links

Hahaha. I did that post on modern humans as a geological force, then finished re-reading 1491, which argues the Americas were largely shaped by the Indians, from fire-managed park-like forest and prairie to Amazonian orchards. Stone Age humans can alter the environment, never mind us.

what ails Europe? Welfare? Deficits? Gold-like money? Yeah, that one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/opinion/krugman-what-ails-europe.html

Canadian Conservative election fraud unearthed
http://rfmcdpei.livejournal.com/2979068.html

map of big freight railroads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_I_railroad

Republican double standard: test state workers, but not legislators -- that'd be unconstitutional!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/27/drug-testing-florida-state-workers-lawmakers_n_1300331.html

rich people morality
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-27/wealthier-people-more-likely-than-poorer-to-lie-or-cheat-researchers-find.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Teller-Reveals-His-Secrets.html

your brain on politics
liberals have more active anterior cingulate cortex, control and
decision making and error correction, favor data and proof, processing
conflicting information
conservatives have more active right amygdala, emotional activation and
suppression, threat identificaton and response
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/09/07/your-brain-on-politics-the-cognitive-neuroscience-of-liberals-and-conservatives/

US bus revival
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16881957

ISS Earth footage, pretty impressive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FG0fTKAqZ5g

If you haven't read Use of Weapons, don't click.
If you HAVE read Use of Weapons, think twice about clicking. It's a... picture.
http://www.staberinde.com/

Big Bird vs. Osiris
http://scott-lynch.livejournal.com/269876.html

more Keynesian evidence
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/inventing-a-conundrum/
GOP budget busting
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/four-fiscal-phonies/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/four-phonies-update/

Fantasy and democracy

Sometimes people complain about the prolificness of monarchy in fantasy, or even lost-colony science fiction or space opera. Other people retort that you need monarchy or "feudalism" given the poor communications, and point at history. The democrats can point to various democracies, but Athens and Rome are city states, the 1200-1500 Estates-General little known and still under monarchy, and Poland-Lithuania and the Iroquois also little known, and the last probably disbelieved, despite being what seems a representative republic with roles for both sexex covering New York state. [Edit: I originally called that half the area of France, but this was based on a units failure.] Generally a role for democracies or at least republics will be conceded at the town or city level, but not beyond.

Rarely but increasingly, in these debates I belatedly remember the elephant in the room, one that doesn't require trusting any Wikipedia pages: the 1787 United States of America, covering an area definitely larger than France, and spread out to boot, with no more advanced technology than the printing press and newspapers. Which are helpful but don't seem necessary[1] and weren't exactly cutting edge. The ship of representative democracy was launched by a fairly primitive republic many decades before any hint of the telegraph...

[Edit: someone elsewhere argues that the colonies were in fact unified by advanced sailing technology not available to real medieval times, though he grants that there's no material reason medievals couldn't have used advanced riggings. I note that Kentucky joined the Union in 1792, nowhere near an ocean...]

So, yeah. It's not the tech, it's the social organization.

Granted, we don't know if the early and rural US would have been that militarily competitive with a monarchy; it didn't have that many neighbors. Did well later on, of course. And the Iroquois conquered an area the size of the Midwest in the Beaver Wars.

Relatedly, I wonder if one obstacle to Athens and Rome was that they were too democratic, in a sense. The official basis of power in both was the populace in full assembly, the Assembly of Athens and Tribal and Century assemblies in Rome, via plebsicites and elected magistrates and tribunes. (The Senate was both unelected and formally only advisory.) So the vast Roman Republic, shading into Empire, was ruled by what amounted to the municipal democracy[2] of Rome, much as if the USA were run by the New York City mayor and council. My point being that with direct democratic government like that, it's not obvious how you'd give colony or allied cities a voice in the metropolis even if you wanted to, compared to simply having more representatives.

[1] Scriptoria, town criers, public notices: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acta_Diurna

[2] Massive plutocracy in practice and even design, but shush.