Vaniver comments on Military Rationalities and Irrationalities - Less Wrong

21 Post author: pscheyer 09 September 2013 11:48PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 10 September 2013 02:44:45PM 4 points [-]

Or "Percussive Sublimation" as Peter and Hull called it. Also colloquially called being kicked upstairs, which apparently goes back to 1684. (Warning: TVTropes link. Interestingly, although it has the usual list of media examples at the end, the content is all about real life. Is TVTropes extending into LifeTropes?)

Comment author: Vaniver 11 September 2013 01:17:33AM 3 points [-]

And there are earlier echos:

There is a phrase in Latin: Promoveatur ut amoveatur - "Let him be promoted to get him out of the way." It was apparently a pretty common one, not unbelievable considering the nepotist bureaucratic nightmare that was the Roman Empire.

Comment author: pscheyer 12 September 2013 11:22:58PM 3 points [-]

the nepotist bureaucratic nightmare that was the Roman Empire

One of my goals with this thread is to figure out how to avoid such nepotist bureaucratic nightmares, which have historically dominated the long-term outlook of empires from China to Rome to, increasingly, the US.

Comment author: Lumifer 11 December 2013 05:34:16PM 1 point [-]

The traditional solution is periodic revolutions.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 14 December 2013 05:00:38AM -1 points [-]

I'm not sure you're focusing on the right problem.

The Roman Empire's biggest problem wasn't nepotism, it was that the office of Emperor had no clear rules for succession. This tended to result in civil wars between the most powerful generals whenever it came to be vacant.

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