The Secret Histories

I was reading Strategikon (of Maurice, not Kekaumenos), a handbook of military strategy probably authored by the Emperor Maurice. it occurred to me that the practical military knowledge it contained was effectively secret knowledge, not usually available to enemies of Byzantium. Sometimes because those enemies were illiterate, more often because various social and geographic barriers made sneaking out a copy of Strategikon pretty unlikely. So, secret knowledge, the wisdom of the Occident.

In principle, the United States ought to have whole secret libraries. I don’t mean nuclear data from hydrogen bomb tests – I mean the distilled essence of the greatest minds that have served the Republic. Nathanael Greene’s musing on how he beat Cornwallis by taking advantage of multiple definitions of victory. Sherman’s definitive analysis of Jackson’s Valley Campaign. Nimitz’s inside history of the Pacific war: he said he never wrote one, because it would hurt people (people like Halsey), but then he would say that, wouldn’t he. Can’t have people digging around for the secret history, available only to the War College’s star pupils…

Only they seem to have been misplaced somehow. Probably they’re all boxed up in that warehouse, next to the Ark of the Covenant.

School’s out

I saw a note by Razib Khan, in which he mentioned that psychometric research suggests that people plateau in their knowledge base as adults. I could believe it. But I’m not sure it’s true in my case. One might estimate total adult knowledge in terms of BS equivalents…

Goolie Chits

A goolie chit, also known as a blood chit, is a notice addressed to whoever, promising a reward for giving assistance to the bearer, payable when he shows up somewhere safe. For example, in World War I, RAF pilots in India and Mesopotamia carried a goolie chit, printed in four local languages, that promised a reward for anyone that would bring an unharmed British aviator back to British lines. Some US service members serving in various dirty sandpiles have been issued chits that guarantee $500,000 for aid and safe return.

It strikes me that there might be a larger market for goolie chits – people working for aid organizations in various pestholes, oil and gas workers, extreme tourists [ the sort of people that insist on seeing Palmyra right now ], people visiting Europe on any national holiday, those running liquor stores in inner Baltimore, etc. With the proper QR code blazoned on your shirt, the more sophisticated terrorists would swerve to miss you while mowing down chitless bystanders. In order to make this startup into a unicorn, you need to hire top-notch modern actuaries, and, of course, do all the usual things to get an efficient website, get away with violating numerous local and state laws simply by being really cool, etc. You can get favorable coverage from reporters just by giving them stock [ and, for the more adventurous, discount goolie chits.] Bitcoin rewards will be an option for those threatened by future AI.

Yosemite Sam

When you grow up in a particular environment, you tend to think of it as the default, but it ain’t necessarily so. Once you realize it doesn’t have to be, you can end up wondering what really is normal – especially if its a topic that people don’t discuss all that much.

One of my boys [ Sam ] developed the ability to curse before he could talk. He sounded a lot like Yosemite Sam: “That dirty perka shorka bat-flattin’ portin’ filabunkabertin’, perkalooma burtin’ dirtin’ boostinattin’ bartin’ anatom, oooooooh!”. He did it when he was really mad. I have no idea who might have set him such a bad example.

Do other toddlers do this?

The Coming Thing

In your opinion, what are the most interesting possibilities coming up in science and technology? With an emphasis on things that have practical value. Two categories: Biology and not-biology. Show your work. Be prepared to argue, as always.

Halsey’s Typhoon

In December 1944, Task Force 38, under Admiral William Halsey, sailed straight into a typhoon in the Philippine Sea. 790 sailors were lost, and many other ships suffered serious damage.

Previously, on October 25, Halsey had been decoyed into chasing empty Japanese carriers while leaving the American invasion force largely unprotected, resulting in the Battle off Samar – the last major naval battle. Six American escort carriers, 3 destroyers, and 4 destroyer escorts faced 4 Japanese battleships (including the Yamato), 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers.
My uncle Frank was on the Raymond, one of those destroyer escorts. We won, no thanks to Halsey, but lost 1500 men.

In early June, 1945, Halsey sailed into a typhoon again. A number of ships suffered serious damage, but only six sailors were lost this time.

Halsey fucked up, repeatedly. It’s obvious even to fictional characters, like Marko Ramius in The Hunt For Red October. If not for pressure from the top, Halsey would have been relieved. But Nimitz had reasons for sparing him. Not ones I agree with, but reasons. Halsey was an important symbol of the Navy to the general public, and it was thought that letting it all hang out would hurt the Navy in the expected budgetary fights after the war. And to be fair, Halsey wasn’t a traitor or anything: he was just dumb. Or, as a kinder person than I once said, by 1944, the war had become too complicated for Halsey.

Christ, they gave Halsey five stars, more than Spruance.

Problem is, this seems to be standard policy. Once you soar above a certain level, you never get punished for fucking up. Mangle a major company (like HP) and they whip you with hundred dollar bills – your failure is the stepping stone to a Presidential campaign. Invade the wrong country, turn another into an anarchic sand pile, misread the Soviet Union as the coming thing – you have foreign policy ‘experience’. Reminds me of an 11 year old’s definition of experience – what you have after you’ve forgotten her name..

I’m not quite ready to say ‘off with their heads’ – but surely we could cut back on rewarding high-level failure.

The Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo

All too often we see large, long-lasting research efforts that never produce, never achieve their goal.

For example, the amyloid hypothesis [accumulation of amyloid-beta oligomers is the cause of Alzheimers] has been dominant for more than 20 years, and has driven development of something like 15 drugs. None of them have worked. At the same time the well-known increased risk from APOe4 has been almost entirely ignored, even though it ought to be a clue to the cause.

In general, when a research effort has been spinning its wheels for a generation or more, shouldn’t we try something different? We could at least try putting a fraction of those research dollars into alternative approaches that have not yet failed repeatedly.

Mostly this applies to research efforts that at least wish they were science. ‘educational research’ is in a special class, and I hardly know what to recommend. Most of the remedial actions that occur to me violate one or more of the Geneva conventions.