Bloody Shovel 3

As I said yesterday, I was just banned from Twitter. They didn't give me a reason, nor a way to restore my account. I did file an appeal, and maybe I get lucky, but I doubt it. My ban was part of a massive purge of thousands of accounts, many of them much milder than myself.

I won't register a new account. I'm done. I've pumped Jack Dorsey's bags with my stellar content for long enough. Screw that faggot, his CIA handlers, his Saudi investors and his troon moderators. The Twitter link at the navbar is gone, and good riddance. I quit Google in 2011. I quit Facebook in 2012. It's taken a while but now I'm completely out of Globohomo social media. Feels good man.

I'm not angry at losing a platform to broadcast my thoughts. I've had a blog for far longer than I've been on Twitter. And this is my blog. My territory. It is mine. I moved off Wordpress years ago when I saw all this coming. This is my house now. I built it. I wrote the code it runs on, the post CMS, the comments system, everything. I host it myself, in a neutral jurisdiction, nobody can take it away from me. I write what I want, edit my content as I will, moderate the comments at my pleasure.

And that's how it should be. I'm a publisher, and a publisher should take care to not be subject to the will of anyone else. This much should be obvious. It's my fucking content. I'm not angry at all at my tweets going away. Mo...

Hi, welcome back to our series on Ancient Chinese War Stratagems.

Today we will translate stratagem 34. 苦肉計, the Self Harming Trick.

人不自害 受害必真 假真真假 間以得行 童蒙之吉 順以巽也

People don't hurt themselves. If they are hurt, it must be true. Fake the true, true the fake, between and you will succeed. It is auspicious that children are ignorant, as they can be thus molded.

間者，使敵人相疑也；反間者，因敵人之疑，而實其疑也；苦肉計者，蓋假作自間以間人也。凡遣與己有隙者以誘敵人，約為響應，或約為共力者，皆苦肉計之類也。如：鄭武公伐胡而先以女妻胡君，並戮關其思；韓信下齊而驪生遭烹。

Betweens cause the enemy to suspect themselves, counter-betweens make those suspicions of the enemy become real. The Self-harming trick is sort of like running a fake op on yourself in order to run a real op on your enemy. Self-harming tricks make it look like there's a gap in your own line in order to lure the enemy in, promise him you will undermine your own side for him, or at least help him. As when Duke Wu of Zheng 鄭武公 who before attacking the state of Hu 胡, gave a daughter in marriage to the lord of Hu and killed a minister who argued for attacking them. Or when Han Xin 韓信 attacked the state of Qi 齊 and Li Shiqi 驪食其 got boiled alive.

Commentary:

Well this is an odd one, but the idea is clear. You need to fool the enemy, distract him, get his attention off you somehow. A way of doing that might be to harm yourself in order to feign weakness; feign so much weakness that the enemy stops bother...

I'm accused of timing my last post just before the New York Times launched it's much awaited hit-piece on Scott Alexander.

It's all a funny coincidence. But funny it is. Indeed Scott Alexander was the subject of a post I wrote exactly 5 years ago where I also mention the story of Ying Bu.

It's been interesting to see Scott's development since then. On one hand he hasn't changed much. He's got progressively more famous, and deservedly so. He's also got progressively more fat. Which is sad, but not unexpected. Neutered animals also get fat, and Scott talked about himself being basically chemically neutered.

I was pleasantly surprised though with the way he dealt with the New York Times doxing him. Closing the blog was a smart move (and now that I think of it, a great example of a 苦肉計 stratagem 34, the very next one!), and his recent move towards financial independence by moving to substack and starting a private practice is actually pretty ballsy. Good for him. Hopefully at some point he realizes that the best cure for depression is regular sessions of weight-lifting and parties with abundant MDMA and hot chicks.

As it happened we didn't have to pull a Ying Bu on Scott Alexander; the left banished him of their own accord. As such he didn't move ...

Time for our next stratagem, the 反間計.

It's rather hard to translate the name itself. Literally it's "counter-between". A "between" is what foreign agents were called in ancient China. Half spies, half agents to sow discord in the enemy ranks.

Original text and translation follows:

疑中之疑比之自內不自失也

Doubts inside doubts. Befriend from the inside, you won't lose.

間者使敵自相疑忌也 反間者因敵之間而間之也

Secret agents [lit. "betweens"] spread doubt within your enemy. Counter-agents do that to your enemy's own agents.

如燕昭王薨，惠王自為太子時，不快於樂毅。 田單乃縱反間曰： 樂毅與燕王有隙，畏誅，欲連兵王齊。 齊人未附故且緩攻即墨，以待其事。齊人唯恐他將來，即墨殘矣。 惠王聞之，即使騎劫代將，毅遂奔趙。

When King Zhao of Yan died, King Hui took the throne. He didn't like General Yue Yi ever since he was crown prince. Tian Dan [general of Qi during a massive war with Yan], unleashed a counter-op, saying: "Yue Yi doesn't have a good relation with his King, and fears he might be executed. He's thinking on bringing his trips and install himself as King at Qi. The people at Qi haven't committed to him yet which is why he's delaying his attack on Jimo [a city of Qi he was besieging]. The people of Qi are most afraid of Yue Yi being replaced by some other general, as then Jimo will certainly be sacked." King Hui of Yan heard of this story, immediately sent Qi Jie to replace Yue Yi, and Yue Yi fled to Zhao.

又如周瑜利用曹操間諜，以間其將。陳平以金縱反間於楚軍，間范增，楚王疑而去之。亦疑中之疑之局也。

Or like Zhou Yu [famous general of the state of Wu during the Three Kin...

Today it's Stratagem 32:

The Empty Fortress

虚者虛之，疑中生疑，剛柔之際，奇而複奇。

Those who are empty, empty it. Create uncertainty inside uncertainty. Between hard and soft, be strange and strange again.

虛虛實實，兵無常勢。虛而示虛，諸葛而後，不乏其人。

如吐蕃陷瓜州，王君焕死，河西恟懼。以張守珪為瓜州刺史，領餘眾方複築州城。版乾裁立，敵又暴至。略無守禦之具，城中相顧失色，莫有鬥志。守珪曰：“徒眾我寡，又瘡痍之後，不可以矢石相持，須以權道制之。”乃於城上，置酒作樂，以會將士。敵疑城中有備，不敢攻而退。 又如齊祖珽為北徐州刺史。至州，會有陳寇，百姓多反。珽不關城門。守陴者皆令下城，靜座街巷，禁斷行人，雞犬不亂鳴吠。賊無所見聞，不測所以，或疑人走城空，不設警備。珽複令大叫，鼓譟聒天，賊大驚，登時走散。

Empty or full [weak or strong], there are no constants in warfare. Of weak armies who show openly their weakness, ever since Zhuge Liang, there have been many.

For example when the Tibetans conquered Guazhou [in 776], Wang Junhuan died, and the West edges of the Yellow River all fell into panic. Zhang Shougui, governor of Guazhou, took the remainer population and started to build a new fortress. With the scaffolding for the walls was just finished the enemy attached again.

They had no means of defense, and everyone immediately turned pale, with no will to fight. Wang then gave a speech: "The enemy are many, and we are few. We've just survived a defeat, we can't fight again with arrows and stones, we must use other means to defeat them". Saying this he went to the top of the fortress, served some wine, played some music, and held a banquet with his soldiers. The enemy on seeing this thought the fortress was well prepared, so they retreated.

Or like Zu Ting...

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Biden was inaugurated yesterday. Didn't watch the thing, it's kinda depressing, so I went back to my old disinterested, cynical self. I used to be very happy ignoring mainstream politics. Damn you, Trump, you pulled me out of my detached cool lifestyle. Well it was more the pepes and other 4chan memes created since 2016. Damn you guys. I used to not care. I didn't want to care. But you draw me in. It was great. I had a lot of fun. But it was wrong. We all knew it was wrong, that it wouldn't get anywhere. And yet… Oh well. What is done is done.

Now back to regular programming. As promised I'll go with my translation of the 三十六計, the 36 stratagems of ancient Chinese warfare. Well, I'm only translating six stratagems, the six stratagems to use when you're in the weak side, losing the war against a strong enemy. Last time I did the very last one, which can be summarized as gtfo. Today it's turn for Stratagem #31.

美人計

The Honeypot

(literally: The Beautiful Person Trick)

兵強者，攻其將。將智者，伐其情。將弱兵強，其勢自萎。利用禦寇，順相保也。

When the enemy army is strong, attack its commander. When the commander is smart, attack his emotions. When the troops are strong but their commander is weak, its momentum withers on its own. Use this to resist your enemy and you will protect yourself successfully.

兵強將智，不可以敵，勢必事之。事之以土地，以增其勢，如六國之事秦，策之最下者也。事之以幣帛，以增其富，如宋之事遼金，策之下者也。惟事之以美人，以佚...

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There's a nifty book in China called the 三十六計. The "36 stratagems". Nobody knows when the book was written, though it must be old, the first mention of it goes back to the 5th century AD, when it was attributed to Tan Daoji 譚道濟, a general for the Liu Song Dynasty. The consensus is that he did indeed write it.

The 36 stratagems are organized as six different scenarios, with six stratagems each. Each stratagem is phrased as a catchy four letter idiom, the staple of Chinese vocabulary, and most of them have since become common idioms known even by small children. The book also quotes extensively the Yijing 易經, the Book of Changes, the famous book on divination. For no good reason really, but it does sound cool.

The six scenarios vary on the balance of power they apply to. Generally speaking half the stratagems apply to when you have an advantage in the war, when you are stronger than your enemy, while the other half are for when you are in a weaker position.

The last scenario is outright called 敗戦計 "tactics for when you're losing the war", and describe crafty attempts to gain an advantage or reverse the course of the fight. You may not be able to fight your enemy head on in the open, but that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do. There's plenty of tactics that a committed force can use even when fighting a vastly stronger enemy.

For no reason in particular, certainly nothing to do with c...

Hi, it's been a while.

I don't know if anyone was expecting my take on the 2020 US Presidential election. I mean, I called it. I won a few hundred bucks betting that Trump would lose. But of course I'm not happy about it.

I mean, I'm personally cool. Quite cool really. US global power is coming down, and fast. Pressure on China will soften up (not disappear), Europe is starting to show some balls in asserting some independent foreign policy. See the EU-China Investment Treaty, and Germany actually going on with Nord Stream 2.

Most importantly Trump's loss has been a massive, hilarious steal, a farcical fraud where they blatantly took two weeks to slowly cook up the election results and scam 75 million Americans. The whole thing was the epitome of "not even funny". To think that most of the world today is ruled by such a dumb, ham-fisted third world country is infuriating.

I mean, people, please. Elections in civilized countries take 24 hours, tops. Japan is a big country with 125 million people. It's also fairly low tech, and American political influence means that their government is handicapped in many ways. There are no ID cards, for example. That's part of why Japan has been by far the country worst affected by Corona in East Asia. Well, election results in Japan come down the same day or at most the next morning. In Europe they usually confirm in 4 hours after poll closing. The closest thing I can think of is the Thailand elections in 2019 ...

Well well, tomorrow is the big day.

All big elections are interesting but the 2020 US presidential election is the most bizarre I can remember. People worthy of respect can be seen holding the whole range of opinions: Trump will get a landslide, Biden will get a landslide, it will be very close, etc.

So which is it? Who the hell knows. I sure don't. You, however, might have some idea. If you do, please head to https://spandrell.com/uselection2020 where I published a nice interactive survey.

Best of luck tomorrow.

Lee Tenghui is dead. 97 years old. I won't wish he rest in peace, as his life was dedicated to making peace harder on earth. He was the man who single handedly prevented Taiwan from reuniting with China, thus prolonging the life of the American Empire in Asia for a good 3 decades. Of course I exaggerate, but only a little. The man really was a force of nature. Readers of historiography might now that there's a factional battle among historians, between the proponents of the "Great Man theory" which says historical change is driven by extraordinary men and their raw energy and ambition; and it's opposite, what you could call the "naturalist theory", that history is driven by larger forces such as modes of production or religion or whatnot, and individuals don't really matter that much.

Large ideological battles are of course always bullshit; they are driven by factionalism, status infighting inside the guild in order to capture monopoly rents and vanquish your factional enemies. I'm not an academic historian, hence not a member of the guild, so I won't give fuel to any faux dichotomy. Obviously history is both influenced by overarching forces and the actions of extraordinary man. The same way wars are generally determined by fundamental factors such as production and manpower, yet some decisive battles are very close and pretty much decided by random chance.

Well Lee Tenghui was a most extraordinary man, a man who for decades did what very few human...