Do you read?

[Rodders]

43 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

By coincidence I finished reading The Brothers Karamazov last week. Not an easy read, but glad I did. 

Ulysses I found much easier than I'd been expecting. 

 

I do look forward to that one at some point, but I think it'll be some time yet, I'll need some easy reads alongside re-exploring Ulysses. First time around I went off and caught up on my shakespeare and homer, so I can't complain. Maybe this time round it'll be getting into irish nationalism. 

[MakemineVanilla]

On 30/03/2022 at 17:00, Rodders said:

Finished Crime and Punishment at last. Surprisingly easy to read. Enjoyed it, though he does like a digression here and there. 

 

I particularly liked the detective Porfiry Petrovich whose manipulation of Raskolnikov is totally chilling.

[MakemineVanilla]

On 30/03/2022 at 18:41, Rodders said:

 

I do look forward to that one at some point, but I think it'll be some time yet, I'll need some easy reads alongside re-exploring Ulysses. First time around I went off and caught up on my shakespeare and homer, so I can't complain. Maybe this time round it'll be getting into irish nationalism. 

Ulysses is a fantastic book and there are so many memorable passages which charm and delight.

I thought the passage where the old woman is milking the cow, was one of the most beautiful things I ever read.

And the haunting question - do kidneys really taste of piss? 

[Rodders]

10 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

I particularly liked the detective Porfiry Petrovich whose manipulation of Raskolnikov is totally chilling.

Yes, those battles of wits are terrific to read. 

[mjmooney]

20 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

I particularly liked the detective Porfiry Petrovich whose manipulation of Raskolnikov is totally chilling.

Which translation would you recommend? 

[MakemineVanilla]

54 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Which translation would you recommend? 

The one I read was by Constance Garnett and so I can't make a valid comparison but I understand that some critics do have a preference.

[Phil Silvers]

2 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

The one I read was by Constance Garnett and so I can't make a valid comparison but I understand that some critics do have a preference.

Nout to do with this post but I've been meaning to ask this for a while, are you the person in your avatar? Seemed like the best thread to ask this in, or not if I'm wrong.

[mjmooney]

41 minutes ago, Phil Silvers said:

Nout to do with this post but I've been meaning to ask this for a while, are you the person in your avatar? Seemed like the best thread to ask this in, or not if I'm wrong.

That's Howard Jacobson isn't it? 

[Phil Silvers]

12 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

That's Howard Jacobson isn't it? 

Correct.

 

edit, no reply, I deduce that Mr Jacobson is a Villa fan.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Phil Silvers

[leviramsey]

Best bit of general interest nonfiction I've read in recent years has been Peter Zeihan's Disunited Nations.  The broad thesis (published in early 2020) is that 

Quote

Disunited Nations is about what happens when major powers decide they are better off competing instead of cooperating.  It is a book about what happens when the global Order isn't just falling apart but when many leaders feel their country would be better off tearing it down.  We're going to look at the rise of Trump and leaders like him.  We're going to think through Saudi Arabia and Iran's competition to rule (or misrule) the Middle East.  We're going to look at how we match farmers to hungry mouths, minerals to manufacturing, oil to [petrol] tanks.

Through these stories, we're going to keep two big ideas in mind.

The first is that geography might not be destiny, but it's damn close.  Live in a desert and bam! you're going to fight to protect what little you have.  Live on a coast and bam! you're going to eat a lot of foreign food.  Live in a dense urban area and bam! you're probably not going to have an issue with Tongans, Thais, Tunisians, or transvestites.  Live in the mountains and bam! you're going to be a bit... persnickety when folks from other regions roll through.

Most of us consistently misread economies and conflicts because we don't take geography into account.  We misinterpret what's happening in the news and think China is holding on to Hong Kong out of stubbornness or the fights about the US-Mexican border are only about race.  Geography shapes everything.  What's been different in recent decades is that geography has been suspended somewhat, enabling deep global interconnections.  We've come to see those connections as a great strength; they are turning into weakness before our very eyes.

The second big idea is that this book is being published now in 2020, not a few years from now, because the world has run out of time.  That moment of transition when the Order will come crashing down is almost upon us.

It may not seem that way to Americans who have been engaged in some degree of warfare continuously since 1999 and had decades of duck-and-cover drills before that, but the world since 1946 is as calm as the world has ever been.  In creating their anti-Soviet Cold War alliance, the Americans by hook, crook, carrot, and stick brought together every significant power of the past five centuries together under a single banner: Norway, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Japan, China -- all of them and more allied in various degrees of formality against the Soviet Union.  If they were to be fighting the Soviets, it wouldn't be particularly productive if they were fighting each other.  The American alliance didn't so much end history as freeze it in place.

But now Matt's "suitable motivation" is over.  The Americans have changed their mind about their alliance and have turned sharply more insular.  There's no effort to ride herd.  The W Bush administration abused the allies, the Obama administration ignored them, and the Trump administration insulted them.  And so America's list of allies has shrunk from nearly everyone to the potentially useful to the obviously useful to the obviously loyal to those with little choice.  In a world without America, the questions become: Who can still benefit from some lingering connection to the Americans?  And who can go it alone?

My "transformational boom" is over as well.  Without the global security the Americans guaranteed, global trade and global energy flows cannot continue.  Seven decades of global industrialization and modernization are not simply at risk, the very pillars of civilization are cracking.  Who was most dependent on the world that was and so will fall?  And who was most restrained by the old Order and so will soar?

We stand at the end of the era that began with the Cold War.  It'll be less like the messiness of the early 2000s or the raw potential of the 1950s, and more a disastrous combination of the battle royales and displacements of the 1870s against the economic backdrop of the 1930s.  It.  Will.  Suck.  Something new is coming.  Something that, historically speaking, is far more "normal".

Disunited Nations is my effort to sketch out that "normal" future.  On a grand scale, many of us are betting on the wrong horses.  France will lead the new Europe, not Germany.  We should be worried about Saudi Arabia, not Iran.  We should be thinking about how to remedy mass starvation in China, not counter its economic and military clout.

Quote

Building and maintaining a global system isn't something any old empire can even attempt.  To this point, only two empires have pulled off the feat: Britain and then America.  Most casual -- hell, most professional -- observers of international affairs fear a third is on the rise: China.

Such sentiment isn't just wrong, it's hilariously so.  To be blunt, the Chinese are doing it wrong.

The American system of global management can be summed up as: entice everyone to be on your team.  Sufficient allure to draw everyone to your global system is not easily attained.  The American Order is in essence based on bribes.  Think of the American management strategy as having four carrots of success.

1.  Ensure physical security for all.  The United States would protect all Order members from the military advances of non-Order and Order members alike.  The first piece of this is something most who advocate for a post-American world gloss over: gaining trust.

A would-be hegemon must prove it's willing to bleed to protect the interests of every member of its Order.  Korea and Vietnam were less to stop the march of communism than to convince American allies that the country wouldn't step away: most specifically to keep Japan and France in the Order.  It's a hoot to imagine the Chinese manning Checkpoint Charlie or getting involved in the Persian Gulf to keep the Iraqis out of Kuwait.

Guaranteeing security of others also requires convincing those others that such protection includes protection from the new would-be hegemon.  As distrusted as the Americans are, they are still the only significant power most want defending them, because the Americans aren't their neighbors.  Such distance means any historical bad blood is fairly thin.  Such is most certainly not the case for the Chinese.  The Chinese have had a loooong time to burn bridges.  A quick look around the neighborhood:

Whenever the northern Chinese have consolidated sufficiently to invade someone, the first direction they marched is to the Korean peninsula.  But the Koreans are no longer pushovers.  The peninsula is bristling with soldiers and nuclear weapons.  There's no military walkover here.

Taiwan's hostility to the mainland long predates the Chinese Civil War.  Formosa has long served as either a redoubt for this or that Chinese dynasty or rebel or warlord force, or as a power center in its own right.  Today it's both.

The Kazakhs moved their capital from the near border city of Almaty to the former Soviet gulag of Astana while getting buddy-buddy with the Russians.  The Kazakhs would rather be beholden to their former Soviet masters than integrate with China.

Japan has been the regional bugaboo of the Chinese for past few centuries, and Japan's occasionally brutal raiding/occupation/rape-and-pillaging of much of the Chinese coast and northern interior regions leaves the Chinese itching for revenge.  That's hardly the sort of thinking that earns one friends in Tokyo.  India still smarts over territory lost to China and most of its nuclear arsenal is pointed at China.

And China's relationship with Russia is even more damning.  In the 1960s the Soviets took a straw poll of the UN Security Council to see if anyone would mind if they nuked Beijing.  The Americans were alone in saying no (which paved the way for the Nixon-Mao summit in 1972).

America's war in Vietnam was messy and lasted a couple of decades.  In contrast, the Han Chinese have basically been fighting the Vietnamese for a couple of millennia.  The Vietnamese are eager to welcome American businesspeople and aircraft carriers because they don't think the war with the United States lasted long enough to qualify the Americans as epic foes.  The Vietnamese view of China, in contrast, borders on pathological.

And it's not like the Chinese are the only ones with trouble earning global trust.  Iran defending Saudi Arabia (or vice versa)?  German or Russian troops in Poland?  Japan in charge of Chinese security?

2.  Ensure maritime security for all.  The Americans also guaranteed to defend the merchant shipping of all members of the Order.  No one else can do that now.  The only way anybody can is to somehow win a globe-spanning war that makes the choice naval anchorages available without having their home territory at risk of invasion.

3.  Offer unfettered market access.  There's more to the order than guns: there's also butter.  The postwar economic relationship was as if the US lost the war to every other country and those countries imposed import requirements on the Americans.  China cannot offer its internal market to anyone because it needs everyone else's markets to make its own system work.  Remove the Americans as the bottomless sink for global supply and the desire to be part of anybody else's global network suddenly wilts.  A Chinese "Order" is predicated upon the Chinese gobbling up as many resources as possible so they can shove as many products down the world's throat as possible.  That's not what a bribe is supposed to feel like.

4.  Float a global currency.  Much like maintaining a global navy, not just anyone can float a global currency.  There are some extremely strict requirements:
- The volume must be massive to allow for stability for daily transactions
- The sponsor's external trade must be small enough relative to its home economy that day-to-day fluctuations don't affect the sponsor's domestic economy
- The sponsor must be so nonchalant about the currency's value that it doesn't often intervene in currency markets
- The would-be hegemon must be willing to let currency flow in and out of its domestic market at the whim of others: if you can't get hold of the currency reliably in sufficient volumes when you need it, there's no point using it

The idea that anyone, including the Americans, can provide the volume of carrots required to be a global hegemon doesn't gel.

The British model is far less complicated than the American model.  Just flat-out conquer the world.  There are three sticks of success

1.  An unassailable strategic position.  The lands of England are... OK.  The Thames basin is a good, not great, agricultural zone.  The diet is heavy on baked, doughy, boiled, and fried because the sort of things you can grow in the short cool summers that will last through the winter are most easily prepared in those ways.  The Thames is navigable, but isn't that long.  None of the other rivers in Britain go inland more than about 90 miles.  Nature gives Britain the heft of a modest middle power.  Not bad, but nothing special.

Until you consider that Britain is an island.  That changes everything.

China has no such insulation.  Across its northern border is Russia and to its southwest is India: both are nuclear, willing, and able to throw infantry into a meat-grinder, and the bordering regions of Xinjiang and Tibet would likely welcome the invaders.  To the south are Thailand and Vietnam: regional powers with proud histories of resisting the Chinese.  Considering that the Koreas have about 1.5 million men under arms, the South could develop a nuclear weapon in a few days, and the North already has them, subjugation of the peninsula is out of the question.

2.  A potent flexible navy.
3.  A massive technological advantage.  For a couple of centuries, the British won by literally bringing a gun to a knife fight.

The question is not whether China can be the next global hegemon.  It cannot.  The real question is whether China can hold itself together as a country. 

TL;DR: the outlooks for various powers
 

Quote

China: Only Russia has worse relations with its neighbors.  When the Order ends, everything that has made China successful will end with it and no one will reach out with a helping hand.  In a word: overhyped
Japan: The Japanese have the capital, navy, technological know-how, and geographic insulation to step into the space left by a retreating United States better than any other regional power.  They also don't have a choice.  In a word: Jefe
Russia: Russia is an aging, insecure, former power determined to make one last stand before it's incapable of doing so.  American disengagement from the global scene couldn't have come at a better time, but the reactivation of Russia's traditional local foes couldn't have come at a worse one.  In a word: panicked
Germany: Few countries are more dependent on the American-led Order.  Germany's best backup plan, the EU, is already falling apart.  Germany needs a new way of doing things... or maybe an old one.  In a word: Outdated
France: France is never number one, but it's always in the top five.  When their neighbors struggle -- as they are now -- French power naturally rises.  In a word: Finally!
Iran: Cast in the role of troublemaker for four decades, Iran has recently experienced massive success in disrupting its foes.  Now that Iran has more or less won regional leadership, it's woefully unprepared to protect its gains.  In a word: Winner?
Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia is in the rare position of having the money, military equipment, and the will to position itself as a legitimate counterweight to Iran in a region long defined by American (mis-)management.  In a word: Arsonist
Turkey: Turkey will always be smack dab in the middle of everything.  Its relationships with outside powers may wax and wane, but it will always be the economic and military heavyweight of its region.  In a word: Returned
Brazil: Brazil owes its modern existence to globalization and the Order.  Without the foreign capital to fuel its infrastructure and agricultural sector, without safe transport to send its beef and soy to customers around the world, Brazil will struggle to maintain its economy on its own.  In a word: Nuts
Argentina: Once a political ideology more conducive to... sanity takes hold, Argentina has everything it needs to dominate its neighborhood.  In a word: Mulligan
United States: The Americans excel at missing opportunities due to domestic squabbling, but there is nothing in what's left of the international system that will threaten the Americans either militarily or economically before 2050.  In a word: Detached

[mjmooney]

Since finishing Karamazov, I've read Peter Ackroyd's Milton in America and Richard Thompson's memoir Beeswing. Currently on Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance. 

[leviramsey]

Quote

The future tenor of the relationship is largely up to the UK.  NAFTA inclusion?  Certainly.  Commonwealth with the US?  Possibly.  Statehood?  It might not seem all that likely due to issues of physical and cultural distance, but on the other hand, it's far from uncommon for aging parents to move in with the kids.

 

[rjw63]

4 minutes ago, leviramsey said:

 

So you're not dead then?

[MaVilla]

So many good books over the last couple of years (or decades), depending on your tastes, i would recommend any of the below books, in no particular order:

• Dune (all 6 of Frank Herberts books).
• Witcher books.
• Altered Carbon.
• The Expanse (the series).
• The Godfather.
• Five Families.
• the Corporation.
• Operation Paperclip.
• Chernobyl.
• George Orwell - A Sage for All Seasons.
• Moneyball.
• No Country for Old Men.
• They - Sarfraz Mansoor.
• The History of Ancient Egypt (The Great Courses - after this shortened to TGC).
• The history of Ancient Rome (TGC).
• Big History: The big bang, life on earth and the rise of humanity (TGC).
• The rise and Fall of Soviet Communism (TGC).
• The rise & fall of the British Empire (TGC)
• The rise and fall of China (TGC).
• World War 1 / World War 2 (TGC).
• Buddhism (TGC).
• Introduction to Judaism (TGC).
• Welcome to the Universe (TGC)
• The Greek & Persian Wars (TGC)
• Alexander the Great & the Macedonian Empire (TGC)
• The Barbarian Empire of the Steps (TGC).
• Great World Religions (Islam/Christianity, Judaism etc) - (GTC).
• Mystical Tradition (Judaism, Christianity & Islam) - (TGC)
• Ancient Mesopotamia (TGC)
• The Mongol Empire (TGC).
• Genghis Khan & the making of the modern world (TGC).
• Arabs (Tim Mackintosh-Smith).

 

 

 

[leviramsey]

8 hours ago, rjw63 said:

So you're not dead then?

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

[It's Your Round]

I finished Mindf*ck, yesterday. It’s the full story of Cambridge Analytica from Christopher Wylie. I knew a bit about it and remember it being on the news, but I didn’t realise the extent at which Mercer and Bannon illegally manipulated the British and American (and Nigerian) public. It’s a **** disgrace that this all went unpunished. I should stop reading things that cause so much outrage while on holiday, it’s not good. I highly recommend the book though, I think everyone should be aware what happened.

[useless]

I'm almost halfway through Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin, it's pretty good so far. Rainer Werner Fassbinder did a good job of adapting it to film, in, even some of the parts you might think wouldn't translate very well, but there's a lot that can't be adapted, things like descriptions of what smoke escaping through vents at a night club would be thinking if it had a mind and so on.

[mjmooney]

3 minutes ago, useless said:

I'm almost halfway through Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin, it's pretty good so far. Rainer Werner Fassbinder did a good job of adapting it to film, in, even some of the parts you might think wouldn't translate very well, but there's a lot that can't be adapted, things like descriptions of what smoke escaping through vents at a night club would be thinking if it had a mind and so on.

This sounds interesting, must investigate. 

Currently reading: J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur and Peter Ackroyd's biography of T. S. Eliot. 

[Villa87]

Just finished Stasiland by Anna Funder. Really good read!

[dubbs]

Slightly off topic,  but I was briefly looking at the SMA forum and there's a topic on there called "Can you read?"