Feb 242024
 

Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, is remembered primarily as the president whose reign ended in disgrace, when in the wake of the Watergate scandal, facing certain impeachment, he chose to resign. Many Americans remember his words, “I am not a crook!” Well, arguably, he was: The Watergate break-in was downright criminal, of course, and then there are the later revelations about how he may have torpedoed Lyndon Johnson’s attempt to seek peace with North Vietnam, for political purposes.

But Nixon was also very smart, very competent, especially in foreign policy. Just think of his famous ping-pong diplomacy, culminating in his historic visit to China in 1972.

And then there is the elder statesman Nixon, who in 1992, reacted to rapidly evolving world events, notably the collapse of the Soviet bloc and, ultimately, the USSR itself. His words are nothing short of prophetic.

Seriously, it’s almost like he had access to a time machine. His description of the likely course that Russia would take if the ideas of liberal democracy fail are… well, in hindsight it’s easy to agree with him. But in 1992, I doubt there were many folks who foresaw the coming decades with the same clarity.

 Posted by at 11:41 am
Feb 122024
 

In the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, once again there are voices suggesting that the Jews have no business to be in Palestine, a land that they stole from the Palestinians.

The history of the word Palestine, the identity of the Arabs who only began to call themselves Palestinians in the past century or so, has been discussed elsewhere. And the Jews have been around in places like Yerushaláyim thousands of years ago. But what about the more recent past? Did the Jews just return to their once sacred land en masse in the wake of the Holocaust, stealing land rightfully owned by a peaceful Arab populace?

Not exactly.

Here is an image from Tel Aviv, taken in 1939, when WW2 in Europe began in earnest (and incidentally, the year when my Mom was born):

Hmmm… looks decidedly Jewish to me.

Or how about a rare color (!) photo from Jerusalem, showing the sign of an orphanage…

A Palestine orphanage, to be precise, yet the lettering is Latin and Hebrew, because back then, Palestine was mostly used as the name of the land (the British mandate of Palestine), not yet a national identity.

Now I am not suggesting that a Palestinian identity has no legitimacy. I understand how this identity emerged, and how it was, at least in part, a reaction, or response, to Zionism, an attempt to (re-)create a Jewish nation in what was historically Judaea, later to be made part of the new Roman province of Syria-Palaestina. Having a right-wing government in Israel that no longer shows any interest in a resolution that might grant Palestinian Arabs statehood is not helpful, to put it mildly. But even as I recognize the hatred and distrust that exists on both sides, I would purposefully refrain from “bothsidesism”: All I have to do is to look at Palestinian grade school textbooks (there are plenty of infuriating examples on the Interwebs) to know which side advocates actual genocide (a word used far too frequently in recent months), which side characterizes the other (in textbooks!) with hateful caricatures even as it claims a right to own all land from the river to the sea.

 Posted by at 2:01 pm
Feb 062024
 

Back in the 1990s, those innocent days when the Internet first became part of our lives, we naively dreamed of an empowered public. A future in which disinformation is no longer possible. A future in which lies would be exposed with a minimum of effort, as the truth is just one quick AltaVista (no, Google didn’t exist yet) search away.

How wrong we were.

Instead, here we are in 2024 with a deeply fragmented public, each of us in our respective social media bubbles, consuming information that is all too often preselected for us by algorithms. Algorithms that are designed to find, and serve, content that we find agreeable.

And suppose, just suppose, that we grow mildly skeptical. Skeptical enough to turn to Google or Bing and do a quick search to find the truth. We find… no, not the truth. All too often, we find instead confirmation.

At least this appears to be the conclusion of a recent study, published in Nature, titled Online searches to evaluate misinformation can increase its perceived veracity.

And then there are all those (very valid) concerns about the integrity of the scientific literature. With tens of thousands published papers every year produced by “paper mills”, not to mention alarming rates of scientific fraud and retractions, does the truth even stand a chance?

Sure, when I read a paper on gravitation and cosmology, fundamental particle physics, computer science or machine learning, I am reasonably well equipped to assess its validity. But what about papers on, say, COVID vaccines? Methods to cure cancer? Sociopolitical trends in the European Union? Archeological discoveries? How can I tell truth from falsehood? I do not have the requisite background to evaluate the literature on my own. The press used to be helpful: Reputable news outlets made an effort to be impartial, interview the right experts, produce reasonable assessments. Not anymore: Especially here in North America, news outlets appear more interested in building a brand and a committed audience than the truth.

And then, to add insult to injury, there is foreign meddling: powers that are less than friendly towards the Western world order, most notably China and, especially, Russia, who are doing their darnedest best to make things worse by exploiting and further promoting our distrust in the media and, by extension, in the entirety of our Western system of institutions. Their goal is nothing less than dismantling the rules-based, liberal world order established in 1945, the pax Americana. I may not be an adoring fan of American politics, but between Washington and Moscow, or Washington and Beijing, I know which one to choose without hesitation.

But forming a realistic, valid view of the world that is largely based on the truth? That task is becoming more difficult with each and every passing day. We live in the days of Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” and it didn’t even take an all-powerful totalitarian regime for this to happen.

Illustration courtesy of DALL-E.

 Posted by at 12:44 am
Jan 152024
 

I offered this gloomy prediction before I am offering it again, though it gives me no pleasure: World War 3 is long overdue.

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, nuclear Armageddon was seen as almost inevitable someday. Back in 1970, when I was in the second grade, chances were no sane adult believed that the world would persist mostly in peace, with no major conflict between great powers, all the way up to the year 2000 and beyond.

Yet here we are, in 2024, now in the 79th year of the historical epoch that should rightly be called pax Americana: an imperfect, yet unprecedent period of peace, a rules-based world order that brought prosperity, freedom and security to billions. Not everyone, to be sure, but still, it was an era without precedent. The only comparable period of time that I can think of is also from relatively recent history: the decades between 1849 and 1914, which gave birth to the modern world, streetcars and electric subways, lightbulbs and radios, airplanes and labor unions, telephones and civil rights.

It is true that century after century, humanity has become more peaceful: that in any given century since the dawn of written history, your chances of dying as a victim of violence were ever so slightly less than in the preceding century. But that did not put an end to devastating war. And an all-encompassing, devastating war is long overdue, if history is any guide.

In fact, I very much worry that by the reckoning of some future historians, World War 3 might already be under way. We simply haven’t recognized it just yet.

Consider World War 2. When did it begin? Well, most official accounts I suppose mark September 1, 1939, when Hitler’s Third Reich attacked Poland, as the start date. But that’s a very Euro-centric view. I daresay that, in reality, World War 2 actually began on July 7, 1937 at the bridge known to Europeans as the Marco Polo bridge in Beijing, China. It was this incident that started what some call the Second Sino-Japanese War, but it really is the first major military conflict marking the beginning of the global war between 1937 and 1945.

Of course no one in July 1937 surmised that these were the first shots fired in a war that will leave tens of millions dead, Europe devastated, and culminate in the first (and to date, only) use of nuclear weapons in anger. Not even in September 1939 was it a foregone conclusion that the world entered another World War; indeed, for months thereafter, much of the Western press was talking about a “phony war”.

Things changed after the collapse of France, the Battle of Britain, Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor, of course. But it was a gradual process of recognition. Only in hindsight did we attach a firm date (even if it is the wrong date) marking the beginning of the world war.

So where are we now? War in Ukraine continues. Putin is undoubtedly enraged that Ukraine receives substantial assistance not just from the West in general, but from the Baltic states that not too long ago were part of the Soviet Union, places he thinks he owns. Meanwhile, what began as an unprecedented terrorist attack on Israeli civilians in early October is rapidly widening into a regional war, with US and UK forces now attacking Houthi facilities in Yemen, bases that were used to carry out unprovoked attacks on commercial shipping in the region. Iran, of course, is actively involved in all this even as they are entering an unholy alliance, dubbed the “axis of resistance”, uniting Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, with support from Russia and North Korea.

These conflicts are unlikely to go away in 2024. If anything, they are more than likely to escalate.

And I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to consider the very possibility that nuclear weapons will soon enter the stage.

Israel of course is one of the undeclared nuclear powers of the world. Should they feel existentially threatened, I don’t think they’d hesitate to use nukes against their major opponents.

Iran, as far as we know, is not a nuclear power just yet, but they are “almost there”. Would they use nukes merely as a deterrent, or would they deploy nukes against Israel? The ayatollahs are just crazy enough to do that, I fear.

Russia is of course one of the nuclear superpowers of the world. So far, they refrained from using nukes in Ukraine, but how close are they to take that step? They have already been using chemical weapons at a rising rate according to several reports that I have seen.

And then there is Ukraine itself. Though the country gave up its arsenal of inherited Soviet-era weapons, they certainly have the scientific and technological capability to develop a nuclear weapon in a short period of time. Are they working on it already? If so, how close are they and what will be the intended use? Deterrent? Battlefield deployment? And how would Russia react?

Meanwhile, the West is preoccupied with increasingly polarized politics, putting “conservative” against “progressive”, while undermining perhaps fatally the values of liberal democracy. Indeed, there are leaders like Hungary’s Orban who proudly declared themselves and their political schools of thought “illiberal”. It’s not exactly clear which part of traditional liberalism they reject, though quite possibly it’s all of them: who cares about the rule of law when they prefer the laws not apply to them, who cares about freedom of enterprise when their oligarchic cronies want no competition, who cares about civil rights when those pesky citizens have the audacity to criticize them? But if “illiberal” marks predominantly the conservative right, their “woke” counterparts from the progressive left, dubbed “liberal” though their attitudes are often completely at odds with traditional liberal values, certainly give them a run for their money when it comes to intolerance of any views other than their own.

Am I anxious? Not the right word. It’s hard to describe how I feel. The colossal stupidity that marks the world’s march towards conflict and suffering is annoying, but I have a lot less to worry about than most folks. I have no children whose future might concern me. I am in my early 60s, which means that the majority of my lifespan is behind me already, and it was a good life so far. I have no complaints. And there is nothing I can do to help avoid the outcome that I fear. An old joke pops into my mind, one I heard as a child in Hungary, about the railroad watchman who is taking an exam. He is asked what he would do if he saw two express trains heading towards each other on the open track. “I’d call the wife out from the shack,” he says, “because there’s nothing else that I can do and I’m sure she’s never seen a crash quite as big as this one!”

“The lamps are going out all over Europe,” declared Sir Edward Grey in London early August 1914, as the country that he served as foreign secretary was about to declare war on Imperial Germany. The lamps may soon start to go out all over the world. So here I am, telling my beautiful wife that we can watch the show together. My only regret is that we don’t have a ladder long enough to reach the rather tall roof of our townhouse condo. If I did, we’d have a prime view of downtown Ottawa for when the mushroom clouds blossom over its skyline.

 Posted by at 1:16 pm
Dec 112023
 

A welcome sight: A seemingly civilized discussion between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Viktor Orban.

Of course “frank” in the language of diplomacy can mean many things, but if their posture is any indication, the conversation might have been mutually respectful, perhaps even productive. Moments like this have been known in the past to break the ice where more formal encounters led nowhere. One can only hope…

 Posted by at 11:11 am
Dec 092023
 

I am looking at the summary by Reuters of the European Union’s proposed regulatory framework for AI.

I dreaded this: incompetent politicians, populist opportunists, meddling in things that they themselves don’t fully understand, regulating things that need no regulation while not paying attention to the real threats.

Perhaps I was wrong.

Of course, as always, the process moves at a snail’s pace. By the time the new regulations are expected to come into force, 2026, the framework will likely be hopelessly obsolete.

Still: Light transparency requirements as a general principle, severe restrictions on the use of AI for law enforcement and surveillance, strict regulation for high-risk systems… I am compelled to admit, the attitude this reflects makes a surprising amount of good sense.

Almost as if the framework was crafted by an AI…

 Posted by at 11:57 am
Dec 072023
 

Today, December 7, marks the 82nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Discussion of the Pacific War inevitably leads to discussion of the morality and necessity of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I have long argued, and continue to argue, that it was the only acceptable decision for Harry Truman to make back during the fateful summer of 1945. And I just came across an unusual data point that supports my argument: the manufacture of Purple Hearts.

Wikipedia tells us that the Purple Heart is a US military decoration awarded to those wounded or killed while serving. Needless to say, Purple Hearts must have been in high demand during the war years, between 1941-1945. The decorations obviously need to be manufactured, and that means the US government placing an order for them in anticipation of casualties during any conflict.

And it was an order of stunning magnitude that they placed in 1944-1945, anticipating the invasion of Japan: Something like half a million Purple Hearts were stockpiled. As a result of this and other unused stocks, it was not until the year 2000 that the US government ordered a new supply, and the old supply, though running low, remains in existence to this date.

So imagine that you are the newly minted president of the United States, after your former boss, Roosevelt, dies. You are informed that your government just completed an astonishing effort to create an immensely powerful new weapon, and it is ready for deployment. You are facing a ruthless enemy: Let’s not forget that the Empire of Japan was no less genocidal than Hitler’s regime, perhaps in some ways even more so (look up Unit 731 on Wikipedia if you have the stomach for it.) Perhaps they are ready to surrender. Perhaps not. But until they are, they remain the enemy. You don’t have the benefit of hindsight. You know what you know and it’s July 1945.

How could you NOT order tactical deployment of the new weapon? As opposed to keeping it in reserve or worse yet, wasting one for a theatrical “demonstration”? Wouldn’t that be an open betrayal of the American servicemen fighting in the Pacific theater? An almost treasonous act?

Yes, there were dissenting voices. But, lest we forget, the conventional bombing campaigns were just as brutal on the civilian population as the nuclear bombs, perhaps even more so. The firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo serve as splendid examples of just what the Allied powers were able and willing to do to enemy cities and their civilian population. Of course there was dissent. Americans are not without conscience, and senior political and military leaders in 1945 were no exception. But it was not until the 1960s that questioning the morality of the use of these weapons became… fashionable.

Yet here we are, more than 78 years later, and not a single nuclear weapon was used in anger ever since. That’s not an iron clad guarantee of course, but at least a ray of hope. Perhaps Hiroshima and Nagasaki achieved more than help bring an end to the War in the Pacific. Perhaps they also helped shape our public perception of nuclear war as the pinnacle of abhorrence.

In the meantime, though, if anyone wonders about the morality of Truman’s decision, perhaps it’s a good idea to contemplate the half million (give or take) surplus Purple Hearts.

 Posted by at 9:41 pm
Nov 202023
 

I am not Jewish. My family is not Jewish.

My father’s first wife, however, was Jewish. His son from that first marriage, born decades before I was born, is Jewish and married a Jewish woman. My mother’s grandparents, though not Jewish, worked for a Jewish family at the turn of the last century, and lived in their household.

That might explain how it came to be that I grew up using expressions like “gott sei dank” or “na zag schon”, much to the amusement of some of my Jewish friends who know less Yiddish than I. Or why I have friends who had parents, siblings, aunts, nieces, spouses murdered in Auschwitz or shot into the Danube by the Hungarian Arrow Cross during the Holocaust.

No, that does not mean that suddenly I have a favorable opinion of Mr. Netanyahu (I don’t) or that I turn a blind eye when I see innocents suffer. I have criticized and will again criticize the government of Israel. In fact, for what it’s worth, I think Netanyahu is a crook, his pact with the far right is a poison pill for Israeli democracy, and that the outsize influence of the ultraorthodox is corrupting Israeli politics. Unfortunately I also do not see a long-term solution, an achievable goal: None of the foreseeable alternatives provide an acceptable outcome: The two-state solution undermines Israeli security, annexation would create an Arab-majority state, more drastic “solutions” like wholesale expulsion or genocide (of either Palestinians or Jews) are obviously unacceptable. So the status quo remains by default, even though it’s not exactly a solution either.

But “never again” must mean something. Failure to respond to the attack on October 6 would amount to the Israeli state abandoning its most basic responsibility to its citizens. It is the sad nature of war that when one party hides behind its civilians, civilians suffer. Notably, however, hiding behind civilians only works against a civilized opponent that abhors “collateral damage”: if Israel was as savage, as hell-bent on genocide as its enemies suggest, hiding behind civilians would not work as a Hamas tactic.

Earlier, I came across a meme that depicted a female Arab member of Israel’s Knesset, enumerating the rights she enjoys as a full citizen of Israel. I changed my mind about reusing that meme since I suspect that it was created without her approval. Even though she is a public figure, so using her image in this manner is arguably legitimate, it felt a bit tasteless.

Instead, let me just repost a propaganda meme straight from Israel’s defense forces.

It’s not even new; it dates back to 2014. And yes, it’s a propaganda piece. But like all good propaganda, it is based on the sad truth.

 Posted by at 1:01 pm
Nov 192023
 

So I am watching this political drama series, with almost daily new installments.

It’s about a world heading towards conflict, with one of the major powers in particular having recently voted out of office a would-be despot, a crooked, narcissistic businessman who became a politician mainly for self-glorification, preaching a populist message. Although he’s no longer in office, he remains popular, despite the fact that he also has several lawsuits (both civil and criminal) hanging over his head.

The current season will wrap up soon. I am having a feeling that the writers plan to bring him back next season and that, in fact, he’ll win the election again.

Portrait of a would-be despot, a crooked, narcissistic businessman, his thinning blond hair in a combover, with a fake tan, who became a politician mainly for self-glorification, preaching a populist message to a crowd of adoring followers

Pictured is Midjourney’s response to the prompt, “Portrait of a would-be despot, a crooked, narcissistic businessman, his thinning blond hair in a combover, with a fake tan, who became a politician mainly for self-glorification, preaching a populist message to a crowd of adoring followers“.

Oh wait, you’re telling me that this is NOT a scripted television series created for entertainment? That it is reality?

 Posted by at 9:53 pm
Nov 172023
 

“I am freer than you”. These were the defiant words of St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skochilenko as she was sentenced for five tiny pieces of paper, providing details about Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

She used the five pieces of paper in question to replace price tags in a grocery store.

Among other things, she said in court, that [emphasis mine]

[…] I am unable to understand why we need military operations. Why are we doing this? Military actions shorten life. Military actions mean death.
You can call it anything you want. You can say I was mistaken, misled, or brainwashed. But I always stick to my opinion, my truth.
I don’t know anyone other than the state prosecutor who wants to put me in prison.
In fact, I think that deep down even the state prosecutor doesn’t want this. I think he became a prosecutor to imprison real criminals and miscreants — murderers, rapists, pedophiles.
[…]
You are worried about your career […] to give your children or your future children a head start. But what will you tell them? Will you tell them how you sent to prison an ailing woman because of five tiny pieces of paper?
[…]
Even though I am behind bars, I am freer than you. […] I am not afraid that I won’t have a dazzling career or of appearing funny, vulnerable, or strange. I’m not afraid of seeming different from other people. Maybe that is why the state fears me and others like me so much and keeps me in a cage like a dangerous animal.

What an incredibly brave woman. What a morally bankrupt state it is that imprisons someone for this “crime”.

 Posted by at 12:11 am
Nov 082023
 

Sometimes it feels… so pretentious.

Here I am, saying all sorts of clever things in my blog. I once declared blogs to be write-only media, my way of shouting at the world without the world saying anything in return, but that kind of ceased being true when I decided, eons ago, to share my blog posts on social media, where a few friends at least reacted occasionally.

So who do I think I am, proclaiming my wisdom to the world, really?

For instance, a few days ago I thought I’d blog about the first precision clock arriving in America centuries ago, and promptly failing, leading to a better understanding of how the gravitational acceleration on the surface of the Earth may change with geographic location. But is there anything I can add to the subject other than what’s in the article I am citing?

Or take this report from earlier today, about Singapore’s Prime Minister expressing very much the same concerns that I have about the world experiencing a moment of danger not unlike the moments before the Great War. OK, so I blog about it. Is there anything I can add other than, hey, look, I am ever so clever, even Singapore’s PM shares my views!?

I suppose I feel most comfortable blogging about my actual research or my work. These are subjects that I can address with some competence.

Or maybe just blog about cats. They know how to be wise and silent, after all.

Meanwhile, in the world of humans…

F-15s strike weapons facility in Syria

By Lauren C. Williams and Jennifer Hlad

ABOARD A MILITARY PLANE—Two U.S. F-15 fighter jets attacked a weapons storage facility in eastern Syria on Wednesday, in what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called a “precision self-defense strike” in response “to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by the [Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]-Quds Force” and related groups.

So I must now follow my cats’ example and resist the urge to blog about how the US and Iran might already be at war…

 Posted by at 9:51 pm
Nov 062023
 

Looking at this headline on CTV News this morning, you might have been wondering if our esteemed politicians have finally decided that they’ve had enough of us, this winter it’s time for the unwashed masses to freeze to death. No more home heating for you!

Fortunately that is not what the news was about. What the headline should have said was, “Calls for all home heating tax to be suspended”, referring to carbon taxes that apply to fuel, and the decision of the government to suspend this tax on home heating oil but not other home heating fuels.

Guess it was a little too early in the morning for some of CTV’s technicians this Monday! (Can’t really blame them. When does their workday begin anyway, 4 AM or something?)

 Posted by at 9:39 am
Nov 022023
 

Imagine the following sequence of events:

  • First, a second-rate power suffers a terrorist attack as part of a festering political crisis that has been going on for many years. This attack is the proverbial last drop in the bucket: they feel they must respond, and launch a punitive military expedition that may not be well planned and might even fail, despite their apparent superiority.
  • A rival second-rate power who supported the rebels that committed the terrorist act feels that it must intervene. Its voice has been ignored for far too long, and it has vital interests in the region.
  • A Great Power, in support of the first second-rate power as part of a long-standing alliance, steps in, reluctantly because they do not want to get embroiled in someone else’s war, but convinced that their actions are unavoidable.
  • Another Great Power, in reaction, steps in as well because it feels that it is necessary essential to do so in order to maintain the existing world order and their position therein.

What did I just describe? The October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas? The increasingly hostile response by Iran? A possible intervention by the United States assisting Israel, leading to direct conflict with Russia who are already active in the region and embroiled in conflict elsewhere?

Nope. I was describing something that happened 109 years ago, when Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip murdered Austria-Hungary’s heir to the throne. Austria-Hungary’s punitive expedition against Serbia was launched in response. This led to Russia’s decision to enter the war, followed by the German Empire and ultimately, Britain.

Yet, though the analogy is far from perfect, the parallels are unmistakable. And to be honest, frightening.

This is why I don’t think of 10/7 as Israel’s 9/11. Nope. It’s our era’s Sarajevo.

We have been living in a golden era that has no precedent in human history. Pax Americana, which began in 1945 and was characterized by measures like the Marshall Plan that, instead of punishing Western Europe, helped the continent back onto its feet, has been keeping our world safe and prosperous for almost eight decades. No, not perfect, far from it. Millions still died in conflict. But it was millions, not billions, and the promised great conflict, a thermonuclear WW3, has not happened yet. Meanwhile, billions live in relative security, safety, and prosperity, enjoying decent lives, on a scale that truly has no historical parallel (though the period between 1849 and 1914 comes close.)

But ultimately, all good things must come to an end, they say. And this world order is coming apart at the seams. Alliances weaken. A rules-based world is no longer in vogue. Liberal democracies are losing their middle class, even as the same middle class votes for lower taxes and less government, forgetting that it was higher taxes and more government (reminding my good American friends of the late 1940s, 1950s, with the GI bill, the Interstate highway system or public education, all financed by taxing high incomes at rates not seen before or since) that built that prosperous, strong middle class in the first place. Other Western nations follow similar paths as the middle class shrinks and trust in the institutions of liberal democracy erodes.

“The lamps are going out all over Europe,” declared Sir Edward Grey, Britain’s Foreign Minister at the time, on August 3, 1914 as his country was about to declare war on Germany. I fear that we are just a hair’s breadth away from our lamps-are-going-out moment. And just like Sir Edward Grey, responsible leaders of our times appear to feel increasingly helpless.

 Posted by at 10:08 pm
Oct 292023
 

Every so often, a Google Calendar reminder that I set up ages ago reminds me to charge our old cell phones. This is to prevent their batteries from dying as a result of a deep discharge.

Old cell phones, you ask? Well, yes. When we swapped phones, we kept the old ones for a while, just in case. And then we kept them because wiping them securely seemed like too much of a hassle. And then we kept them because, well, what’s the alternative? Landfill? Yes, I know, some service providers accept old phones, might even give you credit. But what happens to those old phones? Who needs them? Who can use them, with their ailing batteries and, worst of all, the absence of software updates, including security patches?

Indeed, this end of support was the main reason why we ditched phones in the past. And it really is tragic. Never mind phones old enough to have outdated specs. I have here a few devices that have hardware specs that would be reasonable on the low end even today. The devices are perfectly functional. Yet they are worthless.

This is just… conspicuous consumption, forced upon us by a society that measures the health of the economy not by its stability or sustainability but by growth. Pointless, limitless growth.

Never mind that in the meantime, the middle class shrinks, the income and wealth gap widens, society is becoming more polarized, ultimately threatening the very foundations of our Western liberal democracies. Who cares about such nonsense when there’s a new phone out there with half a dozen camera lenses and who knows what other nonsense just to make you believe that they’re worth your money and that it’s perfectly okay to throw away a capable, quality piece of electronics that would have many more years of useful life left?

Darnit, I realize I almost sound like a grumpy old commie, when in reality what I worry about is the future of a healthy capitalist society, characterized by freedom of conscience, the rule of law, freedom of speech, and freedom of enterprise. But there’s a fine line between freedom of enterprise and the “tragedy of the commons”, and when free enterprise undermines the very foundations of liberal democracy, perhaps it is advisable to do something about it before it is too late.

By the way, I really liked these Nokias. What a pity we had to get rid of them. They still function perfectly, but without security patches, they’re not worth the risk.

 Posted by at 2:58 pm
Oct 172023
 

Here are two images. The first is from 1943.

By way of explanation, the gentleman on the left is Admiral Miklos Horthy, Hungary’s leader at the time. The gentleman on the right with the famous moustache needs no introduction.

The second image is from today, October 17, 2023:

The somewhat overweight gentleman on the left is Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister. The gentleman on the right is well known I suppose.

I don’t think I need to comment on why I opted to post these two pictures together. All I have to say is that this second image will come to haunt Hungarians in the future much the same way as the first.

 Posted by at 3:52 pm
Oct 122023
 

As I watch the lamps of the post-WW2 world order go out, one tiny, flickering light at a time, I am compelled to remember something that happened more than a century ago: When Sir Edward Grey, Great Britain’s Foreign Secretary at the time, remarked that “the lamps are going out all over Europe”.

We are not quite there yet. There is hope that sanity will prevail.

Yet I feel that that hope is fading, that time is running out.

In 1914, the point of no return, the trigger was Germany’s decision to attack neutral Belgium. It compelled Britain to declare war, and ultimately widened that war into the world’s first (or maybe second — I think the Napoleonic wars might qualify as World War 0) global conflict.

What the trigger will be this time, I do not know. I am reacting in part to the announcement that the West warned Hezbollah to stay out of Israel’s conflict with Hamas. But chances are it will be something else.

But it is coming, of that I am near certain, even as I dearly hope that I am dead wrong, that my pessimism is unwarranted, my concerns grossly misplaced.

 Posted by at 2:17 am
Oct 082023
 

The world is not heading in the right direction. Not by a long shot. The golden era that began in 1945 and saw an unprecedented number of people around the world find relative peace, prosperity, and security for nearly eight decades, may be coming to an unpleasant end. There is a Hungarian saying (“kutya is jódolgában megy a jégre”) that may have a loose equivalent in English in the form of the proverb, “you never miss the water till the well runs dry”.

Here are a few things that concern me, in no particular order:

  • Worsening wars: Russia-Ukraine, the (brand new) Hamas-Israeli war, hotspots elsewhere, China-Taiwan tension
  • The shrinking middle class, rising inequality and homelessness
  • Erosion of democratic values, faith in democratic/constitutional institutions
  • Rise of populism, ideological demagoguery and intolerance, political polarization, even violence
  • Rising economic instability, lack of economic and environmental sustainability

There are probably a few more that I have not mentioned, including petty domestic Canadian issues, such as the gloriously incompetent bills C-11/C-18 by which Canada tries to control online media.

Individually, each of these issues would be considered serious, but certainly not insurmountable. When they come all at the same time… The last time the world faced something similar was in the late 1920s, early 1930s. We know how well that turned out. Tens of millions of deaths, the rise of two of the worst totalitarian ideologies in history, a world war and the deployment of two nuclear weapons later…

Those nuclear weapons proved to be genuine peacemakers: Few can argue that they had a major role convincing all participants to play kind of nice, making sure that certain lines in the sand remain firmly uncrossed. But the inhibitions against their use are becoming weaker over time.

Am I being an alarmist? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure the people who woke up today to the sound of air raid sirens in Israel, or found themselves at the end of the day in Hamas custody as human shield hostages do not think so either.

Earlier today, I was looking at amazing pictures of an abandoned Siberian town, Kadykchan. Built at the cost of the lives of countless gulag prisoners, the town lost its population after the breakup of the USSR, and now serves as little more than a sad reminder of entire chapters of 20th century history. I think one of the images of that town that I saw might serve well as a cautionary tale.

How about coming to our senses before it’s too late, before we turn much of the world into a similar post-apocalyptic wasteland?


PS: My AI friend Claude suggested toning down this post a little, to make it less alarmist. I don’t want to. I am alarmed.

 Posted by at 3:14 am
Sep 122023
 

Yes, that’s me. At least according to The Political Compass.

It does not surprise me much, mind you. While I am not a wild-eyed, “woke”, progressive “social justice warrior” (in fact, I am increasingly a deeply fed up with the “woke” lot), many of my views tend to align broadly with the traditional left. I also reject authoritarianism in all forms, and while I don’t endorse unconstrained freedom (e.g., in the economy), I largely view constraints as a necessary evil, not as a universal solution.

And, of course, I absolutely, strongly, vehemently reject any and all forms of personality cults.

So here, then, is my question: Given the direction our societies are heading, will there be room for left-wing libertarians like me in the future? Authoritarianism seems to be so much in vogue these days, be it the culture of intolerance in the name of tolerance as practiced by the woke left, or the more traditional authoritarianism of the nationalist right. The common theme that unites them is their rejection of liberal democracy’s core systems of institutions.

To offer an idea of what the four quadrants represent: Left-wing authoritarians (red, upper left) include Stalin and Mao. Joe Biden and Donald Trump both qualify as right-wing authoritarians (blue, upper right) according to the Compass, though I am sure not nearly as extreme as Pinochet or Mussolini, also in the same quadrant. Hegel or Ayn Rand along with von Mises are right-wing libertarians (purple, lower right). The green quadrant (lower left), where I found myself, apparently includes Gandhi, Mandela and Noam Chomsky. Urgh. I so disagree with Chomsky on many things. Oh well, these are big quadrants.

 Posted by at 11:11 pm
Sep 122023
 

In his “1984”, Eric Arthur Blair, better known under the pen name George Orwell, at one point has the protagonists reading a book about the history of oligarchical collectivism, the dominant ideology of the totalitarian “IngSoc” regime of Oceania. They read,

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low […] The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. […] For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High.

So here is the thing: Liberal democracy is an aberration. An outlier. A period in history with no real “High”. We have no emperors, Kaisers, Caesars or Sultans. Monarchs, maybe, but mere figureheads in constitutional monarchies, not tyrants. In places like Canada, the United States, Western Europe and many other parts of the world, only the Middle and the Low exist. To be sure, the Middle can still be pretty darn powerful: political dynasties, tycoons and captains of industry, even public figures like media personalities wield substantial power. But their might is constrained by the system of institutions that we call liberal democracy: rule of law, freedom of enterprise, freedom of conscience, civil liberties or the separation of powers among them.

But this is not good enough, just not good enough for many among the elites of the Middle. They want more. Always more. And they fight. Throughout much of history, their enemy was the High. But in a liberal democracy, it is now the system of institutions that they fight against. Yet the tactics are the same. They enlist the Low. Don’t trust the system, they tell the Low. Elections are fake. Judges are corrupt or biased. Government lies to you. The rule of law is “weaponized”, they assert. Whatever it takes… but the real objective is to abolish the very constraints that prevent the Middle from becoming the new High.

And they are succeeding. Just look at the range of countries that are now on lists characterizing their retreat from democracy. Look at all the populists who are systematically undermining key pillars of liberal democracy, such as freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, even the electoral process. Will they succeed? I’d argue that they already succeeded in a number of countries and they are well on their way to success in many other places.

Liberal democracy, after all, is not a normal state of affairs for humanity. It’s an exception. It is no accident that some of the greatest 20th century writers of science-fiction, such as Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert, did not envision a democratic future. Asimov’s future in Foundation was a monolithic Galactic Empire that persisted for well over 10,000 years. Herbert’s Dune similarly envisioned a feudal society.

And if history is any guide, when the would-be tyrants succeed, they all too often will continue to maintain a semblance of democracy. After all, for centuries following the demise of the Roman Republic, emperors continued to issue decrees and coins bearing the acronym SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanus, falsely suggesting that Rome is still governed by a Senate that answers to the people, not by an all-powerful emperor. But this is just a cheap conjurer’s trick to assure the masses, the Low: All that is being done is done for them, and in their name.

Here’s My Brightest Diamond, singing about High Low Middle. Not sure if they were inspired by Orwell, but it’s strangely appropriate.

 Posted by at 3:58 am