My thoughts
Pakistani military wants to renew its contacts with the US military. Chinese weaponery which Imran Khan faced was shown to be inferior. Both countries are not trustworthy in my opinion. Saudi Arabia still has a strong Wahhabist influence and Pakistan is a failed Sunni state. Lets not forget that Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi and Pakistan gave him refuge in his hour of need.
The United Nations is a toothless beast that became irrelevant less than a decade of its founding. If it weren’t for a global longing of what it ought to be (but won’t) then it should have been euthanized some time ago. Today it is a country club catering to the worst of humanity.
Extremists have a tendency to oscillate from one polarity to another for they have a mindset drawn to bad ideas regardless of where they reside on any political spectrum. Mussolini for one went from Socialism to Fascism while Peron in Argentina entertained all sorts of bad ideas.
Sometimes I think that the story of history is a tale of recovery from bad ideas implemented.
Every leader given enough time will come crashing down from their pedestal.
The function of bureaucracy in the modern state is to protect the power structure from radical change and circumvent reform. Democracy is the illusion sold to the public that the change is possible.
The best way to violate people’s rights and do so with their consent is to rebrand it under the labels of safety and security. The Covid lockdowns typified this.
The greatest apocalyptic threat isn’t war, famine or disease but the embrace of bad ideas by the population who have been coerced to forgo common sense.
The United Nations is a toothless beast that became irrelevant less than a decade of its founding. If it weren’t for a global longing of what it ought to be (but won’t) then it should have been euthanized some time ago. Today it is a country club catering to the worst of humanity.
Extremists have a tendency to oscillate from one polarity to another for they have a mindset drawn to bad ideas regardless of where they reside on any political spectrum. Mussolini for one went from Socialism to Fascism while Peron in Argentina entertained all sorts of bad ideas.
Sometimes I think that the story of history is a tale of recovery from bad ideas implemented.
Every leader given enough time will come crashing down from their pedestal.
The function of bureaucracy in the modern state is to protect the power structure from radical change and circumvent reform. Democracy is the illusion sold to the public that the change is possible.
The modern world has been built on the notion that materialism is realism. This has had the consequence of imprisoning us in a convenient thought cage.
Media News is designed to elicit emotion. Transmission of Information is at best an afterthought. Nuanced accounting is never desirable.
An act of unapologetic evil is easily identified. This is not the case with those who produce harm through supposed good intention which makes the latter all the more dangerous in the long run.
Once you have accepted the fact that your control is limited then life’s jigsaw starts to make more sense.
You can sell any lie by addressing it in enough pomp. This is the business model for large swathes of organized religion.
Surviving a genocide does not necessarily make that individual a good person in and of itself. Plenty of morally questionable were the victims of awful people.
If hell did it exist it should have a floor reserved for those who take the political opinions of celebrities as gospel.
Anti-Semitism has a unique characteristic to mutate and morph into a different form. In an echo of McLuhan’s message it can readapt to the medium of transmission which is why it has become go to clickbait for any half-baked you-tuber and podcaster out there.
Its really tragic to see how some great science fiction universes with dynamic power structures have been mauled by the poor story and plot lines that were set around them. Star Wars is of course being the most obvious example. Star Trek in its rebirth was not far behind.
There is no more assured way of destroying a superhero character then by granting them too much power and apparent invincibility. This was Superman’s problem from the start. The miracle of the series was how he has been kept going as a cultural icon with such an obvious flaw.
Russian history would be dull if it weren't for the national culture of paranoia - both justifued and unjustified.
The unspoken gift of globalization is that it globalizes problems.....makes them universal tradgedy when they could be local.
A crime against all future generations is the deliberate distortion of the actual truth. It is also a crime that largely goes un punished.
The party wanted us to believe the narrative not the facts.
Faith in humanity is the short road to disappointment.
Juan Peron's Argentinian regime demonstrated with action how fascism and comminism could exist similuateneously under the banner of statism.
No people have a greater admitation for human competency and efficacy of outcome than conspiracy theorists
This would be my top fifteen:
1.The Elegant Universe – Brian Greene – an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of Modern Physics.
2. Hyperspace – Michio Kaku - wonderful take on extra dimensions by a strong narrator.
3. The Ideas of Physics – Ernest Hutten - an oldie but a goldie – discusses key ideas that shaped the discipline.
4. Fearful Symmetry – A. Zee - Looks at the Beauty in Physics.
5. Physics of Immortality – Frank Tipler - a bit over the top but highly entertaining, nevertheless.
6. Theories of Everything – John Barrow - Low key but well written.
7. Feynman Lecture Series – Richard Feynman - A struggle for the layperson, but if you can get through a third of it, your effort will be rewarded.
8. The Trouble with Physics – Lee Smolin - an important critique of the groupthink that has worked its way into particle physics.
9. Physics – Douglas Giancoli - Doesn’t matter what the edition is; its treatment of classical physics is splendid.
10. The Flying circus of Physics – Jearl Walker – Challenging problems that force one to really think deeply about everyday physics.
11. Relativity Simply Explained – Martin Gardiner – Its title says it all.
12. The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe – Steven Weinberg- Still one of the best treatments of the Big Bang.
13. The Constants of Nature – John Barrow – Delves into the details of these definitive constants that so encapsulate our universe.
14. Thirty Years that Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory – Gamow is a great storyteller, and he didn’t disappoint with this useful read.
15. Fifty Physics Ideas – Joanne Baker – Lots of fun and really easy to navigate
