You disappeared for a couple weeks there. — NOS4A2

Last time I wrote was two days ago, so couple of weeks is a bit of an exaggeration.

And having a summer vacation...

Did you finally find a little angle to exploit? — NOS4A2

Well, what do you think Patel and Bongino are doing to the credibility of the FBI with the turns and whims in the Epstein case?

Tzeentch finally discovered QAnon — frank

Lol, :snicker:

Well, QAnon is the classic way that every actual conspiracy is made so bonkers that no sane person can believe it. From starting that Epstein had ties to intelligence services to then believing in flat Earth. When you can link the two, then you can say everybody thinking that Epstein had ties to intelligence services is a Flat Earther. Right?

Let's just remember pizzagate... and the pizza place with the basement that wasn't.

Assuming it is true, it would explain a thing or two.

For the record, I think it is more likely true than not. — Tzeentch

I agree with you. I think it might very likely truly be true, the World is simply such a crazy place.

And years ago I remember one US media (I think it was saying that this is the last scandal that actually people want to be opened up, because it's of a bipartisan nature. With possibly two US presidents from opposing parties involved in the sex ring, this isn't something that either the establishment or the staunch partisan defenders of MAGA or DNC want to hear.

But ah, FBI Director Kash Patel and former podcaster and FBI Deputy Director Bongino are indeed making my FBI forecasts to be true (that Patel will really damage the FBI). First Trump attacks Iran, then this. :smile:

(CNN, Sat 12th July 2025) Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino has told people he is considering resigning amid a major clash between the FBI and Justice Department over the continued fallout from the release of the Jeffrey Epstein memo, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

This comes after a heated confrontation with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of the case earlier this week.

The infighting over the case came to a head during a Wednesday meeting, which included Bongino, Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, the sources said. Bongino and Patel were confronted about whether they were behind a story that said the FBI wanted more information released but was ultimately stymied by the Department of Justice, they said.

It's so nice to now to watch the comments on the Epstein issue the present FBI director Kash Patel made when he was just the author of Trump children's books:



I'm just waiting when @NOS4A2 will come here to enthusiastically defend Trump. :lol:

A farce — jorndoe

Nope, reality of the Trump presidency. Which is something like a tragicomedy.

(the Standard, 16th July 2025) The family of disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has said new evidence such as “government misconduct” could be used to challenge her imprisonment.

The 63-year-old was found guilty in December 2021 of luring young girls to massage rooms for paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein to molest between 1994 and 2004.

She was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the federal court in the southern district of New York (SDNY) in June 2022.

The US government has faced a backlash from President Donald Trump’s support base following words from Attorney General Pam Bondi that there was no evidence Epstein had a “client list”.

Just last year Maxwell lost the appeal against her sex trafficking conviction. But this year... it's the Trump administration, and Trump FBI, Trump DOJ.

So now when Trump is saying there's no Epstein client list, will Ghislaine Maxwell walk free and have evidence dropped?

Talk about where Trump & friends put the FBI and DOJ.

Yep, now it's time for the usual actions of the Trump administration.

And this is just his first year. I start to anticipate that we really can have the big "dollar crisis" during Trump's second term. Just have Trump being similar as he has been now for a year or two, with similar "Liberation Day" and TACO stuff going around.

In reality there's going to be just one thing that will really put Trump to a tight spot: the bond market, the absolutely crucial lifeline for the US government of selling treasuries. A lot has to be rolled over this year, and the debt will rise even with the additions of few trillions that the "Big beautiful bill" will give. (Which btw people won't feel the positive aspects as the tax cuts are basically extensions of earlier tax cuts)

As of July 03, 2025, total gross national debt is $36.22 trillion.

Debt held by the public is $29.03 trillion.
Intragovernmental debt is $7.19 trillion.

Assuming the average daily rate of growth over the past three years continues, the U.S. will reach $37 trillion by approximately December 02, 2025.

At that rate, an increase of another trillion dollars would be reached in approximately 194 days.

I would urge people to notice if the intragovernmental debt starts ballooning, or the treasury holdings held be the Federal Reserve. That would be a bad sign.



But just as long you can use the credit card, no worries...

You're right, I don’t consciously compute every problem I encounter. But that doesn’t mean computation isn’t happening. Much of the problem-solving is outsourced to unconscious brain processes. - So while I don’t deliberately compute everything, my brain is constantly computing - just not in a way that feels like "doing math". — Jacques

But this doesn't at all counter my point of there being uncomputable mathematics and hence uncomputable problems. Or to put it another way, undecidable problems where an undecidable problem is a decision problem for which an effective method (algorithm) to derive the correct answer does not exist.

So, while machines and organisms differ in origin and complexity, their internal workings are, in a deep sense, physico-chemical systems, and thus comparable under the lens of natural science. — Jacques

Again, this isn't at all an issue of vitalism at all or how related in a deep sense physico-chemical systems are. That isn't the question, the question is purely logical and of logic.

Here's where this goes wrong, and I'll try to make my case why it is so:

While subjectivity may not be computable at present, I assume it is in principle — Jacques

I don’t see why subjectivity, or anything else a human brain does can’t be modelled. — Punshhh

These two comments are quite close to each other. I reason that the thinking is the following: everything what either we or computers do is computation or can be modelled as computation, hence there is a correct model. Hence subjectivity isn't a problem (@Punshhh) or we could perhaps find the correct model in the future (@Jacques).

Here it is extremely important to notice just how negative self-reference works and how it creates a limitation and how it is related to subjectivity.

We could start with the observation: you can freely write anything you want, there is no limitation on what you write (yes, an administrator can ban you for some writings but that doesn't limit what you at first can write).

With negative self-reference we can show that there indeed is a limitation on what we can write, because we cannot do the following thing:

Write something that you never will write.

And obviously that is none of us can do: anything we write will instantly be part of what we have written, hence we simply cannot write something we don't write. Us writing them creates the "ownership", or the subjectivity, to the matter. It is something that we have written. And naturally we can reason that there is a set of writings, that we will never write.

The solution to this problem isn't just to assume a fourth person that could do this (who could write what we never write). For him or her (or it if it's a computer or AI) the limitation stands too on what they produce.

If you have understood my point so far, then one question could be: OK, what's the big problem here? Surely we can avoid this kind of logical trap.

The question is can we avoid this with every important question we would like to model or compute?

Because once any computation or model has impact to what the outcome is or what the correct model would be, the possibility of negative self-reference emerges. And many of the most important questions we have the models/computations can really have an effect on the outcome. Some can be handled and taken into account, but negative self-reference cannot.

Hope this will clarify my point.

While it's true that most people might share your opinion, it's worth noting that several prominent thinkers have argued that the brain—or even the human being as a whole—can be understood as a kind of machine. — Jacques

Do note the "as a kind of machine". Yes, we can talk for example about molecular machines in our body, but there still is a difference between living organism and an artificial motor human have constructed. But yes, we can generalize, so I also agree that we can talk about motors.

While subjectivity may not be computable at present, I assume it is in principle, given that the brain - a physical system effectively functioning as a (non-digital) computer - somehow gives rise to it. — Jacques

Wait a minute.

Do you understand the Turing's Halting Problem and the Church-Turing thesis?

First and foremost, there is uncomputable mathematics. Not everything in mathematics is computable. Period, end of story. Do not assume that everything is then computable ...in the future or anywhere.

You are making a mistake if you just assume that subjectivity may not be computable at present (and here the emphasis on computable), but in principle it could be. Well, if you put it that way, you are basically arguing that Turing is wrong (and actually Gödel with his incompleteness theorems too). Non-digital computer doesn't make actually any sense, if by digital you mean something relating to computers or to electronic technology that uses discrete values, generally zero and one. It would be like talking about unhuman humans (there are plenty of inhuman humans, but not unhuman humans). And discrete values don't have anything to do with this problem.

Do note that computation is a specific way to solve problems, the process of performing calculations or solving problems using a set of well-defined rules or instructions, following algorithms. We don't compute everything if we are presented with a problem. Or do you really compute every problem you find?

I’ve come to the conclusion that most media portrayals of AI developing "its own motives" are based on flawed reasoning. I don’t believe that machines—now or ever—will develop intrinsic motivation, in the sense of acting from self-generated desire. - I also reject the idea that humans possess some irreducibly mysterious cognitive abilities. Qualia, intuition, consciousness—they are all real phenomena, but I see no reason to believe they’re anything but products of material data processing. The brain, though vastly complex, is just a physical machine. — Jacques

Machines and living entities are a bit different (as I assume you know), but let's accept the very broad definition here and ignore the obvious physical differences between man made machines and living organisms.

Yet do notice the logical difference: AI is still a computer (or a network of computers) and acts like a computer, it follows algorithms robotically. A human can indeed understand the "algorithms" he or she is following, and then change them and have initiative because we can act as a subject. A computer cannot: it has to have in it's algorithms clear instructions how to deal in a situation where a human would use initiative, imagination etc. Yes, indeed AI can mimick humans very accurately, but it isn't thinking as we are, it's computing/calculating.

This idea reminds me of Turing’s Halting Problem: the impossibility of writing a general program that determines whether any arbitrary program halts. Turing showed that such a program would lead to a logical contradiction when applied to itself. Similarly, a human trying to model the human mind completely may run into a barrier of self-reference and computational insufficiency. — Jacques

I'm starting to think it's because we haven't understood simply how general the limitations what Turing's Halting Problem are to us. Computation is objective, but once you put in an element that is subjective into the equation, namely that the Turing Machine should take into account the actions of itself, we have the halting problem. When that self-reference is basically negative self reference, it's impossible to do this, hence the famous result.

Let me give you the most easy example of this:

Try to do the following: Write a reply to my post that you never will write.

Now obviously you cannot do it. Anything you will write obviously won't be in the category (or the set) of things that you will never write in your lifetime. Are there replies that exist that you won't write? Yes, obviously there are these kinds of replies as you don't live forever. Hopefully you can notice the negative self-reference in the above statement. Yet do notice also the subjectivity. Perhaps a friend of yours could fairly accurately describe what kind of reply you will give. For him or her, the modeling (of what your reply will be, if there is one) can be objective. But once it's you, there's no way out of it.

This similar problem came to discussion with @Sam26 in his [TPF Essay] Wittgenstein's Hinges and Gödel's Unprovable Statements where I brought up the difference with the objective and the subjective. I'll rewrite what I said in that thread:

Everything is about objectivity and subjectivity, actually. It's not merely a psychological issue, but simply logical. We can easily understand subjectivity as someone's (or some things) point of view and objectivity as "a view without a viewpoint". To put this into a logical and mathematical context makes it a bit different. Here both Gödel and Wittgenstein are extremely useful.

In logic and math a true statement that is objective can be computed and ought to be provable. Yet when it's subjective, this isn't so: something subjective refers to itself.

Hence between a computer (be it AI or whatever) and a human being, the logical difference might be more clear when we think of the difference from viewpoint of subjectivity and objectivity. A computer computes and cannot act as a subject, make decisions itself and go against the algorithms and "do something else" what isn't in the algorithms whereas we can understand our reasoning (basically our algorithms) and then come up with something new from them.

Yet note just how fixated we are with the false view that everything can be described objectively. The standard counterargument would be that we humans indeed are similar to computers, but the "algorithms" we use are somehow on a hidden layer of "meta-algorithms" that we cannot describe. Yet what this is basically just insisting on the view that everything can be modeled objectively and we just assume this meta-algorithms of us...without any explanation why. Yet there doesn't have to be at all any kind of "meta-algorithm" at all, it is just that subjectivity isn't computable.

When you think of it, this is like a cat going around a cup of milk that is too hot for it to drink as subjectivity (at least to me) brings up the question of consciousness and the hard problem of consciousness, learning, etc. Yet here to model these "problems" by showing that they are indeed mathematical and logical is beneficial.

I'm not entirely familiar with the halting problem, but your wording suggests a mistake in your reasoning. It may not be possible for some program A to determine whether or not itself will halt, but is it possible for it to determine whether or not some equivalent program B will halt? If so, even if I cannot model my own mind, I may be able to model your mind, and if it's reasonable to assume that our minds are broadly equivalent then that will suit our purposes of modelling "the human mind" in general. — Michael

Math and logic are precise. There you cannot wiggle your way off just by assuming something. Otherwise we can always just assume a "black box" that gives us the correct models to everything and not think about it more. I can also assume to have a "black box" that gives me a solution to every math problem. The problem with this thinking is that I have no specific answers, naturally.

And anyway, If not familiar to the halting problem, please look up this site about Self-Reference and Uncomputability. It shows how the halting problem (and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems) are tied to self-reference and uncomputability. Let me remind you that one outgrowth of the Halting Problem was the Church-Turing thesis, a vague definition for computability. Computers literally compute.

And anyway, the problem here is that basically both you and @Jacques are part of the universe and you cannot just assume to look at the whole universe outside of it to get that truly objective viewpoint needed. Just look what physics turns into when measurements start having an effect on what is measured.

So now the Elon/Donald breakup has gone to the point where Elon is saying that he will create a new political party, the America party.

(Reuters) A day after asking his followers on his X platform whether a new U.S. political party should be created, Musk declared in a post on Saturday that "Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom."

Yet what's the credibility after the failure of DOGE to make any true impact (other than canceling USAID)? Quite laughable. At least the guy is as distracted as ever from actually running his companies, so I guess Tesla will continue to plummet.

Russian imperialism 1.01, the short version covering the past and the present:



Noteworthy comments from the interview:
-Empires fall when they try to bring on some kind of a democratization process or democratic reforms.
-The present Russia has now an expansionist regime which is more dangerous than during the Cold War when Soviet Union was basically just defending what it had in Europe behind the Iron Curtain and where the rest of the World was the playground for Superpower competition.

General hostilities in the region have come up before:

Researchers home in on origins of Russia’s Baltic GPS jamming (— Defense News · Jul 2, 2025) — jorndoe

For Putin's Russia, there is no line were actual hostilities start from their side, but just something that can be stretched as far it can be. Yet we have to understand that Putin has said that it is in war with NATO. And this guy usually means what he says.

I think we're talking past one another. I don't think Trump has any particular policy regarding the middle east. — frank

It seems so. We agree on this.

Perhaps the policy of Trump is be in the limelight at all times and make people/countries react to your actions?

- It has successfully controlled Middle-Eastern oil to such an extent that it allowed the US to take the world economy hostage via the petro-dollar. — Tzeentch

You have a strange idea of hostage situations, but anyway.

Very typical to totally forget and sideline here the House of Saud, which is very crucial to the whole thing. The House of Saud, once a British protectorate, then made good relations with the rising Superpower and finally made Saudi-Aramco purely Saudi owned, without a clash with the West as had happened with Iran. That the Saudis went with the dollar when Nixon got out of the gold standard was very crucial for the US. Even if there is hostility towards the US in the country (starting famously with Osama bin Laden), the partnership that hasn't any ideological or cultural ties has continued as a real example of realpolitik.

You, and many others, are operating under an assumption that the 'forever wars' had some envisioned endpoint of permanent victory. They did not. Talk of 'spreading democracy', etc. was just the figleaf.

Causing chaos and destruction was the whole point - except in those countries that willfully kowtowed before Washington and basically assigned themselves voluntarily to vassal status. — Tzeentch

This is the typical anti-American rant, that doesn't at all grasp the reality of how expensive wars are ...especially when you end up losing them, just like Vietnam or Afghanistan.

If this would be such an incredibly successful foreign policy towards a region, then wouldn't it then be better according to you that the US would have to bomb or occupy West European countries in order to "prevent regional powers from rising through classic 'divide & rule' strategies, and by destroying any West European country that started showing signs of prosperity and a sense of independence".

Oh, the US would be so better then...

Yet on the contrary, the US was OK with European integration and an EU to rise. Forget the Marshall Plan? Why was this so good according to your "divide & rule"? And this makes the US far different from classic imperialist countries like Russia.

In truth in the long run "divide & rule" is a constant uphill battle and a perpetual drain on the economy and resources of any country/empire. Thus after exhausting the prosperity in these quite mindless wars, then empires falter.

It's irrelvant. — Tzeentch

It's not irrelevant.

How did the Warsaw Pact countries then show their gratitude towards Russia after being former "allies" of the Soviet Union? Of course, these countries were no "allies" like NATO members are as the basic objective for the Warsaw Pact to exist was to reinforce the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. And in this role the Warsaw Pact acted very well in 1956 and in 1968. So them joining NATO when they had the opportunity just shows this. Putin's disastrous policies afterwards have just shown they were 100% correct and invading neighboring countries has just reinforced other European countries to see what kind of a danger Russia is.

US power in the Middle-East would be waning anyway as a result of the shifting balance of power, but the key here is that none of those enemies are capable of inflicting a real cost upon the US. — Tzeentch

The Taleban couldn't inflict a real cost upon the US, but it won the war and the US lost, just like in Vietnam. That's a fact. My basic reasoning here: when you have to bomb a country, you have already lost a lot, namely peace. Being in a dominant position and having peace is the true measure of success.

If you have to bomb, occupy countries and there is true resentment of your occupation (like in Iraq), that's not success. It isn't the worst defeat, but it surely isn't success. All I'm saying is that this train wreck cannot be described as an success in any way.

It's not wasted breath to vent your hatred of the USA. — frank

I don't have a hatred towards the US. The US has had a great foreign policy in the long run in Europe. When other countries voluntarily join your alliance, do want keep in it, and look for the US for leadership, that is true success.

But in the Middle East, two former ally countries of the US became it's enemies (Iran, Iraq), which the other one the US invaded (Iraq), and with a third country (Pakistan) the relations are now non-existent and nearly hostile, which can be seen from the crucial role Pakistan had in the Taleban defeating the US backed regime, which meant that the US lost the longest war it had fought.

Why do you say that above is this astounding remarkable success or "a well-established pattern"? It's not my hatred of the US that I "vent" this. It's simply the truth. Losing wars like in Afghanistan isn't what the US would want to happen.

Perhaps for Trump the Middle East with the Gulf States brazenly and openly giving bribes to him is what he is indeed the place that he is exited about. That Western democracies don't do this and cannot do this perhaps makes him irritated. Why this would be a good thing I don't know.

To make such a statement, one must first understand what the principal US goals have been in the Middle-East. In my view, it is first and foremost about securing access to cheap oil and denying stable land-based access to others (like Russia, China and India). Second, it has been to avoid any regional competitor to Israel from rising. (Note the role Iran plays in both of these) — Tzeentch

If your previous allies turn into your enemies, how do you think that would be a success of any kind?

This policy has been remarkably successful for decades. The US completely dominated the Middle-East, and successfully laid waste to the region at will. — Tzeentch

Bullshit. Laying waste to a region isn't anything successful. Having something like the occupation of Iraq isn't a success. US has now fought several wars in the region. It's simply a huge waste of money as the region is as volatile as before.

Having Western Europe in NATO and peaceful is what success looks like.

Just compare the UK and Saudi-Arabia as allies to the US. Which country is the US afraid of if there would be a revolution and the current regime would be ousted and a hostile to the US regime could get into power? Or how about Egypt? What if the Muslim Brotherhood takes power or an even more radical cabal takes over? How friendly are now the ties with the US and Iraq?

(Anti-US demonstration in Iraq in 2020)

The Middle East has been fucked up since the British ruled it. The US has not returned it to a state of organic ease and well being, but all they wanted was oil, right? — frank

Don't forget the French. Thanks to technological advances like fracking, the US isn't dependent on the Middle East anymore. So what's really the point?

The universe contains many laws which govern how the universe operates e.g. laws of physics. The question that is puzzling me right now is why are there laws in the first place and why is the universe not lawless instead ? — kindred

It's simply human behavior.

It comes from us being aware of our surroundings and simply from survival skills. Reasoning, logic and putting things into cause and effect is the method how we have become a totally dominant species in this World. Now we can harness everything, be they other animals, plants or natural resources to serve our species. Now I would argue that other animals do use also logic, can count up some number in a very rudimentary way etc., but they lack totally the systemic approach we humans have to this thanks to our advanced language system to communicate complex issues to each other. Whales and dolphins can communicate about things like where food is, but their "language" is a simply communicating tool.

Because this is the very useful way we model reality, we start calling things as "laws of nature". Yet in the end, it's simply the way we reason things.

The only thing that hasn't happened is for the entire narrative to collapse. People keep on believing the delusions, etc., but that's not actually something that will help the US going forward. Keeping people high on delusions and propaganda has a long-term cost, and all it is achieving is allowing the US to continue a defunct foreign policy. — Tzeentch

You are right. If US Middle East policy is looked on the long run, it really has been a train wreck. But people just don't think about it. Yet when you went from having CENTO, having nearly all the major regional players as your allies to then having "Twin Pillars" (of Saudi-Arabia and Iran) and then to the present, it's obvious that things have gotten just worse.

South East Asia shows how actually things can improve. The US has now ties with Vietnam. The Korean Peninsula is rather stable. It isn't involved in a shooting war in the area. Now it doesn't have such an alliance system as it has in Europe (SEATO simply failed), but the region is rather peaceful (apart of Myanmar).

The fact is that domestic politics overrides conventional foreign policy for the US especially when it comes to Israel. And Bibi understands this well, I'd consider him the only case of politician that can operate in the political realm of two countries.

So, basically the 12-Day War has turned out as a complete disaster for the United States and especially for Israel.

Neither of two possible goals (regime change and destruction of Iran's nuclear program) were achieved. In fact the war has made it more likely that in the long-term Iran's regime will survive and that it will get its hands on nuclear weapons. — Tzeentch

In the long run maybe, yet it wasn't a disaster. Iran isn't parading captured Israeli or US pilots. Nor are there pictures of IDF or USAF/USN aircraft being shot down.

It's like the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War. Back then the technology was still to poor and basically the Patriots didn't hit incoming Scuds at all, but the media portrayed a stellar kill score for the old missiles. And that was enough. The public didn't care about it later when it came to light that the Patriots back then had failed. With these strikes, history will tell us in the future, but then it will be an issue the public doesn't care about.

The real failure is that there is no peace is in sight for Israel and Bibi and the Likud party have basically accepted that. Israel is in a permanent war footing, and it will need similar large scale military operations in the future. And now the US is trusty sidekick for Israel.

And the MAGA-morons are still happy with Trump. The no-new wars in the Middle East will be forgotten and what will be promoted is that Donald Trump is the only President since Reagan that has fought with the Iranians (and selectively even Reagan's successful war, Operation Praying Mantis, will be forgotten).

Well my comment was regarding Western countries. It looks to me like any appearance of increased average prosperity is on account of increased debt. It seems that, in a world of diminishing resources that are becoming ever more costly to extract, we are borrowing against the (illusory) promise of increasing future prosperity. — Janus

Well, technological advances have kept up, so even if we already have experienced Peak conventional Oil many years ago, yet we don't have a crisis of diminishing resources. The resource crisis that people were counting to happen by using simple extrapolation models from the present didn't happen. What we have is a very problematic monetary system that is based on perpetually growing debt. When will that happen, who knows.

In fact, I would dare to say that our modern society is far more able to deal with global crises than civilizations were earlier. The Pandemic just few years ago is a case example. Yes, it has been always very trendy and hip to look at our future in a bleak and pessimistic way. Yet Oswald Sprengler wrote The Decline of the West in 1922. The decline of the West hasn't happened yet, I would say that the great catch up done by many Asian countries doesn't tell us that the West is declining. Even the US can survive two Trump administrations, I guess.

That said, how many economists today include the environment in economic reckonings as anything other than a range of "externalities'"? — Janus

Look, economists as fortune tellers forecasting the future can basically predict only 6 months ahead. In fact, it's great if they can agree on the economic cycle we are just now in. Changes in the environment take a bit more time to happen. Yes, summers are warmer than before, but all it takes is a few volcanoes to erupt and cause the temperatures to fall. That's the problem with forecasting: you can see the obvious long term cycles going on, but that doesn't matter if something else puts you into a totally different situation you have prepared for.

Hence we do have things like climate change, falling population growth and other issues that are quite clear and will happen, but forecasting what will happen simply depends on too many butterflies flapping their wings and creating hurricanes in the other side of the planet. Start from a butterfly like Donald Trump would not be a TACO and go through with "Liberation Day" tariffs.

Besides, human decisions have huge impacts on the environment and wildlife. Just to take one example: In the 19th Century whales were hunted to near extinction and whale had to be replaced with other oils as there simply weren't enough whales in oceans. Then in the mid 20th century whale population made a huge comeback in only a few years. What happened? WW2 and unrestricted submarine warfare all over the Atlantic happened. This had the effect that basically for the wartime years no whalers went out to hunt whales as they themselves would have fallen prey to German U-boats. Just like the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that created a wildlife refuge around Chernobyl, the environment reacts to our actions in ways that we haven't thought of.

(Bisons near an abandoned Belarussian village in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in 2016. Wildlife are able to reproduce before falling to the radioactivity of the place.)

During the post modern period, High Art lurched from one development to another culminating in conceptual art, which was nonsense asserted as High Art and grotesque perversions of modernism, asserted as High Art. — Punshhh

Well, the so called High Art has it's tendencies to go the extreme as @Count Timothy von Icarus gave us an example with "stuff like human excrement or menstrual blood thrown at a canvas with a paragraph on how it's attacking capitalism, the patriarchy, etc. attached".

Yet I don't think this is regression. It's simply art transforming to an institution that will desperately want to do something new ...and shocking! Perhaps it's like a political movement which at start had sound and justifiable objectives and an agenda, which the majority of people agreed on, has then an existential crisis, when these objectives are gained. Then comes the "next wave" of thinking and thinkers, the new generation, which is usually hijacked by radical ideologues. The next wave after that is even more silly. This has happened to feminism, when you compare modern feminism to the suffragettes. Yet it also has happened to liberalism, when one just thinks of the anarcho-capitalists and their take on just what an ideal libertarian society would be like.

True regression would really being of losing some technology or skill that previously was there. If that technology or skill lost isn't worthy to be kept up, that isn't so bad. But when it is something that people have enjoyed or have given a lot of value, then that is really bad.

We should notice that art is far more the parody many give it. Art isn't only the exhibitions and concerts that the hoi polloi doesn't have money or interest to experience. Pop music is one thing I think will be here to stay just like movie art, thanks to the 20th Century. Perhaps the problem today is that for example making music is simply too easy.

Trump ends sanctions against Syria. Hopefully they can utilize the moment for reconstruction and prosperity. — NOS4A2

At least here I can say that this is a good thing.

And also that Trump has gotten the 5% defense expenditure in NATO going forward... and he didn't leave NATO.

Of course, now governments are having think tanks on just what expenditure can be put into as being defense spending. (The Nordic idea of Total Defense will give lots to spend on).

So that's the rare positive feedback on Trump.

But now I guess the time to make those beautiful trade agreement before the "liberation" tariffs set in is coming to an end. And Trump has done... one with the UK?

This is not to say there wasn't a very real loss of knowledge. Civic engineering projects like the Roman roads and aqueducts arguably wouldn't be matched for 1,300 years, or at least 1,150. At the same time, the Byzantines erected churches that arguably best the great temples of antiquity during the "Dark Ages," and even when the Latin West was still culturally and economically backwards, its ability to dedicate a high chunk of GDP to cathedrals for generation after generation of construction (many spanning centuries), led to Gothic masterpieces that bested anything from antiquity or the Christian East. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What is interesting that both in the fall of Rome and the fall of Constantinople you have in both cases a huge logistical disruption of simply there being the incapability of feeding a huge metropolis. With Byzantium it was losing Egypt to the Arabs. After that the agriculture in the Balkans couldn't sustain a huge city as Constantinople had been. When the Ottomans finally took over Constantinople, it was a pale image of a city what it had been before with fields inside the city. Something like Detroit, perhaps.

I always love to put this graph up just to show the long term effects of when "All roads lead to Rome" wasn't anymore reality and how long it took for modern Rome to grow past it's former self in Antiquity (even if this graph talks about Istanbul, not Constantinople).

It should be noted too that progress and regression is not unidirectional. Europe today has great difficulty maintaining its great cathedrals (or say, rebuilding Notre Dame) because the skills required are almost extinct. There have been similar issues even in relatively short timespans, like highly classified military technology becoming "lostech" that no one knows how to maintain or recreate (e.g. the US nuclear modernization program's struggles, or efforts to return to the moon). This is actually a fairly common problem in the industrial sector, and it's also been a huge factor in Russia's inability to replace war losses. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree totally with this. Once some technology is replaced, the techonology does vanish if there aren't some historians or collectors that uphold the knowledge of the technology once the old engineers and users die. Fortunately in many things we do respect our earlier technology so much that have the understanding around. And hopefully that doesn't happen with things like art.

One great example to us is cars. The modern version of various computers on wheels run by batteries is somewhat easy to use. At least for us, who use computers daily. Cars 50 or 60 years old are easy for us also, but when we look at the first cars like the Ford T-model, many people would have severe difficulties in starting the damn thing without instructions (given here aptly by AI):

Here's a more detailed breakdown:
1. Prepare the car:
Engage the parking brake: This locks the transmission and prevents the car from rolling.
Turn the ignition switch off: This is crucial for safety during hand cranking.
2. Locate the hand crank:
The crank is a long, metal handle located at the front of the car.
3. Engage the crank:
Insert the crank into the designated slot at the front of the engine.
Ensure the crank is properly engaged before proceeding.
4. Crank the engine:
Use a strong, upward pull on the crank to turn the engine over.
Do not push down on the crank, as this could cause injury if the engine kicks back.
Some recommend using your left hand with your thumb outside the handle to avoid injury from potential kickback.
5. Adjust controls:
Throttle: The right lever on the steering column controls the fuel flow to the engine.
Ignition timing: The left lever on the steering column adjusts the timing of the spark plugs.
Choke: The choke lever (often a small rod) can be used to enrich the fuel mixture for starting, especially in cold weather.
6. Start the car:
Once the engine is turning over, you can adjust the throttle and ignition timing to find the optimal settings for the engine to run smoothly.
You may need to experiment with the choke to find the right mixture for your specific conditions.
Once the engine is running, you can release the hand crank.

That said, I am a great appreciator of contemporary art museums and I think the frequency of such work is vastly overblown. There is a lot of good stuff out there that is very creative. However, it is true that a lot of this very creative stuff also has a seemingly obligatory paragraph about capitalism or patriarchy attached to it, and that does seem to be a bit of a straight jacket on much (but hardly all) contemporary art. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Much less than the straight jacket that religious art was (or is still today).

Yes, indeed creativity and something new are things put on a pedestal in modern art in my view.

Culminating in the radicalism of modern art and now in the post modern era, High art has died. Ravaged and crucified by the modern and post modernists. — Punshhh

I wouldn't say that. Simply after the technique was basically universal, which any art school could teach, then the focus was simply to have other techniques than photorealism. That in the end you had modern art isn't at all a death of high art.

We should remember that Picasso painted also this, when he was still a child:



Or this, a portrait of his mother:


Hence we can assume if Pablo Picasso have lived Centuries earlier and he would have been able to follow a career of a painter, he would have also then been an able master.

To assume that once you have modern art that high art has died or degenerated is something that the Nazis were eager in believing. Personally I don't agree with them.

The Middle Ages and the Renaissance are categories encompassing many forms of art, including literature, poetry, architecture and music. Given the fact that Gothic architecture and polyphonic music were both born in the high Middle Ages, it is difficult to justify the claim that art as a whole ‘had fallen back’ during that period. — Joshs

Gothic churces are indeed awesome, yet what is totally obvious is that a feudal society simply doesn't employ artists as much as a more prosperous society that enjoys international trade and a high level of job specialization.

Don't forget Trump's war on international institutions, like the ICC and the UN.

In economics I'd say Trump is at war against international trade and globalization. The sad truth is that many are for this, when they would basically want more fair income distribution, not for higher prices and more inefficiency in the economy (by going against trade).

I'm not convinced that the visual arts, at least, regressed in the so-called Dark Ages. — Janus

Well, there was a time called the Renaissance, so at least people back then did think that art had fallen back in the Middle Ages. Only in the 19th Century we started to feel romanticized by the Middle Ages.

Art from Antiquity:


Art from the Middle Ages:


Renaissance art:


Why they call it "Renaissance" should be obvious to everybody. Of course now as we have modern art and cameras, even AI making pictures, hence difference isn't so evident. But back then before cameras, it was evident that some abilities had been lost. Above all, it should be noticed just how limited it was to few cities where the "Renaissance" happened. Just to show how Medieval the artists in the periphery were, here's a Finnish Church painting from the 16th Century made by a local Finnish artist.

This picture is from a Finnish Church painted in the start of the 16th Century:


This is from Italy at the same time period (actually, from ten years earlier), also a Church decoration:


Today we rarely understand the huge difference in the ability to paint as you can go to any country today and you will find artists that can paint photorealistic paintings. Take classes in your local art school, and many could be "masters" earlier... at least in the periphery. But back then, it really was only a few like Leonardo da Vinci and not many else.

I'm not economist, but I think that any apparent general increase of prosperity in the West over the last twenty years or perhaps longer is largely "smoke and mirrors". — Janus

We should stop gazing at our own navel and notice what huge transformation has happened in the World. Absolute poverty has decreased dramatically around the World. China is far more prosperous than it was fifty years ago as are many countries all over the World. The growth simply hasn't been so fast in the West as it has been in other places. Above all, one should note that we suffer more of the problem of income distribution where the rich have come far richer while the middle class and the poor haven't seen such increases in prosperity as the rich. Yet in absolute terms, absolute poverty has diminished even in the West.

I agree, we must always start from where we are. It seems to me that hankering for ancient, "lost" wisdom is a fool's errand, given that we may well be misunderstanding the contexts within which ancient literature found its meaning. — Janus

Well, I would be really happy if the book written by Zeno of Elea would be found and we could read thodr additional paradoxes that Zeno had found and in general something that the Eleatic School itself actually thought, because now we have only the writings of those who opposed the school. And naturally finding a part of the books from the Library of Alexandria that the Romans didn't burn would be fabulous. However it's unlikely that there would some totally unknown philosopher or mathematician who back then would have to the same conclusion if not have gone beyond Gödel's incompleteness theorem and would tell us something new that we are eager to hear. That is extremely unlikely.

Besides, we do know how that losing of knowledge happens in history.

Perfect example is how Antiquity turned into Middle Ages and what we call the "Dark Ages". Talk about a collapse in trade and in globalization. That's all it takes. Once North Africa couldn't feed Rome (as Vandals conquered it), then Rome's population started to shrink rapidly. Once that happened, then urban professionals like artists and engineers that relied for income from an advance economy simply didn't have any demand for their work. And then simply things like drawing, sculpture, engineering etc. simply regressed. When large administration became impossible, the logical solution was feodalism.

Earlier example is the Bronze Age Collapse. These historical developments and anything similar in the future can have a dramatic effect on our knowledge base. It might not be a societal collapse, but simply an economic collapse.

My favorite example of this is when an university professor, perhaps teaching the language that is spoken in country, has to have a second job as perhaps a taxi driver. This is reality in many Third World countries as universities simply cannot afford to pay a reasonable salary to their teachers. It's not reality yet in the Western World, but it surely can be. It sounds like a small difference, but in my view it's quite huge and tells a lot about the prosperity of the society itself.

But do you reference the 18th and 19th century in it's relatively peaceful international relations, such as between European powers not having yet discovered the true power of industrial warfare, or in its ruthless colonial competition aspects? — boethius

18th Century was a mess in Europe. A lot of wars and very unstable alliances. Yes, there wasn't yet industrial warfare, but there were the fighting and the armies roamed, that was total warfare. And so it had been even earlier.

Colonial competition started really in the 19th Century globally as then the technological advantage the West enjoyed was totally overwhelming. It was only Napoleon who first showed European technological superiority to the Ottomans, but do noticed that he was kicked out of Egypt. Only in the 19th Century was the Ottoman Empire "the Sick Man of Europe".

Is North Korea even so isolated now? — boethius

Good point, actually North Korea is the country which is now in a firm defense pact with Russia. The North Korean troops now fighting in Europe show this.

It's so wild that the US is now attacking institutions it created for its own benefit. — boethius

And it's actually the real reason why the Superpower status of the US is waning.

Especially the MAGA-morons don't understand that whole system was designed for the US itself and to especially benefit Americans! But no, the brainfarts of Trump, the great populist orator, have been taken as Holy Scripture and they truly think that all the international organizations are there to fuck Americans. And that international trade is bad. And they don't need that Superpower status, that somehow it isn't useful at all for them.

If the biggest breakthroughs came from focusing on creativity rather than criticizing existing ideas, why is philosophy focused on the latter? — Skalidris

To the soft skinned, any new idea or thought is a critique of something old.

And then, we never start from an empty plate, we never clear our minds and be like a tabula rasa and then start create something new. We always create the new from the old. As Newton himself said "if I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

This is true in science, but it is also true in philosophy.

And as to post-modernism―I think it is simply the idea that we should drop the myth that history is necessarily a story of continuous progress or that there is a real underlying telos at work in history. — Janus

History already shows with many examples that there isn't continuous progress and that basically we can have such collapses that knowledge is forgotten. Yet as I said to @Skalidris above (on a comment he wrote pages earlier) that knowledge and new insights, be they scientific or philosophical, are created on the present knowledge.

Then once Iran has the bomb they can be like "See! See! We were right all along! If only we bombed them harder!" — boethius

Exactly. To welcome back Iran to the international community, or at least to accept not attacking it is against the hawkish policy. Even if Iran would want to change it's policies, it's very difficult to change the course of Israeli lead US now.

Then, as you note with North Korea, Iran doesn't strike anyone with nuclear weapons and the issue is forgotten about, but sanctions permanent due to having nuclear weapons. — boethius

Sanctions will be a natural part, but note that's it's only Western sanctions. Iran isn't similar to the Hermit Kingdom (North Korea).

If the MAGA people cheer on how inept and totally useless the UN or other international organizations are, do note that then simply "the South" goes it's own ways. As I've said earlier, we are on track to go to an international order that was present in the 18th Century (as even the 19th Century had functioning international cooperation and organizations).

And you understand that the UN Security Council and other western nations found that the Rwandan military were supporting M23, and actively participating with them in the DRC, despite their denials? — NOS4A2

That was known, but the main issue is what happens to M23 or what it does. Is it capable of fighting the DRC without backup from Rwanda? And anyway, many countries have put their troops and support into the mess that DRC is in. Basically earlier the African countries had their version of WW1 in the Congo.

There's still time to start a war with the cartels. Iran has now already been bombed. And Greenland, just as Canada, won't be annexed, unlike you think I've said. Panama I guess has also avoided a true conflict.

The FBI, just like the Department of Defense, will not show at all just how detrimental the ineffective leaders will be. Only later historians can write books about it, but that will take time.

And anyway, there's still the likely recession, the debt problem. And if the Democrats win in the midterms, what will that then give us in the end.

Yes, I was talking about the conflict between the DRC and Rwandan-backed rebels. — NOS4A2

And you understand that Rwandan military and the M23 are two different entities and that DRC is fighting mainly the M23 and that the agreement was between Rwanda and the DRC?

What war in the Middle East? — NOS4A2

You did notice that Trump attacked Iran, didn't you?

You didn't comment much then, when the strikes were still happening. Noticed your silence.

But then I did write a week ago this:

At best, the US is now on board with Bibi, as Bibi wanted, on this perpetual conflict of "war off - war on" where two sides stop for some time with announcements from Israel and the US that the nuclear threat has been now thwarted/eradicated... only for the next bomb strikes to happen later. But that will be enough for the MAGA-morons.

Once few weeks (or less) have gone and Israel and the US halt their strikes and declare victory, all these MAGA people will rejoice victory and the wisdom of Trump and deride those who opposed this war.

I think my forecast was quite accurate, if it just went on for 12 days. And btw, even Trump talked about a 12-day war. Hence it's very telling that you are trying to deny any war happened. At least, I was very accurate week ago just what your reply would be. :grin:

But no war, one precision strike, and an extraordinary de-escalation brokered once again by the US, while the EU leaders and your failed international institutions did nothing. Trump play in Iran was nothing short of brilliant. Everyone is saying it. Sorry. — NOS4A2

So then we will wait for the next time Israel/US will want to hinder the Iranian nuclear program with another short strikes. Could it happen in some years still in the Trump administration? Perhaps.

I was responding to your point that Trump doesn't have a plan. He does. It might be unrealistic, but the plan is to offer Iran goodies to drop their nuclear ambitions. — RogueAI

I do agree that Trump has plans. Many plans, actually. Like "Liberation Day" tariffs, remember? Great plans!

Yet in this occasion it's totally clear that Israel was the initiator and the real actor here, Trump simply responded when initial Israeli strikes went so well.

Would Iran trust us? Doubtful, but there is precedent for the U.S. bribing Iran to drop it's enrichment. Obama did it. What is Iran's alternative, though? They just got punished severely. They got no support from the (civilized) world and even their neighbors turned on them. Top Iranian officials now know Israel can and will take them out. Why not take the bribe the Trump Admin is offering? Isn't enrichment just not worth it at this point? — RogueAI

One thing would be for them to drop the program. Another thing to get Israel to believe the program is dropped.

We should remember all the talk of the "Mushroom cloud" and the "Yellow cake from Niger" when the Bush administration was making the case for war against Iraq after 9/11. Well, Saddam didn't have any nuclear program then. Saddam did have one before he went and invaded Kuwait, yet afterwards he didn't have a program. Yet in the end: that didn't matter. And similar thinking should be applied here too.

First of all, is an Iran that has great relations to it's Arab neighbors the optimum situation for Israel, or is an Iran that still is a "rogue state" that can be bombed every once and a while better? I fear that for Bibi, the war prime minister, the latter is a better option.

Iran can be later bombed again and again.

hink the Trump admin would be thrilled if Iran could be bribed into giving up their nuclear ambitions. — RogueAI

Think about it, just for a while.

Assume your country would be striken with missiles for 12 days. Over two hundred civilians would have been killed. Then the attackers would want to bribe you with third party investment.

How eager would you to start negotiations with your attackers? How much would you trust them?

Another US brokered peace agreement, this time between the Democratic republic of Congo and Rwanda.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e0ggw7d43o.amp

None of this stuff will net him a peace prize, of course, because he doesn’t have the gift of hopey-changey rhetoric which the chattering class falls for. — NOS4A2

WTF peace deal are you talking about? You are basically talking about the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from Congo, but not about peace between M23 and the DRC.

If you would have any interest to look at the actual conflict in Congo, you would immediately notice that this is only a part of the conflict. Yes, Rwanda is a player (along others) abusing the weakness of the larger DRC. But what about M23? That Rwanda agrees to pull out it's soldiers, that haven't been as an major issue like the M23 taking towns, but basically been a humiliating issue for DRC showing it's inability to control it's borders.

Even the BBC article you referred to states the following questions:

Unless and until full details of the signed deal are made public, several crucial questions remain unanswered:

Will the M23 rebel group withdraw from areas they have occupied?
Does "respect for territorial integrity" mean Rwanda admits having troops in eastern DR Congo and will withdraw them?
Would the agreed "return of refugees" allow thousands of Congolese back from Rwanda?
Does "disarmament" mean that the M23 will now lay down their weapons?
Who will disarm the FDLR, after the failure of several previous attempts?
Would the agreed humanitarian access allow the reopening of the rebel-held airports for aid supply?

But yes, now that Trump broke the promises of starting wars in the Middle East by eagerly jumping on a strike done by Israel, naturally he has to now pretend he is this great peace-maker. And what else do MAGA loyalists now uphold than his "peacemaking abilities" after likely quite useless strikes on Iran, which they naturally won't talk anything anymore.

And since Trump alongside others (like Bibi, Putin) have made the UN totally useless, naturally two sides of a conflict want to get some kind international arrangement, then the second best way is to have the US to be involved. Just like in the case of India and Pakistan.

And oh yes! Trump can claim himself to be this great man of peace.

My analysis of the current situation is that Zionists "went for it" and tried to push the United States into a high-intensity war with Iran and the faction that stopped that from happening (for now) is the pentagon (because they know it conflicts with US imperial interest, represent far more costs than gains, have other regions they worry about, such as East-Asia) and (I would guess) managed to convince Trump in the situation room where it's mostly pentagon people in the room that war with Iran is incredibly high risk and don't recommend it (if they did, I have a hard time imagining the war wouldn't be on full blast right now). For, war with Iran as concept is easy to talk about, but when you get into the nitty gritty of how to actually make war with Iran, that they fought Iraq for 8 years and are not push overs, have bunkers everywhere, mountains and a surface area of 1 Rocky Mountains + 1 France, and the ballistic missiles capacity and so on, it's obviously not an easy task and many dead Americans would result tin the attempt. — boethius

Israel got lured the US to join the strikes on Iran, which sooner or later (and now sooner) were stopped.

The reality just why the noecons under Bush never attacked Iran are now quite evident: there is simply now way to "topple" the Iranian regime with a quick and inexpensive war, only a huge quagmire.

But for Israel this is totally OK: it is quite happy with the "war-on-war-off" mentality and a perpetual crisis that erupts into limited wars every couple of years or a decade. So the strike packages are sent to Iran and it's declared that it's ability to build nuclear weapons is pushed forward.

The reason I was so concerned about Israel escalating to nuclear weapons is because they have no diplomatic off-ramps by design, literally opening the war with assassinating negotiators; precisely so that the US would be inevitably sucked into an expanding conflict. — boethius

I assume that with using nukes Israel is as level headed as other nuclear powers. Why should they escalate?

To this discussion, Benkei adds the additional information that the previous nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by Obama was clearly part of a strategy of detente with Iran, that drops sanctions and allows them to develop and normalize, and not some sort of 5-D chess move knowing Trump would come in and tear up the agreement, then Israel embark on a genocide under Biden to be finally in a position to attack Iran in a second Trump administration. — boethius

Obama at least had a plan. Trump doesn't have any plan just to wobble into the next crisis that is going to erupt and try to take center stage.

Israel and the US showed just showed their limits on how far they are willing to go. Hence if Iran can build it's military industry that is survivable enough to survive an 12-day bombing campaign, that's it. And now the logical step from a military point of view would be for Iran to learn from this campaign, rearm and get that nuclear weapon and the ability to survive forthcoming attacks from Israel and the US.

The current Harvard estimate is 400 000 Palestinians "missing" — boethius

That's something I've not stumbled into and something totally on a different scale than the Gaza health officials are themselves stating. It would basically mean that Hamas and Palestinian officials are hugely downplaying the death toll. (It is a possibility, perhaps)

Ethnic cleansing of simply moving the Palestinians I don't see how that could be a worse crime, since if they are still alive the situation could be reversed by the world or then at least compensated. — boethius

Ethnic cleansing on a huge scale just happened now in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan didn't get at all negative publicity, especially when they flatly denied it and said that Armenians would be wellcome to stay.

And basically that ethnic cleansing would mean a repeat of the Nakba. Then 720 000 or so Palestinians out of 1,4 million were moved off from Israeli controlled areas. Hence just to finish this you would have to move about 5 million Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank to somewhere else.

Now if you think they would be compensated or the move could be reversed, I'm not sure that would happen. But I'm sure that the Bibi administration is surely salivating about these kinds of plans. For the exrremists, that is their solution.

Yes, that is the crucial difference. So why does that difference exist? Is it religious fundamentalism and the rise of European secularism? — RogueAI

No.

It's because millions of Europeans died in the two World Wars and many countries have had the experience that defending their country only gave them misery and a humiliating defeat. The Pre-WW1 jingoism and imperialism died especially after the Second World War. Then Europeans had their continent divided with the prospect of a nuclear WW3 being fought in their cities and countryside.

(German soldiers going onwards to war in 1914 with flowers given by onlooking women spectators)


That's what Trump the idiot doesn't understand: European integration wasn't done to fuck Americans, but to finally put securely away the wars of the past. And even still that hasn't happened: In Yugoslavia there was a bitter civil war and thanks to Putin, several decades after the Soviet Union collapsed, the "Civil War" because of that breakup is fought in Ukraine.

Actually many neocons don't understand this either: the saying that Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus and hence Europeans don't have an eager enthusiasm to fight "Rogue states" comes also from this background. Basically the only European country that has still made it's own "Great Power" politics is France. Even this old colonial master has suffered major setbacks in it's former colonies in Africa in this decade. The UK opts sometimes to be the loyal sidekick of the US, but after Suez has been very passive, even if it can still kick ass as we saw in the Falklands/Malvinas war. Everybody else are happy with having NATO around.

But in the end, this anti-militarism comes from the experience of WW1 and WW2.



A similar war has never happened in Israel and not even in the Palestinian territories. The casualties especially on the Isreali side are minimal compared to the losses that European countries suffered in WW1 and WW2, although naturally Israeli jews do truly remember and keep in mind what their parents and great grandparents suffered during WW2 under the Third Reich. Yet that isn't something that happened in Israel or is part of this conflict. Perhaps now the Palestinians in the Gaza strip are truly suffering a total war. Now the Jewish people in Israel are about seven million, so 1% would be 70 000 people.



Hence some hundred Iranians and below fifty Israelis being killed, that won't make these countries to howl for peace. The jingoists and the militant hawks will be in power in both countries for a long time still, even if the cease-fire will last for a while.

Yeah, that's certainly not true. The rise of nations is a zero-sum bloody game. — RogueAI

In truth, it isn't. If we mean by nations rising that they become prosperous.

War and conflict doesn't create prosperity, it might only transfer wealth as loot as war is extremely costly. In truth nations have gotten prosperous through voluntary trade and cooperation and investment to education and technology and in general a positive attitude toward business and private enterprise. The most successful imperialist enterprise was the Mongol Horde, and that basically created zero prosperity itself and basically immediately fell into couple of different khanates. The Mongol cavarly traditions gave these Khanates the ability to survive a few Centuries until modern rifles made it a turkey shoot to defeat cavalry fighting on horseback.

Israel hasn't become prosperous because of the wars it has fought with it's neighbors, but with the trade and tech investments. Nearly one third of it's GDP is made up of exports of goods and services.

How many times has Alsace-Lorraine changed hands in the last 1,000 years? — RogueAI

Yet notice the crucial difference to the Middle East. Germans don't give a fuck that Alsace-Lorraine belongs to France now. And both French and Germans of today would be surprised just how some place like Alsace-Lorraine stirred up fervent jingoism in both countries in the past.

Every illegal attack, like the two we've recently witnessed, is an argument for them to pursue a nuclear bomb as that is the only weapon that truly acts like a deterrent. That's rather obvious. — Benkei

Having a nuclear credible nuclear deterrent keeps the US from attacking an "axis-of-evil" country that has been declared to be a rogue state. Worst possible situation is when a country doesn't have nuclear weapons, but the US firmly thinks it's trying to make them and is considered a rogue state.

Yet Iran also should really think about it's past aggressive foreign policies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen and just how much they have worked. Iran should understand that trying to export their Islamic Revolution will ultimately fail and just worsen the situation with fellow Muslim states. Trying to create a "Shiite Crescent" will only push other states closer to the US and even Israel. What is notable has been the stance of the Arab League and Turkey in this conflict: the idea that Saudi-Arabia would eagerly join the beating up of Iran didn't prevail. What is also notable is that UK hasn't participated (in my knowledge, I could be wrong) to the defense of Israel.