Dwarkesh Patel

And so they are much closer to tyrants than the Medici are ever able to be even after the republic falls.

And that's what's so neat, right?

Because the resistance failed if we're looking at it in black and white.

The republic fell.

There wasn't a republic anymore.

There was a duke.

He took over.

The old system was gone.

But because the republic fought so hard and because the people really believed in it, the people had a lot more rights and the tyrant was a lot less tyrannical because there had been that fight.

It's a great example of how even when resistance loses, resistance wins.

The only thing that makes resistance weak in the US is when people feel as if partial victory is failure, right?

And remembering moments like how Florence's resistance all the way to the end meant that there was more liberty for the next several centuries, even under the tyrant.

is what we need to remind ourselves that actually partial victory is an important thing.

And even if the worst were to happen and there were to be tyranny, that tyranny would be so much weaker because there was a lot of resistance and traditions of resistance and structures would develop that would continue to exist.

So when Cosimo de Medici swings the contract as banker for the pope,

It's important to remember that when you can't wire transfer money, you know, in the pre-modern world, collecting taxes is a very difficult and complicated system.

It is generally done by the centralizing power that has the right to tax delegating somebody local who knows.

So if you're in a town that there'll be a local tax collector, it's his job to go around to everybody and collect taxes and then send a portion of those taxes home to the central power who

and keep a remainder to pay himself.

The central power will say, we expect X amount of taxes from this area.