November 2013 – The Scholar's Stage

The First Thankgiving: Climax of America’s Greatest Science Fiction Flick

29 November, 2013History, Narrative

Science Fiction Hero? Photo of Massoit statue overlooking Plymouth Rock. Taken by Greg Kullberg, 14 Dec 2007. Wikimedia. Why have most Americans never heard the actual story behind Plymouth Bay Colony‘s first thanksgiving feast? Scott Alexander suggests that the problem comes down to narrative. The real tale just does not fit easily into any of […]

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Notes From All Over (26/11/13): Germs, Governments. and Gettysburg

26 November, 2013By The People, Culture, Demographics, Dogs of War, Epidemiology, Futuristics, History, Narrative, Notes From All Over, Persia, The Presidency

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. This is the first “Notes From All Over” I have written this month, so this list is a long one. TOP BILLING When We Lose Antibiotics, Here’s Everything Else We’ll Lose TooMaryn McKenna. Wired. 20 November 2013. If we really lost antibiotics to advancing drug resistance […]

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Another Look at ‘The Rise of the West’ – But With Better Numbers

20 November, 2013Demographics, Europa Regina, History, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

Why the West? I do not think there is any other historical controversy that has so enthralled the public intellectuals of our age. The popularity of the question can probably be traced to Western unease with a rising China and the ease with which the issue can be used as proxy war for the much […]

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The Nomadic Survival Strategy: Salzman’s 20 Observations

11 November, 2013Books and Literature, Complex Systems, On Humanity, Persia, Steppe and Sown

A Taureg nomad in the Sahara. Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic. © “The nomadic strategy is one means by which people adapt to thinly spread resources and to the variability of the resources across space and over time. It is also a strategy for avoiding other deleterious environmental conditions, such as extreme heat […]

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Introducing: The Mongol Project

06 November, 2013Complex Systems, History, Site Announcements, Steppe and Sown

The world before the Mongols. Map Created by Thomass Lessman for Wikimedia “I will now tell you all about the Tartars and how they acquired their empire and spread throughout the world.” – Marco Polo, The Travels [1] I suspect the Mongol Empire needs no introduction to the readers of The Stage. No conquests so […]

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A Few Thoughts on Ender’s Game

03 November, 2013Books and Literature, Military Affairs

WARNING – EXTENSIVE PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD. This week the bloggers of Fabius Maximus have posted several times on the evils of Orson Scott Card‘s popular science fiction book, Ender’s Game. I figure I might as well pile on. I read Ender’s Game for the second time earlier this summer. I noticed it was included in […]

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Monthly Archives: November 2013