by the meltingpot: Virulent Nazism and myths

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Indeed, what is at work in the recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the arrival of political science as an academic specialty, geography was an honored, if not always formalized, discipline in which politics, culture, and economics were often conceived of in reference to the relief map. Thus, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, mountains and the men who grow out of them were the first order of reality; ideas, however uplifting, were only the second.
And yet, to embrace geography is not to accept it as an implacable force against which humankind is powerless. Rather, it serves to qualify human freedom and choice with a modest acceptance of fate. This is all the more important today, because rather than eliminating the relevance of geography, globalization is reinforcing it. Mass communications and economic integration are weakening many states, exposing a Hobbesian world of small, fractious regions. Within them, local, ethnic, and religious sources of identity are reasserting themselves, and because they are anchored to specific terrains, they are best explained by reference to geography. Like the faults that determine earthquakes, the political future will be defined by conflict and instability with a similar geographic logic. The upheaval spawned by the ongoing economic crisis is increasing the relevance of geography even further, by weakening social orders and other creations of humankind, leaving the natural frontiers of the globe as the only restraint.
So we, too, need to return to the map, and particularly to what I call the “shatter zones” of Eurasia. We need to reclaim those thinkers who knew the landscape best. And we need to update their theories for the revenge of geography in our time.
Here is the link for the whole write up.

Now at 2nd place

My view is that relations between countries in the coming decades are most likely to reflect their cultural commitments, their cultural ties and antagonism with other countries rather than other factors. Quite obviously, power will continue to play a central role in global politics, as it always does. But usually there is something else behind conflicts. In the 18th century in Europe, the issues to a large extent involved questions of monarchy versus the emerging republican movements, first in America and then in France. In the 19th century, it involved states identifying themselves through nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution. We had fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well, that’s pretty much over. Liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice. So the question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades? My argument remains that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states. The full interview is here.

This is the 3rd

Every citizen in the City of Richardson will be able to access 756 Kbps of internet connectivity for free, from anywhere in the city. They will be able to access the internet from their homes, schools, restaurants and parks using standard wi-fi connections which are now installed on almost every notebook computer. That is almost as fast as many so-called high speed broadband connections that one pays dearly for today, and several times faster than the various hotspots at your local coffee shops. And I should note that the tax-payers of the City of Richardson are not paying one penny for this, and in fact are going to see additional revenues as a benefit. ... At the beginning of this letter, I suggested that this would be one of the fastest worldwide rollouts of a technology ever seen. It was just 20 years ago that the first cellular systems were being built. The rollout for mesh wireless systems is going to make that look slow. There are several reasons I make this assertion. But they all center on the facts that installing mesh systems will be cheaper and easier than any previous system and the economics in both the developed and especially the developing world will be so radically compelling. Throw in the fact the any astute politician will want to be at the front of this parade (They will all want to say, "I was the man who helped bring free internet to everyone!") and the groundwork is laid for rapid deployment. In Richardson and elsewhere, MeshLinx is offering the basic infrastructure for free. This avoids all the time consuming, political budget battles in the cities. When a service is offered for free, much of the mandated competitive process is eliminated. Next is the low cost of installation of the system. As noted above, Richardson is a city of roughly 100,000 people living in 27.4 square miles. It will "only" cost about $2,000,000 today to lay the wireless blanket I mentioned above. It will cost a great deal less in the future, as MeshLinx is building the pods at a pace of 100 a month today. The maximum output of the US pilot assembly line is 500 a month. When the demand exceeds this (and it will in a very short time) discussions have been held to move volume production to China. Of course, the world will need tens of millions of pods. The cost for a pod will be a fraction of today's cost, with that installation number for a city like Richardson soon being half (or less) the cost of today. What does that $1 or 2 million get you? The infrastructure to be an internet connection, telephone, security, entertainment provider and a whole lot more company. As noted, it will get cheaper as the number of pods being made each month rises, thus lowering their costs dramatically. This technology does have scale. The cost of physically putting up a pod is not a large part of the equation, as you simply need to run a power line, attach a few bolts to a mount on the side of a building or light pole and then off to the next point. Think about the 40,000 homes and businesses in Richardson. If and (hopefully) over time when 10% decide to pay $50 a month for 10-20 Mbps high speed internet access you could see a revenue of $2.5 million a year just from internet access. Now add in all the other income possibilities (phone, entertainment, security and don't forget advertising revenue on the free service!). Think about your town or country. What would service like this be worth? If you are a small city that does not have high speed connections available, how many businesses that could bring jobs do not come your way because they need reliable communications for their work and their employees? If you are in a developing country, where internet access is difficult and expensive, it will open whole new vistas. Couple that with the various programs which want to give cheap laptops to kids in poor countries, and you could see significant social progress in a generation. Here is the link.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Virulent Nazism and myths

It's almost a free for all scene--every conceivable groupings wanting to make a new or the other,to unmake an already existing, state.These imaginery making and unmaking are mostly based on ethnic lines.

I'll do my tiny bit to bring sanity to the already chaotic scene.

1)Human being,wherever they live,are 99.99% equal.Pre-ponderance of some genes depending on the climate and location bring about the physical differences among them.

2)Ethnicity and race are simply the bye-products of the myth making process of human being.To put it brutally,ethnicity and race are myths--nothng more,nothng less.

From these two precepts let's try to have a re-look at ourselves.

The most glaring feature of this part of this part of the globe is the existence of many number of small communities of people.The question that immediately comes to my mind is that why they are so small in numbers.There may so many myths,stories to explain this.But we are not going in that direction.

One of the most probable reasons is that they fail to properly interact with their environment,the geographical features distinctive to their surroundings.For example,the super-abundance of thick forest might be foreboding for them.They might have even think that there are forest spirits prowling there.

The ideal condition is that they(having the 99.99% of same attribute found in the peoples of the developed parts of the globe)should have mined the forest for resources,for example,protein for their health.Protein,particularly, comes to my mind because we know that all the communities here are characterized by the practice of stuffing themselves with vast amounts of carbohydrate.Is it the case of these people unable to properly interact with their environment so as to find out where protein sources lie?People when they are growing up needs proteins,vitamins and minerals for the proper development of brain cells.When people,by some culturally accepted precept, continue to stuff themselves with vast amounts of carbuhydrates from generation to generation,there is every likelihood that their brain cells might not have developed properly.That might even trigger a vicious circle.Fewer brain cells would mean lower intellect,which again,would result in further inabiltiy to interact with their environment in a proper fashion.

This culturally accepted practice surely results in ill health of the members of these small communities.We may even discern a correlation with their health and their inability to maintain a optimum sized society.

So,we are now witnessing 50,000 strong community dreaming of a separate administrative arrangement for themselves.

Here we come to the conclusion that if we shorn ourselves of myths,culture and tradition,we come to face to face with surprising fact--our inability to prepoerly interact with our environment.I think this is an appropriate status report of all the small communities living in this part of the globe.

We are still trying not be influnced by myths,culture and tradition and,with this frame of mind,let's visit the vast plains of Sindhu and Ganga.We need to visit these places because there arose a virulent Nazism,nicely hidden behind a religious garb.How that came about is too vast a subject to be considered here and,morever,it's the job of the scholars to attempt that.But it's generally agreed that it came about as a direct result of the arrival Germanic people in that part of the globe.I strongly suspect some adventurers of Germanic descents,by some quark of history,nicely escaped the civilizing influnce of Christianity there and arrived in the plains of plains of Sindhu,carrying with them the raw Teutonic agressive precepts.

We agree that these Nazi precepts continue to flourish in small pockets in the plains of Sindhu and Ganga for thousand of years.mostly unnoticed by the world.

But that scenario abruptly changed with the arrival yet another set of Europeans.The British mercenaries,who in due course of time would unite themselves under the aegis of East India company,energetically went about the consolidation of the source of raw matrails for their recently invented steam engines.The consolidation was all the over urgent because the source of their raw materials would also served as the vast market of the various products of their steam engines.That consolidation is what we now call India.

The British merceneries,unwittingly,gave a sub-continental-sized playing field for those Nazi precepts which were recently confined to the small pockets in the plains of Sindhu and Ganga.This incident is world changing.

The ripple effect of this rise of the Nazi precepts into a sub-continetal-sized playing field was felt all over the land mass of Asia.

All the stakeholders in Asia,who have in their disposal vast resources and vast armies have already started responding to the ripple effect.(Seen in this context,our 'Maichou Tarets' are so tiny players--so tiny that they,for all practical purposes,can be ignored).

This is a proper a geo-political shift in the making.

The best we can do in this scenario is to determine which side this geo-political wind is likely to blow and set our sails accordingly.This,at the least,might save us from the onslaught of this virulent Nazi precepts.

by the meltingpot

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Now at 2nd place

This is the 3rd