I cannot believe the likes of Rubio, Waltz and Kellogg will nod along indefinitely with what this administration is doing in Washington. There has to be a breaking point.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
I wonder how long it will be until a major world leader states plainly that “America is now our enemy”. It surely can’t be long.
We have a major world leader called Keir Starmer. What he says is complicted by some hard facts. These facts include the facility the new enemy has to keep his nuclear installations in Suffolk, and his contracts to maintain your own. This places USA in a slightly different position from China, Russia, Iran etc.
The extent to which this is a global nightmare has yet to come home to us, and it won't be long before talk turns to how USA politics and the institutions of civil society might deal with the matter internally. No-one else in the west possibly can do it.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to comprehend that everything Sir K and the government say and do is under the constraints mentioned here, and a million more, including stuff we can't know exists. A government of national unity would be entirely understandable. But we will be slow to go that way, as it rather lets the cat out of the bunker about where we stand.
You've expressed much more effectively than I could what I think is the obvious next question in this debacle: what will the Americans do about this? It seems to me that the American public are the only ones with any agency to stop Trump. Will they do it before it's too late? It is, I think, the defining question of our times.
What do you suggest they do?
Trump is in power. He can't be removed except by impeachment, which the Senate won't agree to;
He has total power due to immunity, granted by the courts;
He's clearly completely insane, but there's no mechanism to remove him as the only ones who can so certify him are even madder;
Even if he did, his replacement is clearly on the Kremlin's payroll;
And he's there for another four years.
The real issue is the quite shocking decision of the American public to elect a man who was a convicted criminal, a known tax cheat, a confirmed sex offender, a failed president, an open traitor and boasting about various criminal acts he would commit when elected on campaign.
They knew all this and still voted for him. Why do we assume the stupid twats care about the damage he's doing to the world *and to them?* And even if they do - well, we're back to, there's nothing that can actually be done about it.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Indeed even though it was clearly baloney there are still plenty around the world who believe it. More so in Russia than anywhere else judging by the articles and papers still written about it.
I cannot believe the likes of Rubio, Waltz and Kellogg will nod along indefinitely with what this administration is doing in Washington. There has to be a breaking point.
They broke long ago.
Either way we've got to be cultivating the pro Brits in the Trump regime. Get their advice on how best to deal with Trump. Hopefully this is what Mandelson is doing......
I wonder how long it will be until a major world leader states plainly that “America is now our enemy”. It surely can’t be long.
We have a major world leader called Keir Starmer. What he says is complicted by some hard facts. These facts include the facility the new enemy has to keep his nuclear installations in Suffolk, and his contracts to maintain your own. This places USA in a slightly different position from China, Russia, Iran etc.
The extent to which this is a global nightmare has yet to come home to us, and it won't be long before talk turns to how USA politics and the institutions of civil society might deal with the matter internally. No-one else in the west possibly can do it.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to comprehend that everything Sir K and the government say and do is under the constraints mentioned here, and a million more, including stuff we can't know exists. A government of national unity would be entirely understandable. But we will be slow to go that way, as it rather lets the cat out of the bunker about where we stand.
You've expressed much more effectively than I could what I think is the obvious next question in this debacle: what will the Americans do about this? It seems to me that the American public are the only ones with any agency to stop Trump. Will they do it before it's too late? It is, I think, the defining question of our times.
What do you suggest they do?
Trump is in power. He can't be removed except by impeachment, which the Senate won't agree to;
He has total power due to immunity, granted by the courts;
He's clearly completely insane, but there's no mechanism to remove him as the only ones who can so certify him are even madder;
Even if he did, his replacement is clearly on the Kremlin's payroll;
And he's there for another four years.
The real issue is the quite shocking decision of the American public to elect a man who was a convicted criminal, a known tax cheat, a confirmed sex offender, a failed president, an open traitor and boasting about various criminal acts he would commit when elected on campaign.
They knew all this and still voted for him. Why do we assume the stupid twats care about the damage he's doing to the world *and to them?* And even if they do - well, we're back to, there's nothing that can actually be done about it.
They could vote for democrats in the midterms but they probably won't. A former US colleague told me the people he knew would crawl over broken glass to vote for Trump, hence I cashed out on Harris. These are intelligent people apart from their support for Trump and evangelical belief in a white cloud fairy. I would not bet against them doubling down on this next time, blaming their lives turning to shit on woke, DEI and the blob still existing.
Whatever goes wrong, it can't be Trump's fault, he's only the President.
He's very much at the level where if people want to criticise him they have to blame advisers or people misinterpreting his wishes. Even if he did acknowledge a mistake (I accept this is an alternative universe idea) those people would not admit it.
The Tsar is good, the Boyars are bad; or if only the Fuhrer knew. If that’s the mindset, and it probably is, things are really very bad already.
The engineers working on Tempest will be chuffed, too.
Yes, no chance of that being cancelled now. If anything the MoD should be initiating a spin-off project to use as many Tempest parts as possible in a new VTOL fighter. Even if Trump doesn't disable the existing F-35Bs, buying more beyond the current batch of 48 now looks deeply unwise.
About 15% of each F35 is produced in the UK - and more by UK companies outside the UK. So I think we'll be ok.
Yep. Bricking the UK's F-35s would result in production grinding to a halt and export sales doing likewise. Hopefully the CEO of Lockheed-Martin can explain that to Trump is suitably simplistic language.
But we really can't buy any more unless the US hands over everything we need to operate and maintain them independently - a self-hosted version of the ALIS software, all the CAD files, firmware source code, etc. I don't see them doing any such thing while the orange fool is in charge.
I cannot believe the likes of Rubio, Waltz and Kellogg will nod along indefinitely with what this administration is doing in Washington. There has to be a breaking point.
Hopefully some will find their nerve again. But Trump has shown that such people will lose their bodyguards and clearances at a minimum, and that is implicitly a threat.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
Reminds me of Norman Davies' observation in Vanished Kingdoms
Many factors contributed to the Soviet Union’s downfall. They include defeat in Afghanistan, an unsustainable arms race, financial bankruptcy, laggardly technology, sclerotic political structures, a discredited ideology, a generation gap between rulers and the ruled and much else besides; discussion of them fills any number of weighty tomes, but none in itself gives a sufficient explanation.
The essence lies deeper, and is not complicated.
The Soviet system was built on extreme force and extreme fraud. Practically everything Lenin and the Leninists did was accompanied by killing; practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
The bigger problem was not finding reserves, but development targets. The same was true under Saddam. The Iraqi oilfields had ridiculously low production targets. Reason being, if you missed them, you'd get taken out and shot. So you kept them crazy safe. I have spoken to these Iraqi technicians. I imagine much the same happened under Stalin.
Released from that, the fields were capable of producing at way higher levels.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
Reminds me of Norman Davies' observation in Vanished Kingdoms
Many factors contributed to the Soviet Union’s downfall. They include defeat in Afghanistan, an unsustainable arms race, financial bankruptcy, laggardly technology, sclerotic political structures, a discredited ideology, a generation gap between rulers and the ruled and much else besides; discussion of them fills any number of weighty tomes, but none in itself gives a sufficient explanation.
The essence lies deeper, and is not complicated.
The Soviet system was built on extreme force and extreme fraud. Practically everything Lenin and the Leninists did was accompanied by killing; practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies.
I guess not all academics are lefty nostalgists.
Communism can never, ever work. Want proof? See the 16 hour trap for people on benefits in the U.K.
I was checking out a local ReformUK facebook page to see if they had info on candidates standing in May. Weirdly, most of the posts I could see before it tried to get me to log in (I don't have a Facebook account) had the first or top comment simply saying 'Reform' or 'Vote Reform'.
I get the sentiment, but it's the parties own page, feels a bit redundant, as if the first post on LabourList articles was just Labour, or the first post on a PB Header the literal words 'Unrelated comment'.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some many many many times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely lots won't be and lots will be.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
I can’t believe we are revisiting this discussion again, when so much of it went over your head the first time.
Days back, we established that any reader of this forum could, were their entire family tree spread out before them, trace millions of lines of direct descent from any person in the Dark Ages whose line hasn’t died out entirely. We also established that any claim to be able to evidence a single one of these likely ten million lines of descent was more likely than not to be false, at even a very low chance per generation of infidelity and the rest.
Those above suggesting that this is just maths without any corroborating evidence missed the point that it is well supported by genetic testing. Every Native American, for example, shares a common ancestor with every European if you go back just three thousand years.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
I can’t believe we are revisiting this discussion again, when so much of it went over your head the first time.
Days back, we established that any reader of this forum could, were their entire family tree spread out before them, trace millions of lines of direct descent from any person in the Dark Ages whose line hasn’t died out entirely. We also established that any claim to be able to evidence a single one of these likely ten million lines of descent was more likely than not to be false, at even a very low chance per generation of infidelity and the rest.
Those above suggesting that this is just maths without any corroborating evidence missed the point that it is well supported by genetic testing. Every Native American, for example, shares a common ancestor with every European if you go back just three thousand years.
Whatever you do don't mention the Monty Hall problem to Leon. His head will explode.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
Reminds me of Norman Davies' observation in Vanished Kingdoms
Many factors contributed to the Soviet Union’s downfall. They include defeat in Afghanistan, an unsustainable arms race, financial bankruptcy, laggardly technology, sclerotic political structures, a discredited ideology, a generation gap between rulers and the ruled and much else besides; discussion of them fills any number of weighty tomes, but none in itself gives a sufficient explanation.
The essence lies deeper, and is not complicated.
The Soviet system was built on extreme force and extreme fraud. Practically everything Lenin and the Leninists did was accompanied by killing; practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies.
I guess not all academics are lefty nostalgists.
It is worrying how much of that could apply now to Trump's America
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
Reminds me of Norman Davies' observation in Vanished Kingdoms
Many factors contributed to the Soviet Union’s downfall. They include defeat in Afghanistan, an unsustainable arms race, financial bankruptcy, laggardly technology, sclerotic political structures, a discredited ideology, a generation gap between rulers and the ruled and much else besides; discussion of them fills any number of weighty tomes, but none in itself gives a sufficient explanation.
The essence lies deeper, and is not complicated.
The Soviet system was built on extreme force and extreme fraud. Practically everything Lenin and the Leninists did was accompanied by killing; practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies.
I guess not all academics are lefty nostalgists.
It is worrying how much of that could apply now to Trump's America
Producing material for scathing put downs by future historians is something they are very effective at.
It's that kind of low res footage that could be any time from the 60s to the 90s, and only car type can be an indication of which.
Indeed. I was dating it by the white VW Golf convertible. It wasn't high-res enough to know if the girl crossing the road in jeans was wearing stonewashed jeans and/or had a shaggy perm or tons of hair product.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
The bigger problem was not finding reserves, but development targets. The same was true under Saddam. The Iraqi oilfields had ridiculously low production targets. Reason being, if you missed them, you'd get taken out and shot. So you kept them crazy safe. I have spoken to these Iraqi technicians. I imagine much the same happened under Stalin.
Released from that, the fields were capable of producing at way higher levels.
Within a few years of communism ending, agricultural yields exploded. Probably because all the idiots were off stealing from the fossil fuel industry. The farmers simply upgraded to sanity.
Some collective farms had had crop yields below the yields in 1914….
US has stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine.
So when U.S. Key Hole reconnaissance satellites see Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at power plants and hospitals being loaded on to Tu-95’s in Russia, they won’t be warning Ukraine in advance. Nice, another absolutely unconscionable decision. https://x.com/ELINTNews/status/1897303126698549276
Trump is effectively using civilian lives as leverage for his minerals deals.
No pretence they'd be getting (probably worthless anyway) security guarantees in exchange for the "minerals deal". Just sign it or we're abandoning you. Blackmail, pure and simple.
Zelensky has never had any choice but to sign. Even if the other countries involved stumped up heaps of extra cash, we don't have the infrastructure and the kit to take over from the US as the main supplier.
However, whoever signs up to surrender territory to the Russians after losing so many lifes fighting for it, will not survive politically in Ukraine. Once he signs, it will be the end of Zelensky's Presidency.
What Trump and Vance's hardballing has done, whether by accident or design, has given Zelensky a shred of dignity to say "I tried - it was the end of the line - they even cut off the Himars etc.". That won't get him re-elected but it does perhaps soften the blow and enhance his reputation.
You can almost taste the glee as you write those words.
There's no glee. I am in the position of wanting the war to end, but on terms that guarantee the future security (and viability and prosperity) of Ukraine. That has been my position for about two years - it hasn't changed.
Yea, it is a similar view to that held by Oswald Mosely and Lord Halifax.
Why is a dispassionate assessment of the current situation in Ukraine so difficult for PBers to digest.
Whilst some get too passionate and it may affect their assessments, not all 'dispassionate' assessments are as dispassionate as they may claim, and it is absolutely reasonable to point that out if people think that is what is happening, and I think it is. Not all 'realpolitik' positions are, in fact, pragmatic realpolitik either.
Yes. The passionate assessment is that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. I think we all agree on that? The dispassionate assessment is that Russia is in a uniquely beatable position and through the west assisting Ukraine we have the opportunity to weaken a hostile force. All it takes is the commitmemt to supply materiel and intelligence and logistics, and it is fully in our interests to do so. It is strange when people (whether posters on here or politicians) are trying to discourage our friends and encourage our enemies, and makes us question whose side they are on.
Russia is the aggressor, that is certainly true. They have done wicked things, that is also true. I don't agree with the terminology of good guys and bad guys because the truth usually gets trampled over in that set up. We need to be able to discuss the wrong-doing of the 'good guys' and see the humanity of the 'bad guys' sometimes. Life isn't a film. We haven't been able to do that freely on PB without being accused of treason in some form, which is a loathsome accusation.
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
I cannot believe the likes of Rubio, Waltz and Kellogg will nod along indefinitely with what this administration is doing in Washington. There has to be a breaking point.
They broke long ago.
Either way we've got to be cultivating the pro Brits in the Trump regime. Get their advice on how best to deal with Trump. Hopefully this is what Mandelson is doing......
The problem is, yes, that's useful. But we more or less know what you have to do to deal with him. Starmer did it pretty masterfully. Flatter the vain old fool and convince him you've given him something, and what you really want is his idea. I think it was the EU last time who convinced him to not go tonto on tariffs by offering to put some on Chinese products they were going to anyway.
The problem is that he's capricious and has the mind of a goldfish so the moment you get back on the plane you're at the mercy of whoever has his ear now. And whereas in Trump's first term that was a bunch of Republican old hands who could at least talk him down from his worst ideas or convert them into less damaging ones. This time the people around him are genuine lunatics, incompetent fools, grifters, hardline extremists, and people who've had their minds poisoned by Russian propaganda and the biggest sewer on the internet.
So of course you do all the right things for "dealing" with him and then he goes and does the mad thing anyway as the people who have permanent access to him are some of the most poisonous people on the planet. That's especially a problem when we've got our own allies in Europe and the Commonwealth we can't sell down the river for America's insanity.
One just hopes we've got feelers out to Beijing as this is all going to end very badly indeed.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some a thousand or even a million of times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely some alcohol be then won't be and a lot will be.
You are still missing that you cannot simply factor two. People live in arrears and meet people within those areas. Further back in time the more
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some many many many times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely lots won't be and lots will be.
Those numbers assume random selection of partners across the entire population which is not a real thing, as the author of the studies says.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
I can’t believe we are revisiting this discussion again, when so much of it went over your head the first time.
Days back, we established that any reader of this forum could, were their entire family tree spread out before them, trace millions of lines of direct descent from any person in the Dark Ages whose line hasn’t died out entirely. We also established that any claim to be able to evidence a single one of these likely ten million lines of descent was more likely than not to be false, at even a very low chance per generation of infidelity and the rest.
Those above suggesting that this is just maths without any corroborating evidence missed the point that it is well supported by genetic testing. Every Native American, for example, shares a common ancestor with every European if you go back just three thousand years.
Whatever you do don't mention the Monty Hall problem to Leon. His head will explode.
I don't think @leon could possibly grasp even the faintest notion of understanding that.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
nieces, nephews, or cousins are not descendents of any kind even though they are related by blood via antecedants (e.g. common grandparents)
Is that the strict definition? Fair enough if so, I was using it more colloquially - but still fairly, I reckon
A niece will have about 25% of the DNA of her uncle, which makes her a quasi-descendant, to my mind. This is also observed in nature, where uncles and aunts invest in nieces/nephews in terms of time and money, because it makes genetic sense to do so. You are thereby helping your genes to persist in your descendants, even if the descent is not directly parent to child
You have about 25% of the DNA of your maternal grandfather. You are still a direct descendant of him.
You are obviously not a direct descendant, or any kind of descendant, of your niece.
The West doing almost nothing about Putin invading Crimea was probably the biggest mistake.
It couldn't do much I suppose and like most people I expect I went along with the view that anything too direct would be counterproductive. But after 2022 nations appeared to realise that had been a mistake, given what it led to.
US has stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine.
So when U.S. Key Hole reconnaissance satellites see Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at power plants and hospitals being loaded on to Tu-95’s in Russia, they won’t be warning Ukraine in advance. Nice, another absolutely unconscionable decision. https://x.com/ELINTNews/status/1897303126698549276
Trump is effectively using civilian lives as leverage for his minerals deals.
No pretence they'd be getting (probably worthless anyway) security guarantees in exchange for the "minerals deal". Just sign it or we're abandoning you. Blackmail, pure and simple.
Zelensky has never had any choice but to sign. Even if the other countries involved stumped up heaps of extra cash, we don't have the infrastructure and the kit to take over from the US as the main supplier.
However, whoever signs up to surrender territory to the Russians after losing so many lifes fighting for it, will not survive politically in Ukraine. Once he signs, it will be the end of Zelensky's Presidency.
What Trump and Vance's hardballing has done, whether by accident or design, has given Zelensky a shred of dignity to say "I tried - it was the end of the line - they even cut off the Himars etc.". That won't get him re-elected but it does perhaps soften the blow and enhance his reputation.
You can almost taste the glee as you write those words.
There's no glee. I am in the position of wanting the war to end, but on terms that guarantee the future security (and viability and prosperity) of Ukraine. That has been my position for about two years - it hasn't changed.
Yea, it is a similar view to that held by Oswald Mosely and Lord Halifax.
Why is a dispassionate assessment of the current situation in Ukraine so difficult for PBers to digest.
Whilst some get too passionate and it may affect their assessments, not all 'dispassionate' assessments are as dispassionate as they may claim, and it is absolutely reasonable to point that out if people think that is what is happening, and I think it is. Not all 'realpolitik' positions are, in fact, pragmatic realpolitik either.
Yes. The passionate assessment is that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. I think we all agree on that? The dispassionate assessment is that Russia is in a uniquely beatable position and through the west assisting Ukraine we have the opportunity to weaken a hostile force. All it takes is the commitmemt to supply materiel and intelligence and logistics, and it is fully in our interests to do so. It is strange when people (whether posters on here or politicians) are trying to discourage our friends and encourage our enemies, and makes us question whose side they are on.
Russia is the aggressor, that is certainly true. They have done wicked things, that is also true. I don't agree with the terminology of good guys and bad guys because the truth usually gets trampled over in that set up. We need to be able to discuss the wrong-doing of the 'good guys' and see the humanity of the 'bad guys' sometimes. Life isn't a film. We haven't been able to do that freely on PB without being accused of treason in some form, which is a loathsome accusation.
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
Russia is China's most significant geopolitical partner. To pretend they are wholly separate threats is silly.
The West doing almost nothing about Putin invading Crimea was probably the biggest mistake.
Actually to be fair the West (UK and USA at least) did quite a bit after Crimea, but most of it behind the scenes.
Ironically had Putin marched straight on Kyiv in 2014 it would almost certainly have rapidly fallen, in days, as he'd planned this time - but post-Crimea we'd invested a fortune building up Ukraine's forces to the point they were able to repel Russia.
Its just a shame that the Americans have elected a President who wants to hand Russia a lifeline now from this war they're losing otherwise.
You’re absolutely right to zero in on the exponential math - it’s a seductive idea, you old Ventnor pooch-screwer. If you double your ancestors each generation (2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc.), by 33 generations (roughly 1,000 years back to Rollo’s time), you’d theoretically have 2^33, or about 8.6 billion ancestors. That’s way more than the population of Europe then (30–40 million), suggesting everyone’s family tree overlaps massively, including with Rollo. So why isn’t everyone a direct descendant? That, @ianb2, is where the confounders - those pesky real-world wrinkles! - break your simplistic maths. Here’s what throws it off:
The exponential model assumes every ancestor is unique, but in reality, family trees collapse because people marry cousins or within small communities. By 1,000 years ago, you’re related to the same people multiple times over - your 8.6 billion slots don’t mean 8.6 billion different individuals. Rollo might be in that collapsed pool for some, but only if your ancestors crossed paths with his descendants (mostly Norman nobility). If your lineage stayed in, say, rural Bulgaria, no
2 Geographic and Social Isolation
Rollo’s influence was concentrated in Normandy, then spread via noble marriages. Peasants, who were most of the population, rarely mingled with aristocracy or moved far. Isolated groups - like the Sami in Scandinavia, Basques in Spain, or dog-preferrers anywhere - no
3 Lineage Extinction
Not every child has kids. Some people find it hard to make any friends, and are forced to have only pets. Likewise some of Rollo’s descendants died out - wars, plagues (like the Black Death), or just bad luck pruned branches
4 Uneven Reproductive Success
Nobles like Rollo had more kids who survived (wealth, power, better food). Peasants often didn’t - famine, disease, zoophilia, or celibacy (monks, nuns) cut their lines short. Rollo’s descendants dominate the surviving noble gene pool, but the broader population? Nope
5 Time and Specificity
By 33 generations, you share ancestors with tons of people from 900 CE - but which ones? Rollo’s just one guy. The “everyone’s related” idea works for a generic ancestor pool, not a specific person
6 Migration and Barriers
Europe had walls - literal and cultural. Mountains (Alps, Pyrenees), seas, and less attractive dogs slowed gene flow. Rollo’s line didn’t hop the Carpathians. Soz boz Mr B2
Why the Math Fails
The 2^33 figure is a maximum potential, not a reality. For Rollo to be a direct ancestor, your lineage needs a clear, unbroken chain through his kids, their kids, etc., intersecting your tree. The math suggests shared ancestry with someone from his era, but pinning it to Rollo requires he or his heirs hooked up with your specific forefathers So no, the brute maths is seductive: like that Labrador at the end of your road - but it is wrong
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
nieces, nephews, or cousins are not descendents of any kind even though they are related by blood via antecedants (e.g. common grandparents)
Is that the strict definition? Fair enough if so, I was using it more colloquially - but still fairly, I reckon
A niece will have about 25% of the DNA of her uncle, which makes her a quasi-descendant, to my mind. This is also observed in nature, where uncles and aunts invest in nieces/nephews in terms of time and money, because it makes genetic sense to do so. You are thereby helping your genes to persist in your descendants, even if the descent is not directly parent to child
You have about 25% of the DNA of your maternal grandfather. You are still a direct descendant of him.
You are obviously not a direct descendant, or any kind of descendant, of your niece.
The West doing almost nothing about Putin invading Crimea was probably the biggest mistake.
Actually to be fair the West (UK and USA at least) did quite a bit after Crimea, but most of it behind the scenes.
Ironically had Putin marched straight on Kyiv in 2014 it would almost certainly have rapidly fallen, in days, as he'd planned this time - but post-Crimea we'd invested a fortune building up Ukraine's forces to the point they were able to repel Russia.
Its just a shame that the Americans have elected a President who wants to hand Russia a lifeline now from this war they're losing otherwise.
It seems that Trump wants to hand Ukraine to Russia . I expect next to go will be Starlink .
The UK is in such a difficult position with so much of our defence linked with the USA so we have to carry on this charade that the US is still an ally .
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
I can’t believe we are revisiting this discussion again, when so much of it went over your head the first time.
Days back, we established that any reader of this forum could, were their entire family tree spread out before them, trace millions of lines of direct descent from any person in the Dark Ages whose line hasn’t died out entirely. We also established that any claim to be able to evidence a single one of these likely ten million lines of descent was more likely than not to be false, at even a very low chance per generation of infidelity and the rest.
Those above suggesting that this is just maths without any corroborating evidence missed the point that it is well supported by genetic testing. Every Native American, for example, shares a common ancestor with every European if you go back just three thousand years.
Whatever you do don't mention the Monty Hall problem to Leon. His head will explode.
The West doing almost nothing about Putin invading Crimea was probably the biggest mistake.
Actually to be fair the West (UK and USA at least) did quite a bit after Crimea, but most of it behind the scenes.
Ironically had Putin marched straight on Kyiv in 2014 it would almost certainly have rapidly fallen, in days, as he'd planned this time - but post-Crimea we'd invested a fortune building up Ukraine's forces to the point they were able to repel Russia.
Its just a shame that the Americans have elected a President who wants to hand Russia a lifeline now from this war they're losing otherwise.
It seems that Trump wants to hand Ukraine to Russia . I expect next to go will be Starlink .
The UK is in such a difficult position with so much of our defence linked with the USA so we have to carry on this charade that the US is still an ally .
The UK is in a difficult position and calm heads are needed not to sever our military closeness to the US but buy the time to diversify away from the US
Careful diplomacy with the US is in our best interest, no matter how untasteful, but they can never be trusted again
The West doing almost nothing about Putin invading Crimea was probably the biggest mistake.
Actually to be fair the West (UK and USA at least) did quite a bit after Crimea, but most of it behind the scenes.
Ironically had Putin marched straight on Kyiv in 2014 it would almost certainly have rapidly fallen, in days, as he'd planned this time - but post-Crimea we'd invested a fortune building up Ukraine's forces to the point they were able to repel Russia.
Its just a shame that the Americans have elected a President who wants to hand Russia a lifeline now from this war they're losing otherwise.
It seems that Trump wants to hand Ukraine to Russia . I expect next to go will be Starlink .
The UK is in such a difficult position with so much of our defence linked with the USA so we have to carry on this charade that the US is still an ally .
The UK is in a difficult position and calm heads are needed not to sever our military closeness to the US but buy the time to diversify away from the US
Careful diplomacy with the US is in our best interest, no matter how untasteful, but they can never be trusted again
We trusted them before, even after fighting wars against them earlier. We can trust them again in the future, if they succeed in expelling the Muskovites from the body politic.
Obviously, in the meantime, diplomacy often involves doing what you can with the leaders of countries who are not allies. The US is a massively important country, and British diplomats have to do the best they can to get the best from the relationship with them.
The engineers working on Tempest will be chuffed, too.
Yes, no chance of that being cancelled now. If anything the MoD should be initiating a spin-off project to use as many Tempest parts as possible in a new VTOL fighter. Even if Trump doesn't disable the existing F-35Bs, buying more beyond the current batch of 48 now looks deeply unwise.
About 15% of each F35 is produced in the UK - and more by UK companies outside the UK. So I think we'll be ok.
Yep. Bricking the UK's F-35s would result in production grinding to a halt and export sales doing likewise. Hopefully the CEO of Lockheed-Martin can explain that to Trump is suitably simplistic language.
But we really can't buy any more unless the US hands over everything we need to operate and maintain them independently - a self-hosted version of the ALIS software, all the CAD files, firmware source code, etc. I don't see them doing any such thing while the orange fool is in charge.
It's Trump. Rationality or reason does not apply .
"Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick Under new sentencing rules there is blatant discrimination against straight white men.
Starmer sneered at those who said we have a two-tier justice system. Rayner labelled them ‘conspiracy theorists’.
But here it is in black and white.
Two-tier justice under two-tier Keir."
He’s really good at this. Lucid, direct, aggressive, and he looks like the lead singer of the Killers
The Tories need him as leader. He’s probably the most cogent persuasive leadership candidate since Cameron - tho he’s appealing to a very different electorate
The West doing almost nothing about Putin invading Crimea was probably the biggest mistake.
Actually to be fair the West (UK and USA at least) did quite a bit after Crimea, but most of it behind the scenes.
Ironically had Putin marched straight on Kyiv in 2014 it would almost certainly have rapidly fallen, in days, as he'd planned this time - but post-Crimea we'd invested a fortune building up Ukraine's forces to the point they were able to repel Russia.
Its just a shame that the Americans have elected a President who wants to hand Russia a lifeline now from this war they're losing otherwise.
It seems that Trump wants to hand Ukraine to Russia . I expect next to go will be Starlink .
The UK is in such a difficult position with so much of our defence linked with the USA so we have to carry on this charade that the US is still an ally .
The UK is in a difficult position and calm heads are needed not to sever our military closeness to the US but buy the time to diversify away from the US
Careful diplomacy with the US is in our best interest, no matter how untasteful, but they can never be trusted again
We trusted them before, even after fighting wars against them earlier. We can trust them again in the future, if they succeed in expelling the Muskovites from the body politic.
Obviously, in the meantime, diplomacy often involves doing what you can with the leaders of countries who are not allies. The US is a massively important country, and British diplomats have to do the best they can to get the best from the relationship with them.
Sadly we simply can't risk that. We cannot trust the current administration not to betray our intelligence to the Russians and we can't rely on them for any sort of support. There is no point trusting them because we know they have no interest in helping us and the risk from trusting them is, for the first time in my life, greater than not trusting them.
I mean would you trust that Trump is not going to pass on our intelligence secrets to the Russians?
The West doing almost nothing about Putin invading Crimea was probably the biggest mistake.
Actually to be fair the West (UK and USA at least) did quite a bit after Crimea, but most of it behind the scenes.
Ironically had Putin marched straight on Kyiv in 2014 it would almost certainly have rapidly fallen, in days, as he'd planned this time - but post-Crimea we'd invested a fortune building up Ukraine's forces to the point they were able to repel Russia.
Its just a shame that the Americans have elected a President who wants to hand Russia a lifeline now from this war they're losing otherwise.
It seems that Trump wants to hand Ukraine to Russia . I expect next to go will be Starlink .
The UK is in such a difficult position with so much of our defence linked with the USA so we have to carry on this charade that the US is still an ally .
Perhaps we should wait and see what actually HAPPENS in Ukraine - before we burn down the White House (again)
I readily admit there are some deeply ominous signs, but they are only signs. So far
"Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick Under new sentencing rules there is blatant discrimination against straight white men.
Starmer sneered at those who said we have a two-tier justice system. Rayner labelled them ‘conspiracy theorists’.
But here it is in black and white.
Two-tier justice under two-tier Keir."
He’s really good at this. Lucid, direct, aggressive, and he looks like the lead singer of the Killers
The Tories need him as leader. He’s probably the most cogent persuasive leadership candidate since Cameron - tho he’s appealing to a very different electorate
"Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick Under new sentencing rules there is blatant discrimination against straight white men.
Starmer sneered at those who said we have a two-tier justice system. Rayner labelled them ‘conspiracy theorists’.
But here it is in black and white.
Two-tier justice under two-tier Keir."
He’s really good at this. Lucid, direct, aggressive, and he looks like the lead singer of the Killers
The Tories need him as leader. He’s probably the most cogent persuasive leadership candidate since Cameron - tho he’s appealing to a very different electorate
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
nieces, nephews, or cousins are not descendents of any kind even though they are related by blood via antecedants (e.g. common grandparents)
Is that the strict definition? Fair enough if so, I was using it more colloquially - but still fairly, I reckon
A niece will have about 25% of the DNA of her uncle, which makes her a quasi-descendant, to my mind. This is also observed in nature, where uncles and aunts invest in nieces/nephews in terms of time and money, because it makes genetic sense to do so. You are thereby helping your genes to persist in your descendants, even if the descent is not directly parent to child
You have about 25% of the DNA of your maternal grandfather. You are still a direct descendant of him.
You are obviously not a direct descendant, or any kind of descendant, of your niece.
Well no, she’s my niece
So you are a (direct) descendant eg of your great great great father (3% DNA), and a non-descendant of your niece (25% DNA) who you are nevertheless related to.
That's it. No quasi-descendants. Perhaps you mean relations?
You are related to a lot of people and a direct descendant of a smaller number of people (but still a lot). Is that it?
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
nieces, nephews, or cousins are not descendents of any kind even though they are related by blood via antecedants (e.g. common grandparents)
Is that the strict definition? Fair enough if so, I was using it more colloquially - but still fairly, I reckon
A niece will have about 25% of the DNA of her uncle, which makes her a quasi-descendant, to my mind. This is also observed in nature, where uncles and aunts invest in nieces/nephews in terms of time and money, because it makes genetic sense to do so. You are thereby helping your genes to persist in your descendants, even if the descent is not directly parent to child
You have about 25% of the DNA of your maternal grandfather. You are still a direct descendant of him.
You are obviously not a direct descendant, or any kind of descendant, of your niece.
Well no, she’s my niece
So you are a (direct) descendant eg of your great great great father (3% DNA), and a non-descendant of your niece (25% DNA) who you are nevertheless related to.
That's it. No quasi-descendants. Perhaps you mean relations?
You are related to a lot of people and a direct descendant of a smaller number of people (but still a lot). Is that it?
Are you on drugs? How can I ever be descended from my niece, in any form?
In the “Afterword” (paperback edition) of Rick Reilly’s Commander in Cheat, there is this admission:
'Three times I heard the exact same answer: Trump would turn in mock anger and declare: “I cheat on my wives, I cheat on my taxes. You don’t think I’m going to cheat at golf? On my own course?”' p. 246
Is it possible that there could be a connection between that admission and his desire to sharply cut the budget of the IRS?
(After the hardback came out, Reilly was swamped with further examples of the Loser cheating, a few from some who had earlier claimed the Loser didn’t cheat.)
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
nieces, nephews, or cousins are not descendents of any kind even though they are related by blood via antecedants (e.g. common grandparents)
Is that the strict definition? Fair enough if so, I was using it more colloquially - but still fairly, I reckon
A niece will have about 25% of the DNA of her uncle, which makes her a quasi-descendant, to my mind. This is also observed in nature, where uncles and aunts invest in nieces/nephews in terms of time and money, because it makes genetic sense to do so. You are thereby helping your genes to persist in your descendants, even if the descent is not directly parent to child
You have about 25% of the DNA of your maternal grandfather. You are still a direct descendant of him.
You are obviously not a direct descendant, or any kind of descendant, of your niece.
Well no, she’s my niece
So you are a (direct) descendant eg of your great great great father (3% DNA), and a non-descendant of your niece (25% DNA) who you are nevertheless related to.
That's it. No quasi-descendants. Perhaps you mean relations?
You are related to a lot of people and a direct descendant of a smaller number of people (but still a lot). Is that it?
Are you on drugs? How can I ever be descended from my niece, in any form?
You said "A niece will have about 25% of the DNA of her uncle, which makes her a quasi-descendant, to my mind."
So you are saying that she is a quasi-descendant of you to your mind. I'm just trying to clarify what you mean. I think you mean you are related to her but she is not your descendent.
Sorry I mangled the direction of descendancy when I said you are a non-descendant of your niece (25% DNA). It should have read that your niece is a non-descendant of you.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How is a direct descendant different from just an ordinary descendant?
A direct descendant is someone who is directly descended from another person - such as a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and so forth- in an unbroken lineage. It indicates a direct familial line without branching to siblings or cousins. For example, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are all your direct descendants, whereas nieces, nephews, or cousins are not
nieces, nephews, or cousins are not descendents of any kind even though they are related by blood via antecedants (e.g. common grandparents)
Is that the strict definition? Fair enough if so, I was using it more colloquially - but still fairly, I reckon
A niece will have about 25% of the DNA of her uncle, which makes her a quasi-descendant, to my mind. This is also observed in nature, where uncles and aunts invest in nieces/nephews in terms of time and money, because it makes genetic sense to do so. You are thereby helping your genes to persist in your descendants, even if the descent is not directly parent to child
You have about 25% of the DNA of your maternal grandfather. You are still a direct descendant of him.
You are obviously not a direct descendant, or any kind of descendant, of your niece.
Well no, she’s my niece
So you are a (direct) descendant eg of your great great great father (3% DNA), and a non-descendant of your niece (25% DNA) who you are nevertheless related to.
That's it. No quasi-descendants. Perhaps you mean relations?
You are related to a lot of people and a direct descendant of a smaller number of people (but still a lot). Is that it?
Are you on drugs? How can I ever be descended from my niece, in any form?
You said "A niece will have about 25% of the DNA of her uncle, which makes her a quasi-descendant, to my mind."
So you are saying that she is a quasi-descendant of you to your mind. I'm just trying to clarify what you mean. I think you mean you are related to her but she is not your descendent.
Sorry I mangled the direction of descendancy when I said you are a non-descendant of your niece (25% DNA). It should have read that your niece is a non-descendant of you.
I think I'll go to bed.
lol. I presumed it was a simple error - I was teasing, no offence intended
And yes it is late. Plus jet lag. Time for bed for me as well
Leon: thanks for putting faith in my election predictions, even though I got the American one wrong.
But you got many others right
I trust your judgment. What do YOU think of Jenrick? Should he be leader?
I was a big supporter of Kemi but sadly it looks like she isn't good enough, so it has to be Jenrick next. Difficult to say what he would be like as leader before it happens.
I'm not really a big fan of anything that's going on in politics at the moment, I wish it could be 1995 forever with that type of non-woke liberalism.
Leon: thanks for putting faith in my election predictions, even though I got the American one wrong.
But you got many others right
I trust your judgment. What do YOU think of Jenrick? Should he be leader?
I was a big supporter of Kemi but sadly it looks like she isn't good enough, so it has to be Jenrick next. Difficult to say what he would be like as leader before it happens.
I'm not really a big fan of anything that's going on in politics at the moment, I wish it could be 1995 forever with that type of non-woke liberalism.
If Kemi went before the general election most iikely Stride, the Shadow Chancellor, would replace her much as Howard, IDS' Shadow Chancellor, replaced him midterm as party leader.
Only if Kemi/Stride lose the next GE would Jenrick then be the likely contender to take over
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some a thousand or even a million of times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely some alcohol be then won't be and a lot will be.
You are still missing that you cannot simply factor two. People live in arrears and meet people within those areas. Further back in time the more
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some many many many times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely lots won't be and lots will be.
Those numbers assume random selection of partners across the entire population which is not a real thing, as the author of the studies says.
No they don't because the numbers are so huge. I started writing masses of maths to explain, but started to get tongue tied in detail.. I understand what you are saying, but the numbers are so huge they overwhelm the non randomness of how people meet. Yes 1000 years ago most people would have mated with people from their own village or nearby village. It wasn't random at all I agree.
But just occasionally they didn't. Say Tom from Yorkshire impregnated Jill from Hastings in 1066 when he came down for the battle.
Now just do the numbers. Theoretically each one of these couples descendants in 2025 is a Trillion people. A trillion. Now it obviously isn't that high by a long chalk and that is because of interbreeding (even if that is someone a hundred times removed whom you have never heard of before or more likely related to you only slightly distantly because you are in the same village). However, for instance, a few of a huge number descendants of Tom and Jill will again meet up with the descendents of of Tom's ancestors. They are bound to because the numbers are so high. Over 1000 years it is impossible not to happen unless nobody is allowed out of their village ever and the interbreeding happens again.
So I, as a southerner, I am sure I am related many times over to my wife who is Scottish. It might be many, many many, generations ago, but it is almost a certainty.
So the idea that someone isn't a decendent of some who has a continuous line from a 1000 years ago is infinitesimally small and is in all probability a decendent many times over. If not the population of the UK would exceed the population of the planet a 1000 times over.
PS. Posted after midnight after a heavy day so please ignore gibberish and inaccuracies. Started to do it with maths and gave up. Brain too tired.
The engineers working on Tempest will be chuffed, too.
Yes, no chance of that being cancelled now. If anything the MoD should be initiating a spin-off project to use as many Tempest parts as possible in a new VTOL fighter. Even if Trump doesn't disable the existing F-35Bs, buying more beyond the current batch of 48 now looks deeply unwise.
About 15% of each F35 is produced in the UK - and more by UK companies outside the UK. So I think we'll be ok.
Yep. Bricking the UK's F-35s would result in production grinding to a halt and export sales doing likewise. Hopefully the CEO of Lockheed-Martin can explain that to Trump is suitably simplistic language.
But we really can't buy any more unless the US hands over everything we need to operate and maintain them independently - a self-hosted version of the ALIS software, all the CAD files, firmware source code, etc. I don't see them doing any such thing while the orange fool is in charge.
They also did not, and had no intention of doing, any such thing under Biden or Obama.
I know the budgetary and planning processes of Tempest are completely unmoored from reality but it's beyond even the hallucinogenic imagination of BAE to propose a pivot to a STOVL variant at this point.
I think the carriers will go into midlife refit and be reroled as UAS platforms with smaller launching systems rather than full size catapults. The FAA will concentrate on that for fixed wing aviation as Project Ark Royal already hints. F-35 will recede into the golden Norfolk sunset as an RAF enterprise.
JFL is failing for the exact reason that JFH failed. It's 100% owned and operated by Crab Air and their view of shipboard operations is much the same as my view of taking the bin out. a minor inconvenience to be avoided for as long as possible until the bollockings transcend the pain threshold.
"New guidelines released by the Sentencing Council today would make prison sentences less likely for ethnic and religious minorities.
Two-tier justice isn't just a talking point - it's the reality in modern Britain..
This policy is, effectively, already in place, with certain offenders receiving lenient sentences for horrific crimes while others receive strict sentences for speech violations...."
jenrick is on this, vehemently and loudly, but where is Badenoch? She is useless
More detail:
A Pre-Sentence Report (PSR) means that probation has assessed an offender and done their best to consider options for that person to serve a sentence in the community (ie not in prison). It gives a judge options beyond jail. Often, there will be an argument between the prosecution and defence lawyers over whether a pre-sentence report should be ordered. The defence lawyers will know that a PSR will more likely lead to a non-custodial sentence. If a PSR is not ordered by a judge, a custodial sentence will follow in many cases. The judge is basically saying there is no option beyond custody so there is no need for probation to assess options for a community sentence. If, therefore, you are more likely to get a PSR if you are a member of a minority community, it means you have a better shot at a non-custodial sentence for any particular offence than somebody who is not a member of that community. The same goes for if you are female, and the following extract states explicitly that custody for women of minority cultural or religious beliefs may be ‘particularly acute’ meaning that it should be avoided in more cases than for women who do not belong to those minorities.
I think you missed that this whole guideline was subject to 12 weeks' public consultation between 29 Nov 2023 and 21 Feb 2024. The entire public consultation process was held when Rishi Sunak was PM, and Robert Jenrick was a Government Minister.
It's a careful and thorough process. Look around and there are plenty of organisations who submitted responses. The section of Jenrick is complaining about NOW is in the draft guidelines published by his own Government.
This is Bobby J blowing his whistle to get social media excited. It's another example of the Tories faking outrage about the Government doing things they were quite happy to have done on their own watch.
If they wanted to say anything, they could have responded to the consultation when their Government put it out, or before.
Leon: thanks for putting faith in my election predictions, even though I got the American one wrong.
But you got many others right
I trust your judgment. What do YOU think of Jenrick? Should he be leader?
I was a big supporter of Kemi but sadly it looks like she isn't good enough, so it has to be Jenrick next. Difficult to say what he would be like as leader before it happens.
I'm not really a big fan of anything that's going on in politics at the moment, I wish it could be 1995 forever with that type of non-woke liberalism.
Jenrick has a particularly unpleasant performative streak of cruelty (see the cartoon painting episode). He is entitled and corr*** (see the Richard Desmond affair). He is reminiscent of Johnson but without any of the bon homie.
He is having a very good war however. Better than Badenoch and head and shoulders better than Starmer.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some a thousand or even a million of times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely some alcohol be then won't be and a lot will be.
You are still missing that you cannot simply factor two. People live in arrears and meet people within those areas. Further back in time the more
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some many many many times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely lots won't be and lots will be.
Those numbers assume random selection of partners across the entire population which is not a real thing, as the author of the studies says.
No they don't because the numbers are so huge. I started writing masses of maths to explain, but started to get tongue tied in detail.. I understand what you are saying, but the numbers are so huge they overwhelm the non randomness of how people meet. Yes 1000 years ago most people would have mated with people from their own village or nearby village. It wasn't random at all I agree.
But just occasionally they didn't. Say Tom from Yorkshire impregnated Jill from Hastings in 1066 when he came down for the battle.
Now just do the numbers. Theoretically each one of these couples descendants in 2025 is a Trillion people. A trillion. Now it obviously isn't that high by a long chalk and that is because of interbreeding (even if that is someone a hundred times removed whom you have never heard of before or more likely related to you only slightly distantly because you are in the same village). However, for instance, a few of a huge number descendants of Tom and Jill will again meet up with the descendents of of Tom's ancestors. They are bound to because the numbers are so high. Over 1000 years it is impossible not to happen unless nobody is allowed out of their village ever and the interbreeding happens again.
So I, as a southerner, I am sure I am related many times over to my wife who is Scottish. It might be many, many many, generations ago, but it is almost a certainty.
So the idea that someone isn't a decendent of some who has a continuous line from a 1000 years ago is infinitesimally small and is in all probability a decendent many times over. If not the population of the UK would exceed the population of the planet a 1000 times over.
PS. Posted after midnight after a heavy day so please ignore gibberish and inaccuracies. Started to do it with maths and gave up. Brain too tired.
I think it also quite a myth that people didn't move around much in historic times. Not everyone for sure but it want unusual at all.
There were many in military roles, but also the merchant marine, fishermen, and travelling merchants but also peasants would walk cattle, geese, sheep often hundreds of miles to markets and fairs. Then of course there were pilgrimages and celebrations "Holy days" that became our holidays. These involved all classes, and were highly social events, as is obvious to any reader of Chaucer.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some a thousand or even a million of times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely some alcohol be then won't be and a lot will be.
You are still missing that you cannot simply factor two. People live in arrears and meet people within those areas. Further back in time the more
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
Yes you can because the number is so large. 100 years ago the number is only 2 to the power 4 so only 16 ancestors if you have a generation every 25 years, so of course it will be very rare for us to have the same ancestors. A 1000 years ago is well over Trillion ancestors (just do the arithmetic), yet there were only a few million people in GB. Therefore every person alive then was probably your ancestors, some many many many times over. Therefore the odds on someone not being your ancestors 1000 years ago is absolutely miniscule.
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely lots won't be and lots will be.
Those numbers assume random selection of partners across the entire population which is not a real thing, as the author of the studies says.
No they don't because the numbers are so huge. I started writing masses of maths to explain, but started to get tongue tied in detail.. I understand what you are saying, but the numbers are so huge they overwhelm the non randomness of how people meet. Yes 1000 years ago most people would have mated with people from their own village or nearby village. It wasn't random at all I agree.
But just occasionally they didn't. Say Tom from Yorkshire impregnated Jill from Hastings in 1066 when he came down for the battle.
Now just do the numbers. Theoretically each one of these couples descendants in 2025 is a Trillion people. A trillion. Now it obviously isn't that high by a long chalk and that is because of interbreeding (even if that is someone a hundred times removed whom you have never heard of before or more likely related to you only slightly distantly because you are in the same village). However, for instance, a few of a huge number descendants of Tom and Jill will again meet up with the descendents of of Tom's ancestors. They are bound to because the numbers are so high. Over 1000 years it is impossible not to happen unless nobody is allowed out of their village ever and the interbreeding happens again.
So I, as a southerner, I am sure I am related many times over to my wife who is Scottish. It might be many, many many, generations ago, but it is almost a certainty.
So the idea that someone isn't a decendent of some who has a continuous line from a 1000 years ago is infinitesimally small and is in all probability a decendent many times over. If not the population of the UK would exceed the population of the planet a 1000 times over.
PS. Posted after midnight after a heavy day so please ignore gibberish and inaccuracies. Started to do it with maths and gave up. Brain too tired.
I think it also quite a myth that people didn't move around much in historic times. Not everyone for sure but it want unusual at all.
There were many in military roles, but also the merchant marine, fishermen, and travelling merchants but also peasants would walk cattle, geese, sheep often hundreds of miles to markets and fairs. Then of course there were pilgrimages and celebrations "Holy days" that became our holidays. These involved all classes, and were highly social events, as is obvious to any reader of Chaucer
Yes, that's fair. I'm not sure how far back you are going, but for one example we often forget about - the Empire at its height. In 1900 at a quick look for a top slice:
- Half the world's merchant shipping was British. - Royal Navy had an establishment of 110k - much abroad. (Naval estimates) - There were around 100k UK people in India (Asked AI).
"Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick Under new sentencing rules there is blatant discrimination against straight white men.
Starmer sneered at those who said we have a two-tier justice system. Rayner labelled them ‘conspiracy theorists’.
But here it is in black and white.
Two-tier justice under two-tier Keir."
He’s really good at this. Lucid, direct, aggressive, and he looks like the lead singer of the Killers
The Tories need him as leader. He’s probably the most cogent persuasive leadership candidate since Cameron - tho he’s appealing to a very different electorate
"Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick Under new sentencing rules there is blatant discrimination against straight white men.
Starmer sneered at those who said we have a two-tier justice system. Rayner labelled them ‘conspiracy theorists’.
But here it is in black and white.
Two-tier justice under two-tier Keir."
He’s really good at this. Lucid, direct, aggressive, and he looks like the lead singer of the Killers
The Tories need him as leader. He’s probably the most cogent persuasive leadership candidate since Cameron - tho he’s appealing to a very different electorate
You’re absolutely right to zero in on the exponential math - it’s a seductive idea, you old Ventnor pooch-screwer. If you double your ancestors each generation (2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc.), by 33 generations (roughly 1,000 years back to Rollo’s time), you’d theoretically have 2^33, or about 8.6 billion ancestors. That’s way more than the population of Europe then (30–40 million), suggesting everyone’s family tree overlaps massively, including with Rollo. So why isn’t everyone a direct descendant? That, @ianb2, is where the confounders - those pesky real-world wrinkles! - break your simplistic maths. Here’s what throws it off:
The exponential model assumes every ancestor is unique, but in reality, family trees collapse because people marry cousins or within small communities. By 1,000 years ago, you’re related to the same people multiple times over - your 8.6 billion slots don’t mean 8.6 billion different individuals. Rollo might be in that collapsed pool for some, but only if your ancestors crossed paths with his descendants (mostly Norman nobility). If your lineage stayed in, say, rural Bulgaria, no
2 Geographic and Social Isolation
Rollo’s influence was concentrated in Normandy, then spread via noble marriages. Peasants, who were most of the population, rarely mingled with aristocracy or moved far. Isolated groups - like the Sami in Scandinavia, Basques in Spain, or dog-preferrers anywhere - no
3 Lineage Extinction
Not every child has kids. Some people find it hard to make any friends, and are forced to have only pets. Likewise some of Rollo’s descendants died out - wars, plagues (like the Black Death), or just bad luck pruned branches
4 Uneven Reproductive Success
Nobles like Rollo had more kids who survived (wealth, power, better food). Peasants often didn’t - famine, disease, zoophilia, or celibacy (monks, nuns) cut their lines short. Rollo’s descendants dominate the surviving noble gene pool, but the broader population? Nope
5 Time and Specificity
By 33 generations, you share ancestors with tons of people from 900 CE - but which ones? Rollo’s just one guy. The “everyone’s related” idea works for a generic ancestor pool, not a specific person
6 Migration and Barriers
Europe had walls - literal and cultural. Mountains (Alps, Pyrenees), seas, and less attractive dogs slowed gene flow. Rollo’s line didn’t hop the Carpathians. Soz boz Mr B2
Why the Math Fails
The 2^33 figure is a maximum potential, not a reality. For Rollo to be a direct ancestor, your lineage needs a clear, unbroken chain through his kids, their kids, etc., intersecting your tree. The math suggests shared ancestry with someone from his era, but pinning it to Rollo requires he or his heirs hooked up with your specific forefathers So no, the brute maths is seductive: like that Labrador at the end of your road - but it is wrong
You’re just an idiot, and cutting and pasting long chunks from an AI doesn’t prove otherwise. Did you miss that the maths and the DNA both give the same answer?
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
And there was me thinking it was because he's an odious, lying, squirrel-faced git.
It is correct though that we sent significant numbers of troops to Basra and Helmand, and took significant casualties both expeditionary forces were completely inadequate for the tasks and unable to do much to influence events. Both were abject failures. Basra in particular required the US forces to rescue our forces.
Not that the US did much better with much heavier forces in their own patches.
US has stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine.
So when U.S. Key Hole reconnaissance satellites see Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at power plants and hospitals being loaded on to Tu-95’s in Russia, they won’t be warning Ukraine in advance. Nice, another absolutely unconscionable decision. https://x.com/ELINTNews/status/1897303126698549276
Trump is effectively using civilian lives as leverage for his minerals deals.
No pretence they'd be getting (probably worthless anyway) security guarantees in exchange for the "minerals deal". Just sign it or we're abandoning you. Blackmail, pure and simple.
Zelensky has never had any choice but to sign. Even if the other countries involved stumped up heaps of extra cash, we don't have the infrastructure and the kit to take over from the US as the main supplier.
However, whoever signs up to surrender territory to the Russians after losing so many lifes fighting for it, will not survive politically in Ukraine. Once he signs, it will be the end of Zelensky's Presidency.
What Trump and Vance's hardballing has done, whether by accident or design, has given Zelensky a shred of dignity to say "I tried - it was the end of the line - they even cut off the Himars etc.". That won't get him re-elected but it does perhaps soften the blow and enhance his reputation.
You can almost taste the glee as you write those words.
There's no glee. I am in the position of wanting the war to end, but on terms that guarantee the future security (and viability and prosperity) of Ukraine. That has been my position for about two years - it hasn't changed.
Yea, it is a similar view to that held by Oswald Mosely and Lord Halifax.
Why is a dispassionate assessment of the current situation in Ukraine so difficult for PBers to digest.
Whilst some get too passionate and it may affect their assessments, not all 'dispassionate' assessments are as dispassionate as they may claim, and it is absolutely reasonable to point that out if people think that is what is happening, and I think it is. Not all 'realpolitik' positions are, in fact, pragmatic realpolitik either.
Yes. The passionate assessment is that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. I think we all agree on that? The dispassionate assessment is that Russia is in a uniquely beatable position and through the west assisting Ukraine we have the opportunity to weaken a hostile force. All it takes is the commitmemt to supply materiel and intelligence and logistics, and it is fully in our interests to do so. It is strange when people (whether posters on here or politicians) are trying to discourage our friends and encourage our enemies, and makes us question whose side they are on.
Russia is the aggressor, that is certainly true. They have done wicked things, that is also true. I don't agree with the terminology of good guys and bad guys because the truth usually gets trampled over in that set up. We need to be able to discuss the wrong-doing of the 'good guys' and see the humanity of the 'bad guys' sometimes. Life isn't a film. We haven't been able to do that freely on PB without being accused of treason in some form, which is a loathsome accusation.
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
Russia is China's most significant geopolitical partner. To pretend they are wholly separate threats is silly.
Russia is basically dependent on China. That situation is partly due to sanctions and this war. That is not really a desirable situation to my mind. Though thankfully it can't provide too much energy to China because pipelines are going the wrong way.
The Commerce Secretary suggests we can finance a $7 trillion federal budget without any American paying any taxes.
This would require a universal 220% tariff that inexplicably does not reduce imports at all, and is somehow entirely paid by foreigners. Pure economic illiteracy. https://x.com/JessicaBRiedl/status/1897442912339677644
The Commerce Secretary suggests we can finance a $7 trillion federal budget without any American paying any taxes.
This would require a universal 220% tariff that inexplicably does not reduce imports at all, and is somehow entirely paid by foreigners. Pure economic illiteracy. https://x.com/JessicaBRiedl/status/1897442912339677644
Looks more like impure economic illiteracy to me, actually.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
Reminds me of Norman Davies' observation in Vanished Kingdoms
Many factors contributed to the Soviet Union’s downfall. They include defeat in Afghanistan, an unsustainable arms race, financial bankruptcy, laggardly technology, sclerotic political structures, a discredited ideology, a generation gap between rulers and the ruled and much else besides; discussion of them fills any number of weighty tomes, but none in itself gives a sufficient explanation.
The essence lies deeper, and is not complicated.
The Soviet system was built on extreme force and extreme fraud. Practically everything Lenin and the Leninists did was accompanied by killing; practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies.
I guess not all academics are lefty nostalgists.
That last bit, “practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies”, does that remind us of anyone today?
I used to be of the view that there was very little mixing in ye olden days; people tended to live where they were born.
Over the years my view has changed, as I've read more and more about it. Yes, many in rural villages never moved. But many, many did. If you were the fifth son of a tenant farmer, you were not going to inherit anything, so you had to find another occupation, perhaps somewhere else. If you were a trader, you would often need to travel. Ditto the massive Medieval trade in shipping. Then there was religion: and not just people going on pilgrimages. And war: men traveling to support their king or lord. Or just the need to go to the nearest town to pick up a new hoe or implement the village blacksmith could not make. Or even just to view the latest fashion, or attend the town fair. People might also be banished from the village, or have such a big falling-out they feel the need to leave. Or, as now, people might just want to travel, to know what is over the next hill. Famine and war also caused massive population movements, and not just of armies. And as now, people tend to be freer with their play than when at home.
And in towns or cities, the movement and mixing was probably much greater.
Then there is the little-spoken about (or written about...) prostitution and rape. We are all going on about whether we have common ancestors; we all certainly will be, to a small extent, bastards. Or even the product of rape, somewhere down our lineage.
I used to be of the view that there was very little mixing in ye olden days; people tended to live where they were born.
Over the years my view has changed, as I've read more and more about it. Yes, many in rural villages never moved. But many, many did. If you were the fifth son of a tenant farmer, you were not going to inherit anything, so you had to find another occupation, perhaps somewhere else. If you were a trader, you would often need to travel. Ditto the massive Medieval trade in shipping. Then there was religion: and not just people going on pilgrimages. And war: men traveling to support their king or lord. Or just the need to go to the nearest town to pick up a new hoe or implement the village blacksmith could not make. Or even just to view the latest fashion, or attend the town fair. People might also be banished from the village, or have such a big falling-out they feel the need to leave. Or, as now, people might just want to travel, to know what is over the next hill. Famine and war also caused massive population movements, and not just of armies. And as now, people tend to be freer with their play than when at home.
And in towns or cities, the movement and mixing was probably much greater.
Then there is the little-spoken about (or written about...) prostitution and rape. We are all going on about whether we have common ancestors; we all certainly will be, to a small extent, bastards. Or even the product of rape, somewhere down our lineage.
I don't know that much about me genealogy but from what I do know my ancestors seem to have been constantly on the move. Perhaps it's unsurprising that I've lived abroad and currently live 350 miles from my birthplace!
US has stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine.
So when U.S. Key Hole reconnaissance satellites see Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at power plants and hospitals being loaded on to Tu-95’s in Russia, they won’t be warning Ukraine in advance. Nice, another absolutely unconscionable decision. https://x.com/ELINTNews/status/1897303126698549276
Trump is effectively using civilian lives as leverage for his minerals deals.
No pretence they'd be getting (probably worthless anyway) security guarantees in exchange for the "minerals deal". Just sign it or we're abandoning you. Blackmail, pure and simple.
Zelensky has never had any choice but to sign. Even if the other countries involved stumped up heaps of extra cash, we don't have the infrastructure and the kit to take over from the US as the main supplier.
However, whoever signs up to surrender territory to the Russians after losing so many lifes fighting for it, will not survive politically in Ukraine. Once he signs, it will be the end of Zelensky's Presidency.
What Trump and Vance's hardballing has done, whether by accident or design, has given Zelensky a shred of dignity to say "I tried - it was the end of the line - they even cut off the Himars etc.". That won't get him re-elected but it does perhaps soften the blow and enhance his reputation.
You can almost taste the glee as you write those words.
There's no glee. I am in the position of wanting the war to end, but on terms that guarantee the future security (and viability and prosperity) of Ukraine. That has been my position for about two years - it hasn't changed.
Yea, it is a similar view to that held by Oswald Mosely and Lord Halifax.
Why is a dispassionate assessment of the current situation in Ukraine so difficult for PBers to digest.
Whilst some get too passionate and it may affect their assessments, not all 'dispassionate' assessments are as dispassionate as they may claim, and it is absolutely reasonable to point that out if people think that is what is happening, and I think it is. Not all 'realpolitik' positions are, in fact, pragmatic realpolitik either.
Yes. The passionate assessment is that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. I think we all agree on that? The dispassionate assessment is that Russia is in a uniquely beatable position and through the west assisting Ukraine we have the opportunity to weaken a hostile force. All it takes is the commitmemt to supply materiel and intelligence and logistics, and it is fully in our interests to do so. It is strange when people (whether posters on here or politicians) are trying to discourage our friends and encourage our enemies, and makes us question whose side they are on.
Russia is the aggressor, that is certainly true. They have done wicked things, that is also true. I don't agree with the terminology of good guys and bad guys because the truth usually gets trampled over in that set up. We need to be able to discuss the wrong-doing of the 'good guys' and see the humanity of the 'bad guys' sometimes. Life isn't a film. We haven't been able to do that freely on PB without being accused of treason in some form, which is a loathsome accusation.
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
Israel has walked into what’s left of Syria, but *not* to protect ethnic Jews. Their excuse is that they are protecting the Druze, an ethnoreligious group that split off from Shi’a Islam.
While I agree we should be cautious or concerned about the activities of Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia etc., I would note that Russia has directly killed people on British soil, unlike your other examples, and is militarily occupying a much larger area across Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
Not generally a fan of David Richards, but all power to his elbow here. The whole thing stinks more than Trump's underpants.
I wouldn't say I was a fan of David Richards, but I quite like him. His voice used to be somewhat refreshing, and he was not afraid to try to rock the boat. Also, unusually for someone involved high-up in F1, I think he's fairly honest.
(Cue for people to pull skeletons out his closet...)
The rule change is about the production of presentencing reports, not about actual sentences. As the article notes, “Official figures show that offenders from ethnic minorities consistently get longer sentences than white offenders for indictable offences.” We have long had a 2-tier justice system where people from ethnic minority groups were treated worse, but Jenrick isn’t bothered about that.
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I worked with a chap who did a deep dive into the Soviet oil and gas industry. He spoke Russian and even learnt Soviet style accounting to understand the books.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
Reminds me of Norman Davies' observation in Vanished Kingdoms
Many factors contributed to the Soviet Union’s downfall. They include defeat in Afghanistan, an unsustainable arms race, financial bankruptcy, laggardly technology, sclerotic political structures, a discredited ideology, a generation gap between rulers and the ruled and much else besides; discussion of them fills any number of weighty tomes, but none in itself gives a sufficient explanation.
The essence lies deeper, and is not complicated.
The Soviet system was built on extreme force and extreme fraud. Practically everything Lenin and the Leninists did was accompanied by killing; practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies.
I guess not all academics are lefty nostalgists.
That last bit, “practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies”, does that remind us of anyone today?
"I don’t quite understand how Shabana Mahmood can simultaneously claim the Sentencing Council is independent but then pledge there will be no two-tier sentencing on her watch. Has this happened on her watch or hasn’t it."
As Starmer has floundered, Jenrick has had a very good war too.
Shame Jenrick is such a repulsive barsteward.
Starmer has played a weak hand weakly.
Not sure anyone of any other party would have been any better.
Maybe Boris could have made us feel that we were consequential.
Yes, Starmer has been an unmitigated disaster. But Johnson? It speaks volumes that Johnson hasn't, as far as I am aware, given his .unequivocal support to Ukraine and castigated Trump since it all kicked off last week.
Come off it. Just take a look at his twitter feed. Full of things about supporting Ukraine.
In the last week? Perhaps you could help me out. If you can I will apologise unreservedly to you.
Yes, he commented after the White House meeting. I’m not sure what you are trying to insinuate, that he has now become a Putin backer or something?
Some people, once they have chosen a baddie, will not allow that that person might have views they agree on about anything at all.
Toppers said in the light of Starmer's abject diplomatic failure Johnson should be given a ride out. I am just saying he would be worse, and I referenced that by his inability to condemn Trump.
It's simply nonsense. Starmer has had a suffuciently goid week for his party's polling to be approving, and to be attracting praise from Tories, and Johnson is the last person to either bring Europe and America together, or lead Europe, as a person with a very low prestige in Europe.
Starmer has been poor. It's not entirely his doing. Managing Trump and Vance has been like herding cats. His simpering hand-wringing performance on Thursday could have gone worse. Indeed by the following day it had.
Many of us are disappointed he can't bring himself to say Trump and Vance are a pair of ****s, and Trump can shove the invite from the King up his diapered ar**. To be fair that is exactly what Jenrick and today Kemi have said. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Johnson to declare the same.
But that seems to achieve nothing with Trump.
We would probably be looking at the same 25% tariffs as the E.U, and no input into the Zelensky-Trump relationship that he is having.
I was hearing today we are likely to get the tariffs anyway. Vance hates Starmer and Britain. Musk despises Starmer. Starmer is whoring the nation for nothing.
If he and Mandelson get the minerals deal back on, as they may do, they won't be.
He's also making himself more indispensable to Macron, Merz, and Trump.
The "minerals deal" has the hallmarks of a New York Mafia style protection racket.
Except the minerals deal may be utterly worthless, given it's all based on a few Soviet era geological reports.
Wait this is based on that?! Lol, Putin is running rings around the Americans right now. It's shameful.
Even if there are lots of useful minerals under Ukranian soil, there are plenty of sources that are a) better mapped and b) less likely to be in a war zone over the next few years. And lithium is pretty cheap right now.
What I don't know is whether Soviet-era geological mapping was any good. But the key thing is that, just because stuff is under the ground, it doesn't automatically mean that it's sensible to remove it from the ground.
Soviet geologists in the oil and gas sector were pretty good. No reason to doubt they wouldn't be pretty handy at finding minerals too.
Hmmm:
I'm not sure that's quite true. The Soviets were very good at finding oil and gas when they found obvious surface oil leaks. I would point out that the abiogenic theory of oil was much believed in Soviet Russia, and that turned out to be complete baloney.
I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Indeed even though it was clearly baloney there are still plenty around the world who believe it. More so in Russia than anywhere else judging by the articles and papers still written about it.
I always struggled with the abiogenic theory, because it is completely contradicted by the fact that the deeper (and hotter) you go, the more likely the oil will have been "cooked". So, how could it possibly be that it came from the mantle?
I used to be of the view that there was very little mixing in ye olden days; people tended to live where they were born.
Over the years my view has changed, as I've read more and more about it. Yes, many in rural villages never moved. But many, many did. If you were the fifth son of a tenant farmer, you were not going to inherit anything, so you had to find another occupation, perhaps somewhere else. If you were a trader, you would often need to travel. Ditto the massive Medieval trade in shipping. Then there was religion: and not just people going on pilgrimages. And war: men traveling to support their king or lord. Or just the need to go to the nearest town to pick up a new hoe or implement the village blacksmith could not make. Or even just to view the latest fashion, or attend the town fair. People might also be banished from the village, or have such a big falling-out they feel the need to leave. Or, as now, people might just want to travel, to know what is over the next hill. Famine and war also caused massive population movements, and not just of armies. And as now, people tend to be freer with their play than when at home.
And in towns or cities, the movement and mixing was probably much greater.
Then there is the little-spoken about (or written about...) prostitution and rape. We are all going on about whether we have common ancestors; we all certainly will be, to a small extent, bastards. Or even the product of rape, somewhere down our lineage.
True, but it also takes us back to the maths, which Leon isn’t even beginning to understand.
Imagine Cornwall, which through early history had a population somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000. Drop in some passing Viking, who has children, and it’s simple maths that within a few hundred years he’s going to have a lot of descendants. If they all stay in Cornwall and intermarry, as the centuries pass, intermarriage between descendants will tail off the increase toward the point where most people are descended from him; let’s say 50,000, which you’d expect to be closing in on within say four hundred years.
Without any intermarriage, that’s it for the spread that old Viking’s genes. His inability to count his own longships spread across the county, but the innumeracy he passed on to a whole county of numbskulls never makes it across the Tamar.
Now change the assumptions so that, out of all those thousands of people, just two manage to leave: one goes to America, and one goes to Australia, and they both have families. Over the next few centuries, the same process repeats, and eventually the American and the Australian both have 50,000 descendants (and eventually more, if they are mixing in larger pools), whereas in intermarried Cornwall there are still the same 50,000.
Thus it only takes a tiny migration rate to spread someone’s genes across the world, and this is why it only needed a tiny handful of people who spread from east Asia through Papua to aboriginal Australia, and from Siberia into North America, to ensure that their genes are now widespread among the pre-European populations of both places.
Very good analysis segment of TRIP on JD Vance's contempt for British and French soldiers who served alongside USA forces, and the blowback. I hadn't realised that the total numbers rotating in and out of Afghanistan were 100k+ in toto. His "I didn't mean them" is a bit tricky when 52 countries served in Iraq in the noughties, including 1600 from Ukr. Deep link.
Centrist Dads' supply perspicacious analysis, and context, as ever. JDV's real problem is that he does not look beyond the echo chamber in his own head.
Useful idiots for Trump continue to reverse ferret, except afaics for Nonny-Nonny-Nigel. And I bet the Leeanderthal Man too, but I haven't checked.
Feeble centrist dad likes feeble centrist dad content. Startling
Lol. I go where the analysis leads.
The Trump-enthusiasts are realising they are naked emperors, and coming to their senses a little.
Will you be?
You are very possibly the stupidest person on here, and I find your cluelessly predictable commentary enjoyable for this reason. You're like a guilty pleasure
You've said that to at least a dozen people. Poor memory, or just lots of guilt ?
No, just a lot of competition for the title "stupidest person on PB"
You won that title, at the beginning of the week.
Enough with all this small-dick energy; just try and come to terms with what you were dealt.
No, you and @kamski and the rest misunderatood the "Charlemage effect". But I am kindly letting it go because I am essentially a nice person and I know you get weirdly querulous and angry when confronted with your personal intellectual limitations. I imagine this peevishness is why your only friend is a dog, but I have no desire to make that loneliness worse, so go forth with my blessing, this sacred Ash Wednesday
We should all be kinder to each other, like me
I was intrigued by the works referred to in this discussion and went and read them. What was interesting was that the model is based on assuming that the parents are randomly drawn from all available people in a population. Which is a bit unlikely. The author admits this in his work. But what is undeniable is that if you go back enough generations you will find an individual who everyone alive is a direct descendent of. But that person is unlikely to have been either Rollo of Charlemagne. Then going furthe r back you will reach a point where everyone alive is is either an ancestor of that person or has no surviving descendants. The issue at hand was about when that would be. After one generation it’s obviously not. By 1000 years ago it’s plausible, but I think on the whole not proven, and certainly the argument that everyone alive now is descended from everyone at 1000 is not proven.
I also did some research!
And what you say is fair. The nature of compounding maths and go-forth-and-multiply does mean that one European person. 1000 years ago, can have tens of millions of living descendants now, and direct descendants at that. However the application of brute force maths can go too far, there are too many confounders, so @kamksi's claim (IIRC) that we are all direct descendants of Rollo is almost certainly wrong (I apologise if I have mischaracterised his argument, its been a busy week in which - not least - I have flown from Shanghai to London)
It was a fun argument. Especially as I am PROVABLY a direct descendant of Rollo, and also Snurtur, the Norse God of Ice and Fire,
How can someone be so dumb. 1000 years at a new generation every 25 years is a 2 to the power of 40. We are not talking about tens of millions. Nothing so trivially as small. Are you really so stupid that you can't do the maths? There aren't confounders. The maths is simple and straightforward. Can you explain what cofounders there are?. We all have 2 parents, we all have 4 grand parents, etc. It is simple. The number exceeds the total population of the planet way before you get to the end and by a massive number. Eventually those ancestors become so diverse that every ancestor is your grandparent several times over and probably at different levels eg a person might be your grandfather several times at level 40 and several at level 38, 39, 41 and 42.
If you read the papers, as I did this week, even the author acknowledges that your parents are not a random selection from the entire population available on the planet or in Europe at the time. That’s why it is not as simple as 40! suggests. Seriously, check out the papers - it’s all there. It’s possible that at the year 1000 everyone who has descendants is related to everyone alive, but it’s not definite. There were almost certainly individuals who were ancestors of everyone alive now. You have to go further back for everyone to be an ancestor of everyone.
The population of GB a 1000 years ago was a few million. 40 to the power of 2 is around 1,000, 000, 000,000. I counted on my fingers so could be out by a factor or two and I rounded down to 1000 every time I got to 1024, but of course that means I was under counting. Also there will be lines that died out which I have also ignored which again means I am undercounting.
There might be the odd person who isn't a decent of everyone who has a line that didn't die out, but it is exceedly highly improbable. On the contrary you are actually a multiple decent of everyone whose line didn't die out because the population a thousand years ago was a few million not a Trillion.
Read the papers and get back to me. How many people could your parents have actually met to mate with? That’s your confounders right there. Clearly everyone alive one hundred years ago is not an ancestor of everyone alive today. I don’t think that’s controversial. And clearly 10,000 years ago the maths is certain that they are are. Somewhere between those extremes will be the point at which everyone alive is an ancestor of everyone alive today, but you cannot simply use 40! to say it must be at the year 1000.
I have a memory of being told as a kid that something like 80% of people in the UK are descended from John of Gaunt
I used to be of the view that there was very little mixing in ye olden days; people tended to live where they were born.
Over the years my view has changed, as I've read more and more about it. Yes, many in rural villages never moved. But many, many did. If you were the fifth son of a tenant farmer, you were not going to inherit anything, so you had to find another occupation, perhaps somewhere else. If you were a trader, you would often need to travel. Ditto the massive Medieval trade in shipping. Then there was religion: and not just people going on pilgrimages. And war: men traveling to support their king or lord. Or just the need to go to the nearest town to pick up a new hoe or implement the village blacksmith could not make. Or even just to view the latest fashion, or attend the town fair. People might also be banished from the village, or have such a big falling-out they feel the need to leave. Or, as now, people might just want to travel, to know what is over the next hill. Famine and war also caused massive population movements, and not just of armies. And as now, people tend to be freer with their play than when at home.
And in towns or cities, the movement and mixing was probably much greater.
Then there is the little-spoken about (or written about...) prostitution and rape. We are all going on about whether we have common ancestors; we all certainly will be, to a small extent, bastards. Or even the product of rape, somewhere down our lineage.
A couple of weeks ago I saw 3 "Wandergesellen" (I guess you'd translate it as 'journeymen' thought the tradition died out much earlier in Britain) walking down the street. It used to be a requirement (for many guilds) after completing an apprenticeship, to do a few (usually 3) "Wanderjahre" before you could become a master craftsman.
They are a fairly rare sight nowadays. Apparently around 450 in Germany - it's supported as a cultural tradition.
Comments
But we really can't buy any more unless the US hands over everything we need to operate and maintain them independently - a self-hosted version of the ALIS software, all the CAD files, firmware source code, etc. I don't see them doing any such thing while the orange fool is in charge.
After disentangling multiple layers of lies he came to the conclusion that the Soviet oil and gas operations in Central Asia consumed more resources than they produced, from about 1960 onwards.
Yes, the Soviets managed to make an effective loss on fossil fuels. They would have been better off not bothering and buying the oil from abroad.
Same reasons that Soviet agriculture was a failure. In the Black Soil country. Demented levels of inefficiency.
Many factors contributed to the Soviet Union’s downfall. They include defeat in Afghanistan, an unsustainable arms race, financial bankruptcy, laggardly technology, sclerotic political structures, a discredited ideology, a generation gap between rulers and the ruled and much else besides; discussion of them fills any number of weighty tomes, but none in itself gives a sufficient explanation.
The essence lies deeper, and is not complicated.
The Soviet system was built on extreme force and extreme fraud. Practically everything Lenin and the Leninists did was accompanied by killing; practically everything they said was based on half-baked theories, a total lack of integrity and huge, barefaced lies.
I guess not all academics are lefty nostalgists.
Released from that, the fields were capable of producing at way higher levels.
I get the sentiment, but it's the parties own page, feels a bit redundant, as if the first post on LabourList articles was just Labour, or the first post on a PB Header the literal words 'Unrelated comment'.
https://x.com/mastropotato/status/1896200392264007800
Now if you go back 500 years you are getting to the break point where a substantial number of GBs population then will be ancestors, some multiple ancestors, but also quite a few that aren't. Simply do the maths to see how many ancestors you have and compare to the population. If the figure is greater by thousands or millions it is practically impossible for you not to be descended from them all except those whose lines died out. 500 years ago we are looking at a million ancestors so definitely lots won't be and lots will be.
Days back, we established that any reader of this forum could, were their entire family tree spread out before them, trace millions of lines of direct descent from any person in the Dark Ages whose line hasn’t died out entirely. We also established that any claim to be able to evidence a single one of these likely ten million lines of descent was more likely than not to be false, at even a very low chance per generation of infidelity and the rest.
Those above suggesting that this is just maths without any corroborating evidence missed the point that it is well supported by genetic testing. Every Native American, for example, shares a common ancestor with every European if you go back just three thousand years.
Some collective farms had had crop yields below the yields in 1914….
As for the 'disapassionate' argument you make, I'm afraid I think you're completely wrong. Russia is a regional power that bullies its neighbours. That is reprehensible, but it is sadly not uncommon. Turkey is currently illegally occupying two other countries. Israel just marched into what's left of Syria to protect ethnic Jews. It may be vaguely in our interests to thwart Russia, but it's nowhere near vital enough that we should be stripping the army of equipment and spending countless billions just to kill a few more of them.
Regarding real threats: China is on a centuries-long mission to supplant the Western economies and become the dominant world power, with widespread industrial espionage and secret police forces on UK soil in its toolbox. India opposes us globally as a hated colonial bogeyman, seeks to influence our society by migration, and has nurtered a growing hold over our politicians. Turkey hosts the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises a hidden but profound influence over many Muslim communities in the UK. Saudi Arabia sponsors the spread of a toxic Salafist doctrine via mosques, that has been at the heart of various acts of terror. To my mind, all these countries represent a significantly bigger threat to our real security interests than Russia does.
The problem is that he's capricious and has the mind of a goldfish so the moment you get back on the plane you're at the mercy of whoever has his ear now. And whereas in Trump's first term that was a bunch of Republican old hands who could at least talk him down from his worst ideas or convert them into less damaging ones. This time the people around him are genuine lunatics, incompetent fools, grifters, hardline extremists, and people who've had their minds poisoned by Russian propaganda and the biggest sewer on the internet.
So of course you do all the right things for "dealing" with him and then he goes and does the mad thing anyway as the people who have permanent access to him are some of the most poisonous people on the planet. That's especially a problem when we've got our own allies in Europe and the Commonwealth we can't sell down the river for America's insanity.
One just hopes we've got feelers out to Beijing as this is all going to end very badly indeed.
Is it time for another damascene conversion?
You are obviously not a direct descendant, or any kind of descendant, of your niece.
Now everyone is unlearning it again.
Ironically had Putin marched straight on Kyiv in 2014 it would almost certainly have rapidly fallen, in days, as he'd planned this time - but post-Crimea we'd invested a fortune building up Ukraine's forces to the point they were able to repel Russia.
Its just a shame that the Americans have elected a President who wants to hand Russia a lifeline now from this war they're losing otherwise.
https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1897352467412869365
"Robert Jenrick
@RobertJenrick
Under new sentencing rules there is blatant discrimination against straight white men.
Starmer sneered at those who said we have a two-tier justice system. Rayner labelled them ‘conspiracy theorists’.
But here it is in black and white.
Two-tier justice under two-tier Keir."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rob8SVeQ-8
Honestly, how are businesses supposed to plan with this level of utter buffoonery going on.
You’re absolutely right to zero in on the exponential math - it’s a seductive idea, you old Ventnor pooch-screwer. If you double your ancestors each generation (2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc.), by 33 generations (roughly 1,000 years back to Rollo’s time), you’d theoretically have 2^33, or about 8.6 billion ancestors. That’s way more than the population of Europe then (30–40 million), suggesting everyone’s family tree overlaps massively, including with Rollo. So why isn’t everyone a direct descendant? That, @ianb2, is where the confounders - those pesky real-world wrinkles! - break your simplistic maths. Here’s what throws it off:
Key Confounders
1 Pedigree Collapse Doesn’t Guarantee Rollo, daddio
The exponential model assumes every ancestor is unique, but in reality, family trees collapse because people marry cousins or within small communities. By 1,000 years ago, you’re related to the same people multiple times over - your 8.6 billion slots don’t mean 8.6 billion different individuals. Rollo might be in that collapsed pool for some, but only if your ancestors crossed paths with his descendants (mostly Norman nobility). If your lineage stayed in, say, rural Bulgaria, no
2 Geographic and Social Isolation
Rollo’s influence was concentrated in Normandy, then spread via noble marriages. Peasants, who were most of the population, rarely mingled with aristocracy or moved far. Isolated groups - like the Sami in Scandinavia, Basques in Spain, or dog-preferrers anywhere - no
3 Lineage Extinction
Not every child has kids. Some people find it hard to make any friends, and are forced to have only pets. Likewise some of Rollo’s descendants died out - wars, plagues (like the Black Death), or just bad luck pruned branches
4 Uneven Reproductive Success
Nobles like Rollo had more kids who survived (wealth, power, better food). Peasants often didn’t - famine, disease, zoophilia, or celibacy (monks, nuns) cut their lines short. Rollo’s descendants dominate the surviving noble gene pool, but the broader population? Nope
5 Time and Specificity
By 33 generations, you share ancestors with tons of people from 900 CE - but which ones? Rollo’s just one guy. The “everyone’s related” idea works for a generic ancestor pool, not a specific person
6 Migration and Barriers
Europe had walls - literal and cultural. Mountains (Alps, Pyrenees), seas, and less attractive dogs slowed gene flow. Rollo’s line didn’t hop the Carpathians. Soz boz Mr B2
Why the Math Fails
The 2^33 figure is a maximum potential, not a reality. For Rollo to be a direct ancestor, your lineage needs a clear, unbroken chain through his kids, their kids, etc., intersecting your tree. The math suggests shared ancestry with someone from his era, but pinning it to Rollo requires he or his heirs hooked up with your specific forefathers
So no, the brute maths is seductive: like that Labrador at the end of your road - but it is wrong
Sorry Elon. That pooch is well and truly screwed.
The UK is in such a difficult position with so much of our defence linked with the USA so we have to carry on this charade that the US is still an ally .
Careful diplomacy with the US is in our best interest, no matter how untasteful, but they can never be trusted again
Bit slower, the guy who reposted it.
Obviously, in the meantime, diplomacy often involves doing what you can with the leaders of countries who are not allies. The US is a massively important country, and British diplomats have to do the best they can to get the best from the relationship with them.
The Tories need him as leader. He’s probably the most cogent persuasive leadership candidate since Cameron - tho he’s appealing to a very different electorate
I mean would you trust that Trump is not going to pass on our intelligence secrets to the Russians?
I readily admit there are some deeply ominous signs, but they are only signs. So far
That's it. No quasi-descendants. Perhaps you mean relations?
You are related to a lot of people and a direct descendant of a smaller number of people (but still a lot). Is that it?
I trust your judgment. What do YOU think of Jenrick? Should he be leader?
'Three times I heard the exact same answer: Trump would turn in mock anger and declare: “I cheat on my wives, I cheat on my taxes. You don’t think I’m going to cheat at golf? On my own course?”'
p. 246
Is it possible that there could be a connection between that admission and his desire to sharply cut the budget of the IRS?
(After the hardback came out, Reilly was swamped with further examples of the Loser cheating, a few from some who had earlier claimed the Loser didn’t cheat.)
So you are saying that she is a quasi-descendant of you to your mind.
I'm just trying to clarify what you mean. I think you mean you are related to her but she is not your descendent.
Sorry I mangled the direction of descendancy when I said you are a non-descendant of your niece (25% DNA). It should have read that your niece is a non-descendant of you.
I think I'll go to bed.
And yes it is late. Plus jet lag. Time for bed for me as
well
🤛😴
I'm not really a big fan of anything that's going on in politics at the moment, I wish it could be 1995 forever with that type of non-woke liberalism.
Only if Kemi/Stride lose the next GE would Jenrick then be the likely contender to take over
But just occasionally they didn't. Say Tom from Yorkshire impregnated Jill from Hastings in 1066 when he came down for the battle.
Now just do the numbers. Theoretically each one of these couples descendants in 2025 is a Trillion people. A trillion. Now it obviously isn't that high by a long chalk and that is because of interbreeding (even if that is someone a hundred times removed whom you have never heard of before or more likely related to you only slightly distantly because you are in the same village). However, for instance, a few of a huge number descendants of Tom and Jill will again meet up with the descendents of of Tom's ancestors. They are bound to because the numbers are so high. Over 1000 years it is impossible not to happen unless nobody is allowed out of their village ever and the interbreeding happens again.
So I, as a southerner, I am sure I am related many times over to my wife who is Scottish. It might be many, many many, generations ago, but it is almost a certainty.
So the idea that someone isn't a decendent of some who has a continuous line from a 1000 years ago is infinitesimally small and is in all probability a decendent many times over. If not the population of the UK would exceed the population of the planet a 1000 times over.
PS. Posted after midnight after a heavy day so please ignore gibberish and inaccuracies. Started to do it with maths and gave up. Brain too tired.
I know the budgetary and planning processes of Tempest are completely unmoored from reality but it's beyond even the hallucinogenic imagination of BAE to propose a pivot to a STOVL variant at this point.
I think the carriers will go into midlife refit and be reroled as UAS platforms with smaller launching systems rather than full size catapults. The FAA will concentrate on that for fixed wing aviation as Project Ark Royal already hints. F-35 will recede into the golden Norfolk sunset as an RAF enterprise.
JFL is failing for the exact reason that JFH failed. It's 100% owned and operated by Crab Air and their view of shipboard operations is much the same as my view of taking the bin out. a minor inconvenience to be avoided for as long as possible until the bollockings transcend the pain threshold.
It's a careful and thorough process. Look around and there are plenty of organisations who submitted responses. The section of Jenrick is complaining about NOW is in the draft guidelines published by his own Government.
https://consult.justice.gov.uk/sentencing-council/imposition-of-community-and-custodial-sentences/
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/overarching-guides/magistrates-court/item/imposition-of-community-and-custodial-sentences-revised/
This is Bobby J blowing his whistle to get social media excited. It's another example of the Tories faking outrage about the Government doing things they were quite happy to have done on their own watch.
If they wanted to say anything, they could have responded to the consultation when their Government put it out, or before.
He is having a very good war however. Better than Badenoch and head and shoulders better than Starmer.
There were many in military roles, but also the merchant marine, fishermen, and travelling merchants but also peasants would walk cattle, geese, sheep often hundreds of miles to markets and fairs. Then of course there were pilgrimages and celebrations "Holy days" that became our holidays. These involved all classes, and were highly social events, as is obvious to any reader of Chaucer.
- Half the world's merchant shipping was British.
- Royal Navy had an establishment of 110k - much abroad. (Naval estimates)
- There were around 100k UK people in India (Asked AI).
Population was a little over 40m.
White Rabbit
- Jefferson Airplane original (ish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnJM_jC7j_4
- Grace Slick Isolated Vocals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khZ7e9ytm-g
- Pink cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsKPQgjQyEA
- Matrix Resurrections trailer version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ix7TUGVYIo
Such A ShameNet Favorables:
Macron: +10%
Zelenskyy: +8%
Starmer: +8%
Trump: -3%
Vance: -3%
Musk: -8%
A. Tate: -21%
Bezos: -21%
YouGov / Mar 4, 2025 / n=1638
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1897441929643565290
He exposes British fragility
Tom McTague"
https://unherd.com/2025/03/why-jd-vance-offends-us/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g0z30kknlo
‘Cheerio’: How to tell if a flight attendant thinks you’re good looking
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/advice/flight-attendant-games/ (£££)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpv4jww3r4eo
Cell-autonomous innate immunity by proteasome-derived defence peptides
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08615-w
Professor Merbl can look forward to visiting Sweden some time in the next decade.
Not that the US did much better with much heavier forces in their own patches.
The Commerce Secretary suggests we can finance a $7 trillion federal budget without any American paying any taxes.
This would require a universal 220% tariff that inexplicably does not reduce imports at all, and is somehow entirely paid by foreigners. Pure economic illiteracy.
https://x.com/JessicaBRiedl/status/1897442912339677644
Legal challenge to the FIA:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/cz03y7ydee9o
I used to be of the view that there was very little mixing in ye olden days; people tended to live where they were born.
Over the years my view has changed, as I've read more and more about it. Yes, many in rural villages never moved. But many, many did. If you were the fifth son of a tenant farmer, you were not going to inherit anything, so you had to find another occupation, perhaps somewhere else. If you were a trader, you would often need to travel. Ditto the massive Medieval trade in shipping. Then there was religion: and not just people going on pilgrimages. And war: men traveling to support their king or lord. Or just the need to go to the nearest town to pick up a new hoe or implement the village blacksmith could not make. Or even just to view the latest fashion, or attend the town fair. People might also be banished from the village, or have such a big falling-out they feel the need to leave. Or, as now, people might just want to travel, to know what is over the next hill. Famine and war also caused massive population movements, and not just of armies. And as now, people tend to be freer with their play than when at home.
And in towns or cities, the movement and mixing was probably much greater.
Then there is the little-spoken about (or written about...) prostitution and rape. We are all going on about whether we have common ancestors; we all certainly will be, to a small extent, bastards. Or even the product of rape, somewhere down our lineage.
While I agree we should be cautious or concerned about the activities of Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia etc., I would note that Russia has directly killed people on British soil, unlike your other examples, and is militarily occupying a much larger area across Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
(Cue for people to pull skeletons out his closet...)
The rule change is about the production of presentencing reports, not about actual sentences. As the article notes, “Official figures show that offenders from ethnic minorities consistently get longer sentences than white offenders for indictable offences.” We have long had a 2-tier justice system where people from ethnic minority groups were treated worse, but Jenrick isn’t bothered about that.
Imagine Cornwall, which through early history had a population somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000. Drop in some passing Viking, who has children, and it’s simple maths that within a few hundred years he’s going to have a lot of descendants. If they all stay in Cornwall and intermarry, as the centuries pass, intermarriage between descendants will tail off the increase toward the point where most people are descended from him; let’s say 50,000, which you’d expect to be closing in on within say four hundred years.
Without any intermarriage, that’s it for the spread that old Viking’s genes. His inability to count his own longships spread across the county, but the innumeracy he passed on to a whole county of numbskulls never makes it across the Tamar.
Now change the assumptions so that, out of all those thousands of people, just two manage to leave: one goes to America, and one goes to Australia, and they both have families. Over the next few centuries, the same process repeats, and eventually the American and the Australian both have 50,000 descendants (and eventually more, if they are mixing in larger pools), whereas in intermarried Cornwall there are still the same 50,000.
Thus it only takes a tiny migration rate to spread someone’s genes across the world, and this is why it only needed a tiny handful of people who spread from east Asia through Papua to aboriginal Australia, and from Siberia into North America, to ensure that their genes are now widespread among the pre-European populations of both places.
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They are a fairly rare sight nowadays. Apparently around 450 in Germany - it's supported as a cultural tradition.