Posts Tagged ‘Alexander the Great’
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations”*…
… so we’d do well to stay focused on those in power– in government, to be sure; but increasingly also on the emerging oligarchs grabbing the reins.
Further, in a fashion, to yesterday’s post… there’s so much going on these days– threats to democracy and freedom and well-being coming from so many directions– that it’s all too easy to miss something important. Allison Stanger calls our attention to one such dynamic: just as, starting in the 17th century, the East India Company’s commercial success gradually justified new powers [see, e.g., here, here, and the almanac entry here), today’s AI firms seek to leverage technical prowess to assume public functions by default…
On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I signed a royal charter granting the East India Company exclusive rights to conduct trade in the Indian Ocean region. The document was precise in its limitations: The company could establish trading posts, negotiate with local rulers, and defend its commercial interests. Nothing more.
Seventy-seven years later, the same company had acquired the right to mint currency on behalf of the British crown. By 1765, it controlled the tax collection (ruthlessly enforced by its own private army) for the Indian provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa—territories containing roughly 20 million people. What began as commercial efficiency had become imperial governance. The transformation was so gradual that few contemporaries even noticed sovereignty shifting in the region from local rule to corporation.
A similar pattern can be seen today with national governments and Big Tech—only this time, centuries of drift have been compressed into months. Where the East India Company deployed trading posts and private armies, today’s technology firms and specifically AI development companies use data pipelines, data centers, and algorithmic systems. The medium has changed; the mechanics of private power assuming public functions remain the same.
Consider the trajectory of Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). Established in February 2025 with the stated goal of eliminating bureaucratic waste but an unstated aspiration to vacuum up new data to improve Musk’s companies, DOGE began with access to federal payment systems—ostensibly to identify inefficiencies. Within weeks, reports emerged that DOGE personnel had gained the ability to alter government databases, including Social Security records and contractor payments. The justification remained consistent: To deliver efficiency, one must first seize control.
The parallel extends beyond metaphor. Just as the East India Company’s commercial success gradually justified new powers, today’s AI firms seek to leverage technical prowess to assume public functions by default, implicitly assuming that the reallocation of power will serve human flourishing. Each efficiency gain becomes justification for the next transfer of authority, yet the costs of that automation go uncalculated.
What once took generations now takes quarters; the key difference is the ease with which private digital systems can be aligned with the politics of friends and enemies. Communications systems, financial networks, and governance mechanisms are no longer reshaped through military conquest but by software updates. Increasingly, those same systems are being weaponized against the very allies who helped build them.
From content moderation to infrastructure control to monetary governance, AI companies are taking on public operations. As AI becomes a more prominent feature of everyday life, already existing problems in our public life will proliferate exponentially. The transformation before us is likely to proceed through three variants—algorithmic capture of information systems, weaponization of critical infrastructure, and cryptocurrency’s escape from public accountability. Absent immediate intervention, democratic societies risk permanent subordination to unelected digital sovereigns…
[Stanger unpacks the three variants, with examples from Meta, Starlink, and the Trump organization’s World Liberty Financial…]
… The choice is still ours, but the time to act is now. Democracies can reclaim control over critical infrastructure—or continue outsourcing it to corporate entities that increasingly resemble the East India Company: efficient, unaccountable, and sovereign in all but name.
As American allies have discovered, platform dependency is a trap that snaps shut when you least expect it. The question facing democratic societies is whether they will escape this trap while they still can, or whether they will remain subject to the whims of unelected digital sovereigns.
Everything scientists most value—objectivity, truth-seeking, skepticism and transparency—is at stake. These digital sovereigns are no longer merely connecting the world—they are remaking it. Whether this transformation serves public values or corporate profits will decide not only the future of technology—but the fate of self-governance.
“The right to search for truth, implies a duty,” warned Albert Einstein. “One must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.” The true cost of “efficiency” may be democracy itself, which is currently at risk of becoming just another social atavism of the analog age…
“The AI Raj: How tech giants are recolonizing power,” from @allisonstanger.bsky.social in @thebulletin.org.
Oh, and how might all of this work out even if there are no reins?: “Longtime Investor Warns the AI Industry Is Set to Collapse for a Basic Financial Reason“: “Each big tech company needs a global monopoly in AI to sustain their success and market value. They are not all going to get one.”… meantime, the damage to society is done…
* James Madison
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As we take it back, we might recall that Battle of Gaugamela was fought on this date in 331 BCE. The forces of the Army of Macedon under Alexander the Great and the Persian Army under King Darius III met for the second time. Alexander and the Macedonians were victorious. The battle is considered the final blow to the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire, resulting in its complete conquest by Alexander.
“One word brings another”*…
Recovering the wisdom of ancient Greece…
… while actually dedicating years to learning this beautiful and complicated ancient language might not be the most practical use of your time, I do think you should at least learn a few of the most important concepts.
In fact, I reckon these 12 terms should definitely make a comeback in our current society… and that we might be a lot better for it…
From Aidos (Greek: Αἰδώς) and Arete (Greek: ἀρετή) to Phronesis (Greek: φρόνησῐς) and Xenia (Greek: ξενία): “12 Ancient Greek Terms that Should Totally Make a Comeback,” from @ClassicalWisdom.
* Euripides, Trojan Women
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As we learn from our elders, we might recall that it was on this date (as nearly as one can tell) in 327 BCE that Alexander the Great (heir of Philip II of Macedon and tutee of Aristotle) launched his Indian Campaign. Within two years, Alexander expanded the Macedonian Empire to include present-day Punjab and Sindh in what is Modern-day Pakistan, surpassing the earlier frontiers that had been established by the Persian conquest of the Indus Valley.
“Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so”*…
Top: A map consulted by President Lincoln in 1861, demarcating the counties with the most slaves. Bottom: A detail from Raj Chetty’s Opportunity Atlas, in which areas with poor upward mobility are shown in red.
[Raj] Chetty turns 40 this month, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential social scientists of his generation. “The question with Raj,” says Harvard’s Edward Glaeser, one of the country’s leading urban economists, “is not if he will win a Nobel Prize, but when.”
The work that has brought Chetty such fame is an echo of his family’s history. He has pioneered an approach that uses newly available sources of government data to show how American families fare across generations, revealing striking patterns of upward mobility and stagnation. In one early study, he showed that children born in 1940 had a 90 percent chance of earning more than their parents, but for children born four decades later, that chance had fallen to 50 percent, a toss of a coin…
Now he wants to do more than change our understanding of America—he wants to change America itself. His new Harvard-based institute, called Opportunity Insights, is explicitly aimed at applying his findings in cities around the country and demonstrating that social scientists, despite a discouraging track record, are able to fix the problems they articulate in journals. His staff includes an eight-person policy team, which is building partnerships with Charlotte, Seattle, Detroit, Minneapolis, and other cities.
For a man who has done so much to document the country’s failings, Chetty is curiously optimistic. He has the confidence of a scientist: If a phenomenon like upward mobility can be measured with enough precision, then it can be understood; if it can be understood, then it can be manipulated. “The big-picture goal,” Chetty told me, “is to revive the American dream.”…
* Doris Lessing
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As we ponder possibility, we might send imperial birthday greetings to Alexander III of Macedon (or as he’s better known, Alexander the Great); he was born on this date in 356 BC. After a childhood of tutelage by Aristotle, twenty-year-old Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II, as Basileus (King) of Macedon. He devoted most of his reign to an unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, and by the age of thirty he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of history’s most successful military commanders; indeed, military academies still teach his tactics.
At his death he was Basileus of Macedon, Hegemon of the Hellenic League, Shahanshah of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt, and Lord of Asia. His legacy includes 20 cities that bear his name (maybe most notably, Alexandria, in Egypt), but more fundamentally, it includes the cultural diffusion and syncretism that his conquests engendered. For example, Alexander’s settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century AD and in the presence of Greek speakers in central and far eastern Anatolia until the 1920s.
Let’s get cynical…
"Cynic: an idealist whose rose-colored glasses have been removed, snapped in two and stomped into the ground, immediately improving his vision" - Rick Bayan
Cynicisn was, like the Doric column and the gyro sandwich, invented by the Greeks. As Rick Bayan explains…
The first Cynics (we capitalize the name when we’re talking about the ancient ones) were students of a now-obscure philosopher named Antisthenes, who in turn was a student of the illustrious Socrates. Like Socrates, the Cynics believed that virtue was the greatest good. But they took it a step further than the old master, who would merely challenge unsuspecting folks to good-natured debates and let their own foolishness trip them up.
The Cynics were more blunt when it came to exposing foolishness. They’d hang out in the streets like a pack of dogs (“Cynic” comes from the Greek word for dog), watch the passing crowd, and ridicule anyone who seemed pompous, pretentious, materialistic or downright wicked. Fiercely proud of their independence, they led disciplined and virtuous lives. The most famous of the ancient Cynics was Diogenes, who reportedly took up residence in a tub to demonstrate his freedom from material wants. This cranky street-philosopher would introduce himself by saying, “I am Diogenes the dog. I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels.” He’d use a lantern by daylight, explaining that he was searching for an honest man. Even Alexander the Great didn’t escape unscathed. When the young conqueror found Diogenes sitting in the marketplace and asked how he could help him, the old philosopher replied that “you can step out of my sunlight.”
Bayan, who believes that cynicism is as important today as ever, has created The Cynic’s Sanctuary, one of whose fascinating features is the Cynic’s Hall of Fame; arranged chronologically, by date of birth, it begins with…
Aesop (c. 600 B.C. ) Was he real or legendary? We’re not absolutely sure. Aesop may have been a slave who lived on the Greek isle of Samos; it’s said that he was slain by irate priests at the Oracle of Delphi. (He probably got himself into hot water by mocking their beliefs.) His works weren’t assembled into book form until about eight centuries after his time. No doubt numerous ancient storytellers added to the collection along the way. But the reputed author of the world’s most famous fables — man or legend — has to stand as literature’s great proto-Cynic. His brief moral tales are sharp allegories of human folly — even when the characters are foxes, crows, mice, tortoises and hares. Aesop’s Fables teem with the wisdom and gentle mockery of someone who knows the human animal inside and out (especially our weaknesses). If you think Aesop is just for children, think again — and read him again.
Favorite quote:
“Familiarity breeds contempt.”
The roster continues through the expected (e.g., Rabelais, Voltaire, Mark Twain) and the not-so-expected (Jesus, Shakespeare, Schopenhauer)…
In times like these, it’s comforting to know that one can take refuge in The Cynic’s Sanctuary.
As we memorize our Mencken, we might recall that it was on this date in 1780 that General Benedict Arnold betrayed the US when he wrote British General Sir Henry Clinton, agreeing to surrender the fort at West Point to the British army. Arnold, whose name has become synonymous with “traitor,” fled to England after the plot fell through. The British gave Arnold a brigadier general’s commission with an annual income of several hundred pounds, but only paid him £6,315 plus an annual pension of £360 because his plot had failed. After the Revolutionary War, Arnold settled in Canada, and turned his hand to land speculation, West Indies, trade, and privateering– none of them very successfully. He died in 1801.
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