Galaxy Without Dark Matter Found: Another Proof of New Physics?

ASTRONOMERS OGLE GALAXY DEVOID OF DARK MATTER!

The newfound object NGC 1052-DF2, a vast, diffuse galaxy, defies conventional explanations. It is to be feared (just kidding!) that various breakthroughs are in the offing, including in fundamental physics (if I believe that what could be true, SQPR, a proposed new foundation for physics, is really true).

The “ultra-diffuse” galaxy NGC1052-DF2, seen here in an image from the Hubble Space Telescope, is the same size as our Milky Way but contains just 1 percent as many stars. It also appears to be empty of Dark Matter. And therein a big problem for Conventional Wisdom:

Yes, that’s a galaxy… Looks dark, but without DM… Nothing the LCDM model saw coming… Is resistance to the New Physics Futile?
NGC1052-DF2 doesn’t look like a typical spiral or elliptical galaxy, but rather a loosely connected glob of star-pocked gas and dust. If it contained an amount of Dark Matter typical for a galaxy of its size, the Dark Matter’s gravity would hasten the motions of several star clusters that orbit it. Instead, van Dokkum’s team found those star clusters moving languidly around NGC 1052-DF2… That suggests Dark Matter can decouple not only from regular, visible matter, but from entire galaxies—a phenomenon LCDM cosmologists claimed couldn’t happen.

Large galaxies, radiant agglomeration of stars, are tied up together by the gravitational pull of Dark Matter, a hidden material that is revealed and observed by its gravitational pull upon the shiny stars it seems to outmass by a factor of ten (we know this from the virial theorem, which basically say: v^2 ~ M/R, where M is the global gravitational mass, v the (“dispersion”) speed, and R the radius where the speed is measured; so the higher the speed of the orbiting stars, clusters, galaxies, at the greater distance, the higher the global mass M).

Dark Matter is considered to be as a defining feature of galaxies as stars and gas… and is thought in the reigning LCDM model, to provide the gravitational seeds from which galaxies assemble and grow (a top cosmologist Sean Carroll insisted on this point in correspondence with me). I strongly disagree with the latter point (in my model, Dark Matter is EMERGENT, a fruit of the Quantum Interaction).

A galaxy without Dark Matter—or without some bizarre, twisted deformation of gravity (such as MOND) that would mimic Dark Matter behavior, in some, only some, cases, and not in cases such as the Bullet Cluster —would contradict the religion of LCDM (Lambda Cold Dark Matter) and the sect of MOND, in other words, such a heretical galaxy would shred official thinking and its main alternative. Yet that is exactly what Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum and his colleagues have found, they report in a study published Wednesday in Nature.

From the horse’s mouth:

“A GALAXY LACKING DARK MATTER

(Pieter van Dokkum and Al.)

Studies of galaxy surveys in the context of the cold dark matter paradigm have shown that the mass of the dark matter halo and the total stellar mass are coupled through a function that varies smoothly with mass. Their average ratio Mhalo/Mstars has a minimum of about 30 for galaxies with stellar masses near that of the Milky Way (approximately 5 × 10^10 solar masses) and increases both towards lower masses and towards higher masses… Here we report the radial velocities of ten luminous globular-cluster-like objects in the ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC1052–DF2, which has a stellar mass of approximately 2 × 10^8 solar masses. We infer that its velocity dispersion is less than 10.5 kilometres per second with 90 per cent confidence, and we determine from this that its total mass within a radius of 7.6 kiloparsecs is less than 3.4 × 10^8 solar masses. This implies that the ratio Mhalo/Mstars is of order unity (and consistent with zero), a factor of at least 400 lower than expected. NGC1052–DF2 demonstrates that dark matter is not always coupled with baryonic matter on galactic scales.”

The twelve (!) authors from Yale, Harvard, Heidelberg, Santa Cruz, who used the giant Keck observatory in Hawai’i, don’t shrink from the exciting consequences:

“Regardless of the formation history of NGC1052–DF2, its existence has implications for the dark matter paradigm. Our results demonstrate that dark matter is separable from galaxies, which is (under certain circumstances) expected if it is bound to baryons through nothing but gravity. The ‘bullet cluster’ demonstrates that dark matter does not always trace the bulk of the baryonic mass, which in clusters is in the form of gas. NGC1052–DF2 enables us to make the complementary point that dark matter does not always coincide with galaxies either: it is a distinct ‘substance’ that may or may not be present in a galaxy. Furthermore, and paradoxically, the existence of NGC1052–DF2 may falsify alternatives to dark matter. In theories such as modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) and the recently proposed  emergent gravity paradigm, a ‘dark matter’ signature should always be detected, as it is an unavoidable consequence of the presence of ordinary  matter. In fact, it had been argued previously that the apparent absence of  galaxies such as NGC1052–DF2 constituted a falsification of the standard cosmological model and offered evidence for modified  gravity. For a MOND acceleration scale of a0 = 3.7 × 103 km2 s−2 kpc−1, the expected28 velocity dispersion of NGC1052–DF2 is σM ≈  (0.05GMstarsa0)1/4 ≈ 20 km s−1, where G is the gravitational constant—a factor of two higher than the 90% upper limit on the observed dispersion.”

So exit MOND, Modified Newtonian Dynamics, once again! How many times do we need to kill that vampire? MOND is philosophically ugly, as it is an ad hoc theory; strictly engineered to explain a peculiar feature that is observed… Whereas my own theory, SQPR, was invented for reasons which have strictly to do with the foundations of Quantum Theory, and Dark Matter, and, moreover, Dark Matter as it turns out to be, is just a particular consequence.

***

SQPR, Sub Quantum Patrice Reality Shines, Once Again:

In SQPR, Dark Matter is created by the Quantum Interaction, at particular cosmic distances from ordinary matter, and only then. The density of matter at cosmic distances needs to be just so, otherwise Dark Matter, Patrice’s way, will NOT decouple from normal matter. Instead the galaxy will not develop Dark Matter, just DELOCALIZED Matter.

So how did we get to the present situation, as found in NGC1052–DF2? Suppose the existence of an ultra diffuse gas, on a larger scale than the Milky Way, way back in time. Under its own gravity, the ultra diffuse gas, will gather, and form stars. What is the difference with LCDM? In LCDM, Dark Matter is present to start with, seeds and accelerates galaxy formation.

Whereas in my model, the universe, being much older, perhaps 100 billion years old, there is no need for Dark Matter to seed galaxies: in complete contrast with LCDM, there is plenty of time for ultra diffuse gas to gather into ultra diffuse galaxies…. So this is not just about Dark Matter: the way I see it, it’s the entire vision of cosmology and the Quantum, which is in question.

Patrice Aymé

***

Contextual Notes: 1) Only discovered in 2015, ultra-diffuse galaxies are thought cosmic laboratories for Dark Matter. Surely, astronomers thought, Dark Matter must provide severely needed mass to form these objects so devoid of normal stars. That thinking led van Dokkum and his colleagues to build the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, a telescope in New Mexico created for the express purpose of scrutinizing ultra-diffuse galaxies. The researchers initially used Dragonfly to study a different galaxy, which possesses an almost inconceivably gargantuan amount of dark matter, a “weird” result in and of itself. When van Dokkum and his team found NGC 1052-DF2, they expected to see something similar.

“Instead we saw the opposite, leading to this remarkable conclusion that there’s actually no room for dark matter at all in this thing,” van Dokkum says. “It’s not something we were looking for or expecting. At all. But you go in the directions the data takes you, even if it’s in contradiction to what you’ve found before.”

In Dragonfly images, NGC 1052-DF2 looked like a standard ultra-diffuse galaxy. But when the team compared them to a better image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, they found a surprising mismatch. What had seemed to be dim basic galactic structures in Dragonfly’s view appeared as point-like sources in the Sloan image. To resolve the discrepancy, the team scrutinized the galaxy with the Hubble Space Telescope, the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Gemini Observatory, the latter two on giant volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

The point sources proved to be 10 globular clusters—compact and spherical groupings of stars orbiting the galaxy’s core. The researchers then set about measuring the movements of the clusters as a way to estimate the galaxy’s total mass. Simply put, the velocity at which clusters orbit a galaxy is related to the amount of matter—normal or dark—that a galaxy contains. Using information from the Keck telescopes, the team found the globular clusters were moving much more slowly than expected. And therefrom the tale above…

2) Without modifying vastly the age of the universe, as I boldly suggest, there are a few theories to explain how galaxies like NGC 1052-DF2 could come together without being seeded by Dark Matter (as LCDM necessarily has it). That would be a downer (for me!) but, in the interest of scientific fairness, let’s mention them.

It could be that NGC 1052-DF2 was once a glob of gas perturbed by another unseen (?) galaxy nearby, sparking DF2 star formation. Or, van Dokkum speculates, perhaps this ultra-diffuse, dark-matter-free galaxy arose from two streams of gas that collided and compressed to form a scattering of stars. Another idea, first proposed more than two decades ago by Yale astronomer Priyamvada Natarajan, suggests galaxies like NGC 1052-DF2 form from galaxy-sized globs of gas clumping together in jets ejected by supermassive black holes in large galaxies’ hearts. NGC1052-DF2 does reside in a region where such things could occur, as it lies near a giant elliptical galaxy, those are the largest galaxies, with a supermassive black hole at its heart.

Notice that, in any case, it looks bad for MOND… MOND has several variants, but, basically, says that, at the scale of 50,000 light years (say) gravity, as described by the French astronomer Ismael Bullaldius (Ismaël Boulliau), a notion picked up by Hookes, Newton, etc. and amply confirmed since on the scale of the Solar System, is actually false. Thus the virial theorem (see above), at the scale of R = 50,000 light years, should be false. But above, everybody (not just me, but also the honorable professional astronomers) assumed it was true! Not just that, but the pull of gravity was observed to be just as needed. MOND assumes it’s stronger! So MOND, in case there is indeed NO apparent Dark Matter in NGC 1052-DF2, predicts the existence of NEGATIVE mass (reference the movies Avatar? I presume?) Laughter, please!

In any case, time will tell… Paradigm shift, or overlooked subtleties? Big telescopes are coming soon to a desert near you…

WE ARE A FORCE THAT GOES!

RULED BY METAPRINCIPLES WE ARE, AND THEY CAN BE NOT JUST LOGICAL, BUT EMOTIONAL!

It is traditional among those who subscribe to obsolete thinking, to claim that nothing is surprising anymore about human nature. As if “human nature” was the ultimate principle. Well, no. The ultimate principle are principles, not nature. Indeed, at the core of human nature is change. So how to you define change? We are children of time and necessity, not just chance. And we think, and feel, the former even ruling the latter, and thus prisoners of established sentience we are.

In particular, human beings establish metaprinciples culturally, and live according to them.

https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/tasmanian-effect/

(This massive essay, 14K words long, used the notion of “metaprinciple” heavily and attracted some academic attention. However, differently from the concept of “plutocracy”, the concept of “metaprinciple” which is much more important: plutocracy is tied to the rise of civilization, whereas metaprinciples are tied to the rise of the genus Homo!)

Metaprinciples are principles higher than principles themselves. For example, during the more than the millennium during which Catholicism ruled European minds, the metaprinciple of God was supposed to rule not just logic, but also the emotional system of the 99% (as Nietzsche pointed out the remaining 1%, the nobles, the knights, descendants of the Roman Equestrian Order, although grandiose Christian outwardly, were closer, in practical mentality, to lions; this little reminder as my way to celebrate “Easter”).

An example of God as metaprinciple is found where Islam rules. In Muslim countries slogans such as “God is great” (Allahu Akbar) and “If God wants it, Si Dieu le veut” (Inch’Allah) still convey the God metaprinciple in everyday life, all day long. The God metaprinciple infect all emotional systems, as they did in the European Middle Ages. War ravages Algeria, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Chechnya? God is great!

And this won’t stop soon: the Egyptian dictator, just re-”elected”,  ex-head of the army, who flaunts his faith in “god”, wants to make “atheism” into a crime. It may sound innocuous, but by evoking the “God” metaprinciple all the time after or before acts, human beings reject all responsibility, and, instead, transfer it to something omnipotently irresponsible. In particular, the religious and socio-economic orders are God’s work, so nothing can be done about them. God freezes societies in time. And what’s wrong with that is that circumstances change quickly, so saying nothing can be done about them, because it’s God’s work, is advocating pain, suffering and extinction.

Sharing some basic metaprinciples familiar to all brainy species, and the brainier, the more shared! (Scene in Ethiopia. I have myself met a wild hyena, from a similar distance, at night. Hyenas aren’t stupid, and they think twice before attacking a human child!)

Metaprinciples leave traces in human minds, long after their genesis. Same as Roman roads. German Federal Road 55 follows exactly the Via Agrippinensis of the Romans (and few Germans know this; this is one of many such cases; for a while Agrippina was de facto the first female ruler of Roma, and it’s exactly why her son eliminated her!)

Another example? The tall and massive Mahaut, Countess of Artois, who had stolen her rule from her just as gigantic nephew, Robert III, the way he saw it, may have poisoned several French kings, including the five-day old baby, Jean I. In truth, Mahaut’s rule was

legitimate according to Salic Law (Salic Law itself being another metaprinciple).

“Few figures in literature are as terrible as the Countess Mahaut, murderer and maker of kings.“

Massie, Allan (27 March 2015). “The Original Game of Thrones“. The Wall Street Journal. (5 July 2015.)

Literature? Not just this, history! Robert III, enraged by what he viewed as an usurpation by his aunt, caused troubles for a decade, and urged and led the teenager Edward III “Long Shanks”, king of England, grandson of Philippe IV of France “Le Bel”, to launch what would become the quasi continuous war between France and England from 1337 CE to 1815 CE… And which the despicable rebel Joan of Arc, fighting a child, king Henry VI, relaunched, just after it had been extinguished, one of the great crimes of humanity, heaviest in historical consequences, according to yours truly:

https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/joan-of-arc-roasted-too-late/

Studying those events, one can see metaprinciples at war. Human beings are not exactly irrelevant, but they are less significant than the colliding metaprinciples.

Metaprinciples were logically and emotionally at work in the failure of Rome: Augustus advised in his will, to leave the Germans alone. To NOT leave the Germans alone, one may have needed more advanced military technology (a superiority the Romans of the Republic had against all their adversaries, but the Celts… but a superiority which was lost after two centuries of the fascist empire).

But Plato had said innovation was bad. Whereas the Roman Republic evolved away from direct Greek influence, once Rome conquered Greece, Plato and his ilk acquired an enormous, and disastrous influence on Roman Zeitgeist: Christianism is basically Platonism for idiots.

Even more fundamentally, the metaprinciple of the Republic, the state considered as the “public thing”, not the thing of a few, let alone one, the intelligence of the many, of the public, is what made Rome, Rome, and presided over the rise of the Republican civilization which recently left the Earth… When that metaprinciple faded away, under the blows of plutocrats, and four centuries later, under the blows of bishops ingratiating themselves to Roman emperors, and rabid monks thrilled to have a divine reason to express their hatred, Rome got transpierced by countless invasions of ill-minded savages, and up to 90% of citizens died, most of them deliberately exterminated by the barbarians…

But let’s go back to the present-day ill-informed pseudo-intellectuals, and those metaprinciples they can’t see. In a  debate on Arte, the Franco-German TV, intellectuals, even a French Jewish female rabbi, claimed, with outraged superiority, that there was no anti-Judaism in Islam’s sacred texts. An obvious lie, easy to disprove, in hundreds of quotes, yes, hundreds, extracted from Qur’an and Hadith:

“Sahih Muslim Book 41 Hadith 6985:

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (Peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me;

come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.”

Metaprinciple at work here? God wants you to kill, according to ethnic origin. The reaction to this metaprinciple (ignore it!) is itself a revelation of another, like those trains which hid each others, all to better crush us. One of the most evil metaprinciple: sometimes it’s more moral to feel right, than to read, let alone read well

A metaprinciple of modern pseudo-intellectualism (I will not even honor those feeble minds with the word “left”, which ill defines them) is that whatever comes from the “Orient” and savages, is more civilizationally advanced. This is from a lack of knowledge: before the Orient was the Orient, it was us: Sumer was us, Babylon was us, and then there was 1,000 years of Greco-Romans. Even much earlier, Mesopotamian peasants and their descendants had mover to Italy, through Crete…

As I said, meanwhile, in Egypt, the comically just re-”elected” dictator, Al Sisi plans to make “atheism” a crime. Cynically, the US, UK, and France sell Al Sisi weapons. Al Sisi himself probably does not believe in the God metaprinciple, just as Roman emperor Constantine and his most of his successors, or countless emirs used the God metaprinciple cynically just as well.

Experiments on primates such as Capuchin monkeys show that the deepest metaprinciples are biologically anchored. For example a sense of justice. So is love, helped by oxytocin. This is why the occasional lioness endears herself with a young antelope. Or why wild hyenas can be readily tamed, if one gives them food (although a hyena can kill a human being in seconds, if one gives the hyena food, the hyena perceives that it would dumb and unfair to kill who feeds her).

In the end the logic ends with a question: so what are we? The sum of our metaprinciples? Yes. So are hyenas. A difference between humans and hyenas is that humans are endowed, not just with hands, but a meta-principle, biologically anchored: spiritually managed and directed change, driven by the philosophical method, and the science we have learned to gather & preserve for millions of years.

The best of us are better defined as Victor Hugo put it:

“Je suis une force qui va!”. Yes, WE ARE A FORCE THAT GOES. (The quote is from Hernani, Act III, scene 2; Hugo says much more: …”Agent aveugle et sourd de mystères funèbres!“… thus connecting with the Dark Side, the indispensable enabler of the human condition… More on this, another day…)

In other words, God exists and it’s us (the reality that the “God” metaprinciple tried to cover-up). Yes, it’s a heavy load. A galactic sized load, maybe even cosmic. So we may as well learn to laugh: a comic cosmos, is better than a tragic one!

Patrice Aymé

P/S: How does the metaphysics above relates to preceding metaphysical systems? First notice that, in practice, the Abrahamism/If God Wants It (Dieu le veut/Inch’Allah)/Amor Fati/Eternal Return of the Same/Nietzschean system, is all the same, and opposed to the one I propose. A further observation is that what I propose is firmly anchored in human psychobiology. So they are the weirdos, and I am not… or at least less so.

Some may sneer that change for change’s sake is hardly a metaphysics. Why not whatever, including nihilism? However, this changing change is oriented by local morality: given two situations, choose the one with an apparently better moral outcome.  There again that is what the wisest humans have done for millions of years, helping us to become what we are. So this is not new. All what is new, is to describe explicitly what has long been a driver of human evolution…

Open Society & Open Minds Start With An Open Economy

A friend of mine made a panegyric to Apple, Inc. Many of his followers applauded. Some expect Apple to become the first trillion-dollar corporation (in market value), and are thrilled by the notion. Others say that Amazon will get there first…

Kudos to the giant tech monopolies! say those whose (materially winning) morality is just the win. Most people can’t be winners, so they settle for applauding, and “supporting” winners (even when the winners win to their own detriment!) Do I have to be the first to decry this form of emotional fascism? Supporting winners because they win, is defeating to the self, and others! That hysterical behavior should be handled with extreme caution!

Moreover, and indeed, winners can profit from self-feeding exponential effects, the phenomenon at the root of plutocracy: the more power one has, the easier it is, to get even more. However, too much power in too few hands is intrinsically inhuman. Indeed, prehistoric humans didn’t live, and thus didn’t evolve, that way. And too much inhumanity is intrinsically evil.

I believe that open products, such as the open source model is superior than being dependent upon a particular corporation. The open-source model is a decentralized software-development model that encourages open collaboration. A main principle of open-source software development is peer production, with products such as source code, blueprints, and documentation freely available to the public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_model

Open societies are better than too much power in too few hands, as Pericles and philosophers around him pointed out, 25 centuries ago.

Be it only because too much power in too few hands kills innovation, democracy, justice, equality, hope, civilization, the climate and coast lines.

These are the stock values, BUT they are roughly proportional to the revenues of the companies in question, and the explosion of the latter has everything to do with the monopolistic positions they were allowed to acquire by the US government (it may have to do with their spying potential, direct inquiries to the NSA). GAFA (Google Apple Facebook Amazon) has three times the revenue of IBM + Microsoft + Intel (or so). Google and Facebook monopolize 75% of US media income from advertising!

The monopolistic tech economy which has developed in recent years is a disaster for innovation, democracy, morality or even cognition. I still own an old Mac, and when Steve Jobs had his own computer company (after being fired from Apple, and before being re-hired!) I bought one of his (very expensive) state of the art computers. Still have it. Also owned ipads… So I am not anti-Jobs or anti-Apple, by any means.

But I practice the open economy, open tech, with a  way better laptop than any Apple sells presently, etc. Please excuse my negativity, but I have seen a Fed judge pass an outrageously biased, pro-monopolistic tech judgment at 11 am, resign at noon, and accept a 5 million dollars payment from Facebook at 2 pm… (I can hear the powers that be, applauding in the distance…)

While an ex-president goes from super yacht to private island, to super yacht, a plutocrat reigns in the White House, while the National Rifle Association gives millions to key US politicians. Each. Meanwhile the European Union has proclaimed there are no tax havens in Europe (thus, by that token of measure, none anywhere in the world). And Vlad Putin insists to show his might, from forbidden military neurological chemical weapons, to nuclear powered nuclear armed cruise missiles, perpetually flying around the world, or, at least, South America.

But there is worse: an entire generation is molded by Zuck’s conception of relationship, a gooey notion of search, and willingly offering all of one’s privacy, so the wealthiest can get wealthier and more powerful, while they pay back the “innocents“, in the Medieval sense of the term, with a sense of tribal rage to soothe their simple minds…

Open society brings open, thus stronger minds, as Aspasia told her husband Pericles, 25 centuries ago (and Pericles needed to be told, because, as he himself recognized later, he was not as smart as the circumstances required, by a very long shot; his banning of immigration, and his little plans about how to fight the Peloponnesian War backfired dramatically, with extreme prejudice to civilization: his sons were considered non-citizens, thanks to their dad, and his war plans brought the “plague”, devastating Athens!)

As the fate of Athens, and thereafter, of Greek democracy and even civilization, clearly demonstrated, stronger minds are not just a luxury, they are key to the survival of the noblest aspects of the human spirit (the Roman Republic made a similar demonstration, itself partially a consequence of the preceding one). We think, thus we survive…

Patrice Aymé

EMPEROR CONSTANTINE CHRISTIAN TERRORIST 325 CE (Fall Of Rome Part X)

Legitimizing terrorism by the supreme authority, the Roman emperor, is how Catholicism (hence Christianism) came to be. Nicaea, 323 CE, 17 centuries ago… Had that bloody, mass murdering tyrant, the Roman emperor Constantine, not invented, and subjugated, the Roman empire with his invention of Catholicism, would the apocalyptic collapse of the Roman empire, state, economy, society and population have happened?

Probably not. Constantine launched a causal chain reaction of mental fascism, a quick reduction of the sets of allowed behaviors, thoughts, sentiments, moods and motivations which fostered a firestorm of stupidity, jealousy and viciousness throughout the Roman state, faithfully mimicking those of the Judeo-Christian God Himself… So, for example, when Valens launches against the Gothic camp his hot, thirsty, exhausted legions without proper reconnaissance and deployment, he acts furious, genocidal, righteous and jealous, just like the God who has invaded his feeble mind.

Yes, the Roman State collapsed under the terrible holocausts of multiple invasions. So, at first sight, the collapse of the empire has to do with encroaching barbarians, not the (then) ruling bishops.

But there is direct mental causality chain of increasingly irrational stupidity and darkening moods between Constantine’s Theocratic State and the invasions. Indeed, once Constantine ordered the burning of books, under the penalty of death, as part of what he called Catholicism, launching the concept, principle, and practice of prohibition of learning, and critique, such a mighty blow against intelligence made for generations of self-satisfied imbeciles… thus rendering the survival of the empire nearly impossible.

Because the survival of civilization depended, and depends, upon intelligence, abrasive intelligence, and one can’t have intelligence without reading books, and engaging other media, fiercely, especially those blossoming with ideas and emotions critical of established thinking.

Thus, should one want to keep civilization alive and well, censorship is never a good idea. (Yes the present system on the Internet, with the mobbing effects of “cancelling”, “likes” and “trends”, and selecting only those who are alike, are going against critical thinking, thus any thinking…)

All the more as, since emperor Diocletian, a few years before Constantine, God (“Sol Invictus”) had been made in the image of the emperor, Master (“Dominus”), Dominator, of the universe. And indeed, the leadership of the Roman empire (now known as the “Dominate”) proceeded to make a succession of aberrant decisions, steadily making the situation worse over the Fifth Century.

An example of idiotic decision: using the Huns, yes the Huns, as allies against the Goths, and others, thus giving to the Huns the knowledge and inclination to ransom the Roman empire ever more, and live off invasion and empire, as the Islamized Arab invaders would do in the Eight Century, under broadly similar circumstances… 

Some may prefer to speak about Islam, in light of the latest Islamist attacks in various countries, including Britain, France, and the USA. However, it is the exact same subject. Indeed, in case you ask, the system of thought of Constantine’s Catholicism directly led, three centuries later, to the genesis of Islam, and its most awful practices (the cousin of Muhammad who got the idea of Islam, was a professional Christian, the most famous in Arabia, and it had to do with Arianism, see below). In the West, Catholicism subjugation (Islam means subjugation to the same god as Constantine’s) was mitigated by the survival of the old secular Roman and Salic laws (both written in Latin; Roman secular law’s foundation was a millennium old by the time of Constantine’s birth).

Thought is the architecture of advanced life. Be it with individuals, tribes, and empires. Be it mammals, or birds. Trained Cormorants in Yunnan can bring 50 kilograms of fish a day. They can’t swallow, because of a tight collar. However, they expect a tasty reward every seven fishes. If they don’t get it, they go on strike. The collaboration between a fisher and a bird depends upon intelligence, and even a computation.

Smarts aren’t necessarily very smart: a video just released show an automatic car killing a pedestrian pushing a bike in Arizona. It was at night, 10 pm in winter, and the automatic car didn’t have its high beams on…which any safe driver would have had in such a case, driving on a dark road; I know the car has a LIDAR to see in the dark, but, this is where the nerds went wrong: two systems are safer than one. Learn, stupid programmers!

When Rome and the “Central State” (Zhong Guo, China) failed, it was because of a failure of high level thinking. Typically, the degeneracy of thought took generations to unfold (consider the Carolingians, and Tang or Qing China…).

Thought is the architecture of civilization. Thinking, debating together, is one of the main causes for the existence of cities.

***

Abstract: CATHOLICISM WAS INVENTED, AND ESTABLISHED BY ROMAN EMPEROR CONSTANTINE, MOST VICIOUS MASS MURDER, AND IT SHOWS:

Here is my sword…Who Shall I kill Today, among those who I suspect want to displace me? Constantine’s Christian Terror Still Rule! (The beautiful statue above is from… 1998, it sits in front of York Cathedral; Constantine was proclaimed “Augustus”, supreme emperor, by his troops, in York, to Constantinople’s great rage…) This is a cute, boyish interpretation of Constantine’s face. The real thing was more frightening, imperial and domineering, with really ferocious eyes… The entire imperial court was afraid of Constantine when he was barely 16. He also fled the court to join his father in Britain at some point, in the sort of action James Bond himself won’t dare accomplish (Constantine respected “the king”… as long as it was himself…) See the sculpture below.

The historian Gibbon, an Englishman with a considerable bit of French Enlightenment mixed in, rightly accused Christianism to have caused the Fall of the Roman Empire (so the Catholics “prohibited” his famous “Decline and Fall of Rome”).

My point of view on the Decline and Fall doesn’t contradict Gibbon’s thesis, but put it in much more general malevolently degenerating context. Rome took six centuries to degenerate ever more (example of degeneracies in China often take many generations: the Tang went down over two centuries).

I believe that the rise of plutocracy in the Roman Republic led the fall of the latter, replacing it my the Principate (a kind of Republic with one man above all, first, the Princeps, the Prince; the system we have presently is similar. Princeps are Trump, Xi, Putin, Macron, Merkel, May, etc.; the German fürst is an imitation),

The problem is that a Principate works according to the Leader Principle (dear to Hitler as Führer Prinzip, Stalin, Mao, Xi), and smothers rebellious intelligence (China being right now an excellent example). So problems arise, which the state doesn’t have the intelligence to solve: as happened in Rome… Except through more authorianism. Indeed, after 300 years, the Principate turned into a Dominate, under Diocletian, who found Darius, or Stalin-like solutions. Diocletian retired, and was spectacularly succeeded by Constantine (who killed a number of his colleagues, including Lucinius, coldly assassinated in his prison cell, in 324CE).

Constantine imposed the rule of Christ, molding the Trinity God he connived, into a mysterious (Trinity, one as three), jealous, ferocious, omnipotent, vengeful, sadistic, cruel despot, just like him, justifying him and his tyrannic descendants reigning over, and propping up a morally, judicially, socially, politically, mentally and intellectually degenerating Rome!

Some will scoff, that, for example, what does the “jealous” god have to do with the fall of the empire? Because the “jealous” god was jealous of the ideas of all and any. Moreover the “jealousy” of “God” made jealousy a highly respectable emotion, thus one wants to duplicate. Hence emperor Valens, jealous of his highly victorious young nephew Gratian, emperor of the Western empire.

Ideas and emotions are highly contagious. Here is an example out of billions: After “Communist” Prince Ceausescu from Romania visited “Communist” Emperor Mao Tse Tung in China, he was so impressed, that he went back to Romania and established a dictatorship as bad as the one oppressing China. It ended up, with mass starvation, same as in Venezuela today, and for the same exact reason (Ceausescu and his wife Elena, who was jealous, malevolent, domineering, and head of the feared “Securitate”, the Secret Police, thus perhaps more powerful than her husband, were summarily executed, as deserved, when their rule was destroyed).

The officialization and sanctification of mental subjugation to plutocracy got started with the order, by emperor Constantine, of burning books which he didn’t like.

***

Catholic State’s Crimes & Terror:

After seven years of incarceration and torture, astronomer Giordano Bruno was tortured and burned alive by the Vatican, after piercing his palate with a blunt instrument, for alleging that the dots of light one sees in the sky on a clear night were other stars, some with other inhabited planets circling them, complete with men (burned 1600 CE).

This tragedy, testimony of the Christian horror which terrorized Europe for centuries is something that used to be well-known, Giordano Bruno was one case of many. In France alone, in the Sixteenth Century, smart, cultured noblewomen, printers, atheists, were burned alive for reading “prohibited” books. Thus setting back civilization (uppity women, uppity publishers, uppity thinkers were burned alive; those who were not, like Luther, Calvin, Rabelais and Montaigne, were extremely well-connected with, or instrumentalized by, the most powerful of the elite).

For example Buridan’s works were put at “Index Librorum Prohibitorum” in 1474 CE, hiding to history this giant of thought’s enormous contributions to physics, astronomy, mathematics, logics, or even politics… And thus disappearing these enormous advances from even the most advanced circles. All those who attribute heliocentrism to Copernicus are unwittingly collaborating with the fascist theocrats. To this day.

The penalty for having prohibited books was death. Everybody should know this, it’s a historical and moral point of the greatest importance. One has to know it, so as not to repeat it, say with the Islamofascists who have fascinated the so-called European left, since there are Nazis and they think (the Muslim Brotherhood of Tariq Ramadan’s grandfather was closely tied to Nazism; with sheer malevolence, the European pseudo-left, being deprived of Stalin and Mao, fell in love with Oxford Muslim propagandist Tariq Ramadan, a violent rapist prone to beating up women, finally at last jailed in France, after 20 years most loved by French TV and media…).

***

Catholic State’s Ongoing Disinformation, Lies, Fake News About Its Own Crimes & Terror:

Then came a big surprise: as I checked Wikipedia, I was told the “Index” started a century later. That’s an obvious lie. Little Christian rats in the Vatican have been busy rewriting history, in the Internet, to further their miserable chewing up of reality into something more digestible to their gullible public.

As I checked around the Internet, googling away, I was so astounded by the amount of fake news, disinformation & outright lies from Catholic and Orthodox Churches, that I decided to write an essay on these rodents, lest the anti-civilizational plague they afflicted by further, and again, contaminate the innocent masses. Indeed a flurry of fake thinkers blathered in recent years, that Giordano Bruno had not been killed for his idea of exoplanets (he was). An article in Scientific American (March 2018) carefully examined the charges against Bruno:

“By analyzing all accusations, I found that the Inquisition’s strongest case against Bruno was, in fact, and contrary to the conventional wisdom, his belief in many worlds. It was the most frequently recurring charge. For example, one accuser testified that in prison one night Bruno brought a fellow prisoner “to the window and showed him a star, saying that it was a world and that all the stars were worlds.”

Thirteen times, in 10 depositions, six witnesses accused Bruno of believing in many worlds. No other accusation was invoked even half as much….. in nine books Bruno did assert his cosmology of many worlds. It was one of 10 propositions the inquisitors censured: “Again,” they wrote, “he posits many worlds, many suns, necessarily containing similar things in kind and in species as in this world, and even men… In 1597, Bruno was confronted by inquisitors, including  the authoritative theologian Robert Bellarmine. Bruno ‘was admonished to thus abandon his delusions of diverse worlds.’”

Nineteen years later, Inquisitor Bellarmine would go on to confront the extremely well-connected Galileo, personal friend of the Pope. Bruno, his palate pierced, was burned alive in 1600 CE.

***

The viciousness of Catholicism emanates from his author, Roman emperor Constantine:

Saint Constantine, emperor, inventor, Apostle, and murderer: I kill, therefore I am, just like the God of the Christians. If you have a problem with that, my sword will solve it, although I can get you legally executed, like my son the Caesar Crispus, who didn’t like my Catholicism, or I can get you steamed alive, like my second wife, who had displeased my mom, Saint Helena…

Killing for reading books displeasing Catholic authorities was started by the most vicious emperor Constantine, inventor of “Orthodox Catholicism” in 325 CE! Edicts to kill all “heretics”, those “who have made a choice” were ordained by sole Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 380 CE!

***

SAINT & EMPEROR CONSTANTINE STARTED TO KILL PEOPLE FOR HAVING BOOKS:

Wrote Constantine:”…Now this also I ordain,
that if any one shall be found secreting
any writing composed by Arius,
and shall not forthwith deliver up
and burn it with fire,
his PUNISHMENT SHALL BE DEATH…”
Constantine, one of the greatest criminals ever, is a saint of the Orthodox… (Christo-fascists attacked me on the Internet, specifically, Twitter, for telling the truth about mass murderer and serial killer, wife boiling Constantine, and then added, Christian style… “Sorry”, see in comments…)

Here his Constantine criminal megalomania in its entirety and in full context:

Preserved in Socrates Scholasticus’ Ecclesiastical History 1:9 and elsewhere, the following letter of sole Roman Emperor, Augustus Constantine, self-described as the “Thirteenth Apostle”, a so-called “Saint” of the Orthodox Church  contains explicit references to the banning and burning of books written by Porphyry, and that Porphyrian Arius of Alexandria immediately following the council of Nicaea, circa 325 CE. In his following letter to “Everybody”, Constantine classifies the “Prohibited Books” as:

(1) Evil, wicked, rebukable, rejectable, unlawful, and anti-Christian

(2) To be the subject of righteous destruction, along with their memory

(3) to attract the death penalty: if found in possession of any “banned books”

(4) The banned books and the heretics were to be dealt with by fire.

Here it is in its megalomaniac entirety:

“CONSTANTINE THE KING,

TO THE BISHOPS AND NATIONS EVERYWHERE:

“Inasmuch as Arius imitates the evil and the wicked,

it is right that, like them, he should be rebuked and rejected.

As therefore Porphyry, who was an enemy of the fear of God,

and wrote wicked and unlawful writings

against the religion of Christians,

found the reward which befitted him,

that he might be a reproach to all generations after,

because he fully and insatiably used base fame;

so that on this account his writings were righteously destroyed;

thus also now it seems good that Arius

and the holders of his opinion

should all be called Porphyrians,

that he may be named by the name

of those whose evil ways he imitates:

And not only this, but also

that all the writings of Arius,

wherever they be found,

shall be delivered to be burned with fire,

in order that not only

his wicked and evil doctrine may be destroyed,

but also that the memory of himself

and of his doctrine may be blotted out,

that there may not by any means

remain to him remembrance in the world.

Now this also I ordain,

that if any one shall be found secreting

any writing composed by Arius,

and shall not forthwith deliver up

and burn it with fire,

his punishment shall be death;

for as soon as he is caught in this

he shall suffer capital punishment

by beheading without delay.”

So much for the goodness of “Saint” Constantine.

Speak as you wish, little Patrice! Catholicism survived me 17 centuries! Me, Constantine, I am God, I decide who God is, you are nothing! And, anyway, you owe your 21st century to me!Instead my thesis is that, as soon as book burning Catholicism was in power, the Roman empire was condemned. In China, the prohibition of “one hundred philosophical schools”, and the destruction of related books (but not of historical, accounting, science and tech books) preceded only by a few years the destruction of the Qin dynasty, which had just unified China (greatly, I believe, like Rome, from respect for the law; the state of Qin had blossom for centuries, its swift demise after prohibition of variegated thought is no accident; however, in that case, the replacement regime, the Han, immediately pursued the Chinese “central state”, whereas Rome fell to thoroughly destructive invaders…)

What Gibbon said about Augustus, Rome’s first tyrant, mostly hold for Constantine, with just two details vastly different:

“The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were artificial; and according to the various dictates of his interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of the Roman world.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

One difference: Constantine replaced the Republican Constitution, what was left of it, by  that Catholicism he had invented. The other difference: Constantine was no coward, but just the opposite. (oh, by the way, the Vatican put Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, on its “Index” of its “Prohibited books“)

***

What does this all mean? The place of the Logos! Thus of Tyranny!

Arius clearly argued that the Logos had a beginning and that the “Son” (the mythical creature so-called “Jesus Christ”), therefore, was not eternal. Moreover, and more importantly, the Son is clearly subordinate to the Father, the Logos being the highest of the Created Order.

In other words, when logic confronts Jesus, logic should win!

In particular, when logic confronts the tyrant, the Roman emperor, Constantine, logic should win!

No wonder the fascist murderous tyrant Constantine, who had just invented “Catholic Orthodoxy” (translation: “Common Sense Universalism”), was upset, and couldn’t let it be. Bishop Arius (of Berber origin) was dismissed and exiled. But he had a huge support throughout the world of Christians. Upon returning to Constantinople, in 335 CE, Arius was apparently poisoned (a violent “descent of his small intestines” having affected him suddenly).

I am not making this up from secondary sources, like a vulgar Internet parrot, but from my own reading, as like Arius’ god, I tend to be a primordial being. Here it is:

…”ἡ σοφία σοφία ὑπῆρξε σοφοῦ θεοῦ θελήσει. (Wisdom came to be Wisdom by the will of the Wise God.)

επινοεῖται γοῦν μυρίαις ὅσαις ἐπινοίαις πνεῦμα, δύναμις, σοφία, (Hence he is conceived in innumerable aspects. He is Spirit, Power, Wisdom,)

δόξα θεοῦ, ἀλήθειά τε καὶ εἰκὼν καὶ λόγος οὗτος. (God’s glory, Truth, Image, and Word.)

σύνες ὅτι καὶ ἀπαύγασμα καὶ φῶς ἐπινοεῖται (Understand that he is also conceived of as Radiance and Light.)”

***

THE FALL OF ROME INTO STUPEFYING STUPIDITY:

Forbidding books is NEVER a good idea. Either a book is not terrible, and it shouldn’t be censored, or it is, really, terrible. If the latter, it shouldn’t be censored either, as it is a testimony of the terrible ideas and emotions people can have, and, thus, a warning and a data set. (However categorisation, plausibility and significance indexes should be assigned, whenever possible, as I argued; not a question of censorship, but of providing some assistance to the unsupported reader…)

Things went quickly from bad to worse: under the pretext of Christianity, all creative though was “making a choice” (which is what “heresy” means), punishable by death by burning, typically. The formidable Qin dynasty quickly succumbed after its own book burning…

***

Civilization is, first of all, a mental phenomenon, and plutocracy attacks minds, to subjugate them:

Plutocracy, the power (kratos) of the Dark Side (“Pluto”!), the Invisible Side (Pluto could make himself invisible) over society, an exponential disaster, has struck many times Rome, Egypt, China, France. It rots intelligence, individually, and socially. Plutocracy happened to Venice, Baghdad, Florence, Spain (chronically, starting with Ferdinand and Isabella), 17th, 18th century France, the German Second Reich (twice). Mental decay implies political, moral and then strategic decay, military defeat, extermination, or revolution.

Paradoxically, economic decay doesn’t necessarily follow plutocracy, far from it: consider Great Britain, which thrived in the 18th century under a plutocracy so strong, revolution was avoided, differently from the US and France. But, in Britain, soldiers and sailors could die from flogging (differently from the French and American armies, where the practice had been stopped).

Archeology of the Roman empire, pioneered by the work of a French archaeologist in the 1950s, has SHOCKINGLY demonstrated clearly in the case of Rome that the economy was thriving, prior to the invasions by bloody savages determined to kill as many as they could, to avoid the Roman authorities military backlash (the smart idea of the bloody savages, considering their small numbers, was to deprive of men and taxes the potentially massive Roman counter-attack: the invading Germans and Huns after 406 CE did this deliberately, so did the Arab Muslims of the first Caliphs…)

Both around 406 CE, when the Western empire collapsed, under Germanic and Hunnic pressures, and under the Muslim aggression started by Muhammad himself, the local economy and demography was at its peak, when the invasions occurred… And it is why they happened, actually!

The exact phenomenon was at play when the Carolingian empire, or what was left of it, was attacked by the Hungarians, the Vikings, and the Muslims. As in the case of Rome, original version, enormous internal fighting (plutocracy at work!) made the invasions possible. As in the case of Rome, an enormous collapse ensued, especially from the Scandinavian invasions: Western France, dismayed by the inability and apparent unwillingness of the imperial army to defend the core of Western France, exploded in 60 states, after subjugating the Viking; however Charlemagne’s Roman empire, Saxon led version(!) was able to throw out both Hungarians and Islamists (Eastern Rome helped for the latter)  

The same happened clearly in the case of Egypt, or China’s Song dynasty. Actually the Jurchen in 1127 and then the Mongols invaded China in 1237 CE, just when new rice cultivars enabled a doubling of production, hence population. One lends to the wealthy, one also invades the wealthy: that’s where the money is. It happened to Egypt, Babylon, Rome, China, Aztecs, Incas. The massive illegal immigration flux into the European Union is an example.

***

Conclusion: Rome fell militarily (twice: once in the West, from Germans and Huns, circa 406 CE; and then in the East, from the Islamists in the Seventh Century). Military collapse was one consequence of political collapse, itself a consequence of mental collapse.

Emperor Constantine, and his imperial successors (Julian excepted) were looking for a metaphysical justification for their bloody rule, and a way to make it sustainable, while, added bonus with a dreadful consequence, making all their subjects stupid. (Yes the present state of the Internet makes people more stupid than they should be, and even dangerously stupid; I have proposed remedies, such as a government of We The People sanctioned voluntary validity and significance ratings…)

The Roman tyrants found, in the invention of Catholicism, the ideal weapon against intelligence and creative minds. However, the first most significant effect was military collapse: first, with Valens god-like jealousy bringing the crucial defeat of Hadrianopolis, second when British legions revolted, defeating Gratian, and then killing him in Lyon, the bottom line was hatred with Gratian’s ways, the imposition of Catholicism (“Nicene” faith). Magnus Maximus became emperor.

When Magnus Maximus lost to Theodosius, five years later, Britain and part of Gaul became practically independent and fell off the empire. Details are important: emperor Maximus’s edict of 387 or 388 which censured Christians at Rome for burning down a Jewish synagogue, was condemned by Milan’s bishop Ambrose, who exclaimed: ‘the emperor has become a Jew’. Ambrose, patron Saint of Milan, was no doubt, malevolent by 1946, Nuremberg tribunal standards… I propose to demote him as a Saint…

Saint Ambrose was the deus ex-machina of several emperors. You look for Hitler? Contemplate bishop Ambrose! (One of the so-called “Doctors of the Church”… The notion of “Doctor of the Church” itself is dissembling, as the true father, the self-described “13th Apostle, was Constantine!.. )  And yes, it connects to the burning of G. Bruno: the Catholic church, the world’s oldest institution is very consistent with itself: in 384 A.D. the belief in many worlds was categorized as heretical by Philaster, Bishop of Brescia, in his Book on Heresies. This condemnation was echoed by subsequent hateful Catholic authorities, including Saints Jerome, Augustine and Isidore.

All of this can be repeated today. The monopolies of some media outfits, and the governmental manipulations of public opinions they bring inaugurate, should they persist, a little Dark Age. However, in the thermonuclear age, a little darkness will go a long way… The considerable darkness of the Catholic Church has gone a very long way. Its malevolent descendancy was not just crusades such as against the cathars (millions massacred), and centuries of terror, Inquisition, and religious wars, but even the creation of Islam (directly inspired and launched by a Catholic monk, cousin of Muhammad’s wife…).

Some may say it was all a mistake, a good Christianism, not book-burning Catholicism, could have been devised. However, the omnipotent god is obviously not omnigood, or then suffering is good (as Christ said, squirming on his cross in ecstasy). Yes, suffering is good, said Constantine, and for reading books Constantine doesn’t like, Constantine shall be good to you, and burn you. Amen. 69 years later, the empire was collapsing beyond repair as several small tribes streaked through the dumbstruck empire, destroying all in their path….

Patrice Aymé

***

Some technical notes:

A (Small and Partial) Depiction of Rage And Destruction of Antiquity By Savage Roman Emperors:

Constantine is probably the emperor who killed the most of his closest relatives and friends… (And Constantine had lots of competition, in the realm of relatives’ massacres from Claudius, Nero, Commodus…) Constantine unified the empire and imposed the intrinsically fascist and violent religion known as that of Christ. But truly that Christian violence was enacted by Constantine,

Constantius II, Gratian, Theodosius I, all tyrants, so-called “emperors” who buried Rome, or, at least, the Roman spirit, what was left of it.

Late in his reign Constantine ordered the pillaging and the tearing down of pagan temples, in particular the Temple of Aphrodite in the Lebanon. Constantine ordered the execution of eunuch priests in Egypt.

His son, Constantius II passed laws dating in the 350s ordering the death penalty for those who performed or attended pagan sacrifices, and for the worshipping of idols. After the unfortunate death of Julian in an ill conceived war in Mesopotamia, the army scrambled to nominate Jovian as emperor, and the burning of libraries became systematic (363 CE). “Men In Black” (monks) would destroy the libraries, for example in Alexandria.

Gratian played a major role encouraging raging Christian superstition: like his uncle Valens, he took advice from the ilk of (“Saint”) Ambrose, bishop of Milan (and so would Theodosius). However, he dressed too much like a Scythian (meta group including the Huns), and an insurrection from Britain defeated him in Paris, killing him in Lyon. Gratian had selected Theodosius as co-emperor. Theodosius reiterated Constantine’s ban on pagan sacrifice and haruspicy on pain of death. He criminalized and punished magistrates who did not enforce the anti-pagan laws. He broke up pagan associations and temples.

Between 389-391 Theodosius imposed the infamous “Theodosian decrees,” which established a practical ban on paganism: visits to the temples were forbidden, remaining pagan holidays were abolished (although Christ’s birth was moved from Spring to the Winter Solstice, the Saturnials, so the Saturnials won Christ over!) The Sacred fire of Vesta in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum was extinguished, the Vestal Virgins disbanded, auspices and witchcraft punished. Theodosius refused to restore the Altar of Victory in the Senate House when asked to do so by pagan Senators.

In 392 Theodosius became sole emperor of the whole empire. He authorized or participated in the killing of pagan priests, destruction of many temples, holy sites, images and objects of reverence throughout the empire. The Franks Arbogast (military head of the Western empire) led a rebellion against Theodosius’ mad Christianism… But was defeated by a hurricane wind blowing the wrong way, on the second day of a crucial battle.

Theodosius later decrees were effectively an extermination of tradition. Anyone caught practicing the ancient cults, was killed, his or her property confiscated, even for private familial rites within the privacy of a home. Many covertly still chose to do so in defiance of the edicts, despite the risk to themselves and their heirs. As a symbol of his wanton rage and destruction, Theodosius also cancelled the Ancient Olympic Games; the last record of the Olympics being celebrated in Greece is from 393 CE.

***

The Edict of Thessalonica was jointly issued by Theodosius I, Gratian, and (nine years old!) Valentinian II on 27 February 380:

The edict came after Theodosius had been baptized by the bishop Ascholius of Thessalonica upon suffering a severe illness in Thessalonica. Like the modern French (and Americans, Romans loved abbreviations). I reproduce it as it was, this depicts well the authoritative mentality imposed on  “We The People”. Actually, such a notion has disappeared, all what are left are “populos” (“nations”) which are ruled (“regit”) by our “clemency” (“clementiae”): in other words, the “populos” are ruled by “imperators” who are gentle, placid, mild… Just like the Christian God.

IMPPP. GR(ATI)IANUS, VAL(ENTINI)ANUS ET THE(O)D(OSIUS) AAA. EDICTUM AD POPULUM VRB(IS) CONSTANTINOP(OLITANAE).

Cunctos populos, quos clementiae nostrae regit temperamentum, in tali volumus religione versari, quam divinum Petrum apostolum tradidisse Romanis religio usque ad nunc ab ipso insinuata declarat quamque pontificem Damasum sequi claret et Petrum Aleksandriae episcopum virum apostolicae sanctitatis, hoc est, ut secundum apostolicam disciplinam evangelicamque doctrinam patris et filii et spiritus sancti unam deitatem sub pari maiestate et sub pia trinitate credamus. Hanc legem sequentes Christianorum catholicorum nomen iubemus amplecti, reliquos vero dementes vesanosque iudicantes haeretici dogmatis infamiam sustinere ‘nec conciliabula eorum ecclesiarum nomen accipere’, divina primum vindicta, post etiam motus nostri, quem ex caelesti arbitro sumpserimus, ultione plectendos.

DAT. III Kal. Mar. THESSAL(ONICAE) GR(ATI)ANO A. V ET THEOD(OSIO) A. I CONSS.

EMPERORS GRATIAN, VALENTINIAN AND THEODOSIUS AUGUSTI. EDICT TO THE PEOPLE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our clemency with moderation, should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, SINCE, IN OUR JUDGMENT THEY ARE FOOLISH MADMEN, WE DECREE THAT THEY SHALL BE BRANDED WITH THE IGNOMINIOUS NAME OF HERETICS, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict.

GIVEN IN THESSALONICA ON THE THIRD DAY FROM THE CALENDS OF MARCH, DURING THE FIFTH CONSULATE OF GRATIAN AUGUSTUS AND FIRST OF THEODOSIUS AUGUSTUS[4]

— Codex Theodosianus, xvi.1.2

What Use Philosophy?

Only Philosophy will teach the children well:

STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics), or STEAM (adding “Arts” to the preceding) are the latest (well justified) fashion in teaching children in the USA (inspired by China and Singapore). The method is spreading (and I contributed to push it). However, a subject has been forgotten, the most important: philosophy (and, in particular, the history upon which it rests!)

Like science, philosophy is a sum over histories. But it isn’t just that. Like science, philosophy is a method. Like science, the engine of philosophy is unbiased common sense. Yet, a more general method. Like science, philosophy uses facts, and is itself, among other things, a set of facts (not forgetting that ideas and emotions are, themselves, facts). Yet, philosophy doesn’t just use scientific facts (that is, facts beyond any suspicion). Like science, philosophy is a method of enquiry to guess further facts. Like science, philosophy establishes systems of thought. Like science, philosophy can use a single fact to put in doubt a system of thought, and build another. Unlike science though, philosophy can guess facts, and propose (or even establish) systems of thought on those guesses.

Hence philosophy, the philosophical method, common sense applied to whatever, is the key to major advances in science. Major advances in science call upon, and necessitate, guessing the imaginable. They call upon the philosophical method. No philosophical method, no major advances in science possible. Indeed, any major advance in science is built on new facts, and to go fetch those new facts require desire, hope, imagination, systems of potentialities, fancy financing on fumes, curiosity about what could be, etc.

Our bodies love to dance, in part because we love music, part of our dialogue with the universe. Learning to learn, or just to tolerate others’ music is not just pleasant, it’s enriching, a form of wealth which honors the spirit, source of all and any goodness, besides being our very essence!

Buridan’s momentum, force, inertia, relativity of motion and heliocentrism in the Fourteenth Century provide a  nice example of philosophy & science entangled:

Indeed Buridan (circa 1340 CE) guessed that Aristotle’s false physics depended upon neglecting air resistance and friction in general. Absent those errors, what was left was the theory of inertia, a particular case of impetus theory. Buridan noted that we can only ever observe relative motions. We cannot really know absolute motions. So if, for example, we happened to be in a boat going along a coastline, we really don’t know whether the boat we are in is moving or if the coastline is moving alongside us. Nicole Oresme pushed further the physics unmoved on a movable ship argument (replicated by Galileo 250 years later).

A consequence was that a heliocentric system, with planets orbiting the sun indefinitely (and the Earth rotating on itself) was a possibility. Buridan then slyly said that such a system couldn’t be distinguished experimentally from the one in “Scripture”, so we may as well believe the latter. It was an invitation to develop other observations.

Amazingly, both (rector) Buridan and (elected bishop in 1377 CE!) Oresme, having removed all reasons against heliocentrism, and having argued that it was more economical a system of thought, then said it couldn’t be decided, pointed out that this failure showed the limits of reason, and thus that reason couldn’t be used against (their) faith: “What I have said here, by way of diversion of intellectual exercise can in this manner serve as a valuable means of refuting and checking those who would like to impugn our faith by argument.”

“Argument” (reason) is a very powerful, says Oresme, but not powerful enough to determine whether the Earth moves or not. Similarly, if “argument” cannot answer a physical question about the world, we have to be very careful about arguing about faith. Oresme has therefore used rational arguments about physics, involving relativity of motion, to show rational argument can come short, in physics, and thus metaphysics (“faith”).

This is a magnificent example of how entangled science, philosophy and… faith, are.

***

Trying to teach science alone is trying to teach the chicken, how it moves, without its head (philosophy):

Philosophy goes much further than science and its scientific method, as the philosophical method, which uses whatever, enables to establish systems of thought using whatever, including emotions, songs and poetry (the great Twelfth Century philosopher was relatively as famous as the Beatles for his songwriting; even more than Buridan and Oresme, Abelard was in total war with the Catholic Church, namely Saint Bernard; he got emasculated and excommunicated for it…) In particular, philosophy establishes wisdoms of life: why and how to live. Can’t live without it. It may as well be taught, lest all young end up as Jihadists, snowflakes, or culture deprived nerds.

Here is a bit of the love of more advanced wisdom. More advanced philosophy enables to listen to music others, less mentally advanced types, can’t hear. Therein a happiness others are deprived from. However, establishing new thinking inside one’s brain is expensive, not just expansive, and involves suffering. Thus, some whine, Nietzsche prefered suffering to happiness. (Not really true: Nietzsche observed that lions are happy, and  imagined them happy not to be mice… Bertrand Russell, like all good hypocrites, practicing the opposite of what they preach, disingenuously called Nietzsche not compassionate… While siding with the despicable Kaiser in World War One… while Nietzsche correctly vomited the preceding Kaiser already)

Here is a relevant philosophical perspective Buddha himself blithely ignored: IF ONE PREFERS SUFFERING TO HAPPINESS, HOW CAN THINGS GET WORSE? Verily, suffering and happiness are entangled: happiness is best experienced, like the best tsunami, with the contrasting experience, of a lowering of expectations…

Philosophy at its best. Science can’t do that.  

Science can study suffering, science can’t say why one should study suffering, and what to do with it. Only philosophy can do that, thus only philosophy can order science to get going.

We, humans, have been scientists, for millions of years, but so are we, because we love to be wise. That’s how we are. Neglecting the love of wisdom is neglecting us. It is easy to see how greedy potentates will want to neglect us. Let them not have it. In ancient Rome, philosophy failed first, followed by the failure of democracy, then intelligence. Teach philosophy to children, and, if you don’t, ultimately science and technology themselves will falter, as they did in Rome, barbarity will win, as civilization won’t be sustainable anymore. 

To finish how we started here, the most important subject to teach, with heart and mind, is the most encompassing philosophical attitude. How to do this with children? By teaching them the history of civilizations (notice the plural). Killing two birds with one stone. The rise of violent Muslim Fundamentalism in Europe, in particular France, is directly attributable to an astounding lack of knowledge of history among not just the young, but also self-described “intellectuals” (multiple shootings and wounded in France again today, March 23, 2918, in attacks claimed by Daesch, the so-called Islamist State… no problem we shall just live in a state of siege, adorned by shootings in the streets, schools, supermarkets…)

Generally when taught, in only in one hour, the rough circumstances of Muhammad’s ascent to the position of Mecca’s dictator, a discernible mental shift among young Muslims is discernible. It’s just astounding that this telling part of history is not taught anywhere in French schools (all the more as France is a direct political, cultural and legal descendant of the Roman State, half of which got violently invaded, and ruined… by the immediate successors (“Caliphs“) of Muhammad…

China, Europe, India, are the major scientific, and technological powers of civilization. It is no coincidence that they are also the philosophical superpowers.

Human is the philosophical animal. And science, facts known for sure, a consequence. Art also: try to make symbols that will last 50,000 years… without any science.

You want life and the pursuit of happiness? Let society pursue philosophy first!

Patrice Aymé

 

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We Are No Dinosaurs: H Bombs Potentially Save Lives, Whereas PC kills

I long advocated comet and asteroid defense. The subject is intricate, with high stakes, even more interesting as the very strange reactions it brought.

Years ago, I claimed that H bombs were the ultimate, and necessary tool to achieve security. At the time, “experts” were ruling out nukes. Contemporaneously, I had a major fight with a (decorated) geophysicist about my claim that the Earth functions as a nuclear reactor, thus driving the Earth magnetic field, which protects the upper atmosphere from stripping by the solar wind during Coronal Mass Ejections (which is, we now know the way Mars’ atmosphere was stripped). In my opinion both experts’ opinions were the fruit, not of science, but of the Political Correctness which fed them (they got to their expert position not thanks to their smarts, but thanks to being PC).

Political Correctness, in this case “nukes are evil” was so great at the time that “experts”, to achieve astronomical moral superiority over the moral turpitude of the ilk of yours truly, the moral turpitude of those who tell the truth, pontificated idiotically that H-bombs would be inefficient, unsuitable, inappropriate, and that, to promote their usage, was, besides criminal, the mark of a lack of scientific culture. Moreover, they added, impacts were impossible in the foreseeable future.

Here is an update: the old “experts” were wrong, like 100% wrong, peer-review journal and the US government recognize, it is my pleasure to reveal.

Siding Springs comet, the smallest one is even more dangerous, because of its speed. Europe landed, and orbited with Rosetta the bigger one… which is a tenth of the largest comet known. As comets fly by, they can destabilize others, or asteroids.

 

A new generation of expert has arisen, who say exactly what I used to say, the obvious. The latest study, in a Russian lab, mimicked nuclear blasts, using lasers (whose energy, just as a nuclear bomb is mostly photons, initially). A US study, on project Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER), concluded the same. New facts have come to the surface.

***

The probability of impacts, as I said in the past, was underestimated:

As demonstrated in the Tunguska impact in Siberia, “impacts” of a less than 200 meters across bolide has a high probability to end as an airburst. Tunguska flattened 2,150 square kilometers of forest, destroying 80 million trees. That’s a circle with a diameter of 50 kilometers. In other words, exploding above some of the largest city on Earth, it could kill up to 30 million people, annihilating Tokyo-Yokohama, Mexico City, New York, Moscow, the greater Paris, etc… Initially it was thought the explosion was up to 30 megatons TNT, but then it was realized one should take into account the momentum of the disintegrating bolide, just as in the case of a hollow charge to penetrate armor. That lowered the yield to no more than 5 megatons!

A stony asteroid of about 10 m (33 ft) in diameter can produce an explosion of around 20 kilotons, similar to that of the Fat Man plutonium implosion bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Data released by the US Air Force’s Defense Support Program indicate that such explosions occur high in the upper atmosphere more than once a year.

The 1930 Curuçá River event in Brazil, observed by many, was an explosion of a superbolide that left no clear evidence of an impact crater. A smaller air burst occurred over a populated area in Russia on 15 February 2013, at Chelyabinsk in the Ural district of Russia. The exploding meteoroid was an asteroid that measured about 17 to 20 metres across, with an estimated initial mass of 11,000 tonnes, and inflicted over 1,200 injuries (mostly from flying glass, like a nuclear blast)… It would have been worse, had it streaked closer to the city.

***

ATLAS, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System:

So now the good news, thanks to our old friends at NASA, ATLAS is running, with one telescope on top of Maui at 3,000 meters, and the other on top of Mauna Loa, 100 miles away, at 4,200 meters.    

ATLAS is an asteroid impact early warning system developed by the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA. It consists of two telescopes, 100 miles apart, which automatically scan the whole sky several times every night looking for moving objects. On the side it has already detected several comets, and 1,200 Supernova, mostly type 1a, among other scientific prowesses. It has also discovered 17 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids…

Second good news, a new generation of experts, American and now Russian, has established that nuclear bombs would be safe and effective to dispose of a dangerous impactor detected too late to nudge it away… Besides, they would be the only way (as I used to say).   

***

Blowing off skeptics with the Hypervelocity Siding Springs Comet:

Some fanatics, outwardly humanistic, inwardly the opposite, will sneer that my desire to find some use to thermonuclear fusion is pathetic: who cares if a given city has non negligible probability to be vaporized by heavens in the next 100,000 years?

However, the probability is much higher than Conventional Wisdom has it. And a new reasoning will be deployed below, not found in the scientific literature, to my knowledge.

An example was the Siding Spring comet. Nobody expected this sort of comet. It zoomed on what looked like a straight line through the Solar System, passing Mars at 56 kilometers per second. A typical speed for a meteorite (and probably Tungunska) is 11 kilometers per second.

As really great, although female, physicist Émilie Du Châtelet demonstrated in the Eighteenth Century, the energy of body of mass m going at speed v is ½ mvv. So energy per unit of mass augments as the square of the speed. Thus one kilogram of the Siding Spring Comet had 25 times the energy of one kilogram of Tunguska bolide. Add to this the fact Siding Spring was much smaller than its big tail advertised: only 400 to 700 meters across. Siding Spring passed very close to Mars (140,000 kilometers, half the Earth-Moon distance). If Siding Springs had hit Earth, that would have been probably at an angle, and it would have liberated an amazing amount of energy

Computer simulation show that a 200 meters diameter comet going at 11km/s would explode with an energy of 30 megatons. If the comet were 650 meters: 30 x 40 megatons, say: 1,000 megatons (Siding Springs diameter: 400-700 meters). Multiply by 25, from the v^2 factor of Émilie Du Châtelet: 25,000 megatons of TNT. The average penetration angle would be 45 degrees, giving an average trajectory of hundreds of kilometers by hypersonic surfing of the shock wave on the upper atmosphere, say 600 kilometers over 10 seconds. Acceleration: 56,000 meters/sec/10 seconds, in other words 5,600 gs, more than 5,000 the acceleration of earth’s gravity.

These are orders of magnitude. Maybe the comet would surf the atmosphere over a minute, etc. In any case, no solid body, a fortiori a fragile comet, can withstand thousands of gs. It will disintegrate. As it does, it would fry everything in its path. If it surfs two minutes, it could leave a trail of devastation hundreds of kilometers wide, over thousands of kilometers. And guess what? No impact!

***

Some mysterious degradations of living conditions in recorded history are so far unexplained. Volcanoes, of course are generally the prime culprit, as I long suspected, and explained, with dinosaurs:

https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/trapped-by-super-traps/

Chinese and Romans records indicate a spectacular deterioration of conditions in the Sixth Century. Volcano, or impact? It seems two distinct eruptions were culprit. Recently, mainly from the work of some researchers in France, mass deaths in Europe from starvation in 1257 CE, were explained by the explosion of a giant volcano on the island of Lombok, bringing down the kingdom there. The explosion of Thera/Santorin brought down Cretan civilization, thanks to tsunamis, ash, quakes, etc…  

If an impact was found to have occurred in recorded history, with catastrophic consequences, instead of still another crazy volcano, the probability of those extraterrestrial events would be jacked up. In the scenario I gave, the impact from a fast-moving, small comet, there would be no traces on the ground.

In any case, the pollution of questions of life and death by Political Correctness can be utterly grotesque: it was clear all along that, in some configurations, we would have to nuke asteroids or comets. To pretend otherwise was idiotic, corrupt.

Having to use nuclear energy to save ourselves is very good. And ultimately, we need controlled, sustained thermonuclear fusion. If we had it now, the CO2 catastrophe (and many other catastrophes) would be avoided. Nuclear is our friend, if, and only if, well done.

What’s never our friend is any notion that it is philosophically correct to believe that fancy and corrupt notions of so-called Political Correctness trump the truth. It’s not just that nothing trumps reality. By faking reality, we reject altruism. 

Patrice Aymé

 

Superior Civilization Needs Superior Weapons (Collapse Series 1)

WHY THE WEST NEEDS TO REARM!

Military Non-Superiority Is The All Too Civilized Way To Collapse:

“Si vis pacem, para bellum!” (If you want peace, prepare war) the Romans used to say. Indeed, implementation of civilization, like sausage making, is no pretty sight to behold. It requires a stern consideration of the human condition, mind fully open… to the most awful possibilities, those which, precisely, can undo civilization. In recent years, the two oldest Republics, the USA and France have coldly executed some of the worst Jihadists… using legislative powers going back 25 centuries, to the beginning of the Roman Republic (the Consuls had the right to execute whoever they decided to execute when it had to do with military operations; thus US and French presidents have right of life and death against enemies of the Republic).  

If an advanced civilization has no crushing military superiority, contact with a vicious society can cause collapse. This happened many times. This happened to Egypt, more than once. Egypt recovered fully, more than once, until it didn’t, each time more diminished. First with the Achaemenid Persians, then the Romans, Christians, and most irretrievably, with the Muslims.

Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) warheads streaking to the ground at 16,000 kilometers per hour. They all come from one rocket. Against those only some weapons not yet in existence could be effective. Impacts of warheads from just one missile can be hundreds of kilometers apart. Each warhead can be 300 kilotons of TNT, 20 times the Hiroshima bomb. Precision is less than 100 meters.

An obvious example of collapse caused by the failure of military superiority is Rome. The Western Roman empire of 40 million people was ravaged, most of the population eradicated, by at most 150,000 barbarian savages ferociously invading, fighting and destroying as if their lives depended upon it, because it did.

Constantinople, the Eastern Roman empire, would know a similar fate, in slower motion. The Romans lost most of their territory to savage Islamized Arabs, and, four centuries later to the recently Islamized Turks, before being terminated by the later, another four centuries down the line. No wonder the flag of Saudi Arabia has a curved sword on it.

Roman Egypt surrendered to the Third Caliph, Omar, hoping for a promised lenient treatment. Three years later, Egypt realized that the Muslim conquerors had lied, and were most abusive. Egypt revolted. Too late: the library was burned by Omar and his ilk, and ever since Islamist terror has reigned therein, diminishing the minds so much, as Napoleon discovered to his dismay, that the very notion of progress had vanished in a superstitious, theocratic haze. 

Sophisticated, enormously populated (40 million?) Northern Song China fell to Genghis Khan’s Mongols, who were no more than 150,000 cavaliers. It had been invaded and occupied before. However, Mongol generals proposed to kill it all, and even change Chinese climate and ecology, but the conqueror in chief wisely rejected the suggestion. Two decades later all of China, and even Vietnam, ended down under the Mongol boot for a century.  

***

Superior Minds Need Superior Defenses:

A contributor to this site, SDM cogently asked: “Why make rearmament a priority when it would appear there are more than enough weapons already to destroy mankind? Are you implicitly promoting a revamping of military weaponry rather than just more of the same old stuff?

Answer: Yes, precisely. Precisely because we have all those terrible weapons to destroy mankind, we need smarter weapons to prevent the use of the most terrible ones. I am talking about superiority of weapons as factor of security.

Destruction of mankind is not a new thing. When the barbarians invaded the Western Roman empire they caused up to 90% eradication of the population. When the Mongols of Genghis Khan finally defeated the Western Xia empire, they killed 100% of the population, leaving only sands behind. When the Muslims invaded Spain, they eradicated 100% of the Goths, and 25% of the Catholics (except for a tiny corner of the Cantabrian mountains where they got blocked by heroic defenders). Ancient warfare could bring 100% exterminations, go ask the Assyrians (Babylon and its allies, unable to defeat the Assyrian field army, decided to destroy the Assyrian population first, to starve its army ).  

More precise weapons are needed. Take nukes. In the 1960s, the USA and the USSR made gigantic thermonuclear bombs, up to 25 megatons of TNT: if they wanted to destroy an objective, they were not sure of the precision of detonation, so they made giant bombs. Not only that, but they made more than 50,000 of them. Using a fraction of that arsenal would have killed billions.

For example the USA had planned, in case of war with the USSR, to explode giant bombs on the Soviet submarine pens found next to Leningrad. Their detonations were expected to destroy the populated part of Finland, as well. President JFK was informed of this collateral damage, for his eyes only. Later, precision of ballistics came down to one meter. At that point, a smaller nuke could take out the same sub pens, without taking out Finland. Standard French, British and US thermonuclear warheads are now around 200 kilotons.

China and Russia have developed very small nukes, which could destroy crucial military objectives, without too much collateral damage. Thus tempting to use: once one’s headquarters, or storage of weapons have been taken out, one may not feel inclined to escalate…   

Right now if some “leader” in a nuclear weapon state decides to do away with a large city, he has a good probability to succeed: only US cities, to some extent, and Moscow, have Anti Ballistic Missiles. Destroying missiles with missiles is a very expensive, even ruinous, and certainly chancy business.

However, powerful laser batteries would destroy ballistic missiles cheaply, and at will. Thus lasers would annihilate MAD, the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine… which is a crime against humanity.

More practically, precision ammunition have proven to be a real progress. Recent battles against ISIL killed not even a tenth of what would have been before. In Mosul, it is said 12,000 civilians died. A conventional extirpation of the Islamist State would have killed many times that. Mosul has more than one million inhabitants. Instead, with advanced weapons, strikes could be directed exactly where the snipers were inside buildings.

Developing superior weapons means to invent new technology, in a way no other civilian demand will do. The car got invented because the French army of the Ancient Regime liked the idea of what we now call tanks. Black powder and rockets were perfected by the Mongols and Europeans, because they wanted superior weapons (China had a more festive approach to explosives than the Mongols and French). When they invaded Eastern Europe, the Mongols used field batteries of rockets. Soon Europeans found ways, thanks to saltpeter, to augment the explosive power of black powder. Around 1430 CE, two French brothers invented field guns, small enough to be rolled to a battlefield and beat English foot and archers into submission (that was the final phase of the “100 years war”). Some rabid pacifists will smirk. However, all this explosive tech not only built roads, but now it enable us to send robots around the solar system.  

***

Falling Behind What’s Needed, Or How Xi Became Crazy:

SDM asked: “Is it your position that the “West” is somehow behind the weapons technology curve in comparison to …..China? Russia? Anyone?

No doubt that the west is under the sway of corporate neoliberals to the detriment of the vast majority of the people because of climate change denial, austerity, tax giveaways, wage stagnation, lax financial regulation, etc. etc. Are there data that shows the US/EU weapons are inadequate?”

There are plenty of indications that the West is in military peril. Some of the West’s main weapon systems may be obsolete, vulnerable, or ill-conceived. Vulnerable and obsolete: the giant aircraft carriers of the USA may be vulnerable to ballistic missiles: the Chinese developed a specific carrier killer. Obsolete: the US Navy is supposed to use the F35, a “stealth” flying bathtub. The F35 may be fully visible to some radars.

Western Quantum radar goes up to 20 kms, the Chinese one 100 kms (from better detection of single photons, they said, so progress in fundamental physics)… A good quantum radar going 1,000 kms would make the F35 fighter completely inoperative. They are supposed to construct more than 3,500 of these turkeys, and defend the entire West with it (but for France).

Knowing that he will be able to deny the West air supremacy has got to have a bad effect on Xi’s psychology… Now he may think he can takeover the world, or at least the South China sea, Taiwan, hey, maybe Vietnam, which, after all was long Chinese…

China and Russia have stealth fighters. The Russian one is faster than the Western one. Russia has shown pictures of test firing of a HYPERsonic missile. Hypersonic missiles go too fast to be intercepted by any existing defenses (one can imagine more advanced lasers could do it). The point here is that the hypersonic missile could turn into the nightmare the Romans knew all too much: arrows from recurve bows, which the Parthians, Sassanids, Sarmatians, Alans and Huns had. They could penetrate Roman armor.

***

A civilization can get destroyed in a few hours:

Rome never recovered  of the battle of Hadrianopolis in 379 CE. The crucial part of the battle lasted minutes, not much longer than it took for the US Navy to set on fire the four finest fleet aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese navy at the Midway battle in 1942 (ending any hope of the Japs to avoid defeat in WWII).

At Hadrianopolis, Roman emperor Valens got killed, the Eastern Roman field army was annihilated, the victorious Goths were on the loose, the empire shaken in its deepest psychological foundations, the barbarians elated, and meanwhile enormous concessions had to be made to the Sassanids. The battle happened in a few hours, and by accident. The left Roman wing was in the process of destroying the Gothic foot and Gothic camp, when, suddenly, disaster struck: the rested Gothic cavalry, 15,000 strong, charged in the flank of the left Roman wing, which then fell on the Roman center compressing it to the point soldiers couldn’t use their weapons, let alone maneuver, like at Cannae, sic centuries earlier.

Skeptics may bleat that the Goths surrendered to the Romans in 382 CE, after sacrificing king Fritiggen and others culprit of the victory of Adrianopolis. Thus, those historians may insist, no untowards consequence from the crushing defeat. But the peace treaty is revealing: the Goths could settle, but as Goths, under Gothic law, not as Romans. It’s a bit as if Muslim Fundamentalists destroyed half of the US Army and then were allowed to settle in Ohio under Sharia. Sure enough, a generation later, the unassimilated Goths took great umbrage, and were on the march again. This time, in 410 CE, they sacked the city of Rome, and settled in Gaul and Spain.(The Goths got ejected from Gaul by Frankish king Clovis in 507 CE, after being crushed at the battle of Vouillé. To thank him, for having annihilated, at long last the Goths who had tortured Rome since the catastrophe of 379 CE, the emperor made Clovis into a Roman Consul for life!)

***

What was the world’s strongest army on May 10 1940?

The French army. Although the Nazi army had doubled its tank force with Czech tanks, the French army had 50% more tanks, and the French tanks were better: many were impervious to German artillery. The best French planes were equal in quality to the Nazi planes, and there were hundreds of them.  

However, by May 15, 1940, although the French army had lost just one division out of one hundred, it had lost the Battle of France: the “torrent of German tanks” (as the head of the French army said) was flowing towards the sea, unimpeded, and the main French armies, plus the British Expeditionary Force, had been cut from behind.

What happened?

The Allies didn’t see that the entire Nazi army had advanced on three small roads in the Ardennes forest, under a thick canopy of springtime leaves. One Spitfire pilot saw it, but he wasn’t believed.

Conclusion?

Accidents happen.

France was ultimately saved by her ungrateful brat of a child, the USA. The other brat, Britain, although helpful in 1940, had been derelict in 1933-1938, when it was more or less aligned with Hitler. The fact is, the British Second Armor division was supposed to be in the way of the Panzer thrust on May 10, 1940, just behind the French infantry B division, which was attacked by three Panzers… but the Brit 2nd Armor had not arrived! If it had, the battle would have been just the opposite, as the French would have had time to reconfigure their armor.

The French and British air crews couldn’t get their act together in the week after May 10, 1940. They  got it after that, but it was too late. The Nazis had been training in Spain where they had intervened in 1936, they knew how to operate with ground crews.

Another factor in May 1940 was that the US and Britain had 200,000 soldiers. France had six millions, and Nazi Germany ten millions. In other words, USA and UK were disarmed, the French Republic was supposed to do all the work. If Britain had in May 1940 as many soldiers as it had in 1944, the defeat of May-June 1940 wouldn’t have happened. That would have been a disaster for the USA, agreed…

***

Conclusion: Democracy has to be defended. Plutocracy is always around, conniving, eager to rise further. If plutocracy sees weakness, plutocracy will pounce. Just watch Putin and Xi. The latter may be much encouraged by what experts in the Chinese military perceive, correctly as weakness in the Western military, which is pretty much reduced to the USA, Britain and France… As in 1940. Weakness in democracies encourages fascist dictatorships, as Hitler himself said many times. When hell itself speaks, wisdom should listen.

Patrice Aymé

Trade Wars, Divisions, War War: It Happened Before, In The 1930s

Stupid Is Depressing:

Trump plans to institute tariffs which have made the European Union angry. Jean-Claude Juncker is the head of the European Commission, the part of the European executive which heads the European administration, 32,000 strong, of 500 million souls. Juncker retorted to Trump: ”This is stupid. We can do stupid too.” Juncker has been around: he is quadrilingual French, English, German, and Luxembourgeois. Also, as PM of Luxembourg for two decades, he masterminded the transformation from its bovine economy to onshore tax haven. In any case, Europe is drawing a list of symbolic US products to be struck with tariffs too, from motorcycles to liquor. Let’s backtrack a moment here. This sort of madness is how the crash of Wall Street in 1929 and the Great Depression were engineered.

***

Crash of Wall Street & Great Depression:

A massive, and deliberate overheating of the economy happened in 1920s. The Anglo-Saxon elite had decided to inflate out of the British World War One debt. US car production reached level in 1928 it won’t see again until 1948. When overheating became blatant, the US central bank decided to raise interest rates, the economy started to falter, and the US Congress decide to get real smart, the way idiots do it. Simply, Washington reasoned, why don’t we reduce imports? When investors with a modicum of real economics heard this, they understood an economic war was pointing its ugly snout, and they pulled out.  

After the markets crashed, they recovered, as the US Senate hesitated. However, the situation became catastrophic in 1930. Then the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were finally imposed, and Europe retaliated in kind. It would have been better to keep European production in Europe, buying the cars from government money , and selling them at a loss. That would have been socialist, and only the USA would have suffered. European tariffs made US exports collapse, companies went bankrupt, banks followed, and people lost all they had, as bank deposits were not insured either privately, collectively, or by the government itself. The economy greatly depressed.    

***

The questions are: what is China doing right, and what are we doing wrong? Of these sorts of graphs, world wars are made. Notice that, in a few years, China got the world top GDP. Our crafty leaders say China has built too much! It’s going to crash! I say: go look at the homeless in US streets, it’s sickening. I say: contemplate that Paris didn’t build one skyscraper in… forty-four (44) years. They say: it’s to keep Paris pretty! I say: they deliberately don’t build, and it’s like that all over the West, more or less… Why? Keep it expensive, elitist. That “austerity” extends to activities such as scientific research (where China spends enormously). Actually Trump just wants to eliminate the world’s main existing thermonuclear research facility, and even European scientists are screaming that’s an outrage. 

***

The Great Depression Brought The Mood Of War:

In Germany, the Great Depression brought Hitler to power. In the USA, Roosevelt. Both decided to reflate their economies at all costs, using similar methods (following Keynes all too much; Keynes had advocated make-belief work, if need be). The much richer USA for example decided to build 24 “Fleet Aircraft Carriers”. For comparison, and giving an idea how expensive fleet carriers were, Germany planned to have two such carriers by 1945. The US carriers, were helped by an enormous fleet of more than 200 “fleet submarines” (each nearly 100 meters long). The US subs sank 60% of the Japanese merchant navy, and eight “Jap” aircraft carriers.

Roosevelt put also millions to work, employed by the government. Hitler tried similar tricks, forgetting small details, like that Germany had no oil, and that much of its miracle economy was actually the province of US plutocracy. All the more self-contradictory as the Nazis officially hated so much those plutocrats they were the humble pigeons of.

Meanwhile the French Republic didn’t like the Hitler circus, seeing world war painted all over it, and went to Washington to protest the collusion of US plutocrats and Nazi demoncrats.That didn’t sit very well with old family plutocrat Roosevelt, who hated France anyway, as he saw in France both a juicy prey, and a threat to the plutocratic order, especially of the US sort. In any case, the relationship between France and the USA became execrable in 1934, and would stay that way for the duration, until 1945, and much beyond.

From the French point of view, the easy money, frantic spending on the military of the Anglo-Saxons and the Nazis was wrong in all ways. So the French economy relatively shrank, as France grimly prepared for world war. Sure enough, by 1937, the German economy was in deep trouble, and Hitler had no choice but rob Jews and others to create an appearance of wealth to his millions of increasingly rabid supporters.

Thus we see that the Great Depression did more than depress economies and psychologies: it put the French Republic on a collision course with the USA and the UK. The UK realized its mistake by 1936, and threw out its young Nazi king. By 1939, the UK, having seen Spain fall to Hitler, aligned itself with France, but the USA kept aligning itself, de facto, through its plutocrats and a diplomatic service helping them, with Hitler. (By 1944, though, the top US generals, whom Roosevelt couldn’t control, allied themselves with the French military, because they saw the valor, and had the need. Besides they were in palatial arrangements at the Versailles castle…The relationship stayed tumultuous, though…)

So question: does Trump want to renew with the mistakes of the past? Germany is now solidly allied to France and is a republic too. The only “oiseau de mauvaise augure”, actually a well-defined vulture, is Putin… However recently US forces in Syria eliminated 50% of a force of Russian “volunteers”…

***.

Divided We Can’t Stand:

The trade wars of the 1930s brought division to Europe. Nazism and the “Axis” would never have happened as they did, complete with holocausts and world wars, had the three big representative democracies of the West stayed united. (But of course, Roosevelt, like Hitler, wanted to grab the world; he was just much more crafty about it! Thus much more successful.)

For example Belgium would have built the segment of the Maginot line it was supposed to build, and that would have blocked, or slowed down the Panzers long enough for the superior French forces to regroup where needed (US influence pushed Belgium to suddenly become “neutral”, thus betray France, following that way the pernicious queen of the Netherlands, who digged the grave of her own country, with her love for Kaiser and Germany…)

More prosaically, German generals wanted a pretext to kill the Nazis. Instead Hitler showed them an isolated France… The US attitude was to play all sides, until the American Century got firmly established.

Nowadays, France and the USA are solidly allied. They are fighting side by side in Africa, something which started long ago, in 1978, when the French paras dropped on Kolwezi (the US provided some airlift, and the go-ahead). The war against the Islamists in Africa is long, intense, unforgiving. The Trump administration rightly denounced China’s maneuvers in Africa (suck all the juice, and ever more encroach…)

***

And the Truth Is That The US and EU Elites Are Lying:

The US deficit is fundamentally caused by the exportations to China, Mexico, etc, of US production. So the slaves overseas are doing the work, while the higher class in the USA does not have to deal with pesky, expensive US unionized workers. Increase profit, decrease labor, grow plutocracy. What isn’t there for plutocrats, our lords and masters, to like?

Otherwise Trump is bluffing. Trump is trying to cut a deal about NAFTA/ALENA. To threaten tariffs is Trump’s dangerous and silly negotiation mode. Europe should ignore his craziness, but Europe, like Trump, is trying to make the peons believe it is doing something, when actually it’s doing even less.

So both the EU and the US elites are having a disingenuous argument. They play for the gallery of the naive out there, while the play is getting a life of its own. The right way out is to implement, throughout the West, a version of what Roosevelt did in the 1930s which was right: not the fight with France, that was wrong, not the support of overseas US plutocrats machinations, that was even worse. What was right was the rearmament program (developing and deploying more advanced weapons), and putting people to work, while cleaning up finance. And going to school, more than ever (as French president Macron just promoted in India). But schools all over, and everybody going to them is not enough: we need to put intelligence to work. And work, in the incoming age of robots, especially talking robots, of the sleek type I had on the phone today, means research. Nowadays scientific research should be promoted to the max. If not for us, and our children, for the planet… Can we please, believe in something, for a change?

Patrice Aymé

Making North Korea An Offer It Can’t Refuse

What is the context? A complete failure of non-proliferation would guarantee a nuclear world war. We already have three countries with nukes not allowed to have them legally: Israel, Pakistan, India. Neither India nor Israel will go on the attack: they are representative democracies, India understands nuclear war would kill lots of Indians. Israel is a very special case, its nukes are obviously defensive. Pakistan, though, is a terrible cade: an Islamist Republic, masquerading as a representative democracy, truly a military regime where rogue fanatics, one could imagine, could seize nukes at any moment.

Kim and His Sister are Swiss educated, very smart, cosmopolitan, and, as fine connoisseurs of happenstances, utterly ruthless. They have no choice, the way they see it. We have to deal with cornered animals, thus the time is ripe for an alliance reversal…

So North Korea has to be stopped from doing what it is doing: nuclear blackmail, for the rest of the planet to contemplate. Instead, North Korea has to convene that nuclear NON-proliferation is an excellent socialist idea whose time has come. In exchange, one should make North Korea an offer, even an alliance, which it cannot refuse.

Some may sneer, as Mr Krystoff seems inclined to do. However, like Israel, North Korea is a very special case. Like Israel, it’s a rather small country, all too isolated.

Korea, on and off, had 18 centuries of war with China. Obviously North Korea needs a friend. In the grander scheme of things historical, the USA is not going to set-up a colony in Korea, but China seems keen to re-invest countries which it used to invade, control and colonize in the past. This is clearly exhibited with the South China Sea.

The deal Trump can propose is obvious: diplomatic recognition, full commercial relations, etc, in exchange for denuclearization and demilitarization of rocketry. So why are the anti-Trumps unhappy? Because they are tribal anti-Trumps rather than true progressives. Playing the tribal violin is the guaranteed road to war. So the attitude of the New York Times, suddenly arguing one shouldn’t talk to North Korea, shouldn’t be a surprise to those who realize that tribalism is an old instinct.

What’s the alternative? Do nothing, as G.W. Bush and Obama decided to do? Not anymore, and Obama knew it. The problem is that we have arrived at the end of nothing. Doing nothing leads to nuclear war, guaranteed. Not necessarily with North Korea, but with the next regime which will use nuclear blackmail. And it could come from surprising directions.

For example there is the little detail that Japan, for example, used, long ago, to have a back-up plan to fabricate 3,000 thermonuclear bombs in one year (Japan has a plutonium stockpile from old fuel treated in France, and shipped back…) North Korea has, reportedly, already 60 nuclear bombs.  Japan will not wait forever as the madman next door stockpiles enough to destroy all Japanese cities several times over. (Anti-ballistic missiles can only stop a few, on a good day.) One doesn’t want Japan to feel betraye, and it would be, should nothing been done next door.

So power to Trump on that one. A nice outcome won’t solve all the long term security problems of the planet, but there is no alternative, short term.  

OLIGARCHIES ARE INTRINSICALLY EVIL

Times change, and so do minds. For 9,000 years of civilization, slavery was viewed as natural. However, queen Bathilde of the Frankish empire outlawed it around 655 CE. Now nobody says aloud that slavery is natural.

However everybody believes, but for a few anarchists, that the principle of leadership is natural. That is the Fuererprinzip (Nazi semantic), but Obama himself said it was a fact (although he himself, like Clinton, was only nominally a leader).

I will explain here why oligarchy is intrinsically evil.

Oligarchies are, by definition, the rule of the few. They want always more power. There are three classes of reasons for this:

1. The more power one has, the easier it is to get more, as I demonstrated in “Evil, Plutocracy, Exponentiate”. For example it was much easier for Obama to get the Nobel Peace Prize than the US presidency: the Norwegian oligarchy loves a winner: surely having brown skin was not enough (maybe Obama, or his devoted agents, or, even more important his mighty sponsors, would reciprocate? What else? Surely it was not Obama’s bombing weddings with robots in countries the US was not at war with?)
2. The Dark Side is intrinsically nice for those who practice it: it provides with previously, and otherwise unknown neurohormonal flushes. Thus the monarch learns to enjoy to send people to death (and finds even advantageous to advertize it, when the monarch is hyper powerful, like Tiberius or Stalin).
3. Distributing life, death, torture, extermination, extinction is metaphysically satisfying: it turns the perpetrator into God. Or. more exactly the neurohormonal excitation of giving death is so intoxicating, it uses, and provides with, in particular, the feeling of omnipotence, that it gave rise to this omnipotent, jealous and malevolent abstraction known as “God” (contemplate Him in the Bible).

There are reasons in nature for evil. But there are no reasons for oligarchies. Thus, oligarchies, themselves a fruit of the unholy coupling of civilization with the Dark Side, need even more evil to stay in power, than brought them in to start with…Another name for oligarchs is slavemasters. We outlawed the latter when they buy and sell people. Why not outlaw the former, when they order people around.

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Yes, we need energy to fly a plane, and a plane is no natural phenomenon. However planes are good, they are necessary evils. Same with oligarchies. Some oligarchies are necessary: say the orders of doctors, lawyers, civil engineers, the military. If we need them, built them, use them. But if we don’t, when they are unnecessary evils, let’s do without.

One obvious area where oligarchies shouldn’t exist is politics and economics. I am not exactly the first to believe this: that’s one of the ideas subjacent to the 5 stars movement in Italy, which just got one third of the vote there last Sunday, as expected.

Nobody says aloud that slavery is natural anymore. Slavery has become abhorrent. Let’s do the same to oligarchism! It has to become abhorrent. Some may say: what for? Because oligarchism, by confining power to a few, also confines the mental powers which matters to a few, hence ruins the potential for debate, and thus intelligence. The potential intelligence of the civilization that it rules over with its conspiracy of tiny brains. We had a civilization with an increasingly tiny brain before: Rome. It didn’t finish well. Similarly, Chinese history shows a succession of dynasties, and collapses, from a similar mechanism: at the end of each, ideas are hard to find, as only a few minds minded the “Mandate of Heavens”, and were unable to find solutions to the last few catastrophes…

 

Patrice Ayme