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Kosmo

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Everything posted by Kosmo

  1. Kosmo
    I expected to see him with Heaven and Hell at Sonisphere Bucharest but they canceled their presence. Now I know why. RIP Dio. On another note, last night I got to see some other old guys - AC/DC - and they made an amazing show.
  2. Kosmo
    Since Antiquity there was always a fascination about spartan totalitarianism that has little to do with Sparta's realities or spartan military qualities. The first volume of "The Open Society and Its Enemies" by Karl Popper has some interesting points about this and there are several other analyses on why even Athenian historians and philosophers idolized Sparta. It has do mostly with a political preference of what was perceived as a traditionalist, stable, orderly, egalitarian, rational and moral society in contrast with messy and fluctuating democracies and tyrannies.
  3. Kosmo

    All time favorite book

    Kosmo replied to Turb0!'s topic in Libri

    My favorite Roman fiction novel is M. Yourcenar - Memoirs of Hadrian.
  4. Kosmo
    "As our ability to retrieve and sequence ancient DNA has developed and improved, we
  5. Kosmo
    "For a quarter of a century, two archaeologists and their team slogged through wild tropical vegetation to investigate and map the remains of one of the largest Maya cities, in Central America. Slow, sweaty hacking with machetes seemed to be the only way to discover the breadth of an ancient urban landscape now hidden beneath a dense forest canopy. ven the new remote-sensing technologies, so effective in recent decades at surveying other archaeological sites, were no help. Imaging radar and multispectral surveys by air and from space could not
  6. Kosmo
    Virtus was not virtuous enough for him.
  7. Kosmo
    The roman roads were usually in good condition, safe and traveled by many. I bet most people were in better physical shape and could walk long distances. That trip you mention was fairly short for roman standards.
  8. Kosmo
    There are unexplained price differences, a sure sign of an immature market. The school must work on the supply side.
  9. Kosmo
    Happy Birthday!
  10. Kosmo
    And my in-depth study of American economic history will tell me that once, what you identify as the primary cause of Southern backwardness, slavery, was gone the South became a powerhouse of industry, banking and trade with a lot of innovation? The same that happened in Jamaica and Haiti when slavery was gone? Factories used forced labor before, during and after the Industrial Revolution but why modern industry preferred a free workforce it's another debate. The first textile machines were so effective at labor saving that the cost of labor for machine workers was not in a real competition with the huge cost of pre-industrial workers free or slave. The high productivity resulted from technology allowed the West to flourish for the last two centuries despite a higher cost of labor. So, slavery did not prevent SOME innovation but it may have been MORE innovation if there was no slavery, a statement that obviously can not be proven. Regarding one of your earlier questions I believe that the Classical Athenian democracy that ruthlessly exploited large numbers of slaves in the silver mines in Laurium was the most innovative society of it's time.
  11. Kosmo
    Is this line of questioning going anywhere counselor? Ok. Let's go back to the cotton gin for a little bit. This labor-saving device was quickly adapted by many slave-owning cotton plantations instead of adding more slaves to the job of separating fibers from seeds. They chose a new device over adding another slave. US was also among the first countries to have a machine powered textile industry while having a great number of slaves. Those factory owners choose machinery over a slave workforce for their enterprises. Generally, modern slavery did not employed slaves in manufacture so in the area where most labor-saving devices were developed adding a new slave may not have been an option so modern comparisons may not be very useful. Going back to the romans we see a development of water-powered labor-saving devices despite having ample slavery including in manufacture. So romans decided to build water-powered grain mills (large and complex systems on Janiculum and in Barbigal) instead of using more slaves or animals to power the grinds.
  12. Kosmo
    If you don't believe in a correlation between slavery and the spread of technology, what is the argument you're making with respect to the cotton gin? If there's no correlation, what's your point? Ummm... that there is no correlation between the two? Some inventions can led to an increase of slavery while other to a decrease of it while there is no proof that slavery influences invention. WW2 era Germans made a great number of technological firsts like: first computer, first ballistic missile, first jet fighter, first nerve gas, first assault rifle etc. The fact that these (and countless innovations in chemistry - synthetic materials, etc) did not play a decisive role does not mean that German scientists were not highly innovative. BTW the soviets used slave labor even more then the nazis.
  13. Kosmo
    This is so wrong, especially because he is justifying present day murder because other morons did it 1 and 1/2 millennium ago! Hypatia looks like she is the new found hero/martyr of feminism. I bet that her future career will make envious even Spartacus the marxist hero turned in to consumer goods (like Che).
  14. Kosmo
    The transatlantic slave trade was at it's highest during the First Industrial Revolution and technological advances like the cotton gin led to the spread and survival of slavery. And this slave trade was of course the result of scientific and technological innovations and adoptions starting with the caravel and the sugar cane. In Antiquity the Hellenistic/Republic period had an abundance of slaves but also was more innovative then other periods including in the areas of science and technology . I do not believe in a correlation between slavery and creativity.
  15. Kosmo
    Against horse archers foot archers are very effective. Light cavalry was also very good. Siege weapons were probably too hard too maneuver on a battlefield and with a rate of fire too slow against such a mobile enemy. Wagon formations were often used with great success by hussits, russians, chinese, boers etc.
  16. Kosmo
    An essential part of hominids history it's still mysterious until we have a clear understanding of how other hominids/humans became extinct. If they did, of course. Maybe some just became assimilated in the homo sapiens.
  17. Kosmo
    There have been more then 2 parties but only the big 2 parties mattered while now it looks very likely that it will be a coalition or a minority government and then the lib dems will start to be important as well.
  18. Kosmo
    This years elections in Britain are a better show then usual. Some even say that the 2 party system will come to an end. Even Harry Potter's mom has joined the fight http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/c...et=0&page=1 while Brown does what he does best http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/poli...icle7101263.ece and some worry about the far right http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/world/eu...html?ref=europe
  19. Kosmo
    Gun, clock, caravel, printing press, carriage suspension, the Indies...
  20. Kosmo

    C. Cato

    Kosmo replied to Fulvia's topic in Res Publica

    How much was an army? How much was Crassus goal? After all he had to settle with a public army... Unfortunately this is a very serious problem when the rewards of playing against the rules are much better then when playing by them. A step forward towards a failed state? I always wondered if Caesar/Octavian coup, the so called empire, was only the best privatization in history turning a res publica in a private property or even worse a famiglia property.
  21. Kosmo
    Lucifer the Morning Star http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showto...&hl=Lucifer
  22. Kosmo
    Asturia became roman only in the time of Augustus and was never very urbanized but by the time of the arab conquest of Iberia it was definitely latin speaking and christian. The neighboring basque lands remained pagan and kept their own language and political structure that allowed them to repel germanic and arab invaders. Maybe Asturia was more independent minded then other gothic provinces because of the presence of briton emigrants at Britona or as a memory of the suev kingdom. Still, I believe that important reasons for the successful independence lay with the arabs. Contrary to widespread propaganda and beliefs moorish Spain was in constant turmoil (at least until the establishment of the independent Ummeyad califate there) and it's governors focused more on conquering the rich gothic provinces in Southern Gaul then in defeating the Asturian rebellion and recovering these poor mountainous areas.
  23. Kosmo
    I don't believe in a link between slavery and the development of technology. We had a long debate about it some (long) time ago. Hellenistic states and Romans were far below the cultural, scientific and technological level of pre-industrial West. The economy of late XVIII century was already global.
  24. Kosmo
    I did google it Nice title BTW!
  25. Kosmo
    Very nice! I lived the bikini ring
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