The unimportant news thread

[amw]

You should consider getting some better history books. Start here:

[asin]080700040X[/asin]

edit: never mind.... trolling you guys honestly isn't even fun, just boring. I have no idea why Todd bothers.

[Florestan]

Dodgy and dishonest wording. Liberalism rejects imperialism. 
Perhaps it might not have existed in a world without imperialism but that does not make it the cause of imperialism.

The problem with liberalism is that it is a powerful tool for fighting authoritarian regimes but a weak one for establishing liberal regmies, because it's very easy to proclaim in abstracto freedom and equality for all but very difficult* to establish them in practice.

*Downright impossible, actually, because freedom and equality are often in conflict and sometimes even mutually exclusive.

We should distinguish between opposition liberalism, which is always liberal, and governing liberalism, which is often authoritarian.

[drogulus]

I'm sure the millions of enslaved Africans, Native Americans/First Nations, Aboriginal Australians, etc (it's a long list) who were killed in order for liberalism to exist are glad to hear about how non-dogmatic and self-critical it is.

     Yes, they are. They are not fond of their dictatorships and seek to have open societies. They have seen the results of Big Man regimes of the left and right.

     People all over the world want to live in free societies despite the crimes that these societies committed. How is that? There must be something of great value in self government and the rule of law, possibly the ability to change the government, to protest, to speak freely. I'm impressed that people outside open societies value them the way people inside them do.

[Florestan]

     Yes, they are. They are not fond of their dictatorships and seek to have open societies. They have seen the results of Big Man regimes of the left and right.

     People all over the world want to live in free societies despite the crimes that these societies committed. How is that? There must be something of great value in self government and the rule of law, possibly the ability to change the government, to protest, to speak freely.

I have never thought that a day would come when I would agree with every word in a post of yours. I was wrong. That day is today.

I'm impressed that people outside open societies value them the way people inside them do.

And even more than not a few insiders, actually.

[drogulus]

I have never thought that a day would come when I would agree with every word in a post of yours. I was wrong. That day is today.

     I'm not deterred at all. Life is full of accidents.

[Ken B]

I have never thought that a day would come when I would agree with every word in a post of yours[drogulus]. I was wrong. That day is today.

You shouldn't be really. Drogulus has some cracked ideas and an impaired prose style, but he is one of the actual classical liberals on this site, and you are another one.

[Florestan]

You shouldn't be really. Drogulus has some cracked ideas and an impaired prose style, but he is one of the actual classical liberals on this site, and you are another one.

That's true.

[drogulus]

You shouldn't be really. Drogulus has some cracked ideas and an impaired prose style, but he is one of the actual classical liberals on this site, and you are another one.

     I pay my people extra to crack my ideas.

     Pragmatism endures

     This article is remarkably good at exploring the cracks (Peirce vs James, logical empiricists vs American pragmatists). What I read made me feel a little better about being influenced in a way that doesn't take sides.

[Ken B]

     I pay my people extra to crack my ideas.

     Pragmatism endures

     This article is remarkably good at exploring the cracks (Peirce vs James, logical empiricists vs American pragmatists). What I read made me feel a little better about being influenced in a way that doesn't take sides.

Dontcha know, not taking sides is taking sides. 

[drogulus]

Dontcha know, not taking sides is taking sides. 

     I do that, too.

[JBS]

I'm sure the millions of enslaved Africans, Native Americans/First Nations, Aboriginal Australians, etc (it's a long list) who were killed in order for liberalism to exist are glad to hear about how non-dogmatic and self-critical it is.

The fact that the world now recognizes how evil those enslavements and genocides were is due solely to liberalism. They were committed by the forces that liberalism rose in opposition to, not by liberalism. That those evils have in large measure stopped (even if their after effects continue on) is due to liberalism. The recognition that there are after effects that still continue is due to liberalism's ability to self criticize.

[Ken B]

The fact that the world now recognizes how evil those enslavements and genocides were is due solely to liberalism. They were committed by the forces that liberalism rose in opposition to, not by liberalism. That those evils have in large measure stopped (even if their after effects continue on) is due to liberalism. The recognition that there are after effects that still continue is due to liberalism's ability to self criticize.

Exactly.

Up until a few hundred years ago pretty much everyone in the world believed that if you had a stable position of power over someone you were entitled to exercise it. You could rape captives, beat slaves, wipe out rival tribes, demand tribute from subjects. You might be seen as admirably merciful or excessively harsh (or the reverse sometimes too) but no-one really disputed your right to be either or the morality of your behavior, or even the morality of that power. Power just was — and it was to be exercised.

[Ken B]

In other news a man really can have a 10 minute orgasm. I did, watching the first 10 minutes of this interviewer dismantle Jeremy Corbyn over Labour's anti semitism.

https://m.facebook.com/conservatives/videos/1022243018135007/

I have never heard of this interviewer before.

[pjme]

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50564965

The interviewer, Andrew Neill,  is very famous in GB.

And this
https://mondediplo.com/2019/06/09corbyn

[Ken B]

The greatest human Go player of the past 25 years is packing it in, because he cannot beat the computer.

https://news.yahoo.com/grandmaster-says-computers-cannot-defeated-104015667.html

When I first studied AI 35 years ago Go was *the* example of a game no one had the faintest idea about how to teach a computer.

I understand Lee Se-Dol's reaction. On the other hand it's been years since even the fittest human male can match The Rabbit.

[steve ridgway]

UK Government Minister Nicky Morgan being asked on TV to explain the Conservative Party election promise to increase the number of nurses in the NHS by 50,000. The mathematical reasoning is beyond belief . I am now going to try to persuade the dogs that if we buy 2 sausages and they don't eat one, that extra one will mean they now have 3 . You can skip to 3:15 in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpcY6HsGmAM

[Papy Oli]

The greatest human Go player of the past 25 years is packing it in, because he cannot beat the computer.

https://news.yahoo.com/grandmaster-says-computers-cannot-defeated-104015667.html

When I first studied AI 35 years ago Go was *the* example of a game no one had the faintest idea about how to teach a computer.

I understand Lee Se-Dol's reaction. On the other hand it's been years since even the fittest human male can match The Rabbit.

Netflix has a fascinating documentary called Alpha Go about Se-Dol's games against that computer.

Another Netflix documentary called "the surrounding game" was about the philosophy behind Go, following players through their training, tournaments, etc.

Both a great watch.

[greg]

The greatest human Go player of the past 25 years is packing it in, because he cannot beat the computer.

https://news.yahoo.com/grandmaster-says-computers-cannot-defeated-104015667.html

When I first studied AI 35 years ago Go was *the* example of a game no one had the faintest idea about how to teach a computer.

I understand Lee Se-Dol's reaction. On the other hand it's been years since even the fittest human male can match The Rabbit.

Not surprising. It's far too complex of a game for a human to beat a computer.

Even worse is a MOBA game, like League of Legends or DOTA 2. The human mind can't run through a hundred scenarios every few seconds like a computer can. Imagine having to play Go against a computer that can do this, and you only get three seconds per turn. 

[Ken B]

Not surprising. It's far too complex of a game for a human to beat a computer.

Even worse is a MOBA game, like League of Legends or DOTA 2. The human mind can't run through a hundred scenarios every few seconds like a computer can. Imagine having to play Go against a computer that can do this, and you only get three seconds per turn. 

No, that's wrong Greg. Go was the last holdout, the last bastion of human superiority. Even 5 or 6 years ago it was still dominated by humans. Chess fell to the computer 20 years ago. It's an incredible achievement for the developers and the underlying technology — neural nets — to have so thoroughly conquered Go.

[Ken B]

This one is for  Florestan https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/why-is-there-more-intellectual-freedom-in-bucharest-than-cambridge/