Bad Ideas Never Die

 
Pope Leo XIV has issued his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity"), subtitled "On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence" — a comprehensive position paper on AI. Although the document concedes that technology is not "inherently evil," its thrust is unmistakable: AI is dangerous, it will displace human work, and it will bring dislocation and pain to society. Religion is generally conservative and fearful of change, so his position was predictable. Opposing change is a very bad idea, but then religion itself rests on bad ideas. Not that the alternatives have fared better — the French Revolution tried to extinguish Christianity and replace it with the cult of Reason, and failed.

The Pope is resurrecting the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, who diagnosed the cause of India's poverty as the introduction of industrial cloth — better and cheaper than the traditional handmade cottons that had allowed every Hindu to spin at home and earn some money. Gandhi convinced the country that mill-made cloth was the source of Indian poverty, and that a return to the charkha — the hand-held spinning wheel — would magically create wealth. As part of his swadeshi (self-sufficiency) movement, he obliged every member of the Indian National Congress to wear khadi, homespun cloth, and placed the charkha on the flag of the independence movement — thereby prolonging India's underdevelopment by eighty years.

Mao Tse-tung was infected by the same bad thinking. During the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), he rejected industrial steelworks in favor of millions of small "backyard furnaces," in which peasants melted down their own agricultural implements to produce abundant but worthless pig iron. The consequence was one of the greatest famines in human history.

All these low-technology solutions are bad ideas, rooted mostly in the feeling that high technology is out of reach. Now the Pope, however gently, is frightening people and preaching underdevelopment.

In Israel, paradoxically, we are lucky: we are forced to defend ourselves against some of the wealthiest countries in the world, which can buy the highest-technology weapons and turn them against us. This leaves us no room for "bad ideas" of the kind described above. We are compelled — even against our will — to adopt effective high technology, or perish. Necessity has spared us the luxury of romantic underdevelopment.

Discord in Iran

IRAN STATE TV CUTS OFF GHALIBAF LIVE, EXPOSING THE RIFT WITHIN ITS OWN REGIME. Iranian state TV abruptly cut off Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf during a live interview as he addressed critics opposing negotiations with the United States. State TV later claimed the second part of the interview will air tomorrow. Iran’s political wing is trying to manage negotiations. The IRGC hardliners are signaling war. 

No one knows who is in charge. 

Garcia Lorca

 Y que yo me la lleve al río

creyendo que era mozuela,
pero tenía marido.
Fue la noche de Santiago
y casi por compromiso.
Se apagaron los faroles
y se encendieron los grillos.
En las últimas esquinas
toqué sus pechos dormidos,
y se me abrieron de pronto
como ramos de jacintos.
El almidón de su enagua me
sonaba en el oído,
como una pieza de seda
rasgada por diez cuchillos
Sin luz de plata en sus copas
los árboles han crecido,
y un horizonte de perros
ladra muy lejos del río.

Pasadas las zarzamoras,
los juncos y los espinos,
bajo su mata de pelo
hice un hoyo sobre el limo.
Yo me quité la corbata.

Ella se quitó el vestido.
Yo el cinturón con revólver
Ella sus cuatro corpiños.
Ni nardos ni caracolas
tienen el cutis tan fino,
ni los cristales con luna
relumbran con ese brillo.
Sus muslos se me escapaban
como peces sorprendidos,
la mitad llenos de lumbre,
la mitad llenos de frío.
Aquella noche corrí
el mejor de los caminos,
montado en potra de nácar
sin bridas y sin estribos.
No quiero decir, por hombre,
las cosas que ella me dijo.
La luz del entendimiento
me hace ser muy comedido.
Sucia de besos y arena,
yo me la lleve del río.
Con el aire se batían las
espadas de los lirios.

Me porté como quien soy.
Como un gitano legítimo.
La regalé un costurero
grande de raso pajizo,
y no quise enamorarme
porque teniendo marido
me dijo que era mozuela
cuando la llevaba al río.

We learned Garcia Lorca in high school. This romance is so harmoniously constructed that I automatically learned it by heart and remember it. Google quoted it incorrectly, changing the words it considered offensive. In AI's view, the poem treats women as objects; "mozuela" means virgin, and in the end, she was not, which is the point of the poem, but meaningless in today's culture. The poem emphasizes her whiteness, which AI condemns as racist. And so on. I love Rioja Tempranillo wine and identify with Spain's past culture. 

Garcia Lorca was considered leftist and was homosexual. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, he was arrested by Nationalist (Franco's) forces in Granada and executed by firing squad, his body never found. The reasons were his association with leftist figures and homophobia. Franco's regime banned his work for years afterward. 

Polish colors

Each nation's folklore has its colors. Asians love Yellow/Greenish. Andean indians love strong magenta/violet tones (pic). I feel an affinity for the Polish red. Also, Polish folk songs sound best to my ears, not the Hungarian beating the boots -  heyyehuyya hey!

Argentine history: as taught and real

In the school, I learned about the INVASIONES INGLESAS of Buenos Aires in 1806 and the heroic resistance of the local patriots. Fake:  Beresford accepts his defeat (pic: "The English bite the dust of the defeat").

 It took me another 70 years to discover that the English had no intention of colonising Argentina; their motive was to seize the silver being exported to Spain through Buenos Aires, which they did with no resistance. Got the treasure and left. A few English soldiers deserted and married into the local aristocracy. Generations of Argentine children were taught that the British invaders had been completely defeated, so it is no surprise they expected to occupy the Falkland Islands easily. The Argentine Army surrendered as soon as the Royal Marines arrived.

 The prize carried off by the Narcissus to London consisted of more than 28300 kilograms of pure silver coins.  The treasure was divided into eighths according to the British Navy rules. Beresford and Popham took home the lion's share and became very wealthy. 

The Bank of England recorded 27 tons, 17 hundredweight, and 4 lbs of silver. Those are avoirdupois units (the ton/hundredweight system), so:

• 27 long tons × 2,240 lb = 60,480 lb
• 17 cwt × 112 lb = 1,904 lb
• 4 lb = 4 lb
• Total ≈ 62,388 lb avoirdupois ≈ 28,300 kg (28.3 tonnes)

Converted to troy ounces (how silver is priced): 28,300 kg ÷ 31.103 g = roughly 909,000–910,000 troy ounces. Silver is trading at roughly $59 per troy ounce right now — so the melt value of that hoard today:

≈ 910,000 troy oz × ~$59/oz ≈ $53–54 million USD (2026).

In actual pieces of eight (Spanish reales), it was about one million dollars (the sign $ means Spanish dollar). 

Bayer Saved from Ruin

 THE SUPREME COURT JUST HANDED Bayer Corporation—and its wholly owned subsidiary Monsanto—a major victory. In an 7–2 decision, the Roberts Court ruled that the moment the Environmental Protection Agency approved Roundup’s label, the company bore no responsibility for what the product did to the people who used it. With that, Missouri farmer John Durnell’s quest to get compensation for the cancer he says Roundup caused screeched to a halt—along with the claims of about two hundred thousand other plaintiffs. The halls of justice are now closed to them.

At least for now, America has evaded the environmentalist craze. Bayer is a good agrochemical company. It is a treasure for farmers everywhere. 

Breaking through the barrier of fear

 
Netanyahu said that the State of Israel is stronger than ever, and this is not only reflected in the regional arena but also in the national consciousness: "We changed the rules of the game in our region from the ground up, but above all, we changed ourselves." He claimed that Israel "managed to break through the barrier of fear with initiative and aggression."

Per contra, HaAretz opposition fishwrap, writes:

A Collapsing Society: Israel Suffers a National Mental Crisis Due to the War