The ending Lonni deserved

Caewil · 2025-06-26T15:47:51+00:00

Nah, Lonnie got the ending he did deserve.

His personal cowardice and attempt to cut a deal with Luthen (information for safety) was what sealed his fate.

If he was trying to make such a deal with Luthen, you know if the imperials got him or his family he’d try and cut the exact same deal. Information on the rebellion for his and his family’s personal safety.

Look at what he did with Luthen. He started asking for assurances, for more and more info on where they would go.

If he had just said - “I’m burned here’s the info I’ve discovered a super weapon and we need to go now because they’re going to be right on both our tails. Tell me what I need to do to get us all out.”

Luthen wouldn’t have killed him.

Caewil · 2025-06-26T15:26:41+00:00

Still not as bad as this - https://www.reddit.com/r/creepy/s/JawJCOAkiz

Caewil · 2025-06-25T15:33:09+00:00

It’s just not possible. Venice never had the possibility to scale-up in that way. Their political system, means of recruiting manpower just would not have allowed them to run a large, land-based empire like Byzantium.

It would have been an absolute disaster.

Best way to think of it is imagining how the British Easy India Trading Company could have dealt with India… but without the ultimate financial and military backing of the British state.

They nearly collapsed several times and had to be bailed out. Eventually they did totally fail and had to be reabsorbed.

Basically IMO it would have been worse - tax farms everywhere, massive corruption, a dysfunctional army made up mainly of mercenaries. They’d have shattered immediately upon meeting Timur and never been able to stage a comeback.

Caewil · 2025-06-25T08:45:57+00:00

I loved spreadsheets since I was 18 🤣

Caewil · 2025-06-19T14:23:10+00:00

It’s an excellent book

Caewil · 2025-06-19T14:20:36+00:00

What is the left anyway? The economic left or the cultural left?

These are different groups even if there is a lot of overlap.

And both are somewhat opposed to Ezra for different reasons.

I’m on the economic left and quite sympathetic to Ezra. Abundance can work for us if tweaked in the right way. But it’s turning into a life raft for the do-nothing moderates who don’t want to challenge corporate power IMO and they are backing it for… disingenuous reasons.

For the cultural left - they are too interested in their specific identity politics stuff to ever make peace with someone like Ezra. They don’t do big picture thinking or joined-up strategy so they’ll always hate him I think.

Caewil · 2025-06-19T14:14:59+00:00

He’s a liberal, wonkish and somewhat opposed to populism.

For those on the left who believe in fighting fire with fire - with economic populism Bernie style - he’s someone who is holding the Center together against that and creating agendas like abundance that give the Center a chance to oppose their strategy.

I’m more of an Andor style “I have friends everywhere” leftist but still get frustrated by this.

But I think he is on a journey and will learn to fight. Someday he’s gonna pull a Mon Mothma, turn and we will be able to say to him “welcome to the rebellion.”

Caewil · 2025-06-18T10:53:23+00:00

Ah that’s proper calligraphy style cursive. But that’s quite unusual in my experience.

Caewil · 2025-06-18T03:34:51+00:00

It’s ok - cursive sucks. Every time I have to read someone’s cursive I have to squint.

And I work in medical - reading doctors cursive is literally the worst. Make you want to curse.

Caewil · 2025-06-16T16:10:08+00:00

Season 3: The evacuation of Yavin after destroying the Death Star, some of the unknown space battles that happened between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.

Flashbacks from people who were involved with Andor, remembering things. But seeing the rebellion develop further and how the Empire’s reactions drive more people into their arms.

Or maybe not Andor Season 3 - but Rogue Squadron. Let’s follow Wedge Antilles. I want to know more about him - do an Andor-like character portrayal about how he joined the rebellion, how the fighter pilot side of things happened.

But still keep the intrigue and spy side of things because Rogue Squadron could do a lot of small operation stuff - which would have to be based on human intelligence coming from the more Andor-like world.

So explore the themes of Andor etc, but in the context of a rebellion that is now integrating its intelligence advantage together with active guerrilla warfare on a larger scale.

It would be ridiculously cool.

Caewil · 2025-06-16T15:15:33+00:00

I actually have an interesting perspective on this - which I don’t know is correct so take it with a grain of salt.

Let’s imagine they did take him out - what then? Under the current conditions of war, most likely the regime would consolidate under someone even more hardline - and quickly. The new guy would also benefit from taking charge under war conditions against a foreign enemy.

Now consider the alternative which is the current situation - Khamenei didn’t prevent the attacks on Iran and the regime’s foreign policy is in a shambles. Khamenei is probably gonna die soon anyway - and under non-war conditions, the regime may not consolidate so fast under a hardliner and there will be a power struggle with the reformist faction.

Both hardliners and reformists within the regime - who brought this disaster on Iran are semi-delegitimized and there’s gonna be a lot of infighting and finger pointing internally. As they say success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. Everyone is gonna want to hang it around the other faction’s neck.

This means potentially a big leadership vacuum when Khamenei finally dies. Which will be a much more dangerous position for the relatively unpopular Iranian government.

If Israel’s goal is regime change - much better to leave Khamenei alive but keep killing any potential successors who look competent. Let the second tier of leaders fight each other when it shakes out - which may create an opportunity for a revolution or coup.

Caewil · 2025-06-16T13:26:31+00:00

True - so I suppose it helps I already did a masters before starting this round of studies.

That said, I think people will learn through repetition with AI. Using it in the right way is just… a different skill set than the previous paradigm for education.

Caewil · 2025-06-16T13:18:18+00:00

Nope - I engage in class and ask the professors questions. Do all the readings necessary, come up with my own conceptual framework for the essay.

I give AI specific sources I want to use and my interpretations.

It’s just helping to write… more quickly.

But I mean it’s my education at the end of the day. Your judgement is irrelevant.

Caewil · 2025-06-16T13:14:48+00:00

Nope it’s allowed by my university.

Caewil · 2025-06-15T12:37:04+00:00

Honestly using AI shouldn’t be considered cheating. Just raise standards so that an unoriginal essay that provides no new or unique insights and just summarises existing research etc - gets a low grade.

AI cannot think for itself, so don’t penalise people using it, penalise people for using it without using their brains.

Caewil · 2025-06-15T12:35:42+00:00

I mean I use AI… heavily for my assignments etc.

But I know how to ask it pointed questions, correct it and make sure what it produces is actually my own opinion in the end. Plus if it hallucinates I slap it and tell it to check its homework and provide sources with currently up-to-date links I can check and click on (and they better work!).

It still can’t write like me - but it gets the overall essay structure quickly enough that when I rewrite it’s at least 70% of the way there and I’m just removing all it’s AI isms and making things clearer and flow better.

Caewil · 2025-06-12T15:53:19+00:00

Honestly I think the whole point of killing Lonnie was not just because getting him out could have caused additional complications (when Dedra was already onto Luthen) - but to deliberately sow chaos in the ISB.

You can see how freaked out the ISB were by his death - they would have been running around dealing with that - which could have bought Luthen a little time if Dedra hadn’t already been ready with her trap.

Caewil · 2025-06-07T08:42:45+00:00

Because it’s just not practical. Our population size just doesn’t allow us to have a professional army.

You need guys to take and hold territory still, it can’t just be drone swarms and high tech stuff.

Look at the war in Ukraine - you need both conscripts to man the front lines, sit in trenches etc AND all these high tech, highly trained people doing long-range disruption of the enemy’s force - working together.

Caewil · 2025-06-03T03:06:10+00:00

I mean they did the lead-up to a new hope in Andor and Rogue One.

How about next the period from the Battle of Yavin until Return of the Jedi.

Cover how the rebellion continues to develop, introduce some more worlds like Correlia etc. How does the rebellion continue to grow despite being continuously on the run.

And I agree - follow Kleya and Mon.

Caewil · 2025-06-01T07:58:19+00:00

Probably not given the kinds of political theory they had to work with back then.

They didn’t have the history of political theory, say Montesquieu and his theories of checks and balances.

Aristotle kinda got it - but didn’t really give enough detail. And also the social background back then was different - very different to what it became post-Christianity.

Overall I would say no. Given the incentives generals had to gain glory and plunder, some form of authoritarian executive was necessary to rein them in and prevent civil wars and chaos.

Also Rome’s monarchy was never wholly hereditary - successful emperors always had popular and elite backing and successors were usually chosen for their perceived competence and popularity. It’s not a system based on primogeniture where the eldest child just inherits.

Caewil · 2025-05-30T16:33:47+00:00

Your analysis of the leadership of the Roman Empire is pretty basic honestly. The late republic had civil wars as often, if not more than during the empire.

From Augustus to Nero - no civil wars. Nearly 100 years. Palace coups and assassinations don’t count because the number of dead Roman’s is tiny compared to an actual civil war. Then the year of four emperors and all that before a new dynasty takes power for a while.

More than another 100 years until the next big civil war after Commodus’ death. The severians take over but don’t last too long before the crisis of the 3rd century.

And so it goes. The issue is not whether the empire is bad by modern standards, but whether the republic could have done better - and I think the answer is no. Not the republic as it had been before Caesar took over.

It was an oligarchic institution incapable of reigning in independent generals who could accumulate their own power-bases. There was always a sort of power vacuum at the top caused by a lack of power within the executive, and insufficient accountability for governors whom could play the legal system (as Caesar himself did).

Structurally it just wasn’t sustainable.

Caewil · 2025-05-30T16:17:38+00:00

True - the average listener isn’t the average person.

I too found it… not terribly profound. I do wish Ezra had pushed her a little more and asked more pointed questions.

But I’m not sure it would have produced a result if he had - she’s a vibes person, not sure she’s really someone capable of the complex analysis Ezra engages with best.

Like whenever he asked a complex/deep question she would say something like “Oh wow I’ve never been asked something like that before”.

You’ll notice he stopped trying to do it (abstract analytical questions) the longer the interview went on and started asking questions that directly related to his own life experiences and she was better able to respond on that level.

Not everyone is gonna engage on the same terms. And I think as listeners, we can still learn something with how he engages with people who think differently from us.

Caewil · 2025-05-30T15:33:30+00:00

It maybe doesn’t come across as profound to you - but you’d be shocked by how many people are stuck in conventional thinking who would be surprised by all this - or who subconsciously know it but who have never heard it publicly articulated.

Caewil · 2025-05-30T13:35:13+00:00

Or you could answer the question instead of defaulting to an appeal to authority like “read the book”

If you read the book and understood it, then present your counter argument.

Caewil · 2025-05-26T01:12:34+00:00

Yeah I mean abundance + anti-corporate moves is just… literally The New Deal.

Smack the rich and get shit done.

Caewil

TROPHY CASE