Sunday, February 25, 2024

Umair Haq, the Everything Crisis and the Crisis of Democracy

 The eccentric economist Umair Haq is the blogger I have the most respect for.  Why?  Because he is always looking at the big picture, and he is always right.  Sure, it is a deeply pessimistic picture he paints, but he has consistently analyzed trends before prominent commentators have even thought about them.  If you want to know more about him, look  at his most recent essay

Umair Haq and now everybody else have written about the crisis of democracy, and sure enough it is real enough and alarming.  But there is a positive side to this.  Reading high quality news sources (the CBC, the Guardian) and even mediocre ones (MSNBC) I am struck by the fact that people in many countries know that on a very basic level know that elections, honest elections, are essential for sane public life, and  are willing to organize and fill the streets to get them.  And even Putin and  Lukashenko have to present themselves as elected leaders.  The news is filled with wars and even genocide, but also coverage of elections and how honest or dishonest they are. The CBC routinely does this.

One reason that American democracy is in so much trouble is that no one is willing to say how ridiculous the American "system" is. Indeed, Americans hardly seem to reccognize there is a problem.

Thursday, February 08, 2024

Nomadic empires

If you are interested in nomadic empires, you surely will want to read this substantial article at Medievalists.net. If you want to know more, it will link you to the original scholarly article Genetic population structure of the Xiongnu Empire at imperial and local scales. 

I feel much smarter than I did before I read this material😄.  It's really a matter of attitude -- my attitude.  The traditional literary sources  for the steppe seemed to be dominated by mythological stories of Genghis  Khan and efforts of more modern historians to estimate how many gazillion Mongols were in his armies.  The latter efforts were influenced by a fear of the Ottomans, which kept alive the fearsome reputation of the Mongols and the Huns.  (Not so much the Avars and the Magyars.)

This recent DNA research gives me reason to visualize the steppe peoples as real peoples with economies, graves and other tangible attributes.

Image:  A multi-ethnic dinner on the steppes.  No doubt they will be discussing the state of the herds and potential marriage alliances.


Wednesday, January 31, 2024

To my readers : January 30, 2030'

 Friends,

My Parkinson's is progressing, and I find myself tired and too often afflicted with brain fog.

So  if you've got something you've always meant to ask me or tell me, this would be a good time.

Maybe you'll want to send anything too personal or confidential via email.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Some good news out of Nunavut


We hear that the Federal government of Canada has turned over control of resources and other areas of federal jurisdiction to the territorial government of Nunavut, the farthest northern territory of Canada, inhabited mostly by Inuit (formerly called Eskimo). This is a big deal. More later.

Here's the "More Later."

In Canada, as in the United States and I believe Australia and New Zealand and other colonies (Brazil?) the indigenous people were forced to surrender their claims to the land they lived on in exchange for small reserves.  These settlements, whatever they said gave control  of valuable or potentially valuable resources to colonial settlers.  The resources have become ever more valuable and strategic in recent years.  This Nunavut settlement seems to put the territory on the same footing as the Canadian provinces, which have a great deal of practical autonomy (see the case of Alberta and oil).

We'll see how it works out.  And if it has any effect on other countries' approach to indigenous issues.

Monday, January 15, 2024

The Honest Sorcerer talks about resource depletion and the collapse of the civilization of the Colombian Age

 The Honest Sorcerer is one of those economist guys who looks at the long trends and comparative histories.  Honest Sorcerer says that  all the easy resources that made possible Western domination of the globe (the Colombian Age) have been used up and there are no substitutes.  H.S. also sketches out the politics and culture of civilizational pre-collapse and collapse.

This quote (grammar adjusted) will give you a taste:

P.S.: Save this article and send it in a few years time to anyone who insists that all this could not possibly have been foreseen.

Tuesday, January 09, 2024

Noah Smith opines on the significance of People's Park and where America is today

 Just about everybody with an internet connection has opined on the current state of American culture and how it got that way.   Many of these analyses are very much the same -- after all, the problems are pretty obvious.

Noah Smith (at Noahpinion) has a different take -- and it may be worth your reading time. If you have ever wondered about the significance of Berkeley in the cultural wars of the last few decades, this may suggest some interesting perspectives.

Q -- Brilliant

 Back when CBC Radio One introduced the interview show Q some years back, I was unimpressed. I found the host, Tom Power, irritating in the extreme.  Power is a musician and in his numerous interviews with other musicians he always seemed to ask them whether music was a big factor in their childhood homes.

How many electrons were wasted asking such a lame question?

Well, Power and his producers are putting together a superior product these days, one that approaches brilliance.  Let's take today's episode as an example of what they can do.

Here in Canada, eminent people are honored by being inducted into the Order of Canada.  (This is what chivalric orders of the Middle Ages have evolved into.) Today's interviewee, just inducted into the Order was  Deantha Edmunds, advertised as the "first Inuk professional opera singer." She was  an intelligent, even profound guest (although the issue of music in the home came up😁which gave me a laugh).  She spent much of her time in the chair explaining the Inuk tradition of classical music.

When Edmunds says classical musical, she means what you mean, Mozart, Handel, etc.  She is not a throat singer, which is the tradition most familiar to non-Inuk.  She is a professional opera singer, and as such may be a  first, but she is also working in a centuries-old tradition on the Labrador coast.  Two undred years ago missionaries from the tireless Moravian church came to Labrador,  bringing among other things classical music and European instruments that made it possible to play the new stuff. The

Inuk have been at it ever since, playing and adapting what once was a purely European  (should we say German?) repertoire.

I had no idea.

Go to it Tom!  You are doing great!

Sunday, December 31, 2023

At Bethlehem

My lady and I went to a choir service this evening. As you might expect, the imagery of Jesus in the manger was predominant. I couldn't help but think repeatedly "At least he's not lying in a pile of rubble."

Friday, December 29, 2023

Timothy Burke looks forward to next year with foreboding

Timothy Burke in 8 by7:
The thing is, in 2024 I think the mass of humanity will remain what it basically has been all along in modernity: full of decency, ready for justice, open to change. Sorry for their trespasses, hoping not to be trespassed against. Wanting to just live their lives and be left well enough alone. If the powerful could only manage to keep things running well enough for everyone, share some wealth and leave space for the vast rest of their societies, I think most people would return the favor and leave them to scheme and jostle amongst themselves. I wish it was just a moral failing of power and that would could wish reasonably enough for a better class of millionaires and ministers. But there’s something systematically rotten in the world we’ve made and it will take something with systematic energy to push things to being good enough for the world to go on being enough for everyone, as it plainly can be. We have the tools, just no hands worthy of using them and no plan to build what they’re capable of making.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

1670

I just finished watching 1670, a serial TV historical by Netflix about Poland in the era of Louis XIV. It's a savage satire that reminds me of The Servant of the People, which showed the Ukrainian people as very much responsible for buying into the corruption of their country. In 1670, there is one sensible charachter: a visiting Lithuanian. Recommended.

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Remember the Alamo

Have a look at this interesting post in Borderland Stories about the famous battle that led to the creation of an "American Texas."

Friday, October 27, 2023

My review of Ralph Moffat's Medieval Arms and Armour (from the Medieval Review)

Ralph Moffat, Curator of European Arms and Armour at Glasgow Museums and editor of this sourcebook, states that it is “born of a lifelong passion for medieval arms and armour.” This is clearly the case. And many other scholars are going to find this reference work a delight.

When I say “scholars” in this context, I mean anyone interested in understanding the military tools that held a central place in the lives of medieval rulers and their followers. Scholars of medieval arms and armour include academics trained in military, literary, art and gender history, but also (as the Boydell Press blurb says) crafters, martial artists, and living history practitioners. Members of the latter groups rarely if ever come out of specialized programs in academic institutions. Yet they have an intimate knowledge of materials and techniques that, historians working in material science apart, few more conventional academics have the opportunity to acquire. Similarly, those who have studied arms and armour in a living historical context sometimes have very limited training in traditional academic disciplines.

So, scholars working on arms and armour constitute at best a scattered community using a variety of approaches to deal with what is really a vast field. Moffat’s project is to create “a working vocabulary” or more than one since this book is only volume one of a greater project. (Unfortunately, there is no hint how many volumes there will be.) 

... The book is organized into four sections, plus a bibliography and index. >First, there are thirty-three pages of prefatory material--lists of illustrations and documents, the preface proper, acknowledgements, “Using the Sourcebook” (how various problems in the history of armour can be approached), “English Pronunciation” (a guide to users unfamiliar with fourteenth-century English), and “Towards a Working Vocabulary” (see below) Secondly, Part I alsp includes the introduction to the Sources, including both textual and material sources. It discusses the characteristics of the various sources, such as documents, armour, and weapons.

Part II includes transcriptions and translations of many documents and excerpts of documents in which the arms are mentioned, such as wills, inventories, and challenges to single combat.

Finally, the volume has an illustrated glossary.

This list of lists may seem to be disorganized, but there is a clear logic to Moffat’s work. The section titled “Towards a Working Vocabulary” in the prefatory material could be the title of the whole book. He recognizes that the simplest and perhaps the most common use of the book will be to look up individual terms in the illustrated glossary. But many other uses are possible. Moffat has written this book to make it easy to connect terms to the different types of evidence for their appearance and the context in which they appear.

Thus if a reseacher runs across the obscure term “gadelings,” Moffat not only cites theChronicle of Geoffrey le Baker where “gadelings” occurs in an account of a duel (rendered in the original Latin and in translation) and to figure 5, the effigy of the Black Prince, which shows spikes on his gauntlet.

The inclusion of both original texts and translations in the Documents section makes the book far more valuable than if the source material had been presented only in one language. Some of the most difficult documents are inventories and similar lists. Without Moffat’s translations, or without the source material in the original languages, these documents might remain a closed book to many. Moffat’s presentation will open up this challenging material to a much wider audience.

The vast bibliography--reaching back to the nineteenth century--and the well-organized index make this sourcebook more useful than if the editor had not been so thorough. Moffat wants to reach as many arms and armour scholars as he can. One expects that many individual researchers will find this book a necessity, but also that many academic and public libraries will find it a valuable addition to their reference collections.

Monday, October 09, 2023

Umair Haq is back!

 I have been following Umair Haq off and on for quite a long time.  I say off and on because when he went beyonda paywall for a while, I couldn't justify the expense, small as it was.  It seems that he has emerged, with a new blog called The issue. Check it out.  Not that you will find it comforting or hopeful. 

 Here is a large excerpt of the current post.

Now let's come back to America. It's problem, The Fundamental Nuclear Bomb of Stupidity that's ripping it apart, is simple. Neither side is for universals. But what happens when that's the case? A Race to the Bottom explodes, which the fanatics are going to—inescapably—win, and I'm going to shortly explain why.

One party wants no universals of any kind, anywhere, whatsoever, period, full stop. In more and more extreme ways, in fact. The GOP—we know that, but let's refresh our memories,

Remember Reagan? The "Reagan Revolution" was one of history's most foolish agreements, choices, movements. It was basically the choice not to have universals—"I won't pay for those dirty peoples' healthcare!" Great, guess you like not having much yourself. That line of thinking never went away. It's all the modern GOP has ever been about. It's couched in nonsense like "fiscal responsibility," but any garden-variety economist can tell you, these days, that genuine fiscal responsibility is investing in universals, so living standards rise, and there's more of a surplus, which yields greater levels of investment still—the European Miracle.

That line of thinking in America has never changed. Not one iota, not one inch. The American right has always been against universals, full stop. What's happened is that those who are against universals have become willing to be more and more extreme in their fanatical pursuit of...not allowing any, ever, period, full stop. So Ronald Reagan did his corny aw-shucks grin, to sell it gently. Then along came Newt Gingrich, who couched it in abstruse, crackpot theories, which at least sounded impressive, to lay people.

But now? That road's been trodden. And all that's left are the hardcore extremists. Who don't care about persuasion. They're happily willing to resort to coercion, instead. So now it's not Reagan selling a message to the masses, it's the fanatical, neofascist wing of the GOP...trying to shut down the government...and damn the consequences...and when they couldn't do that...they ransacked their own party's leadership...to paralyze it anyways.

All so that there'll never be universals in America. Ever, period, full stop.

Now. That's half the story—perhaps the more important half, but still, only half. The other half?

The other side in America...doesn't want universals, eitherThis is what people mean when they say that America has "two right wings," and they're not wrong.

Think of the Democrats. Sure, they've made progress in the last few years, but it's not paradigmatic progress, as in, their foundational beliefs still haven't changed. And chief among those foundational beliefs is the notion that Americans shouldn't have universals...too. They don't want Americans to have...universal healthcare...retirement...college education...anything. Certainly not anything remotely approaching Canadian or European levels of modern social contracts.

So in America, there are two sides of politics...which, in reality...agree, philosophically, in a primary and fundamental way. This society is not to have universal...anything.

And that's why America's ungovernable. Because what happens next is a Race to the Bottom. Did you see how yet, or not? Let me spell it out, because I know it's still abstract.

What is the governance of an organization, anyways? Any organization, from a corporation to a...country? It's about universals.

Imagine that if I were the CEO of a company, and I suddenly said, hey, these guys don't get a salary anymore. And you guys? No bathrooms for you. Oh, and you over there? Sorry, you don't get pens, pencils, paper, laptops, and phones. That'd be ridiculous, right? People would walk, and my company would crater. So even running something as elementary as a company is about the administration of universals. What "managers" are there to do is decide who gets a little bit more, sometimes a lot, and who, less—but they don't decide that suddenly, hey, you get nothing. If they did that, even companies would collapse, in microseconds.

Now that you get that, imagine societies, which are much more complex and sophisticated. Have that many more moving parts, goals, purposes, people.

What do you do...if...you've already decided...that there are to be no universals?

There's nothing left to do.

Except squabble and bicker. Over who doesn't get what.

Endlessly. Over and over again. Pointlessly. And who wins that game? The loudest, angriest, and most extreme—by definition.

But proper administration, management, as in, the real thing? You've ruled it out from the very beginning. You've decided that there isn't really anything to govern or administrate. No universals, no rights, no institutions, no systems. Sure, America has government agencies, some, anyways, but increasingly, they're wracked by chaos and dysfunction, precisely because they're always being ripped apart by precisely the folly above. When you decide that there are to be no universals, the task of management or governance is rendered...futile...to begin with, because that's it's point.

So what's left? What happens, in that vaccum? Well, like I said, all you do is squabble over who doesn't get what, instead of administrating stuff that everybody does. That's Level One Dysfunction, and it's permeated America for decades now.

Level Two dysfunction is worse. The belief hardens and becomes invisible, and nobody even remembers the point of governance or management anymore, which is to administer universals, not just squabble over who doesn't get them. This is why America's discourse, its newspapers, media, pundits, etcetera, is/are so painful to read, watch, hear, listen to, why it's way of thinking, seeing, understanding is a laughingstock around the globe by now, stereotyped as dysfunctional. At Level Two, ideology conquers reality, and nobody even remembers universals, except maybe a Bernie Sanders, being politely ignored by everyone with a degree from an Ivy League university and an office on K Street.

Level Three? Think about what happens when all that's left is to squabble over who doesn't get what, instead of actually governing, which is administering universals. When that's all that's believed to be possible, right, just, fair, because now, reality's left the building? Who's going to win that fight? The lunatics are.

Why? Because they shout the loudest, because they're the angriest, because...it's an unfair fight, a fight of Most Stupid against Slightly Less Stupid. Most Stupid and Angry will always win the fight of Nothing Matters and Nobody Should Have It Anyways. Let me explain.

If you believe that there shouldn't be a thing, in this case, universals, and the other side also believes it, then...what are you even fighting over? Just who doesn't get it, basically. But the most extreme side will always win, because you both believe it shouldn't exist. The fight is rigged to begin with. So there you are, bargaining nicely, saying, OK, we also believe that people shouldn't have this. The other side, meanwhile, is willing to crash and burn everything from government to the marble Congress is made of itself, so that people will have even less of it.

See what I mean? This isn't really a "fight" at all. It's...a race to the bottom. And in that race, the one who's willing to get the dirtiest, the dumbest person, willing to drown themselves in muck, the most blind, who won't care one whit about kind of toxic waste they're about to leap into...they're going to win


Tuesday, October 03, 2023

I’m not willing to bend the knee, and those that are should move to Russia.

That's Dylan Combellick speaking, in his post Questions Russian Apologists Can’t Answer.  He answers only some of the stuff I have been exposed to lately.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

The changing shape of education?

 Another exciting article from the Guardian!

...much of our thinking is the result of successive cultural software upgrades; of thousands of years of evolving knowledge, skills and ways of thinking passed down through generations.

Take numbers. Our ancestors had a limited counting system, just as some small-scale societies do today. They counted 1, 2, 3 … and then “many”. Those that went further used stones, notches or body parts, but these systems don’t make the concept of zero obvious, let alone negative numbers, despite their usefulness in all sorts of calculation.

Then, in the 17th and 18th centuries, a new concept was developed – the number line, with digits arranged in sequence, horizontally. Moving from objects in front of us to positions in space made both zero and negative numbers more intuitive and teachable, even to young children. A world of complex arithmetic was opened up...

In the 1980s, intelligence researcher James Flynn noticed that IQ test scores were increasing over time. This became known as the Flynn effect. As schools got better and became accessible to more and more people, average IQ increased. Our societies reflected this new baseline: even entertainment became more complex. Think of the “Wham, Bam” Batman of the 1960s compared with the Dark Knight of the 2000s. Today’s lowest-brow TV has more characters and more convoluted storylines than anything our parents watched. But then progress stopped...

The Flynn effect has plateaued in the developed world. Innovations in education have stagnated. Schools remain fossils from a world before the internet and certainly before AI. In Britain, Venki Ramakrishnan, the head of the Royal Society, described Britain’s A-level system in which most students take just three subjects as no longer “fit for purpose”. Such systems, sculpted for an industrial society, falter in the face of a postindustrial, information economy. Schools were built for a world before the vast library of human knowledge became instantly accessible at our fingertips, through the computers on our desks and smartphones in our pockets.

Paradoxical as it may seem, plagiarism might be the answer. Plagiarism is how Estonia went from being a country where only half of households had access to a telephone in 1991 to one whose students top the western world in the OECD’s Pisa tables in mathematics, reading and science, beating the rest of Europe, the US, UK, Canada and Australia. It also has the highest number of $1bn startups per capita in the world. It has achieved this while spending far less per student than the OECD average...

See the Guardian for details and the argument!