News & views (not related to the war in Ukraine) …
Back to Main
June 29, 2023
Open (Not Ukraine) Thread 2023-153
Comments
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 1 2023 16:01 utc | 202
————-
The love hate affair bet Ph and its former colonial masters.
Ever wonder why prez Duterte had such loathing for UNCLE sham ?
He had a close encounter with US extra territorial jurisdiction, when a gringo terrorist under custody was grabbed by FBI agents and spirited back home, right under his nose. !
http://www.declarepeace.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/site/gladio/nws30duterte.html
Posted by: denk | Jul 1 2023 16:28 utc | 201
@ UWDude | Jul 1 2023 5:04 utc | 181 – “… horrified at the thought of my government in charge of anything”
I’m always careful around this loathing of government. If we could get it to work as it should, it would be a great blessing in this world. I think government is the greatest achievement that the ordinary people of the world have ever made.
I take it that the only struggle ever and now in the world is essentially the rich against the poor, the privileged impoverishing the unprivileged. We can have the privileged running society – which they will always do to their own benefit first – or we can have the unprivileged running society – certainly to their own benefit first. But the unprivileged can only do this through representative governance of some kind.
We have had good monarchs, warlords and rulers throughout history, but they have failed to create systems that can endure sustainably through time after they depart. We have to find a system. So far, that’s government.
The trick is to get representative government to work properly. It’s not that government itself is a bad idea. It’s that the corrupt version of it almost makes you think you’d be better off without any government – but no one can yet guarantee where that would actually lead, if not back into the grasping hand of the privileged.
It’s a work in progress. We the poor have to keep trying to get representative governance (or else become rich, which has been the carrot held to offset the stick that keeps us unrepresented).
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 1 2023 16:51 utc | 202
If a tree falls in the woods we know from physics that it strikes the ground or other trees and that a pressure wave traveling in the atmosphere must therefore result. Nobody may hear it but it happens.That no human or recording instrument is there to document it should be irrelevant as we know every single important empirical variable relating to the situation.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 1 2023 17:01 utc | 203
@ denk re Philippines: Yes, exactly. Myself, I find it strange that there’s much of any love in the Philippines’ attitude toward the USA, nicey-nice behaviors during the “commonwealth” years.
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 1 2023 17:09 utc | 204
malenkov | Jul 1 2023 14:25 utc | 195–
The tree falling in the forest 100% discounts all other lifeforms and in reality isn’t philosophical at all and does a great disservice as it lifts Man over Nature instead of properly placing Man within Nature. Human agency isn’t required to give validity to any phenomena as such phenomena has its own agency and is thus valid in its own right.
re Tom 205 — you are right, but then, you have still modified the original thought experiment: now there is someone who listens to the microfoned data. Yet, what actually is suggested here, is that everything beyond that is formally undecided. Now our usual experience with things, such as kitchen tables, lends itself quite well to the notion of stability.
Really – it is merely deductive experience that lets you expect to find your table just where you left it … but there are housefires, earthquakes and gamma bursts in the realm of actually possible other outcomes.
Our usual Lebenswelt is stable enough that we can subsume these “other” outcomes as irregular. Hoewever, the experience at the quantum level forces a rethink. In fact, and this thought experiment does show it, our actual knowledge (the expermental, not the theoretical) depends on a “right here, right now” experience, or must remain hypothetical. That’s actually still Popper.
On a meta level, I would like to suggest to tread carefully here. I do not attempt to convince everyone for the sake of it. I merely provide. And this whole thing has been going on with you anglos for a thousand years now. I can’t expect to solve it in a whim. Let’s just blossom a variety of thoughts here, okay?
Oh, and before you thrash out at me again using the idealism/realism “conundrum” – we are beyond that now. The question was not well put to begin with. So spare your anger for another day, and do not poison the well.
Posted by: persiflo | Jul 1 2023 17:31 utc | 206
7/1/23:
Today, bizarre things are going on in France & elsewhere. Twitter and Facebook are blocking many from communicating with each other. Even folks from Thailand are being blocked. It’s reported some French commercial ports are being shutdown.
One UK journalist is reporting that the WEF is frightened by what’s going on in France. (Since when is the WEF afraid of anything?)
Others are speculating that “the powers-that-be” want to topple Macron & his government. Their theories don’t seem plausible: because Macron didn’t immediately send out the police or troops to stop the French malcontents?? That theory seems to be implausible.
We think the key question is: WHO handed military weapons to these people? Or where they all stolen from stores?
Aside from the WEF Power are there other Power players involved?
Posted by: Rubicon | Jul 1 2023 17:38 utc | 207
re above — sorry, of course Tom was aside from the microfoned data. I replied in a hurry, which is bad.
Here’s what I should have said:
Tom assumes an ideal physical situation with propagating pressure waves etc, like a textbook exercise. But this assumption has in it all the consequences he wishes to make; it is not an actual deduction, merely a statement which is true by definition (of its premises).
Of course I am expecting to hear trees crashing in the woods as they fall. It is this all too readily imagined framework which seduces people into the generalization (and apparently it is in part related to a misunderstanding of a sensus communis).
Posted by: persiflo | Jul 1 2023 17:39 utc | 208
Do you people distinguish between a word and its meaning at all?
The tree in the woods thing is a fucking thought experiment!
It does NOT forego other lifeforms. On the contrary, it is a step towards the realization that everything is sentient.
You are stuck in the idealism/realism thing, and I should have known before that this would happen.
νόησις νοήσεως νόησις – Aristotle
Posted by: persiflo | Jul 1 2023 17:55 utc | 210
“it is a step towards the realization that everything is sentient”
— that would include the tree, the air, the soil in which the tree is rooted. You know, because words have meanings.
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 1 2023 18:02 utc | 211
..you people…
Posted by: persiflo | Jul 1 2023 17:55 utc | 212
you people???
Suggest you save your condescending mumble jumble for a different crowd.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Jul 1 2023 18:11 utc | 212
@malenkov 213
Yes, that is true. It does include stones, a thought that first presented to me in a dream btw. <
The last book reference I gave is highly recommended, it could not possibly be more radical. In one of the later chapter you will find that Plotinus had this to say:
Everything is striving for vision.
He goes on to say, it is but impossible to explain this to folks. I agree.
Posted by: persiflo | Jul 1 2023 18:23 utc | 213
Sentience is hard to define, as is information. Sentience is certainly related to information.
If there was no mind to determine void from matter, void and matter would be one and the same. Its only in the mind that the differences between the two are used as definitions.
If one were then to argue matter and void were different bevause this characteristic, or that characteristic, then one could also argue that all matter has differences, such as oxygen vs iron. You could then split these differences to tinier and tinier minutia and definitions, until it becomes that no matter is like any other matter, because every element of it is in a different position.. ..just like the void.
So, indeed, it is consciousness that delineates between all things, without it, it is all the same.
As conscious beings, we use these delineations for survival, and the more threatening something is to ones continuation of their consciousness, the more “real” it is. For example, brick wall: real. Hole painted on wall: not real hole. Hole painted on wall in cartoon : not real wall or cartoon. Yet, all of these are “real”, as in, they do exist, we just do not consider the cartoon real bevause ot can not hurt us.
Posted by: UWDude | Jul 1 2023 18:24 utc | 214
Oh, i wrote all that because someone said that when a tree falls in the woods, everything around it “hears” it.
And, if one were to say “hearing” means to be affected by a vibration through matter, then they do. If one were to say that it also must record the event, they do. That is why it starts ti become difficult to define sentience, without defining information, which itself is real but difficult. And there are theories information can be destroyed by black hole radiation, but I am not so sure.
Posted by: UWDude | Jul 1 2023 18:30 utc | 215
Tree falls
Well, it would not be a koan, but maybe some phrases are more important to ruminate on it upstairs, put it away for a bit, come back to it, and … Emphasis on working it out for yourself and letting others work it out for themselves.
Well here is one to ruminate on
“Don’t let anyone or anything negative live rent free in your mind.”
Posted by: paxmark1 | Jul 1 2023 19:16 utc | 217
below quote would be a reason to actually think about the history and evolution of the term and practice of “conspiracy” in much more substantial and advanced ways than Eco does here. But still, the quote can be the trigger of a stream of thought, possibly:
Pasolini once wrote that conspiracies make us think crazy thoughts because they free us from the burden of having to face the truth…. In fact, if you are convinced that the history of the world is directed by secret societies — be they the Illuminati or the Bilderberg group — that are about to establish a new world order, what do you do? You give up, and you fret and fume. So every conspiracy theory directs the public imagination toward nonexistent dangers and away from genuine threats. As Chomsky once suggested, imagining what was almost a conspiracy of conspiracy theories, those who get the greatest advantage from fantasies about a supposed plot are the very institutions that the conspiracy theory aims to strike.
— Umberto Eco, “Conspiracy,” 2015
Posted by: AG | Jul 1 2023 19:18 utc | 218
Wow persiflo, for someone who seems to have an extremely high opinion of their own intelligence: the information above records you going from holier-than-thou to swearing-rant in 24 minutes. That is a thing.
Thank you Karl for translating Lavrov’s speech!!
Posted by: Rae | Jul 1 2023 20:56 utc | 219
Went to the Guardian to be updated about Protest in France, but latest information is 17 hours ago. I guess membership and fees are required. Same everywhere.
Posted by: Ed | Jul 1 2023 21:06 utc | 220
Since this was the starting point for the conversation I’ll quote it here.
Does a falling tree in the woods make a sound if nobody is around to hear? Answer: It makes no sense to speak about sound when nobody is involved to make a conscious experience of a sound. It is the same when we try to speak about parallel universes, or the Ding an Sich, and it is also JUST what we find in the double slit experiment of quantum mechanics.
Only so much ground can be covered in these dime store philosophy discussions; only took about 2 or 3 semesters of it in college unless you count two semesters of quantum mechanics, but due to the number of integrals I had to solve in the latter, we didn’t have much time for philosophizing. I do wish I’d taken those classes my sophomore year rather than senior of undergrad since that was when integration finally entered the realm of memorization, but anyway. And it was 25 years ago so…I’m no more knowledgeable in terms of top-of-the-head or tip-of-the-tongue discussion ability than the average dime store joe by now.
Let’s get back to the tree – It’s a thought experiment. Exactly. And as such there is no correct answer despite apparently getting upset (uppity even) about the replies you received. Plus I do enjoy the back-and-forth, so I’ll take my original non-metaphysical reply one step further.
A tree falls. OK, says who? Evidently someone who arrived in a forest to see a downed tree. But prior to that point, someone responding to that thought experiment would be justified in saying “How do we know a tree fell if nobody was there to see it?” And therefore maybe it didn’t fall at all. As well, maybe it was an unhealthy or genetically defective tree that grew parallel to the ground no more than an inch or two off the forest floor and thus was never able to fall in the first place. Either way, one must accept the basic premise of knowledge and/or observation that there is a tree which has fallen to continue the thought experiment.
I don’t really have a point to make – as one shouldn’t if conducting a thought experiment – other than to convince another to think about something in different ways. But back to QM, this is akin to Schroedinger’s Tree, isn’t it? Unless someone actually visits the forest to see if any trees appear to have fallen, all we have to go on are a) the knowledge that all trees eventually fall in some manner and b) a probability (or wave function/time dependent Schroedinger) equation which can be interpreted to say that without the benefit of someone opening up the box or visiting the forest, for all I care, until such an observation or measurement is made, the tree exists in a half-fallen state at all times. //Q.E.D. (just kidding)
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 1 2023 21:28 utc | 221
posted by: persiflo | Jul 1 2023 17:31 utc | 208
Well, not exactly. All’s I was saying is that (assuming we can know that a tree falls – or assume that one has), when an object strikes another object in nature/the physical world, energy is exchanged and expended. The tree’s potential energy gradually and fully transforms to kinetic energy up to the point at which it strikes something. In this case, the ground. The system within which this physical set of events takes place happens to include gravity and pressurized air, wind or a breeze, even. Presumably other trees as well. Regardless, we assume the tree falls (as they do) during which time a portion of the wood making up its trunk moans as it cracks and strains, followed by the tree striking something (the ground). A pressure wave is created.
This is where your preferred experiment really begins. If no human (or audio* recording device) is present, there will never be a “sound” registered by any living being capable of retaining or relaying knowledge of this particular tree strike, including the “sound” it would have made, to another living being capable of understanding and retaining this particular knowledge. So the answer thus proscribed is that “No. No “sound” was made, or at least nobody can prove there was a “sound” either to himself or to anyone else.”
I believe it was malenkov who said, “Well, the forest must have animals, and any animals present would have heard the sound, processed it and instinctually or intellectually made a decision based on this sound. Therefore yes, even if a human being (capable of retaining or relating said knowledge only to another human being or a computer/AI) wasn’t present, it’s safe to say there was a sound.” Or that’s how I am paraphrasing it anyway. karlof1 points out the metaphysical nature of it. Just because no humans are present, it’s not correct to say that no “sound” was made or heard.
So without what I’ll call drastic proscription of the scenario, it’s never the correct answer to say that “No, there wasn’t a sound.” But when taking a much broader perspective, inclusive of reasonable assumptions, basic knowledge of physics, and discounting human primacy – or the primacy of the human to sense, process, decide and benefit from the ability to hear a “sound” – it IS correct in numerous permutations of this thought experiment to say that “Yes, we know that the tree made a sound.” IOW, it’s the reductive approach that yields the “No” answer.
And with that I’m sure I would have been given an “F” in Philo 101 for 8th grade level thinking….or something…uh…huh….right Beavis? [grunt…cackle….]
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 1 2023 21:47 utc | 222
*audio recording device – The distinction is because in order to call something a “sound” the way this thought experiment intends, a device that records a thud by way of a spike on a moving graph wouldn’t count. A “sound” is only experienced when a pressure wave hits the inner ear of a sentient being (in this case human) and can only be described or experienced later by the person who heard the tree fall either imitating the sound to another human or playing back the audio on a sound recording device.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 1 2023 21:50 utc | 223
Human agency isn’t required to give validity to any phenomena as such
phenomena has its own agency and is thus valid in its own right.
@ karlof1 | Jul 1 2023 17:28 utc | 207
CREDO
My friend from Asia has powers and magic, he plucks a blue leaf from the young blue-gum
And gazing upon it, gathering and quieting
The God in his mind, creates an ocean more real than the ocean, the salt, the actual
Appalling presence, the power of waters.
He believes that nothing is real except as we make it. I humbler have found in my blood
Bred west of Caucasus a harder mysticism.
Multitude stands in my mind but I think that the ocean in the bone vault is only
The bone vault’s ocean: out there is the ocean’s;
The water is the water, the cliff is the rock, come shocks and flashes of reality. The mind
Passes, the eye closes, the spirit is a passage;
The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heart-breaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.
— Robinson Jeffers
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jul 1 2023 21:53 utc | 224
More on the tree falling and “sounds.”
If only one person is there to witness an event (a tree falling, why not) and hear the sound that results, and that person does not have an audio recording device, then the sound only, ever, exists in that short period of time during which that person’s ears were being physically triggered by the pressure wave that manifests itself at frequencies audible to humans. Which is to say, that after experiencing that sound when it happens, it ceases to be a sound and exists only in that person’s memory in the form of some combination of neurons and electrical pulses. So that person can relay to another person after the fact that the tree fell and made a sound, the only empirical evidence that said tree had fallen is, well, the fallen tree. Even that person cannot physically demonstrate or prove to someone else that they actually heard a sound, now can they? LOL
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 1 2023 21:59 utc | 225
Hopefully b tolerates this utterly pointless discussion, buried way down an old O/T thread. This is way more fun and uplifting than the Ukraine stuff, frankly.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 1 2023 22:03 utc | 226
Results of the latest night of protests in France:
1300 humans detained
1 horse, 1 zebra, and 1 elephant released
(video)
Posted by: S | Jul 1 2023 22:27 utc | 228
I had thought by now most were aware that trees are sentient. Every tree in the woods is aware their comrade has fallen and is busy communicating with the stump.
And if you didn’t know that empirical science has demonstrated the social life of trees just show some respect for the great god Pan. He is a trickster and he is ready to fuck with you for talking about his trees like this.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jul 1 2023 22:32 utc | 229
Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 1 2023 22:18 utc | 229
Democracy was the excuse to devastate Central America, Guatemala suffered heavily and what do we have to show for results? General elections took place a few days ago, over twenty parties competed an who won? Null and void ballots came ahead, null and void that is to say defaced with anger and messages like thieves, corrupt sobs and the like. Something that should be front page news or at least analyzed seriously is just completely ignored.
Pepe kind of got out of the confusion created by the Prigozhin affair, good article he has on Strategic Culture, he mentioned Fursov whom I follow, worth taking a look if you have the time.
Posted by: Paco | Jul 1 2023 22:36 utc | 230
oldhippie: Plutarch assures us that Pan is dead. Why should I believe you over him? 😜
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 1 2023 22:38 utc | 231
malenkov @ 233
Ever been suddenly scared like you wanted to jump out of your skin? That was Pan, god of skins.
I had an old buddy who did the shtick with dressing up in a goatskin and leaping out of the shadows. Highly effective around the campfire with mushrooms.
The Master Musicians of Jajouka are finally gone after 3000 years, priests of Pan, quite a few recordings survive from 60s and 70s. They would have had a laugh at Plutarch.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jul 1 2023 22:50 utc | 232
oldhippie: re your first paragraph: nope, sorry!
So maybe Pan is dead for me and YMMV. Myself, I’m inclined to stick with Hölderlin: the Greek gods are all dead, and all we’re left with is boring old Christian bread and wine. On the other hand, are they really dead if we remember them? Lenin zhil, Lenin zhiv, Lenin budet zhit’! People die; gods die—but ideas might just well be immortal.
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 1 2023 22:58 utc | 233
malenkov @ 235
There are those who have literal belief in transubstantiation. For them the bread and wine are anything but boring. My observation is those who have this belief live pretty darn good lives. I can’t manage that faith, I’ll not mock it.
The ongoing slaughter of the trees is beyond tragic. Pan will have his due. Watch for it.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jul 1 2023 23:14 utc | 234
Paco | Jul 1 2023 22:36 utc | 232–
Thanks for your reply. I read Pepe’s SCF item yesterday.
The current Geopolitical Economy Report currently in podcast form only is based on this observation:
“The elite European Council on Foreign Relations, which is funded by many Western governments, warned that the EU is becoming a ‘vassal’ of the United States, losing its independence.”
That report is here; and from its Summary, it’s clear it will remain a vassal to the Outlaw US Empire for several more years at minimum, with its last bullet point showing why that will occur:
“Europe becoming an American vassal is unwise for both sides. Europeans can become a stronger and more independent part of the Atlantic alliance by developing independent capacity to support Ukraine and acquiring greater military capabilities.”
A deindustrialized, militarily prostrate Europe can’t do any of those things. The first and most obvious thing Europe must do is cease support for Ukraine and invest what remaining capital it has into salvaging its non-defense industries, while returning to amicable relations with Russia. Some European leaders understand the need for such policies, while the rest of Europe is ruled by fools and frauds.
Three fake Sun Tzu quotes attributed to him all the time:
1) If you thrust your sword in saltwater, it will rust.
This, i believe is from game of thrones.
2). An evil ruler will burn his country down to rule over the ashes.
Sun Tzu never considers the morality of justice, good or evil. The only good Sun Tzu talks about is how best to win a war. The closest to evil he talks about is calling someone a fool.
3).If you wait by a river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will come floating by.
Besides the fact Sun Tzu advises camping upstream of your enemies, he would never propose just waiting for your enemy to kill themselves.
Posted by: UWDude | Jul 2 2023 0:12 utc | 236
Posted by: S | Jul 1 2023 22:27 utc | 230
I had not seen this 28 June report, France: the protesters began to use heavy weapons with grenades – UPDATED. Can this be at all true? I haven’t monitored the blog long enough to form an opinion…although, to judge by past performance, I detect an aroma of euro-scepticism from editorial management.
Posted by: sln2002 | Jul 2 2023 0:16 utc | 237
@ malenkov and persiflo:
Reading through those posts, the idea arose:
At the material level, the first pass is seeing that mind and matter are ‘not two.’ At this level there are arguments about sounds in the forest, the assumption being that there is such a thing as a sound without an ear or music without a mind to perceive it as such. The arguments can go on forever.
Then later if that gets resolved (it usually doesn’t) and the notion of there being something more than mere materialism, the next large hurdle is the experience of personal and universal mind also not being two. Here there are also arguments or sticking points in that either one sees the personality as a construct or one believes it exists as some sort of solid, lasting, distinct thing – an identifiable something. These two sides are basically the same as the one above. We could discuss them as form and emptiness.
Then there is a next level, perhaps: if one sees the indivisibility of mind and body within an ever-present awareness field, then one can fully dive into the endlessly detailed and particular realm of forms, the ‘ten thousands things’ working wholeheartedly in the real world participating in the Creation. The Many are the living manifestations of the One who expresses itself through the medium of Many particularities, an expression which creates the perceptions of time and space in which things like good or bad societies are experienced and dwell.
Of late in the West, not coincidentally as materialist transactionalism became the ‘objective’ driving force, we have been losing the sense that the realms we live in are a collective creation akin to a theatrical play in which each of us has a part in the living improvisation called ‘life.’ It exists both as an apparent ‘outer’ world but also ‘within’ as something felt and perceived. Rome is an idea. The perceived power of a Paris, Moscow or Beijing is rooted in the imaginations of any so conceiving. This is blatantly obvious but through conditioning many people just can’t grok it that way.
Once that sort of symbol level of wakefulness is being generally experienced a now relatively self-aware culture can undertake collective reform. Without it, there will be only tinkering with materialist fixes that never acknowledge the fundamental shortcomings of materialism.
sln2002 | Jul 2 2023 0:16 utc | 239–
As I wrote on the Ukie thread, protesters broke into several police stations and appropriated the weaponry stored there, so having such arms is very likely. Most grenade launchers employed by police would be used to deploy teargas canisters, but they can also launch 40mm HE grenades. I saw rifles and other gear on Twitter before it was shutdown. With all the looting, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of many small arms and ammo being taken. What would be very serious are raids on military armories. And who knows what sort of arms from Ukraine are available on the French black market. In fact, there’s a very good chance weapons supplied to Ukraine will blowback into Europe–antitank, grenades, mines, machine guns, assault rifles, and ammo of all sorts and perhaps manpads. All the ingredients for an insurgency/resistance movement are likely there. How ex-military feel about the political situation is critical, as they would become the most potent members of any such anti-government movement.
oldhippie: Somehow I can’t imagine that Pan would be at all happy to inherit a devastated planet, unless he sees possibilities for rejuvenation that are beyond our comprehension.
But then, dead or alive, Pan is a god and we are not.
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 2 2023 1:37 utc | 240
At the World Economic Forum meeting in Tianjin China, Dr. Joseph Costantine: “It is very important to accept, or at least to understand the fact that we’re going to have a lot of sensors – a lot of wearable sensors.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/world-economic-forum-concludes-annual-meeting-new-champions/
It seems that both multipolarity and one-world globalism is on the menu, coming soon to a country near each of us…
The fascist lie thay Covid was developed in Wuhan as a biological weapon ought to be laid to rest by this report
“..On Friday evening, the Biden administration published a previously classified intelligence report acknowledging that three years of investigations have produced no evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was created in a laboratory by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China.
“This admission demolishes years of false claims, uncritically promoted by the entire spectrum of the US media and political establishment, that China deliberately created the virus that has infected the world and killed more than 20 million people.
“The report reveals that three leading US newspapers—the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal—lied when they claimed that the United States had evidence that researchers at the institute were hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms before the start of the pandemic, and were thus the proverbial “patient zero.”
The report declared that the researchers’ symptoms were “not diagnostic of COVID-19,” and “could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.” Critically, the document declared, “We have no indications that any of these researchers were hospitalized because of the symptoms consistent with COVID-19.”
“The report affirms that the Wuhan Institute of Virology acquired SARS-CoV-2 after it began to spread widely throughout the population of Wuhan, China in late December 2019. It states: “Information available to the IC [intelligence agencies] indicates that the WIV first possessed SARS-CoV-2 in late December 2019, when WIV researchers isolated and identified the virus from samples from patients diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown causes.”
“The report concludes that “SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon.”
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/intelligence-report-exposes-media-promotion-of-wuhan-lab-lie/
Posted by: bevin | Jul 2 2023 2:14 utc | 242
@ UWDude | Jul 2 2023 0:12 utc | 238
If you wait by a river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will come floating by.
This is a compelling concept, and certainly not Sun Tzu, but possibly Confucius. Very much Taoist, and absolutely Buddhist.
What I always heard was, “If you sit by the river long enough, eventually the body of your enemy will float by.”
This is nothing other than a meditation instruction, and couldn’t be anything but.
It’s nothing to do with war except that all of this discipline and view belonged also to the minds of the generals of those days, as they maneuvered for results and strove to remain unattached to results – not to fail to achieve victory, simply not to be attached to it as they won it.
~~
Sitting by the river means watching pass, all that passes. And all that passes is in the mind, the ten thousand things that agitate in our thinking and our passions. And the sitting is to practice watching the river itself – mind itself – instead of being caught up in the turbulence and believing the waterfall of thinking is “real”.
~~
In the final moments of the Buddha’s watch in the night, the last traces fell away, of believing that the impressions that were the product of his mind, were objective reality outside of his mind. The approaching attackers became flowers, and fell bestrewn upon the ground. And then he was enlightened. After the final illusion had dissolved. And not a moment before.
That was the sitting by the river. That was the enemy’s body floating by.
It’s a very profound and elemental concept in the spiritual understanding of the world, much deserving of respect and reverence – and celebration and praise, in fact.
And I just wanted to say that about that concept. Sitting and watching – in this very way as implied – is exactly the path.
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 2 2023 2:19 utc | 243
From Scorpion 243:
A WEF meeting in Tianjin China happened from June 27-29, next to Beijing: can one of the arch communists here explain why the CCP allows this capitalist gathering in “the workers paradise”?
@ Bevin 244:
Ok got it: the NYT, WSJ $ WaPo are liars (yes) but the Biden Establishment “intelligence” is a trustworthy source of info.
Posted by: Antonym | Jul 2 2023 2:27 utc | 244
As someone who suffered a vaccine induced stroke I find it difficult to accept that now the Government is going to put out a report containing “truth”, but easy to accept that WAPO, WSJ and the NYT lied to us, after all that is their mission.
Posted by: SwissArmyMan | Jul 2 2023 2:49 utc | 245
Here is the agenda for this year’s WEF annual summer meet @Tianjin (Davos for winter): https://www.weforum.org/agenda/amnc-2023
Annual Meeting of New Champions – no not those mushrooms. Since at least 2011: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2011/09/impressions-from-the-annual-meeting-of-the-new-champions-amnc/
Posted by: Antonym | Jul 2 2023 2:54 utc | 246
@ bevin | Jul 2 2023 2:14 utc | 244 who end with the quote
”
“The report concludes that “SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon.”
”
BULLSHIT!
This is the lie they want to push with all the obfuscation and backpedaling.
What the fuck are all the empire biolabs all around the world for if not to develop and express control/fear/genocide through biological weapons.
Just because the Western media does not report the existence of bio-chemical warfare of empire does not mean it doesn’t exist, just like electronic warfare over the intertubes and otherwise.
We are in a civilization war and there are lots of moving parts….the shit show continues until it doesn’t
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 2 2023 3:07 utc | 247
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 2 2023 3:07 utc | 249
David Martin, chairman and founder of M-CAM Inc. (IP investment advisory) International Covid Summit – European Parliament, May 2023 with slides
Coronavirus (C0V) isolated in 1965. Pfizer patents CoV S-protein vaccine filed 1990.
Posted by: sln2002 | Jul 2 2023 3:24 utc | 248
People what they are saying is that CHINA didn’t develop SARS COV2 as a bioweapon. It’s face saving after the spy balloon farce and the rumors that started as far back as Trump that the Chinavirus” was a weapon against AmeriKKKa.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 2 2023 3:35 utc | 249
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 2 2023 3:07 utc | 249
… University North Caroline (UNC) patents “infectious replication defective clone of CoV” in 2002. CDC patents CoV isolated from humans (SARS 1.0) in 2003; classified “bio-warfare enabling agent” 2005. UNC publishes WIV-1 “poised for human emergence” in 2016.
et voilà! V for Vendetta (2005) prologue! Jan 24, 2020
Developing a universal vaccine for the next outbreak
Another possibility, Fauci said, is to develop a universal vaccine to attack all types of coronaviruses, a sort of insurance policy when the next one is transmitted from an animal to a human.
No Edmond Dantes
Posted by: sln2002 | Jul 2 2023 3:56 utc | 250
Agree. It is very useful that Russia is exposing this
———_________
@bevin | Jul 2 2023 2:14 utc | 244 who end with the quote
”
“The report concludes that “SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon.”
”
BULLSHIT!
This is the lie they want to push with all the obfuscation and backpedaling.
What the fuck are all the empire biolabs all around the world for if not to develop and express control/fear/genocide through biological weapons.
Just because the Western media does not report the existence of bio-chemical warfare of empire does not mean it doesn’t exist, just like electronic warfare over the intertubes and otherwise.
We are in a civilization war and there are lots of moving parts….the shit show continues until it doesn’t
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 2 2023 3:07 utc | 249 gm @ 364
——————————
“”for ‘natural’ mutations to be highly concentrated only at 4 discreet, short (18-24-mer length) non-contiguous segments of ncov19 viral genome, and not significantly anywhere else in the 30K-mer long ncov19 genome, is apparently quite unlikely.””
I agree. The important thing now is to deal with the problem at hand but I think it is useful to discuss the origin to better understand the response.
The use as a bioweapon to up the ante in the trade war was in character (consider Libya, Syria, Yemen).
Coronaviruses such as SARS were thought to be regional problems and not pandemic in nature like influenza
China recognized it for what it was and took extreme measures.
The US got unexpected blowback from this enhanced virus. Think dual use and gain of function and essentially became scared shitless.
I don’t think the lockdowns and economic meltdown were planned.
But of course the response is typical, witness the direction of the bailouts.
Posted by: financial matters | Apr 4 2020 12:26 utc | 375
Posted by: financial matters | Jul 2 2023 4:09 utc | 251
The fascist lie thay Covid was developed in Wuhan as a biological weapon ought to be laid to rest by this report
Posted by: bevin | Jul 2 2023 2:14 utc | 244
“The fascist lie thay [sic] Covid was developed in Wuhan as a biological weapon ought to be laid to rest by this report”
That may be true,
while this may be false:
The lie that Covid was developed as a biological weapon ought to be laid to rest by this report.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Jul 2 2023 4:23 utc | 252
@ bevin…. i appreciate your input, but i think you have lost the thread on covid.. cheers james
Posted by: james | Jul 2 2023 4:30 utc | 253
@ financial matters | Jul 2 2023 4:09 utc | 253
I may even remember your posting that comment back then.
~~
I would guess that today we live in a world of 100 comments suggesting the “man-made” virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, to every 1 comment suggesting that, while Wuhan was part of the development cycle, the end result was directed and activated as a weapon in Ft. Detrick – and thence spread to the world, seeded in selected target localities.
A layer of conspiracies, and the true one will be buried under the slanderous one, as follows: yes it was man-made, they’ll say, and by China, who may have let it escape or who may have released it deliberately (because their people are the yellow horde and want to wipe out the good and the white).
~~
And 100:1 is just too much to try to counter. It’s everywhere, and all the good people are subscribing to it.
This will take years to peel off the layers of lie that are being successfully imposed on top of the great truth. And so they’ll get away with it, among the commentariat.
Which means that the age of biowarfare has not been checked from this battle, but will proceed until the next battle, when we shall see what forces can lay bare the subterfuge then.
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 2 2023 4:39 utc | 254
Which means that the age of biowarfare has not been checked from this battle, but will proceed until the next battle, when we shall see what forces can lay bare the subterfuge then.
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 2 2023 4:39 utc | 256
———-
Agree. This including phizer and organ transplants will eventually be revealed.
Posted by: financial matters | Jul 2 2023 5:03 utc | 255
RT reports that Taliban have reduced opium cultivation by 99%: “The group’s ban on poppy farming has reportedly slashed Afghanistan’s opioid production by 80% in one year….
“Since the Taliban banned poppy farming nationwide in April 2022, Afghanistan has carried out “the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history,” the UK Telegraph newspaper reported on Saturday. Afghan poppy production has dropped by an estimated 80% in the past year, the report said. Poppy cultivation has plunged by more than 99%, to around 2,500 acres, in Helmand province, which British troops occupied for much of the 20-year, US-led war in Afghanistan.”
Of course, the usual suspects didn’t like that success one bit:
“Ironically, the US government’s United States Institute of Peace faulted the Taliban last month for being too successful in slashing opium output. ‘The temptation to view the current ban in an overly positive light — as an important global counter-narcotics victory — must be avoided,’ the institute claimed. ‘This is particularly true given the state of Afghanistan’s economy and the country’s humanitarian situation. Indeed, the ban imposes huge economic and humanitarian costs on Afghans and it is likely to further stimulate an outflow of refugees.'”
The Outlaw US Empire still has all those billions it stole from Afghanistan, and those pukes are worried about the Afghan humanitarian situation!
@ karlof1 | Jul 2 2023 5:08 utc | 258
agree strongly with your last line karlof1… what a hypocritical bitch the usa is!
Posted by: james | Jul 2 2023 5:14 utc | 257
Thanks for all the good comments about biowarfare but now I have to do a big time hubris check of our species
Xinhuanet has a posting up with the title
Europe’s Euclid space telescope launched from Florida to explore “dark universe”
Why are we spending all that money to go to space to study the 95% of the Cosmos that, for all we know, we may have concentrations of here on earth?
Just maybe we are made from the same stuff of which we only speculate exists out there in space somewhere.
Just maybe we refuse to admit in public how ignorant we really are.
95% of you is dark energy/dark matter……get used to it
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 2 2023 5:16 utc | 258
William McKinley
..there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all (all of Spain’s possessions) and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died.”
…………….
We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world,”
“Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Georgraphy answers the question. China is our natural customer….The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East.”
———————————-
FFW 20C
US FAKING TERROR IN PHILIPPINES
Meiring case unmasks covert campaign to justify intervention
Q: Why did the White House rescue and hide Michael Meiring, the CIA-linked American “terrorist” bomber now wanted in Mindanao?
A: The Pentagon wants new bases in Asia, and it is killing civilians to get them.
————————
WASHINGTON, MANILA, TAIPEI & BEIJING
The future of the American-Filipino anti-terror alliance became clear last month when Arroyo took up the issue of granting landing rights to Taiwanese military pilots.
That move is a US orchestration to formalize a Washington-Manila-Taipei triad in the South China Sea and coincides with the offensive return of the USNS Bowditch.
The same American spy ship that sparked last year s deadly mid-air collision of military planes over Hainan Island was back looking for trouble last month in coastal waters off the People s Republic.
———————-
LOng live, the WHITE MAN BURDEN
scorpion clique..
‘we dindunuthin, those are all Israel’s wars’
hhhhhe
http://www.declarepeace.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/site/gladio/030309Fake.html
Posted by: denk | Jul 2 2023 5:58 utc | 259
“”for ‘natural’ mutations to be highly concentrated only at 4 discreet, short (18-24-mer length) non-contiguous segments of ncov19 viral genome, and not significantly anywhere else in the 30K-mer long ncov19 genome, is apparently quite unlikely.””
Posted by: financial matters | Jul 2 2023 4:09 utc | 253
Yeah, it’s almost as preposterous as if someone would try to convince us the NS pipelines had natural leaks.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Jul 2 2023 6:23 utc | 260
Posted by: denk | Jul 2 2023 5:58 utc | 261
Ah yes the US hunting people in Mindanao with No Permanent Address while they claimed what they were doing was looking for MILF’s.
I got to watch a small village get destroyed because the fucking jarheads are so brave that rather than scouting the small collection of nipa huts and a sarisari store after a trike backfired they dumped about 20 rounds of 155mm into it.
I was about a kilometer away with a Filipino AB acting as cover while he was looking for his friends from back in the Marcos days when he to had No Permanent Address until he was put up in a massage parlor by the government for two years. We did meet some of his buddies and they helped calm me down over a couple of beers so I did not do anything rash when I got back to the ship. Nice people. Fuck GMA and GWB. And the fuck the cowards in the USMC.
Posted by: badjoke | Jul 2 2023 8:14 utc | 261
Posted by: badjoke | Jul 2 2023 8:14 utc | 263
———————
Then in Nam, the howitzer crew zero their cannon to the direction of crying babies.
Seldom do we get first person account at the ground, thanks.
Posted by: denk | Jul 2 2023 8:25 utc | 262
For now, the ABG has become the target of US surveillance by unmanned spy planes (drones); this intelligence gathering directly aids in the AFP’s combat operations. In 2002, for example, a Moro peasant in Basilan suspected to be an ABG follower, Buyong-buyong Isnijal, was shot by US Sgt. Reggie Lane; no serious investigation was made about this incident despite a Congressional resolution. In Feb. 2008, one of the few survivors of the Maimbung massacre in Sulu, Sandrawina Wahid, witnessed US troops engaged in the Philippine military’s assault on the town where eight civilians were killed, including Rowina’s husband, two teenagers, two children, and a three-month pregnant woman. Another incident hit the headlines recently when a Philippine Army captain Javier Ignacio was killed while investigating the previous murder by US military personnel of a Filipino employee Gregan Cardeno. Hired by US company DynCorp International, Cardeno was assigned to the Liaison Coordination Element, a unit of the US military, based in Camp Ranao, Marawi City (Carol Araullo, “Streetwise,” Business World, 11-12 June 2010). The death of Cardeno exposed the clandestine unit engaged in work that appears in violation of Philippine laws and its sovereignty; the activities of DynCorp and other secret companies have likewise not been disclosed, contradicting the US Embassy claim that the US Special Forces are confined to openly conducted civic/humanitarian projects such as building roads, schools, etc.
—————
The stinking War Of Terror !
https://www.countercurrents.org/sanjuan130610.htm
signing off…
Posted by: denk | Jul 2 2023 8:43 utc | 263
I am surprised that the france riots haven’t been labeled as putinbots yet. I mean, everyone who opposes democracy must be paid by kremlin money, right?
Posted by: Grasdackel | Jul 2 2023 9:03 utc | 264
Good point, Grasdackel @ 266. I rely on Montréal’s La Presse for coverage of France. They’ve been posting AFP reports, while, interestingly, La Presse is physically covering the Tour de France. (Words fail me, but to me, there’s something so quintessentially French in that.) La Presse has included videos in their coverage. The last one I saw surprised me because the majority of people on the streets were bystanders, onlookers. This while police in full riot gear moved close by. The video also showed a Swarovski shop that had been broken into, looted. Okay – I don’t know, but I would think you can’t just throw a brick at a Swarovski storefront, break a window, and get in, can you??
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 2 2023 9:17 utc | 265
Rubicon @ 209
We think the key question is: WHO handed military weapons to these people?
That’s it right there, establishing the need to fight fire with fire. I’d say the essence, the quintessence, of an operation Gladio underway. A textbook application. Macron isn’t hesitant, the military isn’t giving him an ultimatum, both are giving the protesters line before they reel them in.
France Rioters Brandish Military Grade Weapons; Macron Huddle for Emergency Meet
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jul 2 2023 9:55 utc | 266
@psychohistorian #260:
Just maybe we are made from the same stuff of which we only speculate exists out there in space somewhere.
…
95% of you is dark energy/dark matter……get used to it
It’s better to avoid pontificating about things you don’t understand.
Dark matter, although it is invisible and does not interact (or almost does not interact) with normal matter, has mass. In fact, that is how it is defined—mass that should be there according to the laws of gravity as we currently understand them and our observations of stars and gas clouds, yet is unseen. What it is, though, is unknown. (Also, the discrepancies could be explained by something else entirely, like a different theory of gravity.) So you can’t have dark matter within you because it would immediately fall through you and through the ground towards the center of the Earth. So you can’t be “made of it” by its very definition.
You always have a choice: you can familiarize yourself with a concept (in this case, by reading the Wikipedia article on dark matter), or you can refrain from talking about it. For example, I don’t know anything about the sexual reproduction cycle of Amazonian frogs, so I refrain from making grand statements about it.
Posted by: S | Jul 2 2023 11:00 utc | 267
S @ 269
Maybe he meant dark energy. Lots of dark energy inside people and increasing every day.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jul 2 2023 11:09 utc | 268
Today, bizarre things are going on in France … WHO handed military weapons to these people? Or where they all stolen from stores?
Posted by: Rubicon | Jul 1 2023 17:38 utc | 209
“Two modified large-calibre rifles by Accuracy International were seized from the rioters. The same rifles were supplied to Ukraine last summer”
There’s no conspiracy behind this. Weapons sent to Ukraine and small enough to fit in a car trunk will find their way back to Western Europe.
Posted by: Passerby | Jul 2 2023 11:20 utc | 269
Surprised by the minimal reaction here and in the larger media world to events in France.
One thing is very clear. There is no return to the status quo ante. French police have very publicly declared they are at war with savage vermin. France needs same vermin to operate its economy, that is why they are there. The vermin are not going to take the insult, the police can’t change, can’t back down.
Best imaginable outcome would be some sort of separate legal status for immigrants insulating them from racists with authority. Codifying any such would be near impossible and it won’t happen anyway.
My own city, Chicago, had some experience with this back in 70s. Large areas of South Side were no-go zones for police. Police entered only with El Rukn escort for limited purpose. Drove the City completely crazy. City’s response was to create the Gangster Disciples. The continuous high crime ever since is largely due to the Gangster Disciples and criminality as integral part of policing. City dug its own grave.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jul 2 2023 11:37 utc | 270
I do find myself wondering what Mr. Musk thinks twitter is for, if not so people can read lots of tweets?
Posted by: Bemildred | Jul 2 2023 12:46 utc | 271
@ oldhippie @ 11:37 utc
Same in Memphis, where the uniformed thug gang was called SCORPION. The city PD pretended to disband it after five of its number beat an unarmed motorist to death (and joked about it) for an offense that CCTV footage demonstrated had not occurred.
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 2 2023 13:07 utc | 272
Posted too soon; I wanted to add that further examples are no doubt easy to find.
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 2 2023 13:08 utc | 273
Bemildred @ 273
I do find myself wondering what Mr. Musk thinks twitter is for, if not so people can read lots of tweets?
If I had bought Twitter instead of Mr. Musk I’d have hired you on the spot and made you my general manager. But I didn’t buy Twitter.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jul 2 2023 13:22 utc | 274
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 2 2023 2:19 utc | 245
And I just wanted to say that about that concept. Sitting and watching – in this very way as implied – is exactly the path.
============================
Thus it is, oh son of noble family, thus it is….
Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 2 2023 5:08 utc | 258
RT reports that Taliban have reduced opium cultivation by 99%: “The group’s ban on poppy farming has reportedly slashed Afghanistan’s opioid production by 80% in one year….
========================================
I vaguely remember essentially the exact same story the last time the Taliban were allowed back in charge about twenty years ago. The opium trade from Afghanistan has been described as one of the CIA’s prime sources of black under-the-table income.
I don’t think the lockdowns and economic meltdown were planned.
But of course the response is typical, witness the direction of the bailouts.
Posted by: financial matters | Apr 4 2020 12:26 utc | 375
===============================
Interesting. I feel the opposite! But first, the bioweapon issue: I think most writers keep getting caught up in whether it was America or China wot did it, whereas – whether it was released by accident or design or is even a clearly identifiable ‘it’- this was the child of globalist parents. Labs in NC, Canada, Ukraine, China and elsewhere have been shuttling people and substances back and forth for some time. They are part of an emerging technocratic world order; such people and operations regard most national borders as antiquated legalistic conventions of little actual import. And on many levels of course they are right; indeed this emerging truth is the reason for the current geopolitical changes as old ways of doing things, like national borders, become increasingly irrelevant, at least on practical levels.
The crackdowns, though, were rehearsed in principle at an excercise a few months before the outbreak and were recommended as the prime response. They even had lectures about how to deal with resistance from the public, how to scare people into compliance and so forth. A global response reinforces the sense that there is a world-wide threat and therefore that we are all one world together in this and therefore that we need a one-world government to deal with such global emergencies.
Many countries right now are going along with making WHO a supra-governmental entity with plenary powers trumping national governments during global emergencies. And many countries, including Russia, are looking into digital passports and IDs which include biometric information including vaccine status and suchlike.
This emerging technocractic one-world reality could all be benign in theory and intent, but history warns us that concentrated power ends up being wielded by the wrong people who use it to their own advantage. A one-world government will be child’s play for organized self-serving networks to infiltrate and take over – if indeed it is not those same networks pushing for it, which is highly probable.
Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 2 2023 14:00 utc | 279
Fair claims.
The US sponsored biolabs are a definite threat and need to be forcibly exposed. Russia is doing this militarily as well as by trying to get the UN back on track with the help of China, Africa, etc.
Currently the UN, WHO and any other US dominated organization is untrustworthy and needs a true multipolar replacement.
Posted by: financial matters | Jul 2 2023 14:28 utc | 278
If I had bought Twitter instead of Mr. Musk I’d have hired you on the spot and made you my general manager. But I didn’t buy Twitter.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jul 2 2023 13:22 utc | 276
Sorry, retired. I wouldn’t buy twitter either. I have been avoiding big “platforms” for decades. They rise up and fade like mushrooms. Meanwhile saving all your “data”. Not really your friend, and that is kinda obvious.
Posted by: Bemildred | Jul 2 2023 14:33 utc | 279
Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 29 2023 23:55 utc | 52
Democracy, fundamentally, is simply government being responsive to the citizenry. The regalia of voting trump that the west insists is the definition is just regalia. And has, of course, shown itself ineffective. Or perhaps brilliantly effective at maintaining an oligarchy and calling it democracy.
Posted by: Lex | Jul 2 2023 14:41 utc | 280
“As Russell remarks, it is a psychologism to treat the Nichts as if it were a positive entity, instead of the result of logical operation – “x times zero”, or the empty set…”
“Does a falling tree in the woods make a sound if nobody is around to hear? Answer:…”
Posted by: persiflo | Jul 1 2023 14:15 utc | 194
It is hard to tell what a “positive entity” means. Basically, we have a perception of objective reality through our senses augmented by instruments. To make PREDICTIONS, we often need a mathematical model that is a figment of our thoughts, but if we feed it with data from the past, we can make predictions about the future or future situations (e.g. does this person have a cancer, and if he does, which subtype, or will it rain at 1 pm tomorrow based on the data collected until today). This practical issue arose first most acutely in astrology that was based on positions of moving stars, hence the position of Imperial Mathematicians.
So mathematicians play with concepts like numbers and sets. To make more uniform framework, numbers can be sets of particular type. In this approach, zero and empty set are the same. What is counter intuitive, set theory posits that an empty set exists, and an infinite set exists, and there are rules, “if set X exists, set Y exists too”. All needed sets are constructed from empty set using those rules, something like mathematical Big Bang, starting from zero, nothing, we get the universe. Existence can be explained by emptiness + rules of creation. This is PURELY ABSTRACT, but approaches a DEEP THOUGHT.
Now, tree in an uninhabited stretch of taiga. Do we know if it exists? Trees are probably there (we see them on satellite photos made yesterday), we can even identify geo-located individuals, but until we check again, a tree is like the Schroedinger cat: we may see it alive or dead. But we can calculate probability of seeing later today an alive or a fallen tree.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jul 5 2023 2:57 utc | 281