Astral Codex Ten

Lincoln

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Lincoln

Article

Lincoln is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 9 times across 9 issues between February 09, 2021 and November 05, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “After Lincoln’s death, his successor Andrew Johnson decided this sounded hard and gave up”; “he uses the same pen Lincoln used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation”; “LBJ fighting for civil rights, he seems like a second Lincoln”. It most often appears alongside United States, California, Trump.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 9
  • Issue count: 9
  • First seen: February 09, 2021
  • Last seen: November 05, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: Why We're Polarized
February 09, 2021 · Original source
When the North won the Civil War, it had grand plans to remake the South into a paradise of racial equality and universal love. After Lincoln's death, his successor Andrew Johnson decided this sounded hard and gave up. Within a few decades, the South was back to being a racist, paramilitary-violence-prone one-party dictatorship. That one party called itself "Democrat", but had few similiarites to the Democrats in the North. The Southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats") and northern Democrats disagreed on lots of issues, but the South hated the Republicans so much after their experience with Lincoln that they caucused with the northern Democrats anyway. This turned into a stable coalition, with northern Democrats agreeing to support the South against civil rights for blacks, and the Dixiecrats supporting the northern Democrats whenever they needed something.
Movie Review: Gabriel Over The White House
February 20, 2021 · Original source
The final signature is President Hammond's; he uses the same pen Lincoln used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. As he finishes signing, he falls over dead, followed by a close-up shot on a flickering window curtain suggesting an angel is flying back to Heaven. Everyone declares Hammond the greatest president ever, maybe the greatest human being ever. The end.
Your Book Review: The Years Of Lyndon Johnson
May 07, 2021 · Original source
I could speculate about diffuse, inchoate things. But let's get specific. Suppose LBJ is found frozen in the Arctic ice, is brought back to life (à la Captain America), and runs for president again. (He only was elected once before, so the 22nd Amendment would not prevent him.) Would you vote for him? If you think of LBJ fighting for civil rights, he seems like a second Lincoln. If you consider how LBJ lied about the Vietnam War, he makes Nixon look trustworthy.
Meetups Everywhere 2021: Times And Places
August 23, 2021 · Original source
LINCOLN, UK (RSVP) Contact: Tobias, tobias[dot]showan[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk Time: 2:00 PM, Saturday, September 11 Location: Beer garden of the Horse and Groom, Carholme Rd, Lincoln LN1 1RH Coordinates: https://w3w.co/vanish.burn.copy
Inline links: RSVP, https://w3w.co/vanish.burn.copy
CONCORD, NH (RSVP) Contact: Lincoln, lincoln[at]techhouse[dot]org Time: 11:00 AM, Saturday, September 4 Location: Marjory Swope Park, specifically the bench and vista point overlooking Penacook Lake. Accessible via a 15 minute hike (some uphill) from the Marjory Swope Park trailhead on Long Pond Road. You can see the trail on this map. Bring a lunch! Coordinates: https://w3w.co/scenic.bowls.unfounded
Inline links: RSVP, the Marjory Swope Park trailhead, this map, https://w3w.co/scenic.bowls.unfounded
Highlights From The Comments On Kids And Climate Change
October 13, 2021 · Original source
Second, often elections aren’t close. As a commenter brings up in that thread, the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nonstop for 38 years from 1955 - 1993. Reagan won the 1984 election by 525 to 13 (and AFAICT MVT should be aiming at the median electoral vote in an electoral system). I think some of this has to do with irrational emotions - ie the South hated Republicans so much after Lincoln and the Civil War that Democrats could do whatever they wanted and still win there. But there sure are a lot of irrational emotions in politics today and I wouldn’t want to count this factor out.
Bounded Distrust
January 26, 2022 · Original source
Here’s a Washington Post article saying that Abraham Lincoln was friends with Karl Marx and admired his socialist theories. It suggests that because of this, modern attacks on socialism are un-American.
Inline links: Here’s a Washington Post article
Here is a counterargument that there’s no evidence Abraham Lincoln had the slightest idea who Karl Marx was.
Inline links: Here is a counterargument
The Marx article, if you read it extremely carefully with all the knowledge you gained from the debunking, doesn’t confidently assert a connection between Lincoln and Marx (except in the headline and subtitle, which are usually written by someone else). The reporter uses phrases like “that might be because Lincoln was regularly reading Karl Marx” (in a sentence where you’re expected to think of the hedging as a colloquialism), and “It’s nearly guaranteed that, in the 1850s, Lincoln was regularly reading Marx” (the evidence being that Lincoln had been known to read a newspaper that Marx had been known to publish in). It says that Marx sent letters to Lincoln - but fails to mention that a US President gets thousands of letters from everyone and there’s no evidence Lincoln read Marx’s. It says that a US ambassador told Marx’s Communist group that Lincoln appreciated them - but fails to mention this was as part of a form letter, little different from the “JOE BIDEN THANKS YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT” spam emails I get sometimes. It’s hard for a naive person to read the article without falsely concluding that Marx and Lincoln were friends. But the article does mostly stick to statements which are literally true.
Why Do I Suck?
February 02, 2022 · Original source
And that means my natural I-hate-saying-whatever-the-majority-says kicks in whenever I’m tempted to criticize wokeness. I could write about something something critical race theory in school. But first of all, Jesse Singal, Freddie de Boer, and Bari Weiss have probably already written things on it and they probably all did a better job than I would. Second of all, probably the electorate has already figured out it’s bad and is planning to vote out everyone involved. Third of all, do I really want to spend my life reminding other unwoke people that dumbing down math classes and using the extra time to force kids into classes where they chant prayers to the Aztec gods instead is actually bad? Don’t get me wrong, it is bad. But Cicero had Catiline, and Lincoln had Stephen Douglas. I’m hardly the equal of either, but I would like to think I’m cool enough to deserve a worthier foil than the Aztec-prayers-in-school crowd, who everyone else also hates.
Inline links: chant prayers to the Aztec gods
A Theoretical "Case Against Education"
May 23, 2024 · Original source
Education isn’t just about facts. But it’s partly about facts. Facts are easy to measure, and they’re a useful signpost for deeper understanding. If someone has never heard of Chaucer, Dickens, Melville, Twain, or Joyce, they probably haven’t learned to appreciate great literature. If someone can’t identify Washington, Lincoln, or either Roosevelt, they probably don’t understand the ebb and flow of American history. So what facts does the average American know?
Mantic Monday: Judgment Day
November 05, 2024 · Original source
Yet in the end, everything is so perfectly balanced that the sum total of these luminaries refuse to say which side of even we’re on. The nation balances on a knife’s edge. Eli Lilly stock moons. A red sun hangs over Philadelphia, where American democracy began and may yet end. A man walks into a diner just before closing time. He looks like a good tipper. The waitress was hoping to leave early and go vote. She decides against. Seven trumpets sound; seven seals are opened; there is silence in Heaven for the space of about half an hour. As George RR Martin put it, “God flips a coin and the world holds its breath.” Tomorrow - if we are so lucky - there will be a result. The great function that has consumed us for so long will return 0 or 1. The pundits who guessed 51-49 will be hailed as prophets; the pundits who guessed 49-51 will get bullied out of public life. The winner’s campaign operatives will be praised as world-historic geniuses, the loser’s mocked forever as utter nincompoops. Thousands of lifelong public servants who backed Mr. 49% will be tossed from DC like used toilet paper and replaced with thousands of hacks who backed Mr. 51%. Funding streams will go dry. Whole lands will turn to economic deserts. Fortunes will be destroyed. A few people will make good on their exile and suicide threats. Most won’t. The Union will either survive or not. If it survives, we’ll do it all over again four years later. A red sun sets over DC. The marble monuments are stained crimson; the statues of Lincoln and Jefferson and the rest look like they writhe in hellfire. The people seclude themselves in their houses. A city where even the Christians are atheist kneels in prayer. On some level, they know - we know - it was never just about choosing a leader. It was all for this - the same urge that drove the games of the Colosseum and sacrifices of Tenochtitlan. The need for a single moment of unconditioned reality. For one evening, the people of the richest and most secure nation in history, fat off the spoils of six continents, will know the same fear as the starving Catalhuyuk farmer, staring at the sky, wondering if the rains will come. For one evening, everyone - rich or poor, religious or secular, Democrat or Republican - will join in the prayer of the poet: “Judge of the Nations, spare us yet Lest we forget - lest we forget!” Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Kodos Metaculus uses experimental “conditional forecasts” to determine the consequences of a Trump/Harris victory. How it works (example): you set up two forecasts: If Trump wins, will China invade Taiwan?
Inline links: the prayer of the poet, experimental “conditional forecasts”, example