Sometimes I don't understand Americans.

Here is Glenn Loury, a black economics professor, talking to Charles Murray, a white nationalist according to the Southern Povetry Law Center. I would urge people to spare some time to listen to this exchange of thoughts (1h 10 min), if you have the time.



Perhaps it's my Finnish genetic stupidity or integral ignorance (as I'm an European, hence totally incapable of understanding the US), but Murray doesn't sound as a white nationalist. Not at all to my knowledge. I do know what white supremacists sound like (at least in Finland), and Murray doesn't sound like them. In fact what Murray is worried about among the right isn't the classic "white nationalists", the neo-nazis, but the whites that will have had enough with the current politically correct discourse. I fear this too. If you say over and over to people that they are fucking racists, some will then say "Ok, then I'm a fucking racists, so fuck you". Will that really help? Or is that the objective? What I fear is that the US is heading for a clash it cannot solve.

I don't see the way how Americans would "get over this"or "come together". Nobody is interested in building a consensus. Nobody, I mean nobody is emphasizing that all Americans are citizens of one nation. That unfortunately is how it seems. That's the really sad part here.

Because there are enough firearms to turn everything into a huge tragedy.

I think instead of being afraid of dying, we are actually afraid of the way we will die. — darthbarracuda

I don't think so.

What I am afraid about is the effect that my death will have on other people's lives, like my children, and of course what I would be missing out if I died now. All the happy events, the memorable situations, the exiting moments that life has to offer.

My mother died when I was a teen. It sucked. I wouldn't want my children to lose their father at a young age, it really creates a void. At least now they will surely remember me. I would have liked to have had my mother for longer. She would have surely loved her grandchildren. And I've seen how much sorrow and sadness there is when parents lose their child. It really is the case that children should bury their parents, not the other way around. If you have parents that love you, think about how they would feel if you die.

At older age some are ready to die. They have seen their friends or their loved ones died and have not much to do, especially if they are sick. For many people it's actually a relief.

If you have nobody, absolutely nobody in this World that cares about you or for whom you are important, then perhaps the only thing that you might be afraid of death is the pain or the way you go. The World will hardly notice your departure.

Great article.

A lab leak happening in the Soviet Union (or China) will automatically create a discussion on how safe our laboratories are and if they ought to study such things. And some will think this will be very bad and assume people cannot fathom that safety-cultures really differ from place to place. So there is a reason why to go along with the official line, even if privately you are suspicious about it.

With for example the public discussion around nuclear energy, I do understand these fears.

Yeah, perhaps you missed the "similar" part, which is crucial. No one, least of all me, is advocating for a particular religion. — Xtrix

That is a good start.

Yet my main point is that a "religious" approach is easy, but can be very counterproductive. Our society and nature are so complex, that the short nice sounding solutions can actually be really bad. A person wanting to commit into something good, the simple easy solutions might be the ones they tug along with. Yet if you start from a moral stance, then you won't be listening to the counterpoints. All people will hear is that someone is attacking a good moral value.

At this point, I think what's needed is an awakening similar to a religious conversion in the sense of a complete change in perspective, and one that has to be reached on a global scale. — Xtrix

What we really DO NOT NEED are religious awakenings, mantras that repeated as pseudo-religious chants without much if any thought given to what actually is said. Keep religion away. These problems will not be solved by faith based strategies, on the contrary!

What we need is clear thinking and sound approaches to how to solve problems that take into considerations various points of view, factors and data. The boring complex engineering stuff, the extremely annoying political consensus building. To the idealist yearning for a new World, this all is a disappointment. But idealists shouldn't make the decisions, their role is to get others to think about the issues, not to decide what is done. And hell with the neo-religious moral babble!!!

What will it take to eradicate nuclear weapons and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero? (To name only two.) — Xtrix

Starting with those.

So what is the problem you have with volcanoes erupting or natural forest fires? Just look at what you write and consider it taken literally.

Zero emissions.

All greenhouse gas emissions.

I guess I committed a crime tonight when I warmed the water front sauna with couple pieces of wood. And in the winter, guess I cannot heat the summerplace using wood either. Better just rely on the electricity produced by a nuclear plant and buy more electric heaters.

And then the nukes. How about other WMDs? And where do you draw the line then? Can there be a thing called military deterrence or is that bad too? Is military strategy allowed? How about the possibility that we would have more wars, more conflict when there would be no WMDs? Or is that a morally wrong question to even utter in the new religious awakening?

Complex problems have to tackled without having moral blinders on.

Here's your chance to ask questions about philosophy, request information about different schools of philosophy. — Wheatley

Great!

Here's my two questions.

Due to the language, American and British philosophy are usually linked together (especially when people talk about the Anglosphere). And Analytic School is given as an example (although this school has beached to other countries too).

Yet are there differences between British and US schools of philosophy?

Is (was) for example pragmatism a solely American endeavor?

I have searched on and off for years on what philosophical movements promote, or are in agreement with, the idea that everything in our experience can be interpreted/translated as mathematics. — Paul Fishwick

I'd agree with this if one important and logical field of mathematics is taken into account: the uncomputable and the incommeasurable.

Then math explains everything.

The problem is that a lot is there in which you cannot make a function, cannot compute and the only thing you can do with these unique mathematical objects is to use narrative. But, you could argue based on mathematics that seeking functions or algorithms is not so smart thing to do.

Yet if you argue that everything is computable and measurable, then I have to disagree with you.

Yes, unfortunately, everything about the pandemic has been highly politicized right from the start. And outside politics, you can see how the depressingly predictable dynamics unfolds: people get into arguments on- and offline, stake out positions, which then polarize and harden to the point where no evidence or reason has any chance of changing minds. — SophistiCat

If you would just erase away the US debate and just focus on what it has been in other Western countries (and somehow they wouldn't be influenced by the vitriolic US narrative), that would be a healthy start. Trump messed so much up (which was actually what many of his voters wanted him to do).

But yes, the problem then can become that people simply have separate narrative which are based on separate totally opposite data, which makes it hard to know just what the facts are. And that might be an objective for some. And political incentives create a base why there is no reason to try to reach an objective truth on the matter.

I learnt this following the debate around nuclear energy in Europe. The totally different realities could be seen from things like asking just how many people died in the Chernobyl accident. If the UN states that it caused 4 000 long term deaths and Greenpeace argues that it caused over 1 million deaths...

Yeah, I'm having trouble with this one. — ToothyMaw

Why?

Since the emergence of the idea of "Free Speech", the limits and the abuse of this right has been debated and thought about. It's shouldn't come as something new. We have been able to decide where we draw the line, times and the society just change. A good rule of thumb is to use "common sense". And that "common sense" naturally tells something about the existing society we live in and it's norms at a certain time. In my view to seek an irrefutable and timeless guideline to all present and future societies is simply futile and plain silly.

I think we ought to think about the reasons why free speech has become such an issue in the first place.

In my view there are several reasons for this:

a) Modern technology has created a situation were there aren't the old limits to public speech, but also tech has created new methods for censorship, surveillance and propaganda.

b) After the Cold War ended, terrorism was put on the pedestal as it never had been. The successful 9/11 attacks created a pro-security environment which changed just what was tolerated. The security-apparatus in all countries were enlarged.

c) Just what is considered "racist", "fascist", "communist", "hate speech" etc has changed, which has moved the Overton window. Because not much new has been invented to describe the present, the solution then has been to beat the old horses by redefining just what is harmful speech.

d) The two political parties in the US enjoy the "culture war", which has the effect that any topic that the two party system takes into focus becomes politicized. Because of the dominance of the US media in the Western World, these issues are copy-pasted everywhere instantly.

Happily, I know little of what goes on in the academic world. When I was taught philosophy, what I read and what was discussed had little to do with political or social issues, and much to do with traditional philosophical issues in metaphysics and epistemology, and ethics, somewhat, but primarily with the language used in ethical statements. Professors had their views on politics, but those I encountered who taught philosophy made no claims of special knowledge or insight regarding social issues, nor did I expect them to do so. I didn't expect them to have any special knowledge or insight either. Maybe it's different now. — Ciceronianus the White

Or maybe not.

The perception that we have (those who are outside the university and it's campuses) is based on various narratives picked up in the public debate and in the media. Perhaps too much emphasis is given to things like "student activity", demonstrations and political campaigns. The public narrative typically is based around certain individual events, which may hide the actual normality behind everything. Likely a far bigger change has been the corona-pandemic restrictions now, which has abolished one very important part of the university: meeting other students and enjoying a crucial part of their young adulthood. Those that were first year students had really a bad timing in their life.

Just to give an example, the topic is like the question "How has the military changed in the decades after the Cold War?" There too the pitfall is to follow a narrative given by someone who has a specific agenda in mind. The changes might look to be great, but with a more carefully observation the changes might be far more subtle.

In the end the academic world is part of the society and societal changes do have naturally an effect on it. We might exaggerate the changes and not take into consideration just how similar the institution still is: I think it still is a place of learning. How many were "Hippies" in the 60s and how many are the "Woke" now? Likely the vast majority of students are quite similar. I remember what my great-great-aunt told me about her studies in the university.

"The Student Body of the University held an impromptu celebration at the Student's House in honor of Finland having declared it's independence. She didn't stay at the party for long as she had reading to do for her upcoming exams."

Perhaps reading the books for exams still is in the epicenter. And for the academic professionals, it's still publishing and getting money for future research.

Analytic philosophy, like Joe Hill, ain't dead, and like rock 'n roll, it will never die, as long as it's considered to be a method or collection of methods by which the detritus of philosophy is cleared. Those methods may be usefully addressed to such as feminism or critical race theory, but I don't see why it must take them onboard in order to survive or flourish. — Ciceronianus the White

Great answer.

Schuringa seems more like a name dropper who is saying "I know my analytic philosophy" and to the amateur interested in philosophy (me, that is) his basic message is vague. If there really is a message, it perhaps looks like to be this:

In today’s world, analytic philosophy faces a range of new challenges. It has heard the call of feminism, of critical race theory, and of the movement to decolonize the curriculum, and it is actively in the business of trying to heed these calls. Academic philosophy faces a particularly acute inclusivity problem, even by the standards of the academy: representation of women and of non-whites in the profession is shockingly poor.

Why are these a "challenge" to analytic philosophy seems strange. It is far more an issue to "Academic Philosophy" and generally to the educational departments in the Academia than a particular school of philosophy. They, the departments and institutions, have to cope with the demands from various entities. That many philosophy departments are openly "analytic" doesn't mean that the school of thought is the one that has to change.

Similarly, would you ask how the "Continental Philosophy" has to cope with decolonization of the curriculum etc? Or is "Continental Philosophy" close enough to critical race theory to adapt it as part of itself or what? Or are they part of it? Basically the division of philosophy to "Analytical Philosophy" and "Continental Philosophy" doesn't work all the time.

Yet Schuringa goes on with this entity "Analytic Philosophy" and what it ought to do and cannot do or has problems with doing:

there are specific reasons why analytic philosophy is peculiarly underequipped to meet these challenges. Although it places emphasis on open and non-hierarchical debate, it conceives of such debate within a problematic framework. In line with the apolitical profile it gave itself in the years following World War II, analytic philosophy tends to conceive debate on the liberal model of a ‘marketplace of ideas’. This is unsurprising, since the ‘apolitical’ are, just by virtue of sealing themselves off from political engagement, particularly susceptible to unwittingly falling into line with the prevailing ideology and its structures.

Or perhaps Analytic Philosophy is interested in Philosophy, not politics, and that's the reason why it is apolitical, which Schuringa sees so problematical?

At least an amateur philosopher like me is confused how and why a School of Philosophy like "Analytic Philosophy" should have an answer (opinion? theory?) about decolonization of the curriculum, critical race theory, etc.

It's not a math history course. It's a sophisticated real analysis course, including calculus, based upon a rigorous concept of infinitesimals. — jgill

Then there simply is no time for philosophy. You have to go through all the work done by mathematicians and get to the sophisticated ways mathematicians use them. It's simply a matter of time.

I'm not up to speed in contemporary abstract math, particularly foundations, but I would guess few, if any. — jgill

There's a book by Herman Rubin and Jean E. Rubin called "Equivalents of the Axiom of Choice", which states about 150 statements in mathematics that are equivalent to the axiom of choice.

Wikipedia states some:

Set theory

Well-ordering theorem: Every set can be well-ordered. Consequently, every cardinal has an initial ordinal.
Tarski's theorem about choice: For every infinite set A, there is a bijective map between the sets A and A×A.
Trichotomy: If two sets are given, then either they have the same cardinality, or one has a smaller cardinality than the other.
Given two non-empty sets, one has a surjection to the other.
The Cartesian product of any family of nonempty sets is nonempty.
König's theorem: Colloquially, the sum of a sequence of cardinals is strictly less than the product of a sequence of larger cardinals. (The reason for the term "colloquially" is that the sum or product of a "sequence" of cardinals cannot be defined without some aspect of the axiom of choice.)
Every surjective function has a right inverse.

Order theory

Zorn's lemma: Every non-empty partially ordered set in which every chain (i.e., totally ordered subset) has an upper bound contains at least one maximal element.
Hausdorff maximal principle: In any partially ordered set, every totally ordered subset is contained in a maximal totally ordered subset. The restricted principle "Every partially ordered set has a maximal totally ordered subset" is also equivalent to AC over ZF.
Tukey's lemma: Every non-empty collection of finite character has a maximal element with respect to inclusion.
Antichain principle: Every partially ordered set has a maximal antichain.

Abstract algebra

Every vector space has a basis.
Krull's theorem: Every unital ring other than the trivial ring contains a maximal ideal.
For every non-empty set S there is a binary operation defined on S that gives it a group structure. (A cancellative binary operation is enough, see group structure and the axiom of choice.)
Every set is a projective object in the category Set of sets.

Functional analysis

The closed unit ball of the dual of a normed vector space over the reals has an extreme point.

Point-set topology

Tychonoff's theorem: Every product of compact topological spaces is compact.
In the product topology, the closure of a product of subsets is equal to the product of the closures.

Mathematical logic

If S is a set of sentences of first-order logic and B is a consistent subset of S, then B is included in a set that is maximal among consistent subsets of S. The special case where S is the set of all first-order sentences in a given signature is weaker, equivalent to the Boolean prime ideal theorem; see the section "Weaker forms" below.

Graph theory

Every connected graph has a spanning tree.

If you call that few if any, well...

That sounds totally reasonable.

Of course, nobody knows what tomorrow brings.

As so many Republicans talk about the lab theory, the unfortunate will happen and this topic will irredeemably be made a US political partisanship issue. People will take sides here only because the Republican have taken one side. The self-centeredness of the America is sickening. But then, American media dominates the World. Joe Rogan interviewing Krystal Ball and Sagaar Enjeti yesterday:

If I'm true to my word, I'll have to postpone my buying of cryptocurrencies as not six months, but just two months went with inactivity on this thread. Seriously thinking of investing in bitcoin, but....hell I just hate passwords! Yet as this is a quite progressive site with forward looking people and bitcoin has built a nice base after the highs two months ago, it looks to be an OK investment. Looks like a fair time to start. Not a great time to invest as there's no a) pandemic outbreak, b) major war or c) financial crisis which make people panic. In a panic with all this debt around, everything goes down.

So I'm not so sure if in a situation where all stock indexes are all time high, when gold is close to all time high and the leverage used in unreal, there could be that deflationary correction that everybody is talking about when all that investment with debt panics and sells the best assets. Even if inflation has picked up. Thinking more of divesting partly out of stocks now.

And now I'm doing it too. Hey, look at this thread, this is so bad!!! :-) — Foghorn

People haven't been banned because of their comments on this thread (yet), so it isn't bad.

Not a "simple" "intuitive" with "beautiful reasoning" in my opinion. — jgill

See, that's the problem here. I think math is filled with a lot of things that a) work b) are totally obvious at some level and c) to make a rigorous proof why they are is problematic. For example, just how many different fields of math can you find something similar to the Axiom of Choice? Just look how much it has created discussion in mathematical circles.

A colleague of mine tried teaching the subject at the U of Colorado some years ago, and neither he nor his students benefited. — jgill

Who benefits from the History of Math or the Philosophy of Math? Not many I would say.

Usually students aren't interested in the fascinating history of a debate in mathematics.

Far easier just to learn calculus: Learn this, do it so, it works. Next issue in the course, we have to run here...

The essential divide in this issue is between those who are out for blood and those who actually seek solutions. — BitconnectCarlos

I'd add those seeking a peaceful solution. There are many with "final solutions" in their mind there.

Yes, obviously there hasn't been enough death there...

Don't forget the contribution from Dedekind. Yet that doesn't differ actually so much from what either Newton or Leibniz said, even if they didn't invent the definition of a limit.

And here you might add there as a "case solved" Robinson with his rigorous foundations for infinitesimals. And where I think Robinson succeeds is putting down the infinitesimal to a new set of numbers.

Of course, that is then called non-standard analysis.

And the outraged leftist moralists would likely have nothing to say about that. We've seen this movie before....

1) Before the American invasion of Iraq the outraged leftist moralists had nothing to say about Saddam's ruthless oppression of Iraqis.

2) During the American invasion the outraged leftist moralists whipped themselves up in to a hysterical frenzy of fantasy moral superiority.

3) After the American invasion the outraged leftist moralists went back to caring not a whit about
the Iraqi people. — Foghorn

Your stereotype of the "leftist moralist" doesn't represent at all the actual debate that happened prior, through and after the US invasion to Iraq.

1) Before the American invasion those leftist moralists cried about Saddam using chemical weapons against the Kurds and the US giving Iraq assistance (like satellite imaginary etc) in the war against Iran. And then after Operation Desert Shield they cried about Bush (senior) encouraging the Kurds and the Shias to rebel against the Iraqi regime and then leaving them on their own.

2) Before the invasion actually only few leftist moralists were against the invasion. Many of them ate all the US lies about the then non-existent WMD's. The time of "Freedom Fries", that lasted a long time even in this forum of people coming here and defending the decision of Bush to invade "because he had gotten bad intel".

3) The leftist moralists seldom critique a Democratic administration, especially one lead by Obama. Yet few did notice the authoritarianism of Nouri al Maliki, who is the real culprit of everything going downhill after the US left and why Al-Qaeda re-emerged after morphing into ISIS.

What you are right is that the American leftist moralist sees in ANY BAD EVENT that happens around the World the USA being somehow the prime culprit and the reason why bad things happen. This is of course not so surprising, because on the other hand the American right-wing moralist patriot sees in ANY GOOD EVENT that happens around the World happening because the USA is somehow the prime actor in the event.

Both share the extreme hubris that everything important that happens in the World, the US has to be at the center stage of it. An event where the US isn't involved simply is totally unimportant.

I might be wrong, but I think Math is so beautiful, that to a such essential part of mathematics, there perhaps is a simple intuitive and beautiful reasoning. Something that would easily tell us what is the link or "the catch" between natural numbers and the infinitesimal / limits. Of course many do think this is a total non-issue as there just is what we have been taught at school (and it works). From a philosophical viewpoint I beg to differ.

Still, for everyday use it's a no-brainer: the foundations of calculus and it's relationship to the foundations of mathematics isn't something that people much think about as obviously we have the correct answer how to do it.

Authoritarianism has more than one definition. Like fascism or anarchism, socialism or democracy, there needs to be an agreed definition. — Bitter Crank

Good luck with that, BC. That will be hard even here.

Of course there are various levels of authoritarianism, yet we know that authoritarianism, just like fascism, socialism, communism and the most loved term now, racism, are by many used just as a derogatory insult that has barely anything to do with the actual classic definition of the term.

Just think how many various kind of people are depicted as nazis or commies?

But you have to pretend calculus isn't a thing to fully appreciate them. — Kenosha Kid

On the contrary! That we have calculus and these thought experiments still show that we don't fully understand basically infinity (or it's interesting counterpart). Sure, we have calculus, but not a clear solution. That both Newton and Leibniz couldn't easily crack the infinitesimal in a way that we all refer is the interesting part. Yes, we have limits, we have even infinitesimals and basically infinity is taken as an axiom.

I think the basic problem is that we make counting, natural numbers, as the basis for all mathematics. A bit hard then to add there infinity or infinitesimals in that picture. When you think of it, that was basically the Eleatic School's counterargument. Unfortunately we don't have the book that Zeno wrote and the description of the Eleatic School comes from it's opponents, who didn't have on their agenda to make the Eleatic School's case.

in relation to the rest of the world it wouldn't be close to the most authoritarian by comparison. — Keith W

How about against the backdrop of Western industrialized democracies?

But name somewhere that isn't having problems... — Keith W

The Swiss don't seem to have much problems. (Having difficulties with the EU shouldn't even considered to be a problem, but the normal)

...America just makes its problems more public. — Keith W

And how many countries have had the military in such numbers inside their Parliament this year?



Sorry, but the train wreck in what the Trump Presidency ended was truly not something that happens in other stable democracies. Riots, protests, yes... but pictures like the above?

So how can nature be this complex? — Thinking

In my view even without living organisms the universe is quite complex. When you add to complex systems more complexity, that is what you get: more complexity, more complex systems.

Yet, terrorism is still such a prominent topic, with there being 12 intelligence agencies in the United States doing different tasks along with the same thing. — Shawn

As I said earlier, the intelligence establishment has been there well before the current terrorism scare.

Does anyone remember the liberalism of Bill Clinton? Those were good times. — Shawn

Yes, the NAFTA deal. The time when the Democrats didn't care anymore about their classic supporters like the trade unions. And the first Presidential Impeachment that I remember.

Good point, Tiff.

I would make the same point too.

A vast security system has been already in place for long time. The security oriented approach to everything has also been apparent in the US and has grown since 9/11, although one might argue that it has been there since the "Red Scare" from the 20th Century. And 9/11 happened 20 years ago.

What I think is happening that Americans are getting even more disaffected with politics and the political system, but unfortunately this will create only further disunity among the people.

The US could get even more "authoritarian", if the economy collapses. We already have seen the rioting and large scale looting can happen in the country, which the security apparatus has to respond to. That response can also be like the response in Washington DC, but it also can be a response like in Portland (or earlier in Seattle). That likely will make people insecure and want harsh measures.

. I'm curious to see what Thought Experiments you guys find intriguing. — theUnexaminedMind

Zeno's paradoxes.

Simple. Classical. Still intriguing.

P. This "desire to reach consensus" is a joke. — Xtrix

And who has really tried it?

Nobody.

Try to win and depict your opponent in the worst light has been the approach. That hasn't been "trying to reach a consensus".

Seems like an easy call to me: let "bipartisanship" die. — Xtrix

Your not killing "bipartisanship" anymore, your killing parliamentarism.

He's still as much a "leader" as he ever was, in that they still pay homage to him. But he's been a figurehead all along. So where's the leadership? In the same place they've always been. It's Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and other establishment neoliberals. They always knew Trump was a buffoon, but they're afraid because he's still popular with his base. — Xtrix

That other pay homage to you or want to be in good terms with you isn't leadership.

That Trump can vouch somebody and be against somebody isn't leadership, it's close to having influence on the outcome. That isn't leading.

Isn't so-called bipartisanship another dogma that needs to die? — Xtrix

Yes, to hell with any kind of desire to reach consensus: the Majority rules, so just crush the minority! That will surely work...

...just as it has worked during the last years.

But the bottom line is: there is no heir to Trump. He's the party now. Whether that's enough to win? Who knows. Like always, it comes down to whether the majority of Americans who are against Republican policies and dislike Trump come out and vote or not. — Xtrix

Never underestimate how quickly people can forget the old if something new and more interesting comes up. Trump can very quickly look as old as he is.

In truth the GOP is leaderless.

Greed gives the notion that it's acceptable to go drastically in opposition to this by dehumanizing other humans as a desertion of the principle of the common welfare of humanity. — Lif3r

That's a bit of a stretch of the definition. So the notion of "an intense and selfish desire for wealth or power (or for food for or other pleasures)" becomes dehumanizing other humans.

Innovation is good. The common welfare of humanity is good. Increasing these two things is good. — Lif3r

And many innovators and especially politicians that do want to improve things could be argued to be greedy for power. Their intense desire to reach their objectives will look to others like greed. The fact is, someone that truly wants change and hence wants power will look to others (usually those who are against the persons objectives) as a greedy power hungry person.

You shouldn't forget that people can also be envious among other things. And envious people likely will see far more greedy people around them as there actually are. Both greed and envy are considered sins, hence that ought to tell something about them.

I'm convinced that there is some sort of grassroots Palestinian movement in Gaza that's actually interested in peace and may in fact not want to live under fundamentalist Islamic rule — BitconnectCarlos

Gaza is one strange concentration camp, so having an effect from there is limited.

First of all, the Palestinians would have to overcome the highly disruptive Hamas-Fatah conflict. The reconciliation process hasn't gone anywhere in over a decade. The 2014 unity government attempt wasn't successful and now you have the two opposing Palestinian governments. And, of course, both Israel and the US are opposed have effectively opposed reconciliation. This naturally is divide-et-impera tactics: never have your opponent be someone with one credible voice, if you can splinter it into different opposing groups.

The problem perhaps is that of the structure of the PLO itself:

The PLO was designed as a government in exile, with a parliament, the Palestine National Council (PNC), chosen by the Palestinian people, as the highest authority in the PLO, and an executive government (EC), elected by the PNC. In practice, however, the organization was rather a hierarchic one with a military-like character, needed for its function as a liberation organization, the "liberation of Palestine"

How you a have a military organization having in itself a parliament and an executive representing the country, then all that still be lead by one leadership I find very difficult to fathom. Let's remember that Hamas came out from the dissatisfaction of Palestinians to the rule of the PLO and there the Fatah.

I would personally see as the crucial voice here the Palestinians that are called "Arab Israelis", because as still considered as Israeli citizens, they do have ways to influence the political landscape and also Western views. Still, getting even them to be unified is a problem.

How and what they can do, we will see, but the for the first time, Palestinians are going into the Israeli government:

The United Arab List (UAL) is set to become the first party of Palestinian citizens of Israel to take part in a governing coalition after it agreed to join the new Israeli government to be led by Naftali Bennett – a former ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who had called for the annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Abbas’s UAL broke away from the Joint Arab List, the main coalition of Palestinian parties in Israel, ahead of the March elections. Abbas decided to run independently, advocating at the time that he would work with Netanyahu and other right-wing parties to improve living conditions for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The split weakened the representation of Palestinian parties in the Knesset, which in last year’s vote won a record 15 seats in parliament.

Thanks for those words, Schopenhauer1!

When we know we agree on those things, we can go further with the topic...

How can it change for the better?

How will it change?

If Bibi is finally ousted and a new pro-peace Israeli government seeks to change course, can it? Is there a possibility of getting out of this rabbit hole?

Can other countries besides the US, Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt, Russia, Turkey etc. play a supportive role towards peace in the Middle-East?

And if so, how can the Palestinians, be it the PA or Hamas or whoever, also approach this? Can they actually make and keep peace with Israel and then face the fact that there's Israel and they have all these problems...

The problem is that there's a lot of misinformation out there that is a barrier to a fair and just solution. — Benkei

Not only misinformation, but also simple ignorance.

Just take for example the Israeli nuclear deterrence or it's biological and chemical warfare capability (Israel hasn't ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, hasn't ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is not a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention). Yes, informed people know of existence of Israeli nuclear weapons, but I would argue that many actually do not. That Israel has nuclear weapons alongside other WMD capability puts into another light the reasons of WMD projects of it's neighbors: they have been an attempt to create a deterrence and a balance.

There are the populists, the religious zealots, but behind the bellicose threatening discourse there is logical thinking on both sides (if continuation of a conflict can be logical).

Peace brokers like the USA aren't good brokers for peace due to the persistent bias existing about Israel's role in the conflict and policy choices where they give billions to Israel. You can't negotiate peace if only one side's security is taken seriously when in fact it's the other side getting killed. — Benkei

Put it another way, there isn't an urgent need for the US to do anything in this issue and the fact is that far more important to American politicians are the domestic votes in elections and the support of AIPAC and Christian Evangelists than a solution in the Middle East.

For politicians to truly seek peace and to end an active conflict usually happens when the continuation of the conflict is simply unbearable and will likely lead to the downfall of the politicians. How many US politicians face imminent downfall if they continue the line of supporting Israel (and all the Judeo-Christian heritage etc.) and make the nominal peace proposals that benefit one side more than the other?

And not to just single out the US, what other entity cannot continue with the old normal that has basically been going on from 1948? A 73-year conflict means that the conflict is normality for the people. That is the unfortunate thing here.

Cancel culture might have been around before, but the internet has given it the ability to amplify its signal and spread out of control. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The easiness and the outreach of it is crucial.

When you think that earlier one had to get something published in the opinion section of any newspaper, the process and the input that people made then is something totally different to a tweet, that may or may not come viral. The opinion pages were so limited that any paper had to be quite strict in what would get published. Tweeting and social media does have changed the landscape.

Historians are eager to not that political discourse has been many times as vile as it's today, yet things do change. Many things in the end just create noise and the actual issues get lost in it.

Nice to have an opposing view to the lab-leak hypothesis, but have to say that article is truly difficult to read. Yes, and oncologist editor of a site owned by the New England Skeptical Society can indeed know the subject well enough to comment, but there's a lot of quotes of the plain media articles and twitter comments and more of the social media style of commenting (with Godzilla facepalms) that makes it a long difficult read.

Perhaps this tells in short the opinion of the author David Gorski:

If, as I have, you’ve been paying attention to these things for a number of years, you know that, whenever there is a major outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic of infectious disease, one conspiracy theory always—and I do mean always—arises.

And that's the problem. Indeed there has been a conspiracy. The one where China wasn't open and truthful about the epidemic at the first place. And isn't now and won't be truthful in the future. And that was the first conspiracy which likely even Gorski won't deny.

Just to create a viable picture of the events is difficult...thanks to Chinese officials. An article explains this:

Seasoned journalists in China often say “Cover China as if you were covering Snapchat”—in other words, screenshot everything, under the assumption that any given story could be deleted soon. For the past two and half months, I’ve been trying to screenshot every news article, social media post, and blog post that seems relevant to the coronavirus. In total, I’ve collected nearly 100 censored online posts: 40 published by major news organizations, and close to 60 by ordinary social media users like Yue. In total, the number of Weibo posts censored and WeChat accounts suspended would be virtually uncountable. (Despite numerous attempts, Weibo and WeChat could not be reached for comment.)

Taken together, these deleted posts offer a submerged account of the early days of a global pandemic, and they indicate the contours of what Beijing didn’t want Chinese people to hear or see. Two main kinds of content were targeted for deletion by censors: Journalistic investigations of how the epidemic first started and was kept under wraps in late 2019 and live accounts of the mayhem and suffering inside Wuhan in the early days of the city’s lockdown, as its medical system buckled under the world’s first hammerstrike of patients.

See Inside the Early Days of China’s Coronavirus Cover-Up

Then there was the way doctors were dealt:

- Physicians were told by hospital heads not to share any information at the beginning of the outbreak.
- Doctors were not allowed first to wear isolation gowns because that might stoke fears.
- Provincial health commission began actively suppressing scientists’ knowledge about the virus as early as January 1.
- By January, according to Caixin (who wrote an article, "Tracing the Gene Sequencing of the Novel Coronavirus: When was the Alarm Sounded?"), a gene sequencing laboratory in Guangzhou had discovered that the novel virus in Wuhan shared a high degree of similarity with the virus that caused the SARS outbreak in 2003; but, according to an anonymous source, Hubei’s health commission promptly demanded that the lab suspend all testing and destroy all samples.

And of then the typical Chinese censorship of anything that could look bad. And journalists etc. have been arrested for covering the pandemic. The usual Chinese stuff.

In all, it's highly doubtful that we can create clear picture of events now. Hope that historians later can do that.

Add to the fact that creating the timeline how a disease broke out would be difficult even without the all above.