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Incidentally, my inability to put too much faith in both states and markets is a core driver of why I’m so obsessive about making friends. In my frame, both mechanisms are complex abstractions of “people helping people”, and I prefer to approach it from first principles
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the mind virus of the West is that every problem has to be solved either by the state (left) or by the market (right) not by individuals or families or friends or neighbors
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This makes me think of how often the Great Man theory of history would make more sense if you appended it with "... and their entourage of friends." Historians talk often about Caesar and Augustus, rarely about the Triumvirates, and only sparingly about their friends.
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Meanwhile, Caesar is the guy who takes over the Republic by using the support of his friends and frienemies and turns his opponents' friends against them. He is then murdered by a former friend after their estrangement, sparking off the second triumvirate.
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Then the second triumvirate ends in Octavian taking everything b/c Antony is too messy and ill-disciplined and estranges his Roman allies after getting in bed with Cleopatra, while Lepidus... well, the fact I had to look up his name kind of speaks to his force of personality.
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