Wrath Of Gnon

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Wrath Of Gnon
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Traditionalist. #GoodUrbanism (mirror of @wrathofgnon@twitter.com)
Have you heard about the Collier Problem? "A collier problem occurs whenever a new technology requires the technology it nominally replaces to function due to efficiency limits. The collier problem is normally associated with energy supply requirements, but can be applied to other situations." Fascinating problem and also a fascinating background, how windjammers (ships only using sails for propulsion) were vital to keeping steamships in operation on mid- and long distance routes, lasting until the introduction of diesel powered ships after the Great War. Maritime and global technology history.
Terrific writeup on a study about the unifying effects of taking part in grief rituals and shared sorrow. I have said it before but rituals are the only way we have of making sense of death. The part on the survey after the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II also shows how a royal family is the strongest national symbol we have. The family is both the largest and smallest unit of society. https://hell.twtr.plus/media/2d3454d6a710e64e2623bc0fa84917ab2eac0f81f483542d35b2b024b280ec30.file https://hell.twtr.plus/media/300d036e0778a014209eae8be09d34abe2288ab56a4c27e0aaab518a52ee58dc.file
When we build something, like a doorframe or entrance, we are faced with nearly infinite choices in materials, form, colors, shapes, etc. This dilemma is usually solved by striving for agreement, based on individual decisions that accumulate over time and history and shared judgments: we form culture and culture forms us. And every time we build something we makeβ€”or are forced to do soβ€”a choice. Even unconsciously, humans are want to assign meaning to every choice they make, no matter how insignificant. Because we are rational beings. However, in architecture, modernism doesn't work as a style or fashion: it is an ideology. It muscles in that gap between infinite options and rational meaning. "You can only chose me", it says, and here is why. It even comes with an arsenal to launch at those who defy it: "You are uneducated, uneconomical, kitsch, pastiche, slavish copy, reactionary" and so on, even though all of these things can be said with even increased accuracy on an ideology masquerading as a style among others, based on the ideas of a group of men in Weimar in the first years of the 1920s. Imagine this situation with a builder in the 1880s, the 1910s, or the 1420s? Impossible. Modernism (or its proper name in architecture, lInternational style" is not a style like Baroque or Rococo or Art Deco, it is an ideology. https://hell.twtr.plus/media/510e40f1789f78b311f6681e408c663541923851cd434258e55924a22cdab399.file
A rediscovered later, 1851 autobiography by Shadrack Byfield (1789-1874) a famous English veteran of the 1812 war. Interesting how they assumed he was illiterate. I have read his 1840 autobiography about his time in America.
RT @pegobry_en@twitter.com: I've already told this story. As an undergraduate studying philosophy in Paris, most of my friends were shitlibs and kept trying to get me to read whatever atrocious book had caught the attention of the editors at Le Monde or Le Nouvel Obs that month. Eventually, to shut them up, I would tell them "I only read books by dead people." At first, it was obviously a joke/provocation, but eventually I memed myself into doing it, and benefited greatly from it. https://hell.twtr.plus/media/b360d2a12d41328557bef2d326ba2176b97cd244ee5e48989f30621e010db043.file