Writings on History, Science, Reason, Classical Liberalism, the Alternative Future and the Philosophy of Life. Enjoy!!
Most of the posts here will largely focus on my Quora Answers as well as the Western History posts that I am working through in sequential fashion.
Please feel free to comment.
Fan opinions will differ. The only way to objectively answer this is to examine the math. Nevertheless a quick glance at the numbers tells you that there are realistically only three teams in contention: AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus.
Torino had a golden age in the time just after World War Two, while Genoa and Bologna excelled prior to the war. However in league titles alone all three significantly trail the trio of silverware winning juggernauts . The same can be said of Pro Vercelli.
Roma have indeed been runners-up in the league on fourteen occasions ,eight more than derby rivals Lazio but the two teams from Italy’s capital have only five league titles between them, less in fact that Torino’s haul of nine or Genoa’s seven. They also have no Champion League/European cup trophies.
One change…(I have weighted the Italian Domestic Cup- Coppa Italia with three points as it appears to have less relative significance than England’s FA Cup.
Here then is the point allocation system
Champions League - 8, Serie A/Scudetto - 6, UEFA Cup/Europa League/Cup Winners Cup - 5, Coppa Italia - 3, All other competitions - 1 (Supercoppa Italia, Intercontinental Cup, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup. Mitropa Cup, UEFA Intertoto Cup). Lower division titles are ignored.
AC Milan - The Rossoneri (Red and Black) are Italy’s most successful team in the European Cup/Champions League and boast seven titles in Europe’s most prestigious competition. This places them in second place behind Real Madrid (13 titles). All in all AC Milan have won 18 FIFA and UEFA trophies (5 UEFA Supercups, 3 Intercontinental Cups, 2 Cup Winners-cups and a single FIFA World Club Cup plus the Champions League haul mentioned earlier). They also have one Mitropa Cup. Ironically AC Milan have never won the UEFA Cup/Europa League. On the domestic front AC Milan have 18 league titles , 5 Coppa Italias and 7 Supercoppa Italias.
Inter Milan - Inter Milan (Nerazzuri - Black and Blues) rival AC Milan with 18 Domestic League titles. They have 7 Coppa Italia and 5 Supercoppa trophies. In Europe Inter won back-to-back European Cups in 1964 and 1965 and then added a third Champions League in 2010 in what proved to be a treble winning year. The club has also won 3 UEFA Cups, 2 Intercontinental Cups and a single FIFA World Club Cup. Inter Milan also hold the record for the most season consecutive seasons in the Italian top flight (106).
Inter Milan players celebrating source: indiaexpress.com
Total points haul - 173
Juventus - Juventus are far and away Italy’s most decorated club when it comes to capturing the Scudetto. La Vecchia Signora (the Old Lady) have 35 League titles almost double the haul of each of the Milan Clubs. In their current run they have won eight league titles in a row. They are also Italy’s most successful team in the Coppa Italia with with 13 titles (four more than second place Roma). In terms of Supercoppa Italia they lead the pack with eight trophies. On the continent Juventus have won 2 European Cups/Champions Leagues, 1 Cup Winners Cup, 2 UEFA Cups, 2 European Super Cups and one UEFA Intertoto Cup. In addition they have 2 Intercontinental Cups to their name.
Juventus of Turin in their traditional black and white source: the local.it
Total Points haul - 293
So based on this analysis I would have to give the honours to Juventus although AC Milan’s tremendous record of success both in Europe and on a worldwide level should not be understated.
Now I agree there is some wiggle room around the numbers but I don’t believe that it is nearly enough to dethrone Juventus.
Christopher Hitchens was a man of the left but he was also an independent thinker and an opponent of staid dogma.
I first encountered Hitchens when he was still solidly in the Leftist camp. His political philosophy had a Trotskyist appeal and was linked to a type of International Socialism that refused to give allegiance to Moscow or Washington during the Cold War. In his early days in the UK he wrote for the New Statesman and the Daily Express before making the journey across the pond to write for The Nation where he specialized in issues pertaining to Central and South America.
Hitchen’s break with the hard left was initially a slow process that began with what he described as the “tepid reaction” by many of his colleagues to the Satanic Verses controversy. This was further expedited by his disdain of the Clinton Administration and his fallout with Sydney Blumenthal. Hitchens wrote about this in his classic No One Left to Lie to which is about a competent take down of the ‘Billary’ pairing as you will find.
Hitchens was rarely somebody that you could agree with all the time. He was for the most part anti-Zionist, was a universalist to a fault and often gave cover to thugs such as Che Guevera and slave reparation advocates, when he really should have known better. However he defended his positions with a mental gusto that suffused the talents of George Orwell with a young Bill Buckley.
Nevertheless Hitch (as he was often called) also valued the freedoms of Western civilization and loathed reactionary world philosophies shrouded in religious ethos. For him these were not just inferior in argument but dangerous in application. Islamism stood at the apex of this counter-challenge. It had to be defeated and knocked into submission. It was in his analysis beyond the line of reason.
Above all else - and this became more apparent toward the end of his life- Hitchens was a man of the Enlightenment. For him there was something intrinsically superior about Western rationalism that could serve as a bulwark to ideas that were at best reactionary. He would do his part to advocate for this and if such thinking necessitated political intervention than so be it.
The United States has several COVID-19 hotspots but is actually doing a lot better than many OECD countries. This question has to be addressed on a per capita basis. Remember this virus has a relatively high R nought value in the unmitigated scenario and appears to be carried by those who are asymptomatic (35% of all infected according to the CDC). Let us look at the numbers.
As of May 28th 2020 the US death rate as a result of this novel coronavirus sits at 312 deaths per million. This number is significantly lower than Spain (580), the UK (558), Italy (548), France (439), The Netherlands (345) and Belgium (810). Only Germany (102) boasts less of a death rate, when the US is compared to the larger population Western European countries. From a cultural and demographic perspective this comparison has utility.
Death rate numbers (These are from May 22nd, My numbers are of May 28th.) Pattern still holds. although Brazil is moving up the chart. Source: Business Insider.
But before we go further let us breakdown these hotspots. The devil as always is in the detail. US deaths are not uniformly distributed nationwide. The three biggest trouble spots are New York, New Jersey and Connecticut (Tri-State Area). Deaths per million for each of these are 1,524, 1,284 and 1,073 respectively. If you remove this asymmetry from the data set and correct for a lesser population than the US death rate per million drops to 203. Still high but less than Switzerland (220) and not too far off the Canadian number of 185.
Source: CBC News (Situation has changed a little since April 30th - Tri-State deaths account for roughly 41% of all COVID US deaths).
Now the Tri-State need not shoulder all the blame (especially of late) - Illinois (409), Massachusetts (963), Michigan (538), Pennsylvania (422), Maryland (402) and Louisiana (590), Rhode Island (639) and Delaware (354) all have death rates well north of the national average. Much of this has been driven by high death rates at elderly care facilities however there are various localized factors at play here as well.
Despite this observation 39 states fall under the 312 average. Many of them well below this number in fact. This includes the population heavy states of California (101), Texas(55), Florida (110) and Ohio (181). At present 22 of the 50 states actually have double digit death rates not too dissimilar to COVID-19 strong performing nations such as Austria, Norway and Denmark.
So again one cannot analyze the superstructure of the US without reference to the skewed nature of the hotspot effect.
At present the US is no longer a brand new COVID-19 locale. That was the true March but two months later the country has been front and center of the viral onslaught.
Infection rates vary widely across the United States. The Darker the colour the greater the infection rate. Source: Stanford Big Local News
Granted the American death rate is higher than Brazil, Russia and India. However each of these three countries are at a much earlier stage in the overall pandemic and there is reason to believe that all three are greatly under reporting both their case loads and death rates. In fact as it stands now Brazil looks to be one of the new epicenters for the virus. Mexico as well is not far behind.
South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have done relatively well so far with COVID-19 compared to all Western nations including the US. However they have also framed their specific responses in a way that would be inconsistent with certain facets of North American civil liberties. While I commend their approach it is important to note that there is a specific cultural aspect to the way other countries are dealing with this that is not necessarily transferable to the West,
Oddly enough the South Koreans have not been as forceful with respect to a national lockdown as much as most of the US and Canada has. Where they have succeeded is in targeting and isolating the infected and adhering to an early testing regime. South Korea to their credit has been planning for this for some time as they were hard hit by both SARS (2003) and MERS (2012).
Of course this does not mean that the US has not been deeply impacted by the virus. It most definitely has. The country has more than 103,000 deaths and although positive cases numbers as a percent of total new tests are dropping one can expect more deaths in the future. One should not forget though when looking at the data that there is a lag time as well before this falling ratio impacts the death rate number. The situation is foretasted to improve according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). IHME | COVID-19 Projections. Time will tell. Modelling has been less than stellar throughout this pandemic.
Meanwhile it is imperative that testing rates, which have moved steadily upwards are further elevated. Couple that with an isolation of the infected and more contact tracing and the scourge of this virus can be contained. We have already seen this in Germany and elsewhere.
The First and Second Balkan Wars took place between 1912- 1913. All in all they were scattered across locales as diverse as Adrianople, the Aegean Sea, Kosovo and the Salonika territory and claimed a casualty statistic of 600,000 troops killed or injured.
By the early 20th century Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia had all broken free of the Ottoman yoke. However there were significant minorities of these ethno-states still living under the banner of Constantinople.
Two of these states - Bulgaria and Serbia - were rivals with one another even though they shared with Russia and Greece the Orthodox faith. It was the Russians, through diplomacy who helped solidify an alliance between the Bulgarians and Serbs to attack Turkey. The intention was to win control over the territory of Macedonia that was still under Ottoman jurisdiction. They were joined by Greece and Montenegro who themselves spearheaded the initial 8th of October 1912 attack on the Turks.
The First Balkan War was divided into three theatres that pitted each of the Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks respectively against the Ottoman adversary. With few exceptions the Ottomans were heavily defeated in virtually every battle on each front. They had a large population and a great deal of military manpower but failed to co-ordinate their armed strategy. It didn’t help that the Ottoman Turks were struggling at home with political upheaval (including a cop d’etat in January 1913). Bulgarian led forces with Serb support would capture Adrianople after a prolonged five month siege (Siege of Odrin) with Ioannina falling to the Greeks. The Greeks especially enjoyed naval success in the Dardanelles. At the end the Ottomans were at the receiving end of a losing campaign. Balkan War Map source: Brittanica.com
In May 1913 the First war came to a close with the signing of the Treaty of London (is it my imagination or are there way too many Treaties of London out there that cause more harm than good?) However this was not to be the end. Far from it in fact .
At London the Turks agreed to surrender territory with the understanding that a new state along the coast would be created in Albania. (it would be a predominantly Muslim nation). Both Greece and Serbia were not in favour of this idea. However this biggest point of contention involved the partitioning of Macedonia. Greece and Serbia had planned between the two of them to take the lion’s share of Macedonia largely at the expense of the Bulgarians. This angered the Bulgarians who had suffered 75% of the war’s allied casualties.
On the 29th of June 1913 the Bulgarians launched a two-prong attack against the Greeks and Serbs initiating the Second Balkan War. This may have had some success if it were not for the fact that both the Turks and the Romanians decided to pile in on the Bulgarians as well. Bulgaria was now up against four opponents. Although the Greeks and Serbs were technically still at war with the Ottoman Empire (nobody said this was simple?).
Predictably the Bulgarians were defeated. This time Bucharest was chosen to be the site of the concluding treaty signed in August 1913. The specific treaty with the Ottoman Empire was signed at Constantinople. Second Balkan War - Focus on Bulgaria. Source: wikipedia So what then were the results?
Well after initial success in the First Balkan War the Bulgarians lost all their claimed territory in Macedonia and Thrace. This was divided between between Greece and Serbia. In addition the territory of southern Dobrudja was lost to the Johnny-come later-Romanians. Bulgarian bitterness resulting from the War likely played a role in driving Sofia into the Central Power camp during World War One. The same could be said of the Ottomans.
From the perspective of the Ottoman Empire the Wars were a disaster. All European territory to the West of the Maritsa was lost thus defining the Western border of modern Turkey. Nazim Pasha, the Chief of Staff for the Ottoman Forces was forced to bear a great deal of the brunt of the loss. Dissatisfaction with the Empire’s ruling elite escalated. By 1918 the Empire as a political entity would cease to exist. The Turks did however succeed in recapturing Adrianople (Edirne) during the Second Balkan War.
For the Greeks the Wars were looked on very favourably. They captured a great swathe of territory and defeated the better equipped Turkish and later Bulgarian forces. Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos had his golden moment. The Greeks also had control now of Salonica (Thessalonika) , a vital port on the northwest corner of the Aegean Sea.
Serbia itself was duly rewarded. Its territory in conjunction with Montenegro was doubled. As for Albania they would be born as an independent Muslim majority principality in 1914 albeit under a German ruler (Prince Wilhem of Wied).
One issue that was also left to fester in the political mist was the autonomy of Macedonia itself as a distinct entity divorced from either the Ottoman Empire or the Balkan States. I.M.R.O. (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) was founded in 1895 to take up this cause. For much of the 1920s they were engaged in raids and assassinations against Greek and Yugoslav targets before their eventual demise around 1934. Macedonian sovereignty would be renewed after the collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s eventually leading to the emergence of an independent Macedonian nation now commonly referred to as Northern Macedonia.
At the end the Balkan Wars produced more instability than it solved. The winners (Serbia, Greece and Romania) took their spoils but this was greatly resented by the losers (Turkey/Bulgaria). This failure to adequately address the lingering Eastern Question would spillover into the First World War, the Second World War and even the Yugoslav War of the 1990s.
Source: 1912 | Bulgarian Aviation During Balkan War. The Balkan Wars were not the first war where Airplane were used. That honour goes to the Italo-Turkish War (1911) but it did play a role in this theatre of war. Source:
Having read Ted Kaczynski’s Unabomber Manifesto I don’t believe that he falls into either camp. If anything he is a small group anarchist. Some would say an anarcho-primitivist.
Ted Kaczynski’s famous mugshot - History.com
Kaczynski opens the manifesto with a full on attack against the Left. Points 6–9 in the Manifesto are actually entitled THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM. He later blames modern leftism for the way that it oversocializes humanity making the individual less of an Autonomous being.
Kaczynski clearly detests what he sees as the Left’s tendency to make up problems. This is expressed in point 22 of the manifesto
‘If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.’
For Kaczynski, those on the left are plagued with low self-esteem and he believes that this has negatively impacted society.
However he also views the power process as all important. In a sense some of his writing has a undertone that would resonate with Arthur Schopenhauer or Friedrich Nietzsche. He would like it if human beings rise above the fray and throw off the yoke of oversocialization. It is through the creation of our own goals that we truly live with purpose in his world.
Technology for Kaczynski is destructive force in that it pulls people away from a self-sufficiency that is in tune with nature. It is in this context that his primitivism comes out. He would like a return to some type of traditional value system that emphasizes stability.
Nevertheless Kaczynski has harsh words for Conservatives. In point 50 he says this:
The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.
So he throws scorn on both sides as he sees each as enabling the malice of a technological society that he believes has been a disaster for our species.
Where does that place him on the political spectrum? Certainly far from the moderate center. One could argue that his political worldview falls into an anarchist camp whether that is part of the extreme right or left is open to interpretation.
It is an unfair comparison. Reagan was President between 1981–1988 when China was nowhere near as economically powerful as they are today. Not even close. He also didn’t have to deal with the folly of previous presidents who had granted Beijing Most Favoured Nations (MFN) status. China was not a trading superpower nor was the US so overly reliant on China as a supply line source. In addition China did not hold vast amounts of US debt. If anything Japan was more of an economic concern for him and this did indeed influence his thinking.
China in the 1980s was a political sideshow from an American point of view. On a foreign policy level they could be used to drive a wedge against the Soviet Union and like Nixon he continued the strategy. It made sense. Cordiality helped.
However when it came to the great game of international power politics Reagan’s focus was on Moscow. This is not the case with Trump. The reality is a lot different today. China has to a certain degree taken over the power vacuum vacated by the Soviet Union.
My overall assessment so far is that the results have been mixed. They are not performing nearly as poorly as their detractors claim they have. However they are not the shining light that others hoped they would be. (Answered on Quora).
One of the problems with digging deeper to answer this question is that there is so much misinformation around the topic. Much of it is unfortunately politically motivated. Here are three common myths that abound. All three have been expressed routinely on Quora.
Myth One - The Swedish Model is predicated on using herd immunity as a way of coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Swedish epidemiologists involved in formulating the strategy (such as Anders Tegnell pictured below) were full aware that infected levels of 60–80% are necessary for true herd immunity. This is rarely achieved without a vaccine. It is no easy task. However such thinking was not the main driver for the Swedish approach. The Swedes realized that the mortality profile of the disease skews very heavily toward the aged. Death rates in fact for those below the age of 35 are actually lower than the seasonal flu. So they designed a strategy that would take into account the variation of death rates with age.
This would allow the country to mitigate appropriately without the necessary hit to the economy that has already impacted all of the strong lockdown countries. Their model was one of pragmatic recourse and was/is data driven. A march toward progressive immunity and then ultimately herd immunity was a secondary consideration. It was not the primary focus here. A great deal of the media has elevated this secondary consideration above the primary described above. This seems to be a deliberate misreading.
Here is the over-arching philosophy as outlined on the Swedish government site:
The Government’s policy and decisions aim to:
• Limit the spread of infection in the country • Ensure health care resources are available • Limit the impact on critical services • Alleviate the impact on people and companies • Ease concern, for example by providing information • Ensure that the right measures are taken at the right time
Anders Tegnell Sweden’s chief epidemiologist)- Source: Globe and Mail
Myth Two - The Swedish approach ignores the efficacy of social distancing.
The Swedes do not have a nationally or regionally imposed lockdown but the government through its agencies does offer strong recommendations. This includes an active emphasis on social distancing. Elementary schools have remained open but high schools and universities were closed (they are using distance learning protocols). Bars and restaurants are open but have been reorganized to accommodate social distancing parameters. Gatherings of up to 50 people are allowed but they are not encouraged (this was reduced from a number of 500 initially).
Part of the rationale of keeping elementary schools open was to limit the number of health care workers who would have to stay home to take care of their children. Nevertheless the Swedes have encouraged people to stay at home if necessary by increasing from 7 to 21 days paid work leave time (a doctor’s note is required for longer absences) . Social distancing policies have also been placed in the transportation arena that has reduced utilization of public facilities by 50%. Compliance with recommendations on social distancing is very high which is the likely the reason why the disease hasn’t spread so much in Stockholm for example. The Swedes are by nature a cautious people. They tend to listen to government recommendations. In fact it is somewhat of a national joke.
A Swedish park source France24
Myth Three - The Swedish Counterfactual is Failing, Just look at the death rate numbers.
As of May 22nd, 2020 Sweden has a total of 3,925 deaths and 23, 913 active cases (99% mild and 1% critical). On a per capita level its death rate sits at 389 per million. This value is higher than the US (295), Germany (100) and Austria (71) but it is lower than France (433), Italy (539), Spain (612), the UK (536) and Belgium (797). It is slightly higher than the Netherlands (337) and above that of Switzerland (220).
The death rate numbers are not great but compared to several other Western countries Sweden is not performing that badly. If they are failing than what does that say for the strong lockdown countries mentioned above?
Where the negative contrast does arise though is when Sweden is looked at in comparison with the other Nordic countries. Norway (43), Finland (55) and Denmark (97). This is of course a favourite trope of ‘Sweden bashers’ (on both the right and the left) however it needs to be analyzed within a specific context.
Norway and Finland have not been particularly hard hit with COVID-19 to begin with. They were also less impacted by international travel . The Danes have done very well and seem to be following a testing, tracing and isolating methodology that has been the mainstay of the German model.
However it is important to note that roughly fifty percent of Sweden’s deaths have occurred at Elderly Care facilities. These are often large state run facilities that tend to big significantly more heavily populated in Sweden than they are in the country’s Nordic neighbours. It is deaths here that have caused the overall death rate to surge not the absence of a general population lockdown.
Such a factor has to be taken into account for any intra-regional comparison.
Swedish COVID-19 deaths per day. Source: National Board of Health and Welfare (Sweden). There was a slight jump post May 11th largely due to Elder Care death fatalities.
So then what is the chief problem with the Swedish approach?
The challenge with the Swedish approach is that the extended latitude given to interaction among the general population has to be complemented by a vigorous lockdown of the most vulnerable parts of their demographic ie. the elderly. In this respect they have failed miserably. Approximately 50% of Swedish COVID-19 deaths have occurred in elderly care facilities. This spike was likely boosted by its well-intended volunteerism program that unfortunately has had disastrous implications
While care facility deaths has been a truism in most Western countries it has hit Sweden particularly hard when juxtaposed to the overall death rate (by contrast only 25% of UK COVID-19 deaths have taken place in such facilities). Overall Sweden has struggled with protecting its elderly. 88% of deaths involve those over the age of 70.
The government has been addressing this issue with a greater intensity as of late which suggests that the situation should improve.
A further stumbling block in Sweden has been its low level of testing. At 20.8 K per million the country lags behind every other Western European country with the exception of the Netherlands (18.3K). The Danes on the other hand have run over four times the amount of tests per capita.
If Swedes can up the testing rate the key morbidity trackers should make a turn for the better.
What are the benefits of the Swedish approach?
The main benefit of the Swedish policy is that it avoids a great deal of the negativity associated with the hard lockdown methodology. Their economy and national debt will unlikely not taken as big a hit as that of the rest of the Western World. Sweden will also likely see reduced levels of the so-called lockdown pathologies, namely increased suicide rates, domestic violence uptakes and complications resulting from neglect of other medical conditions. All of these factors should not be downplayed. Again they feed into the rationality behind the Swedish approach. In fact if we are considering overall death rates as a metric to compare countries it may make sense to include this mortality in a more extensive analysis.
In addition the Swedes have provided us with important data from their working counter-factual that will help us understand the efficacy of the lockdown. Low infection rates in Stockholm (7–8%) can be looked at as a criticism of a herd immunity approach (which again is not the primary intention of Swedish policy) however it can also give us a better understanding of the R nought for the disease which certainly appears to be much lower than what early doomsayers predicted. This is a hopeful observation.
As it stands we cannot judge the Swedish approach so soon in the pandemic history. The Swedes have mitigated somewhat against a second wave which most hard lockdown countries haven’t. Let us see how this looks a year from now before we rush to judgement. This could all change with a vaccine but if the Swedes have taken a prudent approach to protect other aspects of their socio-economic framework they may still have the last laugh.
