Friday, November 28, 2025

Most girls are single and many never marry

 

How to interpret this graph? It does not show that 50% of women never marry. It says that from the female population 18-44, half are still unmarried. Unsurprisingly, 90% of 18-year-olds are single, and it could well be that at age 44, all are married. If so, the graph is misleading and worthless.    

I worked with several nice women at the University of Tel Aviv, and never bedded any of them. In moments of unavoidable pre-intimacy, they talked (not to me but for themselves) about how difficult it had been for them to get married, and how they would never risk having an affair. The point is that I was not flirting; the girls were disciplining themselves - not me. Perhaps they were begging me not to try, but I was so naive that I never knew and never even tried.      

Elon Musk dixit

 


Nothing else matters if birth rate is far below replacement rate

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Zionist Robot

Mentibus - the first Israeli robot. Non-military. 170 cm 70 kg eyes 360 degrees. "Any customer can have a Mentibus painted any color that he wants so long as it is black." - misquoted from Henry Ford. 

Esthetically, White Optimus of TESLA is more attractive. Japanese skin-coloured sex robots seem even huggable. No one will fall in love with Mentibus.


V'ger progresses through the space-time fabric

Voyager I continues to explore the universe and is approaching 1 light day from Earth.  The universe's space-time fabric processes information at 299,388 km/s.  c in Planck space is 1. V'ger's cause-and-effect progress takes a full Earth day to reach here.

Its mission is to gather information and send it to Earth. In the sci-fi movie, while cruising the universe, it is captured by another civilization, and they add capabilities to become a massive, thinking object. V'ger comes back to Earth searching for its creator to discharge all its data.  

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Why debasement and what to do

 

Debasement refers to smooth inflation, and we are all feeling its effects. In times of inflation, where should you put your savings?

As an inflation hedge, Israeli real estate has historically performed very well. Real estate requires a long time horizon and comes with liquidity constraints and transaction costs.

After all, for high-end applications, silver is the way to go. Most conductive metal, and it serves as a monetary metal



Sunday, November 23, 2025

The gods loved barbecues


The Ancients believed the gods loved the aroma of burnt sacrifice.  When animals were sacrificed and burned on altars, the rising smoke was thought to carry the essence of the offering up to the gods. This created a mutually beneficial relationship between humans who ate the meat, while the gods received honor and the aromatic essence. The fragrant smoke demonstrated piety and maintained the relationship between mortals and immortals.

The site at Mt. Ebal had two occupation levels. Zertal calls the older occupation "level II" which he dates 1300 BC and the younger level I to 1250 BC.If this site is no older than 1300 BC, then none of it could be built by Joshua, because the exodus took place in 1400 BC. However this is a Hebrew altar built during the time of Deborah the Judge and underneath we believe is the actual altar of Joshua that should be dated to 1400 BC since a scarab from Tuthmosis III was found but wrongly dated to 1250 BC.

The Orthodox Jews maintain about one thousand shohatim - many of them in Argentina and Uruguay -, who sacrifice the cattle and ensure that the meat is kosher. Two thousand years have passed since the Temple's cohanim and levi'im were disbanded, but the Jewish priestly caste succeeded in maintaining its social position and extracting its divinely ordained share. Amazing!

Saturday, November 22, 2025

Seers



Herodotus shows this constantly throughout the Histories:  Both Greeks and Persians were deeply reliant on seers (manteis) and omens before major decisions, especially military ones.

Xerxes regularly consults Magi (the Persian priestly caste who served as seers) and pays attention to dreams and portents. Before crossing the Hellespont, there are elaborate rituals and divination. The Greeks are even more conspicuous about it - Spartan kings like Leonidas and later Pausanias, accompanied by seers, and they won't move armies without favorable sacrifices.

A striking example: at Plataea, the Spartans under Pausanias endure Persian arrow volleys while waiting for favorable omens from sacrifice. Men are dying around them, but they won't advance until the seer Tisamenus declares the signs are good. Only then do they attack.

The Athenians, too, consult Delphi about the Persian invasion, and the oracle's ambiguous prophecies about "wooden walls" become crucial to their strategy. The Seven against Thebes were led by the seer Amphiaraus (pic), who foresaw the death of all of them. 

What's interesting is that Herodotus presents this as universal behavior - not peculiarly Greek or Persian. Croesus consults oracles, the Egyptians have their own forms of divination, and the Scythians use willow rods. For Herodotus' world, the divine constantly intervenes in human affairs, and ignoring signs or seers leads to disaster. Those who disregard prophecies (like Croesus's misunderstanding of Delphi) pay dearly.

The Hebrews had the urim and tumim, but I am unsure what they were. I'll ask Claude.