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SilentCal comments on Harper's Magazine article on LW/MIRI/CFAR and Ethereum - Less Wrong Discussion

44 Post author: gwern 12 December 2014 08:34PM

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Comment author: SilentCal 15 December 2014 08:21:09PM 7 points [-]

I'm not sure I see the contradiction. "We have found the way (elitism), and others should follow (universalism)" seems like a pretty coherent position, and one I'd expect to see throughout history, not just in the British Empire. Isn't it implicit in the idea of missionary religion, and of much philosophy?

Granted, there's a distinction you can make between "We found the way by luck" and "We found the way by virtue". The former is less elitist than the latter, but it still entails that "our way is better than yours".

...I think I've lost sight of what defines 'elitism' besides believing something.

Comment author: [deleted] 17 December 2014 02:23:04AM 5 points [-]

Dammit! You win an entire virtual Stollen.

I still suspect there are differences in how this combination is enforced, but I'll need to do a lot more research now. Anyone know of any good books on the French or Spanish Empires, or the Islamic conquests?

...oh, Islam is actually a good example: their thing seems to be directly manipulating the incentive structure, whether by the jizya or the sword. Did they force Christians to go to Islamic schools, or did they just tax the Christians more than the Muslims? (Or neither? Did Christians have to pay zakat? IIRC they didn't, but it might have varied...?)

Comment author: alienist 17 December 2014 02:44:01AM 8 points [-]

Did they force Christians to go to Islamic schools, or did they just tax the Christians more than the Muslims? (Or neither? Did Christians have to pay zakat? IIRC they didn't, but it might have varied...?)

I've heard that at one point the authorities were discouraging conversion to Islam because of the effect on tax revenue.

Comment author: Sarunas 17 December 2014 11:24:28PM *  4 points [-]

According to the book "A Historical And Economic Geography Of Ottoman Greece: The Southwestern Morea in the 18th Century" by Fariba Zarinebaf, John Bennet and Jack L. Davis:

To finance its war efforts, the Ottoman state relied heavily on revenues from the cizye (poll tax) collected directly by the central treasury. Therefore, it generally did not support forced conversion of the non-Muslim reaya. The social pressure to convert must have been considerable, however, in areas where the majority of the population was Muslim. Furthermore, an increase in the amount of the cizye must also have indirectly encouraged conversion in the second half of the 16th century. An imperial order issued to the kadi of the districts of Manafge and Modon on 19 Zilkade 978/March 1570 stated that there were illegal attempts by taxfarmers to collect cizye from converts who were timar-holders and who had been serving in the Ottoman army for fifteen years. From this report it is clear that local Christians converted to Islam to enter the ranks of the military to avoid the payment of taxes. But it is also obvious that tax collectors and tax-farmers resented the tax-exempt privileges of the converts

Glossary:

cizye - Islamic poll tax imposed on a non-Muslim household

reaya - productive groups (peasants, merchants, artisans) subject to taxes, in contrast to askeri (q.v.) (military), who were tax-exempt

kadi - Muslim judge

Zilkade - Dhu al-Qi'dah, the eleventh month in the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months in Islam during which warfare is prohibited, hence the name ‘Master of Truce’.

timar - prebend in the form of state taxes in return for regular military service, conventionally less than 20,000 akçes (q.v.) in value

Comment author: [deleted] 17 December 2014 01:16:00PM 1 point [-]

If there are leaders, and there are followers, then that's not really one-size-fits-all. That's more like two-sizes-fit-all... Biversalism.