Tag Archives: science

The Power Of Contingency: Why China Didn’t Rule The World

Pomeranz, Kenneth – The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (2001) Category: economy, history, world systems; Rating: 5*/5 Summary: Brad DeLong’s review; The Bactra Review; Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial? It’s a rare book that not only … Continue reading

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Tales From The Beijing Embassy

Four cables from Cathay, courtesy of this excellent Cable Search tool. The first cable (Cable 1) is one of the last dispatches of Ambassador to the PRC Clark T. Randt, a long, analytical piece from January 2009. But it’s also … Continue reading

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The Final Gambit: Geoengineering

It is very likely that efforts to prevent CO2 levels from soaring to 450ppm – the level we need to stop at to have any hope of limiting temperature rise to 2C or less – will fail. This will lead … Continue reading

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Cliodynamics: Mathematizing History

One of the most interesting emerging sciences today, in my opinion, is cliodynamics. Their practitioners attempt to come to with mathematical models of history to explain “big history” – things like the rise of empires, social discontent, civil wars, and … Continue reading

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Review of “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (J. Diamond)

While trawling through my computer archives, I stumbled across this book review of Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel” from five years ago. Overall, it’s a great book, better than his follow-up “Collapse”, which is also interesting – especially in … Continue reading

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The Belief Matrix

Consequent to my post Categorizing the Russia Debate and the lively debate it spawned, it occurred to me that much of Russia’s tortured and intriguing history could be rationalized as a self-reinforcing loop within a belief matrix. This can even … Continue reading

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Categorizing the Russia Debate

Here I will try to categorize all the major Russia-watching schools along two axes: 1) a Russophobe – Russophile axis and 2) a values spectrum on attitudes towards the West as a universal mental matrix. Along these lines I created … Continue reading

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The Dilemmas of Global Dimming

Not only is global warming a real and present threat that may yet in conjunction with impending energy shortages doom industrial civilization, it may have even been dangerously underestimated. What have you been smoking!?, you might say to me. Get … Continue reading

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Notes on “The Collapse of Complex Societies” (J. Tainter)

Tainter, Joseph – The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988) PDF Category: collapse, resource depletion; Rating: 5/5 Summary: Complexity, Problem Solving and Sustainable Societies (J. Tainter) 1996 As you may have noticed from the sidebar, I am currently researching a book … Continue reading

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Sublime Oblivion – What Might Be Is

This is the first in a series of philosophical essays in which I outline my philosophy of Sublime Oblivion. Here I demonstrate the indivisibility of the material and Platonic worlds and show that our universe is almost certainly a computer simulation nested within an abstract computer program or simulacrum. The consequences of these results are explored. Continue reading

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