Politics – Page 3 – Spinor Info

To my American friends

Oct 062024

These days, I tend to avoid politics as much as possible. Sure, I keep myself informed about the facts, but that’s it. I’m not interested in opinions, talking heads, polls, predictions, ideology or propaganda.

But that does not mean that I am not concerned. On the contrary: I am more concerned than I’ve ever been in my 60+ years on this planet. That’s 60+ years of living in fundamentally peaceful, prosperous, safe societies where my basic rights were respected, where I never faced existential concerns like famine or war, where my personal freedoms were never seriously in danger. (Indeed, not even in Kadar’s goulash communism in Hungary, where I grew up.) In other words, the rules-based world of Pax Americana, 79 years and counting.

I am concerned because a second Trump presidency may end it all. Here you have a person—a bitter, deeply flawed, corrupt egotist—who is far more comfortable in the company of dictators (and far more willing to praise them) than among democratic leaders. A person who already telegraphed his intent to abuse the system, to take personal revenge on those who slighted him, to cling to power even by extraconstitutional or unconstitutional means.

In other words, a challenge like no other in the 248-year history of the great United States of America.

How is it even possible? Perhaps because the problems are real. Problems I noted before. The stagnating middle class. Rising inequality. Rising poverty. Homelessness. The bleak future that younger generations face compared to the lives of their parents and grandparents.

There is a political class that feeds off these grievances. Their goal is not to address the problems but to perpetuate them and use them for political gain. This political class exists across the board. It includes rabidly “woke” left-wing activists and it also includes Trump and his loyal entourage promoting his cult of personality. However, there is a crucial difference. The “woke” lot may represent the “radical left” but, radical as they are, they still largely work within the system. Trump and his followers already made it crystal clear that they will not let the law or the US constitution stand in their way. And their tactic is as ancient, as transparent as it is effective.

Note how they talk about election fraud. Note how they talk about “weaponizing government”. Or “weaponizing the justice system”. You might think of these as mere accusations, empty election rhetoric. But it’s a lot more than that. What this propaganda accomplishes is that it normalizes that which they accuse the other side of doing. Never mind that the other side is not actually engaged in election fraud or criminal abuse of governmental powers. It’s enough that Trump’s followers believe (and yes, they truly believe) that it happens. What it accomplishes is simple. Once their side wins, they’ll only do what is right and just, and “return the favor” by, well, engaging in election fraud and weaponizing government. The justification? They’re not doing anything that the other side has not been doing already. It’s only fair. And necessary, even, as they accept the excuses from Trump’s apologists.

This “projection” thus has a clear goal. The current Administration is accused of doing precisely the things that a Trump administration plans to do. And the accusations are really justifications: if the current administration can do it, why can’t we? Keep this in mind as you think about the goals of Trump’s propaganda machine. It’s not about winning over Harris supporters. It’s about convincing their own supporters of the legitimacy of their planned undemocratic, “illiberal” tactics.

And this is why a Trump victory is about far, far more than the ordinary politics of the day, like taxes or abortion rights. It is an existential threat to American democracy.

This is why I feel the need to do something I’ve never done before: I urge my American friends to do the only sensible thing. Hold your noses if you must, but even if you disagree with her on every single issue, vote for Harris. Especially if you live in a “purple” state. Harris may do things you don’t like, but you’ll be able to cast another vote four years from now, and give her the boot. The same is not necessarily true if Trump wins.

And no, do not assume that “it cannot happen here”. It can. This is in fact precisely how great democracies die. This is how the Roman Republic died, this is how the short-lived democratic experiment in Germany known as the Weimar Republic came to an end. This is the recipe that was followed by Putin in Russia, this is the “illiberal democracy” that Orban is promoting in my native Hungary. This is how Erdogan solidified his position in Turkey, and this is what far-right politicians in Europe might try to do, should they gain power. It CAN happen here, and it may very well happen if Trump wins. Put country ahead of party, ahead of partisan politics, ahead of short-term interests. It’s the very idea of the great American Republic that is at stake.

Crazy times

Politics 2 Responses »

Oct 062024

The other day, I came up with not one but two rather outlandish political scenarios. Outlandish but, frighteningly, perhaps not altogether implausible. And that alone I think is a sign of the troubled times in which we live.

First scenario: An unholy alliance

Suppose for a moment that Trump wins the election next month, and takes office in January. He of course promised us that he will bring peace to Ukraine. We think we know what it entails: cutting off aid to Ukraine, actively promoting a Putin “peace plan”, forcing Ukraine to surrender, at the very least, a large chunk of its territory if not its independent statehood altogether. Much like Chamberlain’s “peace for our times” that he helped bring about in Munich, in late September 1938, Trump’s peace plan will likely just embolden Russia’s dictator, leading to greater conflict.

But what if reality turns out to be… a tad different?

What if… lo and behold… in the weeks following Trump’s return to the White House, while he is busy carrying out his revenge plan, targeting his opponents, reshaping the Department of Justice, denouncing judges and the media, the fighting in Ukraine quietly subsides. It becomes less intense. Trump then holds an unassuming telephone conversation with Putin. Putin agrees to halt offensive operations, even withdraws some of his forces. Ukrainian opinion is divided but they are war-weary, and territorial concessions, though painful, increasingly seem like a price worth paying in exchange for peace. And perhaps they even receive some powerful guarantees, like an American base near the newly redrawn Ukraine-Russia border. So sometime in 2025, the war ends, in a manner even Ukrainians find at least marginally palatable.

The world celebrates as it watches Trump making a historic visit to Moscow… where, as the details emerge shortly thereafter, he establishes a new coalition with Putin to counter China. And suddenly, we have a whole new Cold War on our hands: a West, united with Russia (the country that, after all, has the most reasons to fear a militarized China — just look at the map to see why) in confrontation with the global South led from Beijing. Putin’s future in the history books as Russia’s Great Dictator is assured, and Russia gets the best security guarantee ever to counter the one real threat alongside its borders, a China with a very large, but aging population, a faltering economy, and insatiable hunger for Siberia’s wealth in natural resources. Trump has been played and, blinded by his oversize ego, he does not even know it.

Where this confrontation leads, I have no idea, but it may very well result in open war on the Asian continent, war on an unprecedented scale.

Second scenario: Et tu, Brute?

We have all seen the performance of JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential candidate, during the televised VP debate. He was good. He was better than good. He was intelligent, polite, professional, collegial, knowledgeable. In short, he was everything Trump is not, and his calculated, smooth niceness visibly rattled his opponent, Walz.

Caesar by Orson Welles, Mercury Theatre 1937

What JD Vance demonstrated that night was how clever, how smart, how capable, how shrewd and disciplined a politician he really is. And that made me wonder…

Suppose Trump and Vance win in November and occupy the White House in due course in January. For a while, things proceed as expected. Trump begins, as anticipated, by abusing his powers, firing government officials he dislikes, gradually turning law enforcement, the Justice Department into his personal revenge machine against those who may have slighted him. And Trump being Trump, he continues to say the wildest things whenever he gets a chance, in interviews, even on social media.

And Vance waits. He waits for the weaponization of government to become a fait accompli. Most importantly, he waits for Trump to say or do something even crazier than usual, something we all know we can count on Trump doing. And when that happens… That’s when Vance pounces, like a political ambush predator. He “pulls a 25th”. That is to say, in cahoots with his friends in government and Congress, he uses the US Constitution’s 25th amendment to remove Trump from office due to his incompetence.

And there you have it: the 48th President of the United States, JD Vance, inheriting an already badly corrupted machinery of the state thanks to his former boss and predecessor. A machinery that he fully intends to use as he continues the reshaping of America, keeping it as a Republic in name only, not unlike how the Roman Empire maintained the pretense of a republic for centuries after the first “first citizen”, Gaius Octavius, better known as Augustus Caesar, took the stage.

Can it happen? I think so. In fact, I worry that soon enough, we’ll be confronted with a reality far weirder than these scenarios I concocted up. Indeed when you think about it… the very fact that we are discussing not the first but the possible second term of a crooked egotist, a corrupt real estate con artist as the President of the United States would have been considered beyond-the-pale outlandish nonsense as recently as 15, 20 years ago.

Imagination

Canada, History, Hungary, Politics 2 Responses »

Sep 272024

Allow me to let my imagination go wild.

Imagine a country in which access to health care — basic health care, no fancy machines, but competent, well-trained professionals — is easy. Want to see a cardiologist? Go to the local clinic, cardiology is on the third floor to the left, present your ID card and within 30 minutes, an assistant will call you by name and you’re talking to a cardiologist. Or any other specialist, for that matter. Oh, and if your child is sick, the pediatrician will make house calls. Free of charge, as all of this is covered by the public health insurance system.

Imagine emergency services that work. An ambulance system that, barring large-scale natural disasters, does not know the meaning of “level zero”. Emergency rooms that always have the capacity, at least in normal times, to quickly process patients and accommodate them.

Imagine hospitals that are well staffed and have surplus capacity. In particular, imagine mental hospitals that host many mental patients, including patients who, though not raving lunatics, are nonetheless incapable, for one reason or another, of leading proper lives independently, and would end up homeless, crippled with addictions or worse, if they were not institutionalized.

Imagine a country with no real homelessness. Sure, if you are in dire straits, you may not be able to find luxury accommodations, but you’ll not be left outside: If nothing else, a shared room will be available in a workers’ hostel or dormitory, with a bed and a wardrobe that you can call your own, but eventually, you might be able to get at least a tiny apartment, not much, just a bedroom, a toilet, a shower and a cooking stove, but still. Your place. One that will not be taken away so long as you pay the subsidized rent and don’t exhibit outrageous behavior.

Female dormitory at a downtown Budapest hostel for construction workers.
Fortepan / Peter Horvath, 1982

Imagine a merit-based system of tertiary education that does not cost a penny. Institutions that teach valuable skills in the sciences, engineering and the arts, not made-up diplomas that exist only to serve some ideological or political agenda. Institutions that kick you out if you do not meet minimum criteria, fail your exams, fail to complete your assignments.

Imagine a cheap public transit system that… just works. Reliably. The subway runs 20 hours a day, with all maintenance done, properly completed, during the overnight hours. Buses and trams arriving on time, a system only interrupted on rare occasions by major weather events or large accidents.

A pipe dream, you say? Maybe… except that what I am describing is the reality in which I grew up, in the goulash communism of behind-the-Iron-Curtain Hungary.

To be sure, things didn’t always work as advertised. There was no homelessness epidemic, but young people often ended up paying through the nose to live in sublet properties, often just a bedroom in someone else’s apartment. The health care system was nominally free, but people felt obligated to pay real money, a “gratitude”, under the table to compensate severely underpaid doctors and other health care professionals.

No, I do not want to pretend that life under communism was great. After all, I “voted with my feet”, leaving behind my country of birth, opting to begin a new life starting with nothing other than the contents of my travel bag and a few hundred dollars in my wallet in 1986. Nonetheless, my description of Kadar-era everyday life in Hungary reflects the truth. That really is the way the health care system, public housing, public transportation or tertiary education simply worked. Worked so well, in fact, we took them for granted.

The fact that these things today, in the capital city of a G7 country, namely Ottawa, Canada, are much more like pipe dreams, much farther away in reality than in Kadar’s communist dictatorship 50 years ago…

Homeless couple in recessed side entrance of Ottawa’s Rideau Centre.
Google Street View, July 2023

The mind boggles. Seriously, what the bleep is wrong with us?

A house divided against itself…

Politics No Responses »

Sep 232024

Here is a sentence similar to some of the stuff I wrote right here, in my blog: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war.”

Except that this sentence is not from my blog. Rather, it is the opening sentence of the summary of the report by the bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy of the United States Congress.

When you consider the source, the sentence I quoted must make the blood in your veins freeze for a moment. Just to be sure, the authors of this report spare no words scolding their fellow Representatives for playing politics at America’s expense: “We would be far stronger if we returned to the maxim that politics ends at the water’s edge,” they tell us after lamenting about the political gamesmanship that paralyzes Washington.

I do not live in the United States, but I recognize that the security of the Free World is determined in no small part by Washington. I just hope that the American political class come to their senses before it’s too late. As Sun Tsu told us, the best way to win a war is “to subdue an enemy without fighting”. I fear that United States might miss its chance to do so while American citizens view their next door neighbor a threat to their future that’s worse than the threat due to their nation’s real enemies abroad.

Someone…

Politics 3 Responses »

Aug 282024

I saw this on Twitter but it needs sharing. About men who think they are supportive of women, but only see women as appendages or extensions of themselves. No. They are someones, not someone’s someones. Why this is even an issue in 2024, I do not comprehend.

79 years

History, Politics No Responses »

Aug 102024

Yesterday, August 9, 2024 marked the 79th anniversary of the last time nuclear weapons were used in anger. Or to put it another way, today began the 80th year without a nuclear war.

Can we make it through the end of this year, too, without major confrontation?

Russia vs. Ukraine. Iran vs. Israel. China vs. Taiwan. These are just the major flashpoints, but probably because they are on everyone’s front pages, they’re also the least likely ones. Fecal matter tends to encounter propellers in the most unexpected places. After all, who would have thought on June 28, 1914 that a student stepping out of a coffee house just as a car carrying a VIP made a wrong turn in the distant city of Sarajevo will change world history? Who would have thought on July 7, 1937 that a Japanese soldier with a belly ache in faraway Beijing would trigger an incident on a bridge informally named after a European explorer who visited centuries prior, leading to the first shots fired in a global calamity that eventually concluded with the aforementioned last use of a nuclear weapon in anger?

War. War never changes, goes the motto of the Fallout family of computer games. And I am increasingly worried that the Fallout games, just like a text game from the dawn of personal computing, A Mind Forever Voyaging, foreseeing a society with rising inequality, political polarization, authoritarian rule, will be treated not as cautionary tales but as instruction manuals…

Orthogonal

Canada, History, Hungary, Politics 2 Responses »

Aug 072024

Having read comments from some Brits who wish to get rid of the monarchy in order to turn their country into a “democracy”, I despair. It is one thing that, in 2024, most folks are illiterate when it comes to science and technology but apparently, history and the social sciences are also badly neglected subjects.

My point, of course, is that these commenters confuse the form of government with the sources of power and the nature of the state.

A form of government may be a republic (res publica, i.e., governance in the name of the public) or a monarchy (monarkhia, rule of one), among other things.

However, both these forms of government can be autocratic (relying on the might of the state) vs. democratic (relying on the will of the people) insofar as the source of power is concerned.

And neither the form of government nor that source of power determine if the state will be liberal (that is, respecting basic rights and freedoms, such as freedom of conscience, freedom of enterprise, or the rule of law) or illiberal/authoritarian.

Midjourney’s response to the mostly Claude-written prompt, “Three regal anthropomorphic cats sitting on thrones, representing the orthogonal concepts of government. One cat wears a crown (monarchy vs republic), another holds a scepter and a ballot box (autocracy vs democracy), and the third balances scales of justice (liberal vs illiberal). The cats are arranged in a triangle formation against a backdrop of a stylized world map.”

To illustrate, let me offer a few examples. I live in Canada: a liberal, democratic constitutional monarchy. South of us is the United States: Also liberal and democratic, but a republic.

In contrast, the DPRK (North Korea) may serve as an example of a state that is an illiberal, undemocratic republic. Saudi Arabia is an illiberal, undemocratic monarchy.

Examples for other combinations are perhaps harder, but not impossible, to find. Orban’s Hungary, for instance, is rapidly converging on a state that is best described as illiberal, but democratic (the primary source of power is the people, not the might of the state) republic. I think some of the states in the Middle East (maybe Kuwait?) might qualify as relatively liberal, yet undemocratic monarchies.

These categories are not perfect of course, and do not cover all outliers, including theocracies, transitional governments or failed states. Still, I think it’s important to stress that the form of government, the source of power and the nature of the state are three fundamentally orthogonal concepts, and that all combinations are possible and do exist or have existed historically.

Understanding these distinctions is important. For instance, there are plenty of historical examples (e.g., the French Revolution devolving into the Reign of Terror, or the Russian revolution leading to the totalitarianism of the USSR) when the transition from monarchy to republic led to a significantly more autocratic regime. “Republic” is not a synonym for “democracy”.

Grumbling Monday

Canada, Cybernetics, Physics, Politics 2 Responses »

Aug 052024

It’s a civic holiday Monday that feels like a Saturday, reminding me of an old Soviet-era science-fiction novel, Monday begins on Saturday, by the Strugatsky brothers. It’s also a rather gloomy Monday morning, so it’s time for me to grumble about a few things.

For instance, how politics infuses everything these days. I signed up to follow a Facebook group dedicated to brutalist architecture, which for some inexplicable reason, I like. The comments section in one of the first posts I saw rapidly deteriorated into political bickering, as to whether or not it was appropriate to repurpose one of the Nazi-era indestructible flak towers in Hamburg as a luxury hotel. Because you know, politics is everything.

Speaking of which, I saw another post elsewhere about employees of a large US company who, after being told how successful the company was last year, were informed in the same breath that the company will cut their pension plan contributions. Needless to say, there followed comments about the evils of capitalism. Having experienced both capitalism and one of its alternatives, a socialist economy with central planning, all I can say is that capitalism works most of the time until it doesn’t; but when it doesn’t, victims are ever so eager to replace it with something that never works instead.

Then there was this post at an online news site claiming that it is practically impossible to run an ethical AI company. Well, what can I say? If you are telling me that allowing machine learning algorithms to learn from accumulated human knowledge is unethical, then sure, you are absolutely right. Then again, I suspect that what mainly drives such complaints is blatant ignorance of how machine learning works in the first place.

OK, well, never mind that, there’s good news. A fusion energy breakthrough: Neutron impact on tokamak components uncovered. Er… Say again? You are telling me that after 70+ years of research, we are beginning to understand why, or how, a heavy neutron flux rapidly destroys test equipment in the lab? Isn’t that like, say, greeting it as a “steam turbine breakthrough” when a prehistoric tribe manages to draw a spark from slamming together two rocks?

Oh well. On mornings like this, I feel I am beginning to comprehend the mood of the late, great Kurt Vonnegut who once told the CBC’s Anna Maria Tremonti to go jump in a lake.

A Mind Forever Voyaging

Canada, Computer Games, Local Ottawa, Politics 2 Responses »

Aug 012024

I mentioned this before: A Mind Forever Voyaging, a computer game from the 1980s, one of the text adventures of the legendary Infocom, a game in which you play an AI protagonist, sent to simulations of the future to explore the factors behind the decay and collapse of society.

As you venture further and further into the future, things get worse. Inequality, homelessness, violence.

I was again reminded of this game this morning when I saw the news: New mortgage rules are in effect, allowing borrowers less down payment and longer terms. As a result, the monthly mortgate payment for a $500,000 home is “only” around $2,700, give or take.

Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps the problem is not on the borrowing side but on the supply side? That if we lack affordable housing, making it easier for people to borrow money that they cannot afford to repay is not really a solution?

The same newscast again mentioned an increasingly frequent problem, “renoviction”, when people are evicted from their rent-controlled apartments because the landlord renovates, only to learn that they can no longer find a place of residence that they can afford.

Also on the news: yet another old business (opened 1954) is shutting down at the ByWard Market. In their case, it’s the changing nature of the business post-COVID but for many others, it’s the deteriorating public safety. Increased police presence only pushes the problem elsewhere, like Centretown. I had to drive across town today to our car dealership, for an oil change. I saw panhandlers at every major intersection. Not too long ago, such sights were rare, dare I say even nonexistent here in Ottawa. Now, downtown sidewalks are full of homeless folks.

I have said it before when I lamented about AMFV here in my blog: It’s a piece of (interactive) fiction. Please do not mistake it for an instruction manual. Let’s come back from the brink before it is too late. Unless it is too late already…

Hungarian foreign policy

History, Hungary, Politics 2 Responses »

Jul 272024

As a dual citizen of Canada and Hungary, I am of course delighted to hold an EU passport. Even though I have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future, it is nice to know that I have freedom of movement within the EU, and that in most places I could also claim permanent residence and work.

Unfortunately, as a person firmly committed to the values and interests of our Western alliance, I am increasingly concerned about Viktor Orban’s antics. His coziness with Russia’s dictator, his willingness to embrace undemocratic, “illiberal” policies for the sake of holding on to power, his warm relationship with Trump, his misuse of his position as Hungary holds the rotating EU presidency, exemplified by his rogue visits to Moscow and Beijing… Plain and simple, he is becoming a security threat to the Western alliance.

I have often called Orban in the past a horse trader (a particularly apt expression in the Hungarian language is “lókupec”). The implication, of course, was that even as Orban is deeply corrupt and unscrupulous, he is driven in the end by rational self-interest, and thus remains predictable and reliable.

But lately, I’ve been wondering if that is still true. What we are witnessing, I do not fully comprehend. Is he a Putin asset? Did he simply bet on the wrong horse this time around, now doubling down on a bad bet?

Whatever it is, he is not only doing tangible harm to his own country and, of course, the Western alliance, he is also making amateurish mistakes. The most recent example concerns his journey to Kyiv and Moscow. Parading around as a champion of peace, he forgot to talk to his hosts about the one thing that can severely impact Hungary’s economy: The uninterrupted supply of Russian oil through a pipeline that traverses Ukrainian territory. Oops!

Orban is now widely despised in the West and with good reason. At home, however, he remains firmly in charge. The secret, beyond his “illiberal” concentration of powers and his success at undermining independent media and the independence of the judiciary, is the flawed historical self-assessment of his nation. Many Hungarians still view themselves as victims of the Paris peace treaty of 1919, which they see as massively unfair, robbing the country of roughly two thirds of its historical territory. Which undeniably happened, of course, but context is everything. The last time those historical borders of Hungary existed as the borders of an independent political entity was in 1526, when Hungary suffered a devastating loss fighting the Ottoman Empire (a self-inflicted wound, arguably, as it was Hungary that broke a peace treaty with the Ottomans.) Fast forward to the 20th century: we have a map created by a famous Hungarian cartographer, Károly Kogutowitz who, using data from the last pre-war census of 1910, compiled this ethnographic map of the country:

Although there are clearly visible areas of the map outside the country’s present-day borders that had majority Hungarian populations, the borders are roughly in the right place. We can argue about specific patches of land in the border regions of Slovakia, in northern Transylvania, and a few other locations (hey, my father’s family is from Temesvár, now Timisoara, Romania, and I’ve had friends and relatives from famous, formerly Hungarian towns like Kolozsvár/Cluj or Marosvásárhely/Tirgu Mures, so it’s not like I am unaware of their plight, especially under Ceausescu’s regime), but one thing is clear: most of the territory of the historical Kingdom of Hungary was not dominated by a Hungarian ethnic majority. Should not be surprising: medieval kingdoms were not ethnic nation-states. Whether or not it is wise to base borders on ethnicity is another question, but so long as we accept that premise, the borders speak for themselves: they may not be fair but they certainly represent ethnic realities far more closely than the historical borders many Hungarians still dream about.

Orban of course can whip up nationalist feelings. He can easily explain his stance on Ukraine to his domestic audience by alluding to how badly ethnic Hungarians are supposedly treated in that country. The Orban of the past: the young leader of a youthful movement (Fidesz stands for Alliance of Young Democrats in Hungarian) is long forgotten. Instead, we now have a leader that adores Russia’s dictator. A leader whose actions appear to echo a past when, nearly a century ago, another Hungarian leader, Horthy, maneuvered the country into a foreign policy cul-de-sac. I fear that something similar is going to happen again, and the country will suffer, just as it suffered during that fateful winter of 1944-45 when it was ravaged by war and by brutal Nazi rule, only to be followed by more than four decades of communist oppression.

Why Russia was less affected by CrowdStrike

Computer Security, Politics 1 Response »

Jul 252024

I heard a rumor: Russia was significantly less affected by the CrowdStrike cyberoutage. Could it be that they were behind it?

Of course not. Never attribute to evil that which you can explain by stupidity. But in this case, backwardness was also on Russia’s side. You might have seen memes about Southwest Airlines, largely unaffected on account of the fact that many of their systems still run on Windows 3.1. Well, it Russia it’s… like that, even more so. As an example, here’s a CrowdStrike-affected display panel from a few days ago at JFK airport in New York City:

In contrast, here’s a departures board from a small Russian airport:

Kind of hard to hack, that one.

Another Simpsons prediction

Politics, Television No Responses »

Jul 232024

Apparently, The Simpsons predicted not just the Trump presidency but also the attire and demeanor Kamala Harris.

OK, so the color is a little bit off. But just like Lisa Simpson, Kamala Harris, if elected, will have to deal with some of Trump’s legacy.

How is it their business, pray tell?

Personal, Politics No Responses »

Jul 192024

I admit I almost lost it last night.

I was attempting to sign up as an author with a notable scientific journal (who shall remain nameless as I am cowardly and I hope to remain in their good graces.) I was confronted with a questionnaire asking about some personal details.

Okay, so they want to know about my name, e-mail address, office phone and institution. All perfectly reasonable, even though I do not have a formal affiliation which sometimes means going through extra hoops, trying to convince the software that I am nonetheless legit. Then came more personal questions such as my gender and age. But then… race, ethnicity, sexual orientation…

Sexual orientation???

I beg your pardon?

Say what? I apologize for language that’s rude and crude, but what the fuck do my scientific contributions have to do with the privacy of my bedroom and how is that your fucking business?

I generally consider my ideological affiliation left-of-center, which is to say more likely leaning towards a progressive liberal attitude. But this? Granted, there was the option, “prefer not to answer”. Nonetheless, I was beyond offended. In this context, the question is downright creepy. What are they going to ask next from prospective authors? How often do you masturbate? Do you prefer conventional or unconventional positions while copulating? Are you into S&M?

I mean, seriously, all I am trying to do is to submit a physics paper to a scientific publication. Not interrogated about my bedroom habits.

Of course I know the answer. This is checkbox-driven DEI virtue-signaling. Someone, somewhere, will write a report about how well (or how badly) this scientific publication represents various communities. Never mind that the actual science should have absolutely nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. They now have checkboxes, and no doubt, folks patting themselves on the back being proud of what they have accomplished, making the world more inclusive and all.

Except that they didn’t. Except that these forms of aggressive, self-serving episodes of virtue signaling achieve the exact opposite: instead of steering the world towards a future in which such superficial characteristics no longer matter, instead of a world in which we are all judged by the content of our character, they not only keep divisions alive, they are actively deepening them.

And that’s why we can’t have nice things anymore.

A picture perfect moment

History, Politics No Responses »

Jul 132024

This is a picture perfect moment. For all the wrong reasons, but this image is destined for the history books.

July 13, 2024. I have the feeling that it will be remembered like a day almost precisely 80 years ago, July 20, 1944, when another defiant leader emerged, mostly unscathed, from an assassination attempt.

Assassinations do not restore or strengthen democracy. We’ve known that at least since the times of ancient Rome, since Marcus Junius Brutus and co-conspirators assassinated Julius Caesar almost two thousand years ago. Rather than saving the Roman Republic, they hastened its demise.

The only thing worse than the assassination of a tyrant (or a would-be tyrant, as some see Trump) is a failed assassination. Which is what happened 80 years ago in the famed Wolf’s Lair. Ironically, Hitler was also injured in his ears. But far from weakening him, the assassination attempt likely played a role in Germany fighting all the way to the bitter end, as Hitler viewed his survival as a divine moment. What the fallout from the attempt on Trump’s life will be is yet an open question, but there is one thing of which I am sure: it’s going to be bad news for his political opponents and, by extension, for all of us who worry about the future of the Western democratic world order.

A more peaceful world?

History, Politics No Responses »

Jun 262024

I thought I remembered once seeing a YouTube video that showed, using excellent graphics, how violence actually declined over the centuries.

And indeed I did: but the video focused primarily on the death toll of World War II. Even so, in the final one third of the presentation, Neil Halloran, the video’s creator, does explore how, when adjusted for the size of the population, wars actually became less devastating over time.

This is also the view if Steven Pinker, who often discussed the “decline in violence” in his work and his talks.

Others, however, are less sure. And indeed, when I explore it myself using raw data from ourworldindata.org [chart 48], courtesy of Max Roser, the picture is decidedly less rosy.

set logscale y ; set datafile separator "," ; plot "global-death-rate-in-violent-political-conflicts-over-the-long-run.csv" skip 1 using 3:4 with lines notitle

Looking at this logscale plot showing death rates per 100,000 in conflicts since he middle ages actually shows an increase. And while indeed, the past 80 years can be described as the “long peace”, it’s more an anomaly than a trend.

In fact, looking at this chart I can comprehend the optimism of those who greeted the previous turn of the century, 1900 that is, as the start of the “century of reason”. If only…

Racism

Politics, Society No Responses »

Jun 252024

This morning, I was confronted with examples of both racism and virtue signaling in unexpected ways.

The morning local news told me that Middle Eastern drivers are 2.9 times more likely to be stopped by police, even though it is white drivers who are the most likely to be charged. Unsaid but implied, cops are supposedly racists.

But if you know how people drive in some Middle Eastern locales, perhaps there is a different explanation. Especially considering that when you are driving a police cruiser, chances are you have absolutely no idea who the driver is until they stop, you walk over, and they roll down the driver side window. Imagine you are a cop, stopping someone because he drives like they do in places like Cairo or Baghdad. You walk over, they roll down the window. “Oh damn, another Middle Eastern driver on my record,” you think, and you let them go with a verbal warning, lest you end up being accused of racism.

So which is more likely? That cops have magic eyes and can tell the ethnicity of a driver even from a sillhoutte as their cruiser follows another vehicle, or that perhaps, just perhaps, Middle Eastern drivers who grew up in a very different driving culture have some trouble, at least initially, to adjust their driving habits, so they do in fact end up being stopped more often but that cops also tend to be more lenient in their case?

Or perhaps none of the above. My speculation is not any better than anyone else’s: It’s still speculation. What matters are the data. Just make sure that the sampling and statistical analysis are free of hidden biases.

It is surprisingly hard to convince image generation AI to produce images on this topic without running into dumb (keyword-based) blocks against “harmful” content. This one is from Midjourney.

I was still pondering this when I received an e-mail. Someone asked if, as a scientist, I believe in things like genetic differences between races or policies that take such differences into account. After some thought, I responded with a question myself. I asked if they meant the genetic differences between blondes and brunettes. Or maybe the genetic differences between people with big vs. small noses. After all, we “know” that blondes are supposed to be dumb and people with big, hooked noses are consumed with greed and are disloyal…

New world order

History, Politics No Responses »

Jun 202024

In case anyone wonders what we are up against. What Ukraine is defending, beyond their own territorial integrity. Why a compromise peace deal today would be aptly described by words uttered by Winston Churchill in 1938, criticizing Chamberlain’s “peace for our times”: “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.” Well, just in case anyone has any doubt, take a look at this map from Wikipedia:

Countries in dark blue are the countries that signed the June 2024 joint communiqué of the Ukraine peace summit held in Switzerland. Countries in light blue participated but didn’t sign. The rest were absent, including the ayatollahs’ famous axis of resistance.

Notably, despite their pro-Russian stance, despite their reservations, Orban’s Hungary signed the communiqué. As did Ergodan’s Türkiye, despite their comparatively warm relationship with Moscow.

Yes, this is really shaping itself into a new world order. A struggle between Western democracies vs. authoritarianism. A flawed, but fundamentally decent, mostly peaceful, rules-based world order against a world characterized by territorial conquest and oppression.

The rhetoric is annoyingly familiar. Ukronazis? Well, in 1956, when Hungarians rose up against a totalitarian communist government, Soviet propaganda called them “fascists”. Soviet propaganda blamed American “imperialists” and the “CIA”, their relentless attempt to oppress freedom-loving socialist nations led by governments representing workers and peasants.

Where this will take us, I don’t know. I am not the only one worrying about WW3. Could it be that this time around, we are going to be a tad smarter than in the past? Maybe… but I don’t hold my breath. And when push comes to shove, I know what we are defending. Sigh.

Immigration politics

History, Immigration, Politics No Responses »

Jun 172024

Here, I picked a few countries for comparison on the Migration Policy Institute’s Web site. Specifically, to compare the ratio of migrant population (i.e., ratio of foreign-born residents) in these select lands.Immigration, of course, is a hot-button issue in the United States, but also in Hungary. Not sure about the UK but here in Canada, despite the fact that immigration represents an extra burden when it comes to, e.g., public health or affordable housing, we here comparatively less.

So how come a populist politician can exploit the immigration issue, never mind in border states of the United States, but also in Hungary where the relative immigrant population is still much lower? How come that the same topic has not become populist fodder here in Canada?

Well, perhaps I am looking at the wrong numbers. Yes, the share of immigrants in Canada is much higher than either in the US or Hungary. In fact, the share of the immigrant population here was already higher in Canada back in the 1960s than it is today in the United States. But look at the growth rate!

In Canada, the numbers went from about 16% back in 1990 to 21% in 2020. That represents a modest 30% increase. In other words, the immigrant situation in Canada today is not that different from the immigrant situation 30 years ago. In contrast, in the United States it went from about 9% to 15%. That is an almost 70% increase! Such an increase in the number of immigrants is certainly noticeable, and that is especially true if the immigrant population is not uniformly distributed across the country but is concentrated at specific locations (e.g., border states, major cities).

And Hungary? The figure went from 3% to 6%. So the relative share of the immigration population doubled in 30 years, in a country that is not used to having many immigrants in the first place. No wonder Mr. Orban can easily exploit the concerns and fears of his country’s citizens, presenting himself as the populist savior of the nation against Brussel’s bureaucrats who, hand-in-hand with the Jew Soros, are engaged in some sinister plan to flood the country with “migrants”.

No need for TV to go “woke”

Politics, Society, Television No Responses »

Jun 162024

Warning: Spoilers follow.

I am not what you would call a Trekkie, but I always enjoyed Star Trek. The original series remains my favorite, but TNG had its moments, as did Voyager, even Enterprise, for all its flaws. Picard was good, and Strange New Worlds has a chance of being on par with the original series.

But Discovery? I am presently about two thirds of the way through its penultimate episode and it’s… just painful. The tension is artificial, the writing feels shallow and preachy and… what’s this with, “We’re on a clandestine, dangerous mission, one misstep and we’re dead quite possibly along with the entire Federation, so why don’t we just stop and talk about our emotions?”

Seriously, I can only watch this abomination in five-minute chunks. I’ll suffer through the end now that barely more than an episode remains but… Oh well. I know, I know, another first-world problem.

Perhaps the least unsuccessful attempt by ChatGPT/DALL-E to illustrate the divisiveness of forced wokeness on television

And then there’s Dr. Who. I find that I actually like the latest season. Ruby Sunday is a delightful Companion, and Ncuti Gatwa has a chance to be ranked among the best Doctors. That is… if the series’ writers let him? Take the latest episode, Rogue. Within minutes, the Doctor falls in love. Same-sex love. The Doctor! The same Doctor who, in the past history of the series, almost never engaged in romantic relationships. Romantic teases, maybe… But not much more, except perhaps with River Song. But now? Instant infatuation, which, sadly, felt like little more than a cheap excuse for the writers to engage in dutiful woke virtue signaling, you know, same-sex kiss and all. To their credit, in the end they somewhat redeemed themselves, as Rogue’s (the love interest’s) feelings towards the Doctor and respect for the Doctor’s humanity led him to sacrifice himself… And save the episode from self-inflicted doom.

Even so, I wish television writers dropped the urge to outdo one another when it comes to virtue signaling. It’s just too painful to watch at times, even if I assume that it is about more than just ticking some boxes in a checklist, meeting a quota somewhere; that their intentions are the purest and their hearts are in the right place. Not to mention that it is grossly counterproductive: the only thing such blatant wokeness accomplishes is a knee-jerk trigger response by those on the political right, who are already convinced (in the words of someone I know) that “these are not normal times” anymore.

And you know where that leads. If these are not normal times, that means extraordinary means are justified. The autocrat wins in the end, presenting himself as the sole savior of all that is good and decent, in these abnormal times.

So let’s please just stop the forced, virtue-signaling wokeness. It’s not helping to make the world a better, more tolerant place. If it accomplishes anything, it’s the exact opposite.

Rising global insanity

History, Politics No Responses »

May 242024

I am watching HBO’s recent miniseries, The Regime, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The satire is great. The allusion to historical or present-day political personalities, from Rasputin To Ceausescu, from Orban to Putin, are unmistakeable.

Yet it hits a little too close to home. OK, far too close to home. Which is to say, the world of 2024 resembles the fictitious world of The Regime a little too much. Authoritarians on the rise, wars of conquest, pardon me, “peaceful reunification”, meddling by China, efforts to undermine trust in the fundamental institutions of Western democracy… And frankly, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the “real” CNN vs. its fictitious depiction in The Regime.

Indeed, I was just reading about Argentina’s new head of state, Javier Milei. El Loco, he calls himself, and it’s fitting: if Time’s article is to be believed (and it is certainly consistent with what I’ve been reading elsewhere), what we have here is a delusional conspiracy theorist with a messianic complex. Yikes!

But just in case nutty politicians in a distant land in the southern hemisphere don’t bother us, here’s another piece of news and this really gave me the creeps the other day. Dutch firm ASML, the world’s premier maker of extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment (i.e., machines that can make the highest of the high tech chips) assured us that it has the capability to remotely disable their machines, used by chipmaker TSMC in Taiwan, in case of a Chinese invasion.

I find the fact that ASML even thought it necessary to reassure us that this option exists deeply unsettling. It makes me believe that the question of the next Great War is not if, but when… and the most likely answer is, sooner than we’d like.

Seriously, can’t we just hand the world over to AI-assisted cats to manage? I am seriously inclined to believe that we’d all (cats and humans as well as machines) be better off that way.

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