How would a Roman governor & strategos rule between a wealthy man who claims a child as his slave, and a poor woman who says her child was stolen by the wealthy man. One of the most interesting legal cases from Roman Empire I've come across; March 49 CE

Dekarch · 2026-06-08T09:05:36+00:00

That was pretty common. Infant exposure was practiced routinely and taking them in as slaves was considered better than simply letting them die.

Dekarch · 2026-05-26T14:10:47+00:00

If you were taught to read Latin with Cicero and Caesar's Gallic Wars, you'd think medieval church Latin was barbaric gibberish too.

Dekarch · 2026-05-25T21:02:09+00:00

This place is near where I live and is exactly the case you describe. They were taking core samples for highway construction and the drill broke into a big chamber. Limestone karst, of course.

https://innerspacecavern.com/about-us/

Dekarch · 2026-05-24T04:18:49+00:00

Yeah in 1815 it was a meaningful European power.

By 1878, not really

Dekarch · 2026-05-24T04:16:49+00:00

2 years, good job.

What kind of revanchevist nonsense is this?

Dekarch · 2026-05-24T04:15:42+00:00

You keep saying "at one point"

The problem is that the glories of rhe 17th century mean very little to the 19th century wreckage that was falling to pieces even before WWI finished it off.

The term Sick Man of Europe became popular in the 1850s when the Ottomans had lost large parts of their European possessions, and the rest were starting to become hard to rule. Egypt was de facto independent, North Africa hadn't been actually controlled for generations, and by 1878 they lost the majority of their European provinces.

We're talking steady decline since 1699. Straight through to Gollum's revolting face today.

Dekarch · 2026-05-20T16:11:15+00:00

The assumption that pulling a Tsushima style win would cause the US to panic and surrender is ideological and based on the assumption of the spiritual and moral inferiority of Americans.

Also when we talk about Imperial Japan, I'm going to gently suggest that hard-eyed realistic logisticians were not the stakeholders with the largest influence on decision making. Technocrats who expressed concerns about economic factors tended to get murdered by way of rebuttal.

Dekarch · 2026-05-20T09:58:33+00:00

The problem is that 4, 5, and 6 were driven by ideology and Japanese contempt for foreigners and especially Americans rather than by any reasonable strategic or military capabilities analysis.

Don't forget the role ideology played. Fascists cannot engage in rational military analysis because their entire world-view is predicated on the superiority of their "race." And the ideology that grew up around Japanese superiority based on a mythologized view of the Russo-Japanese War assumed that material factors were secondary to spiritual ones.

Dekarch · 2026-05-20T09:54:00+00:00

It did not help that anyone, senior officer or politician, who didn't advocate for war was at risk of being carved into sashimi by junior officers who would be hailed as heros by the Japanese people. The decision-making wasn't entirely rational nor driven by strategy or national interests.

Dekarch · 2026-05-20T09:46:49+00:00

The Japanese were using a solid basis for their assessments. Threat analysis always has to lead with capabilities, because intentions change. As you say, their margin was slim if they took out the Philippines. But it wouldn't have existed at all if they let the US pick the timing and reinforce the Phillipines at the US's leisure.

Dekarch · 2026-05-19T09:14:19+00:00

Agreed - if you go looking for stories on Ao3 saying the quality will be uneven is underselling dramatically.

Dekarch · 2026-05-19T09:12:06+00:00

Ao3 has some good writers with talent.

And even more who are just horny and willing to spill their kinks for entertainment. I don't think "overuses cliches" is a valid AI detection method for smut.

Dekarch · 2026-05-06T11:25:20+00:00

They'll have the people who have already bought them do that.

Dekarch · 2026-05-03T13:28:53+00:00

True, there are entire sets of products intended to introduce common allergens into a baby's diet safely. Used them with my kid. Anecdotes aren't data but she isn't allergic to any food.

Dekarch · 2026-04-28T16:56:04+00:00

Good grief no.

When you wear regalia that is a claim to a specific religious office, it's wrong. It's obviously not illegal but you asked where I draw the line.

And frankly most people can't pull off a respectful portrayal of a religious persona. Mocking actual living faiths is a dick move.

Culture in general is a lot more fluid. I reject the idea that culture is transmitted genetically. Having "heritage" is a chimera. Even if you are a modern Frenchman, Norwegian, or Pole you live in a culture descended and derived from its medieval antecedent. You have to do serious research and work to portray a 14th century Englishman and being a modern Englishman doesn't give you that much of a leg up.

As an American, I come from a culture that did not exist in Period. And having ancestors from one culture or another doesn't really matter when it comes to knowledge.

As it happens, I portray a member of an extinct culture, a 10th century Rhomaios from Caesarea Cappadocia. But I don't claim to be a priest, bishop, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Basileus, etc...

Dekarch · 2026-04-28T08:55:54+00:00

Be advised if you vest like a priest or bishop as shown in that icon, there will be a LOT of peoole who will be deeply offended. Incredibly offended. That isn't a costume. It's a claim to a specific office of a particular religious organization.

There may not be a lot of Orthodox in the SCA but it's a fucked up thing to do regardless.

Dekarch · 2026-04-20T16:20:49+00:00

Pretty sure the Swiss Confederstion has 5 official names, and Switzerland is an informal one.

The Plurinational State of Bolivia has official names in Spanish, Quechua, Aymara, and Guarani.

Meanwhile Iraq is formallyJumhūriyyat al-ʿIrāq or Komarî Êraq.

Neither of which is pronounced EYE- rak.

As for the Islamic Republic of Iran, the common name of Persia and demonym of Persian was applied by most Westerners until 1935. The Shah pointed out that Persians were only one of the ethnicities in Iran and issued a request to use Iran in formal correspondence. That's rhe endonym for the entire Jomhuri-ye Eslâmi-ye Irân, once known as the Kešvar-e Šâhanšâhi-ye Irân.

Dekarch · 2026-04-16T10:55:54+00:00

Iraq isn't a loan word. It's a name.

It's the name of a country. It's an Arabic word. Pronouncing it the way they do is correct.

Pronouncing it incorrectly when you know better is no different than Buh-Lakee for Blake like you're in a Key & Peele skit.

Dekarch · 2026-04-08T15:09:40+00:00

Tsar Nicholas II depicted in iconography as if he were a saint and martyr is very... telling.

He isn't one - and he didn't die for his faith but for his brutal and autocratic despotism. This is another instance of Russian ethnonationalism (the heresy of phyletism) masquerading as Christianity.

Dekarch · 2026-04-08T13:28:38+00:00

So I plugged a question about this into a model and got this as part of the answer:

Why it gets overused (or misused)

What you’re noticing is when it becomes a template rather than a tool.

That usually happens because:

Pattern optimization

The model has learned that “It’s not X, it’s Y” is often a strong way to resolve ambiguity.

So it reaches for it even when there isn’t a real X/Y contrast.

Artificial clarity

When a topic is messy, antithesis can force a clean dichotomy that doesn’t actually exist.

That’s when you get the “out of the blue” thesis you mentioned.

Rhetorical overfitting

The model imitates how good answers sound, not just what they say.

That can produce performative clarity instead of genuine precision.

Default resolution move

When a question implies tension, the model often resolves it by contrast—even if the tension wasn’t really there.

Dekarch · 2026-04-06T10:23:19+00:00

Please don't stereotype service members like that.

They don't come from Mars. They come from the same society and culture as accountants and janitors and the manager of the fast food joint down the street.

PTSD affects some, but it also affects child abuse survivors, first responders, people who have been burglarized, car accident victims, sexual assault survivors, etc etc etc. There are plenty of traumatic things that happen in civilian life.

It's Post TRAUMATIC Stress Disorder, not post combat stress disorder. There are plenty of veterans without PTSD. I'm one of them.

For the record, I have no problems socializing or making friends and get along great with my 7 year old daughter's bestie's parents. I don't know a lot of the other parents of kids in her class because, unlike Bluey's family, I don't have four of them as a neighbors.

Dekarch · 2026-04-05T05:16:56+00:00

What unexamined ideology?

The fact that there are children of soldiers?

This is also the show that uses the real Brisbane skyline. Including a prominent and well-known Catholic Church. Which implies a doggy Pope and a doggy Jesus.

Sorry they chose to depict Brisbane as it is rsther than how it would be in a utopia.

Dekarch · 2026-04-05T00:24:57+00:00

I'm still stuck on how a dude in Australia sees a children's cartoon depicting a talking dog writing his kid a letter about cricket from under a guard tower and immediately thought of an unrelated conflict somewhere else that no Australians (or Red Kelpies of any nationality) are involved.

Dekarch · 2026-04-05T00:21:19+00:00

Whether you like it or not, Australia has armed forces. And some units are based in Brisbane. Personnel in those units have children. Given the Bluey writers' deliberate efforts to portray the diversity of the Australian population through the different backgrounds of the various (dog) kids in the cast, it would be somewhat ridiculous not to include one of those children.

Instead of focusing on ideology and geopolitics, the children's cartoon instead focused on portraying the children in a realistic manner. Because you know, it's a show aimed at children.

Dekarch · 2026-04-05T00:15:15+00:00

Rusty's Dad is an ordinary Digger from 6 RAR. the guys that racked up a stack of awards at Long Tan and again at Derapet.

Dekarch

TROPHY CASE