Posted by: canuck | Apr 28 2024 15:47 utc | 199
We’ve all got it wrong, it is “rules based ordure”…

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Apr 28 2024 16:08 utc | 203

“COMBATE |🇵🇷
@upholdreality
Piers Morgan tries to justify war crimes: “How else could we have fought the Nazis?”
Prof. Mearsheimer: “Well, if you look at how the Soviets fought, who were basically responsible for defeating the Nazis… there were no bombings of cities, no dropping of nuclear weapons.”
https://twitter.com/upholdreality/status/1783998326511403316“
Posted by: Menz | Apr 27 2024 12:29 utc | 105
Great catch, thank you.
Fascist governments who develop educational policies where little or no real history is studied is the first step towards any Reset/Government repression.

Posted by: canuck | Apr 28 2024 16:27 utc | 205

Keeping a flame burning as we wait.. let’s look ahead to plucky little global Britain joining the hypersonic world. A bit too little. A lot too late.
‘Factors that may drag down Britain’s hypersonic high hopes
Britain will have difficulty fielding its £1 billion Mach 5+ hypersonic cruise missile by the MoD’s deadline of the year 2030, with scientists first having to solve an extensive array of fundamental scientific problems which took the USSR and Russia decades to iron out, says Dmitry Drozdenko, a renowned Russian military observer and missile expert.
“Basically, objects flying at hypersonic speeds move in a cloud of plasma, and plasma is the fourth aggregate state of matter, which does not transmit radio signals, and behaves differently” compared to other physical states, Drozdenko told Sputnik.
“To break through these physical phenomena and learn to use them, one would need to have a fundamental scientific knowledge in the fields of the physics of bodies, the dynamics of physics and materials science. This comes down not to some design engineers, computers or billions in funding, but to the scientists who work in universities and institutes,” Drozdenko emphasized.
It’s no accident that Russia was the first country in the world to develop hypersonic weaponry, the observer noted, pointing to the knowledge amassed during the Soviet period into plasma physics.
“The Americans have good scientists, but they simply have not reached this level,” Drozdenko stressed, adding that as far as the UK is concerned, “their level of competence in this area is even lower than that of the Americans.”
“A certain fetish exists around hypersonics today. The task is not to get a projectile flying at hypersonic speeds. A tank round flies at a hypersonic speed at the moment it exits from the tank gun’s barrel. Any vehicle reentering the atmosphere from space is traveling at hypersonic speed. That’s not the issue. The issue is not flying at this speed, but being able to maneuver at this speed,” Drozdenko clarified.
Boost us! | Subscribe to @geopolitics_live ‘

Posted by: DunGroanin | Apr 28 2024 17:48 utc | 207

As evening falls in Hamburg, the weather has been unsteady over the last few days, while it has become much warmer. A spell of wintery nights has given way to springtime smell in the air, with a gentle breeze and almost 20° now against overcast skies. I imagine b resting with a wide open window and going for a walk in the park today, entrusting us to have good discussions while he takes a break from work at the screen.
Hermeneutics is an interesting concept. I use it too rarely, so it’s good that it comes up now. I shall try and give an outline of how I view it, with a broad brush. Will post it when ready, perhaps later tonight.

Posted by: persiflo | Apr 28 2024 18:06 utc | 209

I repeat here once more that the most important country in NATO is the US. So, when the US economy goes “belly up” on day X then NATO “will be toast” the next day.

Posted by: WMG | Apr 28 2024 18:35 utc | 211

Early start for me: Monday morning 4.36am in Sydney. And I can usually set my watch by the appearance b’s ‘Week-in-Review’…
I hope you’re ok b. I’m getting worried.

Posted by: Patroklos | Apr 28 2024 18:38 utc | 213

What I would have liked to see, live on CGTN with a global simulcast, is Blinken and Yellen’s mouths washed out with soap. Dirty fucking Zionazis – they open their bilious, stench-filled holes only to bark orders like the ethnic supremacists they are. They deserve neither their teeth nor tongues.

Posted by: Matthew | Apr 28 2024 18:44 utc | 215

Addendum on Wittgenstein. He is also very important to Bourdieu’s idea of practice. The latter’s is seminal. Like play, practice goes to the heart of what it means to be human, and language (which has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with meaning) is key to this, because it is both play and a practice (a doing of something), i.e. a speech-act.
If you’re reading b, best wishes from Oz. Gotta hit the road now. Rock on barflies!

Posted by: Patroklos | Apr 28 2024 19:02 utc | 217

The latter’s is seminal
I meant “The latter’s Logic of Practice is seminal”

Posted by: Patroklos | Apr 28 2024 19:03 utc | 219

@Posted by: SG | Apr 28 2024 10:57 utc | 182
Well I keep producing an update on my blog every quarter about the EV market, so I will see whether your protestations and those of the Toyoda family are proven correct. I very much doubt it, but the data will speak for itself. Just remember that Betamax kept complaining that they had the best technology in the 1980s whilst the VHS format took all the market share. Once a technology has reached a given scale of manufacturing, which was reached a while ago in China, it possesses huge manufacturing cost and network advantages over other technologies.
Toyota cant even make its own EVs, relying on BYD for example:
Toyota confirms its sleek electric Sport Crossover made with BYD is launching in 2025
You were right about the tax incentive missed that one, but the more significant direct price reduction subsidies were removed in 2022. The tax incentive is basically on the car sales tax up (levied at 10%) to a maximum that means the buyer will pay car sales tax only on the amount of the car price that exceeds 339,000 Yuan. So the benefit maxes out at about US$4,000, and is aimed at benefitting lower priced vehicles the most. The benefit will be halved in 2026. Given the EV price war I can see the Chinese reducing/rescinding this early, as it is meant to drive EV sales which need little extra driver. This tax incentive pales compared to the amounts provided by the IRA sales and producer subsidies, and is also not protectionist – i.e. it does not place conditions on where the car was produced.

Posted by: Roger | Apr 28 2024 19:05 utc | 221

@ Patroklos | Apr 28 2024 19:05 utc | 220
I sort of wish you hadn’t noted the “Week in Review” tardiness, though…
Now that I’m donning appropriate headgear (my tinfoil hat for protection against mind-control rays), I’ll repeat my suspicion that the current paroxysm of campus protest has scared the stuffing out of Western elites. Great revolutions have started with the students, throughout history. In this context, pretty much anything is possible. To dear ones, I’ve voiced apprehension over the next false flag. They’ll need a big one, to make a big impression.
God help us.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 28 2024 19:25 utc | 223

@ Patroklos | Apr 28 2024 19:05 utc | 220
i think b is convalescing.. i thought the same earlier today with the absence of the moa week in review… it is well past it appearing.. we have to wait to hear from b… the poster id asked about alternative communities as backup.. i recommended subscribing to both karlof1 and rogers substack platform as a temporary alternative… i am quite certain b is coming back, but just not today by the looks of it..

Posted by: james | Apr 28 2024 20:03 utc | 225

Posted by: persiflo | Apr 28 2024 19:06 utc | 222
I confess I have not. To be fair I said not to bother with the Tractatus; I didn’t say it was wrong! Far be it for a humble classical philologist to pronounce on such matters.
But I am very grateful to you for this amazing bi-lingual edition. I have a similar edition of the Philosophical Investigations and agree that one must read the German even it must be with the aid of a parallel text.
Vielen Dank und auch beste Grüsse!

Posted by: Patroklos | Apr 28 2024 20:42 utc | 227

Roger | Apr 27 2024 23:07 utc | 145
Err, sorry, no. The treasury doesn’t print any money – banks do (in the case of central banks, high-powered money).
If the state cancels the debt leg but does not cancel the created money leg then it is the equivalent of spending money into existence
Correct. Result is immediate currency collapse, since the money ‘spent into existence’ has no collateral whatsoever backing it. You could just as well write “1.000.000” on a bit of paper and try to buy something with it. The debt (and the repayment promise tied to it) is what gives money its value.

Posted by: smuks | Apr 28 2024 21:33 utc | 229

@Patroklos | Apr 28 2024 20:42 utc | 227
…a humble classical philologist …’
Have a drink on me.
@persiflo | Apr 28 2024 21:47 utc | 230
On the last line of Tractatus: ‘Whereof one cannot speak; thereof one must keep silent.’
@Aleph_Null | Apr 28 2024 17:46 utc | 206
‘Obviously I don’t know a post-structuralist from a hole in the ground, …’
Obviously.
That said, thank you for spurring me on, metaphorically speaking of course, to go and re-read Wittgenstein’s Poker …. where Wittgenstein raised a red-hot poker to Kark Popper during a little 10 minute argument in Cambridge – presumably a form of ‘speech act’ within the ‘language games’ acceptable as a ‘form of practice’ within the Cambridge set of the time.
Wittgenstein’s Poker. The Story of A Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. David Edmonds, and John Eidinow [321 pages: V. Entertaining]
Free PDF DOWNLOAD:
https://www.scribd.com/document/275106041/Wittgenstein-s-Poker-the-Story-of-a-Ten-Minute-Argument-Between-Two-Great-Philosophers-David-Edmonds-And-John-Eidinow

Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 28 2024 22:32 utc | 231

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 28 2024 22:33 utc | 232

We’re all looking forward to Chicago, but the scenario you articulate, “the crescendo of them has Black Lives Matter chapters joining in the protests en masse” strikes me as disoriented

Check what I posted more fully. BLM being part of the equation is meant to be disorientating, so it seems I successfully did impart what I wanted people to get. 😉

when their nightmares reach a fever pitch, the crescendo of them

Disorientation is a given in most nightmare scenarios, David Lynch films like Mulholland Drive being excellent examples of nightmare logic. I included “fever pitch” to emphasize it being a fevered nightmare, which are the ones that can be hallucinatory.

Posted by: Babel-17 | Apr 28 2024 22:52 utc | 233

@ sean the leprechaun | Apr 28 2024 17:49 utc | 208
yes, where is george carlin when you need him?
@ Patroklos | Apr 28 2024 20:45 utc | 228
well my suggestion is folks at moa consider using karlof1 and rogers substack as a backup plan if need be.. it is not the same of course!

Posted by: james | Apr 28 2024 23:26 utc | 235

Re: Atrial fibrilation.
…
They inserted into my heart a so-called “amulet”, a device which has so far prevented a stroke. ” Watchman” is another name for a device which can be inserted into the heart to prevent stroke.
If that is indeed b’s problem, I hope this information helps him.
Posted by: Lysias | Apr 28 2024 1:40 utc | 158
I’d be interested in your GP’s explanation of how a device implanted in one’s heart could prevent a stroke. The medical definition of a stroke is a blockage of an artery, feeding blood to the brain, by a blood clot.
One can imagine that a device implanted in the heart could detect and correct a fibrilation event (rapid unproductive heartbeat) if it has a battery. But there’s no way that it could prevent blood clots.
The AMA in Oz, and presumably USA, is a significant political donor. That buys AMA members caught making fraudulent medical insurance claims freedom from prosecution. i.e. the perp merely has to pay back the money to avoid prosecution.
The AMA in Oz is devoted to dreaming up “innovative” illnesses to facillitate mandatory over-servicing.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 29 2024 0:00 utc | 237

‘Mathematical systems are way beyond philosophy to me’ writes Aleph_Null above, and I have a reply to them over in the philosophers’ corner.

Posted by: persiflo | Apr 29 2024 0:48 utc | 239

@Posted by: smuks | Apr 28 2024 21:33 utc | 229
The state has the right to spend money into existence, as it did when money was actually printed. That right of the citizenry has been usurped by the commercial banks over time, and now fully with electronic money. The Treasury could simply open up its own “bank” and deposit electronic currency into accounts for each citizen if it so wished. It is the sovereign, not the central bank and not the commercial banks.
Electronic money is not really backed by anything other than a belief that the state will bail out the banks if there is a run on the banks, or if a bank becomes insolvent (which happens with great regularity since the deregulation of the financial systems from the 1970s onwards). The Central bank can also directly fund government debt issuance, instead of subsidizing the commercial banks by giving them commissions for being a middle man between the state and itself. And also subsidizing ruling class income generally by providing them with interest on loans that the state could have made to itself. The Canadian central bank funded a significant amount of the Canadian government’s spending from 1935 to 1975 until Trudeau’s dad showed his true colours and stopped that from happening.
The Chinese deal with this issue by the state owning the majority of the banking system. In most countries the central bank is most definitely owned by the state. In the US there are always games played to deliver rents to the financiers and to make sure that the financiers interests are always predominant. Unfortunately for Europe, the ECB is fully controlled by the financiers as is the Bank of England. Debt based money is required, it simply enriches the financiers and the rich. Money can be spent into existence instead.
The Financial Times did a good piece on the ability of the Central Bank which resides in the public sector to simply cancel out government debt. Will central banks cancel government debt?

Why is this such a radical idea? No one in the private sector would lose out from the cancellation of these bonds, which have already been purchased at market prices by the central bank in exchange for cash. The loser, however, would be the central bank itself, which would instantly wipe out its capital base if such a course were followed. The crucial question is whether this matters and, if so, how … Now consider what would happen if the bonds held by the central bank were cancelled, instead of being one day sold back into the private sector. Under this approach, the long-run restraining effect of bond sales would also be cancelled, so there should be an immediate stimulatory effect on nominal demand in the economy. If done without amending the path for the budget deficit itself, this would increase the expansionary effects of past deficits on nominal demand, and would also reduce the outstanding burden of public debt associated with such deficits.

Furthermore, the effects would be increased even more if, instead of just cancelling past debt, the central bank were to co-operate with the government, agreeing to directly finance an increase in the budget deficit by printing money. We would then be genuinely in the world of “helicopter money”, with no pretence of separation between fiscal and monetary policy [2].
Outside of wartime, developed economies have not been normally been willing to contemplate any such actions. The potential inflationary consequences, which are in fact signalled by the elimination of central bank capital which this strategy involves, have always been considered too dangerous to unleash.

That the central bank would not have a capital base is a moot point, as it is owned by the state and that state’s ability not just to tax but also to spend money into existence.
Of course also we know the reality is that the central banks cannot pull back the liquidity they provided by QE in any significant fashion, by selling the bonds, as when that has been tried things start going wrong in the financial system pretty quickly. Even the current US QT is very limited. Also, a large amount of QE went into asset speculation instead of lending to produce actual new income producing assets, producing a valuation bubble. This is why direct government investments in infrastructure, and directed loans for the development of new economic assets is much better than QE. And of course the FT hates the idea that the financiers would not be able to constrain/control state spending so as to benefit their own needs.

Posted by: Roger | Apr 29 2024 2:05 utc | 241

Then there is Gaza which I am not even able to write about.
I haven’t seen any feedback to that remark, here in the bar. Germany has not been any too gentle with honest folks lately, you know? A poster reached out for a “welfare check” in another thread, a while back now. Am I over-paranoid to suspect that Bernhard might be subject to persecution, even prosecution?
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 28 2024 19:02 utc | 218
I have been wondering about that too.
A few months ago I promised, as a retired industrial chemist, a discourse on some of the “Holocaust” evidence, but thought better of it within a few hours as b as publisher could be held liable for it, and the potential penalties applied in Germany I had read about were appallingly severe. I have since laid off commenting generally too with that in mind. I think it is a matter we should all bear in mind.

Posted by: Walt | Apr 29 2024 3:43 utc | 243

In case you forget…
Uncle Sham
A Mafiaso masquerade as a country.
Exhibit A
When Oz was bullied by East Timor, whom did they go to ?
The fixer in Washington !
Jonathan Steele

The UN put up a tough fight to get a better deal from Australia and the mighty oil companies, including US-based Phillips Petroleum, than the one which Indonesia had made years earlier. The surprise came last year when the US started warning East Timor not to push Australia too hard shortly after Vice-President Dick Cheney had received Australian representatives in his Washington office. Mr Cheney is, of course, an oil-man with continuing contacts with businessmen but here he was, using the weight of his governmental position, to interfere in discussions between the UN and a foreign government. Odd, but symptomatic of the world tiny East Timor was entering.

Posted by: denk | Apr 29 2024 4:51 utc | 245

Just curious.
Was there much nth American msm reporting on Blinken in China ?
I don’t see anything or next to nothing on my “feeds”. (Force fed msm by the al go. Rhythms.
They keep forcing but I rarely sample.)
Interested in TQC and psychohistorian replies… also others of course.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 29 2024 5:04 utc | 247

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Apr 28 2024 16:08 utc | 203
Or, to quote the name of a song by punk band ‘Victims Family’: “New World hors d’oeuvres”.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Apr 29 2024 5:24 utc | 249

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 29 2024 5:01 utc | 246
I generally get a dystopian sensation anytime I read about organizations with the words World, International, United or Democracy in their name.

Posted by: lex talionis | Apr 29 2024 5:40 utc | 251

“US dominance is over”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGVK2HTN4xA (length: 8 minutes)
Posted by: WMG | Apr 28 2024 18:27 utc | 210
Thx that as very good and to the point. channel https://www.youtube.com/@ReportsOnChina based in shanghai (sounds kiwi?)
Here’s another short summary of Blinken in China
TABLES TURNED: Blinken’s BOLD Threats to China Receives a STRONG Response Back
Lena Petrova
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcdallrJDYc
a couple of posted comments ..
The world is tired of being lectured by the U.S., the U.K. and E.U on democracy and human rights. The sheer hypocrisy. Do as I say, not as I do.
Blinken should be in prison, along with the whole of congress and every living member of any US administration.
My comment-
Much crazy stuff going on in the US as usual, but passing a Law in Congress demanding that ByteDance sell off TikTok or else the US will ban it outright (then sanction it obviously while demanding the rest of the West Ban it it also as a next step) is up there as one of the most unbelievably bat shit crazy thing blatantly DISHONEST DISREPUTABLE things the US has tried since launching a war on Iraq over WMD…
Could permanently caged in a Mental Institution be a more appropriate place for the US establishment than time in Prison?

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Apr 29 2024 6:19 utc | 253

I’ve mentioned the study featured by this article before, in an open thread. This is an excellent, terse overview:
https://www.birdguides.com/news/arctic-permafrost-now-a-net-source-of-greenhouse-gases-say-scientists/
It’s a habitable home planet at stake, in this transition. Not everyone thinks so, not at all. But it’s not unreasonable to attempt projection through to the unforeseen, perhaps. My very favorite needlepoint (thanks, Mom!) is: Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.
I don’t need to convince anyone. Continual thousand-year disasters will eventually penetrate the most stubborn consciousness. Suffering works that way. My brother’s family lost their home when Berry Creek burned down in November of 2018 — the whole town, in a conflagration with the ironic name “Camp Fire”.
I’m only attempting to set the context in which some folks read news like what’s linked above. (Geoscientific hermeneutics, as it were.) To some of us, this is what runaway warming looks like. After Arctic permafrost goes from sink to source, as it just has, it’s never going back (on any temporal scale relevant to humanity). People like me are astonished at the lack of attention to news like this.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 29 2024 7:20 utc | 255

S p r i n t e r F a c t o r y
@Sprinterfactory
Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, Algeria and Saudi Arabia have begun withdrawing their national gold reserves from the United States
https://twitter.com/Sprinterfactory/status/1784693809923678473

Posted by: Menz | Apr 29 2024 7:48 utc | 257

@ persiflo | Apr 29 2024 0:48 utc | 239
What the? Splitting Infinitives with Aleph Null! Wait — I swore off the grammar stuff — it’s sorting infinities. You’ve way more than made my day, with such serious consideration of my surreal fulminations. The last time I felt so honored was quite a long time ago.

The incompleteness theorem is, in some sense, only truly surprising if you prior to it had assumed we could indeed know everything. But the notion is absurd to begin with, actually. What, exactly, is ‘everything’?!?

I need to spend more time studying your thoughtful essay. Meanwhile, this passage might highlight a disconnect in our understandings of mathematics and Godel’s incompleteness. Godel did not set any limit on what it might be possible to know. His proof does many things, but nothing like that.
Some folks might say Godel showed it’s impossible to know about a complete, consistent system — but only because we can’t know about anything which cannot ever exist. (We can’t know much about unicorns either, not definitively.) His proof is much deeper, pertaining to the properties of mathematical laws which govern creation.
Philosophy arises from human discussion. By contrast, Pythagoras’ theorem was out there in the eternal fabric of universal construction long before it was discovered by a bean-aversive Greek cult, and will remain true after there are only shadows in the shale to remember humans by.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 29 2024 8:06 utc | 259

You don’t see mass protests as big as this in support of Gaza anywhere.
Georgia protest against ‘foreign agents’ bill turns violent (VIDEOS)
The situation escalated when a group of protesters tried to break through the barriers surrounding the government building, prompting riot police to use pepper spray. The authorities urged the protesters to maintain public order, saying that law enforcement units were mobilized to protect the “safety of citizens.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/596739-georgia-foreign-agents-protest/
alt
https://www.swentr.site/russia/596739-georgia-foreign-agents-protest/

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Apr 29 2024 8:32 utc | 261

This passage from persiflo cuts to the heart of where I differ with most modern philosopers. (I associate persiflo’s style with Wittgenstein.) Ultimately, even mathematics is nothing but a human construction, to this school of thought.

Those objects are, hence, essentially made up as by their now explicitly given definition, and thusly introduced into the mathematician’s inventory of things. All prior use of numbers as a means of counting is clarified there. At the same time, it is clear that there no such thing as an absolute ‘logos’ (or the tongue of god) is behind this; it’s a formal approach, it’s constructive, and it’s constructions are only ever interesting in our liveworlds if we can put them to good use. There is nothing transcendentally special about them (discounting logic itself of which it is an applied case), and the believe that it would is a case for the history of ideas departement.

There’s nothing eternal about a dodecahedron. That’s what the thoroughly modern philosopher will tell you. In the most risibly anthrocentric instance of such thinking, Bucky Fuller actually registered a patent on a dodecahedral form, as if he invented it. Well, he didn’t. The forams building their shells on such plans never needed permission from Bucky. Basic mathematics is not invention, but discovery.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 29 2024 9:02 utc | 263

Ps – I see there is the usual clowning and muddying the waters about Money and Banking , Government Spending and Taxes that FOLLOW it. The intention appears to be to keep the fairytales alive with the dogmas of the fake pseudo religions of Imperialist Thought Control that insists the total opposite- a base LIE that Taxes precede and PAY for Government Spending.
The mud and smoke – the pseudo religions of Economics, Capitalism/Anti-Capitalism , Philosophies aimed at establishing Superiority over the Masses of Humanity; the direct attempts to usurp the realities of mechanisms of Evolution and of Scientific Method, by such pseudo practices.
Anyway for anyone interested in the Fire and not the Smoke – at least about Money Magic Daily Trick – just go and read the annual Accounts of the Consolidated Fund of the Bank of England. Which explains the Magick Daily Performed which starts with a zero balance and runs an overdraft through the day which is not so magically reset to zero every night , to start all over again the next morning. And it’s been happening for centuries. By Acts of Parliament.
Try reality folks and give up the delusions of wasted lifetimes believing the Emperors New Clothes. It’s the only chance we will have of preempting the awakening slap that is in mid air aimed towards our deluded faces.
We must prepare for the worst if b, doesn’t post today.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Apr 29 2024 9:32 utc | 265

“Philosophy arises from human discussion. By contrast, Pythagoras’ theorem was out there in the eternal fabric of universal construction long before it was discovered by a bean-aversive Greek cult, and will remain true after there are only shadows in the shale to remember humans by.”
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 29 2024 8:06 utc | 259
You seem to know what you are talking about-can you comment on the idea that Hippasus of the Pythagorean school had discovered calculus by disproving the Pythagorean theorem -then he was subsequently drowned:
“Sometime in the 5th century B.C. the Greek philosopher Hippasus of Metapontum, a member of the secretive Pythagorean brotherhood, left his home in southern Italy and boarded a seagoing ship. We do not know why Hippasus was traveling or where he was journeying, but we do know he didn’t make it. According to the legend, once the ship was far from shore the poor philosopher was set upon by his fellow Pythagoreans and tossed into the sea.
The Pythagoreans had good reason to turn on their brother. Following the teachings of their founder, Pythagoras, they fervently believed that everything in the world could be described through whole numbers and their ratios. But Hippasus had proved that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with the square’s side, or, as we would say today, that the square root of 2 (the length of the diagonal relative to the side) is irrational. This means that no matter how many times the side is divided and how many times the diagonal is divided the resulting magnitudes would never be equal.
Hippasus’ discovery changed the course of Western mathematics. For one thing, it showed that the proportion of a square’s side and diagonal could not be described as a simple ratio, dooming the Pythagorean enterprise. For another, it showed that lines could not be described as a sequence of tiny points strung together, or else these points would serve as a common measure for all magnitudes. Discrete numbers and points, Hippasus proved, could never fully capture a world comprising continuous entities such as lines and surfaces. The only proper mathematical science, it followed, was geometry—the study of relations between continuous magnitudes.
For the next two millennia the lesson of Hippasus remained largely unchallenged and geometry reigned supreme. It was not until the 16th and 17th centuries that a new generation of mathematicians in the Netherlands (Simon Stevin), England (Thomas Harriot, John Wallis) and especially Italy (Bonaventura Cavalieri, Evangelista Torricelli) began to probe the strict separation between discrete points and continuous magnitudes. What would happen, they wondered, if we assumed that a line is a string of infinitesimals—of tiny, or infinitely small, points? And similarly that a plane is composed of lines placed side by side, and a solid of planes stacked on top of one another?” (1)
1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-brief-history-of-infinitesimals-the-idea-that-gave-birth-to-modern-calculus/

Posted by: canuck | Apr 29 2024 10:06 utc | 267

snake | Apr 28 2024 10:42 utc | 181
Interesting thought. 😉
Note that the nuclear industry (the few remaining players) is essentially state-run, so “seeking return on investment” isn’t high on their list. It never was a commercial enterprise.
There’s been talk of a ‘nuclear renaissance’ for 10-15 years now. In reality, few new reactors are being built. Some countries want to replace old plants, to keep the ability to build new bombs. Others see it as a matter of national prestige (Turkey, Saudi Arabia), very probably with the option of future nuclear weapons in mind. Russia (mostly) is using it as diplomatic tool, to strengthen alliances.
In all cases, it’s a matter of politics and military strategy. Energy & economic considerations play little if any role.
—-
It seems that China (contrary to what I expected) refused Blinken’s orders.
vargas | Apr 28 2024 11:49 utc | 186
Seriously…?

Posted by: smuks | Apr 29 2024 10:20 utc | 269

In reality, few new reactors are being built.
smuks | Apr 29 2024 10:20 utc | 269
how sure are you about that? I’m not uptodate personally, but last I heard 30 were under constrcution in china. So what’s your definition of “few”?
one ref
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/New-Nuclear
also new milestone in GenIV nuclear operations … slow by steady progress of this Meltdown-Proof Modular test system
HTR-PM heating project commissioned
02 April 2024
Share
The nuclear heating project of the demonstration High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor-Pebble-bed Module (HTR-PM) at the Shidaowan site in China’s Shandong province has been connected to the heating grid and put into operation, China Huaneng announced.
The project uses high-temperature steam extracted from the HTR-PM’s steam system to heat water in a heat exchanger. This high-temperature water flows to the heat exchange station in the municipal and power station energy areas and undergoes secondary heat exchange to become residential heating.
The heating pipeline was completed on 22 March and the project was connected to the heating grid on 27 March.
China Huaneng noted the project will add an additional 190,000 square metres of heating area, which can meet the clean heating needs of 1850 households. It can replace 3700 tonnes of coal every heating season and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6700 tonnes.
The company said the milestone marks “the first time that a fourth-generation nuclear energy heating system has realised heating for urban residents, and a breakthrough in the comprehensive utilisation of fourth-generation nuclear energy.”
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/HTR-PM-heating-project-commissioned
PS also highly capable of using nuclear waste as fuel source as well as destroying nuke waste .. long story, won’t bother with the details. cheers LD

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Apr 29 2024 10:34 utc | 271

Ray McGovern:
The US government is still living in the past because Blinken traveled to Beijing ans asked the chinese to stop their support for Russia.
Biden, Blinken, Sullivan have – like Netanyahu – a personal interest to stay in power. Once these persons are out of office then they are running the risk of ending up in prison for a decent amount of time.

Posted by: WMG | Apr 29 2024 12:47 utc | 273

@263 aleph
It WAS Wittgenstein who remarked that mathematics was a creation and not a discovery.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Apr 29 2024 13:15 utc | 275

I specifically mention chess because when you find yourself in Checkmate you have a bit of a contradiction on your hands. Lol.

Posted by: David G Horsman | Apr 29 2024 13:33 utc | 277

Dear Aleph_Null, regarding maths, I wish to clarify one, maybe two small things here.
juliania’s question has to wait a bit, unfortunately, for which I’m sorry. At a loss in fact (can I say so?) as I lost a fairly well-rounded answer from my editor just as I was finishing it.
The essential gist of it comes down to the question whether truth and beauty can ever be united into a single principle, or not, with me taking the latter view, as truth is somehow about congruence of notion and experience (eg, a statement of science; or a promise given), while beauty is essentially ephemeral in the now-ness of its presence: to recognize beauty is more like a sense (much like eyesight etc), it is rooted in immediacy (while perhaps kept in memory), while truth is anchored in notional figurations as much as in happenstance.
Icons are deeply complex, and loaded with history. I know too little about them to dive into the specifics, but fortune has it that I’m about to meet my favourite colleague with an art history background later today, so perhaps I’ll have a bit more tomorrow. For now, my hunch is that words of truth² can help guiding a keen sense of beauty, and conversely, beauty may guide into a presence that is also more truthful somehow; as to what that relates, I’d simply call it god, in its elusive yet all-important encompassing presence. My english fails me here. (And there too! but oh well, it’s simply great fun using it for me, tbh).
²) [truth in a very broad sense – like poetry can be truthful somehow as well, as much as it may evoke notions that subtly relate to experience, perhaps of a kind never before brought into awareness]

Posted by: persiflo | Apr 29 2024 13:41 utc | 279

@David Horsman: Pls check hotmail if you haven’t already. Msg waiting.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Apr 29 2024 14:01 utc | 281

re Horsman on Gödel: … What he said (proved) is that any system capable of powerful expression or complexity, IE any branch of mathematics or games like chess, is able to build contradictions while remaining within the rules.
Not quite! It’s called the ‘incompleteness theorem’ (actually a layman’s terminology, but good enough here) for a reason: given the set of axioms X (with some fairly minor measure of algebraic structuredness), then the set T of all statements that are allowed expressions in X is LARGER than the subset T’ of T that contains all allowed expressions which can also be decided. In other words, you can formulate something sensible in X, and when trying to decide (either right or wrong) by means of a mathematical proof, you run into an actual example that can’t be decided! Hence, X is incomplete with regards to T.
Goedel’s prove is constructive. He shows us legit statement (an element of T) which is not in T’, so it’s truth value can’t be derived from the foundational axioms X. Weirdly enough, the statement Goedel uses says as much as “I am not decided by X” which is technically very difficult, but as an idea literally ancient, as it’s a version of the “who shaves the barber?” paradox the old greeks knew already.
The more precise understanding of Goedel’s theorem has it covering two different questions, one as above, and then another one about what happens when you enlarge X, for instance by the very statement you found undecidable, and assigning at a truth value (thus making it another axiom to be added to X). In this case, you may decide the indefferent cases of the Theorem’s first version, but thereby you’ll also lose the previously given knowledge about the consistency of X. In otehr words, X gets messed up by this, losing its algebraic usefulness, so again you end up with an inability to derive the veracity of the dealbreaking clause from its foundations X.

Posted by: persiflo | Apr 29 2024 14:36 utc | 283

Where is b? I am concerned. Aren’t you all?

Posted by: JB | Apr 29 2024 15:10 utc | 285

@David Horsman: Pls check hotmail if you haven’t already. Msg waiting.
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Apr 29 2024 14:01 utc | 281
Hi Tom (and folks), My email is
David[underscore]Horsman[at]Hotmail[dot]com
I’m still financially crippled but trying very hard to set up a website that can’t be taken down. Part of my objectives are to mirror sites like b’s MoA and act like a fallback should the worst ever happen.
We would then be in a position to run Advanced software against a vast database of history and geopolitical events although I was not planning to limit the scope to that.

Posted by: David G Horsman | Apr 29 2024 15:30 utc | 287

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Apr 29 2024 14:01 utc | 281
Hi Tom. As is all too typical of them, Microsoft put your email to me into the junk folder. They don’t like people like us. You know, people that want to save the planet.

Posted by: David G Horsman | Apr 29 2024 15:42 utc | 289

@David G Horsman | Apr 29 2024 15:42 utc | 289
I appreciate any efforts to set up an alternative if the worst happens and MoA is unable to continue in the present form. Is there an URL to check if that happens? I saw your email.

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 29 2024 16:00 utc | 291

grunzt@280…..look under the bed…..sorry, could resist, but b’s not a kid, few if any here are, if he’s been Lira’d well we know how that ends. Maybe he was like a three letter plant all along, now he’s given up all our innermost deepest darkest thoughts, “and then they’ll come us”.
‘b’, guessing he had an issue with the minor surgery, I’d put money on an infection of sorts. Hopefully nothing serious, say a small prayer if you lean that way, light a candle send thought of wellness….there is more to our insignificance on the planet than meets our scientific criteria.

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Apr 29 2024 16:04 utc | 293

Jill Stein’s first interview after being arrested for ‘assault on a police officer’
interview
https://twitter.com/i/status/1784710631100391771
repost of Jill ‘assaulting’ the cop with a bike lol
https://twitter.com/i/status/1784437437357228221

Posted by: ld | Apr 29 2024 16:24 utc | 295

@ persiflo: ‘brave’ should have been ‘bravo!’.

Posted by: scorpion | Apr 29 2024 16:29 utc | 297

An excellent discussion of the ongoing success of the Chinese economy and the ridiculous Western propaganda of a “collapsing China”. The projection of Western elite wet dreams rather than having any basis in reality. China is now moving into the higher technology industries which are the basis of US and Western power, and that’s why the screams of the Western ruling classes and their government, media and academic lackeys are becoming ever more shrill.
Debunking ‘the coming collapse of China’ with John Ross
Especially in the “green” technologies, the West is being left behind by China.

Posted by: Roger | Apr 29 2024 18:05 utc | 299