A Common Law for the World? Part one of a new series

We’ve done quite a few blogs on a possible World Government (LSS passim) And one of the commonest objections we receive is “Nice idea, mate-but how’s it meant to actually work? And our interlocutors rightly point to a very substantial problem. The existing world is chock full of codes, laws, guidelines ethical systems and regulations. Some are national, some religious, some political in origin, often with wildly different interpretations of what is right and wrong. Moreover, all address a very real need: “we want to make our laws that govern us, here, now for ourselves” It is one of the most powerful human instincts: certainly one of the neuralgic driving forces in History and has always existed. As have tribes, nations and religious sects. And oddly enough that is what gave us hope. Because History shows there is at least one way to bring different groups of people together and persuade them to work for their mutual benefit, under a shared system of law.

It’s understandable that people living in some distant province made resent the imposition of law codes made up for them in a remote, snooty imperial capital. Sometimes these laws may be just and rational: but even then, they may not meet the needs and wants of locals. And at other times the law codes may be crass, insensitive and oppressive indeed. But there is another method to create a common legal system which people may accept over large areas. Even when they believe themselves to be very different in language, nation and ethnic affiliation. It is called Common Law. And in this series, we shall be examining it to see if it could be the solution to the central problem of a World Government: how to get everyone to agree to a common system of Justice, even when they start with very different ideas as to what that Justice may be.

We’ll look at what we mean by Common Law. And how a Medieval King called Henry II used it to unite the fractured war-torn regions of England into a successful united kingdom which has persisted until today We’ll see if we can make any modern tries at the lessons he and his judges learned. If anyone else is trying this in practice now, in 2026. And above all how codes of law can be created gradually and by consent. Above all, we are not doing this out of starry eyed idealism, nor do we believe in a Better Society. We are too old and two Whiggish to place much faith in improvements in human nature. But we do think the way we live now would be both safer and more convenient if there were less barriers to trade, less cause for murderous warfare and above all the deep and stable capital markets which a single world trading system would bring. We’ll start with the life and times of Henry II, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou Maine and Touraine. Quite a job description- and we will find out how he did it.

[1]Henry II of England – Wikipedia

#law #world government #henryII #codified Law #common law #history #trade #commerce #statute #england #middle ages #Roman law

How Jonathan Haidt destroyed our world view -and how PG Wodehouse put it back together for us

One thing we’ll say for Jonathan Haidt-he writes well. Not only is his masterwork The Righteous Mind [1]one of those books everyone should read, it’s one of the few on that list you actually can read with pleasure. But that’s exactly the problem, gentle readers, For Professor Haidt writes so clearly, so learnedly, so elegantly that he has utterly destroyed our world view(and we haven’t even finished yet) Allow us to explain.

Astute readers will recall our proud boast that this is a Whig website. You know the score-heirs of the Enlightenment, one day Reason and Learning will triumph over the brutish simian instincts of the human psyche, and we will all move forward to sunlight uplands-all white buildings, big lawns and everyone living to 100 and discussing Philosophy, that sort of thing. Not so fast, cautions Professor Haidt. In fact he pretty conclusively demolishes that worldview and still has time for some good puzzles. For him, the relationship between the two bits of the mind is like that between a huge powerful elephant (the unconscious) and a rather nervous little rider (the rational educated bit) whose principal job is to explain reasons to justify why the unconscious bit has just made its latest blunder (think sex ,food and heavy drinking) or got into its latest scrape(think wearing a blue jacket with jeans) “Is this the end?” we cried-did Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Bacon, Spinoza and Bertrand Russell all live in vain? Are we now condemned by our own nature to a life of burning witches, eating at fast food joints and committing unspeakable blunders in the way we vote in certain referendums?

And suddenly we thought-someone else worked out a survival plan for all this over one hundred years ago-and that man was PG Wodehouse.[2] For what is Bertie Wooster if not the elephant: an impulsive, pleasure seeking socially anxious but basically decent sort of chap-the powerful one with the money, but “mentally negligible” in the words of Jeeves, his faithful manservant and amanuensis? Who is the thinking one, the planning one, the one with foresight who manages to extract Bertie (and chums) from scrape after scrape, and somehow keep the show on the road. And at that point we ceased to worry: its been riders and elephants all along, or at least Berties and Jeeveses (is that a correct plural?-ed) And we’re all still here.

So maybe Haidt is our own Jeeves, for the rational community as t’were. And in the long run, it’s always better to learn the way things really are, rather than how we would like them to be. Haidt is a very good guide to that-right up there with Wodehouse in fact.

[1]Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Pantheon Books, 2012

[2]Wodehouse, P. G. The World of Jeeves. London: Arrow Books, 2023.

#philosophy #psychology #Jonathan Haidt #PG Wodehouse #neurology #reason #Enlightenment #Hume

Could AI allow developing countries to by pass the twentieth century altogether?

Could AI transform the lives and prospects of the world’s poor so quickly that they reach the standards of advanced countries in decades, rather than the centuries needed according to many gloomy predictions? The indefatigable Heather Stewart of the Guardian reports on a study by the World Bank [2] which suggests it just might.[1] According to the Bank’s Chief Knowledge Officer (can we get him for the quiz team?-ed), if AI is adapted correctly:

“……… economic development in the countries ……. that could have taken centuries …… the potential is there for …… economic development now to happen within decades,”

He (and Heather) channel the example of poor Indian farmers, for whom locally adapted AI on their phones could substitute for the kinds of advisors, scientists and agrarian experts they would never expect to meet in a lifetime. We have no doubt that readers as alert as you will now have no trouble spotting many more such possibilities.

Because we think that there’s something much more profound going on here. Veteran readers will recall our earlier blog Solar Power a Ray of Sunshine in dark Times(LSS 3 9 26) showcasing the work of FT journalist Simon Kuper who pointed out how solar power was allowing African countries to leapfrog decades of development by allowing them to bypass all the immense power grids and communication networks and all the other immensely expensive hardware which the G7 countries spent most of the twentieth century installing. But it wasn’t just pylons: they built a whole network of universities, agricultural ministries, and many other such institutions which powered their economies ahead. If solar power and now AI can allow that massive investment to become unnecessary, then the poorer economies could catch up in decades indeed.

And what a day that might be, gentle readers! Suddenly there would be no need for mass migrations, because who would choose to leave one rich country for another? New markets of prosperous consumers would open around the world: people will still buy something, even if it’s not sugary foods and high-pollution cars. And all the evidence convinces us that as prosperity rises, fertility falls, meaning vast areas could be turned over again to planet-resuscitating rewilding. We hope this Chief Knowledge Officer really does know his stuff. If he does, and if Heather Stewart’s optimism is justified, then this could be one of the most encouraging stories we have read for some time.

[1]World Bank says ‘small AI’ could transform developing countries | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian

[2] Who We Are: Our Mission to End Poverty | World Bank Group

#Articial Intelligence #India #agriculture #development #poverty #world bank #simon kuper #heather stewart #solar power #economics

Friday Night: What did James Bond REALLY Drink? David Leigh has all the answers

Say the words “James” and “Bond” in that order, and the world thinks of an elegant upper middle class Englishman sipping a vodka martini in the casino of an exclusive hotel. He’s very image of suave sophistication concealing deadly menace, so much so that the words “shaken, not stirred” have become associated with the Brand, a bit like the chimpanzees in the old PG Tips adverts.

That’s because most of us are familiar with the films, which are a long way from the books, many of which date back to the 1950s. The real James Bond was an eclectic drinker, as David Leigh explains in this excellently written article for the James Bond Dossier website [1] called, naturally enough, What does James Bond Drink? And the truth is :anything he can get. Because as David explains, the original , on paper only, Bond was jetting round a world where globalisation was barely nascent. So if you went to Japan you drunk Sake,in Turkey, Raki, in the Balkans Slivovitz. And so it goes:David details the entire social activities of this famous character in delightful detail.

But we’d like to add our own take by discussing why Bond was like that. We think we discerned it at the beginning of Goldfinger where Bond is sitting in an airport lounge downing whiskies and smoking like an old diesel as he tries to de-stress after having killed someone on active service. Musing on life and death as he waits for his flight. We actually knew quite a few men like this. Because the Bond books appeared in the 1950s when most of the male readers would have strong memories of killing and being killed in World War 2 There are even hints in one volume that the literary Bond may just have been old enough to catch active service at the very end of the war.(Ian Fleming was on active service in Intelligence for the duration) Many who had escaped physical wound nevertheless carried what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.(PTSD) There was no term for it then; and anyway to visit a doctor would have been widely regarded as Cissy, and lacking in moral fibre. You just got on with it. Or self-medicated, brooding deeply night after night on whisky and full strength cigarettes , while god knows what phantoms flitted before their eyes. One of the reasons the Bond franchise has been so successful is that the books are actually jolly good writing. We think they have captured 1950s Man very well. Sad actually, isn’t it?

What does James Bond drink?

#film #cocktail #james bond #ian fleming #writing #books whisky #cigarrettes #stress #war

Cocktails from America: The Manhattan

In Cocktail homage to the United States, until recently the greatest nation on the planet, we have chosen the Manhattan. That ne plus ultra of the 1920s when America set out to rule the world through Modernity and Finance: and the island of Manhattan was the very centre of that rule. No, not Rhapsody in Blue, not Wall Street, not Macey’s, not even the New Yorker;-we firmly showcase the Manhattan because it is the city distilled: dark, glossy, slightly dangerous, and absolutely convinced of its own importance.

Prohibition didn’t kill the Manhattan, it made it forbidden and therefore mythic. It was the one they served in a joint off Times Square where you went in with a nod and password, and the man who served it was one of those Damon Runyon types who wore a waistcoat and knew how to keep his mouth shut. Because the clientele included not just flappers, journalists, gangsters and politicians, but also more than a few cops who did not carry the principles of their Office uncomfortably into private life. So as you mix one tomorrow night, you’ll have Manhattan, maybe even the Bronx and Staten Island too: but a fleeting taste of those brief decades when Democracy and Hyperconsumption looked like they would be the future of the world. How time trumps all of our illusions!

Method Freely adapted with thanks from the Hamlyn Ultimate Cocktail Book, that Bible of Style for sophisticated readers of all lands. Put five ice cubes into a mixing glass and add one measure of sweet vermouth and three measures of rye or bourbon whiskey. Stir them well and then strain sin hielo into a chilled cocktail glass. If you must decorate, a cherry on a stick might do: but you would have got some very old fashioned looks whether you were in Queens, Broadway, or any of the other choice locations across the length and breadth of old Gotham City in its Jazz age peak.

Enjoy a pleasant weekend,

#Manhattan #cocktails #New York #Jazz Age #prohibition #damon runyon #george gershwin

Only evidence will do: book review from Nature Briefing

What happens when Belief triumphs over evidence? Here’s one example. For most of human history, childbirth was dangerous in a way modern readers struggle to imagine. In Europe in the early 19th century, maternal mortality in hospitals could reach 10–20% in bad years. Women died not from the birth itself but from the mysterious, terrifying scourge of puerperal fever. And the explanations? The usual cocky self-serving assertions like miasmas, divine wrath, atmospheric changes. Most Doctors were confident; they knew. When thinkers like Semmelweiss suggested that the cause was filthy medical practices which spread a lethal agent he called “germs,” he was hounded from his profession. The carnage continued until Pasteur and others were finally able to show the true causes, which they did using controlled experiments, rigorous data ,and logical interpretation of their findings.

Those who think such battles to be long won would do well to read the following book review from Nature Briefings. It’s called How we know: the rise of evidence based medicine, But it’s really a gateway to how we know about anything, as opposed to just believing our own first guess

In Beyond Belief, science journalist and Nature editor Helen Pearson charts the rise of evidence-based medicine and explores how rigorous research has transformed health and social policy. Pearson shares examples of success stories, in which solid evidence overturned bad practices, and the people behind them, many of whom were treated as mavericks for championing randomized trials. “Anyone can read and enjoy the book, yet there are nuggets for experienced readers,” writes public-policy researcher Peter John in his review. “The author writes as a believer, and her passion is engaging.”

Nature | 8 min read

At this blog we have tried many times that only reason and evidence will ultimately ameliorate the human condition. But nowhere have we done as well as this book does. And the need is not just in medicine, but in all areas such as climate physics, economics and what still passes for political life. The central problem m is that humans are wired for belief, not evidence. Intuition, anecdote, tradition, and authority shape most human decision‑making. Cognitive biases — confirmation bias, availability bias, motivated reasoning establish certainty long before any data has arrived. Yet the cost of ignoring evidence is enormous: this summer wildfires are again raging across Europe in a way unknown before 2020. Pearson’s remedy is the same old list our side has been pushing since the age of Sir Francis Bacon : demand clear causal claims, ask what the comparison group was, look for replication,, distrust single studies, favour interventions tested in real‑world conditions, accept that “what works” is often context‑dependent But try explaining all that in the bar of the Dog and Duck.

Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works by Helen Pearson (Princeton, 2026)

BBC – History – Francis Bacon

#medicine #science #evidence #reason #experiments #rationality #disease #climate change #politics

A big thank you, an apology and a nod to a few old blogs

We’ve been having some technical problems particularly with e mails this week. These are now largely resolved, but the amount of time and energy involved meant that normal productive service has been largely impaired. To sort of make it up. We thought we’d do two things: repeat our normal thanks and apologies, and then take a quick look back at some of the blogs which we think you might like. Note: we didn’t claim the blogs were “good” “better” “our best” or anything like that. We just think they were different and we put together unrelated things in a new way: or we showcased some original work by somebody somewhere.

So thanks to all readers, followers subscribers and everyone else who makes this humble little blog possible.

Now forward to the past.

On medical research we have been stalwart champions of the cause of discovering new types of antibiotics : we’ve averaged at least one every couple of weeks on this, so back references are superfluous. But we’re also proud to have picked up on exciting new developments such as CRISPR Cas-9 and Base Pair editing (LSS 9 9 23 et seq) and our blogs provide a nice series of snapshots on whats been unfolding over recent years.

Conservation and sustainability has been a constant theme. We managed to combine it with antibiotics on a blog called No plants No antibiotics (16 6 26) But you’ll find climate change all over the place here: and rightly so in a site devoted to reason and evidence

World Government has been a more recent theme: not because we are necessarily in favour of it, but we do think someone needs to make its case. Which we did starting with our series of 8 1 25.

Contradictions have always fascinated us. Such as: what does it mean to be Right Wing in the modern world? You can be for Free Markets, or you can be for the traditional nations. But you can’t be both for long, as our two blogs The Kronenbourg Question (7 6 22) and Is Donald Trump a Socialist? (7 4 25) pointed out

And finally: our Roman obsessions: we seem to use that Empire to explain everything from modern geopolitics to cultural decay to climate change. Key to our modern understanding of this ancient Empire is the work of Professor Harper whom we first showcased in our blog 17 12 22

Please keep all your ideas and suggestions coming. Wew are deeply honoured to be noticed by so many people in so many different parts of the world. Above all: keep reading. That’s what makes our day

#climate change #politics# economics #medicine #health #history #dna

Alternatives to a World Government: Part #1 of a new series

All the thinkers we admire say the same thing really: what is your alternative explanation? Bayes insists on always balancing two probabilities. Russell on always looking at the opposite point of view, Keynes on first establishing if your pet idea is general or just a special case. And Daniel Kahneman on checking which bit of your brain you’re thinking with anyway. Which brings us round to our universal panacea, a World Government. We’ve made the case for it a number of times here(LSS passim) so veteran readers will know our diagnosis: most of the problems of the world appear intractable because nation states can never work together with sufficient speed and co-operation to resolve them. Hence economic stagnation, growing xenophobia and a rapid breakdown of the ecological systems upon which we all depend for Life.

Hang on: because aren’t we muddling diagnosis with solution? In which case abolishing the nation state becomes a futile quest, and our World Government a mare’s nest. Are there other diagnoses of our ills which, if correc.t could address all these ills while safely retaining our systems of Governance.? We ought look at them : we owe our readers that much. And so we drew up a list of other possible root causes, which we cheerfully present below. We shall examine them in the coming weeks. Our candidates include Economic inequality. Institutional decay, Technological acceleration, and its concomitant, cognitive overload., Economic model exhaustion, Tribalism and Media systems and collapse of a common narrative

None of them are mutually exclusive and we will find overlapping themes, read similar authorities and consider facts more than once as we move through the series. So bear with us. But one thing we do know: one of you out there, maybe more than one, will have an idea we haven’t thought of. So if you want to put a candidate on the list let us know. In any case we look forward to all of you accompanying us on this next journey.

# bayes #jm keynes # bertrand russell #daniel kahneman #history #economics #politics #governance #technology

Friday: Greek rosé wines corner

When we asked our team of researchers what Greece, and Greek culture, have given to the world, they came up with this:

Homer epic poetry Hesiod didactic poetry Sappho lyric poetry Pindar odes Aeschylus tragedy Sophocles tragedy Euripides tragedy Aristophanes comedy Herodotus history Thucydides history Xenophon history Plato philosophy Aristotle philosophy Socrates ethics Diogenes Cynicism Zeno Stoicism Epicurus Epicureanism Pythagoras mathematics Euclid geometry Archimedes physics engineering Eratosthenes geography Hipparchus astronomy Aristarchus heliocentrism Anaximander cosmology Democritus atomism Hippocrates medicine Galen medicine Herophilus anatomy Ptolemy astronomy geography Phidias sculpture Praxiteles sculpture Polykleitos sculpture Ictinus architecture Callicrates architecture Mnesicles architecture Parthenon architecture Athenian democracy political theory Solon lawgiver Cleisthenes reforms Pericles statesmanship Alexander the Great empire‑building Hellenistic science Alexandria library Septuagint translation Byzantine theology Cappadocian Fathers Orthodox liturgy Hagia Sophia architecture Procopius history Anna Komnene history Photios scholarship Cyril and Methodius Slavic literacy Byzantine diplomacy Greek fire military technology Cretan Renaissance literature El Greco painting Rigas Feraios nationalism Adamantios Korais Enlightenment Greek War of Independence Philhellenism modern Greek state Venizelos diplomacy Cavafy poetry Seferis poetry Elytis poetry Kazantzakis literature Theodorakis music Hadjidakis music Papandreou political thought Onassis shipping Greek diaspora scholarship modern Greek cinema modern Greek science modern Greek shipping global Greek cuisine Mediterranean diet.

“Ah,” we countered, but they never invented cocktails!” But they did have-no, do have- some fine rosé wines. So to counter this obvious aching gap in Greek culture we sent those same researchers off to create a short but very handy guide to three Greek Rosés, priced to all pockets, which could make for some delicious refreshments if it gets as hot as we think it might get hot in this El Niño summer. (See LSS 5 6 26)

£8–£10 — Kourtaki Retsina Rosé (Attica)

Often found in larger Tesco or Sainsbury’s stores, depending on region. Dry, light, herbal, very Greek, very summery. (If your local doesn’t stock it, M&S sometimes carries a Greek rosé under its “Found” range.)

£12–£14 — Mylonas Rosé (Mandilaria/Agiorgitiko, Attica)

Available from The Wine Society, Waitrose Cellar, and several independents. A proper step up: strawberry, pomegranate, a little herb; beautifully balanced.

£18–£22 — Gaia 14–18h Rosé (Agiorgitiko, Nemea)

A cult bottle. Stocked by Berry Bros. & Rudd, The Wine Society, and good Greek specialists. Serious rosé: pale Provençal style but with Greek backbone and minerality.

Sorry if they forgot Demis Roussos

With thanks to Mrs MF of Bridport, Dorset

#wine #greece #hellenic #rosé #holiday #demis roussos

Roman Coin hoard has lessons for our times

Southern Britain 297 AD. A frightened Roman official, alone in the woods, is frantically digging a hole. It is unaccustomed work for a man of his rank, and he sweats, while nervously looking over his shoulder for soldiers, secret policemen, or even hungry peasants. Why is he here? Any number of reasons could have caused his fall: civil war, a coup, a sudden change of Emperor. Hole completed, he quickly throws in his entire wealth-a bag of gold coins, jewels and silver cups, and takes one last look at them before filling the earth on top. Carefully,he notes the position of larger trees and certain other markers. For one day he hopes to return, when Fortune has turned again. But he never will. He is the last person to see these things before they are unearthed, over seventeen hundred years later into a world of AI, Space technology and jet airliners. The darkness closes-and opens.

Such are always our thoughts when ever we stand in front of a hoard of Roman treasure in a museum. Who left these things there? Why? What was in their mind when they left them? And-why did they never return? When we read this story of the latest hoard to be unearthed [1] near Ilminster in Somerset , covered in this excellent Guardian piece by Steven Morris, these thoughts and many others came back. Hoards are invaluable to historians and archaeologists, because the coins allow solid dating estimates, which are worth far more than gold to serious scholars. Their occurrence rises in direct proportion to the frequency of political and economic troubles in the Empire. And nowhere was more troubled than the provinces of the Britannias in the period 286-296AD [2] when rebel rulers tried to set up a separatist regime against the central Empire. The likely date of the finds (297) offers haunting possibilities for speculation about their likely loser, and the subsequent events of his life.

But what fascinates most are the hoards themselves. Unlike amphitheatres, churches and other remains, which decay and otherwise change in tune with the society around them, hoards are frozen in time. The last time they were seen was in a declining empire, wracked by pandemics and climate change. A melancholy time of failing trade, broken roads-and an overwhelming mood of doubt and uncertainty. Where increasingly authoritarian governments tried to hold together the remains of a failing world with ever more repression and ever more dubious promises of a return to the long remembered Golden Age. Yet the Empire had endured for so long and was still so big that people who buried the coins could imaging no other possible form of political and social organisation. And were not able to break out of the cycle of decline until they could. Perhaps there is a lesson for our times in there too.

_{note – we worked really hard to get our Roman uniforms right. We hate those films and programmes where they dress fifth century Romans in the clothes and uniforms of about AD 14}

[1]Somerset detectorist strikes gold with ‘spectacular’ Roman ring find | Roman Britain | The Guardian

[2]Carausian revolt – Wikipedia

#archaeology #roman empire #coin hoards #history