Big bumper booster blog pack super-update.

Good news, the next chapter of Beautiful Night is done, but it's being released when the whole side story it's tied to can come out in full with it. Estimated final count, 40K words, currently half complete. Less good news.

THREE.

I HAVE FORGOTTEN THREE OF THESE UPDATES.

FIRSTLY! I have this anxiety inducing speculative short fiction piece, "The Life Expectancy of the American Zoomer".

SECONDLY! I have this writing advice piece as a spiritual sequel to The Hazardous Materials, "Playing in the Sandbox", about why I think some authors can spend a ton of time writing a long, epic war-story and not seem to improve over the course of writing it.

THIRDLY! I have this article on Gentleman Volunteers! How the armies of Europe - though I focus on Britain - mostly had officers that bought their way into the commission. And why the soldiers liked it that way, and what we can learn from this really kind of messed up power dynamic.

I hope at least one of them tickles your fancy. There was a fourth, but it didn't work out well, so the deep shame of it shall remain Patron only.

Next week's I'm actually really proud of, so I probably won't forget.

Comments

[Carabas]

All of them tickled my fancy and then some. Especially the Gentleman Volunteers article. Napoleonic warfare's a fascinating, bewildering field.

[iisaw]

All great reads!

[ponygrad]

All very good reads. It was very suprising to read the sharpe books/show and know that they weren't exaggerating, that officers were respected because of there breeding in spite of their ignorance. I guess it beats the alternative belief that your leaders are hopelessly bad. Guess I have to go down the rabbit hole of figuring out why the british conqueued the world, but without listening to any british person.

Also, you missed the pinafore song that's even more on the nose about it!

[Andrew-R]

yeah.. I was thinking recently about 'alternative' timeline when for example capitalism was given serious resistance, not support since ~200 years. Was it possible with normal humans? May be not.. But what exactly can make aristocraty actually working in different direction it worked historically? What they (and modern hierarchical man) lack most? Sensitivity [to 'lower' class], possibility to see and act on their own blind spots, ability to 'see' power lines and surges and instead of trying to ride them try to making them work for general (and expanding idea of 'general' beyond anthropocentered, in our case, human-only 'club') public.. well, because this is site about imaginable non-humans - they obviously can have different history than our own - but few writers can and wish to explore those roads ... we more-or less know our psychology defined by very small things (neurons, neuromediators ..] and their dynamics - but what if something actually was able to prevent our usual one-way non-stop ride to worst of our denials _without_ giving us ability to see and manipulate it back to (wrong) norm? So, it will become new norm, and radiate from above.. much like way current ideas get their hold on public, but with different consequences this time ...

For links I found few days ago:
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4218-erik-olin-wright-compass-points-towards-a-socialist-alternative

While there have been revolutionary challenges to capitalism, the historical examples of ruptural transformation have never been able to sustain an extended process of democratic experimentalist institution-building. The voluntarist theory of constructing alternative, emancipatory institutions depends upon the active, creative and empowered participation of ordinary people in a process of deliberation and decision-making. There have been brief episodes of such participation within attempts at the revolutionary transformation of capitalism, but they have always been short-lived and relatively isolated. It is, of course, a complex matter to diagnose the reasons for these failures, but it is likely that the concentrated forms of political power and organization needed to produce a successful revolutionary rupture with capitalist institutions are themselves incompatible with the participatory practices needed for democratic experimentalism. Revolutionary parties may be effective ‘organizational weapons’ to topple capitalist states in certain circumstances, but they appear to be extremely ineffective means for constructing a democratic egalitarian alternative.

https://truthout.org/articles/ten-ways-to-challenge-capitalism-s-death-grip-on-daily-life/

9. Develop each other’s identities as agents of change.

One danger in the present organizing context in the United States is that a lot of work is being done in professional nonprofits where members and supporters give money and sign petitions but are not actively involved. Social movements that lead to lasting transformation usually have ways to engage people deeply enough to make a lasting impact on how they see themselves. When movements develop people’s civic capacity, they can build momentum toward deeper changes. [..]

http://www.geo.coop/node/139
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The Mondragon model is itself for now salvageable. But it faces a moral dilemma: only if the network, rectifying itself internally, also rededicates itself to intercooperation with the alternative cooperative economy at the global level, can it avoid sinking back into capitalism. For worker co-ops like Mondragon usually become capitalist not because they are co-operative, but because, in isolation, they are not co-operative enough.