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sapphiresonstrings · 5 days ago

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A few more strange omissions and additions that didn't fit in the previous post:

HBO's show portrays Octavian as being afraid to travel to Gaul to meet Caesar, only going because his mother orders him to. This is probably a reference to Octavian's legendary cowardice, but it seems off because this is one of the areas where Octavian actually did demonstrate bravery.

Octavian actually went to meet Caesar in Spain rather than Gaul, and Caesar personally noted that Octavian left before the outcome of the campaign was known, whereas many others didn't leave until they were sure it was safe. If Caesar had lost, Octavian might have been immediately killed when he arrived in Spain. Then, of course, there's Octavian's decision to travel to Rome immediately after Caesar's assassination. Both of these decisions were incredibly dangerous. It's clear that Octavian was willing to risk his life if it was really worth it.

HBO's show changes Cassius' death for some reason, even though Cassius' death is famous. HBO's show has him die in battle, but Cassius actually committed suicide. During the battle of Philippi visibility was extremely bad. Seeing cavalry approaching from the rear, Cassius thought all was lost and killed himself. The cavalry actually belonged to Brutus, and they were riding to support Cassius against Antony. Oops.

HBO has a defector bring Mark Antony's will (containing the Donations of Alexandria) with him to Rome and show it to Octavian. This is only slightly less complicated than what actually happened, but much less believable. Wouldn't people just think it was a forgery if Octavian showed up in the Senate with this unverifiable document brought by a traitor?

Actually, it was Mark Antony himself who sent the will to Rome. He entrusted it to the Vestal Virgins, as was traditional. Because of course he did. How could his will be proven legitimate after his death if he didn't entrust it to Roman authorities? That's why, when Octavian forced his way into the temple and assaulted the Vestal Virgins to steal Mark Antony's will and read it aloud before the Senate, everyone knew it was real. Again, Octavian's blatant act of sacrilege is just left out of the narrative.

Agrippa did not carry on a torrid love affair with Octavian's sister. And, frankly, if he really had fallen in love with her at first sight, I find it hard to believe that he would really be so shy about asking Octavian for permission to marry her. Admittedly this is my most tenuous point. I don't know how high up Agrippa was in Octavian's administration at the point this happens in the HBO show. Maybe it really would be too much to ask.

But the thing is, Agrippa had already asked for (and received!) a much bigger favor. Agrippa once asked Octavius to ask Caesar to pardon his brother, who had fought against Caesar. This is a lot to ask. It speaks to how highly Octavius valued Agrippa that he passed this request along to Caesar, and it speaks to how highly Caesar valued Octavius that he actually did pardon Agrippa's brother.

I'm not an expert on Roman marriage politics, but I feel like asking Octavian to cash in his influence with Caesar to get a pardon for a relative is actually a much bigger favor than asking for his sister's hand in marriage. After all, the only thing it would cost Octavian is the opportunity cost of marrying her to someone else. And there are very few people whose loyalty Octavian needed to secure more than he needed to secure Agrippa.

Just to put this into perspective, Agrippa became Octavian's top general some time before Octavian became sole ruler of Rome. It was Agrippa who defeated Mark Antony at Actium, and it was Agrippa who defeated Sextus Pompey. It's often been said that whenever a historical record says that Octavian won a battle, what it really means is that Agrippa won that battle for Octavian.

Eventually Agrippa became so powerful that, in the words of a contemporary, "He must either join your family or he must die." So Octavian married Agrippa to his niece and named him his heir. If Agrippa had outlived Octavian he would have succeeded him as emperor.

The marriage to Octavian's niece happened in 28 BC, not long after the end of the show. So I don't think it would have been that unthinkable for Agrippa to marry Octavian's sister in 44 BC.

If Agrippa really had been in love with Octavia, I feel like he probably could have asked for her hand in marriage when Octavian made him a consul. If there were ever any concerns about status they would be long gone by that point. In Roman society, nobody is too good for someone who is both a consul and a successful general. This took place well before the end of the show's timeline. Obviously she would have to divorce Antony, but I don't think that would be an obstacle after Antony was declared an enemy of the Republic.

Incidentally, I would rate Agrippa as one of Rome's greatest generals, alongside other greats like Scipio Africanus and Julius Caesar.

HBO changed Octavian's meeting with Livia and I really don't understand why. It would have been such a small thing.

In the HBO version, Octavian asks Maecenas to find him a wife. Maecenas finds Livia and Octavian is like, "Sure, she'll do," and marries her.

The real story was much more interesting.

Livia had the misfortune to be married to Tiberius Claudius Nero, a man who somehow managed to be on the wrong side of every single civil war for six years straight. After being on the run for three years he showed up in Rome to beg Octavian for a pardon.

If he asked Livia to be charming, then she must have exceeded all expectations. Octavian fell in love at first sight. They got divorced and then married as soon as was religiously feasible (Livia was pregnant with her current husband's child at the time, so they had to wait until she gave birth). Livia's husband was overjoyed - not only did he get that pardon, he also got a minor post within the new administration. There is no sign that he was even slightly upset. I imagine him giving her two thumbs up and asking her to put in a good word with Octavian for him.

She also wasn't Octavian's first wife as the HBO show implies. Octavian also had to get divorced, because he was also already married (to Scribonia).

I love this story. First of all it cuts against the idea of Octavian as a coldly rational paragon of virtue. Secondly, it highlights the mercenary approach Romans took to marriage. Thirdly, I find the mental image of Tiberius Claudius Nero being so supportive of his wife's remarriage hilarious. He gave her away at the wedding "like a father would"!

I can picture her coming home to Tiberius Claudius Nero like, "So about that pardon. I have good news and I have bad news."

Oh, and Livia had a son by Tiberius Claudius Nero. That son was named Tiberius. Yes, that Tiberius. Talk about no hard feelings!

And speaking of Livia, yes, that Livia. Of the Livia-murdered-everyone theory of Roman history. Although, to be fair, she probably didn't actually murder anywhere near as many people as Robert Graves would have you believe.

Speaking of Octavian's love life, Cleopatra apparently tried to seduce him. Third time's the charm? Unfortunately for her, her charms did not work on Octavian the way they did on Mark Antony and Julius Caesar before him. This contributed to Octavian's reputation as a cold fish, although as we know from Livia he really wasn't.

HBO has Julius Caesar rename the month of July after himself. He did not. The month was renamed in his honor (previously it was called the month of Quintilis) but it was Mark Antony who did it, and he only did it after Caesar was dead.

The Strange Inaccuracies of HBO's Rome

HBO's Rome had a very ambitious plot, portraying the final years of the Roman Republic from the start of Caesar's war against Pompey and running until Augustus' ascension as first emperor. It ended after 2 seasons, so it was inevitable that story would be a bit compressed. Characters are cut and combined. Entire wars are cut. Understandable. They only had so much screentime.

This post isn't about the areas they had to compress. This post is about the strange things they decided to add.

First of all, just to get it out of the way, throughout the entire show the characters insist on referring to Gaius Octavius as "Octavian." This despite the fact that "Octavian" isn't even a real name and people only started calling him that after he died. Either this was a research failure, or HBO was pandering to the demographic of people who know who Octavian is but don't know that wasn't actually his name.

Moving on.

In HBO's Rome, when Caesar unexpectedly marches south with a legion and threatens Rome, Pompey Magnus packs up the gold in the treasury to take it with him. The gold is lost in a fight, found again, buried, dug up, and eventually handed over to Julius Caesar in an improbable and time-consuming sequence of events.

In real life, it's not clear exactly why Pompey chose to leave most of the treasury behind. Whatever the reason, he took only some money from the treasury (with the legal permission of the Senate) and left the rest. When Caesar arrived in the city, one of the first things he did was take everything that was left under the flimsiest of pretenses. When officials tried to stop him he threatened to have them killed.

The effect of HBO's version is to remove Caesar's agency. He ended up with the gold without having to actually steal it from the treasury. Pompey looted the treasury, and then Caesar won it fair and square. It's weird that they created this entire plot point in order to shy away from portraying Caesar's tyranny.

This reassignment of agency happens more than once in HBO's Rome. To give another example, let's look at the truce that is negotiated after Caesar's assassination.

In HBO's Rome, Brutus decides that the conspiracy should only kill Caesar, no one else. They do that, and then they return to their mansions and take no further action. Meanwhile, in Mark Antony's house, Caesar's will is read. It is revealed that Caesar left his entire fortune to Octavian. Octavian (of all people) suggests a truce between the Assassins and the Caesarians, in which all of Caesar's acts and appointments (and his will) will be ratified, but the assassins won't be punished for his death.

In real life, Gaius Octavius wasn't there. He wasn't even in Rome. It was Brutus who initiated the negotiations, and the truce itself was Mark Antony's idea. Except, wait, a truce between who and whom? Why do they even need a truce? Because...

Actually, HBO's Rome omits a pretty important factor here, which is that both sides had armies inside the city when this truce was agreed to. I don't know why they didn't mention that.

After Caesar was assassinated, Brutus and his allies fortified themselves on the Capitoline Hill with a small army of gladiators (read: mercenaries). In response, Lepidus, who is not present in the show at this point, marched an entire goddamn legion into Rome and occupied the city.

Lepidus wanted to kill Brutus. Mark Antony (of all people) had to talk him down. That's the context in which Brutus and Antony negotiated their truce. Even considering the need to cut Lepidus for time, they could have just given the legion to Antony.

Giving credit for the truce to Octavius is just such an odd choice. He was in Illyricum. The truce was agreed to before Octavius even found out that Caesar was dead.

And speaking of Octavius...

In HBO's Rome, many people around Octavian are portrayed as not taking him seriously. Mark Antony, his sister Octavia, and his mother Atia, are all shown essentially rolling their eyes at Octavian's pretensions at grandeur.

Incidentally, we can now properly call him Octavian because at this point he has changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar. We call him Octavian because it's the past-tense of Octavius. He is now the psychotic warlord formerly known as Octavius, known to historians as Octavianus or Octavian, but his friends all call him Gaius Julius Caesar.

HBO's Octavian is a soft little boy who nobody takes seriously. After the will is read, he whines at Mark Antony to pretty please release his inheritance, which Antony brushes off. This culminates in Octavian secretly (?) borrowing a vast sum of money to partially pay out the money (approximately 3 months' pay for a laborer) that Caesar promised in his will to every adult male Roman citizen. After this Mark Antony beats Octavian up, and then Octavian promptly flees the city. Simultaneously, Cicero also flees the city and starts criticizing Antony and praising Octavian. I do not believe the narrative ever specifies that Mark Antony releases Octavian's inheritance to him.

This is, uh, an interesting portrayal of Octavian, to put it mildly. It's interesting how first Julius Caesar and now Octavian are portrayed as softer and more sympathetic than they really were.

First of all, the notion that there was anyone in Rome who didn't take Octavian seriously is a joke. From the second the will was read Octavian was a political force unto himself. In the show Octavian doesn't even start calling himself Caesar until quite far along, and few other people ever humor him. In real life, when he returned to Rome, Caesar's legions flocked to greet Octavian and hail him as Caesar.

When people say that the most valuable thing Caesar gave Octavian was his name, they are not exaggerating for effect. For the rest of the civil war, a recurring theme will be Caesar's legions flat-out refusing to oppose Octavian. Or, as they called him, Caesar.

It is true that Mark Antony refused to hand over Caesar's fortune to Octavian at first, and it is true that Octavian borrowed heavily to fulfill the obligations in Caesar's will. But Octavian didn't flee the city in fear for his safety after that. There was no need. First of all, his donations made him massively popular with the public. If Antony had laid a hand on Octavian at that point, after dragging his feet on Caesar's donations, the mob would have ripped him to shreds. Secondly, one of the things Octavian bought with the money he borrowed was a bodyguard of loyal Caesarian veterans. If Mark Antony had actually tried to personally manhandle him at this point as he does in the show, he would never have made it past Octavian's new heavily-armed posse of veteran legionaries.

Antony eventually had no choice but to release Octavian's inheritance. Now the richest man in Rome, possibly the world, Octavian's personal bodyguard ballooned into a private army.

One day, Mark Antony left the city to inspect some legions. Suddenly, taking everyone by surprise, Octavian's private army put Rome under occupation.

This is the third time Rome has been occupied in, what, two years? First Caesar, then Lepidus, now Octavian.

Mark Antony returned to Rome with his 6 legions, outnumbering Octavian 20 to 1, and this is when Octavian had to flee. But 2 of those 6 legions refused to march against the son of Caesar and immediately went over to Octavian, making the odds much more even. Antony tried to have Octavian declared an enemy of the state, but with Cicero supporting Octavian and opposing Antony that was a difficult prospect.

Antony appealed to Decimus, the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, for assistance. Decimus also immediately went over to Octavian. Decimus was actually one of the people who killed Caesar, so he didn't care about the "son of Caesar," but Antony had very recently started a personal beef with him by trying to steal Decimus's province so there wasn't much of a contest.

It's odd that the show tries to show Octavian as a brilliant schemer with all these things he didn't do, while omitting the things he actually did. Octavian masterfully backed Antony into a corner by forming a unified anti-Antony alliance out of the pro-Caesar and anti-Caesar factions.

And then he stabbed them all in the back!

Antony marched north to confront Decimus. The second he left the city, he lost control of it to Cicero. An army led by newly-elected consuls loyal to Cicero joined up with Octavian and marched against Antony in support of Decimus.

The consular army won over Antony, but both consuls died in the fighting. In the absence of leadership, all the legions under their control ... went over to the son of Caesar. Of course. This was so convenient that a longstanding conspiracy theory holds that Octavian was behind the consuls' deaths.

As an aside, it must have been incredibly frustrating to fight against Octavian. There seems to have been about a 50/50 chance that any army sent against him would defect at first opportunity.

Octavian informed Cicero and the Senate that since both consuls had died, they desperately needed new leadership. Like, right now. Before any new elections could be held. And he had just the person in mind - himself!

Cicero said no, so Octavian marched on Rome. Again. Cicero called on four legions from Africa to defend Rome (remember that Antony just marched off with the legions that were supposed to be defending Rome). All four legions ... went over to the son of Caesar. Because of course they did.

A famous exchange took place between a Caesarian centurion and a Senatorial delegation.

When the senate demurred, a centurion, named Cornelius, who was at the head of the chief deputation, throwing back his cloak, and showing the hilt of his sword, had the presumption to say in the senate-house, "This will make him consul, if ye will not."

And that's how Octavian became consul of Rome at age 20. The minimum age to legally run for consul was 43.

Now ruling Rome as sole consul, Octavian made peace with Antony. In the words of Youtuber Historia Civilis:

In doing so, he stabbed Cicero, Decimus, Cassius, Brutus, and the entire Roman Senate in the back.

You can see why I find HBO's portrayal of Octavian as a soft boy that nobody takes seriously to be a bit weird. Octavian was a lying, scheming, backstabbing force of nature who entered the political scene by occupying Rome at the head of a private army. HBO's portrayal dramatically undersells how much support Octavian had within the army, especially after the stunt he pulled giving away free money to every citizen.

I understand condensing the story in the name of screentime, but they seem to have deliberately softened the two Caesars. The way they show it, you would think that poor widdle Octavian had no choice but to take up arms to protect himself and his inheritance from that mean bully Mark Antony.

In real life, Octavian was the original Machiavellian backstabber. He started a five-sided civil war and then masterfully orchestrated it so that he'd come out on top. He also must have been pretty persuasive to get so many armies to defect to him. This is not the end of the defections, either. Later on Octavian will walk into Lepidus' legionary camp with just a few bodyguards and talk his entire army into defecting, ending Lepidus' political career with a whimper. Then even later on, the last of the civil wars will effectively end when Mark Antony's remaining army of 40,000 refuses orders to regroup in Egypt and instead defect en masse to the son of Caesar.

It's telling that in the show, Octavian arranges the truce between the assassins and the Caesarians while Mark Antony breaks it by inciting a mob. In real life, it was Mark Antony who arranged the truce and then Antony and Octavian sort of took turns trampling all over it.

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sapphiresonstrings · 5 days ago

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The Strange Inaccuracies of HBO's Rome

This post isn't about the areas they had to compress. This post is about the strange things they decided to add.

Moving on.

This reassignment of agency happens more than once in HBO's Rome. To give another example, let's look at the truce that is negotiated after Caesar's assassination.

Actually, HBO's Rome omits a pretty important factor here, which is that both sides had armies inside the city when this truce was agreed to. I don't know why they didn't mention that.

Giving credit for the truce to Octavius is just such an odd choice. He was in Illyricum. The truce was agreed to before Octavius even found out that Caesar was dead.

And speaking of Octavius...

Incidentally, we can now properly call him Octavian because at this point he has changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. We call him Octavian because it's the past-tense of Octavius. He is now the psychotic warlord formerly known as Octavius, known to historians as Octavianus or Octavian, but his friends all call him Gaius Julius Caesar.

This is, uh, an interesting portrayal of Octavian, to put it mildly. It's interesting how first Julius Caesar and now Octavian are portrayed as softer and more sympathetic than they really were.

Antony eventually had no choice but to release Octavian's inheritance. Now the richest man in Rome, possibly the world, Octavian's personal bodyguard ballooned into a private army.

One day, Mark Antony left the city to inspect some legions. Suddenly, taking everyone by surprise, Octavian's private army put Rome under occupation.

This is the third time Rome has been occupied in, what, two years? First Caesar, then Lepidus, now Octavian.

And then he stabbed them all in the back!

As an aside, it must have been incredibly frustrating to fight against Octavian. There seems to have been about a 50/50 chance that any army sent against him would defect at first opportunity.

A famous exchange took place between a Caesarian centurion and a Senatorial delegation.

And that's how Octavian became consul of Rome at age 20. The minimum age to legally run for consul was 43.

Now ruling Rome as sole consul, Octavian made peace with Antony. In the words of Youtuber Historia Civilis:

In doing so, he stabbed Cicero, Decimus, Cassius, Brutus, and the entire Roman Senate in the back.

#hbo rome #julius caesar #roman history

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sapphiresonstrings · 8 days ago

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There are 12 months in the year because the Moon orbits the Earth 12.3 times every year and its phases are visible to the naked eye.

The ancient Romans used a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months. A lunar month is only 29.5 days, so the Pontifex Maximus had to add several extra days into each year to make it line up with the seasons. If he didn't (for instance because he was too busy conquering Gaul) the months would drift out of alignment with the seasons. Imagine if January drifted into autumn and you get the idea.

When Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus he switched to a solar calendar based on the advice of an Egyptian astronomer. This new "Julian Calendar" kept the same 12 month year but extended the months so they would actually add up to 365 days in each year, no extra days necessary. He also made February shorter because he thought it was unlucky.

Our modern calendar is a slight variation on the Julian Calendar that fixes leap years. Julius Caesar mistakenly believed the year was 365.25 days long, when in fact it is 365.2425 days long. Our 0.0075-day shorter calendar, called the Gregorian Calendar, was introduced by a later Pontifex Maximus named Pope Gregory XIII.

That's why the modern calendar has a unit of time based on the phases of the moon despite not being a lunar calendar.

there are 12 months in the year, 12 signs in the western zodiac, and 12 signs in the chinese zodiac

is there a reason to use 12 other than "divisible by 3 and by 4?"

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sapphiresonstrings · 11 days ago

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The worst part about being a competitive person is getting competitive about things that you don't care about. You watch someone show off their woodworking project and you think "I could do that, and better than this", and so in spite of having no interest in woodworking you embark on this plan to make a small coffee table, motivated only by the belief that you can beat the other person at woodworking.

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sapphiresonstrings · 17 days ago

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My preferred version is that a dragon is a kind of landed aristocrat who keeps a stable of dragon-riders to carry into battle, the same way a knight keeps a stable of horses.

A war-trained dragon-rider is capable of casting protection or healing magic on its own dragon as well as long-range attack magic capable of damaging rival dragons. This gives a dragon with a rider a decisive advantage over a riderless dragon.

However, because riders quickly exhaust all their magic in battle conditions, a dragon needs to switch out its rider multiple times during battle, necessitating that each dragon maintain a stable of multiple riders.

What are some of your head canons & ideas for dragon keeping? While I’m a massive lover of dragon rider/keeper fiction in general, I do genuinely believe that dragons would make terrible pets. Owning a dragon being like owning tigers or chimpanzees, being extremly powerful & dangerous wild animals with dangerous/inconvenient habits & needs that are difficult (and expensive) to manage in captivity. Being large, flying, fire breathing apex predators with tendencies towards hoarding treasure making them especially so.

As with most fantasy, I think it depends entirely on the characterisation of the dragons! I suppose urban fantasy dragons could roughly fit into five broad categories, at least that I've written:

● Dragons that are fully sapient beings. (These dragons are usually large and capable of human speech.) In this case it is out of the question to "keep" a dragon. But you might be its roommate (exhibit A, exhibit B), its business partner (exhibit C), or the dragon might keep you (exhibit D, exhibit E, exhibit F).

● Dragons that are large wild animals. (These dragons are often characterised as naturally dangerous/aggressive, and magical.) This is the kind of dragon you find in dragon slayer stories (exhibit G) and anyone trying to keep one is setting themselves up for disaster.

● Dragons that are small(ish) wild animals. If the dragons aren't (fully) domesticated, but are not particularly dangerous, they can be a fun alternative wildlife to populate a world with (exhibit H). Maybe someone could tame one and keep it as a pet, but it would probably not be a great idea.

● Dragons that are large domesticated animals. (There's a lot of room for variety here concerning shape, size, powers, etc.) In these cases it would be most logical to me if it was possible to keep and even ride a dragon, but you'd need special training to do so, and have access to the right facilities for the dragon (exhibit I).

● Dragons that are small domesticated animals. In this case the dragons are specifically meant to be (mostly) harmless and suitable for rearing and keeping by humans. That could mean "safe to keep in a dedicated enclosure" (exhibit J), or "particularly bred to keep as house pets" (exhibit K, and all my pocket dragons). Compared to most folklore and fantasy dragons (although there is no strict definition of either), you might argue that these are hardly dragons anymore. But all's fair in fiction and I think we deserve tiny dragons that want to snuggle on our laps.

Now of course I tend to write light-hearted things, you could absolutely take any of these types of dragons and write something darker. Either exploring the risks to humans, or the treatment of (magical) animals. That's just not my personal preference ^^

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sapphiresonstrings · 25 days ago

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Like, I'm sorry, maybe I missed the Biden administration feminists who went on a speaking tour with Andrew Tate?

This seems like an odd comparison. Wouldn't the equivalent be something more like a high profile feminist leader making pro-LGBT comments while simultaneously carrying water for a prominent homophobe like Louis Farrakhan?

I'm bringing up Louis Farrakhan being homophobic rather than taking about his antisemitic blood libel because that's the part that contradicts Linda Sarsour's stated beliefs. If she had taken a strong stance against antisemitism then obviously I would have used that as the example.

Still, it just goes to show that political movements are big tents with plenty of room for crazy people of all colors and creeds. Even if you go around loudly and unapologetically talking about the "Jewish Question," you can still attend all the hip events with prominent members of both the Republican and Democractic parties.

Isn't the political tapestry of your country so beautiful? Regular Democrats donate to regular Democrat-aligned Political Action Committees like Emily's List. Then Emily's List donates that money to other PACs like Women's March, Inc, and on and on and on until everyone forgets where it came from. Then finally someone takes the money and gives it to Linda Sarsour, who uses it to finance her day job of tweeting about how she thinks Ayaan Hirsi Ali is "asking 4 an a$$ whippin'." Commenting further about Ali and another woman, she also tweeted, "I wish I could take their vaginas away - they don't deserve to be women." What an intellectually consistent feminist thinker, very much deserving of that Emily's List money.

But no, you're right, the crackpots and extremists are all on the other side. Your side is full of nothing but perfect pure people who never do anything wrong. No prominent Democrat has ever been associated with extremism.

It's all Trump's fault. Everything was just fine until he showed up and released all the evil into the world like some kind of political Pandora's Box.

Towards a Unified Theory of Conspiracy Crank Politics

I've been thinking a lot about what seems to drive the person I will call, for lack of a better term, the conspiracy crank world-view, and particularly, my feelings about the great crank realignment.

A lot of people have said, "It seems like 30 years ago conspiracy weirdos were pretty bipartisan people, but now they all seem to be Trump loyalists."

My belief is that it's not that the conspiracy cranks became more right-wing; rather, it's that the Republicans have largely stopped being a right-wing party and are instead now a conspiracy crank party.

So, I've said this before, and I'm not well enough read in the history of conspiracy thinking to bring up old examples, but as a kid I subscribed to Skeptical Enquirer, and I remember quickly coming to two conclusions:

The reason a lot of the alien conspiracy X Files stuff is so interesting in fiction is that talented fiction writers have used it as a jumping off point to make an interesting story; the primary conspiracy literature is often very poorly written, not very inventive, and frequently openly bigoted, which leads into my second discovery,

A lot of times there is only one degree of seperation between "Big pharma and modern living has severed our spiritual connection to our earth mother Gaia" and "The Jews run the world with the aim of keeping the white race enslaved". Like, the far right conspiracy people were often really willing to ally with and break bread with the far left conspiracy people, and vice versa, in fact much more so then the more grounded parts of the left and right.

And I think that's because the conspiracy theorists have a kind of common mindset with certain shared features, regardless of the specifics of their conspiracy.

These are things that I have noticed as commonalities, and they aren't limited to conspiracy cranks; in fact, probably the vast majority of people have these habits of thought to some extent. My argument is that they are often abnormally strong in conspiracy believers.

Belief in a just world. A lot of fringe types have a really strong belief that the world is fundamentally just, and that in the ordinary course of things bad things do not happen to good people. Bad things only happen because a personified force arranged for the bad thing to happen. The example I've used before is slipping and falling off a ladder. Many of us would attribute such a thing to pure chance; some people will take it as evidence that a witch or a demon has cursed them.

An extreme difficulty with feeling out of control. It is hard for them to accept that in some circumstances they may not have control. Things which make them feel like they are no longer in control are very often interpreted as hostilities against them.

A severe difficulty in actually putting themselves in another person's shoes. Often, the conspiracy minded person is incredibly judgemental about others, and particularly, they really, really struggle with the idea that something might be easy for them, but difficult for someone else, or difficult for them, but necessary to help someone else.

Like I said, we all have these habits to some extent, I just think they are often magnified in the conspiracy crank.

As an example of what I mean by these thought patters, I am in the middle of a podcast reviewing a crank movie about how germs don't cause diseases. And apparently, in this movie, they first have a heroic interview with a restaurant owner who not only never required his patrons to wear masks, he actually banned any mask wearing on the premises.

Which is followed immediately by a scene of a person getting kicked out of a store for not masking, and talking about how it's incredibly shocking that what should be a matter of personal conscience is being enforced by the government.

And there's just no sense that there is any hypocrisy or tension here.

What I mean is, a principled libertarian might say, "Each individual business can require masks, or require you to take masks off, or have no policy, according to their individual decision, and we should allow them to make those decisions and abide by them."

Another principled position might be that we have extremely compelling evidence for the pandemic, and maybe certain kinds of policies should be temporarily enacted to slow the spread, even though they infringe on what would be, in ordinary times, important liberties, because they serve to protect the collective greater good.

Either of these positions sort of takes it for granted that a choice that I, personally, might not fully agree with might still be important to other people.

But the crank mindset says, "I don't want to wear a mask. So forcing people to wear a mask is an imposition on important freedoms. But since I'm already comfortable without a mask, forcing people to take their masks off isn't any kind of imposition on anybody's freedom, that's ridiculous."

You can see what I'm talking about most clearly in certain right-wing Christians. I've seen Christians say that freedom is exactly the same as following God's will, and that disobedience to God is a form of bondage and slavery.

These habits of mind are not, themselves, partisan; the can be applied to any cause, right-wing or left-wing. I might just have easily brought up "Free speech doesn't mean tolerating hate speech."

But I would argue that the reverse is not true, that you can build a political party that caters primarily to people with these habits of mind.

These people tend to flock to politicians who simultaneously promise a strong government which they can borrow to reassert their sense of control in the world, but the actual specific politics of that government are squishy and malleable.

The government has to be strong and able to domineer others because the conspiracy crank understands that they are in opposition to some large portion of the population, and so the government has to be strong enough to say, for example, "We will make sure that no private business will kick you out for wearing a mask."

When the world feels out of control, the government will lend you the tools to reassert your control over the world around you.

But the actual political goals of the government have to be extremely vague and malleable, so that they can move quickly to maintain the illusion that good people don't ever really disagree about this stuff.

A government which is coherently committed to a libertarian project might well say, "Sorry, those businesses have every right to decide who they cater to."

You have to be a weathervane, once a majority of cranks decide that vaccines and mask mandates are bad, you have to swivel and take that position in order to maintain a sort of illusion that whatever freedoms your crank audience wants in the moment are inherently sensible and that no sane person could disagree.

My argument is that Trump has turned the Republicans into the crank party, the party that signals to cranks that it will have their backs, whereas thirty years ago, the parties were still committed enough to coherent political goals that neither one could make that promise, and so cranks had to be politically idiosyncratic.

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