nerdgirl

In an ‘unauthorized armchair anthropologist” sorta way, I found it more curious to observe which folks assume I “do research,” etc and which credit other explanations. Interesting /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Missed it too. Something related to the unconfirmed reports of a US fighter plane (don’t know which one or which service) shooting down an Iranian UAV very recently? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

[slightly tongue in cheek] "Israeli Rafael's Indian promo": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktQOLO4U5iQ SFW. An Israeli defense manufacturer, Rafeal, produced a video for India’s Ministry of Defense in which a Mossad-meets-Miami Vice (the 1980s version)-esque caricature/character pledges in song & dance to protect a Bollywood heroine, with his missiles. Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, and others (Handel-esque high baroque meets techno score) have put out some awesomely-over-the-top promotional videos for missile programs … & the Iranians pretty much have cornered the market on hard-core missile wonk porn (& Photo Shopping when tests don’t fire ). The Israelis have taken it up a notch. One might almost imagine it as ‘Rick-rolling’ international arms dealer style: “Dinga Dinga Dee.” Anyone else able to name the missiles around which they are dancing? Looks like 2-short range Python 5’s horizontally placed, a partially obscured over-the-horizon Derby in the background, and an anti-tank SPIKE-ER that has been pimped out South-Asian style in front. Link blatantly stolen from StratPost. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Okay ... now pushing it back, which is what Diamond tries to do: why did China develop a more "oppressive" govenrment style compared to the relatively disunified nature of European governments? I see where you're going with this I think, but I still disagree. I think the rulers of China simply liked the system they had built. I don't think they lacked competition to innovate as Diamond would suggest, but their culture was more based on ancestor worship and maintaining the status quo, not upsetting the nature of things. Taoism. Which, ultimately is a about how to rule your kingdom (be that home or country) and a large part of that says to not go on "adventures" because they are expensive and lead to wars which leads to rebellion and an overall bad time. Contrast that with the west that seems obsessed with conquest. If you're obsessed with empire building, crusades and conquest of countries, you develop better weapons to do it. Again, this is part of Diamonds point, but I still think he gets the emphasis wrong. Um ... no, that's not Diamond's thesis. What you suggest is largely a cultural/constructivist explanation. Diamond's trying to find positivist factors when possible. Now you may argue that over-simplifies the course of human history ... and on a micro-scale, I agree completely. On the (relative) macroscale, less so. W/r/t social receptivity to technology, Diamond descirbes 4 factors of social receptivity, of which he asserts that inventiveness is not dependent on independent actors (heroic genius) but the receptivity of the society to innovation, to change, to progress. (1) Relative economic advantage. E.g., Wheels … independently invented in Mexico but used for toys as they had no large domesticated animals to hitch carts to in order to realize mechanical advantage over human porters. (2) Social value & prestige … e.g., Gatorade - most Americans who drink it don't need expensive salt "electrolyte" sugar-water. (3) Compatibility with vested interests of powerful & elites (Japanese swords vs guns) … or large amounts of people (QWERTY keyboard) (4) The ease with which advantages can be observed. To a military with only cross-bows, a cannon is immediately impressive. But beyond that still doesn't get to the *why* were a multiplex of disunified European states more amenable to technological inventiveness than a unified Chinese state developed around the single, large Yellow River Valley? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Okay ... now pushing it back, which is what Diamond tries to do: why did China develop a more "oppressive" govenrment style compared to the relatively disunified nature of European governments? What factor(s) caused a unified government in China that was less receptive to certain technological inventions whereas what allowed technological inventions (particulary w/r/t sea-faring) to develop or by adopted/adapted more readily in parts of Europe? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Yes. Research may be funded - doesn't mean it *will be* -- but research using those cell lines is not automatically excluded from NIH funding. It's my understanding the Dickey rider - if attached to subsequent HHS appropriation bills would prevent the creation of new cell lines through destruction of embryos. Non-destructive methods to create new cells line would be eligible. The DIckey amendment predates the 2001 EO *and* was attached to HHS appropriation bills after the 2001 EO. Iiirc, HHS funds are 3-yr money. The EO rescinds the previous EO. EOs can't rescind Congressional Law (which the rider became when the HHS appropriation bills were signed). /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Do you understand that what you cited (w/r/t Neandethal DNA) supports evolution? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

You could ... although that would be a normative rather than positivist argument. Diamond in trying to build a scientific theory doesn't invoke normatives. (Hanson is a cultural historian by training.) Could they? What inhibited them? In particular, what inhibited their being exploratory? (And yes, I am cognizant of the ideas being put forth that Chinese explorers 'discovered' the New World before Columbus.) Or colonizing? Diamond does offer explanations in the afterward to G,G,&S: "Why Europe, Not China?." His answer, not surprisingly, goes back to the different geography of Europe (lots of islands, medium-sized rivers, and coastlines) compared to the Yellow RIver Valley of China. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thank you! I've been thinking about how Diamond's theories are applicable to the increasingly globalized world recently. As the time between ages of technology decrease (e.g., time to adoption of a new technology is reducing dramatically - think about invention of writing about 3500BCE to paper ~100CE to printing press 1450CE to telephone 1870s to radio to tv to integrated circuit to internet), particularly to widespread adoption of new technology (e.g., 1M users) for information transmission and strorage, what does Diamond's thesis suggest w/r/t course of world history? I don't know ... that's what makes it fun ... and Diamond offers one framework for asking questions in a holistic way. To me, they're interesting questions to inspire and prompt me to think more deeply and broadly about the independent factors influencing large courses of human history -- rather than focusing on the minutae of the day-to-day. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

And it's contested and falsifiable. I.e., Diamond, an evolutionary biologist by training, is trying to provide a scientific theory (predictive, public, repeatable, testable, falsifiable) for the entire course of human history. It's not a peer-reviewed or hard-core scholarly work. (His publications of that sort were primarily on birds in New Guinea.) Most of the "criticisms" noted in the Wikipedia entry are acknoweldged in the book. It's also incredibly inter-disciplinary ... from STS (science and technology studies) to epidemiology to water geology. It's roughly analogous to Newtonian laws of motion. They don't explain things that occur as astronomical distances well nor at below the meso-scale (

Is that the map showing human migration beginning in Africa and how we dispersed? After that, it's Figure 4.1 Schematic of the chains of causation .... Completely agree. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

No. Research using cells lines created (derived) after 9 August 2001 are now eligible. There are lots of problems with the existing cells line due to age and storage -- that, perhaps just as much as the Bush admin EO, drove the development of IPS. That seems contrary to what you said here: Research using new cell lines that have been created since 9Aug2001 is now eligible for federal funding *but* not research creating new cell lines by methods that destroy embryos. New cell lines created that involved destruction of embryos would have been created without use of federal funding; the Dickey Amendment also only covers federally funded research. And then there is the nascent technique developed in 2008 to derive cells lines without destroying embryos. Like the IPS cells, that may be useful. Under the Bush admin EO, no federally funded work was possible that used cell lines potentially derived by that technique. That's not funding the creation of new cells lines through destruction of embryos. No contradiction. Those are just the two main changes; there are a few other that are even more complex -- a couple that I don't get but that are meaningful for those who do research, particularly into degenerative neurological diseases. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

No. Research using cells lines created (derived) after 9 August 2001 are now eligible. There are lots of problems with the existing cells line due to age and storage -- that, perhaps just as much as the Bush admin EO, drove the development of IPS. It also eliminated federal fudning for cell lines derived without harming the nascent embryo, a technique that was not 'discovered' until after the 2001 EO. Yes. It also doesn't impact work done outside the US (of course). And yes, the same thing can be said for a lot of research from synthetic biology to immunology to bionanotechnology to polymers that may have chemical and biological weapons applications. It's a tool in the metaphorical toolbox. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for the thoughtful, non-reactionary post.

Oy ... that's harsh. Otoh, that's sometimes the way I feel ... c'est la vie. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The Dickey amendment (added annually to the HHS Appropriation bill) prohibits the use of Federal funds for destruction of an embryo, i.e., for creation of stem cell lines. The President’s Executive Order allows Federal funding for research that utilize human embryonic stem cells but not for creation of those stem cells. The previous policy was no Federal funding for creation of stem cell lines and no Federal funding for research utilizing human embryonic stem cells, except for those cell lines created before 9 August 2001 - the new EO repeals that date. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The potential of these so called IPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells is not yet known. They may be as versatile as embryonic stem cells, but much more work on both types of cells will be needed before that can be determined. Now those who are opposed to government regulation or intervention on anything/everything may not care or may be opposed on principle ... there’s an argument that the reversal of the Bush administration EO closes an ethical loop-hole. We all recognize (I hope) that the result of President GW Bush's policy is that the embryonic stem cell research has taken place in the US, but essentially WITHOUT government regulation, without any policy, and without any oversight. Those researchers and institutions engaged in embryonic stem cell research, in terms of research using creation or use of new embryonic stem cell lines, have been self-regulating, depending primarily on the findings and reports and suggested guidance of such societies as the National Academy of Sciences and the International Society for Stem Cell Research to determine institutional policy. I don’t have any reason to suspect that there are any malevolent ‘mad scientist’ types out there engaged in stem cell research … but one tool was absent from the metaphorical toolbox. In his Executive Order, President Obama requests, “Within 120 days from the date of this order, the Secretary, through the Director of NIH, shall review existing NIH Guidance and other widely recognized safeguards, and issue new NIH guidance on such research that is consistent with this order.” Thus, by making Federal funds available to the research, the government (primarily the NIH) will now start to issue guidance on the appropriate use of the embryos/appropriate research. This is extremely important. It allows for a public debate in which scientists, medical researchers, and the public can get involved to create real policies and guidance. I believe that with this Executive Order there is now LESS risk that research that is ethically or morally questionable will be conducted. Now there will be some guidance from the government through the individual scientists, medical researchers, bio-ethicists, and theologians who will be directly and indirectly involved in the Rule-Making process. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

You mean these ones? The ones that Bush ordered? To be fair, while one may argue that the President is at some level notionally responsible for every Executive Branch decision, i.e., 'the Buck Stops here," it is unlikely that President GW Bush had significant substantive input into the design, requirements, or contract decision. The Navy Acquisition Executive at the time, Mr. John Young (he became the UnderSecretary for Acquisitions, Technology & Logistics in 2007), deserves the most credit or criticism, imo. At this point because the cost-overrun is so large, it's triggered a Nunn-McCurdy breach and regardless of what President Obama wants or doesn't want there will be a Congressionally-mandated review of the program. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

To start: I don’t know the program intimately enough to recommend specifics – whether to cancel the current contract, revise/re-work, or continue. I can ask questions tho'. If the Lockheed Martin project is cancelled or curtailed who will it impact most directly? Probably not the President, who has already said the current model is “perfectly adequate” to him. He called it an example of “the procurement process gone amok.” The contract was awarded in January 2005. The estimated cost has doubled in just over 3 years. Why? Have new requirements been added? (That's one common reason.) Or have the contractors encountered unexpected issues in executing the original design? (Another common reason.) Whose responsibility is it in each case? “Lockheed Martin Corp.’s presidential helicopter program is now projected to cost $13 billion, more than twice its original estimate. “The Pentagon, in a 15-page update on the program, blames the increased cost on delays and ‘unanticipated’ work. “The revised estimate -- 113 percent above the original projection of $6.1 billion -- would bring the average cost per helicopter to at least $470 million, including the expense for research and development. That’s more than Lockheed’s F-22, the most expensive fighter aircraft in U.S. history. “The president has vowed to curb billions of dollars in wasteful spending at the Defense Department, and the Pentagon is reviewing weapons programs for possible cancellation or delay as it puts together a fiscal 2010 budget. [NB: the DoD had already begun curtailing some, like the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS), as early as 2006 because of cost-overruns. Those are the same programs that generated much noise on the blog-o-sphere last fall because folks didn't understand that FCS was *a* specific program not a generic descriptor. He suggested "belt-tightening" of a program that has had 76% cost-overuns in a single year (I don't know off the top of my head the average per year), and he was criticized for it. - nerdgirl.] “Obama, at a White House summit on fiscal responsibility Feb. 23, suggested he doesn’t need a new helicopter. The current version ‘Marine One,’ as the presidential helicopter is known, is ‘perfectly adequate’ and doesn’t need to be replaced, he said. “Richard Aboulafia, an aircraft analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia, said the helicopter ‘was designed in a different budget environment when costs didn’t matter.’ To introduce another complicating factor: this is the same helicopter for which the navigation and flight management systems (avionics) were leaked – by one of the sub-contractors. The data was detected on an Iranian hosted server … so there may be more than just $$$ to consider in decision-making w/r/t the procurement. The details of those systems are highly classified. They should not have been on *any* unclassified network much less an Iranian one. At the same time almost a third (31%) of the respondents to my poll on domestic cyber security thought “no one” should be in charge, another 31% thought “someone else” (likely candidates private sector) should have authority. At the same time, the President’s nominee for USD(AT&L), Ash Carter, is being criticized because he’s not close enough to industry ... /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Agree that Diamond's work is fabulous and highly encourage all to read it. But Diamond does *not* espouse climate based explanations, i.e., that cold climate induced innovation. He challenges that explicitly in the prologue, "Yali's Question." He also challenges race-based explanations. Diamond explains the history of the world starting with geography. (Page 87 of the Norton edition has a great chart). His "ultimate factor" to explain history is the orientation of the continental access -- flora & fauna were domesticated and shared easier along horizontally-oriented continents (Eurasia). There also were -- by nothing other than coincidence as far as is known -- more large seeded wild grasses and domesticable species in the Eurasia area. Many domesticated plants and animal species (the "Major Five" and the "Minor Nine") drives shift from Paleolithic (hunter-gatherer) to Neolithic (early farmers). That creates food surplus & storage. That leads to higher populations. Large, dense, sedentary societies result. Large sedentary populations living close to domesticated animals & their feces are exposed infectious diseases, “the deadly gifts,” and develop limited immunity. Large populations get technology. Technology and resistance to diseases has determined course of history. That’s Diamond’s 470-page thesis in 147 words. Technology first developed in warm, Mediterranean climate of the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia and the Yellow River Valley of China ... plus Meso-America (but the other factors limited the latter from capitalizing on it). Acquisition by colder climates (e.g., northern Europe) was largely by borrowing, stealing, or forced upon them. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

This transit route began well before the deployment of bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Do you mean the physical existence of the transit route? Or do you mean shipments of materials and supplies for the the US military and NATO forces along those routes? Or do you mean that was the supply route used by the Soviets to move troops and supplies into Afghanistan in the 1980s? Yes, the route has existed for years, as has the silk road, that doesn't make it automatically accessible to NATO supply routes (imagine the ludicrous nature of that idea 40 years ago). /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I think you may be too generous. While Belize can be a tax haven for American ex-pats (along with other cool things), I've been thinking more along the line of the a state that truly has *really* low taxes because the infractructure is so degraded - Somalia. Self-interest is paramount. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

No worries. I've got a another Ralph Peters article and a TX Hammes piece ... more fodder for discussion.

Now, I'm cracking up because by the end; I'm thinking, "Didn't we just have a discussion on this? But here again, my opinion aligns somewhat with yours (or a quote you posted), "...from the point of view of the Taliban, there is no "crisis" in Afghanistan to be resolved. The only action needed is for the rest of the international community to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and to deal with them as such. Clearly they are the de facto rulers and they would like recognition of their legitimacy. It is the responsibility of the international community to help Afghanistan peacefully rebuild under the Taliban." If you have concluded that reflects my opinion then I have failed miserably in communication. [confused]- The source of the excerpted text is neither my own words nor something that I explicitly quoted. (I may have cited/linked to the primary text.) The quote is from a summary of a The Taliban and Afghanistan: Implications for Regional Security and Options for International Action, which was a conference held in 1998 (yes 11 years ago) by the USIP. The USIP summary notes (1) that it is not taken as a given & (2) provides much more context than the excerpt above, which is consonant with what I have written repeatedly that the situation in Afghanistan is complicated. The Taliban Laili Helms “Decades of foreign intervention have devastated Afghanistan, laying waste to more than 75 percent of the country. From 1978 until 1996, foreign intervention sharpened internal ethnic and ideological differences, tearing the country apart. During this time, Russia, Iran, the United States, and other countries ignored ethnically motivated massacres, rapes, and human rights abuses. Downplaying persistent and credible reports from nongovernmental organizations of human rights abuses by the Taliban, Helms attributed the recent international focus on the social conditions in Afghanistan to a singular cause: economic interests, and especially access to the potentially vast energy resources in the Caspian Basin region. “Helms painted a sympathetic portrait of life in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Afghans of all ethnicities welcome the Taliban as heroes who have restored peace to Afghanistan. Most of the country is now peaceful and disarmed, trade routes to Central Asia are beginning to prosper, the value of the currency has increased, and agriculture has improved. The Taliban are also effectively governing Afghanistan. They have secured all borders except a small portion of the border with Tajikistan, and control all major points of entry. “Helms claimed that the Taliban's government is accountable to the people and is representative of all ethnic groups. The majority of the government's cabinet members are from ethnic minorities, for example. The Taliban have restored Afghan culture, Afghan-style self-rule is implemented in the provinces, and the civil administration and justice system is based on Islamic and Afghan traditions. “Regarding terrorism, Helms asserts that it was the former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan. The Taliban inherited this problem, and would be happy to cooperate with bin Laden's extradition if the U.S. government or other interested parties could show evidence of his terrorist activities. “Efforts to isolate what should be considered the legitimate government of Afghanistan have been deleterious for the country, Helms argued. The Taliban want national unity based on the rule of law and civil society. They are not a fundamentalist group, and they are not anti-Western or anti-American. They do not represent a threat to their neighbors. The Taliban want an enduring peace, national security, and respect for Afghan beliefs and traditions. “From the point of view of the Taliban, there is no "crisis" in Afghanistan to be resolved. The only action needed is for the rest of the international community to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and to deal with them as such. Clearly they are the de facto rulers, and they would like recognition of their legitimacy. It is the responsibility of the international community to help Afghanistan peacefully rebuild under the Taliban, Helms contended. “Several panel members and audience members disputed Helms' portrayal of Afghanistan under the Taliban. Some cited press accounts, published reports, or personal experiences to depict a situation in which aid agencies have difficulty gaining access to vulnerable populations, girls are denied schooling, and ethnic minorities have in some instances been massacred . For the most part, women are not allowed to work, and are denied access to health care despite international pressure to force the Taliban to reverse themselves on the issue. “Helms responded that the Taliban are ready to work with donor countries to open universities for women, that conditions in the countryside are much safer than before the Taliban were in power, and that the reports of massacres are allegations that will be found untrue when the United Nations completes its investigations.” Clearly, we are either dancing to different music or reading a different folio, as my reference was to the larger context of need for security and stabilization to enable transition and reconstruction (SSTR) and effective strategic communications. The quoted section alone, as I read it, suggests a binary ‘light switch’ approach to national security/foreign policy (i.e., there are only two binary possible approaches): (1) an apologist, appeasement of the Taliban (remember they hate me more than you on a chromosomal basis) or (2) a full-out Fulda Gap style conventional assault (not completely dissimilar to what the Soviets attempted for 10 years). Neither is in the strategic interests of the US in my opinion. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for 'rest of the story' as one might say. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying