How to survive dark times: study Medieval History

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Yes, these are dark, dark times. Autocracy is on the rise around the globe, riding the fury of ignorant mobs to arrive at a new barbarism. Climate breakdown, entailing economic and social collapse now seems very close indeed. It would be very easy indeed to fall into the bleak despair, as the achievements of the educated, built patiently over the centuries, are squandered in a couple of insane decades. But survival is possible. Other intelligent people have witnessed a collapsing world. And realised that the most important thing was to save what they could from the ruin, then pass it on. So that one day learning and reason could rise again

Our examples are four remarkable men who lived roughly between the years 400AD and 600AD as the Roman world, its trading and legal networks, its learning and reason, collapsed around them. Astute readers will note that most of them professed the Christian Faith. We at LSS advocate no faith or all of them, believing such decisions are best reserved to the mind of each individual. What they illustrate is how to accomplish psychological survival in the face of catastrophe. If their faiths helped them, so be it; we think the methods are more enlightening than the beliefs

St Augustine of Hippo 354-430 In the late Roman Empire the daily work of a priest a bit like a social worker today; distributing alms, visiting the sick, binding the links that tied a fraying society. But he wrote books too. Like all his contemporaries, Augustine was horrified by Imperial collapse. But instead of just wailing and gnashing his teeth, he set out to ask why, using the best ideas available to him at the time. In the City of God he claimed that Rome fell because it had not been based on Justice. In a world of profound inequality and judicial corruption it is a lesson not without resonances today. His ideas that, somewhere out there, another City could be built where trade and learning might thrive again, inspired the best of people through the darkest times, Including some on this list

Cassiodorus Old LSS hands will recall our blog of 11th June 2020 on Marcus Cassiodorus c 485-585) From which we will take this single extract

He had realised that the one place where works of learning could be effectively preserved was in the shelter of monasteries. And so he set his monks to work, copying and preserving as many works as they could. It is thanks to him that so much work survived the collapse of ancient civilisation. And that one day this learning, more precious than gold, would be revived..

if you want to know more, go back to the original blog

St Benedict of Nursia 480-547 If you want monasteries to survive , people have to want to stay in them. At a time when monasticism was plagued by weird fanatics, defying the rules of nature and reason in ever more convoluted asceticism, St Benedict set up rules that were feasible, sustainable and went with the observable grain of human nature. The result was that his Benedictine Monasteries began to spread, offering sanctuaries, however imperfect, where the seeds of learning could survive. His work provided one of the foundations for the work of :

Gregory the Great (?-604AD) Gregory subsumed the work of all the above and others, by clearly recognising that the old world was gone, and there was no point regretting it. It was time for new methods and new ways of thinking. Whatever the ups and downs of the Churches ever since it was Gregory who gave that vital push which enabled them to become custodians of knowledge for centuries to come. In that sense, he achieved.

We live in times when are own barbarians seem close to perfecting their own world of lawless violence, squalor and ignorance. But we may have our revenge. The task now is to work out where we went wrong, and from that to pass a legacy to future generations of the Intelligent. You do not have to be a Christian, you can even be an Atheist, and still believe that one day there will be a City, bright and shining, where the educated and the just thrive. And the world of the Barbarians will again be remembered as as epoch of squalid folly, and their leaders are bywords for incompetence and cruelty.

#middle ages #medieval #st augustine #survival #papacy #gregory the great #cassiodorus

Ian Sample: Science offers five reasons to be cheerful

Just for kicks, we thought we’d change the slightly pessimistic zeitgeist of this blog, and offer you some stories of real hope. Those-and a little moral homily at the end which we hope will justify these humble inclusions. The stories come, as so often, from Guardian science writer Ian Sample, whose thoughts we often praise here.[1] We hope they might offer a glimpse of what we are about to lose if certain tendencies play out.

Stem Cell transplants could reverse diabetes. All that intricate and detailed work on stem cells may at last be finding a pay-off in the real world, with an almost infinite relief of human suffering. We respect the beliefs of the religious: but would just praying have got us this far?

Cancer vaccines from RNA We have covered this before here. If nothing else, the COVID-19 pandemic witnessed a major leap forward in vaccine technology, especially in mRNA. Where would cancer patients be now if all those anti-vaxxers had their way?

AI detects cancers To bring in another LSS old favourite: AI can now be used to screen and detect cancers more quickly than ever before. When we think of cancer, we think of old acquaintances who used to deny smoking had anything to do with cancer. Does that remind you of climate change deniers?

Occupants of interplanetary Space For lovers of pure science, there can be little more amazing the discoveries offered by the James Webb telescope. Once upon a time, the Inquisition threatened to burn Galileo for looking up at four little satellites around Jupiter. Will someone try the same on this new telescope?

Renewable energy is on the way. Remember all those programmes and articles that tried to suggest that renewables could never, ever replace fossil fuels? But there’s real hope now that renewables will displace fossils by 2030. Both China and India seem poised to lead the way ahead. USA take note.

Yet we promised you a moral on this one, so here it is. All these discoveries, all this science, which Ian has just showed us is dependent on the free and fearless interchange of information. Which in turn depends on open societies and the rule of law. There is strong reason to believe that this era is coming to an end. In some countries, religious obscurantists and zealots are close to extinguishing freedom forever. in others, violent ethno-nationalists have seized power, or are close to doing so. These societies may well offer social stratification and the appearance of security. Yet in all of them. the sole definition of value is “does this bolster the regime?” There can be no truth in science, no beauty in art, no trust in money which does not meet this criterion. Ultimately, such societies stagnate. And then decline. You still have time to change your minds. In some countries, at least.

[1]://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/09/reasons-to-be-hopeful-five-ways-science-is-making-the-world-better?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#science #learning #objective truth #empiricism #vaccines #rna #astronomy #medicine

From American Decline to World Government: fasten your seatbelts for a bumpy ride

When did America’s Decline end, and the Fall begin? Although future historians will debate, Tuesday November 5th 2024 will be as good as any other point to start from. For it was on this date that a concatenation of forces-economic, political, social-produced the re-election of Donald Trump, and all that was to follow. These forces included an irresolvable racial rancour dating back to slavery; a deep pollution of information in the public sphere; a chronic failing in public education and the ethos to support it. But above all it was the worship of money, and the catastrophic, merciless social and economic inequalities that this engendered, that brought everything low. Writing for The Nation, Tom McCoy details these rather well in the first part of his article [1] (Don’t read the second bit until we say you can) To cut a long story short, we could call this obsession with cash NeoLiberalism.

Let’s just jump across the Atlantic for a moment to say goodbye to Larry Elliott who quits his post at the Guardian after 36 years {2] He too is eloquent on the many things he has witnessed. Among them is this observation on this same cocky, self-satisfied NeoLiberalism

…… the free-market experiment has failed, as some of us said it would all along. Wealth did not trickle down, and instead the gap between the haves and the have-nots widened. The workers laid off when the factories closed in northern England and the US midwest did not find new well-paid jobs but were either thrown on the scrapheap or found low-paid insecure work …………

Financial speculation ran rife once controls on capital were removed, but growth rates in the west were slower than in the postwar heyday of social democracy. Warnings of trouble ahead were ignored until the world’s banking system came close to collapse in the global financial crisis of 2008. [2]

Producing an alienated and impoverished group of vast voting power) which was impervious to the imploring of reason, fact and education. And who could blame them? The exalted free markets have produced such insecurity that a nationalist backlash was inevitable. It is now tearing down every shibboleth that the neoliberals held dear. Low tariffs, free movements of capital and labour, cultural and intellectual exchange are going to the wall, and we can see nowhere that this process can now stop..

Except one. Because while Larry’s article closes with a final nod to the re-emergence of the Nation State, Tom’s goes further and look to the future.(OK, click on his article again) The problem with the Nation State is Pride. It is national Pride which will cause Donald Trump and his friends to start drilling for oil again. By which means all combined attempts to prevent global warming will collapse, as each nation looks to its own interest. Runaway global warming will produce such desolation that any economy and any body politic will become unsustainable, probably as early as the next decade. The resulting chaos will make a world Government essential for human survival. And tom details how this may come about, perhaps in the sixties or seventies.

The American hegemony is now certainly over, How ironic that this was hastened by an arch nationalist such as Trump!

[1]https://www.thenation.com/article/world/american-hegemony-climate/

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/10/from-thatcher-to-trump-and-brexit-my-seven-lessons-learned-after-28-years-as-guardian-economics-editor

#global warming #economics #climate change #donald trump #neoliberalism #free trade #protectionism

Simon Jenkins: refreshingly philosophical about Trump

President Trump Postlaunch Remarks (NHQ202005300037) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

“Let’s keep our Alans on!” These are the words of a character in the Guy Ritchie film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, at a moment when the speaker and his chums have been thrown into a particularly invidious situation. For the benefit of overseas readers, the phrase means “keep calm and carry on”.

Which is what all of us who call ourselves progressives must do upon the election of Donald j Trump as 47th President of the United States of America. We may consider this outcome regrettable, his policies somewhere between deplorable and suicidal. The ever-objective Simon Jenkins of the Guardian offers a different perspective. [1] One that is calm, measured, but above all offers a psychological way forward. You must read his article for the full force of his argument But here its its essence distilled

The fact that 56% of non-graduates supported Trump suggests a strident voice from well outside the liberal camp. That voice opposes anti-police funding, the preoccupation with diversity and woke culture wars on campus. It indicates a working-class hostility to a superior elite that has shown little interest in its concerns. Progressive America must recognise its shortcomings and reargue its case. That is the opportunity Trump has so generously offered.

Even after the Fall of Rome, courageous souls like St Augustine and Cassiodorus did not sit around in sackcloth and ashes, wailing “sad songs on the death of kings” They picked themselves up and asked two questions. “Why did this happen?” followed by “where do we go from here?”

Themes to which we will return in the following weeks

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/08/trump-terrible-silver-lining-progressives-reflect-liberals

#woke #political correctness #liberalism #conservatism #donald j trump #usa

Knocking out the genes in agressive cancer

Can we really, really intervene late, and save someone with even quite advanced forms of cancer? According to research reviewed Ian Sample of the Guardian, it may be possible sooner than you think. [1]

According to Ian, this hope lies in the destruction of something called extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA). No, we’d never heard of it either. Apparently it takes the form of little lumps of DNA which break off from your chromosomes and go swanning around on their own. Until recently it didn’t seem to matter much. But it seems the fragments contain all kinds of genes to suppress the immune system and foment the growth of tumours. Not surprising then, the fact that they seem to show up in 17.1% of cancers [2] However, be of good cheer, for there is further news. A class of drugs called CHK-1 inhibitors may be just the ticket to take down and wipe out these pesky little fragments.

Why did we like this story this morning? Well, Ian Sample is nearly always good for something interesting. Also he has the best monniker for a science journalist anywhere. We liked the intellectual discipline of the paper(15000 patients, 39 types of tumour,etc). Best of all we liked the fact that the whole study has grown partly on the initiative of Cancer Research UK. That marvellous body whom we have plugged before on these pages. [3] So the Moral of the Story is clear, gentle reader. Giving money to them works, Spending money on scientific research makes for better outcomes than throwing it over the bar at the Dog and Duck. And that people who denigrate and deny the findings of scientists, and/or cut their funding represent a very clearw and present danger to us all.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/06/zapping-rogue-dna-key-treating-aggressive-cancers-study

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08107-3

[3]https://donate.cancerresearchuk.org/donate?gclid=01b5ce4ce3c919c4ae82a9607f32384e&gclsrc=3p.ds&msclkid=01b5ce4ce3c919c4ae82a9607f32384e&utm_source=bin

#cancer #medicine #health #dna

Fake news and misinformation: two hopeful suggestions

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Hayek once observed that, as the amount of information in the world grows exponentially, each one of us becomes proportionally more ignorant. And into this vast hollow of ignorance flows a torrent of malevolencies, lies, falsehoods, facts, opinions, theories, half-truths and wholly well meaning attempts. How to sort out the good from the bad,? The wheat from the chaff? The (that’s enough bucolic metaphors-ed) It’s a question of vital importance, especially on a day when a democracy as mighty as the United States of America goes to the polls. Well, we have two possible ways forward for you today, both of which we think lie on the well-meaning attempts part of the spectrum

First up is Professor Clodagh Harrington of the Conversation. [1]She expands upon on the work of a film maker called Friedrich Moser. In a film called How to Build a Truth Engine, he discourses broadly on an eclectic range of psychology, neurology, journalism and history, asking and re-asking the question “how do we know what we know?” We haven’t seen the film, we confess, but the article is erudite, honest and provocative. Above all, we valued this killer quote, which just about sums up the deadly danger we are all in

……truth is often diluted, polluted or drowned out completely in our daily communication torrents. This, combined with the nefarious agendas of bad actors means that individuals, communities and our way of life are under significant threat.

Nature Briefings treats the whole thing as a medical problem. No surprise there. In a piece called Can we Inoculate against Fake News?, they report:

Psychologist Sander van der Linden believes that there’s a dangerous infection spreading globally — misinformation. He also has a way to combat it: ‘inoculating’ people against misinformation to stop them from believing and spreading it, in an approach analogous to vaccinating against viral infections. The concept of ‘prebunking’ involves first warning people that they might be intentionally misled, then showing them a mild form of misinformation. There is evidence that the approach can lessen the persuasiveness of falsities, but critics argue that the method places the onus on the individual and absolves social media companies that might profit from spreading lies.Science | 10 min read

Well-how do we know what we know? It’s a question at least as old as Descartes. His generation had the luxury of knowing they wouldn’t blow up the world if they couldn’t answer this question. We are not so fortunate. Right now the lies seem to have an enormous cabal of dictators, tycoons and hucksters behind them. A few lonely academics and one hit journalists are pitifully small in comparison. But unless we keep trying, as these brave people do, this time we are surely lost.

[1]https://theconversation.com/how-to-build-a-truth-engine-documentary-makes-for-sober-but-crucial-viewing-in-our-age-of-disinformation-242554?utm_medi

#fake news #misinformation #internet #algorithm #lies #descartes #democracy

It’s an interconnected world, or: How we learned to stop worrying and love Donald Trump

Two days out from the US Presidential Election. For weeks now, our anxiety has been growing. Are they really going to elect That Man? Again? After all he did to their security, alliances, economy, health? Has Democracy itself failed? The mere fact he has got so far suggests Democracy is very, very poor at solving its problems.

And then the lightbulb moment saved us. We were listening to a BBC piece on Radio 4 about the attempts of various UK Governments to control illegal immigration. Onto the show they tipped an expert who warned “any attempt to control the people smuggler gangs will fail, because their leaders live mostly in the Middle East.” In other words people smuggling is a multinational business. Like IT, oil, fashion, fast food, transport, automotive manufacture. Some of these many giant businesses operate within the law(most of the time, anyway) Some like drug dealers and people smugglers tend stay outside it. But the economic and technological forces driving them are the same. The world is a very small place thanks to modern technology, and the rules of supply and demand are infallible. Economies of scale evolve that are far beyond the jurisdictions of nation states.

Which brings us back to the US elections. The people who will (probably) elect Donald Trump are not bad, mad or stupid. But they are frightened and bewildered. Because the very concept through which they view the world (the nation state) is now utterly inadequate to contend with the problems we face. Things like global warming, pandemics and the mass migrations of people are so obviously beyond the competence of even the largest national entities as to make their individual policies irrelevant. Suddenly a vote for a President, Prime Minister or whatever becomes like gripping the gear lever on a failing car. Whatever you do, it suddenly makes little difference. In that sense, the rise of Donald Trump is a sure and infallible signal of the utter failure of national politics everywhere. It states more clearly than anything that the time has come to look long and hard for an alternative. And, as that truth, it should be welcomed.

#donald trump #us elections #global warming #nation state #world government

Round Up: Unpleasant drinks, New antibiotics for old, weight loss and clever cats

What’s in the water? Water is good for you, beer is bad. True, up to a point, especially for those of us who worry about our girth. But think before you drink, as they say. There may be more in that innocent glass of tap water than you bargained for, as this piece from The Conversation makes clear. Forever Chemicals in our drinking water……………

https://theconversation.com/forever-chemicals-are-in-our-drinking-water-heres-how-to-reduce-them-241645?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%

Clever moggy finds new virus Ailurophiles of all lands will applaud the tale of this serendipitous kitty who brought home a mouse that contained a hitherto-unknown, and rather scary virus, to his biochemist owner. Here’s the Daily Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14021477/florida-rodent-virus-human-infection-potential.html

Antibiotics from the past Leafing through our old pharmacopoeias and other databases may yet be an important new source of antibiotics. God knows we need to look anywhere and everywhere. Fortunately, Science Alert shows the way, with really good graphics(yes we always like those)

https://www.sciencealert.com/forgotten-antibiotic-from-decades-past-could-be-a-superbug-killer

Can weight loss drugs boost your mental health? We at LSS recommend no drug or substance, as we are not doctors. But we will report on new reports about those drugs, provided these are covered by reputable outfits such as New Scientist. Here’s one about new research into possible mental health benefits of these new weight loss drugs which are so fashionable in today’s Zeitgeist, as t’were. Two caveats: once again, don’t do anything with these until you’ve spoken to your doctor; and, moreover, you’ll have to jump the paywall on this one. _{Thanks to G Herbert}

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26234953-900-the-surprising-mental-health-and-brain-benefits-of-weight-loss-drugs/

#weight loss #mental health #antibiotic #cat #pollution #forever chemicals #serendipity #medicine health

Reason or Unreason: which will give you a better life?

What happens when you apply reason to solve your problems? And what happens when you give way to emotions, like fear or anger? Two stories from Nature Briefings illustrate the consequences rather nicely, we think.

Reason: New developments in RNA therapies Older readers, who remember as far back as the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, may recall how a little thing called an RNA vaccine began to make a big difference. Since when a lot of time has passed, and RNA medical technology has come on leaps and bounds. Don’t take our word for it, read this, RNA treatments nearing reality

As early as the mid-1990s, scientists suggested editing molecules of RNA as a treatment for certain diseases, but at the time, they lacked the tools to do so. Around thirty years later, those tools are at our disposal. Editing RNA instead of DNA has several advantages. It’s a process that cells perform naturally, it doesn’t risk permanently altering a person’s genes and it doesn’t introduce bacterial enzymes to human cells as CRISPR-Cas9 gene therapies do. The field of RNA editing may be in its infancy, but pharma companies are already testing its use in some types of eye disease and cancer.Science | 13 min read

For the record, it’s worth clicking on the link, because the article is very clear, with some truly awesome graphics

Unreason: Let’s chuck foreigners out of our Universities Now try this:

A surge in far-right parties entering governments across Europe is raising concerns for science. Policy experts warn that these parties typically show no interest in research and innovation, leaving scientists vulnerable to budget cuts. In the Netherlands, researchers are bracing for €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) in cuts to the university and research budget under a coalition government including the anti-Islam Party for Freedom. The coalition also wants to limit the intake of international students and implement rules that would require universities to apply for permission to teach courses in English, which could trigger an exodus of foreign academics who don’t want to, or can’t, teach in Dutch.Nature | 5 min read

Chuck out foreigners! Don’t let those evil English speakers corrupt the purity of our language! The really odd thing about this for us is the parallel with football . The most successful Universities are like the most successful clubs(compare the Imperial College with Manchester City, if you like) The trick is to create centres of excellence, drawing in the very best talent you can find, and taking a relaxed view of things like native language, dress sense and marital customs. There is often a strong overlap between certain types of football fan and support for right wing parties. Do they really want their favourite team to send home all the foreign players?

#football #university #learning #reason #unreason

If Keir Starmer wants to grow the UK economy, he needs to play the Research

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party came to power on a pledge to clear up Britain’s economic mess and, above all other things, create growth. But how to do it? It is a question that has bedevilled British Governments since the country first began to fall behind in the late Victorian era. And no amount of reforming government has ever halted the inexorable decline, which feels supporting like a football team slowly slipping down the leagues. Remember Manchester United?

Yet how did Britain first rise to inordinate wealth and power in the Georgian period.?(let’s leave the constitution for another day) The answer is that, by luck or design, Britain took full advantage of the scientific and intellectual advances of the Enlightenment, more so than any other country. [1]The result was the Industrial Revolution, which provided an absolute step change in human productive capacity. Sadly for Britain, other countries quickly learned the lesson, better and more thoroughly than the British pioneers. And here we are today.

Yet there may be a way out of this trap. We have long tried to sing the praises of research and development as the real drivers of economic growth. But candidly admit-we’ve struggled. Now a most erudite yet readable article from the Guardian by Andre Gein and Nancy Rothwell makes the case with levels of data back up we could never match [2] Get this for a killer quote:

It is recognised as having a much higher rate of return than average for capital investment across government spending lines (every £1 of Higher Education Innovation Fund investment at research intensive universities delivers £12 to the economy).

Starmer and Reeves should ignore the groans of the terminally old and selfish. Real patriotism would embrace tax rises, if these are then invested in the long term future of our universities, And the network of schools that feed them of course. It’s time to play a big card, and this is a gambit that will work.

[1]Enlightenment Roy Porter Allen Lane 2000

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/26/scientific-research-needs-robust-government-backing-not-treasury-penny-pinching

#universities #research and development #economics #industrial revolution #britain #enlightenment