I appeared at the Russians With Attitude (Patreon) podcast, which is run by a couple of easygoing Russian nationalist intellectuals called pigdog (@diogen_tv) and Kirill Kaminets (@noetic_pirate).
Also this week’s Open Thread.
Open Thread 131
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was written by Anatoly Karlin for Russian Reaction on December 11, 2020 .144 Comments
Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.
Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.
Apart from writing books, reviews, travel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.
This is the current Open Thread, where anything goes – within reason.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Commenting rules. Please note that anonymous comments are not allowed.
https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/assets/Figures/Part-4-Chapter-3-Figure-7.png
Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant: World Travels – 15 April 2014 to 17 August 2017
I was thinking that China has unnecessarily squandered its previously good reputation with Westerners out of some principle of making a point about Hong Kong.
For decades most Westerners saw China as a reasonably friendly, benign country that makes most of their consumer products and also has nice food. They were also respected and admired by the nationalist right for their perceived tough policies against Muslims.
It wasn’t until a couple of years ago when China started coming down hard on Hong Kong that opinions in the West really started to change on China. I don’t even think it was the pandemic that damaged China’s reputation that much, the damage had already been done by the HK unrest.
Overall I think China has made a mistake in insisting on making a point about Hong Kong. It’s almost solely a pride/face thing. They have achieved little economically as a result and the damage to their reputation is probably worse than if they’d just let Hong Kong carry on with the status quo.
I know that AK likes to retrospectively review his predictions to evaluate their accuracy, I would like to do the same for mine.
8.7 months ago I wrote
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/doctors-beds-ventilators/#comment-3791275
The truth of this prediction has been borne out by subsequent events.
Considering the African countries he has travelled to, has NZ thought to check his HIV status?
The city was beautiful this morning.
https://i.imgur.com/FuxGClG.jpg
Low-level photography outside is hard, especially during dusk, so the picture doesn’t quite do it justice. There’s something magical about cities built on archipelagos.
Does anyone knows good books about genius, people with high abilities or extremely high IQ? Books about their background, familes and all that. Want to know about it more what factor goes in help “making” high IQ people.
China does not want to be seen as a “benign, friendly country.”
That is exactly what offends their self esteem.
They want to be taken seriously.
Its a threatened self esteem issue.
When I tell Chinese here how much I admire their ancient culture, they get extremely upset, and accuse me of wanting to keep China “powerless”. They despise their ancient culture, and want only to excel in Western technology.
Its an age old story. Humiliated be the West, they have internalized the values of their old oppressors. Stockholm syndrome is a common thing. Most cultures that encountered the West, went through this kind of thing.
It will blow over. Mankind, stupid as always, and ruled by fear, is impressed only by power. We are a foolish, petty species.
Powerful and poetic. The unrelenting advance of liberalism knows no limits.
Murray’s Human Accomplishment isn’t about personalities per se, but about the truly exceptional through the long annals of history. He did an interview recently where your exact question was posed (10:38).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYtyKmPZBto
One of the myths he debunked was the idea that great achievement can come without extremely hard work. Murray has delved into the private lives and virtually all geniuses he has studied worked exceptionally hard. Even people like Mozart, who is sometimes stereotyped as a dilettante genius, spent huge amounts of time refining his work.
SpaceX Starship did a belly flop. Despite blowing up later it is a significant progress.
Starship is going to be like Portuguese Caravel in the early 15th century. The significance of this is huge, it will reshape the world.
Although getting there and back without killing the passengers has always been quite a vital part of it, so quite a long way to go I think.
I am beginning to question, if it is appropriate to question peoples sacred idols. Socrates, as we know, was killed for it.
The reaction of people like AltanBakshi, Ano4, Daniel Chieh, and countless others, has made me reconsider whether it is right to question peoples sacred cows. Enraged by my presentation of alternative opinions, they lash out in fury, distress, and anxiety, threatened and afraid.
The most important thing in life, is that we become satisfied with ourselves and reconciled to life. To achieve this, we invent all sorts of myths, illusions, snd fantasies, narratives that we cling to as a life raft, amid the uncertainties and dangers of life.
It is the rare man who us strong enough to live without illusions, who can see through it all while retaining his sanity and remaining cheerful.
Most of the illusions people construct to keep the chaos at bay, are benign. Some are pernicious – like Islam, which believes it has to subjugate everyone else, to have self-esteem. It is perhaps the worlds culture with the most fragile self esteem. Nazi Germany was like this, and indeed all conquering ideologies. China has this threatened self esteem today (no, I am not comparing China to Nazi Germany, to the idiots), although, Western imperialism seems to me to be more a product of exuberance, or restless dissatisfaction, than a need to prove its worth.
But most illusions are benign, and serve a useful and healthy purpose for the masses of mankind, who cannot bear too much truth.
Like the Buddha, I have always been struck by how mankinds illusions bind them in chains, and makes them suffer terribly. I have always thought, if they could only be free, they would be happy. But seeing how most people cry out in terror when you try abd break their fetters, I may have been wrong, and so may have the Buddha.
It may be, that most people cannot be free, and most people cannot be happy. Their chains are the source of their suffering, but also the source of their security- and the dominant emotion of most people, it seems to me, is fear.
The brilliant French author Stendhal, took a line from one of Shakespeare’s plays, about the men who would win glory by fighting the French at Agincourt – “the happy few” – and would sign his books with it. It may be, the happy, can only ever be few.
Is it then cruel to try and “free” mankind? Dostoevsky, in his wonderful fable of the Grand Inquisitor, thought freedom was a terrible burden for mankind, and that Jesus, if he came again, would have to be imprisoned, rather than allowed to free people. Rousseau famously said- mankind yearns to be free, yet everywhere he is in chains. The profound Russian philosopher Alexander Herzen quipped in response to this – it is like saying, fish yearn to fly, yet everywhere they swim (or something like that).
So was the Buddha wrong? Well, he was right that our illusions are the source of our suffering. But he may have been wrong, that we will suffer less if we free ourselves from our illusions. Maybe we suffer now, but we may well suffer more, when we are “free”.
It is no accident, that the profound inner core of Buddhism, the true liberating message, had to be driven underground and become “esoteric”, even though it us so simple, and become accessible only to the few, guarded from the masses. It us because it is dynamite- it explodes all illusions. The Sutras repeatedly say, the doctrine of Nothingness is terrifying to most men, and those accustomed to striving, actually drop dead out if fright when hearing it. (Yet they also say, there is nothing to fear).
While I dont see them human rated for at least a decade, it’s fine because because before we send humans anywhere, we need to send massive amounts of robots and supplies to create human life support infrastructure. It will take a while.
But in automatic mode, Starship will be ready to carry cargo and robots to set up the infrastructure in a few short years, and it will carry them in huge amounts (100 ton capacity is very helpful). It will also carry weapons, so other countries may wish to evaluate their defense priorities.
Even more importantly, SpaceX is mass manufacturing those babies. I think they are on SN40 grain silo now. Which means (they tested SN8) they have 32 Starship hulls in reserve in various stages of completion already. This mass production is huge deal.
By the time Starship becomes human rated, there will be SpaceX co-branded, robot operated McDonald’s on orbit of every planet of the Solar System. 🙂
I’ve noticed that most serious scholars of Chinese history seem to be non-Chinese, mainly Westerners.
Chinese mostly only seem interested in their ancient history if there’s a commercial opportunity to be taken advantage of, such as the Great Wall and Terracotta Warriors tourism and I think they also superficially like those aspects of Chinese history because they are visibly grandiose sceptical that they feel gives them respect and credibility on the world stage.
The panda thing is similar, their panda conservation is not because they value conservation and animal rights as a whole, it’s because they feel the panda symbolism gives them respect and credibility and is a big part of China’s “brand” so to speak.
But in general most historical sites and ruins in China seem to be neglected, they think nothing of bulldozing ancient hutongs in Beijing for example to make way for more skyscrapers when most Western countries would regard such streets as national treasures, but to the Chinese they just seem to represent a primitive way of life and are seen as an embarrassment.
V, forget Night City!
Come to the farm!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stKYt5rYDYU
It is interesting that the ones who are most admiring of China here would be the first to get thrown into a labor camp or de-platformed if China were running the places they are living in, or if the governments where they are living in used Chinese methods to deal with political dissent, judging by the psychological profiles and characteristics of those posters. I mean it is funny to be sinophilic and yet be against lockdowns in your own country.
Is it admiration when you mutilate and misappropriate others culture and use it just for your own egotripping?
I notice this sort of thing quite a bit actually, people will complain about the increasing level of technocratic authoritarianism in Western countries while speaking as if China and Russia are somehow morally better and opponents of the “New World Order”, apparently oblivious to the fact that many of the technologies and policies they are complaining about were invented and pioneered by China and also Russia to a certain extent.
“There’s something magical about cities built on archipelagos.”
Yep, then you would love St Petersburg, its on whole another level than Stockholm.
Sad, but for the moment, true. You are correct.
China still has Stockholm syndrome, and is still dazzled by Western technology. One of the signs China is becoming a mature country and not just a clone of the (worst aspects of), of the West, will be when it learns to appreciate its old neighborhoods, and its beautiful old culture.
There are some signs of this.
I am still waiting for a Taoist science. It is forgotten today, but Western mysticism was a big source of science. The religious authorities, as authorities will, claimed they “knew” everything, they could define God, etc. They had “positive” knowledge. The mystics came and said, nonsense! – drop your knowledge, and look. God cannot be described, but he can be seen. (Negative theology).
So it was that mem began to look at the world, whereas before they had merely known it.
Taoism, which is also a negative theology, will be rediscovered in a Chinese Renaissance, just like the ancient Greek skeptics were in Europe, which will lead to a new questioning of what we “know” – our knowledge is already becoming rigid, and we are forgetting to look at the world – and the Chinese will teach the world to look again.
In truth, we know too much now to discover anything new. a fascinating experiment would be, to unlearn everything we have learnt in the past 500 years, and start again with a clean slate. Would we not discover entirely new things? Every time we discover anything, it sends us down a particular road, which closes off all other roads. As our knowledge grows, we close off other potential roads. If that first step is different, everything that follows will be.
How many aspects of reality, is our particular science, blinding us to? How many alleys, are now closed off to us, because of the choices we have made?
(At the end of the experiment, we unseal everything we now know, which have been locked away only)
At the least, its a fascinating thought experiment.
In the Israeli Army intelligence unit 8200 which focuses on technology, they tell their very bright but young soldiers, to solve tasks that big tech companies with large professional staffs have claimed is impossible – but they don’t tell the young soldiers that. Half the time, the soldiers do it. Because what we “know”, limits us as much as it freees us.
Google translate?
Eh it’s the standard “upcoming power” thing. Once they get to a certain level they’ll start being rabidly anti-western again
Absolutely. You’re supposed to take elements from other cultures, and reinterpret, alter, subvert, digest, mix and match, reimagine, etc. This is how world cultures fertilize each other, reinvent themselves, grow, and renew themselves.
Everything alive, is in constant motion and flux. Stagnation is for the dead.
The East has forgotten their own traditions, and the West, in the future, will re-fertilize the East with what they once had. And perhaps the East will teach a stagnant West groaning under its burden of accumulated knowledge, to look at the world again, after the Taoist Renaissance that will inevitably come.
You think, there is one “authoritative” tradition, that claims, possess, and guards some eternal “truths”, and no one is allowed to touch it except the authorities.
Such an attitude is born of fear, and the desire to cling to something firm, in a world of flux. Your Buddha warned you not to resist the flux.You are a conservative, because uou are scared.
Buddhism and Taoism emerged as responses to problems in particular social settings. While to some extent these are universal human problems, their techniques and approaches have to be tailored to different societies.
Western Buddhism must be its own thing.
Regarding my remarks earlier on China, I want to moderate them somewhat.
First, Western countries, in their drive to modernize, aldo destroyed massive amounts of beautiful architecture and despoiled the countryside, so one shouldn’t single out China unduly here.
One can say, that China seems to have gone further in this, and has not yet come out the other side, as the West has, but sadly, this has been a universal human trend.
Secondly, the East has a particular approach to buildings, that comes from Buddhism and ifs notion of impermanence. Eastern cities were traditionally built out of wood, and always seemed flimsy to Western eyes. Temples were rebuilt every few decades.
In fact, there is an ancient temple in Japan, that is completely torn down and rebuilt, every 20 years I think. They do it on purpose, to illustrate the point that the world is impermanent.
So the Eastern attitude, should not necessarily be seen as neglect, but actually an expression of a profound philosophy.
What is disgusting, is tearing down beautiful old hutongs and replacing them with ugly modern buildings. That is an absence of aesthetician appreciation.
I doubt the city has as good cyclist infrastructure as Stockholm. The footage I’ve seen of SPB’s city center is pretty but the outskirts look like typical commiebloc malaise. We have some of that at the edges but Stockholm is much more mixed, we have huge parts of fairly core areas like Enskede being mostly standalone houses with lots of greeney.
It really is an amazing city to live in.
Well, Chinese histories are written in Classical Chinese, they are very very hard to comprehend for someone whose background is only vernacular Chinese.
Various threads of interest:
https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2020/12/05/book-review-other-minds-the-octopus-and-the-evolution-of-intelligent-life/
Distributed intelligence in octopi, and differences in perception in an animal that has brains in its arms. Quite cool – I plan on getting the book myself.
https://unherd.com/2020/09/why-fukuyama-was-right-all-along/
Generally excellent article all around. Unherd has been promising.
https://twitter.com/robkhenderson/status/1335356886305157123
Male writers do better with women, vice versa isn’t true.
https://www.jpost.com/omg/former-israeli-space-security-chief-says-aliens-exist-humanity-not-ready-651405
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EorbWaqXcAIrt-V.png
Regarding some recent NYT deceit:
https://inosmi.ru/politic/20201209/248708936.html
https://www.eurasiareview.com/08122020-covering-russia-what-sucks-about-the-new-york-times-oped/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/12/07/covering-russia-what-sucks-about-the-new-york-times/
A Sovok delivery:
https://calendar.gwu.edu/vlasov-case-history-betrayal
An un-academic opening, which grossly under-represents the generally accepted number range of personnel in the WW II era Russian army that was nominally allied with Nazi Germany. The characterization of Vlasov being “infamous” is noteworthy as well. Would an academic panel noting Stalin likely provide such a description of him? He’s responsible for far more Russian and other deaths than what Vlasov can be legitimately accused of.
The below piece originally appeared at a Russian based venue, known for favoring pro-Russian perspectives.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/12/14/czech-russian-relations-and-the-roa-conflicting-historical-narratives/
More BS from Sebastian Coe:
https://www.firstpost.com/sports/im-not-sure-russian-doping-issue-can-be-resolved-in-near-future-says-world-athletics-chief-sebastian-coe-9102691.html
Back in 2016, he pushed for drug cheat Yuliya Stepanova to compete in the Rio Summer Olympics unlike such Russians as Yelena Isinbayeva and Sergey Subchenkov who never tested positive for banned substances. At Coe’s behest, all but one Russian competed at Rio. Darya Klishina was given a pass for living and training in the US. Notwithstanding, there was a sleazy last minute attempt to get her banned from competition.
Not so surprising from The National Interest:
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-donald-trump-pardon-hunter-biden-174210
How about pardoning Snowden and Assange?
Its about as useful as talking to a blind person about colors. The mentally unwell can be pitied, but of course, their appraisal and output is understandably limited. They serve as useful tools nonetheless as bad examples.
FREE ASSANGE
Brexit seems to be a flawed policy, you would just be replacing Eastern Europeans with large increases in Pakistanis, Indians, and Africans.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/branded_news/D748/production/_106921155_p078zmng.jpg
Many people were mislead by this.
At least with EU membership, you get Eastern European migrants to balance things out, and you have free access to the EU market, plus their help in trade disputes, hard Brexit will cause Northern Ireland and Scotland to leave, which will put the nuclear deterence in doubt.
From the report
I don’t think the influx of Poles and other Eastern European can really be taken as a positive in balancing things out, the Poles won’t save us from the changing demographics of non-whites, whose worldwide population is growing fast.
I suppose one good thing will be that British tradesman will no longer have to compete with cheap Eastern labour.
Comrade Zhou on the scene to kill thought and enforce orthodoxy 🙂
Its not solely about IQ, and much more about memory, but I highly recommend Moonwalking with Einstein in that vein by Joshua Foer which chronicles his explorations into memory, meeting individuals with eidetic memory, and his ultimate participation in the US memory Championships.
Great book all around, highly recommend it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein
If this sounds weird… well, several well-known names in history are in fact nicknames, starting at least with Plato[n] (‘the wide one’).
-Orwell
Paul Johnson’s “Intellectuals.”
If anything Polish women race mix with blacks and Muslims to a greater extent than native British women do.
All action has a cost – chess is a decent analogy here. Every advance also creates a weakness. You may think that China made a mistake with Hong Kong, but I think it was basically necessary at the point when it happened – there was no way that China could allow separatism to happen so suppression had to happen regardless of its cost: negative externality in this case being reduced reputation but also a positive positive externality of preventing other rebellions.
A better argument is that China should have handled the transition better so it never got to this point: letting HK get to the point where the elite were living off rent economies and destroying basically any opportunity for the future generations caused the powder keg to get to this point. Ironically, the CCP would have been better served if they were more harshly communistic and economic in the beginning, rather than letting it get to the point that it did.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but its another reminder that half-measures are often worse than going full-in(or not trying at all).
Indeed, World War One, as Russell famously observed, was caused by boredom. That war, also caused Freud to introduce his Death Instinct.
It is obvious, that man cannot stand too much peace, control, safety, and security. That is why the ultra controlled safety state China is creating, will ultimately lead to revolution. That is why, the more science made Europe safe and controlled, the more discontent grew.
Risk, is a necessary part of the good life. Many of the activities I enjoy involve risk, but if they didn’t, I would introduce risk into my life for free.
Today,our elites dream of a world of total safety and control. That is why we have bureaucratized everything – smothered by safety. Artificial Intelligence is another ideology of total control and safety.
Chaos is as necessary as Order for the good life, and we kill ourselves if we create a world of only order.
Traditionally, much of humanity’s “grand struggle” was seen as having a natural culmination in a final state of order, control, and safety. But it was never recognized, that risk itself, which made the struggle fun, is what has value, not the insipid Ordee at its end.
That is perhaps the only problem with Fukuyama’s Thymos idea – that the struggle is for Order to finally, in the end, win.
But in a dialectical reality, no side can finally win. That spells death.
The principle of risk should be extended to the intellectual field as well. To say we “know”, means we want security. To “settle down” in some nice little philosophy that neatly encloses the universe, is to be a coward, and one who craves security.
Buddhism, which says you should have no opinions or preferences, is the preeminent philosophy of the risk taking, adventurous life.
But how shall we have the metaphysical courage to be so bold and daring? Why does mankind always in the end choose security? Why does mankind always chicken out – and settle down in some beat little system?
That is where Buddhism comes in, and the doctrine of illusion, non-dualism, the non existent self, and the ultimate metaphysical security they provide.
On that basis, we can become fearless adventurers, who venture our lives carelessly, laughingly, out of exuberance, and not out of lack.
I would bet Starship reaches LEO without a payload next year, and Superheavy + Starship will be sending payload to LEO and beyond by the end of 2022
I can’t see Scottish independence ever being supported by the majority of Scots because Scots as a distinct people from the English isn’t grounded in any reality. Their pseudo-Celtic identity is a total invention, Scottish Gaelic was only ever spoken by a minority of people in the West Highlands who were invaders from Ireland. Gaelic is the Irish language, it’s not indigenous to Scotland.
The majority of Scots live in the lowlands, and most native lowland Scots are of Anglo-Saxon and to a lesser extent Nordic origin, and their native language is English, or “Scots” as some nationalists would say which is basically English spelt how Scots would pronounce it and using Scottish slang terms.
Also, there are many recent Irish Catholic immigrants in Scotland who predictably hate the English and native Scots too, so frankly I think Scottish independence gets a lot of support from these people who would like to re-invent Scotland as a Celtic, Gaelic country in their own image as a way of attacking England and native Scots. I don’t think Scottish independence is particularly an authentically Scottish movement.
Starship will put people on the Moon by 2025. why would they wait for a decade, contracts have already been signed with NASA
https://i.redd.it/4ugitj00ki461.png
https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-announces-primary-efficacy-analysis-phase-3-cove-study
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine
https://sputnikvaccine.com/rus/newsroom/pressreleases/vtoroy-promezhutochnyy-analiz-dannykh-klinicheskogo-issledovaniya-prodemonstriroval-effektivnost-vak/
Thinking back on cartoons I saw as a little kid and trying to remember instances of poz.
Probably the worst thing I can remember is that there was this cartoon called The Bionic Six, where one of the kids was a black who had been adopted (cucking) and he was nicknamed “IQ” for his smarts.
Efficiency, to be measured, requires you to state your goal. Do you want everyone to eat, or only the rich? Tell me, and I will tell you what is efficient for that.
That being said, since we live in a paradoxical, dialectical world, too much concern with efficiency, has a strangulation effect, and thus becomes inefficient.
A society too concerned with efficiency, loses sight of why it lives, and becomes depressed.
Efficiency pertains to that side of life, that is exclusively concerned with survival. But we survive, so that we can live the good life.
Moreover, efficiency is a narrow concern, and needs to be balanced with imagination if we are to come up with novel solutions. We all know that concentrating on a problem, often doesn’t produce a solution. When one “inefficiently” relaxes, the solution often comes of its own accord.
So not only is too much efficiency inefficient on the level of will to live, even on the level of technique, it is bad to press it too far.
In reality, a society too concerned with efficiency, is as bad as on concerned too little.
Order and Chaos must balance each other out, and then they create fruitful children. Too much Order, you get the dull stagnation of China. Too little, the chaos of some parts of the third world.
It might be that race-mixers have sloughed off the British genepool to a large extent already and the Poles need to do this sloughing off.
Some say that miscegenation is effectively a population sink, that the fertility of such people is lower than the fertility of non-miscegenated people. Could be, but then it is hard to explain places like Brazil.
I thought peak woke advertising was miscegenating gays, but facebook-instagram recently put out a commercial that seemed to be full of trannies.
Poles/Eastern Europeans despite being white seem to have a more non-white character and outlook, relative to the native British any way.
Socially they seem to gel more with the blacks and Muslims than they do with the British. Young Slavic men often seem to imitate and style themselves after ghetto black “gangstas”, presumably because they see them as a model of masculinity and toughness.
The problem with you, Daniel, is that you are a scared animal.
Being scared, you are preoccupied with efficiency and control, that side of life that pertains to survival.
Being Chinese, this is not surprising. China’s encounter with the West was the most terrifying event in its history. It is not surprising, that the next few generations of Chinese, will be preoccupied with that side of life that pertains to survival. The effect is long.
That is normal and natural. Previously, life in China had grown so secure, that Chinese culture focused predominantly on making life pleasurable.
The problem is, total security is an illusion. Rattled and shaken by your encounter with the West, you now dream of total efficiency, total control, total safety.
But there is no still point in the storm where we can seek refuge, and life is constant risk. The challenge is, to sail skillfully with the wind, not total control.
The problem, of course, goes well beyond China. Global elites dream of total safety, efficiency, and control.
But such a system, is self undermining in the long term, and results in loss of the will to live and dysfunction.
From the 2011 Census, for a representative sample of 10,000 native British women above the age of 16 in a relationship (heterosexual or homosexual):
9,835 of them have White partners
58 of them have partners of mixed heritage
42 have Asian partners
44 have Black partners
21 have partners who don’t fit into the above categories (Arabs, South Americans etc)
For non-British White women, the figures are as follows for every 10,000 females:
9,210 have White partners
173 have partners of mixed heritage
267 of them have Asian partners
189 have Black partners
161 have partners who don’t fit into the above categories.
If we look at the difference between British White women and non-British White women, we see that the latter mix with non-Whites at a higher rate than the former, these rates are as follows for each of the non-White groupings
Mixed heritage: 2.98
Asian: 6.36
Black: 4.30
Other: 7.67
Note: Mixed heritage people do not include those who are the offspring of a British White and non-British White couple.
Married and same-sex civil partnerships or cohabiting couple partnerships by ethnic group by age (Females), 2011 (Excel sheet 309Kb)
Instead of screwing with other cultures and their sacred cows, why not have a shot at revising judaism so you won’t be hated everywhere you turn up. Try to be more like parsis or something. You figure it out.
FREE TARRANT.
Surely an independent Scotland will invite more exciting migrants than mere Celts?
Judaism has been revised, and will continue to be, many times. Thats how it remains vital and alive, organic and adaptable.
In Judaism, you are supposed to be constantly adding and refining. It isn’t static.
As for being hated, if someone doesn’t hate you, you don’t exist.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTkg3Dp2qtpwG32_mag5mhG371Y9UrET8-KBg&usqp.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRuAYof3YSgb0Nh3JcCeoB2wZezFtspD6mFag&usqp.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRXvwi7HFX-xP0hu8IJXsN_KA8uOj5QS10CyQ&usqp.jpg
https://images.jpost.com/image/upload/f_auto,fl_lossy/t_JD_ArticleMainImageFaceDetect/447562.jpg
The Chinese Believe That the Jews Control America. Is That a Good Thing?
https://youtu.be/acZXridt7wM?t=219
Its a bit much to call Scottish Gaelic speakers invaders, Gaelic has been in Scotland before English existed, the Nordic invaders even switched to Gaelic
Blaming the push for Scottish independence on Catholics doesn’t really work either, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon are both Protestants, in general the Scottish seem to vote for left wing governments but end up being ruled by the Tory party, I think that the reason they want independence
There might be a distortion here, if, as can probably be assumed, natives are less urban and so less exposed to blacks. Perhaps, Poles and other non-British whites would choose to segregate in white British cities, if that were an option.
Quick primer on space engineering programs – if Head Honcho promises some deadline, look who he is and follow this schedule:
Other NASA subcontractors (Boeing etc). Add 10 years.
Russians. Add 15 years.*
I am a fan of Elon Musk and I think he is a good rocketeer, but I’m also a realist.
*This may sound like I knock on the Russians but I really dont. I think Russians do pretty good for the budget, and they do have a strategic vision with their TEM project, which I approve of very much, more so than Musks’ rockets. People like to dump on Rogozin, but since he became a head of Roscosmos, Russians had a near perfect launch record. Prior to Rogozin, Russians would blow up at least one rocket a year. Now, personally, I would prefer more blow ups and more launches, but I’m not the one paying payload insurance, so I guess my opinion doesn’t matter that much in this case.
Xi should have placed his palm facing downward.
Interesting video.
Its amusing to see Chinese still think Jews have big noses lol 🙂 If only we could be identified so easily!
There is no special animosity among American Jews to China. Opinion is divided in the usual way, although there is probably a positive attitude to the Chinese ethny.
Israel has no problem with China, and is only limited in its ties with China by deference to America. But Israel is always pragmatic, as it must be. Israel had warm relations with South Africa, aa well.
Its funny, but in the most hilarious, shameless, “let’s you and him fight” ploy, Ron Unz tried to act as if Israel is the primary enemy of China, because it controls America, etc, etc 🙂 I got a huge kick out of that. Nice try, Ron 🙂 I don’t think Chinese are stupid enough to adopt your petty obsessions.
My own anti CCP stance is driven by my liberalism, and has nothing to do with being Jewish.
But for many, there does seem to be a connection there. The antisemites seem to love and admire the CCP, but I attribute that to a spiritual kinship – “asshole” type people stick together. Thats why the antisemites like Iran and the CCP – assoholes admire each other.
I have to stop calling it China- what I dislike, is the CCP, not China.
You are correct about lack of bicycling infrastructure in St Pete. My impression of the city was a crossbreed between Switzerland and Houston Texas. Switzerland because of excellent public transport, and Houston because everything is so huge and open. Except Houston sprawl has many small houses and little cookie cutter plazas and St Pete sprawl has gigantic apartment buildings separated by considerable distance and space is filled with parks and roadways and public transport stations. At least South side is like that. North side is more ritzy and more dense, and more modern, but I haven’t really made it past Begovaya metro station, so can’t comment on far north.
St Pete is too huge for bicycle, take subway in comfort instead.
Yes, this is likely the reason for such large disparities, if we compared apples to apples I think the rates of mixing with non-Europeans would likely be similar between British and non-British whites given a certain geographic location.
The Gaels invaded Scotland from Ireland in the 5th century, around the same time as the Anglo-Saxons invaded through the South East and East coast of what is now England. So the Gaelic and English languages have been present in Britain for roughly the same amount of time.
Scotland before the Gaels invaded was obviously predominantly Pictish, who according to mainstream academia spoke a Brythonic language, as the whole of Britain did at that time but the Gaels replaced that with their own Gaelic language, either through assimilation or genocide. The ancestors of most Scots today were Anglo-Saxons, which is why most Scots have always spoken English and not Gaelic.
I would also highlight that there is no strong evidence that the Picts were even Celtic people of any sort, as the few stones that have been found with Pictish inscriptions have never been successfully deciphered at all, so the claim that Pictish was a Brythonic language is pure assumption based on the belief that the whole of Britain spoke Brythonic languages at that time, and likely a politically correct assumption to make the Gaels seem less like invading, genocidal foreigners.
It’s interesting that Bede described Pictish as a distinct language in its own right, separate from English, Brythonic and Gaelic.
IMO the Falcon Heavy was delayed because as the Merlin engine evolved and got more powerful there was less need for the Heavy, this won’t happen with Starship, Musk wants to use it to launch Starlink satellites, 400 Sarlink sats on Starship is far better than 60 on a Falcon 9, cheaper too since they won’t be losing a second stage
You are correct on the Starlink, and other automatic stuff but they will run into problems with human certs. That’s US bureaucracy for you.
That said, I hope I’m wrong and you are correct across the board. 🙂
Eastern Europeans seem quite widely dispersed across the UK though, not just in major cities.
Native British people are probably more likely to live in rural areas than white immigrants, but overall native British people are quite heavily urbanised by Western standards.
Dislike of the CCP is irrational, as of recently it is drifting away from its Maoist theology and there is a renaissance of ancient Chinese culture. I remember reading that the Chinese can now openly admire Chiang Kai-Shek and admit Mao did bad things, so the ideological dogmatism is going away.
From a Jewish perspective, the only thing bad about China is that it is, like other East Asian societies impenetrable to outsiders, and they cannot control this behemoth in the making like they could with the Occidental nations. Perhaps it’s support of Iran is also disconcerting.
I dont really dislike the CCP. Liking and disliking are too simplistic.
I think the CCP may have a useful transitional role to play for China, now. What I am primarily opposing is the idea that the current CCP is an ideal form of government for all time and should be reproduced in the West, and the absurd romanticism one sees on this site, that Chinese elites “care for their prople” lol.
I am mostly responding to the absurd and excessive admiration one sees here, because it may lead to the importation of very negative trends from China, that benefit elite exploitation of the masses, as certain people want.
Asian societies are not as impenetrable as you think, especially the Chinese. China has had periods of great cosmopolitanism, and sees itself as an “ur-culture” that spreads its culture to others. That self image, is less tied to race, to blood and soil.
Today, China is quite racist, but China is still recovering from its encounter with the West, so nothing about it is very normal now.
If large numbers of Jews settled in China, I am sure they would become a prosperous community with strong ties to the elite, like they have everywhere. Jews strive to become the best exemplars of whatever the prestige ideology of their host society is – in the West, it is Leftism. In China, it would be whatever is popular there.
Contrary to the culture of critique nonsense.
The West, was traditionally more closed to outsiders than China, and had particular animus towards Jews. If Jews could still make it in the West, then can make it anywhere.
Anyways, I dont think there will be any large scale movement of Jews, or anyone, to China, as the West will continue to be the world’s powerhouse of creativity and quality, and ambitious people will continue to prefer it.
The problem with you has an easy solution.
https://www.rxlist.com/thorazine-drug.htm#dosage
I’m surprised that no one has started a Cybepunk 2077 comment at all. Let’s first all mock our host for not completing his grand opus:
https://mobile.twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1336796546843684864
From what I’ve heard, it needs patches.
It’s strange because Poland and other Eastern European nations are a lot more white (or European) demographically and culturally than the UK is at the moment. One of the things I appreciate about going to EE (usually Lithuania and Belarus) is that the feel of these places takes me back to how Britain was in the 1990s.
My wife, when she was in her 20s and early 30s always used to prefer to talk to British boomers and older, because they had more life experiences and values in common, whereas with British millennials this was mostly not the case.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/politics/supreme-court-election-texas.html
Comments seem to be working again.
Oh no, we got too cocky Polish bros
https://i.ibb.co/wQ244w9/Screenshot-20201212-134751-2.png
https://i.ibb.co/hdVH2rZ/Screenshot-20201212-175323-2.png
Forum usually has a funny deference to precedency in comments.
Someone says an unusual claim (e.g. “Poles have a non-white outlook”; “Donetsk was the worst city in Ukraine”), and the result is a tree of comments about why the statement can be true, rather than about whether the statement is true.
If the first comment writes “Poles have a white outlook”, then there would be a discussion about why “Poles have a white outlook”.
Considering that Poles are European people, then the character and outlook of the population is a European one in a tautological way.
Poland is a lower income country for European standards, and the immigration from Poland to UK is unfiltered as it is EU member.
So what you are saying is that Pole immigrants have less “Stuff white people like” (i.e. hipster/bourgeois values) compared to English. Majority of Polish immigrants seem to be unglamorous, provincial kind of people (who go to West Europe to work as supermarket assistants, prostitutes, gangsters, hotel secretaries, carwashers, village drunks, etc). There is another proportion of immigrants who are educated professionals (doctors, pilots, scientists, engineers), but due to lack of selection in immigration, the skilled labour may be only the minority of the total immigrants.
It’s the opposite of Russians in London, where there is no open border, and therefore difficulty of the visa system results in a selection filter for skilled labour and more educated people among Russians (investors, students, engineers, etc).
For commercial reason CPR could not ignore the old gen (PS4/XO), due to 150 mio users.
But technically they should have only released it on the new gen (PS5, XSX, XSS) & PC only.
The old gen are completely overwhelmed. Low res, low textures, popups, lower density of NPCs/objects – but still only 15 to 25 fps.
China and India vote against Israel in the UN, but in terms of policies China is one of the most pro-Israel countries, under current CCP leadership.
Chinese government builds much of the new housing and infrastructure in Israel, much like in Ethiopia. When I have last visited Israel in 2018, I saw many groups Chinese government looking workers, near the business parks, and large Chinese infrastructure projects with Chinese flags, such as the vast holes where they dig tunnels under the city of Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan.
There is more hidden and informal Chinese power projection in countries like Spain and UK. In Spain, Chinese people seem to own much small convenience shops, while in UK, there are many Chinese elite living in large numbers and probably buying apartments. In Israel, the Chinese power projection seems less secretive, more formal, and more composing of government workers.
I assume Chinese investment in Israel is related to “Belt and Road Initiative”. China’s government buy strategic assets in Israel, like its ports, and it even bought Israel’s dairy collective farms (and then they import this milk which is collectively farmed in the Middle East, into China).
China may be interested in Israel, because they view it as a potential trading connection between Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean (via its port on the Red Sea).
If I was Chinese, I would feel that investing in Israel was cleverer than investing in Ethiopia. In many ways, Israel has third world African standards. For example, in construction safety, Israel is more like an African country, than a European country, and hundreds of Chinese construction workers have been killed in Israel. But in terms of property rights, Israel is safer to invest in than probably almost all African countries. There won’t suddenly be a revolution and dictatorship in Israel that would expropriate foreign investors, whereas in Ethiopia the Chinese probably underestimate African political instability
Lol. And there, dear readers, you have it.
“Mostly positive” on steam.
I took it for a ride (not playing yet, just seeing if my i5-4670k/RTX 2060 will handle it) and it runs just fine FWIW on recommended settings. Might be untenable in outdoor or fight scenes, I suppose.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-06/26/xin_0906012610547211993111.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSRFMZYd25cQ6CcAk97lF6kgMeS4bZ9rgA0lw&usqp.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ3TdtwDiiEbtBTYIVDNqFV0boZ_f01yRIC_g&usqp.jpg
I tend to think that nuclear war would be bad, but maybe that is because, if it happens, I would like it to be cataclysmic enough to end poz.
But what if Anatoly’s version of nuclear war is correct? Within 24 hours, the bulldozers clear the streets and ports and supermarkets are open again. Within a week, they start promoting women with radiation burns as the new standard in beauty, but only until the two-headed trannies reach maturity.
It has been so many years since I heard it, I forget. Who was that Chinese martial artist/movie star that the Chinese used to say had a big nose, and they suspected that he was part gweilo or something?
I know that Bruce Lee was like 1/8 Jew, or something, but I’m not 100% sure it was him, and not Jackie Chan. I suspect it was Chan.
China has little influence over its reputation among Westerners. Its reputation is largely going to be a function of Western elites and Western media. If Western elites decide to take a more hawkish stance towards China, as the US particularly has over the past few years, this gets reflected in media messaging which “manufactures consent” among the public.
Hong Kong was handed over to China with the understanding that it would be gradually incorporated into the PRC. It would have some autonomy during this process, but it was never understood that it would be autonomous indefinitely or have independence.
As a part of its more confrontational, hawkish stance towards China, the US basically broke the spirit of this understanding by promoting a color revolution in Hong Kong which lasted for much of the past decade. From the US perspective, this was a good strategy because either possible outcome was favorable to the US’s aims: Either the color revolution would succeed and Hong Kong would become an independent US satellite opposed to the PRC, or the attempted color revolution would be successfully suppressed by the PRC, which could then be portrayed as reflecting the excesses of the PRC and justifying the US’s more hawkish and confrontational stance.
China had no good options, really, and it’s understandable that they decided to suppress the burgeoning rebellion.
Most serious scholars of Chinese history are Chinese and Japanese.
Sinology in the West is actually a very small and weak field. You can be a China expert in foreign relations or even be in academic Sinology without really being able to read Chinese.
The Chinese are obsessed with their history. The typical Chinese is more familiar with their history, and historical allusions, references are a much bigger part of their culture and language than in the West. Chinese history and their massive corpus of historical literature along with poetry play the role in cultural consciousness that the Bible and literature and popular culture play in the West.
They are quite a few people who fit this description. Some more open about their foreign ancestry than others. Here is one example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Wong_%28Hong_Kong_actor%29
I could give you a list of 20 people, all with “big noses” but very few of them would be of Jewish or of suspected Jewish ancestry ancestry. Bruce Lee definitely (Bosman), Jackie Chan no way! I know his family ancestry very well, in particular his family members who never left China. If he isn’t pure Han, I’ll eat my hat!
@ AK:
Chinese Border Patrol in Tibet using exo-skeleton in the field.
https://china-defense.blogspot.com/2020/12/exoskeleton-equipped-china-army-border.html
Eastern Euro migrants don’t ‘balance out’ native displacement, they contribute to it.
I only have a positive impression of them at a personal level (in particular, gyms I go tend to be full of masculine, hardworking East Euro guys which makes me wonder where any native ‘men’ still exist at all) but at this point it’s seriously grating that I’m kind of a minority in my ‘own’ country in my mileu, at work, at home (the wog couple upstairs yell at each other 24/7, not completely sure what language), at play, etc.
If my only concern would be other white faces and access to the EU, why not just cut to the chase and move to Eastern Europe myself? (certainly it’s something I’d consider but that’s not the point here…)
We’ll see to what extent a ‘large’ increase in ‘Pakistanis, Indians, and Africans’ actually happens, but I’d expect that would push even more natives further towards Nationalism anyway which would be a benefit in my book.
So we both agree that Gaelic has been in Scotland longer than English, go raibh maith agat
Spirit, what are you trying to say with this post?
The NZ government recently released a report on the Christchurch attacks. One section of the report, which I linked in my original comment, is regarding the travel history of the gunman, Brenton Tarrant.
I find it quite interesting how well travelled he was (he apparently funded his travels with money he made from a BitConnect investment, of all things), don’t they say “travelling makes you less racist”?
Some more Cyberpunk 2077 related stuff
https://i.ibb.co/Q8TRQJW/Crime-Stat.png
https://i.ibb.co/9g3Xndq/FurFag.png
And it is a furry taking issue, imagine my shock…
I was used to this in bigger cities but I moved to a smaller town in the countryside in the North East of England and am pretty surprised by the level of diversity here, given the low level of economic activity compared to many other parts of the UK. There is a small number but broad range of non-whites (Turks, Indians, Pakistanis, Africans) and then Polish and Hungarian as well. If this is typical, together with the situation in the cities, the 2011 census data must be pretty out of date. Taking just England, it is maybe already over 20% ethnic minority and foreign born.
With this fellow, I think it was just a myth that he had a foreign background, but he was picked on for his nose, anyway. I’m thinking it must have been Chan. In the movie Painted Faces, he’s called “Big Nose.” I think it is meant to be biographical. And, since he was away from his parents while in the troupe, I can see how it would make sense for people to pick on him and question his antecedents.
I was wondering to check with you on something – can you email me at [email protected]?
Thanks!
More context
https://i.ibb.co/GQ84W40/Poland.jpg
And on the other side, who wouldn’t want a cushy research job in sunny Shantou in this new Israeli university? A billionaire from Guangdong gave a whole bunch of money to the Technion on the condition they open up a branch in his hometown. It may have Chinese government support as well, I’m not sure.
https://www.gtiit.edu.cn/en/index.aspx
Though, when I was looking for work last it was rather new and not that well built up yet. It’s still fairly small actually, and it’s full of Israelis so it could be problematic from a workplace politics perspective. For me an ideal mix would be 20% Israelis and 80% normals.
From their ‘About’ page:
“GTIIT will be a state-of-the-art university dedicated to innovative research, environmental conservation, and social prosperity.
The university will advance Guangdong province, the People’s Republic of China, the State of Israel and all humanity.
A brainchild of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Guangdong Technion – Israel Institute of Technology will become a leading science and technology research university by leveraging the power of entrepreneurship and innovation with rich China culture.
Guangdong Technion – Israel Institute of Technology will focus on creating pioneering leaders and researchers, through close ties with local industry and topnotch graduate-level, masters, doctoral and postdoctoral level programs.”
Okay, I have just sent an email to you. My email address starts with a letter T.
A lot of their interest in history seems very political though, like they will try to link the oldest archaeological sites they have to the modern day Han Chinese when in many cases there’s no evidence to do so.
It would be like if there was a political agenda in England to link Stonehenge to the modern English, which there isn’t and anyone who attempted to make such a link would be laughed at at best and probably considered a mentally unhinged “racist”. I have no doubt that if Stonehenge was in China, the Chinese would say it was built by the Han.
Gaelic has probably been in Scotland, mainly the Highlands, marginally longer than English due to Ireland being geographically closer than South East England, but overall both cultures arrived in Britain about the same time and were competing groups of colonialists.
I don’t get why Scots, who are mostly English-speaking Lowlanders, are considered Celtic because part of the country traditionally spoke a Celtic language. It would be like saying English people are Celts because Cornwall has a (revived) Celtic language, and Cumbria used to speak a Celtic language.
https://i0.wp.com/starkeycomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Featured-Image-1.jpg?resize=1170%2C550&ssl=1
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/92/92/63/929263e894d8973f05af450bd637dc69.jpg
Its a consensus among historians that Gaelic was a language of majority of inhabitants of Scotland till 1200-1300 AD
But you are right that English or Anglo Saxon has been spoken for a very long time in parts of Scotland.
https://starkeycomics.com/2019/03/01/a-brief-history-of-british-and-irish-languages/
https://i2.wp.com/starkeycomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/1000AD.jpg?resize=752%2C1024&ssl=1
I find it strange how Iceland is Eurosceptic and aggressively defends its large fishing grounds, and most leftists consider them absolutely heroic for doing so. Yet when Britain is Eurosceptic and tries to defend its fishing grounds, the left consider it racist and practically an act of war. Such double standards going on there.
https://twitter.com/PunYaab/status/1338125359670206473?s=20
Celtic nationalism is mostly a proxy to attack the English, it’s no coincidence that 90% of Celtic nationalism is heavily allied with left wing/Marxist politics. It’s to give further credence to the idea that the English are a race of brutal fascistic oppressors deserving of their fate of being wiped out.
The leftist establishment will only back their hideously white culture and language insofar as it serves the agenda of destroying the English. Once the English are out of the way as a viable cultural/political force, and that day can’t be far off, they will drop the Celts like a piece of trash. Celtic nationalists are precisely what Lenin would have termed “useful idiots”.
Been a lot of debate on Chinese soft power – or lack thereof – on this blog.
Vietnamese favour South Korean and Chinese TV shows, Chinese TV shows gained six out of the top 6. Not a single Japanese show. Nor any Western one.
Of course, China has long had a huge cultural imprint on Vietnam. But so has India over Pakistan, and that hasn’t prevented Pakistan from throwing periodical fits. The last such incident was their PM trying to push Turkish dramas in some sort of Islamic narrative-pushing (even though many thoughtful Pakistani critics pointed out that those TV shows are as much about Turkic ethnic identity as Islam, but fragile Pakistani identity needs whatever it can get ahold of). Similar enmity has engulfed Vietnam in various anti-China actions in recent years. Despite this, China is making cultural inroads.
This is a fairly sobering chart.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qswg9LrcxUE/X8fQz3eVfbI/AAAAAAAAzn4/zaZzOpie94Mxa5EFtwJ_TERxwckCSTJjQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot%2B2020-12-02%2Bat%2B12.35.46%2BPM.png
There are six levels in PISA. The sixth level comprises the top few percentiles in mathematics. In absolute terms, China has a huge lead (though China’s provinces in PISA 2018 was their “best foot forward”). The disclaimer at the bottom notes that even if you’d “only” apply a Taiwanese standard, it would still mean 20+ million kids at the highest levels compared to barely a million of the US.
As I noted in the TIMSS post, these scholastic tests ignore human capital migration, so these things are not quite as dire for the US. But it is going to be an uphill battle for the West.
Nevertheless, human capital is just one aspect. Systems is the other. That is where China had historically failed. It always had the intellectual werewithal to succeed, it just failed to nourish that talent and subsequently deploy it effectively.
The slide is coming from this small presentation by a German academic (h/t Infoproc).
Some thoughts on Greek, Persian, Arab, Indian, and Chinese science – a comparative perspective by an occassional commentator on this site who apparently has his own blog.
In a deeper sense then, God is not completely absent in the face of human suffering. Suffering is a forge, to make the ‘weak’ and the ‘helpless’ who looks for help from the outside, strong enough, to find strength within.
https://sialmirzagoraya.substack.com/p/guru-nanaks-baburvani-a-sikh-theory
Are conspiracy theories, a religious search for meaning?
Sure, there are conspiracies every now and then, but I’m talking about people who think conspiracy theories are basically the way the world works, and explains everything about history. Protocols stuff.
This kind conspiracy thinking, does the following
1) imposes order on a chaotic world. Randomness, which is frightening, doesn’t exist. All major world events are intentional and planned out. This substitutes for God.
2) history has a purpose and a direction.
3) I, my little insignificant self, am actually hugely important. The most powerful and brilliant minds of the universe spend their days strategizing about how to control and manipulate little old me. Before, God used to spend all his time involved in the petty lives of humans.
4) the bad things in my life are not random.
It is difficult not to see, that conspiracy thinking is basically a religious quest for freedom in a random and chaotic world. It is a meaning giving Life Raft.
Is the assumption that more is better always correct?
There may be an optimum number of scientists, engineers, etc, beyond which, no significant value is added. As automation increases, this will likely be more and more the case.
There is this modern assumption that bigger and more is always better. But that may be mistaken.
I do think Chinese have tremendous human capital, even though test scores say as much about motivation as they do innate ability (but that distinction doesn’t matter in this context).
However, the real challenge for China is to nurture a small intellectual elite capable of making creative leaps, and the larger pool to draw from, only increases the odds. Systems and practices, as noted, are a huge factor, and systems and practices are “sticky”, deeply embedded, and hard to alter.
I think the expectation that China will eventually develop a Western style intellectual pattern will lead to disappointment – and certainly not under the repressive CCP, where freedom of thought is not a priority.
Rather, if the best predictor of the future is the past, perhaps we should look at China’s last Golden Age to see what Chinas new Golden Age – if she is indeed entering a new one, as many Chinese claim, and not just getting more modern and wealthy – will be like?
That was over a 1,000 years ago, under the Tang. If the deeply embedded systems abd practices of Chinese culture have not changed too much, then they tend to produce a certain kind of mentality, whose most creative and impressive expression can be seen under the Tang.
That mentality, applied to Western science, may create a new kind of science, and a new kind of modernity.
Instead of expecting China to continue the Western tradition, we will hopefully get something new – and better. Less Promethean, and more humanistic.
Yes I noticed about that story more than a year ago. It’s a kind of engineering school.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1272023946297233
–
In terms of “Belt and Road Initiative”, China is interested in the backup/alternative to Suez Canal via Israel, with the construction of an Eilat-Ashdod cargo train.
This would be an alternative cargo route from East Asia to Europe
https://i.imgur.com/RL5wugY.jpg
However, apparently, trains cannot transport equivalent amount of cargo, and it would introduce an additional expensive reloading stage compared to a canal. So at best, it will be an alternative for a minority of cargo going through Suez Canal.
–
There’s also some kind of US opposition to China’s projects in Israel. For example, USA is trying to block China from buying the old port in Haifa.
But there is already a new artificial island being constructed to give Haifa more cargo capacity.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-08-04/supply-chains-latest-israel-s-top-port-is-for-sale
Chinese government has already bought the new artificial island port next to Haifa. It looks like the artificial island port is being constructed a couple kilometres from Haifa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWJxjHZR3WA
It is definitely a Chinese government project (for training young engineers with an Israeli designed syllabus). China-Israel projects seem to have only a character of “top down”, or operating through the Chinese government.
Expensive looking campus buildings. Atmosphere of students – to study engineering with a lot of patriotism?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0Ye-m7ruTA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY3nKAK1SsA
Shifting manufacturing to India won’t be a simple task.
https://youtu.be/f-VzxTDs5eA
https://youtu.be/-O-Ltx233Tg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQFL4mOPq8tGOoIqmwKSwme2u7IdKp-cKkB5w&usqp.jpg
sino-israel.org/media/
A bit like the maiden voyage of the Titanic, which was mostly successful.
There’s something magical about the grandiose landscapes of the American West.
Here pioneers and Pony Express riders once risked being scalped by Shoshone raiders but now you can enjoy the serenity of virgin nature for hours on end from the comfort of a spacious and powerful SUV:
https://i.imgur.com/VUV8ZEU.jpg
I think it’s only 2 or 3 years old. The people in charge on the Technion side are mostly not engineers I believe, but general sciences, and the plan is maybe to make it into a research university in all fields, but they decided to start with engineering degrees to get a large number of students at the beginning and to build up a reputation first.
I heard that there were plans to create it about the time I was interviewing for a job at the Technion (I didn’t get it…), so I’ve been checking up on its progress every once in a while, looking at open positions just in case I need a new job. I figure that if I got to the final stage at the Technion proper, they would probably hire me at this place, but currently it would be a step down.
Of course there is big opposition to China-Israel cooperation from the US, since the latter was planning to use Israel as a research hub for military technologies. If the Chinese have a big presence and spying capacity, then it’s not that good of a research hub. Plus the Chinese could get up to speed with desalination technology, etc… It’s in Israel’s interests to increase cooperation with China but make it so that the US doesn’t notice it too much. It appears to me that the Chinese don’t have the baggage of Christianity or Islam, and they respect Jews for being successful in science and money things (the giant money gift by the Chinese billionaire to the Technion is perhaps the most glaring example), so in the long term, it would make sense for a strong Israel to align with a friendly, authoritarian government far away.
Thanks for the info on the Haifa port extension. It’s amazing that they managed to actually build something and that fast. Places can change quite a bit when you’re not there. The cargo train idea I agree is pretty dubious. There is also not enough place in Eilat really, to set up the required infrastructure, without destroying the environment and the tourism.
https://twitter.com/truthalwyswin/status/1338039617606410240?s=20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4xBXRd33Nc
I dont know much about Celtic nationalism, but arent nationalist or racially minded English already out as a “cultural/political force,” havent they been out for a sometime already?
Its odd when people always forget that its not the French who first murdered their king, but the English.
Can there even be a worse crime or transgression committed by the people than that of regicide? Theres a deicide…
Well, nobody died in Starship case, but in a way you are correct. Titanic may have sank, but large ocean cruise liners continued to be built and operated and became a successful industry. You could get a cruise ticket fairly cheaply. Same will happen in space.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1338365886542049282
https://sialmirzagoraya.substack.com/p/evolution-of-the-sikh-polity
https://sialmirzagoraya.substack.com/p/guru-nanaks-baburvani-a-sikh-theory
Sorry Mikel that I called you boring, because you are not, but sometimes you are a little bit too repetitive with your arguments.
Last time I didnt have time nor patience to reply to your comment in a way that it deserved, for our Dharma is not very simple thing to explain to those who are not part of our weltanschauung/merkwelt, its like explaining chemistry to some one who had never heard about periodic table or structural formulas of molecules. Then there is my limited capability to express myself properly in English. I do understand almost everything that is written in that language, but I often have a lack of finesse when explaining more delicate and nuanced details of our philosophy. I must confess that I have had very little formal education in English language.
I very well know that there is no guaranteed truth in natural sciences, but as I explained you previously, there is no consensus at all in the scientific community what mind is and how does it arise, all purely materialist models of consciousness cant explain how consciousness arises from non conscious matter. You can google yourself and see how lost the scientists are with this problem, they cant even agree what consciousness is. Some links that I found by googling:
https://uh.edu/~garson/IMNotes5.htm
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27498903/
Well, this is quite good argument, and I would even myself use it against Buddhist schools that are purely Idealistic. Yes, I should have explained to you previously that there are different Buddhist schools of philosophy, some are idealistic and believe that mind is the basis for all, some are atomist, and even believe that our consciousness arises when particles are in correct configuration and our suffering arises when we become attached to the illusory and non persistent forms made by the interaction of the atoms, and our sense of self is just by product of such interaction. So such Buddhism is somewhat materialistic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_atomism
But I am myself a follower of the Madhyamaka or the Middle Way school of Buddhist philosophy, and we deny the view that mind is not dependent on matter, as we also deny that matter has independent existence from the mind, or maybe I should say that we cant access or define objectively what some particular matter/object is. There is always mental designation inputed by our mind. Every moment and everything is product of various causal relations, lets take as example something like some random rock on the forest, for some creature the rock can be totally meaningless, for some other it can be valuable building material for tools or buildings, or maybe even source of ores, or even inspiration for art, but is the rock something independently, does it have its own identity that is not dependent on perceiver? Clearly how creatures see the rock is dependent on numerous factors, some are more constructive in a literal sense and some more pointless. Then if there is a reason for us to perceive something in someway and if that reason is dependent on various causal factors, then it must be possible for us to change the factors and by changing the factors our perception of rock changes profoundly. If something like rock can have various meanings depending on perceiver, and how the perceiver mentally designates something, then various problems of our life can be mentally designated in a different way. Yes this is one problem with a purely materialistic worldview, if our mind is product of matter in some configuration, why then creatures react in different ways to same impulses, some hate pain and then there are people who are masochistic, do they have a physical problems in brain, have they detected that masochists have different brains, is there a structural difference between brains of a gay or a hetero man, or between an atheist and a Christian? And even if there is, are those differences results of different ways to believe and interact with the world or were they just “born in such way,” as some liberal faggots love to claim.
Here is by the way interesting article regarding the brains, yes clearly mind needs brains to exist, but still things are not as simple as you possibly imply.
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-man-who-lived-a-normal-life-with-almost-no-brain-2015-10?amp&r=US&IR=T
And remember what I earlier posted to you about electro magnetic fields and the workings of our brains, there is empirical evidence that there some kind of field of energy in our brains, and changes in that field do change our consciousness, also electro magnetic fields dont just disappear into nothingness.
About the different Buddhist schools, I should have explained you previously that we have numerous competing schools of Buddhism, that debate about how we can attain the enlightenment, or which way is the quickest etc, there is quite much variation between our schools, but we all agree on some basic points, and have very good relations with each other. After all Buddha very much emphasized how important is to test his teachings, just as one tests the quality of gold(our monks just love to repeat that),and even taught for different peoples in different ways.
Its like you want that atheists would be a problem for us? Yes they were a huge problem for us in the form of Communist state atheism, but as long as they dont persecute us we really dont have any problems with them, and historically we did have a pleasant co existence with them in ancient times.
My knowledge and level of practice are very rudimentary and basic in relation to Geshes or graduated monks of our school, and Im quite lazy Buddhist, when I was a teen I was more of a cultural Buddhist but philosophically atheist materialist. Heck its not a long time ago when I started to do daily practice, and I still try to cut it short. Mikel in Buddhism serious practitioners are only those who have taken some kind of vows, lay or monastic.
Hmm I should still explain to you one thing about the Dharma, because clearly you have some confusion regarding the question of what Buddhahood or enlightenment is and what is psychological or mental the basis for such state.
The poison of craving
Think about fly, fly craves something, it craves for food, it has this constant craving, it needs food, it is only happy when it will get food. It desires to be happy in its own way, right? It tries to avoid unpleasant sensations, like ants or swatting, right? So it can be said that it has somekind of rudimentary consciousness, very simple, nothing too sophisticated, right? It can even discern between nice and not nice feelings, so it has somekind of capability to make judgments between mental objects, it clearly has somekind of mental designation for them. This Mikel is the very basis of Buddhahood! Fly cant analyse its mental patterns, but we humans can and with a hard work we can step by step create sources of more and more stable and permanent happiness, than just eating or sex.
The poison of ignorance
So we suffer because there are nice things and sensations that we want, but they are not permanent, and then there are things that we dont enjoy, that we try to avoid. But its not only that, we also suffer because we think that non permanent and non fixed phenomena can be basis for a real happiness, that is the poison of craving. We crave, we constantly crave something, but even though we fulfill our desires there is always something lacking, we are never truly content. Sex is an excellent example of this. First you go sometimes to a hooker, then its not enough and you need couple of them and some coke, and one day even thats not enough etc… And so the hunger grows, but why it is so? Why some are more content with things and some more greedy? Its because of ignorance, because we have an ignorant view of some phenomena, that we believe that they are true sources of happiness and input erroneous qualities into them, or mentally designate them in such way that leads to suffering. The fly is too much prisoner of its material or fixed form, so it cant differentiate between sources of happiness, therefore it cant become enlightened as long as its a fly.
The poison of aversion
Then there are things that we hate, that are uncomfortable, this is quite self explanatory for all people, but why it is so? Because we believe that some phenomena have more or less a permanently unpleasant effect, so we try our best in avoiding them, consciously or instinctively. But such belief arises from mistaken view that phenomenas are fixed, or that we have something fixed in us that denies us to be happy in some other ways that we imagine.
So all these three poisons are dependent on various causal factors and how we perceive the reality, they are not fixed nor permanent, but as long as we have these three regarding internal or external phenomena, as long we will not be enlightened. These are the three poisons that give birth to Samsara according to the Buddha. Some schools believe that after extinction of these three poisons ones consciousness is severed from this reality, and one cant even say what the world is for such beings who have undergone such transformation. This is the view of Theravadins, that we of Mahayana disparagingly call as followers of a Small Vehicle or Hinayana. But we of the Mahayana or pf the Great Vehicle believe that after the purification of our mind from the poisons we will see the world as it truly is, that our mind is fully liberated from all defilements, then we see all other beings in such undefiled state and will strive eternally to liberate all beings, which has no beginning has no ending, we will toil eternally for the salvation of all beings when we are Buddhas. That is the Aryan or Noble view of Mahayana. Also that is what we mean by talking that Buddhas dont have discriminating awareness, meaning that they lack aversion, craving and ignorance, or that all is empty for them, after all they have themselves empirically and intuitively understood that all phenomenas are not fixed, and that they dont have their own nature independent of perceiver, their true nature is non nature and so on. But oh well that is another and very complicated but deeply related topic.
Oh well my travel was pleasantly spend by writing this barebones explanation of some elementary Buddhist facts to you. I hope that there arent too many typos.
It’s not an extension of Haifa port. It is a new port being constructed on the other side of Haifa’s bay, a kilometre in the sea. China will operate only the new port, while the old port will be in competition with the Chinese operated port.
There’s also a new port being constructed kilometres North of Ashdod. New port will be operated by China, while the old port of Ashdod continues with Israeli managers.
New port near Ashdod is being built on an artificial island in the sea, like for Haifa. So in both cases the Chinese operated ports will quite physically far away from Israeli operated ports.
Here in the video shows both the new port being constructed outside Ashdod (at 0:24) and the port being built new Haifa (at 0:40)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHsxM_JVUDo
The plan is using a canal, that would allow cargo to transferred onto trains, which will move it from Eilat to Ashdod.
Even aside from China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” – because Israel is making peace with Arab world, there will be apparently high demand for Eilat port. For example oil cargo will now move between from United Arab Emirates to Israel.
Probably such a project is far too expensive for Israel to finance, so it’s question the extent China would finance construction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpqQ2FX7pWQ
Well, after living there for five years, I noticed how hard it was for Israelis to start building transit or new rail lines without fuckups, unlike the Chinese. They talked about a rail-line, any rail line at all, not even fast rail, to Eilat the entire time I was there. I suppose that if the Chinese are building it, then like the first video mentions, having it be operational in 2021 (!), is a distinct possibility.
[as an aside, I didn’t know you could understand Hebrew since somewhere you mentioned you lived there for a very short time; however, I suppose it’s an easy language and after being gone for a long time and not practicing, I still understood 80-90% of the video]
The canal in Eilat is a good idea, but they would have to destroy a hotel or two, and get rid of the Eilat airport (although I think that’s already done maybe). Eilat doesn’t have fresh water and the climate is harsh, but that hasn’t really deterred Saudi Arabia so I suppose it’s possible from a technical perspective.
I never thought it was possible for other reasons at the time because Eilat is too close to Egypt and Jordan, and those are Sunni Arabs with unstable demographics who hate Jews and can be radicalized by ISIS, but that threat has pretty much receded by 2018. At the time ISIS in the Sinai was pretty active. And they feel more confident now since the Jews now have more children than Palestinians and Trump helped with all those peace deals with the Arab dictatorships. I think the Ayatollahs made a bad mistake in deciding to be enemies of Israel, although they did pretty well in other places. They could have had a good ally and an alliance of minorities in the Middle East and the place would have been very different today, with Iran a much stronger player with completely different alliances. Israel would be weaker and still surrounded by more belligerent enemies on all sides though, I think.
I have completed most of the Duolingo levels now for Hebrew. Although to be honest, my brain still finds it easier to understand languages I’ve never even studied like Italian.
Yes they removed the airport from Eilat, and they constructed a new airport in the desert (on a border with Jordan).
They had to build one of the highest fences, to protect the new airport from potential missiles fired, as it’s directly on the border with Jordan, and you could probably shoot down planes from the desert on the other side of the border. I’d wonder how safe that location really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrAG3rPJ71M
First proposal for this train was in 2012. The approval to begin (planning) for the first section was passed in June 2020. https://www.railjournal.com/infrastructure/first-section-of-israels-eilat-line-approved/
So it surely won’t be completed for years (unless China really helps them).
However, train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has opened finally (after apparently18 years of planning and construction – they build a lot of bridges and tunnels, but it was performed before China began investing in Israel).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHuas5hNsZc
Your English looks surprisingly good to me, considering that you had little formal education in English language.
I can think of authors that have posted on this site and still show a much more rudimentary English than yours after having lived in the US for many years. In my view anyway, I am not a native English speaker myself.
I can bore to death anyone talking about natural landscapes, mountains, weather and climate but I am not aware of having used repetitive arguments with you.
Buddha not showing any evidence of having understood scientific concepts that we now teach our children in elementary school and saying that there must have been some genetic modification that allowed our species (or previous ones) to achieve Buddhist enlightenment are quite different arguments. But they do have in common that they insist in analyzing religious claims from a cold rational perspective, if that’s what you mean.
Maybe it’s my fault but I cannot evaluate any sort of claims in any other way if I want to make sense of what I read.
No, sorry, I don’t agree with that and I don’t find the links you have provided to the work of a philosopher and a musical therapist very helpful.
I am aware of the problem of defining what an observer is in quantum mechanics. But this is a very deep scientific issue at the very edge of our ability to understand reality. My understanding is that physicists don’t really know what constitutes an observation but they do know through repeated experiments that our observation makes wave functions collapse.
Other than that, there is no scientific dispute about the fact that anything of what we call mental activities takes place through our brains.
As for quantum mechanics, I think that the fact that we are unable to fully understand nature and that only some very privileged individuals are able to grasp the most advanced subjects is very unsurprising. We are just an animal species with limited brain capabilities. If we were the only species capable of understanding everything, that would be truly suggestive of some God-like phenomenon, not the other way around.
Quite honestly, I think that citing this in support of any transcendental explanation of our existence is grasping at straws.
Chemical and very weak electric reactions occur inside the brains of any animal species. I’m not sure what exactly happens to the very last electric activity in the human brain before an individual dies. My guess is that it just vanishes as it performs the duty of supplying energy for neuronal processes and that is that.
To be credible, the idea that these weak electric currents somehow survive after a homo sapiens dies and transform him into another living creature requires a huge amount of empirical evidence that is clearly nowhere to be seen.
I guess that in Buddha’s time and many centuries afterwards these notions of “mind”, “soul”, “energy” as separate from the material reality were perfectly natural. Not only people then (like now) needed to find explanations to their existence but these ideas were not too departed from their knowledge and everyday experience. I doubt I would have been an atheist in those times. Sadly perhaps, we now know a lot more about the universe where we live but the time for mythical explanations of reality is gone.
I can relate to that. The first couple of summers I spent in London during my early teens I probably learned more Italian than English, being all the time sorrunded by noisy Italians of my age.
There is something musical and contagious about the Italian language (or the people who speak it, I’m not sure).
The difference is that ocean liners were actually useful. Manned spaceflight is not useful.
Well archaeology isn’t the same thing as history. History proper refers to written records, along with other accounts and material artifacts if they’re available. The Chinese obsession and interest in their history I refer to is via their historical literature which is from roughly the time of Classical Greece and later to medieval times.
Stonehenge is from 3,000 BC and thus much older, and it’s as far as we know prehistoric since there haven’t been any accompanying written records discovered.
I believe there is some genetic connection between the modern English and the ancient Britons who built Stonehenge. But one reason the connection is not affirmed as strongly or at all by modern Britons is because the historical population movements and invasions into the British Isles over the past 2500 years by Celts, Romans, Vikings, Danes, and Anglo-Saxons. Modern Britons typically identify primarily with these groups and as being their descendants.
By contrast, China did not have these large population and cultural changes in the same period. There were small populations that invaded and conquered the government, such as the Mongols, but they were typically small and adopted Chinese ways and language, unlike the Celts or Anglo-Saxons who imposed or replaced their language and culture in Britain.
Because of China and East Asia’s isolation from other population groups by geographic barriers such as the Gobi and the Himalayas, archaeologists do tend to connect prehistoric archaeological sites in China to ancestral Chinese.
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What religious or mythological there is in claiming that beings crave things, desire happiness, and try to avoid or avert uncomfortable states of being, or that there exists ignorance regarding the nature of subjective phenomena? Lets take a junkie and a doctor, its a totally subjective question to say whose more happy, right? But its clear that a doctor has less ignorance regarding the nature of phenomena, for he understood that trough hard work even unpleasant things can become sources of happiness, unlike the junkie who constantly escapes to momentarily happiness that is given by drugs. But both the doctor and junkie are driven by pursuit of happiness. There isnt anything inherently religious or mythological in questions like these, and such questions form the basis of our religion and the quest for enlightenment.
I dont know anything about quantum mechanics, but the very crux of our debate is the Buddhist claim that there is a rebirth or continuum of mental aggregates. I am not claiming that science supports us, but similarly there is not strong enough scientific case that denies such possibility, and I really mean it. How we see reality is inherently subjective, there is no objective reality accessible to us, or do you claim otherwise?
Its little bit hard to argue with you, because I am not sure of your position, do you claim that mind is purely product of materialist-chemical interaction, or do you claim that we dont know surely but only science can give us, not maybe definite, but at least somehow trustworthy answers?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_theories_of_consciousness
Even reading just this link you will see that there are serious proponents of such theories as there are opponents, because Im not scientist I cant say who is right and it seems to me that even scientists cant say.
I have a question for you, if there are two brothers who have a similar upbringing and background, why then another brother can end up in a totally different way after hearing just couple kind words from some wise person? You cant possibly deny that people are not capable of changing by hearing some words put together, if those words are inspirational or engaging? If change is possible in such way, then its clear that there is a subjective and qualitative element in our lives, which cant be reduced into a purely materialistic model. If you claim otherwise then you are making claims that science is not making, or if you claim that science will one day know that the materialist model is correct, then thats not science, but claiming that your subjective unvalified and untested hypothesis regarding the workings of the mind is correct.
By the way I really know from my life such case of two brothers, another one is a physician and another one was an ex biker criminal who is now dead, because he committed a suicide.
Hmm if purely materialist explanation of our mind is true, then in such situation I think that there would be no free will, all in our mind would strictly follow electro chemical causal processes, in such situation world would be purely deterministic, and our discussion would be more or less pointless, because we couldnt choose what to believe, but everything in our mind is just purely produced by genes and chemical processes.
Happily there is legit and robust scientific evidence that meditation and Buddhist practices can change our brain to better.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/05/26/harvard-neuroscientist-meditation-not-only-reduces-stress-it-literally-changes-your-brain/?outputType=amp
“Mindfulness meditation increased thickness in the prefrontal cortex and parietal lobes, both linked to attention control, while compassion-based meditation showed increases in the limbic system, which processes emotions, and the anterior insula, which helps bring emotions into conscious awareness.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2149489-different-meditation-types-train-distinct-parts-of-your-brain/
So its clear even from a scientific viewpoint that our practices do bring beneficial results. Mindfulness or Vipassana is just one practice among many Buddhist meditation practices. Remember that Buddha never demanded anyone to believe anything, not at all, he just found a path to true happiness, but how can we know if his words are true? The Buddha has answer for that, he said that come and test my path, and you can yourself see if there are results or not, and decide if you want to go further on that path.
I myself have been a content on that path, yes there are often problems and obstacles, but such is life, still better to move on some direction than to stay in present state that is clearly not optimal.
One funny( or is it?) fact:
I literally cant find cases when Buddhists have persecuted or harassed atheists, but there are thousands of cases when atheists have killed and slaughtered Buddhists, only in Soviet Buryatia of the 1930s, Soviet state atheism led to killing of 18 000 Buryat Buddhist monks. In those times there were only 400 000 buryats in whole Russia. Same happened in Mongolia, Cambodia, Tibet and China. There are some intellectually dishonest atheist individuals who claim that communists were not somehow atheistic, but they were, there is even now a rule in China that only atheists can become members of the communist party of China.
http://asiarussia.ru/articles/13979/
Navalny posted a positive tweet on the successful Angara A5 launch. As expected many of his followers were not happy.
City-to-city passenger rockets seem flat out crazy to me. There’s no possible way that they would ever be as safe as planes, as they experience much greater forces. Sure, they’ll get you there faster, but who is in that kind of rush?
That said, bigger rockets are very useful, if they can provide cheaper mass to orbit.
And in theory, manned space flight would be very useful, if colonies become practicable. That’s a real question mark, though. Mars gravity might not be enough, for normal fetal development, even if the other kinks can be worked out. Sure, in theory, pregnant women could live onboard centripedal trains, but that seems too far-fetched. Especially, if civilization is going down the tubes.
Well, this is a bit like saying that there is no strong scientific case to deny that thunders are caused by angry gods.
We now know quite well what causes thunder and what happens to our body, including our brain, when we die.
Perhaps in a very profound and mysterious way the Amazon forest natives who believe that thunder is caused by angry gods are right and we, civilized people, are wrong.
But if we go to those extremes of doubting everything that reason tells us our very conversation becomes pointless. You might as well say that 2+2 may be 5 and we are wrong in blindly assuming that 2+2=4, just because that is what modern mathematics teaches us. What is mathematics after all, not even mathematicians know where mathematics come from, you could very well argue (and you would be right). But rational communication becomes very difficult under such premises.
And besides, it doesn’t work that way. Scientists have no obligation to prove how we are not reborn into another creature after we die. It is those who make that extraordinary claim who must produce some evidence that this is true. But this has never been been observed. There is no empirical evidence of that phenomenon.
I am in fact very careful not to take our current scientific knowledge as any ultimate truth. As I said in my previous comment, I don’t believe that our species is capable if having a full understanding of the universe, which puts me in disagreement with most top physicists. Besides, I know firsthand that scientists are just ordinary human beings and scientific research is not all pure and noble. There are whole fields of science that are too corrupted by politics to be taken seriously.
What I do find indisputable is that science and reason are superior to mythical and beliefs-based explanations of reality. The explanation of thunder as the rapid expansion of air following a lightning bolt is clearly superior in my mind to “the gods must be angry and that’s why we hear that frightening sound in the sky”.
We may have to accept the unpleasant truth that there is nowhere in the solar system worth colonising.
Yep.
Another problem with space colonies – given the demographic collapse of the entire developed world is it plausible that space colonies could survive without continuing supplies of new colonists from Earth to keep the numbers up? Does anyone believe that space colonists are all going to have six kids?
If the space colonies on Mars or wherever end up with fertility rates way below replacement level is there any point to them? If the supply of new colonists from Earth dries up (extremely possible if governments on Earth suddenly decide to pull the plug on the space program for budgetary reasons) the Martian colonies would quickly die out.
Great Brexit success…for EU as in own words of “ardent Brexit supporter” it now “gives excellent access to supply chains, automotive talent and target markets” 😉
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/jim-ratcliffe-billionaire-brexiteer-who-19441353
I read a new article
Russia Lost 5M Migrants During Pandemic
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/12/16/russia-lost-5m-migrants-during-pandemic-a72373
and got curious. Year or two ago Russian government announced easier migration path of ethnic Russians from abroad. What are the results so far?
https://twitter.com/KFC_ES/status/1339198475125354498
A model case of false equivalency. Scientists can agree about the nature of thunder, and can explain how it arises or is produced, but they cant agree on the nature of mind and where it arises.
Science is useful tool, but can you make ethics based on the science, or build morality out of pure reason? They tried that during the French and Russian revolutions…
We dont know what happens to mind after death. There isnt even knowledge what happens inside persons mind after death, but we have empirical evidence that there is lots of brain activity after persons death, even after decapitation.
Extremes of doubting? Who defines what is extreme or not, and in my opinion my examples have not been as radically sceptical as you imply.
This is funny example of subjectivity of acceptable criteria. For us Buddhists to claim that mind stream annihilates after death is something that is not logical at all, and if someone claims so then he must produce evidence for it. All phenomena, energy and particles change forms and position, but nothing is ever annihilated out of existence, that such thing would happen for mind, is for us wild and crazy claim.
Here is what H.H. Dalai Lama says about the science and Buddhism:
“I have often said that if science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly. We should always adopt a view that accords with the facts. If upon investigation we find that there is reason and proof for a point, then we should accept it. However, a clear distinction should be made between what is not found by science and what is found to be nonexistent by science. What science finds to be nonexistent we should all accept as nonexistent, but what science merely does not find is a completely different matter. An example is consciousness itself. Although sentient beings, including humans, have experienced consciousness for centuries, we still do not know what consciousness actually is: its complete nature and how it functions.”
We have already made some changes, at least in our school, His Holiness has urged that we should not anymore follow old Buddhist cosmological models, because the science has proven that they are wrong.
We have a very large system of epistemology, how to know what are acceptable and valid means of knowledge.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/2_Pramana_Epistemology_Buddhism.svg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/2_Pramana_Epistemology_Buddhism.svg/642px-2_Pramana_Epistemology_Buddhism.svg.png
The basis for all knowledge is perception, but there are two other ways to gain knowledge, inference, or reasoning that if there is smoke, there must be fire, but its still not as sure way to know as to perceive the fire directly, and then we have trusted sources which for us are the words of the Buddha or Buddhavacana, still its not as reliable as direct perception, but Buddha left us instructions and guidelines how to test the validity of his statements. I personally know monks who have themselves directly experienced the truth of rebirth, and actually one of those monks promised to me that I could myself perceive that truth if I would go for an extremely long retreat and practice with him, I havent gone (yet?) but I trust my Geshes as valid sources of knowledge, I understand perfectly if others dont trust, its okay, everyone makes his own choices, choices that are always subjective…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpeXFcNUYAQ9vwG.jpg
How do we seperate the liberalism and white supremacy inherent in your implicit claims of individualism and egalitarianism being ‘inherently’ better.
For most of us, religion is a political and sociological not theological position.
We don’t much care what people believe or don’t, it has no bearing on us.
What people do with them, the political positions and social systems affect us all.
Now, science has produced racism, ie the systemic categorization and stereotyping of people and animals into categories; which, the science oriented state & bureaucracy has then used to make judgment and policy.
What we’re contesting I guess, is that the scientific method is the only valid & ‘objective’ means of acquiring knowledge.
Now, we know objectivism is one of the cores of white fragility, how do you answer to this??
https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116