Until I started idly blogging about the long term future yesterday, I hadn't been aware of the existence of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. The JPPPI is an offshoot of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the famous quasi-Israeli governmental body currently headed by Natan Sharansky (author of a favorite book of George W. Bush: The Case for Democracy).
The JPPPI does some interesting Hari Seldonish long term planning work focused upon demography, the kind of analysis that is badly out of fashion in U.S. mainstream media circles. (In general, analysis coming out of Israel tends to be more interesting than what is published in America.) For example, there is the JPPPI's 2010 book 2030: Alternative Futures for the Jewish People, which does not appear to have been mentioned yet in the American mainstream media, although it has received attention in America's Jewish press.
Although there's no explicit mention of Isaac Asimov's famous Foundation series, 2030's Preface by Avinoam Bar-Yosef, founding director of JPPI, states:
"Brainstorming" participants credited in 2030 included Elliott Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, Stuart Eizenstat, Abe Foxman, Todd Gitlin, Henry Kissinger, Charles Krauthammer, Edward Luttwak, Dennis Ross, William Safire, Natan Sharansky, and Lawrence Summers, plus a whole bunch of Israelis. This book does not appear to have been mentioned in the U.S. mainstream media yet.
Although there's no explicit mention of Isaac Asimov's famous Foundation series, 2030's Preface by Avinoam Bar-Yosef, founding director of JPPI, states:
Nations and large organizations in many places around the globe plan strategically decades ahead, but this is the first time that such a project focuses on a people and civilization. ...
When looking back in time, it seems that some of the best futurists 100 years ago were writers of science-fiction. This perception was the basis for enrolling in this effort to promote the Jewish future some of the best creative minds of the Jewish People today in a series of brainstorming meetings that began at the Wye River Conference Center in 2005-2006 and continued in Jerusalem in 2007-2008. These brainstorming exercises never exceeded groups of more than 20 participants, and included academics, writers, professionals and lay leaders known for dedicating their time to thinking and planning for a better world.
"Brainstorming" participants credited in 2030 included Elliott Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, Stuart Eizenstat, Abe Foxman, Todd Gitlin, Henry Kissinger, Charles Krauthammer, Edward Luttwak, Dennis Ross, William Safire, Natan Sharansky, and Lawrence Summers, plus a whole bunch of Israelis. This book does not appear to have been mentioned in the U.S. mainstream media yet.
Who runs the JPPPI? From the JPPPI's website:
Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat has been appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors... He replaces Ambassador Dennis Ross who resigned the position last January when he was appointed to a senior position in the Obama Administration.
Ross is an interesting personage. From Wikipedia:
Dennis B. Ross (born November 26, 1948) is an American diplomat and author. He has served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush, the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton, and is currently a special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia (which includes Iran) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Ross was born in San Francisco and grew up in Marin County. His Jewish mother and Catholic stepfather raised him in a non-religious atmosphere.[2]... He later became religiously Jewish after the Six Day War.[2] In 2002 he co-founded the Kol Shalom synagogue in Rockville, Maryland.[2]
During President Jimmy Carter's administration, Ross worked under Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in the Pentagon. There, he co-authored a study recommending greater U.S. intervention in "the Persian Gulf Region because of our need for Persian Gulf oil and because events in the Persian Gulf affect the Arab-Israeli conflict."[4] During the Reagan administration, Ross served as director of Near East and South Asian affairs in the National Security Council and Deputy Director of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (1982–84).[3]
... In the mid-1980s Ross co-founded with Martin Indyk the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-sponsored Washington Institute for Near East Policy ("WINEP").[5] His first WINEP paper called for appointment of a "non-Arabist Special Middle East envoy" who would "not feel guilty about our relationship with Israel." ... He also worked with Secretary of State James Baker on convincing Arab and Israeli leaders to attend the 1991 Middle East peace conference in Madrid, Spain.
In the summer of 1993 President Bill Clinton named Ross Middle East envoy.... According to Aaron David Miller, a member of the Ross-led US negotiating team in 1999-2000, under Ross they frequently acted as "Israel's lawyer", and their policy of "no surprises" (meaning all US proposals were first reviewed by Israel), led to a lack of negotiating flexibility and independence.
Eizenstat has also been a busy boy. From Wikipedia:
From 1977 to 1981, he was President Jimmy Carter’s Chief Domestic Policy Adviser, and Executive Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff. He was President Bill Clinton's Deputy Secretary of the Treasury (1999-2001)...
He has served as the U.S. ambassador to the European Union from 1993 to 1996 and as co-chairman of the European-American Business Council (EABC).... In 2008, the Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Distinguished Professorship in Jewish history and culture was endowed in Eizenstat's honor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ambassador Eizenstat was also the Clinton Administration's Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State on Holocaust-Era Issues.
On the other hand, the next three people on the JPPPI's masthead are Maj. General Aharon Zeevi Farkash, "one of the world's leading experts in the field of security, military and intelligence," which I bet he is (he is a former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate); Mr. Avinoam Bar-Yosef, founding director of the JPPPI; and Ms. Ita Alcalay, formerly of the Finance Ministry.
On the other hand, the next three people on the JPPPI's masthead are Maj. General Aharon Zeevi Farkash, "one of the world's leading experts in the field of security, military and intelligence," which I bet he is (he is a former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate); Mr. Avinoam Bar-Yosef, founding director of the JPPPI; and Ms. Ita Alcalay, formerly of the Finance Ministry.
So, the JPPPI is essentially the demographic trends R and D arm of the Israeli government, although it is traditionally headed by Washington powerbrokers in-between their White House posts.
2030: Alternative Futures for the Jewish People looks like a very interesting book. Here's an excerpt from 2030, with some interesting bits put into bold:
Jewish Momentum - Internal:
• Jewish demography: A negative balance of Jewish births and deaths now prevails in most Jewish communities worldwide with the prominent exception of Israel. Across the Jewish Diaspora, more frequent choosing of marriage partners from outside the Jewish community is associated with growing percentages of children not raised Jewishly. The consequent erosion of the younger generation has produced a steady process of Jewish population aging, leading in turn to higher death rates and population decrease. Further major consequences of ongoing familial and cultural changes include the blurring of Jewish identification boundaries and the growing complexities in defining the Jewish collective. In Israel, Jewish population grows naturally but the demographic balance between Jews and non-Jews produces a problematic equation critically linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The location of Jews on the world map largely reflects the ranking of countries by the Index of Human Development. Over 90% of world Jewry now lives in the top 20% of more developed countries - that is in North America, West Europe and Israel. The two major Jewish population centers in the United States and Israel now jointly comprise some 80% of world Jewry.
• Jewish identity: The overall trend in Jewish identification is towards more diverse and pluralistic forms of Jewish identification less focused on a common set of basic values. There is a shift in identification from religious to secular, from ethnic to cultural, from community-oriented to individualistic and universal. Global norms about identity, individual choice, communal expression and religious freedom are making it more acceptable to choose one’s religious or non-religious and community identity. Jewish identity is increasingly about choice and the personal quest for meaning, especially among the younger generation. Outside Israel, within the overall growing diversity and plurality, the course of Jewish identification seems to be towards increased polarity between those clearly identified and those totally unidentified as Jews, with a large segment falling in between.
• Jewish hard and soft power and influence: The Jewish People has never been as powerful as now, including the military power and global standing of Israel, the soft power implied in the idea of “The Jewish Century” [this is a reference to historian Yuri Slezkine's 2004 book that was well-reviewed in the Jewish press but largely ignored in the mainstream media] - however exaggerated - and the political and economic power and influence of the American Jewish community and, to a lesser degree, other Jewish communities. However, power has to be evaluated in terms of relative or “net” power, which means the power of the Jewish People in comparison to the dangers, threats and challenges it faces. Outside of Israel the Jewish People faces almost no physical danger, while Israel is still subject to existential threats. Israel is still confronted by enemies determined to destroy it, and is subjected to the intense anti-Israelism of a variety of groups, including some in Western countries.
• Israel-Diaspora relations: The overall trend in the relations between Jews in Israel and the Diaspora is for the younger generation both in Israel and the Diaspora to be less and less interested in the fate of their fellow Jews overseas. Relations between Israel and the Jewish People in the Diaspora are strong at present, but are likely to face decline. The younger generation in the Diaspora is distanced from the dramatic historical events that accompanied the establishment of the State of Israel. The younger generation is more likely to be exposed to negative views of Israel and its policies, and has almost no experience of identification with Israel as a source of pride. It is less concerned about Israel and its future and has less of an emotional attachment to the country.
• Jewish economics: The Jewish People today is at a historical zenith of wealth creation. With the vast majority of Jews living in countries that are among the world’s wealthiest, and with the majority of those Jews belonging to middle and upper socio-economic strata in those countries (excluding Israel) the Jewish People as a whole enjoys access to wealth as never before. There is more money per capita in Jewish hands, absolutely and perhaps even relatively, than anytime in history. Within Israel, the accumulation of wealth by Jews is much more dependent on the economic and social policies of the government (or lack thereof), within general global economic and local security contexts. The expected trend for Israel is a slightly better performance than the growth rates for most developed countries, mostly due to improved policy, especially with respect to encouraging higher rates of employment participation and fighting poverty through employment. With respect to the distribution of wealth and its allocation to Jewish causes, there is insufficient data and the evidence is mostly anecdotal. It appears that outside Israel philanthropic giving directed to Jewish causes is only a very small share of overall Jewish philanthropic giving, but the increase in wealth may mean that in absolute terms there are more funds available today for Jewish causes than there has been in the past. A critical juncture will come as the current older generation of committed, involved and wealthy Jews makes estate planning decisions about the disposition of their wealth. While the recent economic crisis has had immediate and specific impacts on Jewish wealth and philanthropic giving, it has appeared to not yet substantially transform the underlying conditions and long-term trends of Jewish economics.
• Leadership: The Jewish People is facing a serious paucity of high quality leadership - spiritual, political and organizational - with no clear trend of improvement. Current leadership, both in Israel and in Jewish institutions, with few individual exceptions, appears to lack the capacity to meet the challenges facing the Jewish People and a deep understanding of changing realities and new ideas for coping with them that are able to assure, as much as possible, the long-term sustainable thriving of Jewish communities around the world and the thriving of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, which add up synergistically to the thriving of the Jewish People as a whole. Jewish leadership positions in Israel and in other Jewish communities do not attract the best and brightest - with some notable exceptions. Efforts to attract and prepare the best and the brightest for leadership are inadequate, and despite some beginnings, including on the Jewish civic society level, the entry of younger persons into leadership positions is very slow. There is also a very pronounced lack of spiritual leaders acceptable as such by major parts of the Jewish People.
This is so disturbing :(
ReplyDeleteHow much longer must we endure this upside down world?
Why can't they just go to Israel and be men and leave my countries alone?
The first paragraph of this article gives the impression that this stuff is taken seriously by the Israeli government. In fact, nobody in Israel pays any attention to anything Sharansky says or does. That's because Israelis are smarter than Americans like George Bush. Similarly with American Jews like Dershowitz et al.: ignored in Israel.
ReplyDeleteSharansky's talents are in fundraising. He somehow got some funding from Jewish Agency bureaucrats to spend on his American friends and benefactors to produce this vanity-press publication. This is not a "government" study.
The Israeli government and academics are vitally concerned with these issues - demographics, diaspora ties to Israel, etc. - and they study them openly, but not with this cast of clowns. Don't fall for Sharansky's PR.
Steve Sailer quotes:
ReplyDeletethe Jewish People has never been as powerful as now, including the military power
If I may say so, I have been saying for years the IDF is complete master of the Middle East security situation.
The Israelis could make some land compromises as they are dealing from a position of strength. But who gives away real estate for nothing?
The only way the Palestinians can wrest concessions from Israel is by terrorism and the pickings in this area are rather slim since the IDF beefed up its border protection.
I am surprised that Palesitinians have stomach for any further fight, so comprehensively have they been checked at every turn. The IDF has easily crushed various Palestinian uprisings, (Intifada's I & II), plus police actions in the West Bank, Southern Lebanon and Gaza Strip. And targeted assassinations.
Ever since Gulf War I, the IDF has been content to let the US do the heavy security lifting in the region, at least as regards front-line Islamic states (Iraq, Iran, Syria etc).
But if they need to the IDF could easily account for these fourth-rate powers with their aging Red Army surplus armaments. The IDF's active and passive security systems are hard to beat, raging from a simple Wall to sophisticated weapons systems. Including state of the art strike fighters, main battle tanks and missile systems.
The only serious Jewish security question is demography, which is, as members of the Steve-o-sphere know, destiny.
The first paragraph of this article gives the impression that this stuff is taken seriously by the Israeli government. In fact, nobody in Israel pays any attention to anything Sharansky says or does. That's because Israelis are smarter than Americans like George Bush.
ReplyDeleteBeing smarter than George Bush is no great accomplishment. But if you look a little closer, you'll see that there are many Israelis involved with this project as well as American and European Jews.
"Why can't they just go to Israel and be men and leave my countries alone?"
ReplyDeleteThere are Jews in "your countries."
And a good thing, too! I like having groups with insanely high mean IQs in my country.
It makes me happy!
Why does it upset you?
Steve, this is beneath you. Do you want your website to go the way of other WN-loser oases? Rather than be all clever and insinuating, you should just come out and say it: "I resent the way Jews are so smart. I hate the way they become so powerful and shit in a meritocracy and how they then have the gall to try to take care of their own."
ReplyDeleteStop the resentment. Western civilization is being threatened by barbarism, and our movement can't afford to lose guys like you.
Steve, at the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute website, there's a paper on the very topic you've been thinking about during the past couple of days regarding China and India:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jpppi.org.il/JPPPI/Templates/showpage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=84&FID=346
Enhancing the Standing of the Jewish People in Emerging Superpowers without Biblical Tradition
"This project aims at enhancing the standing of the Jewish people in emerging superpowers like China, and India. The first initiative focuses on China, under the assumption that a wide door of opportunity for developing and strengthening positive relations exists. Historically these countries have been free of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist prejudices and shared interests may become increasingly important in the 21st century. The project's objective is to help create a long-term cultural foundation for understanding and cooperation. It will identify opportunities for furthering mutual knowledge of the cultures and national heritage of the Jewish people and the peoples of the respective countries. The next initiative will focus on India, and Japan will be considered at a later date. A major strategic paper on relations between the Jewish people and China has been published, including a set of operational proposals which are in part being implemented by relevant Jewish organizations."
Steve, this is beneath you. Do you want your website to go the way of other WN-loser oases? Rather than be all clever and insinuating, you should just come out and say it: "I resent the way Jews are so smart. I hate the way they become so powerful and shit in a meritocracy and how they then have the gall to try to take care of their own."
ReplyDeleteJewish "smartness" seems to consist of being able to dupe people like you into thinking that they are super intelligent. That and believing that the threat to this country is separate from Jews themselves. Who is it that is so anxious to invite the barbarians with our gates? Have a look at the people at the JPPPI to get some idea.
Jews are grossly overrepresented in influential positions in proportion to their IQ.
While I don't think the white race is facing a demographic crisis that Jews are, can you imagine if a WASP made similar points?
ReplyDeleteStop the resentment. Western civilization is being threatened by barbarism, and our movement can't afford to lose guys like you.
ReplyDeleteAnd who's pushing for the barbarians to be let in? Who opened the gates in 1965? Who are the open-borders pundits today?
Why is Steve not allowed to publish something the Jews write about themselves? Is it antisemitic?
'This is beneath you'
ReplyDeleteI love how brazen Jewish groups are, it's truly masterful. And then, when someone simply presents their words and deeds, one is labelled a bigot. Wow, just wow!
Why is Steve not allowed to publish something the Jews write about themselves? Is it antisemitic?
ReplyDeleteYes!
(You had to ask?)
I am surprised that they totally neglect the Haredi population, which is breeding like bunny rabbits. The undisguised hatred directed to the Haredim by secular Jews is breathtaking.
ReplyDeleteYet in the part of the report you cite there is no mention of the secular/haredi conflict and the fact that the Haredim are going to take over Judaism. This obliviousness is bizarre.
The big problem down the road is that the ultra-religious Jews that are taking over Israel are going to turn off the young, tattooed, highly educated, foul-mouthed, secular, slutty urban Jews in the USA who will cease to feel any common bond with the Haredim.
Complicating the situation is the fact that the Haredim don't give a crap about "tikkun olanm", healing the world, or all that universal human rights bushwa that secular Jews like to polish their halos with.
As far as the Haredim are concerned, "f*ck the goyim, who needs 'em."
It is this extreme Jewish ethno-centricity that will alienate young secular Jews.
Yet the JPPPI makes no mention of it whatsoever. Go figure.
Anonymous said:
ReplyDeleteAnd a good thing, too! I like having groups with insanely high mean IQs in my country.
It makes me happy!
So your logic seems to amount to:
"Woo, he seem real good with word! Good thing must happen wherever he be!"
As it turns out, however, even smart people can cause bad things to happen. In fact, smart people causing bad things to happen seems to be a major theme in this region of the internet these days.
Some interesting stuff, but a bunch of junk.
ReplyDelete1. Dennis Ross is widely viewed to be as hostile to Israel as James Baker, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Hussein Obama.
2. Since FDR, it has been US policy to dominate the Gulf to control world oil supply and prices. Sound policy too -- unless you like paying $15 a gallon to gas up your car.
3. Jews *IN EUROPE* face harassment and murder by the large and free to do as they please Muslim community. Examples include attempted arson/bombings of Synagoges in Oslo, Copenhagen, Brussels, Paris, Stockholm, London, Edinburgh, and Milan. Various Jews in France, Italy, and the UK have been murdered by Muslim men ... for being Jewish. Its not reported much in the press, but it happens regularly.
4. UK, France, pretty much most of Europe is openly and casually anti-Semitic as well as anti-Israel, causing Jews to leave Europe for the US and Israel in record numbers.
5. The El-Al murders, the San Francisco Synagoge murders, the Seattle Jewish Center murders, all by Muslims in the US points out that Muslims world-wide target Jews (who often have nothing at all to do with Israel) ... including the US.
[broken into parts so Blogger does not barf.]
6. Big Bill is absolutely correct wrt Israeli Orthodox vs. secular US Jews.
ReplyDelete7. Ted Kennedy, a Catholic, pushed the 1965 IRCA. Ronald Reagan, a Protestant, pushed the 1985 Amnesty Act.
8. Jews are indeed smart. Their presence in ground-breaking physics, chemistry, medicine, and mathematical achievements (notably, Einstein and Oppenheimer) are self-explanatory. The US can't get enough Jews for my taste -- we need smart people!
9. Israel is a "one bomb state" according to Iran. Iranian nukes make a decapitating nuke strike easy for Iran. Sure they will suffer some damage, as will Syria and Lebanon, possibly Egypt. But Israel and Israelis will all be dead.
10. Israel lacks the will and conviction to survive -- they should have struck Iran already after making meaningless concessions on Gaza. Iran MUST destroy Israel the way Alexander had to destroy Tyre. Same reason. Nothing personal, just the business of empire.
11. In furtherance of the US desire to keep dominance of the Gulf, cheap oil, and in a huge nation, that is critical for social cohesion (imagine everyone packed into say, Oakland or Downtown LA), Israel's military proxy and deniability are at an end because Iranian nukes make them unusable.
Since Israel will shortly be gone.
In the meantime, Israel did very poorly against Hezbollah/Iran in the Lebanese War -- a ship nearly sunk, many casualties against dug in fighters, many tanks lost. Air superiority is also threatened with Russian 5th Generation fighters that Israel cannot match.
"So your logic seems to amount to:
ReplyDelete'Woo, he seem real good with word! Good thing must happen wherever he be!'"
whaaaaaat
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou should add this to your summer reading list. It offers some historical perspective on some of the Jewish themes you've been blogging about. One thing you'll see is that over a hundred years ago, Zionist were fantasizing "Foundation" style schemes that never came to pass.
I'd find this as disturbing if it was some upper IQ group of Europeans (genetically) planning how they were going to remain in existance as a small genetically isolated minority by selling their fellows down the river. You either are loyal to a group and so are included as the ingroup or you are honest that you are not loyal and accept being viewed as outgroup and not have the burdens of loyalty. And if you don't accept group loyalty, like many Liberal people don't, then you should reject this on those grounds.
ReplyDeleteSo the report says, in plane language:
ReplyDeleteWe are richer than ever, but we are losing our young, have no common culture, and have no leadership, ie, we don't know what to do with all this power.
That's because Jews are at core, a counter culture, the anti-Christians. Absent a hostile Christian culture, they have nothing.
Further, they are a managerial race, not a master race. They are reactive, and materialistic. They are empty, and directionless.
They await "leadership", meaning, they cry out vainly for their Messiah to give them direction.
As much as a rich, powerful, and destructive people can be pitied, they are to be pitied. Quite sad really. If only we didn't have to be dragged down with their pathos.
No overview of Jewish demographics study is complete without mentioning the Italian Jew Sergio DellaPergola.
ReplyDeleteHe's more well known in Israel than these guys, since he gets invited to interviews on TV occasionally.
And a good thing, too! I like having groups with insanely high mean IQs in my country.
ReplyDeleteThats nice for you then.
Interestingly though none of the quotes used by Steve see fit to mention this peculiar IQ benefit to other countries and peoples. It all seems to be about whats good for the jewish people and Israel.
No doubt this is a minor part of the book. The major portion of the work, I confidantly predict, will go into great detail as to how jewish people with insanely high IQ work towards the greater good of the US, Europe in a fine altruistic fashion.
"Sergio DellaPergola"
ReplyDeleteYeah, he's on the staff of the JPPPI.
UK, France, pretty much most of Europe is openly and casually anti-Semitic as well as anti-Israel, causing Jews to leave Europe for the US and Israel in record numbers.
ReplyDeleteNot the UK Im living in right now mate.
The JQ is as off limits here as in the US as far as I can tell.
Sure, some anti-Israel sentiment is acceptable, but that generally comes from the left who are at pains to divorce that sentiment from anything to with ethnicity, and because Israel is a US puppet (yeah, right).
Funny how when Jewish intellectuals talk amongst themselves the dialogue reads like a discussion thread on Stormfront.org.
ReplyDelete"Haredim don't give a crap about "tikkun olanm", healing the world, or all that universal human rights bushwa"
ReplyDeleteThey don't? Oh, thank goodness.
I've often thought that much of the animosity towards secular Jews is due to the fact that nobody likes a busybody.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteSteve, this is beneath you."
Struck a nerve, did he? I think news of this conference is what is known around here as a "hatefact". I for one, would like to know just what kind of hammering on my country and my people, people like Dennis Ross intend to do in order to fashion it into an instrument for their purposes.
BTW, I didn't know that Ross was jewish. All his high-profile assignments in middle-east diplomacy make more sense now.
The US can't get enough Jews for my taste -- we need smart people!
ReplyDeleteWe need smart people whose first and only loyalty is to the US.
Smart people whose loyalty lies elsewhere are a net negative. This is as true for Chinese or Indians as it is for Jews. Anybody who does not consider the American people their people is a problem.
There were a lot of very smart Nazis, but I doubt that you'd approve of giving them influential positions in America.
At the end of the day, we don't need smart people as much as we need loyal people.
Whiskey said: 7. Ted Kennedy, a Catholic, pushed the 1965 IRCA. Ronald Reagan, a Protestant, pushed the 1985 Amnesty Act.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that Kennedy pushed the 1965 Act in the Senate. However, the brains behind it, and the man who first introduced it into the House, was Emanuel Cellar. Without him, there would probably have been no act.
Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (1951) is quiet an old book by now. Its message has been rendered obsolete by subsequent events and discoveries.
ReplyDeleteHari Seldon in the novels predicts the future with unerring accuracy because science, Asimov declares, can understand humans in the aggregate but not in the particular. Seldon's discipline is something called Psychohistory. Asimov was a strict determinist. He thought that given enough knowledge we could know the future with certainty.
It hasn't worked out that way of course. He wrote these novels before there was any hint of chaos theory or even much appreciation of quantum uncertainty. Nowadays no sensible Sci Fi writer would write about predicting the future like Asimov did. They are more likely to overstate the case for uncertainty. In modern Sci Fi we have characters like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park who uses our inability to predict the future to - predict the future (i.e. - the dinosaurs will get out). Creighton's chaos mumbo-jumbo is in a sense a reaction to Asimov's radical determinism.
The other main theme in The Foundation Trilogy is mind reading and control. As a prediction of the future this one is way off the mark. Mind reading plot elements are an atavism from medieval fairy tales. Asimov claimed to be writing what we now call "hard science fiction" but the mind reading parts of the Foundation stories read like something out of sword and sorcery fiction. Hari Seldon is said to be a scientist practicing Psycohistory whereas he is really a wizard with supernatural powers.
BTW apparently Asimov was a patriotic American. I read last week on Jerry Pournelle's site that he often sang all the verses of The Star Spangled Banner in public.
Just a couple years after The Foundation trilogy was published Watson and Crick published their most famous work. In the following half century the whole human genome was mapped. Knowledge of individual differences has exploded while predictions of group behavior remain essentially impossible. Hari Seldon got it all backwards.
Albertosaurus
I've noticed a pattern in Jewish literature: secretive elite controls history from behind the scenes.
ReplyDeleteIn Asimov's Foundation series it was telepathic robots, in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged it was striking entrepeneurs, and in Benjamin Disraeli's books it was (frankly, and refreshingly) Jews.
Your bizarre obsession with Jews is truly unfortunate. There is more than scientific curiosity at work here. You apparently harbor a deep hostility towards "Jews" as a group. This is becoming increasingly obvious. And, yes, many of your commentators are taking this thread and running with it in all their anti-Semitic glory. What a shame.
ReplyDeletejack strocchi,
ReplyDeleteSouth Africa was essentially doing the same thing under the white government and in fact more resource independent than Israel, but got roasted by the West and the media. The only reason why Israel gets away with this is coz they have their supporters in control in most western media institutions and thus of western politicians.
But apart from that what Israel does is no better than what was happening in South Africa.
Steve, could you or one of your acolytes post on the "Arabist" leaning in gov't whose influence Mr. Ross recommended against? I mean, we know generally that people like T.E. Lawrence saw something romantic in the arab nomad lifestyle, but from the standpoint of a diplomat over the last 50 years, what was the argument in favor of the Arabs? Did it boil down to anything more than, "we need the oil"?
ReplyDeleteRoss was born in San Francisco and grew up in Marin County. His Jewish mother and Catholic stepfather raised him in a non-religious atmosphere.[2]... He later became religiously Jewish after the Six Day War.[2]
ReplyDeleteLies, lies lies. We already know from Whiskey and Ricardo that the product of Jew/non-Jew matings are never a part of the tribe.
Over 90% of world Jewry now lives in the top 20% of more developed countries - that is in North America, West Europe and Israel. The two major Jewish population centers in the United States and Israel now jointly comprise some 80% of world Jewry.
ReplyDeleteMore lies, lies lies. We know from the (lachrymose) narrative of Jewish history that westerners, particularly NW Europeans, are the Worst Thing To Ever Happen To Jews. And we know Jews are very smart. So they'd never pack into the territories controlled by NW Europeans.
and is subjected to the intense anti-Israelism of a variety of groups, including some in Western countries.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? Who are those NW Europeans, to expect Jews to reciprocate? Diversity is for Euros! Apartheid for Israel.
Goddamn if I don't think the philo-Semitic comments do more for Judeo-skepticism than the Judeo-skeptical comments do. "Shame on you Steve!" So now we know that anti-semitism consists of:
1) Airing dirty Jewish laundry (the producers of the content? Not anti-semites. The re-producer? Anti-semite.)
2) Placing any values higher than anti-anti-semitism (Free speech, schmee speech; allowing comments Jews don't like is anti-semitism).
"Woo, he seem real good with word! Good thing must happen wherever he be!"
Indeed. IQ fetishism, the cargo cult for nerds. Maybe I can round up a few reaaaally smart crooks to run his business affairs for him. He'll be delighted.
1. Dennis Ross is widely viewed to be as hostile to Israel as James Baker, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Hussein Obama.
Lol! See? Ross can't be a real Jew because Whiskey already proclaimed half-Jews apostates. Duh! I tried to tell you Steve, but I was too late. Sorry.
2. Since FDR, it has been US policy to dominate the Gulf to control world oil supply and prices. Sound policy too -- unless you like paying $15 a gallon to gas up your car.
It is sound policy. Too bad Israel stands athwart it.
8. Jews are indeed smart. Their presence in ground-breaking physics, chemistry, medicine, mathematical achievements (notably, Einstein and Oppenheimer), the Freudian Cult, the Boasian Cult, the Frankfurt Cult, Critical Theory, open-borders advocacy, white guilt advocacy, foreign adventurism advocacy, advocacy of miscegenation-for-whites, advocacy of American propositional nationhood, HBD-denial, banksterism, lawfare, etc., are self-explanatory. The US can't get enough Jews for my taste -- we need smart people!
FTFY. Accounting involves addition and... s-u-b-t-r-a-c-t-i-o-n. Sales, on the other hand...
Iran MUST destroy Israel the way Alexander had to destroy Tyre. Same reason. Nothing personal, just the business of empire.
Well, duh, that much is obvious. If your neighbor buys a full-auto M60 and starts bullying your cousin, and you shop around to buy yourself a full-auto M60, you're obviously the villain. But it's not as if we needed logic to figure that out; Whiskey proclaimed it, so even if it is in the future, it's already happened! (authoritarian, deceptive, incurious, obsessed)
Not the UK Im living in right now mate.
The JQ is as off limits here as in the US as far as I can tell.
Not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? Any fool can plainly see that Whiskey proclaimed the UK anti-semitic. If logic mattered, I'd point out that allowing criticism of Israel is anti-semitic (we established this above with 1 and 2). But none is required as a proclamation by Whiskey is truth by fiat.
They don't? Oh, thank goodness.
I've often thought that much of the animosity towards secular Jews is due to the fact that nobody likes a busybody.
I don't mind busybodies. It's busybodies who spend all their time screeching about my yard, while their own looks like that of a Mexican flophouse, who make my hackles red.
At the end of the day, we don't need smart people as much as we need loyal people.
Oh, you poor soul. I'm going to burn fifty term papers on the altar of IQ for you.
(sorry if this is a repost, I'm getting that damn URI error, plus I added a bit to the comment)
ReplyDeleteand is subjected to the intense anti-Israelism of a variety of groups, including some in Western countries.
I know, right? Who are those NW Europeans, to expect Jews to reciprocate? Diversity is for Euros! Apartheid for Israel.
Goddamn if I don't think the philo-Semitic comments do more for Judeo-skepticism than the Judeo-skeptical comments do. "Shame on you Steve!" So now we know that anti-semitism consists of:
1) Airing dirty Jewish laundry (the producers of the content? Not anti-semites. The re-producer? Anti-semite.)
2) Placing any values higher than anti-anti-semitism (Free speech, schmee speech; allowing comments Jews don't like is anti-semitism).
"Woo, he seem real good with word! Good thing must happen wherever he be!"
Indeed. IQ fetishism, the cargo cult for nerds. Maybe I can round up a few reaaaally smart crooks to run his business affairs for him. He'll be delighted.
1. Dennis Ross is widely viewed to be as hostile to Israel as James Baker, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Hussein Obama.
Lol! See? Ross can't be a real Jew because Whiskey already proclaimed half-Jews apostates. Duh! If we needed more than Whiskey's (PBUH) proclamation (heresy, I know), logic dictates that if someone has one parent from an ethnicity devoid of ethnocentrism, and another parent from an ethnicity that tops the scale, he'll wind up siding with the former, not the latter. Duh! I tried to tell you Steve, but I was too late. Sorry.
2. Since FDR, it has been US policy to dominate the Gulf to control world oil supply and prices. Sound policy too -- unless you like paying $15 a gallon to gas up your car.
It is sound policy. Too bad Israel stands athwart it.
8. Jews are indeed smart. Their presence in ground-breaking physics, chemistry, medicine, mathematical achievements (notably, Einstein and Oppenheimer), the Freudian Cult, the Boasian Cult, the Frankfurt Cult, Critical Theory, open-borders advocacy, white guilt advocacy, foreign adventurism advocacy, advocacy of miscegenation-for-whites, advocacy of American propositional nationhood, HBD-denial, PC-mongering, banksterism, lawfare, etc., are self-explanatory. The US can't get enough Jews for my taste -- we need smart people!
FTFY. Accounting involves addition and... s-u-b-t-r-a-c-t-i-o-n. Sales, on the other hand...
Iran MUST destroy Israel the way Alexander had to destroy Tyre. Same reason. Nothing personal, just the business of empire.
Well, duh, that much is obvious. If your neighbor buys a full-auto M60 and starts bullying your cousin, and you shop around to buy yourself a full-auto M60, you're obviously the villain. But it's not as if we needed logic to figure that out; Whiskey proclaimed it, so even if it is in the future, it's already happened! (authoritarian, deceptive, incurious, obsessed)
Not the UK Im living in right now mate.
The JQ is as off limits here as in the US as far as I can tell.
Not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? Any fool can plainly see that Whiskey proclaimed the UK anti-semitic. If logic mattered, I'd point out that allowing criticism of Israel is anti-semitic (we established this above with 1 and 2). But none is required as a proclamation by Whiskey is truth by fiat.
They don't? Oh, thank goodness.
I've often thought that much of the animosity towards secular Jews is due to the fact that nobody likes a busybody.
I don't mind busybodies. It's busybodies who spend all their time screeching about my yard, while their own looks like that of a Mexican flophouse, who make my hackles red.
At the end of the day, we don't need smart people as much as we need loyal people.
Oh, you poor soul. I'm going to burn fifty term papers on the altar of IQ for you.
It reads like a lot of reports, Steve. You would really need to get into the details to figure out whether either the issue analysis or any qualitative/quantitative assessments were shrewd. I mean you can see stuff from all kinds of trade groups, policy instutes, McKinsey global center, etc...and often the stuff is pretty ephemeral.
ReplyDeleteI guess, I could see reading this stuff as a good start, but then you would need to take more steps to have any hope of a real good overview.
Also, the question as to how much this stuff is paid attention to, is interesting.
And the stuff reads sorta fundraiser oriented. There may be a bit of an internal focus, that is blinding them. Since the people running this study or pushing it, were Jewish policy wonks, hacks.
There's an old Jewish saying. I'll paraphrase because every time I've seen it there are different values for x and y (the things being exchanged): you loan me a million now, and I'll pay you back when the Messiah comes (what, you doubting the Messiah's coming, you heathen?).
ReplyDeleteYou open-border/proposition nation/miscegenate/bankrupt yourselves out of existence now, we'll do the same thing to ourselves later ("Jews are going to disappear," etc.). You can borrow money at any rate if you plan to default.
"Lies, lies lies. We already know from Whiskey and Ricardo that the product of Jew/non-Jew matings are never a part of the tribe."
ReplyDelete? As the product of such a pairing myself, why would I ever say that?
"More lies, lies lies. We know from the (lachrymose) narrative of Jewish history that westerners, particularly NW Europeans, are the Worst Thing To Ever Happen To Jews."
More nonsense from you. Jews lived quite well in Northwest Europe from the time they were emancipated until millions of them were killed by those guys who you continually argue weren't quite as bad as the commies. Jews live quite well in parts of Northwest Europe today. I haven't heard any Jews argue otherwise.
Svigor, I have to admit that you're one of the funnier hataz I've encountered.
ReplyDeleteJews lived quite well in Northwest Europe from the time they were emancipated until millions of them were killed by those guys who you continually argue weren't quite as bad as the commies. Jews live quite well in parts of Northwest Europe today. I haven't heard any Jews argue otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI guess you don't consider this guy a Jew then.
"From the time the Jews arrived in chains and en masse in Rome, the one constant in Jewish history has been persecution, much of it of the cruelest and most murderous kind, a short review of which may be found here. The gradual genocide has brought down the European Jewish population from an estimated 4 million in the 1st century to less than 100,000 by the 16th. Such a genocidal constriction of the Jews’ gene pool takes its biological toll to this day, e.g. in the various Jewish genetic illnesses."
And this is hardly an unusual sentiment. The Jewish project to turn the West into a minority white area is predicated on their belief that whites are uniquely evil. This is the idea which the Frankfurt School, itself Jewish, succeeded in establishing as dogma in Western intellectual circles.
You are right and the Jews with the persecution complex are wrong, but you need to tell than that. They won't hear it from us non-Jews.
"The Jewish People today is at a historical zenith of wealth creation. With the vast majority of Jews living in countries that are among the world’s wealthiest, and with the majority of those Jews belonging to middle and upper socio-economic strata in those countries (excluding Israel) the Jewish People as a whole enjoys access to wealth as never before."
ReplyDeleteIt it funny that at this moment, when Jews at at their historical zenith in terms of wealth and power, that The West is in such decline?
This especially applies in the USA. Jews are the richest and most influential group in the USA, yet America as a whole is rapidly falling apart under Jewish leadership.
Not something to be proud of, Jews.