thejdizzler
1d ago
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Right, hindsight is 20/20. Much of the upper south didn't even secede until after Sumter, so it was by no means a sure thing. I'm thinking of a lot of the rhetoric of the firebrands from states like South Carolina who seemed to want to secede in the 1850s even when things were going well. But these people were ideologies who can't be expected to seriously plan things. The actual talent in the confederacy (Davis, Stephens, Lee, etc.) all seemed to have been caught a little off guard by secession. And like others point out, this is also making assumptions about what kind of war we know that the civil war was, rather than the war that people thought it was going to be. Although there had been examples of total war (end of the Napoleonic wars, and the Crimean War) in the recent past, the mindset of the ruling class was very much that of limited war, which the south could have won.
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Totally agreed. Jackson's legendary performance in the valley and at second Manassas is offset by his terrible performance during the seven days, and the extremely high casualty rate of his division. Longstreet is a general I'd like to learn more about: I know he was vital during second Manassas, and seemed to see a lot of the problems with Lee's plan at Gettysburg, but I don't know much about his performance at Chattanooga, or about his time in the Republican Party after the war.
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It's not only the casualty rates, but the enlistment rates largely don't reflect the rich man's war, poor man's fight either. I don't have the statistics on the top of my head, but MacPherson states that the only group that was actually underrepresented in the army was unskilled labor (and also immigrants interestingly enough in the North). The South did have some weird exceptions to this (the overseer exemption from the draft for example), but even in the South, the planter class was at least proportionally represented in the army. Some planters, like Wade Hampton, spent significant amounts of their own money furnishing entire brigades for the army.
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This is true.
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Agreed that Hood had to do something, but his tactics in these battles were sorely lacking. That whole army might have been much more useful opposing Sherman's March to the Sea or something. Also good point about the Trans-Mississippi: most of Texas was completely unconquered, and after the disaster of the Red River campaign, most of Western Louisiana was safe too.
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I'll have to check this out! I'm currently going through Bruce Catton's trilogy, and a book about the battle of Fredericksburg in particular.
thejdizzler
2d ago
Just finished my fourth annual reread of Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson, which is perhaps the best one volume history book about the civil war ever written. Some random thoughts from my reread below.
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It seemed like the war was coming long before 1860. At least the South seemed ready to leave the union in the 1850s. So why was there no preparation for this war in terms of stockpiling weapons, encouraging military training/enlistment in the US army? Maybe these things would have been too obvious, but at least pro-secessionist leaders could have encouraged things like the strategic localization of ammunition factories, diversification of agriculture away from cotton, and investment in railroads. Nope, instead we have cope about how feminine mechanized labor is, and how the only real work is overseeing a plantation. This society deserved to lose.
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I think Lee is overrated. He managed to win a ton of really impressive tactical victories, but never seemed to effectively follow these up to destroy the enemy army, which is what all the tactics is supposed to be in service of. In fact, Lee's tactics ended up shredding his army much more than his opponents, and he arguably only won because of northern inability to deal with taking casualties, especially under General McClellan.
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It's interesting how much the rich man's war, poor man's fight theme seems not to be true, in contrast to most modern wars I can think of. It seems like a general on one side or the other dies in almost every engagement (Albert Sidney Johnston, Stonewall Jackson, James McPherson, to name a few off the top of my head). In fact, generals were something like 50% more likely to die than privates, which is a wild statistic.
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Struck by the respectful treatment of Army of Northern Virginia by Grant/Chamberlein upon Lee's surrender. Yes, the South fought for a horrible cause, but still can respect the valor, leadership, and conduct of people you really strongly disagree with. Perhaps an argument against tearing down confederate monuments/renaming forts. You don't beat a man when he's down. Modern politicians could learn a thing or two from this.
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Insane levels of delusion by Southern leadership in Late 1864/1865. How did Hood think that assaulting breastworks head-on was going to work in Franklin/Nashville? How did Davis think the government was going to continue the war after the fall of Richmond?
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Cool to see how much of the technology of this war would presage WW1. Importance of rail lines and logistics to Northern victory. Also shift to destruction of ability to wage war/armies rather than necessarily capturing territory. Arguably this started with Napoleon too.
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I'm getting loads out of revisiting this book every year. Figures and battles are becoming a lot clearer in my mind, and I think I can start to talk about a lot of the issues of the time with nuance and perspective.
thejdizzler
3d ago
I'm immediately skeptical of this whole thing because they are using DUOLINGO of all things for language learning. You're much better off doing something like dreaming Spanish + Anki and/or paying a talented SL teacher to do comprehensible input for younger kids then add in YouTube/Graded readers. Duolingo is okay I guess for the really basic stages of language learning, but it quickly veers off into territory that is IMO not useful (way too many reps of vocabulary that undermines the spaced repetition, forced translation, early output). I've learned far more Spanish (and even Italian) through reading+Anki then I ever learned doing Dutch Duolingo.
thejdizzler
5d ago
I'm an apple chud unfortunately. I have cold turkey on my computer which works great, but phone is another issue. I seem to always be able to get around the controls.
thejdizzler
5d ago
Probably the wrong place to ask this, as this is an Internet forum, but have any of you implemented any kind of Cal Newport style Digital Minimalism? I just reread his book and am finding it frustratingly vague.
thejdizzler
5d ago
I'm hoping I have the same change in attitude as you. I know that there's a correlation between time and effort put in and performance. If I run more (and recover) I perform better. If I read more my focus improves and I grow in knowledge. If I regularly show up to the same social events I'll make friends. If I do more experiments, I will get more data. If I spend more time on my blog I will get more readers. Yet the actions that I take somehow don't reflect this. I'm always looking for the hack supplement that will improve my athletic performance, the one blog post that will turn my opinion of the world on its head, the one connection on social media that will become my best friend or romantic partner, the one big experiment that I can do that will get me my PhD. I know this is al la bunch of bullshit. The way to improve is to consistently show up and do what the best in the world did to get where they are, which is on paper pretty straightforward for the things I care about.
thejdizzler
7d ago
I wonder if we'll get a democratic collapse along the lines of the 1850s Whig party. I don't see any particularly salient issue that could divide the party like that. Instead, it seems like lots of really small fractures, which paradoxically keeps the party together. Which is unfortunate, because we need a collapse like that of the Whig party: the Democrats don't stand for basically anything other than grifting anymore.
thejdizzler
8d ago
The Jewish immigration to Israel began long before the British mandate. The first Allayah occurred when the area was still an Ottoman province. The British gave some support to the Jews, but the mandate administration was openly actually quite hostile to the idea of Jewish state. They were the only security council member not to recognize Israeli statehood before the War of Independence (or the Nabka as the sore losers like to call it), and cracked down pretty hard on immigration and weapons imports before 1948.
thejdizzler
8d ago
Well the Israeli government tried to do something about it in the 1970s/1980s. But turns out it's mighty unpopular at the ballot box to bulldoze the homes of your own people after you just won a war.
thejdizzler
9d ago
This is a huge W for Israel. And frankly a necessary W for the country. If my generation continues to hold the politics that they hold now as they age, Israel is stuffed in about 20 years. They need to win these wars now, and make peace with the people that they are able to now, or they won't survive when the blue-hairs start being elected to the senate.
I'm not sure I really understand why so many zoomers are so rabidly pro-Palestine. I get being against what is happening in Gaza, but so many people seem to be completely ignorant of the history of conflict, perhaps willfully so. I used to enjoy going on /r/stupidpol, but that place has become as cesspit of pro-Hamas propaganda. Even if you think the state of Israeli was a Western colonialist project (debatable at best), the fact is there are 9 million Jews living there now. If Hamas/other Arab nations get their way, those 9 million Jews will either be all dead or displaced. How is that any better than what they think is happening in Gaza and the West Bank? Part of me hopes that most of my generation isn't really thinking about things that way, but based on reactions in my graduate department to 10/7 (immediate pro-Palestine protests despite the fact that ISRAEL was attacked), make me think that a lot of my generation actually just wants Israel gone. Which makes me pretty sad.
I lived in Israel in 2019, and as far as I could see, it was a country that would be worth preserving. The public infrastructure was functional, vast amounts of food are grown on relatively small amounts of land, and best of all the people there actually seemed to believe in something greater than themselves. I spent a bit of time in the north where most of the 1 million Arab citizens live (and also more time in Jerusalem where non-citizen Arabs are), and while they had complaints about their economic situation/racism from Ashkenazi Jews, it seemed like their lives were far far better than their relatives in the West Bank or even in other Arab countries. Heck in Jerusalem there were Israeli soldiers guarding the entrance to the upper temple complex to make sure I didn't go up there as a non-muslim. Would a Palestinian government grant the same kind of protection to a disenfranchised Jewish minority? For some reason, I doubt it.
I'm definitely much more liberal than a lot of people here, but this is one thing I just cannot stomach from my own tribe. It would be one thing if we just disagreed in the abstract, but most organizations on the left seemed to be obsessed with tying support for Palestine for everything. My grad union for example wants to send union dues to Palestine and to bargain to try and get Hopkins to divest from Israeli companies. I didn't fucking sign up for this shit when I signed my union card.
thejdizzler
13d ago
I guess I'm curious if I even can change it. The reason why I even would take it seriously is because subjectively since starting grad school it does seem that I've been quite stressed and not really operating at 100%.
thejdizzler
13d ago
I don't think this is the reason. I only started checking the score within the past few weeks, but it's been tracking for nearly 3 years. Daytime stress has pretty much always been high, unless I am relaxing at my parent's house.
thejdizzler
13d ago
I agree with you on trades. One of my friends in grad school has brother who is now an electrician. He's up every day at 5 am, comes home by 3 absolutely filthy and exhausted. Some amount of hazing, but doesn't seem to worth the money.
Have you thought about organic farming? Or alternatively transitioning to a more management role within the same industry?
thejdizzler
13d ago
I generally don't think long distance relationships are good idea. We are meat-world creatures not built for constant online communication. Do you have any plans to be near this woman geographically in the near future?
thejdizzler
13d ago
So Oura has be saying that my daytime stress score has been really high since pretty much forever. Subjectively I don't know how much store I put in this metric, as it doesn't seem to be particularly responsive to any of the weekly rhythms that my other metrics seem to be responsive too. However, at the same time, it does feel like I'm stressed out/anxious all the time during the day. I'd like this to stop for probably obvious reasons: my QOL is lower, running and work performance is lower when I'm constantly in flight mode, and it also seems to be a red flag for new friends and/or romantic partners. Some things I'm thinking of trying.
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Limiting stimulation/internet use to 2 hrs/day outside of work hours. I do wonder if overstimulation is causing a lot of this anxiety: I'm always checking email/TheMotte/social media for new stimulation. Really cutting out porn for good can't hurt either.
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Scheduling less stuff at work and in life. In some ways this is much more easily said than done. I feel like I'm perpetually in a whole at work: always many presentations/experiments behind where I should be, so I over-schedule to try and catch up and then end up not actually doing what I said I was going to do and falling further behind. Same with life outside of work. This is maybe the big one to work on.
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Actually getting serious about meditation. Many users have suggested this on this form and I've been dragging my feet because meditation seems like another thing to try and fit into my overbooked schedule.
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More breaks during the work day where I actually just do nothing rather than browse the internet.
Any other thoughts TheMotte?
thejdizzler
13d ago
Reminds me of this basic lifting program I was doing as a supplement to running. 5x5 lift I think it was called. Really efficient and seemed to do a good job of injury prevention and getting me stronger. Not sure why I stopped. Maybe because it was just one more thing to add to the routine and it was getting to all be too much.
thejdizzler
14d ago
It used to work when you could do this in the context of socially sanctioned courtship. The man knows he isn't being played too hard because no one is having sex with the woman. Women in turn get to get more exposure to a man and test his level of interest commitment. I think it's a W for both sides. Certainly women seem to still like it today (why is Pride and Prejudice still so popular).
thejdizzler
14d ago
I have had second dates, but not with Catholic women. I think the issue is my heterodoxy.
I mean Jung is no saint either. He had sex with his patients for "therapeutic purposes".
Where does Jung say that Satan needs to be raised into the trinity? I remember reading something about how we need to embrace the divine feminine, but don't remember the Satan part.
But speaking of Satan, the whole idea of Satan has always been a little weird to me, especially from a historical literary perspective. The first time we see Satan (apart from the Garden of Eden retcon) is in the book of Job, where he isn't a fallen angel, but in fact one of God's strongest soldiers. Before this the false pagan idols of the Canaanites, Babylonians, and Egyptians provide enemies enough for YHWH. Then he's not mentioned again in the New Testament where he's this unseen dark mirror of Jesus. It's not until the Renaissance with Paradise Lost that we get the "traditional" rebellion and fall from heaven story from Milton.
Then there's also the teleology. Why did God create a being such as Satan that he knew would rebel/sin/become evil? Of course you can pull the free will argument here, but I find that much less convincing than in the case of humans. Even if it is Satan's "choice" to be evil, it seems pretty cruel (or pretty non-omnipotent) to allow Satan to continue to causing suffering to himself and others with no possibility of redemption. Some Christian universalists believe that this isn't the case, that in the end, even Satan will be redeemed and bow down before Jesus. This could be one interpretation of Jung (that Satan needs to be redeemed and raised to the trinity).
The other possibility, which I think Jung actually probably meant, is that Satan, like Jesus is a part of who God is. This throws out the omnibenevolence part of YHWH, but fits in a lot better with the text of the Bible and also the world that we actually inhabit. Evil and suffering are necessary parts of creation, and at least it seems to me that they are their own ontological thing, rather than just the absence or inversion of good like many Christians claim (I think Schopenhauer has a good simple argument about this that I found convincing. Think about the pain of stubbing your toe, a minor but all too common evil. Is this pain an absence of good? No, as the pain is clearly a positive sensation. Is this pain an inversion of good? Maybe, but it's not like you often have a really good feeling in your toe). For Jung this process (the integration of the shadow into the church in the same way that God integrated Satan into himself) was vital. Now in practice, like you, I'm not sure I agree (seems like a great excuse to do terrible things), but it sounds nice in theory.
Not to mention that YHWH clearly changes character over time. YHWH in a lot of Genesis is an insecure and jealous dick, but by the New Testament, and perhaps even before, he's become a much more mature and wise figure. I like Jung's explanation of this (if we are built in the image of God, it makes sense for God to also have integrate his own shadow, which he does in part by incarnating and being killed as Jesus, but also through his various covenants with Noah/Abraham/David/Job). But of course this violates the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent axioms, so it's heresy in pretty much any church.
Perhaps the resistance to this kind of textual/historical analysis (or even openness to debate) is why I haven't been to church for a couple months. Once you start to poke holes in this stuff and are met with hostility rather than answers, it's pretty hard to not see what a house of cards it all is. "No matter how tender, how exquisite... A lie will remain a lie..."
thejdizzler
15d ago
I could not disagree with this harder (+the data backs me up). Maybe it’s slightly different 5-10 years older than me, but there are so so many single men in my social circles. Sure some of them have some social skills to work on, but they’re mainly average guys with average hobbies. Some of them haven’t been on dates in years.
Are you a woman by chance? Perhaps that might explain our different perspectives.
thejdizzler
15d ago
Very relatable. Especially the romance stuff. Despite what a lot of the retvrn posters on this forum would have us believe, it's pretty grim out there for average looking guys, even if we are religious (I've attending catholic mass for ~4 years now, with a recent lapse, and have been active in the young adult community, and absolutely no second dates!). And it's not like I'm some basement dweller either! I'm out of the house most weeknights, don't game (except for twice a month with my college friends and we play terraforming mars of all things), I'm really fit, and I think my social skills are at least average. Sure I could probably lock down some tik-tok obsessed land whale, but what exactly is the point of that? I'd rather eat at a restaurant by myself and jerk off after.
In terms of my career, sometimes I really enjoy my PhD and the process of science in general, but the way I see academia going fills me with dread for PI-ship. It's all status jockeying, like you observe, and a lot of the science produced isn't even real! I like my hobbies too (running, fermenting, and language learning), but the internet and hyper-competitiveness of everything puts so much pressure on me to "improve" or "monetize" these that I don't think they would be very much fun anymore if they were all I had.
Luckily I believe that some sort of collapse is coming in the next 20-50 years, so we won't be in this state for much longer. Just sucks that it has to occur during the part of my life where I'm supposed to form a family.
thejdizzler
16d ago
Interested to hear your thoughts on Stormlight. I don't think I'm going to like it, but I promised my friend group I would read at least the first book.
thejdizzler
16d ago
So what are you reading?
Working on my annual re-read of Battle Cry of Freedom and staring the Stormlight Archive.
This July 4 thinking of renting a car and driving up to Gettysburg to do a run on the battlefield. Hopefully if I go early enough won't run into too many re-enacters. Hoping to do some hill repeats up cemetery ridge and little roundtop.
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