A not-serious-but-critical review of "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli. [You could interpret this fragment in 2 ways, but obviously only one is correct]

When I read "The Prince", I felt like I was reading "FAQ about Princedom". Take note of the length and title of each chapter, and you might agree with me.

Personally speaking, Niccolo Machiavelli is a damn cool name (though "Machiavalentova" would sound cooler), and he makes interesting comments like "It is far safer to be feared than to be loved" and "Fortune is the mistress to half of our actions yet leaves the control of the other half to ourselves", which makes anyone who quotes him feel good. Still, that doesn't immunize his work against critical review.

Since the knowledge of government is a posteriori knowledge, we would expect much of the arguments to be inductive. One example of such argument in his book is:

P: In all the places I have been to and from all the historical documents I have read, inherited Princedoms are more stable than new Princedoms.

C: Therefore all inherited Princedoms are more stable than new Princedoms.

Of course, in his book, this is not so clearly spelled out. He simply states that inherited Princedoms are more stable than new Princedoms, and gives one case of such(although if you look at the example he gave, you can clearly see that it is a hypothesis contrary to fact). That is a weak inductive argument. An example of a strong inductive argument in support of the statement "all inherited Princedoms are more stable than new Princedoms" would be:

P1: Princedom A is inherited, and Princedom A is stable.
P2: Princedom B is inherited, and Princedom B is stable.
-
- (ditto)
-
-
Pn: Princedom n is not inherited, and Princedom n is not stable.
-
-
- (ditto)
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PN: Princedom N is not inherited, and Princedom N is not stable.

C: Therefore all inherited Princedoms are more stable than new Princedoms.

We can see that making a table of stable/unstable princedoms and comparing their characteristics would make a more convincing argument than just stating a couple of examples, which Machiavelli had done. Nowadays, tables of statistics are necessary for political studies. Just look at all the papers that support the "monadic democracy peace theory". If you put Machiavelli's book next to those papers, "The Prince" would just seem like a collection of opinions. However, note that in his dedication to the Italian Prince, Machiavelli claims that the things he had written in his book are what he has learned and known through a great deal of suffering, danger and hardship. This is supposed to give all the statements in his book the backing of authority on the subject, but this still leaves much of his statements open to doubt.

One example of another type of argument he uses is as such:

If you use mercenaries, there are two possible cases. Case one: the mercenaries are too cowardly and stupid to be of any use in war. Case two: they are so courageous and smart that they would plot against you in war. You do not want either things to happen, therefore you should never use mercenaries.

Clearly a fallacy of false dichotomy.

I apologize in advance to anyone who might be offended by my lack of intellectual humility, but I do wonder how this book became a classic. If this book were so good, why didn't the Italian Prince keep it properly in a secret closet and use it to conquer and control other princedoms, rather than letting it be read by everyone? Kinda interesting, isn't it?

Summary: Quite nice to read, but not very reliable.

There are vegetarian foods that are designed to imitate the look, taste and texture of meat. Generally speaking, these foods are highly processed, and are not a healthy substitute for meat. By hasty generalization, I generalize that the vegetarians who eat such foods are not doing so for health reasons, but for the sake of compassion.

Some people question whether the vegetarians who eat these sort of vegetarian food really become vegetarians for the sake of compassion, since they are still have the desire to eat meat. However, I do not think it is problematic. The desire to eat meat does not necessarily imply a desire to take lives. I suppose their motto is "When the buying stops, the killing will too." If you have issues with vegetarians who eat imitation meat, I'll suppose you'll have issues with people who eat imitation sharks fin too.

One loophole in the motto "When the buying stops, the killing will too" is that stealing shark's fin soup is actually fine, since you are not buying it. You also can't be said to be contributing to the demand of shark's fin, since you have the desire but not the ability to eat shark's fin. So one way to eat shark's fin and be environmentally friendly about it is to steal shark's fin soup from the restaurant.

I've once thought about this: how do the people who make and sell imitation meat know what they taste like? Then I recalled that one doesn't have to be a vegetarian to sell or make vegetarian food. Generally speaking again, most of the people who sell Muslim food are also Muslims, so maybe that explains why there isn't halal imitation pork on the market yet. (I await the day that one can order "nasi babi" without getting hollered at.)

So if we follow the standards of vegetarians, it seems like only the next thing to do to get the cannibals to make and sell imitation human meat. After all, having a desire to consume human meat doesn't imply a desire to kill humans. My eldest sister once said, "To know if a French restaurant is good, you must see if the French patronize it." Therefore, if you see many cannibals patronizing an imitation human meat restaurant, you'll know if it's really good. Of course, a small problem comes in when you want to find out which people in the restaurant are cannibals.

If imitation human meat becomes a hit, I wonder if the stem cell researchers would try to catch up by introducing consumers real human meat into the market. Sounds interesting. Would you want to try human meat?

Random:

We had orange for dessert during lunch at live range.

Sarge is still called sarge in NS.

If you really want to hardcore your studies, when you dream, you should only spend your time doing math. This is because mathematical knowledge is a priori, so no matter what crazy situation you find yourself being thrown in, a mathematical proof that's right in your dreams would be right out in the real world, unless you made mistakes.

If you ever suspect that you are trapped in Plato's cave, you should get a mathematics degree. Even if some guy decides to drag you out of the cave and bring you to the "real world", your degree will still be recognized! Sad for the people who study medicine and astronomy; all their mugging will go down the drain.

There is a platoon sergeant called "Valentova". I think Valentova is a cool name. Maybe it's cool because of the -ova suffix.

Alwynova.
Xiamanova.
Alexova.
Clementova.
Mitchellova.
Lincolnova.
Jimrova.