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Interesting read. Digging in and fortifying positions is very much still a crucial part of war. For example, in the current Russo-Ukrainian war, structures such as trenches, bunkers, basements, towers, buildings etc. are crucial for holding onto terrain. Also obstacle-like structures such as concertina wire, anti-tank ditches, dragon's teeth, minefields, czech-hedgehogs, etc. are all over the place. Wherever soldiers appear, they basically dig in and start fortifying, constructing structures both for their own protection as well as for obstructing enemy movement. An interesting recent development are kilometers-long anti-drone tunnels along key logistical routes, meant mostly for stopping rotary FPV drones that are trying to intercept logistics

Happy to see "de bello Gallico" mentioned. The finale, the siege of Alesia, was all about building.

> I am (alas) an entirely carbon-based user of the em dash.

What a lovely sentence.

> Why Medieval Rulers Loved Castles.

Why do men love paper money?

Castles is a thing because it's a thing. Like Rai stones or Bitcoins hashes. They are hard to make.

Once you have a castle everyone rally's around it, they know it will be there in 200 years. When you are old you know your investment will still have the same value to give to your children.

What China is doing in the South China Sea is very cool, making islands. I'd be nice to be in a world humans did it without the power grab as an excuse, but I guess that's the value add governments need when the world is full of sad nihilists on the mainstream media train against building great things, only destruction.

Also see A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry's series of fortifications [0] regarding castles and their strategic importance, especially on how they were essential to local control of the area as opposed to "just" FOBs for military campaigns. (Incidentally the term "tyranny of the wagon equation" linked in the article also eventually leads to a different ACOUP series.)

[0] https://acoup.blog/2021/12/10/collections-fortification-part...

IME, it's not popular to say it on HN, but it's essential to know your author - information is never divorced from a person (sometimes it's a programmer). You're not smart enough to evaluate knowledge unless you have expertise yourself, and even then it's essential to know who wrote it - note that is the lead piece of information in scholarly cites. Here I see no description beyond,

> I try to learn all the time. I make stuff sometimes. And dream about space the rest of the time. Proud Neptune-stan. Ask me about Neptune.

And here is their process:

> the synthesis of parts from several books + papers and discussions with friends

Also know the institution, in this case the 1517 Fund. From their About page,

> In 2010, our team cofounded the Thiel Fellowship with Peter Thiel to prove out a simple belief: great founders don’t need university degrees. That was a $100k grant program – and it gave birth to projects like Ethereum, companies like Figma, OYO Rooms, and Luminar, and funds like the Longevity Fund. We started 1517 to scale that further and expand the support and community that the Thiel Fellowship started.

Just-a-guy-on-the-Internet, and in an org with an agenda, is the source of all sorts of nonsense.

When you think about it, the goal of fortifications (and the like) has been to protect from explosives and shrapnel. But now with drones, explosives and the attendant shrapnel can basically be shuttled anywhere and with great precision.

I think America needs more castles. They're very cool.