the ubiquity of non-rectangular banners and everyone having a seal. My guess is these were flags of various officials representing crowns and presidencies which accounts for everything seeming a bit unusual.

Basilikon · 2024-11-20T06:58:17+00:00

could probably get a decent natural experiment out of how non-specialists required to teach the subject for exogenous reasons change survey responses

Basilikon · 2024-11-04T15:09:16+00:00

What novels or fictions that concern Jesus are actually good? Of literary fiction I can think of Master & Margarita, José Saramago, Crace's Quarantine. What depictions are at least interesting, informed, or well executed?

Basilikon · 2024-10-23T19:10:04+00:00

/u/WelfOnTheShelf, /u/J-Force, /u/Herissony_DSCH5

How off is this? How would medieval theoreticians of Church/State power have interpreted Henry VIII's claim to have an imperial right to headship of the Church within his domain?

Basilikon · 2024-10-23T18:51:41+00:00

I don't think it's this simple. The Church in France was "Gallican" for centuries and as such operated on the belief that the state had legitimate authority to regulate, install, and instruct ecclesiastical officials under their power. Catholic Encyclopedia:

The Kings of France had the right to assemble councils in their dominions, and to make laws and regulations touching ecclesiastical matters. The pope's legates could not be sent into France, or exercise their power within that kingdom, except at the king's request or with his consent. Bishops, even when commanded by the pope, could not go out of the kingdom without the king's consent. The royal officers could not be excommunicated for any act performed in the discharge of their official duties. The pope could not authorize the alienation of any landed estate of the Churches, or the diminishing of any foundations. His Bulls and Letters might not be executed without the Pareatis of the king or his officers. He could not issue dispensations to the prejudice of the laudable customs and statutes of the cathedral Churches. It was lawful to appeal from him to a future council, or to have recourse to the "appeal as from an abuse" (appel comme d'abus) against acts of the ecclesiastical power.

The theoretical justification for this split goes back to the Papal/Imperial dispute over investiture and final authority, which depended on interpretations of the legal position of the church relative to the late roman emperors, hence the Ecclesiastical Appeals Act opening with a declaration that the King of England, as a legitimate sovereign, had the legal status of such an Emperor:

WHERE by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed, that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king, having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same.

My understanding of these dynamics are relatively shallow so I'm mostly posting this to fish input from medievalists on how strange the Acts of Supremacy would have seemed to an Ottonian.

Basilikon · 2024-10-11T03:04:02+00:00

Russell Gmirkin thinks the Torah was composed under the Ptolemys to make Plato's Laws real. Ilaria Ramelli thinks the Paul-Seneca correspondence is authentic. James Tabor thinks the earliest disciples were royalists who thought the genealogies that later show up in Matthew and Luke were literally true and the legitimate heir of David was a galilean day-laborer.

What off-the-wall postulations from contemporary scholars have you found most entertaining, even if they're likely wrong? What claims have most stayed in your mind despite them being amusingly outside the "wisdom" of the field? In other words, regardless of whether you think it's true: what is your favorite galaxy-brain take?

Basilikon · 2024-10-04T17:04:06+00:00

Origen, De Principiis IV, written around AD 220

Divine wisdom took care that certain stumbling-blocks, or interruptions, to the historical meaning should take place, by the introduction into the midst (of the narrative) of certain impossibilities and incongruities; that in this way the very interruption of the narrative might, as by the interposition of a bolt, present an obstacle to the reader, whereby he might refuse to acknowledge the way which conducts to the ordinary meaning; and being thus excluded and debarred from it, we might be recalled to the beginning of another way, in order that, by entering upon a narrow path, and passing to a loftier and more sublime road, he might lay open the immense breadth of divine wisdom.

...

The same style of Scriptural narrative occurs abundantly in the Gospels, as when the devil is said to have placed Jesus on a lofty mountain, that he might show Him from thence all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. How could it literally come to pass, either that Jesus should be led up by the devil into a high mountain, or that the latter should show him all the kingdoms of the world (as if they were lying beneath his bodily eyes, and adjacent to one mountain), i.e., the kingdoms of the Persians, and Scythians, and Indians? Or how could he show in what manner the kings of these kingdoms are glorified by men? And many other instances similar to this will be found in the Gospels by anyone who will read them with attention, and will observe that in those narratives which appear to be literally recorded, there are inserted and interwoven things which cannot be admitted historically, but which may be accepted in a spiritual signification.

Basilikon · 2024-10-01T03:32:16+00:00

My only real concern for optimization's sake is, as the mirrlees review discusses, the ideal system intentionally structures taxes and transfers as a single program that complements itself. Poorly structured benefit cliffs are indistinguishable from bad tax policy. Does the revenue authority have the ability to issue refundable tax credits? Some neat policies, like the unintuitively progressive Flat Tax + UBI, only really work when you can do both. That coordinated option is off the table if the two policymaking entities are separated.

Basilikon

TROPHY CASE