Two days ago, I posted some rather facetious thoughts triggered by the television pictures of Taliban fighters posing impressively in the office of the Afghan president, who, we now learn, has fled to the United Arab Emirates with $169 million in cash stuffed into a helicopter. In my post, I wrote:
These are no longer brave rebel fighters, staging ambushes
and raping teenage girls. Now they are in charge of a country whose capital is
a city of 6 million people or so. I could almost hear the commander saying to
one of his young lieutenants, “all right, you are now in charge of the water
department. It is your job to make sure that when people turn their taps on,
water comes out of them. You there with the AK-47, you are in charge of
sanitation. Make sure the garbage is collected promptly each day.”
Today in the New York Times I read “Many critical workers
are hiding in their homes, fearful of retribution despite promises of amnesty.
And services like electricity, sanitation and clean water could soon be
affected, aid agencies say.”
I guess this is what Max Weber had in mind when he wrote
about the routinization of charisma.
22 comments:
Can they do any worse than all those falling-apart civilian regimes which have brought us climate change, pandemic ineptitude, collapsing infrastructures, wars of choice, and widespread political incompetence? Didn’t Weber say some things too about some of that sort of thing? Give the boys a chance.
'the Afghan president, who, we now learn, has fled to the United Arab Emirates with $169 million in cash stuffed into a helicopter'
Like, according to the Russian embassy in Kabul. But would they lie? Just, for the sake of character assassination? Russia!?
I've read that they had this problem earlier in other cities and cadres made home calls with offers that couldn't be refused. Anonymous, we got the things you list by giving our analogues to the Taliban a chance. Danny, it would be amazing if the dude didn't flee with bags of cash.
aaall:
“Anonymous, we got the things you list by giving our analogues to the Taliban a chance.”
That took a bit of interpretation. Having interpreted it as best I can, either your notion of who have been the anologues to the Taliban is awfully broad or else you’re being too generous in letting a large number of politicians and other movers and shakers off the hook. I hope you weren’t being partisan or nationalistic.
The man who supposedly ran off with all the money was a Columbia Ph.D. Education clearly brings financial rewards.
Danny said
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!
The best comment ... EVAH! EVAH!
Oh, man, that's sheer genius! Keep'em coming, Danny boy. Nothing like spontaneous, unintended humour.:-)
(Go ahead, chip in, Another Anonymous.)
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!
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Seriously, I'll have to see my doctor about my prostate. I almost had no time to lower my zipper at the bathroom! (sigh) The indignities of old age. You can't even laugh *<:-D
- AnonyMouse
See what I mean about old age? I even forgot to check the comment before sending it.
This is what Danny said
But would they lie? Just, for the sake of character assassination?
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!
AnonyMouse,
Regarding prostate issues, there are some very amusing scenes about it in the Netflix series, The Kominsky Method, particularly with Danny DeVito portraying a urologist. I recommend it for comic relief – it will leave you prostrate (pun intended).
Taking a break from writing a brief which I have to file in federal court on Friday (the wonders of the internet have made this process much easier than it was in the 1980’s-1990’s – I can file the brief electronically up to midnight), I mused, as I lay in bed, whether anyone had written about the connection between Kurt Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and The Critique of Pure Reason. And, again due to the wonders of the internet, I found that someone has. In the Kantian Journal, 2017 Vol. 36. No. 3, Pushkarsky A.G. published an article titled, “Kant, Gödel, and the problem of synthetic a priori judgements.” If interested, you can find it here:
https://journals.kantiana.ru/eng/kant_collection/3671/10186/
Now back to the more mundane challenge of proving that the federal court has jurisdiction to issue an injunction against a state-appointed receiver who is harassing my client via a judgment which was obtained by the subornation of perjury.
To try to drag things back to the topic, I mused as to whether there was any connection between Godel and Afghanistan and the wonders of the internet revealed this--
https://www.npr.org/2017/03/28/521779864/inside-darpa-the-pentagon-agency-whose-technology-has-changed-the-world
Admittedly its William G. not Kurt G. But its revelatory.
PS Afghanistan is mentioned at least five times and Godel is also mentioned at least five times and more frequently by his pronoun of choice
Anonymous,
In your efforts at satire, you really should refrain from misleading the readers of this blog by making false assertions. In the article you reference, Afghanistan is not mentioned “at least five times,” but only twice. And it is not mentioned in reference to William Gold, whose main claim to fame is that he was the person responsible for advocating the use of Agent Orange in Viet Nam. Accuracy, even in satire, is a meritorious objective.
Accuracy demands that I correct the spelling of William Godel's name.
Gödel and Kant? An odd but interesting digression there.
I think if one squints a bit, there's possibly a rough parallel between Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems and parts of Kant's Transcendental Dialectic. Although their reasoning and argumentation wouldn't be similar, what Gödel concludes about the idea of a deductive system seems comparable to what Kant concludes about the idea of the world.
I'm not a math person, so I couldn't do more than parrot Gödel's results in sketchy, summary form: If a system of arithmetic is consistent, then it isn't complete; if it is complete, then it isn't consistent. (Less sketchily: I think "consistent" systems are ones in which it isn't possible to prove contradictory statements, and "complete" systems ones which can prove everything there is to prove about the objects they treat.)
Kant's Dialectic IIRC argues for a similar result concerning the idea of the world (~i.e., the all-inclusive totality of existence). The idea of the world gives rise to contradictions (antinomies). In other words, if the world is all-inclusive, then it can't be grasped by the understanding (in a way that's free of contradiction); and if something can be grasped by the understanding, then what the understanding grasps is not the world (but only a conditioned part of it).
Like I said, if you squint... :)
Since Another A...s is big on accuracy let me quote from the interview I referenced:
"WEINBERGER: What DARPA had at the time was a man who eventually rose to be deputy director. And his name was William Godel. He was actually not a scientist or a scientific manager. He was an intelligence operative who'd been put at DARPA in the early days to represent the interests of the spy community, of the intelligence community."
I could quote several other places where his name is so given.
Another is so eager to demonstrate his superiority he's willing to say anything, it seems. Why is he so eager for positive recognition?
Anonymous,
What is your point? Did you not see that I corrected the spelling of William Godel's name at 11:56 AM?
And I did not dispute the number of times his name is mentioned (5); rather, I disputed your assertion that Afghanistan was mentioned at "least 5 times," when it wasn't.
The point of you purported satire was that I diverged from the thread relating to Afghanistan to suggest an unrelated correlation between Gödel and Kant. Yet the interview with Weinberger, which you cite, barely mentioned Afghanistan.
You obviously have a bee in your bonnet about me, but I could care less.
Michael,
Actually, if you take a look at the article from the Kantian Journal I cited, the author believes that the correlation between Gödel and Kant’s Critique go further than what you are proposing. For example, he states: “Of interest are the ideas of the great logician and mathematician Kurt Gödel about the analytical nature of mathematics, put forward in a number of his works on philosophy of mathematics. Although he never mentions synthetic a prior judgements, the course of his reasoning about analytical judgements is close to that employed by Kant. As early as the mid-20th century, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and the works of Church and Turing constituted arguments in favour of the existence of synthetic a priori judgements.”
An A...s
From the interview I referenced:
1.
“Drones, particularly the Predator drone that we now associate with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere date back to DARPA sponsorship.”
2.
“And his vision of it, you know, it was the original sort of counterinsurgency mission, not what we saw in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the idea that you don't want U.S. troops in these countries.”
3.
“You know, Poindexter being hired at DARPA was a bit of a blip. And really the focus was on 9/11. You were starting a war in Afghanistan. You know, that the nation was turning to sort of, what was this threat? “
4.
“GROSS: DARPA has been working on issues related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to figure out ways to deal with traumatic brain injury, dealing with people who come home and having lost one or more limbs.”
5.
“You know, have 16 years of drones and armed drones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, other countries helped win these wars? I think that's a much more controversial statement to make to say that was a success.”
As i said, five mentions of Afghanisatn. You should be more careful when you accuse people of inaccuracy.
As to the bee in my bonnet, I guess i just get annoyed when I have to wade through your endless impositions of your great and glorious know-it-all self. How often do we have to hear about how great a lawyer you are? That's not what i come to this site to read. And I'd guess I'm not alone.
"The man who supposedly ran off with all the money was a Columbia Ph.D. Education clearly brings financial rewards."
Not sure what the point is but folks like Hawley, Pompeo, Kavenaugh, Vance, Cotton, Desantis, etc. clearly demonstrate that an Ivy education doesn't guarantee wisdom, competence, or good character.
Fundamentalists and ideologues are usually tools of capital until they aren't.
aaall:
I think I mentioned the Columbia Ph.D. to somewhat discount the rather privileged perspective, shall we say, in the OP. But it was, I'll admit, a gratuitous jab. (I didn't mention that the former perhaps-president of Afghanistan's Ph.D. was in anthropology. My views on anthroplogists took a severe knock when one I somewhat admired proceeded, when he was chancellor, to build a high security fence around his house on the Berkeley campus.)
Depends on the year, probably. Parts of the Bay Area could be sketchy. Actually not gratuitous as the number of fascist-curious amongst these elite folks is curious.
Speaking of California, the ballots for the wing-nut driven recall of our governor have gone out so if you live in CA or know anyone who does...
On the opposite coast, our governor declared that he's an old fashioned Italian guy, who was so busy governing that the new location of the line he apparently crossed had escaped his notice. Taking him at his word, he could use a chaperone. All NY governors should have one. Problem solved!
P.S.keep up the good work, AnonyMouse.
aaall
all taken care of. thanks
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