There is THIS, too.

Posted by: Maracatu | Nov 24 2024 15:38 utc | 1

TAre the materials you are referring to called Geopolymers?
https://youtu.be/Ytbj-6AybxI

I have a signed copy of Davidovits' book on geopolymers. I think it is off topic in this thread. His arguments relate to something that greatly interests me, the existence of human civilizations more than 13000 years ago and specifically the engineering aspects of how the Giza pyramids came about. His point is that the millions of 2-ton limestone blocks were 'cast' from geopolymers. But I am not entirely convinced, and it isn't something for this thread.
Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 24 2024 11:12 utc | 723

Right here? Yes, plenty of hints about a descending process that might have hit its nadir where we start to date current civilization

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 15:39 utc | 2

thanks b! when are you having a fundraiser?? all this work you give for free is amazing...

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 15:45 utc | 3

@Newbie #2
This ancient civilization scam is like all scams: a grain of truth upon which a mountain of nonsense is built.

The grain of truth is that it is very possible that there are earlier civilizations that were more advanced than presently thought. People were thin on the ground that far back; climate, environment etc were also very different. As such, the possibility that present understanding of civilizational progress is wrong.

In this context - more advanced merely means ahead of the technological "norm". It doesn't mean jets produced by 5000 people using manual labor.

The mountain of nonsense is garbage like geopolymers. These types of bullshit explanations are what the Ancient Civilization scammers use to justify the complete lack of evidence for their theories. The origin of geopolymers are the Roman concrete structures that have lasted millenia because of "previously unknown" technology which made the concrete in these structures, self healing.

Well, the code was cracked on that: it was not advanced Roman concrete technology - it was simply because the materials they used were very inefficient and had lots of micro pockets of lime mixed in. When a break occurs, the lime spills out and reforms concrete in the cracks. The Romans certainly had no idea that this would happen, much less created concrete specifically to take advantage of this.

Equally, the pyramids. Most modern people have no idea just how long major structures could take to construct in the past or the enormous work forces that can be brought to bear when god-kings are involved. Notre Dame, for example, took 182 years to construct. Justinian built the dome of the Hagia Sophia in a mere 5 years and 10 months or so, but used 10000 workers.

The pyramid construction era: Egypt had a population of well over 1 million people - maybe 2 million people. Consider what can be done with a work force of 100,000 people. Then there's the people themselves: we modern humans are, by and large, weak and puny compared to people who had to use their manual strength for literally everything. They were certainly shorter, but that does not mean they were physically weaker.

Then there's the tools. How do you perform chemistry without access to cheap energy? Answer: you can't. Read up on the complicated steps alchemists used to undertake in order to make even water bottle quantities of acids to understand how ridiculous these geopolymer theories are. Here is an overview of just the 1st step in making aqua regia

Note you need stuff to do the above: you need access to raw materials, you need containers - glass and others. You need energy. You need knowledge.

So to recap: ancient civilizations are certainly possible. Ancient advanced technology civilizations? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The existence of the Egyptian pyramids is not proof given the enormous population of Egypt in that period combined with pharaohs being literal god kings.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 24 2024 16:05 utc | 4

it is very possible that there are earlier civilizations that were more advanced than presently thought.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 24 2024 16:05 utc | 4

---

The Antikythera Mechanism certainly is a stunner.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2

Posted by: too scents | Nov 24 2024 16:14 utc | 5

@Maracatu | Sun, 24 Nov 2024 15:38:00 GMT | 1

Thanks for the link!

Emmanuel Todd is prophetic in light of the last few days when he predicts that the Americans will not accept defeat in Ukraine without a more permanent solution to the Russo-German problem which means pushing more war onto Europe.

Posted by: pilipili | Nov 24 2024 16:21 utc | 6

@ Maracatu | Nov 24 2024 15:38 utc | 1

thanks maracatu... it's a good video, especially in the 20-30 minute mark.. it is interesting that he hasn't published the book in english, but this is the release to the german public in german... he mentions how germany is pivotal in all of this too and i share that viewpoint..

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 16:36 utc | 7

Nazism in Croatia vs Slovenia

Somehow even though I am not a slav, I always think of Yugoslaovia, and now serbia, bosnia, montenegro, slovenia, croatia etc. and balkan wars etc. Now the way I understand it, Croatia had strong nazi/fascist ideology from the beginning (I may be wrong). Can esteemed barflies point me towards Slovenian nazi/fascism, was it present? stronger/weaker vis-a-vis Croatia? I am not sure if I try an MSM search, I would come up with good sources. Any expert on yugoslavian matters, I appreciate any pointers you point me to.

Posted by: Ansocpol | Nov 24 2024 17:09 utc | 8

On Putin's official statement as per kremlin.ru:

You need to read carefully to understand what's in it and what isn't.
Yes, there is indeed the announcement of a new equation for Russian responses to the recent escalation by the West, regarding ATACMS, Storm Shadow and SCALP attacks on undoubtedly Russian territory.

His words:
"We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities, and in case of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond decisively and in mirror-like manner. I recommend that the ruling elites of the countries that are hatching plans to use their military contingents against Russia seriously consider this.
It goes without saying that when choosing, if necessary and as a retaliatory measure, targets to be hit by systems such as Oreshnik on Ukrainian territory, we will in advance suggest that civilians and citizens of friendly countries residing in those areas leave danger zones."

Also yes, there may be or there will be retaliatory strikes on military facilities of the enablers of strikes behind the Ukraine-Russia border. But there's a modifier, and it's Putin's usual one: those counter-strikes will be done in a "mirror-like manner". The specific setup of those US, British and French strikes will be mirrored. And that setup is the following: those launches by the US, British and French on Russia are done via the territory of a 3rd country, namely Ukraine. They are never launches directly originating from the territory of the USA, Britain or France. This means that for Russia, "mirror-like" strikes on military facilities of the USA, Britain or France will simply not target anything on US, British and French soil. Period. Instead, those strikes will target facilities in Ukraine where US, British or French personnel are present, and that's nothing new. The strikes might possibly also target US, British or French facilities which are neither in any of those 3 countries, nor in Ukraine, but elsewhere. "Elsewhere" probably means any place on earth outside of any NATO country's territory, airspace and territorial waters. I'm thinking of Royal Navy ships on the high seas, US installations in Iraq etc. Biden, Starmer and Macron have put themselves into something of a predicament here because the North Atlantic Treaty clearly states that NATO's defense obligations only kick in when any NATO country is attacked on its home turf. Attacks on NATO hardware or personnel stationed anywhere abroad do not trigger the Treaty per se. So the “elsewhere” option may be something new, but just possibly.
To further underscore my point, Putin then goes on to explicitly mention it: “targets to be hit […] on Ukrainian territory.” Could it be any clearer than that?

You guys need to stop babbling about Russian missiles flying to Paris, Warsaw or whatever other NATO place you’re fantasizing about. It just won’t happen, not even potentially.

The very last bit I quoted from Putin may, however, also allude to something new. Contemplating proper targets for their counter strikes, the Russians “will in advance suggest […] citizens of friendly countries residing in those areas leave danger zones." I can only think of one place where this could apply to an actual situation on the ground, and that is downtown Kiev with its various foreign embassies. NATO has an official presence there, вул. Авіаконструктора Ігоря Сікорського 4-Л, and it’s been operating just fine until now. It makes me mad to think that they’ve been left untouched so far.

Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Nov 24 2024 17:38 utc | 9

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 24 2024 16:05 utc | 4

I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to. I thought all this Van Daniken BS had been consigned to b-grade film scripts, but apparently not. The main problem, which thankfully you point out, is a facile grasp of both the history and philosophy of science and technology. When one begins to grapple with that (via, e.g., the work of Gilbert Simondon) then historical moments (such as the production of thaumata ('wonders') under the patronage of the Ptolemies in Hellenistic Alexandria—which includes the Antikythera device) in the course of human technology cease to be so many 'developments' and can be understood as discrete combinations of productive forces with available ethical, political and historical conditions.

Posted by: Patroklos | Nov 24 2024 17:39 utc | 10

Posted by: Ansocpol | Nov 24 2024 17:09 utc | 8 As I understand it, what is modern Slovenia was incorporated directly into Germany, Italy and Hungary. Thus there was no space for a client fascist regime. Therefore, no Slovene equivalent to Monsignor Tiso et al. All nationalities had individual collaborators with fascism.

I followed the link to Heeb, didn't follow the link to Tod. Civilization/civilizational are rather amorphous. It seems to me that there are broad geographic areas where the technology of the times allowed major interactions between various states and peoples, creating widespread cultural affinities due to borrowings and independent development of those borrowing and opposition to those borrowings. In East Asia the various Chinese empires (which included at times Korea and Vietnam) had enormous influence, especially Japan. But are Korea and Vietnam and Japan really part of the Han civilizational? What is China without the influences from its inner Asian frontiers, from the Xiongnu to the Manchu? Personally I would favor a different terminology, maybe ecumene for such areas. The thing today is modern technology bids fair to make the planet a single such ecumene

In the case of the so-called West, it seems to me in practice to reduce either to Christendom, which I think is why Orthodox lands like Russia can have an ambiguous relationship with the so-called West. Or to capitalism, very often labeled as modernity, which I think is why less developed, colonialized regions like Latin America and Africa can also have such ambiguous relationships. Sometimes it seems to me the very notions civilization/civilizational have an element of mental continuity, if not outright collective mentalities, baked into it. This strikes me as idealist, a wrong approach.

And the same I

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 24 2024 17:39 utc | 11

How to cut between $2 to $12 trillion from US spending.

https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/how-to-cut-2-trillion-in-federal

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 24 2024 17:45 utc | 12

Thanks a lot for the link to Stefan Heeb's thought-provoking essay: What is “the West?", b.

Imo, it has become increasingly clear, since 9/11, that the West is a collection of Christian Colonial Countries. It's led by a gaggle of schizophrenic intellectual pygmies with delusions of grandeur who lack the wit to make ANYONE's dreams come true - including their own.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 24 2024 17:59 utc | 13

@Newbie | Nov 24 2024 15:39 utc | 2

Right here? Yes, plenty of hints about a descending process that might have hit its nadir where we start to date current civilization

Although I would not dismiss Davidovits' hypotheses out of hand, I don't find them central or compelling enough.

More interesting is the large volumes of empirical evidence found all around the world. Predominantly this is in the form of megalithic stonework such as in Peru, Bolivia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, India, Cambodia, China, Japan and a large number of other locations.

The topic is too large to cover in a short post, but the main argument is the observation of structures that show sizes and/or precision that go far beyond the accepted capabilities granted by conventional historians. An example is the Barabar caves in india: BARABAR - Breathtaking Precision and Geometry Discovered in Ancient Indian Granite Caves . There is no way these caves could have been built using hand techniques.

Other examples of astonishing precision include the thousands of granite vases with mathematically exact shapes found under the Djoser pyramid at Saqqara in Egypt. When measured by modern metrologists they reveal not only a mathematical design, but also an unheard of level of manufacturing precision.
Astonishing Results! More Ancient Egyptian Granite Vases Analyzed!.

See this article on the mathematical design https://unsigned.io/granite-artifact/
This is one example, but multiple similar examples have been observed since.

Like many others, I have visited Angkor Wat in Cambodia and observed the magnificent temples there (it is a HUGE site). But in addition to the relative modern marvels you see there, there are artifacts like "keystone cuts" that are found in just a few other places. A friend of mine is from Peru and he shoed me almost identical keystone cuts from Tiwanaku in Bolivia. If you go to see Angkor Wat you will see millions of holes on the stones, they are a couple of cm wide and of similar depth. They look like artifacts from some kind of industrial process, and when asked the guides could not provide a credible explanation for their existence.

I suggest people look up places like the Serapeum at Saqqara in Egypt, Sacsahuaman at Cusco in Peru, The Longyou caves in China to name just a few.

Conventional archaeology is unable to explain these with any credibility. The Giza pyramids were not built as tombs, in fact no pharaos or hieroglyphics have been found in them, they appear to have been built for a functional purpose, and the technical characteristics go far beyond the capabilities of the dynastic Egyptians.

Instead, if you listen to what the dynastic Egyptians say in their writings they say the Pyramids were inherited from the times of 'Zep Tepe', thousands of years earlier.

Combining traditions and scriptures from around the world, plus geologic observations in North America, the indications are that at least one cataclysm ended a human civilization around 13000 years ago, most likely because of a comet impact on the then Laurentide Ice sheet between present day Canada and US. This made the North American megafauna extinct by secondary impacts of kilometer size ice boulders crashing down all over present day US. The remains of this is still observable as the Carolina Bays . I believe this also caused mega-tsunamis crossing the Atlantic Ocean wiping out the existing civilization and becoming the origin of the story of 'the great floods'.

It took civilization ~7000 years to recover and reboot in Mesopotamia and Egypt, leaving only megalithic stonework to be observed from previous times.

Our current western civilization does not allow for others to be their equal, not in the present and not in the past. There is thus active resistance against such hypotheses, but the facts speak for themselves if you want to see,

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 24 2024 18:05 utc | 14

@c1ue | Nov 24 2024 16:05 utc | 4
and others about how the pyramids were built

Earlier this year there were news telegrams about previously unknown buried river beds in Egypt and it was speculated that this was used for more convenient transport of the heavy components.

Published: 16 May 2024

The Egyptian pyramid chain was built along the now abandoned Ahramat Nile Branch

Eman Ghoneim, Timothy J. Ralph, Suzanne Onstine, Raghda El-Behaedi, Gad El-Qady, Amr S. Fahil, Mahfooz Hafez, Magdy Atya, Mohamed Ebrahim, Ashraf Khozym & Mohamed S. Fathy

Communications Earth & Environment volume 5, Article number: 233 (2024)

Abstract

The largest pyramid field in Egypt is clustered along a narrow desert strip, yet no convincing explanation as to why these pyramids are concentrated in this specific locality has been given so far. Here we use radar satellite imagery, in conjunction with geophysical data and deep soil coring, to investigate the subsurface structure and sedimentology in the Nile Valley next to these pyramids. We identify segments of a major extinct Nile branch, which we name The Ahramat Branch, running at the foothills of the Western Desert Plateau, where the majority of the pyramids lie. Many of the pyramids, dating to the Old and Middle Kingdoms, have causeways that lead to the branch and terminate with Valley Temples which may have acted as river harbors along it in the past. We suggest that The Ahramat Branch played a role in the monuments’ construction and that it was simultaneously active and used as a transportation waterway for workmen and building materials to the pyramids’ sites.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01379-7

Posted by: petergrfstrm | Nov 24 2024 18:17 utc | 15

Posted by: Ansocpol | Nov 24 2024 17:09 utc | 8

The literature about the Croatian Nazi collaborators, the Ustasha, exists and the Ustasha puppet Nazi Croatian state is known, in particular for its genocidal crimes against the Serbs.

All Yugoslav nations had collaborators.

The Serbs had the Chetniks, notorious for the horrific crimes they committed in particular against the Bosnian Muslims. The same crimes were committed in many of the same places by the Serbian side in Bosnia in the 90's war that destroyed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Croat side also committed horrendous crimes against the Muslims in Bosnia in the 1991-1995 war.

The Slovenians also had their Nazi collaborators, the most prominent one being Leon Rupnik.

For history of Slovenia and specific topics of interest it is best to consult Slovenian sources first.

You can contact the History Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Ljubljana where you can ask to be directed to reliable sources and publications.
https://www.ff.uni-lj.si/en/about-department-history

Also the Institute of Contemporary History.
https://www.inz.si/en/Events/

I suggest you look for Yugoslav sources as a next step.
Knowledge of any of the Yugoslav languages would be helpful.

Posted by: JB | Nov 24 2024 18:28 utc | 16

Sometimes it seems to me the very notions civilization/civilizational have an element of mental continuity, if not outright collective mentalities, baked into it. This strikes me as idealist, a wrong approach.

- steven t johnson | Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:39:00 GMT | 11

cui bono?

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 24 2024 18:42 utc | 17

@ Scotch Bingeington | Nov 24 2024 17:38 utc | 9

thanks...that bears repeating..

.......i also enjoyed the stefan heeb substack post...

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 19:09 utc | 18

Sometimes it seems to me the very notions civilization/civilizational have an element of mental continuity, if not outright collective mentalities, baked into it. This strikes me as idealist, a wrong approach.

steven t johnson | Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:39:00 GMT | 11

As my first approach to comment on this got swallowed up, here's a retry; the original post or may not show up at some point. It was a simple remark, cui bono? in adding to some musings from last thread.

Mr. johnson's opinion here is clearly corrupt, ethically dangerous and factually wrong. In prove of my latter point, please regard that legal jurisdictions are dependent on the language they use, and with this comes both a specific history which implies a unique understanding, and a corresponding essential difficulty or, most likely (as observed), infeasibility of translating certain traditions into other languages and cultures without significant modification.

The benevolent supposition would be that Mr. johnson is a USian who speaks no second languages, but that is not true according to his own writing and apparent expertise.

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 24 2024 19:17 utc | 19

Dystopian synergy between Tel Aviv, Washington, and Silicon Valley:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/11/the-wars-come-home.html

Posted by: jayc | Nov 24 2024 19:33 utc | 20

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 24 2024 16:05 utc | 4

I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to. I thought all this Van Daniken BS had been consigned to b-grade film scripts, but apparently not. The main problem, which thankfully you point out, is a facile grasp of both the history and philosophy of science and technology. When one begins to grapple with that (via, e.g., the work of Gilbert Simondon) then historical moments (such as the production of thaumata ('wonders') under the patronage of the Ptolemies in Hellenistic Alexandria—which includes the Antikythera device) in the course of human technology cease to be so many 'developments' and can be understood as discrete combinations of productive forces with available ethical, political and historical conditions.

Posted by: Patroklos | Nov 24 2024 17:39 utc | 10

It took civilization ~7000 years to recover and reboot in Mesopotamia and Egypt, leaving only megalithic stonework to be observed from previous times.

Our current western civilization does not allow for others to be their equal, not in the present and not in the past. There is thus active resistance against such hypotheses, but the facts speak for themselves if you want to see,

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 24 2024 18:05 utc | 14

I'll answer three at the same time. First of all it is something that interests me deeply and tend to agree on much of Norwegian (but for small detail I'll mention later).

One I brought the conversation here as it should (thoughI'd prefer B had a fully open topic/pet interests, I always feel like i'm taking a dump in the global geopolitics not unkrain nor palestine thread)

An advanced, near current level, civilization to have exited is clearly before the 13.000 BP level.

Appart from what norwegian mentioned, I would remind the sea line changed so much that most things are tens of meters underwater.

I do not believe it ended with a comet, the hit zones and nature make me think we did it ourselves, nukes or hammers of god (that are now de rigeur) could do the trick, the rare metals would be not from meteors or comets but the vaporized cities.

The clovis look a lot like the few survivors who had whatever knowledge of what could be done and hunted and hunt they did, and too much, before their number reduced further and cultures diversified very fast (few hundred years as they split and spread).

I do not even believe that it was the first major exchange, the Jomon (14k BC vs clovis 11k BC) give me hope about the current cycle not being a major one.

Where I disagree with norwegian is that he thinks nothing advanced survived until 7000 years later it rebooted, Ancient myths and intermedate artifacts, some huge (and we're not here to discuss roman cement vs portland cement), seem to imply not everything went to the crapper at once, half the time from then to now is a cyclic war that destroys all knowledge and by a thousand years or two after the bottom, whaterver exhisted was no longer mantainable and indistinguishable from magic and soon ended used or degraded into uselessnes.

So big one 13k BP, half the time using and losing whatever was left until it really started from near zero by the start of concensual history.

And maybe there are some dating issues (contamination with fresh c14 is something we know a thing or two in the XXth century) and its slightly before 11kBC.

Now, it's not something to be thrown out as b-series movies or bad tv series, it's likely and might have lessons that we are very near to see how important they are.

And one thing, legends and dates in some longer lasting memory cultures have important clues.

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 19:41 utc | 21

@ Newbie | Nov 24 2024 19:41 utc | 21

the moa week in review and any open thread are the place to talk about this, so go for it - as you have!

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 19:48 utc | 22

And as I am about to be reduced to full crackpot category for my last post, may i digress on something that some raised (without any evidence so far AFAIK) about the "dust" after impact

Namely the difference between chemical bonds.

Let's take the opposite process, graphite basically flakes, but subject to heat and pressure forms diamond that is hard as hell.h

We know how most atoms behave when formed in standard conditions, but if something was to temporarily unbind them and rebind with a critical change in the "environment" might they reform with a totally different electronic configuration?

And what could create such conditions, preference for trivial options, a possible new symmetry breaking and how to achieve a lower energy state only long enough for the new preferred state can be left for after the 6the whiskey.

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 19:51 utc | 23

@ Newbie | Nov 24 2024 19:41 utc | 21

the moa week in review and any open thread are the place to talk about this, so go for it - as you have!

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 19:48 utc | 22

Thank you, I did, but I still would prefer a trash/pet thing thread as there is so much geopolitics to discuss here.

Feel free to drop by in any of the themes with opinions, facts or questions

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 19:54 utc | 24

@Newbie | Nov 24 2024 19:41 utc | 21

Thanks for debating in good faith.

Where I disagree with norwegian is that he thinks nothing advanced survived until 7000 years later it rebooted,

I have not said that and that is not really my opinion :-) . The fact that a civilization died does not mean that no-one survived and all knowledge was lost. There are some who believe that some people with advanced knowledge survived the cataclysm and established centers for passing on knowledge, such as agriculture. It is claimed that Gobekli Tepe in Turkey is one such location.

Another piece of hard evidence that not everybody died in the cataclysm are the elongated sculls found predominantly in Paracas, Peru but also in .... Crimea. Elongated sculls appear everywhere in Dynastic Egyptian illustrations.

Enormous Cone Head Of Paracas Peru
Some people with elongated skulls survived until around 2000 years ago.

This one is interesting and mentions the Black Sea and Crimea.
Paracas Elongated Skulls Of Peru: The DNA Results

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 24 2024 20:16 utc | 25

Everyone, (please!), if you haven't already, watch the discussion from Ted Postol to Nima Alkhorshid on Dialog Works that b has posted above!

I have been reading through the assessments and descriptions on our threads as much as I could, and here, briefly I think, is a clarification of the importance of Putin's demonstration of this new missile that has been completely missed, involving as it does the critical importance of past mistakes in international decisionmaking with respect to weapons control.

We must get this right!

Thank you b! Thank you, Nima!! Thank you, Professor Postol!!!

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 20:51 utc | 26

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 24 2024 20:16 utc | 25

Your particular example I would dismiss as, at best, "cargo cult" attempts at recreating previous functional improvements. (disclaimer I seldom watch youtube videos, will read almost anything but YT has a baud rate that makes loading a spectrum game look lightning fast, do you have pages or at least give me the conclusions?)

On the other hand it is true that genetic manipulation could leave its spawn for millennia beyond their creation, and the last remains of giants, "heros" and monsters seem to have been terminated only during the bronze dark ages.

As for any misunderstanding about your position on 6k without technical abilities I stand corrected.

My current assessment of the situation has started by using the hebrew 1656 cycle and interpolating for 12 138 year hegemonic cycles (probably with 46 years subcycles) and extrapolating to probable median cycles of 4X1656 and major ones? 8 would be quite bad, we'd be going into a very bad stage right now, 12 would give us some time.

Was already disappointed with that and spent some time on a 1632 year (with 13 subcycles) from Indian clues, but returned to the original one lately.

Up there there was an interesting phrase

"Sometimes it seems to me the very notions civilization/civilizational have an element of mental continuity, if not outright collective mentalities, baked into it. This strikes me as idealist, a wrong approach.

And the same I

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 24 2024 17:39 utc | 11"

When I mentioned hegemonic sub-cycles it implies lineages that occupy those slots (seldom alone, at least with thalasocracies vs land empires)

Feel free to answer, this is something I like discussing.

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 21:00 utc | 27

I don't know if there were any great civilizations before 3500BC or even before 7500BC but I do know it's been all downhill since:

The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, By Jared Diamond

Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.

https://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/Diamond-TheWorstMistakeInTheHistoryOfTheHumanRace.pdf

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Nov 24 2024 21:04 utc | 28

Re: War to Destroy Yugoslavia

As a general note - 99% of what one is told about the Wars to Destroy Yugoslavia is bald faced lies. However….

A good place to start is Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke‘s short book:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Journey_to_the_Rivers

An early 1990s blog with lots of deep dives on the topic
http://tenc.net/yugo.htm

Posted by: Exile | Nov 24 2024 21:08 utc | 29

my take... we came from a different planet that was further along... we lost that connection, but i do believe it explains the knowledge base that existed previously and what we get glimpses of still today.. i am sorry i can't fill in the blanks.. i also believe their are beings on other planets that are both further along and less developed then us too... it could be a cause for us to come together on this planet and see how we are all living in the same house essentially - planet earth.. but this would require a level of trust and appreciation for the differences we witness.. there are many forces that work against this and we must learn how to transcend them and learn how to live with others.. that is essentially what we are doing here at present, and as scary as it looks, we have the ability to do this.. i believe in the basic goodness of people.. that said, there may be a small part who are unwilling to take the high road and that is also what we have to work with here.. maybe we will make it - maybe we won't, but i trust most people want to take the high road...

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 21:10 utc | 30

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 24 2024 17:39 utc | 11

It has always rather seemed to me that ancient peoples did much more travelling amongst themselves than we give them credit for doing. There were Christians in China, for instance, far earlier than we realize.

Also, the point raised about ancient rivers is one I was realizing when reading recently that pathways in Jerusalem from merely 2 centuries ago have disappeared underground. It hasn't always been the way we see it today; the earth moves, and structures settle into new conformations thanks to the forces of nature.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 21:21 utc | 31

Sometimes it seems to me the very notions civilization/civilizational have an element of mental continuity, if not outright collective mentalities, baked into it. This strikes me as idealist, a wrong approach.

And the same I

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 24 2024 17:39 utc | 11

Why would a collective mentality strike you as idealist, dear STJ?

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Nov 24 2024 21:32 utc | 32

i believe in the basic goodness of people...
@ james | Nov 24 2024 21:10 utc | 30

The Anne Frank quote which you more or less reference has been the subject of painstaking cogitation, on my part. I integrated various texts with some visual work -- including calligraphy, with Anne's positive outlook. After I did it, I couldn't figure out if it was respectful and loving, or ridiculous and pathetic, to repeat such words, in such context:

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

I couldn't stand the ambivalence and needed a philosophy pause, to figure out where I stand, before resuming such calligraphy. I'm still dazed and confused about it, truth be told.

Thanks for your heartfelt reflections anyhow, james. My intense encounter with Anne Frank's words was many years ago. I don't weigh such questions in the same manner today, for better or worse. Probably for worse. Lately I feel I'm losing heart, losing any remaining faith in humanity. Folks out here in California tend toward the hollow-shell end of the moral spectrum, perhaps. Potemkin humanoids.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Nov 24 2024 21:38 utc | 33

Thank you, b, for the Glenn Diesen article "Can China Rise Peacefully?"

On a previous open forum, some posts were suggesting that China has challenged the US in collaborating with Saudi Arabia on a similar bonds system using dollars to the one the US has. (I hope I am expressing that correctly - I really don't know what I am talking about when it comes to economics.) I didn't see Diesen addressing this - my (admittedly poor) understanding is that bonds are rather vital to keeping the US financial boat from collapsing. So, this could be a frightening prospect involving the US ability to do whatever it is doing to offset the gigantic interest payments on the national debt and so forth.

I won't venture further into waters that are totally unchartered for me, but I was wondering if this could be a mechanism, if handled carefully by China, for that imbalance between the West and the rest to be incrementally rectified over time?

Would love to hear from those in the know, economically speaking. I did see an upfront video from Richard Wolff on youtube - will go check that out.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 21:46 utc | 34

Everyone, (please!), if you haven't already, watch the discussion from Ted Postol to Nima Alkhorshid on Dialog Works that b has posted above!

I have been reading through the assessments and descriptions on our threads as much as I could, and here, briefly I think, is a clarification of the importance of Putin's demonstration of this new missile that has been completely missed, involving as it does the critical importance of past mistakes in international decisionmaking with respect to weapons control.

We must get this right!

Thank you b! Thank you, Nima!! Thank you, Professor Postol!!!

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 20:51 utc | 26

If only the portion after min 28 I did

But postol is worth discussing in the ukraine thread

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 21:50 utc | 35

@ Aleph_Null | Nov 24 2024 21:38 utc | 33

thanks aleph! i am unfamiliar with anne franks work, or words... i am speaking off the top of my head, but i did read a book very recently - humankind - which reinforced this basic idea.. you might enjoy the book... it is easy to lose faith and i think everyone does from time to time too.. maybe more time on your own meditating could help? i don't know, but wish you the best.. you are lucky to live in beautiful california.. my brother loves california and is their right now - ventura area.. he's a bit like the canada geese - he flies south for the winter, lol..

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 21:50 utc | 36

@ james | Nov 24 2024 21:50 utc | 36

Look up Jack Finney's 1955 The Body Snatchers (upon which the sci-fi/horror flicks were based). The alien germ which snatched our bodies for duplicates could only persist in duplicate form for a few decades, before dying out and getting wafted on cosmic breezes to their next planet to wastefully consume. (Kinda remind you of somebody?)

The Donald Sutherland remake is an all-time classic, imho. And a really cute glimpse of San Francisco from something like 50 years ago.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Nov 24 2024 22:00 utc | 37

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Nov 24 2024 21:04 utc | 28

Another inspiring read on the myth of progress and the origin of social inequality: The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow.

Posted by: limpus | Nov 24 2024 22:00 utc | 38

The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, By Jared Diamond

Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.

https://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/Diamond-TheWorstMistakeInTheHistoryOfTheHumanRace.pdf

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Nov 24 2024 21:04 utc | 28

my take... we came from a different planet that was further along... we lost that connection, but i do believe it explains the knowledge base that existed previously and what we get glimpses of still today.. i am sorry i can't fill in the blanks.. i also believe their are beings on other planets that are both further along and less developed then us too... it could be a cause for us to come together on this planet and see how we are all living in the same house essentially - planet earth.. but this would require a level of trust and appreciation for the differences we witness.. there are many forces that work against this and we must learn how to transcend them and learn how to live with others.. that is essentially what we are doing here at present, and as scary as it looks, we have the ability to do this.. i believe in the basic goodness of people.. that said, there may be a small part who are unwilling to take the high road and that is also what we have to work with here.. maybe we will make it - maybe we won't, but i trust most people want to take the high road...

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 21:10 utc | 30

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

I couldn't stand the ambivalence and needed a philosophy pause, to figure out where I stand, before resuming such calligraphy. I'm still dazed and confused about it, truth be told.

Thanks for your heartfelt reflections anyhow, james. My intense encounter with Anne Frank's words was many years ago. I don't weigh such questions in the same manner today, for better or worse. Probably for worse. Lately I feel I'm losing heart, losing any remaining faith in humanity. Folks out here in California tend toward the hollow-shell end of the moral spectrum, perhaps. Potemkin humanoids.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Nov 24 2024 21:38 utc | 33

Once again I will answer several at the same time as things are connected and I am lazy.

Let us start with agriculture, mixed blessing at best, indeed may social evils (and probably biological as well) , but allows 3 magnitudes (only a magnitude less than current level) population compared with hunter gatherers.

That leads to one or two highly speculative questions, we are probably, begining to re-diverge from the baseline 37-38 year life expectation, how much more had we gone inn that direction and how much have wee lost. Still in the biological issues, did we bio-wreck how much of what we attained? Was the last major change in brain circa 30.000 BC a win or a lose? We have modern man for almost 300k years...

Maybe Doris Lessing was right and this is Shikasta, and it is thorougly genetic, senescence and culturaly broken, maybe it's not even our fault and amazing that in so little time some of us, as james brought to the conversation, are basicaly ethic people when probably little more than children.

James, maybe not another planet, maybe this one some 30 something thousand years ago, or even the still reasonable one of 13.000 years ago, maybe this is just the shame of some cousins that got out in time, UFOs anyone? Would be much simpler to have hidden cousins in the solar systm looking at the inbred red necks in this god forgoten corner. Maybe its still too contaminated for them and the people too broken to fix.

Anyway, we're still on the second whiskey so go easy :)

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 22:19 utc | 39

@juliania | Nov 24 2024 20:51 utc

Yes, thanks to Nima and Ted Postol.

What struck me most in that vid was Ted Postal's apoplexy - his struggle to find words to describe the madness of Western leadership.

The dis-connect between what we - rationally, reasonably - should be doing and what we are doing is astonishing and shockingly horrible. We - the "rest" of us, are _so_ much better than, so much deserving of a better fate that what these sociopaths are capable of.

Reject the stupid. It's _stupid_. Let there be no mechanism to make this stupid "normal". It's criminal. Ted Postol's an accurate witness.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Nov 24 2024 22:31 utc | 40

Any suggestions on how to access the Todd piece?

Posted by: Bart | Nov 24 2024 22:47 utc | 41

@juliania | Nov 24 2024 20:51 utc

Yes, thanks to Nima and Ted Postol.

What struck me most in that vid was Ted Postal's apoplexy - his struggle to find words to describe the madness of Western leadership.

The dis-connect between what we - rationally, reasonably - should be doing and what we are doing is astonishing and shockingly horrible. We - the "rest" of us, are _so_ much better than, so much deserving of a better fate that what these sociopaths are capable of.

Reject the stupid. It's _stupid_. Let there be no mechanism to make this stupid "normal". It's criminal. Ted Postol's an accurate witness.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Nov 24 2024 22:31 utc | 40

Your answer made me remember that yesterday, not 24 hours ago, I posted the lyrics for one of the great songs by that waterboys that has direct connection to this issue, ladies and gentlemen, don't bang the drum

Well here we are in a special place
What are you gonna do here?
Now we stand in a special place
What will you do here?
What show of soul are we gonna get from you?
It could be deliverance, or history
Under these skies so blue
Could be something true
But if I know you you'll bang the drum
Like monkeys do
Here we are in a fabulous place
What are you gonna dream here?
We are standing in this fabulous place
What are you gonna play here?
I know you love the high life, you love to leap around
You love to beat your chest and make your sound
But not here man - this is sacred ground
With a Power flowing through
And if I know you you'll bang the drum
Like monkeys do
Here we stand on a rocky shore
Your father stood here before you
I can see his ghost explore you
I can feel the sea implore you
Not to pass on by
Not to walk on by
And not to try
Just to let it come
Don't bang the drum
Just let it come
Don't bang the drum
Just let it come
Don't bang the drum
Do you know how to let it come now?
Don't bang the drum
Just let it come now.
Don't bang the drum...
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum
Don't bang the drum

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 22:49 utc | 42

Aleph_Null | Nov 24 2024 21:38 utc | 33
*** My intense encounter with Anne Frank's words was many years ago.***

Words as scripted by who, and written in ball-point pen?

Posted by: Cynic | Nov 24 2024 22:55 utc | 43

@ aleph_null

Gosh I like the Donald Sutherland one. So stinking scary.

Love the ‘55 one with Kevin McCarthy, too. He was a great actor and such a kind person by all accounts.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Nov 24 2024 23:03 utc | 44

Bah! If this is the “hobby horse” thread I can rant about about those still stuck in 1990s night-club life who insist on dropping an ‘E’ into whisky...

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Nov 24 2024 23:03 utc | 45

@ Aleph_Null | Nov 24 2024 22:00 utc | 37

thanks.. i generally don't watch movies, but i will hold that thought! i read books and listen or play music.. that is mostly 'my thing'... speaking of which i saw a band from san francisco 2 nights ago - rick estrin and the nightcats... they were pretty entertaining!

@ Newbie | Nov 24 2024 22:19 utc | 39

i read doris lessings shikasta series many years ago.. that was almost like her attempt are delving into sci fi, lol... i had read her 'golden notebook' and some of her other works and really like her writing..

some of my ideas are coming out of the work or words from madame blavatsky - isis unveiled and the secret doctrine... they are the type of books mostly no one would read.. the theory which i liked was that we are spiritual beings born of the spirit of god - whatever you want to call it and we are learning how to function in a physical sheath or body which is ultimately a longish process.. essentially we lost touch with this spiritual dimension by taking on the physical form, although some have reconnected with it and are in the process of reconnecting with it.. the universe is one huge mystery.. whether we came from a different planet or not - i don't think it really matters, although i do think their is some type of human like life on other planets... thinking about these sacred and ancient sites around the world - the pyramids and etc. etc. - are connections to the past.. i don't really understand these connections, but i believe we would be best served with a humble attitude about things we don't know, as opposed to thinking we know more then we do..

@ Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Nov 24 2024 23:03 utc | 45

reminds me of the rave culture and dropping ecstasy, lol.. i guess that is it.. what is their to say? go for it!

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 23:22 utc | 46

Bah! If this is the “hobby horse” thread I can rant about about those still stuck in 1990s night-club life who insist on dropping an ‘E’ into whisky...

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Nov 24 2024 23:03 utc | 45

Never a fan of scotch, so whiskey it is (all hail our drunk irish overlords)

And make it early 1980's and i'll avow I'm probably from a later vintage than you, and though not a fan of folk bands (exception to the waterboys and the pogues) find some of the waterboys lyrics deeply resonate with what I would consider the better part of my little black soul.

Some of our more spiritual colleagues will probably agree. Took me some decades to get there.

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 23:23 utc | 47

some of my ideas are coming out of the work or words from madame blavatsky - isis unveiled and the secret doctrine... they are the type of books mostly no one would read..

@ Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Nov 24 2024 23:03 utc | 45

reminds me of the rave culture and dropping ecstasy, lol.. i guess that is it.. what is their to say? go for it!

Posted by: james | Nov 24 2024 23:22 utc | 46

Dividing the years by the right number even the root races might match actual real stages. For the rest there is and overlap, legacy between theosophy right down to scientology and the heretics within, the pilot mainly, and there might be something there, but it's not a discussion about this universe.

Dropping E in the 90's its probably cut stuff, sometimes good, but dozen years later easy to find the good pure stuff and though often misunderstood and understated, up there with the classic psychedelics. Many take it to get high, some to escape, others to travel and learn.

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 23:31 utc | 48

Knowledge is not transported like material artefacts between noetic beings; it clearly jumps right across at times, and in fact this doesn't necessarily involve encounters with another Thou, whether actually present or by means of media like letters, books, or obscure online fora.

This is a very tricky topic to discuss. Any serious analysis must question what exactly 'knowledge' is supposed to mean, and how it does come about, and doing that leads quite literally to the rim of the known universe, where apparently simple terms and notions cease to make sense. I'll thence not try to embark on a deep dive but shall be content with some very brief sketches of the phenomenon at hand. However, readers of obscure online fora will rightly be not, so let me apologize to you for any inconvenience here.

The most striking example I am aware of concerns crystal formation. Crystals are thought of as regular lattices of atoms (or complexes of those), but in reality things are a bit less neat and tidy. Go visit a mineralogical museum if you happen to find one; I think most universities with a geo branch would have at least some kind of collection which you can study. These things are strikingly beautiful and strangely touching for some, so it's worth keeping in mind what Plotin said about stones - that they experience yearning, too.

As things stand, I have to interrupt myself at this point for a freak anecdote that is still right on the matter. I learned about the idea that stones experience yearning some ten years ago, when it was first revealed to me in a dream which I had while asleep on a mild dose of LSD. The situation resembled what some people describe as alien abduction, though for me it clearly came in a dream state. A friend was with me at the time, and she woke me from it as I was trembling uncomfortably; my experience however was very non-scary. Half jokingly, two aliens invited me over for a chat on their spaceship to share this insight with me, in stating that "See! the creatures, the plants, and the stones have it too, but they are lacking your language to express themselves through".

I was a bit stunned, but also impressed by the very idea, which would have seemed beyond far-fetched to me before. As it went, the thought turned out to be a major opening into later conceptual developments for me, and those about me as well. I only recently learned that Plotin had written the very same thing; it's in Ennead 3.8 if memory serves, where it is the very first sentence.

As I should add, such instances of helpful ideas suddenly appearing either out of nowhere or related by some kind of helpful beings are not rare or unusual when speaking in terms of parapsychology. As is Jungian synchronicity upon closer and open-minded inspection, we're seeing it right on this thread in spades.

But back to the crystal lattices now. They form under certain conditions such as pressure and temperature with a specific likelihood, underlying a statistic process which can be computed to some degree by chemists and observed in a laboratory, where the ease of forming a lettuce lattice shows as speed of growth. Material sciences does this kind of research a lot. Now the strange thing is that some types of crystals, which are grown in labs under conditions that are alien to the natural universe, exhibit rates of growth which are non-steady, but accelerating. It doesn't matter which lab where on the planet at what time (in the future) repeats the experiment for the effect to show.

The nearest idea of what's happening I can think of is that some kind of platonic notions are coming into being as the crystal grows, and henceforth will float about in the collective subconscious, to which apparently all noetic beings are having access, the stones among them. At the same time, future repetition of these experiments does exhibit the so-called decline effect, which is encountered throughout in psy research (but not yet understood).

Now let's take that notion and see where it gets us. Inventor's gatherings are notorious for instances of jumping, I hear. Milder forms of immaterial transmission are very much common, but often overlooked; it appears in footballing teams, jazz bands, and when you're walking a dog. It's happening when learning a language, and there are quite a few reports of people with neurological damage who suddenly speak in a different language, without ever having acquired it at all. Many scientific inventions came to the studious folks of a sudden, and among mathematicians of all people it is almost trivial to find novel ideas and insights hitting home when you would normally least expect them, especially when the mind is in a relaxed state, often when doing things like housework or brushing teeth. Robert Monroe, of Chicago, who invented binaural meditation, gave courses on how you can learn to better tap 'Source' for helpful ideas, irrespective of your field of interest; it works just as well in, say, business administration. I have no reason to expect you somehow need Mr. Monroe's courses to achieve success, I saw it working out on myself without much methodical training, simply by ... yeah, it's hard to formulate, but I liken it to training one's antennas, to receive what you order from Source, almost as you would order something from Amazon. And they deliver.

It is, however, remarkable and worth pointing out that we also forget, or find ourselves being forgetful (to make use of the english language advantage in expressing this thought). This is, on a very foundational level, not an accident or a shortcoming, but a feature (rather than a 'bug'). That opens another question of course, but I wanted to just add it here in light of the above discussion.

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 24 2024 23:50 utc | 49

[ Short comment and then I'm off again. Posting from a different machine (the one I used sort of broke ("danger pillow" battery) but the IP should be the same). ]

Aleph_Null you might not agree with any of the following but if you do it might help (or not).

Maybe this doesn't even make any sense.

1. We/humans are all simply more complicated than what your conundrum allows or alternatively than what you seem to require as an answer.

2. We/humans are by nature generally aspirational, some much more than others and some much less but it's still there in nearly everyone. Not only for ourselves but for other individuals as well as children, family, groups, societies, cultures. It is neither good nor evil but causes a lot of both.

3. Closely associated with point 2 we deny reality (and anything that goes against our confirmation bias) when it suits us (almost always) and call it "dreaming" or improvement/progress, ambition, intelligence, anything that sticks, any justification (look at the zionists and "israelites" right now).

At least sometimes we humans are monsters and sometimes we realize some humans are monsters, but if we start to think many humans are monsters all the time or that those that are acting as monsters must always be monsters in everything they do we quickly realize (consciously or not) that in the end as a consequence of that (and despite how just about everyone would deny this, perhaps very loudly) it also makes us ourselves as single individuals monsters (even if currently very well behaved ones) thus one chooses to believe that deep down everyone is "good" as a defense mechanism.

Take that even further and stuff like Stockholm syndrome and all sorts of serious mental problems start to appear. It's pretty ugly.

Objective true or not true does not really enter the picture as one subjectively picks and chooses denial and affirmation to somehow in the end not go insane or at least go less insane than otherwise. By far the easiest way to do this is to say that deep down there's always something good...

...and maybe it is true?

We simply do not know.

· · · · · · · · ·

To all:
Btw it is not all that nutty to believe all sorts of weird things we do not really know yet. Just try to stay somewhat grounded and realize not everything has to be a confirmation or denial of this or that or even connected.

New data = new conclusions & not everyone shares the same data or interpretation of it and never will (at least not in this realm where doing so would actually be physically impossible).

Take care all and be as kind to yourselves and others as you can manage in these horrific times. Wish you all well.

(I am unlikely to read any replies but don't worry about that and don't let it stop you).

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Nov 25 2024 0:05 utc | 50

If anything should remove the rose-tinted glasses from the eyes of the Trump lovers it should be Trump's appointment of a Soros construct as the Treasury Secretary, a pure financial oligarchy friendly appointment. No "draining the swamp" there. Yeah, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. He wants to make cuts to social security and medicare to fund the extension of Trump's rich people tax cuts, and fund the bigger "defence" budget.

Note to Trump: Financially Destroying Average Americans & Trashing the Administrative State Wont MAGA; Rentier, Extractive Capitalism Destroying Its Own Social & Economic Base

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Nov 25 2024 0:09 utc | 51

I wrote my above after reading the thread up to comment number 37; as expected, more synchronicity is happening afterwards. Note that it's coming in a light-handed manner, almost as if joking with us. It probably is.

[juke box] Snap! - Rhythm is a Dancer

Different video from the original, worthwhile on its own. The tune was a late burner for me, but I just love it now. The way the vocals are going into the refrain is bonkers, unfazed as can be, as if shifting into the next higher gear of the warp drive. It works on repeated listening, too.

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 25 2024 0:12 utc | 52

@ james | Nov 24 2024 23:22 utc | 46 with the mention of rick estrin and the nightcats that used to be Little Charlie & the Nightcats.

I have seen both in person multiple times and have CDs....good stuff if you are into the blues.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 25 2024 0:30 utc | 53

NOT A LONG COMMENT, BUT SEVERAL IN ONE POST!

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 22:19 utc | 39 About agriculture as the conspiracy to oppress the evil, there is evidence to suggest that agriculture began as something of an artisanal hobby and sometimes lapsed. The eventual triumph of agriculture may have been the result of a prolonged necessity. Refer to Richard G. Wilkinson's work Poverty and Progress. The evil man who first put up a fence probably got stabbed in his sleep otherwise? It's not clear ancient humans all lived short lives. Most children dying before adulthood lowers life expectancy yet history attests that many survivors lived lives long as ours. There were just fewer old people as a proportion of the population. Not sure why anyone sees major species change as recently as 30 000 years ago. Evolutionary change is a never ending process. Speciation has a terminus a quo (DNA suggests up to 300 000 years ago) but the terminus ad quem? The biological species concept defines a species as those organisms that interbreed with each other. The DNA evidence for interbreeding with Neandertals (also Denisovans) strongly suggests that humanity had not completed the process of speciation. The chances of modern man being extant 300 000 years ago strike me as very small indeed. Skeletal remains are visibly distinct, Neandertals have heavy brow ridges and an occipital bun (origin point for muscles?) while modern humans have prominent chins and cleft or divided small brow ridges. The rest I don't understand or cites facts I have no confidence in.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 21:21 utc | 31 If the main point is the historical pervasiveness of influences between cultures, I whole heartedly agree. Given that the Church of the East, commonly labeled Nestorian, is now usually considered heretical, I have no confidence in easily calling it Christian as now understood. Most Scientologists were raised as Christians or in a pervasively Christian society, are they really not part of the Christian civilization/civilizational? Historically, the Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa (influenced so far as I can tell by the Delaware prophet Neolin) gathered together followers from many tribes in his Prophet's Town. His brother Tecumseh carried the message as far south as the Red Stick division of the Creek as part of his Pan-Indian resistance project. The Seneca prophet Handsome Lake so far as I can tell was powerfully influenced by his predecessors. I have no confidence at all in my childhood training to tell me which sects or denominations are really Christian and which are mere impostors.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Nov 24 2024 21:32 utc | 32 One form of so-called collective mentality is the phenomenon called groupthink. Insofar as it is real thing, rather than an insult, it occurs in some sort of institution, a group of people bound together by the goals of the institution (whether formal or not) where conformity is enforced by rewards and punishments of some kind. It is a rather material, objective phenomenon insofar as it exists. One can judge the plausibility of tradition as a motivating cause for all many of individuals in many different situations in daily life going their separate way without external coaching, but only the influence. Just ask yourself how good a job your school succeeded in imposing the official culture on both you and everybody you met? Or, how well do parents succeed in passing on their thinking to their children? Talking about tradition even as a merely relatively independent causal agent without a historical analysis of the institution teaching the tradition and allowing for the inevitable variation in transmission, you're not talking sensibly at all, so far as I can tell. The serious question is, why would anyone believe in a collective mentality as if it were somehow a free-floating, detached, nonmaterial thing that transcends mere human lifespans, unless they were idealists?

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 21:00 utc | 27 I can't say I understand this, not in the context of my reservations about the recent prominence of civilization/civilizational. The thalassocracies vs. land empires distinction seems geopolitical. But, the Athenians and the Spartans were both Hellenic, weren't they? Latin America is generally regarded as somehow different, but how/why? Is Africa somehow one? If it's linguistic, China has many languages, but they are not considered different civilizations/civilizationals. Religious? Buddhism born and died in continental India, but is China Indian civilization/civilizational? Is Sri Lanka really a civilization/civilizational battleground? These kinds of questions are why I have such reservations about the use of civilization/civilizational.

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 24 2024 19:17 utc | 19 God only knows what definition of fact is being used here, much less what fact I got wrong. There's something about "both a specific history which implies a unique understanding..." which in law is just wrong. That's why there are judicial opinions to enforce an understanding. Better to have written "a unique biography which implies a personal understanding, which would be correct but not serve the rhetorical purpose. The other, "and a corresponding essential difficulty or, most likely (as observed), infeasibility of translating certain traditions into other languages and cultures without significant modification" is entirely misleading. It is impossible to translate anything without modification even within the same culture and/or language. That's why Chaucer is translated. It is even true of more recent times, when printing allows technically perfect transmission. The language changes. That's why an unwary reader who imagines perfect understanding of the King James Bible (aka Authorized Version) or Shakespear is self-deceived.

 

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 0:35 utc | 54

As I should add, such instances of helpful ideas suddenly appearing either out of nowhere or related by some kind of helpful beings are not rare or unusual when speaking in terms of parapsychology. As is Jungian synchronicity upon closer and open-minded inspection, we're seeing it right on this thread in spades.

I saw it working out on myself without much methodical training, simply by ... yeah, it's hard to formulate, but I liken it to training one's antennas, to receive what you order from Source, almost as you would order something from Amazon. And they deliver.

It is, however, remarkable and worth pointing out that we also forget, or find ourselves being forgetful (to make use of the english language advantage in expressing this thought). This is, on a very foundational level, not an accident or a shortcoming, but a feature (rather than a 'bug'). That opens another question of course, but I wanted to just add it here in light of the above discussion.

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 24 2024 23:50 utc | 49

PK Dick put it best, gnosis and Anamnesis. But a big yes for Jung

Not all, maybe little knowledge comes from "scientif exploration" (though unbeatable to then work out details and aplication, techne is just that)

------------

Btw it is not all that nutty to believe all sorts of weird things we do not really know yet. Just try to stay somewhat grounded and realize not everything has to be a confirmation or denial of this or that or even connected.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Nov 25 2024 0:05 utc | 50

curiouser and curiouser isn't it?

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 25 2024 0:44 utc | 55

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Nov 25 2024 0:09 utc | 51 Saw this late. True enough even a moderate progressive can agree with it, even if they laugh at the thought that Lina Khan was a mushroom that magically sprouted while the oligarchs' vegetable garden went to seed. Have no idea why this commenter isn't happy to have gotten the Trump so ardently desired. Drinking liberal tears' isn't intoxicating as hoped?

The point that DOGE is supposed to be outside the government is somehow not seen as a move to replace government. The still vague trial balloons floated about a non-governmental "warrior council," if that comes to be, would also be an outside force aiming to subordinate the entire officer corps in a highly militaristic country. The general trend of moves to establish a dictatorship is ignored.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 0:52 utc | 56

There is THIS, too.

Posted by: Maracatu | Nov 24 2024 15:38 utc | 1
==============

Thank you!!
Listened to the whole interview (I was unable to access Todd's book on Anna's Archive).
I have heard so much about Todd---it was great actually to see and hear him.
What a great and sympathischer mind.
The interview is in English with German subtitles.
Genial fuer uns Deutschsprechende.

Todd's account of the rise of an educated class that comes to look down on other citizens certainly reminds me of Thomas Frank's "Listen, Liberal."

Posted by: Jane | Nov 25 2024 1:00 utc | 57

NOT A LONG COMMENT, BUT SEVERAL IN ONE POST!

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 22:19 utc | 39 About agriculture as the conspiracy to oppress the evil, there is evidence to suggest that agriculture began as something of an artisanal hobby and sometimes lapsed. The eventual triumph of agriculture may have been the result of a prolonged necessity. Refer to Richard G. Wilkinson's work Poverty and Progress. The evil man who first put up a fence probably got stabbed in his sleep otherwise? It's not clear ancient humans all lived short lives. Most children dying before adulthood lowers life expectancy yet history attests that many survivors lived lives long as ours. There were just fewer old people as a proportion of the population. Not sure why anyone sees major species change as recently as 30 000 years ago. Evolutionary change is a never ending process. Speciation has a terminus a quo (DNA suggests up to 300 000 years ago) but the terminus ad quem? The biological species concept defines a species as those organisms that interbreed with each other. The DNA evidence for interbreeding with Neandertals (also Denisovans) strongly suggests that humanity had not completed the process of speciation. The chances of modern man being extant 300 000 years ago strike me as very small indeed. Skeletal remains are visibly distinct, Neandertals have heavy brow ridges and an occipital bun (origin point for muscles?) while modern humans have prominent chins and cleft or divided small brow ridges. The rest I don't understand or cites facts I have no confidence in.

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 24 2024 21:00 utc | 27 I can't say I understand this, not in the context of my reservations about the recent prominence of civilization/civilizational. The thalassocracies vs. land empires distinction seems geopolitical. But, the Athenians and the Spartans were both Hellenic, weren't they? Latin America is generally regarded as somehow different, but how/why? Is Africa somehow one? If it's linguistic, China has many languages, but they are not considered different civilizations/civilizationals. Religious? Buddhism born and died in continental India, but is China Indian civilization/civilizational? Is Sri Lanka really a civilization/civilizational battleground? These kinds of questions are why I have such reservations about the use of civilization/civilizational.

a
Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 0:35 utc | 54

Will only take mine on this one.

Inner cranium form had a final "upgrade"(?) circa 30k BCE. Sapiens sapiens (not Neandertalensis) has seen his rise thrown back quite a lot and is now almost 300k years ago. (our divergence was probably 800-500ky)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/morocco-early-human-fossils-anthropology-science

for the 30k I couldn't find it right now, but will leave an interesting one, and maybe functional asperger is an adaptation to evolve enough on too short a time.

Now for the civilizations, sparta and athens are very different hegemonic cycle (remember the spartans are dorians/heracleide), almost half cycle removed, and though I've just did a very swift review of africa I found and tagged very different lineages. Same for pre-colombian americas, only in the mexico area I could find 3 or 4 with several breaks and re-stars. (have to find the spreadsheet)

Lanka? probably a previous major player and definitely not baratha india (india itself has 3 or 4 appart from lanka, and that's what allows long term sustainability, you have to have to have someone to take over when yoou get tired, china is another fine example and apart from mongol, jurchen I would almost bet that the sichuan han have very little to do with the other han )

BTW I don't use the word civilizaions (often a mix and merger that works) but lineages

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 25 2024 1:21 utc | 58

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Nov 25 2024 0:09 utc | 51

Trump selecting Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as surgeon general isn't a very good choice either.

Posted by: lex talionis | Nov 25 2024 1:36 utc | 59

It's fine, Jeremy Rhymings-Lang: thanks partly to the supremacy of scotch, WHISKY is secure throughout the English-speaking world, apart from that swollen-headed country beyond the western curve of the horizon. And Irish.

Posted by: petra | Nov 25 2024 1:49 utc | 60

Trump selecting Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as surgeon general isn't a very good choice either.

Posted by: lex talionis | Nov 25 2024 1:36 utc | 59

Why not? I could think of a nice big pair of reasons to concur :D

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 25 2024 1:51 utc | 61

And Irish.

Posted by: petra | Nov 25 2024 1:49 utc | 60

Irish is nice, irish beats scotch everytime, took some centuries but they did in all possible interpretations

f*** just finished my jameson bottle, it's poor man's monday, nightie night

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 25 2024 1:55 utc | 62

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 0:35 utc | 54

Thanks for as far as you went, steven. I wish I had at my fingertips the link, I believe to an Orthodox Christian writer, that discussed the Nestorian qualifications for being considered a heresy- that writer (whose name I don't remember) felt the accusation had been narrowly interpreted. I'm happy to agree, even if I can't reference the quotation. There are more important considerations for those calling themselves followers of Christ . There were churches in China - that's enough for me.

Interestingly, today's Old Calendar Gospel reading is Luke 10: 25-37. Christ himself praised the good Samaritan, who would certainly have been classed as such.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 25 2024 2:04 utc | 63

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 25 2024 1:51 utc | 61

She praised Facebook for censoring “anti-vaccine” sentiment & wanted other companies to do the same.

"We have many vaccines in existence that treat a variety of non-life threatning diseases but to have a COVID vaccine, i.e. a Pfizer or Moderna mRNA that will actually save you from dying is a gift from God."
- Dr. Janette Nesheiwat

Bloodhound Gang - Lift Your Head Up High (And Blow Your Brains Out)

Posted by: lex talionis | Nov 25 2024 2:11 utc | 64

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 25 2024 1:51 utc | 61

She praised Facebook for censoring “anti-vaccine” sentiment & wanted other companies to do the same.

"We have many vaccines in existence that treat a variety of non-life threatning diseases but to have a COVID vaccine, i.e. a Pfizer or Moderna mRNA that will actually save you from dying is a gift from God."
- Dr. Janette Nesheiwat

Bloodhound Gang - Lift Your Head Up High (And Blow Your Brains Out)

Posted by: lex talionis | Nov 25 2024 2:11 utc | 64

Sorry just talking about her jugs.

The whole covid caper was one bad mistake after another, choosing the S1 spike (most lethal part for itself) and injectable was the original sin, main envelope protein (ideally shared by other coronas as the japanese tried) nasal attenuated full virus with co-adjuvant as portuguese proposed (highly likely to avoid spreading). Any of those would be probably more effective and far less dangerous. Then the big greed, vaccine everybody when only the elder might benefit (bad as it was in tired immune systems I believe, barely, that the current vaccines are net positive)

I hope there was some kind of bio warfare logic involved, otherwise pure greed caused one of the worst massacres in history.

But she'll have RK jr to straighten her up, medieval style if need be.

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 25 2024 2:40 utc | 65

@Posted by: lex talionis | Nov 25 2024 2:11 utc | 64

Seems to be more a self-promoter and media personality than a medical expert, being a qualified family doctor does not make one a medical expert. But Trump has a soft spot for self promoters ... and voluptuous women.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Nov 25 2024 2:44 utc | 66

Caitlin Johnstone on Trump's cabinet picks and Ukraine:

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/trumps-cabinet-picks-arent-looking

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 25 2024 3:07 utc | 67

Johnstone:

If it seems like these remarks from Trump’s incoming administration work very nicely with the actions of the outgoing administration, then you may find it interesting that Waltz just told Fox News Sunday that the two administrations are working “hand in glove” as the presidency changes over.

“Jake Sullivan and I have had discussions, we’ve met,” Waltz said. “For our adversaries out there that think this is a time of opportunity, that they can play one administration off the other — they are wrong. We are hand in glove. We are one team with the United States in this transition.”

This would seem to be an oblique reference to Russia specifically, since that’s the only US adversary with any hope that the incoming administration might be a bit less hawkish toward it than the outgoing one, and since years of mass media coverage went into spinning narratives about Trump being a pawn of Vladimir Putin.

So I guess we can stop with the speculation that Genocide Joe is trying to trap the Trump administration into continuing the Ukraine war?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 25 2024 3:09 utc | 68

From Simplicius on Trump's transition team:

For instance, Robert Wilkie, who has been appointed to lead Trump’s Pentagon transition team, spelled out exactly how he believes Trump’s team will approach dealing with Putin from day one. He admits he’s not speaking officially for Trump on this, but given that he’s literally leading the Pentagon transition team, it would seem his words carry some weight on this count. Notably, he says that if Russia remains defiant, Trump will majorly increase aid to Ukraine, counter to the “isolationist” ideas about abandoning Ukraine to its druthers:

Trump's War Cabinet: Let's order Putin to stop. Otherwise, aid to Ukraine will get even bigger.

Donald Trump will increase aid to Ukraine if Russian Federation threatens the Americans with a crushing response. The US already has the experience of killing 300 Russian soldiers in Syria.

🔴Robert Wilkie, a member of the newly elected US president's team, who is preparing a roadmap for the Pentagon's actions over the next four years, said this in an interview with the BBC.

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/wonder-weapon-mania-dies-down-revealing

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 25 2024 3:11 utc | 69

Trump needs to make an example of these city officials. If the police obstruct ICE, arrest the police chief and mayor. Expedite their case to SCOTUS for final judgment and keep them in federal prison https://tinyurl.com/ycy6udwz

Posted by: Dogon Priest | Nov 25 2024 4:10 utc | 70

@ psychohistorian | Nov 25 2024 0:30 utc | 53

well you know more then i do about them then james!

Posted by: james | Nov 25 2024 4:31 utc | 71

Posted by: Dogon Priest | Nov 25 2024 4:10 utc | 70

Another lame attempt to drive traffic to that terrible "PhD" guy's Substack. Nice job concealing the URL. I've read his drivel before and it's pretty bad. Anyone who runs around affixing a PhD to their name when they're opining about subject matter in which they have no expertise is likely a charlatan and con man.

If the statehouses in the states where the so-called sanctuary cities decide to allow safe harbor for the migrants don't disapprove, there is very little that Trump could do without causing a constitutional (and civic) crisis.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 25 2024 4:35 utc | 72

the eyes of the Trump lovers it should be Trump's appointment of

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Nov 25 2024 0:09 utc | 51

---

Trump lovers should cast their eyes upon the glorious houses of Trump's appointments. Perhaps it is the envy that makes them love? Perhaps they dream of attending a garden party at one of those palatial mansions?

Anyway that collection of ridiculous homes should put to rest what their policy will be.

The "Grey Poupon" administration.

Posted by: too scents | Nov 25 2024 5:24 utc | 73

"...it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing." - William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5

https://x.com/GeromanAT/status/1860319396759007529
-- GEROMAN -- time will tell - 👀 -- @GeromanAT

I miss the 80s.
Back then, the war was still sold to us as "cold."
Back then, "enemies" still talked to each other.
Diplomats were still busy building bridges - politicians were just as deceitful - but here and there they at least had some stature and a consistent line.
Our "armed forces" were strong enough to prevent a catastrophe - but also weak enough to cause one.

Compared to this moving time almost half a century later, I now feel like I'm in a madhouse - managed by absolute idiots.

Posted by: michaelj72 | Nov 25 2024 5:28 utc | 74

James # 46
Yes, of all esoteric literature - the Secret Doctrine number 1. But still it is necessary to approach with extreme caution the "authorship" of Madame Blavatsky, as well as the authorship of the Exposed Isis. Perhaps the Letters of the Mahatmas, as well as the Esoteric Buddhism of Sinnet and Fragments of the Occult Truth of Alan Octavian Hume, will make the understanding of the Secret Doctrine, the logic of which covers almost all the "mysteries of life and death", more successful for those who are interested....

Posted by: N | Nov 25 2024 6:28 utc | 75

Duterte vs. Marcos title fight for the Philippine Crown

Philippine security agencies stepped up safety protocols on Saturday after Vice President Sara Duterte said she would have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr assassinated if she herself were killed, according to Reuters report.

In a dramatic sign of a widening rift between the two most powerful political families in the Southeast Asian nation, Duterte told an early morning press conference that she instructed an assassin to kill Marcos, his wife, and the speaker of the Philippine House, if she were to be killed, Reuters reported.

"This country is going to hell because we are led by a person who doesn't know how to be a president and who is a liar," she said in the briefing publicly broadcast on her Facebook page.

"I have talked to a person. I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM (Marcos), (first lady) Liza Araneta, and (Speaker) Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke," Duterte said in the briefing. "I said, do not stop until you kill them, and then he said yes."

full story ==> https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1323667.shtml

Posted by: too scents | Nov 25 2024 8:13 utc | 76

On a previous open forum, some posts were suggesting that China has challenged the US in collaborating with Saudi Arabia on a similar bonds system using dollars to the one the US has. That bonds are rather vital to keeping the US financial boat from collapsing

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 21:46 utc | 34

It was all covered on the previous non Ukraine/middle East thread. The suggestions were bogus because they didn't know how it works. US treasuries are not vital. They can be done away With completely.

Why it is sooooo important to understand money. Not treat it like an ideological hobbie. Take the gold bugs and Austrians for example. They have never understood what we have, but try to convince others how to fix it.

Or as Michael Hudson describes it

https://michael-hudson.com/2024/11/beyond-surface-economics-the-case-for-structural-reform/

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 25 2024 11:41 utc | 77

@ Shadowbanned

Am surprised you believe Covid killed so many people in Russia.

Did you live in Russia from 2020-22? Of the people you knew personally or by no more than one degree of separation, how many got Covid and what were their experiences?

My report from the west:
- I worked in an office with hundreds of people. One or two had a high fever for two days. That’s it. One worker said they heard from someone about someone who died due to a combination of obesity, possible other comorbidities, and possibly covid.
- I do know someone injured by the mRNA experiments.

Posted by: I forgot | Nov 25 2024 11:44 utc | 78

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 21:46 utc | 34

Bonds are vital to keep the EU afloat and a tool used to control Eurozone members. Where bond vigilantes actually do exist.

That's the whole issue. Ideologues convince others via propaganda that everywhere is like the Eurozone. Why fully sovereign nation states can push austerity onto the backs of their own populations using the tax payer money myths and borrowing myths. As if they used the Euro themselves and can no longer issue their own currencies.

Or as Paul Samuelson described it

Here

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-V6-GnsvcG0&pp=ygUOcGF1bCBzYW11ZWxzb24%3D

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 25 2024 11:54 utc | 79

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 21:46 utc | 34

Bond Issuance Does Not Reduce Inflation.

It is one of the biggest myths Bob Murphy's Austrians tell those of little brain in North Anerica. Along with about another 300 myths the Austrians push down people's throats. The Austrian's say bond issuance reduces inflation. It is a keystone to their theories.

The truth is The private sector savings weren't getting spent anyway. In fact the interest they receive via a bond is more than if they had just sat as a reserve balance instead.

As 2008 showed clearly bank lending is like haircuts. There needs to be a demand for it.

Here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKymAsuxDGg

Yet, they try to convince others, using their 300 myths how they can fix it. They can easily replace the government with banks lol.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 25 2024 12:23 utc | 80

On reading Parapsychology - The IGPP in Freiburg currently has 69,000 listed titles in its library, making it the largest of its kind on the continent. It's hard to fathom the amount of bullshit they have to put up with, from collecting cheap yellow press style periodicals advertised for hobbyist mediums to visiting groups of tourists with the Guide to Baden Württemberg's 20 most spooky Places in hand. I have seen them discuss with a Professor from Lisboa on his latest research, which had him visiting a local winery bistro with 20 of his students to analyze some kind of mysterious mood effects; for that, his control group received two glasses of water. The study was later repeated in London.

But there is some pretty serious stuff going on, too. The man who has run the parapsychological counseling ward for two decades, Dr. Dr. Walter von Lucadou, has confirmed to me as much as that malevolent spirits do indeed exist, though he preferred to call them 'structures'. Be careful with the countertransference, was his only advise. I learned that dead people usually hang around for a few days, and rarely for some weeks when somehow connected in intensely meaningful relations; everything else is very much out of the ordinary. Later I met a woman who had been in contact with her deceased husband over many years, until she seeked the counseling ward, who advised the usual: tell him he can't stay around, he has to go on - and so she did, with success. She told me her story on the sidelines of a recent IGPP workshop, with tears in her eyes and a bratwurst in hand she bought for me during lunch break. A trained physicist working in high tech, nothing about her was crazy, or even just merely neurotic.

And there is hardcore science as well. The Freiburg emeritus Hartmann Römer, who has written several textbooks on quantum mechanics, came up with a 'generalized' QT which seeks to establish entanglement and complementarity as broader principles, with applications ranging from psychosomatic issues over the nature of the decline effect to the question how actually fixed and steady the past actually is - answer: it depends. On how you view it, as per usual in QM.

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 25 2024 12:38 utc | 81

LOL! Jaguar has literally done the Bud-Light of rebranding of cars.

Sell Mortimer! Sell!

Posted by: too scents | Nov 25 2024 12:42 utc | 82

Posted by: juliania | Nov 24 2024 21:46 utc | 34

Finally...

Don’t Fear the Rise in the Fed’s Reserve Balances either.

Ideologues have expressed concern that this will be inflationary also.

However, fears that these are inflationary are misplaced, even inapplicable, as they apply only to a monetary system operating under a gold standard, currency board, or similar arrangement, not the flexible exchange rate system of the U. S.

Under a gold standard, for instance, banks must be careful when creating loans that they have sufficient gold or central bank reserves to meet depositor outflows or legal reserve requirements. This is the fractional banking, money multiplier system standard in the economics textbooks. If there is an inflow of gold, then bank deposit creation can increase and prices can rise. The same can occur if the central bank raises the quantity of reserves circulating relative to its own gold reserves.

But that’s not the case under modern monetary systems with flexible exchange rates.

In the U. S., when a bank makes a loan, this loan creates a deposit for the borrower. If the bank then ends up with a reserve requirement that it cannot meet by borrowing from other banks, it receives an overdraft at the Fed automatically (at the Fed’s stated penalty rate), which the bank then clears by borrowing from other banks or by posting collateral for an overnight loan from the Fed. Similarly, if the borrower withdraws the deposit to make a purchase and the bank does not have sufficient reserve balances to cover the withdrawal, the Fed provides an overdraft automatically, which again the bank then clears either by borrowing from other banks or by posting collateral for an overnight loan from the Fed.

The point of all this is that the bank clearly does not have to be holding prior reserve balances before it creates a loan. In fact, the bank’s ability to create a new loan and along with it a new deposit has NOTHING to do with how many or how few reserve balances it is holding.

In other words, there is no loan officer at any bank that checks with the bank’s liquidity officer to see if the bank has reserves before it makes a loan.

Here:

https://neweconomicperspectives.org/2009/06/dont-fear-rise-in-feds-reserve-balances.html

Once again. Do you clearly see how what they learned in gold standard, fixed exchange rate class. They applied to fully sovereign free floating sovereign currencies for it wrong again.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 25 2024 12:45 utc | 83

LOL! Jaguar has literally done the Bud-Light of rebranding of cars.

Sell Mortimer! Sell!

Posted by: too scents | Nov 25 2024 12:42 utc | 82

It is the final nail in the coffin after they jumped on the "only electric" bandwagon and killed the XJ and other models. The last "true" jaaaags were made in the 90's anyway.

Posted by: 5thcolumn | Nov 25 2024 12:54 utc | 84

@ 5thcolumn | Nov 25 2024 12:54 utc | 84

Some beautiful cars they made. Like some of the 40-yo neckties I’m uncovering in storage. Such memories. Sigh…

Well…time to take out the trash.

Posted by: I forgot | Nov 25 2024 13:21 utc | 85

The fact Musk and co are going to establish a D.O.G.E. is such a funny insult to the supposedly anti-Fed MAGA types.

Think about it: a government department to tackle efficiency. This is like a mirror image of DEI only for Reagan-conservatives.

They are GROWING the Federal government by establishing a new department. The Soviets, I am almost sure, would have had a similar department to watch over the watchers and to appear transparent and ethically-grounded.

What a joke. They will gut some useless departments and social services and spend more on defense and ease taxes on the rich.

Reagan on steroids and the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly but carry a big stick." Instead: make a lot of noise but still grow the Federal government.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Nov 25 2024 13:33 utc | 86

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Nov 25 2024 13:33 utc | 86 The real issue in the end with DOGE is power. DOGE could be characterized as aspiring to be a QUANGO (quasi-nongovernment organization) responsible to the DOGE, which given at this point there's projected to be both Musk and Ramaswamy means conflicts between them must be arbitrated by Trump, but not to the government proper. Greene's vaporings about being on the subcommittee are probably just self-promotion, in my opinion.

But if you are genuinely concerned about expanding government, it's Kennedy's MAHA which promises to massively intervene in reordering Americans' lives to live right (subtext is I think live like God intended.) Kennedy wants to tell parents how to feed their children, what grocery stores can sell, everyone how much exercise to take. Part of that is about blaming people who got sick for their wickedness in living wrong. If Kennedy is serious and Trump is serious about him actually doing things besides target vaccine makers (the subtext there is, target witches, poisoners motivated by malice,) then Kennedy will want to write school cafeteria menus. So much for abolishing the Department of Education? The unspoken slogan has been Government Out of the Boardrooms and In the Bedrooms. Now Kennedy wants to add, Government In Your Kitchens!

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 15:14 utc | 87

Posted by: juliania | Nov 25 2024 2:04 utc | 63 Not having the privileged standpoint of a believer I cannot deny the Nestorians were Christian. The coincidence of the reading of the parable of the Samaritan is interesting in this context. The priest and the Levite were obeying God's law, keeping pure by avoiding the dead. I suppose one could say that one point of the parable is that the spirit of the Law is prior to the letter of the Law...but that means ones could say Christ but not be a Christian? This is why I tend to find it pointless to use religion as a guide. It is not the majority view that true religion is kindness to your fellows or being a good citizen, that's the sort of thing people like Spinoza and Tom Paine believed. They were reviled for that.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 15:27 utc | 88

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 25 2024 1:21 utc | 58 I do not understand most of this. As to the remodeling of the human brain about 30 000 years ago, how can this be a fact about humanity as a whole? How did such remodeling occur in the indigenous Australians as such a remove, when they arrived in remote Australia thousands of years before? This seems to imply some sort of non-physical tele0logical impetus to evolution occurring in geographically separate populations without interbreeding. Evolution as the unfolding of the divine plan is wrong. Or worse, that Australians are not as evolved, not fully modern as (real?) humans. Except Australians and the alleged modern people do interbreed. A species is those populations that do interbreed (when contact permits.) It works differently in unicellular organisms, but interbreeding in humans means they are the same species. I'm not sure you mean to say this, but then, I don't understand precisely what you are saying, to the point I'm not even sure the fact of the remodeling is significant. Evolution is changes in the genetic makeup of the population, speciation is the separation of populations so they no longer interbreed. The first never stops and the second is always a process spanning generations.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 15:38 utc | 89

Re: Treasury Sectetary ?

General Thoughts

1) A flaming Homo who painted his restored mansion bright pink. Yale during the time he did his undergrad was THE center of homo student life.

2) Brown Brothers Harriman then a jump to Soros ? Wow ?!?!? he later destroyed a few billion running his own ‘macro’ hedge fund, but landed on his feet returning to Soros as CIO. A real flim flam man.

3) having a financial speculator as Treasury Secretary is likely a better choice versus a ivory tower egghead. He is going to have his hands full placating the Bond Vigilantes.

Posted by: Exile | Nov 25 2024 15:40 utc | 90

The Novichok Show Trial

https://johnhelmer.net/the-novichok-show-trial-all-over-bar-the-shouting-that-the-russians-did-it/

"All over but the shouting that the Russians did it."

Posted by: John Gilberts | Nov 25 2024 15:46 utc | 91

@too scents #5
Antikythera is great, but the core algorithms and knowledge are not the least bit impressive. Its function was clearly astrological - and Stonehenge is much, much older showing that astrological calculation algorithms certainly existed back then.
As for the tech: bronze gearing and what not - again, not revolutionary given Antikythera is believed to have been built one or two hundred years before Christ.
Here is a medical instrument made before Antikythera
As can be seen above - the Greeks were perfectly capable of making precision, complex bronze tools. We just don't see or talk about them much because most of the research is focused on social science-y stuff.
More examples of complex bronze objects

Given this - where are the complex tools from these advanced civilizations?

Glass, bronze, stone, copper etc etc all are durable. The Ancient Advanced Civ scammers thus say that the super advanced tech of that era must have been bio or chemical without glass or energy, or some similar nonsense.

But it is quite clear they don't know jack diddly about bio or chemical tech - the physical requirements to engage in it. Even stipulating Mendelian style genetic improvement - where are the descendants? Where are the unusual breaks in genetic markers? Super advanced plant or animal breeds - those are the least susceptible to destruction because they are self propagating, and also the easiest to spread.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 25 2024 15:53 utc | 92

Alastair Crooke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_0KHWZyPao

"Deep State vs Trump."

Posted by: John Gilberts | Nov 25 2024 15:56 utc | 93

@Patroklos #10
As you say.
The Stonehenge astrological algos, for example, are plausibly developed and maintained by a very small group of extremely specialized individuals. A very possible mechanism is the extreme development of memory and reasoning skills combined with some variant of South American knot record keeping.
And the motivation is extremely straightforward: successful prediction of eclipses as well as other astrological phenomenon are ways to demonstrate skill and therefore religious power.
The actual construction of Stonehenge, however, involves nothing more than sufficient people and more importantly, sufficient motivation.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 25 2024 15:57 utc | 94

@ N | Nov 25 2024 6:28 utc | 75

i agree with you on the question of the authorship of those books.. cheers..

Posted by: james | Nov 25 2024 16:06 utc | 95

@Norwegian #14
Re: keystone cuts
Archeologists are not engineers. As such, they don't understand just how precise craftsmen can be.
Only gullible fools believe that you must have machines to create consistent outputs.
If, in fact, metal tools were used to create these cuts - where are the tools? If chemicals were used, where are the laboratories and the evidence of high energy chemistry etc etc? If aliens were involved - why didn't they come back? The entire exercise is the literal opposite of Occam's razor.

Re: Advanced Civilizations destroyed by asteroids etc.
Once again: where is the actual evidence? What you are talking about is quite obviously working backwards from a) assume advanced civilization because of XX to b) find some theory which is not obviously disprovable.
The problem is that this is not how the scientific method works - this is how grifts and cults work.

If there was some magical advanced civilization destroyed by a cometary impact - where is the hard evidence? Analyzing ancient texts or whatever is utterly ridiculous given the language, culture, environment and many other disparities.

This nonsense is precisely like using the Bible literally: a text that has been translated multiple times over multiple eras by multiple competing factions, and was unquestionably written by multiple people to start with.

To say that there is any form of objective truth in there is to demonstrate faith, not reason.

This Ancient Advanced Civilization nonsense is literally the refighting of the geology fight over continental drift except in reverse: The "no drift" types, back then, disputed the irrefutable evidence of molluscs and other obvious sea creature remains on mountaintops as evidence of the Flood; now the AAC types are re-invoking the Flood to say there must have been ancient civilizations only they are using the Flood excuse to get around their complete lack of evidence.

Completely preposterous, and would be funny if it were not so sad.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 25 2024 16:12 utc | 96

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/scott-bessent-sees-a-coming-global-economic-reordering-he-wants-to-be-part-of-it/ar-AA1uGFPC?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=918adf0b8bb041c08fef0c47018c6ce5&ei=128

"Bessent has long been worried about the U.S.’s heavy debt and thinks the main way it can be reduced is by boosting growth, which increases tax revenues."
Formally, this is true enough. The issue for a capitalist is that their false consciousness makes it impossible for them to resolve the contradictions of capitalism. They understand very well that some unemployment is good for business and their profits are inversely related to labor costs. But what's good for a business is no more useful as a guide to the economy that a household budget is a guide to running a government.

He has advised Trump to pursue a policy he calls 3-3-3, inspired by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who revitalized the Japanese economy in the 2010s with his “three arrow” economic policy. Bessent’s “three arrows” include cutting the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2028, spurring GDP growth of 3% through deregulation and producing an additional 3 million barrels of oil or its equivalent a day.

Like Biden's allegedly booming economy, Abe's revitalization was for the rich, not the population as a whole. Cutting the budget deficit is not about his professed goal of growing the economy, it's about Treasuries being liquidity for finance capital. Deregulation is not a cure for slow growth, investment in fixed capital and productive services is, though it is good for excess profits at the expense of consumers at large. Pumping more oil is partly about cheapening energy costs (constant capital in Marxist terms, for those who care) but the effect on the general rate of profits depends on the world price of oil and doesn't even address the labor costs. Investment follows profitability and if wages are too high for profit, cheap energy won't induce investment.

To get government spending under control, Bessent has advocated extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act but with so-called pay-fors to lower its cost. That would involve either reducing spending or increasing revenue elsewhere to offset the impact. He also proposed freezing nondefense discretionary spending and reforming the subsidies for electric vehicles and other parts of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Increasing revenue "elsewhere" is the opposite of reducing taxes! The blatant incoherence should be staggering, but as I say, the system is irrational and no one, not even big money men and the oh so responsible WSJ can make sense of it in the end. Endorsing the "peace through strength" militarism of Trump means leaving the majority of spending untouched, leaving the claim of reducing spending proportionately dishonest. The subsidies for EVs (and for microchips too, by the way) can be objected to as an inefficient way of directing real investment in productive capacity, as they doesn't even consider profitability issues. It does matter tremendously to the profits of specific capitalists. Musk may have a few thoughts on this? It's not quite rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but the joke is still true enough to be funny.

He criticized trade policy with China for enriching Wall Street, weakening domestic industrial might and failing to lead to Chinese economic reform...Bessent called for tariffs to resemble the Treasury Department’s sanctions program as a tool to promote U.S. interests abroad. He was open to removing tariffs from countries that undertake structural reforms and voiced support for a fair-trade block for allies with common security interests and reciprocal approaches to tariffs.

I added the italics, to highlight that Bessent is advocating the restoration of capitalism in the PRC above all else. (I do not hold that PRC is capitalist but won't argue that now.) The last sentence is open to interpretation as endorsing a dollar bloc (Trump has claimed to be committed to preserving the dollar as the world reserve currency, i.e., the global supremacy of---largely US---finance capital.) The world economy was last divided into such blocs, like the sterling bloc, the franc bloc, etc., in the period between WWI and WWII. That was the Great Depression era of course, not good for profits. Shrinking the world market rarely is.

The whole thing tells us Bessent is a finance guy with an incoherent program aimed at copying the likes of Abe, whom I deem a failure. Of course, no one can say what Bessent will actually do, given Trump's inveterate dishonesty. All we can really say, Trump is a con man with a blank check. Those who wanted this...Why?

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 16:18 utc | 97

@Newbie #21
The problem with your speculations, is that they are simply not very thought through.
As an avid science fiction reader - I have had the benefit of reading decades of doomer sci fi where many smart people have considered the implications of a catastrophe and how survivors continue.

Let's start with the simplest: people.

If everyone is killed by said catastrophe, then there is no one left to tell the tale. Thus any supposed stories of Ancient Advanced Civilizations can only come from survivors.

This unpacks more: if all the advanced types were only in 1 spot - this would be contrary to literally all of human existence. There would have to be at least a few, far away, getting resources or touring, or hunting, or trading or whatever.

So now that we know there had to have been some survivors - these survivors have firsthand knowledge of the existence of advanced technology. Furthermore, these survivors must also have some minimum level of education unless said AAC is somehow a weird cult. Can advanced technology exist without writing or education? Certainly not at any scale.
So any survivors must therefore, at a minimum, have some level of education and be capable of some form of record keeping.

Yet there are no such records. There is no such linguistic commonality among the so-called records cited by Norwegian and what not - I flat out challenge that the Angkor Wat builders shared any form of linguistic, cultural or other commonality with the Mayans.

Oral histories? Bollocks if there is no shared language.

In survival stories written by credible people, there are examinations of what technologies are possible without the accumulated base of wealth, knowledge, materials and infrastructure. Even non-advanced technical people have a tremendous amount of knowledge albeit potentially disorganized and with some inaccuracy.

Germ theory, for example: how do you forget that?

Long story short: unless you have survivors that are only solely composed of social science professors - it is extremely unlikely that even a handful of survivors would not have at least some technological capability, record keeping and more importantly, knowledge.

So where is it?

This complete reboot idea is ludicrous given the very simple analysis above.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 25 2024 16:27 utc | 98

Posted by: Exile | Nov 25 2024 15:40 utc | 90 1.Every Trumper who was wanting the government to roll back all that modern stuff like that need to get the real program: The rich are better than you and they will do what they want. Rich women will take high paying and power jobs when they want, they will sleep around when they want, they will get abortions when they want. The men will sleep with each other if they want, they will transition if they want, they will be atheists if they want, they will invests in scifi utopianism if they want. They are better than you and they are above the rules for lowers like you.

2.Soros is Jewish? Only makes a difference which finance capitalist is unless this is some unsavory anti-Semitic crypto-Nazi BS.

3.Then to end up endorsing this dude, who would be dismissed as a thug except he has tasteful suits? You've drunk the Kool-Aid.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2024 16:31 utc | 99

@Newbie #23
What you are apparently grasping at is quantum chemistry.
Yes, there are variants of atomic structures for any given element. The probability for these variants to occur is well documented.

No, there are no such variants in simple molecules; you are conflating amino acid folding with molecules.

And there is no chemical equivalent of monkeys on typewriters recreating Shakespeare. The probability of randomness coming together to form an iPhone out of raw natural ingredients is precisely zero.

There are theories on low probability materials above our existing periodic table, demonstrating novel properties but these are purely theoretical.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 25 2024 16:36 utc | 100