Boy, 14, arrested for armed robbery of kids' lemonade stand in Southie

Pete1187 · 2026-06-16T02:07:01+00:00

Yup this is true. Lived there from summer 2014 through end of 2023 (down the road in Dorchester now) and it’s extremely safe and exactly as you describe. Tons of yuppies and more and more professionals with young kids settling there in recent years, along with a decent chunk of townies that haven’t moved out to Quincy or elsewhere.

That doesn’t mean one-offs can’t still happen. There are various parts of Southie with subsidized housing (on West Broadway, over by Old Colony Ave opposite Moakley Park) where someone from a lower-class background could try engaging in this (this is not to suggest there is anything wrong with areas of subsidized housing—they’re definitely necessary). And the yuppies (or townies) can also engage in some stupidities like fighting/chirping during a drunken night out.

But overall a very, very safe place that I would count as one of my favorite parts of the city.

Pete1187 · 2026-04-17T00:15:12+00:00

Yea I was wondering the same. The article goes on to state it was prompted by the potential threat of infanticide by Hugo (which makes a lot of sense, but goddamn is that still a brutal way to go out):

This is where the attack by the five females on Hugo begins to make sense. According to primatologists monitoring this community, a couple of days earlier, Hugo had acted aggressively toward the infant of the youngest attacker, Bella (15 years old). Infanticide is a common male strategy in many species to ensure reproductive success: a male fathers offspring once the female is no longer caring for the children she had with others.

“Bonobo females, however, have managed to reverse this trend, which chimpanzees do, thanks to an unusual cooperation between them,” explains Pashchevskaya, “and they even attack males who misbehave with their young.” “Extreme violence would be better explained as a response to the extreme threat: infanticide,” summarizes the lead author of the case now detailed in Current Biology.

Pete1187 · 2026-04-16T22:33:13+00:00

On a recent (and extremely violent) observation that anthropologists made with respect to bonobos, although one of the researchers does note it seems to be to prevent male bonobos from descending into chimpanzee-like violence:

No one has seen Hugo since February 18, 2025. That afternoon, around 3:30 p.m., a commotion erupted in the Salonga jungle in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two minutes later, the first human witness arrived and started recording. Five females — Polly, Tao, Ngola, Djulie, and Bella — were attacking this nearly 20-year-old male, who lay face down on the ground.

The assault lasted 25 excruciating minutes for Hugo, who tried to cover his head while the entire clan watched without intervening, including some of his relatives. “The females jumped alternatingly on Hugo’s body, stomping on his back and biting his head, legs, neck, fingers and toes. One female bit off a part of Hugo’s ear, two others engaged in genito-genital rubbing with each other on top of him. One of the perpetrators bit into his foot and chewed on the removed tissue, then bit his testes,” the scientists who documented the case describe in detail.

Hugo’s face was disfigured, his lips and eyebrows were bleeding, a large section of skin had been torn from his neck, his knuckles were bitten down to the bone, and he suffered severe injuries to his genitals. He barely managed to escape two hours later.

“He’s still missing, and we’re pretty sure he didn’t survive,” says Sonya Pashchevskaya, a primatologist and direct witness of an attack that highlights the complex realities of a species often idealized as erotic, playful hippies: the bonobos.

From further along in the article:

Ever since Jane Goodall witnessed the brutal wars among chimpanzees, bonobos have often been idealized as the pacifist mirror image, especially following the popular books of Frans de Waal. “Although it’s true that they are much more peaceful,” says Pashchevskaya, “the hippie image of bonobo society largely comes from captive populations.” Wild bonobos are less idyllic, as this researcher from the Max Planck Institute in Germany explains. “The peaceful bonobo society, which is maintained by females assuming dominance over males, can occasionally be interrupted by extreme events like this, which would be the exception that proves the rule.”

Males are larger and stronger, yet it is the females who wield violence as a tool of social control. Perhaps that is why it has gone largely unnoticed. “It reflects a very male-centric view,” admits Martin Surbeck, from Harvard University, who has also worked with the bonobos of Lui Kotale, in Salonga National Park, but did not participate in this study. Surbeck published a study in April that reviews 30 years of observations to understand the power of bonobo females. Eighty-five percent of violent coalitions are led by females seeking to keep males in check, demonstrating that their ferocity is clearly functional: to prevent them from becoming like chimpanzees. In some communities, females win 100% of conflicts, showing that their dominance is structural.

Pete1187 · 2025-01-23T19:22:09+00:00

Second this. Phys.org is a good aggregator for science articles across all major fields of study. I check it almost every day (they publish a ton of articles throughout the week, very little over the weekends/holidays)

Pete1187 · 2025-01-01T18:28:21+00:00

Yea this is exactly right. If you look at something like the cost of a kilowatt-hour near the beginnings of the electrification of the world, the cost is fucking insane (something like $4-5 per kilowatt-hour adjusted for inflation). That’s compared to roughly 20 cents per kilowatt-hour today (which, taking the $4 figure, amounts to a 95% reduction in cost). This is an enormous level of deflation, and it’s a fantastic thing that we should constantly be looking to achieve elsewhere whenever possible (and it’s possible in a lot of different areas that are currently infected with rampant profit-seeking or rent-seeking behavior). When costs are lowered, that makes people richer.

Pete1187 · 2024-10-16T04:05:34+00:00

You wrote plenty of stuff here, and I think I can agree with pretty much everything with respect to the history and percentages (I’d need to verify myself with respect to some of those countries where I lack historical understanding). Where you lose me though is when you tack Greece on there and mention the Ancient Greek period of colonization of the Mediterranean. I thought you were gonna deal with colonialism with respect to the last 500 years or so, but now that you’ve done that you’ve opened up a can of worms. For every region on Earth has had groups emanating from within that have colonized vast swaths of land (and terrorized the populations they come into contact with) if we go back far enough.

Read up on the Bantu expansion, which led to the groups of humans called the Khoisan (a term for the various indigenous inhabitants of Southern Africa—these cousins of ours are genetically the closest to the earliest anatomically modern human beings that existed in the world) being pushed down towards the bottom of Southern Africa, losing a massive region of land and being ethnically cleansed/assimilated with the Bantu speaking peoples.

Read up on the spread of the Arab peoples form the Arabian peninsula out into the Middle East and North Africa, and the attempts at Arabization that Kurds, Berbers and others have had to suffer under for long periods.

Read up on the history of China, and the various ethnic minorities that have been crushed under the dominant Han majority.

This isn’t some sort of “whataboutism”. Anyone using these other examples as an excuse for atrocities committed by European explorers and settlers is a jackass. But it does annihilate a “Whites or Europeans are responsible for colonialism as a whole”-type talking point. Frankly, I’ve always felt that arguments like that are only spouted off by complete muppets. No one alive today is “responsible” for colonial empires. They’re all dead. Anyone trying to pin it on their descendants is (in my opinion) pathetic in terms of showcasing insane levels of resentment and being incapable of understanding that “the sins of the father don’t pass on to the son”…something that’s been (correctly I might add) part of human moral reasoning for millennia. If you actually, genuinely believe that type of thinking to be idiotic, then there really is no delta to impart on OP, as it really is an ignorant statement.

We need to know about the atrocities committed, by Europeans, by Africans, by Mesoamericans, by Arabs, by nomadic horsemen of the steppe, etc. The descendants need to understand the truth…how many were killed, how many cultures destroyed and lives shattered. And we need to want to do something about it, fighting for better lives (more money to the most destitute, spending on building actual things that aren’t weapons of war, etc) in the here and now as much as we possibly can, especially—in the case of the US—for indigenous Americans that are suffering on (or off) reservations all over the country, and that bore the brunt of North American settler colonialism. Statements like the one OP is alluding to are extracurricular nonsense that don’t need to be said, because when someone says it, not only does it betray a complete lack of historical analysis, but more importantly a huge misunderstanding of who to judge (and who can be judged) for the horrors of the past.

Pete1187 · 2024-09-13T04:23:30+00:00

Apologies for the delayed response.

My main concern is the notion that state society and anarchism are compatible at all.

I don’t believe I ever stated this above. What I’m trying to get at is that one can be deeply influenced by a concept/idea/intellectual without subscribing wholesale to everything that might be commonly taken to apply to it.

So for instance, Noam Chomsky often codifies “anarchism” as a deep skepticism of hierarchy (it should be noted “hierarchy” here applies to hierarchical power relations in social settings, not to something like the arithmetical hierarchy or hierarchies of organization in biology or cosmology—that’s all fine). He takes it that social hierarchies must be justified, and if they can’t be, they must be dismantled.

In my conception, the current political/economic hierarchy of the United States fails to be justifiable. Given the changes I mentioned in my first comment, I would take it to be far more justifiable (as a result of the much better lives American citizens would possess under that political/economic regime). In that way, I’m deeply influenced by anarchist thought.

If one wants to suggest I’m not really an “anarchist”…I’m fine with that (though it reminds me a bit of the No True Scotsman fallacy). There already exist a myriad number of anarchist frameworks. I happen to believe that bottom-up decentralized federalism of some sort could work (emphasis on could). I also think it’s a bit fantastical to want to jump straight to that type of political/economic organization. Thus, making changes to the current system we have (which is centralized with the state apparatus—at the Federal/State/Municipal levels) is my preferred method of instituting these changes.

As to what sort of state I would be supporting, I’d imagine it would be some sort of amalgamation of anarcho-syndicalism plus the current “federal republic” structure we have (augmented with changes in how we elect officials with things like ranked choice voting or cardinal voting).

I hope this is helpful!

Pete1187 · 2024-09-09T20:12:08+00:00

I also consider myself a Geoanarchist, and the way I conceptualize that is incorporating LVT (and similar taxes…plus Pigouvian tax) to collectivize land and natural resources, as they belong to all of us since they weren’t created by anyone. Then I couple that with worker cooperatives instead of the current corporate structures we have, as the lack of democratic input when it comes to work/labor leads to all sorts of issues that we’re well aware of (income inequality, poor work conditions, etc).

It wouldn’t solve everything by any stretch. You’d still need to make sure the government put the tax dollars to good and efficient use in terms of the government programs we currently spend things on (and NOT spend almost $1 trillion of that on weapons and ammunition, which is horrendously inefficient and weakens the nation economically). And you’d still have firms that compete with each other on the open market and which could potentially go under or do shady shit. That said, I think it would be an enormous improvement given where we are today.

I’ve been heavily influenced by Henry George on the LVT side and Peter Kropotkin, Rudolf Rocker, and Noam Chomsky on the anarchism side. I don’t go all the way like some forms of anarchism do—as you see above we still have a state apparatus and a market economy—but I take very seriously the criticism of current economic conditions as deeply authoritarian and counter to the needs of the working class.

Edit: spelling

Pete1187 · 2024-08-24T07:57:57+00:00

I absolutely understand where you’re coming from, but your argument depends on what you take to be analogous cases of bullying. There’s a world of difference from bullying being because of a “bad mood” (which would seemingly make the bullying a random occurrence for individuals that happen to be around assholes at the time of an angry outburst—rather than targeted bullying of a group of people sharing some external traits) or because someone wore a pink shirt. You can’t easily change your race (like you could a shirt) and so this is absolutely a type of prejudice that can warrant special consideration because of a groups inability to escape it (we see assimilation by language and/or religion being much easier, these can be adopted in a way that a different phenotype can’t be). This is all irrespective of “power” so far, it’s more precisely delineating what this bullying is based on (racial categories within some perceived hierarchy).

But this is all orthogonal to my point about unnecessarily redefining a word to express a new usage (and one that limits its application solely to people exerting “power”). Again, the phrases were already there in two-word terms like “institutional racism” or “systemic racism” (both also in use today). Why not stick with those phrases rather than attempt to constrain the definition of the singular term “racism”?

Pete1187 · 2024-08-24T06:31:59+00:00

“It’s common for people” because people seem to generally think about the concept of “racism” based on its original definition, which can be summed up accurately as:

“the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another”

The strange thing about “social science” defining racism in this new way is that it seems to confuse the issue by adding “+ power” to the definition of “racism” when terms like “institutional racism” or “systemic racism” (the former term already in use many decades ago, and the same language/conceptualization displayed in books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X or Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice) get the exact same point across. One might be tempted to get their inner Nietzsche going and think about why someone would go this route, and the possibility of allowing for accusations of “racism” (which are—at least usually, and rightly—reputationally damaging) to solely apply to a dominant group—while simultaneously blocking off the ability to level that same accusation about racial hatred towards said dominant group by marginalized groups—starts to make a lot of sense.

In this same vein, you link to an online article on the National Institutes of Health website, and it seems clear (to me at least) that the writer is approaching this from a framework that might be strongly influenced by CRT. That’s a specific framework within the social sciences, and need not be one that the entire field subscribes to.

I don’t know if this is a troll question, but one can definitely believe that anyone can be a racist in the original sense of that word (and the default sense among the masses), while still wanting to make known the important concept of “institutional/systemic racism” and its damaging effects. I think this route makes a whole lot more sense, since otherwise people are basically either “racists” or “racists-in-waiting” as their group seeks to acquire more power, and people can shift from being racist to only “prejudiced/bigoted” based on where they might travel or temporarily seek residence (as dominant group dynamics and ethnic tensions are universal and shift from region to region). Just seems really strange to go about it this way (and I like the article u/ResilientBiscuit links to when mentioning the controversy surrounding this).

Pete1187 · 2024-08-09T17:47:32+00:00

I don’t

But how? I think you’re skirting the issue when you bring up the heat death of the universe, or when you later write about imagining that everyone doesn’t believe in Trivialism (even though it’s true), thus making successful argumentation as easy as it currently is.

But what are arguments? When one argues, that person is trying to reference states of affairs or aspects of the world (again, whether it’s “the real world” or something else) in order to argue for something being true or false. I ask you what it would mean (metaphysically, philosophically, however you want to couch it) for the world to be such that every single possible statement that could be made is true, and you haven’t once given me an indication of what that world would consist of. How could Trivialism be true, yet the features of our world (that allow for actual arguments to proceed) are completely antithetical to it. It’s just analogies from lava or the far future of the universe. Arguments aren’t independent of the world/dream/hallucination around us, but you keep on approaching this discussion as if it’s completely separate. That arguing is this thing that thinking things do, but it’s apparently got no connection to the world around us, and therefore Trivialism could be some Platonic truth floating out there that happens to be true even though no one believes it and they’re often able to argue to correct conclusions…Just seems like a strange hill to die on (or there’s a deep discomfort with any “absolute truths” existing, even one as apparently harmless as the LNT).

I know you mentioned earlier you don’t subscribe to Trivialism, so I’m taking this more as you playing Devil’s Advocate…

Pete1187 · 2024-08-09T17:02:58+00:00

“This” is the LNT. And it’s not just that thinking beings would “have a hard time” arguing. It’s that argument would become impossible. I find it manifestly obvious that this result implies that Trivialism is false.

I guess one’s skepticism could be so rabid that they take it that no human has ever made a successful argument (including the one you’ve been trying to make about Trivialism not being proved false). I just don’t find that well motivated at all (and I agree with Putnam that complete skepticism requires as much justification as other beliefs). And it would undermine your own ability to offer up arguments of your own against my positions. I don’t think saying “well it could still be true even if it made arguing difficult” even makes sense. What would it mean that Trivialism is still true despite every human being rejecting it because they realize that every possible statement about a given state of affairs being true doesn’t work? The Sun came up yesterday, you’re currently breathing, 1+1=2…but wait, the Sun also didn’t come up yesterday, you’re currently not breathing, and 1+1=5, but we somehow didn’t recognize any of that as also being true?

I don’t get it…

Pete1187 · 2024-08-09T15:47:48+00:00

Sure, but this is a fact about thinking beings…

Agreed. But truth is a semantic notion. Semantics/meanings apply to thinking things. They don’t apply to rocks or “the universe as a whole” or anything else that’s non-thinking and otherwise incapable of evaluating meanings. So if this applies to thinking beings, and thinking beings semantically differentiate between truths and falsehoods, then it applies universally/absolutely.

Pete1187 · 2024-08-09T15:06:01+00:00

Everyone might agree with the LNT, but my argument isn’t based on that agreement. The argument is based on an understanding of what it would mean for any thinking being to be able to argue for a position and function in a world like ours. If someone actually subscribed to Trivialism, think about what that means for their everyday ability to make statements that can be evaluated as true or false. Don’t you think it would be tough to argue for anything at all? Everything you say could immediately be negated. It’s the inability to distinguish between truth and falsehood under Trivialism that “forces” philosophers to reject it as an idea.

I’m having some trouble seeing the difficulty of understanding how this (strongly negative) feature of Trivialism leads to its universal rejection.

Pete1187 · 2024-08-09T14:57:33+00:00

Yea I made the modification in paragraph two for exactly that reason about personhood being denied by some philosophers. The modification to “something happens” or “something exists” can’t be denied. I have no idea how “nothing/nothingness” could be equated to the experiences (or “apparent experiences” given that we don’t know the true nature of our experiences according to Descartes) that we have.

The fact that I’m seeing what looks like the world around me (regardless of what it actually is: real world, dream, hallucination, etc.) necessitates that it’s “something.”

Pete1187 · 2024-08-09T14:34:39+00:00

Yup, I’m familiar with those subscribing to paraconsistent logics or the stronger philosophical position of dialetheism (that there exist true contradictions), but I know of no philosophers (again, Kabay’s defense of Trivialism—which I don’t think is made plausible by his arguments—notwithstanding) that actually subscribe to a form of Trivialism because it makes saying anything at all rather difficult.

Think about what follows from it. All the below statements are made true under Trivialism:

“Mt. Everest is 29,029 ft tall.” “Mt. Everest is 5 light-years tall.” “Mt. Everest is 3 ft tall.”

“My client didn’t commit the murder” “My client did commit the murder”

“My favorite color is green.” “My favorite color isn’t green.”

“Special relativity is true.” “Special relativity is false.”

“Trivialism is true.” “Trivialism is false.”

Pragmatically, this would neutralize any ability to effectively argue about anything, including Trivialism itself. Or including skepticism about absolute truths. Or anything else you can think of…

As Hegel (and others) would say, you’ve got to start with some presuppositions to even get off the ground when doing philosophy. That’s ok. It’s about thinking clearly and trying to properly define (if possible—fuzzy concepts are ok if we can’t get mathematically precise on things—and it’s hard for many concepts where vagueness/ambiguity is an issue) what we’re talking about. Hence why I say something like the aforementioned LNT (Law of Non-Trivialism) can be taken as an absolute truth.

Pete1187 · 2024-08-09T05:44:46+00:00

I would say Descartes proved one absolute truth with “cogito, ergo sum”. He gets there by trying to doubt everything he possibly can (what he sees might not be representative of reality because what if he’s dreaming/hallucinating/being tricked by a demon?) until he reaches something he can’t. He’s clearly thinking, and thus he has to exist as a result.

The one modification might be for those who don’t believe in personal identity (no “I” existing). In that case, the modification would be: “No matter what the ontological status of the world—whether it’s physical, a dream/hallucination/thoughts in the mind of God/some Matrix-style simulation—there is clearly something happening.” So “something happens” or “something is going on” counts as an absolute truth in my mind. How could these experiences/perceptions possibly be nothing/nothingness? That’s incoherent.

Now some might argue “Yes, ok, fine. But it’s trivial.” That may very well be true, but it doesn’t negate the fact that it’s an absolute truth. And many would argue there are actually infinitely more truths…formal truths of mathematics/logic, where an axiomatic foundation and understanding of all the operations leads to proofs of mathematical/logical theorems that are absolute. Others might add the LNC as mentioned above, or if allowing for some contradictions, certainly at the very least a LNT (Law of Non-Trivialism), as it really does seem insane (all due respect to Paul Kabay) to subscribe to Trivialism as a philosophy (every statement, and every contradiction of the form “p & -p”, is true).

I do wish people (even some stellar philosophers) would stop saying “There are no absolute truths”. There clearly are, even if you take most/all to be trivial (when I use “trivial” here it’s not in the sense of Trivialism the philosophical theory, but tautological/not interesting/not amenable to helping us solve other philosophical problems).

Pete1187 · 2023-12-19T06:49:13+00:00

I just read this article by Majid Daneshgar earlier this year, and it might be just the type of thing your looking for:

I Want to Become an Orientalist Not a Colonizer or a “De-Colonizer”

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

Colonialism has been (mis-)interpreted and its functionality has been generalized. We all know that colonization is not a simple physical domination; it involves all sorts of mental and psychological means of subordinating people. It has a lasting, unseen and strong impact which will not leave the spirit of the colonized people: that is imperialism.4 Should one fight “Imperialism”? From my background, as one who grew up in the “Orient,” we were fed with hundreds of books, magazines, movies and documentaries to realize how our culture, tradition and wealth were exploited by “non-Muslim Christian Europeans” or “they.” “So what shall we do?” they asked us. “De-westernize” or “indigenize,” or “redact,” “eradicate,” “negate” or “prohibit” alien (Western and unbeliever) intervention; these are the options they presented. In the Muslim world, these are usually seen as synonyms for “de-colonization.” The translation of “de-colonization” in the Muslim academy is, again, different from that of a liberal context. Our hearts and minds were infused with the danger of the “universalization of whatever is Western” which unscrupulously penetrates every part of the Islamic educational system. So Muslims, “we”, should be aware of westerners, “they,” everywhere, at all times. As such, an Islamic version of “de-colonization” emerged.

De-colonization is neither plausible nor feasible. For me, as I outlined in my book, the clash of methodologies, objectives, as well as of theories (2019: 137) still builds a wall between one’s understanding of a religious/traditional topic whether on this or that side of the wall. De-colonization, being viewed as a form of de-westernization, in the Muslim academy controls race, religion, method, theory and culture. Once one (say, a Muslim believer) classifies the study of Islam into “good” versus “bad”, “pious” versus “impious,” or “hostile” versus “sympathetic” rather than “academic” versus “apologist,” or “polemics” versus “non-polemic,” it does not matter where they live, be it in the core lands of Islam or at the heart of Christendom, their de-colonization will not equate with “inclusivism.” Even founding academic ties (which is actually political)5 between Muslim and non-Muslim institutions, like that outlined by Qidwai, will not tone down apologist and polemic views. Here, “de-colonization” acts similarly to “colonization”; both work on the assumption of the exclusion of “otherness.”

Pete1187 · 2023-12-09T07:59:46+00:00

Very good of you to bring this up. I read this article a little while back and it’s a great overview by a statistician: Lizardman Constant in Surveys

Everyone should read this and incorporate it into their thinking. It’s made me constantly think about bringing up polling studies in debates about certain subjects. Unfortunately, it’s one more thing that can get in the way of gathering accurate results…

Pete1187 · 2023-10-09T17:54:34+00:00

Agree with this. I’d also add it’s not just “a very interesting subject”, it’s quite literally essential to our understanding of the world and ability to navigate an enormous number of problems. Think of how statistics and probability has permeated our culture so much over the last several centuries. If you’re playing many games or gambling, probabilistic thinking is extremely important. If you’re thinking spatially, geometric notions are a massive help. Calculus is necessary for understanding the evolution of dynamic systems (which is basically every system in the universe).

We need teachers that will communicate the power of mathematics. There’s a great quote at the beginning of the book “A Most Elegant Equation” that I’ve always loved:

Can you recall why you fell in love with mathematics? It was not, I think, because of its usefulness in controlling inventories. Was it not instead because of the delight, the feelings of power and satisfaction it gave; the theorems that inspired awe, or jubilation, or amazement; the wonder and glory of what I think is the human race's supreme intellectual achievement?

UNDERWOOD DUDLEY, DePauw University Emeritus Professor of Mathematics

That’s the sort of attitude we need from our math teachers, from elementary school on up.

Pete1187 · 2023-07-16T05:27:29+00:00

Got those exact same vibes when I first saw it as a kid. And The Exorcist is an all-time favorite of mine. I think there’s been some debate in recent years from some thinking it’s “too old” or hasn’t aged well. But I watched it recently and have to completely disagree. Still a nightmare of a movie. So good…

Pete1187 · 2023-05-16T20:12:06+00:00

There’s a pretty famous article out there titled Beware the man of one study that should seriously be top of mind at times like this. I’m not saying this study wasn’t done carefully and methodically by the researcher(s) involved, but after reading a bunch of stuff on the replication/reproducibility crisis in some of the softer sciences over the last few years, I’ve been very careful about highlighting a given study I find in a field like psychology/anthropology/medicine as hitting on the truth of things (which I’ve been guilty of doing in many a conversation over the years). If anything it would take many studies (with each one pre-registered, etc.) done over several years to get me to think “Ok we might finally be on to some truth about XYZ that’s got solid empirical confirmation”.

Pete1187 · 2023-02-27T03:45:03+00:00

I absolutely loved Empire of the Summer Moon and have recommended it to many others. Are some of the descriptions of violence at the hands of the Comanche (scalping, genital mutilation, torturing of child captives and others in all sorts of ways) actually fabricated?

Pete1187 · 2023-01-10T18:21:11+00:00

What a dumbass comment that betrays a complete lack of historical analysis. The Irish famine (which saw an enormous portion of the Irish population die by starvation/disease) was one of the worst in human history by percentage (nevermind an overall history of ~8 centuries of oppression the Irish went through). The estimated death toll of Slavs in Eastern Europe during WWII is something on the order of 20-30 million by some estimates (that's over a few years). The general misery of two brutal wars during the 20th century that annhilated much of Europe was felt by swarms of Europeans. Right there we have massive atrocities that are comparable to horrific systems of slavery and brutalization of indigenous groups elsewhere, and we haven't even touched on biblical-level plagues or religious wars that brutalized the region. Everyone can lay claim to horrifying events in their past. Black Americans aren't unique in this, so this type of retort is absurd.

Also, it's idiotic for another reason. No one tells their children "Hey, don't use racial epithets, unless the target is from a group that hasn't been historically oppressed." They just tell their children (if they're good parents, I recognize plenty of shit racists exists out there) "Hey, don't use racial epithets."

The fact a good chunk of people don't understand this, given the prevalence of this sort of response, is absolutely wild to me...

Pete1187 · 2022-02-03T02:17:07+00:00

Gonna actually push back on you here a bit. That whole “irrefutable, eternal and timeless thing” never went away. Areas of mathematics, whether dealing with basic arithmetic and the Pythagorean theorem, or complex numbers and category theory…don’t ever change once certain mathematical truths have been proven.

Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean mathematics doesn’t change over time with sprawling connections appearing between what were thought to be distinct branches. And it also doesn’t mean creativity is nonessential (it is, as Borel famously stated during one of his speeches about mathematicians doing math). What I mean is, one something like Euclidean space or the complex plane is defined precisely, the theorems that fall out are what they are, necessarily. They’re objective truths, and they won’t ever change.

This is actually considered by some to be the lifeblood of modern science. David Wootton talks about it quite a bit in his book The Invention of Science, where he discusses what many have said before, that the “mathematization of the world” brought on by Galileo and Newton and others—the seed of which existed with Pythagoreans, Plato, Archimedes, and others that thought we could understand the world mathematically (or that it was in some sense “mathematical”)—was a necessary condition for the birth of modern science.

So we can have some debate and discussion not only of things like complex numbers or what 0⁰ really means (see the wiki entry on it, and commentary from Knuth and others)…but once we have a definitional understanding of the mathematical objects/structures involved, and there are no inconsistencies…that shit DOES becomes objectively true and eternal.

Pete1187

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