![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Quote of the day
May. 17th, 2025 01:38 pm
Regular reminder that Donald Trump’s core competency is not dealmaking with powerful counter-parties. It is duping gullible victims.
-- David Frum.
https://x.com/davidfrum/status/845314898276106240
(no subject)
May. 11th, 2025 08:07 pm“Konrad Heiden’s exposé A History of National Socialism (Zurich, 1934). To wit: “Hitler, unable to control himself, simply does not know what he promises; his promises cannot be considered the promises of a solid partner. He breaks his promises as soon as it is in his interest to do so, and all the while continues to view himself as an honest person.”
--- Kotkin, Stephen. “[Stalin 02] • Waiting for Hitler, 1928–1941.”
Sounds like trump.
Quote of the Day
Apr. 18th, 2025 01:01 pm
When Trump blamed Ukraine for the Russian invasion, many people couldn’t understand how he could hold such a preposterous view. Some assumed he’d been hoodwinked by Russian propaganda. But there is a simpler explanation. According to the Trumpian worldview, considerations of justice, morality and international law are irrelevant, and the only thing that matters in international relations is power. Since Ukraine is weaker than Russia, it should have surrendered. In the Trumpian vision, peace means surrender, and since Ukraine refused to surrender, the war is its fault.
--- Yuval Harari.
https://www.ft.com/content/06cc7b0f-3e32-4164-b096-ff92a1532236
Apropos of nothing
Mar. 4th, 2025 08:52 pmЧитаю уже второй том биографии Сталина, написанной проф. Коткиным. Заодно, посмотрел его "дуэт" с Славоем Жижеком.
Запишу несколько впечатлений:
1. Из двух книг Коткина я узнал об истории России/СССР больше, чем за годы учебы в советской школe.
2. Сталин построил диктатуру в диктатуре, т.е. диктаторский режим внутри партии, которая была инструментом диктатуры в СССР.
3. В окружении Сталина не было людей, которые бы устроили коллективизацию ценой смерти миллионов крестьян и голода среди десятков миллионов.
4. Личность диктатора играет огромную роль, и его убийство может быть вариантом ее серьезного смягчения, т.е. спасением миллионов жизней.
Here, Zizek gives his recommendations on best fictional depictions of the Soviet System (Shalamov & Platonov). Funny, how he calls Akhmatova "an endlessly pretentious bitch."
upd. at the 1:26:27 mark Zizek makes a deep point that is quite relevant in today's America. First, he notes that modern communists/authoritarians, e.g. in China and Vietnam, are much more efficient capitalist managers than democracies. Then, he adds, "the problem is that for me global capitalism is approaching a stage where it less and less needs democracy."
Few years ago, Peter Thiel remarked that freedom wss incompatible with democracy; for him freedom meant its libertarian version for billionaires. He felt that democratic institutions were constraining his freedom and he set out to destroy them, using Vance, Trump, Musk, etc.
Запишу несколько впечатлений:
1. Из двух книг Коткина я узнал об истории России/СССР больше, чем за годы учебы в советской школe.
2. Сталин построил диктатуру в диктатуре, т.е. диктаторский режим внутри партии, которая была инструментом диктатуры в СССР.
3. В окружении Сталина не было людей, которые бы устроили коллективизацию ценой смерти миллионов крестьян и голода среди десятков миллионов.
4. Личность диктатора играет огромную роль, и его убийство может быть вариантом ее серьезного смягчения, т.е. спасением миллионов жизней.
Here, Zizek gives his recommendations on best fictional depictions of the Soviet System (Shalamov & Platonov). Funny, how he calls Akhmatova "an endlessly pretentious bitch."
upd. at the 1:26:27 mark Zizek makes a deep point that is quite relevant in today's America. First, he notes that modern communists/authoritarians, e.g. in China and Vietnam, are much more efficient capitalist managers than democracies. Then, he adds, "the problem is that for me global capitalism is approaching a stage where it less and less needs democracy."
Few years ago, Peter Thiel remarked that freedom wss incompatible with democracy; for him freedom meant its libertarian version for billionaires. He felt that democratic institutions were constraining his freedom and he set out to destroy them, using Vance, Trump, Musk, etc.
(no subject)
Sep. 3rd, 2024 11:44 pmВопрос: Что для вас сегодня Россия?
Ответ[Сергей Гуриев]: Гитлеровская Германия с ядерным оружием.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIuckXYrYIM
Ответ[Сергей Гуриев]: Гитлеровская Германия с ядерным оружием.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIuckXYrYIM
(no subject)
Aug. 31st, 2024 10:30 pm...space-time cannot in reality be
considered as a self-subsistent entity. It is an abstraction, and its
explanation requires reference to that from which it has been extracted.
Space-time is the specification of certain general characters of events
and of their mutual ordering. This recurrence to concrete fact brings me
back to the eighteenth century, and indeed to Francis Bacon in the
seventeenth century.
...
in order to
understand the difficulties of modern scientific thought and also its
reactions on the modern world, we should have in our minds some
conception of a wider field of abstraction, a more concrete analysis,
which shall stand nearer to the complete concreteness of our intuitive
experience.
whitehead. Science..., 1925
considered as a self-subsistent entity. It is an abstraction, and its
explanation requires reference to that from which it has been extracted.
Space-time is the specification of certain general characters of events
and of their mutual ordering. This recurrence to concrete fact brings me
back to the eighteenth century, and indeed to Francis Bacon in the
seventeenth century.
...
in order to
understand the difficulties of modern scientific thought and also its
reactions on the modern world, we should have in our minds some
conception of a wider field of abstraction, a more concrete analysis,
which shall stand nearer to the complete concreteness of our intuitive
experience.
whitehead. Science..., 1925
(no subject)
Jan. 3rd, 2024 07:18 pmF: CxC --> C
F - lived happily ever after.
C:
All narratives are Kan extensions ( in this particular case it's a Kan lift problem).
For example, when we consider today's Russian history textbooks*, the ultimate "happily ever after" narrative F:CxC -> C would be the strengthening of a centralized authoritarian state ("сплочение народа").
*https://langobard.livejournal.com/9843723.html
>>
Шорт-лист того, чем гражданин России должен гордиться из истории страны с точки зрения авторов нового вузовского курса "Основы российской государственности".
Цитирую по студенческому конспекту.
1. Освобождение от монголо-татарского ига.
2. Победа над Наполеоном.
3. Победа в Великой Отечественной.
4. Освоение космоса.
5. Восстановление после распада СССР.
F - lived happily ever after.
C:
D --> J
\ ^
\ |
T
All narratives are Kan extensions ( in this particular case it's a Kan lift problem).
For example, when we consider today's Russian history textbooks*, the ultimate "happily ever after" narrative F:CxC -> C would be the strengthening of a centralized authoritarian state ("сплочение народа").
*https://langobard.livejournal.com/9843723.html
>>
Шорт-лист того, чем гражданин России должен гордиться из истории страны с точки зрения авторов нового вузовского курса "Основы российской государственности".
Цитирую по студенческому конспекту.
1. Освобождение от монголо-татарского ига.
2. Победа над Наполеоном.
3. Победа в Великой Отечественной.
4. Освоение космоса.
5. Восстановление после распада СССР.
(no subject)
Oct. 14th, 2023 12:09 pm«Мифы составляют, говоря буквально, наиболее драгоценное сокровище племени. Они относятся к самой сердцевине того, что племя почитает как святыню. Наиболее важные мифы известны лишь старикам, которые ретиво оберегают их тайну... Старые хранители этих тайных знаний сидят в селении, немы, как сфин- ксы, и решают, в какой мере они могут, не навлекая опасности, доверить знания предков молодому поколению и в какой именно момент эта передача тайн может оказаться наиболее плодотворной...» (Леви-Брюль 262). Мифы — не только составные части жизни, они — части каждого человека в отдельности. Отнять у него рассказ — эти значит отнять у него жизнь.
...
Лишившись мифов, племя было бы не в состоянии удержать свое существование.
...начало этого процесса, процесса перерождения мифа в сказку, сказывается в откреплении сюжета и акта рассказывания от ритуала. ^Момент этого открепления от обряда есть начало истории сказки, тогда как ее синкретизм с обрядом представляет собой ее доисторию.
...
Связь этих обрядов с мифами и связь их обоих со сказкой еще совершенно не исследована.
...
- Из всего сказанного видно, что уже очень рано начинается «профанация» священного сюжета (под «профанацией» понимаем превращение священного рассказа в профанный, т. е. не духовный, не эсотеричёский, а художественный). Это и есть момент рождения собственно сказки. Но отделить, где кончается священный рассказ и начинается сказка, — невозможно.
-- В. Пропп. Исторические корни волшебной сказки.
Rituals recreate myths and give rise to stories, which in turn lead to literature and, in the case of Ancient Greece, result in philosophy. Alternatively or, most likely coincidently, in Ancient Egypt and Babylon, myth and rituals give rise to astrology and mathematics.
Quote of the Day
Sep. 30th, 2023 10:44 pmСказка вообще не знает сострадания. Если герой отпускает животное, то он делает это не из сострадания, а на некоторых договорных началах.
...
Можно показать, что рыба или другие животные, пощаженные, а не съеденные Иваном, не что иное, как животные-предки, животные, которых нельзя есть и которые потому и помогают, что они тотемные предки.
-- В. Пропп. Исторические корни волшебной сказки.
(no subject)
Jun. 10th, 2023 11:09 pmWhen you put your money in the bank you (your money) provide(s) a service to the bank, not the other way around like the vast majority of people tend to think.
Similarly, investors serve startups, which explains why hype cycle is similar to Turchin's elite-peasants exploitation pattern.
Similarly, investors serve startups, which explains why hype cycle is similar to Turchin's elite-peasants exploitation pattern.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/playing-the-victim
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15226.doc.htm
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15226.doc.htm
...the term "russophobia," which we are discussing today, has been exploited during this war as a form of imperial propaganda in which the aggressor claims to be the victim. It has served this last year as a justification for Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
(no subject)
Nov. 30th, 2022 09:57 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTVSMJhDoOQ
Technology toolkit re-use is an extension problem. E.g. Julius Cesar's guide for building army camps using common agricultural approaches of the time. The use of steam engine manufacturing toolkit for railroads, steam ships, etc.
Technology choice or development is a lifting problem. E.g. discovery/choice of the right data set for a desired ML application (see IBM's recent failure vs TikTok's success).
In the LRRH narrative we see the failure of an existing solution to the extension problem, i.e. the werwolf destroys the girl's ability to deliver the medicine to her grandma.
(no subject)
Nov. 21st, 2022 09:38 pmNow I can see that Chomsky got mentally stuck in the Vietnam War era forever. He lives in the groundhog day without the benefit of learning; there's no hope that he and his followers will ever escape the everyday 6am alarm.
(no subject)
Oct. 18th, 2022 06:43 pm...there was no authentic freedom of speech under Caesar’s domination of Rome. The lack of such libertas inevitably raises suspicions that political speech cannot be taken as reflecting a speaker’s intentions, whether these doubts are founded or not. The process of interpreting a speaker’s intentions is unavoidably complicated, and not a simple matter of divining his voluntas from a text. We become suspicious readers dealing with ambiguities that exist on two registers: the intentions behind a particular orator’s words, and how the enigmatic Caesar might have interpreted those words.
John Dugan. Cicero and the Politics of Ambiguity: Interpreting the Pro Marcello, 2013.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641895.003.0013
(no subject)
Sep. 28th, 2022 12:43 pm...I have a cause to advocate in which eloquence can hardly fail any one; for I have to speak of the eminent and extraordinary virtue of Cnæus Pompey; and it is harder for me to find out how to end a discourse on such a subject, than how to begin one. So that what I have to seek for is not so much a variety of arguments, as moderation in employing them.
--- Cicero, Orations, Vol 2. In defense of the proposed Manilian Law.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/yonge-orations-vol-2
