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2025

 Canada, Cats, Cybernetics, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 082025
 

We are barely a week into the new year, 2025. Yet here are some news items that would have sounded like outlandish B-movie nonsense just a few years ago.

  • The incoming president-elect of the United States expressed his interest in annexing Greenland, and did not rule out the use of force against a NATO ally;
  • The incoming president-elect of the United States expressed his interest in reoccupying the Panama Canal zone and did not rule out the use of force;
  • The incoming president-elect mused about turning Canada into the 51st state and did not rule out the use of “economic force” to accomplish this;
  • Ukraine’s offensive in Russia’s Kursk region led to a large number of casualties on the Russian side, including thousands of North Korean troops;
  • North Korea successfully tested a new intermediate-range missile;
  • An article in Foreign Affairs magazine argues that South Korea should acquire nuclear capability for deterrence;
  • After several similar incidents involving Russian ships in the Baltic Sea, now a Chinese vessel damaged undersea cables connecting Taiwan;
  • A far-right politician in EU member state Austria is set to form the next government of the country;
  • Alien ship set to land in New York’s Central Park turns back at the last minute – “Too dangerous, no intelligent life,” they message their home planet.

OK, I threw in the last one. But the rest? In 2025? Aren’t they just as outlandish as the bit about aliens? Aren’t we, and by that I mean the whole human race, supposed to be, you know, a tad more intelligent?

Guess not. Can’t wait for the world to be taken over by AI-assisted cats.

 Posted by at 4:47 am

Unsolicited theories

 Personal, Science  No Responses »
Jan 072025
 

I just made up my mind.

I’ll never again respond to unsolicited theories, unsolicited requests to comment, not even from Nobel-prize winners.

Because in the end, unless I enthusiastically agree with their ideas, no matter how silly, how outlandish, it always ends badly.

It doesn’t matter how polite I am, how carefully I choose my words, how much I try my darnedest to steer them in the right direction. And it makes no difference if the person in question is just, say, a taxi driver somewhere in Asia or an accomplished scientist in Europe.

If you have a scientific idea, do the right thing: write it up, send it to a journal, publish it. I am officially not interested anymore. Sorry, but I’ve been insulted one too many times and finally, my fuse got blown. I have better things to do than nursing your hurt feelings because the science community is not treating you seriously.

In fact, chances are that in the future, I’ll blacklist all such e-mail addresses right away. My sanity is more important than your feelings.

 Posted by at 1:50 am

The economy vs. the economy

 Canada, Economy, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 042025
 

I don’t much watch news channels anymore, but earlier today, I caught a fragment of a report arguing that voters are not rejecting the left because of the economy; that the shift to the right is occurring at a time when the economy is doing fairly well, and that there was no similar shift to the right during the last major economic crisis.

A few hours later (or maybe less) on the same channel I caught a fragment of a report about CEO pay here in Canada: for the top 100 (?) companies, it is now well over 200 times the average worker’s salary. The report pointed out that barely more than a decade ago, it was “only” a little over 100 times the average worker’s salary.

So perhaps, just perhaps, it’s the economy after all?

One of the better attempts by Midjourney

I mean, maybe the economy is doing great insofar as macroeconomic indicators are concerned. But we don’t live off macroeconomic indicators. We do not pay with macroeconomic indicators for groceries at Loblaws, nor do banks accept macroeconomic indicators in lieu of a mortgage payment. And it doesn’t matter if the economy is doing great overall, if rising inequality means the middle class is left behind.

And this is how we end up in dangerous times, in ways already well understood by Aristotle some 2600 years ago. The unhappiness is palpable. This drives people to political extremism. Yet all too often, those with the power to do something about it just congratulate themselves on an economy doing great, and express incomprehension when confronted with dissatisfied voters. Must be bad messaging, they say. Perhaps foreign interference. Stupid people falling for populism.

All of the above exists of course. But the root cause, I think, is much simpler: For most voters, the economy (the economy that they experience paycheck-to-paycheck, the economy they experience at the grocery store checkout counter, at the bank when trying to get a mortgage) is not doing great. In fact, it is doing terribly. And they are getting really pissed off about it. Which of course means fertile ground for political populism.

 Posted by at 2:58 am

An unsettling dream

 Personal  No Responses »
Dec 252024
 

Last night, I had a disturbing dream.

I do not usually recall my dreams. When I wake up in the morning, almost always I wake up with a clean state of mind, focused on the things I am planning to do in the coming day. It is very rare that I wake up even with fragmentary memories of whatever I was dreaming while asleep.

This was one of those days. I was unable to recall the details, but I remembered that in my dream, I worked at some retail establishment. I ended up working there as a favor to someone, being paid under minimum wage. I wasn’t there for the money.

Long story short, somehow the establishment became Trump’s property. Yes, that Trump. And Trump visited the place. In my dream, I’ve met Trump previously. Still, being the polite chap that I am, I greeted him with a “good morning, Mr. President”. He looked at me and told me, right there in front of his entourage, that no, we’ve known each other long enough, just because he got re-elected, I should not stop addressing him by his first name.

I was beaming with pride. I was speechless. So much so that only after he left the business did I realize that I forgot to ask the one question that I’ve been meaning to ask: Now that I work for him, as opposed to doing a favor to a friend, can I at least get paid at the official minimum wage?

Is it really this easy to manipulate us? Through our pride, our self-esteem, our vanity? Was my dream a cautionary tale, reminding me that no, however smart I think I am, I am not immune to these things?

 Posted by at 1:21 am

Peace on Earth…

 Personal  No Responses »
Dec 242024
 

Here’s my Christmas wish for all good people, all the good people on the good Earth: peace.

And no, not the peace of the graveyard. Not the peace of the conqueror or tyrant, the peace of oppression, imposed peace.

No… a just peace.

 Posted by at 8:29 pm

Merry Christmas!

 Cybernetics, Personal  No Responses »
Dec 222024
 

So I asked Claude to do something for me for Christmas. Claude happily obliged.

Can you generate for me SVG code that draws a nice Christmas tree?

Certainly! I'll create an SVG code that draws a simple but nice Christmas tree for you. Here's the SVG code:


<svg width="300" height="400" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <!-- Tree trunk -->
  <rect x="140" y="350" width="20" height="50" fill="#8B4513"/>
  
  <!-- Tree layers -->
  <polygon points="150,50 50,350 250,350" fill="#228B22"/>
  <polygon points="150,100 70,300 230,300" fill="#32CD32"/>
  <polygon points="150,150 90,250 210,250" fill="#3CB371"/>
  
  <!-- Ornaments -->
  <circle cx="120" cy="200" r="10" fill="red"/>
  <circle cx="180" cy="220" r="10" fill="gold"/>
  <circle cx="150" cy="280" r="10" fill="blue"/>
  <circle cx="100" cy="320" r="10" fill="purple"/>
  <circle cx="200" cy="300" r="10" fill="silver"/>
  
  <!-- Star on top -->
  <polygon points="150,40 140,60 160,60" fill="yellow" stroke="orange" stroke-width="2"/>
</svg>

This SVG code creates a Christmas tree with the following elements:

  1. A brown trunk
  2. Three layers of green triangles for the tree's foliage
  3. Colorful ornaments (circles) in red, gold, blue, purple, and silver
  4. A yellow star on top

You can copy this code and save it as a .svg file, then open it in a web browser or an SVG-compatible image viewer to see the result. You can also embed it directly in an HTML file if you want to display it on a webpage.

The tree is simple but recognizable, with a classic triangular shape and festive decorations. Feel free to adjust the colors, sizes, or positions of the elements to customize the tree to your liking!

Can you generate for me a Lilypond tune for the piano, for two hands, to accompany this nice Christmas tree?

Certainly! I'll create a simple, festive piano tune using Lilypond that could accompany a Christmas tree. This tune will be in 3/4 time, reminiscent of a waltz, with a cheerful melody in the right hand and a simple accompaniment in the left hand.

Here's the Lilypond code for a short Christmas-themed piano piece:

\version "2.22.1"

\header {
  title = "Christmas Tree Waltz"
  composer = "AI Composer"
}

upper = \relative c'' {
  \clef treble
  \key c \major
  \time 3/4

  c4 e g | a2 g4 | f4 a c | g2. |
  e4 g c | b2 a4 | g4 f e | d2. |
  c4 e g | a2 g4 | f4 a c | e2. |
  d4 b g | c2 b4 | c2. ~ | c2. |
}

lower = \relative c' {
  \clef bass
  \key c \major
  \time 3/4

  c,4 <e g> <e g> | f,4 <f' a> <f a> | f,4 <f' a> <f a> | g,4 <f' g> <f g> |
  c4 <e g> <e g> | g,4 <f' g> <f g> | c4 <e g> <e g> | g,4 <f' g> <f g> |
  c4 <e g> <e g> | f,4 <f' a> <f a> | f,4 <f' a> <f a> | c4 <e g> <e g> |
  g,4 <f' g> <f g> | c4 <e g> <e g> | c4 <e g> <e g> | c2. |
}

\score {
  \new PianoStaff <<
    \new Staff = "upper" \upper
    \new Staff = "lower" \lower
  >>
  \layout { }
  \midi { \tempo 4 = 120 }
}
Lilypond Score

This Lilypond code creates a simple, waltz-like tune that could be played while admiring a Christmas tree. Here's a brief explanation of the piece:

  1. It's in the key of C major, which is simple and cheerful.
  2. The time signature is 3/4, giving it a gentle, swaying feel.
  3. The right hand (upper staff) plays a melody that moves mostly stepwise with some small leaps, reminiscent of decorating a tree or hanging ornaments.
  4. The left hand (lower staff) provides a simple waltz-like accompaniment, with a bass note followed by two chords in each measure.
  5. The piece is 16 measures long, which is enough to create a festive atmosphere without being too complex.

To use this code:

  1. Copy it into a text file and save it with a .ly extension (e.g., "christmas_tree_waltz.ly").
  2. Process it with Lilypond to generate sheet music (PDF) and a MIDI file.
  3. You can play the MIDI file to hear how it sounds, or read the sheet music to play it on a piano.

This tune should provide a nice, festive accompaniment to your Christmas tree SVG!

 Posted by at 12:17 am

Sapience, sentience and large language models

 Cybernetics  3 Responses »
Dec 212024
 

I have been debating with myself whether or not I should try to publish these thoughts in a formal journal but I think it’s wisest not to do so. After all, I am not an expert: I “dabbled” in machine learning but I never built a language model, and cognitive science is something that I know precious little about.

Still, I think my thoughts are valuable, especially considering how often I read thoughts from others who are trying to figure out what to make of GPT, Claude, or any of the other sophisticated models.

I would like to begin with two working definitions.

I call an entity sentient if it has the ability to form a real-time internal model of its environment with itself in it, and use this model to plan its actions. Under this definition, humans are obviously sentient. So are cats, and so are self-driving automobiles.

I call an entity sapient if it has the ability to reason about its own capabilities and communicate its reasoning to others. By writing this very sentence, I am demonstrating my own sapience. Cats are obviously not sapient, nor are self-driving automobiles. So humans are unique (as far as we know): we are both sapient and sentient.

But then come LLMs. LLMs do not have an internal model of their environment. They do not model themselves in the context of that environment. They do not plan their actions. They just generate text in response to input text. There’s no sentience there.

Yet, under my definition LLMs are clearly sapient. They have the ability to describe their own capabilities, reason about those capabilities, and communicate their reasoning to others. In fact, arguably they are more sapient than many human beings I know!

This then raises an interesting question. What does it take for an intelligence to be “general purpose”, that is, capable of acting freely, settings its own goals, pursuing these goals with purpose, learning from the experience? Is it sufficient to have both sapience and sentience? Could we just install a language model as a software upgrade to a self-driving car and call it mission accomplished?

Not quite. There are two more elements that are present in cats and humans, but not in self-driving cars or language models, at least not at the level of sophistication that we need.

First, short-term memory. Language models have none. How come, you wonder? They clearly “remember” earlier parts of a conversation, don’t they? Well… not exactly. Though not readily evident when you converse with one, what actually happens is that every turn in the conversation starts with a blank slate. And at every turn, the language model receives a copy of the entire conversation up to that point. This creates the illusion of memory: the model “remembers” what was said earlier, because its most recent instance received that full transcript along with your last question. This method works for brief conversations, but for a general-purpose intelligence, clearly something more sophisticated might be needed. (As an interim solution, to allow for conversations of unlimited length without completely losing context, I set up my own front-end solution to Claude and GPT so that when the transcript gets too long, it asks the LLM itself to replace it with a summary.)

Second, the ability to learn. That “P” in GPT stands for pretrained. Language models today are static models, pretrained by their respective publishers. For a general-purpose intelligence, it’d be important to implement some form of continuous learning capability.

So there you have it. Integration of “sentience” (a real-time internal model of the environment with oneself in it) and “sapience” (the ability to reason and communicate about one’s own capabilities) along with continuous learning and short-term memory. I think that once these features are fully integrated into a coherent whole, we will witness the birth of a true artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Of course we might also wish to endow that entity with agency: the ability to act on its own, as opposed to merely responding to user requests; the ability to continuously experience the world through senses (visual, auditory, etc.); not to mention physical agency, the ability to move around, and manipulate things in, physical reality. (On a side note, what if our AGI is a non-player character, NPC, in a virtual world? What would be the ethical implications?)

Reading what I just wrote so far also reminds me why it is wiser not to seek formal publication. For all I know, many of these thoughts were expressed elsewhere already. I know far too little about the current state-of-the-art of research in these directions and the relevant literature. So let me just leave these words here in my personal blog, as my uninformed (if not clever, at least I hope not painfully dumb) musings.

 Posted by at 6:15 pm

Fallout London

 Computer Games, Personal  No Responses »
Dec 212024
 

For years now, one of my favorite pastimes when I needed some downtime was to play one of the Fallout games. I still cannot decide if I like Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas more. Fallout 4 would be less likable, except that it has settlement building which gives the game a whole new dimension. I know, I know, building settlements is not every gamer’s cup of tea, but I enjoy it.

But then, there are the extensions. And no, I do not mean the “official” DLCs (downloadable contents) that are provided by the game publisher, but rather, the “mods” that are offered by third parties, individuals and groups of enthusiasts alike. Mods can improve a game, fix bugs, add to the experience, but in the case of the Fallout games, they reached a whole new level: Some mods rival the DLCs, or perhaps even surpass them.

Take Fallout New California. Years in the making, this mod rivals in size the very game itself, Fallout New Vegas, that it extends. Set years before the events of New Vegas, it puts the player in the shoes of a young protagonist who grew up in a Vault, only to find himself out there in the western wastelands of the New California Republic, amidst rival factions and a deadly search for some disastrous pre-war technology. The mod is just amazing: a main quest that retains some of the trademark moral ambiguity that always characterized Fallout, numerous side quests, a richly textured world, a memorable radio station from Sandy Hills, unique companions… What a game! And it seamlessly transitions into New Vegas, providing a robust back story for the player’s later identity as a Courier, and offering some perks and companions that the player can retain.

For a while, I thought New California was it, the new gold standard when it comes to fan-made mods. But then, there were rumors of yet another mod on its way: A mod of Fallout 4, that would be set overseas, in the great city of London, England.

*** WARNING: Some spoilers follow ***

I have now completed Fallout London, and the impression I came away with is that despite its rough edges, despite the fact that it still has numerous small but annoying bugs and suffers from frequent crashes, it nonetheless surpasses even New California in its breadth, depth, originality. And details and nuances! A Big Ben that chimes at 6 AM (yes, six times). A bona fide TARDIS (that, sadly, vanishes the moment you acquire the loot that it offers). A crosswalk at Abbey Road with four permanent shadows, with a pair of round glasses found in the first of the four. A “British Broadcasting Ministry” radio station that is really as pretentiously British as it can be, is just one of three unique in-game radio stations. Not to mention a post-apocalyptic British society with its snobbish Gentry, cannibalistic Beefeaters, mutant Thamesfolk and numerous other factions, in particular those Tommy conscripts who resemble in so many ways the grunts of the NCR military in New Vegas.

Yes, the elephant is in FOLON, too.

Then there’s the voice acting. It is superb, probably the best in all the Fallout universe. And the side quests? That Lovecraftian side journey that you get into after collecting those Cutethulhu dolls feels like a full-blown DLC on its own right, and a very unique and quirky one at that. Oh, and did I mention that you get a canine companion… no, not the lovable Dogmeat but an equally faithful four-legged friend, Churchill the English bulldog? (The human companions are also amazing, with rich, touching backstories.)

But then, I only have one real complaint. Namely that, after having explored all three endings of the main quest line, I concluded, like the computer WOPR in the movie War Games, that the only winning move is not to play. That is, leave the main quest unfinished. Just explore, find every location, turn on all mariner beacons, find all unusual call boxes, read all the writings Sid has to offer… but leave the main quest alone.

Why? Because no matter which side you pick, they destroy London. The London in which you wake up is far from pefect, but it is a functioning city and Westminster is in decent shape. Sure, the city could use more vertical mobility and the Gentry could be a little bit less snobbish and more accommodating, but that’s not what you get with any of the chosen outcomes. Should you side with Smythe, you end up with a city that’s intact but soulless, governed by clones and subject to unethical science experiments. The Fifth Column turn it into a kind of a fascist nightmare. Arthur’s Camelot may have more pleasant intentions, but the end result is nearly the same: Westminster is mostly destroyed, the city is in ruins, and there’s no reason to believe that anyone’s life improved as a result.

So this, then, was my favored outcome: after doing my part, helping Smythe set off an explosion at the tournament in Westminster, after freeing Reggie the crab (against Smythe’s wishes), I just let the phone continue ringing outside the London Aquarium, I avoided visiting the Fifth Column and making friends with Eve at Cable Street, and I also avoided getting better acquainted with Arthur. I now mind my own business, discovering the few remaining locations that I have not yet visited (yes, you can actually get to Blight Crater even without completing the Scylla quest—which I was never offered, due to a bug I believe—if you have the right stats and equipment, and know how to cross the radioactive waters minimizing damage), still finding amazing little details and oddities here and there, like at the Greenwich Observatory that I just finished exploring. And of course I return to my few settlements from time to time, continuing to improve them despite the somewhat broken settlement mechanics in this amazing, astonishing mod.

Or just go back to Westminster, take a taxi ride or board the city’s one remaining functional Underground line. Just for fun. There is something special about being able to ride a subway, some 160 years after global nuclear Armageddon, in one of the most iconic cities of the world, Ol’ Blighty, while listening to a worthy cover of the iconic We’ll Meet Again…

Mind the gap.

 Posted by at 2:07 am

The symmetry of the spacetime metric

 Personal, Physics  No Responses »
Dec 132024
 

\(\renewcommand{\vec}[1]{\boldsymbol{\mathrm{#1}}}\)This is probably my most ambitious paper to date. It’d be a lie to suggest that I was not worried: what am I missing?

Which is why I have to begin by showing my appreciation to the editors of Classical and Quantum Gravity who, rather than dismissing my paper, recognized its potential value and invited no fewer than four reviewers. Much to my (considerable) relief the reviewers seemed to agree: What I am doing makes some sense.

One of my cats, helping me to understand gravity.

What exactly am I doing? Well, as everyone (ok, everyone with at least a casual interest in general relativity) knows, the gravitational field doubles as the metric of spacetime. And we know that the metric is a “symmetric” quantity: the distance from \(A\) to \(B\) is the same as the distance from \(B\) to \(A,\) and this does not change even when the “distance” in question is the spacetime interval, the infinitesimal proper time between neighboring events.

So we treat the metric as symmetric, which greatly simplifies calculations.

Alternatively, we may treat the metric as not symmetric. Einstein spent the last several decades of his life working on a theory using a nonsymmetric metric, which, he hoped, could have led to a unification of the theories of gravitation and electromagnetism. It didn’t.

John Moffat also spent a considerable chunk of his professional life working on his nonsymmetric gravitational theory (NGT). Unlike Einstein, Moffat assumed that the extra degrees of freedom are also gravitational and may lead to a large-scale modification of the expression for gravitational acceleration, potentially explaining riddles like the rotation curves of galaxies.

But herein lies the puzzle. A self-respecting field theory these days is usually written down by way of a Lagrangian density, with the corresponding field equations derived using the so-called action principle. In the case of general relativity, this Lagrangian density is called the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian. The field that is the subject of this Lagrangian is the gravitational field. Unless we are interested in Einstein’s unified field theory or Moffat’s NGT, we assume that this field has the requisite symmetry that is characteristic of a metric.

Except that at no point do we actually inform the machinery behind the action principle, namely the methods of the calculus of variations, that the field has this property. Rather, in standard derivations we just impose this constraint “by hand” during the derivation itself. This approach is mathematically inconsistent even if it leads to the desired, expected result.

Usually, a restriction that constrains the degrees of freedom of a physical system is incorporated into the Lagrangian using what are called Lagrange-multipliers. Why would we not use a Lagrange-multiplier, then, to restrict the gravitational field tensor so that instead of the 16 independent degrees of freedom that characterize a generic rank-2 tensor in four dimensions, we only have the 10 degrees of freedom of a symmetric tensor?

This is precisely what I have done. Not without consternation: After all, no lesser a mathematician than David Hilbert chose not to do this, even though he was very much aware of the technique of Lagrange-multipliers and their utility, which he took advantage of in other contexts while working on relativity theory.

Yet, for 109 years and counting, the symmetry of the metric, though assumed, was never incorporated into the standard Lagrangian formulation of the theory. I honestly don’t know why, but I decided to address this by introducing a Lagrange multiplier term:

\begin{align}
{\cal S}_{\rm grav}=\frac{1}{2\kappa}\int d^4x \sqrt{-g}(R-2\Lambda+\lambda^{\mu\nu}g_{[\mu\nu]}).
\end{align}

There. Variation with respect to this nondynamical term \(\lambda^{\mu\nu}\) yields the constraint, \(g_{[\mu\nu]}=0\). Job done. Except… Except that as a result of introducing this term, Einstein’s field equations are slightly modified, split into two equations as a matter of fact:

\begin{align}
R_{\mu\nu}-\tfrac{1}{2}Rg_{\mu\nu}+\Lambda g_{\mu\nu} &{}= 8\pi G T_{(\mu\nu)},\\
\lambda_{[\mu\nu]} &{}= 8\pi GT_{[\mu\nu]}.
\end{align}

The first of these two equations is just the usual field equation, but with a twist: The stress-energy tensor on the right-hand side is explicitly symmetrized.

But the second! That’s where things get really interesting. The nondynamical term \(\lambda_{[\mu\nu]}\) is unconstrained. That means that the antisymmetric part of \(T_{\mu\nu}\) can be anything. To quote a highlighted sentence from my own manuscript: “Einstein’s gravitational field is unaffected by the antisymmetric part of a generalized stress-energy-momentum tensor.“

Or, to put it more bluntly, the gravitational field does not give a flying fig about matter spinning or rotating. How matter spins or does not spin would be determined by the properties of that matter; gravity does not care.

This was a surprising, potentially profound result. Previously, authors tried to account for the presence of nonvanishing rotation by introducing a variety of tensor formalisms ad hoc. But as my derivation shows, perhaps all that was unnecessary. Matter is free to rotate, insofar as gravity is concerned: the stress-energy tensor does not need to be symmetrical.

Is this result really new? How can that be? What am I missing? These were my thoughts when I submitted my manuscript. Who knows… maybe, just maybe I was not spouting nonsense and stumbled upon something of real importance.

I expect my paper to appear on the pages of CQG in due course [edit: it just did]; I now also submitted the manuscript to arXiv, where it should appear I hope this weekend or early next week.

 Posted by at 4:04 pm

Murder is not the answer

 Crime, Health, Politics  2 Responses »
Dec 112024
 

Many expressed support, perhaps even admiration for the young man who killed the Brian Thompson, the CEO of the insurance company UnitedHealthcare last week. The reason: the company is universally despised, notorious for the zeal with which it denies claims or makes life otherwise difficult for insured Americans.

However, therein lies the problem. The company is doing EXACTLY WHAT IT IS EXPECTED TO DO. Apologies for the all caps but I need to stress: Commercial companies are not charities. They do not exist to make life easy or pleasant for their customers. They have one goal and one goal only: MAXIMIZE SHAREHOLDER VALUE. Within the confines of the law of course, but not confined by anything else. In particular, not confined by compassion, empathy, or social responsibility.

Brian Thompson did exactly what he was supposed to do as the CEO of a commercial company: he did his best to maximize shareholder value. Had he acted otherwise: had he chosen to place his personal values ahead of his duties as CEO, he could have been held even criminally liable, for failing to act in the interests of his company’s shareholder.

Yet for this, he was killed.

One may wonder: Don’t Americans deserve better? But that’s the wrong question. Health care is not something that is “given” to Americans by some higher power. The health care system—in particular, a for-profit health care system dominated by private insurers—is what a majority of Americans repeatedly CHOSE to have. Many of them speak disparagingly of the single payer, universal health care systems that exist in various forms here in Canada, in the United Kingdom, or in the European Union. “Socialist medicine,” they tell us, exaggerating the systems’ shortcomings while glossing over one basic fact: No one is left without necessary medical care in either Canada or Europe, and no one is going bankrupt due to unexpected, astronomical medical expenses.

In the end, Mr. Thompson was murdered for doing precisely what he was supposed to do: faithfully managing a FOR PROFIT corporation to the benefit of its shareholders. And the system remains the same. Nothing changes, except that health care might end up being a tad more expensive in the future, because now there will be the added expense associated with higher life insurance premiums and personal bodyguards for insurance company top brass.

 Posted by at 1:40 am

My pearl of wisdom for this fine Sunday

 Humor, Personal  No Responses »
Dec 082024
 
  • When you are five years old, you do as you’re told by adults. Adults know what they’re doing.
  • When you are twenty-five, you do what you want to do. After all, you’re an adult who knows what he is doing.
  • When you are forty-five, you wonder: Some of these people who are supposedly adults… don’t they know what they’re doing?
  • When you are sixty-five, you look in the mirror and ask: I am supposedly an adult. Why don’t I know what I’m doing?

Oh, did I mention that I am just a few years shy of 65?

 Posted by at 5:52 pm

Another step…

 History, Politics  2 Responses »
Dec 022024
 

Today I read the first few words of an article in The New Yorker: “Biden’s Pardon of Hunter Further Undermines…”

For the briefest of moments I saw a ray of hope. Perhaps The New Yorker‘s writers realized what really is at stake? Perhaps they were concerned about the trends undermining the rule of law?

Sadly, no. The missing expression (the title was truncated to fit into the column display presented by my e-mail program) was “… His Legacy”. That’s all they were concerned about. Biden’s legacy. The broader context: tactical victories and defeats in the never-ending political warfare in the United States.

One of my cats, mourning the rule of law…

Watching polarized American politics in recent years, it was evident that both sides were consumed by ideology and the desire to defeat the opposing side. Republicans were busy building an anti-establishment creed along with the alarming personality cult of Trump; meanwhile, Democrats have gone overboard with woke nonsense, from cancel culture to fights over pronouns to defunding the police. Republicans went out of their way to “own the Libs”, while Democrats strived to end the “white supremacist patriarchy”. However, there was one crucial difference: By and large (and notwithstanding Republican accusations about “weaponizing” the government), the Democrats mostly played by the rules, i.e., they supported the rules-based system of the American Republic, whereas Republicans declared the system itself, the “deep state”, their key enemy. As January 6, 2020 demonstrated, they were quite willing to step outside the boundaries of the rule of law to have their way.

This, of course, put Democrats at a disadvantage, akin to fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.

But now, I think, this is about to change. Call it Joe Biden’s “fuck you” moment: he decided to use his presidential powers to pardon his own son, Hunter Biden, despite repeated assurances that he had no plans to do so.

I really cannot blame him. When the president-elect is a convicted felon, when many of his nominees for key positions are themselves at the very least the targets of credible accusations of criminal behavior, I suspect Biden had enough, playing by the rules. (Technically speaking it is of course not against the rules for the President to pardon his own family members, even though it is obviously a massive conflict of interest.)

This, I think, is a pivotal, watershed moment, however. By pardoning Hunter, Biden basically declared that the rules no longer apply to their side either. This seems to be yet another nail in the coffin of the great American experiment. Once again I see historical parallels. Two thousand years ago, it was Brutus and his co-conspirators who decided that the rules no longer apply to them either. Granted, pardoning a family member is not quite on par with assassinating a Dictator, but the undercurrent is the same: The rule of law no longer matters. We may yet be generations away from the leaders of America to openly declare themselves emperors, but this is yet another crucial step towards a system of government in which the “first among equals”, the country’s head of state and head of government, is not really an equal anymore but someone entirely above the law.

One of the secrets of the success of the Roman Empire was the fact that the first emperor, Gaius Octavius, better known by the family name he adopted and the title bestowed upon him by the Roman Senate as Augustus Caesar, was truly competent. I don’t expect competence from Trump. However, is VP, J. D. Vance, is another matter. That gentleman seems frighteningly intelligent and ruthless. Makes me wonder if he is, in fact, going to become the de facto first emperor of an emerging imperial United States of America; our modern-day Octavius.

Oh well, interesting times. Love it, to be honest. Things are about to get really… fascinating.

 Posted by at 10:46 pm

A new low

 Science  3 Responses »
Nov 162024
 

For many years now, I’ve been receiving regular invitations from low-quality, predatory journals to contribute papers.

Needless to say, I didn’t.

But today, it reached a new low. I was offered, in exchange for the princely sum of $30, “authorship positions” in any one of a set of 19 papers.

Holy macaroni. Or whatever.

The esteemed journal in question that is inviting me to throw away any semblance of scientific ethics just to have my name appear… somewhere, calls itself the International Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Journal. Several paragraphs later in the e-mail I learn the…

List of Ready Paper

1. Advances in Dark Energy Research: Understanding the Mystery of the Accelerating Universe
2. Progress in Dark Matter Research: Bridging Observations and Theoretical Insights
3. A Review on Advances in Gravitational Waves Research
4. Recent Advances in the Cosmic Microwave Background Research: A Review
5. Galaxy Formation and Evolution: Progress in Recent Research
6. Computational Astrophysics Research: Review of the Recent Progress and Future Directions
7. Heavy-Ion Studies Research: Current Progress and Future Directions
8. Advances and Future Directions in Cosmic Ray Research: A Comprehensive Review
9. Gravitational Lensing: Review of Recent Progress and Future Directions
10. Advances in Black Hole Research and Future Directions: A Review
11. Exoplanet: Recent Developments and Future Directions: A Review
12. Recent Advances in Galaxy Formation Research and Future Developments
13. Galaxy Clusters: A comprehensive Review of Recent Developments
14. Recent Advances and Future Directions of Solar Physics Research
15. Recent Advances in Astrophysical Magnetism and the Interstellar Medium Research
16. A Review of Interstellar Black Holes: Navigating the Invisible
17. Recent Advances in Star Formation Theories: A Comprehensive Review
18. A Review of Recent Progress in Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxy Formation Research
19. Advances in Neutron Stars and Pulsars Research: Recent Progress and Future Directions

Yes, I’ve said it before, scientific publishing is in a crisis: flooded with low quality research, in need of qualified reviewers, stuck between two contradictory business models (subscription-based vs. open access publishing) and facing a deluge of for-profit, predatory publishers. But this represents a new low even within that dismal landscape.

 Posted by at 12:06 am

To my liberal friends

 History, Politics  No Responses »
Nov 092024
 

In the days following Tuesday’s historic US elections, I’ve seen many reactions by liberals: friends, acquaintences, public figures like journalists.

With few exceptions, almost all of them appear to have jumped to the wrong conclusions. “Putin won this election,” they said. “Harris should have focused on immigration,” they told us. “We underestimated the stupidity,” they complained. “They’re all Nazis,” I’m told.

Nope. Trump voters are not stupid. It was not Russian propaganda that decided the outcome. You won’t shame them into voting Democrat by comparing them to the Nazis. Nor did the result have anything to do with any specific tactical decisions by the Democratic campaign.

This election—which may have tragic, historic consequences concerning the stability and viability of the Western world order that dominated the planet and ushered in an unprecedented period of relative peace and prosperity in the wake of 1945—was decided by factors that were known to Aristotle more than 2500 years ago.

Portrait of Aristoteles. Copy of the Imperial era (1st or 2nd century) of a lost bronze sculpture made by Lysippos

“Now in all states there are three elements: one class is very rich, another very poor, and a third in a mean,” he writes in Politics*. “It is admitted that moderation and the mean are best,” he continues, warning us that when the very rich and the very poor dominate over the mean, “thus arises a city, not of freemen, but of masters and slaves, the one despising, the other envying“.  This leads him to his key conclusion: “But a city ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars; and these are generally the middle classes. Wherefore the city which is composed of middle-class citizens is necessarily best governed; they are, as we say, the natural elements of a state. And this is the class of citizens which is most secure in a state, for they do not, like the poor, covet their neighbours’ goods; nor do others covet theirs, as the poor covet the goods of the rich.”

And look at our world in 2024. Throughout the Western hemisphere, the middle class is in retreat. Despite the rise in GDP, incomes remain stagnant, barely keeping up with inflation, if that. Housing prices are skyrocketing, making home ownership an unattainable dream for much of the younger generation; even renting a decent home is beyond the reach of many. The wage and income gaps are both on the rise, even as the streets fill up with the homeless, public infrastructure is often crumbling, healthcare systems are under stress and often near the breaking point, even public transportation fails to deliver far too often.

Now you might think that these issues should be top priority for political forces that occupy the left of the political palette. After all, traditionally it’s those on the left who championed these causes, worked in favor of a strong middle class. Not anymore. Even when the left’s agenda is not saturated by woke virtue signaling about pronouns, DEI education, divisive identity politics and other forms of self-serving activism, they failed to address the very concerns that drove far too many voters to vote for Trump. They also missed the elephant in the room: The issues are not specific to the United States. The rise of authoritarians like Orban of Hungary, the success of Brexit, the election of right-wing leaders elsewhere in Europe, the rise of the far-right in Germany are all pointing in the same direction.

Calling Trump voters stupid, racist, fascists is not helpful. Perhaps there were stupid, racist fascists voting for Trump, but the vast majority who voted for him were none of the above. They were concerned citizens, deeply disappointed with the lack of solutions coming from the left. Perhaps they underestimated the dangers represented by a Trump who openly indicated his willingness to weaken democratic institutions, who openly declared the institutions of the American Republic the enemy. Time will tell.

However, the left had a clear path ahead: forget identity politics, virtue signaling, cancel culture, and other forms of radical activism, intolerance in the name of tolerance, illiberal means to enforce the made-up standards of woke liberalism. Focus instead on the issues that matter, promoting real solutions to the problems plaguing the middle class. Because if you don’t, someone else will… or at least they will pretend to do so. And that’s exactly what right-wing populists do.

Perhaps folks on the left should spend a tad more time reading Aristotle.

In case Aristotle is not enough, here’s my collection of posts on Trump 2.0. I collect them here so that I can easily direct folks to this post rather than explain all over again what I think. Anyhow, I still recommend Aristotle over my own pearls of wisdom.

And now that we’re done with this political nonsense, let me go back and do useful things.

*Translation by H. W. C. Davis, Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1908
 Posted by at 5:14 pm

Bark vs. bite

 History, Politics  2 Responses »
Nov 062024
 

Earlier tonight, I heard a Republican strategist on CBC News telling us not to worry if Trump wins: his bark is worse than his bite.

Damn, I hope he is right. But historical precedents suggest otherwise. I am, of course, especially reminded of how Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933; many who supported him were also convinced that his bark was worse than his bite.

Well, it wasn’t. The rest, as they say, is history.

As a matter of fact, perhaps I am an alarmist, but I tend to think of something else after the spectacle tonight. It is what became perhaps the most iconic moment from the entire Star Wars franchise: the recognition by Padmé Amidala of what just happened when the Galactic Senate granted extraordinary powers to chancellor Palpatine.

Coming back from the land of science-fiction cautionary tales to that of real history: In early August 1914, Sir Edward Grey, Britain’s foreign secretary remarked that the lights were going out all over Europe. Today… well, America was called by the late Ronald Reagan the shining city on the hill of liberal democracy. The lights of this great shining city might have been extinguished tonight. There are other lights of liberal democracy still shining brightly, including the lights here in Canada, but they are much less powerful and rapidly diminishing in number. Liberal democracy, which has always been an outlier in the course of human history, is now fully in retreat.

And, well, I daresay many who call themselves “liberals” bear at least some responsibility. Over the past few decades, life for many in the Western world stagnated or became worse. Incomes barely kept up with inflation, homes became unaffordable. The income and wealth gap between rich and poor rose. Families could no longer promise their children a life that, never mind better, would be at least as good as the lives of their parents. Public infrastructure was often neglected, health care systems remained underfunded. Many Western cities saw a palpable rise in homelessness and visible poverty: Just look at the number of homeless right here on the main streets of downtown Ottawa, minutes from Parliament Hill.

Leaders and activists on the left had ample chance to step in, offer and, if in power, implement real, forward-looking solutions. Instead, they chose to focus on, ahem, the “important” problems of the day: proper pronouns for everyone, DEI programs at workplaces, stamping out white supremacism in math education (I kid you not! Wish it was a joke) and other pressing issues. In light of that, why is anyone surprised that populism won the day?

Sadly I am not. Much as I rooted for Harris, I predicted a Trump victory, and it appears that I was not wrong.

Now we get a chance to find out if that CBC analyst was right after all. Is the bark worse than the bite? I’m not holding my breath…

 Posted by at 3:20 am

On my own…

 Aviation, Cats, Personal  2 Responses »
Oct 302024
 

My beautiful wife is about to leave the North American continent behind, visiting her Mom in Hungary.

The house feels a bit empty already. The cats are unusually quiet and subdued, too.

 Posted by at 8:11 pm

Tomorrow belongs to me…

 Film, History, Music, Politics  No Responses »
Oct 302024
 

Here’s a pro-Trump view of the recent Trump rally, shared by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in his October 30 “Global Briefing” newsletter:

Americans are tired of living in survival mode. Raging wars, a crippled economy, an immigration crisis, a growing chasm of political division, and rapid inflation have made Americans realize that they want joy again, they want unity again, and they want to dream again. Standing in such a significant arena, surrounded by a sea of red hats and adoring, cheering Trump fans, I couldn’t help but get emotional about how historic this moment in time is for our country. I was 14 years old when Trump was elected president and have, like many of his other supporters, been forced to deal with the vitriol, insults, and hatred of the left over the past eight years. It has often been tiresome to stand up for my own beliefs in the face of such fierce adversity. But watching Trump on that glorious stage at Madison Square Garden reminded me—reminded all Americans—of what lies ahead with a Trump presidency: hope. And that is always worth fighting for.

To say that these words — honest, heartfelt no doubt — give me the creeps is the understatement of the year. What these words actually remind me of is this immortal scene from the film Cabaret:

Yes, they were earnest. Their feelings were true. And that’s what makes this scene one of the most disturbing scenes ever in movie history.

 Posted by at 6:28 pm

Yes, it’s the economy, stupid

 Politics  No Responses »
Oct 282024
 

Recently, a friend of mine remarked on the fact that Americans are disillusioned with Democrats, despite the fact that the US economy is doing splendidly well.

It is true. The productivity of the US economy is nothing short spectacular.

Trouble is… it’s not helping families. This Wikipedia chart tells the story (though there are many other, similar charts, comparing family wealth, incomes, and other measures of inequality).

What this chart tells us is that the living standards of typical American families have been stagnant for a quarter century or more. No matter what they do, they are stuck. Their lives are not getting any better, even as America produces one billionaire after another, with some of them, like Musk, predicted to become trillionaires within the next decade or two.

Yes, American voters are concerned about the economy. But the economy they’re concerned about is not the economy that is reflected by macroeconomic statistics like GDP growth. They are concerned about the economies of their own families. What they can afford. Can they buy a house. Can they replace an aging vehicle.

And increasingly, they cannot. Median family wealth is stagnant while housing prices rise. Tuition fees rise, along with student debt. Things are not getting any better, and in particular, parents cannot promise their children a life better than their own.

This is a hotbed for populism, of course. They sound the battle cry: Kick out those immigrants! Erect trade barriers! Lower those taxes! Well, guess who benefits when that happens:

After all, when the bottom half of Americans are not doing well, the perfect solution is to lower the taxes for tycoons and captains of industry, right? Because of… I don’t know, trickle down? Or just blame yourself for your own misfortune?

So well, yes, it’s the economy, stupid. But make sure you read the right economic statistics. The numbers that actually reflect the realities of life of most Americans.

 Posted by at 12:39 am

How I learned to stop worrying and love Trump…

 History, Politics  1 Response »
Oct 242024
 

No, I did not suddenly have a change of heart concerning Trump’s likely victory and the resulting, unprecedented subversion of American democracy that I expect to see.

I just turned full-blown cynic.

I am, after all, 61 years old with no children to worry about. Even if I remain healthy for a long time to come, the bulk of my life is very obviously behind me, not ahead of me. And I lived that life during an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity, unique in the history of humanity. (No, not perfect. But unprecedented and unique in extent and duration.) I never knew hunger, never had existential fears, never was deprived of my most basic rights. So who am I to complain?

But now, things are about to get exciting. No, not in a good way, but exciting nonetheless. And as I said multiple times in the past, Trump is but a symptom. Even if he loses this election, the underlying causes remain. Rising inequality. A stagnant middle class. Worsening living standards, the inability to offer the new generation a better life, or at least a life comparable to that of their parents. Social tensions reignited, often by opportunistic activists who’d rather see the wounds fester (so they can profit from them) than heal. None of these go away even if Trump drops dead tomorrow. And it transcends the United States. The issues exist here in Canada, throughout Europe and elsewhere. Regimes opposed to the very concept of liberal democracy are taking notice, and playing this to their advantage.

What will be the ultimate outcome? A major war is a near certainty, in my opinion. Collapse of many democracies is likely, with the exception of those few that have within them the will to reform, and also have the ability to protect their borders. The collapse of the global, interconnected economy will bring insane suffering and only play into the hands of future autocrats.

Illustration by DALL-E

I have no idea when the proverbial poo will collide with the ventilator. But collide it will, and it will happen sooner, rather than later. I don’t think the world has been this close to the brink at any moment in my lifetime, anytime since 1945 as a matter of fact. But now I no longer fear that future. Rather, I have become mighty curious. It is, after all, not every day that one gets a chance to witness such a monumental moment in history, something on the scale of the collapse of the Roman Republic, at the very least.

 Posted by at 12:17 am
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