Because the international order is fundamentally anarchic, while domestic orders are (supposed to be at least) nomic, structured by law and rights. Yes, there are attempts at creating international law, but these amount to treaties more than a structured, visible, governing law.
"It’s November 28, 1660. Europe is in the early stages of transforming from the Middle Ages into something new"
This is a grotesque misrepresentation of European history! By 1660, universities had existed for more than a half millenia, had redeveloped lost roman engineering capacities and invented world-shattering new technologies.
Do historians see this as a period of global stagnation or isolation or anything like that? It seems like most of the world's major powers were either stagnating or declining. Spain, Portugal, Venice, the Ottomans, Ming China. Meanwhile Germany was getting ripped apart in the 30 Years War, England in a Civil War, and Japan closed itself off. The Dutch were doing okay I guess.
Then towards the end of the century we see all sorts of new powers emerge.
You're not imagining it. The period roughly between 1500-1800 is usually called the early modern period (with endless debates over the precise endcaps). Rather than stagnating or isolating though, historians usually consider it one of the most dynamic and volatile periods in European history.
The 17th century in particular is usually divided in two between the thirty years war and the post-westphalian era when nation-states begin to exist.
Yes. With Bach, microscopes, portable and naval artillery, and a patent system that rewarded people for thinking up stuff that worked, paper money (1690) was the last thing needed to make everything since a foregone conclusion.
It was also 92 years before Ben Franklin's kite experiment.
Middle Ages arguably, were done with the Black Death of 1346, when a third of agricultural labor was wiped out making land rents much cheaper and in many cases, nil. It ended feudalism because just controlling land was no longer enough to make money - and peasants got plenty of disposable income that they used to spend on rents - enabling consumption of industrial goods - and capitalism began; by the time peasants multiplied again some 150 years later to reverse the situation, America was discovered and those extra people started to emigrate there to make use of those free lands (and also, well, exploit and sometimes genocide locals... but that is another story), so feudalism never returned. By 1660, it was a distant memory.
One of the most obvious signs of an encroaching oligarchy is that people who have become successful in the domain of accumulating any non-standard amount of wealth feel this qualifies them to speak on every topic with no preparation.
At a certain point the disregard for truth and emphasis on narrative (and always with a facile material interest!) makes it impossible to engage with the alleged ideas and we have to look at the person behind it.
This is really no different than north korean propaganda in miniature if you are part of this cofounder of Kickstarter's sycophantic proofreaders: something absurd and obviously false is being said, but it can only harm you to point it out.
We can't really decide what is going on right now, let alone get all whizzed up about how funky European history was doing in 1660.
Why should a bunch of Londoners decide: "to start a club devoted to “improving Natural Knowledge.""
Yes, there were Universities etc but what did they actually teach (Classics, Theology etc) Bear in mind that cutting edge medicine until around 2025 involves leeches. Yes I am being a bit cruel but the point largely stands. Leeches are still used but for their anti-coagulant properties.
There was something more needed. More than what the Romans and Greeks had managed. Obviously we are ignoring vast tracts of the planet here with our Western View.
Anyway, that's only one story. There are several more in the article.
There is a final flourish too - why not read the whole article?
A classic medieval university education wasn't theology or reading Greek and Latin literature like epic poetry. It was the Trivium and Quadrivium, which emphasized logic, math, and astronomy, along with analytical writing skills so these ideas could be synthesized and communicated. What we today consider a classical, humanities-based education began to form, I think, near the start of the Renaissance, which in many ways was a reaction to the overly science-based curricula.
The highest degrees were in law, medicine, and theology, but these were professions and prerequisites for the same; i.e. professional degrees, much like today[1].
[1] I'm curious what percentage of those obtaining masters and doctorates in theology today go on to work as pastors, and specifically if still[citation needed] a majority.
Thank you for correcting me. On HN I tend to go for "common knowledge" and wait for someone who knows what they are on about to rock up. You didn't disappoint!
You mention Trivium and Quadrivium, so three and four subjects/things. So, the notion of "University" in the medieval and renaissance needs to be understood, compared to our modern preconceptions.
I studied post scola at a Polytechnic which was a UK thing. That's in living memory and yet many people have no idea what I'm on about. Dealing with notions and ideas beyond living memory soon gets a bit tricky.
I suppose I probably looked at a classical Victorian education (with rose tinted specs) and assumed that a medieval uni might be something like that with rather more Gothic Black Letter, more intransigent word spellings. That's me being lazy.
Would you mind recommending some reading matter? I'll never forget discovering "Courtesans and fishcakes" as a commentary on how ancient Greeks might have seen the world and themselves. Weirdly I found that work in a bookshop in Yeovil in the noughties, despite going to school in Abingdon and regular trips to Oxford and generally being surrounded by Oxbridge as a child.
Your note [1] and query are something I can't answer from authority but I suspect the majority. Theology is no longer considered Science! So if you choose to study Theology, I think you will be inclined towards to wanting to wear some really odd collars as a sign of your work.
By "vast tracts", you mean just China? They invented some technology but I don't think anybody else or anybody at all got to Roman level technology. Certainly nobody did science anywhere else that we have any historical record of.
"You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.” -- someone wise, or was he?
On a more conceptual angle, Landrebe and Smith's "Why Machine's Will Never Rule
the World" clarifies the limits of computation w/r/t complex dynamic systems.
Here is the core argument:
"an artificial intelligence that could equal or exceed human
intelligence—sometimes called artificial general intelligence (AGI)—is for mathematical
reasons impossible. It offers two specific reasons for this claim:
1. Human intelligence is a capability of a complex dynamic system—the human brain
and central nervous system.
2. Systems of this sort cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to
operate inside a computer.
A denser-than-air vehicle that could equal or exceed bird flight --sometines called an airplane-- is for mathematical reasons impossible, for two specific reasons:
1. Bird flight is a capability of a complex dynamic system -- the bird's musculoskeletal system and its brain.
2. Systems of these sort cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a machine.
What would prevent an embodied AI - i.e.: some kind of deep learning system operating a robot full of sensors from representing such a 'complex dynamic system'?
And if the answer is nothing - what would prevent such an dynamic system from being emulated? If the answer is real time data, this can be fed into the 'world model' of the emulation in numerous ways.
This is what I believed intuitively, but the reality is more nuanced. I'd rephrase it to: "We can't create something better than humans". A tractor can outplow a human easily just like an LLM can outwork a human on menial, easily verifiable tasks.
This kind of argument is nonsense. It boils down to: "This previously solved problem is unsolvable."
The previous solution is a biological brain, and the future solutions are mechanical, but that doesn't matter. Even if it did, such arguments involve little more than waving one's hands about and claiming that there's some poorly specified fundamental difference.
It's a waste of time. These arguments always boil down to some "mysterious soul that only biological brains possess". It's theistic nonsense.
Even if current LLM architectures can't get to AGI, which I will believe, there's no coherent argument that can be made that there is no possible path to AGI with digital computers.
It could be as simple as simulating the top-to-bottom biology of a human brain! That's possible, just wildly impractical, so any arguments based on abstractions like logic, mathematics, physics, etc... go right out the window. They're obviously invalid. Only practical engineering arguments can possibly be valid.
"It's impossible for heavier-than-air objects to fly!"
Civilization is built on long term sustainable practice, shortcuts in response to the lack of such practices is how civilizations burn down.
Obviously T1 diabetics need to take medication because there's not much else they can do whatever side effects that has, but the topic is obviously relevant and posted here because these drugs are currently being used/abused for weight loss. Given that sustainable, side effect free ways to lose weight exist (with many additional benefits) that is what a healthy human civilization would do, instead of opting for drugs with utterly unknown side effects, potentially really bad ones, like in this case.
> Given that sustainable, side effect free ways to lose weight exist (with many additional benefits)
Just because it exists doesn't mean it's statistically applicable to a population of people. I've yet to see real evidence that on a population scale, sustainable and side effect free ways to lose weight exists at a statistically significant level. If you're 100+ lbs overweight and you lose it all without any medical intervention for over 5 yrs you're basically a statistical freak.
Not to mention that the human body is completely opposed to losing weight, and will do anything it can to convince you that what you really need to do is to gain it back.
This was something that astounded me about my weight. It is static. Has been static since I gained it all (when my thyroid quit working at 18 - over 4 months I gained 100 pounds). Since that date more than half my life ago, I have been the exact same 220lb +/- 5lb depending on time of day. Through caloric deficits, through hiking and jogging (run many 5ks, and just recently hiked 125mi through the mountains). I'm fit, I eat well, but I'm BMI of 34, and my weight never fluctuates.
My wife has wanted me to get on ozempic, but I'm actually scare of side effects, and the cost is atrocious in the US.
> I've yet to see real evidence that on a population scale,
I mean visit Japan if you want to see a large nation manage its populations weight, but the entire reasoning is completely backwards. Statistics doesn't have a will of its own or causal powers, it's a description of aggregate behavior. Change the behavior and you get some new statistics. 100 years ago you didn't have a single statistic showing that obesity was an issue. What evidence do you need that making people move more and eat less will make them lose weight, there's no law of nature operating against you.
The obvious reason to even think like this is indicative of the problem, that in a lot of places we're so unused to simply enforcing sane cultural norms and incentivizing healthy behaviors and discourage crappy ones that people think it breaks some kind of ironclad law.
> What evidence do you need that making people move more and eat less will make them lose weight, there's no law of nature operating against you.
IDK, any evidence? We've been telling people to move more and eat less for literally decades and it doesn't work to make them lose weight on a broad population level.
Perhaps a better phrasing would be, "There is no free lunch." If you prefer to take Ozempic rather than monitoring caloric intake and exercising, then there are consequences. But if the consequences are worth it, is up to the individual.
Someone reading this might assume its zero sum to you - as if people on Ozempic have not already been exercising and monitoring caloric intake without the associated weight loss/health results they desire - and have only chosen it because they don't want to try something else.
I'm sure you aren't trying to come across as fat shaming, but the reality is of course not zero sum. Diet and exercise doesn't magically work for the entire population.
Diet and exercise definitely worked for me but im not willing to be a sample size of 1 in the face of so many others with legitimate stories.
Diet alone is 100% guaranteed to cause you to lose weight. It really is as easy as counting calories. It is a scientific fact. It is physically impossible to gain, or maintain weight, if you cut caloric intake sufficiently.
Yes, and abstaining from alcohol is guaranteed to stop alcoholism! It is a scientific fact. It is physically impossible to be an alcoholic if you cut alcohol intake sufficiently.
No one here is stating that physics stops working for fat people. Obviously, your body needs an energy source to function and when you deprive it of that energy source it will go to your energy reserves. There might be some woefully ignorant people that claim otherwise elsewhere, but that's not the position of the person you are referring to.
But you're saying "it is as easy as doing activity x" without concern for the difficulty of that activity. There are a wide variety of reasons some people might get fat, but once you are fat, it is far more difficult to get not-fat than it was to get there in the first place. There are a wide variety of feedback loops within the body, including epigenetic ones, that make it much harder to lose weight and keep it off.
Once upon a time, it was trivial for me to not eat garbage food, or too much of any sort of food. I had more trouble trying to eat enough to be in a large enough caloric surplus to get enough protein in and stay in a large enough caloric surplus to build muscle. I never had "food noise" or anything of that nature. Then life happened, my circumstances changed, and I had less time to worry about food. I spent more time going out with co-workers and friends eating and drinking. Other nights, I was too busy to cook, and ordered in more. My weight went up, and before I really realized it, I had put on significant weight. And I realized that something I had found trivial before, something that had taken zero willpower, that I had never struggled with... was something that was incredibly mentally taxing.
Could I count calories and lose weight? Of course. Could I add exercise back in to my routine? Yep. But it was difficult in a way that I never had understood back when I was fit, in a way that I never would have believed could happen to me. And as soon as I got busy again, or had other things occur in my life that took priority, the mental effort to keep "just counting calories" and push down my food cravings and hunger no longer seemed worth it.
I could exert a huge portion of my willpower on this, struggle with it, remove my capacity to spend more time having care and empathy for others, forcefully deprioritize other things in life... or I could use a GLP-1.
I know which path made sense for me, and it's been a hugely beneficial thing in my life.
Agreed. And if you want to stop smoking or gambling it really is as easy as not doing it.
Except reality is it's hard. Addiction is a real issue, people have underlying compulsions and habits as difficult to break as with physical pressure. For some people monitoring caloric intake isn't the option it is for others.
You are not wrong. Starving yourself works, obviously. What doesn't work is maintaining people in a state of starvation. It becomes extremely hard if there are other tasks stealing focus (for example, work), or if you have a high basal metabolic rate, or if you have diabetes, etc.
I am the guy with an appointment with Ozempic prescribing doctor. I will seriously think about it twice. “Normal” starving does not have any very rare and very bad consequences. It’s just very very difficult.
It's true, it isn't a free lunch. You, or your insurer, has to pay for it. It needs to be injected. It won't work as well if you insist on eating a pint of ice cream three times a day. And so on.
>It won't work as well if you insist on eating a pint of ice cream three times a day.
Yeah, good luck with that.
GLP-1 agonists reduce your desire for, and for many people, your ability to consume things like “a pint of ice cream three times a day.” That’s kinda the point.
I didn't get that impression. Not written in or translated to Thai for one thing.
> there is also a history of foreigners making it very large in Thailand.
Many Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Singaporeans, sure, already wealthy before coming to Thailand, or well-connected. Can you name any foreigners (generally construed as Europeans, Americans, Australians by Thais, i.e. farang) since the post-colonial period in SE Asia? Jim Thompson comes to mind, but even he didn't make it very large by the standards of the Thai wealthy.
From the Book of Disquiet: "I see life as a roadside inn where I have to stay until the coach from the abyss pulls up. I don’t know where it will take me, because I don’t know anything. I could see this inn as a prison, for I’m compelled to wait in it; I could see it as a social centre, for it’s here that I meet others. But I’m neither impatient nor common. I leave who will to stay shut up in their rooms, sprawled out on beds where they sleeplessly wait, and I leave who will to chat in the parlours, from where their songs and voices conveniently drift out here to me. I’m sitting at the door, feasting my eyes and ears on the colours and sounds of the landscape, and I softly sing – for myself alone – wispy songs I compose while waiting."
> Put your hands together, place them between mine and listen to me, my love.
> In the soft, consoling voice of a confessor offering advice, I want to tell you how the desire to achieve something far outstrips what we actually achieve.
> I want to recite to you the litany of despair while you listen intently.
> There is no work of art that could not have been more perfect. Read line by line, no poem, however great, has no single line that could not be improved upon, no episode that could not be more intense, and the whole is never so perfect that it could not be even more perfect.
> Woe betide the artist who notices this, who one day thinks this. His work can never again be a joy, he will never again sleep peacefully. He’ll become a young man bereft of youth and grow old discontentedly.
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