Giolitti

I just handed Twitter $8 for Twitter Blue, because the company has strongly implied that it will only show the things I post to the people who asked to see them if I pay ransom money.

a worthless token that is only valuable to the extent that you can trick or coerce someone into parting with "fiat" currency in exchange for it

Amazon sold us Prime, getting us to pre-pay for a year's worth of shipping

it is the breathless confrontation with one’s vulnerability, one’s perilousness, one’s smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering

Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite. It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self

It could perhaps in time create a song that is, on the surface, indistinguishable from an original, but it will always be a replication, a kind of burlesque.

it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations, and hence it doesn’t have the capacity for a shared transcendent experience, as it has no limitations from which to transcend

I don’t imagine I set a high bar.

olitics was accordingly no longer the preserve of the court since, with the rise of thepress, information was being broadly disseminated and discussed, not just in capital citiesbut also in provincial centers. The foundations of the old regime, in terms of royalty,religion, and social hierarchy thus began to be sapped, while the business of governmentbecame more difficult in this increasingly open environment.

but acritical atmosphere was certainly created in which established ideas could no longer betaken for granted and change became feasible

s of gauging shifts in the climate of opinion. Not only wasskepticism encouraged about the literally God-given right of existing institutions andpractices to prevail, but the status quo was challenged in unprecedented fashion.

However, in recent years the role of ideashas been convincingly integrated into the cultural origins of the Revolution

Early efforts to explain the outbreak of theFrench Revolution were inclined to attribute the blame to subversive writers of the18th-century Enlightenment.

No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection until it have been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of power, can authorise the punishment of a citizen so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt? This dilemma is frequent. Either he is guilty, or not guilty. If guilty, he should only suffer the punishment ordained by the laws, and torture becomés useless, as his confession is unnecessary. If he be not guilty, you torture the innocent; for, in the eye of the law, every man is innocent whose crime has not been proved.

The torture of a criminal during the course of his trial is a cruelty consecrated by custom in most nations. It is used with an intent either to make him confess his crime, or to explain some contradiction into which he had been led during his examination, or discover his accomplices, or for some kind of metaphysical and incomprehensible purgation of infamy, or, finally, in order to discover other crimes of which he is not accused, but of which he may be guilty.

The end of punishment, therefore, is no other than to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society, and to prevent others from committing the like offence. Such punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting them, ought to be chosen, as will make the strongest and most lasting impressions on the minds of others, with the least torment to the body of the criminal.

Observe that by justice I understand nothing more than that bond which is necessary to keep the interest of individuals united, without which men would return to their original state of barbarity. All punishments which exceed the necessity of preserving this bond are in their nature unjust.

If we look into history we shall find that laws, which are, or ought to be, conventions between men in a state of freedom, have been, for the most part the work of the passions of a few, or the consequences of a fortuitous or temporary necessity; not dictated by a cool examiner of human nature, who knew how to collect in one point the actions of a multitude, and had this only end in view, the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

every street in Paris cycle-friendly by 2024

banning high-polluting vehicles, restricting the quays of the Seine to pedestrians and cyclists, and creating mini green spaces across the city

Either way, something other than your own free will seems to be pulling your strings.

Those tiny fluctuations probably have little relevant impact on life at the scale we live it, as human beings. And in any case, there’s no more freedom in being subject to the random behaviours of electrons than there is in being the slave of predetermined causal laws

Kant’s views on free will

he ancient rulers had a graded system of schools ranging from the NationalUniversity to the district and village schools. For the control and development ofthese, a considerable number of educational officers and teachers were appointed,who had been selected with the greatest care. The conduct of Court ceremonies,music, and Government administration were all part of the recognized curriculum.So that the model held up before the student, and in which he gradually becamewell versed, was the example, precept, and fundamental principles of governmentobserved by the ancient rulers

While the exam system provided a way to screen candidates for office, it wasn’t essentially a democratizing2 tool. The percentage of people who served in the government bureaucracy during the Song hovered around .02 percent of a population of 101 million. Elite families dominated the political landscape, and worked hard to ensure that their relatives served in government, even if they didn’t pass the exam. As early as the 10th century, a variety of “back door” channels were used to get into the government bureaucracy, particularly appointment by protection. This allowed officials to nominate their sons, nephews and grandsons for civil service, gain access to courses to help them pass the exam, and then get government jobs.

Although the exam was open to all males in China, the reality is that only men from wealthy families had the opportunity to pass the test. Because the exam emphasized the memorization of Confucian texts, candidates needed many years of study with tutors in order to have a realistic chance of passing. As a result, families that were not wealthy were prevented from preparing their sons for the exam. Only a small percentage of those who took the jinshi exam passed: in the year 1002 CE, only 1.5 percent of candidates (219 out of over 14,000) passed.

Under the Song administration, anyone could take the exam whereas before you had to be recruited or recommended. As a result, the number of candidates who took the exam went from30,000 at the beginning of the Song to 400,000 candidates by the end. Because the number of positions in government did not change, a candidate’s chances of passing plummeted.

Various attempts to reform what was on the exam were made during the Song Dynasty. In Wang Anshi's Ten Thousand Word Memorial, he dedicates one section to government officials andthe faults in their training. He says that analyzing ancient texts is useless for people working in the government, and writing essays requires too much memorization of texts and does not help once one has achieved power. He suggests that instead, students should study administrative tactics (like their ancestors) as this will actually help them when they have achieved the position, unlike the other memorization that is only needed to pass the exam

The nature of the exam changed throughout its history, but everyone agreed that one aspect should be understanding the Confucian texts. Candidates were usually asked to discuss policy issues, but the exams tested general education more than knowledge of government laws and regulations. Candidates even had to write poetry, although this was used less often during the Song compared to previous dynasties.

The exam reached its peak by the time of the Song Dynasty, as it theoretically became the only way to get a government position. The Emperor wanted educated men in the government to balance out the military men. In the Song, the system was supposedly much more fair. If there was even a hint of corruption, the emperor would demand a retest. Names were removed from the exams and clerks rewrote the answers so that nobody could identify the author by his handwriting. The final stage of testing took place in the Imperial Palace.

Emperor Taizu also sought loyalty through the use of civil service examinations. The Exam System, or the Jinshi Exam, had really begun during the Han Dynasty and officially ended in 1905. Before the exam, rulers would look for trusted people usually inside the family or recommended by family members or other rulers. Wudi in the Han Dynasty started the exam based on techniques of Confucian government, and during the Tang Dynasty, they created localschools to teach this information.

Emperor Taizu ruled by making sure that no one ever had too much power. For example, the head of the districts would be transferred to new places every three years and military generals were also transferred often so they wouldn’t become too attached to any specific people. As a result, they stayed loyal to the Emperor.

By 907 the Tang Dynasty was losing power and brought China into a period of war similar to the Era of Warring States. In 960, military general Zhao Kuangyin [later known as Emperor Taizu] came to power after staging a coup d’etat 1 and forcing the last Chinese emperor to abdicate [give up] the throne in his favor. During his reign, Emperor Taizu reunited China and brought peace to the empire. To strengthen his control, he decreased the power of the military and instead, relied on civilian officials in his administration

By 907 the Tang Dynasty was losing power and brought China into a period of war similar tothe Era of Warring States. In 960, military general Zhao Kuangyin [later known as EmperorTaizu] came to power after staging a coup d’etat and forcing the last Chinese emperor to1abdicate [give up] the throne in his favor. During his reign, Emperor Taizu reunited China andbrought peace to the empire. To strengthen his control, he decreased the power of the militaryand instead, relied on civilian officials in his administration.