Novosedoff

https://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/yuval-noah-harari-on-the-rise-of-homo-deus/ I've read this guy's book that represents a collection of interesting, but useless facts.. 🙂

The Xmas party goes on 😁

Is there any statistics on the number of decrees that the Roman senate would issue per annum on average? The high number of senators (600 and more) makes me believe that the number of new decrees won't be high. In today's Russia we've got only 450 MPs vs 650 in the UK, plus 200 senators in Russia vs nearly 800 lords in the UK. This is despite the fact that Russia has more than twice the population of the UK. Nonetheless, in terms of productivity Russian parliament issues on average about 250 new laws per annum (while 500-600 drafts would be under consideration), while in the UK on average they would issue only about 25 new laws every year.

As some of you may know, the main reason why I am here on this forum is because I wanted to practise my English which is becoming a bit rusty these days. From the professional or academic perspective I have nothing to contribute to the on-going research of the ancient Roman world. So instead I decided to share some thoughts on a subject which is intrinsically related to the Roman world because, as Rodney Stark put it, "the Roman empire has effectively produced only 2 historically important things: concrete and the Christianity - while it opposed the latter". My personal attitude towards the Christianity is ignostic. Although I was secretly baptised as 3 years old kid (as many other Russian kids back in Soviet days) as grown-up I never managed to cherish the "politically correct" attitude to the religion. The Orthodox form of Christinity may be less familiar to many of you. The very word "Orthodox" may sound a bit misleading in English. Because from the historical perspective the word Orthodox was primarily applied to Greek and Anatolian christians, while as we all know the Patriarchate of Constantinople was founded a few centuries later than the Roman church. So this means that the Roman (Catholic) church is older and therefore should be regarded as more Orthodox than the Eastern church of Constantinople. But there is also other linguistic thing which is important to remember as far as the Russian form of Orthodox Christianity is concerned. In Russian language we call our religion "Православие" which literally means "Worshiping the Right of..". So the connotation of the word has nothing to do with the meaning of Orthodox in English. There are a few things a remember for anyone who enters an Orthodox church. Firstly, women should cover their heads, men in shorts aint welcome and sometimes may be asked to go out. While the service is conducted in Old Slavic language (which I don't understand at all) everyone should stand. I'd personally prefer to be allowed to sit, but as they say "If you come here to enjoy the concert of organ music, then go to f..k urself somewhere else because we don't play organs in here". A church is usually richly decorated both inside and outside. As a matter of fact, one can determine the dedication of the Church by checking the color of its tops. For instance, the blue color would mean that the name of the church has something to do with Virgin Mary. Although I am still struggling to understand the meaning of the mumbo jumbo colors of the Saint Basil's Cathedral on the Red square. The designer must have been deeply doped or something. I think the Orthodox form of Christianity is the most polytheistic of them all. This may give some hints at what the right of worshipping actually means. Because anyone who enters a church will see dozens and dozens of icons placed all over the walls. One may basically choose which saint to pray. For a more risk-aversive person here is the hint: you can do double hedging by praying a few. But the choice is still rather limited: you won't find the icon of Ganesha with trunk or monkey-like Hanuman. Out of all animals on the icons one can only see a bird, a dove, which represents the Holy Spirit. Even Schrödinger's cat is gone. Although the idea of praying a dead Jew may seem a bit crazy, many worshippers do it there too. Nonetheless, for me personally the polytheistic form of Christianity is something I deeply respect, something that makes it stand out and captures the true political spirit of the Roman republic as well. As for the date chosen to celebrate the Christmass by Orthodox followers, it is beyond my humble comprehension. Because it seemingly has no relation to the solstice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hNJIlbEF6yE

Matthew 8:28-34 and Mark 5:11-13 seem a bit of irony because 1) Jews didn't breed pigs (unclean animal) and didn't eat pork, only the Greek colonizers could do both, 2) wild pigs would never come out in large herds. So can we say the Saviour was also likely to be subject to the same issue with parasites? Could he force the parasites out of the herd?

That's funny becayse in my youtube playlist of favourite music the above video precedes the masterpiece by Italian genius ENNIO MORRICONE (my playlists are rather chaotic)

caesar novus, well, there could be like hundreds different reasons for the police to appear around. I was too young in 70s to be able to recollect much now. But I can assume that there could be many Russians who annoyed rare foreign visitors ( esp. if you resided somewhere in the deep Russia, not in Moscow or St.Pete) because they wanted to exchange something like music or whatever, others pressurised by the Soviet propaganda probably wanted to share with you their twisted commie thoughts about the wickedness of the Western life style (sometimes in a rather aggressive manner as I can imagine) or simply to rob you. So to protect foreigners from local idiots or criminals the police would probably keep vigil over the places most visited by foreign tourists PS I know about the movie you attached to your post, but it may strike you to find out that I never had enough patience to watch it till the end 🙂 Not my type of movies... But luckily not every Russian would share my attitudes Below is Russian prog-rock from 70s

A little bit of Soviet movies from 70s and Stalin's voice in the bery beginning (with Georgian accent) 🙂 caesar novus may appreciate the views as barely no police can be seen on the streets (I dunno what he did in Russia back then if the police were always hanging around him as in N.Korea) 😄

The above track is a bit reminiscent of the below Scenic - Shockwaves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUqyxPZUEng

Well, I mean apparently you are older than me because I barely touched the years under Andropov (he went west very quickly) to remember such details as your memories of Soviet police. Though I do have some good knowledge of American statistics and demographics, including the widely available figures from the FBI reports and some comments from my Russian friends who settled down in the US, I don't think that it would be fair from my side to argue with you because I've never lived in the US to witness what the life is like by my own eyes. But my understanding from what I read and watch is that the US is a pretty much tough country and crackdowns on the political activists etc ain't uncommon just like in Russia 🙂 But it is true to notice that although the US is known to have rather loose control over free sales of arm guns in many US states (unlike Russia where free turnover of guns is basically prohibited), in Russia we have the homicide rate almost twice above the US' rate. PS. I think we are about to kill the thread started by dnewhous. Perhaps we should open up a new thread to settle our understanding of social differences between Russia and the US 🙂

As I can remember, Christoph Waltz managed to explain the difference between Germans and Austrians in a rather comprehensible manner 🙂

The movie for the song shows how the civil war in Russia unfolded after 1917 🙂

Well, I mean with all respect both of us are still living in police states. Nothing has changed. In the US the police is known not to be extra carefull with black folks. The paranoia is widespread with the broadcast of the Americans series etc. In Britain they also let loose their inherent paranoia against Russians with the constant news streams about Russian cyberattacks etc. In Russia it's pretty much the same picture. That's how the management system works: instilling fears and keeping us on a short leash 🙂 Precisely. Looking back I understand that Russia was doomed to a big political shift, given its economic reality in 1917. I posted something about this on quora back a few years ago https://qr.ae/pG64xV Yeah, I'd agree on that. Hitler writing seems a bit amateur as if a rather mediocre student decided to express his rather mediocre thoughts.

That's kinda curious. Have you heard of the Dawes plan? Dawes was American btw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan Thanks to this plan in the period between 1924 and 1932 Germany borrowed the equivalent of 32 bln Deutschemark from foreign investors and paid back only 24 bln Deutschemark. So by 1933 (the year of Hitler's rise to power) Germany was net by 12 bln of unpaid debt, and 70% of all investments and loans that Germany had received were actually the American money (Americans acquired a lot of German companies stock) 🙂 The second part of Mein Kampf seems particularly interesting as far as Russia is concerned. I am talking about the chapter 14. It came out in 1926. So the whole world had like 7 years before Hitler began to implement his plan, the whole world did nothing, paid no interest to the book. It's the same as if I had declared on this forum that I was gonna cut everyone's throat open and moderators did nothing to stop me 🙂

That's kinda curious. Have you heard of the Dawes plan? Dawes was American btw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan Thanks to this plan in the period between 1924 and 1932 Germany borrowed the equivalent of 32 bln Deutschemark from foreign investors and paid back only 24 bln Deutschemark. So by 1933 (the year of Hitler's rise to power) Germany was net by 12 bln of unpaid debt, and 70% of all investments and loans that Germany had received were actually the American money (Americans acquired a lot of German companies stock) 🙂

May I ask your opinion about the book? Jesus! I never read it myself 🙂 I know western folks would normally think of Russians as largely pro-communist (at least, as older generations are concerned), however by the time I was about to finish my high school they didn't teach us the history of the communist party or whatever it used to be called. Now they teach our kids other sh*t like the history of religion (often taught by the Orthodox priests) because we've got this twisted ex-KGB guy who attends the church service. I think some of Plato's dialogues were compulsory to read at uni (not much use though ).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yToSlN0QVOU

I mean I strongly suspect that the issue of comparison of ancient Rome with modern Brazilian favelas raised by Guaporense can be attributed to one of the misconceptions or biases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases?wprov=sfla1 Such things often happen no matter what science we consider, history or, lets say, astronomy 🙂 In astronomy people often make their judgement about the properties of neutron stars from the position of our earthly experience. In our world a half full glass of boiled water is gonna cool down quicker than the full glass, even if the initial temperature is the same. On neutron stars things work the opposite: the lighter a neutron star is the longer it takes to cool down

Attached is the painting of the baths of Caracalla from todays' post: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/baths-of-caracalla-0016251 The building on the painting seems enormous, a few storeys high, with grand halls. But if one looks more carefully, it can be seen that the building basically has only 1 floor. The reason for that is simple: Romans were good at producing copious amounts of concrete, but they never really succeeded in mining and melting iron ore to be able to output the industrial amounts of steel, which is the essential component for construction beams that are able to withstand the high load, without which no floor slabs would be possible. Here is also something I copy from ISO website

What would be the reason for Romans to expand towards Britain, anyway? As I remember Caesar is the one who started the campaign. Filling up the local demographic vacuum given its little resistance environment? But eventually Romans left the isle in 410, and it was immediately taken by Anglo-Saxon. I can understand why Romans expanded across the Mediterranean by occupying Spain and African coast along with Anatolia. But Britain seemed to be just too far away from the Mediterraneans. So from the strategic perspective the Roman inland push northwards seems bizarre.

I've just skimmed through some reading. It appears that during the imperial period the Praetorians initially guarded the Augustus' house on the Palatine, but once Tiberius succeeded Augustus the Praetorians were put under the command of Sejanus, who stationed them in Rome in a newly built camp nearby Alta Semita (Tiberius himself mostly lived outside Rome). The camp apparently rose to become later the Castra Praetoria. Sejanus, of course, was effectively the chief military commander during the reign of Tiberius and also the person who approved Pontius Pilate for prefectship of Judea. The number of Praetorians at that time is estimated to be between 6,000 and 9,000 men. So if Aulus Pudens was to become one of 60-90 Praetorian centurions, then it's very likely that the place of his service would be in Rome, just next to his father's senatorial house. The Pudens family is known to run the business of baths in the district of Alta Semita, which was quite natural place for such business given the distance from Tiber river and the high concentration of senatorial houses in the area (Baths were also a good place to collect intellegence by eavesdropping of the senatorial conversations, while Praetorians are known to be acting as secret police sometimes). As a silver spoon kid Aulus probably completed his "cursus honorum" in Rome and as a younger commander could have crossed his path not only with Sejanus himself, but possibly with Pontius Pilate as well (Pilate is known to have equastrian rank and military background before becoming the military governor of Judea). Besides the possible brief acquaintance with Pudens in the years of his military service, Pontius Pilate possibly had one or two of his relatives from the same Pontia gens serving as life-time Roman senators, of whom one was known by the name Pontius Fregellanus. Unfortunately, Fregellanus was deprived from the senatorial ranks later by Tiberius for meddling in the treason of Sejanus. This happened about the same time when Pontius Pilate himself was removed from the office of governor of Judea (which does not only emphasize the possibility of their kinship, but also casts some shadows on the further career prospects of Pilate). Pontius Pilate is likely to have spent his last years in Spanish Catalunia after his removal from power, although some would even claim that Pilate was forced to commit suicide. Yury Vyazemsky, who hosts the famous Russian TV show for A-level students hopeful to study the international relations for their careers, has actually written a couple of books about the childhood years of Pontius Pilate, claiming that Pilate grew up in Spain as a kid. But the content of his writing is mostly fictional with very little to no evidence to support it. Nonetheless the very fact that a Roman senatorial family embraced the new religion of remote Judea, helped to establish the very first Christian church in their own home in Rome and even made one of their family members (Linus) to lead the church of uncircumcised as a Roman pope is quite remarkable because the Catholic church, which Pudens founded, effectively oversaw the creation and initial censorship of all written early Chiristian works that would survive and be known to us today (clearly, by the time the first Christian church of uncircumcised popped up in Rome in the 1st century AD there had been already a number of Jewish synagogues in Rome for about a century or perhaps longer)