Well, if labor creates all wealth, the guy who taps the computer at the central bank and creates a few billion dollars with a few keystrokes must be the most laborious.

All wealth? Goldman Sachs doesn't create wealth? — frank

?
This is about Marxist theory.

Not about reali... hm, better leave it to that.

It seems that even if the WHO made the investigation jointly with China about the Covid outbreak and was very diplomatic, some things that the UN agency has stated does raise an eyebrow:

The head of the World Health Organization, the U.S. government and 13 other countries on Tuesday voiced frustration with the level of access China granted an international mission to Wuhan — a striking and unusually public rebuke.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing to member states on Tuesday that he expected “future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing” — the most pointed comments to date from an agency that has been solicitous to China through most of the pandemic.

He said there is a particular need for a “full analysis” of the role of animal markets in Wuhan and that the report did not conduct an “extensive enough” assessment of the possibility the virus was introduced to humans through a laboratory incident.

Even if the WHO report does state what China wants to hear, that a leak from the Wuhan lab does not warrant further investigation, this possibility hasn't gone away, even if at first was aggressively shouted down. Quite credible people thinking about the possibility, lastly a former head of the CDC Director Robert Redfield:

don't believe this somehow came from a bat to a human," he said. Usually, it takes awhile to become more efficient in human-to-human transmission.

"I just don't think this makes biological sense," said Redfield, a virologist.

The most likely etiology is the virus escaped from a lab, he said. It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens to infect laboratory workers. Redfield said he was not implying any intentionality to the escape of the virus.

Of course this possibility, the lab-leak hypothesis, from a highest level of biosafety BSL-4 laboratory at Wuhan, which had bats and had studied SARS corona viruses and was the first of it's kind in China, doesn't seem so far fetched. Yet it's politically, both domestically and internationally, the worst kind of scandal that nearly any government would want to hide. Hence I think the Chinese will deny it as it tried to downplay first the whole outbreak from the start, even if the hypothesis would be true.

There seems to me something infinite about randomness. — Gregory

Think about it the other way around. What is the opposite of randomness? Something that repeats itself somehow, that has a pattern. How can you know that something doesn't have a pattern? One hypothetical way looking at it would be to go to infinity and see that there is no pattern and the mathematical object is truly unique, which one obviously cannot do. Hence I think the Algorithmic Information Theory is a very good way to understand the complexity of the issue.

but do you think the good outweighs the bad? Because I honestly don't know — TaySan

Generalization of it being good or bad isn't the best way to think of this. Far better is to make more specific questions about it. There are negative aspects to it and porn is a sad industry, yet how the society deals with pornography differs. Banning it isn't a good idea, just as the idea of prohibition of the use alcohol or drugs is bad, even if their use has far more obvious negative impacts and there is far more justification for the prohibition of the recreational use of them.

Is it good or bad depends quite a lot on the society and how the society deals with sexuality in general. I've noticed that the most conservative and non-permissive societies where porn is totally banned can have also the most serious sexual harassment and there women and girls are treated as sexual objects even more. It's not a simple question, just like violence in movies, games etc. don't simply make us or our society more violent: kids that have just played first person shooter games for all of their childhood and not exercised outside make lousy soldiers.

Ok,

Seeing that the excitement of having the new administration has worn off.

That took, uh... two months. I'll think the anti-Trump crowd will be on the streets demonstrating against this administration in two months or so. For some reason that is bound to happen. (Of course the protests in places like Portland never stopped, but who in the media cares about that.)

In spring it's warmer and nicer to protest.

As with so many issues, such things are complex in a society and have both good and bad sides to it.

I think one positive thing is that it seems the media finally has understood not to focus on the shooter itself and especially not to publish any "declarations" a mass murderer would make. Similar thing ought to be done with terrorists, as especially with classical terrorism the primary goal is to get publicity. I think this is partly true with these suicides with mass shooting.

Thanks for correcting me, and . Learn bit more every day. Yet of course, in math something important can be said in many ways.

I think that what you say is the diagonal argument. A REAL NUMBER that is NOT on that list. That's the negative part. And how do we get that real number? From the list itself.

That's the reference part.

Cantor's proof is not a reductio ad absurdum. — TonesInDeepFreeze

What?

Cantor's diagonal argument is a reductio ad absurdum proof. The link to incompleteness results should be obvious.

The diagonal argument was not Cantor's first proof of the uncountability of the real numbers, which appeared in 1874. However, it demonstrates a general technique that has since been used in a wide range of proofs, including the first of Gödel's incompleteness theorems and Turing's answer to the Entscheidungsproblem.

As Nash demonstrated fixed-point theory is useful in game theory. Brouwer's fixed-point theorem was proven indirectly, with no simple path to its value, and this distressed Brouwer, who later turned to intuitionism. Proving a math object exists indirectly, but without a process for its construction, is still proving a theorem. This sort of thing has a superficial relation to Godel's works, but I don't think it's what he had in mind. Others here, with more knowledge of the matter can correct me if I'm in error. — jgill

Yes, you got the point exactly. I would say that the issue has more than just a superficial relation, but that is just my personal view about the subject.

Perhaps it is a far more simple issue and has less to do with Gödel, but this is exactly where Oskar Morgenstern saw a problem in economic forecasting in the American Journal of Economics in the 1930's. And I have forgotten which Nobel-laureate responded to him back then 1930's that Morgenstern is wrong while there is obviously is a correct solution: because fixed point theorem proves that there exists a correct solution. Yet the whole problem is that an indirect proof, a reductio ad absurdum proof leaves things unanswered.

The most simple example (well, how simple it is remains questionable) is with Cantor's proof that there are more reals than natural numbers. The issue here is that the reductio ad absurdum proof uses negative self reference. And then we are left with the Continuum Hypothesis being unanswered. In my view, with real numbers our finite mathematical system that starts from counting natural numbers gets into some foundational problems.

I wrote some time ago in PF that our understanding of mathematics has started from a necessity, from counting and thus we lay the foundations of math to natural numbers and counting. Hence it is a bit hard to add into the picture the uncomputable / uncountable afterwards. Counting and the number system should rather be seen as part of mathematics, a very natural and obvious part, which is possible to use in nearly every part of mathematics, but not with everything and especially not being a foundation. Logic in my view should be the foundation for math. It might be that it is the historical foundation of math, but not perhaps the logical foundation of mathematics.

But the fact remains that math people not in those areas are usually not very concerned, even if they are stumped in proving something. However, I haven't been around mathematicians for a long time and I could be mistaken. — jgill

I think that the incompleteness results have an effect on a wide range of things not just in the set theoretic realm and with the foundations of mathematics. We just don't want to make or are ignorant about the link to the incompleteness results.

I think the classic example of something being true but unprovable is a game theoretic situation where it's easy to show that a correct solution exists, yet there seems to be no way to get there. The existence of a correct solution can be shown...based on mathematics. Yet then how to get there seems impossible, actually illogical. Hence for example in economics these problem are dealt with taking the approach of there being a "black box" where "something happens" and the correct result is reached. Great! The economist has his function (with the black box) and can say that the issue has been modelled. But then opening up the black box cannot be done. Which basically is sophistry, but it goes with the remark "this is hopefully resolved later".

Why I say that these problems are similar to the incompleteness results is because in many of these cases there is the negative self-reference that similarly is in use in Gödel theorem and in the Halting Problem of Turing.

Mathematicians are far more rigorous. They cannot just assume something will work. Or, as the joke goes, they can have everything work and get every kind of result they want when 0=1. But that is hardly useful.

Fortunately for many of the smaller countries around the world, me and my closest 340M neighbors have been paying to keep you guys free so you can fully enjoy your associations, etc.. I would suppose that Finland would be part of Russia at this point had the U.S. not been prodding that bear with nuclear pokers. — synthesis

Uh actually.... I think you don't know Finnish history. The story during WW2 and later being non-aligned, not in NATO, never getting the Marshal aid. And no Liberation-Day / VE-Day for us in WW2, thankfully!

If Finland had to defend itself (which it could never do), then you would see more clearly the negative aspect of these groups. I will always maintain that groups are designed by the few in their own interests. Otherwise, why would they exist? — synthesis

Yep, you've never heard of the Winter War between Finland and Soviet Union, I presume.

But we surely know that we are expendable and nobody would give a rats ass about us, if it wasn't for ourselves.

It has the respect of most in the math community, but most of those think they will never come up against that roadblock. — jgill

In my view Gödel's incompleteness theorems, as the other incompleteness results, aren't roadblocks.

The problem is that many view them as like that: hoping that they wouldn't find them in front of them. I think that they, the results I mean, just show that a crucial logical part in our understanding of the foundations of mathematics isn't understood yet. Obviously from our system of natural numbers doesn't come everything in mathematics, that is plain obvious.

I think the problem is that Gödel's theorem is far too complicated and specific to show just where the real problem lies on. People simply fall into the complexities of Gödel numbering etc. I'd prefer something as simple as the diagonalization in Cantor's diagonal argument: the negative self reference. I think there lies the key problem: with negative self reference we get either paradoxes or true but unprovable mathematical objects.

Not to reinforce the notion that Americans know little about what happens outside of the U.S., but Finland is one country of which I am not so familiar. It would seem that smaller countries would have many advantages. — synthesis

Smaller makes it's far more easier to have that feeling of togetherness, social cohesion and to have that "direct democracy". This can be seen from the fact that many tiny countries are ruled de facto by monarchs still. For example Monaco has the executive branch of the state directly under control of the Monarch. Yet as there are less than 40 000 people in Monaco of whom only a fifth are native Monégasque, it is easy for people to directly talk to the ruler. Yet when you have countries with millions of people, that isn't a possibility and hence the link to politicians is quite far. Think about it this way: if you are an American, do you personally know some politicians, Congress members or higher ranking people in the Democratic or Republican party? In a country of 340 million people those 535 voting members of Congress are quite rare.

I am a staunch individualist because I believe it is the nature of groups is to self-corrupt, the larger the group, the more potential for corruption (much larger payoffs). — synthesis

On the other hand, staunch individualism can result in the resentment of groups altogether and people believing that any form of collectivism or collective idea is bad. Yet it isn't so. Social cohesion is extremely important in a society and the feeling that one ought to do one's share.

I think that Americans just locker these issues in a different way: if they are distrustful of collective issues and emphasize the role of the individual, yet they do actively go to church and are active in charity. On the other hand here in Finland the Finns just love associations of all types. A joke is that if Finns go anywhere in the World, the first thing they will do is build a sauna. The second thing they will do is form an association. I think it's crucial for any republic that it's citizens are active and do participate in collective matters in some form or another and not only voting in the rare election once in a while.

There are lots of people who think Godel's undecidable theorems are applicable to practically anything they can think of - and they're not. — tim wood

Incompleteness theorems.

Even if there are the obvious nonsense (just think how much nonsense there is about quantum physics etc), I think there are vast more of those mathematicians who push the theorem to the sidelines close to the border of logic and logical inquiry and insist that it has nothing to do with anything else in the field of math than what the theorems state. It's just an oddity and no reason to think just what those Gödel numbers would be. I think many of these don't even see any link to Turing's Halting problem or with other incompleteness results.

Nationalism becomes a thing when theres dispute over territory and the territory matters to people. — schopenhauer1

Typically it becomes an issue when the nation state is formed. There are ample examples from history about this.

Then one basically has to create a national identity. This is the time when the elite, be it political, economic or cultural, typically feel that nationalism is important. If the country has huge problems, poor economy, severe wealth inequality, widespread unemployment, lack of social cohesion, then that nationalism can morph into something extremely ugly. Once the identity of the nation state is widespread among the people, the idea falls into the category of things taken for granted and viewed only negatively.

Far too many academic people think that as a national identity is created/invented, this means that it is totally artificial and easily replaceable and malleable. I don't think this is the case: the collective history of a group of people isn't something artificial and fabricated by an elite.

And of course, one has to remember what happens when people do not feel they have a common identity or the "people" ought not to have an independent "homeland": then one result is that the group assimilates to another and the culture dies.

Where do you live? — synthesis

Finland.

Corruption is THE problem everywhere ALL the time. Look at the history of our species! — synthesis

Even if corruption does happen, it is in some countries a bigger problem than in others. It actually defines a lot how people behave.

Not too long ago, nobody gave a rat's ass what party you belonged to, — synthesis

Not in my country.

In fact, the more you go back in time, the deeper and bitter the divide was. In the US it's a bit different, because you have only a right-wing and a centrist-right party. When you would have real leftist parties in your Congress, you would notice the difference.

The swamp (although incredible deep by historical standards) has always been in place. — synthesis

Some countries do have a problem with corruption, yes.

If you are forking over a great deal of money to a politician, they know EXACTLY what is expected, and if they do not follow-through, then they are through. — synthesis

Well, if you don't get a seat in the elections, the hassle with lobbyists won't happen either.

19th Century nationalism was about the nation state, that people sharing a common language, culture and perhaps religion would be the ideal state. When you still had Empires around with their inherent problems, it was quite sensible. Race as the dividing factor actually was far too broad in Europe, just look at for example the Nordic countries. I haven't heard of read from the Swedes (who were quite racist back then) referring to Norwegians being of a different race.

Race has had a far bigger importance in the Americas.

Secondly, doesn't the absence of self-consistency foreshadow, that an intractable crisis permeates the heart of all (conceivable) logical architectures? — Aryamoy Mitra

In my view, no.

What Gödel's incompleteness Theorems and other Incompleteness results (Turing, Church) simply show are the limitations of giving a direct proof. And do notice that with giving an indirect proof you cannot say so much as with a direct proof.

Notice that something existing (being logical correct in this case) and something being provable are two different things. This is the basic underlying issue here.

Actually some people would handle the situation by faking that they have no memory of their past deeds.

Would be far easier to go along with the "new start".

I once asked my father why he was a Democrat and he told me that you are whatever the party in power happens to be. I believe this is how the majority of (successful) people see it. They are going to protect what they worked a lifetime to build. Ideology runs very thin when you get out into the real world (except if you're an academic where it apparently doesn't seem to matter very much). — synthesis

I somewhat disagree. I think those who change wildly the parties they vote are actually a minority (even if they are a very important minority).

Politicians lie so much that you simply cannot bargain on what they promise to do in favor of you.

Why is it that nationality talk and Nationalism in particular is so easily acceptable, and race talk and Racism is so difficult and unacceptable? — unenlightened

Is it easily acceptable?

It's actually telling that people who are critical to the idea of the nation (or nation state) being this common collective entity for us and when referring to people who uphold their country and it's people, talk about nationalism and nationalists and avoid the term patriotism. And of course the better term for the nationalism they refer to would be classic chauvinism or jingoism.

Loving your country, culture and people doesn't mean you would have to hate other countries and their people and cultures. Yet likely all those who do hate say that they are just patriots. And that's the problem.

If evidence arises linking him to the crimes he committed should he be prosecuted. — Steve Leard

Of course. This is the normal procedure. I don't think that there is any moral dilemma in this.

And they see that authority protecting their niche in the system. — synthesis

Actually, I think they simply want radical change.

When they are young, they want rapid change. When they are older, they have seen how difficult it is for change to happen and thus they are extremely happy and supportive when the next generation wants radical, rapid changes also. Consensus is a cancer for them. And of course, the hate people saying: "Yeah, I see those problems in our society, but still our society is better than the other option...". Down with the old!!!

Given that intellectuals are intelligent, and nobody but the intellectuals suppor totalitarianism, you are saying that it's the dumbfucks only who oppose totalitarianism. — god must be atheist

I didn't say that only intellectuals support totalitarianism. And do notice that I said "part of the so-called" when referring to the the intellectuals. And who are here these "intellectuals"? Well, they are those who people listen, who journalists interview and ask their views about various issues. It's those who dominate the public discourse and are seen as intellectuals. Usually they have achieved positions in the academia or are successful authors.

Then how do you explain the Trump phenomenon and the storm of the Bastille Capitol? — god must be atheist

Our present society makes it easy to live in your bubble by reinforcing it. And actually there are many reasons for the increasing polarization and populism being so widespread in the US. And of course, if those people have been for many months bombarded with saying that the elections will be stolen and then the sitting President that you support urges you to march on Capitol Hill, what would these people do in a crowd?

It's directly from the authoritarian populists playbook. Gullible people love authoritarianism.

This nonentity, whoever he is, closed my discussion called Evolution Debunked — Joe0082

The horror, the horror...

Philosophy is supposed to be a free-thinking pursuit for individualistic, intellectually-inclined people, not rigid narrow-minded morons. — Joe0082

Yeah, too bad there are so many that insist on logic, the scientific method and that stuff instead of free-thinking...

Well I am outta here. — Joe0082

Bye.

Does anybody in the West still want to be free? — synthesis

Of course there are smart thinking people who understand how the World is. But rarely are they the ones that set the lines in the public discourse.

Things that have existed and that can be and are taken for granted are simply unnoticed. And it's typical that especially part of the so-called "intellectuals" in their criticism of the society they live in do not notice how central, how important these things that take for granted truly are.

Hence it's no wonder that historically it has been the intellectuals that have promoted and believed in authoritarianism (communism, fascism etc), because they haven't seen the negative side of it in their lives.

Bruno Latour posits that we have never been modern. Although there are hybrids of nature and culture –non-human and human, object and subject– and quasi-objects, modernity prefers to purify nature and society as distinct. Latour argues that there have always been hybridizations and quasi-objects in history. — Warren

That definitely sounds like Bruno Latour, the compostmodernist. :grin:

"compostmodernity". — 180 Proof

Hilarious. Have to use that term when referring to the present day ludicrous compostmodernism.

Does anybody see anything on the horizon that might indicate a reversal this incredibly disturbing trend? — synthesis

Economy is the thing that has an effect on Americans.

Just look at the rapid pace how the time shortens for the US to double it's debt. This 1,9 trillion debt package (the ARP) distributed all along will get the Biden administration to... late summer or fall? Again then? (And do note that this is a global phenomenon...at least in the West)

So this year the US is going from 100% debt to GDP to 110% to GDP and then onward:

Federal debt, which recently surpassed 100% of GDP, will approach 109% of GDP in FY 2021, assuming the US Treasury finances part of the upcoming spending from its unusually large cash balance, while general government debt will reach 127% of GDP in 2021, before surpassing 130% by 2023.

See US Stimulus Will Boost Growth at a Cost of Higher Deficits, Debt

You think this will go on perpetually?

It's the context that defines what we mean by modernity. And oh boy, do we use modern/modernity/post-modern etc. in a huge scope of totally different issues and viewpoints.

This is why is so funny when some Nordic countries say to Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy that “we must have more solidarity” really? But how? It is a complex situation having this kind of dangerous frontiers. — javi2541997

In my view this has improved somewhat: at least when Turkey opened it's borders (just prior the Covid outbreak last year) for the next influx of migrants, Greece shut the border down and the EU stood behind the country. And this is the way to do it: do what the member states first in line want and forget getting those brownie points in your domestic political debate back home. When one country is left alone to face a commen problem, everyone will understand that they too will be left alone, if it would be them on the line.

In the case of the Mediterranean EU members the big problem in my view is Libya. Morocco, Algeria and Tunis can somehow co-operate with the EU (with a lot of haggling, yes), but the failed state of Libya is the real problem. Or if Algeria or Morocco descends into anarchy, which wouldn't be nice.

(Let's remember that Spain has a land border with Morooco: )

Exactly. EU being US will never work towards Russia policies... — javi2541997

And just to understand the obvious limitations of such a heterogeneous group of countries as the member states of EU should be the actual starting point for the EU. But now it seems that aloof sanctimonious declarations that don't matter when you have a real crisis is the way EU policy is made.

Don't try to build something that won't be, which won't work and be happy on what you have. Start from admitting that EU is basically a confederation of independent states, not an union controlled by a center (in the future). The foreign policy environment is simply too different for your and my countries (Finland and Spain, I guess). Those that push for tighter federalism are the real culprits for why we get populist anti-EU movements.

Those other rebel groups have been fighting the military, the Myanmar government. Some since the independence of Burma.

Yes, Nazi Germany is a much better comparison to modern China than comparing it to Mao's China or Stalin's Soviet Union because Nazi Germany was an advanced capitalistic economy. — Judaka

And after Mao died, it wasn't an advanced economy. That's the key point. History and where countries start from matter.

Which ties back into, why did the cold war happen in the first place? Why was the US interested in ensuring China did not become communist? It's because the US is an advanced capitalistic economy, they want markets for their goods, communism threatens that. The US got what they wanted and the price China paid was the abandoning of communism. — Judaka

Now there's a revisionist line!

China was Maoist. Period.

The Koumingtang held only to the island of Taiwan (and some remnants of the army were pushed into Burma among other places). That the US wanted and got China to abandon communism reeks to pure American intellectual hubris: to the idea that everything in this World happens because of everybody at all times follow the fiddle played by the evil Uncle Sam and the capitalists behind him.

Perhaps Deng Xiaoping first and foremost reason wasn't the US relations, even if those obviously had improved.

Even if China has socialism, the businesses that are owned by the government are highly competitive and profit-driven, it resembles all the worst parts of capitalism that communism was supposed to do away with. — Judaka

That's the worst parts of capitalism? So you mean they ought to be less competitive in the global market or what?

As you said one of the big fails was giving the rule of West to politicians that were so mediocrities like Bush senior. But what is pretty interesting here is how Russia is still dominant in Europe. — javi2541997

Have the US go back from Europe to eat apple pie and have the EU collapse and Russia is the strongest country in Europe. That's why they are so against the EU and hope that the US goes back to it's Continent.

I wish a EU more connected with Russia or Kremlin but it looks like hard to reach it and each European country can only make business or diplomatic affairs with Russia by their own. — javi2541997

First of all, there is no European singular policy towards Russia. Only a desperate attempt to have one.

For Ukraine, Russia is the drunk guy assaulting it. For especially the Baltic States, but also the former Warsaw Pact Countries, it is the violent drunk ex-husband that you simply cannot stand and you fear that he comes to bang your door and will try to get inside. For countries like Sweden and Finland, it's the difficult neighbor with whom you still get along quite OK and have reasonable relations, even if you have a painful history with him. For Central European countries it's a possible trade partner and so actually so far, that you aren't bothered about it's actions. And for countries like Portugal and Spain, they don't care about Russia at all, especially when you have such problematic neighbors on the North African side of the Mediterranean. And Russia? Oh he thinks that everybody is against him and he has to put it up with these hostile neighbors who are always ganging up against him. After all, there was first Napoleon and then Hitler, so no third time.

Hence with so different starting positions, the EU has big problems to create a coherent Russia policy. This also is a prime example why the EU being the US of Europe simply doesn't work. California and North Dakota don't have any separate and/or own issues about the US policy towards Russia.

- why not? — The Opposite

They have had now since their independence 73 years of insurgency, so go for it!

Yes, now for a revolutionary war where they finally get peace. This time it's different!

Kachin...


Karen...


Shan...


So bring on another rebel army/group to Burma to fight the government in addition to the three above (and others). At least there's support for the war party in PF. At least for a while...

Don't waste my time. If you don't have a logical, philosophical, reasoned response to give, then you can go give an unreasoned, illogical, baboon mating call to some barn animal instead of wasting my time here. — Dharmi

I think nobody will waste their, sorry, your time.

Besides, we might get blinded by the sheer radiance of your vast knowledge, we ignorant mortals. :snicker: