Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 4 May 2015Blue’s back, and this time he’s hoisting the black flag and preparing to board. It’s okay: he’s got a letter of marque.
July 15, 2021
History Summarized: The Golden Age of Piracy
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QotD: Macaulay’s prescription for ruling India
In 1835 Thomas Macaulay had argued in his famous essay Minute on Education that “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.”
Macaulay was arguing that British Government should spend money on educating those it found under its rule. So it came to be as Britain ruled over the most heavily-populated and most valued part of its empire for another century.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister who led India to independence from Britain, studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at the Inner Temple, and was closely connected to the Fabian Society. Nehru’s rival, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, studied law at the Lincoln’s Inn, and was strongly influenced by English utilitarianism and French positivism. Nehru was an agnostic who requested a secular burial (this was denied him), while Jinnah was a gin-drinker whose religious attachments were more a matter of identity than belief.
Nehru and Jinnah led India and Pakistan to independence as the brown-skinned Westerners Thomas Macaulay had envisioned a century earlier. South Asian in appearance and pedigree, the leaders of these two nations nevertheless personified a fundamental truth about the Western orientation of the new Asian states. Pakistan was aligned with the United States, while socialist India was nominally non-aligned but clearly tilted toward the Soviet bloc. Though the populace of these nations were mostly illiterate, poor and detached from the cosmopolitan currents of the world, their elites were integrated among the English-speaking peoples. Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, attended Somerville College, Oxford. His grandson, Rahul Gandhi, whose mother is Italian, studied at Harvard and Trinity College.
Razib Khan, “Why the West lost India’s culture wars”, UnHerd, 2021-04-13.
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July 14, 2021
Jewish Luftwaffe Officers, Allied POW’s, and Vichy Islands near Canada – WW2 – OOTF 023
World War Two
Published 13 Jul 2021How did Germans with Jewish heritage still serve in the Luftwaffe? And what happened to the Allied POW’s from the German invasions of France and Belgium? And what the hell happened with those tiny Vichy islands near Canada? We answer all of this in today’s Out of the Foxholes.
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Instead of economics, how about “humanomics”?
In City Journal, Allison Schrager reviews Bettering Humanomics: A New, and Old, Approach to Economic Science by Deirdre McCloskey:
I thoroughly enjoyed Deirdre McCloskey’s Bettering Humanomics, but I may be a glutton for feelings of intellectual inadequacy. Truth be told, I only understood about 60 percent of the book. It contains countless references to great works of the humanities, economics, and the history of economic thought. A casual reader cannot possibly be familiar with a fraction of them, even within his own field. But McCloskey expects you to know them.
At first this book frustrated and confused me. Then I suspected this reaction was by design. I am, after all, an economist myself: I have dedicated my life to learning my craft and benefited from many years of training at great institutions from important thinkers. But reading Humanomics, I became fully aware of how little I know. I now believe that becoming a fully formed economist requires that I stop watching trash TV in my free time and read the Theory of Moral Sentiments instead. McCloskey pulls no punches, whether on her intellectual opponents or on the reader. Here is one example, where she defends herself from a critic, philosopher Gerald Gaus:
Aside from these textual matters, I must say I find myself repelled by Gaus’s vision of people as cynical conformists: “we are such deeply social normative creatures, in the sense that we are so attuned to the normative expectations of others, that we can achieve a stable rule-based system of cooperation even when many are not enthusiastic about the moral attitudes and virtues that the rules express.” I invite him to reread Thucydides’s dialogue between the Athenian diplomats and the Melians, and repent.
McCloskey argues that economics would be better if we listened to people — in controlled experiments, chat rooms, meetings, surveys, and at the Rotary. We need to absorb the lessons from art and culture (perhaps trash TV has value, after all). She does not believe that economists need to ditch math and data, but our overreliance on these tools encourages us to view people as abstractions and leads us astray. Such tendencies also help explain the rise of behaviorism, which assumes that humans are flawed creatures who must be nudged by a wise bureaucrat into better choices; recent flirtations with industrial policy; and the belief that, if we just get our government and laws right, growth will follow.
We must consider how individuals see and experience the world around them, and we must recognize that humans are malleable in ways that we don’t account for. For example, McCloskey estimates a quarter of all income comes from “Sweet Talk” — not lies or trickery, but the ability to be persuasive and compelling, a crucial aspect of sales and advertising. It influences how we perceive the world and can be an important part of motivation.
We economists have lost our appreciation for the humanities, and that means that we underestimate the importance of human dignity. This is no small oversight. McCloskey spends about a third of her book arguing that understanding the humanity of the northwestern European population can explain why it industrialized first. Other countries around the world had wealth, strong institutions, and well-trained mathematicians and engineers (perhaps better ones), but industrialization happened in Britain first because it treated its people with dignity and empowered them with both rhetoric and knowledge.
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Tank Chats #115 | A34 Comet | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 8 Jan 2021Join The Tank Museum’s Historian David Fletcher has he discusses the A34 Comet, widely regarded as the best tank Britain produced during the Second World War.
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July 13, 2021
Japanese Armour Doctrine, 1918-1942
The_Chieftain
Published 11 Jul 2021Sources include:
Japanese tanks and armoured Warfare 1932-45, David McCormack
WW2 Japanese Tank Tactics, Gordon Rottmen, Akira Takizawa
Japanese Tanks, Tactics and anti-tank weapons, Donald McLean
Type 89 and Tankette books, Kazunori YoshikawaContinuing on this series of videos supporting the WW2 Channel, I look at what I can find about how the Japanese thought of tanks and their usage, tempered by quite a bit of combat experience.
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“Samuel Beckett was one of the twentieth century’s very greatest conmen and his dupes continue to relish being parted from their cash”
In The Critic, J.S. Barnes digs up the bones of Samuel Beckett for a thorough kicking:
Samuel Beckett as a student in 1922.
Wikimedia Commons.
A good conman needs three key attributes to succeed: swagger, plausibility and commitment to the perpetuation of the con. A great conman, meanwhile, needs one additional factor: the discovery and nurturing of victims who are not only willing to be gulled but who come to actively enjoy that sensation.
Samuel Beckett was one of the twentieth century’s very greatest conmen and even now, decades after his death, his dupes continue to relish being parted from their cash.
That he was plausible in his claims is clear from the fact that his plays are still performed all around the world. His swagger may be witnessed in the endless succession of black and white photographs which accompany most editions of his work: the old fraud gazing grimly out at the reader from his home in France, like some weathered statue come dolefully to life, looking as though he is considering the fundamental inequities of existence or, perhaps, rumours of a forthcoming croissant shortage.
As for his commitment to the long con, he had form. In 1930, he gave a lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, about a poet (Jean du Chas) and an artistic movement (Le Concentrisme) which he had entirely invented, both fooling and riling up the dons. He learnt well from this, one suspects, never again to allow the mask to slip.
Following his early, glumly unreadable novels, much indebted to James Joyce, the real foundation of Beckett’s reputation is his 1953 play Waiting for Godot. The set-up is vivid and intriguing: in a rural wasteland sit two ravaged, witty tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who trade barbs and banter while waiting for the arrival of a third individual who, we soon suspect, will never show up. And then, of course, nothing of any consequence happens.
Two additional characters wander on and off stage. The tramps talk and bicker some more. Godot never puts in an appearance. As one of the characters remarks: “Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful.”
There is no progression or change in the characters, no shift in their situation. Any clear-eyed audience member who has gone into the theatre meaning to judge the thing in as objective a fashion as possible will soon find themselves restless, then bored, then on the cusp of feigning some sort of medical emergency simply to get out of the stalls without causing too much of a fuss.
At this, avid Beckettians are no doubt sprawling on their chaise longues, sucking ferociously on a Gauloise and muttering to themselves that this lack of narrative progression, this absence of change, is the very crux of old Sam’s oeuvre. Confronted with the horrors of the twentieth-century, they say, pointlessness and circularity are the only things which make sense. Laughter in the ruins is all that’s left.
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HMCS Bonaventure – Guide 143
Drachinifel
Published 21 Sep 2019Canada’s last carrier is today’s subject for discussion.
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QotD: Girls and witchcraft
Witchcraft fascinated me. When girls reach that liminal time between child and woman, our bodies transform — and, with them, our sense of control. It’s a strange thing to go from being cosseted and encouraged to desired and despised. It feels a little like dark magic — though not the kind one can control. Unless, of course, you are a witch.
Like the magical artifacts Harry Potter is always stumbling upon, witchcraft offers power. It promises a way to re-shape the world to a girl’s advantage, to gain freedom from parents, to toy with boys’ hearts while numbing one’s own. Male magic fantasies tend to be centred around power and combat — with lightning perpetually emanating from wands and fingertips into the chests of adversaries blown backwards. However, the sort of witchcraft that interests me is more subtle, and sometimes passes unseen. (In real life, such powers originate in sex — but it takes time for a girl to learn that.) It’s no coincidence that the world of witchcraft becomes a dark mirror of our society, reflecting the dispositions and paranoias of our times. When times are good, the witch is portrayed as a benign, bubbly figure; when they are not, the witch becomes malevolent and dark, in line with medieval lore.
Jen Gerson, “Sabrina the Woke Witch is a Disgrace to Baphomet”, Quillette, 2018-11-26.
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July 12, 2021
“The Royal Guard” – Livgardet and the Kalabalik at Bender – Sabaton History 104 [Official]
Sabaton History
Published 10 Jul 2021From the devastated battlefield of Poltava to the long exile in the Ottoman Empire, Livgardet never abandoned their King. Even when King Karl XII found himself surrounded by thousands of foes, the remaining four men of his Royal Guard stood by his side. Pistols raised and sabers drawn, the Swedes fought through smoke and fire in the Kalabalik at Bender, protecting their King’s life with their own.
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Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShopHosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
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Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Brodén, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
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Archive: Reuters/Screenocean – https://www.screenocean.comSources:
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– Nationalmuseum
– Painting of King Charles XII in Turkey courtesy of Allan Egnell https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…All music by: Sabaton
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Shooting the Ishapore MkIII Vickers-Berthier LMG
Forgotten Weapons
Published 20 Sep 2017http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The Vickers-Berthier MkIII was adopted by the Indian army in 1933, and served through World War Two and into the 1970s (at least). It is chambered for the standard .303 British cartridge, fires from an open bolt, and uses top-mounted 30-round magazines. I didn’t know exactly what to expect when I had the chance to fire this one — and it turned out the be an excellent experience.
The rate of fire on the Vickers-Berthier is relatively low, and I found it to be an exceptionally stable and controllable gun to fire from its bipod. I don’t know if it’s the unusual muzzle brake design or other factors as well, but the sight picture remains stable and clear in a way that few other LMGs have matched in my experience.
Thanks to Marstar for letting me examine and shoot their Vickers-Berthier!
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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QotD: Führerprinzip
Because of this, it was easy to “project” onto Hitler. It was one of the keys of his appeal. When he talked about “international finance capital,” for instance, he often meant “Jews” … but often he didn’t, and even when he did, you could fairly easily convince yourself that he didn’t. Same with his other big bugbear, “Jewish Bolshevism.” Was he primarily an anti-Semite, or an anti-Communist? You could convince yourself either way — that the part you didn’t like was just a personal psychological quirk of Hitler’s, while the part you did like was “true Nazism.”
Unlike the Bolshies, then, or the French or even American and English revolutionaries, you really didn’t know what Hitler and the boys would do once they were in power. You knew it wasn’t going to be sunshine and roses for the folks in tiny hats, of course, but you could very easily convince yourself that stuff was only a small part of Hitler’s program. So much really depended on one man’s psychology.
Which fed into the other big ideological pillar of Nazism, Social Darwinism. The Nazis weren’t the hyper-organized, hyper-efficient monsters of popular imagination. Their org charts looked like plates of spaghetti, by design. Indeed it was often hard to tell who, exactly, was in charge of what — again, by design. Just to take one prominent example, Heinrich Himmler was, in his capacity as head of the German Police, nominally subordinate to the interior minister, Wilhelm Frick … but as head of the SS he controlled a much more powerful organization, and he used it to split the police into several bureaus (Orpo, Kripo, etc., for the specialists), which were then amalgamated into the Reich Main Security Office. Plus, guys in the various police organizations also held SS rank…
All of this, again, was explicitly ideological. As Social Darwinists, the Nazis wanted the various groups to fight it out, letting the most talented (and, needless to say, ruthless) guys rise to the top. Power was wielded by whomever seized it, in whatever capacity. Again, you had Adolf Eichmann running the entire Reich’s transport network in the darkest, most desperate part of the war … and he was a lieutenant-colonel. Not even an Army LTC; he only held rank in the SD, the secret police.
In practice, then, you had little islands of authority. The guys in charge were all freelancers, advancing The Cause however they saw fit, with whatever tools they had to hand. SA guys (brownshirts, “storm troopers”) and SS guys were always locked in conflict with each other; inside the SS, the “general SS” lost out to the SD, all of whom were backstabbing each other. The Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS were always stomping on each other in the field, constantly squabbling over equipment, manpower, areas of responsibility … even the occupation governments were a mess, with some functions falling to the Army, some to the HSSPF (the parallel SS/SD adminstration), some to the Waffen-SS, some to the Einsatztruppen, and all with the approval of the head honchos, which is why e.g. Poland (the “General Government“) was such a mess … and why such comprehensively awful shit happened there (when you’ve got SOBs on the order of Hans Frank and Odilo Globocnik competing to out-asshole each other, it’s really, really bad).
Severian, “AMA Response: Revolutions”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-02-10.
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July 11, 2021
Fall Blau – A Victim of Its Own Success? – 150 – WW2 – July 10, 1942
World War Two
Published 10 Jul 2021Adolf Hitler is not happy, and yet phase one of Fall Blau has accomplished all of its goals and done so ahead of the timetable. However, the Soviet Army in 1942 is not the same as that in 1941, and is not waiting around this time to be captured by the hundreds of thousands, and if things continue then the Axis might just be wasting a ton of gas to take a ton of empty space.
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History and Disassembly of the Vickers-Berthier MkIII LMG
Forgotten Weapons
Published 19 Sep 2017http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…
The Vickers-Berthier was initially designed by Andre Berthier in France prior to World War One. It went through a number of substantial design changes before the war, and was actually ordered in quantity by the United States right at the end of WWI — but the order was cancelled with the armistice. In the 1920s, Berthier sold the design to the Vickers company in England, which wanted a light machine gun to market alongside its Vickers heavy machine gun.
When the British military decided to replace its Lewis and Hotchkiss light machine guns, the Vickers-Berthier was one of the leading contenders, although in the endurance trials it was edged out by the Czech ZB-33, which would ultimately be adopted as the Bren. However, the Indian Army opted to take the Vickers-Berthier, and it was put into production at the Ishapore Rifle Factory and saw substantial use in World War Two.
Mechanically, the Vickers-Berthier is a tilting bolt design with a long stroke gas piston. It has a thorough set of covers over the magazine well and ejection port, and a relatively slow rate of fire. The barrel is quick-changeable, and it feeds from top-mounted 30-round magazines, with an aperture type rear sight being offset to the left side of the gun to clear the magazine.
Thanks to Marstar for letting me examine and shoot their Vickers-Berthier!
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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QotD: William and Mary
A Darien Scheme
The Scots were now in a skirling uproar because James II was the last of the Scottish Kings and England was under the rule of the Dutch Orange; it was therefore decided to put them in charge of a very fat man called Cortez and transport them to a Peak in Darien, where it was hoped they would be more silent.
Massacre of Glascoe
The Scots, however, continued to squirl and hoot at the Orange, and a rebellion was raised by the memorable Viscount Slaughterhouse (the Bonnie Dundee) and his Gallivanting Army. Finally Slaughterhouse was defeated at the Pass of Ghilliekrankie and the Scots were all massacred at Glascoe, near Edinburgh (in Scotland, where the Scots were living at that time); after which they were forbidden to curl or hoot or even to wear the Kilt. (This was a Good Thing, as the Kilt was one of the causes of their being so uproarious and Scotch.)
Blood-Orangemen
Meanwhile the Orange increased its popularity and showed themselves to be a very strong King by its ingenious answer to the Irish Question; this consisted in the Battle of the Boyne and a very strong treaty which followed it, stating (a) that all the Irish Roman Catholics who liked could be transported to France, (b) that all the rest who liked could be put to the sword, (c) that Northern Ireland should be planted with Blood Orangemen.
These Blood-Orangemen are still there; they are, of course, all descendants of Nell Glyn and are extremely fierce and industrial and so loyal that they are always ready to start a loyal rebellion to the Glory of God and the Orange. All of which shows that the Orange was a Good Thing, as well as being a good King. After the Treaty the Irish who remained were made to go and live in a bog and think of a New Question.
The Bank of England
It was Williamanmary who first discovered the National Debt and had the memorable idea of building the Bank of England to put it in. The National Debt is a very Good Thing and it would be dangerous to pay it off, for fear of Political Economy.
Finally the Orange was killed by a mole while out riding and was succeeded by the memorable dead queen, Anne.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
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