tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post1822799272564502818..comments2024-03-18T17:09:55.964-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Economic Inequality: opportunity vs outcomesDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger214125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9522238975073576582017-03-29T08:19:21.985-07:002017-03-29T08:19:21.985-07:00Locum:
You must be confusing your math. Universit...Locum:<br /><br />You must be confusing your math. University courses in public universities cost a fraction of those in private universities, because there is no need for profit.<br />A typical 6 years masters degree costs under 25 000$ to the state in my country. The students contribute with a tuition of about 5 000$ (diferent courses diferent costs).<br />In return the educated worker will pay on average more 5 000$ in taxes a year than the non educated one, he is also more likely to find a job and to contribute to weath creation by creating new patents and entrepeneurial activity.<br />So infact he repays society in vast amounts.<br /><br />The problems in Sothern Europe arise from decades of autocratic government and dictatorship without public schools not because of public schoolsLuís Salgueirohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09639187787702431357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31884902562373916842017-03-28T20:07:03.395-07:002017-03-28T20:07:03.395-07:00I worry that the ocean acidification argument isn&...I worry that the ocean acidification argument isn't sufficiently clear. We see the cause (lowered pH) and the effect (the death of coral reefs and others), but rarely if ever do I see the science explained beyond a superficial level.<br />My concern is that a moderately well-read denialist can say, "CO2 levels were much higher in the Mesozoic Era, and the ocean was presumably even more acidic, and yet, corals and molluscs survived then just fine."<br />The obvious rebuttal to this is, "Yes, but it's the <i>rate</i> of change that's important, and it's happening much faster now."<br />To this, the denialist flippantly replies, "But the chemistry is still the same. What's changed about H+ + CaCO3 -> Ca++ + HCO3- in the last 100 million years?"<br />Of course, the fact that the actual reefs are dying strongly implies that corals today simply aren't adapted to the lower pH for subtler reasons than the first-order chemical reaction, but I don't know enough biology or chemistry to complete the chain of logic, and I rarely see it addressed.<br /><br />And for accuracy's sake, I have to take issue with your assertion that Earth is so close to the inner edge of the habitable zone that we can afford very little CO2 (and that we'll have to move the planet in less than 100 million years.) Both claims are based on the most pessimistic calculations of the habitable zone, which are by no means widely accepted. The most recent models I've seen (e.g. Wolf et al., 2017) tend to converge around an inner edge that is <i>not</i> at 0.99 AU, but more like 0.96 AU. In terms of temperature, it would take 20-25C of warming to destabilize the global climate in this model. Is that small enough to be worrying? Sure, but there are other big problems that start much sooner.<br /><br />For example, I think one of the most compelling arguments on climate is, "Hey! It will only take 7C of warming before large parts of the Earth are uninhabitable to humans because it will be thermodynamically impossible to shed body heat." That we can see pretty clearly from the physics of evaporative cooling before we even get to general circulation models, so it's clearer-cut and more pressing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52922266601444688902017-03-28T16:40:53.844-07:002017-03-28T16:40:53.844-07:00BTW, Dr Brin has already given the...
Onward!
On...BTW, Dr Brin has already given the...<br /><br />Onward!<br /><br />Onward!LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1441086025341232802017-03-28T16:40:07.483-07:002017-03-28T16:40:07.483-07:00locumranch:
First, he claims the death of Social ...locumranch:<br /><i><br />First, he claims the death of Social Reciprocity. Then, he claims that social bread & circuses equal "fair recompense (...) for submitting and humbling oneself to (society as) a master".<br /><br />Which is it Larry?? Do you know what "recompense" (defined as 'payment in RETURN for something, such as a service') even means, or do you imagine "recompense" to mean a non-reciprocal act??<br /><br />This is what you're saying, Larry<br /></i><br /><br />You sound like you're about to blow an artery, to which I say "Go with God."<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72534497015208020382017-03-28T15:42:56.561-07:002017-03-28T15:42:56.561-07:00Riddle me this, locumranch: Which is a better indi...Riddle me this, locumranch: Which is a better indicator of a healthy economy? The amount of wealth it has, or the ability of that wealth to circulate freely?<br /><br />Hint: It doesn't matter how much blood you have if it doesn't circulate well.Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16261339498383415026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6644308028729325522017-03-28T15:27:11.043-07:002017-03-28T15:27:11.043-07:00Riddle me this, locumranch: Which is a better indi...Riddle me this, locumranch: Which is a better indicator of a healthy economy? The amount of wealth it has, or the ability of that wealth to circulate freely?<br /><br />Hint: It doesn't matter how much blood you have if it doesn't circulate well.Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16261339498383415026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9246258137854344622017-03-28T14:17:29.809-07:002017-03-28T14:17:29.809-07:00Darrell E.,
In your last post you attributed seve...Darrell E.,<br /><br />In your last post you attributed several comments I made to Donzelion. It's no big deal, as this blog can get really long and it becomes hard to remember who wrote what. I would, however, like to address some of your comments, starting with the fact that there is little in your comment I disagree with. I also think that most of what you said in the previous comment that actually was from Donzelion is exactly what I think, but I often fail to put out so well or remember to include details (my last couple might have been too detailed). Your explanation of investing in people is right on the mark, and exactly what I have thought for most of my life (and why I tend to go off on fools who try to pass off the old Reagan-era bullstuff about the Welfare State, or its more recent relabeling as the Nanny State. But on to your second post.<br /><br />Your description of the abysmal misunderstanding of science on the part of the general public is also a bull’s eye, but I will say that the straw-manning is quite pervasive. It mostly starts at the top and flows down the hierarchy from Republican Party leaders (who behave little differently from Communist Party leaders) and über-rich TV evangelists to direct underlings like press liaisons, talk-show hosts and web editors, filtering to the common people they are trying to dupe. Most people have no idea what straw-manning is, or any of the other rhetorical tricks and fallacious logic they use to dupe them. Many people who are mired in archaic ways of thinking and raising their children absorb this crap, which activates and slowly hyper-sensitizes their fear centers, causing some percent of our epidemic of mental health issues - mainly anxiety and depressive disorders. (That was a long sentence, wasn’t it?) Back when I used to attend church regularly, it was like a re-education camp, with preachers during regular sermons and lay elders in Sunday school teaching the congregation talking points for them to use against scientists or anyone who believes in “Darwinism” or supports abortion rights.<br /><br />On to NOMA. Everything you wrote is pretty sensible, for a person who is well-educated and understands both science and religion. And most of the things you said were addressed by Gould himself. He said that there are some overlaps between the two, science does have useful things to say about morality (an obvious one would be the AAA’s stance on ‘Race’ and racism), many of the morals preached by various faiths may have seemed right by the standards to the ancients but are utterly contemptible to us today, or just plain silly impositions on personal freedoms. An example of that one would be the Levitican dietary restrictions, which, as Alfred mentioned not long ago and has been the subject of actual scientific scrutiny, mostly make sense (except the pig thing) in terms of cultural ecology in a desert region without modern refrigeration technology. Most fervent, militant Christians do not even know that the Bible forbids them to eat shrimp, a sin to be paid by stoning and eternal damnation. The culture has changed dramatically since the 3rd Century B.C., so people read very selectively and just ignore anything they don’t like.<br /><br /><br />Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6761051310108518632017-03-28T13:37:53.531-07:002017-03-28T13:37:53.531-07:00Ioan and DavidC, my six "name an exception&qu...Ioan and DavidC, my six "name an exception" challenges never said "name a red state that's doing better than a blue state. Blatantly there are outliers of blue-low.... Chicago etc. And blue states that gerrymander, too. And Utah is clearly a red outlier where teen sex, pregnancy, STDs Domestic violence, gambling, addiction in a red state are all LOWER than the blue average. <br /><br /> Though even in red states vs blue states comparisons, the PLURALITY is blatant! Blues do:<br />-less gerrymandering or other electoral cheating <br />- more easing out of the drug war<br />- far better re teen sex, pregnancy, STDs Domestic violence, gambling, addiction and all the rest<br />- Schools, universities, infrastructure and all of that.... and I could go on.<br />- Oh and balancing budgets! And entrepreneurship! GDP rise!<br /><br />Locum sometimes tries to imagine positive sum. But he can't do it. For example, he must yammer that healthcare is about "rights" when it should be done as a simple investment in maximizing the number of kids who compete well instead of becoming burdens. The right runs screaming from facts, like those that show how much money is SAVED by timely interventions.<br /><br />They used to believe in "a stitch, in time" and "Cleanliness is next to godliness" and "A penny saved." Now it's "Give the rich all our money so we'll be bankrupted and have to pay for the prisons and crime we could have prevented by investing in kids."<br /><br />You... are... insane people.<br /><br />onward<br /><br />onward<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16567763895794541602017-03-28T13:27:07.875-07:002017-03-28T13:27:07.875-07:00Hey locum. Today's Russia is the Soviet Union ...Hey locum. Today's Russia is the Soviet Union - whose fall Putin and all the others lament as a "catastrophe" = except with more church, less investment in children, and less due process. Oh, and instead of State Committees, the exact same collectivization of all commerce is now under mafiosi oligarchs. <br /><br />Otherwise? SHOW US how today's Russia isn't the USSR? Oh, except weaker because Obama and HClinton swiped away the Ukraine...<br /><br />...and stronger, because Putin swiped back America. Now under mafiosi oligarchs.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9111062684935356792017-03-28T13:21:20.843-07:002017-03-28T13:21:20.843-07:00CarlM -- There's this: How Donald Trump hijack...CarlM -- There's this: How Donald Trump hijacked the religious right. <br /><br />From The Atlantic: "Evangelicals have traded Ronald Reagan’s gospel-inspired depiction of America as a “shining city on a hill” for Trump’s dark vision of “American carnage.” And in doing so, they have returned the religious right to its own origins—as a movement founded to maintain the South’s segregationist 'way of life.'" Historian Richard Balmer writes, “The breakthrough of the 2016 election lies in the fact that the religious right, in its support for a thrice-married, self-confessed sexual predator, finally dispensed with the fiction that it was concerned about abortion or ‘family values.’ ”<br /><br />https://newrepublic.com/article/140961/amazing-disgrace-donald-trump-hijacked-religious-right<br /><br />What did you expect? The teachings of Jesus are pushed back and the book of Revelations stands triumphant over Christianity. It's not about generosity and love and moral behavior. It is all: "I love immoral bastards who gall and frustrate and hate the same people I hate!"David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10334875737283479932017-03-28T12:47:03.874-07:002017-03-28T12:47:03.874-07:00Look to Larry_H's post above for a textbook de...<br />Look to Larry_H's post above for a textbook definition of Marxism (which has proven so successful in Cuba, Venezuela & the USSR), but don't hold your breath if you expect him to justify social service spending in the absence of social reciprocity. <br /><br />First, he claims the death of Social Reciprocity. Then, he claims that social bread & circuses equal "fair recompense (...) for submitting and humbling oneself to (society as) a master".<br /><br />Which is it Larry?? Do you know what "recompense" (defined as 'payment in RETURN for something, such as a service') even means, or do you imagine "recompense" to mean a non-reciprocal act??<br /><br />This is what you're saying, Larry:<br /><br />The Welfare State is a bribe to hoi polloi to shut up, accept their enslavement, mind their betters & support the Status Quo, assuming that the hoi polloi possess enough reciprocal honour to 'stay bribed'. <br /><br /><br />Best<br />locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22446715834272129082017-03-28T12:12:40.178-07:002017-03-28T12:12:40.178-07:00Luis_S,
By construing social service spending as ...<br />Luis_S,<br /><br />By construing social service spending as an 'investment', note how Darrell_E assumes a reciprocal puritan work-ethic where none may exist, by postulating that the average recipient of public assistance will consider such payments as a debt which he 'should', 'ought' and is 'supposed to' repay (with interest) to human society in general, even though most of the Enlightened West considers such payments as a basic human right & entitlement. Now, explain how an unexceptional individual who receives a free $100K university degree (plus free food, housing & healthcare) is going to repay society's 'investment' by working as a barista AND consider the economic faecal-fests that are Venezuela & Southern Europe.<br /><br />That's the positive sum argument in a nutcase: <br /><br />1 + 1 = 47 (or, at least it 'should', 'ought' & is 'supposed' assuming "le meilleur des mondes possibles").<br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10891002114070067202017-03-28T11:05:58.209-07:002017-03-28T11:05:58.209-07:00Hey, two consecutive postings with more than 200 c...Hey, two consecutive postings with more than 200 comments apiece!<br /><br />I don't know that we've ever done that before.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88196728783358384972017-03-28T10:59:45.738-07:002017-03-28T10:59:45.738-07:00locumranch,
The Puritan Work Ethic is an anachron...locumranch,<br /><br />The Puritan Work Ethic is an anachronism. It made sense at a time in which basic survival required many long hours of back-breaking work. That's not the world in which we live. In fact, the hardest part about unemployment now is <b>finding</b> something useful for all those unemployed people to do with their time. There's not a scarcity of labor, but a scarcity of jobs. That's a different thing; in fact the opposite thing.<br /><br />The "residual Puritan work-ethic" you speak of adapts the harshness and cruelty of the Puritan Work Ethic to a situation in which it no longer applies--substituting "work or starve" with "endure misery and humiliation or starve". While long hours of work are not required from each individual to keep the gears turning, the private owners of the means of survival keep alive the notion that the mass of citizens have no claim on those means of survival other than by being economically useful to the owner class. Not finding any actual work for the masses to perform for their daily bread, the of slavery are substituted for the real thing. Thus a paycheck is fair recompense, not for the work itself, but for submitting and humbling oneself to a master. In that manner, most of America "earns" its right to life.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65429794413751341562017-03-28T10:53:28.979-07:002017-03-28T10:53:28.979-07:00donzelion said...
“Well, we can all see which koo...donzelion said...<br /><br /><i>“Well, we can all see which kool-aid you've been drinking. No, these people are not into Darwinism at all (it's not even called Darwinism anymore except in a historical context - the science has moved way beyond Darwin in a century and a half, but the Religious Duped can't seem to figure this one out - more likely it's deliberate straw-manning).”</i><br /><br />I agree that there is certainly a good deal of straw-manning, but there is something more basic going on. Most people that aren't actually scientists (I am not a scientist) don't understand science. I don't mean merely the body of knowledge derived from doing science or the theories, but the process of science and what the implications of it are. They don't understand that all of the disciplines of science are part of a whole, are interconnected and mutually supporting because they are all simply describing and modeling various categories of phenomena of the same reality, the one we find ourselves in. They don't understand that a claim that one small bit of well supported and verified science doesn't entail “proving” just that one small bit wrong, but often also all of the related and underlying science as well. They don't understand that science doesn't doesn't deal in black and white facts or truths, but rather in probabilities and accurate modeling. That its findings are provisional, more or less based directly on how well verified they are by observations, testing and modeling accuracy, but always provisional. This leads so often to the revealing, cliché, accusations of the “scientists used to say <i>X</i> but now they say <i>Y</i>” variety, as if that were a negative. They don't understand that at its most basic science is simply doing what is actually demonstrated to actually work, for real.<br /><br />donzelion said...<br /><br /><i>“I'm a strong proponent of Steven Jay Gould's "Noma" principle, Non-Overlapping Magisteria.”</i><br />I disagree with you on this one. I think NOMA was the most inaccurate idea SJG came up with. I think it is completely wrong for several reasons.<br /><br />1) Science is of great utility in the consideration of values, ethics and morals. For example, deciding that it is good to limit human suffering and bad to maximize it may simply be an arbitrary value judgement, but once such a value judgement has been made figuring out how to best realize those values can and should be guided by what can actually be shown to work well, aka empirical testing, aka science.<br /><br />2) Religion has no special claim or purview to inquiry into values, ethics or morals.<br /><br />3) Religion has never limited itself to inquiry into values, ethics and morals. It has always, and continues to, make fact claims about our world.<br /><br />I disagree with nearly everything SJG said in his explanation of his NOMA idea. Including, <i>“NOMA enjoys strong and fully explicit support, even from the primary cultural stereotypes of hard-line traditionalism.”</i> That just isn't so.<br /><br />Or, <i>“(it is) a sound position of general consensus, established by long struggle among people of goodwill in both magisteria.”</i> Again, that just ain't so.Darrell Ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14054311762477388637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31819265579246086682017-03-28T10:52:26.102-07:002017-03-28T10:52:26.102-07:00donzelion said...
“The political ideal of the Dem...donzelion said...<br /><br /><i>“The political ideal of the Democrats - from the Rooseveltian reformers, the Johnsonian progressives, through the Clinton/Obama incrementalists - has always been about expanding social services to cover neglected communities.”</i><br /><br />I like to describe this point of view as <i>investing</i> in the people that make up the society. A favorite example of mine is the GI Bill. How best to get the highest contribution out of every member of society? Well, you can't reach your potential if you are starving, sick, dying, homeless, living paycheck to paycheck or can't afford the education you are capable of achieving. But if our society, government and public institutions were such that every person had the opportunity to achieve as much as they are capable of and or desired to, within reason, and were actually encouraged to, how much more would the average contribution to society be? Good data already exists. It works very well.<br /><br />Invest in people and it pays big. People with more conservative points of view claim that doing so will bury us in freeloaders and result in a “Welfare State” (those are scare quotes, cause that's scary). And they so despise freeloaders. Except when they are the freeloaders. There will always be freeloaders. Who cares. Their numbers are not significant. A thing that I find very ironic is how more conservative people who tend to cry “socialism” at the drop of a hat are also those who tend to jingoism, proudly proclaiming how the US-of A is the greatest nation on Earth and that no others can compete with us. And yet they also think that the greatest nation on Earth can't figure out how to provide or pay for better healthcare than, say, Costa Rica.Darrell Ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14054311762477388637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4519553230439289662017-03-28T10:14:25.428-07:002017-03-28T10:14:25.428-07:00Luis_S asks a good question about the US perspecti...<br />Luis_S asks a good question about the US perspective on Healthcare, and you faux-libs fill his ears with nonsense & dross when it all comes down to residual Puritan work-ethic.<br /><br />Whereas most of the Enlightened West assumes 'deservingness' on the basis of birthright, necessity & humanism, the US puritan-based perspective assumes (instead) that 'deservingness' (merit) must be earned on the basis of personal labour, effort or sacrifice.<br /><br />Like food & housing, most consider Healthcare to be a necessity yet, in the specific case of the US, this does not necessarily indicate 'deservingness' or merit. This is why many right-wingers appear 'illiberal' because they assume that the poor, homeless & hungry somehow deserve this fate.<br /><br />Residual Puritanism is why most of the US public disdains public assistance, welfare & the dole even when they are dependent upon it (1); and, in its most extreme form, this also gives rise to Christian Science & its rejection of ALL healthcare by arguing that illness is somehow 'deserved' (aka 'divinely ordained') due to personal moral shortcomings & failed individual effort. <br /><br />Read Heinlein for a toxic dose of this philosophy.<br /><br /><br />Best<br />_____<br />(1) Medicare & Social Security are considered exceptions to this rule because (in theory) these social welfare entitlements were EARNED & paid-for through years of work-related payroll contributions in the manner of Savings Account.locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-84950065414067606202017-03-28T10:10:26.307-07:002017-03-28T10:10:26.307-07:00Ioan said...
"Since David has encouraged us ...Ioan said...<br /><br />"<i>Since David has encouraged us to look for exceptions to the red/blue state divide in terms of outcomes, I present Utah</i>"<br /><br />Well, let me make sure everyone here comprehends, according to these sources, North Dakota seems to be doing some things governmental intelligently:<br /><br />http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/take-a-lesson-from-north-dakota-s-government/article_56cbc160-d6a6-5642-8d93-85853c484c9c.html<br /><br />https://www.sayanythingblog.com/entry/north-dakota-has-the-most-trusted-state-government-in-america/David L. Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15526487213843123270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-86836728768454935692017-03-28T08:49:49.023-07:002017-03-28T08:49:49.023-07:00Larry con.t,
One problem with that article is tha...Larry con.t,<br /><br />One problem with that article is that it is so sketchy on the details of how the remains came to be examined over the protests of local tribes, it makes it look like the scientists were thieves. There's an article from the Smithsonian that goes into more detail, explaining that the local tribes claimed that they had the right to immediate reburial, but NAGPRA, the law that requires repatriation of Native American remains to any tribe that appears to be ancestral, requires that the remains be examined by professionals to determine what tribes might be related. Unfortunately, the article says nothing about why the local tribes wanted those particular remains buried so desperately. When they were first discovered, they did a facial reconstruction, which came out looking kind of like Patrick Stewart. As a Native American monitor I used to work with liked to say, "There ain't no fucking way I'm related to some fucking white man!" As a very intensively oppressed and now mostly ignore minority in the US, most of the natives have a very deep hatred of the dominant ethnic groups of America. The idea that there might have been "white" people in North America thousands of years ago goes completely against their religious (and legal) mythology and, given how many of their people are in deep poverty because of their ethnic status, strikes a very raw nerve for them. While I don't blame them at all for the attitude so many express, it's really not helping them. Given that most Native Americans have some Ainu and some Polynesian DNA, there were clearly both ethnic groups in North America in ancient times, who no doubt bred with them in the past. So much for "racial purity." They would be better served by claiming there Ainu and Polynesian heritage and supporting genetic studies that blow the top off of this kind of bull for all humans everywhere, Race is a concept we could do without.<br /><br />http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33170655<br /><br />If you would like to see a case of Native Americans working with geneticists on human remains, PBS did a well-researched series called "First Peoples" which I highly recommend. The episode on North America, or course, is the one to look for on that, but the entire series is really interesting. <br /><br />https://www.amazon.com/First-Peoples/dp/B00VNQWUB2/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1490716084&sr=1-2&keywords=first+peoples<br /><br />Okay, enough of my blatheringPaul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38194332728194850162017-03-28T08:49:21.739-07:002017-03-28T08:49:21.739-07:00Larry,
I think you misconstrued the "I'm...Larry,<br /><br />I think you misconstrued the "I'm done." I was merely acknowledging that my long, long posts are probably tiresome for most people.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I feel compelled by my verbosity genes to bring up something else that I forgot to mention before I "I'm doned". The Ainu are usually described as Caucasian people. There was another example of a Caucasian people in Asia - the Tarim Mummies. The Tarim Basin is a part of the Taklamakan Desert, which is dry enough to make for remarkable preservation conditions. Many of the mummies have blond hair, which seems to be a marker of "whiteness" in our culture today. Those folks and the Ainu only show that ancient peoples did move around quite a lot - maybe even across the Bering Strait (Kennewick Man).<br /><br />Here's a short article about the Tarin Mummies:<br /><br />http://decodedpast.com/the-takla-makan-mummies-chinas-first-caucasian-immigrants/66<br /><br />Maybe Kennewick Man, if you are interested. I've found a number of articles that discuss him fairly well, but none quite paint the whole picture. One from the BBC goes into recent genetic tests, which show a mix of Native American, Polynesian and Ainu markers. It shouldn't surprise anyone that virtually everyone in the world has a mix of features for multiple "races" and ethnicities, but ethnonationalism has been such a huge part of government propaganda for so many centuries the BS notion that there are "pure" people is taken as fact by most people, nearly all of whom insist that they are "pure" whatever, until they get the lab results that proves they are dupes.<br /><br />http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33170655<br /><br />Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2520263320224262432017-03-28T08:48:18.525-07:002017-03-28T08:48:18.525-07:00raito:
I couldn't say about Hocus Pocus, thou...raito:<br /><i><br />I couldn't say about Hocus Pocus, though it sounds right. That's one I haven't read.<br /></i><br /><br />It came out in the very late 1980s, during the time when it seemed as if Japan would completely dominate the US economy. The book posited a near-future in which most public institutions in the US were being managed by Japanese businessmen, referred to by the protagonist as the "occupation army in business suits."<br /><br />The narration mentioned the Ainu as an explanation of what came to mind to these Japanese when they looked at white Americans.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-414768440824732462017-03-28T08:46:25.889-07:002017-03-28T08:46:25.889-07:00Since David has encouraged us to look for exceptio...Since David has encouraged us to look for exceptions to the red/blue state divide in terms of outcomes, I present Utah<br /><br />https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-28/how-utah-keeps-the-american-dream-aliveIoannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52424948651899237132017-03-28T08:26:42.508-07:002017-03-28T08:26:42.508-07:00LarryHart,
I couldn't say about Hocus Pocus, ...LarryHart,<br /><br />I couldn't say about Hocus Pocus, though it sounds right. That's one I haven't read.<br /><br />Paul SB,<br /><br />Yes, there were more ethnic groups in Japan than most people understand. Some got supplanted. Some got incorporated. It's a bit like the waves of Celtic people moving westward during the migration period in Europe and pushing out the earlier migrations.<br /><br />Also note that the Japanese continued to use the Confucian system of land allocation well after the Chinese had abandoned it. The Japanese also offered land in outlying areas to try to get people to settle more of Japan.<br /><br />Serfdom as a term only works because of modern connotations, not because of precise meaning. I doubt very much that the modern oligarchy wants actual serfs, because having them implies (some) responsibility for them, something which is not currently wanted.raitonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27665919551803238892017-03-28T07:26:59.249-07:002017-03-28T07:26:59.249-07:00@Paul SB,
If that's what you call "I'...@Paul SB,<br /><br />If that's what you call "I'm done", I'd hate to see what you consider "grievous assault with intent."* :)<br /><br />If you were very young at the time, you probably don't remember that Doonesbury went on hiatus for something like 18 months in the early 80s. Bloom County showed up around then and was often placed on newspaper comics pages in the old Doonesbury space. It seemed obvious that Bloom County was trying to be the newer, younger Doonesbury, but I thought it was trying too hard.<br /> <br />* "American Flagg!" #5, 1983<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15139792139013494752017-03-28T07:15:56.103-07:002017-03-28T07:15:56.103-07:00Larry,
I only read Bloom County sporadically whil...Larry,<br /><br />I only read Bloom County sporadically while in my larval stage, and Doonesbury the same. I probably missed the gross and unsubtle phase. And as to demonstrating that "better" is subjective, this is a different context. Personal taste in art or literature is just that - personal, and is completely NBD to anyone with any maturity beyond the terrible twos (about where our thief president is). In terms of running a country, there are things that any social scientist would consider "better", but he is right that those qualities are subjective. They are commonly held by a majority of hominids, though they defy the interests of the overly-monied, Veblen-pattern classes. Most people who learn about, for instance, the Indian caste system are fairly horrified for its barbaric treatment of all but the wealthy and powerful Brahmins and the warrior caste (I don't remember their name).Those two upper classes are quite content with a system that allows them to mercilessly exploit tens of millions people, squeezing them for everything they have. So yeah, "better" is subjective, but those who think that allowing the rich to crush the poor under their heels are both monstrously evil by the standards of a majority of humanity and, as our host has said many times, bone-headedly stupid, as the grinding poverty they create both wastes human potential on a massive scale and actually works against their own interests by depressing the amount of money in the economy (rich tend to sequester wealth instead of investing in improvements that would increase the flow of goods and money, thus decreasing the amount of money they can steal. They are not "job creators" by any stretch of the imagination - that is just the bullshit propaganda Republicans use to justify kleptocracy (which I still think is a better term than feudalism). <br /><br />So yes, "better" is subjective, but only heartless evil slime or easily duped fools, both of which we have in great numbers in this country (can't speak to other countries from personal experience) would choose to support kleptocrats like President Grope and his gang of thieves. So which category does our little locum fall into? It's pretty obvious which category the Twig troll is in, but locum does a much better job at being solipsistic and appearing clever about it.<br /><br />And yes, the Ainu were among the ethnic groups in pre-Yamato Japan, and they confound our racial stereotypes, having the pale skin and often blue eyes of Caucasians, but having lived in Asia for millennia. Today Ainu show a mix of typical Caucasian and Asian traits for the same reason that many Native Americans can blend in very easily with either Caucasian of Hispanic people. If you're not "out on the Rez" as they say, you wouldn't know you were talking to a Native American unless they told you. There's a branch of the Dakota whose chief has a Japanese surname. Paul SBnoreply@blogger.com