Comments on: On security http://thetarpit.org/2016/on-security "Now I feel like I know less about what that blog is about than I did before." Sun, 20 Sep 2026 15:34:53 +0000 http://thetarpit.org hourly 1 By: spyked http://thetarpit.org/2016/on-security#comment-7812 spyked Sat, 12 Sep 2026 17:15:30 +0000 http://wp.thetarpit.org/2016/on-security#comment-7812 One coda to that coda would be that in order for some particular application of the notion of security to even make sense, that application must emerge from a boundary -- say, in the very same way you build walls and a fence in and around the place you live, so that you may clearly define the "inside" and the "outside". And to this coda we may add that from this particular perspective, the whole notion of "open society" -- which, yes, is an neoimperial idea spawned by the West -- is utter nonsense and one of the greatest failure modes that our age could muster. Sure, Soros, however pragmatic a man he may be (or have been), thought that by the time his "vision" i.e. ideology would be put into full practice, everyone would speak English. One may imagine a similar Soros, but this time of Roman descent, sometime at the beginning of our current calendaristic era, envisioning how everyone in the world would eventually speak Latin. And his vision came true by and large, except by the time everyone in, say, the territory marked by the Roman province Dacia Felix, came to use Latin in their daily affairs, every other aspect that made up the Roman Empire and its subsequent versions had very little in common with the initial Republic of Rome. The very same is the case with the US and the West today: whatever English, French or German there may remain in global public affairs for the rest of this century, they'll be had on Chinese terms. Sad or not, 'tis the present. One coda to that coda would be that in order for some particular application of the notion of security to even make sense, that application must emerge from a boundary -- say, in the very same way you build walls and a fence in and around the place you live, so that you may clearly define the "inside" and the "outside".

And to this coda we may add that from this particular perspective, the whole notion of "open society" -- which, yes, is an neoimperial idea spawned by the West -- is utter nonsense and one of the greatest failure modes that our age could muster. Sure, Soros, however pragmatic a man he may be (or have been), thought that by the time his "vision" i.e. ideology would be put into full practice, everyone would speak English.

One may imagine a similar Soros, but this time of Roman descent, sometime at the beginning of our current calendaristic era, envisioning how everyone in the world would eventually speak Latin. And his vision came true by and large, except by the time everyone in, say, the territory marked by the Roman province Dacia Felix, came to use Latin in their daily affairs, every other aspect that made up the Roman Empire and its subsequent versions had very little in common with the initial Republic of Rome. The very same is the case with the US and the West today: whatever English, French or German there may remain in global public affairs for the rest of this century, they'll be had on Chinese terms.

Sad or not, 'tis the present.

]]> By: Against the direction in Romanian culture today, translated and annotated « The Tar Pit http://thetarpit.org/2016/on-security#comment-4215 Against the direction in Romanian culture today, translated and annotated « The Tar Pit Sun, 28 May 2023 14:20:38 +0000 http://wp.thetarpit.org/2016/on-security#comment-4215 [...] a "man of culture", you may ask? Well, the man of culture is a man who knows a great deal more than you do on a great variety of topics. Hopefully you noticed that he was twenty-eight when he wrote this [...] [...] a "man of culture", you may ask? Well, the man of culture is a man who knows a great deal more than you do on a great variety of topics. Hopefully you noticed that he was twenty-eight when he wrote this [...]

]]> By: spyked http://thetarpit.org/2016/on-security#comment-3132 spyked Fri, 30 Sep 2022 15:41:04 +0000 http://wp.thetarpit.org/2016/on-security#comment-3132 A coda to this piece would be that: "cultural domination" is a self-defeating proposition. The proposition that every soul in the world will end up with the same mores, habits, traditions and so on and so forth is entirely nonsensical, since by the time everyone and their dog eats McDonald's and watches CNN(N), McDonald's and CNN(N) will be stripped of their sense and eventually they will be utterly corrupted into unexistence. Such things cannot survive by their very nature, since nature <a href="http://thetarpit.org/2022/all-roads-lead-to-rome-or-how-and-why-nature-abhors-singularities-or-some-pitfalls-of-causality" rel="nofollow">abhors vacuums</a>, totality ending up being simply nothing. This is simply how empires fail, through the reduction of their culture towards the smallest possible point in the space of ideas. A coda to this piece would be that: "cultural domination" is a self-defeating proposition. The proposition that every soul in the world will end up with the same mores, habits, traditions and so on and so forth is entirely nonsensical, since by the time everyone and their dog eats McDonald's and watches CNN(N), McDonald's and CNN(N) will be stripped of their sense and eventually they will be utterly corrupted into unexistence. Such things cannot survive by their very nature, since nature abhors vacuums, totality ending up being simply nothing.

This is simply how empires fail, through the reduction of their culture towards the smallest possible point in the space of ideas.

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