TranscendentalEmpire

And now you're demonstrating an utter inability to differentiate between the actions of soldiers and the actions of the polity.

Lol, by that logic America wasn't responsible for the My Lai massacre.... If soldiers keep doing it and aren't dissuaded or stopped, then it's an implicit policy.

but that they saw less need to create elaborate justifications for participating in what was a common behavior of society at the time. largely the same way - largely sans justification

Ahh, so now we're creeping away from the claim "very Roman origin of Just War"?

Me: "Romans had a concept of just war, and placed a relatively high value on that concept for their time and in comparison to their contemporaries."

Lol, "How many quotes will it take from societies not veiling their self-interest and, in fact, taking great pride in their naked self-interest, would it take to change your mind? Or is that a lost cause?" This you?

So now that we've confirmed that Romans weren't unique, the argument is how much more value the Romans placed on this compared to other contemporary societies....?

some long fucking diatribe trying to link the sacking of a city with the idea that the Romans didn't have an idea of just war, despite the fact that it is not relevant either as a data point or as an assertion of standing policy

Lol, man that single example has you fuming! It was just an example I provided because of your flabbergasted response of "what".

I see you're not mentioning the other source that spoke about how the Han, who were contemporaries with the Romans, justified their wars.

But hey, being a little drama queen is certainly a way to get your point across, not a good way. But you do you.

Do you think the civil wars and revolts you linked to occurred... without justification?

The first example I gave is a scenario where a city was raised without justification. There are plenty of examples on the list I gave you of soldiers destroying cities because they were previously occupied by a rival general. The justification for the civil war isnt the justification used to attack a city who's crime was only being occupied by an armed force

Here's one briefly covering the very Roman origins of the concept of Just War

The etymology of a phrase isn't the same as originating the very idea of justifying a war. In the chapter about the ancient world the first sentence runs counter to your summary. It states that the iliad was the first western writing to pose the conflict based on contingency instead of nature.

Here's one covering the importance of justifications for war in Roman culture and its origins](https://www.jstor.org/stable/43936674?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents)

Again, this is explaining the origins of what a just war is to the Romans, it's not saying that justifying wars was unique to or invented by the Romans.

None of your Citations claim that Romans were the only people justifying their conquest. Nor do they make any arguments claiming that the Romans invented the concept of justifying conflicts.

The problem with making giant sweeping claims is that it only takes one Example to counter them.

But, you know, fuck all those, they're reliant on the writing of elites and ethnic authors. What the fuck do they know?

Lol, no they're pretty decent papers, they just don't make the claims you assume they do.

I think you're conflating the codified concept of the Roman "just war" with the concept of justifying wars in general.

Which is kinda hilarious, because Rome had a far eastern counterpart that was active during the same periods and had very similar problems with "barbaric" neighbors. There are plenty of examples of the Han Empire justifying their own wars for nearly the same exact reasons. I just think you have a extremely eurocentric view of history.

do you think the First Gulf War wasn't waged on ideological grounds...?

You're considering intervening in an invasion of oil rich Kuwait a war fought on ideological grounds?

Do I have to outline why stealing idols is different from religiously justified wars, or is naked theft a justification in your mind?

My dude, the gods of mesopotamia were thought to be literally represented by their idol. In their belief, stealing an idol was the same thing as stealing their god.

This you?

Yes, I'm still rebutting your wild claims...

Me: "Give me your criteria for valid sources and I'll gladly provide them."

Lol, you provided a source to begin with, you just claim to have sources that agree with your argument. How about a paper over the topic of your claim?

Wow, yes, clearly I am the one being unreasonable. Excuse me while I go fetch a dozen quotes so you can say something brilliant like "Well, those were the ELITES, of COURSE they would say that" or "Well, that's a ROMAN source, of COURSE they would say that" or "It's just one/two/ten/twenty quotes, you can't just extrapolate from that!" You know, things you've already fucking said. Things I've literally quoted you fucking saying.

How performative, very dramatic. I'm not asking for dozens of quotes, I asked for one. Your interpretation of a few primary sources aren't enough to draw sweeping conclusions. How about any modern historian covering the topic?

Primary sources of ancient authors are important, but they require a surrounding body of contextual evidence to support any theory based on them. That's why historians work with people like archeologists and anthropologists to explain interpretation of historical writings.

Salty is when I outline why the incident doesn't say what you think it does and you have no actual response to that. Okay. Fantastic.

Salty and delusional....what a catch.

War without cause is when there's a revolt or civil war, and the more revolt or civil war there is, the less justification is used for it"?

Lol, I we were talking about justifications, not "war without a cause".

Dictatorship is when you say something that contradicts my assertion" - A Very Brilliant Commenter, apparently

Nope, just when people declare they can determine if cultures are similar or not based on a whim.

How many quotes will it take from societies not veiling their self-interest and, in fact, taking great pride in their naked self-interest, would it take to change your mind? Or is that a lost cause?

Well you haven't give men any quotes, even if you had isolated quotes aren't exactly enough to even make a reductionist claim that the Romans were the only people justifying their conquest.

Enough time to easily show that ideological concerns were major

What ideological shift occurred between the time of the first and second gulf war? You are honestly claiming that the bush administration wasn't motivated by things as simple as consolidating power under the administration, or even things like halliburton getting tens of billions of dollars?

Holy shit. We're really just applying the casus belli of much later periods to antiquity, because it 'feels right', huh?

Lol, you're saying going to war over a God's will only happened after the Romans? You do know some of the earliest recordings of wars occured in ancient mesopotamia utilizing capturing the idols of gods as a pretext.

okay, so we're changing our argument from "It was only the Romans who wrote about the matter!" to "All pre-modern writing is untrustworthy!", cool cool cool.

I never claimed that it was only the Romans.....that's your argument which I am rebutting.

I am saying that sources need to be examined within their historical context.

Why would I fetch anything without criteria for what would be regarded as a valid counterargument? I've done this stupid fucking dance with too many fucking people to count

Ahh yes, everyone else is the problem.....not me, the only common denominator.

bizarre preconceptions about the past and have no interest in re-examining them, who freely dismiss any evidence given and delight in pissing away time and effort.

You've literally not given any evidence. I'm the only person in this particular argument who's used sourced material.

A city during the first civil war in almost 100 years was looted by out-of-control troops hailing from the other side of the Empire against their commander's orders and was roundly condemned by the histories", clearly, you have proven that the Romans loved looting their own cities for no reason.

Lol, so salty that I provided a source despite your baffled "What?"

There are plenty of examples of similar events throughout the history of Rome.

Roman legal influence in the West through some 1500 years, and let me fucking tell you, that's a very far cry from being culturally similar

I forgot I was talking to the dictator of cultures... I so glad you could make that opinion of your official.

Obfuscated self-interest" was specified.

Right, But you also claimed that other societies at the time didn't do the same...

My point was that all societies thinly veil their self interest.

justification for the illegal invasion of Iraq wasn't to 'spread freedom', it was a (false) allegation of violation of international law regarding possession of WMDs.

Lol, a bit of a pedantic argument. It and Afghanistan were obviously marketed as a stand for "freedom" at the time.

What self-interest was fulfilled by invading Iraq? Ideology was a bigger factor there than any conception of national self-interest.

You're asking what self interest the Bush administration had for invading Iraq......? How much time do you have?

Because the Greeks and the Persians wrote of their own motivations in largely the same way - largely sans justification.

First of all, Persians and Greek often justified their conquest via the gods, or nationalism.

Secondly Motivation and justifications can be the same thing depending on the social mores of the society.

Lastly, you are utilizing examples of societies where the only people who were writing within the historical context were part of the ruling structure. Thats akin to getting acess to the email of Dick Cheney's actual motivations for invading Iraq vs the story they told the media.

What evidence would you accept? How much should I fetch for you?

Any would be a good start?

What

During the year of 4 emperors Cremona was occupied by vitellian troops, they battled an army outside Cremona led by Antonius and lost. Cremona immediately surrendered and was subsequently raped and pillaged for no good reason.

"Antonius then attacked Cremona, which surrendered. Cremona was sacked and then burned by the victorious troops over four days; many residents were raped, murdered and robbed.[3] Antonius was embarrassed by the episode and forbade the keeping of Cremonans as slaves, resulting in many being murdered by their captors to evade punishment.[4]"

Edit: accidentally skipped your first claim

believing that we're culturally similar to ancient peoples is an incredibly dangerous and distorting way to view the past.

This is kinda ridiculous considering that our legal and political bodies are highly influenced specifically by the Romans, who were in turn highly influenced by the Greek and Persians.

You have to remember that the pre-modern period was still very much a time of naked self-interest

As opposed to now? I think believing we are inherently different than ancient people is a byproduct of how we record and review historical context.

When the US invaded Iraq, it was professing to "spread freedom". A couple decades later and it's pretty apparent that freedom was a pretext to fulfill thinly veiled self interest.

When the Gauls and Germanics went on raids, their thinking wasn't "Dohohoho, time to commit some CRIMES", but rather, "This is the way the world works, I'm taking an opportunity", the way that a merchant might eye a good deal

How exactly are we determining this? Thats probably what the Romans thought of the Germanic tribes and the Gauls, but we don't exactly have a lot of primary sources from the people we're talking about. Of course the empire is going to boil down their enemies motives while guiding their own.

The Romans, if you will, saw there as being an additional 'barrier' of a need for justification to go and murder and plunder their enemies without the slightest hint of conscience - typically

I don't really see any evidence of this..... Most of their justifications were just to convince others in the ruling class to get on board with one person's or a groups personal vendetta or get rich quick scheme.

The Romans didn't really need a justification to rape and pillage their own cities, let alone others.

I mean, doesn't every society attempt to morally justify their wars of conquest within the framework of their own social mores?

I can't exactly think of a society who thought of themselves as evil for expanding their holdings......

I can vouch for reolink, they have fairly straight forward nvr with decent cameras for the money. Been using their poe nvr system for around 5 years now and have never had an issue with it.

But Spartan women weren't that bad off, compared to other places in antiquity

We also white wash Spartan history pretty dramatically. Yes, Spartan women who were citizens were better off than their Athenian counterparts. However, that's not saying much when you consider spartan citizens were a fraction of the population of Sparta.

The vast majority of women in Sparta were helots, and were subject to chattel slavery. I don't think you can claim that Spartans cared about gender equality when they had an entire social class made up of the bastards produced by raping their slaves.

Depends on the plastic, you can safely heat most polypropylene and polyethylene based plastics. If it's putting off noxious fumes then it probably has urethane, styrene, or vinyl in it.

The worst plastic to overheat that I've worked with is kydex. Even though it's most common application is as a thermoplastic, if you over heat it the stuff off gasses hydrogen chloride.

This isn't going to be accurate, it's ignoring a key aspect of the heat that will be generated, friction. When designing materials for prosthetics we have to be aware of how much friction occurs between the material and skin. If the amount of friction is too great, the material can create enough heat to damage tissue.

The formula for the skin friction coefficient is cf=τw12ρeue2, where ρe and ue are the density and longitudinal velocity at the boundary layer's edge.

Tbh, I would love to see it. But our railway infrastructure is dog shit atm, and we wouldn't be able to expand the network fast enough to accommodate something as luxurious as a railway hospital until much later.

My first goal would be to expand the network to the point where cars are unnecessary for the vast majority of my citizens. This would both increase rail traffic to acceptable levels and help alleviate the unnecessary healthcare cost and harm of motor vehicle accidents.

Become my peon, every peon gets healthcare and can apply to drive an electric train. Me -2024