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Rand and Empirical Responsibility," Part 1 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...rical-responsibility-part.html objectivism criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 28 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Those who emphasize such things as factual evidence and peer reviewed scholarship are derided as “concrete bound” pragmatists and/or Kantian subjectivists.
  • Below is a list of thirty-one assertions made by Rand (and two by Peikoff) which are not supported by sufficient evidence:
  • Three warnings before we commence.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • First, many of these statements could be interpreted analytically, so that they become irrefutable.
  • All the statements listed above, if they are to be taken seriously as accurate descriptions of reality, must be empirically testable.
  • the indistinct terms in which many of Rand’s statements are couched.
  • Rand frequently makes use of vague words and expressions, which leave her ample opportunity to use ambiguity to equivocate to whatever conclusions she wishes.
  • If a philosopher doesn’t wish to be misunderstood, he should stop using vague terms. And nothing could be more to the purpose, if a philosopher wishes to be understood, then carefully framing his contentions in clear, distinct, empirically testable propositions.
  • the primary contention at issue in this series is not whether the thirty-one statements listed above are false (many of them are, but some of them may have an element of truth in them), but that Rand fails to provide sufficient evidence for them.
  • anonymous on 28 Nov 10
     
    "What is the biggest problem with Ayn Rand? A fairly convincing argument could be made that Rand's biggest problem was her lack of empirical responsibility. " By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on November 28, 2010.
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Inside the Box - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...Suellentrop-t.html videogames gaming generations
shared by anonymous on 27 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Ebert wrote, “Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”
  • Ebert was restating a claim he made five years ago that “no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers.” And he’s right about that, for now.
  • (Of early game designers he writes, “These men’s minds were typically scattered with the detritus of Tolkien, ‘Star Wars,’ Dungeons and Dragons, ‘Dune’— and that was if they had any taste.”)
  • anonymous on 27 Nov 10
     
    "Video games have created what must be the biggest generation gap since rock 'n' roll. Sure, a generational rift of sorts emerged when the World Wide Web showed up near the end of the last century, but in the case of the Web, the older cohort admired and tried to emulate the younger crowd, rather than looking down on them with befuddlement or disdain. With games, a more traditional "Get off my lawn" panic has reared its head. " By Chris Suellentrop at The New York Times Book Review on June 18, 2010.
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Deciphering North Korea's Provocations - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ring_north_koreas_provocations geopolitics
shared by anonymous on 24 Nov 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 24 Nov 10
     
    "North Korean artillery began shelling the island of Yeonpyeongdo in disputed waters Tuesday afternoon (local time). The island is occupied by South Korea and located in the West (Yellow) Sea south of the Northern Limit Line that South Korea claims as its territory, but north of the Military Demarcation Line that North Korea claims as its territory. Homes were destroyed and at least two South Korean soldiers were killed. South Korean artillery responded in kind, and South Korean F-16 fighter jets were scrambled." By StratFor on November 24, 2010.
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Geopolitical Journey, Part 5: Turkey - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...olitical_journey_part_5_turkey geopolitics turkey
shared by anonymous on 23 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Consider the juxtaposition of ancient ritual sacrifice so widely practiced that it requires global trade to sustain it.
  • Turkey will emerge as one of the great regional powers of the next generation, or so I think. It is clear that this process is already under way when you look at Turkey’s rapid economic growth even in the face of the global financial crisis, and when you look at its growing regional influence
  • Turkey’s emergence in the current context makes that anxiety all the more intense. A newly powerful and self-confident Turkey perceived to be increasingly Islamic will create tensions, and it has.
  • ...32 more annotations...
  • Turkey’s evolution is framed by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the creation of modern Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
  • For Ataturk, the first step was contraction, abandoning any attempt to hold the Ottoman regions that surrounded Turkey.
  • The second step was to break the hold of Ottoman culture on Turkey itself.
  • The slaughter of World War I did more than destroy the Ottoman Empire. It shook its confidence in itself and its traditions.
  • Ataturk did not try to suppress Muslim life in the private sphere, but Islam is a political religion that seeks to regulate both private and public life.
  • For Ataturk, the military represented the most modern element of Turkish society and could serve two functions. It could drive Turkish modernization and protect the regime against those who would try to resurrect the Ottoman state and its Islamic character.
  • Ataturk came to power in a region being swept by European culture, which was what was considered modern.
  • the commonalities of life in poor, urban, religious neighborhoods don’t begin to overcome the profound differences — and importance — of the religions they adhere to.
  • That said, Carsamba drove home to me the problem the AKP, or any party that planned to govern Turkey, would have to deal with. There are large parts of Istanbul that are European in sensibility and values, and these are significant areas. But there is also Carsamba and the villages of Anatolia, and they have a self-confidence and assertiveness that can’t be ignored today.
  • They represent an increasingly important trend in the Islamic world and the option is not suppressing them (that’s gone) but accommodating them or facing protracted conflict, a kind of conflict that in the rest of the Islamic world is not confined to rhetoric. Carsamba is an extreme case in Istanbul, but it poses the issue most starkly.
  • given how healthy the Turkish economy is, wanting to join the European Union is odd. And the fact is that the European Union is not going to let Turkey in anyway.
  • But the AKP’s continued insistence that it wants to join the European Union is a signal to the secularists: The AKP is not abandoning the Europeanist/modernist project.
  • while Carsamba can’t be ignored, the secularists hold tremendous political power in their own right and have the general support of the military.
  • The problem for Turkey is how to bridge the gap between the secularists and the religious.
  • Never forget that at crucial points the Ottomans, as Muslim as they were, allied with the Catholics against the Orthodox Christians in order to dominate the Balkans. They made many other alliances of convenience and maintained a multinational and multireligious empire built on a pyramid of compromises. The AKP is not the party of the Wahhabi, and if it tried to become that, it would fall. The AKP, like most political parties, prefers to hold office.
  • The Turks failed to understand the American and European perception that Turkey had gone over to the radical Islamists.
  • When you take the 360-degree view that the AKP likes to talk about, it is an extraordinary and contradictory mixture of states. Turkey is a country that maintains relations with Iran, Israel and Egypt, a dizzying portfolio.
  • After an interregnum of nearly a century, Turkey is new to being a regional power, and everyone in the region is trying to draw Turkey into something for their own benefit.
  • Turkey’s strategy is to be friends with everyone, its “zero conflict with neighbors” policy, as the Turks call it. It is an explicit policy not to have enemies. The problem is that it is impossible to be friends with all of these countries.
  • Trying to be friendly with everyone is not going to work, but for the Turks, it is a better strategy now than being prematurely Byzantine.
  • I see Turkish foreign policy as simple and straightforward: What they say and what they intend to do are the same.
  • I am trying to understand the consequences of the re-emergence of Russia, the extent to which this will pose a geopolitical challenge and how the international system will respond.
  • The purpose of this trip is to get some sense of how the Turks think about Russia and where Russia fits into their strategic thinking.
  • There are no moves that Turkey can make that will not alienate some great power, and it cannot decline to make these moves.
  • Nevertheless, while the Russians aren’t an immediate threat, they are an existential threat to Turkey.
  • There is endless talk in Turkey of intentions, hidden meanings and conspiracies, some woven decades ago. It is not these things that matter.
  • Islam has replaced modernism as the dynamic force of the region, and Turkey will have to accommodate itself to that.
  • But modernism and secularism are woven into Turkish society. Those two strands cannot be ignored.
  • For all its complexity, I think Turkey is predictable. It will go through massive internal instability and foreign tests it is not ready for, but in the end, it will emerge as it once was: a great regional power.
  • As a subjective matter, I like Turkey and Turks. I suspect I will like them less as they become a great power. They are at the charming point where the United States was after World War I. Over time, global and great powers lose their charm under the pressure of a demanding and dissatisfied world. They become hard and curt. The Turks are neither today. But they are facing the kind of difficulties that only come with success, and those can be the hardest to deal with.
  • The tensions between the secularists and the religious must not be minimized. The tensions within the religious camp are daunting. The tensions between urban and rural are significant. The tensions between Turkey and its allies and neighbors are substantial, even if the AKP is not eager to emphasize this
  • But I think the answer to the question I came for is this: Turkey does not want to confront Russia. Nor does it want to be dependent on Russia. These two desires can’t be reconciled without tension with Russia.
  • anonymous on 23 Nov 10
     
    "This is the fifth installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States." By George Friedman at StratFor on November 23, 2010.
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Thanksgiving guilt trip: How warlike were Native Americans before Europeans showed up? - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...post.cfm holidays thanksgiving history
shared by anonymous on 23 Nov 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 23 Nov 10
     
    "The approach of Thanksgiving, that quintessential American holiday, has me brooding over recent scientific portrayals of Native Americans as bellicose brutes. When I was in grade school, my classmates and I wore paper Indian headdresses and Pilgrim hats and reenacted the "first Thanksgiving," in which supposedly friendly Native Americans joined Pilgrims for a fall feast of turkey, venison, squash and corn. This episode seemed to support the view-often (apparently erroneously) attributed to the 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau-of Native Americans and other pre-state people as peaceful "noble savages"." By John Horgan at Scientific American on November 22, 2010.
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NATO: An Inadequate Strategic Concept? - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...o_inadequate_strategic_concept geopolitics europe
shared by anonymous on 22 Nov 10 - Cached
  • The 1999 document, written during NATO’s air war against Yugoslavia, set the precedent for the expansion of NATO operations beyond mere self-defense, to account for humanitarian interventions and conflict prevention.
  • This massive consolidation took Putin roughly six years and gave Moscow a firm foundation so that it could start looking beyond its borders.
  • Starting in 2005, Russia began feeling comfortable enough with its domestic consolidation that it began to lay the groundwork for resurgence in its former Soviet states.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • Berlin and Paris are far less worried about a strong Moscow than are Warsaw, Bucharest and other Central European capitals.
  • NATO breaks into three groups on this and other issues
  • the United States and its “Atlanticist” allies (such as the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom)
  • Core Europe wants to maintain its good relations with Russia and not provoke it with an alliance that is concentrating on rolling back Moscow’s control of its sphere of influence.
  • it is unclear what Russian participation in a NATO-wide BMD system — as was announced at the summit — really means
  • Core Europe (led by Germany and France)
  • the Central Europeans.
  • Washington pushed back against Moscow in several ways
  • First, it shored up its bilateral alliances in Central Europe via military supplies, new military bases and proposed BMD installations
  • The United States also attempted to solidify support for Georgia
  • Shifting tactics, both countries brokered an understanding that each had larger issues to focus on at the time, so the growing hostilities would be put on hold — at least temporarily.
  • At a loss for options, some Central Europeans — like Poland — shifted their stances and attempted to reach an understanding with Russia. Other Central Europeans have maintained hope that the United States soon will be able to refocus on Eurasia and support them once again.
  • So in essence, the disintegration of U.S.-Russian relations will divide the already-fracturing NATO even further.
  • NATO reached two main conclusions
  • First, it adopted the 2010 Strategic Concept. Second, it decided to build a NATO-wide BMD network and invited Russia to participate.
  • STRATFOR could spend a great deal of time going over the nearly 4,000-word Strategic Concept. But if a mission statement requires that many words, it probably means the mission is not easily stated or agreed upon.
  • Rogozin added that although the Strategic Concept leaves the possibility of further enlargement on the table via its Open Door policy, “this is furnished with the quite correct wording that these countries should meet the membership criteria.” One of the criteria, incidentally, is not having any territorial disputes — a requirement Moscow can certainly make sure Georgia can never fulfill.
  • NATO will not disappear. It is here to stay, if for no other reason than inertia.
  • First, sensing that Russia is no longer worried about NATO, the Central Europeans will start looking at bilateral agreements with the United States.
  • Second, other European countries will form agreements among themselves.
  • anonymous on 22 Nov 10
     
    "NATO leaders met in Lisbon on Nov. 19-20 to draft a new Strategic Concept - essentially a new mission statement for the alliance. The alliance is divided, however, particularly over the issue of how to handle Russia's renewed strength. This division has made it difficult for NATO to craft a Strategic Concept that effectively addresses all the issues the alliance currently faces, including the ongoing military operation in Afghanistan and what some NATO members see as a renewed threat from Russia." At StratFor on November 22, 2010.
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Intellectual Sources of the Latest Objectischism 2 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...tual-sources-of-latest_22.html criticalthinking objectivism
shared by anonymous on 22 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Rand never considered the implications of this principle in other venues, such as a voluntary organization such as ARI.
  • The fact that such a conflict exists at all indicates that one (if not both) of the parties are "irrational."
  • Indeed, the fact that conflicts exist within orthodox Objectivism -- conflicts so intense and irresolvable that they can only be ended by one of the parties exiting the scene -- suggests something profoundly amiss.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • I have suggested in previous posts on this blog that "reason" is a mythical faculty. None of its champions have ever provided empirical evidence demonstrating it's reported efficacy. It's merely a term used by those seeking to justify contentions based on insufficient evidence.
  • Seeking justification for a theory in "reason" is merely an invitation for rationalization, which is the bane of rational inquiry.
  • Nothing could be more to the purpose along these lines then an empirical examination of how reason works to solve disputes within an organization run by leading Objectivists.
  • Differences of opinion can be settled by "reasoned" discussion.
  • Peikoff admits, for example, that "Ultimately, someone has to decide who is qualified to hold such positions [on the ARI board] and where the line is to be drawn."
  • Someone has to decide? Shouldn't "reason" decide? Since reality is objective and "reason" the only "valid" means of knowing reality, what need is there for an individual to decide these things at all?
  • Within the Objectivist ideology, the idea of context is used as a kind of conceptual escape hatch to explain, for instance, why a moral absolute may not apply in all instances (because moral absolutes are "contextual") or why an individual may be certain yet wrong (because certainty is "contextual").
  • Those with a wider context of knowledge will (presumably) achieve a higher level of "certainty." They will know more and will hence be in a better position to make rational decisions.
  • If differing contexts of knowledge cause rational men to arrive at different conclusions, then Rand's contention about "no conflicts of interest" among rational men must be dropped.
  • Different contexts lead to different assessments of interests, even among rational men; and differing assessment of interests will inevitably lead to conflicts.
  • Neither Rand nor any of her disciples have ever provided us with a detailed description of how to distinguish a rational interest from a non-rational interest. If we go by Objectivist writings, a "rational" interest is merely any interest that Rand and her disciples approve of, while a non-rational (or "irrational") interest is an any interest they disapprove of.
  • Conflict of interests are therefore a built-in feature of the human condition. To deny this is to live in fairy-tale world.
  • Objectivists are not supposed to be concerned with status. It is a product of that horror or horrors, social metaphysics. It reeks of authoritarianism and the appeal to faith. Yet status can no more be exorcised from man's "emotional mechanism" than sex or hunger can.
  • The "formal" meaning is the literal, conscious meaning; it's the rationalized meaning, meant to persuade and deceive both the rationalizer and his audience. The "real" meaning accords with the unconscious motives that are prompting the whole business.
  • It's not enough to conceal one's motives; one must also believe in the "truth" of one's deception. In short, one must accept one's own lies and become, if you will, a sincere hypocrit.
  • Hence their inability to engage in reasoned discourse with those who disagree with them. Hence their inability to even understand, let alone refute, their critics. Hence their inability to use "reason" to resolve differences among themselves.
  • When people are forced to repress and conceal their true motives under a veneer of logic, rationalization becomes the order of the day.
  • Rand actually never bothers to explain, in a clear, detailed, empirically testable fashion, how one goes about using "reason." About as detailed as she gets is the following:
  • Rand's inclusion of concept-formation in her conception of reason is deeply problematical.
  • Concept-formation is an extremely complex process involving unconscious process that cannot be directed by the conscious mind.
  • without an articulable, formalized technique, reason cannot be "followed."
  • Rand's "reason" is therefore mythical. No such technique exists or is possible. What is possible, instead, is rational and empirical criticism.
  • If Leonard Peikoff did not exist, Objectivists would be forced to invent him. Without a central authority, Objectivism would splinter into hundreds of fragments, each claiming to follow "reason" and crying anathema on all other fragments. The Objectivist movement, precisely because it follows "reason," which is entirely mythical faculty, must be authoritarian at its core. It cannot exist on any other basis.
  • anonymous on 22 Nov 10
     
    "According to Rand, the Objectivist Ethics "holds that the rational interests of men do not clash-that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value." Now it seems likely that this principle was devised primarily (and perhaps solely) to convince herself and her followers that it is never in an individual's rational self-interest to violate the rights of another person. Rand never considered the implications of this principle in other venues, such as a voluntary organization such as ARI." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on November 22, 2010.
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What I've learned from Less Wrong - 0 views

lesswrong.com/...at_ive_learned_from_less_wrong criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 20 Nov 10 - Cached
  • It’s much easier to be egalitarian and respect everyone when you can always say ”Well, I suppose that might be right -- you never know!“
  • in a desire to be exceptional, I naïvely reasoned that believing similar things to other smart people would probably get me the same boring life outcomes that many of them seemed to be getting
  • it no longer makes sense to be a meme collecting, universal egalitarian the same way I was before
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • This is because induction is the only way to reliably find candidate hypotheses which deserve attention.
  • Not only is the free will problem solved, but it turns out it was easy. 
  • philosophers failing to uniformly mark this as ”settled“ and move on is not because this is a questionable result... they’re just in a world where most philosophers are still having trouble figuring out if god exists or not.
  • anonymous on 20 Nov 10
     
    "I've been compiling a list of the top things I've learned from Less Wrong in the past few months. If you're new here or haven't been here since the beginning of this blog, perhaps my personal experience from reading the back-log of articles known as the sequences can introduce you to some of the more useful insights you might get from reading and using Less Wrong."
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Einstein's Arrogance - 0 views

lesswrong.com/...einsteins_arrogance criticalthinking layscience science
shared by anonymous on 21 Nov 10 - Cached
  • To assign more than 50% probability to the correct candidate from a pool of 100,000,000 possible hypotheses, you need at least 27 bits of evidence (or thereabouts).
  • The Traditional phrasing implies that you start out with a hunch, or some private line of reasoning that leads you to a suggested hypothesis, and then you have to gather "evidence" to confirm it - to convince the scientific community, or justify saying that you believe in your hunch.
  • But from a Bayesian perspective, you need an amount of evidence roughly equivalent to the complexity of the hypothesis just to locate the hypothesis in theory-space.
  • anonymous on 21 Nov 10
     
    "In 1919, Sir Arthur Eddington led expeditions to Brazil and to the island of Principe, aiming to observe solar eclipses and thereby test an experimental prediction of Einstein's novel theory of General Relativity. A journalist asked Einstein what he would do if Eddington's observations failed to match his theory. Einstein famously replied: 'Then I would feel sorry for the good Lord. The theory is correct.'" By Eliezer Yudkowsky at Less Wrong on September 25, 2007.
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Geopolitical Journey, Part 4: Moldova - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...litical_journey_part_4_moldova geopolitics
shared by anonymous on 20 Nov 10 - Cached
  • First, there is the question of what kind of country Moldova is. Second, there is the question of why anyone should care.
  • Stalin wanted to increase Ukraine’s security and increase Romania’s and the Danube basin’s vulnerability.
  • After the Soviet collapse, this territory became the Republic of Moldova. The portion east of the Dniester revolted with Russian support, and Moldova lost effective control of what was called Transdniestria.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Let me emphasize the idea that it “began to shift,” not that it is now a strategic asset. This is an unfolding process. Its importance depends on three things: the power of Russia; Russia’s power over Ukraine; a response from some Western entity.
  • Seventy years after the partition, Moldova has become more than a Romanian province, far from a Russian province and something less than a nation. This is where geopolitics and social reality begin to collide.
  • In the Eastern European countries, the Soviet era is regarded as a nightmare and the Russians are deeply distrusted and feared to this day. In Moldova, there is genuine nostalgia for the Soviet period as there is in other parts of the former Soviet Union.
  • For a large part of the Moldovan population, Russian is the preferred language.
  • three-way tension between Romanians, Moldovan Romanian speakers and Russian speakers.
  • The real struggle is between those who back the communists and those who support an independent Moldova oriented toward the European Union and NATO.
  • The real issue behind the complex politics is simply this: What is Moldova?
  • There is consensus on what it is not: It is not going to be a province of Romania. But Moldova was a province of Romania and a Soviet Socialist Republic. What is it now? What does it mean to be a Moldovan?
  • It is said to be one of the poorest countries in Europe, if not the poorest. About 12 percent of its gross domestic product is provided by remittances from emigrants working in other European countries, some illegally.
  • we have a paradox. The numbers say Moldova is extremely poor, yet there are lots of banks and well and expensively dressed young women.
  • There are three possible explanations.
  • The first is that remittances are flooding the country
  • The second is that there is a massive shadow economy that evades regulation, taxation and statistical analysis.
  • The third explanation is that the capital and a few towns are fairly affluent while the rural areas are extraordinarily poor.
  • From the Moldovan point of view, at least among the pro-Western factions, Moldova’s strategic problems begin and end with Transdniestria
  • The Russian view, driven home by history, is that benign situations can turn malignant with remarkable speed.
  • Regardless of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians are the ones concerned about things like a defensive river position while the Ukrainians see the matter with more detachment.
  • Moldova is a borderland-within-a-borderland. It is a place of foreign influences from all sides. But it is a place without a clear center.
  • If geopolitics were a theoretical game, then the logical move would be to integrate Moldova into NATO immediately and make it a member of the European Union.
  • geopolitics teaches that the foundation of national strategy is the existence of a nation.
  • Romania is still there. It is not a perfect solution, and certainly not one many Moldovans would welcome, but it is a solution, however imperfect.
  • anonymous on 20 Nov 10
     
    "This is the fourth installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States." By George Friedman at StratFor on November 19, 2010.
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Geopolitical Journey, Part 3: Romania - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...litical_journey_part_3_romania geopolitics romania russia
shared by anonymous on 20 Nov 10 - Cached
  • In school, many of us learned the poem Invictus. It concludes with the line, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” This is a line that a Victorian gentleman might bequeath to an American businessman. It is not a line that resonates in Romania.
  • empires collide where Romania is.
  • the great powers are sorting themselves out again and therefore Romania is becoming more important to others.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • The Carpathian Mountains define Romania, but in an odd way. Rather than serving as the border of the country, protecting it, the Carpathians are an arc that divides the country into three parts.
  • To the south of the mountains is the Wallachian Plain
  • To the northwest of the Carpathians is Transylvania, more rugged, hilly country.
  • In the east of the Carpathians is the Moldavian Plain.
  • Romania is one nation divided by its geography. None of the three parts is easy to defend.
  • About the only time before the late 19th century that Romania was united was when it was completely conquered.
  • Some of us experience geopolitics as an opportunity. Most of humanity experiences it as a catastrophe.
  • To understand Romania as an ally one must bear this in mind: When the Soviets began their great counterattack at Stalingrad, they launched it over Romanian (and Hungarian) troops. Romanians maneuvered themselves into the position of fighting and dying for the Germans, and then got their revenge on the Germans by being slaughtered by the Soviets.
  • The way the Romanians got the Soviets to tolerate this was by building a regime more rigid and oppressive than even that of the Soviet Union at the time.
  • Contemporary Romania cannot be understood without understanding Nicolae Ceausescu.
  • Stalin didn’t trust communists who stayed home and resisted. He preferred communists who had fled to Moscow in the 1930s and had proved themselves loyal to Stalin by their betrayal of others.
  • Ceausescu decided to pay off the national debt. His reason seemed to flow from his foreign policy — he didn’t want Romania to be trapped by any country because of its debt — and he repaid it by selling to other countries nearly everything that was produced in Romania.
  • One of her books, The Appointment, takes place in Romania under the communists.
  • When one reads this book, as I did in preparing for this trip, one understands the way in which the Securitate tore apart a citizen’s soul — and remembers that it was not a distant relic of the 1930s but was still in place and sustaining the Romanian regime in 1989.
  • Romania emerged from the previous 70 years of ongoing catastrophe by dreaming of simple things and having no illusions that these things were easy to come by or things Romanians could control.
  • Romanians yearned to become European simply because being Romanian was too dangerous.
  • For Romania, national sovereignty has always been experienced as the process of accommodating itself to more powerful nations and empires. So after 1991, Romania searched for the “someone else” to which it could subordinate itself. More to the point, Romania imbued these entities with extraordinary redemptive powers. Once in NATO and the European Union, all would be well.
  • Germany remains an exporting country exporting into Romania and leaving precious little room for Romania to develop its economy.
  • a good part of Romania’s exports to Germany are from German-owned firms operating in Romania.
  • During the period of relative prosperity in Europe from 1991 to 2008, the structural reality of the EU was hidden under a rising tide.
  • Romania is a developing country. Europe’s regulations are drawn with a focus on the highly developed countries. The laws on employment guarantees mean that Europeans don’t hire workers, they adopt them. That means that entrepreneurship is difficult. Being an entrepreneur, as I well know, means making mistakes and recovering from them fast. Given the guarantees that every worker has in Europe, an entrepreneur cannot quickly recover from his mistakes. In Romania, the agility needed for risk-taking is not readily available under EU rules drawn up for a mature economy.
  • There are regulations and there are relationships. The latter mitigate the former. In Germany this might be called corruption. In Romania it is survival.
  • First, there is no doubt that NATO and the European Union did not work in Romania’s favor at the moment. Second, there is no question of rethinking Romania’s commitment to either.
  • NATO and the European Union keep the anti-democratic demons of the Romanian soul at bay. Being part of Europe is not simply a matter of strategic or economic benefits. It represents a transitional point in Romanian history.
  • The Western Europeans are not about to be drawn into Eastern European paranoia fed by nostalgic American strategists wanting to relive the Cold War, as they think of it.
  • I raised two strategic alternatives with Romanian officials and the media.
  • One was the Intermarium — an alliance, perhaps in NATO, perhaps not — of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
  • Turkey is Romania’s fourth-largest export target, and one of the few major trading partners that imports more from Romania than it exports.
  • In this region, the fear of the past dominates and oppresses while the confident, American-style military planning and economic restructuring I suggested is alien and frightening.
  • I had thought that Romania’s problem was that it was part of Europe, a weak power surrounded by stronger ones. They seem to believe that their solution is to be part of Europe, a weak power surrounded by stronger ones.
  • anonymous on 20 Nov 10
     
    "This is the third installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States. " By George Friedman at StratFor on November 16, 2010.
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Geopolitical Journey, Part 2: Borderlands - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...cal_journey_part_2_borderlands geopolitics europe fsu
shared by anonymous on 17 Nov 10 - Cached
  • A borderland is a region where history is constant: Everything is in flux.
  • The countries we are visiting on this trip (Turkey, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Poland) occupy the borderland between Islam, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity.
  • My interest in the region is to understand more clearly how the next iteration of regional geopolitics will play out. Russia is far more powerful than it was 10 years ago. The European Union is undergoing internal stress and Germany is recalculating its position. The United States is playing an uncertain and complex game. I want to understand how the semicircle of powers, from Turkey to Poland, are thinking about and positioning themselves for the next iteration of the regional game.
  • ...35 more annotations...
  • I have been accused of thinking like an old Cold warrior. I don’t think that’s true. The Soviet Union has collapsed, and U.S. influence in Europe has declined. Whatever will come next will not be the Cold War. What I do not expect this to be is a region of perpetual peace. It has never been that before. It will not be that in the future. I want to understand the pattern of conflict that will occur in the future. But for that we need to begin in the past, not with the Cold War, but with World War I.
  • he Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires collapsed, the Russian empire was replaced by the Soviet Union, and the German empire was overthrown and replaced by a republic.
  • The Carpathian Mountains form a rough boundary between the Russians and the rest of Europe from Slovakia to the south.
  • The northern part of Europe is dominated by a vast plain stretching from France to Moscow.
  • Following World War I, Poland re-emerged as a sovereign nation.
  • Pilsudski is an interesting figure
  • The Russians defeated the Ukrainians and turned on Poland. Pilsudski defeated them.
  • It is interesting to speculate about history if Pilsudski had lost Warsaw. The North European Plain was wide open, and the Soviets could have moved into Germany. Undoubtedly, the French would have moved to block them, but there was a powerful Communist Party in France that had little stomach for war. It could have played out many different ways had Pilsudski not stopped the Russians. But he did.
  • His vision was something called the Intermarium — an alliance of the nations between the seas built around Poland and including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Finland and the Baltic states.
  • Pilsudski’s Intermarium makes a kind of logical if not historical sense. It is not historical because this borderland has always been the battleground for others. It has never formed together to determine its fate.
  • As always, the Intermarium is caught between Russia and Europe.
  • the entire question of the price and value of the European Union became a central issue in Germany.
  • Germany has not thought of itself as a freestanding power since 1945. It is beginning to think that way again, and that could change everything, depending on where it goes.
  • For Poland, the specter of a German-Russian entente is a historical nightmare. The last time this happened, in 1939, Poland was torn apart and lost its sovereignty for 50 years.
  • geopolitics teaches that subjective inclinations do not erase historical patterns.
  • The question in Ukraine is whether their attempt to achieve complete independence is over, to be replaced by some informal but iron bond to Russia
  • There is no more important question in Europe at the moment than the future of Ukraine.
  • The area east of the Dniester, Transdniestria, promptly seceded from Moldova
  • Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. Its primary export is wine, sent mostly to Russia. The Russians have taken to blocking the export of wine for “health reasons.” I think the health issue is geopolitical and not biological.
  • Romania is oriented toward the European Union but is one of the many countries in the union that may not really belong there.
  • as its power increases in the Balkans, Turkey will be one of the forces that countries like Romania will have to face.
  • Russia as seen through the eyes of its neighbors is the purpose of this trip, and that’s the conversation I will want to have.
  • It is a theory that argues that the post-Cold War world is ending. Russia is re-emerging in a historically recognizable form. Germany is just beginning the process of redefining itself in Europe, and the EU’s weaknesses have become manifest. Turkey has already taken the first steps toward becoming a regional power. We are at the beginning of a period in which these forces play themselves out.
  • I am going to the region with an analytic framework, a theory that I will want to test.
  • Those who argue that the Turkish government is radically Islamist are simply wrong, for two reasons.
  • First, Turkey is deeply divided
  • Second, the Islamism of the Turkish government cannot possibly be compared to that of Saudi Arabia
  • The single greatest American fear should not be China or al Qaeda. It is the amalgamation of the European Peninsula’s technology with Russia’s natural resources. That would create a power that could challenge American primacy.
  • This is not a time of clear strategic thinking in Washington. I find it irritating to go there, since they regard my views as alarmist and extreme while I find their views outmoded and simplistic.
  • The United States is a vast nation, and Washington thinks of itself as its center, but it really isn’t. The United States doesn’t have a center. The pressures of the world and the public shape its actions, albeit reluctantly.
  • I regard NATO as a bureaucracy overseeing an alliance whose mission was accomplished 20 years ago.
  • The Intermarium countries remain infatuated with the European Union and NATO, but the infatuation is declining. The year 2008 and Germany’s indifference to these countries was not pleasant, and they are learning that NATO is history.
  • Washington still thinks of Russia as the failed state of the 1990s. It simply doesn’t take it seriously. It thinks of the European Union as having gone over a speed bump from which it will recover. But mostly, Washington thinks about Afghanistan. For completely understandable reasons, Afghanistan sucks up the bandwidth of Washington, allowing the rest of the world to maneuver as it wishes.
  • Nothing, of course, could be further from Washington’s mind.
  • I am not making strategy but examining geopolitical forces. I am not planning what should be but thinking about what will likely happen.
  • anonymous on 17 Nov 10
     
    "This is the second installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States. "
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Odds Are, It's Wrong - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...Odds_Are,_Its_Wrong science layscience statistics methodology
shared by anonymous on 19 Nov 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 19 Nov 10
     
    "It's science's dirtiest secret: The "scientific method" of testing hypotheses by statistical analysis stands on a flimsy foundation. Statistical tests are supposed to guide scientists in judging whether an experimental result reflects some real effect or is merely a random fluke, but the standard methods mix mutually inconsistent philosophies and offer no meaningful basis for making such decisions. Even when performed correctly, statistical tests are widely misunderstood and frequently misinterpreted. As a result, countless conclusions in the scientific literature are erroneous, and tests of medical dangers or treatments are often contradictory and confusing." By Tom Siegfried at Science News on March 27, 2010.
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You've Got Them All Wrong, Mr. President - 0 views

www.tnr.com/...t-voters-barack-obama-midterms partisan politics america
shared by anonymous on 18 Nov 10 - Cached
  • In other words, the White House blamed Democrats' 2010 defeat on the loss of independents, and to win them back, it will try to slow the growth of government, encourage a bipartisan spirit in Washington, and reform the government process by eliminating things like earmarks.
  • Here are some salient features of independents.
  • (1) There is no Party of Independents
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • (2) Not all independents actually vote
  • (3) Many independents are disguised partisans
  • The Shadow Republicans, who make up 26 percent of independents, are very likely to vote Republican.
  • Shadow Democrats, who make up 21 percent of Pew’s sample, are more affluent and educated than the average Democrat.
  • “A reluctance to confess a party preference,” he writes, “is nothing more than a reflection of the inclination of Americans to prefer to think of themselves as independent-minded and inclined to judge things on the merit.”
  • (4) About one-third of independents are important swing voters
  • It’s fair to characterize them as white working-class voters. Why are they independents and not Republicans and Democrats? According to the Pew poll, both groups believe that “parties care more about special interests than average Americans.”
  • From 1968 through 1994, many white working-class voters in the South and Midwest, alienated by Democratic support for civil rights, abortion rights, and gun control, became partisan Republicans.
  • Many of these voters are susceptible to populist appeals, especially during a downturn. After all, they blame special interests for their plight.
  • What is an effective political response to this group? After the 1994 election, Bill Clinton, faced with massive defection of white working-class voters, adopted a strategy of rhetorical appeasement, declaring that the “era of big government is over.” He also eschewed any new major spending programs. But Clinton was blessed with an economy that, unbeknownst to voters in the 1994 election, was about to enter a boom. It really didn’t matter what Clinton actually did: By November 1996, he could take credit for the economic revival. And the boom was what mattered most to these voters.
  • It’s the actual condition of the economy that wins or loses their votes.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 18 Nov 10
       
      The actual condition of the economy matters, but the hallucinated perceptions of the public drive elections.
  • anonymous on 18 Nov 10
     
    The White House thinks that Democrats got drubbed in the election because they lost the support of "independent" voters. Obama's advisers, the Washington Post reported, "are deeply concerned about winning back political independents, who supported Obama two years ago by an eight-point margin but backed Republicans for the House this year by 19 points. To do so, they think he must forge partnerships with Republicans on key issues and make noticeable progress on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to change the ways of Washington." By John B. Judis at The New Republic on November 18, 2010.
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Products of Slavery: Revealing Child and Forced Labor in Supply Chains - 0 views

infosthetics.com/...products_of_slavery.html
shared by anonymous on 18 Nov 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 18 Nov 10
     
    "Products of Slavery [productsofslavery.org] is an online visualization that takes the data (PDF) from a report of the U.S. Department of Labor on child and forced labor worldwide, and makes it open and accessible. Investigations show that more than 122 different products are made using child or forced labor in more than 58 countries. The website is part of Anti-Slavery International's ongoing campaign, as it aims to work with businesses to eradicate slavery in private sector supply chains. The interactive map shows the types of products that are produced in specific countries using child labor, forced labor or both. The quantitative data is accompanied with is called here as "facts": moving quotes that illustrate the meaning and story behind this data."
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The Beck of Revelation - 0 views

www.nybooks.com/...beck-revelation teaparty demagogue politics
shared by anonymous on 17 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 17 Nov 10
     
    "The weather cooperated with Glenn Beck on the August morning of his "Restoring Honor" rally. Or maybe it was a higher force. The skies were clear, it was hot but not Washington unbearable, and the crowd, prepared with lounge chairs and water bottles, was serene. He had also banned signs from the event so that he and his fans would not be easy targets for photojournalists, which was a canny way to introduce a kinder, gentler Beck." By Mark Lilla at The New York Review of Books on December 9, 2010.
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Why Most Published Research Findings are False - 0 views

www.marginalrevolution.com/...why_most_publis.html research criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 17 Nov 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 17 Nov 10
     
    "Suppose there are 1000 possible hypotheses to be tested. There are an infinite number of false hypotheses about the world and only a finite number of true hypotheses so we should expect that most hypotheses are false. Let us assume that of every 1000 hypotheses 200 are true and 800 false. It is inevitable in a statistical study that some false hypotheses are accepted as true. In fact, standard statistical practice guarantees that at least 5% of false hypotheses are accepted as true. Thus, out of the 800 false hypotheses 40 will be accepted as "true," i.e. statistically significant." By Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution on September 2, 2005.
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Ireland Refuses EU Bailout - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...116_ireland_refuses_eu_bailout geopolitics europe ireland
shared by anonymous on 17 Nov 10 - Cached
  • where the Greeks begged for a bailout earlier this year and then railed (and continue to rail) against the budget cuts they are being forced to abide by to maintain the intravenous drip of euros, the Irish are already nearly two years into a self-imposed austerity, all without any serious protests or strikes. 

  • Few argue that Germany is the economic center weight of the union, with every significant member-state counting Germany as its single largest trading partner. But not Ireland. Ireland is dependent upon Germany for a smaller proportion of its economic well being than any other state in the union, trading about twice as much with the United States or the United Kingdom than it does with Germany.
  • Ireland has — twice — voted down EU treaties, and in the aftermath been immune to the political pressure emanating from Paris and Berlin.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Berlin’s goal is pretty clear, so clear that a key architect of the Greek bailout — Christian Democratic Union lawmaker Michael Meister — has emphatically noted that not only is an Irish bailout inevitable, but one condition for it will be the alteration of Ireland’s corporate tax structure to something more in line with European norms.
  • What STRATFOR finds the most interesting about this is that Ireland is no longer alone in resisting Germany’s rising strength: There are now glimmers of recognition across Europe that the Germans are attempting to use their dominant economic position to rewire the European Union more to their liking.
  • anonymous on 17 Nov 10
     
    "Financial markets roiled Tuesday on rumors - often reported as news - that the European Union (EU) was about to issue a second bailout, this time to Ireland. In a curious twist of events, the rumors of a bailout didn't start in Dublin, but in Berlin. And the denials of those rumors came from the Irish themselves. The Irish government went on to emphasize that Dublin had not only not asked for a bailout, but that Irish officials at Tuesday's meeting of EU finance ministers went with the explicit goal of convincing everyone that such a bailout was not needed. After several years of everyone from banks to airlines to construction firms to Greece asking for a bailout, it's a little odd to have a state refuse one so emphatically." At StratFor on November 17, 2010.
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The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother - 0 views

www.thestar.com/...on-high-security-little-bother security
shared by anonymous on 16 Nov 10 - Cached
  • First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few metres away. Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener spots a suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further investigation.
  • That's the process — six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.
  • In Israel, Sela said, a coordinated intelligence gathering operation produces a constantly evolving series of threat analyses and vulnerability studies. "There is absolutely no intelligence and threat analysis done in Canada or the United States," Sela said. "Absolutely none."
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit — technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."
  • anonymous on 16 Nov 10
     
    "While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification. That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience. "It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He's worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world." By Cathal Kelly at thestar.com on December 30, 2009.
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