This image goes back some 40,000 years — The Great Mother of Laussel
*
SCIENCE
I loved science for the wrong reason.
Vanadium, I whispered, meniscus.
Alluvial, I prayed in my bed
along the edge of my pillow.
There were signs in each train: Do not
lean out of the window, but I did.
The State urged me to build socialism,
the Church taught me I was a sinner.
But I believed in the tenses,
I confessed devoutly with verbs.
On my knees, in damp creaky vowels,
I confessed even sins I didn’t commit,
just to taste the forbidden syllables.
Speaking was like kissing:
a question of loyalties, fidelity.
Truth was only another pretext.
Later I almost grasped
the mysticism of it — why mother
said Close the window
when she meant Open the door —
Father put a twig in his mouth:
Look, I’m the Dove of Peace —
while grandmother teased, Quick!
Sprinkle salt on a pigeon’s tail —
The child who leaned out of all
windows still believes
I’m here to sprinkle salt
on the tails of flying words.
~ Oriana
Kate:
Another rich, rich poem. You capture all the tensions and confusions of growing up with conflicting belief systems. So much tension and confusion beautifully dramatized. I love the devout girl trying so hard to piece things together. In a short space you create a full narrator and a whole family.
Mary:
That child so in love with language that her tongue lingers on the most delicious words, knows that language is not only the prism we see through but the tool we use to create the human world. In the beginning was the word, everything else came after. Language is the primary instrument of creation. The poet takes language to her bed like a lover, whispering into her pillow.
Language is both her science and her religion. She believes in tenses and confesses with verbs. The poem exults in words, the rapture of creation, breaking free of restrictions, opening both windows and doors, playing with invention, laughing in joy.
*
THE POWER OF READING ALOUD
~ For much of history, reading was a fairly noisy activity. On clay tablets written in ancient Iraq and Syria some 4,000 years ago, the commonly used words for “to read” literally meant “to cry out” or “to listen”. “I am sending a very urgent message,” says one letter from this period. “Listen to this tablet. If it is appropriate, have the king listen to it.”
Only occasionally, a different technique was mentioned: to “see” a tablet – to read it silently.
Today, silent reading is the norm. The majority of us bottle the words in our heads as if sitting in the hushed confines of a library. Reading out loud is largely reserved for bedtime stories and performances.
But a growing body of research suggests that we may be missing out by reading only with the voices inside our minds. The ancient art of reading aloud has a number of benefits for adults, from helping improve our memories and understand complex texts, to strengthening emotional bonds between people. And far from being a rare or bygone activity, it is still surprisingly common in modern life. Many of us intuitively use it as a convenient tool for making sense of the written word, and are just not aware of it.
Colin MacLeod, a psychologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, has extensively researched the impact of reading aloud on memory. He and his collaborators have shown that people consistently remember words and texts better if they read them aloud than if they read them silently. This memory-boosting effect of reading aloud is particularly strong in children, but it works for older people, too. “It’s beneficial throughout the age range,” he says.
MacLeod has named this phenomenon the “production effect”. It means that producing written words – that’s to say, reading them out loud – improves our memory of them.
The production effect has been replicated in numerous studies spanning more than a decade. In one study in Australia, a group of seven-to-10-year-olds were presented with a list of words and asked to read some silently, and others aloud. Afterwards, they correctly recognized 87% of the words they’d read aloud, but only 70% of the silent ones.
In another study, adults aged 67 to 88 were given the same task – reading words either silently or aloud – before then writing down all those they could remember. They were able to recall 27% of the words they had read aloud, but only 10% of those they’d read silently. When asked which ones they recognized, they were able to correctly identify 80% of the words they had read aloud, but only 60% of the silent ones. MacLeod and his team have found the effect can last up to a week after the reading task.
Even just silently mouthing the words makes them more memorable, though to a lesser extent. Researchers at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank discovered that the memory-enhancing effect also works if the readers have speech difficulties, and cannot fully articulate the words they read aloud.
MacLeod says one reason why people remember the spoken words is that “they stand out, they’re distinctive, because they were done aloud, and this gives you an additional basis for memory”.
We are generally better at recalling distinct, unusual events, and also, events that require active involvement. For instance, generating a word in response to a question makes it more memorable, a phenomenon known as the generation effect. Similarly, if someone prompts you with the clue “a tiny infant, sleeps in a cradle, begins with b”, and you answer baby, you’re going to remember it better than if you simply read it, MacLeod says.
Another way of making words stick is to enact them, for instance by bouncing a ball (or imagining bouncing a ball) while saying “bounce a ball”. This is called the enactment effect. Both of these effects are closely related to the production effect: they allow our memory to associate the word with a distinct event, and thereby make it easier to retrieve later.
The production effect is strongest if we read aloud ourselves. But listening to someone else read can benefit memory in other ways. In a study led by researchers at the University of Perugia in Italy, students read extracts from novels to a group of elderly people with dementia over a total of 60 sessions. The listeners performed better in memory tests after the sessions than before, possibly because the stories made them draw on their own memories and imagination, and helped them sort past experiences into sequences. “It seems that actively listening to a story leads to more intense and deeper information processing,” the researchers concluded.
Reading aloud can also make certain memory problems more obvious, and could be helpful in detecting such issues early on. In one study, people with early Alzheimer’s disease were found to be more likely than others to make certain errors when reading aloud.
There is some evidence that many of us are intuitively aware of the benefits of reading aloud, and use the technique more than we might realize.
Sam Duncan, an adult literacy researcher at University College London, conducted a two-year study of more than 500 people all over Britain during 2017-2019 to find out if, when and how they read aloud. Often, her participants would start out by saying they didn’t read aloud – but then realized that actually, they did.
“Adult reading aloud is widespread,” she says. “It’s not something we only do with children, or something that only happened in the past.”
Some said they read out funny emails or messages to entertain others. Others read aloud prayers and blessings for spiritual reasons. Writers and translators read drafts to themselves to hear the rhythm and flow. People also read aloud to make sense of recipes, contracts and densely written texts.
“Some find it helps them unpack complicated, difficult texts, whether it’s legal, academic, or Ikea-style instructions,” Duncan says. “Maybe it’s about slowing down, saying it and hearing it.”
For many respondents, reading aloud brought joy, comfort and a sense of belonging. Some read to friends who were sick or dying, as “a way of escaping together somewhere”, Duncan says. One woman recalled her mother reading poems to her, and talking to her, in Welsh. After her mother died, the woman began reading Welsh poetry aloud to recreate those shared moments. A Tamil speaker living in London said he read Christian texts in Tamil to his wife. On Shetland, a poet read aloud poetry in the local dialect to herself and others.
“There were participants who talked about how when someone is reading aloud to you, you feel a bit like you’re given a gift of their time, of their attention, of their voice,” Duncan recalls. “We see this in the reading to children, that sense of closeness and bonding, but I don’t think we talk about it as much with adults.”
If reading aloud delivers such benefits, why did humans ever switch to silent reading? One clue may lie in those clay tablets from the ancient Near East, written by professional scribes in a script called cuneiform.
Over time, the scribes developed an ever faster and more efficient way of writing this script. Such fast scribbling has a crucial advantage, according to Karenleigh Overmann, a cognitive archaeologist at the University of Bergen, Norway who studies how writing affected human brains and behavior in the past. “It keeps up with the speed of thought much better,” she says.
Reading aloud, on the other hand, is relatively slow due to the extra step of producing a sound.
“The ability to read silently, while confined to highly proficient scribes, would have had distinct advantages, especially, speed,” says Overmann. “Reading aloud is a behavior that would slow down your ability to read quickly.”
In his book on ancient literacy, Reading and Writing in Babylon, the French assyriologist Dominique Charpin quotes a letter by a scribe called Hulalum that hints at silent reading in a hurry. Apparently, Hulalum switched between “seeing” (ie, silent reading) and “saying/listening” (loud reading), depending on the situation. In his letter, he writes that he cracked open a clay envelope – Mesopotamian tablets came encased inside a thin casing of clay to prevent prying eyes from reading them – thinking it contained a tablet for the king.
“I saw that it was written to [someone else] and therefore did not have the king listen to it,” writes Hulalum.
Perhaps the ancient scribes, just like us today, enjoyed having two reading modes at their disposal: one fast, convenient, silent and personal; the other slower, noisier, and at times more memorable.
In a time when our interactions with others and the barrage of information we take in are all too transient, perhaps it is worth making a bit more time for reading out loud. Perhaps you even gave it a try with this article, and enjoyed hearing it in your own voice? ~
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200917-the-surprising-power-of-reading-aloud
HOW ONE WRITER CHANGED FROM RUSSIAN TO UKRAINIAN
~ In the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, where I was born and raised, most people spoke Russian. It was my native language, too, since my parents spoke it to me. I read my very first books in this language. Various subjects were taught in this language at school, and I studied philology at university, specializing in Russian language and literature. I also wrote poetry and prose in Russian for most of my adult life. It was primarily the Russian literary heritage that shaped me as a poet and writer.
Of course, I read books in Ukrainian. We learned Ukrainian in school, but the teaching of Ukrainian literature was rather subpar. This is because the Soviet education system was keen on reducing the quality of Ukrainian lessons and simplifying the material, making it secondary to the Russian-language curriculum. I am still ashamed whenever I recall it, even though it wasn’t my fault.
I was only a child back then—not a subject, but rather a passive observer of what was happening to me, to us, to everyone. Looking back, I am surprised by the attitudes of our Ukrainian language and literature teachers towards their own field. It remains difficult for me to understand how a person who does not value Ukrainian cultural heritage at the highest level could somehow make it their life’s work.
*
Nevertheless, when I was 47-years-old, Russia launched its special military operation on the territory of Ukraine. Back then they were calling it the “Russian spring.” It was the start of the war which reached a violent new crescendo on February 24 of this year. During the “Russian spring,” Ukraine lost Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea. Russia was always able to use the specific cultural and historical situation of post-Soviet countries for the successful implementation of its own foreign policy goals. As such, one of the leading slogans intending to legitimize the annexation of Ukrainian territories in the eyes of the Western world was their so-called need to “protect the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.”
Throughout its existence Soviet authorities diligently russified the region. Moreover, after the Second World War, large cities and enterprises in the Donbas region were rebuilt and restored by specialists of various ethnic groups from all over the Soviet Union. Clearly, they used Russian as their common language. Afterward, the difference between the Ukrainian-speaking society of small towns and villages in the region and the society of large cities—which, in turn, were built around large industrial enterprises—would become much more evident. It was this factor that Russia decided to exploit, justifying and disguising the start of its war in Ukraine.
*
I remember that spring of 2014 and the hot July when Russian military groups entered Donetsk. I remember those slogans and my own feelings of powerlessness and rage. It was evident that the annexation of Ukrainian territories was taking place and that the people involved in this aggressive policy didn’t care about the interests of the local population, even if it were three times more Russian-speaking.
Imagine a person like me, who had lived in Donetsk for nearly half a century—who spoke, studied, and wrote exclusively in Russian and had no problems doing so, suddenly being told that I needed to be protected from my own country. That is, the main factor and cause of the war, which began, of course, not now, in 2022, but then, in 2014, was declared to be me, a Russian-speaking citizen of Ukraine.
Immediately after Russian military groups entered Donetsk, I realized it was no longer safe to be there. Bandits had taken control of the city. They were armed, determined, and devoid of any sentiments about any culture. They were mercenaries there to do their job alongside military professionals and members of the Russian special services.
It took me a week and a half to settle some matters and leave for Kyiv, where I didn’t have a single friend at that time.
I boarded the “Donetsk-Kyiv” train and thought about my life, which had been interrupted by this undisguised occupation, taken away from me by the so-called protectors of the Russian speakers of Ukraine. I understood that nothing would ever be the same again. And, of course, I thought about how now one of the main goals in my life should be learning Ukrainian sufficiently enough to write books in the language.
The Volodymyr Rafeenko of 2014 was sure that his linguistic efforts would demonstrate to everyone who could see beyond the Kremlin’s propaganda narratives and understand that even for a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, the Ukrainian language cannot be a problem. Because language cannot be a problem at all. Language is a joy: it is happiness, an opportunity for a completely new ontological experience of being in an as of yet undiscovered verbal dimension.
*
It took me a while to master the Ukrainian language at a level sufficient for writing. But I remained stubborn throughout my study period, understanding that this was the only path forward, given my life circumstances. In 2019, my perseverance paid off: the Ukrainian publishing house Meridian Czernowitz published Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love, my first Ukrainian-language novel. At the beginning of this year, not too long before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University published Mark Andryczyk’s English translation of the novel.
From the moment I began writing my first Ukrainian novel, I decided that I was going to write in two languages: one novel in Ukrainian, the other in my native Russian. I really didn’t want to abandon the language of my parents. Although, in the end, I remembered the peculiarities of our familial language collisions. Russian was my parent’s native language, as it was mine. Because that’s how they’d been taught: Russian was the language of higher education, the language of the metropolis, the language that provided opportunities for professional career growth.
However, Ukrainian was the native language of both of my grandmothers. My maternal grandmother learned Russian and went on to communicate almost exclusively in it, but my paternal grandmother continued to speak Surzhyk, an eastern Ukrainian dialect, for her whole life. Although, I should repeat that I had a passion for Russian and a desire to continue writing in the language until the end. I’d believed that I would be able to keep these two languages as a part of me, to write and think in both, becoming fully bilingual.
*
But everything turned out differently. On February 24 of this year Russia brought their culture on tanks all the way to Kyiv. At that time, my wife and I were staying in a friend’s country house between Bucha and Borodyanka, in the woods on the shore of the large and beautiful Hloriya Lake.
From the early morning of the 24th battles were fought in between our area and Kyiv. There was no way for us to leave. We quickly found ourselves surrounded by a ring of Russian troops and soon began an incredibly challenging and frightening period for us. I will not describe what we had to live through or how volunteers saved us, taking us out of the occupied territories at great risk to their own lives. I will only say that after February 24, I decided that never again in my life would I write or publish any of my work in Russian. I no longer want anything to do with a culture of murderers and rapists.
It hurts me to even imagine that someone might now mistake me for a Russian writer based on my command of the Russian language. I’m done having anything to do with the discourse of Russian-language literature in the world. Enough of all that, effective from February of 2022 until the end of my days…
A few years before the war, in my novel Descartes’ Demon, I wrote about the city of Z, describing my hometown of Donetsk. After it was occupied by Russians in 2014 the city became a place in which it was impossible to live. But now the letter Z has become an infamous symbol of Russia’s full-scale invasion. I wonder why the defenders of the Russian language did not find any letters in the Russian alphabet to symbolize the genocide they’re now committing in Ukraine.
At this moment, language has ceased to be perceived by me as something secondary to the main topic of life. Language has become a powerful identifier of who one truly is. And that is why, in my opinion, Ukrainians should use the Ukrainian language exclusively, at least in the public sphere, regarding socially significant actions.
The language of Z is a forbidden language for anyone who has been even slightly affected by the hell that those Russian scum have inflicted on our land. They are shooting at us “in Russian”: Russian speakers from across the territory of Russia are killing us. For me, the image of a murderer is now first and foremost associated with Russians.
Genocide, the murders of children and adults, rapes, torture, the destruction of churches and museums, kindergartens and schools—beastly, ungodly cruelty—all of this will be closely connected with the Russian language. And nothing can be done about it. The Russian language in its entirety has become obscene, speech outside the bounds of decent human discourse. And these days, if I have to use it in some private communication, I always feel something like disgust mixed with shame, guilt and physical pain.
https://lithub.com/i-once-wrote-and-spoke-and-thought-in-russian-no-more/?fbclid=IwAR0ZSxVpS0NOmR8qaeixJVpNyxJi_cGGvCYWFPx4adl_v8ocwgXf2U6bPpU
Ukraine's Independence Day
Oriana:
I can understand this, but don't identify with it. It depends on the individual. My mother hated the sound of German. Not so my father, who during the war also suffered greatly, perhaps even more than she did. The difference was that he’d learned German in high school, and he enjoyed the language. I came to enjoy it as well, at first to my own surprise. And I rather liked Russian too. A language really is a joy, and learning it is like exploring a fascinating country.
And all that time I didn't for a moment forget what both Germany and Russia have done to Poland. It was horrific. But I didn't transfer that national trauma to the languages of these nations. But then I was fascinated by languages, by words.
I found that writing in English was wonderfully liberating. It's only with difficulty that I can imagine writing about my sentiments about the Catholic church in Polish — the old intimidation is still there. But I was never a Catholic in English. I was a free human being.
I am not the only one to whom English was the language of freedom. It was also the language of equality, without the formality that so many languages have (and I realize that Polish is nothing that way compared to Japanese). And that formality strikes me as absurd. I’ve grown beyond it.
Mary:
Can a language become obscene? While I also understand the writer's feelings and his determination to reject the language and culture embodied in the Russian language, I think this perception is determined by his very specific circumstance and not anything inherent in the language itself. In the case of this Russian invasion the language has been deliberately weaponized —Putin claims his war is to protect and "liberate" Russian language speakers, and that language is the marker of nationality: all Russian language speakers are therefore part of the Russian state. So the Russian language here is his justification for his war of aggression.
The other and more personal part of the author's refusal is again very individual...the monsters invading, raping, killing, destroying, speak Russian...which is now the language of monsters. I can see the same effect in victims of the Nazis. German is the language of monsters. This is a reaction to trauma that cannot be simply reasoned away. Yes it is the speakers who are evil here, not the words themselves, but the words, the voices, become intimately associated with evil, with murderous obscene brutality. The words of other voices in that language are overshadowed, or shouted out, so that for some, even a lullaby or poem in that language becomes impossible.
*
WHY DID THE SOVIET UNION COLLAPSE AND NOT NORTH KOREA?
Dima Vorobiev:
Because we had Gorbachev, and the North Korea had their Kims.
Intrinsic inefficiencies and overall rigidity of Communist countries meant that sooner or later all of them run out of money. They no longer have resources for at the same time maintaining the normal functioning of civil economy (read: feeding and sheltering people) and running the enormous military-industrial complex.
When you are a Communist leader who stands before the till and breaks out in cold sweat seeing only small change, you have three choices:
1. Keep the military running and screw the population. They’ll manage themselves on water, cabbage and ground tree bark. When they start making noises, you quiet it all down by a combination of blood-letting and strangulation. Don’t be stingy on ammo.
2. Abandon the Communist project. Keep the power, but let people do things, sell and buy things free, get rich. You tax them, and use the proceeds to keep your military going.
3. Pull the plug on the military. Don’t shoot people, don’t starve them. Pray to the gods of Communism that a miracle happens, and money starts coming to your coffers, so that you again can feed people and run your military at the same time.
Option 1: North Korea in 1990s, USSR from the end of 1920s onward
Option 2: China in 1978, Vietnam in 1990s, the USSR in 1921 (NEP policy), Cuba kind of opting for it right now.
Option 3: Yugoslavia and USSR in 1991
Now, conclusion.
If you want to carry on the flame of Communism and class struggle for the best of all humanity, always go for Option 1. If power is most important for you, no matter what color it is, go for Option 2.
Never ever go for Option 3. You may get a Nobel prize and a couple of appreciative postings on Quora, but most people who will remember your name are going to come to your grave only to spit on it.
Marc H:
Gorbachev did not make the crappy bed that Russians found themselves in. The Soviet system did that. Russians that stayed behind when that system collapsed didn’t have a chance.
Adam Nemo:
What many people, including many Russians, fail to understand is that the USSR was doomed a long time before Gorbachov cane to power. The seeds of its destruction were sown in the over-reach of the Brezhnev and Krushchev eras when the CPSU tried to keep up with and surpass western technological progress without either the mentality or the resources to do so.
Dima:
Large part of this was production in the military sector. Totally wasted money. In the meantime, the country looked exactly like Venezuela now.
Alan Taylor:
In the 1980s and 90s oil was relatively cheap. Russia got progressively poorer. In the early 2000s, oil was relatively expensive. Russia got richer. Gorbachev and Yeltsin got blamed for things beyond their control. Putin got credit for something beyond his control, but it all really comes down to the price of oil.
Igor Sherman:
As someone who lived in this society I can assure you that there were a lot of truly hungry people in the Soviet Union, particularly among the elderly who often had to survive on pensions that were well below the official poverty level of Soviet Union (basically below starvation level). Poor quality healthcare was the norm but even that was not always accessible for elderly and those living in rural areas. A typical Soviet era joke was “If you want to have food in your fridge connect it to radio”.
Oriana:
I don't get the refrigerator joke, but this is the usual fate of old jokes that stem from abnormal circumstances , e.g. the Cold War. More to the point: in Soviet-controlled Poland we didn't have food shortages because agriculture remained private (no collective farms). It came to me as a shock when I learned that in the Soviet Union ordinary people (not party members) went hungry. I was astonished that some Russians drank hot water ("kipyatok") instead of tea.
Charles:
*
MYTH: RUSSIA CAN REDIRECT ITS GAS AND OIL EXPORTS TO ASIA INSTEAD OF EUROPE
~ This is one of Putin’s favorite and most misleading talking points, doubling down on a much-hyped pivot to the east. But natural gas is not a fungible export for Russia. Less than 10 percent of Russia’s gas capacity is liquefied natural gas, so Russian gas exports remain reliant on a system of fixed pipelines carrying piped gas. The vast majority of Russia’s pipelines flow toward Europe; those pipelines, which originate in western Russia, are not connectable to a separate nascent network of pipelines that link Eastern Siberia to Asia, which contains only 10 percent of the capacity of the European pipeline network. Indeed, the 16.5 billion cubic meters of gas exported by Russia to China last year represented less than 10 percent of the 170 billion cubic meters of natural gas sent by Russia to Europe.
Long-planned Asian pipeline projects currently under construction are still years away from becoming operational, much less hastily initiated new projects, and financing of these costly gas pipeline projects also now puts Russia at a significant disadvantage.
Overall, Russia needs world markets far more than the world needs Russian supplies; Europe received 83 percent of Russian gas exports but drew only 46 percent of its own supply from Russia in 2021.
With limited pipeline connectivity to Asia, more Russian gas stays in the ground; indeed, the Russian state energy company Gazprom’s published data shows production is already down more than 35 percent year-on-year this month. For all Putin’s energy blackmail of Europe, he is doing so at significant financial cost to his own coffers.
Russian oil exports now also reflect Putin’s diminished economic and geopolitical clout.
Recognizing that Russia has nowhere else to turn, and mindful that they have more purchasing options than Russia has buyers, China and India are driving an unprecedented approximately $35 discount on Russian Urals oil purchases, even though the historical spread has never ranged beyond $5—not even during the 2014 Crimean crisis—and at times Russian oil has actually sold at a premium to Brent and WTI oil. Furthermore, it takes Russian oil tankers an average of 35 days to reach East Asia, versus two to seven days to reach Europe, which is why historically only 39 percent of Russian oil has gone to Asia versus the 53 percent destined for Europe.
This margin pressure is felt keenly by Russia, as it remains a relatively high-cost producer relative to the other major oil producers, with some of the highest break-evens of any producing country. The Russian upstream industry has also long been reliant on Western technology, which combined with the loss of both Russia’s erstwhile primary market and Russia’s diminished economic clout leads to even the Russian energy ministry revising its projections of long-term oil output downward. There is no doubt that, as many energy experts predicted, Russia is losing its status as an energy superpower, with an irrevocable deterioration in its strategic economic positioning as an erstwhile reliable supplier of commodities.
Defeatist headlines arguing that Russia’s economy has bounced back are simply not factual—the facts are that, by any metric and on any level, the Russian economy is reeling. ~
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/22/russia-economy-sanctions-myths-ruble-business/?fbclid=IwAR2Dn-eCcgpWq2qmSEmiFC7xVsOFPyiqHrkibejHMRjavjvLLXjkwTuMjqA
RUSSIA TRAINED AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI
~ A meaningful detail: Ayman al-Zawahiri, the newly dead mastermind of the 9/11 attack, spent 6 months in 1997 at FSB training camp in Dagestan, Russia. ~ M. Iossel
Victor Schekotove:
All world terrorists were trained in the USSR.
*
CAN NATO AFFORD A DEFEAT IN UKRAINE?
~ Technically they could say it was Ukraine and not NATO who was defeated. But the answer to your question is no.
This is 1938. Putin is Hitler. Ukraine is the Sudetenland. NATO knows if they don’t stop Putin he will continue his conquests.
A loss in Ukraine only pushes the ultimate confrontation with NATO off for another time.
They would merely be kicking the can down the road. ~ Brent Cooper, Quora
Clement Ng:
nope Ukraine is today what Poland was in 1939.
*
RUSSIA’S OBJECTIVES AND CONSTRAINTS
~ Russia has four resources: 1) large petroleum reserves, 2) sufficient food production, 3) roughly the combined population of France and Germany, and 4) a vast inventory of aging military equipment. Conversely, it also has a vast indefensible territory, a tiny unproductive economy devoid of technological productivity, is profoundly corrupt, a male population devastated by alcoholism, drug use, and tuberculosis, shorter life spans, low reproduction rates, a demographic collapse that will drop its population below that necessary to hold its territory, the inability to finance infrastructure in that vast territory, a collapsed post-soviet education system, is surrounded south (Turkish), center (Central Asian), and east (Asian) by different races and their civilizations who would prefer to control the resources east of the Urals.
Russia is burning through 100 years of military equipment and ammunition, thirty years of global relations and trade, its inventory of foreign technology, its cash reserves, its educated and skilled upper middle and upper classes, its dependence on foreign skills and technology to extract its oil and gas, its economic growth, and its public patience with the government.
The reality is very simple: because of Russia’s demographic and economic time window, because Putin is ill, and because he will be killed or imprisoned if he loses power, he’s acting now at all costs to attempt to recreate the Soviet Union and the Russian empire, in an all or nothing gamble to recreate that empire - or destroy Russia by trying. That’s why he won’t give up.
All the West has to do, including the Nordics (Norway 5m, Sweden 10m, Finland 5m), is to wait for the natural course of events to do their work. And so, if 40M Ukrainians can hold off the Russians why can’t 20M Nordics do so? If the Nordics were threatened that brings in the Anglo-Saxons, the Germans, the Baltics, and the West Slavics.
The Anglo-American military isn’t afraid of the Russian military, it’s afraid of nuclear war. The Russian military is a paper tiger, and the Americans estimate it would take under two weeks to destroy all extant Russian military capability. Unfortunately, that leaves Russia with just nuclear weapons, and Putin in a condition where he’s a dead man walking. And so the Anglo-America military has decided to run down Russian economy, military equipment, political will, and public tolerance for Putin's grand scheme of reconquering eastern Europe. ~ Curt Doolittle, Quora
*
DID ANYONE OUTSIDE THE SOVIET UNION FORESEE THE SOVIET COLLAPSE?
Dima Vorobiev:
~ The most famous prophecies about the imminent fall of the Soviet Union were given by two persons:
Norwegian leftist researcher Johan Galtung who in 1980 promised that the Berlin Wall would fall within 10 years.
Soviet emigré Igor Birman. He published an article in The Washington Post on October 27, 1980 where he argued that the Soviet economy was in much worse shape than everyone, including CIA, believed. He calculated that the USSR used about 20% of its budget on the defense, twice of the estimate of the US authorities, and stated that the Soviet economy would not be able to sustain this in the longer term.
Oriana:
Only two rather obscure persons in the world predicted it? No wonder that the idea of the end of the Soviet system the Soviet Union didn’t enter the collective mind. Even after the countries like Poland or the Baltics liberated themselves, the fall of the Soviet Union itself came as a surprise.
*
DO 70% OF RUSSIANS TODAY REALLY SUPPORT STALIN?
~ Yes. Russians largely approve of Stalin’s actions, mostly because of his achievements. This includes those whose families suffered from repressions.
In fact, the question is not that easy. My family also suffered from Stalin’s purges greatly. Would I support someone like Stalin now? Yes. Only a person like Stalin can clean corruption in Russia. Only a person like Stalin can make Russia a superpower again, something that Putin was trying to do. Only a person like Stalin can restore social justice in our country.
Putin is trying to play Stalin, but he is not Stalin and nowhere like Stalin. Stalin was a great man, but he was also a selfless man. He had a bigger vision that justified all sacrifices and he made this vision come true.
P.S. Over 20 of my family members suffered from Stalin’s purges, two of them (my grandfather’s brothers) were executed on the spot when they voluntarily returned from emigration lured by Soviet promises of forgiveness. ~ Ivan Novoselov, Quora
Pavel Aseev:
Did I understand correct that you believe that purges and repressions are a necessary evil if we want social justice (whatever that is) and get rid of corruption?
Ivan Novoselov:
Yes and no. There are other ways, but it’s the only way to do it fast. In fact, even Stalin didn’t manage to fully overcome corruption, so it’s not the best way.
The right way is to change mentality of people so that corruption would be viewed as something shameful.
Some things could have been done long ago. There aren’t millions of oligarchs in Russia.
Rastislav Galia:
That was truly a scary look into the depths of soul of Russia. Opinions like these result in immediate loss of any sympathies to Russia worldwide. Maybe you don't want to be liked anymore, maybe you guys just want to be feared. However, for me, love for Russia is “causa finita". Too bad I wasted more than half my life loving your country.
Serban Teodorescu:
The problem for the rest of us is that a modern Stalin will not stop at Russia border, just like the original did not. He’ll apply the same methods against neighboring countries. See Finland, Baltic countries, Poland and Romania. This kind of attitude is exactly why there is a constant mistrust regarding Russia in these countries. How can we be sure that you’ll not bring a Stalin to Kremlin in the near future?
Jakob Kidde:
Why do you want Russia to be superpower? That’s hardly realistic with a population the size of Russia’s and trying to accomplish it seems like a giant waste of resources.
Oriana:
Hitler, Stalin, Mao: the three super-monsters, next to whom Putin is puny indeed (thank goodness; he’s bad enough).
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PUTIN PLANNED TO ATTACK BOTH GEORGIA AND MOLDOVA SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH THE SECOND INVASION OF THE UKRAINE
~ But it didn’t work out.
The Russian commander of the Russian invasion forces for Georgia defected. And the puppet “president” of South Ossetia refused to play ball. So the invasion of Georgia was called off and the troops reassigned to the Donbas as gun fodder.
The invasion of Moldova was to start with a massive (the largest since D-Day in WWII) amphibious landing near Odesa. After capturing Odesa half the troops would pivot towards Kherson and half would join Russian forces in Transnistria to take over all of Moldova. This really, really failed.
a. Lukashenko compromised the invasion plan on television.
b. Two critical large landing ships were sunk and two more severely damaged. This pretty much eliminated an amphibious landing.
c. The Moskva was sunk. This was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet and was to provide air defenses and overall command-and-control for the Odesa landing. The entire top tier of Russian officers responsible for the Odesa landing went down with the ship. The only other ship that could do the CaC (but not the air defenses) was the Makarov and it was badly damaged. Now the Black Sea Fleet has moved much further to sea to avoid visits to Davy Jones’ Locker.
d. Some “brilliant” Russian planner decided to turn Snake Island into a fixed version of the Moskva. They brought in three complete S-300 system and three reloaders, massive amounts of communications equipment, and missile and rocket batteries. The Ukrainians bombed and rocketed it and killed about 450 Russian troops and destroyed about a billion dollars' worth of Russian equipment.
e. The failure of the Odesa landing left the southern flank of the Russian forced vulnerable. This is now one of two areas where the Ukrainians are counterattacking.
Without general mobilization, Russia NEVER had sufficient forces to even take Ukraine, let alone Georgia, Moldova, Lithuania, et alia. ~ R. W. Carmichael, Quora
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WHY DO SOME WESTERNERS SUPPORT PUTIN?
~ Three reasons:
On the Radical Right, you have those who think Putin is The Man. He hates gays and transsexuals, and women and ethnic minorities are put in their rightful place, under his rule. He’s the champion of White Christian civilization, against the decadent West.
On the Radical Left, you have those who think the West is always wrong. Always. Ukraine is pro-West, therefore Russia must be in the Right. Some are nostalgic for the days when the USSR could put the boot into uppity Eastern European peoples. They’ll defend any regime, however vile, so long as it’s anti-Western.
Overlapping each group are the “realists”. In their eyes, countries are either great powers or pawns. Russia is a great power, Ukraine a pawn, and its destiny is to be a Russian satellite. ~ Sean Martin Fear, Quora
Johannes Walter:
From a German point of view, we also have the “lumpen pacifists” — people who have ingrained non-violence and anti-military stances in their personality, so they can’t handle a crisis that requires violent resistance with military means. Anybody who fights back instead of searching for a peaceful solution is wrong in their eyes. And since they can’t influence Putin to be more non-violent and non-militaristic, they say that Ukraine just should roll over and only limit their resistance to non-violent measures “because otherwise only more people die without changing the outcome — war only knows losers” or something like that. They see their non-violence and anti-militaristic pacifism as the pinnacle of morality and condemn any divergence from this path.
Conor Fox:
I love how they characterize Putin as a champion of ‘the white Christian’, despite the fact that he is currently killing White Christian people and spreading terror across European countries by threatening them with destruction and death.
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WHEN DID THE SOVIET PEOPLE STOP BELIEVING IN THE SYSTEM?
~ The sea change most likely came in the late 1960s, or early 1970s.
The first half of the 1960s felt like the pinnacle of the Soviet project.
We were leading the space race.
We prevailed in the Caribbean crisis (so we were told), and the world system of Imperialist colonialism was going down in Africa and Asia.
Thanks to Khrushchev who shifted some of the military-industrial focus towards making life better for millions of Soviets, the standard of living was rapidly rising. In 1966, my family of four moved into a 2-bedroom apartment of our own. Before that, we lived in a “communal” apartment where we all shared one room in a larger apartment where a total of five families shared one kitchen, toilet and bathroom.
The recent “thaw” in cultural policy and the general opening of the country to more international influence (movies, books, festivals) created a youthful buzz with a promise of a better future.
And then came the Six-Day War, the Czechoslovakia invasion of 1968, the lost Moon race.
Khrushchev promised in 1961 to get us to Communism by 1980, and living standards kept rising — yet it still felt like light-years away from the dream society. Maybe, it was Brezhnev’s laid-back small-bourgeois attitude of “live and let live” that swiftly was picked up at the very top and quickly rippled across the entire society?
Anyway, the USSR should have found the lucky chance of disappearing into thin air somewhere around 1965. It might have then been remembered as a huge, resounding success of social engineering.
~ Dima Vorobiev
Oriana:
The Six-Day War? The Soviet Union was on the side of the Arabs, so their defeat was to some extent seen as a Soviet defeat. “The Soviets were taken aback when Nasser blocked the Gulf of Aqaba without having consulted them. Israel's surprise attack and rapid victory within six days alarmed the Soviet leadership. Moscow, however, was not inclined to take any military action against Israel. Nor it was willing to airlift weapons to its Arab clients while hostilities continued. The Soviet leaders doubted that their Arab clients were capable of fighting any further.” https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-soviet-union-and-the-six-day-war-revelations-the-polish-archives
Dima groups the Six-Day War, the Czech invasion, and the lost Moon race as events that diminished the image of the Soviet Union. All three were terrible from the PR point of view.
Note that Dima counts the Cuban missile crisis as a “win” — though he does qualify it with “so we were told.” And this reminds of the day when Khrushchev’s backing down was announced. Our chemistry teacher said, with a hard-to-interpret smile, “Comrade Khrushchev just saved the world peace.”
One brave boy in my class, who also happened to be my first love, said out loud: "Nevertheless, that was a defeat for the Soviet Union." I don't remember the teacher's answer. It's possible she pretended not to hear the remark and stayed silent before moving on to a subject that for some reason we were supposed to know, e.g. the steps in the production of steel (there was an aura of sanctity about heavy industry).
(For whatever it's worth, this same boy went on to get a PhD in physics and ended up working for the US Department of Defense.)
Lazlo Vandor:
Most Russians probably don’t believe any more in communism, but somehow they feel that Russia has its place as a word empire. Probably the average Russian is more imperialist than the average US, UK or EU citizen, countries accused by leftist radicals and communists of being “imperialist” while these same people never qualify China, Russia and even Iran as “imperialist” countries.
Andrew Saylor:
Did the book The Gulag Archipelago expedite this process or contribute to the degradation of faith in the Soviet system?
Dima:
No, it wasn’t well known until before the late 1980s.
Sergey Tagashov:
While everything written by Dima is true, given the fact that the Communist party is still the second most popular party in Russia (thirty years later and in an election system that is being rigged in all imaginable ways), I’d say a vast majority or Russians never stopped believing in communism. You just have to realize, that they are not citizens of a republic — they do not necessarily act on their beliefs. They may believe in communism, but since the powers that be have changed course, they simply suffer along.
Alisher Orynbek:
Communist system could develop only as long as there was widespread red terror. As soon as the fear of the communist state receded under mild and humane Khrushchev, all things started falling apart, especially the nonsensical centrally planned economy. However USSR was given new lease of life for some 10 years by the development of West Siberian oil basin and coincidental oil boom.
Tim Sayeau:
A USSR joke: A computer is programmed to answer the question “How long until True Socialism is achieved?” It answers “60 kilometers.” Everybody is puzzled at the answer until one person remembers how Stalin said “Each Five-Year Plan is one step closer to True Socialism!”
Timofyev Vorobyov:
I do not agree with the Russian corruption fighters, like Navalny, who is the same imperialist as Putin. Imagine what Russia would be without embezzled money, but with working missiles, a 2 million strong army (as on paper), and the same imperialistic mindset…
Another old joke:
— What happens if they introduce communism in the Sahara desert?
— They will have a deficit of sand.
TROTSKY VERSUS STALIN
~ Trotsky was a loner. He was too full of himself to build alliances and win political friends. Much like Hitler, he believed he could overcome this by hyperactivity (he was a very high-energy guy) and brilliant speeches.
This really could carry the day for him for quite a while. He was instrumental, on par with Lenin, in securing the victory of Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg in 1917. After Lenin concluded the separate peace with Germany in 1918, Trotsky built the Red Army from scratch and won the Civil War of 1918–1921. His role as the savior of Communist Revolution against all odds was so acknowledged that he didn’t bother to do much and secure himself as Lenin’s heir when the man died in 1924.
He was sure he had the military in his pocket, as a guarantee against anyone who tried to muscle him out as a front-runner in the race. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" is a Mao’s quote that is universally applicable to any radical Socialist project. As a brilliant speaker and debater, and skilled theorist of Marxism, he was sure he could outperform anyone in the party debates.
But Trotsky underestimated the role of Party as the backbone the Communist society. He ignored Stalin’s silent but huge reshuffling of party cadres in order to have Stalin’s supporters at the right places the day the definitive battle begins.
Trotsky was foolish enough to gear down at the critical moments in the internal power struggle. Hypochondriac as he was, he spent too much time away from his power base. He didn’t put too much effort in courting possible allies. And he underestimated the degree of hate against his Jewish ancestry that permeated the younger Party members from the worker and peasant classes.
As a result, Stalin robbed Trotsky of his support in the military through the Communist cells in the troops. At the height of the power struggle in 1924 he found himself without any powerful allies who could defend his position as the defense minister. During 1925 he completely lost the military, and therefore it was game over for him. ~ Dima Vorobev
Gustav Bachster:
How is that “much like Hitler?” Hitler was masterful at making alliances and getting support from powerful groups, and he purposely made himself look weak and controllable. Trotsky sounds like the exact opposite of Hitler.
Ari Belenkin:
Trotsky certainly underestimated Stalin. In 1924 he said from the podium, targeting Zinoviev-Kamenev-Stalin group: “In time of crisis, you shall call us back and first thing we shall do is to shoot all of you.”
Alan Taylor:
Trotsky’s biggest weakness was his desire for power and fame. He betrayed his own beliefs and sold out the revolution when he switched his allegiance from the Mencheviks (the actual majority) to Lenin and the Bolsheviks (the actual minority). Once he sold out and joined up with Lenin, the fate of the revolution was sealed, and the result was the paranoid, authoritarian, repressive, autocratic police state that Russia remains to this day. Had the Mensheviks won, the world would almost certainly have been a better place, but nobody really believed that Trotsky was a “true” Bolshevik, and Stalin, therefore, was the natural successor to Lenin’s horrific legacy.
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MARXISM AND LENINISM (Misha Firer)
~ Marxism is to Leninism is what Quran is to ISIS.
A religious document (Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto) used as a pretext to torture, kill fellow human beings and unleash a reign of terror to satisfy base instincts of the small clique and to keep populace in check.
Vladimir Lenin, the founder of Russian ‘modern’ state, was a blood-thirsty fanatic and tyrant.
Great plan! Finish it with Dzerzhinsky. Under the guise of "greens" (we will blame them later), we will go 10-20 miles and hang kulaks, priests, landlords. Prize: 100.000 rubles for the hanged man...
kulak family being evicted from their home
Lenin was the original leader of the terrorist organization Bolsheviks that came to terrorize the people of different nationalities in the largest country in the world.
Bolsheviks appearance out of obscurity and a quick rise to power were a genetic imprint of the Golden Horde rapid subjugation of Russia.
... Can you still tell Teru to prepare everything for burning Baku completely, in case of an invasion, and to announce it in print in Baku.
After getting rid of the provisional government, Lenin proceeded to exterminate whole classes of the society like Mao, Pol Pot, and other terrorist proto-communist organizations will do after him.
Fortunately, Civil War, irresistible urge to write down every thought no matter how trite that came to his mind and grave venereal disease, put caps on how many people Lenin could condemn to death.
Saratov: (to the Commissioner of the People's Commissariat for Food) ... I advise you to appoint your superiors and shoot the conspirators and those who hesitate, without asking anyone and without allowing idiotic red tape.
However, Stalin who came after him continued the labors of Russian ISIS, and corpses now counted in millions. Essentially, the seeds of the collapse of the Soviet and in the future Russian state should be directly attributed to Stalin and Lenin.
Only after Stalin’s death and Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s bloody rule could Russia turn a page on state terrorism.
Sviyazhsk, Trotsky: Surprised and dismayed by the slowdown in the operation against Kazan, especially if what I have been told is true that you have a full opportunity to destroy the enemy with artillery. In my opinion, it is impossible to spare the city and postpone it longer, because merciless extermination is necessary.
It is important to understand that Nikita Khrushchev as a governor of Ukrainian republic took active part in Stalin’s purges and thousands of arrests, and then as a general secretary organized de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union.
By the same token, the new national leader of Russian Federation might come from Putin’s inner circle and denounce his old master and his practices, in which he’s actively participating right this moment.
As for foreigners, I advise you not to hurry with expulsion. Wouldn't a concentration camp be better?
Putinism is a natural extension of Marxism-Leninism for Putin is a product of the same system of terror via KGB.
The main principles of his reign of terror main were to benefit elites at the expense of the populace who are kept in control through terror, random arrests, and propaganda.
The court must not eliminate terror; to promise this would be self-deception or deceit, but to substantiate and legitimize it on principle, clearly, without falsehood and without embellishment.
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Nicholas the Second, Stalin, and Lenin — who is most popular today? The percentage of Russians who have positive feelings about these autocrats.
According to liberal TV channel Rain, 49% responders stated that Lenin’s activities evoke positive feelings in them, and only 29% negative sympathies. 51% of responders sympathize with Stalin, and 28% feel negative about his activities.
Nicholas “Bloody” the Second, ideological enemy of Lenin and Stalin, is more popular that both of them, at 54% feeling positive about his contribution to Russia, and 23% feeling negative.
Russians identify themselves with the state and its supreme leader, and sync in their opinions with that of the state, whether it’s run by an ethnic German monarch, a Georgian maniac, or a Russian thug masquerading as president. ~ 
Marcus Brinkmanis:
My take is that Marxism is an ideology that promotes genocide on impossible scale. Lenin was ready to murder only maybe 1/10 of people that should be murdered according to Marxism. Stalin was ready to murder even less, because he needed soldiers and slaves to conquer the world.
Oriana:
“Exterminate all opposition” has been a popular idea with all despots since the dawn of history. Totalitarian organizations like the Catholic church also did a lot of exterminating while they had a chance. The Reformation succeeded because Luther was protected from constant assassination attempts by a powerful German prince who kept him in a fortress for several years.
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In Chita (southeast Siberia), a makeshift recruitment center offers 300,000 rubles a month to become volunteers on the receiving end to test new US weapons in Ukraine on behalf of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon shareholders.
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THE FATE OF RUSSIAN ARISTOCRATS ABROAD
~ Fear and apprehension, anger and despair filled the minds of the thousand of aristocratic Russian refugees. Once the White army was defeated, it was either death or exile. Those who were brave remained in Russia but faced imminent death in Siberian camps or to be brutally shot. Most slipped away abroad, to relative safety.
The lucky ones managed to escape with a few treasured necklaces, rings or other heirlooms that would supplement their living abroad. Prince Felix Yusupov, heir to the largest fortune in Russia, was able to smuggle out two Rembrandt paintings that he later sold for a fortune.
Prince Felix Yusupov and his wife, Irina
Russian refugees spread throughout Western Europe. Many chose to settle in Paris or Berlin. London was the least hospitable place to go because the British Government were reluctant to accept Russian migrants onto British shores during a time when the working-class were praising the Russian revolution and Bolshevism.
Some Russian’s found themselves in Constantinople but found the city backwards with its dirty streets and unfamiliar Islamic setting. Many left and headed towards Western Europe.
Paris was the most popular hot spot for Russian refugees who viewed the city as the center of civilization. Parisian high-culture was adopted by the Russian upper-class during the 18th century, so many felt at ease in Paris versus other European cities.
Paris was quickly awash with White Russian generals, officers, artists, intellectuals and Russian aristocrats who knew little of ordinary, working life.
Most Russian men who escaped the revolution were mostly trained for military life and had little knowledge of other careers. They knew how to ready their troops for combat, make strategic decision-making, supervise their army and lead men into battle. Many were unprepared to toil their lives away as laborers.
White Russian officers in exile
The loss of power and wealth made many Russian aristocrats unable to accept the end of their golden years and strongly believed that Russia will revert back to its original state.
Many Russian refugees kept a few extra suitcases packed in case of an imminent return and one Russian prince who owned vineyards in Crimea collected empty glass bottles in his room that he planned to use once he returned to his homeland.
Europeans were cruel and belittled the Russian refugees: “nostalgia, fatalism, balalaikas, lugubrious songs of the Volga, a crimson shirt, a frenzied dance—such is the Russian emigration,” wrote one Paris newspaper.
Russians were often the last ones to be hired for certain occupations. Lack of government support and humanitarian aid for Russian refugees made many bitter towards their European counterparts.
Paul Gorguloff, a White Russian emigre, assassinated French President Paul Doumer on the pretext that he did little to help the White Russian community. His lasts words before he was executed were, “Россия, моя страна!" (Russia, my country!)
Russian refugees considered themselves as temporary exiles and refused to settle down in Western Europe to become citizens of their adopted countries. They were given passports that identified them as stateless people.
During their time in exile, Russians often chose careers in fashion and arts. Coco Chanel hired many Russian aristocrats to work in her fashion house and enjoyed the idea that former princesses, countesses and ladies were working under her, a low-born woman.
Former Russian generals and officers found themselves driving taxis for a living. Unlike other employers, Taxi companies preferred to hire Russians because of their stance against forming unions since it reminded them of Bolshevik uprisings.
Russian emigre women were educated in needle-work and embroidery at a young age. “Duchesses and countesses began to produce embroidered accessories, costume jewelry, embroidered fabrics, clothes and interior design items in the Slavonic style.” During a time when these woman once visited glamorous European cities to purchase lavish dresses, they were now creating their own fashionable clothes in Paris, Berlin and London.
The former ruling-class of Imperial Russia were no longer aristocrats with palaces, jewelry and vast wealth. They were now ordinary people with an extraordinary past. Despite their hardship, they continued to hold strong belief in the Orthodox faith and vigorously passed their traditions and culture to the younger generation. ~ Tamara M., Quora
Oriana:
The Russian emigrés, based on all I’ve read, seem to have been mostly a sorry lot. There is a wonderful novel that describes their lives, Nabokov’s Pnin.
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IN NORDIC COUNTRIES, WHAT DETERS PEOPLE FROM COMMITTING CRIME?
~ First of all, punishments don't deter criminals. This is a proven fact. Think about it for a moment and you'll see it makes 100% sense, too: no one commits a crime thinking they'll get caught; they all think they'll get away with it.
Second, Scandinavian prisons aren't “posh". They're quite austere compared to the average Scandinavian working class home. Not uncomfortable, but absolutely not nice.
Third, the design with a lack of discomfort is quite deliberate. It means there's no discomfort to distract you from the knowledge that you're locked up. It absolutely works, too; our recidivism is far lower than in countries like the US with quite inhumane prisons.
But if you wonder why we don't do crime, it's because of our relatively equal societies. This is also a proven fact, only marginally less solid than the Earth being round: inequality causes crime. People who are at the bottom and have little chance of improving their lot legally, have very little to lose and will more often turn to trying to improve their lot illegally. ~ Matts Andersson, Quora
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WHY SHOULD THE PUBLIC SUPPORT BLACK HOLE RESEARCH?
~ There is a story about a British Prime Minister (according to some accounts, Queen Victoria) being given a scientific demonstration, and asking “What good is it?” The scientist replied: “What good is a newborn baby?”
The scientist was Faraday; the demonstration was one of the first of electricity, then (this would have been about 1840 or so) restricted to parlor tricks of no imaginable usefulness. A few decades earlier, it had been discovered by someone messing around dissecting frog legs.
So, you should support black hole science for two reasons:
It’s totally impossible to know beforehand what might come in useful once you understand it properly. Twitching frog legs started something that led to the Internet.
Science has already paid for whatever take scientists’ fancy, just by discovering electricity. For everything that paid off big time, there were dozens or hundreds that led nowhere, and no one could say in advance which ones were the useful ones.
Einstein didn’t get the Nobel Prize for his Theory of Relativity. The committee addressed this explicitly: they said that while it was a beautiful and ingenious theoretical framework that explained a lot about Nature, there was no way it would ever be of practical use to anyone, so awarding a Nobel for it wasn’t actually consistent with Nobel’s will.
Without Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, your GPS wouldn’t work.
You simply don’t get to evaluate what is useful and what isn’t. Not even the Nobel Prize Committee got that one right. ~ Mats Andersson, Quora
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CAN A CONSERVATIVE BECOME A LIBERAL?
~ Yes. My husband did. The strangest thing about it was I remember the moment it happened, because it did happen in the space of a few minutes. As I think about it, it happened in the time it takes to say one sentence.
When I met my husband, he was very conservative. I had first formed my own political ideas in high school, and I was and remain very liberal. Fairly early on in our relationship, we agreed that there would be times when we simply would not see eye-to-eye on an issue, and we decided that at those times, we would simply shake hands and agree to disagree. We loved each other and wanted to spend our lives together—we would just have to muddle through the political stuff.
There were a few times when it was difficult to try and remain civil and we had awful arguments. The one that comes most readily to mind is an argument we had when it was announced that men suspected of terrorism would be held at Guantanamo Bay. I was furious about it because I saw it as handy loophole which would allow our government not to declare someone either a criminal suspect, where they would have the protections of the Constitution, or a prisoner of war, where they would be subject to the requirements of the Geneva Conventions. I saw it as cheating. He had other views. He said some things that even he would tell you were completely inappropriate. I found out recently when I tried to joke about it, since it was so long ago, that he is deeply ashamed of it. I don’t know if we will ever be able to laugh about that argument.
As I stated earlier, my husband flipped from being a conservative to being a liberal in the space of a few minutes. I was sitting right there, and watched it happen, and it is still a very strange thing for me to think about.
We live in Utah, and guns are everywhere. So are many items which were originally developed for either military or law enforcement use, but which are also popular with civilians. In 2004, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan progressed, there was a lot of talk around here about families looking for the plates for body armor for their kids who were over fighting those wars. People were also trying to figure out how to get armor for vehicles so they could ship it to their kids who were out driving on roads, running over an improvised explosive device (IED), and then being ambushed once their vehicle convoys were trapped. I had researched the lack of adequate armor because I knew a girl who had firsthand experience with it. She was a medic at a base in Kuwait—they stabilized a lot of men who had been injured due to lack of proper armor on either their bodies or their vehicles. She was also in a convoy that was trapped and attacked that way. My husband knew it was a huge problem.
One day, we were watching a news program, and they showed a segment with Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, speaking with soldiers at a rearward base. (I looked it up recently—it was in December 2004.) He was asked by a soldier why they were scrounging rusted armor and shot-up ballistic glass to try and outfit their vehicles to keep them safe. Rumsfeld’s reply was: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
My husband’s reaction was so weird. He was sitting on the floor, maybe ten feet from the TV, playing with our dog. When Rumsfeld said that, my husband physically pushed himself backward from the TV while saying, “No. No. No.” Had he been standing, I have no doubt he would have jumped. He turned to me with a look of both fury and disgust on his face and simply said, “That’s it. I’m done.” He got up and walked outside. I thought he’d just gone out on the front porch, but he was gone.
When he came back, he told me he was so upset and angry he had taken a walk to calm down. He reminded me of how often he had stated his respect for and agreement with President Bush and the members of his Cabinet. He reminded me of how often he had been angry when I found fault with them, and how he had defended them. He told me he was done with them, and he was done with the Republican Party. A few days later, he asked me if I had bookmarks or a browser history showing what media sites I visited. He got really busy—he was always on the computer investigating stuff.
I thought then that my husband must have already had experiences which opened him up to frustration with conservatives and the Republican Party. I thought that it was most likely that what Rumsfeld said was simply the thing that pushed him over the edge and away from the Right. Later, while talking with my husband, I found out that was not the case. He found Rumsfeld’s words heartless. Our invasion of Iraq was not an on-the-fly decision in response to some intolerable act. The United States picked a date for the beginning of the war. My husband said it was unacceptable to him that troops were sent to war without everything they needed to keep them as safe as possible in the field. He saw Rumsfeld’s reply as a glib answer to a serious question. He felt that a decision to risk the lives of men and women in uniform deserved more planning and preparation instead of a flippant response.
My husband told me that sentence forced him to see that often, the conservative response to an issue shows little or no forethought or concern about the lives of the people who will be impacted most. For him it was not just a matter of the soldiers in the field—the answer illuminated a larger way of thinking about others, and not worrying about the impact of policies and decisions. He found that attitude and that way of thinking to be disgusting, and could no longer be a part of it. He was done.
I thought he might find a political home with libertarians, but he did not. He found the liberal way of thinking more to his liking. He liked the inclusion. He liked the concern for the most vulnerable members of society. He liked what he saw as fairness.
When we got married, I never expected he would experience a radical shift in his political thinking. I did not marry with the intention of trying to change anything about him, because I think it is a mistake for anyone to do that. I married him for who he was, with the hope that as we both grew and changed, we’d be able to continue to do it together.
It is sometimes very helpful for me that he experienced that change of views. When conservatives make absolutely no sense to me, he is able to explain their thinking, because he once thought that way, too. The first 14 years of our marriage were a good lesson for both of us—we learned tolerance for the views of others. We learned that it’s often better to shut your mouth and listen carefully to another’s opinions, rather than think about how you will frame your response.
People sometimes tease me that I wore him down with my incessant talk of liberal politics. They say my refusal to be swayed by any of his arguments finally pushed him to the point of surrender. He and I both know that’s not true. I never attempted to change him. I didn’t need to. Donald Rumsfeld did it all on his own, in the space of a sentence. ~ Samantha B, Quora
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MUD KEEPS CITIES COOL
~ Mud buildings are remarkably good at keeping us cool in summer and warm in winter, and withstanding extreme weather. In the search for more sustainable buildings, architects are returning to this overlooked, age-old construction material.
In Yemen's ancient walled city of Sana'a mud skyscrapers soar high into the sky. The towering structures are built entirely out of rammed earth and decorated with striking geometric patterns. The earthen buildings blend into the nearby ochre-colored mountains.
Sana'a's mud architecture is so unique that the city has been recognized as a Unesco World Heritage site.
"As an outstanding example of a homogeneous architectural ensemble reflecting the spatial characteristics of the early years of Islam, the city in its landscape has an extraordinary artistic and pictorial quality," Unesco writes in its description of Sana'a. "The buildings demonstrate exceptional craftsmanship in the use of local materials and techniques.”
Even though the buildings in Sana'a are thousands of years old, they remain "terribly contemporary", says Salma Samar Damluji, co-founder of the Daw'an Mud Brick Architecture Foundation in Yemen and author of The Architecture of Yemen and its Reconstruction. The ancient structures are still inhabited today and most remain private residences.
Damluji says it is easy to see why these mud buildings have not lost their appeal – they are well-insulated, sustainable and extremely adaptable for modern use. "It is the architecture of the future," says Damluji.
Architects around the world are reviving raw-earth construction as they seek to construct sustainable buildings that can withstand extreme weather events such as flash floods and intense heat. Could this ancient form of architecture influence the design of our future homes and cities? Could this back-to-basics technique provide an important solution to the climate crisis?
Construction's climate problem
The construction industry accounts for 38% of global carbon dioxide emissions. The building sector has an important role to play if the world is to meet its goal of reaching net zero by 2050 and keep global temperature rise below the critical threshold of 1.5C.
Swapping concrete for less polluting materials is critical to achieving our climate goals, scientists warn. Concrete, a staple of modern construction, has a huge carbon footprint. Building with concrete accounts for around 7% of global CO2 emissions – substantially more than the aviation industry which is responsible for 2.5% of emissions. Worldwide 4 billion tonnes of cement, the key component of concrete, is produced each year.
"We cannot live in these concrete jungles anymore," says Damluji. "We have to consider the environment and biodiversity. We cannot construct in isolation.”
Mud could be the perfect sustainable alternative to concrete, according to Damluji. Constructing with mud has a very low impact on the environment and the material itself is fully recyclable, she says.
Sustainable construction
The ancient building practice is inspiring modern-day architects, such as Serbian Dragana Kojičić, who specializes in raw-earth construction.
"Our ancestors were really clever and really practical – they used what they had around them," says Kojičić. "The earth was everywhere and it could be used for everything: walls, floors, ceilings, stoves and even roofs.”
Kojičić, who completed her training at the Center for the Research and Application of Earth Architecture, restores and builds earthen houses across Serbia, reviving ancient building methods.
"Mud is contagious – it is love at first touch," she says. You don't need to wear any protective gear when handling the material, she adds. "With earth, you can just play."
Anna Heringer, an Austrian architect who creates buildings using natural materials such as mud and bamboo, agrees. "It is a wonderful feeling to touch the earth," she says. "You don't need any tools to build with it, you just use your hands.”
Heringer has been working with mud for almost 20 years and has designed many notable earthen buildings, including the METI handmade school in Rudrapur, Bangladesh, for which she received the Aga Khan Award for architecture in 2007. "Mud is a very inclusive material; poor and rich can build with it," she says.
The METI handmade school was built entirely with local materials, such as mud, straw and bamboo, and constructed by a team of local builders, craftsmen and the students themselves.
"Earthbound materials such as loam and straw are combined with lighter elements like bamboo sticks and nylon lashing to shape a built form that addresses sustainability in construction in an exemplary manner," the Aga Khan jury said.
"Mud is the champion of future sustainable construction," says Heringer. "It is the only material we can recycle as often as we like, without using any energy," she says. "It actually gets better the more you use it." It's a bit like a dough, Heringer says – as you work with it, the material changes and responds.
But using mud for construction should be done in a sustainable way and should not reduce land availability for growing crops, says Marchand. "It can be a solution, but only on a certain scale," he says, noting that the global population is expected to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, [according to my sources population will start shrinking and the peak will be lower], mounting pressure on land.
Healthy, resilient buildings
One of the best qualities of mud buildings is that they are warm in the winter and cool in the summer, architects say. Mud walls have a high thermal mass which means they slowly absorb heat and store it, preventing the house from becoming too hot.
"Mud walls collect heat during the day from solar radiation and release it at night. The temperature never fluctuates – it's always at a comfortable level," says Pamela Jerome, a US architect and president of the Architectural Preservation Studio, which focuses on restoration projects around the world.
This reduces the need for air conditioning units, which consume large amounts of electricity and contain refrigerants that are potent greenhouse gas emissions.
In a 2021 report, the UK's Environmental Audit Committee recommended using "sustainable, bio-based and breathable" products, such as clay and lime-based plasters and natural fibers, to improve the insulation of existing homes.
"In comparison to buildings constructed of concrete or corrugated metal, mud brick buildings keep relatively stable interior temperatures across a 24-hour period and thus supply inhabitants with far superior thermal comfort," says Marchand. "An added bonus is that the thick mud-brick walls also reduce noise levels from outside or next door.”
The breathable nature of mud has other benefits too. Mud is porous and allows moisture into the house, improving the indoor air quality. "The earth has the ability to absorb excess moisture from the air, and to release it, if necessary, which is why we say that these houses 'breathe'," says Kojičić.
"They are healthy buildings which breathe in the same way we breathe and have skins that adapt to hot and cold," says Damluji. "The way they are constructed is in reference, in proportion even, to the human body.”
Mud structures are also incredibly sturdy and resilient to extreme weather, such as heatwaves, floods and droughts, which scientists say will become more frequent and intense as temperatures continue to rise. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in a report this year that cities and settlements are largely unprepared to cope with extreme weather events. To avoid costly damages and protect people, they must invest in climate-resilient buildings and infrastructure, the IPCC said.
Earthen architecture can withstand extreme events such as earthquakes and heavy winds "because of the ability of its structure to distribute the load that it faces on its surface, unlike concrete or cement," says Damluji.
But mud building's resilience to earthquakes depends on the intensity of the seismic waves and the soil in which they are built, says Jerome.
Mud buildings are "also protected from seasonal rains and flash floods due to the damp-proof and protective external rendering used in several layers of refined mud, ash and lime coating and plaster", says Damluji.
The impact of flooding on mud buildings varies, depending on whether they are built in a flood plain and have strong foundations, according to Jerome.
People who wish to live in a modern, comfortable home should consider one made of mud, architects say.
"Mud buildings are extremely adaptable," says Damluji. "If you want to pull a wall down or change the design, you can recycle all the materials."
Overall, this makes for highly sophisticated as well as sustainable design, says Jerome. "Every mud house is comfortable, can be totally adapted and easily retrofitted with electricity and plumbing.” ~
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220705-the-sustainable-cities-made-from-mud
Mary:
I think the idea of mud buildings and mud cities is wonderful..the kind of simple and traditional practice that has enormous advantages for us in our concrete, steel and glass cities that are becoming less and less sustainable, more and more expensive, and more and more environmentally destructive.
*
WHY RELIGION WITHOUT BELIEF CAN STILL MAKE SENSE
~ It is common to assume that religion is all about belief. Religious people are ‘believers’. Muslims believe that God revealed the Quran to Muhammad; Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead; Buddhists believe in cyclical rebirth and the non-existence of the self.
But there is more to a religion than a cold set of doctrines. Religions involve spiritual practices, traditions that bind a community together across space and time, and rituals that mark the seasons and the big moments of life: birth, coming of age, marriage, death. This is not to deny that there are specific metaphysical views associated with each religion, nor that there is a place for assessing how plausible those views are. But it is myopic to obsess about the ‘belief-y’ aspects of religion at the expense of all the other aspects of the lived religious life.
Some people become religious because they become convinced on intellectual grounds that the specific doctrines of a particular faith are highly likely to be true. That’s all well and good. But I want to suggest that there are fruitful ways of engaging with religion that don’t involve belief. Perhaps the best way to do this is to sketch some possibilities.
Faiza is what’s called a practicing agnostic. She was raised a British Muslim and believes, on the basis of personal experience, that there is a spiritual dimension to existence, a ‘higher power’ as she calls it. But she’s not sure whether that higher power is a personal God. Faiza studied philosophy at university, and was somewhat impressed by arguments for the existence of God, although she didn’t find any of them conclusive. As a young child, Faiza was taught to read the Quran in Arabic: she has some feel for the great beauty of its verses, and finds it plausible that this wondrous text had a divine origin. On the other hand, when she reflects on the plurality of religions around the world, each with their insights and great books, she feels she cannot be too confident that her own religion is the correct one. If she had to give odds, Faiza would say there’s a 50/50 chance of Islam being true. In other words, Faiza is a perfect agnostic regarding the truth of Islam.
Does Faiza believe in Islam? The answer of course depends on what we mean by ‘belief’. According to one standard definition, to believe something is to feel confident that it’s true. Belief, in this sense, doesn’t imply 100 per cent certainty, but it does imply confidence significantly greater than 50 per cent. To take a trivial example, I believe my sister is in London right now, as I know she spends 90 per cent of her life there. I’m not 100 per cent certain – maybe she’s gone to Bath for a work trip – but I’m pretty confident. On this definition of belief, Faiza does not believe in Islam. She’s not confident that it’s false, but nor is she confident that it’s true.
Does her lack of belief mean that it would be irrational for Faiza to practice Islam? It’s hard to see why. Faith is not just an abstract, intellectual affair, but a matter of commitment and engagement. It would be absurd to engage with something as a possibility if you think it has almost zero chance of being true. But from Faiza’s perspective, Islam is a live possibility: it could be true. Faiza can choose to follow the Five Pillars of Islam as an expression not of certainty but of hopeful commitment. Indeed, there is something noble about living in hope that there is a deeper purpose to existence, in spite of your doubts.
My suggestion here is somewhat reminiscent of ‘Pascal’s wager’, the name given to the argument of the 17th-century mathematician Blaise Pascal that it’s rational to bet on God’s existence. Pascal reasoned as follows: if we choose belief in God and it turns out that God exists, then we will gain infinite rewards in the afterlife; whereas if it turns out that God does not exist, then we’ve lost little, apart from maybe not being able to sleep in on a Sunday morning. According to Pascal, it’s worth a punt on God.
There are a couple of familiar problems with Pascal’s wager. For one, it relies on the idea that God will reward/punish each person depending on whether they accept the One True Religion, whereas many contemporary interpretations of religion don’t have this implication. And even if we accept this rather possessive conception of God, how do we decide which religion is the right one? Pascal-style reasoning, at least, can’t help us here.
However, Faiza’s wager, as I am imagining it, is not primarily focused on the life to come but on the benefits of religion in this life. Through the regular and structured practice of her faith, Faiza can deepen her spiritual life over time. Through engagement with community and tradition, she can cultivate virtue and good community. Even if it turns out there is no God, Faiza has lost nothing and gained much.
Let’s turn now to Pete, who is what is called a religious fictionalist. He was raised a Christian in the US. Like Faiza, he has spiritual convictions. Experiences with psychedelics in his early 20s led Pete to believe that there is a reality greater than what we can perceive with our senses. He finds it hard to pin down exactly what this ‘greater reality’ is but likes to refer to it with William James’s term ‘the “more”’.
However, in contrast to Faiza, Pete is a resolute atheist, at least about the ‘Omni-God’ of traditional Western religion: all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly good. In his personal investigations of the philosophical arguments for/against God’s existence, Pete struggled to find any merit in the arguments for, but was overwhelmingly persuaded by the arguments against. Whereas Faiza is 50/50 on the truth of Islam, Pete finds it deeply implausible that an all-powerful and loving God would create a universe with so much suffering, and concludes on this basis that there is, at best, a 5 per cent chance of Christianity being true. We usually use the phrase ‘don’t believe’ to cover both the situation of Faiza and the situation of Pete, but they are not the same. While Faiza merely lacks belief in the religion of her birth, Pete positively dis-believes in his.
Would it make sense for Pete to continue to be a Christian, in spite of his atheism? Surprisingly, there are ways of interpreting Christianity consistent with Pete’s beliefs. Marcus Borg was a New Testament scholar and liberal theologian who formulated a conception of Christianity involving few of the beliefs normally associated with Christianity, such as a literal resurrection and a personal God. In his book The God We Never Knew (1997), Borg affirmed the existence of God, but a God whose nature could not be expressed in human language, and hence who is not literally ‘all-knowing’ or ‘all-powerful.’
This may strike readers as contrary to the ‘Christian’ idea of God. However, from the very early days of Christianity, there has been a tradition of ‘apophatic’ or ‘negative’ theology, according to which God’s nature is beyond language. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late 5th/early 6th centuries) talked of how God is ‘beyond every assertion’ and ‘beyond every denial’. And the late-14th-century text The Cloud of Unknowing was hugely influential in showing Christians how to move beyond the superficial descriptions of God found in ordinary worship to a deeper experience of a God beyond human characterization. Even some of the Early Church Fathers, such as Origen (c184-253) and Gregory of Nyssa (c335-395) adopted the apophatic approach. While Pete is an atheist about the Omni-God, it’s not so clear that ‘the “more”’ of his psychedelic experiences differs from the God of apophatic Christianity.
What about the story of Jesus, including its many miraculous occurrences? While there is much history we can get out of the gospels, Borg argued that, from a religious perspective, we should think of the Christian story not as conveying historical fact, but as expressing what he called the ‘character and passion’ of God. Through meditating on this story, in which God is identified not with the king in his castle but with the naked, executed peasant – the guy who was born in a barn and hung out with the outcasts of society – we are afforded a deep insight into what God truly is. For Borg, the resurrection was not about a corpse coming back to life, but about the transcendent reality he knew through the character of Jesus still being alive and active in the world.
In other words, the Christian story is understood not as literal fact but as profound fiction, one that, as part of the Christian spiritual practice, facilitates a deeper connection with ultimate reality. That’s ‘religious fictionalism’, an approach of engaging with religion as important fiction. The philosopher John Hick defended a similar conception of religion to Borg but broadened to all religion. For Hick, all religions are connecting with the same ultimate reality, but doing so with culturally specific mythological language.
Different things work for different people. It’s possible that Pete will find what he needs in Buddhism or personal spiritual practice. But it’s also possible that the religious symbols from his culture and upbringing will retain a deep resonance for Pete, meaning that Christian practice ‘works’ for him in a way that, say, Buddhism does not. And if he can attach a Borgian interpretation to the words he’s hearing and saying in church services, then Pete could have the option of engaging with Christianity in a way that’s consistent with his philosophical views.
Faiza and Pete are not ‘believers’ in the traditional sense, but they do have spiritual beliefs in a greater reality underlying the world we perceive with our senses. I personally find it harder to see the motivation for engagement with religion in the absence of any kind of belief in a transcendent reality (although there are some such religious fictionalists).
However, even in the highly secular United Kingdom, belief in a transcendent reality is not a fringe position. In a recent survey, 46 per cent of UK adults agreed that ‘all religions have some element of truth in them’, and 49 per cent that ‘humans are at heart spiritual beings’. Some of these, of course, will be traditional religious believers. Other will identify as ‘spiritual but not religious’. The purpose of this article is simply to point out that there is a third option that many are not aware of, and that some may find attractive: religion without belief. ~
https://psyche.co/ideas/why-religion-without-belief-can-still-make-perfect-sense?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7a949925fb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_08_03_07_49&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-7a949925fb-71890240
*
COMMON VIRUSES MAY TRIGGER THE ONSET OF ALZEIMER’S
Shingles infection may activate dormant neurological herpes viruses, causing inflammation and accumulation of Alzheimer's associated proteins in the brain.
Two common viruses lie dormant in neurons — herpes simplex virus (HSV), and varicella zoster virus (VZV). Lab models of the human brain show that activation or re-infection of VZV can trigger neuroinflammation and wake up HSV, leading to accumulation of Alzheimer's linked proteins and neural decline.
Alzheimer's disease can begin almost imperceptibly, often masquerading in the early months or years as forgetfulness that is common in older age. What causes the disease remains largely a mystery.
But researchers at Tufts University and the University of Oxford, using a three-dimensional human tissue culture model mimicking the brain, have shown that varicella zoster virus (VZV), which commonly causes chickenpox and shingles, may activate herpes simplex (HSV), another common virus, to set in motion the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.
Normally HSV-1 — one of the main variants of the virus — lies dormant within the neurons of the brain, but when it is activated it leads to accumulation of tau and amyloid beta proteins, and loss of neuronal function — signature features found in patients with Alzheimer’s.
"Our results suggest one pathway to Alzheimer's disease, caused by a VZV infection which creates inflammatory triggers that awaken HSV in the brain," said Dana Cairns, GBS12, a research associate in the Biomedical Engineering Department. "While we demonstrated a link between VZV and HSV-1 activation, it's possible that other inflammatory events in the brain could also awaken HSV-1 and lead to Alzheimer's disease.”
The study is published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Viruses Lying in Wait
"We have been working off a lot of established evidence that HSV has been linked to increased risk of Alzheimer's disease in patients," said David Kaplan, Stern Family Professor of Engineering and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts' School of Engineering. One of the first to hypothesize a connection between herpes virus and Alzheimer's disease is Ruth Itzhaki of the University of Oxford, who collaborated with the Kaplan lab on this study.
"We know there is a correlation between HSV-1 and Alzheimer's disease, and some suggested involvement of VZV, but what we didn't know is the sequence of events that the viruses create to set the disease in motion," he said. "We think we now have evidence of those events.”
According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 3.7 billion people under the age of 50 have been infected with HSV-1 — the virus that causes oral herpes. In most cases it is asymptomatic, lying dormant within nerve cells.
When activated, it can cause inflammation in nerves and skin, causing painful open sores and blisters. Most carriers — and that's one in two Americans according to the CDC — will have between very mild to no symptoms before the virus becomes dormant.
Varicella zoster virus is also extremely common, with about 95 percent of people having been infected before the age of 20. Many of those cases are expressed as chicken pox. VZV, which is a form of herpes virus, can also remain in the body, finding its way to nerve cells before then becoming dormant.
Later in life, VZV can be reactivated to cause shingles, a disease characterized by blisters and nodules in the skin that form in a band-like pattern and can be very painful, lasting for weeks or even months. One in three people will eventually develop a case of shingles in their lifetime.
The link between HSV-1 and Alzheimer's disease only occurs when HSV-1 has been reactivated to cause sores, blisters, and other painful inflammatory conditions.
How Sleeping Viruses May Wake
To better understand the cause-and-effect relationship between the viruses and Alzheimer's disease, the Tufts researchers re-created brain-like environments in small 6 millimeter-wide donut-shaped sponges made of silk protein and collagen.
They populated the sponges with neural stem cells that grow and become functional neurons capable of passing signals to each other in a network, just as they do in the brain. Some of the stem cells also form glial cells, which are typically found in the brain and help keep the neurons alive and functioning.
The researchers found that neurons grown in the brain tissue can be infected with VZV, but that alone did not lead to the formation of the signature Alzheimer's proteins tau and beta-amyloid -- the components of the tangled mess of fibers and plaques that form in Alzheimer's patients' brains -- and that the neurons continued to function normally.
However, if the neurons already harbored quiescent HSV-1, the exposure to VZV led to a reactivation of HSV, and a dramatic increase in tau and beta-amyloid proteins, and the neuronal signals begin to slow down.
"It's a one-two punch of two viruses that are very common and usually harmless, but the lab studies suggest that if a new exposure to VZV wakes up dormant HSV-1, they could cause trouble," said Cairns.
"It's still possible that other infections and other pathways of cause and effect could lead to Alzheimer's disease, and risk factors such as head trauma, obesity, or alcohol consumption suggest they may intersect at the re-emergence of HSV in the brain," she added.
The researchers observed that the VZV infected samples started to produce a higher level of cytokines -- proteins which are often involved in triggering an inflammatory response. Kaplan noted that VZV is known in many clinical cases to cause inflammation in the brain, which could possibly lead to activation of dormant HSV and increased inflammation.
Repeat cycles of HSV-1 activation can lead to more inflammation in the brain, production of plaques, and accumulation of neuronal and cognitive damage.
A vaccine for VZV — to prevent chickenpox and shingles — has also been shown to considerably reduce the risk of dementia. It's possible that the vaccine is helping to stop the cycle of viral reactivation, inflammation, and neuronal damage.
The researchers also noted the long-term neurological effects that some COVID patients have experienced from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, particularly among the elderly, and that both VZV and HSV-1 can be reactivated after a COVID infection. Keeping an eye on possible follow-on cognitive effects and neurodegeneration would be advisable in these cases, they said. ~
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220729173148.htm
Mary:
New discoveries often serve to reveal how much we don't know, stimulating research aimed at remedying that lack. We find new questions to answer, or new ways of framing questions to find better answers. Noting the possibility that these dormant viruses can have a role in the development of Alzheimer’s illuminates the need for further studies, even suggests the direction to pursue...It's a relatively new idea that one virus may trigger the activation of another —each contributing to a destructive process we know so little about. Can we avoid these destructive processes by finding ways to avoid, prevent, or cure these viruses, eliminating even, the possibility of their remaining in the body in a dormant state?
This is very exciting and encouraging, especially considering the heavy burden of suffering Alzheimers brings.
Oriana:
As mentioned toward the end of the article, it's possible that something as simple as the shingles vaccine (already available, but not well publicized) could dramatically cut the rate of Alzheimer's, given the observational study in Wales. The Covid vaccine also holds out that promise. On the other hand, "correlation does not prove causation," and there is the fact that generally only the educated people get vaccinated -- and being educated is itself a predictor of less likelihood of Alzheimer's.
This said, I dearly hope that the article is right, and that preventing viral infections is a potent weapon against this tragic disease.
There
is currently no vaccine against Herpes simplex virus 1, but there seems
to be interest in developing it. Ideally we should be vaccinated
against both shingles and HSV.
*
NO CLEAR EVIDENCE THAT LOW LEVELS OF SEROTONIN CAUSE DEPRESSION
~ The new umbrella review -- an overview of existing meta-analyses and systematic reviews -- published in Molecular Psychiatry, suggests that depression is not likely caused by a chemical imbalance, and calls into question what antidepressants do. Most antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which were originally said to work by correcting abnormally low serotonin levels. There is no other accepted pharmacological mechanism by which antidepressants affect the symptoms of depression.
Lead author Professor Joanna Moncrieff, a Professor of Psychiatry at UCL and a consultant psychiatrist at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), said: "It is always difficult to prove a negative, but I think we can safely say that after a vast amount of research conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence that depression is caused by serotonin abnormalities, particularly by lower levels or reduced activity of serotonin.
"The popularity of the 'chemical imbalance' theory of depression has coincided with a huge increase in the use of antidepressants. Prescriptions for antidepressants have risen dramatically since the 1990s, with one in six adults in England and 2% of teenagers now being prescribed an antidepressant in a given year.
"Many people take antidepressants because they have been led to believe their depression has a biochemical cause, but this new research suggests this belief is not grounded in evidence."
The umbrella review aimed to capture all relevant studies that have been published in the most important fields of research on serotonin and depression. The studies included in the review involved tens of thousands of participants.
Research that compared levels of serotonin and its breakdown products in the blood or brain fluids did not find a difference between people diagnosed with depression and healthy control (comparison) participants.
Research on serotonin receptors and the serotonin transporter, the protein targeted by most antidepressants, found weak and inconsistent evidence suggestive of higher levels of serotonin activity in people with depression. However, the researchers say the findings are likely explained by the use of antidepressants among people diagnosed with depression, since such effects were not reliably ruled out.
The authors also looked at studies where serotonin levels were artificially lowered in hundreds of people by depriving their diets of the amino acid required to make serotonin. These studies have been cited as demonstrating that a serotonin deficiency is linked to depression. A meta-analysis conducted in 2007 and a sample of recent studies found that lowering serotonin in this way did not produce depression in hundreds of healthy volunteers, however. There was very weak evidence in a small subgroup of people with a family history of depression, but this only involved 75 participants, and more recent evidence was inconclusive.
Very large studies involving tens of thousands of patients looked at gene variation, including the gene for the serotonin transporter. They found no difference in these genes between people with depression and healthy controls. These studies also looked at the effects of stressful life events and found that these exerted a strong effect on people's risk of becoming depressed — the more stressful life events a person had experienced, the more likely they were to be depressed. A famous early study found a relationship between stressful events, the type of serotonin transporter gene a person had and the chance of depression. But larger, more comprehensive studies suggest this was a false finding.
These findings together led the authors to conclude that there is "no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.”
The researchers say their findings are important as studies show that as many as 85-90% of the public believes that depression is caused by low serotonin or a chemical imbalance. A growing number of scientists and professional bodies are recognizing the chemical imbalance framing as an over-simplification. There is also evidence that believing that low mood is caused by a chemical imbalance leads people to have a pessimistic outlook on the likelihood of recovery, and the possibility of managing moods without medical help. This is important because most people will meet criteria for anxiety or depression at some point in their lives.
The authors also found evidence from a large meta-analysis that people who used antidepressants had lower levels of serotonin in their blood. They concluded that some evidence was consistent with the possibility that long-term antidepressant use reduces serotonin concentrations. The researchers say this may imply that the increase in serotonin that some antidepressants produce in the short term could lead to compensatory changes in the brain that produce the opposite effect in the long term.
While the study did not review the efficacy of antidepressants, the authors encourage further research and advice into treatments that might focus instead on managing stressful or traumatic events in people's lives, such as with psychotherapy, alongside other practices such as exercise or mindfulness, or addressing underlying contributors such as poverty, stress and loneliness.
Professor Moncrieff said: "Our view is that patients should not be told that depression is caused by low serotonin or by a chemical imbalance, and they should not be led to believe that antidepressants work by targeting these unproven abnormalities. We do not understand what antidepressants are doing to the brain exactly, and giving people this sort of misinformation prevents them from making an informed decision about whether to take antidepressants or not.”
Co-author Dr Mark Horowitz, a training psychiatrist and Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry at UCL and NELFT, said: "I had been taught that depression was caused by low serotonin in my psychiatry training and had even taught this to students in my own lectures. Being involved in this research was eye-opening and feels like everything I thought I knew has been flipped upside down.
"One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people's lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.”
Professor Moncrieff added: "Thousands of people suffer from side effects of antidepressants, including the severe withdrawal effects that can occur when people try to stop them, yet prescription rates continue to rise. We believe this situation has been driven partly by the false belief that depression is due to a chemical imbalance. It is high time to inform the public that this belief is not grounded in science.”
The researchers caution that anyone considering withdrawing from antidepressants should seek the advice of a health professional, given the risk of adverse effects following withdrawal. Professor Moncrieff and Dr Horowitz are conducting ongoing research into how best to gradually stop taking antidepressants. ~
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080145.htm
Mary:
The studies that refute the efficacy of medications used for depression that all operate to increase serotonin comes as a not unexpected conclusion to someone who was assured these drugs were not only effective but necessary to control/alleviate major depression. Who was told again and again her suffering was the result of a "chemical imbalance," that could only be treated with pharmaceuticals. Despite the fact that none of these drugs have been shown to "work" in any significant way, and all have some pretty nasty, even dangerous, side effects. The way this message of efficacy has been so largely and assuredly disseminated, without much real evidence, almost feels like a tenet of some religion, and dissenters, folks who refuse this "solution," become more than difficult patients, more like apostates who deserve the punishment of continued suffering.
And I can't help but think the pharmaceutical treatment of mental illness is an assurance to psychiatrists that they are practicing science....
Oriana:
I've suffered from many years from chronic depression, with episodes of agitated depression. I had a profound distrust of anti-depressants, based on extensive reading. (Also, I discovered a peculiar perverseness in depression: I didn't really want to be rid of it. I wanted to go deeper down.) What eventually saved me was "being cornered by mortality." I realized that there wasn't that much life left, and I didn't want to waste what time remained on crying fits and brooding about my unhappiness. With the motto I found just in perfect time, I decided that indeed I could decide to keep falling apart, or I could decide to be strong. I chose to be strong (oddly, I never doubted my ability to be strong -- perhaps because I come from a family of strong women).
And, to my own amazement . . . . it worked. Some of the healing too about two months -- especially the ability to feel pleasure. But the ability to be productive in writing -- to choose writing over crying and brooding -- jumped into place instantly.
I assume the power of insight closed the door to depression, and there was no going back.
A friend of mine who happens to be a psychotherapist said, "You've done cognitive therapy on yourself."
I wish more people could have access to cognitive therapy -- or whichever therapy they'd find works for them. The horrific cost of private therapy sessions need to be circumvented somehow. And of course there is also group therapy.
FOODS THAT HELP CLEAN ARTERIES
1. Asparagus
Asparagus is one of the best foods to cleanse your arteries. Full of fiber and minerals, it helps lower blood pressure and prevent blood clots that can lead to serious cardiovascular illness. It works within the veins and arteries to alleviate inflammation that may have accumulated over time. It boosts the body’s production of glutathione, an antioxidant that fights inflammation and prevents damaging oxidation that causes clogged or blocked arteries. It also contains alpha-linoleic acid and folic acid, which prevent hardening of the arteries.
2. Avocado
Avocado helps reduce the “bad” cholesterol and increase the “good cholesterol” that helps to clear the arteries. It also contains vitamin E, which prevents cholesterol oxidation, as well as potassium, which is known to lower blood pressure. Avocados are a delicious replacement for mayo on a sandwich, or as a salad topping, and of course, in guacamole.
3. Broccoli
Broccoli can prevent artery clogging because it is loaded with vitamin K, which prevents calcium from damaging the arteries. Broccoli also prevents cholesterol oxidation and is full of fiber, which lowers blood pressure and reduces stress. Stress can lead to tearing and plaque build-up of arterial walls. These little trees also contain sulforaphane, which helps the body use protein to prevent plaque build-up in the arteries.
It is recommended to have two to three servings of broccoli per week for the maximum benefits.
4. Fatty Fish
Fatty fish—mackerel, salmon, sardines, herring and tuna—are rich in healthy fats, which can help to clear the arteries. Omega-3 fatty acids help to increase the “good” cholesterol while reducing triglyceride levels, decreasing blood vessel inflammation and the formation of blood clots in the arteries, and can even lower blood pressure.
The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends people eat fish at least twice per week to reduce plaque build-up.
5. Nuts
Instead of reaching for the cookie jar, try a healthier alternative—nuts. Almonds are the best choice because they are high in monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, fiber and protein. The magnesium in almonds also prevents plaque formation and lowers blood pressure. Walnuts are another good source of omega-3 fatty acid, which will reduce “bad” cholesterol and raise “good” cholesterol levels, which in turn lowers the risk of plaque build-up in the arteries.
The AHA recommends three to five servings per week (one serving is equivalent to a handful). Nuts also make a great salad topper.
6. Olive Oil
Olive oil is rich in monounsaturated oleic acid, an essential fatty acid that lowers “bad” cholesterol and raises “good” cholesterol. Rich in antioxidants, it is one of the healthiest oils to use in cooking or for dressings.
Use olive oil instead of butter and drizzle over salad or pasta. It is recommended to choose 100 percent organic virgin olive oil for maximum health benefits.
7. Watermelon
This summertime favorite is a great natural source of the amino acid L-citrulline, which boosts nitric oxide production in the body. Nitric oxide causes the arteries to relax, decreases inflammation and can help lower blood pressure. Watermelon also helps to modify blood lipids and lowers belly fat accumulation. Less fat in the abdominal area lowers the risk of heart disease.
8. Turmeric
The main component of this spice is curcumin, which is a power anti-inflammatory.
Inflammation is a major cause of arteriosclerosis, or the hardening of the arteries. Turmeric also reduces the damage to arterial walls, which can cause blood clots and plaque build up. Turmeric also contains vitamin B6, which helps to maintain healthy levels of homocysteine, which can cause plaque buildup and blood vessel damage in excess amounts.
Turmeric can be an ingredient in many dishes, both sweet and savory. One way to get your daily dose is by drinking a glass of warm turmeric milk daily. If you’ve never cooked with it before, now’s the time to get creative for your health!
9. Spinach
This dark, leafy green is filled with potassium, folate and fiber, which helps lower blood pressure and prevents artery blockage. One serving per day helps lower homocysteine levels, a risk factor for heart diseases such as atherosclerosis.
It doesn’t matter if you eat it raw or cooked, the benefits are the same. So try it in salads, smoothies and even on your omelet.
Oriana:
Oops, it seems I lost the link. But this type of information is all over the internet.
One interesting thing about curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, is that it increases BDNF (brain-derived nerve factor) — which in turn protects against dementia.
But be warned: most turmeric and curcumin supplements are worthless due to poor bioavailability. I discovered a brand that works, and that’s OMAX. I don’t normally mention brand names in my blog, but feel a duty to spread the information so that people with serious need of a potent but safe anti-inflammatory agent don’t waste considerable sums of money buying worthless products.
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ending on beauty:
OF MERE BEING
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