Snapshot · Dwarkesh Podcast
Cesare Borgia became popular with common people after conquering cities because his neutral justice — unbeholden to local factions — was fairer than anything they had experienced before.
Where this was said
At 50:05 · chapter starts 47:55
The elder Lorenzo de' Medici spent ~$30M equivalent on education. Florence used art as cheaper diplomacy than armies — commissioning gifts for French kings was more cost-effective than fighting France. [1] — Ada Palmer "Florence couldn't afford armies to fight France. So it spent lavishly on art, architecture, and cultural gifts for French kings instead. Cu…" 59:20
Borgia massacred the ruling families of the cities he conquered, then installed neutral justice — and became wildly popular. For the first time in generations, the carpenter whose son killed someone got the same verdict whether he worked for the faction in power or the faction out of power. Machiavelli was startled. The lesson: feared but not hated works.
The elder Lorenzo de' Medici spent what would today be roughly $30 million building a library to educate his grandson, illustrating the scale of Renaissance humanist patronage.
Florence couldn't afford armies to fight France. So it spent lavishly on art, architecture, and cultural gifts for French kings instead. Culture wasn't a surplus from peace — it was a rational substitution for unaffordable military spending. Florence was playing the culture victory because the military victory wasn't available.
Florence could not afford armies sufficient to repel France, so it used spectacular art and cultural gifts as diplomatic tools — effectively buying peace for less than the cost of war.
Renaissance thinkers saw human potential as recapturing ancient Rome, not advancing into an unknown future — making imitation of antiquity the highest intellectual ambition.
Medieval Catholic tradition held that Pope Gregory the Great summoned and baptized the ghost of Emperor Trajan posthumously, because Europeans loved Trajan too much to accept that he was in hell.
Joel de la Garza noted that the CISO role is a relatively recent invention, with Steve Katz widely credited as the first-ever CISO.
Superficial adoption of electricity gave factories only 6% efficiency gains; fully redesigning factories around it delivered a 3x productivity improvement that powered 20th-century US growth.
Harold Ramis recounted that during Caddyshack filming, storms kept the cast cooped up in a Florida hotel for days, during which they partied and did drugs all day and night.
In the 1820s, China accounted for 25% of global economic output, making it the world's largest economic machine — a historical precedent for its current AI superpower ambitions.
66 Americans held hostage at the US Embassy in Iran were released after 444 days, within hours of Reagan's inauguration.
In the first round of the secret arms deal, 508 TOW missiles were transferred from Israel to Iran in exchange for hostage releases.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran across 8 separate shipments over just over a year.
Despite all the missile sales, only 3 of the 7 American hostages held by Lebanese terrorists were ultimately released.
The CIA supply plane that blew open the scandal was flying at only 2,500 feet in broad daylight when it was shot down on October 5, 1986.
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