I’ve gone down a rabbit hole with Philosophy Tube research: I started with “Why are American cities on grids?” and now I’m deep into historical theories on whether Thomas Jefferson was autistic
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The vast majority of my bluesky feeds are magic, so I didn't think anything of this meme... took me a minute to realize it was YOU posting a magic meme.
I don't appreciate you linking an American politician (bad) with UW Control (based beyond belief) but I do like the fact the girl is trying to cast siege rhino.
Torn on whether to tell Alexander Hamilton his plan succeeds and he looks sick as hell in the future compared to Aaron Burr, helped by a parody rap song about Narnia, a fairy tale that hasn't been written.
Which, now that I think about it, makes The Lonely Island sound like modern day bards.
I, too, would use a time machine to play Khans standard. It's a bit rude to bring a top tier deck, while handling your opponent a pile of draft chaff. And please teach him that you're allowed to take a mulligan -- that hand does absolutely nothing!
Empires fall every 250 years. We just started year 249. We could have done something different about 100 years ago, even 50 years ago, and it might have made a difference. It's far too late to stop it now.
I've been thinking about that a lot lately. What the world would be like with no borders, no men starting wars, no capitalism and greed...we just do away with the entire concept of money and go back to the barter system, and just...care about each other as humans.
Between 1945-1950 the US could have easily conquered almost the entire known world. It was the only country with nukes, instead it rebuilt most countries with low interest debt.
Not true. We were already fighting in the Gulf War over oil in 1990-1991. Which, we had no business doing in the first place. America can't stop going to war, because men won't stop killing each other over land and resources. It's stupid.
Tbh I think a Chube ep about autistic people in itself could be interesting for discussing how we think about how others think + how ditto influences our perception of virtue, empathy, violence, etc. Ppl often interact with us via pervasive phantasms + use us as a talking point against various ideas
I wonder if those of us with Functioning Autistism, just finally have a name for smart people who don't fucking like other people in varying degrees? Describes me easily.
Yeah. That tracks. Also made it easier for them to quarantine and control the population / segregate later. And then.....there's NYC. Ask @brennanleemulligan.bsky.social his theory on that whole mess with the highways. It's fascinating.
Measuring America, by Andro Linklater, if you haven't found this book yet. A terrific read and explains so much of this and how the world evolved measurement systems.
Please no, not the “was X historical figure autistic?” rabbit hole. On a serious note those lists favour cis-white arsehole tech bros which is an outdated stereotype we are trying to move away from.
Yes, anyone who has ever gotten lost in the UK and tried to make 4 lefts to make a right and then found themselves in an entirely different village instead says long live the grid system!
if you want to see what it looks like when three different people lay out a city and I guess hate each other, check out Missoula's slant streets! I live in the middle of this mess and it is such a pain in the ass
It pretty much all goes back to the Greeks via the Romans. Throw in a pinch of Zoroastrian monotheism and then whatever that was that happened in the middle east and BOOM, here we are.
Well, that's quite a leap but I am all for the 'grid' discussion. Like, why would you overlay Ye Ol' American Grid System on San Francisco...?? Really?? Plz tell me we can rethink the grid!!
Fascinating research about Jefferson.
Let us know what you found.
Might explain his inability to laugh.
Ben Franklin, in the words of one historian, could laugh at himself. John Adams could laugh at others. Thomas Jefferson could not laugh.
as someone who has spent too much time living in the 18th century: TJ was probably autistic and 100% a prototypical asshole tech bro who deserves to be posthumously bullied
Let me put this carefully, as it's tricky to explain.
One of my dearest friends is autistic, and I'm partially deaf, so sometimes our conversations are difficult.
Looking back at a visit to Monticello, the 'conversation' I had with the proportions of the house now seems more familiar.
"and as in the dark, all cats are grey..." Oh, I'mma steal that. =^_^= I do think we collectively write off a lot of what makes us unique individuals as 'spectrumy'. It's ok to be different, no matter what society wants us to label ourselves as.
There’s at least one case of a town on a diagonal grid getting surrounded by the north-south grid its neighboring rival town, out of spite, but I can’t remember the towns’ names.
I suspect USA cities copied UK medieval ones, like Salisbury and a smaller version in Sussex called Winchelsea. Also, the Romans did it. A lot of their towns used the same template.
Chicago is built on the idea of an endlessly expandable grid.
St. Louis is a weirdly imperfect grid thanks to what the topography of the Mississippi does. It has two different grid systems that meet each other at N. Florissant Ave and Natural Bridge Ave in North City.
In St.Louis you can tell which are the old main roads because they radiate out from the Landing. Traveling through what was, at the time, rural Missouri.
My gut reaction is, "Of course you would use a grid for a city when you get to design it from scratch." But I'm autistic, so you might be on to something.
I'm not autistic and I LOVE grid cities. What do you mean everything is ever so slightly slanted? What do you mean there are useless roundabouts as a band-aid? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, URBAN PLANNERS? WHAT DO YOU MEAAAN
I always thought American cities were inspired by Romans because their cities were also on grids. Still, Jefferson might have been hyperfixated on the Romans.
Careful around the Jefferson rabbit hole. As a Unitarian Universalist (a ridiculously progressive religion) we have danced around with Mr Jefferson a number of times as he associated himself with both of the religions that make up our modern religion. And he is kind of all over the place.
I could have sworn that the Grid vs Organic argument fell down to the origins of the original settlement, that is to say "centrally planned by a remote authority" vs "Settlers came here and started accreting like a coral.
so in the former, someone who wasn't at the location was given a map and asked to lay out streets, and so they did (or a military/corporate entity set up the settlement and order was part of the design)
Whereas settlements form around family units and cultural caches.
So in the former you have things organized along lines of commerce and the the latter has radiating community groupings that form in semi-organic ways, rather than grids.
Thus: You see grids where you see external control being applied.
Because a grid makes sense! It is a tool to find your way in an unfamiliar area.
In Ft. Laud, St, Ct, Dr go east-west. Ave, Terr, Ways go north-south. All are numbered. It is a beautiful system.
(yes, there are plenty of exceptions, but the quadrants help maintain order.)
Grid as an urban plan is ancient. Both the greeks and the Romans built cities this way. Near east cities, however, followed a concentric design, with a central citadel of monumental buildings surounded by residencial areas. Perhaps this has to do with republican vs monarchic political structures?
He owned 6,000 books, kept meticulous daily records of everything, planned Monticello to the nth degree, & avoided social situations & emotions, taught himself Latin Greek & French….
He was neurodivergent fosho
I remember reading somewhere that after the Fire, there were plans to rebuild London on a grid, but people ended up just rebuilding their houses in the same place.
Wikipedia says it was because it was too pricey apparently.
When you consider that America was colonised from East to West, you can tell the exact moment when the first White Americans got bored of using rivers to track territorial borders, and just got the ruler out.
ooo! i can't wait for the fruits of your labors! and i hope you get a chance to look at philosopher Quill Kukla's "City Living"! a great dive into the phenomenology of urban life!
My home city of Dayton, OH was designed with a ton of one way streets so that no matter where in the city you are, a team of 12 horses could turn around within one block. The core design remains the same to this day. It makes for a very uninteresting layout but it's very easy to navigate.
I remember a podcast talking about Salt Lake City with similar ideas - the roads were wide enough to pull a u-turn with horse and cart. Also, the city addressing scheme travels outward from the temple in the centre of town, which is kinda cool.
As someone from Massachusetts where cities and towns grew organically and haphazardly (looking at you Boston/Cambridge area) I think it isn’t such a bad idea 😏
Well, it works. It works on SIM CITY too. Ever go to DC? Its not a grid it's a cluster grid with diagonals and one way streets making it hard to find your way back, and so easy to get lost . 😂
In the 80s I was in college park md, and we would go down to Georgetown. It was a pretty straight shot, but going back was always convoluted and sometimes we'd get totally lost. Those circles were definitely a nightmare.
I really like your post, it is my theory/belief that most or all historical geniuses were autistic savants. “Prominent people are eccentric, common people are just nuts”. Or something like that. Keep up the good work.
Thomas Jefferson was autistic, and we could bet our buttons that his contemporaries were not sitting huddled together in medical conclaves saying that he was disordered, or that he had a disability or a condition, which he did not have. He was a wonderful, healthy autistic man.
Our National land grant grids have multiple sources. Jeffersonian was based on a grid of Section/township and range. That didn’t happen until 1785 and applied (mostly) to western states in application. We also use many other land grant systems to describe ownership, and varies state by state.
One of your videos has sent me down a rabbit hole on phenomenology and it's relationship to the retail sector. What happens If I remove gender when designing a retail space? Would it sell more stuff if 'Men' were given 'permission' and told they can buy cloths that were 'gendered' differently.
If you concentrate solely on the experience of shopping wouldn't a store with products arranged by texture and colour be a better experience than separating items by gender. In this imaginary store I would have Male/Female stereotypical conversion charts on the wall. Inviting evry1 to explore gender
Is there any books you can recommend, or people I can study who can help me explore this topic more?
I have in my collection. "The Techno-Human Condition - by; Braden R. Allenby and Daniel R. Sarewitz . I think you will like it.
As an ❤️🤍💙American🇺🇸 and an autistic this was my first impression really learning about him in school. Learning that his clothes were often decades behind the fashion or that he basically had serious what we could call “executive function” issues…
The weird thing about the grid too is that the new sections are oriented N-E-S-W and the original grid often isn't, so all the roads have to do like a 45 degree turn at some point. Example: Denver, Atlanta, L.A., Cheyenne...
That’s not what ‘autistic spectrum disorder’ means, it doesn’t mean that every single human being is on a scale of ‘most to least autistic’ it means autistic people have a varied spectrum of traits - not every person is in some way autistic (it’s a common misunderstanding)
Because a Grid system is the most logical way to navigate even in places that don't have Gridded streets their Rapid Transit systems are usually laid out on a Grid too
For a distraction, look at riverside cities like Cincinnati and New Orleans that were surveyed using a French method of rays extending from a central point.
The grid system made encroaching on native territory easier as they could expand the grid pattern quickly to appropriate more native land. Jackson was a bigger proponent than Jefferson. Jackson actually tanked the land market selling off Florida after he seized it from Spain.
When Secretary of State Monroe warned him of the impending collapse he said filling the territory with white men was more important than land speculation.
Jefferson only really used the grid program in Louisiana, specifically New Orleans as a means of Americanizing the French. It was honestly Jackson who really took the program and ran with it. He employed an army of surveyors in the build up to the trail of tears.
I think it’s because the old trails in the cities out east made way to roads where as people understood the block system better/easier to set up. But what do I know??? I’m just a middle aged mom. :/ :)
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Me, youthful, exuberant, sexy, clear and useful: "All discourse reverts to Miku Binder Jefferson"
When you know a little history, you don’t believe in Miku binder Thomas Jefferson
When you know all the history, you believe in Miku binder Thomas Jefferson
Which, now that I think about it, makes The Lonely Island sound like modern day bards.
Whip his ass on the cardboard field of battle.
The 2000 election set the USA on this path with the war mongering oil boy
i just left twitter
memes followed me here
Robert Hughes on Jefferson and Classicism/Liberalism ?
That is all.
The Thomas Jefferson of the popular imagination is about as historically accurate as the character of Moses in the Bible.
Better than watching the news and seeing donnie yapping about the usual shit
Let us know what you found.
Might explain his inability to laugh.
Ben Franklin, in the words of one historian, could laugh at himself. John Adams could laugh at others. Thomas Jefferson could not laugh.
That's why Alexander Hamilton is my favorite Founder. He served in the Revolutionary War.
One of my dearest friends is autistic, and I'm partially deaf, so sometimes our conversations are difficult.
Looking back at a visit to Monticello, the 'conversation' I had with the proportions of the house now seems more familiar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosing_a_Mistress
Chicago is built on the idea of an endlessly expandable grid.
St. Louis is a weirdly imperfect grid thanks to what the topography of the Mississippi does. It has two different grid systems that meet each other at N. Florissant Ave and Natural Bridge Ave in North City.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOifuHs6eY&t=4s
https://dougalleninstitute.org/archives/10148/
Whereas settlements form around family units and cultural caches.
Thus: You see grids where you see external control being applied.
In Ft. Laud, St, Ct, Dr go east-west. Ave, Terr, Ways go north-south. All are numbered. It is a beautiful system.
(yes, there are plenty of exceptions, but the quadrants help maintain order.)
He was neurodivergent fosho
Wikipedia says it was because it was too pricey apparently.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonality
https://autism-advocacy.fandom.com/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
https://bookshop.org/p/books/city-life-witold-rybczynski/10209294?ean=9780684825298&ref=&source=IndieBound&title=
I have in my collection. "The Techno-Human Condition - by; Braden R. Allenby and Daniel R. Sarewitz . I think you will like it.
Mac n Cheese & opined about it day and night, as a data point lol
You ever look into Wittgenstein's life? (Rhetorical)
He thought it wasn’t compatible with Lockian philosophies, but I don’t know of any declaration by him that he actually felt bad about it.
It’s like someone thinking pollution is bad but doesn’t want to mandate microplastic filters on washing machines
I just read "Seeing Like a State" - a bit long and repetitive, but contains tons of insights. https://randy.strausses.net/misc/books/index.html#slas
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/23241299.glasgows-famous-grid-layout-helped-become-top-movie-spot/
Did gingers just rule the world at some point?