The world generally has been relatively stable since WW2 because of US hegemony which slid into corporate hegemony. Not all equilibrium points are equal.
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Yeah I think is generally true. I didnât mean to suggest that a switch flipped at 1900, Iâm just using the century turns as convenient markers (as one does).
One could also argue if the cold war was stable or unstable. In a sense the two superpowers held each other at bay. In another sense every day was a nonzero chance of nuclear annihilation!
You mean feudal times? It was pretty stable for most people. Aristocrats fought over who owned most of the people. The lives of people were about as stable as the lives of cows. Pretty stable. Levée en masse was distruptive.
It still is. Thatâs obvious, but I think it is astounding how nonzero the risk still is and how almost everyoneâs head is completely in the sand.
Some of it, yes. Thereâs been a big increase in residential work since everybody is stuck at home. But that outfit mainly supplies large, commercial contractors, and commercial construction slowed way down this summer.
Burning villages and livestock was the primary way the aristocrats engaged in warfare in feudal times.
Scanning the wiki for complex systems, they are in general open systems. They dissipate energy so that needs to come from outside at a sufficient rate. Characteristically, theyâre hard to model. More so for social systems? I mean what are the state variables? How do you write down a set of differential equations? And if you can do that, do the solutions make sense? I donât know. It nags at me that social systems are not physical systems.
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A report into Australia Special Forces soldiers killing and mistreating prisoners in Afghanistan has just been released. The report was a four-year effort and came after Federal Police raided the offices of the national broadcaster after it leaked classified information related to the wrongdoing.
Australia was warned about a week ago that the allegations would be shocking, and:
âThe Inquiry also found that there is credible information that some of the members of the Special Operations Taskforce carried âthrowdownsâ foreign weapons or equipment, typically though not invariably easily concealable such as pistols, small hand held radios (ICOMs), weapon magazines and grenades - to be placed with the bodies of âenemy killed in actionâ for the purposes of site exploitation photography, in order to portray that the person killed had been carrying the weapon or other military equipment when engaged and was a legitimate target,ââ the report states.
âIn different Special Operations Task Group rotations the Inquiry has found that there is credible information that junior soldiers were required by their patrol commanders to shoot a prisoner in order to achieve the soldiers first kill, in a report known as âbloodingâ,ââ the report states.
The Afghanis unlawfully killed would be âunder controlâ and a prisoner of the Australian soldiers and not at risk of flight.
âTypically, the patrol commander would take a person under control and the junior member, would then be directed to kill the person under control.
âThrowdowns would be placed with the body and a cover story created. This was reinforced with a code of silence.â
The information about âthrowdownsâ was known, after photos came to light showing the same weapon posed next to multiple âinsurgentsâ. This information about killing prisoners as a rite of passage is new.
The government intends to appoint a Special Prosecutor for criminal prosecution of the soldiers involved. Those accused include the recipient of a Victoria Cross, the local equivalent of a Congressional Medal of Honor.
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Every bad thing you hear almost certainly has always happened in every war that lasted more than a week and every military occupation ever and always will. Itâs baked in. Later people are told about a My Lai or two, but itâs more like
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Aussie war crimes = American cops sop
Itâs getting to be that time of year when people wonder if itâs OK to like The Fairy Tale of New York because of some of the lyrics. Some parts of the BBC have mandated a censored version, some havenât.
Laurence Fox is a racist who you might know from the âTV showâ Lewis. The Pogues are The Pogues.
https://twitter.com/poguesofficial/status/1329394157354446850
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Iâm a huge Pogues fan, but am a little surprised that song hasnât been targeted, at least a little, for its homophobic slur.
It has been a source of mild controversy for a while, the BBC did their edit in 2007 and a shitty cover from 2000 used different lyrics.
Not sure of its reputation in the wider world but Iâd guess it would have won âBest Ever Christmas Songâ in the UK for most of the last 20 years or so. Maybe itâs not quite that visible in the rest of the world?
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Oh itâs easily best ever Xmas song and is hugely famous among Gen X here.
https://mobile.twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1329397594783690753
https://mobile.twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1329399576449703937
https://mobile.twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1329400771654332416
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https://twitter.com/writtenbyhanna/status/1329072315691192321?s=21
Was Obama an incel in college? You decide!
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Obama friendzoned. Sad!
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I really want to construct some elaborate Obama combined with Jorah Mormont meme but I really need to get some work done.
Fucking entropy, man.
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