Recent content by Swammerdami

Lest I be accused of "false advertising" in encouraging people to visit or even move to Chiang Mai, let me remind that No, Mr. Eliot was not alluding to IRS deadlines; he was referring to Thailand's high temperatures. I enjoy walking through some of Chiang Mai's intriguing neighborhoods with...

Dear Mr. Swizz, First I extend thanks and applause for not concatenating "Heels Up" to Harris' name, as some other Ilkists do. We do get the impression that you do NOT advise your followers to vote Biden-Harris in November. How DO you hope voters make their selection in swing states? If D.J...

As Good as it Gets Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Kid: "What did you do during the Great Test of Democracy, Grey Lady of 43rd Street?" Grey Lady: "We popped up a 'Welcome Offer' whenever someone tried to read one of our important stories."

Yesterday I watched Man on the Run, a documentary about the 1MDB scandal; I posted a review in the What movie did you watch today? thread. Briefly, a group of Malaysian government officials led by the P.M. himself stole billions from their Treasury, throwing lavish parties, buying superyachts...

Sounds almost not unlike Thailand. But here, the line between palm-greasing and licencing fees is thinnish.

I just checked in to say the thread should avoid ambiguous terms like "individualist" or even "collectivist." Earlier I used "self-reliant" in lieu of "individualist," but should also have substituted "cooperation-oriented" for "collectivist."

Wow! I've been watching true-crime documentaries on Netflix. It's not my most favorite genre, but I like true stories and Netflix is presenting several of them to me. Latest is Man on the Run. Wow! 1MDB -- "One of the biggest corruption stories in history" -- played out 2009-2018. And I'd...

I HOPE the Prosecution is emphasizing this very carefully. The legal basis for charging these crimes as New York felonies is VERY confusing I think. They should explain it and re-explain it to the jury every chance they get. I see that transcripts of the opening arguments will be made...

Michael Cohen PLED guilty; he didn't wait for proof. And he did so in FEDERAL court because campaign financing crimes are FEDERAL crimes. The State of New York cannot charge campaign financing crimes directly: they are not state crimes. Of course Trump is GUILTY. Nobody here is arguing...

Of course we know WHY it's happening. But is it a GOOD thing? AI will exacerbate the unfortunate trend; that's thread topic. Remedy is beyond thread's scope; try a Marxism thread. Don't forget LAND. Billionaires have been buying up land all over the planet. Are we heading toward medieval...

I'm watching Official Secrets (2019), the true story of a whistle-blower (played by Keira Knightley) who risked prison to expose (BEFORE the invasion) Tony Blair's complicity in the Bush-Cheney lies that led to the 2003 misadventure in Iraq. The movie showed up when I Googled for "movies about...

Yes, that's how I feel. The Creator might be "Mathematics", a Grand Simulator, an Omnimax entity like Leibniz envisioned, or even just an abstraction to serve as grammatical convenience. Such a Creator might have created a single multiverse, or an infinite number of multiverses but is unlikely...

Three years ago I reported on a baboon society which maintained a unique (pacificist) culture for decades, even after its founders were dead. I hope we get more examples of human societies maintaining culture for a century or more. The U.S.A. with traits like self-reliance, love of guns...

We are using these terms in slightly different ways. Do you have any sort of citation for this? Holland and Britain were able to acquire industrial capital NOT because they had wealth but because they DIDN'T? (I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong; just would like to read more on this...