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.

Succinct article that hits the nail on the head when people haphazardly use terms like "woke", "politically correct", and "cancel culture".

"Meanwhile, things like poverty and inequality and death and disease and climate change and war can all be easily quantified, defined and debated in a meaningful way. When someone instead spends all their time talking about things that seem undefinable, it is probably because they find reality to be an uncomfortable topic" — Maw

Yet this is the typical, standard line from woke people like Hamilton Nolan who actually cannot even see their own wokeness: How dare anybody even talk about there existing "cancel culture" when there is the corona-pandemic, climate change, wars and conflicts, poverty, INJUSTICE!

And it's great that you did pick a perfect stereotypical example like Hamilton Nolan, Maw. Because let's just take look what Hamilton Nolan writes.

So Hamilton Nolan also writes in that article you refer to:

What does ​“cancel culture” mean? Does it mean ​“Being fired from your job for being racist or sexist?” Does it mean ​“Being criticized in public for saying racist or sexist things?” Does it mean ​“Things that used to be seen as okay for white people to say now are seen as not okay and I am upset about that because I like to say those things?” It is easy to see how at one end of the spectrum of definitions, ​“cancel culture” is an extremely narrow, niche problem without any major impact on the general public — and at the other extreme, it is a pernicious force that might come for anyone. If I were making an honest attempt to offer the definition of this term as it is most often used, it would be: ​“People suffering consequences for things they said, with an overwhelming emphasis on the most goofy or misguided examples that we can find.” By this definition, ​“cancel culture” is just a rebranding of the ordinary human foibles that accompany the slowly evolving standards of society. Engaging in any debate at all about ​“cancel culture” without a meticulous definition of terms is to fall into a trap before you have even begun.

Hmm... how about the definition being closer to the cancel culture that Hamilton Nolan personally advocates? The one he explains in an another article:

The current occupants of the White House will leave, and all of their assorted enablers will disperse back into the world like fungus spores floating on the wind, all hoping for a cozy spot to flourish anew. It is our job, as a society, to deny them that. To deny them acceptance, peace, and the unearned sheen of respectability. To always, always, remember what they did.

Stephen Miller should never be able to dine peacefully in a nice restaurant as long as there is one family still experiencing the pain of his border policies. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump should not be able to go to fancy New York society events so long as Americans are still feeling the effects of the Trump administration’s class war. Steven Mnuchin should not be able to have a nice day taking in a ballgame, Betsy DeVos should not be able to enjoy a quiet cruise on her yacht, Mitch McConnell should not be able to have a fun outing to the Kentucky Derby. All of these people should be the subject of ridicule, derision and insults when they venture out in public. All of them should experience civil disobedience designed to prevent them from living calm and luxurious lives while millions of other people suffer in myriad ways because of what they have done.

See article: Remember What They Did - Do not allow the enablers of the Trump administration to rejoin polite society, ever.

I guess that above is a perfect example of cancel culture and just why it's called cancel culture. But of course, there are more important issues, yet sometimes lesser issues can be discussed too. :nerd:

(The awarded labour columnist Hamilton Nolan...)

In any case the approach that I go with is how do we best move forward from where we are now. I think we should be working to bring people from both sides of the fence together. I don't have much faith in Netanyahu, and I have zero in Hamas. I guess I would have to favor a grassroots solutions if that type of thing is at all possible.

The history is what it is. On the Arab account maybe things only begin with the creation of Israel/the "nakba"/ "the great humiliation" - but for the Jews Israel is only the latest chapter in a 3000 year story - the culmination of centuries of struggle and exile. — BitconnectCarlos

Just ask yourself: How did (West) Europeans find this harmony to try something as crazy as the European Union? Even if it has it's faults, it's pretty different endeavour from the past. How did the militarism and jingoism die in Europe?

As I've said earlier, the answer was two world wars. Basically one way to find peace is when people truly are so sick and tired of war that they don't give a shit what the war-hawks, the religious zealots claim and want. There are simply too many that have died. Total disasters create change. Countries like West Germany truly had to think things over. That is one answer, but surely not the best answer.

A better way would be that you would have the truly courageous leaders that truly would want peace and would not care that the more easier way for a politician to succeed is to be a hawk. Those politicians who make peace agreements in the Middle East have been killed by their own. Not the hawks: they die of old age.

And those in the military (and the political leaders) have to understand that the British way to deal with insurgencies, as also wrote, is the hard long dreary road to some kind of peace. If you uphold things like the Common Law and treat the terrorists as criminals and put them through the legal system, yes, you do bind your military on how they can fight their opponent. You do restrain your fighting men from using "excessive force" and that does hinder their response. And likely that will mean that more of them will end up as casualties. They simply cannot call in an artillery strike or close air support which turns tables quite quickly in an ambush. Yet calling in that artillery strike or fighter bomber likely will create in the long run more insurgents than they kill. Let's not forget that even if it did go for a longer time, the British lost far more soldiers & policemen killed in Northern Ireland (Operation Banner) than in the Falklands war, in Iraq or in Afghanistan combined.

In fact, I think less Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting the Palestinians in the last 40 years than the British lost in Operation Banner.

Let's say this is the case:
Israel is unjustified to use the bombings they have been in pursuing "security". — schopenhauer1

This is a tactical / operational modus operandi that Israel has.

It's basically a "Tit-for-tat" strategy added with a larger operation every once in a while when some Israeli leader decides a larger operation would look better. For the Palestinians they only have to survive and exist as a potential force and lob sometimes a few rockets to Israel, because otherwise people would forget that there's a conflict going on. And the "security hawks" like Bibi Netanyahu, one rocket is too much for their ego, because they have claimed that they can fight the insurgency and keep the Jewish people safe. Hence some incident happens, other side counters with either firing rockets (Palestinians) or bombing (Israelis). And when an incident is considered too large, then Israel launches a bigger operation.

Yet this has absolutely nothing to do with solving the conflict. On the contrary: the tactics used only keep the low intensity conflict alive and the conflict going on. Here the case is that one has to understand how insurgencies can be won: they need a political solution. How is this so difficult to understand?

Would you all agree that with this then?
Hamas/Palestinian fighters who use violent means to get their ends are unjustified? — schopenhauer1

What is this obsession/fetish about wars and military actions being justified / unjustified?

As if "the justification" for war is the most important issue. Those who participate in voluntary wars, get themselves involved in others conflicts or start conflicts themselves far away from their own lands might be fixated on "the justification" question. Is it totally inconceivable to fathom that both sides in a conflict could have justified reasons for their action? Both sides would think that they are defending themselves and their people? Why think that for human conflicts there is a moral "righteous justified" reasoning that one side has and the other hasn't? That one side is clearly right and another clearly wrong?

In my view, what is unjustified is to sustain a perpetual conflict without any care or desire to solve it. And, for clarity, a "final solution" type genocide isn't a justified solution. Israel can keep this on as long as they want. Just look at their economic history:



And for that matter, so can the Palestinians. They won't capitulate either. They'll raise the next generation to carry the fight. What else do they have?

Enough people want this conflict to go on. Especially the religious fanatics. People can have this strange discussion of who is morally more justified than the other in a long conflict like this. A better discussion would be how the conflict could be ended. Without the virtue signaling.

There won't be any progress on the matter like this. — Benkei

Well, if you consider everything that any intelligence service says to be total propaganda.

I think the real debate ought to be on the safety of the gain of function research, which was earlier prohibited. Then the ban was ended, and now a permanent ban is pushed forward. This research has really been put on and off quite many times.

Let's remember what happened in 2017 with the ending of the gain of function research ban, which specifically was about corona-virus research:

The US moratorium on gain-of-function experiments has been rescinded, but scientists are split over the benefits—and risks—of such studies. Talha Burki reports.
On Dec 19, 2017, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they would resume funding gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. A moratorium had been in place since October, 2014. At the time, the NIH had stated that the moratorium “will be effective until a robust and broad deliberative process is completed that results in the adoption of a new US Government gain-of-function research policy”. This process has now concluded. It was spearheaded by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) and led to the development of a new framework for assessing funding decisions for research involving pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential. The release of the framework by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), of which NIH is part, signalled the end of the funding pause.

The situation has its roots in 2011, when the NSABB suppressed two studies involving H5N1 viruses that had been modified to allow airborne transmission from ferret to ferret. They worried that malign actors could replicate the work to deliberately cause an outbreak in human beings. After much debate, the studies were published in full in 2012. HHS subsequently issued guidelines for funding decisions on experiments likely to result in highly pathogenic H5N1 viruses transmissible from mammal to mammal via respiratory droplets. The guidelines were later expanded to include H7N9 viruses.

In 2014, several breaches of protocol at US government laboratories brought matters to a head. The news that dozens of workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) might have been exposed to anthrax, that vials of smallpox virus had been left lying around in an NIH storeroom, and that the CDC had unwittingly sent out samples of ordinary influenza virus contaminated with H5N1, shook faith in the country's biosafety procedures. Over 200 scientists signed the Cambridge Working Group declaration arguing for a cessation of experiments creating potential pandemic pathogens “until there has been a quantitative, objective and credible assessment of the risks, potential benefits, and opportunities for risk mitigation, as well as comparison against safer experimental approaches”.

The debate is focused on a subset of gain-of-function studies that manipulate deadly viruses to increase their transmissibility or virulence. “This is what happens to viruses in the wild”, explains Carrie Wolinetz, head of the NIH Office of Science Policy. “Gain-of-function experiments allow us to understand how pandemic viruses evolve, so that we can make predictions, develop countermeasures, and do disease surveillance”. Although none of the widely publicised mishaps of 2014 involved such work, the NIH decided to suspend funding for gain-of-function studies involving influenza, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV.

(See The Lancet (February 2018), Ban on gain-of-function studies ends)

And what is now happening?

(27th May 2021) The US Senate has passed an amendment by Republican Senator Rand Paul to permanently ban the National Institutes of Health and any other federal agency from funding gain-of-function research in China.

“We don’t know whether the pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan or evolved naturally,” Senator Paul said in a statement.

“While many still deny funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan … the passage of my amendment ensures that this never happens in the future.”

The amendment defined gain-of-function research as “any research project that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity or transmissibility in mammals”.

The Senate chamber cheered after the amendment was passed.

The Jewsih historian Illan Pappe has a whole book documenting the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which has not stopped to this day. And likely-Prime Minister elect Bennett is on record saying that he wants to annex 60% of the West Bank. So there's that. — StreetlightX

Pappe has gotten some criticism, but I think the main argument that the exodus was planned by the Yishev holds. But then again, parts of Galilee did have a considerable amount of Palestinians. I think Benny Morris has a point when he says:

"In retrospect, it is clear that what occurred in 1948 in Palestine was a variety of ethnic cleansing of Arab areas by Jews. It is impossible to say how many of the 700,000 or so Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 were physically expelled, as distinct from simply fleeing a combat zone."

And there is much debate about Plan Dalet, which Pappe finds crucial here.

I don't remember if I've invested in Black Rocks funds at some point or not. At least it has been an option to invest in some of their funds in my investment portfolio. But the company is well known.

I don't know too much about those smaller massacres, you'll have to enlighten me on the history there. Where and when did these smaller massacres take place and did news then travel to other villages causing mass exodus? Let's go to the history on this one. — BitconnectCarlos

Well known is the massacre at the village of Deir Yassin:

The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 130 fighters from the Far-right wing Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi killed at least 107 Palestinian Arabs, including women and children, in Deir Yassin, a village of roughly 600 people near Jerusalem. The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem during the civil war that preceded the end of British rule in Palestine.

The villagers put up stiffer resistance than the Jewish militias had expected and they suffered casualties. The village fell after house-to-house fighting. Some of the Palestinian Arabs were killed in the course of the battle, others while trying to flee or surrender. A number of prisoners were executed, some after being paraded in West Jerusalem. In addition to the killing and widespread looting, there may have been cases of mutilation and rape. Despite an original boast by the victors that 254 had been killed, modern scholarship puts the death toll at far fewer. Palestinian historian Aref al-Aref counted 117 victims, seven in combat and the rest in their homes. The number of wounded is estimated to between 12 and 50. Five of the attackers were killed and a dozen wounded.

The massacre was condemned by the leadership of the Haganah—the Jewish community's main paramilitary force— by the area's two chief rabbis and famous Jews abroad like Albert Einstein, Jessurun Cardozo, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook and others. The Jewish Agency for Israel sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which he rebuffed. He held them responsible for the massacre, and warned about "terrible consequences" if similar incidents occurred elsewhere.

Here's a clip from a documentary explaining Deir Yassin. People from both sides are interviewed. If you look the whole clip, it explains interestingly also how many in the US, Middle-East experts and also Secretary of State George Marshall, were opposed to the idea of Israel and feared (correctly) that it would start a war, but Truman had his way. (video clip 9 min 26s)



There were also the massacres at Lydda and Abu Shusha. And similar events happened, yet the overall number of people killed was rather low.

The basic issue was that civilians fleeing the fighting couldn't get back. I assume that large numbers of Palestinians thought they could come back to their homes once the fighting stops. I think this is debatable how systematic, how planned from the Israeli side the exodus was. But perhaps someone other can shed the light on this.

Sounds about right where we are for me too.