Every time a popular fantasy writer is exposed as a serial abuser, we are told by his or her fans among the literati that you *can* enjoy´s a writer´s work even though the writer itself is problematic.
Really?
Now, apply that principle to Leni Riefenstahl...
LOL!
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| Cylon of Croton demanding a democratic constitution from the Pythagoreans. Weird AI fantasy picture! |
Why should we believe that philosophers have discovered something terribly important? You know, some "lofty ideals"...or was it "ideas"? Or "Ideas", perhaps?
Take Plato, for instance. Is this the same Plato whose "Republic" simply superimposes an idealized Sparta onto the Athenian social structure? The same Plato whose "Laws" were probably based on real Cretan oligarchic city-states? The same Plato who tried to "educate" two consecutive tyrants of Syracuse? The Plato whose teacher Socrates was executed by the democrats of Athens for his pesky "questioning" (a.k.a. sedition)? *That* Plato?
Why should we take anything he ever wrote about the World of Forms seriously? This ilk of the pro-Spartan Athenian oligarchy. Oh, and to those who say that Plato wrote "dialogues about Love"...ahem, no, he wrote dialogues about pederasty. Or rather about how to transmute homo-eroticism into a mystical quest for the Divine. I mean it´s almost as if he wrote "Symposium" in a very definite social context or something...
Are all ideas simply products of their social, political and economic surroundings? Perhaps not, but it takes a genius to transcend the Zeitgeist. And nobody listens to intellectuals anyway. Certainly not if their ideas *aren´t* in tune with the Zeitgeist. So most philosophies will certainly be products of their socio-economic surroundings. I mean, why should we expect otherwise? And if they are not, they will equally certainly remain completely marginal. Even in academe.
And that´s that. But of course the intellectuals (to whom philosophers belong) always overestimate their importance. "The pen is mightier than the sword". No, it isn´t. It literally isn´t. Wanna bet? "The poets make history". Yeah, Friedrich Schiller - rather than Napoleon - made history, right? "Strong minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; weak minds discuss people." LOL. No, strong mind discusses events and then mobilizes those with "average" minds (who discuss people). The truly weak minds are the intellectuals, the airheads, who "discuss ideas" whatever that even means - at a Paris café, perchance?
The real movers and shakers of history are the great statesmen, the captains of industry, the brilliant scientists, the strong generals, the women who scheme in the background...and the heroes of the common people providing muscle. Perhaps the prophets, too? Where are the philosophes, pray tell me?
It´s a conflict as old as sunshine. The people want debt relief, land redistribution, a democratic constitution even. The Pythagoreans want to "discuss ideas" while acting like an overbearing oligarchy. So Cylon stormed their meeting-hall. Cylon did nothing wrong...and it will all happen again.
Please note that Sabine Hossenfelder is a real scientist, not just some random YouTuber. Here is what she says about current theories of cosmogenesis. Or "theories". Buckle up!
>>>The currently most popular theory for matter and anti-matter goes like this. Brace yourself: The universe was created from a quantum fluctuation of a field called the inflaton. There is no evidence for such a quantum fluctuation or such a field.
>>>This inflaton field then decays into a lot of other particles including right handed neutrinos. There is zero evidence that these right handed neutrinos ever existed. And those right-handed neutrinos then further decay into matter and anti-matter. Which then needs the CP-violation.
>>>That’s a lot to swallow, but particle physics being what it is, there are many other “theories” for how matter came to dominate over anti-matter that don’t involve neutrinos. Maybe it was some X-particle that makes up dark matter, though there’s no evidence that it exists.
>>>Or a Higgs triplet, though there’s no evidence that this exists. Or meta-stable WIMPs, or a technibaryon, or hylogenesis which requires three new particles, for none of which there is any evidence. And the kicker is that none of those theories even predicts the amount of matter or antimatter.
So it´s all a lie then? Got it in one! Therefore God. Or the Urantia Bible? OK, I´m joking but you get the drift...
This is apparently Henry Jolicoeur´s most viewed YouTube video, with about 250,000 views so far. I´m not surprised. Henry was allowed to film inside the most sacred cremation ground in Varanasi, India. He reads from both the Zohar and the Mahabharata while the flames consume a number of dead bodies.
The clip *is* very graphic. But hardly the worst on YouTube, where you can find videos of the Aghori sect *literally eating ashes from cremations*...
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| Credit: Alan Light |
David Lynch har gått från nödvändighetens rike till frihetens.
"Makten över Svalbard" is the Swedish title of a Spanish (sic) documentary about Svalbard, the contested archipelago in the Arctic Sea. I´m not familiar with the original Spanish title. Svalbard has a somewhat curious status. Most of the territory is administered by Norway, but it´s simultaneously also an international demilitarized zone. Any nation that signs the so-called Svalbard Agreement can exploit the archipelago´s natural resources.
There are two towns at Svalbard: Longyearbyen and Barentsburg. The former is the seat of the Norwegian governor. The latter is a Russian mining town and seems to be de facto independent of the Norwegian authorities. A large portion of the documentary deals with the simmering conflict between the two towns. Barentsburg looks like an anachronism, with a bust of Lenin, some Soviet flags and even a mural showing a red (!) polar bear. By contrast, Longyearbyen is surprisingly modern. Half of the population are Norwegians, the other half come from 50 different nations.
When Russia attacked Ukraine, most Ukrainian citizens left Barentsburg and moved to Longyearbyen. The Norwegian settlement then imposed its own "sanctions" against Barentsburg. They refuse to do any business with the Russian town, tourism is actively discouraged, and climate scientists stationed in the Norwegian town don´t seem to be allowed to work with Russian scientists. Barentsburg looks pretty deserted, with most shops and diners being almost empty. Western sanctions against Russia makes it difficult for the Russian mining company to obtain new machinery.
Despite the Russian coal mines being barely profitable, Russia nevertheless refuses to evacuate. Svalbard is simply too strategically important and might become even more so in the future, ironically because of global warming. If the ice recedes in the Arctic Sea, new shipping lanes will open up. The Northeast Passage might suddenly become more important than the Suez Canal. Also, new natural resources could be exploited on the islands. Russia has already invited China to finance a mysterious project at Pyramiden, an abandoned mine...
Meanwhile, Longyearbyen are setting themselves up for failure. The last coal mine on the Norwegian side will close in 2025, the town will make a "Green transition" to solar and geothermal energy, et cetera. The mining workers (the only longterm residents) will leave, and most people at Longyearbyen will presumably be transient scientists and tourists. Not sure how this is supposed to counter the Russian influence?
However, there is also an element of hypocrisy in the whole thing. One scientist says that diesel fuel will be used even after 2025, and it turns out that the mine (originally set to close already in 2023) was kept operational for two more years since Germany needed the coal after losing Russian oil and gas due to Western sanctions. Note also the absurdity of importing diesel fuel to islands with *literal coal mines*! Both are fossil fuels, of course.
A fascinating part of the docu is about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility for the storage of plant seeds from all over the world. The seeds are stored in the permafrost. But...the permafrost might start melting due to climate change. What will happen to the unique Arctic genebank then?
All in all, a quite interesting documentary, although I often drew somewhat different conclusions from it than those presumably intended by the producers.
Sure wonder what happens when somebody tells a certain Donald Trump about this valuable piece of real estate in the Arctic...
David Lynch has passed away. Or passed on? So now we´ll never know the real meaning of "Twin Peaks", or who actually killed Laura Palmer...
Zen Buddhist Brad Warner explains what Buddhism means to him, and why he decided to tread the path of Japanese Zen Buddhism specifically. Despite being something of a rant, it´s actually quite interesting!
Note the criticism of Theravada fundamentalism and Tibetan Buddhism (including the rainbow body). Could be controversial in some circles, heh heh.
Main message: Just "sit" and "see" the world as it actually is, forget about all the other stuff.
Weather modification is coming, and it won´t be global. Instead, every nation will try to mitigate the consequences of climate change in their own backyards, without caring what will happen "downwind". At least according to Sabine Hossenfelder in the YouTube video above.
Of course, another possibility is that one great power (say the US) will go completely mustang and try to change the global weather without the consent of the others...and off you go!
Planet Wild just got even wilder.
