If Congress only passed laws such as this one, would that be an improvement?

more about "Congressmen Submit Emergency 3 AM Bil…", posted with vodpod

Sometimes I actually think the answer is yes.

The million dollar question

Via Megan McArdle.

Quotes

1. Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares. (Daniel Dennett)

2. When comparing the time scales of genetic and cultural evolution, it is useful to bear in mind that we today – every one of us – can easily understand many ideas that were simply unthinkable by the geniuses in our grandparents’ generation! (-ll-)

3. It really is a nice theory. The only defect I think it has is probably common to all philosophical theories. It’s wrong. (Saul Kripke)

4. No matter how good you are at something, there’s always about a million people better than you. (Homer Simpson)

5. We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one’s eye or using a window instead of a door. (Marvin Minsky)

6. The best material model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat. (Norbert Wiener)

7. I don’t mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think. (Wolfgang Pauli)

Witchcraft in the 21st century

“By some estimates, about 40 percent of the cases in the Central African court system are witchcraft prosecutions. (Drug offenses in the U.S., by contrast, account for just 12 percent of arrests.) In Mbaiki — where Pygmies, who are known for bewitching each other, make up about a tenth of the population — witchcraft prosecutions exceed 50 percent of the case load, meaning that most alleged criminals there are suspected of doing things that Westerners generally regard as impossible.”

[...]

““The problem is that in a witchcraft case, there is usually no evidence,” said Bartolomé Goroth, a lawyer in Bangui, who recently defended (unsuccessfully) a coven of Pygmies who had been accused of murder-by-witchcraft in Mbaiki. Goroth said the trials generally ended with an admission of guilt by an accused witch in exchange for a modest sentence. I asked how one determined guilt in cases where the alleged witches denied the charges. “The judge will look at them and see if they act like witches,” Goroth said, specifying that “acting like a witch” entailed behaving “strangely” or “nervously” in court. His principal advice to clients, he said, was to act normally and refrain from casting any spells in the courtroom.”

…

Here’s the link, via MR.

Random wikipedia links of interest

1. Operation Crossroads. The US conducted nuclear weapon tests at the Bikini Atoll in 1946, this article is about those tests, the purpose of which were to figure out how effective the new weapon was against naval units. That wasn’t the only kind of relevant information they obtained though. From the article:

Because of radioactive contamination, Bikini remains uninhabited as of 2010, though it is occasionally visited by sport divers. [...] The brief attempt to resettle Bikini from 1974 until 1978 was aborted when health problems from radioactivity in the food supply caused the atoll to be evacuated again. Sport divers who visit Bikini to dive on the shipwrecks must eat imported food. The lagoon is teeming with fish, but none of it is safe to eat.

…

2. Mantle (geology). Did you know that the Earth’s mantle, the layer between the crust and the core, constitutes close to 84 % of the volume of the Earth? I didn’t.

…

3. Wernicke’s area. A part of the brain involved in the understanding of written and spoken language. In a world-view incorporating stuff like this there’s very little room for a ‘soul’.

…

4. Gills.

A gill: “extracts dissolved oxygen from water, afterward excreting carbon dioxide. It does not break up water molecules in hydrogen and oxygen and absorb oxygen. The microscopic structure of a gill presents a large surface area to the external environment.

Many microscopic aquatic animals, and some that are larger but inactive, can absorb adequate oxygen through the entire surface of their bodies, and so can respire adequately without a gill.”

…

5. Pirate game.

The Dirk Gently Omnibus

On the twitter, I promised some quotes from the book on the blog later on, and this post contains a few. Just like The Hitchhiker’s Guide…, the book is made up of more than one ‘book’; it’s actually two different books, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul. They don’t need to be read in any specific order though and the plots do not overlap (…much). The books are hilarious, even if I liked the first one better. If you haven’t read anything by Douglas Adams, read this one first.

Below I’ve quoted a few passages from the books:

1. “”Reg” had never actually taught Richard, he had only been his college tutor, which meant in short that he had had charge of his general welfare, told him when the exams were and not to take drugs, and so on. Indeed, it was not entirely clear if Reg had ever taught anybody at all and what, if anything, he would have taught them. His professorship was an obscure one, to say the least, and since he dispensed with his lecturing duties by the simple and time-honoured technique of presenting all his potential students with an exhaustive list of books that he knew for a fact had been out of print for thirty years, then flying into a tantrum if they failed to find them, no one had ever discovered the precise nature of his academic discipline. He had, of course, long ago taken the precaution of removing the only extant copies of the books on his reading list from the university and college libraries, as a result of which he had plenty of time to, well, to do whatever it was he did.” (DGHDA, p.12)

…

One word: Tenure.

…

2. “Dirk turned.
Framed in the doorway stood a tall dark figure.
The tall dark figure appeared to be not at all happy with what it saw, to be rather cross about it, in fact. To be more than cross. It appeared to be a tall dark figure who could very easily yank the heads off half a dozen chickens and still be cross at the end of it.
It stepped forward into the light and revealed itself to be Sergeant Gilks of the Cambridgeshire Constabulatory.
“Do you know,” said Sergeant Gilks of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, blinking with suppressed emotion, “that when I arrive back here to discover one police officer guarding a sofa with a saw and another dismembering an innocent wastepaper basket I have to ask myself certain questions? And I have to ask them with the disquieting sense that I’m not going to like the answers when I find them.”
“I then find myself mounting the stairs with a horrible premonition, Svlad Cjelli [this is Dirk Gently's 'real name'], a very horrible premonition indeed. A premonition, I might add, that I now find horribly justified. I suppose you can’t shed any light on a horse discovered in a bathroom as well? That seemed to have an air of you about it.” (DGHDA, p.161)

…

3. “”You are a driver,” he said, “and I use the word in the loosest possible sense, i.e. meaning merely somebody who occupies the driving seat of what I will for the moment call – but I use the term strictly without prejudice – a car while it is proceeding along the road, of stupendous, I would even say verging on the superhuman, lack of skill. Do you catch my drift?”
“No.”
“I mean you do not drive well. Do you know you’ve been all over the road for the last seventeen miles?”
“Seventeen miles!” exclaimed Kate. “Have you been following me?”
“Only up to a point,” said Dirk. “I’ve tried to stay on this side of the road.” [...]
“May I ask you why you were following me?”
“You looked as if you knew where you were going. To begin with at least. For the first hundred yards or so.”
“What the hell’s it got to do with you where I was going?”
“Navigational technique of mine.” [...] “There is a school of thought which says that you should consult a map on these occasions, but to such people I merely say, ‘Ha! What if you have no map to consult? What if you have a map but it’s of the Dordogne?’ My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it’s going and follow it.” (TLDTTotS, p.120-21)

…

Btw. while I was in Copenhagen this weekend, I met up with one of the regular and long-time readers of this blog and I ended up borrowed him my copy of Machiavelli. So the last post in that series will have to wait a bit.

Marathon!

(short version to non-Danish readers: I’ve run (a? /my first?) marathon! Because of my diabetes, it was not without problems – but I made it! And I’m pretty damn happy about that now!)

Jeg har løbet en marathon, nærmere betegnet Copenhagen Marathon 2010.

Jeg har stadig ikke, mens jeg skriver denne sætning, besluttet mig for, hvor meget i detaljer jeg vil gå, men lidt løbsbeskrivelse kan næppe skade.

Grundlæggende gik løbet slet ikke, som jeg havde håbet, og der skete netop en af de ting, der ikke måtte ske; en af de ting, som jeg havde forventet ville lede til, at jeg ikke gennemførte, hvis det skete alligevel. Så at gennemføre på trods af dette føles i dag som en stor personlig sejr, også selvom det ikke var sådan, jeg havde det, da jeg kom i mål.

Jeg havde et godt løb frem til ca. 10 km, ved 13 km tog jeg et blodsukker som var meget højt, det tvang mig til at tage insulin, som (naturligvis) gjorde at blodsukkeret faldt som en sten senere (og resten af løbet).
Årsagen til at blodsukkeret steg – hvilket var årsagen til de mange problemer efterfølgende – kan anskues på to måder: a) jeg tog for lidt insulin, b) jeg indtog for meget energi under løbet. Det er to sider af samme sag. Det var altid en risiko, og det vil altid være det i forbindelse med lange løb generelt. At blodsukkeret efterfølgende faldt var en konsekvens af insulin-injektionen, uden hvilken jeg utvivlsomt ville have udgået. Faldet i blodsukkeret var dog meget problematisk, fordi det var så voldsomt, som det var. Mellem 22 og 26 km indtog jeg lige så mange kalorier, som jeg gjorde under en normal halvmarathon under min træning, og det var grundlæggende bare for at blive stående oprejst – blodsukkeret var ved 26 km stadig tæt på at være ‘for lavt’ i normal sammenhæng (4,3). I det tidsrum småløb jeg det meste af vejen, men jeg måtte dog ned at gå ved de 26 km, hvor jeg gik næsten en kilometer, fordi jeg ikke turde løbe før blodsukkeret var kommet op, fordi jeg var bange for at falde omkuld, hvis jeg gjorde – jeg havde på forhånd gjort det klart for mig selv, at jeg ikke ville havne i en ambulance, jeg ville stoppe inden da. Min mave havde det skidt fra 25 km og frem, og den havde det rigtigt skidt efter 30 km. Ved ca. 31 km var jeg ved at (gen)overveje at udgå, fordi jeg vidste, at hvis ikke maven kunne tage mere, kunne jeg ikke realistisk løbe videre, fordi der stadig var et fortsat kaloriebehov, som skulle mødes undervejs – jeg kunne slet ikke løbe på vand alene. Jeg fortsatte dog alligevel, og løb de næste 8 km i sekvenser af 2,5 kilometer, fulgt af blodsukkermåling og kort gang med kulhydrat-indtag. Ved 39 kunne maven ikke mere, jeg drak en lille mundfuld vand og det var nok til at ‘vælte læsset’, så jeg måtte kaste op. En samarit blev tilkaldt og jeg forklarede kort min situation. Jeg havde det langt bedre efter at have kastet op, maven kunne lidt igen. Jeg var i øvrigt helt klar i hovedet, så det tog ikke så lang tid at overbevise samaritten om, at jeg godt kunne klare de sidste par km eller tre. Det endte med, at jeg fik lidt sukker og noget vand, og jeg tog så resten af turen stille og roligt; gik først 500 meter, løb så resten af turen. Tiden var naturligvis skuffende (jeg var et godt stykke over 4 timer), men den betød ikke særligt meget på det tidspunkt, og som dagen skred frem betød den mindre og mindre.

Konklusionen om aftenen var: Jeg gennemførte! Alt det andet var efterhånden ret ligegyldigt. Som jeg også gjorde klart ovre på Willam’s blog var løbet efter min opfattelse et godt arrangeret løb, hvor man følte at man løb i trygge og velordnede rammer – så tak til alle de mange mennesker, der gjorde det muligt, også selvom det ikke er sikkert, nogen af dem vil læse denne post.

Tiden umiddelbart efter en marathon er faktisk ikke nødvendigvis så slem, som du måske går og tror. Vi – mig og min storebror – spiste uafbrudt i vel over 3 timer, tilbragte derefter et par timer på sofaen, hentede så pizza og så en film. Noget ømhed er der selvfølgelig, men tiden bagefter var ikke nær så slem, som jeg havde frygtet.

Quote of the day

There is NO single payor system that compensates physicians on health outcomes. None. There are a bunch that pay for ticking boxes (e.g. did you talk about smoking cessation, did you talk about weight loss, etc.) But not a damn one pays based on outcomes. Why you ask? Because as sure as the sun rises I and every other general surgeon would IMMEDIATELY stop operating on 1. smokers, 2. the obese, and 3 diabetics on an elective basis. They talk a big game, but every time someone points that out to the powers that be they back down. Hell, even REPORTING outcomes has caused a drop in elective CABGs in NY, a rise in emergent ones and worse outcomes across the board.

William Bromberg, in a comment here. I don’t know if that’s completely true, but I’m sure this fundamental problem is in no way limited to surgery even if that’s probably (one of?) the field(s?) where such a change in incentives structures would have the highest impact; in general, if you compensate doctors based on whether the patients get better or not, then it gets harder to get (/enough) doctors to treat the risky cases and/or the very sick.

Prank call to a televangelist

“My life matters!” yelled the moskito

(Click to watch in a higher resolution. Link.)

(again, click to watch in a higher resolution. Link. Most of it is speculation and you can always quibble about the details, but the main point stands.)

(-ll-, link)

It is estimated that there are more than three times as many neurons in an adult human cerebral cortex alone than there are humans on Earth. The total number of neurons in the human brain is estimated at appr. 14 times the number of humans.

Between 50 and 70 billion cells die each day due to apoptosis in the average human adult (link). There are approximately ten times as many bacterial cells in the human flora of bacteria as there are human cells in the body (link). One might say ‘humans are complex creatures’ or one might say ‘humans are nothing special’. One might also be tempted to say something about the importance of any given individual alive here. Now combine the above with this (click to view in a higher res. – warning, it’s a very big file but you should open it anyway):

Stuff like this (once you start to think about it, you can come up with a lot of similar arguments) is part of the reason why I have great difficulty taking seriously any religious concept ‘explaining the universe’ that even mentions humans. Hell, it’s very hard to take seriously a God(TM) that’d even care about the Milky Way – there are more than 100 billion galaxies out there to choose from, and the Milky Way alone contains 400 billion stars. We don’t matter, a God that would care about what we do is too improbable for us to care about and a God like that raises way more questions than he/she/it answers. To use a God(TM) like that to answer any of the ‘fundamental questions’ is intellectually dishonest, because it’s the same thing as evading the questions entirely and just make up stuff that make us feel important. One of the first thoughts that crosses my mind when thinking about a God that actually cares about humans is ‘stamp collector’. One of the others is, as I’m sure you know, ‘evil bastard’.

Slutspil

1. Kongen skal bruges aktivt.
2. Tag oppositionen.
3. Det er ikke kun kongen, der skal bruges aktivt. En passiv officer er et problem, som bør søges løst.
4. Fribønder vinder partier.
5. Dobbeltbønder taber partier.
6. Træktvang.
7. Spil præcist og vær tålmodig. Selv små fejl kan (også) koste meget dyrt i slutspillet.

Der kunne skrives meget mere, men det er et sted at starte. Jeg har udvalgt to partier til at illustrere nogle af disse principper i praksis. Jeg har brugt mange diagrammer, næsten et diagram pr. træk, så der burde ikke været noget problem med at følge med, heller ikke for begyndere og let øvede, som ikke er vant til at tænke mange træk frem. Eftersom posten pga. de mange diagrammer fylder temmeligt meget her på siden, har jeg valgt at afkorte posten.

Promoting the unknown, a continuing series

Quotes

1. “…people are uncomfortable comparing their friends and partners with others they might have had instead, and in the absence of comparison most people think those they love are pretty good. You rarely hear ‘there are likely about half a billion wives I would like more than you out there, but you are the one I’m arbitrarily in love with’.” (Katja Grace)

2. “Much of what our moral intuitions tell us is in contradiction with what we think are worthy principles. We like to think life is worth a lot for instance, yet in practice life more than a few miles away is worth nothing unless we are personally acquainted with the potentially deceased. Even if we calculate that organ markets would benefit users, many of us feel bad about them. What do you do when feeling virtuous comes into conflict with doing good? Most people go with their feelings.” (-ll-)

3. “There is simply too much to think about. It is hopeless — too many kinds of special preparation are required. In electronics, in economics, in social analysis, in history, in psychology, in international politics, most of us are, given the oceanic proliferating complexity of things, paralyzed by the very suggestion that we assume responsibility for so much. This is what makes packaged opinion so attractive.” (Saul Bellow)

4. “You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.” (John Steinbeck)

5. “It would be different if the Government were a team, but in fact they’re a loose confederation of warring tribes.” (Permanent Secretary for Health, Yes Prime Minister, The Smoke Screen)

100.000 hits

Jeg burde ikke omtale det. Hit nummer 99.999 er nu engang objektivt set ikke hverken mere eller mindre væsentlig end hit nummer 100.001, og begge hits er faktisk pænt ligegyldige. Men jeg kan ikke lade være.

Tak til de faste og semi-faste læsere for fortsat at få det til at give bare en smule mening at blogge.

Quote of the day

“One of the many poignant moments in Ayan Hirsi Ali’s autobiographical book Infidel was her surprise and confusion when she walked around a large non-Muslim city for the very first time and observed the exact opposite of what she had always been told would happen, in any place which didn’t properly attend to modesty. Women were going about their business in shorts and skirts and skimpy tops and sandals and yet, instead of men pursuing and insulting them, they were treated with more ordinary common decency than they were treated in any of the great Muslim nations she had lived in. In places like Saudi Arabia, women krept about veiled from head to toe and men would scornfully shove them into the street when they passed, just as a matter of course. There were frequent sneers, gibes, insults, and sexual passes made to women shuffling along meekly in public. The implication, and the outright lesson, that she had been taught was that this was nothing, compared to what it would be if women were not suitably veiled. If women showed their bodies, the insults would then become unbearable.

On the contrary, there weren’t any. The tension was absent. Men were ignoring displays of flesh which would have gotten a women imprisoned in Muslim countries. She had never seen so much respect. When she remarked on it, nobody seemed to know what she was talking about.

Opened her eyes. Feminine modesty was not the solution to a universal problem: it was the damn cause of what was only a problem when it was made into a problem.”

…

Link.

The word ‘probably’ is ‘probably’ not necessary…

Link. A few others to add to the list:

“The title of our paper changed three times because it was impossible to massage the data enough to prove what we set out to prove initially.”

“Our results are actually completely bogus under settings (X, Y and Z), all of which applies to the real world, but we know that pretty much no one who’ll read a paper like this actually cares anyway.” (one word: Macroeconomics)

Along the same lines: “This paper actually has no real-world applications…”

“I primarily wrote this paper in order to make my mother proud.”

“In five years, the results of this study will be completely (obsolete/useless/disproven).”

“We deliberately omitted the significant variables (X, Y and Z) from our model in order to be able to publish at least a dozen follow-up studies along the way.”

“We are very glad and grateful that (supposedly prestigious journal X) was willing to publish our results as we tried to publish them a lot of other places first without luck…”

“We consider this paper a great contribution to (relevant theory X), even though we know perfectly well that most sane people out there would rather get hit by a bus than being forced to read this crap.”

“I would never have sent this paper to publication if the paper’s conclusions regarding the importance of career path dependence in the labor market were incorrect…”

“Our models’ main problems are primarily a result of an effect closely related to our main finding that most editors are grossly underpaid, namely that it would be a lot easier to get a paper published by bribing the editor than it would be to do it by actually writing a decent paper.”

British libel law fact of the day

Yes, I know I just posted a post on the same subject in Danish, but I thought this deserved a post of its own. It’s your fault too: Unless a given post is nothing but a collection of links (like my wikipedia posts), the likelihood that someone – no wait, anyone – will follow more than one link in any given post (almost always, but not quite always, the first link provided) is going towards zero very fast in the total number of links in the post. Almost nobody follows that third link, even if I think it’s some very interesting stuff. So, yeah… Oh yes, the fact:

Currently, defamation lawsuits in England and Wales are approximately 140 times more expensive than the average defamation lawsuit in other European countries.

The article the post links to has more. Btw., Simon Singh, the guy mentioned in the blogpost, won his trial (yes, I know, that was the third link…).

If you dislike the idea of foreigners dragging you, and other people they don’t like, to court in the UK, having you(/them… -ect.) go through a very expensive and long legal battle defending yourself against charges for doing stuff that’s not even remotely illegal in Denmark (or elsewhere, people living in the US are not much less vulnerable), and if you want to prove me wrong about people following the last links of a blog post, go here and sign the petition, if you haven’t already.

…men jeg vil til min død forsvare din ret til at sige det…

Jeg bryder mig ikke ret meget om præster. Jeg er ret sikker på, at jeg ikke ville kunne udholde at tilbringe fem minutter sammen med en fyr som Dale McAlpine. Men skriv dig i den sammenhæng gerne bag øret, at jeg altså ikke har noget problem med at forsvare ytringsfriheden for mennesker, jeg ikke bryder mig om. Og det, det britiske system foretager sig for tiden, er skudt i hovedet.

For næsten to år siden skrev jeg om the Public Order Act, som McAlpine blev anholdt på baggrund af: This law is pretty close to making it illegal to insult other people in public (linket har mere, og det har også et link til selve loven). McAlpine-sagen afkræfter ikke ligefrem, at det da trods alt ikke er sådan, loven bliver brugt i praksis. Denne anholdelse er en skændsel for GB, og den viser med al ønskelig tydelighed, at det ikke kun er deres injurielovgivning, der er FUBAR.

Husk på sager som disse, når du hører forsvar for eks. racismeparagraffen som baserer sig på, at folk alligevel ikke bliver dømt efter den. Tro mig, sådan nogle paragraffer bliver kun vanskeligere, ikke lettere, at slippe af med, når systemet først er begyndt at smide folk i fængsel for alvor. Og nej, det er ikke et tilfælde, at jeg bruger ordet ‘når’, i stedet for ordet ‘hvis’.

HT til Ulla.

Joke of the day

Two men are talking on a Pyongyang subway train:

“How are you, comrade?”

“Fine, how are you doing?”

“Comrade, by any chance, do you work for the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Have you worked for the Central Committee before?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Then, are any of your family members working for the Central Committee?”

“Nope.”

“Then, get away from me! You’re standing on my foot!”

…

There’s more along the same lines at the link, via MR.

Il Principe III

Min første (korte) post om bogen kan læses her, anden (betydeligt længere) post kan læses her. Vil springe lige ud i det og anvende samme fremgangsmåde som i post II, alle fremhævninger i teksten er mine egne:

1) Machiavelli skelner i kapitel 10 mellem de fyrster, der er magtfulde nok til at forsvare sig selv i nødstilfælde, og så de fyrster, der behøver andres hjælp og beskyttelse. De første er stærke nok til at rejse en hær og møde fjenden på åben mark, de andre er afskåret fra denne mulighed. Det bedste de ‘svage’ fyrster kan gøre, er iflg. Machiavelli at opgive landet og befæste byen godt. Han nævner i denne sammenhæng de samtidige tyske byer, der alle har velanlagte mure, grave og rigeligt skyts. I de offentlige magasiner er der altid mad, drikke og brænde for et år. Disse byer var således særdeles godt rustede til at modstå selv langvarig belejring. Det følgende citat relaterer til belejringssituationen, og det er meget betegnende for Machiavelli’s måde at tænke på, så jeg vil citere i nogle detaljer:

“Man kan indvende, at folket, der har besiddelse uden for murene og ser dem gå op i flammer, vil tabe tålmodigheden over den lange belejringstid og glemme fyrsten. Hertil svarer jeg, at en mægtig og modig fyrste altid vil overkomme disse vanskeligheder ved snart at give sine undersåtter håb om, at ulykken ikke skal vare længe, snart indgive dem frygt for fjendens grusomhed og behændigt sikre sig dem, der synes ham for fremtrængende. For øvrigt vil fjenden naturligvis hærge og brandskatte landet ved indmarchen på en tid, hvor borgerne er begejstrede og parat til forsvar. Fyrsten har endnu mindre grund til at være bekymret, når begejstringen er afkølet, skaden allerede er sket, lidelserne gennemgået og ingen hjælp mere mulig, hvorfor undersåtterne knyttes endnu fastere til fyrsten, da de tror, at han har forpligtelser over for dem, fordi de har tabt hus og jord for hans skyld. Menneskene er skabt således, at de ydede velgerninger forpligter lige så meget som modtagne.” (s.47)

‘De tror, at han har forpligtelser over for dem.’

…

2) “Der er nu kun tilbage at tale om de gejstlige fyrstevælder. Her kommer vanskelighederne før erhvervelsen, da de erhverves enten ved held eller dygtighed, men bevares uden nogen af delene. De støtter sig nemlig på urgamle, hellige traditioner, der er så mægtige, at de bevarer tronen, ligegyldigt hvordan fyrsten lever og handler. De er de eneste herskere, der har stater og ikke forsvarer dem, og undersåtter uden at regere dem; men staterne fratages dem ikke, selv om de er uden beskyttelse, og borgerne bryder sig ikke om, at de ikke regeres, de hverken kan eller vil løsrive sig. Kun disse fyrster nyder sikkerhed og lykke.” (s.49)

Long story short: De her folk har den bedste deal overhovedet – det er faktisk umuligt for dem at fucke up, lige meget hvad de gør, og selvom de gør det alligevel, kan de ikke stilles til ansvar for noget som helst. Den siddende pave er et glimrende eksempel. De fleste andre mennesker ville som minimum blive personligt involveret i politiets efterforskning på den ene eller anden måde, hvis det kunne bevises, at de var vidende om andres sex-misbrug af børn og undlod at gribe ind og/eller informere myndighederne. Men den slags småting kan man selvfølgelig ikke spilde en ufejlbarlig paves tid med. Sådan var det for 500 år siden, sådan er det i dag. Religion har virkelig noget at bidrage med, når det kommer til etik og moral, og religiøse institutioner er så sandelig en garanti for, at der sker en fortsat udvikling på området, i takt med at vi får mere viden og vores præferencestrukturer udvikler sig over tid.

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3) “Vi har ovenfor sagt, at et fyrstevælde først og fremmest må have en god grundvold, og de bedste grundvolde er gode love og en god hær. Da de gode love kun kan bestå der, hvor der findes gode hære, vil jeg undlade at beskæftige mig med lovene og kun tale om hærvæsenet.
Den hær, hvormed en fyrste forsvarer sin stat, er enten hans egen eller består af lejetropper, af hjælpetropper, eller af blandede tropper. Leje- og hjælpetropper er til ingen nytte og farlige, og den, der støtter sig på lejede tropper, vil aldrig leve længe og aldrig være tryg. [...] [Lejetropper] vil gerne være fine soldater, så længe der ikke føres krig, men kommer krigen, vil de flygte eller rømme. [...] Lejetroppernes fører er enten en fremragende mand eller ikke. I det første tilfælde kan fyrsten ikke stole på ham, da han altid vil stræbe efter personlig magt ved enten at ødelægge sin herre eller, mod hans vilje, andre. Er han ikke dygtig, fremkalder han fyrstens undergang på den almindelige måde. [...] Det ligger i lejetroppernes væsen, at deres fremskridt er små, tager lang tid og er meget usikre, men deres tab er pludselige og uhørte.” (s.52-53,56)

Fremskridtene er også meget dyre, for lejetropper koster kassen.

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“Man kan tale om hjælpetropper, den anden art unyttige tropper, en fyrste erhverver sig, når han henvender sig til en anden magt for at få stridskræfter til hjælp og beskyttelse [...] hjælpetropper kan være både brugbare og dygtige, men skader altid den, der må tilkalde dem. [...] Med hjælpetropper er din undergang en sikker sag, de er enige og vant til lydighed mod en anden; lejetropper derimod behøver, når de har sejret, mere tid og bedre anledning for at blive farlige, da de ikke danner nogen enhed og er hvervede og bliver betalt af fyrsten. [...] Kort og godt: ved lejetropperne er det fejheden, hos hjælpetropperne er det tapperheden, man må frygte. En klog fyrste vil derfor altid undgå sådanne tropper og kun benytte sine egne; han vil hellere tabe med egne end vinde med fremmede våben i erkendelsen af, at en sejr, der er opnået med fremmede våben, ikke er nogen virkelig sejr.” (s.58-59)

Jeg ved ikke, om citaterne får dette forhold med, men problemet med hjælpetropperne er, at de ikke nødvendigvis vil drage afsted igen, når du har vundet, hvis du vinder. Hvis de er nok eller bare velkoordinerede og illoyale, kan de vælte dig også efter, du har vundet krigen.

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4) Jeg fandt nogle få bemærkninger i kapitel 14 (‘om en fyrstes militære opgaver’) interessante, fordi der blev lagt vægt på variable, som Sun Tzu også fokuserer på i sit hovedværk, navnligt naturen i det omkringliggende landskab og geografiske forhold. Disse ting spillede en betydelig rolle før i tiden i militær sammenhæng, og gør det for så vidt sandsynligvis stadig til en hvis grad; at kende terrænet bedre end din modstander er at give dig selv en fordel. Prøv selv at gætte, hvad kombinationen af hård modvind og det forhold, at modstanderen står på en bakketop, ville betyde for dine bueskytters rækkevidde og præcision i forhold til din modstanders samme. Machiavelli bemærker i det foregående kapitel, at “en fyrste uden hær aldrig er sikker”, så udgangspunktet for kapitlet kan næppe overraske:

“En fyrste må altså ikke have noget andet mål, ikke nogen anden tanke, ikke interessere sig for andre ting end krigen, dens regler og forudsætninger. Dette er den eneste kunst, der passer til en fyrste, og den har så stor betydning, at den ikke alene sikrer de fødte fyrster deres rettigheder, men mange gange hæver en mand fra borger til fyrste. [...] At foragte krigskunsten er begyndelsen til rigets forlis; den bedste måde at vinde et rige er at være mester i denne kunst. [...] Bortset fra alle de andre uheldige sider, som manglende krigsdygtighed fører med sig, skaber den ringeagt, noget enhver fyrste må vogte sig for. En bevæbnet lader sig selv ikke sammenligne med en ubevæbnet, og man kan ikke vente, at den bevæbnede skal vise lydighed over for den ubevæbnede, og at den ubevæbnede skal føle sig sikker mellem bevæbnede tjenere. [...] Til alle de øvrige uheldige sider kommer der som nævnt, at en fyrste, der ikke forstår krigshåndværket, ikke har sine soldaters agtelse og ikke kan stole på dem. Han må derfor aldrig have andet i tankerne end krigsøvelser, og endda mere i fredstid end i krigstid. Dette kan gøres på to måder: ved handlinger og ved studium. Hvad det første angår, må han foruden at holde sine soldater i tugt og øvelse dyrke jagten og på denne måde vænne sin krop til besværligheder. Han må også studere forskellige egnes natur, bestige bjerge, undersøge flodernes beskaffenhed, hvordan dalene løber ud, hvorledes sletterne strækker sig og sumpenes karakter, og han må anvende stor omhu på dette…” (s.63-64)

Resten af det lange afsnit omhandler samme emne og en understregning af, hvor vigtig en sådan viden er (‘den vigtigste forudsætning for at være hærfører’) for en fyrste; viden om lokale geografiske forhold kan, hvis fyrsten vænner sig til at tænke i militære baner, bruges også i ukendte områder, fordi mange grundprincipper er ens; uden en sådan erfaring og viden vil fyrsten ikke være i stand til på den bedst mulige måde at ‘finde fjenden’, ‘finde en heldig lejringsplads’, ‘bestemme marchretningen’, ‘vælge kamppladsen’, ‘omringe en fæstning på den bedst mulige måde’ osv.

Jeg har valgt at cutte posten her, selvom det faktisk er nu, vi er ved at være nået til den del, jeg vel nok anskuer som bogens bedste. De næste sektioner fortjener dog en post for sig, og denne post er allerede blevet mere omfangsrig end jeg havde antaget, den ville blive, i udgangspunktet.