Who Were the Sea Peoples?

was better than one might think: they really did use the "Lord of the Rings" method of having signal towers at regular intervals. For instance, the Romans had them along the "Saxon Shore," which was a defense system along the shore of east and southeast England. So you could signal that, say, "The Picts are coming" from Hadrian's Wall to Kent at the speed of light, plus the time it would take for the human at each signal station to relay the signal.

We want to share a gate locked with a chain. But we each want to have our own lock to lock the chain. Can we do this? If so, how?

Have you ever heard someone assert that "Of course northern Europeans are intelligent: they had to be to deal with that cold climate!" Here is what Aristotle thought about this (and note: he does not include Greeks among Europeans here): "The nations that live in cold regions and those of Europe are full of spirit, but somewhat lacking in skill and intellect..." -- The Politics , Book VII

'If we look at it simply as a theoretical model, the Keynesian system is sound enough. It is consistent in the sense that, if we grant the premises, the conclusions will follow: the "level of incomes and employment" will be determined by the well-known determinants. The real issue is precisely whether the premises can be granted: to what extent they reflect reality. In Schumpeter's words, The realism of Keynes's "vision," not the logical consistency of his system is at issue.' -- Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process , p. 135 This, of course, is completely contra the people who claim that Keynes's system is illogical, self-contradictory, etc. The very first time I had to teach Keynes, and actually had to study him, I realized that not only was he consistent, there is also a beauty and elegance to his model. Of course, that says nothing about how closely it corresponds to reality. The people who claim that Keynes's system is illogical ...

when you are about to get rid of them? "Why should major league baseball have a draft?" no doubt held no interest for me the day it was published. But now that I am about to feed the story into the wood stove, suddenly I desperately want to know, "Well, why should it?" Stories such as "Is charcoal-gray the new black?" become similarly fascinating, once they are about to go in the fire.

Chris House tries to set out "the scientific method": The scientific method goes something like this: Observation Formation of hypotheses Testing/evaluation Repeat If you can follow these steps then anything (even economics! even macroeconomics!) can be studied scientifically. When economics is at its best it truly is a science. A purely empirical study is a necessary step in the scientific method (it’s step 1). Here is the funny thing about this sort of view, which is way too common among economists: philosophers of science abandoned this simple model beginning 50 or 60 years ago, and today you would be hard pressed to find any philosopher of science who would take it seriously. In particular, the idea that a "purely empirical study" is step one of this method came to be understood as fantastical: no one could possibly do an empirical study without a theoretical apparatus and an hypothesis to test already in mind. (To see the absurdity of this idea...

"Except during short intervals of time, people are always governed by an elite. I use the word elite (It. aristocrazia ) in its etymological sense, meaning the strongest, the most energetic, and most capable--for good as well as evil. However, due to an important physiological law, elites do not last. Hence--the history of man is the history of the continuous replacement of certain elites: as one ascends, another declines... "The new elite which six to supersede the old one, or merely to share its power and honors, does not admit to such an intention frankly and openly. Instead it assumes the leadership of all the oppressed, declares that it will pursue not its own good but the good of the many; and it goes to battle, not for the rights of restricted class, but for the rights of almost the entire citizenry. Of course, once victory is won, it subjugates the erstwhile allies..." -- The rise and fall of the elites , p. 36