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| Credit: Arunraj Foundation |
Fredspristagaren har en historia av, ska vi säga, mindre lyckade ställningstaganden...
Last year, the Norwegian peace prize committee "awarded the prize to Trump without awarding it to Trump" by giving it to Trump´s rather obvious ally Machado. But now, *the very same committee* (I checked) instead gave it (de facto) to the ICC, against which the Trump administration has imposed sanctions. This year´s peace prize will 100% be seen as anti-Israeli, anti-American and anti-Trump.
Translation: the current Norwegian Nobel Committee are spineless bastards. They are probably banking on Trump becoming a lame duck after the midterms. But when the Don looked like the future Master of the World, the brave Norwegian Vikings chose to hand him the goodies. Or at least some crumbs.
Amazingly, it now looks as if Donald Trump is the winner in this ridiculous spat. He, after all, haven´t changed...
An essay on various Native American / American Indian legends about the Little People. And not just from southern Ontario, either! I suppose it *is* interesting that many (all?) cultures around the world have legends of both Little People and Giants. At the very least, we´re dealing with a very powerful psychological archetype here.
But I couldn´t help noticing something else...
Yes, the Iroquoian Confederation (extolled by feminists and romantic leftists) genocided other American Indian nations.
So I came across a Gnostic channel on YouTube. A Gnostic channel I strongly suspect is AI-generated, including its human presenter. Which is very ironic, considering that the message of Gnosticism is to break free from the Archons, the Demiurge and their physical-mechanical reality...
Make of this observation whatsoever ye wish.
Since the United States is often regarded as "the world´s first modern democracy", I asked ChatGPT about it and got the following (very balanced!) response...
Short form: it´s a tie between the United States and France. No surprise there, to be honest. But what about the Netherlands? Then, ChatGPT revised its response and included the Batavian Republic (1795) in its short-list of early modern democracies. It seems we´re back were we started with the "AI"...
It´s still a dumb machine that has to prompted to give you the "right" answers.
What nation could be considered "the first modern democracy"? What nation was the first with universal male suffrage?
There isn’t a single uncontested answer to either question, because it depends a lot on what counts as “modern democracy” and what counts as “universal male suffrage.” But the short version is:
Here is the cleaner breakdown.
Why people say this:
Why this answer is incomplete:
So if someone says “the first modern democracy was the United States,” they usually mean:
the first durable large-scale modern constitutional representative republic that became a major democratic model.
Why:
Why it is complicated:
So France is a strong candidate if by “first modern democracy” you mean:
the first major state to proclaim popular sovereignty and near-universal male political citizenship in a recognizably modern way.
Why:
Why it usually isn’t called the first modern democracy:
Britain is central to the history of parliamentary government, cabinet government, and constitutional monarchy. But it generally was not the first modern democracy because:
Britain is crucial for the history of liberal constitutionalism and parliamentarism, but not usually the best answer to “first modern democracy.”
It depends on the standard:
then the usual answer is the United States.
then revolutionary France is a very strong answer.
then honestly none of the late-18th-century candidates fully qualify, because all excluded major parts of the population.
So my own concise formulation would be:
The United States is often called the first modern democracy in the sense of being the first durable large-scale constitutional representative republic, while revolutionary France is often the strongest claimant if one emphasizes popular sovereignty and universal male suffrage.
This also needs a definition.
The key issue is whether you mean:
During the French Revolution, elections to the National Convention in 1792 are usually treated as one of the first major cases—arguably the first national case in a modern state—of universal male suffrage (at least in principle for adult men, without property qualifications).
That is why France is so important in this story.
Still, if you ask:
a very standard answer is:
France, during the Revolution, especially 1792.
The French Revolution of 1848 established universal male suffrage in a more stable and administratively modern form under the French Second Republic.
That is why many historians treat 1848 France as a landmark:
So if the question is:
then France in 1848 is one of the best answers.
Yes—depending on how strict you are.
There were earlier cases of very broad male political participation in places like:
But these often fail one of the tests:
Some 19th-century Latin American constitutions were, on paper, quite broad in suffrage, and in some cases earlier than parts of Europe in removing property qualifications. But the details are complicated because literacy, dependency, military status, or local political realities often narrowed the electorate.
So they are important in the broader history, but the most standard “first” answer still tends to be France.
If you want the safest historically defensible summary, I’d put it like this:
If you forced me to give the most defensible compact answer, I’d say:
The United States is often regarded as the first modern democracy in the constitutional-republican sense, while France was the pioneering state for universal male suffrage, first in revolutionary form in 1792 and more durably in 1848.
If you want, I can do a country-by-country timeline of suffrage expansion from 1776 to 1920—US, France, Britain, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and the major Latin American republics—so you can see exactly where each one sits on the spectrum of “modern democracy."
An old gem, originally posted on Amazon in 2010. This is evidently how college-educated people sound like in the Netherlands, LOL.
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| Credit: Holger Ellgaard |
So NATO secretary general Mark Rutte recently said that Europe can´t defend itself without the United States. He´s not wrong, of course. But that´s why we don´t trust the current occupant of La Casa Mucha Blanca. John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, come back, all is forgiven!
OK, this was an interesting discovery. The world´s oldest "art" might come from...wait for it...Homo erectus! Sensu stricto, to boot. The carved shells were discovered already during the 1890´s by none other than Eugène Dubois himself. Since they are 540,000 years old, this obviously raises a lot of questions. Or maybe not, since we already knew that the erecti could make stone tools. So why not art, bruh?
540,000-Year-Old Shell Carvings May Be Human Ancestor´s Oldest Art
So I had a little chat with ChatGPT about the Protestant Reformation, et cetera.
This is an excellent question because it cuts against the popular oversimplification that “Protestantism = bourgeois / capitalism, Catholicism = feudal reaction.” That model is at best partial and often misleading.
In reality, many merchants, bankers, and guilds had strong reasons to remain Catholic, and in some cases actively opposed Protestant reform. The reasons were structural, institutional, and cultural — not simply theological.
I’ll organize this into seven major factors, then give concrete examples.
Urban craft guilds in late medieval Europe were:
Economically sophisticated
Politically powerful
Deeply embedded in civic religion
Guilds were often:
Organized around patron saints
Linked to parish churches
Responsible for altars, festivals, hospitals, and poor relief
Catholicism was not “external” to guild life — it was the moral glue of corporate identity.
Protestant reforms often:
Abolished saints’ cults
Suppressed processions
Dissolved confraternities
For many guilds, this meant:
Loss of identity, cohesion, and legitimacy.
Medieval and early modern trade relied heavily on:
Reputation
Oaths
Shared moral frameworks
Catholicism offered:
Confession
Restitution
Penance
A flexible doctrine on interest (via contracts, annuities, bills of exchange)
This allowed:
Complex finance to function within a moral framework
Early Protestantism:
Abolished confession
Moralized economic success or failure
Offered fewer ritual mechanisms for repairing trust
For conservative merchants:
Catholicism was a known moral technology, Protestantism an untested one.
Major Catholic banking houses (e.g., Fuggers, Medicis) were deeply entangled with:
Papal taxation
Indulgence finance
Ecclesiastical loans
Imperial politics
Supporting Catholicism protected:
Existing contracts
Monopolies
Political leverage
Switching sides was:
Financially risky, not spiritually liberating.
Many Protestant movements (especially Calvinist-influenced ones) favored:
Individual vocation
Market discipline
Moral surveillance by elders
Guilds depended on:
Price controls
Apprenticeship regulation
Mutual aid
Limits on competition
Calvinist reform often:
Undermined guild autonomy
Supported freer labor markets
Delegitimized festive and corporate practices
So guilds often sided with Catholicism or Lutheranism (which was less hostile to guild structures).
In many cities:
Catholicism was the religion of civic order
Protestantism meant unrest, iconoclasm, or imperial intervention
Merchants tend to prefer:
Predictable authority over ideological purity.
In places like:
Southern Germany
Northern Italy
The Low Countries (initially)
Remaining Catholic often meant:
Avoiding confiscation
Preserving trade routes
Maintaining imperial favor
Late medieval Catholicism was not static.
It allowed:
Local devotional variation
Negotiated moral compromise
Layered identities (Christian, guildsman, citizen)
Protestantism demanded:
Doctrinal clarity
Behavioral discipline
Visible moral conformity
Some merchants found Catholicism:
More socially flexible and less intrusive.
This is speculative but widely noted:
Catholicism tolerates ambiguity and mediation
Protestantism emphasizes inward certainty and scrutiny
Some urban elites:
Preferred mediated authority
Distrusted zeal
Valued ritual continuity
This mattered, especially in mixed-confession cities.
Major financiers of the papacy and Habsburgs
Strongly Catholic
Actively opposed Luther
Major commercial city
Remained Catholic
Guilds and merchants resisted Protestantization
Merchants split; many Catholics feared Calvinist instability
Catholic loyalty persisted longer than expected
Many merchants, bankers, and craft guilds supported Catholicism during the Reformation because it protected corporate identity, stabilized credit and trust, preserved regulatory guild structures, aligned with existing financial networks, and offered a flexible moral economy—while early Protestantism often threatened social cohesion, political stability, and established economic practices.
If you want, we can next:
Contrast Jesuit economic ethics vs Calvinist discipline
Examine why Lutheranism proved more guild-friendly than Calvinism
Or trace how Catholic merchant cultures survived and adapted after Trent
Your sequence of questions has been remarkably coherent — you’re circling a single deep issue: how ritual, economy, and authority interlock across history.
HAH HAH HAH. I doubt very much this is Mongolian. The account is registered in the Netherlands! Probably something similar to Dr Bombay, if anyone remembers him? (A fake "Indian" pop star who was really Swedish-Danish.) But OK, the reindeer were hilarious!
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| - Nu har ni inte så roligt längre, va? |
Dåliga nyheter? Från vår ofrivilliga grannblogg.
Will the ICC withdraw its arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu? Or against Hamas, for that matter?
What the fuck...
Observera det särpräglade eko-fascistiska inslaget. Vad i allsin dar är detta för något? En pro-rysk unabombare? Förresten oklart varför han ville attackera ESC. För att han inte gillar HBT-personer?
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| Credit: LastDodo (?) |
Alla har hört talas om smurfar, antar jag, men hur många känner till snixar?
A new theory in quantum physics does away with all the "scientific" quantum woo about collapsing wave functions and whatever. The prize? There is no free will. Anywhere in the universe. Indeed, even the measurements which supposedly prove the collapse of the wave function were determined at the Big Bang! LOL. But apparently, free will doesn´t exist in the classical interpretation either. So there´s that.
Sabine´s main problem with the new theory (proposed by a Nobel Prize winner but largely ignored by his quantum-determined colleagues) is that it proposes strange new "cellular automata" as the ontological entities underlying all of Reality. Apparently, the automata don´t fit very well with the more reasonable portions of Einstein´s theories. Interestingly, however, the existence of the "automata" can be falsified.
According to Hooft, we will never be able to build quantum computers above a certain threshold of efficiency. So presumbly a young tech geek could disprove this TOE by engineering a computer that breaks the cellular-automata-threshold.
Personally, I wonder about the free will thing. Is it really true that all common forms of materialism denies free will? If so, believers in Free Spirit just got an open goal...
A somewhat unusual take on Near Death Experiences c/o Bernardo Kastrup (the Idealist philosopher). He seems to be suggesting two things.
First, that patients during NDEs acquire a kind of telepathy, which makes it possible for them to "read" other people´s minds. Second, that there is a kind of collective "memory" of the entire world - the "phantom world" of the title. When patients near death are having out-of-body experiences and (for instance) see the hospital room while their soul is "floating" in the air, they are really tapping into this collective memory bank, rather than experiencing the real world.
Kastrup finds it mystifying that we need physical sense-organs (such as eyes), which has taken millions of years of evolution to develop, if our immortal souls can see just as well without them! However, he doesn´t deny the objective reality of NDEs either, connecting it to his Idealist-derived conception that consciousness at death expands rather than dies. And hence can "see" without eyes. But what it sees is the Phantom World rather than the actual material world it left behind. The concept seems to be inspired by the Akashic Chronicle from occultist lore.
Pondering...
Idealist philosopher Bernardo Kastrup actually believes in UFOs and ultra-terrestrials. In his scenario, however, the "ultra"-terrestrials are remnants of a terrestrial civilization, albeit one very different from humans. Think fairies, but of a somewhat more "physical" kind. (Compare my review of Staffan Andersson´s book "Danaiderna".)
However, there is also another phenomenon altogether, which seems to be spiritual in nature and is connected to alien abductions, apparitions, and so on. Kastrup references Jacques Vallée but not (as far as I can see) John Keel. Too controversial?
While interesting, I admit that I´m currently quite skeptical of these kinds of speculations. Surely, it´s more reasonable to think that the entire UAP spectacle is just disinformation to cover up very human-terrestrial "black technology"...
UAPs and non-human intelligence
