Solidarity with Afghanistan

 I watched at BBC how the situation deteriorates, children are starving. Afterwards an advertisement for Neom, the multimillion dollar projects from Saudi Arabia appeared.

Why Saudi or other Gulf states don't help their Muslim brothers?

Why China doesn't step in? They are close. They declare that they want to help people in Africa. Why not aiding someone closer?

Why the infidels from West have to step in?

Why the evil capitalists have to supply food and medicine for the poor?

Talibans want 10 bln $ froze in foreign account. But we don't have any guarantee that they don't use it for buying arms 

Money must be used by charity direct for afghans.

Talibans for start they should provide rights for women.

They can respect their Islamic law and offer women a chance to education and work. If they want.

They can make women only schools. They existed 200 yr ago in Europe.

They can make firms and departments with women only.

In textile industry anyway 90% of workforce is women.

Buy,buy,buy

 A new SARS covid2 variant was discovered in South Africa. The media outlets rushed to declare that is more deadly, despite having no proof yet.

When Wuhan virus was discovered, based on the death rate of pacients, medical world believed that the death rate is 30%.Later when they did a serological study in Italy, they discovered a lot of unsymptomatic pacients, and the death rate was adjusted to 1-2%.

SARS covid 2 is less deadly than SARS covid 1, why we should expect that this new variant is deadlier?

Passing through a population a virus becomes less deadlier because variants who keep their hosts alive more time spread more.

Why it should be different?

Why media outlets who don't have advertising and subscriptions say that the SA variant is deadlier?

Because it is easier to make money from market manipulation than selling good information?

I wouldn't sell anything till real data comes out.

The stupid people: the fifth column of every state

 Background: when Franco besiged Madrid he said that it had 5 columns attacking Madrid: one from north, one from south, one from west, one from east and one from within city. This was the fifth column the people from inside.

In my opinion people are stupid if they have all the information necessary, yet they take a decision that hurts them and maybe others.

Medieval peasants believed that earth was flat because they were ignorant.

Flat earthers believe the same thing but they have a lot of contrary information, so they are stupid.

It seems that access to information didn't cured the stupidity.

In middle ages, the stupid believed the priest or the monarch. Then in modern time, he read the papers from within country, or listen to state radio and TV. The stupid was the backbone of the state, he supported anything that government said, and it was ready to die for fatherland.

Now with advent of satellite communications and internet, the ideas of the stupid are more diverse, access to foreign news gives him a veneer of sofistication, he is influenced more by outside forces and he/she can be used against his state and his community 

From an asset, stupid became a liability.

Countries who learn their citizens to think critically and invest in education will have a better chance of surviving.

De ce nu mă mai interesează politica din Romania

 A fi interesat de situația politică din România, ca de exemplu ce guvern vom avea e ca si cum ai ghici sexul copilului dintr-o relație incestuoasă: nu contează, deoarece copilul oricum se va naște cu handicap.

Competiția nu e la vedere, plenarele, congresele, ședințele legiferează ce s-au decis în secret, in urma unor înțelegeri și în urma unor santajuri.

New problems and new solutions

 I noticed that most successful solutions, either solve an old problem with new technology ( car solves the old problem of transportation) or new problem with old technologies ( lithography was used for the new problem of circuit boards)

Usually if you use new technologies to new problems you fail because you don't understand either. 

I am wonder if covid is a new problem or old, and if we must use old technologies or new.

It was new virus so the old technology of quarantine worked.

Once the virus is known, the problem is old and we can use new vaccination technologies, or medicines.

But maybe the medical field is different? And for new diseases, new medicine should be tried?

In 18 century they have the old technology of blood letting, which they applied to every new disease. It was an old solution to an old problem.From our stand point it was better to try something else.

The problem with blood letting was that they didn't had data to see how effective it is. If they could see under 50% efficacy, they could have abandoned it.

The other problem was that they didn't know much of diseases. They could notice common symptoms like fever, but they could not know if it was a virus or bacteria.

They could guess the transmission pathway, like John Snow did with cholera, but nothing more.

What they could do was to see efficacy of treatments, but at the time the only exchange of information was through journal and post. If they had internet they could have progressed faster.

So my advice is to tack between knowing you problem, and searching for a solution.

Knowing your solutions is easier and can be done beforehand, track your results to see the limits of your solutions, to know when to give up to them. But don't be very attached to your solutions. I know mathematicians and engineers who call their solutions, their babies. Sometimes you have to throw you solution overboard. You don't do this with your baby, do you?

Knowing you problem is harder, because your information rate is limited by the number is experiments you can do and what you can measure. IT is privileged, you can make tausend of experiments in a day and measure everything, medicine is  worse because you can't do experimts easily, and you can't measure everything.

Also data is scattered, and you must collect it. Do keep in touch with many people from your field.

The best way of understanding a new problem was to model it mathematically and solved on the computer, and compare it with reality. To solve it in silicon.

So IT and mathematical literacy is a must.

During this pandemic a mathematical simulation has shown with 2 months before hand that corona virus produces blood cloths.

An unstable world

 I just saw a DW documentary about how elections are  influenced by targeting campaigning, Cambridge Analytical style.

https://youtu.be/hzv7gCBHglg

What can be done?

Nazi had radio, communists had the press, new extremist have internet. It seems that any telecommunication innovation ushers in the extremists.

A system to be stable had to have friction within, as a car who has to be drivable must have breaks.

Crisis in our world are caused by lack of friction, anyone can buy and sell tonnes of wheat in same day without even see them, or trade mortgages from persons he doesn't know. 

A scammer can send billions of mails to catch the gullible. 

PR firms have access to our data, and can misinform us 

Once friction/ cost is introduced to these activities, they are no longer profitable, 

if wheat speculant has to load tonnes of wheat, he will give up, if the scammer has to file tausand of physical letters he will give up. If the propagandist had to manually collect data, he will give up too 

The problem is to define the friction, how to introduce it and not hinder development, and who should introduce it. A state censorship is a friction but not a desired one.

Institutions can be made with more friction 

Sell the wheat that you own or not trade it too often.

Cast the vote by hand and not electronically.

Protect you online data and don't like anything.

These are the few ideas that sprung from my mind 

Trudeau's black face

 At last Canadian elections, opposition dug some photos with Trudeau's disguised as a black person at a party, long time ago,when he was a student.

Either Trudeau is woke and the blackface was a silly party disguise and he shouldn't apologize, either is a racist, he meant the black face, and he pretends to be woke for gaining political points, then he should apologize.

But Trudeau apologize has other meaning:

You should always be judged out of context:

It doesn't matter that it was 20 yr ago at a costume party, your black face must be punished.

It is the blind inhumane justice of inspector Javert, from book Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, who chases poor Jean Valjean for stealing a bread because of hunger.

The 19 century liberals were for personal rights, a fair trial with a lawyer to defend you and  your accusation put in context, not for mob lynching. 

In 21 century the term liberal was highjacked by a crypto Bolshevik mob 

Musings regarding US and Afghanistan

 I think that american pragmatism has the flaw that is focusing on means, not on outcomes.

In 20 century I saw US throwing money at problems, or trying to use technology to solve stuff. In Vietnam they wanted to build an electronic wall to stop Vietcong, in Central America, they payed officials to fight drug trafficking, while the countries were ruled by narcos.

They thought that if they throw technology and money they will have a base in Afghanistan. The technology gap is narrowing, China has night vision goggles, and can give to Taliban, Turkish drones are cheaper than an airplane.

The economy has its crisis and you can't finance a war forever, unless you extract wealth from it 

If US administration would have consulted NATO allies in policies they could make better decisions.

But as Trump has said it, and Biden had done it: "America first" and US internal politics overshadow the external one. 

Also the politics trump the truth, Bush needed uranium in Irak to invade it, Biden needed 300k afghan troops, to pull out. 

A superpower hybris can destroy an alliance:

In 1961 after returning from a visit in Asia, the Romania's communist president Dej, found out that Soviet Union has placed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Dej was upset because he could be drawn in a nuclear war that it didn't want, and soviets didn't tell him anything when he made his stop over to Moscow.

"They are nuts?" He said "Hruschev can drag us into a war. These issues must be addressed within Warsaw treaty, because all we are affected"

Since then he decided to split from Moscow, and approach US.

At an UN meeting an Romanian diplomat approached an US colleague and told him that Romania doesn't have nuclear missiles and US shouldn't attack it.

Since them Romania was more on US side than Russia's.

I expect that EU security cooperation to strengthen, and EU to follow a real politik approach to external policy.

The best approach in my opinion, was that after defeating Taliban's, US would lead an international conference on fate of Afghanistan, because many countries had help to fight Taliban, and even fewer wanted them in power. To the conference all the great powers would be present, and the neighbors.

Afghanistan would have been a neutral country as Switzerland, and any member of the agreement would be sanctioned if supported terrorism in Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan constitution and organisation should have mimic the Switzerland,another mountainous country, with different culture, but with some local characteristics. You cannot have a centralized state if you don't have a common culture

The war who ended all wars in the West at least

 I saw some historical recreation of medieval battle.

The battles were real, real knights versus real knights fighting with blunted weapons. Men and women sweating under heavy armour, suffocated by their helmets, while taking blows from all sides.

What a difference with  experiences from WW1 described in Owen Wilfred poetry Dulce et decorum est: https://youtu.be/qB4cdRgIcB8 

In preindustrial wars, one cover himself glory either by defeating enemies, either by bravely dying.

WW1 on western front took away this. The only thing you could be covered was mud.

Soldiers survival depended more on whims of artillery gods, than their personal skills. Also the victory depended more on power of industry than their skills 

So the idea that the war is a chance for the warrior to prove himself was over.

Masculine vs feminine, meritocratic versus inclusive

 I heard a lot of pro and cons regarding ideology of diversity, equity and inclusion, but I noticed that most of proponents for DEI, are women while the most opponents are men.

Maybe it how masculine and feminine society work.

In all tribal societies, the boy becomes a men and joins dangerous activities of men after a trial. It could be to stay one week alone in forest, or hunt an animal, or undergo something painful as circumcision.

The reason is that men hunt and wage warfare and down need a weakling to hold you back. A group marches at the speed of slowest individual.

So men society is more selective, and prizes independence.

Women on the other hand have other issues, during pregnancy they are vulnerable and need help of other people and they tend to create social networks and include many people.

Women society is more inclusive, and priorities reciprocity.

New World was colonised first by men, and this biased cultures to be more masculine, competitive and individualistic. In South America you have machismo, US you don't have paid vacation for the birth of the child as some poorer European countries have 

In more old sedentary societies who have enough food you notice that social networks are wider, and issues of taking care of family and others have more importance.

After the wilderness was tamed the number of women increased  and they shifted the characteristics of society. 

Neither of these views is correct per se.

These views must be applied in the right context 

You can't be inclusive were you have competition, in a sports team. You must select for competent persons.

But you can't refuse support to a weaker person like a child because it has to man up.

If Steven Hawkins would be born on Sparta, he would be killed, and Sparta would have lost a genius 

Inclusion should increase the pool of talents. As Nikola Tesla said "half of the population is not used" he was referring to the women. He was a particular child and without tutelage of his mother he wouldn't have succeded.

In WW2 Germany selected from top down based on theory. 

US included many diverse people, including German Jewish scientist, and they had a bigger pool of talents to select and US made the first atomic bomb.

Also the selection in a democracy is done from bottom up.

Inclusivity and selection work hand in hand.

USA has become a nation's of quitters ?

 The US gymnast Simone Biles withdraw from Tokyo Olympics citing mental health problems.

I never heard of Nadia Comaneci complaining of mental issue.

Catalina Ponor competed till her 30 ties.

The selection for Romanian gymnastics team was tougher, akin to admition to SEALs.

10 yr old were recruited and trained to be champions far away from family.

After you endure years of training and pain you never think to give up, even if your ankles are injured, and you had to land from a jump from parallels.

Andreea Răducan was ill at Sydney Olympics, the doctor gave her a cold medicine, she won gold but she was disqualified, because one component of the medicine ephedrine was baned by athletism association.

This can give you mental health problems. Winning gold after years of work and losing it because of others blunder

What I hate is the media attention of this quitter, which is greater than the media attention for sportsmen and sportswomen who grind away their bodies for success.

Fauci is the scape goat

 I think that democrats and some republicans are closing in on Trump for he did or actually what he didn't, and the Trump side attacks Fauci to share the blame.

Fauci will be sacrificed also by democrats ?

3 types of investors

 I watch lately a lot of economic channels, for entertainment value. Especially funny are those who promote Bitcoin.

I noticed that investors can be divided in 3.

Imagine that a ball is thrown up.

First group says that the ball will never fall down. In fact based on past data, the ball will go upper and upper. This is false and useless. For lack of better term let's call these folks, optimists.

The second group, of pessimists, says that the ball will fall, the bitcoin will fall, the economy will be in taters. They are right but their opinion is useless, unless they say when and where the ball falls.

The thirth group, champions, know when and where the ball falls, but they don't tell you because they are making money out of this information. In fact they can push the ball upward.

Single women with many children are targets for pedophiles ?

 I watched HBO series "Allen vs Farrow" where Mia Farrow a single mother with many children (2 of hers,3 adopted), meets Woody Allen, who convince here to adopt a girl Dylan and they have a boy together Ronan.

Dylan accuses him of sexually abuse when she was 7 years old. Other persons testify Allen's strange behavior. He marries his adoptive daughter Sun Yi age 21. This would be considered incest according with France's penal code. 

On the other side of Atlantic,in France,Evelyne Pinsel-Kouchner, divorcee with 3 children marries Olivier Duhamel, a known advocate, and they adopt 2 children.

Now Camille Kouchner accusses him in a book of raping her brother at age of 12. Oliver Duhamel finally admitted guilt.

Also in arts and literature we have such cases: in the movie Lolita , Humbert the pedophile seduces Dolores's mother to have access her.

Now I am thinking that Lolita story should be mandatory reading for single moms with children.

What is interesting is that Mia Farrow and Evelyne Pinsel, lived in a libertine environment, where sexual boundaries were transgressed. Mia lived in Hollywood, Evelyn in left leaning caviar socialist community from Paris, where they changed lovers like socks.

This environment attracts all kind of sexual deviants. 

Yet, not even in a strict environment like catholic church,your children are not safe.

If in a strict environment like catholic church the threat comes from authority, in a libertine environment the treat can come from anyone because of low moral standards.

For example: in the book "La grande familia", Evelyn ask her daughter Camille: "what is the big deal ? He (her husband) didn't sodomize him (her son). They had only fellatio"

A woman with higher moral standards would have avoided Olivier a womanizer all together. A normal woman would have sided with her children.

If a mother believes her children, she has 2 options: goes to the police or uses violence. But she can't use violence because she will go to prison, and children to orphanage.

These abuse cases where you have only the testimony of a child against of an adult are hard to win.

It is interesting to see in 'Allen vs Farrow' how much influence can have a famous film director in NY:

• Data from Dylan interviews with social workers and psychologist was destroyed after they declared that was no evidence of abuse, despite being required to conserve the data. 
• A social worker from NY was sacked because he didn't played ball, and he declared that Dylan was abused.

What I noticed in both cases was a neglect from the parents:

•  In both cases fathers were away.
• Mia was busy with all the children and didn't noticed anything. (I think she has some problems, she had 2 children she adopted 3 and made another one)
• Evelyn she was depressed and drunk, and ignored her children, who entered under the influence of Olivier Duhamel, the pedo.

If the bond between parents would have been stronger, the children would have said something earlier and both monsters would have been caught.

If the fathers would have kept a stronger connection with their children they would have found out and take some measures, or they would have intimidated the child molester.

But they were disunited families, groups of individuals, easy prey for a lurking predator. 

Ladies, even you have grudge against your ex, let him more close to your children, if he is not a felon,a drug addict or a child molester, of course.

He might lower the chance that other men abuse your children.

We live in a simulation

 Our world is real as can be and we don't live in a computer simulation, yet our society is simulated.

Adam Smith said that the butcher and baker, act in self interest, and provide you with food, and their behaviour is similar with altruism.

Machiavelli recommended to the rulers to act as they are good people.

Sales people act that they care and that they are glad to see you.

Chat bots act as their are human.

But does it really matter if the simulation is convincing ?

Do we care of the feeling of salesman if he is polite wit us and send us what we need?

Do we care about the sincerity of the politician if he behaves as he should ?

Do we care if our spouse doesn't love us anymore if the behaviour doesn't change ?

If we need a low resolution reality, simulation is enough.

Thinking is negative, acting is positive

 Our mind is 3 times more sensitive to bad things.

Look at the news. Read all the philosophers and all are doom and gloom

On the other hand, making something is positive, a sculpture, a painting, cleaning repairing have intrinsic positive value for our mind.

Business people who are first and foremost doers, are optimistic. Four out of five business fail, yet, they jump ahead and risk all.

To compensate negative thinking of the mind you must do something.

To avoid doing wrong things you must think first and be negative

Book review: Slavoj Zizek "First as a tragedy then as a farce"

 I just listened Zizek https://www.blinkist.com/first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce-en 

In the book he says

 1.the current communist regimes were not implemented correctly.

2. We must make a revolution and start from from the ground with a new society

3. All the benefits obtained from working class were obtained by revolution

4. Taking care of the proletariat, mean destroying it. He give the example of a refugee without papers, who once he got papers is no longer a refugee.

I will dismantle all the points.

1. During and after civil war, russian communists tried to implement the most radical ideas.

In the army they abolished the ranks, and all the attacks were decided by vote. After some defeats, Soviets fall back the old military hierarchical organization.

Reading books of Ilf and Petrov, you realize that people tried to make communism work. They implemented a car sharing club, they were thinking of getting rid of money.

Ilf and Petrov criticize very open the communist bureaucrats.

Till Stalin came they tried and failed to apply the most radical communist ideas.

2. In Soviet Union they wanted to erase religion, nationality to create a new world.

This will never work, because what we have now worked in the past. For example nationalism. In the past a group of people with similar cultural background, joined together and fought for a piece of land. They succeeded and their national identity survived till today.

Zizek is like the doctors in the '50 that considered food fiber useless because us not digested, and recommended to avoid it.

Now all doctors recommend fiber for improving gut biome and gut transit.

If a thing exists it exists for a reason. Instead of bulldozing the past, let's see how we can use it for the future.

3. He has some true here. Without unions and struggle, 8h work day, payed vacation, interdiction of child labor would come too late, if ever.

But employees of google didn't stormed the head quarters to get better pay and free food. This was triggered by demand for their labour.

State, unions and revolutionaries can improve things who have little bargaining power. 

4. Why he wants a strict class separation? 

If they could many proletarians would take the place of their bourgeoise bosses. 

Many people work because they have to.

Very few janitors come to work because they like it.

Class has meaning only from statistical point if view. If someone has an income greater than proletariat average, but lower than bourgeoisy where you put them?

Theory must follow practice. Not the way around. But tell this to communists

I don't understand the concept of capitalism.

Communists didn't explain it well.

In feudal period the property was inherited, get through marriage or got with sword in hand.

The property was usually indivisible land.

In modern capitalist period, propriety became gold, which could be divided and transfered.

Capitalism is based on existence of private property and its peacefull exchange for other proprities. 

The early merchants abhorred the medieval war lord, and they tried to placate them with laws enforced by a centralized state.

If the hero of the middle ages was the knight, the hero of modern capitalist period is the lawyer .

All the peaceful civil disobedience used now in a capitalist society wouldn't make sense in a lawless middle ages, where a lord can out your head on a spike.

So where the communists see power as the basis for capitalism?

If in a country the private property doesn't exist but it exists market economy ? We considered capitalist ?

First communists tried to abolish private property with the rifle (Lenin,Stalin,Mao,Pol Pot) now they want to use ideology to make us hand it over property voluntarily.

2021: the end of US republic ?

Rise of Caesar marked the end of roman republic.

Fear hat he would declare himself king determined the senators and patricians who wanted to maintain the status quo and roman republic to kill him in 44 BC.

They were the 'optimales' the elite, on the other side Caesar pretended to be a 'populares' a man of the people, to have the support of poor masses, despite being one of the elite and being related with all his enemies.

At the times the 'plebs' didn't believed anymore in the republic:

While citizens fought foreign wars patricians grab lands.

The only way for a roman man to go ahead is to be hired in the military.

The loyalty shifted from abstract republic to real pay given by general.

Is Donald Trump a Julius Caesar ?

No, but Trump could play the role of Caesar in actual crisis.

He is from the patrician elite of US, even he was acquittance with Clinton's  but is voted by poor. 

He handed out checks as the roman politicians handed out food and games.

He is respected and obeyed by his supporters as Caesar was respected by his troops.

Caesar had Alesia battle in which he was sieged from 2 sides by the gauls and won the battle. Trump survived attacks from BLM in the streets and Democrats in Congress but he survived.

Caesar crossed the Rubicon and arrived with armies in the City.

Trump made a meeting and a speech and his mob stormed the capitol.

Roman senators killed Caesar.

American senators could kill political career of Trump.

After death of Caesar a civil war broke out an Republic disappeared de facto.

What will happen after Trump is out of the picture ?

Well I am not optimistic.

Joe Biden repeats as a parrot what the BLM is saying.

BLM said they if they were black protestors, the police would have been tougher.

What they want ? If whites trashed Capitol. The black should be allowed also?

It is envy? They want also to destroy democracy as the Trump's supporters did it ?

Also Nancy Pelosi said something racist, that those who stormed Capitol didn't want to lose their whiteness.

Lack of real political competition, leaded to 2 parties ruled by very old people.

I mean what is presidency of US ? An Oscar for all carrier for politicians ?

Biden has 78 years of age and he is visible mentally impaired, Pelosi has 80 years, Mitch McConnel has 78. 

If you want to see strong animals go in the wild, if you want to see old animals go to the zoo.

American politics is more a zoo than a jungle ? I don't know.

In Africa where is lack of competition you see dictators like Robert Mugabe dying of old age in office.

In Europe where is more competition most of politicians are in their fifties and sixties.

Also in Europe you have at least 3 parties in competition and extremist are isolated de facto in small parties, kept away from power others.

Trump could be a Front National leader in France, or leader of Afd in Germany  but it would be harder for him to win the absolute power in a state.

But as Georg Carlin said "in US you 100 versions of bagels and 2 parties"

. 

2020: uncontrollable

 The year 2020 started with a pandemic caused by the desire of Chine Communist Party to control a virus.

They thought that controlling information and shutting town could tame the virus.

Later leaders of UK and US, Trump and Johnson gave us assurances that they controll the situation.

Now both countries have the higher cases in the western world.

In Minneapolis a cop pressed the knee on a afro-american to control him. He killed him and triggered the biggest riots since '60.

Now in January Trump didn't want to lose control of US and gathered a crowd and invited it to attack Washington DC Capitol. I don't know what he really wanted to do. He is insane. Maybe a coup ?

In US you can't. States have a lot of power.

The 2020 was ruined by the our leaders illusion that they can control life and by the trust we bestowed on them. 

We can't control nature, we can't control people.

The best is to prepare for the worse, and expect that things will go haywire.