A federal judge in Virginia rejected DOJ’s request to search through a #WashingtonPost reporter’s electronic devices as part of a national security #leak investigation, ruling that the court would instead be responsible for conducting the search. The Tuesday ruling suggested that Magistrate Judge William Porter did not trust the #Trump admin to conduct a narrow search of the devices & feared that such an examination could risk exposing more than 1,000 of the reporter’s govt #sources to the #DOJ.
That seems to refute
1) "No infinite growth on a finite planet"
2) the claim of Degrowth that only a reduction of production and consumption can cut CEs.
Exciting! But just because the universe is proven not to be a simulation doesn't mean that the universe is real or that it is proven to be real. ;-)
«Physically these Gödel sentences correspond to empirically meaningful facts—e.g., specific black‑hole microstates—that elude any finite, rule‑based derivation. Gödel’s second theorem deepens the impasse: the self‑referential consistency statement Con(FQG) ≡ ¬ ProvΣQG (⊥) cannot itself be proved by FQG without contradiction [41,42]. A purely computational theory of everything would therefore not be able to establish its own internal soundness.»
«The claim that our universe is itself a computer simulation has been advanced in several forms, from Bostrom’s statistical “trilemma’’ [85] to more recent analyses by Chalmers [86] and Deutsch [87]. These proposals assume that every physical truth is reducible to the output of a finite algorithm executed on a sufficiently powerful substrate. Yet this assumption tacitly identifies the full physical theory with its computable slice FQG. Our framework separates the computable fragment FQG from the non-algorithmic meta-layer MToE. Because MToE contains an external truth predicate T (x) that by construction escapes formal verification, any finite algorithm can at best emulate FQG while systemat-ically omitting the meta-theoretic truths enforced by T (x). Consequently, no simulation could in principle reproduce what would otherwise be the full underyling structure of the physics of our universe. Our analysis instead suggests that genuine physical reality embeds non-computational content that cannot be instantiated on a Turing-equivalent device. Since it is impossible to simulate a complete and consistent universe, our universe is definitely not a simulation. As the universe is produced by MToE, the simulation hypothesis is logically impossible rather than merely implausible.»
In the first piece the author traces origin and developement of the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in Soviet propaganda, primarily in the mid 1960s to the late 1980s. Here she concentrates on the USSR and the relevance of this propaganda in domestic societal control
In the second piece she describes in a tour d'horizon how anti-Zionism between the late 1950s to 1990 provided the USSR with a very effective tool against the West by uniting various anti-Western sentiments and movements. Combining allegations of imperialism, genocide, apartheid, Nazism, it unites Western communists (and the Left in general), African, South-American, and Asian liberation struggles, Arab nationalism, as well as Jihadists.
In both pieces Tabarovsky describes genalogies, e.g., how in 1982 Abbas wrote a Ph.D thesis equating Zionism and Nazism at the prestigious Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.
Immensely helpful, not just with regard to the origin of late 20th century Western anti-Semitism on the Left (e.g., George Galloway, Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn) but even more with regard to the anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in Arab (e.g., Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mahmoud Abbas) and Latin American nations (e.g., Lula Da Silva, Gustavo Petro).
«What’s so interesting about this half-century-old Soviet propaganda is how precisely it mirrors the language emanating from the anti-Israel left since Oct. 7. Today’s left, too, speaks of Israel as a racist, imperialist, and colonialist state; equates it with Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa; disparages Jews for having turned into oppressors; and proclaims Palestinians’ inalienable right to resist their colonial oppression by any means necessary.»
Overview of names to come and names to go—possibly, given Putin's suspiciousness of powerful rivals, his desire to balance people and influences, and the need to bring in a younger generation into office.
«It is hardly surprising that a significant portion of this new generation coming to power consists of the children of current top officials and Putin’s closest friends—or even his own relatives. In this sense, Russia increasingly resembles a feudal state, in which power is inherited at all levels. The children of the bureaucratic aristocracy are all, in one way or another, striving for government careers and positions of influence.
[...]
The ongoing generational shift will, of course, change the face of Russia. The new officials, who were very young when the Soviet Union collapsed, differ from the previous generation in that they lack Soviet psychology and a Soviet background.
On one hand, many members of this next generation of Russian leaders tend to idealize the Soviet Union and dream of restoring imperial power. On the other hand, they are full-fledged capitalists, and most of them clearly do not want another Cold War or international isolation for Russia.
They are the children of a cynical generation, convinced that business can—and should—be done with everyone: China, Iran, Europe, the United States, and even Ukraine.
In many ways, Putin’s personnel policy resembles the dynamics in the final years of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s rule. Castro also tried to cultivate a new generation of Komsomol-style loyalists—and, in some ways, succeeded. The politicians he nurtured, young enough to be his grandchildren, turned out to be even more orthodox and staunchly conservative than the generation of officials who were old enough to be his sons.
But when the decisive moment came, Castro still chose to hand power to his own brother, Raúl.
Putin has no brother, and he trusts no one. That’s why he is focused on grooming a new, younger, and thoroughly indoctrinated generation—one that he is confident will carry on his legacy.»
Hello ! Ce samedi, comme promis, et pendant que le livre VI de Tite-Live me regarde d'un air désapprobateur finir Ursula Le Guin, voici un petit fil sur les sources de la mythologie (et un peu de l'histoire) gréco-romaine !
D'où tire-t-on les mythes greczetromains, pourquoi existent-ils en mille versions, d'où certaines sont plus connues que d'autres et toutes les questions que jamais, jamais vous ne vous seriez posées sans moi, un THREAD ⬇️
And if you want to know how today's "Hillbilly" J.D. Vance and the white-working-class-victimization-turned-angry-and-spiteful crowd fits into the above mentioned beginnings of the Tea Party movement, read here:
"#FactChecking requires the right and ability to find #sources, read widely and interview experts who are free to speak candidly — all as part of a rigorous #methodology and process. (...) Fact-checking is part of a free press and high-quality #journalism, and it contributes to public #information and #knowledge."
From the #IFCN 's "Sarajevo Statement" – which comes at a time when free speech, transparency, and the preservation of information are under massive pressure.