. In any case, yes North America was colonized — BitconnectCarlos

Don't forget South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The Continent of America isn't just the US.

but it also underwent large-scale decolonization. — BitconnectCarlos

?

You mean Latin America and North America got Independent? Especially when population transfer (meaning settlers coming in), American Continent comes to mind as the example. And of course with Islam people converted to the religion, so the people weren't replaced, but conquered. There weren't so many Arabs actually at the time of Mohammad.

The idea of decolonizing Muslim lands (e.g. Zionism) — BitconnectCarlos

You're really serious? New interpretations for Zionism. Besides, without going to Biblical times, it was the Romans and Emperor Hadrian, that started rooting out Jews from their land (for example banned Jews from Jerusalem) and settling other people to the land, so that's a bit earlier than the Muslims. Like half a millennium earlier or so.

They are willing to buy to the degree it is scarce. As I said scarcity is a necessary but insufficient condition for value. — hypericin

Not actually.

There's no scarcity of let's say the US dollar. Only that the Central Bank won't do this. But with a few pushes on a computer, they could make tomorrow 100 trillion dollars. Just as no bank can give you a 50 year 100 trillion dollar bullet loan to mine the Asteroid belt, even if you would have this awesome business plan to do it. Likely the Central Bank or the Financial Regulator would halt the bank giving you such a loan.

Yet if they would go along with your loan plan, once you sign it, you have just created that 100 trillion.

How could that be scarcity in the meaning that we usually understand it?

The greatest & most brutal settler-colonial project in history -- Islamic rule — BitconnectCarlos

Somebody is a bit exaggerating here. :snicker:

I think the colonization of a whole large continent would still count as the greatest settler-colonial project in history.

And I'm not talking about Australia.

Just scarcity isn't a reason for demand.

If people think something is valuable and are willing to buy it, it's valuable.

What has changed though is trade union power. The Wilson era was the last one in which the unions held huge power and influence on policy of either party. Unions were a strong force for raising the living standards of the poor, but also a strong drag on innovation and modernisation. — unenlightened

This is a very good observation. Trade unions have had (and have) both positive and negative effects. Rise of Thatcher has to viewed upon the events of the 1970's and events like "Winter of Discontent". If a trade union (or group of them) gets into the situation that it can literally stop the economy, it will use this power. On the other hand, if the impact of trade unions are minimal or diminishes to being nearly non-existent, things like real wages and workers rights do suffer.

It's totally understandable that it was especially the coal miners that were striking as basically the whole sector simply closed down. Prior to WW2 the coal mines employed over 1 million people and the UK got it's energy from coal. It should be observed that the largest decrease happened in the 1960's and early 1970's, far before the political fight with Thatcher. That the coal mining industry basically went away cannot be just blamed on Thatcher.



Again, this isn't just Thatcherism or something unique to the UK. The drawdown of German and French coal production has been actually similar. In the US the turn out from coal happened only later. (And btw the following graph below puts into perspective the use of fossil fuels when coal is mentioned)

- the 'right to buy' for social housing tenants has distorted the housing market and the British middle class regard their homes as 'assets' which are supposed to keep appreciating — mcdoodle

This is one very British thing: Britons live in very old housing and the production of new housing is very little. Seems to be lot of red tape. Someone could say that one of the objectives is to keep housing prices high in order that there's no trouble to the financial sector. Influx of immigrants won't ease the situation. And the financial sector is the one thing, the last thing that UK has going for it.

Today, the UK banking sector already consists of around 450% of nominal GDP on a residency basis, up from around 100% in 1975. The UK has the largest banking sector, on a residency basis, out of the US, Japan and the 10 largest EU countries.

Hence the last thing that the UK would want to come it's way is a global financial crises (again). It wouldn't just hit the fat cat financiers in the City, it would hit those who are already hit by the current hard times.

So, what I can infer from the posts by other members and yourself is that conservatives went too far? From what I understand its not the conservatives, per se; but, the third way politicians? Does that seem accurate? — Shawn

It's the common way to seek culprits, but I try to go a bit further here than just say that politicians have made lousy decisions. The question is why the lousy decisions. And why as @unenlightened put, has the UK been in slow decline since WW2.

Even if the Conservative Party has dominated the politics of post-war UK, there has been the Attlee administration, Wilson and Callaghan administrations and the fifteen years of Blair and Brown. So the Labor party has had it's share in power here.



It's noteworthy to understand that Labor, basically representing Social Democracy in the UK and the Conservative Party representing the right aren't so far off and different in the end. Present day Social Democracy has totally accepted capitalism and only views to regulate and "curb the excesses" of capitalism. The Conservatives on the other hand have basically accepted all the objectives that the Social Democratic movement pushed for in the 19th Century. And this causes some people to look for alternatives in the extremes as the two major parties have become closer to each other (and the outcome has been disappointing). For example in Sweden the Social Democrat party has practically dominated Swedish politics throughout the 20th Century and the 21st, yet Sweden is still a capitalist country. It may have the welfare state, but it isn't socialist (as let's say Venezuela or Cuba).

Hence if you ask "if the conservatives went too far", the real question is if in the long run would it have been different with more labour governments? The UK has seen it's share of nationalizations and privatizations. The UK was the first industrialized country and was the largest industrialized country in the 19th Century. This creates the situation where modernization is a problem. When the industry and infrastructure is already there, you can lean on the existing industry and infrastructure. Perhaps for far too long.

Take for example the British Rail system, which has been nationalized and then privatized again. This is what the rail system looked like in 1900.



Then in 1963 and 1984:


This is what the British rail system in 2010 (for England and Whales), which is quite similar to present:


When you have already a huge network, then issue isn't building something totally new, it's about modernizing. And a lot of lines have been shut down, even if now more people than ever are using rail. And with modernizing there's always a catch: if it works, why modernize it? You can put forward modernization plans. That the UK doesn't have a high speed rail network (with the exception of the tunnel link to France) as Italy, Spain, France and Germany have is telling.



Would this be really different without the Conservatives? Naturally it's an alternative history question, which you cannot answer, but perhaps puts these issues beyond party politics.

An easy example of this would be terrorists. There is a certain school of thought that might say terrorism is a product of the "oppressors". The opposite side would say that terrorism is a result of culture. Some might provide a mix of the two. — schopenhauer1

I'd say terrorism is simply a method of warfare usually done by a non-state actor, sometimes just by a single individual (example of Anders Breivik comes to mind). It's intention is usually to get media coverage and is different from an insurgency. And naturally "terrorism" is used in narrative to describe any non-state actor (or even state actor) that isn't viewed as a legal combatant or doesn't apply to the laws of war. Or then simply is a term used in propaganda for describing the enemy.

Something happening because of culture has to be specifically related to that culture. Only then can we really blame the culture. Especially when the issue is something that the underlying culture promotes. If our present culture promotes individuality and thinking of oneself, consumerism and having wealth, then us not being great in collective efforts or in thinking of others could be blamed on our culture itself.

Thank you @unenlightened and @mcdoodle for your good comments.

But the rule of the Conservatives was much more disturbing: wildly inept and very mendacious. — mcdoodle

How the Conservative party went through Prime Ministers was astounding. The inside bickering of the party was something that I've not seen a major ruling party doing ever.

We've been in a slow decline since WW2 and the end of Empire. Your analysis is pretty good; Thatcherism and Blairism were both about selling off all the government assets to cover up this decline, and once the assets are gone (to the extent that the health service no longer owns the hospitals it runs) nor the education service its schools), the sums stop adding up and there is "austerity". — unenlightened

It really seems so. One is simply the lack of long term investments, which would need simply a vision of what the UK would be. But that hasn't happened. I think this commentator nicely sums up the "short terminism", which does explain a lot:



Yet I think there's more to it than just not looking further. We have to ask just why it is so. Why is there no enthusiasm for "Great Projects" in the UK? It seems that the UK government has lacked plans that would in the be grandiose and risky. The liberalism (Thatcherism) would state that it's the best thing for the government to stay away and let the private market work it's wonders. Many times it simply doesn't go like that. China, South Korea, Taiwan and the US haven't had their governments sitting on the backseat waiting for the "private sector" to do everything. Yet when the government is active, then there has to be a vision (or a threat, which mobilizes the country).

It really has to do with the loss of Empire. I think there's something absolutely fascinating in the UK of how the loss of the Empire has had this kind of deep traumatic experience where country hasn't been able make large long term investments or have grand visions... like the French. What has been great and a gift to the World is how British can laugh at this, starting from Monty Python, but also with one of my favorites of "Yes, Minister" and the follow up "Yes, Prime Minister". Jim Hacker (played by Paul Eddington) and Sir Humphrey (played by Nigel Hawthorne). Yet even this political parody clearly showed how the UK government isn't thinking of grand new designs and huge infrastructure projects. It's just about handling the next crisis that comes in from the door. Yet with it's huge financial sector, the UK could easily done what Germany and France did. Let's just remember that after the war, those two countries were in a far more devastated situation.

This lack of the British government being capable of long term thinking can be seen from many examples. First example (that comes to my mind) is just how differently the UK and Norway approached the North Sea Oil when it was found. The UK basically used the money, the Norwegians put even a philosopher to think about it and made the decision to put the revenues in a Sovereign Wealth Fund and use only the interest of the Fund. Hence all the money is still there with Norway and with this policy, the small country avoided the Dutch Disease, which actually Venezuela is the perfect example. Now Norway produces far more oil and gas than the UK.


But there are other examples.

First, there's the strange example of the British space program: the British rocket Black Arrow and the satellite Prospero. The UK government saw as the program as too costly and simply didn't think that launching satellites wouldn't be what it in reality came to be: a very lucrative market. So as the space program was cancelled. The program had a rocket and a satellite ready didn't know what to do, so they launched the satellite in 1971 from Woomerang, Australia. The Black Arrow rocket functioned perfectly as did the satellite, which then was operational until 1973, after which it was contacted annually for over 25 years.

(The launch of the Black Arrow rocket in October 1971, notice that the British rocket's technology is different from American and Russian rockets as it doesn't create the plumes of smoke as they do, hence the technology was actually really British.)


To cancel a totally working space program, leave the field of commercial satellite launches to others and then to use foreign missiles (Trident missiles were made by American Lockheed) show this utter lack of vision. You can really see the effect of the well known mantra that was told in the late 20th Century: "Only the Superpowers can afford a space program". France didn't go this way, it stick with it's space program which totally functioning today. It's submarine launched nuclear weapons are French made, and overall France has a smaller defense budget than the UK, yet has larger armed forces. And btw the US Trident missiles have had problems in test firings. What is left of a British space program, well, there was the Beagle 2 that did manage to get to Mars, but couldn't then contact Earth. The small space probe is a fitting example where the UK is. There would be obviously the talent, but there isn't much investment.




Space programs still even today demand high tech and investment, that a functioning program tells a lot of the economy of the country.

Here's a personal anecdote that may be telling: My PhD class had several women. One dropped out for health reasons, and another was the top student, by far. Shortly after graduation she married a forest ranger and became a housewife.

In the international research clique I joined there were several women, but more men than women. A fairly close colleague, a European woman who had left behind a role as housewife, became the holder of an endowed chair at a major Scandinavian university. — jgill

We can all believe this. And since people are mathematicians, they can understand the effect when the dean or the higher ups in the universtity or research establishment simply demand that "there should be more women". The obvious reason is simply viewed as toxic. That women have babies and do still become housewives. My wife wrote and finished her PhD when she was nurturing our first baby. When we had second child, she decided to stay home. My income made it possible.

Of course the present culture is in no way as hostile as was the Catholic Church before (to science in general) or the Islamic religion after the brief spell when the Muslim World upheld Western knowledge. Hence if someone cries after the "decolonization of Mathematics", it actually isn't a threat in any way to the study of mathematics.

I said math is what mathematicians do. I stand by the remark. I reiterate my literal shock that this anodyne and obvious statement generated pushback from two people. — fishfry

Confused really why you would be in "literal shock" and why talk of having pushback.

The statement "Math is what mathematicians do" can be interpreted totally differently by for example social sciences. Totally differently what you mean. I do understand your point, but what I'm trying to say here that all do not share your perspective and they will use a totally different discourse. The conclusion and the counterargument isn't that "If then all mathematicians sleep, is sleeping then mathematics?", no, it's not so easy. It's that if mathematics is just what mathematicians do, then we just can just focus on the mathematicians as group and in their social behavior and interactions and workings as a group. Because what mathematicians do is what is mathematics, we can take out any consideration of things like mathematics itself or the philosophy of math. What the schools of math disagree on isn't important. I'll repeat it: all you need is to look at mathematicians as a group of people and the behavior and interactions. And in the end some can then talk about "decolonization of mathematics", because the study will notice that it's all about "dead white European males". This is just the way some people think.

Hopefully you get my point.

But "mathematics" can be interpreted as the use of data for political purposes. Mathematics is highly political. The NSA employs more number theorists than academia does. — fishfry

Good that you used the word "interpreted". It's crucial here.

Cryptography and secure communications are important, and it's quite math related. And Wall Street uses quants, quantitative analysts, who do also know their math. Would then mathematics be capitalist? Of course not. I myself disagree with these kinds of interpretations.

I used to think so. I probably still do. Still ... Newton and Kant's absolute space and time are reflections of the European paradigm of society in their day. Some philosophers have so argued.. I'm not prepared to go into that too deeply. — fishfry

You don't have to, it's all quite simple. Thomas Kuhn came up with the term "scientific paradigm" and note that Kuhn isn't any revolutionary and he doestn't at all question science itself. He's basically a historian of science. It's simply a well thought and researched book that states that basically everybody everybody is a child of their own time, even scientists too. And so is the scientific community, it has these overall beliefs until some important discoveries change the underlying views of the community. And that's basically it.

For the philosophy of mathematics or the to the question of just what math is, Kuhnian paradigms don't give any answer and actually aren't important. What is important is the questions in mathematics... that perhaps in the end can get a response like a Kuhnian paradigm shift. So hopefully you still think that way, not only probably.

I am wondering who these people are that you and ssu think I'm giving comfort to.

Do you mean cultural relativists, postmodernists, etc.? People who think that objectivity and merit are tools of the cis white patriarchy?

If so, I oppose these people. But they're not waiting for the likes of me to give them encouragement. — fishfry

But they do have an effect. Well, It's not like the Catholic Church going against Galileo Galilei and others (or what happened to scientific studies in Islamic societies, that had no renaissance), but distantly it resembles it.

I'm big on scientific objectivity. — fishfry

But I'm opposed to scientism, and the use of the NAME of science to enforce political, anti-scientific orthodoxy. — fishfry

Good luck finding anyone here that doesn't share your views.

But some things are political, just like the response to the COVID pandemic. Lock downs would be the obvious political move: the government has to do something and show it's doing something, that it cares about citizens dying. Taking the stance that Sweden did would take a lot of courage, but there the chief scientific authority was against lock downs, so it was easy for the politicians to do so. How you respond to natural disasters or pandemics is a political decision.

One thing is to keep politics out of things like mathematics. Sounds totally obvious, but we live in strange times...

And now you react strongly. I wish you'd tell me what you mean. — fishfry

I didn't mean to react strongly. And do note that I said I opposed the kind of thinking. I tried to give the example that in many social sciences (and humanities), the people talking about mathematics (or sciences in general) use simply their own fields discourse and focus, yet then make conclusions of mathematics itself based on these findings. And that's what I referred to giving the left leg to them when saying "mathematics is simply what mathematicians do". That's true of course, math is made by mathematicians, but how that is understood can be quite different.

I should clarify what I mean by this.

The teaching of mathematics in the school system is an educational question, how well the educational system works, not actually about the subject itself, mathematics. Or if as @jgill commented, women make up 25-30% of PhD students in America and 15-20% of math faculties. Thus the make up isn't at all close to the natural 50/50 divide, hence mathematics is male dominated. Yet there being more male mathematicians than female isn't a question about math itself again. It might be a question how faculties work and what kind of groups there are and who has control of the faculty, but that isn't mathematics itself. It would be hilarious to argue the male and female mathematicians would make different kinds of mathematics. There obviously isn't "feminine" or "masculine" mathematics, just as there's no difference in the study of some specific field of mathematics done today in the US, Europe or Asia. "European math" and "Asian math" fit together quite well.

Yet exactly these kinds of differences, who is doing math and where is it done, interest the social sciences. Those questions can be indeed interesting, but they aren't about mathematics itself or the philosophy of mathematics. In areas like literature, art and many fields of human activity etc. there is obviously a difference in where and who does it to the end result. Yet if mathematics is extensively studied in some part of the World or another, I would argue that the pure mathematics would be similar. Yet I know that many would disagree with this, seeing mathematics totally similar to these other endeavors.

In fact @fdrake makes the point perhaps even better than me. Hard to talk about mathematical insights if the other person just focuses that your basically just referring to white European males (that are dead). But the fact is that many people in social sciences are simply so mesmerized by the findings of their own field, that they go too far viewing everything as a social construct, a tool of the society to control people and so on. If mathematics is a social construct, then it can change as the society changes. And here we get back to the discussion of this thread: Is math different? If mathematics is a logical system that studies statements (usually about numbers, geometry and so on), that are true by necessity or by virtue of their logical form, wouldn't this mean then that mathematics is different from being just a social construct of our time?

Hopefully this clarified my position.

The people who mine them or somehow buy them. It is the same question as "who owns all the gold?". Same answer. — Tarskian

You ought to think about this a bit more:

Global central banks own about 17 percent of all the gold ever mined, with reserves topping 36,699 metric tons (MT) as of year-end 2023. They acquired the vast majority in the last 14 years after becoming net buyers of the metal in 2010.

The dollar cannot "default". How can the dollar even "default"? If they do not have enough dollars, the Fed simply prints some more. The dollar can only hyper-inflate, i.e. become worthless. That is what we want to achieve. That shit has to go, now already. — Tarskian

You can hold on to the technical fig leaves, but hyperinflation is similar to default, even if the government "respects" it's obligations. And let's remember: if it happens immediately, it's hyperinflation and people understand it. Yet if it just takes a little bit more time, everything is just fine and people don't worry about it.


And why talk about the possibility of hyperinflation as an achievement? You think the US will be better afterwards? And in the end there's many ways the US can do this. The most obvious is just to continue as normal and hope the market's won't revolt.

For example, personal income taxation was introduced only in 1913 — Tarskian

In the US, I assume. But for example in @Benkei's country it was introduced earlier. Yet first income tax was introduced in Ancient Egypt and in China and England had it's introduction in 1188 ( each layperson in England and Wales be taxed one tenth of their personal income and moveable property), so the idea isn't actually so new.

Bitcoin is now already legal tender in El Salvador. We are also rapidly making geopolitical progress with the Russian Federation — Tarskian

Thanks for the correction, I forgot El Salvador.

Getting the Russian Federation on our side is a significant breakthrough because now the system is also backed by an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons. The next step, is getting China onboard in matters of cryptocurrency. That will be hard, but I suspect that Russia will sooner or later manage to convince them. — Tarskian

:roll: Somehow I would refer to these two countries as being examples of liberalism and respecting the free market.

In this new multipolar world order, it is the cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, that will eventually reign supreme. — Tarskian

Hmm. But who owns the bitcoins? I think the people from the West. A lot more people (as I) prefer gold in the role of preserving value, something far more older than fiat currencies.

Hyperbitcoinization is why Bitcoin maximalists do not care much about the exchange rate or about measuring its value in dollars or in euros, as we seek to destroy the dollar and the euro — Tarskian

The death of the sovereign states is in my view highly exaggerated and basically false. And they (sovereign states) do love their central banks, just as Russia and China do. So perhaps you taking over the World along the other people holding the 19+ million Bitcoins is a bit of an exaggeration too.

In fact when the fiat system collapses, it won't be such a catastrophic event that society collapses. Not at all! It something similar to let's so the COVID pandemic. Something before can be describe as really scare, yet something that in the end just ....sucks.

How many actually think of the last time the US dollar defaulted as a default? I was just a baby, so I don't remember it. But many will argue that the US dollar has never defaulted. Oh no, Nixon just disregarded the useless ancient relic of a metal.

Statements devoid of content? (Frege)
I think not. — jgill

More like that the truths in mathematics are tautologies: a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form. Wouldn't that description fit to mathematics?

I'm not sure how important it is to nail down a particular definition. — fishfry

For example to the question in the OP it is something. Also do note that it does influence on how people see mathematics and how the field is understood and portrayed. Do people see it from the viewpoint of Platonism (numbers are real), logicism (it's logic) or from formalism (it's a game) or something else?

An apt description works wonders here.

Math is what mathematicians do. — fishfry

Oh, and this is a perfect example why it is important: with that you'll give here not only your little finger, but your left leg to the worst kind of post-modernists and sociologists that then can proclaim that math is only a societal phenomenon and a power play that a group of people (read men) do. That all this bull of math being something different, having it's own logic or being something special that tells something about reality is nonsense (or in their discourse, an act in that power play) when it's just what mathematicians declare doing. That's obviously not what you meant, but how can your statements be used is important.

These kinds of ideas, which I myself oppose, is like taking Thomas Kuhn totally out of context and using him (or the study of science as a human enterprise and interaction) as a way to claim that in this case mathematics is nothing special (perhaps from plumbing or playing a sport).

Indeed, that continuous mathematics is useful is often taken to simply imply an unobservable continuum. But this sort of reasoning seems to work just as well for potency, no?

So what's the difference?

Or is the "observability" thing really just a red herring? — Count Timothy von Icarus

We simply don't understand the logic behind infinity and hence continuity. It's the really big thing missing. The math is already there with calculus. We just don't have a beautiful philosophical answer to this part of mathematics, even if we already know the math.

The official ruling mafia defends their monopoly on expropriation, called "taxation". — Tarskian

And unfortunately we do need that thing called "taxation". Also the ruling mafia also defends their monopoly legal tender. Which cryptocurrencies aren't, but currencies of sovereign states are.

Of course it could be different.

Think about the following situation: You work for your employer, FU Employee Corp. Now when the payday comes and you get your salary, your employers pays your salary by their own money, FU Dollars. You then can use the FU Dollars in a local shop that your employer FU Employee Corp owns, where they happily accept FU Dollars. And naturally FU Dollar aren't accepted anywhere else, hence it isn't convertible. Need housing? Sure thing, your employer has these small shacks that you can rent, which also can be paid FU Dollars again. Everything so convenient!

Sounds enjoyable? Well, that was actually reality during the time of true liberal policies of the 19th Century. You can guess what happened to all those FU Dollars that you had earned by years of hard work when the Corporation goes bankrupt.

Hence there were also some reasons just why legal tender was monopolized.

A market authority is usually necessary but it does not need to be the government. — Tarskian

Do you think that is a great solution? Just like a previous chairman of NASDAQ and the board of "National Association of Securities Dealers" (nowdays called FINRA), which the latter acts as a self-regulatory organization (SRO) that regulates member brokerage firms and exchange markets.

His name was Bernie Madoff.

Yessir, All you need is self-regulation from the smartest!!! No government needed!

We are only at the very beginning of tokenizing commercial traffic. In my opinion, just 0.1% of the possibilities have currently been implemented already. It will completely change the world of commerce. — Tarskian

Method how your payment is done different from the various roles a market and it's actors have.

As for the land invasion itself, if history is any indication a ground invasion wouldn't be a quick and painless operation. — Mr Bee

Yet this fact of life is hardly given any thought now. Bibi's transformed into a wartime leader. He doesn't have to face the earlier political problems or an inquiry just how Hamas did get away with overcoming a billion dollar wall as long as Israel is in war. So he doesn't care a shit about just how "Peace for Galilee" turned out. But he can remember that after Yom Kippur war was over, Golda Meir was ousted.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s popularity, which was battered after the Hamas attacks on 7 October, has been boosted by his country’s military successes against Hezbollah, a new opinion poll suggests.

A picture has been widely shared of the Israeli PM in New York giving the order for the biggest of these - the assassination of the Lebanese armed group’s long-time chief, Hassan Nasrallah.

A poll for Israel’s Channel 12, released on Sunday night, indicates the Israeli PM's Likud party would win more seats than any other if a general election was held.

Even if this was prior to the Iranian missiles, it still shows the benefits of being a wartime prime minister. People will rally to the flag and support the leadership of the country.

It's quite telling that cryptocurrencies marketed as "freedom from governments and the central banks" then will have these shady frauds etc. I think it's basically a natural result when you don't have legislative supervision.

I think it's something that was forgotten in the ideological fervour of liberalism, that free markets have to have institutions to keep them trustworthy and operational. Otherwise simple theft is so easy.

I'll just give the laziest answer possible. I typed "is math a system" into Google. The Google AI responded: — fishfry

Pretty much everything is a system, from indoor plumbing to the National Football League. — fishfry

Hence the question was stupid, as I assumed.

It being a logical system would be perhaps more fruitful, but the notion would still be in the set of self-evident "So what?" truths about mathematics. Just what kind of logical systems math has inside it would be the more interesting question. Now when mathematics has in it's system non-computable, non-provable but true parts (as it seems to have), this would be a question of current importance (comes mind the Math truths aren't orderly but chaotic -thread).

If so, perhaps the old idea of math being a tautology comes to mind: something being random and non-provable but true is... random and non-provable but true. Yet how do we then stop indoor plumbing and the National Football League being math? That the two aren't tautologies, even if indoor plumbing ought to be designed logically(?) Would it be so simple?

Apparently the US is coordinating with Israel on a response unlike last time. Oddly enough that makes me feel a bit more confident about the possibility that it won't be too escalatory (or be specifically designed with an offramp in mind) despite the fact that the US is getting involved. That being said, I'm sure the Israelis may try to do their own secret operation, though there is only so much they can do unilaterally. I can certainly see it avoiding oil infrastructure for the reasons you described unless the Israelis really want to humiliate Biden even more. — Mr Bee

The basic issue is here: what is the objective in the landwar in Southern Lebanon?

The political reasoning is to get back the tens of thousands of Israelis that have been evacuated from Northern Israel, and hence the likely goal is to "destroy Hezbollah" altogether. Other political rhetoric simply won't do for warfighter Bibi. But this is actually problematic.

Perhaps a very stupid question: why isn't Math referred simply to being a system?

Of course I'm not suggesting that I expect Netanyahu will hold back. It was honestly surprising that he even held back in April. Like I said, Israel, helmed by Netanyahu, wants to escalate as far as possible. They really want to strike their nuclear facilities, which they can't really do by themselves, but again that's where the US comes in. — Mr Bee

They can come close ...assuming they get the needed airspace to launch an attack. I assume that Israel has it's Jericho missiles for nuclear deterrence, but for example the LORA medium range artillery missile (400km) can come in handy with it's air launched variant (AIR LORA) would be the optimal system. This has the possibility of launching the missiles from possibly Iraqi air space and thus minimizing the threat Iranian air defense systems pose. And then of course there's the option of also using drones, which Israeli has already used against Iran.

Israeli F-16 with conformal fuel pallets and AIR LORA missiles


And then of course Israel has a myriad of long range cruise missiles in it's arsenal, which can be launched from the F-15I, F-16I and F-35I combat aircraft. First wave would be to attack Iranian ground based air defence systems (GBAD) and it's command centers and likely the nuclear facilities. Yet a large scale attack would mean that the US would give a green light, which isn't actually so difficult as already the US has committed to the defense from incoming Iranian missiles. If Joe Biden (and Kamala) are started to be called chickens or whimps, that might easily get the US to side with it's ally even during an election.

The fact is that even if Iranian military targets are first attacked, then the lure of simply going against it's oil infrastructure looms also, even if this would be controversial and extremely unpopular (because of high oil prices). You can easily get into a situation just like with the War of Attrition 1967-1970 between Egypt and Israel, just now with the artillery strikes being replaced with missile strikes. The problem is that basically there's no reason why Israel wouldn't commit to this. It already is in an open military conflict with Iran. Bibi has already the hammer in his hand and Iran looks like one big nail.

Iran still refrained this time around. — Mr Bee

As Israel and Iran are distant from each other, there is a geographic reason that limits warfighting capabilities. Hence both sides will talk about limited actions: they simply cannot fight the war in any other way. However now it's the second time in a short time that Iran has attacked Israel. Hence it is unlikely that Israel will refrain from a retaliatory strike.

JERUSALEM, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran's missile attack on Israel failed and vowed retaliation.

"Iran made a big mistake tonight - and it will pay for it," he said at the outset of a political-security meeting. "The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies."

Now tell me how Netanyahu won't strike back when he has said the above? When you say Iran will pay and that Israel will retaliate against it's enemies, it would be quite difficult then to follow by not doing anything.

This is the reason why I'm worried about the situation. There's no reason why Netanyahu wouldn't attempt to destroy Hezbollah as it has done with the current military organization of Hamas.

Israel can get to wherever they want in the Middle East after the missile attack. He is a bellicose man; his adrenaline pops up with this tension, and when everything is crossing the limits. — javi2541997

This is a wartime politician on a roll. Fighting Hamas is now a mopping operation and the spectacular pager and the killing of the Hezbollah made likely Bibi and his leadership overenthusiastic and extremely self confident. As I've said, the 2006 operation into Lebanon didn't go well. Hence IDF is eager to have a brilliant victory such the Six Day War is very much in the past. They've been thinking how to fight Hezbollah for 18 years, so it's time now to put those ideas into action.

I consider it a marker when someone continues this thread: This thread is a living memory accurately describing how smart people, that are interested in philosophy, start such a thread. It's informative and telling to look how the discussion has gone about the subject for the last seven years.

Yes, two years ago (when the thread was forgotten for a while) Bitcoin price was a little bit above one third of what it is now. So to comment on Cryptocurrencies thread was likely to come, and thanks to @Wayfarer, he even remembered this thread!

As I forecasted two days ago, Israel started the land invasion of Lebanon. It was totally clear from Netanyahu's speech at the UN. Bibi is confident that he can solve his problems by escalating the war.

And Iran finally responded in trying to assist it's ally Hezbollah. But with the killing of the Hezbollah leaders and with the great success of attacking Hezbollah unconventionally, it's obvious that Israel sees that it will be triumphant in this war (or military operation). And that's problem, as if successful military operations will solve the basic underlying problems.

This will take years, more than expected, maybe. — javi2541997

Ask yourself how many years Israel occupied Lebanon until it withdrew ...and with it's actions made the Lebanese shiias form Hezbollah in the first place.

It appears to be far bigger than the previous attack in April. It is crazy how the chaos is raging over there (Middle-East). I can't see a calm and peaceful mood in the long term... This will take years, more than expected, maybe. — javi2541997

It's now likely that Israel will strike Iran now. Last time the two warring parties refrained their military actions, but likely this time it will be far more. This will likely escalate.

I think the US is now on the verge to being dragged out to another large Middle Eastern war. You'll just notice that you are in another quagmire...

WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden has directed the U.S. military to aid Israel’s defense against Iranian attacks and shoot down missiles targeting Israel, the White House National Security Council said on Tuesday.

This is the way the US is drawn to the another war in the Middle East.

Why no?

Because Israel's intent is to destroy Hezbollah and it will likely attack Iran, hence the fighting is quite likely to continue.

It's a collection of diverse narratives for various purposes--NOT a unitary whole. — BC

Which also tells someone was thinking that just how important the written word would be (in the New Testament). Still, even if we do have this evident way to put things into perspective, people just pick the most convenient part for them.

To the OP, every religion and deity (or group of them) is a solution for our moral and ethical problems on good and evil, which is a problem that we cannot find and objective solution. Hence the monotheistic religion portray God as good. A smart move compared to the troublesome gods of for example of Antiquity, where at least I would be confused just what the message is about.

For, as much as it's talked about the scenario of Israel dragging in the US in a war with Iran, I've never seen it explained how this war would work exactly. No analyst I've ever seen has even outlined how Iran could be defeated with conventional forces and on the contrary I've only ever seen it explained how this is literally impossible: Iran is too big, too mountainous, too populous, too battle hardened from the war with Iraq and then surviving constant sanctions and proxy actions, to be defeateable. — boethius

Actually when experts have discussed this, these issues do have been raised. And thus even when the Neocons were at helm and the US had large forces both in Iraq and In Afghanistan (+ air bases in Central Asia). There was no appetite for a war with Iran. Even if during that time there was for example an incident of Iran capturing US Navy personnel.



Iraq was flat, it's army had been pulverized during Desert Storm and then attacked by Clinton with Operation Desert Fox, had Kurds in control of the north. So Iraq was "doable". Iran was and is something totally else.

Furthermore, we have already seen what a war between Israel and Iran looks like: both sides would lob missiles and drones at each other. Both are totally incapable of taking the fight to the borders (or coast) of the other country. Hezbollah acts here as the way for Israel to attack Iran. And I think Israel still has a bad taste from the 2006 war, which didn't go so well. But after the operations in Gaza have gone somehow, I think Bibi is willing to try to get Hezbollah again.

So I think it is more probable that we will have an Israeli invasion to Lebanon than it being just an air war.

It's quite noteworthy how Netanyahu defines on Middle Eastern countries on map as "The Blessing" and "The Curse". Especially when Iraq ought to be an pro-US ally. Bibi refers to Israel's Arab partners in the speech, which is a bit confusing. Having a peace agreement doesn't mean that you are partners.

Also in the speech, Bibi prepared the way in his speech for a land invasion of Southern Lebanon. A land invasion of southern Lebanon, at least to the Litani river even if far more north (likely to stop before Beirut) is quite probable in my view. Which itself would make the peace agreement that Bibi hopes to achieve with Saudi-Arabia quite distant. And Bibi btw refers the UN as "UN house of darkness" and to be a joke while all criticism of Israel's actions is anti-semitism. Yes, the UN is an anti-semitic swamp according to Bibi. Taken right out of Trump's vocabulary (of draining the swamp).

:100: :up: Right on, @neomac

I thought Roe v. Wade was good law. Three divisions of nine months: first, abortion ok, second, maybe ok, third, probably not ok. — tim wood

I remember how surprised I was when finding out that back then countries like Sweden and Finland had far more tighter regulation on abortion than the US.

The discussion should be about the exact details, not this old juxtaposition to being "pro-life" or "pro-choice". It doesn't go so that if you are "pro-life", then you are for abortion laws like in Madagascar, where abortion is illegal in all cases, including rape, incest and the mother’s life being endangered. Or that with pro-choice that you think it's totally OK to dispose of a fetus as long as the naval cord is tied to the mother.

Of course the real effect with doing away with Roe v. Wade is that abortions have increased.

Why would it be? Why do you interpret it as wrong when I've lifted this forum as good example of neutral praxis that would conform with the same ideals that a UN based social media would do? — Christoffer

I don't, so we agree. But you asked "And what rules and values does this site aspire to?" so I thought you have some problem with this.

But notice that this site isn't important. It has a tiny number of active members and a small number of people that read it. With the UN site, we are talking about a far more serious issue, which many sovereign states hold to be of extreme importance.

It wouldn't be if the algorithms didn't cater to conflict and negativity, since the research concluded that such behaviors drive attention and interactions more, which is key to ad revenues. — Christoffer

The algorithms cater to what people are interested in: more people are interested, the better. And this is totally normal and can be seen for example from ordinary media, from radio, from television etc. People aren't interested in conversations where everybody agrees on the issues and perhaps differ only in nuances. Nope. A heated debate is what people want to follow. Even here in PF this is evident: the threads where people disagree get the most comments.

You're implying a totalitarian takedown of free speech criticizing the platform, which there's no evidence for would happen. — Christoffer

Perhaps not a "totalitarian takedown", but the kind of "free speech" as you and I understand isn't something that many sovereign states accept. Sorry, but that's the truth.

The Soviet Union was the perfect example of this. Did it accept the human rights declarations the UN made? Of course, but it did so by influencing just what was tolerable and what was hate speech. The simple fact is that UN makes decisions usually in the fashion of a consensus. Hence totalitarian states can influence the decisions here. For example Turkey (Turkiye) might insist that any talk supporting the Kurdish cause is terrorism. Or for China talking about the Uighurs.

It's the simple fact as with news sites: it is a real blessing that you do have news documentaries in English done by different countries, DW (Germany), France24 (France), Al Jazeera English (Qatar). One single entity would be an absolute disaster. And even if it's propaganda, I would still like to have the ability to watch Russia Today on Youtube.

"Free speech" is a concept that people have lost an understanding of. There's no such thing as free speech absolutism or anything like that. Free speech today has become an acronym for excuses made by those who just want to spew out their hate, not actually talk criticism. — Christoffer

Nah.

There's just the idiots that engage in the stupid culture war on both sides. These people are partisan people, whose arguments for "free speech" can be easily checked simply by taking an example of a heated issue, like supporting Palestine etc. Both on the left and on the right there are these people who think of themselves as being open for discussion, yet aren't actually open for discussion. With issues that they consider "dog whistles", these people show immediately their true colors.

Once again, I underscore that a global platform is under the scrutiny of the consensus and being an open platform. The openness in this means that any attempt to take control is impossible without it being seen by the public of the world. — Christoffer

What is the openness of having just ONE social media site?

Again, you don't seem to notice how the UN works. If a reasonable amount of member states (or the permanent security council members) don't want something, the UN has to adapt to it. Just look at this simple quote from a UN-webpage on democracy:

The UN does not advocate for a specific model of government but promotes democratic governance as a set of values and principles that should be followed for greater participation, equality, security and human development.

(see Global Issues / Democracy (UN)

Well, the problem is that actually democracy is a specific model of government. It has to be in order to function correctly. Yet China, Russia and previously Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union had no problem with the UN Charter, because the UN was toothless. Hence in your example of an UN controlled social media, countries simply would ask to ban discussion they aren't OK with and the UN likely would follow them. Hence it won't simply work.

I do not produce arguments out of some conspiracy of some cabal operating in the UN. There's more proof of corruption for how things operate today through tech companies and individual states than any notion that a consensus and collaboration on a global scale with an open source structure would ever lead to such corruption. — Christoffer

That's why it's important that there are different states that can have their own media. It's something obvious in the classical media landscape.

You're still speaking of individual governments, not how a consensus would operate. The only reason the UN can't do much on the global scale is because they don't have such power. — Christoffer

I agree with you that the UN doesn't have power. Hence your argument is really absurd. UN doesn't work as a Federal entity. It isn't even a Confederacy. It's just a loose club where something can happen when no Great Power isn't stepped on and the issue isn't part of the global competition.

We have seen first how absolutely meaningless was the consensus of the League of Nations. And we have seen how impotent the UN has been and will be. Hence why to think as somehow everything would change?

Yes, but what does that have to do with this? — Christoffer

It has to do with this when people are OK with their life and the way things are, they will likely listen to what their governments say to them.

You disagree with the assessment that ridding social media of these algorithms and market driven operations would make for a better public space online? — Christoffer

Firstly, you do have to understand that "algorithms" is the way how the whole thing works. If algorithms are used really to limit your capability to get information (as in China), that's one thing. Take your own computer and google images of "Tianamen square". I'm pretty confident that people in China will get another kinds of images.

That ought to be the first issue when the "Child lock" is given to everybody as mandatory.

Yes, so remove individual state influence and tech companies power over them. It's delusional to think that such operation is better preventing such malicious control, than an open platform that's globally collaborated on and open to scrutiny from anyone. — Christoffer

To think that the UN would be this white knight saving us all is very delusional too. It won't work. Far better is to have outlets from different countries, different news agencies and so on.

Just like in the traditional media.

That form of neutral. Adhering to the values that underpin the core value of the UN, to the actual understanding of how freedom of speech as a concept is protected, and not the skewed corrupted use of the concept that most people use as excuses for spreading hate and vile behavior. — Christoffer

You do understand that then denying atrocities that have happened is totally normal for this neutral platform, and it simply doesn't change anything. People have to be informed to weed out the facts from the propaganda. I really don't see much difference, actually. Craving for a neutral platform really doesn't make a difference.

And what rules and values does this site aspire to? This forum pretty much aspire to remove the hateful, vile and propaganda spammers. All in the name of basic decency. It also has rules of engagement in which endless trash posting isn't allowed. — Christoffer

And is something wrong with that? Without it, people simply move away after enough ad hominem attacks and hence if someone simply wants to shut down this forum, they'll achieve their objective in no time. I've seen this happen once when the owner of a site believed in "free speech" and didn't moderate. End of story: the site was "hijacked" or dominated by one political faction (the owner didn't approve of) and simply shut down the debate/comment section altogether.

It's the disconnected behavior between online and offline that creates monsters of people who are decent offline. — Christoffer

This is totally true. This is the weird and unfortunate reality of social media. At worst it might be that we start to change even our real world exchanges with other people into the kind that are so popular in the social media, because people don't care so much anymore even if they flame in their own name.

That's why I'm proposing social media free of it. — Christoffer

Who pays for it? The one that does, holds power over the media. That fact of reality you simply cannot disregard. UN? That member countries put their tax money to the media?

First, the UN organization can itself be corrupt. If someone then wants to criticize the UN organization responsible of this free neutral social media, how if then the organization shuts down such hate speech.

Secondly, member countries will try to influence directly this "neutral" media. Many countries would just love to have the control just what is determined to "hate speech" and what is "supporting terrorism". Now it's defined usually from what country the media is from.

You either have government funded public service systems and media. In low corrupted nations this can work and be neutral depending on how the laws and regulations are between state and that media outlet. — Christoffer

In Finland we had a government funded public service that had a monopoly for example of the radio waves until 1985. Then the first commercial radio started. Guess what: young people didn't listen to the radio prior to that while they now are and have been for a long time the largest group that listens to the radio. What was the reason? They was ONE radio program ONCE per week playing Pop & rock music prior to 1985. And I'm not making this up. Yet for the public broadcast corporation didn't understand why people didn't listen to radio anymore in the early 1980's.

This is the actual reality of a government monopoly of a media. And don't think it will be different under the UN.

And I think you should understand the real implications of your proposal: An UN mandated social media won't start to compete with the commercial medias... it would be changed by law with the commercial medias being disbanded by legal actions. Because it would be whimsical to think that some UN lead media would have the ability to compete with the other medias and somehow obtain now a monopoly situation just by free competition.

Hence basically your idea just comes down to squashing free speech and make it more bureaucratic.

The core here is to remove single government control of social media, and to remove market interest that make the users into products rather than the purpose of the site. — Christoffer

How on Earth you think that will happen with your proposal? Sovereign states do understand just how important and crucial public discourse is. Some give more leeway to this, some are totally paranoid about it. I really doubt that this would be a function that the UN as an organization could handle well.

And of course, some nations don't want this human rights-based social media, since it's a threat to their state control. But that battle is a losing one since people will always find ways of reaching out beyond government control. — Christoffer

NO IT'S NOT!
It's not a "losing battle". I would argue that it's the other way around: government's around the world now understand the new media quite well and can use it well to spread their own propaganda and disinformation. I do agree that earlier in the turn of the Milennium, many governments were still quite clueless about the new media, but that is history now.

It ought to be quite evident that people can tow the official line happily, especially if the subject is about national security, natural importance and so on. I find this is a battle that the naive IT geeks who thought that the World Wide Web would free people from the shackles of government control have already lost quite dramatically. It just took a couple of decades for the governments around the World to understand how to control the new media.

Besides, people will try to find ways to reach out beyond government control when government is totally obvious and basically ludicrous. Every Russian knows what the "freedom of speech" is in Russia when you can get jail time for saying that a war is "a war". But try making the argument on a Finn, a Swede or a Swiss. They can understand that their governments can push one agenda or another, but they aren't worried about their freedoms being trampled.

And without the focus on ads and products, the algorithms won't push endless trash and may very well push the right kind of grass root movements that help people organize against state violence in these nations. — Christoffer

Again something that people said sometime in the 1990's.

We've seen examples of how social media helped arming people with information and quickly organizing against governments. — Christoffer

If there's a will, there's a way. And today governments understand how social media can be used to attack against them. And can use quite similar tactics themselves.

I think I understand your objective, @Christoffer, but as @Tzeentch said (whom usually I disagree with), it does sound like you are promoting cracking down social media. You likely don't mean that, but that is how governments see your proposal.

I am of the opinion that there needs to be a neutral social media platform, funded by a UN type collaboration so that there's enough money to run the site, with no incentives to push market driven algorithms or influencer economies. A decentralized, but collaboratively driven global social media platform that features similar functionality as a combination of the major ones. — Christoffer

Think about this for a moment.

What do you think a neutral platform would be like?

Would a UN funded / UN regulated platform start regulating what the foreign ministry of a member state (who is in the Security Council) would put out? Of course not.

A neutral platform means that all the propaganda and the biased views would be there, because the platform is neutral.The algorithms work usually to find the stuff that people want to engage in. Classic example: if a person searches for "Egypt", does he or she want to know about a) the current political situation of the country, b) the country as a travel destination or c) the history of the country? Your prior searches likely influence what you get, which is the "market driven algorithm".

In my view the micromanagement of any platform simply would have be with clear laws that limit our "freedom of speach", not with governments hypocritically being for "freedom of speach" yet then demanding behind closed doors to push down some political actors etc. This is actually what those corporations in the first place wanted. Clear legal laws what they could then check on. Naturally Western governments wouldn't give that, because there's "free speech"!

Or the worst with activists in the corporations using the platforms to attack people they don't like.

Since there's a lot of people, like me, who have been present on social media a lot in the past, but who have now seen its decline in quality with the rise of ads and bullshit and losing it's fundamental core values of connecting actual people; having a neutral alternative, that is backed by an open source, non-profit global collaboration for the purpose of being a space for the people and not market forces, would be an obvious choice to move over to. — Christoffer

This site itself is an example of what we call social media. And it is in my view a fairly neutral platform. The bannings are quite reasonable.

What I think has happened is that governments around the World have simply adapted to the new media and discovered it's potential. And I think any media doesn't itself have fundamental core values. Only people have those. Medias just give people what they actually want, not the polished image of what people answer when asked "what ought to be the social media be like?".

As far as I'm concerned everybody should be deplatformed, Facebook, Instagram, X; the whole lot should be burned to the ground. — Benkei

So NO facebook, Instagram, X?

:yikes:

I also believe the Poles around this time '44/'45 were forced to wear stars and were next in line for deportation and death on the basis of their race. After the Jews and gypsies, then the Slavs I guess. — BitconnectCarlos

Every fifth Pole died during WW2, so the prospect of something like that isn't at all only theoretical. The Nazis were actually quite "consistent" in the different treatment of "races" in their hierarchial race theory: others were treated different from the Untermenschen.

For example when Finland started fighting the Germans after the armstice with Russia, the German forces categorically destroyed every building, bridge and telephone pole when withdrawing to Norway. Yet there were no widespread atrocities: not only was the civilian population (who were few) allowed to evacuate to Sweden, the Germans even at times assisted in this. By Nazi racial ideology, Finns were part of the "Nordic race", just like Norwegians, and for example German men could marry women belonging to the "Nordic race". This just emphasizes how the brutal violence towards civilians in Russia and Eastern Europe was ideologically based.

It's hard to know what to make of this figure; if you were to tell me 274 Hezbollah were killed I would cheer. The more dead Hezbollah the better. — BitconnectCarlos

I remember an anecdote I read from a memoir of a retired Finnish armed forces commander, who earlier had lead the Finnish blue berets in Lebanon:

While in Lebanon, he had his wife(!) there visiting him, so he had took her one evening to hunt for wild boar (the natural thing to do with your wife in Lebanon, I guess). As they had moved on some hill, suddenly two Israeli AH-1 Cobras appeared and started circling around. He immediately signaled his wife to take cover under a bush and to not move. The attack helicopters flew around for a while and then left the area. Once they left, the continued the hunt for a while and then went back. Next day he read an IDF announcement that "two armed Hezbollah terrorists" had been sighted in the area they just had been.

Hence in that region, killed people and even sighting of people easily come to be terrorists. As likely as fighters can become civilian boys too, I guess. So don't forget that grain of salt.

It's crazy, but true. How Russia has gone back to the Soviet era is telling.

Jesus. Which is why I'm never on Twitter/X/Elon's propaganda toy. — Benkei

Actually, I would like that the bullshit is there to be shown... to those that refer to Putin's views and speak of them (here the historical interpretations) as truthful. I think it's really important to see what these global players (like Russia) really officially say.

Also do note it wasn't only the German Foreign Office, but the "readers added content".

For example Wikipedia still serves the truthful version of history, not the version promoted by the Russian ministry of foreign affars (MFA).

You misunderstand me. I was talking about power relations in the Nazi ghetto versus the Gaza "ghetto." — BitconnectCarlos

You misunderstood me too. Notice I was referring to the Polish Home Army. That's the 1944 Uprising, which was quite more devastating for Warsaw than the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943 without trying to belittle the 56 000 that were killed or sent to death camps from the Ghetto after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

You likely are aware that there was a larger uprising in Warsaw when the Red Army was on the near the city (and conveniently stopped for a while for the Germans to take care of problematic Polish resistance)?

In any case, the power dynamic between the two scenarios is not remotely similar. — BitconnectCarlos

It has many similarities, even if naturally there are differences.

It was really brilliant, and it mostly only wounded them so it puts a strain on their medical system while taking them out of the fight. — BitconnectCarlos

Feeling the same way of the bombings of Lebanon? The Lebanese Health Official reported that at least 274 people died in these air strikes. Or are those numbers also a propaganda?

Well, Bibi has turned the next page and goes for Hezbollah. Now he's not facing a two front war, so he can freely start a war in Lebanon.

Hopefully he doesn't want to go for a land war... to get it straight after the dismal performance during the last invasion of Lebanon (or the prior one, from which everything started... like Hezbollah in the first place).

Egypt's foreign minister is at least alarmed:

(Times of Israel, 23rd Sept) Egypt’s foreign minister warned Sunday of the risk of an all-out regional war as fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group intensified, saying the escalation had “negatively impacted” long-embattled talks for a ceasefire-hostage deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Badr Abdelatty spoke ahead of an annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York, with a chorus of international powers calling on Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the brink.

“There is great concern about… the possibility of an escalation in the region leading to an all-out regional war,” he told AFP at UN headquarters, adding that the latest spike in violence had “negatively impacted” ceasefire negotiations.

Putin surely just loves rewriting history. Or changing it altogether.

Now mass graves known to be from Stalin's purges are now made to be mass graves of people killed by Finns at Sandarmokh. Also earlierly rehabilitated killed people are made again to be "enemies of the state".

Putin really has taken to heart and believes the saying that those who are in power rule history too.

My criteria for uninteresting here:
1) The subject matter is small/pedantic/minutia-mongering
2) The answers to the problem are not new or informative but a rehash of what we already think, or a rehash of previous philosopher but in drag — schopenhauer1

All the people marketing their niche topic (self help, self healing, self improvement etc) as being a way of life, a genuine philosophy. And are marketed thus as philosophers.

They are so uninteresting I don't want to even know anything about them. Believe me, they are out there.

Or the "scientist" that have been disgusted how bad modern philosophy and the humanities are, and then start themselves describing what it should be (which comes down to a rehash of Age of Enlightenment philosophers).

The most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy is interesting because they are (or it is) the most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy. — Agree-to-Disagree

Or the worst philosophers.

And this is the reason why the most hated one's aren't the most uniteresting: Ayn Rand and the postmodernists like Julia Kristeva, Bruno Latour etc. All the crappy things they do, doesn't make them uninteresting because they're a huge army of new philosophy students trying to make sense postmodernism and be in the in-crowd. And with Rand there's a cult following there too.