Taking another break from war, pandemic & politics. Though again I think our paladins in all of those realms could benefit from my book of fresh tactics, Polemical Judo...
== Wow, just wow ==
The eeriest news during an eerie month? Was the 1983 Christopher Walken film Brainstorm prophetic? According to a recent report: “After an elderly patient died suddenly during a routine test, scientists accidentally captured unique data on the activity in his brain at the very end of his life: During the 30 seconds before and after the man's heart stopped, his brain waves were remarkably similar to those seen during dreaming, memory recall and meditation, suggesting that people may actually see their life "flash before their eyes" when they die.”
And fantastic! A team has found the wreck of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance more than 100 years after the vessel was crushed by ice and sank near Antarctica. One of my lifelong heroes.
== Our biological world ==
While I prepare to restore my pastime as a honey beekeeper, it is a good idea to remember that there are other, important kinds of buzzers out there, including the humble (and endangered!) bumble bee!
Expanding our definition of food: Lobster, once despised, is now a delicacy. The same could happen with insects, this video argues. Useful for space colonies as well.
A bacterium single cell is visible to the naked eye, growing up to 2 centimeters and 5000 times bigger than most other microbes. ‘What’s more, this giant has a huge genome that’s not free floating inside the cell as in other bacteria, but is instead encased in a membrane, an innovation characteristic of much more complex eukaryotes.’
At a recent (zoomed) CARTA conference, Mark Moffett of the Smithsonian gave a talk: “Ants and the Anthropocene” that suggests humans aren’t the only species who are aggressively altering the planet. Kneel down anywhere in California or the south of France or a hundred other places and you’ll see Argentine ants (AA) who hitchhiked on human transports, then expanded to extinguish almost all native ant species, in part by making super-colonies who cooperate in taking over the land. Fire ants, who have done the same thing in the US south, coincidentally come from the same Argentine flood basin! They became so ferocious amid millennia of fights in one spot, And now the battle of two rival species is worldwide, including fire ant infestations in California. There are some exceptions to Argentine ants’ super cooperation. California actually has five super colonies and they battle incessantly, with one boundary just a few klicks from our home!
== Ah, Covid ==
Despite so many deaths (almost a million in the U.S. alone), this pandemic was mild by sci fi standards, and may be looked back-upon as more of a live fire 'drill' that left us better prepared for the real thing. The stunning speed with which half a dozen different vaccines came forth must be daunting to any villains out there, planning bio-war. Indeed, the U.S. Army's entirely new vaccine may be the future. Apparently it offers 12 sites to attach any antigen stimulant you want. And thus could simultaneously immunize vs, all known coronas, including those responsible for half of all common colds.
Oh, and the pandemic also made clear which of our neighbors are stark-jibbering-loony science-hating cultists. Our earlier notion that they can be talked into reason was revealed as a mad delusion, in its own right. Though I believe there are polemical tactics that could peel away just enough to make a gig difference, this November.
== Insights into humanity ==
Scientists have gained new glimpses into how our brains lay down memories - which could shed light on memory disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers have calculated that lead exposure from car exhaust shrank the IQ scores of half of the American population. But it would have been far worse, except for the campaign circa 1970 to overcome massive trog resistance and ban lead from most gas. I was involved.
Superdeterminism? Does quantum mechanics rule out free will?
Wow. A unified genealogy of modern and ancient genomes: “We present a unified tree sequence of 3601 modern and eight high-coverage ancient human genome sequences compiled from eight datasets. This structure is a lossless and compact representation of 27 million ancestral haplotype fragments and 231 million ancestral lineages linking genomes from these datasets back in time.”
Why do we age? Robert Lustig’s list of aging processes that take place at a cellular level includes: glycation, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction,, insulin resistance, membrane instability, inflammation, methylation, and autophagy.
More than 350 blind people around the world with Second Sight’s implants in their eyes, experienced a miracle of partly restored vision, only to now find themselves in a world in which the technology that transformed their lives is just another obsolete gadget that (unsupported by the now bankrupt company) may fail at any moment. “Neural implants—devices that interact with the human nervous system, either on its periphery or in the brain—are part of a rapidly growing category of medicine that’s sometimes called electroceuticals. Some technologies are well established, like deep-brain stimulators that reduce tremors in people with Parkinson’s disease. But recent advances in neuroscience and digital technology have sparked a gold rush in brain tech, with the outsized investments epitomized by Elon Musk’s buzzy brain-implant company, Neuralink. Some companies talk of reversing depression, treating Alzheimer’s disease, restoring mobility, or even dangle the promise of superhuman cognition.”
== It’s a virus! ==
One-fifth. Nearly 20% of cancers worldwide are caused by a virus. These viruses don’t cause cancer until long after they initially infect a person. Rather, the viruses teach the cells they take over how to escape the natural biological process of cell death. This strategy sets these altered cells on a path for other genetic changes that can cause full-blown cancer years down the road..All known viruses can be categorized into one of 22 distinct families. Five of these families are called “persisting,” because once a person is infected, the virus remains in their body for life. One example is the herpes virus that causes chickenpox in children and can reappear later in life as shingles. This ability to survive over the long term helps the virus spread from person to person.
There are seven known viruses that can cause cancer. Five of them are members of persistent virus families. The human papillomavirus, commonly known as HPV and known to cause cervical cancer, is in the papilloma family. The Epstein-Barr virus, which causes Hodgkin lymphomas, and the Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated virus, are both in the herpes family. The human T-lymphotropic virus, which can cause a type of leukemia, is what’s known as a retrovirus. And Merkel cell polyoma virus, which causes Merkel cell carcinoma, is in the polyoma family. All five of these viruses contain genetic code for one or more proteins that teach cells how to avoid cell death, effectively immortalizing them and promoting cell growth. The cancer cells that develop from these oncogenic viruses all contain their original viruses’ genetic information, even when they appear years after the initial infection.
And if all of that sounds familiar to some of you who have read my story “Chrysalis” in my Best of Brin short story collection, well, I only predict the future, I don’t make it happen.
All of which… plus Covid… reminds me to periodically offer up this song from 1979’s Unpacking the Eighties (on NPR).
IT’S A VIRUS*
Back in the Pleistocene,
When we were still marine,
a virus launched a quest,
to be the perfect guest
And re-arranged our genes.
So to this very day,
Whether you grok or pray
all your inheritors
count on those visitors
And what they make you pay.
REFRAIN
It’s a virus,
It inspired us,
to rise above the mud.
It’s a virus,
It’s desirous,
of your very flesh and blood.
Now I know your body’s burning,
But don’t give up the ghost.
Tiny viruses are turning you
Into the perfect... host.
(More verses in comments ... and yes, I made up one of the verses, myself.)
== And is anything blurry, yet? ==
Finally.... Is anyone interested in reviewing an advanced copy of a book about how our human senses change as we age? By an old college chum of mine. See 1st comment, below.
53 comments:
Alan Brooks: More mumbo jumbo woo woo.
If such a person can work through even just one piece of hard science - an RNA snippet translating into an amino acid strand, that strand folding into a 3D protein, that protein performing or catalyzing a biological function, identifying the clock-like signal of a pulsar, grokking a lever, compass, match stick, or lens, a simple genetic algorithm iterating over a million years, bees communicating by vibrations, a virus or vaccine at work, or even just a purely mathematical proof (Pythagoras is good), then they are often freed. I've seen it happen, as have many other mediocre teachers like me. Once the woo woo trance is broken, it stays broken. Except in rare cases like Franken Collins.
Watching DUNE (yes, I'm slow). Startling cuts/jumps/editing; this is the most Canadian-feeling film I've seen in many years. Charming arrival on Arrakis with bagpipes. There is a weird reverence exhibited for Scots by French Canadians (like Villeneuve).
"If I were not French I would choose to be – Scotch."
- Wilfrid Laurier
Some of the best CGI-AR scenes in FOUNDATION are done at studios in Toronto. Same feel. The Expanse and Star Trek too, for that matter. The roots of 'Pax Hollywood' have spread far, wide, and deep and are now blossoming as strange, new worlds. Old romanticist Czars who long to revive dead empires have no chance because the future belongs to the young, as it always did.
GMT-5 in the previous comments:
Larry Hart, I don’t think any of your examples fit the Chesterton’s Fence principle. Regarding Citizens United and the COVID Restrictions, neither ruling was overturning long standing traditions or laws. Indeed, the Court was preserving existing laws with its rulings.
Well, of course there are no long-standing traditions or laws about COVID-19 in particular. But there are laws and traditions about public health emergencies in general and mandatory vaccinations in particular--going back, I hear, to George Washington and smallpox. The court asserts that neither the federal government nor municipalities have the authority to supersede red state governors, whereas a few years ago they were insisting that Donald Trump had the power to do whatever he wanted.
With Citizens United, I believe John Roberts justified the decision with a prediction that it wouldn't have much noticeable effect. That's what I had in mind with my point that they always go, "Who could possibly have guessed?" when everyone and their brothers had been shouting from the rooftops about the inevitable consequence of their decisions.
The overturning of significant portions of the Voting Rights Act seem to me the quintessential example of "tearing down a fence without understanding why it is there". The supposed-textualists on the court took it upon themselves to decree that the reasons a Voting Rights Act was necessary in 1965 were no longer valid--because racism has been abolished?--and therefore the law that Congress duly passed (and reaffirmed as recently as 2006!) must be stricken from the record. Just as above, no sooner is this "irrelevant" law removed that the red states make obvious the reason the fence was necessary in the first place. And again, "Who could have guessed?"
Bravo.
Became a follower at FB just now, but don’t wish to have a character named for me. Rather, if you would, am requesting you to mention a niche in SF which is not saturated—as someday I’m going to actually complete a SF short story instead of deleting one part-finished.
Promised a couple of items, First:
Is anyone interested in reviewing an advanced copy of a book about how our human senses change as we age? By an old college chum of mine. Inquire: larryandjodywesterman@gmail.com
I'll try to post the rest of that song "It's a Virus," below.
See a summary of the sci fi sub genre called "Accidental Travel."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_travel
Interesting that they leave out the most influential such work in American SF... LEST DARKNESS FALL, by L. Spreague DeCamp.
Also, while they cite Japanese Isekai, the article doesn't mention that these accidental travel tropes were HUGE on Chinese TV for about a decade, till they were banned about 5 years ago. Always a pair of pals get time dropped into some crucial event in Chinese history and help the good guy with their cell phones.
A nostalgic obsessive version is popular in Russia. https://mobile.twitter.com/aelen_altria/status/1446603844415209473
But the nasty sub-sub-genre over there is "Sp[etznatz scifi" featuring RF special forces with wonder weapons mowing down acres of hapless US Army & CIA dummies. Hundreds of such weorks. But then, we had the Turner Diaries. So...
The fundamental PREMISE of the US revolution was to ensure the rights of US citizens vs aristocratic accumulations of unaccountable and disproportionate power. Citizens United betrayed that very essence of the nation.
Is there anything President Biden can't do?
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2022/Senate/Maps/Apr01.html#item-1
Already, Biden has found a way to encourage greater production of lithium, nickel, graphite, cobalt and manganese, which are used to make batteries for electric vehicles and for storing electricity. He will invoke the 1950 Defense Production Act to make it happen. One imagines that the White House will discover that the Act also applies to oil, if and when Congress tells Biden to pound sand on the penalties for unused land.
Stonekettle on a roll:
https://www.stonekettle.com/2022/03/no-one-is-coming-to-save-us.html
...
I mean, you have to give Varney credit for hanging in there like a Russian general about to become yet another hilarious statistic in Western news media, but honestly I don't know how after all this time he couldn't see what was coming.
“I listen to him [Putin] constantly using the n-word [the what?] that’s the n-word, uh, and he’s constantly using it [wut? wut?] the nuclear word [OH] and we never talk of, uh, we say, ‘Oh, he’s a nuclear power,’ but we’re a greater nuclear power, we have the greatest submarines in the world, most powerful machines ever built, most powerful, and they got built under me [The only nuclear subs we're building are the Virginia Class which were ALL ordered and budgeted prior to 2014, Trump had literally nothing to do with it, but he's on a roll] most powerful machines ever built, and nobody knows where they are and you should say, ‘Look, if you mention that word one more time, we’re going to send them over, uh, and, uh, we’ll be coasting back and forth up and down your coast.’”
Get all that?
Trump's big plan is that since nobody knows where the submarines are (which is pretty much the whole point of submarines) we'll just go ahead and TELL THE ENEMY WHERE THEY ARE.
We'll just tell the enemy where our secret weapons are.
Genius.
While at the same time also, apparently, threatening nuclear war and basically daring Russia to do something about it.
That's what Trump would do.
I can't tell you how damn glad I am that he's not the guy doing it anymore.
Well, at least for the moment, but we'll come back to that.
Because he's a fucking lunatic.
He's nuts. Crazy. Barking mad.
This is Trump, literally saying in one breath that if he was in charge, he'd threaten nuclear war, global annihilation, and then minutes later openly begging political favors from the same guy he's threatening.
He's insane.
His gray spongy brain is a ragged tangle of cobwebs full of dead bugs and bad smells.
If we are not as yet actually at war with Russia then it's the very next thing to it -- as Trump himself must believe, otherwise why would you threaten nuclear war?
And yet, here's Trump demanding Vladimir Putin produce some sort of compromising material on Joe Biden's son to somehow damage Biden himself solely in order to profit Trump.
This isn't the first time Trump has done this.
It's not even the second time.
And at this point, if that isn't treason, it's the next thing to it.
...
"Russian society, my sources tell me, has also rallied in support of Putin's actions under the pressure of propaganda and under the consequences of sanctions. In a situation where, as it seems to them, the whole world is against Russia, its citizens "will hate the West and consolidate.”
It's like they're this other species who principal traits are endurance and utter obstinacy.
"“After the Great Patriotic War [World War 2], our country immediately began to dust itself off and rebuild. And after 30 years, the country was back to normal. These people [in the West] don't understand who they’re messed with. This causes a sharp reaction even among those who thought differently and asked questions [of the authorities]. Now they won’t ask questions for a long time. They will hate the West and consolidate in order to live their lives, especially middle-aged people. This is a very subtle thing that the West does not understand at all,” said one of my high-ranking acquaintances excitedly, adding that he felt a couple of decades younger. (To be honest, it's hard for me to know whether he really experiences such feelings or if this is a temporary defensive reaction.)"
But days are early yet. Most of the bodies and wounded aren't coming home, yet. Or traumatized soldiers telling what they saw.
https://faridaily.substack.com/p/now-were-going-to-fck-them-all-whats?s=r
GMT many times cause and effect can be misleading with false or incomplete correlation. That is not the case when it comes to fiscal resposibility. Democrats are (almost) ALWAYS better than Republicans, generally diametrfically so.
Ys, Newt Gingrich (who I call brilliant in the very first paragraphs of Polemical Judo) was also 5% sane and actually negotiated with Bill Clinton in 1995, including the Budget Act and Welfare reform. But -
1. Newt was punished by the Foxites for actually negotiating actual legislation. Replaced by Dennis "Friend to Boys" Hastert as head of the GOP, the first of a tsunami of blatantly blackmailed traitors whose priority of preventing a functioning US government was only superceded by devotion to tax benefits for oligarchy.
2. Cause and effect. Surpluses transformed into gusher deficits almost the DAY that Clinton's veto pen could no longer block the next Supply Side bill that bared America's carotid arteryy to vampiric prarasites. The flip to red ink had no other attributable cause...
... Not even W's "WMD War" which gave no-deadline, no-bid "emergency" cost-plus logistics contracts to Cheney family companies, the only net beneficiaries of the middle eastern wars... not even that added lamprey suck compared. And the obstinate refusal of today's right to allow even re-examination og Supply Side's PERFECT record of failed predictions is proof of insanity even by those who claim "I hate Trump."
Again, Outcomes comparison is perfect, including states like CA where Keynesian governors have paid down debt and filled rainy day funds during good times, while Goppers shriek "Give all surpluses to the lords!"
David, I will concede all arguments about which political party is better at controlling spending. What I really want is a good study and vigorous debate about what level of dynamic scoring is most accurate/helpful. I want a better understanding of what happens when we make changes to tax law.
Much as I dislike additional bureaucracy and expert control, maybe we need a tax policy board that is similar to the Federal Reserve…a body that will control tax and fiscal policy the same way the Fed controls monetary policy. Maybe if we take tax policy away from lying, greedy politicians we can get some good information and better policies.
Comments? Thoughts? Slings? Arrows? Tactical nukes?
Newt is an exemplar of Where, rather than who what when how why. He’s Georgian and though not religious, he must play along:
‘them pinko libs are ruining the traditional values’ that he himself has no use for. He fancies himself a conservative futurist; when he was Speaker he’d go on about “Honeymoons in suborbital space by 2020.” Or being weightless while reading the Bible. Entrepreneurs, conservative space colonization, the Gipper, and the Importance of Newt Gingrich. A decade ago he announced that everyone who did well in the ‘90s ought to be grateful to him.
—
His book looked impressive on someone’s coffee table, unopened.
Alan, GMT & LH... and Alfred... good stuff supporting my assertion that Contrary emphasizes quality over quantity.
Wish typical libertarians were like Alfred and most US conservatives like GMT... and our left more like Larry Hart.
Dr Brin:
It's like they're this other species who principal traits are endurance and utter obstinacy.
If they can get along without us, I'd say "Go with God." It doesn't matter to me how happy they are doing their own thing, free of western decadence and gender equality or whatever it is about us they'd rather not put up with. What they can't do is enjoy the benefits of peaceful interconnected society while flaunting the very rules and decorum which make that society function.
I realize the same goes for us. If we can't get along without Russian oil, gas, or lithium, then we need to trade for them on terms Russia finds acceptable. I'm betting we can do without if we have to.
GMT-5:
What I really want is a good study and vigorous debate about what level of dynamic scoring is most accurate/helpful. I want a better understanding of what happens when we make changes to tax law.
It would be instructive to see the details mapped out--"If we increase rate X by Y percent, these other variables will be affected thusly, resulting in a net gain/loss in tax revenue by Z amount."
There would inevitably be an issue of "Who watches he watchmen?" I mean, not too long ago, the Republican congress tried to force dynamic scoring of their budgets to include the effect of how much tax cuts pay for themselves. I get that you want to take the function away from elected officials, but the right will still complain loudly if the commission or whatever doesn't take their fantasies into account. And if the news media is any guide, this non-partisan commission will bend over backwards to demonstrate that they don't share reality's liberal bias.
Much as I dislike additional bureaucracy and expert control, maybe we need a tax policy board that is similar to the Federal Reserve…a body that will control tax and fiscal policy the same way the Fed controls monetary policy. Maybe if we take tax policy away from lying, greedy politicians we can get some good information and better policies.
Unfortunately, the taxing and spending authority of Congress is in the Constitution. It's almost the case that that's what Congress is for. So changing that would be a heavy lift.
@Dr Brin,
Aw shucks. :)
I will almost certainly be attending either your presentation in Rolling Meadows or the one in Champaign-Urbana. The one thing that would stop me is if I'm positive for COVID after Passover. The things we have to put up with for family.
BTW, given the possibility of Russian nukes flying, I suggested to my wife that we put ram's blood on the door this year. It couldn't hurt.
An interesting comment on the Stonekettle blog about Trump's apparently insane posts
Not only does Trump not need to make sense, he needs TO NOT make sense. That allows the conspiracy nuts, the religious, the angry ill-tempered and the privileged-feeling-threatened to project their own thinking, such as it is, onto him. Any coherent ideas would only get in the way; he just needs to get the emotional tone right.
A projection screen needs to be sort of blank and featureless and reflect everything back.
Trump probably understands this intuitively. Of course it does help to have a brain full of spiders.
That makes a lot of sense to me
Trumps speeches have always been so ridiculous that I have been amazed that nobody has gagged him - but as a "blank screen" with the correct emotional key words ........
Russian saying: "Sdelay eto khuzhe, no sdelay eto nashim"
English translation: "Make it worse, but make it ours"
I should check the spam bucket. But my impression is that our pests have wandered off. One of the most-obsessive is probably extremely busy, right now. And I wish his family and nation life and peace and success.
You keep forgetting what Covid-19 did to Trump's base (aka the idiots who refused to be vaccinated).
https://triblive.com/news/politics-election/more-republicans-have-died-of-covid-19-does-that-mean-the-polls-are-off/
More Republicans have died of covid-19. Does that mean the polls are off?
It's why DeSantis is going so hard on voter suppression and culture war nonsense in Florida. He and Rick Scott only barely won and the pandemic hit their base hard.
Unfortunately for them, a federal judge destroyed FLAs voter suppression laws and has forced the state into preclearance for future voting laws.
https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1509559492190605314
In a real democracy without voter suppression and gerrymandering the GOP can't win.
But Covis-19 deaths will be a factor in purple states in the next election no matter what the GOP does.
Take Florida for example.
Look at the results of the DeSantis gubernatorial election -- all the major cities went blue (Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Gainesville, Ft. Lauderdale, Palm Beach). Desantis won with 49.6% versus his opponent at 49.2%, a margin of < 33k votes out of 8 million votes.
DeSantis won by 30,000 votes in an election overseen by the man who committed the biggest medicare fraud in history. Meanwhile 73,000 Floridians, mostly anti vax, anti mask, conservatives have died and that may possibly be a massive under count. Remember, DeSantis sent a swat team to a lady reporting actual deaths. Its gonna be real interesting to watch.
Slightly over 2/3 of the covid deaths' were GOP based on the vaccination rate between the two groups. This means there are 333,000 less GOP members alive today than Dem members compared to the beginning of the pandemic. With 73,138 deaths total (officially) and another 23k excess deaths' not in that number, the vote count in FL likely shifted toward the Dem side by about 35k. Not factoring in migration.
Nothing Trump does or says will affect the people who love him.
They love him because he expressed hatred/fear of minorities and gays out load, when before they had to whisper it among themselves for fear of being condemned by society
He made it OK to be an openly bigoted a-hole.
He validated them.
He set them free.
He removed their shame.
He made them feel good about themselves
And in return, they will love him forever.
Dr Brin:
my impression is that our pests have wandered off.
I wonder how much of that is due to Russia being blocked from much of the internet, whether by social media platforms on this side, or by their own government on the other side.
DP:
More Republicans have died of covid-19. Does that mean the polls are off?
It's why DeSantis is going so hard on voter suppression and culture war nonsense in Florida. He and Rick Scott only barely won and the pandemic hit their base hard.
Radio host Hal Sparks has been pointing out a separate reason. Trump has spent much time and effort convincing his own voters that the game is rigged against them, so they might as well not bother voting.
Larry Hart: I'm betting we can do without if we have to.
The West includes Canada. Vast Arctic coastline, potash, oil, wheat, lots of metals (my dad's dad grew up in a town called Cobalt). And of course Tree Sauce.
Lithium is probably there for the taking in this solar system: https://www.sciof.fi/lithium-beyond-earth/
It'd be ironic if the moon turned out to be dotted lithium mines.
Sorry DP. I see GOP strategists giggling with delight every time liberals shout that the New Caonfederacy is motivated primarily by race & gender. And that's a terrible problem.
Sure, they blow those dog whistles in just the right ways to get liberals howling. But probe your AVERAGE Republican and they shrug off the accusation! Their answer: "I don't FEEL racist and I have lots of heroes who are black and women." Are they racist/sexist in many ways, anyway? Sure, their heritage is confederate, after all. But think it rhough.
What concerns the artistocrats, inheritance brats, casino lords, coal barons, petro boyars, hedge fund mgrs and murder princes who ACTUALLY control today's GOP?
ARE THE POWERFUL REALLY AFRAID OF THE POWERLESS?
Or are they vastly more afraid of the biggest, major power center that still opposes their oligarchic putsch and that stands in the way of their goal to restore 6000 years of feudalism?.
Who is attacked every single night, on Fox? Is it races and genders? Except for a few dog whistles, they don't dare!
But every single night... often every single hour... the hired shills spew bile and acid toward one or another of the nerdy fact-using professions. Science, Journalism, teaching, civil service, law, medicine... all the way to the Intel/FBI and US senior military officer corps. And lately, universities and education in general!
This is not zero sum. I do not deny confederate racism! It is in the movement's very blood.
But tally the attacks, every evening on Fox or by Trump. THE POWERFUL ARE PUSHING OPEN WAR AGAINST EVERY NERDY PROFESSION. Because those nerds are the one powerful force still standing in the way of an end to the Enlightenment Experiment.
Dr Brin:
THE POWERFUL ARE PUSHING OPEN WAR AGAINST EVERY NERDY PROFESSION. Because those nerds are the one powerful force still standing in the way of an end to the Enlightenment Experiment.
The first book of yours I ever knew of was The Postman, which I came across in the mid 1980s. I knew nothing of your overall philosophies of life at the time, but one reason I loved that book was that I noticed that the opponent to post-apocalyptic feudalism was university types who knew stuff. Not exactly the heroic type which would have been cast in an action movie, but it struck me as being somehow right that the battle lines would be drawn that way.
I don't go for the whole "dark mirror" heroes and villains who are direct opposites of each other in every way and who seem to be fated from the beginning of time to have some sort of final battle with each other. I really liked the fact that the Holnists and the residents of Corvallis were completely separate groups who in normal times would have had nothing to do with each other at all, but they were the ones who circumstances brought into conflict. It seemed much more plausible that way.
DB: I have to take exception to your statement that Cheney-family corporations were the only new beneficiaries of the Middle East Wars; it's important to understand who made the big bucks, because that's our best window into why that monstrous crime was committed.
Before the Bush/Cheney Iraq invasion oil had hovered around $20/barrel for years. As the sabers started to rattle after 2001 oil started a steady increase, peaking at around $150/barrel in 2008. As a result every oil company in the world made enormous profits. To me, this seems like the obvious answer. Follow the money.
One of the reasons Bush was able to buffalo the country into war was because Americans wanted to hit back for 911. The occupation of Afghanistan was an appropriate response; the Taliban government sheltered bin Laden and refused to extradite him. That made them an accomplice to an act of war. But because we didn't get bin Laden it left Americans still thirsting for blood, so the lie about Saddam being responsible was readily accepted. Americans wanted to believe the lie, and furthermore they reelected the moron in 2004 even though it was clear the war had been a con job by then. Americans didn't want to believe they'd been conned. They loved the glorious victory and the miles of roasted Iraqi soldiers. Too many Americans got a war boner about our win. We're a lot like Russians that way.
Russians rallying around Putin and the military is idiotic, it's irrational, and it's very damaging for the Russian nation. But that's what our kind of monkey does in these situations. It's pathetic and more than a little embarrassing but that's us.
Will Russians eventually get tired of sanctions and dead soldiers coming home from their anti-nazi crusade? We can hope but I'm skeptical. There's a real chance they'll circle the wagons and hunker down indefinitely. The Afghanistan precedent does suggest that throwing their young men into a meatgrinder could eventually take the luster off their righteous cause, but the mental stability of the Czar is the wild card. If he cracks before Russia wakes up we could be looking at some real Black Swan events.
GMT-5 listed his important rules and I'd like to point out something about the first one…
(1) don't tear down a fence unless you can explain why it is there
to those of you who would argue against it. If you are tempted to say "Who could have guessed?" as Larry did, please reconsider. EVERY conservative will say "We did" as a reflex response. You might as well take up a job as a straight man on a comedy team. You feed them their talking points/punch lines.
The correct counter-argument (in my not at all humble opinion) is that every fence we've ever built either gets demolished in conflict OR we forget why we built it after sufficient time. EVERY FENCE is contested or forgotten and trampled in ignorance eventually.
What old-school liberals propose isn't the destruction of all fences. We propose incremental demolition. It's quite possible we will remove one and then realize (Oh Damn!) what it was for. If so, we shall help rebuild it. If not… well… maybe it didn't need to be there anymore. Worse yet, maybe it was someone's stupid idea. Much worse, maybe it was someone's idea that netted them more access to fertile women and the resources to attract them as part of a zero-sum (more likely negative-sum) contest with other males.
We run into this a lot in IT jobs. What was this account for? What did this permission group do? What is this database job doing? Is this old email archive still needed? Sometimes the only way to find out is to delete the damn thing and see who screams.
GMT -5,
When I was first learning the game, I saw no reason to distinguish dividends from income. If my shares of a company or underwriting of bonds produces 'returns' that look like scheduled installments, they are in the same class of revenue as what I get for lending my time to an employer. Income. Period.
Capital gain/loss looks different. Property ownership comes with a risk of value change. Shares of a company. Money risked underwriting bonds. Land. Structures. IP. It's all property with values decided by trades in markets. Just property. Gains and Losses should ALL be adjusted by inflation IF government is messing about with the money supply causing it. Sometimes they are. Sometimes not. Either way… gains/losses aren't scheduled payments, thus not income. I can tolerate them being taxed different, but think it unwise once basis adjustments are made.
For Larry's sake… if the government inflicts a 2% inflation rate upon the USD and I value my property in terms of USD, I don't want a 2% gain/year counted as a capital gain. It's not a gain at all because it's really just a change in the ruler I'm using to value my property.
This is no theoretical argument. I own property in SoCal and inflation is currently doing a number on the value of my home. My mailbox is flooded with crap offers to let me borrow against the increase in equity… that really IS NOT an increase in equity. The ruler used to measure value is changing size. It shred them and toss them in the trash remembering I narrowly escaped the value crash of an earlier home in 2008.
As for who likes simplicity best, I have a mixed opinion about the political parties. I see lots of special interest demands from all sides and see the change process as being more like breathing. Inhale and things get more complex. Exhale and we simplify. Who happens to be in charge when it happens just changes which complexities and simplifications occur. Mostly.
I don't feel that way about spending choices between the parties. If I have to choose only between Democrats and Republicans, I'll pick Democrats and try to get minimally corrupt ones. I'm not loyal to them, though. Misbehave and I'll rebel at the ballot box. I'll generally prefer a blue-dog democrat (rare breed nowadays) over a well-meaning progressive, but I rarely get that choice.
The main difference I have with respect to expenditures, though, is I'm less likely to object to what progressives want to buy than social conservatives. I'd often prefer none of them were spending, but if someone's going to pilfer my wallet, I am less likely to object to what the progressives will buy with their ill-gotten gains.
maybe we need a tax policy board that is similar to the Federal Reserve
Ugh.
If we can't trust the corrupt men and women we elect, why would we trust a smaller body to whom they delegate power?
Besides, isn't that one of the things our Court has said fairly clearly? Congress delegates regulatory authority to many parts of the Executive, but NOT taxation.
The problem isn't with who does it.
The problem is that we do it at all.
Doing it at all concentrates astronomically huge sums of money…AND changes the rules of markets involving vastly larger sums of money. Our Framers did not foresee the magnitude of our wealth.
Of course the corrupt will be drawn to it.
How many angels must we assign these tasks to mask the stench of the corrupt who get in anyway?
Just a point for GMT to ponder. If you decrease company tax you make investment in productive assets more expensive, because depreciation can be offset against tax.
THE POWERFUL ARE PUSHING OPEN WAR AGAINST EVERY NERDY PROFESSION Because those nerds are the one powerful force still standing in the way of an end to the Enlightenment Experiment.
This statement is tautologically inane:
Either nerds are oppressed (powerless) victims or nerds are a 'powerful (oppressive) force', but they can't be both simultaneously.
I assume that the term 'NERDY PROFESSIONS' is yet another euphemism for the Expert Managerial Class -- a class which supposedly deserves the power to rule over us all on account of its nerdy expertise -- but it does not follow that an apparent denial of nerd authority amounts to an attack on the greater Enlightenment Experiment.
And, who are THE POWERFUL of which you speak?
Are not they not all Oligarchs, Bureaucrats, Laputans & Nerds like Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet and Anthony 'THE SCIENCE' Fauci who have forced the entire world to dance to their own private & tyrannical tunes?
If, indeed, there is an ongoing WAR AGAINST EVERY NERDY PROFESSION in the West, then it may become necessary to invoke the Albigensian Option, as in "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius", as it has become increasingly difficult to tell the good from the bad & one nerd from any other.
This is especially true if our much celebrated Human Intelligence amounts to little more than a contagious virus or venereal disease and, yes, there is a science fiction story about that, too.
Best
All right! We get to see Alfred’s libertarian side. And yes, I get the point about indexing capital gains vs inflation. I’d be willing to go along with that, if there were also
1- taxation of unrealized gains used as loan collateral,
2- taxation of unrealized gains after 5 years in any event, if the owner’s value of total property exceeds $10m
3- a ban on all shell property holding companies more than 1-deep, with full disclosure.
4- even so, there’s something to be said for there being a disincentive to hold only property passively, as that is the root of ‘rentier’ market suppression, a la Adam Smith. If your property isn’t performing above the rate of inflation, perhaps someone else should be managing it? But sure, fallow areas, natural areas, family farms…
—
Again, so long as progressive spending is effectively (!) raising up formerly wasted talent in order to enhance their ability and eagerness to COMPETE, then libertarians ought to be allies of those particular programs… while vigorously criticizing the specific implementations! That’d be a fine competitive synergy.
—
locum’s howl is insipid in countless ways and tl;dr. BUT, a quick skim triggers me to say:
1- The nerd professions he despises and slanders are the underdogs under attack every evening hour on Fox. Show me the massive campaign to denounce casino moguls, mafiosi, carbon boyars and murder sheiks and inheritance brats…
2- … all of whom connive together, while the openly transparent and reciprocally highly competitive nerd castes do NOT. In fact, with the exception of teaching and medicine, they are all inherently and daily utterly and ferociously COMPETITIVE with each other. Which is the ultimate rebuttal locum always receives (his 'conservatism' is an allout campaign against competition) and always ignores…
…in order to maintain a masturbation fantasy of persecution by the underdogs, in this desperate fight to prevent a return to 99.99% of human history under dismally stoopid and unjust feudalism.
LoCum appears to lack a sense of proportion and nuance, though he’s quite bright. He can write Latin. (Or take the time to use a translator.)
The Enlightenment experiment is indeed a powerful force, yet not staffed primarily by power-seekers. Whereas oligarchy is by definition composed of power-seekers, sometimes the power-crazed—we witnessed such during the last five years.
Today it is physically evident in Ukraine.
—
Could be that LoCum is conflating force with manipulation. Manipulation is unavoidable; force can frequently be avoided.
—
Question is: why would LoCum blog at CB? Does he harbor doubts concerning his positions? Is he venting frustration? He’s an interesting specimen.
Alfred Differ:
(1) don't tear down a fence unless you can explain why it is there
to those of you who would argue against it. If you are tempted to say "Who could have guessed?" as Larry did, please reconsider. EVERY conservative will say "We did" as a reflex response. You might as well take up a job as a straight man on a comedy team. You feed them their talking points/punch lines.
You seem to have completely misunderstood my point. I was agreeing with GMT. The examples I gave were where I perceived the supreme court tearing down perfectly good fences which were operating as designed, and then using, "Who could have guessed?" as justification after the fact for the harm caused by doing so.
Alfred Differ:
For Larry's sake… if the government inflicts a 2% inflation rate upon the USD and I value my property in terms of USD, I don't want a 2% gain/year counted as a capital gain. It's not a gain at all because it's really just a change in the ruler I'm using to value my property.
You've got a point that I won't take issue with, and don't believe I ever have.
In terms of taxes, I don't have a problem with indexing the basis of an investment to the inflation rate (assuming a particular rate can be fairly determined, which is no small assumption) the same way that income tax brackets should be indexed to inflation.
That said, I will note that when I was growing up, people talked about inflation with the understanding that wages and prices both increased over time. In theory, if you got a cost of living increase in your wages, inflation was not hurting your purchasing power. These days, people talk about inflation as if only prices increase. I'm not convinced that the word "inflation" isn't being misused to describe something else--scarcity perhaps? Ok, I'm not exactly going anywhere with this, but I wanted to throw it out there.
Alfred Differ: Our Framers did not foresee the magnitude of our wealth
Of course not, nobody did. But they did have an inkling of the magnitude of the Enlightenment. Looking forward to Ken Burns' "Benjamin Franklin" next week. Franklin, Darwin, and Turing never got super rich, but their names will echo through history. There's wealth, and then there's eternity.
Dr Brin:
1- taxation of unrealized gains used as loan collateral,
I already said I like the idea, but I think it needs to be phrased differently. You're not taxing the unrealized gain. You're taxing the currency received. Essentially, we're changing the meaning of "unrealized". We're recognizing that you're realizing a gain when you borrow against the asset the same as you do when you sell it. As long as the tax basis on a future sale is increased by the amount already realized (in this new sense of the word), then I don't see any unfairness.
gerold said:
"But because we didn't get bin Laden it left Americans still thirsting for blood, so the lie about Saddam being responsible was readily accepted. Americans wanted to believe the lie"
Not quite. It was obvious to anyone who was paying attention by the the end of September '01 that we were going to go into Afghanistan with one hand tied behind our backs. The other hand was aimed at Iraq. It had nothing to do with bin Laden.
I've been saying this (loudly) for 20+ years. Few cared then, no one cares now.
"Lotta water under the bridge, lotta other stuff too" (B. Dylan)
Sorry this whole process depends on my checking the moderation box a couple times a day to approve your comments. All because of a couple of compulsive jerks who probably aren't even around, anymore.
I'll try to keep up. Carry on...
I dived deep into the swill bucket and found a couple that were down there by a couple of you guys! Huh. Anyway. We'll leave things as-is .
Smurphs: it's true the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with bin Laden - except that the 911 attacks made a lot of Americans willing to ignore facts so they could support the war. Bush used the anger and hurt of 911 as cover to get the war he wanted.
Anyone who isn't familiar with the "Project for a New American Century" should check it out - if they want to understand why we invaded Iraq:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
These neocons were advocating for an invasion of Iraq back in the 90's, and many of them became part of the Bush administration.
Oil companies were the obvious beneficiaries of the Iraq War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_oil#/media/File:Crude_oil_prices_since_1861.png
but there were other interests in favor of eliminating Saddam as well. Saddam had been paying the family of suicide bombers in Israel $10,000 for killing Jews, but in 2002 he upped the ante to $25k:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/salaries-for-suicide-bombers/
Israel had plenty of motivation to eliminate Saddam Hussein but politically and militarily the US was better positioned to carry it out.
So yeah; the Bush/Cheney Iraq war wasn't about 911 or bin Laden, but Bush tapped into the desire for revenge to get gullible Americans to support it.
Larry,
Sorry about that. I can see now I read your intent backwards and then jumped to one of my favorite complaints about how the rest of us debate with conservatives. Oops? (My bad.)
For the "Who could have guessed?" excuse, I'm skeptical of any and all who use it. My BS detector screams in my brain. "Piss on me and call it rain" is what I want to scream back. 8)
Be careful with the Voting Rights Act, though. Progressives put that fence up relatively recently. Same goes with a lot of tax policy changes and bracket adjustments. We mess with our fences a lot.
One of the few bright points of the Two-Scoops era is I now feel quite free to use 'gaslit' and 'gaslight' for the crap others spew and expect me to believe. Much shorter word and easier to say than 'Piss on me and…'
——
As for the inflation remark, I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. I thought of your earlier questions about whether inflation was theft, so I was trying to leverage your earlier content to point out an example where I think it is.
Inflict a planned 2%/year inflation on my property… then charge me property tax on the current (unrealized) value and tax me again for capital gains when I realize it.
IF my house increases in value that same 2%/year, I actually lose money when a casual observer would say I had made money and should pay my share.
I could get concrete, but that drifts fast into wonk-level economics. A couple years ago I couldn't convince my mortgage holder to extend me a home equity loan. (With GOOD reason) Now the property value sites are saying my place is worth 40% more than when I bought it. Say what?! Last time I saw this kind of crap-fest we crashed hard a little later. *
——
These days, people talk about inflation as if only prices increase.
What you charge for your labor IS a price… to your employer.
The real issue is there are different kinds of inflation for different sectors. Look at the price for acquiring a higher education and you'll see hyper-inflation levels going back years. Health care insurance was doing the same thing.
I'm NOT inclined to blame current inflation rates on nefarious government plans right now. I EXPECTED this due to supply chain shocks from the pandemic. I think people are being uber-silly about it and should try looking less at year-over-year statistics and consider two or three year spans.
However… we did print an awful lot of money to prop people up during the pandemic. I get it. No complaints… except that some of that probably HAS caused inflation that I think should be indexed out of property valuations.
* I've probably said this before, but one guy two houses down from me (in 2008) owned a lovely place bigger than mine based on a stated income. I learned it was income related to a hot dog cart business. I could see the hot dog cart broken and parked in front of his place. Several people shoulda gone to jail for bank fraud.
Okay. I couple of general points I'll make to progressives who want tax policy changes.
(I'll skip the taxation is theft meme for now. I only partially support that anyway.)
1. Taxing unrealized gains essentially realizes them. If you don't mind giving a tax credit later when they turn into unrealized losses as the market swings around, you might get my attention. The biggest problem with this, though, is y'all unintentionally open the door to some serious market shenanigans. What date counts as when unrealized gains are calculated? You can expect big fish to PLAN for market collapses around that date. It's not hard to do. If many of us intend it, the algorithmic investors will amplify the affect by anticipating us. Boom.
What ever you plan, remember these things are more like ecosystems than engines. They adapt. Ask yourself what they will likely try to do in order to get around your regulatory changes.
2. Taxing loans on unrealized gains should be aimed at the value of the loan or you risk problem #1. Are funds received as a loan income? Sure. Why not? Knock yourself out.
Next question… how will the ecosystem adapt? Remember that lenders are the most conservative critters in the system. They make little on the money they risk and must be prepared at all times to take the collateral. There are costs associated with taking it that go against the small margin they make in the first place. What will THEY do if you tax the money they try to hand to their customers to make a few percentage points as scheduled payments?
Think about it and insert yourself personally. You have $X to lend and want a customer with stable collateral that you likely won't have to take who is willing to pay (say) 5% for the year. You find such a customer, but the government wants 20% of it off the top because it looks like income to them. Do the numbers. From the customer perspective, their real rate for the loan is 1.05 / 0.8 -1 or about 31%. If government only wanted 5%, the customer sees it as almost 11% split between government and lender.
Think about that. What happens to the lender? What will they do? (Hint: US doesn't run everything everywhere)
What's that? You're taxing the borrower? Where exactly is the borrower then? (Hint: Same problem)
3. Taxing unrealized gains after 5 years. See problem #1. Consider also the distinction between bonds and equity. Most investment grade bonds produce small revenues. Tiny by percentages. Mess with their returns and you'll move a market VASTLY larger than than the stock and options and futures markets.
4. ban on all shell property holding companies more than 1-deep, with full disclosure.
Okay. I'm with the full disclosure thing. I'm not convinced about 1-deep, but I'll listen. What I consider more dangerous than depth is the 51% control of a shell being used to control owned shells where the same owner might have a minority stake. There are 'leverage' schemes that involve very little ownership risk and a lot of downstream control. Limiting depth covers that danger, but I'm not sure we have to use such a blunt weapon to do it.
5. Passive income and If your property isn’t performing above the rate of inflation
I might agree if I didn't think our base inflation rate is gamed to eat away at the national debt.
Don’t know if this was posted here before; it is a fairly detailed intro to the war: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/opinion/ukraine-russia-wired.amp.html
Interesting take on transparency...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/us/politics/russia-military-ukraine.html
...
General Clark recalled teaching a class of Ukrainian generals in 2016 in Kyiv and trying to explain what an American military “after-action review” was. He told them that after a battle involving American troops, “everybody got together and broke down what happened.”
“The colonel has to confess his mistakes in front of the captain,” General Clark said. “He says, ‘Maybe I took too long to give an order.’”
After hearing him out, the Ukrainians, General Clark said, told him that could not work. “They said, ‘We’ve been taught in the Soviet system that information has to be guarded and we lie to each other,’” he recalled.
...
Hal Sparks credibly debunks the Washington Post "Hunter Biden's laptop" story.
(Show broken into two links because of a glitch in the middle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4QQ-EWHcm4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o693UR3sj6U
"For scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when you are seeing no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."
With regards to climate change, we are all in a very big boat, and I am seeing no way out, because the folks at the wheel have decided that profit and exigent circumstance preclude making any course correction - the current excuse is the RU/UK war. I can't even convince my own brothers not to invest in oil. Got any Shackletons?
P.S.
Dr. Brin,
David Drake, Latin scholar, wrote an homage to DeCamp - "To Bring the Light" - that is worth the short read, I think, if you haven't yet done so.
P.P.S.
Larry,
"Teaching...Ukrainian generals in 2016 in Kyiv and trying to explain what an American military “after-action review” was...."
There is plenty of butt-covering in the US military, but this sounds like the "woops, refloat those carriers" kind of kriegspiel the IJN indulged in before Midway. The intent was to support an inflexible plan, not examine it for dangerous assumptions and errors.
Pappenheimer
Alfred Differ:
For the "Who could have guessed?" excuse, I'm skeptical of any and all who use it. My BS detector screams in my brain. "Piss on me and call it rain" is what I want to scream back. 8)
I'm glad to hear someone else use that expression, although mine is "Don't
Be careful with the Voting Rights Act, though. Progressives put that fence up relatively recently.
Well, 55 years is a good percentage of the country's lifetime. Which was kinda John Roberts's reasoning that the law was no longer necessary. Except for a few things:
+ A law doesn't have to be proven "necessary" to be on the books. That's Congress's call, and they renewed the law as recently as 2006 (in a bipartisan vote). So it's not like the laws about walking in front of your automobile with a bell so as not to scare the horses. It's not just that no one bothered to repeal an archaic law.
+ States and jurisdictions who were constrained by the law have shown very clearly--before and after the law was gutted--that they were champing at the bit to suppress the vote. So the law clearly is still necessary.
+ Congress's intention was clearly to keep the law active. The court had no business there at all.
We mess with our fences a lot.
That's kind of what liberalism is for. But GMT's statement was not that fences should never be removed. Just that we should know the consequences before we start messing. In a healthy society, we'd have an honest debate about the status quo vs change and decide democratically which is better in a particular situation. Too bad we've forgotten how to do that.
One of the few bright points of the Two-Scoops era is I now feel quite free to use 'gaslit' and 'gaslight' for the crap others spew and expect me to believe. Much shorter word and easier to say than 'Piss on me and…'
I never even knew about the movie from which that term derives until very recently. Something funny about the relationship to the movie, though. Even though Gaslight is the movie's title, and the movie is certainly about a husband "gaslighting" his wife (in the modern use of that term), the part of the movie involving an actual gas light isn't part of his gaslighting. Yeah, that confused me too.
continued...
Alfred Differ continuing...
As for the inflation remark, I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. I thought of your earlier questions about whether inflation was theft, so I was trying to leverage your earlier content to point out an example where I think it is.
Inflict a planned 2%/year inflation on my property… then charge me property tax on the current (unrealized) value and tax me again for capital gains when I realize it.
IF my house increases in value that same 2%/year, I actually lose money when a casual observer would say I had made money and should pay my share.
Several things.
On taxation of unrealized gains, I tend to agree with you. At least as far as counting the gain as "income".
That said, property tax is not meant to be income tax. The theory behind it is a little different, though somewhat archaic. It assumes that property owners derive benefits of society in proportion to the property that they own, so they pay for those benefits (via taxation) in that same proportion. I don't think that really aligns with modern reality, but it's one of those "If you don't like it, change the law" things. All I will insist on here is that property tax is not income tax.
That's important for this reason. If you're being taxed on a "gain" as income, which is solely due to inflation, then that's (a kind of) theft. If your taxes simply go up (in dollars) because your property value went up (in dollars), then the inflation thing is kind of a wash. You're paying higher taxes, but in inflated dollars.
"These days, people talk about inflation as if only prices increase."
What you charge for your labor IS a price… to your employer.
Point taken, but we're not really arguing. Whether you like it or not, wage levels are generally in the hands of employers, not employees. (That might be changing post-pandemic, but that's very recent.) In recent memory, wages stayed pretty stagnant, so even small price increases over time seemed to erode your purchasing power. If wages and prices are all going up, then it's kind of a wash for those who spend most of their paycheck. The ones who lose to that sort of inflation are creditors and people with large savings.
The real issue is there are different kinds of inflation for different sectors. Look at the price for acquiring a higher education and you'll see hyper-inflation levels going back years. Health care insurance was doing the same thing.
I've long noticed that both of those things "outpaced inflation", and for that reason am not inclined to call them "inflation" except in a metaphorical sense. Like "grade inflation". Something other than devaluing of the currency is at work there. To me, inflation means "devaluing of the currency", which is not as easy a thing to demonstrate as it sounds for the very reason you cite. Prices of all things denominated in a currency don't rise and fall in unison. If there was a great pizza shortage of 2022, the slice I can now buy for $10 might cost $100 for those lucky enough to find a slice. That's not inflation, though. It doesn't mean the dollar has lost 90% of its value.
Pappenheimer. Ass-covering and delusion-protection are core human nature attributes, perhaps THE core attributes, responsible for the litany of horrors we call ‘history.’ After a war, the victors prepare for the same kind of war they just won while the losers try to innovate. Hence Russians rebuild what they think enabled them to crush Army Group Center in 19944 and Ukrainians had to re-adjust and listen to guys like Clarke.
The biggest exceptions? European observers watching the US Civil War went home appalled and demanded top-to-bottom changes. Except the French, who soon were smashed. by the Prussians.
But the biggest was George Marshall in 1945 asking: “What mistakes do empires always make?” And red-team critiquing became part of US military culture. Enough to maybe half compensate for inevitable human delusion.
This got truncated above:
I'm glad to hear someone else use that expression, although mine is "Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining."
Probably obvious anyway, but still.
onward
onward
Post a Comment