cgflinks @Cgflinks

@ResilienceX3 Gabriel García Márquez

If you want to start a startup, don't learn "entrepreneurship." Learn how to build things. The hard part of startups is not "entrepreneurship" but product: to know what to build, and to be able to build it.

@Steve_Sailer Soccer (association football) generally requires more sustained and multifaceted brainpower from its players, based on available scientific research on cognitive demands, executive functions, and neural efficiency. psych.ox.ac.uk pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating someone. Men must be bribed to build up and do good by the offer of an opportunity to hurt and pull down. To be able to destroy with a good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’—this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” Aldous Huxley. Introduction to Erewhon, by Samuel Butler, 1934

WSJ: "Germany’s famously open economy was its greatest economic asset, delivering almost 20 years of uninterrupted growth and turning it into one of the biggest winners of globalization." I think I would have framed this differently. Germany's trade competitiveness for a long time was based on its ability both to suppress household income growth relative to productivity growth (as it did, for example, after the 2003-5 Hartz reforms), and to keep its currency cheap (as it did, for example, through adoption of the euro). Under our current form of globalization, in other words, we experience an example of the Kalecki paradox, in which wage-suppression policies that allow one country to grow faster than its trade partners are actually bad for overall global growth – to the extent, anyway, that consumer demand drives investment among its trade partners. In this system, all countries are under pressure to suppress wage growth in order to expand manufacturing and retain manufacturing employment, but the "winner" is the one who is able to do it most effectively. For many years, when much of China's high saving was directed into domestic investment, Germany was one of the main winners from this system. But as Chinese investment became increasingly unproductive, Beijing began trying to rein in the debt needed to fund so much unproductive investment. This process, of course, took off after the 2021-22 property crash, and once that happened, Germany's ability to benefit from the Kalecki paradox evaporated, as it quickly became one of the main losers of the system. The point is that the problem isn't China. The real problem is a system that rewards countries for implementing policies that undermine overall global growth. The good news is that for many years, when Germany was able to exploit the global trade regime, it was also one of the greatest defenders of this system. Now that it is on the losing side, German policymakers are increasingly recognizing how damaging a system it is. There is nothing new about this. If you read the economic debates between the UK and the US in the 1920s, a period when US productivity soared even as wages remained stagnant, it was the UK that complained about the trade imbalances. The US insisted that its huge trade surplus was simply the consequence of more efficient manufacturing techniques and harder-working people. The US of course abandoned that argument in the 1970s, when it lost its trade surplus. In the economic debates of the 1980s, it was the US who complained about trade imbalances, and Japan who insisted (what else?) that its huge trade surplus was the result of more efficient manufacturing techniques and harder-working people. No one in Japan makes such a silly claim anymore. In the 2000s, of course, Germany rather patronizingly explained to the rest of Europe that if only they could become as efficient in manufacturing and as hard-working as the Germans, they too would be in just as good a shape. So much for that claim. Meanwhile our trading system continues to reward policies that depress global growth by putting downward pressure on wage growth, or that, alternatively, force the world to encourage rapid increases in debt in order to counter the impact of lower wage growth. That is why the real solution isn't a global alliance against China. While this may help defuse current tensions, it won't change a system that will continue to reward bad behavior – i.e. household income-suppressing policies – by allowing countries to externalize the costs of this bad behavior through large, persistent trade surpluses. And this means that it will continue to support increases in income inequality within countries. wsj.com/world/europe/t…

@skdh A few months ago Ms Hossenfeder was mostly re-posting people mocking AI.

@shanaka86 The money that will be unfrozen is Iran’s own money, not money that is being given to Iran. Not US’s money.

@charlesmurray @gcochran99 Maybe constant training is needed, just like physical training.

@aledeniz @davidbessis I think that it’s better to introduce the concept of proofs. It can be done with basic plane geometry and it’s much more interesting than the mechanical rules of calculus.

@IMAO_ You need an OLED TV and to watch it in a low-lit room.

@jaorp @isaacrrr7 They aren’t immigrants. They were born in France and are the children and grandchildren of immigrants. Even if immigration stopped tomorrow, it wouldn’t improve the situation much.

@AndrssTerranova @RyanSaavedra Force the golf courses to do the same also

@TMoldwin @snewmanpv According to OpenAI: "The proof came from a new general-purpose reasoning model, rather than from a system trained specifically for mathematics".

@invaderalex @pmarca

Rouleau papier bulles, 40cm x 5 mètres GPV monoprix.fr/p/loisirs/boit…

@vikasreddy @herandrews Yes but …

ELV Hugo @ELVUgo

3 months ago

@akarlin @herandrews Jobs created for its clients by the regulatory demands of the state are not required to pass a test of utility or value in any free market.

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SHAME: The Islamic Republic of Iran has just been nominated to the U.N. Committee for Program and Coordination, which meets soon to shape policy on women's rights, human rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention. ECOSOC members who backed this include: 🇬🇧🇪🇸🇨🇦🇫🇷🇩🇪🇳🇴🇳🇱🇦🇺🇨🇭🇦🇹🇫🇮

“But there was no Hezbollah when Israel occupied Lebanon in 1982!” True. But you don’t get to draw lines wherever it helps your case. Chronology doesn’t work that way. So here’s a quick timeline for you: 1943: Lebanon is born. 1948: Arabs invade Israel. 100k Palestinians flee to Lebanon. Jordan occupies Judea and Samaria, names it West Bank. Egypt occupies Gaza. 1950s-60s: Lebanon prospers. Beirut the “Paris of the Middle East.” 1964: PLO is born in Jerusalem. 1967: Six-Day War. Aggressors lose, Israel gets control of Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Sinai, and Golan Heights. 300k Palestinians flee to Lebanon. Arafat and PLO expelled from Israel for collaborating with the invaders during war, flee to Jordan. 1970-71: PLO “state within a state” in Jordan. Attempts to assassinate King and overthrow government. Crushed by Jordanian forces with help from Pakistan’s Zia ul Haq. Expelled from Jordan. 1971: PLO relocates to Southern Lebanon. Another “state within a state,” named “Fatahland.” Sudden demographic shift in Lebanon. Resented by the natives. 1970s: Regular artillery and rocket launches and border raids from Southern Lebanon into Israeli border towns. Avivim School Bus Massacre (1970), Kiryat Shmona Massacre (1974), Ma'alot Massacre (1974), Kibbutz Shamir Attack (1974), Savoy Hotel Attack (1975), Coastal Road Massacre (1978), Nahariya Attack (1979)... 1975: Start of Lebanese civil war between Muslims and Christians, largely fueled by the sudden influx of Muslim refugees from Israel eroding Lebanon’s own sovreignty. 1982: PLO splinter Abu Nidal Organization attempts to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to the UK in London. Israel demands destruction of “Fatahland” to eliminate the nuisance once and for all. Lebanon helpless. IDF invades Lebanon. Occupies Southern Lebanon. Massive cleanup operation, Arafat and PLO expelled. But this didn’t end the civil war. PLO was then about 14k terrorists in Southern Lebanon. Even after their expulsion, the region still had more than 300k Palestinians who were not “officially” PLO but a nuisance all the same. That’s when Ayatollah Khomenei steps in. Hezbollah is born to occupy the militant leadership space left vacant by Arafat. Yes, Hezbollah was born AFTER Israeli occupation. Which happened AFTER a decade of terrorism by PLO jihadis in Lebanon. Do not confuse cause with effect. It’s dishonest and in this day and age, impossible to get away with. x.com/HadiNasrallah/…

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Hadi @HadiNasrallah

3 months ago

The Israeli siege of Beirut, 1982. Hezbollah didn’t exist back then.

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INMATES RUNNING THE ASYLUM: The U.N. just elected China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan to their Committee on NGOs, which oversees the work of human rights groups at the U.N. and decides which to accredit. ECOSOC members who backed this include: 🇬🇧🇪🇸🇨🇦🇫🇷🇩🇪🇳🇴🇳🇱🇦🇺🇨🇭🇦🇹🇫🇮

1. Israel’s post Oct 7th fight back on 7 fronts has been conducted more or less the same as it would have by any Israeli leader. Most Israelis believe that they can never again live with terror armies massing on the border, nor with a nuclear Iran, nor with Iran’s proxies stretching across all Israel’s neighbours to choke it to death. 2. Popularity in the US is critical. But survival is even more critical. Israel is a miniature country without much territory to protect its civilians. It faces more armies dedicated to its destruction than any other country. Fighting to survive may make it unpopular. Failing to do so would likely result in 8 million dead Israeli Jews. 3. Israel has faced the largest demonisation campaign in human history, with a concerted push from countries like China, Russia, Iran, Qatar and others, with disinformation armies it cannot hope to match, with behind the scenes buy outs of influencers, bot armies and manipulation machines it has been unable to push back against. 4. It also is up against the world’s oldest social pathology: demonisation of whatever represents the collective Jew. In the modern world that is the Jewish state. Mass demonisation of the Jewish collective is the norm not the exception. Having to fight a brutal urban war in a social media age is fertile ground for its reawakening. 5. The global red-green alliance constituting over half the world’s population has since at least the 1960s identified demonisation of Israel as its central unifying focal point. For decades at the UN 70% of resolutions will be condemnations of Israel no matter whether it is being attacked or at peace and no matter how many wars, famines, pandemics etc there are globally. This level of obsession and demonisation existed ling before this war. 6. Since the end of the cold war, soviet anti western thinking has permeated campuses and left wing politics to varying degrees. Central to that orthodoxy is an axiomatic religious like fervour that sees Israel as the great satan, in a way matched only by jihadism. In recent decades the two have become powerful forces in the global left. The trend of declining support for Israel especially on the left long precedes this war. 7. The world’s media and human rights groups and academics typically skew hard left, and carry with then this visceral hatred and demonisation of Israel and that was true long before the war. During the war these forces have focused vulture like on every ounce of suffering of Palestinians (which is real) in an obsessive way that they have not done for the dozens of other conflicts happening globally, and only do when it comes to Israel. This fuels the demonisation campaign no matter how ethically Israel tries to fight its war of survival. 8. For decades the ‘human rights NGOs’ have been hijacked by this obsession with Israel demonisation. They give ethical cover for this demonisation and hatred campaign. No matter how wild the accusation, the accuser can fall back on ‘but experts say’ ‘but human rights group x says’. The moralisation of demonisation is the historical fulcrum of Jew demonisation. Institutions of piety, morality or justice sanitise and moralise the demonisation. Mobs are whipped up, doubters are cast as heretics. 9. whole fictions and fabrications have emerged from otherwise trustworthy sources, on a regular basis. Lancet medical journal ran pieces alleging Gazan death tolls of fictional proportions, UN experts reported famines that were quietly retracted. Media plastered children suffering genetic diseases and claimed them to be victims of Israeli induced famines. Podcasters interviewed Anthony Aguilar making up stories about seeing Israeli soldiers shooting a child who, it turns out, is still alive, a war in which the civilian population grew became a “genocide”. Failure to acknowledge these forces at play is to miss the main story.

Joe Scarborough @ScarboroughNow

3 months ago

Netanyahu has caused a generational collapse of US support for Israel. I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel who has long feared Netanyahu’s maximalist—and ahistorical—view of geopolitical realities in the Middle East would cause a devastating blowback for Israel. It has.

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