The first fully rational beings on the planet

"The first fully rational beings on the planet will surely be artificial intelligence machines" (author).

We should not fear machines that are more intelligent and rational than ourselves, just as we discovered that there is nothing frightening about locomotives that run much faster and are a thousand times more powerful than we are. Someone could build a machine capable of leveling towns, but none one did it. I have a premonition that thinking machines will be used to help seduce women and other sexual activities; after all, everything living organisms do is for reproduction.  

Protest

Manifestación, Antonio Berni, 1934. Foto: Gentileza Malba, Argentina.

Mnangagwa, the "Crocodile," sworn in as Zimbabwe president

Mnangagwa, the "Crocodile".

What can I add? except that I am impressed by his name and his avatar, the crocodile.

"Bibi" sounds babyish to me. It does not even approach the alarming neural impact of "Mnangagwa the Crocodile".

Aunt Genya Dead at 102

Aunt Genya arrived in Mandatory Palestine in the twenties or before from the Soviet Union. For some reason they left the country and lived a few years in Damascus, where she went to school. During the War of Independence, her perfect Syrian Arab became a rare resource and she was recruited into an organization that operated in the neighboring countries. She and her husband Juppah (a Hungarian-speaker)  spent their last years in a kibbutz. She was among the last of Israel's pioneer elite.
The pic is unrelated to her.

The Lebensraum Paradox

I always wondered about Germany's desire for more "living space" in the thirties, that ultimately led - among other motives - to its aggression against Russia. Among the other motives I count "opportunity", that according to Victor Davis Hanson, explains all the wars of the Ancient Greeks on.  Also, Nazis feared Communism, an international movement that saw as its duty to interfere in Germany's internal affairs. But from where the imperative of conquering more space? Germany was a large country, with excellent climate and agricultural lands, and with a rapidly declining population.

I found one possible explanation in Patrick Buchanan's latest article (about the Houtis of all Muslim sects). He mentions facts I had been unaware of. Quote:

Our aim is to “starve the whole population — men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound — into submission,” said First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. He was speaking of Germany at the outset of the Great War of 1914-1918. Americans denounced as inhumane this starvation blockade that would eventually take the lives of a million German civilians.

After the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, however, the starvation blockade was not lifted until Germany capitulated to all Allied demands in the Treaty of Versailles.

As late as March 1919, four months after the Germans laid down their arms, Churchill arose in Parliament to exult, “We are enforcing the blockade with rigor, and Germany is very near starvation.”

Buchanan holds the Allies responsible for German starvation, which is only half truth. Food was scarce everywhere. Yet that generation of Germans lived with a deep fear of starvation and may have felt that they needed the cereal growing lands in Ukraine and Russia. In spite of the fact that Communist Russia was selling them grains for German industrial products. That may explain the paradox of a rich country with falling population seeking "Lebensraum".

Surviving in an inflated world

Somebody paid 400 million dollars for an ugly painting by Michelangelo. OK, there are many collectors with much money out there and only one Michelangelo. Real estate is expensive beyond imagination, a two room derelict apartment in Tel Aviv sells for one million dollars. Digital tokens like bitcoin are inflated, because anybody who wants to transfer out money from countries like Venezuela and Brazil (and Israel) buys bitcoins and sells it in the USA.

In comparison, commodities and industrial products are stable and cheap, and stocks are reasonably priced. Industrial shares are cheap because they operate in a ferociously competitive environment and hardly survive. Interest rates are lower than the inflation rate, so there is nowhere to put one's savings.

TASE, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, is a failure. This year it is 30% behind the NASDAQ. The best companies, like Mylan, are leaving. Should I leave too?

Young Israeli Poets Believe in God

HaAretz is publishing a laudable anthology of young Israeli poets, edited by Beni Tziffer. The paper is shocked by what they see: The young generation believes in God! This dramatic change parallels the country's political turn to the right, rejecting the godless, leftist, socialist generation of their parents and grandparents.

Poets are important. I understood their worth when their portraits started to appear on Israel's new bank notes, with the despairing Nathan Alterman on the 200 shekel note (57 US$). It is quite possible that Ayala Glick, of the poem right, will decorate the 2,000 shekel note around 2050.

"When God betrayed me"

When God betrayed me the first time,
the leaves did not change their colors,
the cup of tea slowly cooled
no plates were broken

God lies to me with poker face
says that again will be late from the office
while I walk on my toes
to avoid waking

The heavens are lipstick red
the tea boils again
and the leaves
gods.

(J.: Note that gods and leaves sound the same in Hebrew. She was born in 1988 in Jerusalem and served in the elite 8200 intelligence unit. She is working on her doctorate in theoretical physics. Married + 1)