I disagree. Science can exist even if such a theory is impossible. It isn't essential to science IMO, so it cannot be its 'ultimate' goal. — boundless

Physicists are currently siting on two stubborn patterns that are incompatible: quantum mechanics and gravity.

These two stubborn patterns "do not play nice with each other" and "dictate separate and contradictory rules for the cosmos" and "are mathematically incompatible" and "cannot explain things by applying them in separation". (quotes below)

So, physicists want a "grand unified" pattern instead. Physicists seem to view this effort as essential.

Such grand unified scheme may still not be a theory as defined in mathematical logic, but if this new stubborn pattern manages to remove existing inconsistencies, then chances are that it will be that too.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-scientists-ever-find-a-theory-of-everything/

Wrangling the final (and, surprisingly enough, weakest) force, gravity, is a much harder task: Electromagnetism, as well as the strong and weak forces, can be shown to fundamentally follow the strange-but-calculable quantum rules. Yet gravity is, at present, best described by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which concerns the universe at larger scales. These two frameworks do not play nice with each other; quantum mechanics and relativity effectively dictate separate and contradictory rules for the cosmos.

https://nautil.us/do-we-need-a-theory-of-everything-237888/

We need a theory of quantum gravity because general relativity and the standard model are mathematically incompatible. So far, this is a purely theoretical problem because with the experiments that we can currently do, we do not need to use quantum gravity. In all presently possible experiments, we either measure quantum effects, but then the particle masses are so small that we cannot measure their gravitational pull. Or we can observe the gravitational pull of some objects, but then they do not have quantum behavior. So, at the moment we do not need quantum gravity to actually describe any observation.

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/49613/why-do-we-want-to-achieve-unified-theory-of-everything

During its early phase our cosmos was a world with extremely high energy enclosed in an extremely small domain of space. There was the very active interaction of particles and radiation in a highly curved spacetime. These phenomena cannot be explained by applying the theory of relativity and quantum field theory in separation. We need a unified theory, a theory of quantum gravity. Such theory does not exist up to now.

Says who apart from you? Can you cite some source for this opinion? — apokrisis

It is actually the ultimate goal of science:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything

A theory of everything (TOE), final theory, ultimate theory, unified field theory or master theory is a hypothetical, singular, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all aspects of the universe.[1]: 6  Finding a theory of everything is one of the major unsolved problems in physics.[2][3]

Stephen Hawking no longer believed that the ToE is an attainable goal:

https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/godel-and-the-end-of-physics

Some people will be very disappointed if there is not an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles. I used to belong to that camp, but I have changed my mind.

And why would maths be a judge of how physics proceeds anyway. — apokrisis

It is physicists themselves who want a ToE. Mathematicians don't care, actually:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26134773-000-why-physicists-are-rethinking-the-route-to-a-theory-of-everything/

Why physicists are rethinking the route to a theory of everything

Physicists’ search for a theory that explains all reality in one framework appeared to have stalled. But now they are reinvigorating the hunt by exploring a wild landscape of abstract geometry.

That’s how physicists feel about the theory of everything, a putative “final” framework that would explain all reality in one fell swoop. This is the ultimate goal for physics, with Stephen Hawking once memorably writing that to find it would be to know “the mind of God”.

They do not say it explicitly, but to me it is obvious that what they want from the ToE, is a "theory" that satisfies the requirements of the definition for the term in mathematical logic. Otherwise, there will be barely any improvement to the current situation, as characterized by Hawking:

https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/godel-and-the-end-of-physics

Thus a physical theory is self referencing, like in Godel’s theorem. One might therefore expect it to be either inconsistent or incomplete. The theories we have so far are both inconsistent and incomplete.

These are sweeping statements. But are they more than your own personal opinion? — apokrisis

I may express it in my own words but the underlying ideas are actually not that original.

And isn't that the healthy outcome? Some kind of mutual connection between maths and physics as cultures of inquiry? No need to make it a contest between logical rigour vs experimental validity. We have to come at nature from both these directions to grasp its truth. — apokrisis

No matter how well physics manages to study a plethora of stubborn physical patterns, it hasn't reached the stage at which mathematical logic can consider it to be a legitimate "theory".

The physical universe is one big model, i.e. a vast collection of facts. Where is its single theory? Every statement that is provable from this theory needs to be a true fact in the physical universe. Furthermore, not one single fact in the physical universe may contradict this theory.

Then, and only then, physics will be a legitimate "theory" in accordance with the definition in mathematical logic.

The equivalent of a theorem would rather be a single stubborn pattern (which they confusingly often call a theory in physics).

It is an entire collection of such stubborn patterns that would be the counterpart of a theory in mathematical logic, on the condition that these patterns sufficiently hang together in one way or another.

But then again, they also have lots of separate theories in physics, each covering some other area of the field. They are meant to be complementary bodies of knowledge. In mathematical logic, different theories are alternatives to each other.

The term means something else in science versus in mathematical logic. Even in general mathematics, the term often just means some body of knowledge, just like in science, and which does not necessarily satisfy the definition of the term in mathematical logic.

Meanwhile, it is crucial not to say, "G can not be demonstrated from the axioms of mathematics", since that is plainly false. — TonesInDeepFreeze

For Hawking's audience of physicists, the term "axioms of mathematics" refers to PA or ZFC.

A mathematical theory in which Gödel's incompleteness does not apply -- because it cannot even do arithmetic -- is probably not even in use anywhere in science.

Therefore, what Hawking said, may be technically false, but in all practical terms it will never lead to problems.

So what? The incompleteness theorem has nothing to do with that, since the incompleteness theorem regards formal theories in which the axioms are explicit and such that theorems are strictly from explicit axioms. — TonesInDeepFreeze

That is indeed the case from the standpoint of mathematical logic.

From the point of view of science and engineering, since they always operate in PA and/or ZFC, I am confident that practitioners of science or engineering are not even conscious about their implicit choice, if only, because it actually never matters to them.

Gödel always applies to the default context in their typical environment.

Isn't a lot of what you write based on the fact that science doesn't explain science, mathematics doesn't explain maths, and so on? — Wayfarer

It was more about the fact that physics does not have one thing that is considered a legitimate "theory" in mathematics.

Stephen Hawking expressed the problem as following:

https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/godel-and-the-end-of-physics

Thus a physical theory is self referencing, like in Godel’s theorem. One might therefore expect it to be either inconsistent or incomplete. The theories we have so far are both inconsistent and incomplete.

Physics is a collection of stubborn patterns that can be observed in the physical universe and not a theory in the mathematical sense.

I didn't read the whole speech but Hawking said this about incompleteness — TonesInDeepFreeze

The remainder of the speech is mostly about research headaches in (advanced) theoretical physics, probably his pet peeves.

"G can not be demonstrated from the axioms of mathematics." That's really bad and it is the kind of thing that leads people (who don't know the theorem) to make unfortunate inferences about the theorem. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Hawking was talking to other physicists. For most of them, I guess that life is often simplified to just one elusive further unspecified set of axioms in mathematics that they do not even explicitly name, because that is irrelevant to what they are doing. In fact, even mathematicians may operate like that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_system

In practice, not every proof is traced back to the axioms. At times, it is not even clear which collection of axioms a proof appeals to.

Logic might more easily describe physics. — Fire Ologist

That would require a usable theory of physical reality, which we don't have. We just have a collection of stubborn patterns.

You cannot logically recombine these stubborn patterns and hope that such syllogism will always predict a true fact in the physical universe. If it works anyway, you are just lucky, because this practice is actually unsupported. That is why you always have to test again.

I suppose, the Persians had a larger oppression of the lower classes by the rulers. The Persia was an Oriental Despotism, and the Greeks considered all Persians as the slaves of their king. — Linkey

From the point of view of Persia, Greece must have looked like a constellation of incessantly warring tribes and townships, to whom they could have brought a bit of peace by appointing a Persian governor over that jungle. They actually offered to do so multiple times.

The Greek, however, preferred the freedom to beat the sh*t out of each other. It kept them alert and on their toes. So, eventually the Macedonians managed to bring an end to the Greek jungle warfare. After that, the Romans took over the task of preventing the Greek tribes from slitting each other's throats.

The first reaction against being treated as the slaves of the king actually also came from the east.

First, the Jews objected to their king inventing new laws because there was only one God and he had invented all the laws already. Next, the Muslims brought that principle to a whole new level by claiming to be the slaves of God already. So, how could they also be the slaves of a king?

In all these empires, the monarchs and his feudals took a lot of women from the lower classes into their harems, and I heard that rather often the men from the lower classes remained without women because of this. — Linkey

The problem is that when women are completely free to choose, they replicate exactly this pattern and only want to deal with the 5% most valuable men, while rejecting all other men. Modern women would rather die alone surrounded by cats than to settle for the average Joe.

The point of an education is to lift us above the socio-cultural constraints of an oral world order – socially constructed in words – to a technocratic or rational world order. — apokrisis

An academic education rather teaches the fine points of sophistry, suitable for bamboozling the masses.

Since employers like CNN and Harvard can only employ that many mouthpieces, a training in sophistry increasingly leads to unemployment. Even the Chinese Communist Party says that it is fully staffed now, leaving every year millions of new graduates without a suitable job.

If you look at model theory, you can see on the one side a collection of rules, i.e. the axioms of a theory, and on the other side, a possibly even chaotic collection of facts (or "truths"), i.e. a model.

On the one hand, a model interprets the theory if none of its facts, no matter how chaotic, violates the theory's rules. On the other hand, a theory has a particular model if every statement provable from that theory is true in that model. Not all facts need to be provable from the theory.

Logic operates on the side of the theory. Physics operates on the side of the model.

Physics is a collection of facts in which science has observed stubborn patterns. These physical patterns are often confused for a theory, but they are not.

Physics as a model, i.e. a collection of facts, may very well interpret an otherwise unknown theory, i.e. some collection of rules (and not just stubborn patterns).

If this unknown theory of physics can be expressed in the language of first-order logic, then that would be the link between physics and logic.

We suspect that this link between physics and logic must somehow exists.

However, without actually formulating a legitimate theory for physics, we can never be sure.

Thank you, you spent a lot of time gathering all those sources, to manage not to answer my question whatsoever. This is a masterpiece. Once again, I asked "Any solid proof? And not just isolated cases, but a systemic critique: embezzlement... And what about other organizations?" And, instead of providing statistics, a global proof, scientific studies, you wrote about isolated cases from a very few organizations, actually mostly just one. — LFranc

You are asking for an audit report. That would require an external audit. I just compiled a list of incidents from what the press has reported. I am not interested in auditing these organizations because I would never give them one dollar anyway. Performing an external audit is not for free. Feel free to waste your own money on that.

Also, in other threads I've commented on the matters of the incompleteness theorem in philosophy of mathematics. I don't have comments at this time on the incompleteness theorem in connection with science, epistemology, ontology and metaphysics. — TonesInDeepFreeze

In his 2002 lecture, "Gödel and the end of physics", Stephen Hawking made excellent comments on the connection with physics. He obviously left out technical details because those were irrelevant to the question at hand. People attending his lecture were simply not interested in the technical details. They just wanted to know what the value of Gödel's theorem is for physics. Hawking pointed out that positivism is simply futile. Laplace's demon is the wrong view on physics because it will never be possible.

I usually take a (logistic) system to consist of a language, axioms and inference rules. And I take a theory to be a set of sentences closed under provability. A theory may be the set of theorems in a language and derivable from axioms with rules. So, with each system, there is the theory induced by that system. — TonesInDeepFreeze

In the context of the question "So what exactly did Godel add to our body of knowledge?", everything you say may be perfectly correct, but what answer does that give to the question at hand?

The "value of a theorem" is a philosophical question and not a technical one. It is not about giving precise technical details about what the terms "theorem", "theory" or "system" mean. The real answer will simply be lost amidst technical details that are irrelevant to the question at hand.

According to Stephen Hawking, Gödel's theorem is valuable because it shows us why positivism is futile. Yanofsky's work shows that Gödel's theorem is omnipresent. It is not an "overbroad mischaracterization" to state that Gödelian facts -- true but not provable -- are most likely omnipresent in our physical universe. Gödelian facts most likely massively outnumber predictable facts.

We most likely live in a Gödelian universe and not in a universe of Laplace's demon. That is the real metaphysical implication of Gödel's theorem.

The reason why Gödel's theorem has not yet been absorbed into modern metaphysics, almost a century after its discovery, is because of the incessant use of impenetrable language, meant to insist on irrelevant technical details, instead of dealing with the metaphysics that it implies.

You don't have to go into details merely to avoid egregiously mischaracterizing the subject. I stated the theorem in just one sentence, and using only ordinary words. Plus the other dangling sloppiness in what you wrote. — TonesInDeepFreeze

The question was not about how to state the theorem. The question was about the value of the theorem.

But you start out by mentioning logic in general, thus giving the impression that systems in general are incomplete, thus adding to the general confusion so prevalent on this point. — TonesInDeepFreeze

It was an answer to "So what exactly did Godel add to our body of knowledge?".

My answer was a combination of what Hawking had said on the matter along with Yanofsky's take on the matter, without going into the nitty gritty details of when Godel's theorem is applicable because that was not the question to begin with.

Incompleteness doesn't pertain to systems in general. Only to systems of a very certain kind. — TonesInDeepFreeze

It was an answer to the relevance of Godel's theorem. Of course, it only applies to systems in which it is provable.

"know the construction logic of". What is a "construction logic"? Maybe you mean the construction of the syntax? Better yet, just to say "the syntax rules". — TonesInDeepFreeze

The system is a theory with a language. So, that is the "construction logic".

It emphasizes that you are in control of its true nature.

It's a bit like building a machine according to plan but you cannot predict everything it will be doing when it is running.

What are some criticisms in mathematics of the identity of indiscernibles? — TonesInDeepFreeze

Principle 2, on the other hand, is controversial; Max Black famously argued against it.[5]

Black, Max (1952). "The Identity of Indiscernibles". Mind. 61 (242): 153–64.

Unlike your post, that quote seems at least fairly clear and doesn't make an overbroad mischaracterization of incompleteness. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Noson Yanofsky writes:

http://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~noson/True%20but%20Unprovable.pdf

There are more true but unprovable statements than we can possibly imagine.

We have come a long way since Gödel. A true but unprovable statement is not some strange, rare phenomenon. In fact, the opposite is correct. A fact that is true and provable is a rare phenomenon. The collection of mathematical facts is very large and what is expressible and true is a small part of it. Furthermore, what is provable is only a small part of those.

What I wrote, is the combination of what Hawking and Yanofsky wrote on the matter. Why would that be an "overbroad mischaracterization"?

No, you said that the only law that "withstands scrutiny" for constructivism is non-contradiction. And that is false. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Agreed. The identity of indiscernibles is criticized in other areas of mathematics.

The law of identity is allowed by constructivism. It "withstands foundational scrutiny" by constructivism. No strawman.
13m — TonesInDeepFreeze

All three laws are allowed. I just pointed out that there are issues in assuming two of them.

That is ridiculously overbroad and vague. — TonesInDeepFreeze

That is what Hawking has said on the matter:

https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/godel-and-the-end-of-physics

What is the relation between Godel’s theorem and whether we can formulate the theory of the universe in terms of a finite number of principles? One connection is obvious. According to the positivist philosophy of science, a physical theory is a mathematical model. So if there are mathematical results that can not be proved, there are physical problems that can not be predicted.

Isn't it rather your own criticism that is ridiculous?

And constructivism uses the law of identity, so it is not the case that the only one of those three laws allowed by constructivism is non-contradiction.
1h — TonesInDeepFreeze

That is not what I said. Straw man.

n context of modern logic, 'decidable' means either (1) the sentence or its negation is a theorem, or (2) There is an algorithm to decide whether the sentence is a member of a given set, such as the set of sentences that are valid, or the set of sentences that are true in a given model.

LEM is not that. LEM syntactically is the theorem: P v ~P, and LEM semantically is the theorem that for a given model M, either P is true in M or P is false in M (so, either P is true in M or ~P is true in M) — TonesInDeepFreeze

"the sentence or its negation is a theorem" ignores the existence of true but unprovable sentences. So, it should rather be "the sentence or its negation is true". They don't need to be provable theorems.

I do not see the difference between "the sentence or its negation is true" and "P v ~P".

The law of identity, the indiscernibility of identicals, and the identity of indiscernibles are different. What specific problem with the law of identity are you referring to? — TonesInDeepFreeze

I was referring to the identity of indiscernibles: ∀x ∀y [ ∀F ( F x ↔ F y ) → x = y ]
For any x and y, if x and y have all the same properties, then x is identical to y.

You think that the only law that constructivism allows is non-contradiction? You've gone through all other laws and found that they are not constructivisitically acceptable? — TonesInDeepFreeze

I was referring to Boole's laws of thought:

- the law of identity (ID)
- the law of contradiction (or non-contradiction; NC)
- the law of excluded middle (EM)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought

The title of George Boole's 1854 treatise on logic, An Investigation on the Laws of Thought, indicates an alternate path. The laws are now incorporated into an algebraic representation of his "laws of the mind", honed over the years into modern Boolean algebra.

Boole did not "invent" these foundational laws but he did systematize them somewhat.

So what exactly did Godel add to our body of knowledge? — Gregory

You can perfectly know the construction logic of a system but that does still not allow you to know its complete truth. So, even if we manage to figure out the perfect theory of the physical universe, we will still not be able to predict most of its facts.

There being cases in which a law does not apply. — Lionino

The most problematic foundational law in logic (Boole's "laws of thought") is in my opinion the law of the excluded middle (LEM), which implicitly assumes that the question at hand is decidable.The indiscriminate use of this law is intuitionistically objectionable:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(philosophy_of_mathematics)

Much constructive mathematics uses intuitionistic logic, which is essentially classical logic without the law of the excluded middle. This law states that, for any proposition, either that proposition is true or its negation is. This is not to say that the law of the excluded middle is denied entirely; special cases of the law will be provable. It is just that the general law is not assumed as an axiom.

The law of identity may also be problematic because of the existence of indiscernible numbers. However, this problem is not frequently mentioned in the literature.

The only foundational law that seems to withstand foundational scrutiny by constructive mathematics, is the law of non-contradiction:

The law of non-contradiction (which states that contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time) is still valid.

The law is not considered unassailable, though:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

The law of non-contradiction is alleged to be neither verifiable nor falsifiable, on the ground that any proof or disproof must use the law itself prior to reaching the conclusion. In other words, in order to verify or falsify the laws of logic one must resort to logic as a weapon, an act that is argued to be self-defeating.

But for the natural speaker what is lacking is a relation between the two things. — Leontiskos

The natural speaker assumes that there is somewhere some justification.

Formal languages may expect that too.

That is actually the main difference between classical logic and mathematical logic.

In mathematical logic, it is not just about truth tables. The goal is not limited to a bit of truth value calculus. The goal is proving entailment, i.e. (mathematical) justification.

The ruling class "listens" to the general public so long as they remain inside of their designated theater of action. — ucarr

The best example of popular delusion is their demand to "tax the rich".

The core of the wealthy class are the ruling mafia themselves, along with the business people ("oligarchs") who are well connected to them.

In other words, the populace expects the ruling mafia to use their power to confiscate wealth from themselves and to distribute it to the common people.

On what planet is that ever going to happen?

Of course, the ruling mafia will still want to be seen doing something to that effect.

So, they identify the "kulaks", i.e. people who are moderately better off than the average and who do not have enough political connections to hang on to the moderate surplus they have.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/kulak

Kulak, (Russian: “fist”), in Russian and Soviet history, a wealthy or prosperous peasant, generally characterized as one who owned a relatively large farm and several head of cattle and horses and who was financially capable of employing hired labour and leasing land.

At the end of 1929 a campaign to “liquidate the kulaks as a class” (“dekulakization”) was launched by the government.

The standing army is the guard rail that prevents everyman crossings into elite circles: — ucarr

Yes, exactly. In order to escape from the lower class, you first need to rise through the "kulak" class.

By popular demand, however, the ruling mafia will "liquidate" the kulaks.

By doing so, the ruling mafia is giving the populace exactly what they are asking for.

It is the populace itself that insist that there should be no way to escape poverty. Again, it is necessary to give the populace exactly what they ask for. That is why liquidation of the kulaks is a "democratic" duty.

Some people argue that the Soviets were not democratic. This is not true. The Soviets were the epitome of rule by the mob. The Soviets were the most democratic society in the history of mankind.

If science does not and cannot explain knowledge AT ALL ...This is why philosophical thinking is "privileged": — Constance

Science discovers, expresses, and duly tests stubborn patterns observable in the physical universe.

The resulting output of scientific activity are scientific statements, i.e. abstract language objects.

There are no abstract language objects visible or otherwise observable in physical reality.

Hence, the output of science is not a legitimate input for science. Consequently, science cannot talk about itself. Its method cannot handle that.

Philosophy can do that. Sufficiently powerful self-referential mathematics can often also do that. Science, however, cannot do that. It is not powerful enough to that end.

Since the Republicans are turning away from the vision of the Founding Fathers towards the ancient blood royal system of governance by divine rule of monarchs, and the Democrats are holding firm to the vision of the Founding Fathers who turned away from royal blood to individual freedom — ucarr

In my opinion, the Republicans remain firm supporters of the principle of rule by the mob, i.e. democracy. They are not "true" conservatives at all.

Since the mob is the primary victim of rule by the mob, and since I believe that everybody should get what they have asked for, I think that democracy should continue until it finally destroys itself.

I do not believe in bringing sanity to people who simply do not want it.

Just as much as the Democrats, the Republicans have listened to the mob, and they have happily enacted the mob's delusions into law. They are equally responsible for the ongoing mess. They have always been perfectly willing participants. They cannot just deny responsibility. Let them now own the resulting cesspool.

Even if that's true about the Dubai, it does not contradict what I have said: the rulers of UAE can't allow themselves to become despots, because otherwise they will get a revolt. — Linkey

A revolt by foreigners?
Because that's 90% of the population.
Theyd rather jump on the first plane out of there.

The Emirati themselves are too much part of the local power structure to revolt. They can outsource
everything to foreigners but they cannot outsource control. Furthermore, it's all about intermarried clan loyalties around the Emir. I think that an Emirati revolt is quite unlikely.

Bananas still don't grow on Burj Khalifas. — BC

I view Emirati with respect.

I may not always agree with all the nitty gritty details of what they are doing but on the whole I consider their post-oil strategy surprisingly successful.

I think that the Emir of Dubai is a great leader for his people and for the foreigners who can afford to join.

BTW, readily available education, housing, and medical care are not a frill -- they are essential components of a successful society--both socially and economically. — BC

The Dubai Emirati do not pay for education, healthcare, housing , or retirement benefits for the 90% foreigners of their population.

All of that are not essential components of a successful Dubai. Paternalistically babysitting other people is not an ingredient of success. Robbing Peter to pay Paul isn't either.

The foreigners pay for private service by themselves.

One might well ask the residents of Dubai where they will get their food when the age of oil is over --certainly not by their own efforts, being in the desert as it is. Bananas don't grow on Burj Khalifas. — BC

Dubai doesn't live of oil today already. What you are seeing today, is already their post-oil strategy.

There are 3.3 million people in Dubai of whom only 300 000 are Emirati nationals. There are even more westerners (450,000+) in Dubai than Emirati.

They have a GDP/Capita of $46k/person, which puts them globally in the top league for income.

The Emirati are barely numerous enough to handle police, army, immigration, and other critical security personnel staffing of their city.

In my opinion, the Emirati are actively stretching the number of foreigners that they currently take in, to the very maximum that they can reasonably handle.

to extrapolate this kind of action is ridiculous and flawed — QuixoticAgnostic

Totally agreed.

I give to less fortunate relatives and to people that I can physically see around me.

I consider everything else to be an online scam meant to part the fool and his money.

It's not hard to set up a web page with a donate button, to call yourself the new "Oxfam", and to pretend that you will save the prostitutes in Haiti from starvation.

But then again, apparently, true to their vocation, Oxfam really tried "hard". It was an orgy of failed attempts!

The food that the city consumes does not come from the fields immediately next to it... — Lionino

I don't think that the people in Leiden or Bologna want to turn their neighboring countryside into a concrete jungle of endless suburbs.

And Dubai isn't zero tax. It has import/export taxes, property taxes, service taxes, etc. It just doesn't cut money out of your income directly. — Lionino

Wealthy people object to personal income tax, wealth tax, and capital gains tax. The other taxes don't matter particularly much, if they are reasonable, which they are in Dubai. The question:

How much money did you make last year? Because we want at least half!

leads to stupid games:

I didn't make any money. Corporation XYZ did, and they are located in the Seychelles or in another tax haven.

If it had zero tax it would collapse — Lionino

A government that does not need to spend on healthcare, education, or retirement, because like in the old days, people deal with that by themselves, does not need much tax revenue to stay nicely afloat. I guess that 10% of GDP is already more than enough.

So I wonder why every Instagram/Youtube clown wants to move to Dubai, but not engineers and philosophers. — Lionino

Not true.

For example, Dubai has a massive cryptocurrency industry. From the top of my hat, Binance and Bybit are in Dubai.

The point is that software engineers can and usually do work remotely. So, there is no need to move to Dubai.

Furthermore, countries like Thailand and the Philippines are considered more fun than Dubai, and also cheaper.

Personal income tax is not an issue for digital nomads because these countries are not interested in what you are doing on your laptop. The digital nomad visa is typically even like that: no personal income tax.

It's only the management that really needs to sit in Dubai. They are the ones who enjoy sitting in endless meetings.

A lot of trade on Africa and the Middle East is also concentrated in Dubai. For example, Dubai is undoubtedly the biggest gold and (increasingly) diamond market in the world. There are also lots of manufacturing product warehouses and logistics in Dubai.

These businesses are less visible than social media influencers but they are much, much bigger.

Because it is in the desert. — Lionino

No, not because they are in the desert. Because they don't need to give out handouts in order to expand.

They can... they are both surrounded by fields. — Lionino

And where are they going to grow the food, if they keep expanding?

Dubai is a bubble built on luck — Lionino

No, no, there is definitely some logic to the madness over there. People like it a lot. They really like the zero-tax strategy, especially when they have a lot of money.

We all know what the rich Arabs of Dubai pay Instagram models to do on their bodies. Dubai is much more degenerate than it meets the eye. — Lionino

It is human nature itself that is more degenerate than it meets the eye. But then again, all of that is not the rule but the rare exception. Most people don't like that shit (pun intended).

If they had found no oil, there is no universe in which Dubai would have been more than a fishing village, like it was 50 years ago. — Lionino

We'll see. Nayib Bukele is trying the same thing in El Salvador. He wants to build "Bitcoin city", which should be similar to Dubai, i.e. zero income tax, no stupid regulations, no social-justice warriors in its government, and so on:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_City

I don't think that Bukele can do it because democracy will destroy his plan. The social-justice warriors will want to tax and redistribute from the Bitcoin billionaires even before anybody sets foot there. So, nobody is ever going to show up.

That's perfectly reasonable. Except that the ideal is impractical. Everyone has to make their living somehow. Independence is a mirage. We have to settle for an independent mind, which is not impossible, though difficult - and requires courage. — Ludwig V

Anonymous moral advice is the best, actually.

It is a question of establishing an almost "cryptographic" protocol.

When moral advice is justified, I'd rather take it on an anonymous internet forum than from someone who would thereby expose himself to dangerous reprisals.

Hence, it does not matter as much "who" exactly says it than "how" he says it (with justification or not).

Credentialism is dangerous in more than one way.

It is the same for other types of advice, such as investment advice or relationship advice. They won't tell you the truth if they simply can't.

Leiden or Bologna — Lionino

The global poor want to move there because they can get handouts, i .e. free housing, free healthcare, free education, welfare benefits, and so on.

Who is supposed to pay for all of that?

How sustainable is all of that?

How many more poor people from around the world are Leiden and Bologna going to take in before they are bankrupt?

All of that is just delusional.

Dubai can keep expanding. Leiden or Bologna? I don't think so.

Furthermore, even the poor do not really like to live off charity.

It's not particularly dignified.

Deep inside, they'd rather work for the money.

Do you really believe that they proudly write to people back home how much more money they managed to receive in welfare benefits?

When they land a good job in Dubai, they are "da man" back home. Everyone admires them, because"They did it!"

What you call "slave labor" is very prestigious in places like Bangladesh.

Martin Luther said that people were better off being ruled by a smart Turk than a dumb Christian. — BC

The Emirate of Dubai offers just one product, which is globally tremendously and increasingly popular, i.e. freedom from the aberrations caused by democracy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai

Dubai has been ruled by the Al Maktoum family since 1833; the emirate is an absolute monarchy.

The city has a population of around 3.60 million (as of 2022).[19] More than 90% of the population are expatriates.

461,000 Westerners live in the United Arab Emirates, making up 5.1% of its total population.

People vote with their feet.

They reject rule by the mob.

Millions more would want to live in Dubai and be governed by its emir instead of the mob back home, but they cannot afford it financially:

Dubai is the second most expensive city in the region and 20th most expensive city in the world.

It is all about supply and demand. Dubai cannot expand fast enough to accommodate demand. Don't try to get into Singapore either. That small island is also full now.

It is an increasingly expensive privilege to escape the madness of democracy and to get access to a sane alternative.

The poor cannot afford the government by the emir product, unless they get hired by an employer in Dubai, which is not easy to find. There is simply too much demand.

That is why the poor must stay where they are and keep governing themselves; which they know to be a living nightmare.

Democracy is delusional.