Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

I lay claim to be the first to out the Lewis chessmen as fakes and the Immortal Game and the rest to be made up not played. But I don't mind accusations of vaingloriousness on my part.

[Pete Jones]

I perused Noggin and thought, "I feel like I've read this in Harper at some point."

Sometimes I find myself at midnight watching YouTube videos of chess matches, which I'm fascinated by but barely understand. I do not play chess, at least not since 8th grade, and I sometimes feel like I'm learning something through osmosis, like the equivalent of looking at Michael Jordan cards to learn good shooting form....I also know this is folly but I still watch

[Mick Harper]

I belatedly read the Noggin thread and discovered someone else had outed the Lewis chessmen though not as out-and-out fakes. Yes, I use them in one of my books. I forget which though I do not claim to be the discoverer of their fakeness.

But then I seldom do admit the things I write about are original to me. Not out of modesty--that'll be the day--but because it detracts from general authoritativeness. If readers think I 'got it off the internet' they'll be all ears even if it gets no further than that.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Grant]

Mick is playing 4D chess I know, but that won't stop me pointing out that Capablanca did become world champion in 1921, a title he held until 1927

[Mick Harper]

No, just plain wrong. I was mixing him up with Stirling Moss.

[Mick Harper]

Trump's attack on PBS is exceptionally interesting from an AE point of view. There is no question that PBS is staggeringly left-wing compared to the people who fund it--at least the bit that comes from the taxpayer. But is that enough to abolish it? (We can, I think, rule out all possibilities of restructuring it to be more moderate, or even downright Trumpist.)

[Mick Harper]

There is one form of crime that is becoming more and more prevalent because it is so difficult to combat. When someone from country A steals from someone in country B, it is actually in country A's interest to encourage the crime! The money benefits country A, the pain for the gain is strictly limited to country B.

It is true country A will become unpopular and that has a price but in the electronic age, when nobody can be absolutely sure it was country A, even that penalty can be avoided. It is no wonder these crimes have become 'industrialised'. Whole schools of crime have been set up in which the students are pretty much acting as call centres. The techniques are honed, the equipment comes free and it's all on a commission basis.

So what can be done? By country B, by the world generally? Not much. Country B is always First World, Country A is likely to be either Third World--Ghana, Nigeria, Thailand are big players--and hence everything is on eggshells. Or a First World one--notably Belarus, Russia--for whom unpopularity is strictly relative.

But why, if the crimes are so popular, aren't First World organised criminals getting in on the act? That's easy. The crime schools are scarcely hidden. They'd be closed down in a trice.

So it can be done. Will it be done? No. This is a new crime. It always takes forever for the forces of law'n'order to get their act together whenever it is anything even a little bit unfamiliar. They're still roaring around in cars chasing people with bags marked 'swag' and that sort of thing.

[Mick Harper]

So where have we reached in our excoriation of the rules-based world-order? ('Where have you reached, Mick, we're having none of it.') Any rules-based system will be presumed to be in favour of those who made the rules but, no matter, if it benefits others. But the sound of ladders being hauled up is unmistakable.

Notably because of the question of boundaries. Once the era of empires had passed and all states could be presumed to be sovereign, it was equally presumed that boundaries could not be changed, other than by consent. Except, as we have seen, that consent is never forthcoming. [Czechoslovakia seems to be the only exception.]

This was exceptionally vexing in the case of land empires which, when broken up, left land boundaries. Serbia, Russia and China have been epicentres of endless conflict. Little wonder they have tended to stick together--save in the case of the Russia/China border. Nor is it surprising that the last two have spearheaded the search for a new world order based on macht rather than rules.

It is wrong to denounce force just because it causes more direct misery than the rule of law. The ex-colonial boundaries of the sovereign states of Africa and the Middle East have caused endless misery when, maybe, a few wars might have produced a more efficacious end-product. None of the states of these parts are happy with what they started with and which therefore they still have and, it seems, doomed to continue with for all time.

But the fear is that, once you swap that for macht, you might end up with the old European model of endless wars. That did at least produce the 'nation-state', an exceptional contributor to the sum of human development. Something notably lacking in both Africa and the Middle East.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

The maritime trade sector is currently fundamental to supporting the world economy, my understanding is that a substantial majority of the goods we rely upon daily are transported at least in part via sea routes, when you consider not just the finished goods but the components, the raw materials and so on. Unless a nation holds self-sufficiency, maritime trade serves as the vital link that facilitates the exchange of goods, enabling long distance international commerce.

Take away free trade as a principle and what happens, companies and nations start to move back towards self sufficiency. This is Trump's idea, they will produce and manufacture locally, companies have no idea of the costs of importing, say, aluminium or plastic from China (your cola comes in a can, your toothpaste comes in a tube) so companies will eventually buy and produce American.

What you don't want, as a trading nation, is goods going across land having to clear multiple custom points. Aircraft cannot provide the volume.

In Wiley's mind the megaliths provided markers for the best long distance and short distance trading routes. It's your book so I will concede if I had this totally wrong. Maybe I read it as I wanted it to be so?

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

Conclusive proof that Wiley's memory is going. Never mind. I will have to try and rely on other skills, if only I can remember what they were.