• for: victim AND perpetrator, situatedness, perspectival knowing, AND, not OR, abused-abuser cycle, individual /collective gestalt, Hamas Israel war 2023

• quote

  • It's hard for people to understand that you can be victim and perpetrator at the same time
  • It's a very simple fact impossible to accept for most people
• author: Yuval Noah Harari
• date: Sept 2023

The threat of physical violence is silencing those in power even on the right. We're already at war except for the bullets.

Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler. Translated by Susan Massotty. 1947. Reprint, New York: Bantam, 1997.

How are they defining "multiplicity" here? There seems to be a tacit definition with respect to being in opposition to "unity" (of a work), but not an explicit one. It also seems to be a shaded meaning with respect to the more common one.

unity: essence, core, coherence, oneness

They use the word "multiplicity" in the usual sense of large number or multitude on p55: "The multiplicity of the rules indicates the complexity of the one habit to be formed, not a plurality of distinct habits."

They also revisit it in the upcoming section: "Mastering the Multiplicity: The Art of Outlining a Book" on p88

Perhaps its just me but there's a linguistic "softness" of the uses of unity and multiplicity here with respect to 2023. Though these two opposites fit the dictionary definitions of their words, is it possible that this softness is the result of a sort of historical linguistic shift I'm feeling in these words? I can't quite put my finger on it, but perhaps it's the relationship of unity to religion? Neither seem to be frequently used these days.

The Ngram Viewer shows peaks for the use of unity in 1660 and 1960 of almost 75% higher usage compared to a broader historical average. It is generally waning since. Multiplicity has about 1/4 the use of unity and has remained flat over time. What caused the peaks in the use of "unity" during these periods? This 1972 use was on the downslope of the 1960s peak. Was it used in the 1940 version?

The 20th century increase in the use of unity begins around 1914 and may have been related to political shades of meaning going into WWI with another marked rise in the lead up to WW2.

37:00 going to war with self

• see zk notes on self-discovery & finding meaning in darkness

Based on Hobbes' definition of war, the left and the right in America are currently either at war or on the brink, because we are slowly coming to the point at which our differences can't or won't be decided by our recourse to law, which is actively moving against the will of the larger majority of Americans.

As We May Think

From The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945: 101-108. Reprinted with permission. (c)1945, V. Bush.

As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coördinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. In this significant article he holds up an incentive for scientists when the fighting has ceased. He urges that men of science should then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge. For many years inventions have extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our scientists as they emerge from their war work. Like Emerson's famous address of 1837 on "The American Scholar," this paper by Dr. Bush calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge. - The Editor

This has not been a scientist's war; it has been a war in which all have had a part. The scientists, burying their old professional competition in the demand of a common cause, have shared greatly and learned much. It has been exhilarating to work in effective partnership. Now, for many, this appears to be approaching an end. What are the scientists to do next?

For the biologists, and particularly for the medical scientists, there can be little indecision, for their war work has hardly required them to leave the old paths. Many indeed have been able to carry on their war research in their familiar peacetime laboratories. Their objectives remain much the same.

It is the physicists who have been thrown most violently off stride, who have left academic pursuits for the making of strange destructive gadgets, who have had to devise new methods for their unanticipated assignments. They have done their part on the devices that made it possible to turn back the enemy. They have worked in combined effort with the physicists of our allies. They have felt within themselves the stir of achievement. They have been part of a great team. Now, as peace approaches, one asks where they will find objectives worthy of their best.

I

Of what lasting benefit has been man's use of science and of the new instruments which his research brought into existence? First, they have increased his control of his material environment. They have improved his food, his clothing, his shelter; they have increased his security and released him partly from the bondage of bare existence. They have given him increased knowledge of his own biological processes so that he has had a progressive freedom from disease and an increased span of life. They are illuminating the interactions of his physiological and psychological functions, giving the promise of an improved mental health.

Science has provided the swiftest communication between individuals; it has provided a record of ideas and has enabled man to manipulate and to make extracts from that record so that knowledge evolves and endures throughout the life of a race rather than that of an individual.

There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers--conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose. If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling. Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month's efforts could be produced on call. Mendel's concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.

The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view of the extent and variety of present-day interests, but rather that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record. The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.

But there are signs of a change as new and powerful instrumentalities come into use. Photocells capable of seeing things in a physical sense, advanced photography which can record what is seen or even what is not, thermionic tubes capable of controlling potent forces under the guidance of less power than a mosquito uses to vibrate his wings, cathode ray tubes rendering visible an occurrence so brief that by comparison a microsecond is a long time, relay combinations which will carry out involved sequences of movements more reliably than any human operator and thousands of times as fast-- there are plenty of mechanical aids with which to effect a transformation in scientific records.

Two centuries ago Leibnitz invented a calculating machine which embodied most of the essential features of recent keyboard devices, but it could not then come into use. The economics of the situation were against it: the labor involved in constructing it, before the days of mass production, exceeded the labor to be saved by its use, since all it could accomplish could be duplicated by sufficient use of pencil and paper. Moreover, it would have been subject to frequent breakdown, so that it could not have been depended upon; for at that time and long after, complexity and unreliability were synonymous.

Babbage, even with remarkably generous support for his time, could not produce his great arithmetical machine. His idea was sound enough, but construction and maintenance costs were then too heavy. Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.

Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy of effort. In spite of much complexity, they perform reliably. Witness the humble typewriter, or the movie camera, or the automobile. Electrical contacts have ceased to stick when thoroughly understood. Note the automatic telephone exchange, which has hundreds of thousands of such contacts, and yet is reliable. A spider web of metal, sealed in a thin glass container, a wire heated to brilliant glow, in short, the thermionic tube of radio sets, is made by the hundred million, tossed about in packages, plugged into sockets--and it works! Its gossamer parts, the precise location and alignment involved in its construction, would have occupied a master craftsman of the guild for months; now it is built for thirty cents. The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

II

A record, if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted. Today we make the record conventionally by writing and photography, followed by printing; but we also record on film, on wax disks, and on magnetic wires. Even if utterly new recording procedures do not appear, these present ones are certainly in the process of modification and extension.

Certainly progress in photography is not going to stop. Faster material and lenses, more automatic cameras, finer-grained sensitive compounds to allow an extension of the minicamera idea, are all imminent. Let us project this trend ahead to a logical, if not inevitable, outcome. The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. It takes pictures 3 millimeters square, later to be projected or enlarged, which after all involves only a factor of 10 beyond present practice. The lens is of universal focus, down to any distance accommodated by the unaided eye, simply because it is of short focal length. There is a built-in photocell on the walnut such as we now have on at least one camera, which automatically adjusts exposure for a wide range of illumination. There is film in the walnut for a hundred exposure, and the spring for operating its shutter and shifting its film is wound once for all when the film clip is inserted. It produces its result in full color. It may well be stereoscopic, and record with spaced glass eyes, for striking improvements in stereoscopic technique are just around the corner.

The cord which trips its shutter may reach down a man's sleeve within easy reach of his fingers. A quick squeeze, and the picture is taken. On a pair of ordinary glasses is a square of fine lines near the top of one lens, where it is out of the way of ordinary vision. When an object appears in that square, it is lined up for its j picture. As the scientist of the future moves about the laboratory or the field, every time he looks at something worthy of the record, he trips the shutter and in it goes, without even an audible click. Is this all fantastic? The only fantastic thing about it is the idea of making as many pictures as would result from its use.

Will there be dry photography? It is already here in two forms. When Brady made his Civil War pictures, the plate had to be wet at the time of exposure. Now it has to be wet during development instead. In the future perhaps it need not be wetted at all. There have long been films impregnated with diazo dyes which form a picture without development, so that it is already there as soon as the camera has been operated. An exposure to ammonia gas destroys the unexposed dye, and the picture can then be taken out into the light and examined. The process is now slow, but someone may speed it up, and it has no grain difficulties such as now keep photographic researchers busy. Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately.

Another process now in use is also slow, and more or less clumsy. For fifty years impregnated papers have been used which turn dark at every point where an electrical contact touches them, by reason of the chemical change thus produced in an iodine compound included in the paper. They have been used to make records, for a pointer moving across them can leave a trail behind. If the electrical potential on the pointer is varied as it moves, the line becomes light or dark in accordance with the potential.

This scheme is now used in facsimile transmission. The pointer draws a set of closely spaced lines across the paper one after another. As it moves, its potential is varied in accordance with a varying current received over wires from a distant station, where these variations are produced by a photocell which is similarly scanning a picture. At every instant the darkness of the line being drawn is made equal to the darkness of the point on the picture being observed by the photocell. Thus, when the whole picture has been covered, a replica appears at the receiving end.

A scene itself can be just as well looked over line by line by the photocell in this way as can a photograph of the scene. This whole apparatus constitutes a camera, with the added feature, which can be dispensed with if desired, of making its picture at a distance. It is slow, and the picture is poor in detail. Still, it does give another process of dry photography, in which the picture is finished as soon as it is taken.

It would be a brave man who would predict that such a process will always remain clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail. Television equipment today transmits sixteen reasonably good pictures a second, and it involves only two essential differences from the process described above. For one, the record is made by a moving beam of electrons rather than a moving pointer, for the reason that an electron beam can sweep across the picture very rapidly indeed. The other difference involves merely the use of a screen which glows momentarily when the electrons hit, rather than a chemically treated paper or film which is permanently altered. This speed is necessary in television, for motion pictures rather than stills are the object.

Use chemically treated film in place of the glowing screen, allow the apparatus to transmit one picture only rather than a succession, and a rapid camera for dry photography results. The treated film needs to be far faster in action than present examples, but it probably could be. More serious is the objection that this scheme would involve putting the film inside a vacuum chamber, for electron beams behave normally only in such a rarefied environment. This difficulty could be avoided by allowing the electron beam to play on one side of a partition, and by pressing the film against the other side, if this partition were such as to allow the electrons to go through perpendicular to its surface, and to prevent them from spreading out sideways. Such partitions, in crude form, could certainly be constructed, and they will hardly hold up the general development.

Like dry photography, microphotography still has a long way to go. The basic scheme of reducing the size of the record, and examining it by projection rather than directly, has possibilities too great to be ignored. The combination of optical projection and photographic reduction is already producing some results in microfilm for scholarly purposes, and the potentialities are highly suggestive. Today, with microfilm, reductions by a linear factor of 20 can be employed and still produce full clarity when the material is re-enlarged for examination. The limits are set by the graininess of the film, the excellence of the optical system, and the efficiency of the light sources employed. All of these are rapidly improving .

Assume a linear ratio of 100 for future use. Consider film of the same thickness as paper, although thinner film will certainly be usable. Even under these conditions there would be a total factor of 10,000 between the bulk of the ordinary record on books, and its microfilm replica. The Encyclopedia Britannica could be reduced to the volume of a matchbox. A library of a million volumes could be compressed into one end of a desk. If the human race has produced since the invention of movable type a total record, in the form of magazines, newspapers, books, tracts, advertising blurbs, correspondence, having a volume corresponding to a billion books, the whole affair, assembled and compressed, could be lugged off in a moving van. Mere compression, of course, is not enough; one needs not only to make and store a record but also be able to consult it, and this aspect of the matter comes later. Even the modern great library is not generally consulted; it is nibbled at by a few.

Compression is important, however, when it comes to costs. The material for the microfilm Britannica would cost a nickel, and it could be mailed anywhere for a cent. What would it cost to print a million copies? To print a sheet of newspaper, in a large edition, costs a small fraction of a cent. The entire material of the Britannica in reduced microfilm form would go on a sheet eight and one-half by eleven inches. Once it is available, with the photographic reproduction methods of the future, duplicates in large quantities could probably be turned out for a cent apiece beyond the cost of materials. The preparation of the original copy? That introduces the next aspect of the subject.

III

To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution. To consider the first stage of the procedure, will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record? He does so indirectly, by talking to a stenographer or a wax cylinder; but the elements are all present if he wishes to have his talk directly produce a typed record. All he needs to do is to take advantage of existing mechanisms and to alter his language .

At a recent World Fair a machine called a Voder was shown. A girl stroked its keys and it emitted recognizable speech. No human vocal chords entered into the procedure at any point; the keys simply combined some electrically produced vibrations and passed these on to a loudspeaker. In the Bell Laboratories there is the converse of this machine, called a Vocoder. The loud-speaker is replaced by a microphone, which picks up sound. Speak to it, and the corresponding keys move. This may be one element of the postulated system.

The other element is found in the stenotype, that somewhat disconcerting device encountered usually at public meetings. A girl strokes its keys languidly and looks about the room and sometimes at the speaker with a disquieting gaze. From it emerges a typed strip which records in a phonetically simplified language a record of what the speaker is supposed to have said. Later this strip is retyped into ordinary language, for in its nascent form it is intelligible only to the initiated. Combine these two elements, let the Vocoder run the stenotype, and the result is a machine which types when talked to.

Our present languages are not especially adapted to this sort of mechanization, it is true. It is strange that the inventors of universal languages have not seized upon the idea of producing one which better fitted the technique for transmitting and recording speech. Mechanization may yet force the issue, especially in the scientific field; whereupon scientific jargon would become still less intelligible to the layman.

One can now picture a future investigator in his laboratory. His hands are free, and he is not anchored. As he moves about and observes, he photographs and comments. Time is automatically recorded to tie the two records together. If he goes into the field, he may be connected by radio to his recorder. As he ponders over his notes in the evening, he again talks his comments into the record. His typed record, as well as his photographs, may both be in miniature, so that he projects them for examination.

Much needs to occur, however, between the collection of data and observations, the extraction of parallel material from the existing record, and the final insertion of new material into the general body of the common record. For mature thought there is no mechanical substitute. But creative thought and essentially repetitive thought are very different things. For the latter there are, and may be, powerful mechanical aids.

Adding a column of figures is a repetitive thought process, and it was long ago properly relegated to the machine. True, the machine is sometimes controlled by a keyboard, and thought of a sort enters in reading the figures and poking the corresponding keys, but even this is avoidable. Machines have been made which will read typed figures by photocells and then depress the corresponding keys; these are combinations of photocells for scanning the type, electric circuits for sorting the consequent variations, and relay circuits for interpreting the result into the action of solenoids to pull the keys down.

All this complication is needed because of the clumsy way in which we have learned to write figures. If we recorded them positionally, simply by the configuration of a set of dots on a card, the automatic reading mechanism would become comparatively simple. In fact, if the dots are holes, we have the punched-card machine long ago produced by Hollorith for the purposes of the census, and now used throughout business. Some types of complex businesses could hardly operate without these machines.

Adding is only one operation. To perform arithmetical computation involves also subtraction, multiplication, and division, and in addition some method for temporary storage of results, removal from storage for further manipulation, and recording of final results by printing. Machines for these purposes are now of two types: keyboard machines for accounting and the like, manually controlled for the insertion of data, and usually automatically controlled as far as the sequence of operations is concerned; and punched-card machines in which separate operations are usually delegated to a series of machines, and the cards then transferred bodily from one to another. Both forms are very useful; but as far as complex computations are concerned, both are still in embryo.

Rapid electrical counting appeared soon after the physicists found it desirable to count cosmic rays. For their own purposes the physicists promptly constructed thermionic-tube equipment capable of counting electrical impulses at the rate of 100,000 a second. The advanced arithmetical machines of the future will be electrical in nature, and they will perform at 100 times present speeds, or more.

Moreover, they will be far more versatile than present commercial machines, so that they may readily be adapted for a wide variety of operations. They will be controlled by a control card or film, they will select their own data and manipulate it in accordance with the instructions thus inserted, they will perform complex arithmetical computations at exceedingly high speeds, and they will record results in such form as to be readily available for distribution or for later further manipulation. Such machines will have enormous appetites. One of them will take instructions and data from a whole roomful of girls armed with simple keyboard punches, and will deliver sheets of computed results every few minutes. There will always be plenty of things to compute in the detailed affairs of millions of people doing complicated things.

IV

The repetitive processes of thought are not confined, however, to matters of arithmetic and statistics. In fact, every time one combines and records facts in accordance with established logical processes, the creative aspect of thinking is concerned only with the selection of the data and the process to be employed, and the manipulation thereafter is repetitive in nature and hence a fit matter to be relegated to the machines. Not so much has been done along these lines, beyond the bounds of arithmetic, as might be done, primarily because of the economics of the situation. The needs of business, and the extensive market obviously waiting, assured the advent of mass-produced arithmetical machines just as soon as production methods were sufficiently advanced.

With machines for advanced analysis no such situation existed; for there was and is no extensive market; the users of advanced methods of manipulating data are a very small part of the population. There are, however, machines for solving differential equations--and functional and integral equations, for that matter. There are many special machines, such as the harmonic synthesizer which predicts the tides. There will be many more, appearing certainly first in the hands of the scientist and in small numbers.

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. The abacus, with its beads strung on parallel wires, led the Arabs to positional numeration and the concept of zero many centuries before the rest of the world; and it was a useful tool--so useful that it still exists.

It is a far cry from the abacus to the modern keyboard accounting machine. It will be an equal step to the arithmetical machine of the future. But even this new machine will not take the scientist where he needs to go. Relief must be secured from laborious detailed manipulation of higher mathematics as well, if the users of it are to free their brains for something more than repetitive detailed transformations in accordance with established rules. A mathematician is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot. He is not even a man who can readily perform the transformations of equations by the use of calculus. He is primarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgment in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs.

All else he should be able to turn over to his mechanism, just as confidently as he turns over the propelling of his car to the intricate mechanism under the hood. Only then will mathematics be practically effective in bringing the growing knowledge of atomistics to the useful solution of the advanced problems of chemistry, metallurgy, and biology. For this reason there will come more machines to handle advanced mathematics for the scientist. Some of them will be sufficiently bizarre to suit the most fastidious connoisseur of the present artifacts of civilization.

V

The scientist, however, is not the only person who manipulates data and examines the world about him by the use of logical processes, although he sometimes preserves this appearance by adopting into the fold anyone who becomes logical, much in the manner in which a British labor leader is elevated to knighthood. Whenever logical processes of thought are employed--that is, whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove--there is an opportunity for the machine. Formal logic used to be a keen instrument in the hands of the teacher in his trying of students' souls. It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.

Logic can become enormously difficult, and it would undoubtedly be well to produce more assurance in its use. The machines for higher analysis have usually been equation solvers. Ideas are beginning to appear for equation transformers, which will rearrange the relationship expressed by an equation in accordance with strict and rather advanced logic. Progress is inhibited by the exceedingly crude way in which mathematicians express their relationships. They employ a symbolism which grew like Topsy and has little consistency; a strange fact in that most logical field.

A new symbolism, probably positional, must apparently precede the reduction of mathematical transformations to machine processes. Then, on beyond the strict logic of the mathematician, lies the application of logic in everyday affairs. We may some day click off arguments on a machine with the same assurance that we now enter sales on a cash register. But the machine of logic will not look like a cash register, even of the streamlined model.

So much for the manipulation of ideas and their insertion into the record. Thus far we seem to be worse off than before--for we can enormously extend the record; yet even in its present bulk we can hardly consult it. This is a much larger matter than merely the extraction of data for the purposes of scientific research; it involves the entire process by which man profits by his inheritance of acquired knowledge. The prime action of use is selection, and here we are halting indeed. There may be millions of fine thoughts, and the account of the experience on which they are based, all encased within stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if the scholar can get at only one a week by diligent search, his syntheses are not likely to keep up with the current scene.

Selection, in this broad sense, is a stone adze in the hands of a cabinetmaker. Yet, in a narrow sense and in other areas, something has already been done mechanically on selection. The personnel officer of a factory drops a stack of a few thousand employee cards into a selecting machine, sets a code in accordance with an established convention, and produces in a short time a list of all employees who live in Trenton and know Spanish. Even such devices are much too slow when it comes, for example, to matching a set of fingerprints with one of five million on file. Selection devices of this sort will soon be speeded up from their present rate of reviewing data at a few hundred a minute. By the use of photocells and microfilm they will survey items at the rate of a thousand a second, and will print out duplicates of those selected.

This process, however, is simple selection: it proceeds by examining in turn every one of a large set of items, and by picking out those which have certain specified characteristics. There is another form of selection best illustrated by the automatic telephone exchange. You dial a number and the machine selects and connects just one of a million possible stations. It does not run over them all. It pays attention only to a class given by a first digit, then only to a subclass of this given by the second digit, and so on; and thus proceeds rapidly and almost unerringly to the selected station. It requires a few seconds to make the selection, although the process could be speeded up if increased speed were economically warranted. If necessary, it could be made extremely fast by substituting thermionic-tube switching for mechanical switching, so that the full selection could be made in one one-hundredth of a second. No one would wish to spend the money necessary to make this change in the telephone system, but the general idea is applicable elsewhere.

Take the prosaic problem of the great department store. Every time a charge sale is made, there are a number of things to be done. The inventory needs to be revised, the salesman needs to be given credit for the sale, the general accounts need an entry, and, most important, the customer needs to be charged. A central records device has been developed in which much of this work is done conveniently. The salesman places on a stand the customer's identification card, his own card, and the card taken from the article sold--all punched cards. When he pulls a lever, contacts are made through the holes, machinery at a central point makes the necessary computations and entries, and the proper receipt is printed for the salesman to pass to the customer.

But there may be ten thousand charge customers doing business with the store, and before the full operation can be completed someone has to select the right card and insert it at the central office. Now rapid selection can slide just the proper card into position in an instant or two, and return it afterward. Another difficulty occurs, however. Someone must read a total on the card, so that the machine can add its computed item to it. Conceivably the cards might be of the dry photography type I have described. Existing totals could then be read by photocell, and the new total entered by an electron beam.

The cards may be in miniature, so that they occupy little space. They must move quickly. They need not be transferred far, but merely into position so that the photocell and recorder can operate on them. Positional dots can enter the data. At the end of the month a machine can readily be made to read these and to print an ordinary bill. With tube selection, in which no mechanical parts are involved in the switches, little time need be occupied in bringing the correct card into use--a second should suffice for the entire operation. The whole record on the card may be made by magnetic dots on a steel sheet if desired, instead of dots to be observed optically, following the scheme by which Poulsen long ago put speech on a magnetic wire. This method has the advantage of simplicity and ease of erasure. By using photography, however, one can arrange to project the record in enlarged form, and at a distance by using the process common in television equipment.

One can consider rapid selection of this form, and distant projection for other purposes. To be able to key one sheet of a million before an operator in a second or two, with the possibility of then adding notes thereto, is suggestive in many ways. It might even be of use in libraries, but that is another story. At any rate, there are now some interesting combinations possible. One might, for example, speak to a microphone, in the manner described in connection with the speech-controlled typewriter, and thus make his selections. It would certainly beat the usual file clerk.

VI

The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a lag in the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or a lack of development of devices for their use. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.

The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.

Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially, but he certainly ought to be able to learn from it. In minor ways he may even improve, for his records have relative permanency. The first idea, however, to be drawn from the analogy concerns selection. Selection by association, rather than by indexing, may yet be mechanized. One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and flexibility with which the mind follows an associative trail, but it should be possible to beat the mind decisively in regard to the permanence and clarity of the items resurrected from storage.

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.

In one end is the stored material. The matter of bulk is well taken care of by improved microfilm. Only a small part of the interior of the memex is devoted to storage, the rest to mechanism. Yet if the user inserted 5000 pages of material a day it would take him hundreds of years to fill the repository, so he can be profligate and enter material freely.

Most of the memex contents are purchased on microfilm ready for insertion. Books of all sorts, pictures, current periodicals, newspapers, are thus obtained and dropped into place. Business correspondence takes the same path. And there is provision for direct entry. On the top of the memex is a transparent platen. On this are placed longhand notes, photographs, memoranda, all sorts of things. When one is in place, the depression of a lever causes it to be photographed onto the next blank space in a section ~_ the memex film, dry photography being employed

There is, of course, provision for consultation of the record by the usual scheme of indexing. If the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing positions. Frequently-used codes are mnemonic, so that he seldom consults his code book; but when he does, a single tap of a key projects it for his use. Moreover, he has supplemental levers. On deflecting one of these levers to the right he runs through the book before him, each page in turn being projected at a speed which just allows a recognizing glance at each. If he deflects it further to the right, he steps through the book 10 pages at a time; still further at 100 pages at a time. Deflection to the left gives him the same control backwards.

A special button transfers him immediately to the first page of the index. Any given book of his library can thus be called up and consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf. As he has several projection positions, he can leave one item in position while he calls up another. He can add marginal notes and comments, taking advantage of one possible type of dry photography, and it could even be arranged so that he can do this by a stylus scheme, such as is now employed in the telautograph seen in railroad waiting rooms, just as though he had the physical page before him.

VII

All this is conventional, except for the projection forward of present-day mechanisms and gadgetry. It affords an immediate step, however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the memex. The process of tying two items together is the important thing.

When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it ~out on his keyboard. Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions. At the bottom of each there are a number of blank code spaces, and a pointer is set to indicate one of these on each item. The user taps a single key, and the items are permanently joined. In each code space appears the code word. Out of view, but also in the code space, is inserted a set of dots for photocell viewing; and on each item these dots by their positions designate the index number of the other item.

Thereafter, at any time, when one of these items is in view, the other can be instantly recalled merely by tapping a button below the corresponding code space. Moreover, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn, rapidly or slowly, by deflecting a lever like that used for turning the pages of a book. It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together from widely separated sources and bound together to form a new book. It is more than this, for any item can be joined into numerous trails.

The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.

And his trails do not fade. Several years later, his talk with a friend turns to the queer ways in which a people resist innovations, even of vital interest. He has an example, in the fact that the outraged Europeans still failed to adopt the Turkish bow. In fact he has a trail on it. A touch brings up the code book. Tapping a few keys projects the head of the trail. A lever runs through it at will, stopping at interesting items, going off on side excursions. It is an interesting trail, pertinent to the discussion. So he sets a reproducer in action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail.

VIII

Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the associated opinions and decisions of his whole experience, and of the experience of friends and authorities. The patent attorney has on call the millions of issued patents, with familiar trails to every point of his client's interest. The physician, puzzled by a patient's reactions, strikes the trail established in studying an earlier similar case, and runs rapidly through analogous case histories, with side references to the classics for the pertinent anatomy and histology. The chemist, struggling with the synthesis of an organic compound, has all the chemical literature before him in his laboratory, with trails following the analogies of compounds, and side trails to their physical and chemical behavior.

The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people, parallels it with a skip trail which stops only on the salient items, and can follow at any time contemporary trails which lead him all over civilization at a particular epoch. There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world's record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected.

Thus science may implement the ways in which man produces, stores, and consults the record of the race. It might be striking to outline the instrumentalities of the future more spectacularly, rather than to stick closely to methods and elements now known and undergoing rapid development, as has been done here. Technical difficulties of all sorts have been ignored, certainly, but also ignored are means as yet unknown which may come any day to accelerate technical progress as violently as did the advent of the thermionic tube. In order that the picture may not be too commonplace, by reason of sticking to present-day patterns, it may be well to mention one such possibility, not to prophesy but merely to suggest, for prophecy based on extension of the known has substance, while prophecy founded on the unknown is only a doubly involved guess.

All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses--the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may be established more directly?

We know that when the eye sees, all the consequent information is transmitted to the brain by means of electrical vibrations in the channel of the optic nerve. This is an exact analogy with the electrical vibrations which occur in the cable of a television set: they convey the picture from the photocells which see it to the radio transmitter from which it is broadcast. We know further that if we can approach that cable with the proper instruments, we do not need to touch it; we can pick up those vibrations by electrical induction and thus discover and reproduce the scene which is being transmitted, just as a telephone wire may be tapped for its message.

The impulses which flow in the arm nerves of a typist convey to her fingers the translated information which reaches her eye or ear, in order that the fingers may be caused to strike the proper keys. Might not these currents be intercepted, either in the original form in which information is conveyed to the brain, or in the marvelously metamorphosed form in which they then proceed to the hand?

By bone conduction we already introduce sounds into the nerve channels of the deaf in order that they may hear. Is it not possible that we may learn to introduce them without the present cumbersomeness of first transforming electrical vibrations to mechanical ones, which the human mechanism promptly transforms back to the electrical form? With a couple of electrodes on the skull the encephalograph now produces pen-and-ink traces which bear some relation to the electrical phenomena going on in the brain itself. True, the record is unintelligible, except as it points out certain gross misfunctioning of the cerebral mechanism; but who would now place bounds on where such a thing may lead?

In the outside world, all forms of intelligence, whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs.

Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness.

Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

The applications of science have built man a well-supplied house, and are teaching him to live healthily therein. They have enabled him to throw masses of people against one another with cruel weapons. They may yet allow him truly to encompass the great record and to grow in the wisdom of race experience. He may perish in conflict before he learns to wield that record for his true good. Yet, in the application of science to the needs and desires of man, it would seem to be a singularly unfortunate stage at which to terminate the process, or to lose hope as to the outcome.

He seams marveled by the fact that these technologies work

What a foresight to say when Bush urges scientists, once the war ends, to focus on development of tools which can make accumulated knowledge more accessible, thereby extending the power of the human mind. It show's how he thought of the work he was doing

It was not just one journalist that made this claim, nor was a claim of Russian Pravda - it has been noted by many journalist around the world that the, undisputed so far (Sep 2023), claim that it was Boris Johnson who broke the peace negotiations was made by the Ukranian Pravda.

This line seems to reference genocide as a way to cleanse "the world." They believed war is something to be celebrated, as it will bring change and "freedom." This line also mentions disdain for women.

for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - Elon Musk, progress trap - Elon Musk - comment - the US military, Ukraine military have to deal with the unintended consequence of a vital communication system that can be turned off without notice or warning - what if Putin calls up Musk and says to him: - If you don't turn the Starlink off when Ukraine tries to mount major attack on Crimea, I will launch my nukes - What will Musk do then?

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, playing God, Elon Musk - Starlink - Ukraine, Elon Musk- Crimea, Elon Musk - nuclear war, quote, quote - Elon Musk - nuclear war - starlink - crimea
• quote
  • How am I in this war?
  • Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars.
  • It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.
• author: Elon Musk
• comment
  • the Tech genius could not predict the progress trap of starlink being used by the Ukrainian army to send submarine drones to blow up Russian ships
  • so he was forced into a position of playing God

• for: progress trap, unintended consequences, nuclear war, Elon Musk - Ukraine, playing God

• comment

  • Here, Elon Musk demonstrates how the most powerful technological leaders are themselves unable to predict the unintended consequences of progress.
  • This story exposes the power that no tech titan is immune to
    • making one dimensional decisions based on high dimensional information whose salient relationships can not be predicted ahead of time.
  • The dilemma of power - it is opaque and puts the fate of humanity in the decision of a few God-like individuals
  • Do 8 billion people really trust one man to decide the fate of civilization?
  • And yet, this is the kind of world that those in power continue to reify by consolidating their positions
  • The myth of dictators wanting to hold onto power at all costs goes beyond the sphere of politics

Writing in 1951, Hutchins is writing too close to the time period of post World War II to have a better view of this topic. He's fashioned far too simple a story as a result.

There was a lack of critical thinking and over-reliance on top down approval which was harmful in the Japanese story of this time period though.

• for: evolution, evolution - war, descendants - war
• paraphrase
  • Genetic analyses of human Y chromosomes (which are passed directly from fathers to sons) reveal that
    • groups of men who succeeded on the battlefield replaced the losing groups of men in the gene pool.
  • In other words, the coalitions of men who were successful in warfare not only survived
    • but reproduced with local women and passed on their genes.
  • Success on the battlefield was thus highly consequential.
  • Humans today are the descendants of those men who managed to dominate their opponents in war. -comment
  • wow!

• for: stats, quote, stats - homophobia - war, quote - homophobia - war, evolution - homophobia, homophobia - war
• quote
• stats
  • estimates indicate that nearly 20-30% of our male ancestors died in intergroup conflicts
• comment
  • wow!

• for: evolution - homophobia - war
• title
  • Ancient Warriors and Modern Footballers: An Evolutionary Explanation for Homophobia
• source
  • https://areomagazine.com/2023/05/19/ancient-warriors-and-modern-footballers-an-evolutionary-explanation-for-homophobia/

https://archive.org/details/pentagonpapersde00beac/page/n1/mode/2up

Daniel Ellsberg's personal copy of the Pentagon Papers with handwritten annotations.

Full Daniel Ellsberg collection of scanned documents from his home: https://archive.org/details/danielellsberg?tab=collection

William Howard Russell was one of the first foreign war correspondents. He was particularly known for his coverage of the 1850's Crimean War; his descriptions of the wounded there urged the arrival of Florence Nightingale.

Part of literature is the Great Conversation, which often turns on the ability for writers to be understood and appreciated, often in translation. Gary Saul Morson takes P&V to task for their Russian translations which often focus on the incredibly specific nuances of direct translation, but which simultaneously lose the beauty and sense of literature. He says, "[...] readers typically turn to translations not to hear about culinary ephemera but to read literature."

Air raid sirens were a common occurrence in Monowitz from the summer of 1944. Air raids gave prisoners a chance to escape, to meet and speak to fellow prisoners, to steal food, to gain some respite from their labours and the torment of the Kapos. Some prisoners welcomed the air raids as a sign that the Third Reich was obviously nearing its end. The air raids also frightened their tormentors, the SS guards.

There were large scale air attacks by the US Air Force against the I. G. Farben synthetic oil plant in Monowitz on 20 August, 3 September, 18 December and 26 December 1944, and on 19 January 1945, the day after the beginning of the evacuation of the camp. During the raid of 20 August, seventy-five prisoners were killed and a hundred and fifty injured; on 3 September, three hundred people, including SS and prisoners, were killed or injured. The high number of prisoner casualties was in part due to I. G. Farben employees forbidding prisoners to take cover in makeshift shelters.

CM

Subcamps of Auschwitz project

The system of rationing reached its extreme in the Nazi Lager. Nonetheless, Levi and many of his companions had already experienced the dilemmas of provisioning in the context of war and the violent repression enacted by the Salò Republic. This situation of scarcity and black market profiteering proved acute in the Valle d’Aosta to which Levi and his family had fled, along with many draft evaders and foreign Jews from the Balkans. When Levi joined his partisan comrades in the Col de Joux, they likewise experienced the challenges all partisans faced: how to safely secure supplies without alienating the local population or risking capture.

PB

While referring principally to the hero of the Homeric epic, ‘Ulisse’ also represents the kind of moniker that could serve Italian partisans as a nom de guerre. In his 1981 poem Partigia, Primo Levi enquires into the fate of his companions in the Resistance: ‘Dove siete, partigia di tutte le valli, | Tarzan, Riccio, Sparviero, Saetta, Ulisse?’ Historian Sergio Luzzatto reports that Levi’s 1946 application for recognition as a partisan listed his own code name as 'Ferrero' (Luzzatto 2016, 165-66).

PB

In geographic terms, of course, the sea that Ulysses traverses is the broader Mediterranean and, at moments, its inner seas (e.g. the Ionian, Aegean, or Adriatic). As in Homer’s epic, however, ‘mare’ possesses a polyvocality in Levi’s text that far exceeds its cartographic meanings. The Fascist regime famously instrumentalised and misused Italy’s classical heritage. As early as 1918, Mussolini had linked ‘romanità’ with the sea, declaring in a speech at Pavia, ‘Now the mission of Italians is in the Mediterranean’ ('Ora la missione degli Italiani è nel Mediterraneo'). Yet even as the Duce confidently proclaimed that Italy would rule over a revived Mare Nostrum, the sea itself retained a historically ambivalent – at points, even marginal – status within the modern Italian state (Fogu 2020).

In a 1985 Paris Review interview (only published in 1994), Levi spoke of the revelation of reading Melville during the time of Fascism. According to Levi, the fascist censors allowed Cesare Pavese to translate the book as ‘it had no political implications’, a judgement that ignored the work’s entanglements with American narratives of imperialism and race politics. In Levi’s estimation, Pavese’s translation ‘distorted it [Moby Dick], fitted it into the Italian language’ – and thus into an ambivalent Italian imaginary of the sea. Like many Italians, ‘[h]e wasn’t a seaman – Pavese – he hated the sea’, commented Levi.

Such ambivalence towards the sea resonates in Levi’s biography, as well. Like many 20th-century Italians and Europeans more generally, Levi was familiar with the seaside as a place for recreation and tourism. Indeed, in ‘Il canto di Ulisse’, Levi claimed that Rudi, the Blockführer in Auschwitz, liked Italy and wanted to learn Italian; this desire dated back to a month-long holiday in Liguria before the war, a vacation presumably spent along the shore. In the chapter, Levi likewise refers to ‘una qualche spiaggia estiva della mia infanzia’. Yet in his youth Levi embraced mountain climbing, with one biographer, Ian Thomson, claiming that on the eve of World War II Levi did not even know how to swim. For Levi, the sublimity of the peaks, rather than the sea’s vastness, symbolised freedom. In this, Levi was not alone. The classic terrain of both the Resistance and the civil war was resolutely a landscape (karst, forest, field, mountain) rather than a seascape.

In an indirect way, the project of Mare Nostrum threatened to shipwreck Levi’s own university hopes. In 1937, as Levi prepared for his ‘maturità’ exams, he received a demand to report to the Turin seaplane base. There he was accused of ignoring a draft summons for the Royal Navy. Levi’s sister, Anna Maria Levi, insisted, ‘Maybe my brother’s name was on a Fascist National Service list, but he never received an Italian Royal Navy summons’ (Thomson 2003, 66). A compromise was struck, with Levi expected to enrol in the university branch of the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN). Thus, unlike Ulysses, Levi was not destined to set forth on the open sea (in the latter’s case with the Navy). In the end, Levi never served in any branch of the Italian military or fascist militia. Rather, his brief three month career as a partisan played out in the mountain passes of the Valle d’Aosta, after Levi moved out of the Hotel Ristoro where he had initially sought refuge.

During those few months when Levi took up arms against the Fascists, there occurred an incident that profoundly demoralised Levi and his comrades: the execution at Frumy of two partisan brothers-in-arms, Fulvio Oppezzo and Luciano Zabaldano on December 9, 1943. In the estimation of historian Sergio Luzzatto, this episode would continue to haunt not only Levi’s conscience but also his writings (non-fiction, his novel, and poetry) (Luzzatto 2016). The ‘ugly secret’ Levi harboured was that these partisans - long celebrated as the first partisans killed in the Valle d’Aosta - did not fall at the hands of the Fascists but of their comrades, who appear to have punished Oppezzo and Zabaldano for indiscretion and greed. Perhaps it was only fitting that Zabaldono’s nom de guerre was ‘Mare’, given that this partisan’s life – and death – embodied the ambiguity and fluidity of what Levi would later conceptualise as the ‘grey zone’.

PB

Food is a fundamental aspect of war and captivity narratives. Cabbage and turnips become emblems of misery in Günter Grass’s Der Butt (The Flounder), Ernst Jünger’s In Stahlgewittern (In Storms of Steel), and Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen Nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front). In Levi, these vegetables symbolise the bleak reality of the Lager that makes any daydreaming futile.

GC

Food is a fundamental aspect of war and captivity narratives. Cabbage and turnips become emblems of misery in Günter Grass’s Der Butt (The Flounder), Ernst Jünger’s In Stahlgewittern (In Storms of Steel), and Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen Nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front). In Levi, these vegetables symbolise the bleak reality of the Lager that makes any daydreaming futile.

GC

The system of rationing reached its extreme in the Nazi Lager. Nonetheless, Levi and many of his companions had already experienced the dilemmas of provisioning in the context of war and the violent repression enacted by the Salò Republic. This situation of scarcity and black market profiteering proved acute in the Valle d’Aosta to which Levi and his family had fled, along with many draft evaders and foreign Jews from the Balkans. When Levi joined his partisan comrades in the Col de Joux, they likewise experienced the challenges all partisans faced: how to safely secure supplies without alienating the local population or risking capture.

PB

In geographic terms, of course, the sea that Ulysses traverses is the broader Mediterranean and, at moments, its inner seas (e.g. the Ionian, Aegean, or Adriatic). As in Homer’s epic, however, ‘mare’ possesses a polyvocality in Levi’s text that far exceeds its cartographic meanings. The Fascist regime famously instrumentalised and misused Italy’s classical heritage. As early as 1918, Mussolini had linked ‘romanità’ with the sea, declaring in a speech at Pavia, ‘Now the mission of Italians is in the Mediterranean’ ('Ora la missione degli Italiani è nel Mediterraneo'). Yet even as the Duce confidently proclaimed that Italy would rule over a revived Mare Nostrum, the sea itself retained a historically ambivalent – at points, even marginal – status within the modern Italian state (Fogu 2020).

In a 1985 Paris Review interview (only published in 1994), Levi spoke of the revelation of reading Melville during the time of Fascism. According to Levi, the fascist censors allowed Cesare Pavese to translate the book as ‘it had no political implications’, a judgement that ignored the work’s entanglements with American narratives of imperialism and race politics. In Levi’s estimation, Pavese’s translation ‘distorted it [Moby Dick], fitted it into the Italian language’ – and thus into an ambivalent Italian imaginary of the sea. Like many Italians, ‘[h]e wasn’t a seaman – Pavese – he hated the sea’, commented Levi.

Such ambivalence towards the sea resonates in Levi’s biography, as well. Like many 20th-century Italians and Europeans more generally, Levi was familiar with the seaside as a place for recreation and tourism. Indeed, in ‘Il canto di Ulisse’, Levi claimed that Rudi, the Blockführer in Auschwitz, liked Italy and wanted to learn Italian; this desire dated back to a month-long holiday in Liguria before the war, a vacation presumably spent along the shore. In the chapter, Levi likewise refers to ‘una qualche spiaggia estiva della mia infanzia’. Yet in his youth Levi embraced mountain climbing, with one biographer, Ian Thomson, claiming that on the eve of World War II Levi did not even know how to swim. For Levi, the sublimity of the peaks, rather than the sea’s vastness, symbolised freedom. In this, Levi was not alone. The classic terrain of both the Resistance and the civil war was resolutely a landscape (karst, forest, field, mountain) rather than a seascape.

In an indirect way, the project of Mare Nostrum threatened to shipwreck Levi’s own university hopes. In 1937, as Levi prepared for his ‘maturità’ exams, he received a demand to report to the Turin seaplane base. There he was accused of ignoring a draft summons for the Royal Navy. Levi’s sister, Anna Maria Levi, insisted, ‘Maybe my brother’s name was on a Fascist National Service list, but he never received an Italian Royal Navy summons’ (Thomson 2003, 66). A compromise was struck, with Levi expected to enrol in the university branch of the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN). Thus, unlike Ulysses, Levi was not destined to set forth on the open sea (in the latter’s case with the Navy). In the end, Levi never served in any branch of the Italian military or fascist militia. Rather, his brief three month career as a partisan played out in the mountain passes of the Valle d’Aosta, after Levi moved out of the Hotel Ristoro where he had initially sought refuge.

During those few months when Levi took up arms against the Fascists, there occurred an incident that profoundly demoralised Levi and his comrades: the execution at Frumy of two partisan brothers-in-arms, Fulvio Oppezzo and Luciano Zabaldano on December 9, 1943. In the estimation of historian Sergio Luzzatto, this episode would continue to haunt not only Levi’s conscience but also his writings (non-fiction, his novel, and poetry) (Luzzatto 2016). The ‘ugly secret’ Levi harboured was that these partisans - long celebrated as the first partisans killed in the Valle d’Aosta - did not fall at the hands of the Fascists but of their comrades, who appear to have punished Oppezzo and Zabaldano for indiscretion and greed. Perhaps it was only fitting that Zabaldono’s nom de guerre was ‘Mare’, given that this partisan’s life – and death – embodied the ambiguity and fluidity of what Levi would later conceptualise as the ‘grey zone’.

PB

While referring principally to the hero of the Homeric epic, ‘Ulisse’ also represents the kind of moniker that could serve Italian partisans as a nom de guerre. In his 1981 poem Partigia, Primo Levi enquires into the fate of his companions in the Resistance: ‘Dove siete, partigia di tutte le valli, | Tarzan, Riccio, Sparviero, Saetta, Ulisse?’ Historian Sergio Luzzatto reports that Levi’s 1946 application for recognition as a partisan listed his own code name as 'Ferrero' (Luzzatto 2016, 165-66).

PB

The system of rationing reached its extreme in the Nazi Lager. Nonetheless, Levi and many of his companions had already experienced the dilemmas of provisioning in the context of war and the violent repression enacted by the Salò Republic. This situation of scarcity and black market profiteering proved acute in the Valle d’Aosta to which Levi and his family had fled, along with many draft evaders and foreign Jews from the Balkans. When Levi joined his partisan comrades in the Col de Joux, they likewise experienced the challenges all partisans faced: how to safely secure supplies without alienating the local population or risking capture.

PB

Food is a fundamental aspect of war and captivity narratives. Cabbage and turnips become emblems of misery in Günter Grass’s Der Butt (The Flounder), Ernst Jünger’s In Stahlgewittern (In Storms of Steel), and Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen Nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front). In Levi, these vegetables symbolise the bleak reality of the Lager that makes any daydreaming futile.

GC

Lithuania abandons Russian Gas

New to me form of censorship evasion: easter egg room in a mainstream online game that itself is not censored. Finnish news paper Helsingin Sanomat has been putting their reporting on the Russian war on Ukraine inside a level of online FPS game Counter Strike, translated into Russian. This as a way to circumvent Russian censorship that blocks Finnish media. It saw 2k downloads from unknown geographic origins, so the effect might be very limited.

Don't Be a Sucker

Aby Warburg's views on art history and memory may have a lot to say with respect to our cultural movement of destroying and removing Civil War Monuments which glorify the "Lost Cause" of the South in the United States.

The complexities of the response of South Africans to the war in Ukraine are discussed in this story. On the one hand, the South African ANC government has had a historical political and economic relationship with Russia that continues up to the invasion of Ukraine. On the other hand, the ANCs struggle against apartheid puts it in a paradoxical situation with the huge atrocities Russia is now perpetrating upon Ukraine.

Violations of early NATO treaty and alleged corruption within the Ukraine government cannot justify Putin's continued human rights atrocities.

In this day and age, does national sovereignty justify war? In this day and age, the need for Mutually Assured Destruction is indeed MADness .

With climate change breathing down our necks as well as the 6th mass extinction, we appear to be a world gone mad.

• Comment
• Observation
  • it is known that warfare is a significant source of technological innovation
  • this can be explained by evolutionary biology
  • our instruct for survival is strongest in ( inter-species) conflict
  • such is the deep irony of human progress
  • now, in the Anthropocene, humanity is waging another war for survival, caused by our war against nature
• we can characterized this war as a war against past ignorance

—Ronald Reagan

JFK quote - " if mankind does not put an end to war war will put an end to mankind"

• Russian war may increase usage of fuels
• this could make reaching the 1.5 Deg C target more difficult

Mexican-American War

Kernwapenvrije wereld, te beginnen in Europa

Press release. Doomsday clock changed to 90 seconds to mid-night. Largely due to Russia's invasion to Ukraine.

Doomsday Clock Statement

Stop Wapenhandel bericht 04. December

The OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) showed a dramatic increase in ceasefire violations predominantly on the side of the separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk.

Schafer, B. (2021, October 5). RT Deutsch Finds a Home with Anti-Vaccination Skeptics in Germany. Alliance For Securing Democracy. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/rt-deutsch-youtube-antivaccination-germany/

Gideon, M.-K. (2022, February 23). Has Covid-19 Been Worse Than the 1918 Influenza Pandemic? Medium. https://gidmk.medium.com/has-covid-19-been-worse-than-the-1918-influenza-pandemic-1c3362f01bcc

Who's for the Game? - Jessie Pope

Who's for the game, the biggest that's played,

The red crashing game of a fight?

Who'll grip and tackle the job unafraid?

And who thinks he'd rather sit tight?

Who'll toe the line for the signal to Go?

Who'll give his country a hand?

Who wants a turn to himself in the show?

And who wants a seat in the stand?

Who knows it won't be a picnic - not much -

This line gives a bit of insight into Pope herself, she is very clearly not able to be a solider yet finds it admirable and heroic for the men who are sacrificing their lives. She encourages the foolish bravery and obliviousness of the young men, embraces it even further by comparing the upcoming carnage as not much unlike a picnic. A picnic is a universal sign of comfort, tranquillity, and peace. Pope is wanting the boys to perceive war to be a game they are able to tap out of easily so that they enlist, and enlist in large quantities. She is feeding into their optimistic, hopeful, and unfortunately naïve mindset that the war will not be on for long and that you simply need to wield a gun to defend yourself as your opposing side is the only danger. Pope describing war to be, to an extent, similar to a picnic with the phrase "not much" is distinctly manipulative and cunning yet not blaringly so, letting boys be swiftly influenced by the propaganda into joining so they can join in on the fun.

Yet eagerly shoulders a gun?

Who would much rather come back with a crutch

Then lie low and be out of the fun?

Come along, lads -

The language/utilisation of 'along' indicates there being already a large mass of enthusiastic participants that you would join along with, along to. This emphasises how glorified and fulfilling each man or boy believes war to be. In a way it is igniting our inner Herd Mentality with each boy knowing he will be ridiculed if he is not an element of the incoming bloodshed.

The use of the word "lads" highlights (spotlights) the target audience, young, proud, prideful, and foolish lads.

But you'll come on all right -

This line is clear evidence of Pope moulding the optimism that everyone, for the sake of their sanity and health, held onto tightly. It is the hopefulness that you will be able to go into a dangerous situation and be invincible, immortal, untouchable because you are unlike no other.

The direct pronouns Pope uses in the poem are no mistake, the pronouns 'you', 'yours', etc were put in this poem for men and boys alike at the time to feel targeted personally by Pope, she is assuring him that she has faith in him and that he will come back practically untouched apart from a bit more blood under his shoes.

She is moulding this optimism to say to the readers without explicitly writing it, "you're capable of being strong enough to come home while others might not. You are able to do this while others cannot. You will come home." She has faith in him, even if she does not know who he is.

For there's only one course to pursue,

Direct implication that war is the one thing you should, must do. Pope is almost guilting the reader into thinking his only purpose is to be a weapon for his country, his home and leave that home to possibly die alone and painfully.

Your country is up to her neck in a fight,

And she's looking and calling for you.

FLIRTY: Form/fixture, Language, Imagery, Rhythm/rhyme, Tone/thematic concern, Your interpretation of the poem

Does it Matter? - Siegfried Sassoon

Does it matter?—losing your legs?...

Repetition involving the thought of 'does it matter?' emphasises the pondering he does as to whether any of the losses he has dealt with truly means anything.

For people will always be kind,

He is wondering if it means anything to have experienced a loss right in front of your own eyes - possibly haunting you for eternity when you're both awake and asleep - when you will have the kindness, respect, and admiration from your peers until the day you die and possibly afterwards too.

And you need not show that you mind

When the others come in after hunting

To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter?—losing your sight?...

There’s such splendid work for the blind;

And people will always be kind,

This repeated line almost verbatim to the one above stresses the bittersweet glory he gets for fighting and surviving long enough to process the propaganda that had most definitely been the main contributor to his eagerness to unknowingly pursue a harrowing ordeal.

As you sit on the terrace remembering

And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter?—those dreams from the pit?...

Noticeable shift in the question, it is now referencing a recurring event, 'dreams' is in a plural form, there is no word of it ending or having ended meaning that the memories have stayed with him in his mind where he can't control the frequency, the timing, etc. He is a slave to his own mind replaying his darkest days even when he came home 'in one piece' long ago.

You can drink and forget and be glad,

He now has the privilege to drinks and celebrations; the end of both his country and his own war, he has all the opportunities in the world to be praised, glorified, and made to be a hero, rightfully so. He now has the privilege to be joyful.

And people won’t say that you’re mad;

And the people who do see the side effects of the horrors will at most look on in pity, understanding in a way which is both ignorant and oblivious.

For they’ll know you’ve fought for your country

For he has done the greatest of services! He has fought and won, he has proven his worth to his country for grappling the heavy weight of death and destruction.

And no one will worry a bit.

A breathless paragraph that does articulate well and generously the conservative (nay) reactionary position of those who year to return to an "orange" (or even amber) order before the arrival of green.

The issue is they want to go back rather than forward which is the only option. We need to "transclude" green -- and orange and amber. Yes we do want virtue, and values, and (probably) a reduced government -- and more. And we need to recognize difference and systematic injustice and a multiplicity of perspectives. And go beyond that into something new.

This ultimately is simply reactionary. One can sympathize and appreciate it. One imagine what it was like for Catholics in their old ordered world with the all good things of the high middle ages bemoaning the arrival of the protestant heretics. But there is no going back. We can go forward -- and still take much of what was good from that past.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/08/05/arts/racist-symbol-or-historical-reminder-debate-over-state-seal/

Of course, no mention of other atrocities inflicted by colonialists in Massachusetts here. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffery_Amherst,_1st_Baron_Amherst)

Example of index cards used for project management.

This is the only Austen novel (I think! please correct me) set in a definite stated time. It's because there's a lull in the war which readers know will impact the Navy after the events of the novel conclude. (Do check out Synchronous *Emma* a project tracking the events of the novel in real time)

Once the government has control of the economy, will they ever let go?

Because that is the problem, this attack is what puts doubts about the credibility

https://lis653.wordpress.com/2022/04/06/license-plates-and-war-crimes/

Inequalities in income and wealth decreased markedly in the West from 1914 to 1980 due to a number of factors including:<br /> - Two World Wars and the Great Depression dramatically overturned the power relationships between labor and capital<br /> - A progressive tax on income and inheritance reduced the concentration of wealth and helped increase mobility<br /> - Liquidation of foreign and colonial assets as well as dissolution of public debt

Similarly Paul Wolfowitz was U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense running the U.S. war in Iraq before leaving to become the 10th President of the World Bank.

McNamara was the 5th President of the World Bank.

This is not war crime, but it works in this manner. This was a justification to affect agricultural production in order to make life more difficult for the residents of Palestine.

It sucks enormous material and energy resources whose purpose is to destroy built environments, human lives, nonhuman lives and the built environment .... not very climate friendly! Military spending only sucks up valuable resources required to fight the climate change hyperthreat.

The complexity, as the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine of war is that it is yet another feedback loop reinforcing the impact of the hyperobject. From a climate change perspective, war has the highest carbon footprint of all because it is actually the willful distruction of purpose-made human cultural objects that each have an embedded energy cost. Hence war requires the construction of offensive and defensive weapons and equipment, as well as munitions, whose sole purpose is destruction. This comes at its own embedded energy cost and the destruction of human lives and human infrastructure is also prematurely ending the human and material lifetimes of living beings and objects respectively, each of which required high energy cost to bring into existence. It also takes enormous energy resources to maintain armies.

<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Treva B. Lindsey </span> in Abortion has been common in the US since the 18th century -- and debate over it started soon after (<time class='dt-published'>05/18/2022 12:10:32</time>)</cite></small>

some interesting looking references at the bottom

Pugliese, D. (2021, September 27). Military leaders saw pandemic as unique opportunity to test propaganda on Canadians: Report. National Post. https://nationalpost.com/news/national/defence-watch/military-leaders-saw-pandemic-as-unique-opportunity-to-test-propaganda-techniques-on-canadians-forces-report-says/wcm/22733c97-39f0-4ba4-8a26-478af5e215f3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cade%27s_Rebellion

Much down to earth report from a Donetsk fighter about Mariupol progress of Russian invasion, seems to be older than March 30.

‘Freedom convoy’ forums find new focus: Disinformation about Russia-Ukraine war - National | Globalnews.ca. (n.d.). Global News. Retrieved 21 March 2022, from https://globalnews.ca/news/8659667/ukraine-russia-convoy-misinformation-conspiracy/

It's important for the West to stop demonizing Putin - it's just an elaborate form of saber rattling. And here it is a method to go ahead.

Impossible to have a truce agreement as proposed here (have just one country in NATO).

Διεισδυτική παρατηρηση για την Δυτική πλανη με τους Δικτατορες: ειναι οι διαλεκτική σχεση των αντιπολιτεύσεών τους που τους διατηρεί αυταρχικούς.

Putin is merely at the extreme end of the spectrum of people with ACE. Indeed we could take the title of this article and substitute with many other people, in public as well as our own private lives: How X's childhood is affecting us all. We all know at least one person we could substitute for X!

So invasion of Russia's in Ukraine had been explicitly provoked by CIA!

Η μεταφραση ειναι χαλια, εδώ το αγγλικό κειμενο.

Information warfare against Russian propaganda against its own people will not work.

Defang fossil fuel funded authoritarian petro-states.

The time is ripe for a converged march and to launch SRG Tipping Point Festival.

Kill two birds with one stone.

This war could engulf the entire planet.

An economic diversion of this scale would make it far more likely that humanity will not be able to prevent, but indeed accelerate planetary tipping points! Hence the urgency of this crisis for the climate movement. This implies that the climate movement and the antiwar movement must now synchronize resources and form a coherent, unified strategy

Harari makes some excellent points here. Huge funds originally allocated to fighting climate change and the other anthropocene crisis will be diverted to military spending. Climate change, biodiversity, etc will lose. Only the military industrial complex will win.

Remember that the military industry is unique. It's only purpose is to consume raw materials and capacity in order to destroy. What is the carbon footprint of a bomb or a bullet?

Does Putin know this? Do his advisors know this? If so, is the current targeting of civilians all to save face? What a price to pay!

Retaliation should have been directed against wahabis in S>Arabia - occupying a whole nation to hunt down a person is a sentimental but flimsy pretext.

Vietnam's civil war was a pretext - spheres of influence was the culprit, as it happened with the [[Greek Civil War]].

Schellekens, P., & Indermit, G. (2021, May 27). COVID-19 is a developing country pandemic. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2021/05/27/covid-19-is-a-developing-country-pandemic/

Os conceitos de «Paz» contemporânea (existência de entendimentos) e a antiga (ausência de guerra, reconhecendo a iminência de conflitos)

Was Belarus allying itself to Russia really that unexpected?

Putin's stated goal isn't even about Ukraine directly, just about preventing its shift to the west politically. https://youtu.be/1qS6J-WbTD8?t=1364

Wasn't the Villa Belfiore burned down around this time?

The key word is 'a potential turf war' with regards to which path to channel the funding versus funding an instrument DOE that has existed and produced efficiently over 60 years. With over $17 billion already redirected to the Department of Energy National labs, the country is set to improve upon its sector and at the end of the day, more concerns should be based on what America is benefiting from institution it pours funding in, not necessarily a turf war in innovations, that it has to ignore sectors like the DOE that produces or discovers something that benefit the regular American on a daily basis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

Τελικα, παλι fake διακινούσε ο Πρωθυπουργός μας για τη Γαλλική συμφωνία.

The example of Joshua Katz brings up the idea of double jeopardy within the social sphere. Is this form of punishment ethical or fair? Also, while those transgressions were held to account by the norms of their day, were there other larger harms (entailing unwritten rules) to humanity that weren't adjudicated at the time which are now coming to the surface as part of a bigger aggregate harm?

It could be seen as related to the idea of reparations. In some sense, aside from the general harms of war—in which they participated—the South and slave holders in particular were never held to account or punished for their crimes against humanity. Though they may have felt as if they were. Where are those harms adjudicated? Because of a quirk of fate and poor politics following the Civil War and not being held to account, have those in the South continued perpetuating many of the same harms they were doing, simply in different guises? When will they be held to account? How would reparations look in the form of a national level of restorative justice?

A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency by Seth Klein

We did it for the Second World War. We can do it again.

Οπως στον [[Α' ΠΠ]], η συμμαχίες ξεκιναν ενα ντόμινο, με Ελλάδα-Γαλλία να αντιπαρατίθεται σε Βρετανία-Γερμανία-Τουρκία.

A fascinating economic question.

What happens if we extend from one or two countries against each other to multiple countries? What happens when we expand this to the entire world?

As Charles Eliot says in the end:

A precious lesson of the war will be this: Toward every kind of national efficiency discipline is good, and cooperation is good; but for the highest efficiency both should be consented to in liberty.

The articles I picked for my two picked was from CNN and the other was from the ny times. They both were very similar because they both were about how the US troops left Afghanistan after our 20 year war with them.

what an aphorism for our time!

Economic gain is the ever present underlying motive for wars.

This story of find and replace has chilling future potential. What if a dictatorial government doesn't like your content. It can be all to easy to remove the digital versions and replace them whole hog for "approved" ones.

Where does democracy live in such a world? Consider similar instances when the Trump administration forced the disappearance of government websites and data.

Julia's memory issues with war

From Wikipedia:

Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust—the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" in Nazi terminology.

This page has an audio clip of the speech, but the US National Archives has captioned video as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVvTk9ThEG4