History · Society

Cognitive Decline Among the Elite: Colonialism vs. Modern Empire Building

For any reasonably intelligent and curious person, it is impossible to ever be bored nowadays. Anything you would want to read, watch, listen to, or study is a few clicks away. Before the widespread adoption of the Internet, you needed to go to a library and if you didn’t live in or near a major city, you could easily have found yourself without much intellectual challenge. When I was a teen, the best my teachers could do was let me borrow mathematics textbooks that were designed for higher grades, which only had the effect of staving off boredom for the current year. Then again, I used the time I freed up that way for studying Latin, so it was still worth it. Yet, today, a smart teenager can find free materials online. You could plow through the entire high-school curriculum in a few years if you’re so inclined, and then move on to self-teaching you the content of a STEM discipline, all in the comfort of your own home.

You may now wonder where I am going with this, so let me ask you: when was the last time you met someone who had access to a bona fide ocean of knowledge but told you that they were bored? I met quite a few such people, incidentally women but that does not necessarily mean that it’s exclusively a female problem. I bet it’s the same for every other heterosexual man of above-average intelligence: you hang out even with women who are quite a bit dumber than you if you want to bang them. So, where am I going with this now?

The point I’m trying to make is that a smart person is able to get a lot out of even limited means of education or entertainment. Similarly, a smart person can do a lot even with limited tools. Now, look at what the empire builders and colonialists of yore were able to pull off: they had no computers, no GPS, no easy access to encyclopedic knowledge. Instead, a king could gather a bunch of guys he trusted, give them a few firearms, some goods to trade with, food supplies, a map, and a ship, and off they went. Very small crews were able to trade with foreign nations. They were also able to conquer and effectively rule them. As odious a topic you may think colonialism is, it is nonetheless quite obvious that it is an organizational feat to travel into the literal unknown, build up infrastructure, and set up a bureaucracy. Just think of the skeleton crew the British needed to effectively rule the Raj: there were around 150,000 British vs. 200,000,000 Indians!

Colonialism and old-age empire-building are still somewhat recent phenomena. India only won independence in 1947, after that drunkard Winston Churchill had squandered the British Empire. There are still people around who have living memory of colonialism. The desire to lord it over others has not disappeared, even though colonies nominally might have. Yet, today’s elites are a lot worse at it than they were mere decades ago. What I think is happening is an obvious decline in cognitive ability. This is sometimes referred to as the negative Flynn effect, i.e. the fact that IQs, after apparently having topped out in the 1990s, are now globally declining.

Rulers of the past were able to recruit smart men who were able to set up relatively well-working bureaucracies abroad. Today’s cognitively impaired elites, on the other hand, are not even able to rule their own countries. Sure, we can lament that leftism has gotten a hold of them and that they are deliberately pushing the world towards ever-greater chaos. I believe that this is indeed happening. Yet, it’s further evidence that we are ruled by morons because it is quite obvious that living conditions in the West have been declining, and that is without the Covid-19 hoax and the Black riots that have been going on in most of the Western world.

It is quite mind-boggling how many dumb decisions our leaders make. Obviously, they make shitty decisions at home, so why would they be able to make smart decisions abroad? It’s like some woman telling you that even though she loves wasting money, she promised that if you only married her and gave her access to your bank account, she’d be frugal. It does not make any sense. Thus, you end up with the United States blowing over a trillion dollars on fighting a bunch of goat herders with rusty AK-47s for over a decade in Afghanistan and having nothing to show for it. (Most powerful military in the world my ass!) We get chaos at home and chaos abroad. One of my most favorite new stories this year was the plot to overthrow the ruler of Venezuela. It was so comically bad that it made me laugh out loud. Then I thought of the Gran Sasso raid, i.e. the successful rescue of Mussolini during WWII, when he was held captive by the Allies. You laugh when reading about the former, but when you read about the latter, you feel your chest swell with pride at this display of excellence. The latter would be material for an inspirational movie that leaves you in awe, the former is maybe good enough for a comedy starring Ben Stiller. Sure, those are arbitrarily picked data points, but you can’t help but conclude that we have become less intelligent, efficient, and able. Even our supposed best are a bunch of bumbling fools. Seriously, do you think Hitler would have sent a bunch of clowns to overthrow a militarized country, or a bunch of school kids with air rifles to rescue Mussolini?

The more I think about it, the more I tend to believe that our elites don’t really have any kind of grand, satanic masterplan that involves letting the world burn. Instead, they are a bunch of feeble-minded individuals who just don’t have the ability to effectively rule. I mean, what do you think comes from having Biden, Soros, and Kissinger sit together and scheme? Biden needs to be reminded of his name after 15 minutes, Soros has to get his diapers changed, and Kissinger needs to be waken up. Those guys have completely lost it, and we’re all suffering as a consequence because they’re stubbornly holding on to power, just like some demented 88-year-old with reflexes the level of a stoner who insists that he is still fit to drive, until he drives right into a lake. All of them are doing the best that they can, and it’s just a pile of garbage. It’s like the slow kid in class who just doesn’t grasp geometry and you feel pity for him. Taking that kid and making him a teacher is the equivalent of today’s Western rulers who simply lack the integrity and intelligence to run their own countries well. Ruling the world is an entirely different task and one they are even less suited for.


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32 thoughts on “Cognitive Decline Among the Elite: Colonialism vs. Modern Empire Building

  1. The observation of general and continuous intellectual decline at this time and age is sound. It struck me during my own studies in Latin and ancient Greek, that most of the official textbooks in use when studying were either new editions of works, which had been in use in German high schools until the beginning of the 1960ties, particularly in Bavria (that’s your “felicitas Bavariorum” right there!) – or new textbooks, which tried to adhere to the level of difficultg and sophistication of those aforementioned works. So there’s the decline in intellect for everyone to see. I guess this might be the case for many other disciplines as well. People generally must have been fr more proficient in mental arithmetic, since there weren’t that many electric calculators around, peolle were able to read maps since there was no Google maps app available and so on. This sad state of affairs is certainly one of the core falsifying arguments AGAINST Darwin’s theory of evolution, and against all the notions associated with it: no, progress in itself is not natural and not necessary beneficial to man; no, the new is not necessarily always the better and preferrable to the old; no, we are not living in the best of all worlds – and no, we are most certainly not the stronges, most advanced, and most shining examples or homo sapiens. In fact, compared to many of our past generations of ancestors we are an aberration.

    What I do not agree with is the superficial assessment of the dominating sense of stupidity by the “ruling elites”. Yes, old geyser Henry Kissinger has turned into a ridicolous caricature of his former sinister self and characters such as Merkel, gay Frenchie Macron, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Justin Trudeau are all utter jokes in their own right. But that’s no wonder since they are most certajnly not the ones masterminding and calling the shots. In that regard I would highly encourage anyone to familiarize himself with the works of Alice Bailey (sinister founder and mastermind of the “Lucis Trust”… and the original name of that organization is even more telling…).

    We all are and have been living ever since in an age of subversion and inversion of the basic laws and rules of life and the world. Western Culture is nothing but a cultural virus of death and destruction, it has become a literal culture of death (don’t forget the plummeting birthrates in the West, and in all other countries who got infected with this deadly cultural virus as well). On the grand overall scheme it is not required at all, e.g. that certain campaigns turn out successful at the end. The measure of “success” solely lies in the measure of subversion, inversion and downright destruction of all pillars of human existence.

    So the question remains: Why would anyone act this nihilist and self-destructive way? What does it profit the mastermind(s) to engage in such plans? Why is all of this necessary? Why, why, why?
    And the most bizzarre thing is: This very question about the “Why?” cannot be sufficiently answered, except from a religious (i.e. “faith-based”) perspective….

    1. You cannot reason with zealots. They rely solely on their feelings of self-righteousness to guide them. The echo chamber that is pop culture feeds their narcissism like heroin, and cutting them off from their “supply” does nothing but create grief and danger.

      I have become more and more nihilistic as I grow older. In a way it is freeing. As Tyler Durden would put it, it means letting that which truly does not matter, go.

    2. I know from talking from a professor at one of the better European technical universities that his university has data showing that there has been a slow but continuous decline in ability of their incoming students. I don’t quite recall the details. It was either based on a diagnostics exam that is mandatory for all incoming students in a selection of disciplines or the exam results of their first few mathematics courses, which have had essentially the same curriculum for longer than anybody could remember.

      Darwin didn’t say that the smartest survive but those who are best adapted to their environment. Today, this means that the bottom-tier of society that pumps out one kid after another in order to maximize their welfare payments is more “fit” in evolutionary terms than some IQ130 dude who ends up having one kid via IVF with a woman who would have been considered barren in saner times.

      I’m on board with the idea that the men behind the curtain are working hard on destroying the world. However, Jews have been writing their fan-fiction on how to dilute the gene pool of the whites in order to create a rootless mongrel race to easily rule over for a long time. (Amusingly, Wikipedia claims that the Kalergi plan is a “conspiracy theory” and removed all mention of what Kalergi wrote. It would be a tad bit more difficult to make such claims otherwise.) Back in the days, there were probably a few Elder Jews around who bitch slapped their in-house intellectuals whenever they lost touch with reality as they knew full well that they need the goyim in order to thrive. Today, those checks-and-balances seem to be missing. Apparently, nobody is taking Shlomo aside nowadays to tell him that he shouldn’t be enamored with his IQ999 (verbal only) but instead open his eyes and realize that things aren’t really working out all that well even though they are going according to plan. The way things going, the white race is going to disappear. However, the race that will replace us won’t be wiring billions of dollars a year to Israel. They won’t even be able to keep the light on. Just look at what happened to South Africa!

    3. What happens when the Jewish cabal is up against China and its white Russian allies and their genetically modified population of super scientists and mega soldiers?

  2. “When I was a teen, the best my teachers could do was let me borrow mathematics textbooks that were designed for higher grades, which only had the effect of staving off boredom for the current year. ”

    I have read your forum and see that you are quite proud of your mathematical ability. My math is rather average so my statement may be weak, but I think you overestimate your math ability.

    I have had a look at the German Arbitur test for Bayern ( Bavaria) and notice that the level of math corresponds to our 11-12 grades curriculum. I find out that the test in German is equivalent roughly to our entry-uni examination. While it is rather difficult for our normal students, they are not that particularly difficult for a gifted student.

    I have to say that based on your performance in Math, your IQ would be above mine, maybe 10 to 20 points more, but is still not enough to list you into the category of gifted math students.

    In our countries, harder math contests at all territorial levels are carried out to select the best students in Math. One of my classmate in 9th grade got accepted into a special school for Math students (in Vietnam there are many schools like that following the Soviet model) due to his creative proof of the Abel-Ruffini theorem. That is what I call gifted in Math. Have you ever participated in a Math contests which are graded by qualified mathematicians with no clear criteria, but with an emphasis on creative solutions? In these contests, students are given highly difficult questions and must provide a solution with certain originality, or must be able to come up with a standard solution of their own. Thus being able to do some questions on an Arbitur doesn’t mean you are highly gifted in Math.

    Some further examples of students with good inclination towards Math is how they explore higher topics at young age. One of my friends (he was born in 1998, we became friends because I gave him a good book as a gift) explores general Topology (point-set Topology) at the age of 17-18. Now he is into research in Algebraic Topology, Algebraic Geometry and Algebraic Number Theory. Pursuing these fields means he has an astounding capacity of thinking of highly abstract math concepts and is fearless when encountering difficult mathematic formalism. He is going to give a seminar on Kahler differentials this year.

    I knew a couple of other guys who is interested in Algebraic Geometry, one guy in Statistics who won a scholarship at Michigan University.

    These are examples of students with high talents in Math.

    For my part, I can’t fathom Linear Algebra being introduced the way these guys learn. My favorite topic in Math is Taylor series, infinite series in general and how to manipulate them. It is trivial to find out that the Taylor formula centered at 0 is not practical for many functions that have no cyclic derivatives. So sin(x); cos(x); e^x can be expanded rather easily, bit tan(x) for example is rather difficult. Furthermore, if we use Taylor formula, we may not be able to discover the connection betwen its derivative and the Bernoulli number. So that is my area of interest, I got an 8/10 in grade 11 for being able to expand the function e/e^x-1 by exploiting its inverse e^x-1/e. It is easier to expand its inverse into Taylor series then use the method of undeterminated coefficients. The conclusion that I came up with was that e/e^x-1 is the generating function of the Bernoulli numbers.

    That is why I asked you 2 times why you did not choose Math but Economics, only later lamented that the field is not rigorous enough to your liking.

    1. You should look up “Leistungskurs Mathematik” exams, but when there were still 13 years of instruction. I didn’t claim any stellar mathematical ability in absolute terms, just relatively speaking, compared to my peers. Also, I’m disinclined to answer some personal questions. It’s as simple as that.

      1. “Also, I’m disinclined to answer some personal questions. It’s as simple as that.”

        I see. I think you chose Economics because they gave a scholarship. I still think with your intelligence, investing in Statistics probably earn an even higher salary, but I could be wrong.

        Whatever the case is, the past is the past now.

  3. You also seem to throw around IQ. If you want to prove that you are good at some academic subject, just throw yourself at a specialized exam to test your capacity.

    I sit for an HSK exam and passed it only 3 months after learning the modern Chinese language.

    1. Dude, I’ve outgrown that phase. I’ve done a proper IQ test under the supervision of a psychologist, I’ve done plenty of standardized test, and I also have a few non-trivial real-life achievements under my belt that went well beyond test taking. I don’t question your intelligence. In fact, I’d say that you’re a pretty intelligent guy. I do think that some of your beliefs are in severe need of a revision, but that’s a different issue.

      1. “some of your beliefs are in severe need of a revision, but that’s a different issue.”

        I tend to think that you draw your experience from Europe. I have never been there so I don’t know. I am also from a well-off family so maybe I don’t know how it is like to be at the bottom of US society. Nevertheless, I used to work minimum wage jobs like Dunkin Donuts so I know the feeling of the poor. Luckily I worked in TD bank as a teller for 2 years in Philly before moving to a different state so things are getting better for me.

        In the US, among the Vietnamese communities, we have a saying “As long as you work hard, you cannot be poor in the US. USA is even more communist than Communist countries.”

  4. “Thus, you end up with the United States blowing over a trillion dollars on fighting a bunch of goat herders with rusty AK-47s for over a decade in Afghanistan and having nothing to show for it. ”

    Their performance is still better than the Soviets.

    1. I admittedly only skimmed through this article and the comments (so maybe I should keep silent for the time being), but maybe the common denominator would be the so called war index:

      “The introduction of the war index, which describes future demographic changes, is one of the great merits of the emeritus Prof. Dr. Dr. Gunnar Heinsohn. He defines the war index of a country as the ratio of the number of young men aged 15 to 19 to the number of men aged 55 to 59. The old will soon give up their jobs and make way for the young. With a war index < 1, as it prevails in Germany and other developed countries, the following generation will find enough jobs.

      In developing countries and Islamic states the war index can rise to values of up to 9. This means that for every 100 jobs that become vacant due to retirement or death, there are 900 aspirants who want to get hold of the vacant jobs. 800 young people will go away empty-handed and increase the army of unemployed. The war index of the African and Asian countries from which most immigrants come to Germany and the EU fluctuates between 4 and 7.

      It is obvious that the war index depends on fertility. In terms of the war index, human fertility means the number of male children of a woman who reach the age of 19.

      Why is the war index called "war index"? Because the surplus young men who cannot find a job want to eat and so join the army or other terrorist organisations or emigrate to Europe immediately or afterwards. A war is not feasible without a sufficiently large reserve of men around 19 years of age. A low war index, as in the EU, is a guarantee for peace, as nobody is interested in the only son and heir dying before his parents."

      https://at.wikimannia.org/Kriegsindex

      Translated with the free version of DeepL.

      Part of why the conflict in Syria has calmed down is probably that $haremoney taking in many combat aged Syrian males helped lowering its war index quite a bit. (As have the piles of dead that war produced.)

      1. This also explains how European nations were able for centuries to conquer foreign continents and to wage war against each other both in Europe and in those foreign continents.

        Just look at the war index of the UDSSR during its Afghanistan war. And at that of France and the US during the Vietnam Wars. The list goes on and on. Of course the US/NATO could bomb Afghanistan completely to the stone age. (Well, stone age might actually mean progress for them, lol.)

        But in order to successfully occupy a nation you need loads and loads of foot soldiers. That can fight ad die more than your opponent can fight and die. Given the demographics of the West these kind of occupation is not to happen anytime soon again with a Western army. Not unless these armies are to be stacked up with humanoid war robots or something like that. Which is again unlikely because of Western Demographics (cf. dysgenics, bell curve, idiocracy). But maybe the Chinese (with their own low war index) will be able to colonize the world (or large parts of it) that way. (Quite the night mare scenario in my opinion, but what you gotta do?)

      2. You must not forget, that the Biritish Empire was able with just 200.000 white male soldiers to effectively conquer and rule the subcontinent of India for some centuries. This is all in itself a remarkable achievement and was not possible purely through force, but through psychological warfare and ideology. The British were able to display themselves to the Indians as rightful rulers and ocupiers, because they were more “modern”, technically and societally more advanced – and in many ways they actually were (they were still Protestant WASPS though). Combine ideological full spectrum dominance with a comparatively small but effective fighting force and ideologically and materially corruptible local rulers and you can reign and exploit a foreign country for quite some time!

        Today most classical Western ideological tropes have lost their giltter or have been unmasked as utter lies anyway. Social engineering via joooish Hollywood and the utterly perverted mainstream “music industry” isn’t working so flawlessly either. This means, the so called “West” has lost it’s dominant appeal – even if the Western (Nato) countries were able to muster the required manpower for conquest and domination, they cannot comquer the minds and hearts of the prospected subjects … and that alone is what counts eventually.

      3. Good point! I touched upon the issue of declining U.S. soft power in this article:
        https://www.aaronselias.com/2020/05/31/democracy-and-diversity-signal-the-end-of-u-s-soft-power/

        The exact number of Brits who were used to rule the Raj isn’t so important. In the article I used a figure of 150,000 vs 200,000,000. The former figure does not just include soldiers but also administrators. In any case, it is an absolutely remarkable achievement to rule a country with a numerical disadvantage in the order of 1:1000.

      4. “The US performing better than the Soviets? On what metric? The US has suffered fewer casualties, but it has been bogged down for almost twice al long, has spent orders of magnitude more money, and leaves behind an even more disfunctional country than the USSR did. Neither country achieved its political objectives there, although one can argue Moscow got closer.

        Little remembered fact, the government and bureaucracy the soviets left behind after retreating managed to hold on to power for almost 3 years, and only collapsed after the fall of the USSR meant the subsidies cash flow dried up. Thats when the taliban took over. The US isnleaving nothing comparably robust in its place.”

        I use casualty as a metric. But as you said, when the USSR collapsed, the regime couldn’t sustain themselves. What is the difference between this and the US failure in the Vietnam War?

        But I agree with on the seeming success of the USSR in stabilizing Afghanistan. I also have the impression that Russia is more competent in strategic thinking than the US in this day and age. Just look at how Putin tamed Chechnya, which was not an easy task at all. Their leader literally eats out his hands now, they prove to be very loyal to him and the Kremlin.

    2. The US performing better than the Soviets? On what metric? The US has suffered fewer casualties, but it has been bogged down for almost twice al long, has spent orders of magnitude more money, and leaves behind an even more disfunctional country than the USSR did. Neither country achieved its political objectives there, although one can argue Moscow got closer.

      Little remembered fact, the government and bureaucracy the soviets left behind after retreating managed to hold on to power for almost 3 years, and only collapsed after the fall of the USSR meant the subsidies cash flow dried up. Thats when the taliban took over. The US isnleaving nothing comparably robust in its place.

  5. “I do think that some of your beliefs are in severe need of a revision, but that’s a different issue.”

    I generally tend to not take someone’s opinion on political issues of a country seriously if he has not shown at least se basic understanding of that country legal structure. By that I mean a general familiarity of the its constitution, its political structure and its legal history. In the case of China, it is the familiarity with the code of Qin (秦律), the code of Tang (唐律) and the constitution of the People’s Republic of China (中国人民共和国宪法). Studying the legal history of a country will give you insights into the inner working of that country government.

    I have not spoken of real life experience and anecdotal evidences because they are harder to obtain since you have to stay, work and interact with the natives to gain insights.

    Social commentaries are never enough because they are plain subjective opinions of bystander. After you have mastered the abovementioned thing then yes you can start reading social commentaries and satires.

    1. That’s an interesting perspective. In contrast, I’d say that in the Western world our institutions have been hollowed out, which has the effect that they sometimes do the exact opposite of what they claim to do. You couldn’t come to that conclusion if you ignored factual reality in favor of idealistic pieces of paper. Sometimes, the elites even openly express disdain for the foundational texts of their nation, such as George W. Bush calling the U.S. Constitution as “goddamn piece of paper.”

      1. I don’t care what Bush has to say about the Constitution. I consider the US Constitution to the masterpiece of human political achievement.

        You can still feel the very effect of it in daily life in the States.

        Instead, in China or in Soviet Union, the Constitution only sounds nice in paper. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have wealthy landowners being shot without trials like in China or in Vietnam.

      2. Rating the U.S. constitution depends on the scale or criteria of rating.
        I can understand, from where people are coming, when they’re praising this document. Relative to other contitution it is certainly a valuable document. But on a most comprehensive level it is a flawed document, because it was born out of the Enlightenment, out of freemasonry and WASP material commercialism. Each of those wodls of ideas itself is catastrophic, but when combined they are literally poisonous. The entire idea of the U.S. is built on a lie (and its consequences are causing POTUS Trump and others lots of headache currently), that is the equality of man. That all man are essentially equal and would prosper equally, when given the provided with the same amount of freedom. The current riots (as with other past ones) also prove, that this is not the case at all. Many negroes simply won’t get off the dole and eventually prosper economically, even if they got the most paternalistical support imaginable. Equality of men and of raciql backgrounds is a lie, as is the enforced racial blending of people, because it simpley goes against the grain of natural segregation. Those an other lies, which are forming the core myth of the U.S. as a state and as a society will never cease to plague this country, for as long as it exists.

      3. When the founding fathers of the United States spoke of “men”, they meant men like them, i.e. land-owning WASPs. Subsequently, the interpretation of the constitution got perverted. The goal was never a democracy in which everybody, dead or alive, could cast a vote.

      4. “that is the equality of man. That all man are essentially equal and would prosper equally, when given the provided with the same amount of freedom.
        Men are not born equal, are not equal in intelligence and strength. But they must be treated equally. What do you want? A comeback of Absolute Monarchy where your lives depend on the will of a “Roy de Soleil” or a “Son of Heaven” (天子)? Or maybe being denied of the opportunity of being appointed to higher positions due to your birth origin?

        You like to ordered around by a king, a tyrant or a despot? Or you like to live rather freely in a flawed but still prosperous West?

        What do you want?

      5. The doctrine of equal right is also propounded in the Constitution of the first Republic of France:

        ENG: The representatives of the French people, organized in National Assembly, considering that ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man, are the sole causes of the public miseries and of the corruption of governments, have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being ever present to all the members of the social body, may unceasingly remind them of their rights and their duties in order that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive power may be each moment compared with the aim of every political institution and thereby may be more respected; and in order that the demands of the citizens, grounded henceforth upon simple and incontestable principles, may always take the direction of maintaining the constitution and the welfare of all.

        FR: Il n’y a plus ni noblesse, ni pairie, ni distinctions héréditaires, ni distinctions d’ordres, ni régime féodal, ni justices patrimoniales, ni aucun des titres, dénominations et prérogatives qui en dérivaient, ni aucun ordre de chevalerie, ni aucune des corporations ou décorations, pour lesquelles on exigeait des preuves de noblesse, ou qui supposaient des distinctions de naissance, ni aucune autre supériorité, que celle des fonctionnaires publics dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions.

        – Il n’y a plus ni vénalité, ni hérédité d’aucun office public.

        – Il n’y a plus, pour aucune partie de la Nation, ni pour aucun individu, aucun privilège, ni exception au droit commun de tous les Français.

        – Il n’y a plus ni jurandes, ni corporations de professions, arts et métiers.

        – La loi ne reconnaît plus ni vœux religieux, ni aucun autre engagement qui serait contraire aux droits naturels ou à la Constitution.

        “Free at last, free at last, thanks God Almighty, free at last”.

        Martin Luther King

      6. @Sleazy,

        I forgot to add this, besides legal History, one should study institutional History as well. For example, in Imperal China, each official histories of a dynasty contain several chapters on administrative systems, hierarchy of mandarins ( government officials) (官制).

        Then we also have encyclopedia for institutional history of Chinese dynasties, like Statutes of the Yuan dynasty (大元聖政國朝典章)or The six statutes of the Tang dynasty (唐六典), Draft to an institutional history of the Song dynasty (宋會要輯稿).

        The US Constitution and the Federalist Papers are foundational documents that describe in broad stroke the political structure of America.

        I don’t how to study institutional History of Mainland China though.

        So yes, until you master these requirements, then we can start discussing politics. Because you have a basis, you know which part of the systems deviate from their original supposed function.

      7. “I consider the US Constitution to the masterpiece of human political achievement.”

        I said I wasn’t going to engage with you anymore, but the level of hypocrisy from your side is just unbearable and one of the reasons I frequent this blog a bit less.

        You were speaking about having to regulate free speech not too long ago, at the same time you praise a the US constitution to be a masterpiece.
        Like, dude… the first amendment literally says that “congress shall make no law” that restricts free speech.

        You are what Nassim Taleb would call an IYI (Intellectual-Yet-Idiot). Highly educated, but dumb as can be.

      8. “You were speaking about having to regulate free speech not too long ago, at the same time you praise a the US constitution to be a masterpiece.
        Like, dude… the first amendment literally says that “congress shall make no law” that restricts free speech.”

        That is all that you have for your level of intellectual sophistication? Or maybe sophistry, may I say?
        Maybe you should look at how the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Ammendment.

        Have a look at the Alien and Sedition Acts and the debate whether it is unconstitutional.

        Then also have a look at Schenck v. United States during WW1.

        The Constitution not only shapes the functioning of the US government, it also preserves the doctrine of separation of power. By now, you should be familiar with Lord Acton saying “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. But it is not the only document that states how the US functions politically. You are a bloody fool to read only a piece of it.

        No US presidents ever dares to change the length of their term, nor do they ever hold absolute power in their hands like Mr.Putin or Xi Jinping.

        Without any familiarity with the legal and political history of the US, one can immediately say that total freedom of speech is an impossible ideal.

        The freedom that the media can covered plays no small part in shaping the public opinion of the Anti-War movement, which directly caused the US to withdraw from Vietnam.

        “You are what Nassim Taleb would call an IYI (Intellectual-Yet-Idiot). Highly educated, but dumb as can be.”

        That knave that is your idol is not someone I would give a shit about. I have a bookmark of a Quora reader who exposes his fraudulent use of statistics. I won’t comment on his general criticism of statisticians because the Math he uses is just too advanced for me.

        I will post this bookmark tomorrow.

      9. So as promised, here are a couple of comments of your idol Nassim Taleb:

        https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-find-Taleb-to-be-so-polarizing-Why-are-people-in-academia-so-sharply-divided-about-the-quality-of-Talebs-ideas-Why-do-people-think-his-ideas-with-some-exceptions-are-either-really-bad-or-really-good

        https://www.quora.com/In-Nate-Silvers-book-The-Signal-in-the-Noise-he-clearly-refers-to-ideas-and-works-of-Nassim-Taleb-but-never-mentions-him-by-name-Why-is-this-so

        And this is what nails a rusty nail into that Phoenician’s forehead:

        https://www.quora.com/Whats-Nassim-Talebs-best-argument-that-Nate-Silver-is-not-very-good-at-what-he-does

        Read the comment from all these links of Markus Schmaus.

        I don’t support guys like Taleb if I don’t have that sophisticated and novel knowledge of Math and Statistics.

        Unlike you parrots who seem to enjoy some catchy ideas from popular books, I’d rather dwell into technical books in the hope of learning something.

      10. Here are a couple of Quora’s answers that expose the fraudulent behavior and combative spirit of this knave:

        https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-find-Taleb-to-be-so-polarizing-Why-are-people-in-academia-so-sharply-divided-about-the-quality-of-Talebs-ideas-Why-do-people-think-his-ideas-with-some-exceptions-are-either-really-bad-or-really-good

        “Taleb’s message is that all experts are stupid, so you don’t need to be an expert in order to understand the world. I can understand why this message is highly appealing to non-experts especially since Taleb has the veneer of an expert himself, is an engaging writer, and there are plenty of examples in which supposed experts turned out to be charlatans.

        But the issue is that he doesn’t just attack the charlatans, but also the true experts, either because he is incapable or unwilling to distinguish between them. And in his attack of the true experts he uses really bad statistics himself (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.06351.pdf the only way I was able to reproduce the top chart in figure 3 is by confusing standard deviation with variance). So he doesn’t actually fight bad statistics, he instead promotes bad statistics, and turns out to be a charlatan himself.”

        https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-find-Taleb-so-polarizing-Are-there-people-who-support-his-ideas-to-some-extent-without-being-overly-critical-Are-there-people-who-provide-a-nuanced-critique-of-his-work

        “I think Taleb is a charlatan, which explains my extremely negative view of him.

        Take his recent paper Election Predictions as Martingales: An Arbitrage Approach. If you know how to code it’s not difficult to simulate the process the martigale process he proposses and you can see for yourself that the volatility of the result looks very similar to the actual 2016 election forecast by FiveThirtyEight (which he misquotes) and not at all like the “rigorous updating” in figure 3.

        But the problem is that if you care about facts you might end up with a rather complex and technical explanation that requires some back knowledge and doesn’t fit well with what people want to believe.

        Taleb on the other hand doesn’t seem to care about the facts, which means that he can tailor his massage to fit what people want to hear and thus he is able to gain an enthusiastic following.”

        https://www.quora.com/Whats-Nassim-Talebs-best-argument-that-Nate-Silver-is-not-very-good-at-what-he-does

        Read all these to see through the bollocks that he has kept pestering us with. The challenge to understand his argument is advanced mathematics.

  6. “Now, look at what the empire builders and colonialists of yore were able to pull off: they had no computers, no GPS, no easy access to encyclopedic knowledge. Instead, a king could gather a bunch of guys he trusted, give them a few firearms, some goods to trade with, food supplies, a map, and a ship, and off they went. Very small crews were able to trade with foreign nations. They were also able to conquer and effectively rule them. ”

    While Colonialism started in the 16th century, truly established colonies that were brought under direct administrative power of mother countries only started in the 19th century. By this time, European empires had developed enough sophisticated bureaucracy to establish direct control of their colonies.

    Besides, the Spanish might be able to defeat the Aztecs with crucial help from native tribes, it is not the case that European armies could defeat vastly powerful Eastern empires. Take the Qing dynasty, for example, she was obviously the most powerful landlocked power in the 17-18th century, and no European powers, even the Prussian Empire or the British, could had hoped to conquer her.

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