How do you think the power ratio of pen:sword has changed in the last 500 years at the individual level?
Words: scribes to Gutenberg all the way to social media
Sword: from literal swords to crappy muskets to reliable automatic weapons
I'd say words have been relative gainer
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Only because weapons (nukes, carpet bombing, chemical warfare) have become so powerful they have been constrained by geopolitics. Words have been constrained as well — Rwandan genocide incitement radio is an outlier not the norm.
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That’s why I tried to limit comparison to individual weapons and words (small arms and individual media leverage). There are also ‘nukes’ on the words side I guess, at the level of court judgments or legislation for eg.
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The power of the word has shamed most major powers out of most direct military action, for what that's worth. Also, if code = word, that's a major power-up too
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Why do Americans still own guns?
Not because they have guns.
Because they have words (right to bear arms, lobbying, etc)
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Depends on whether you're comparing how the top or average. World-famous writer or social media personality has much more influence then world-best gunslinger. But average Joe can do much more with a gun than with his reposts.
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I'd say swords. IDK about Mutually Assured Destruction or Existential Risks through words.
Maybe summonning unfathomable Elder Gods from their eternal slumber.
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Words are powerful in recruiting agents, so the power of those agents via sword scales proportionally. Only way to meangingfull compare is at the 2nd order where non-linear impacts of different scale mean that ratio (constant or otherwise) wouldn't tell you everything.
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Hmmm. Not simple.
Some weapons systems empower the pen: cheap easy-to-use personal firearms in 18th C empowered individuals, enabling democracy, making words more valuable. Powerful weapons too complex and expensive for individuals do the opposite.
Over 501 yrs words win.
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swords stink so much nowadays. especially considering that at any scale and anywhere on the world we are much more integrated and letting you use the sword depends much more on the opinion of everyone else with swords
but the coin is stronger than both.
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