GftNC, thanks for the Stewart Lee piece. He hits similar notes pre Trump here
https://youtu.be/D2DkYHbSxUE?si=GqYxfZTM9PqD4NT5
The transcript is in his book How I Escaped My Certain Fate
And, I was reading this great book of, of trial transcripts, of American soldiers accused of human-rights abuses in, in Abu Ghraib, which was of course closed today. And, um … I don’t know if you remember Charles Graner, he was a fat American soldier but he had a moustache, so you could identify him. And he was the guy that organised the photographing of a naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian being dragged out of a cell, er, on his hands and knees, er, on a dog’s lead. And, um, in his defence, er, his lawyer, Charles Graner’s lawyer said that the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian wasn’t being dragged out of the cell but was actually crawling of his own free will. And I just wondered how many other lines of defence they rejected before they settled on that one. And also what the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian might have been crawling of his own free will towards? And I like to think he was crawling towards the notion of Western democracy. But obviously he was having some difficulty knowing which way to crawl, er, because of the hood, er, and because of the fact that he was approaching a palpably abstract concept.
I think Japan does have that Chinese heritage of music education for young people, but the Cultural Revolution destroyed large ensembles of Western music, so you don't have the same ethos as Japan.
The institutions in China have been rebuilt in the intervening 50 years, and music is a required subject for primary and secondary school, but that discontinuity, plus the fact that academic subjects are more highly emphasized means that the situation is a little different from Japan.
You do have the same thing here with students who said that their mother (usually, the father most of the time doesn't deal with this) forced them to play piano, but a number of them say that they hated it at the time, but now appreciate it.
A couple of anecdotes, in Japan, every jhs and hs has a class chorus competition and it always surprised me that there was always at least 1 or 2 students within the class who played piano well enough to accompany. The whole thing is often run by the students, so you get this move away from a teacher centered thing to student led.
Another factoid that always amazed me, when a broadcaster records/televises a concert, they don't have to train the broadcast staff, they can simply give them annotated orchestra scores because they all can read music to a degree that the score acts as a shot list.
In Willie Ruff's autobiography, Call to Assembly, there is a chapter about the Mitchell-Ruff duo (Ruff plays french horn and bass) going to visit China and lecture at the Shanghai conservatory in 1981, which was 5 years after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The whole chapter is interesting, but this is particularly relevant
One [question] came from an older Chinese teacher. "When you created 'Shanghai Blues' just now," he asked, "did you have a form for it, or a logical plan?" I said, "I just started tapping my foot, then a theme suggested itself, which I played on the horn, and Mitchell heard it. And he answered And after that we heard and answered, heard and answered, heard and answered." "But can you play it again?" the professor asked. "We never can. He would not accept my answer. "But that is beyond our imagination. Our students here play a piece a hundred times, or two hundred times, to get it exactly right. You play something once-something that has great value-and then you throw it away." I said that if we played the same music twice in an improvisation, the second time would be no improvisation at all. "We call improvisation the lifeblood of jazz because the performer is challenged to do it better each time." The old teacher as much as threw up his hands. The mystery persisted.
This isn't to suggest that there are no Asian musicians who improvise, on the local level, there are some folks here whose concerts I go to and have great chops. (perhaps the topic of a future music thread), but I think all of them have had a period overseas where they immersed themselves and then have returned.
I am thinking that they are going to end up using chinese tech, and at some point, the Chinese will flip a kill switch and none of our stuff will work.
This discussion has me realize that my panic based dreams have come in distinct phases/periods. The first was when I was a kid and I dreamed I would swim in air, but would be hopelessly slower than other people. It was just like pushing off from the bottom of a pool and doing a dog stroke in air. I'd love to go back and see if I could do that with lucid dreaming, i
The second era, corresponding to hs and uni, was the relatively common one of being in some place with no clothes and everyone else was dressed. Of course, I now realize that no one else noticed and I couldn't tell anyone. Would have been nice to have figured that out then
The last stage, though it hasn't happened recently, I would have sleep paralysis, which would happen when I was totally knackered. I had the impression that someone was in the room and I couldn't move and I couldn't say anything. It wasn't someone like an ax murderer, it was just someone I knew, but it would really be stressful to have them in the room and I couldn't acknowledge them, so I would force myself awake, and in waking up, I felt like I pulled every muscle in my body. Not fun. I had a theory that I was dropping into REM sleep to quickly (I could feel my eyes doing REM even though I just laid my head on the pillow)
I still get very tired, but I feel like my slight ability to lucid dream is actually related to that, because I'm lying in bed and I don't try to move, but I can see everything in the room. On the other hand, it might be because I don't really care if someone comes in the room and I can't talk to them, because I've reached an age where I don't give a shit...
There’s a test, originating in the Labour party in the late 19th century – is he competent to run a whelk stall?
Though the bulk of the attacks iirc were that he was a far left looney. Similar to the way that they went after Mamdani. Which makes me wonder if the problem is that politically, you can't get much traction by complaining how shitty someone might be as a manager, you have to pound them on ideological grounds.
And most serious lefties of my acquaintance say he is also not very bright.
I can see that, though I have to admit, the past 5 or 10 years, I've gotten quite disenchanted with using intelligence as a yardstick for anything. I still get angry when people do stupid things, so I do give intelligence some weight, but I've gotten to the point where kindness and human decency weigh a lot more to me. Unfortunately, I think we are in a time where it is easy to railroad kind people.
And just an observation about italics. If you look at the image I'm adding below, you can see that the middle comment has the italics but the ones on the left and right don't. I've never been happy with how the site doesn't italicize in the summary, so it looks like the author is saying something that they are quoting. The same problem happens in summarized posts on LGM (see here for an example).
What makes this a bit strange is that the middle one is what would be ideal, but the other two are not. Not sure if there is a fix, but just noticed it.
Thanks for all of the comments. I'm still curious what people think of Corbyn and Sultana as well as Polanski. He was recently on The rest is politics and I thought Cory Stewart was going to have a heart attack because Polanski didn't have totals of debt interest the UK gov was liable for at his fingertips. I'm not sure if it was an ambush, Polanski does come off as a bit glib to me, but given the Green's position, I think he has to push the aspirational stuff over the actual planning. I suppose this opens him up to the charge that he is unserious, but this seems like the way they always dismiss any left of center ideas.
Sultana seems like a person who relishes being a chaos agent so the combination of her and Corbyn seems doomed to failure, but I can't tell if that's because every thing I have read pushes that point. The New Statesman podcast was discussing how it was a clash between a federated system, where each group would get a vote or a more purely democratic system where each member would get a vote (if I understood it correctly) but I wasn't sure who was for what.
lj, is it your belief that ObWi would be better if there were many more threads, like LGM or BJ?
I'm not sure about the enforced binary here and it ignores the underlying dynamics of this site and the sites mentioned. Both LGM and BJ have a stable of frontpagers, so it is not simply a question of more threads, it is more viewpoints. Also, both of those sites have istm a commentariat that is pretty US-centric. It's a bit silly to compare because I think the numbers are so different, but I think the non-US commentators here provide a pretty good counter balance for discussions. With that in mind (and sounding selfish), I want to have enough posts that allow them in particular (as well as everyone in general) to give their viewpoints on things that interest me. That is balanced with a desire not to troll anyone, which I think is an easy thing to slip into.
As far as posting frequency, I feel like I need to post around 2-3 things a week, though it's getting to term end and the weekend music post had me listen to a bunch of stuff and not get it out until (I hope) tomorrow. If that's too many, I can certainly pull back, if people think there need to be more, it might be tough to pull off. This is because there is a ton of stuff to post about the US, but it's getting to the point where it takes me to the point of physical disgust to write about some of the stuff that is happening.
I agree with Tony P's point that all threads are generally open, (and I'll try to get to his suggestions, thanks for those) and they are open because we generally don't have people trying to distract or avoid questions by engaging in what-abouterry.
India started doing it after it was clear that the world had already overshot the climate boundaries
Yes, it plugs into the idea that Robinson said started the book, which was the observation that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. It is difficult to imagine a profit motive sufficient to move the current titans of industry, though one could imagine a savior complex moving them to do it.
The point about geoengineering startups had me think about Kim Stanley Robinson's book The Ministry for the Future, a science fiction work about climate change. Crooked Timber did a seminar on it if you aren't into reading the fiction, but are interested in some of the ideas. I believe Donald mentioned the book for its horrific description of a heat wave in India, which then has India engage in geoengineering, specifically seeding the upper atmosphere with sulfur dioxide. I guess Robinson has a national effort because it avoids the question of capitalism trying to harness geo-engineering, but it seems to me the latter is much more likely than the former.
There is a thought that nous' comment puts in my mind. One thing that I note is how German fascism was underpinned by particular notions of science, while the current American instantiation seems to me to completely ignore science. The Germans had notions that we've pretty much abandoned (though they still float around in the cultural psyche, such as eugenics and biological determinism), but I feel like there was a culture of putting science on a pedestal. The discussion of Heritage Americans, which nous notes is infinitely malleable, is, like other MAGA snipes that are chased down, fundamentally unserious. Another example is something like this
https://www.newsweek.com/anti-government-militia-targets-weather-radars-2097670
I suppose that the MAHA movement has some sort of scientific notions, in the idea that science is being perverted to tout vaccines and other medical interventions, and 'real' science just needs people doing internet research (like putting forward invermectin).
I realize that the US has a strong 'know-nothing' streak, but it's remarkable how easy it has been for Trump supporters to simply reject science and I'm wondering what others think.
The term "Heritage Americans" is new to me, it's interesting that it is seems like it is trying to plug into the terminology of heritage varieties (also called Heirloom varieties). You can see how, like anti-vax rhetoric, it pulls people who might have been previous placed on the left over to the right.
Pro bono, I felt like the last part of the Deputy speaker's admonition was accusing Labour of leaking the OBR report. I've been reading how the budget is supposed to be secret because it could move markets, but it seems like a very anachronistic practice, any government, especially in one in a country that seems to have splintered politically as much as the UK, has to test possible lines. (Another possibility would be to fine media that make misrepresentations about the budget, though I imagine that horse has left the barn)
While the content of Badanoch's reply was unsurprising, the clearly theatrical aspects (changing of voices when inferring Reeve's, the invocation and subsequent dismissal of 'mansplaining') that caught me by surprise.
Rofer points out that one question is who leaked it, and it seems obvious that it is from Rubio's camp, because Rubio wouldn't pee on Witkoff if he were on fire. Other is how it was recorded, which gets into questions of spooks and surveillance. State has their own intelligence service, but the current head of the CIA was in Congress when Rubio was a senator. Maybe I should shout vive le petit Marco!
So what happens to nationalism if many more people are either moving from place to place or or at least relocating from where they were raised? Does it become stronger among the relatively few who stay put? How do they handle being outnumbered by “the others”? Do the movers become citizens of the world?
Well, you might have the Dubai model with a small number of citizens (roughly 5% in the case of Dubai) and the rest viewing it transactionally. One could scoff at that, because the numbers are so extreme in the case of Dubai, but the whole discourse of "diversity is what makes us strong" is being discarded like yesterday's trash. While moving from one state to another doesn't trigger dystopian images, you start to get a larger and larger group of people who move further afield.
But I would point out that, while you feel your new roots are shallow, you are hardly someone who is perpetually moving. (I’d put the threshold for “perpetually moving”/rootless at relocating every couple of years or less.)
We seem to be reaching a point where everyone will be more like me: perhaps not perpetually moving, but moving enough that the idea of being rooted in a place no longer holds. I feel like that inflection point is coming in the next few decades, helped along by the fact that climate will make the places we live so different from what they were. People may not be perpetually moving, but the place they are living will change with enough speed and strength as to make everyone strangers in their own towns.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Thread”
GftNC, thanks for the Stewart Lee piece. He hits similar notes pre Trump here
https://youtu.be/D2DkYHbSxUE?si=GqYxfZTM9PqD4NT5
The transcript is in his book How I Escaped My Certain Fate
And, I was reading this great book of, of trial transcripts, of American soldiers accused of human-rights abuses in, in Abu Ghraib, which was of course closed today. And, um … I don’t know if you remember Charles Graner, he was a fat American soldier but he had a moustache, so you could identify him. And he was the guy that organised the photographing of a naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian being dragged out of a cell, er, on his hands and knees, er, on a dog’s lead. And, um, in his defence, er, his lawyer, Charles Graner’s lawyer said that the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian wasn’t being dragged out of the cell but was actually crawling of his own free will. And I just wondered how many other lines of defence they rejected before they settled on that one. And also what the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian might have been crawling of his own free will towards? And I like to think he was crawling towards the notion of Western democracy. But obviously he was having some difficulty knowing which way to crawl, er, because of the hood, er, and because of the fact that he was approaching a palpably abstract concept.
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
I think Japan does have that Chinese heritage of music education for young people, but the Cultural Revolution destroyed large ensembles of Western music, so you don't have the same ethos as Japan.
The institutions in China have been rebuilt in the intervening 50 years, and music is a required subject for primary and secondary school, but that discontinuity, plus the fact that academic subjects are more highly emphasized means that the situation is a little different from Japan.
You do have the same thing here with students who said that their mother (usually, the father most of the time doesn't deal with this) forced them to play piano, but a number of them say that they hated it at the time, but now appreciate it.
A couple of anecdotes, in Japan, every jhs and hs has a class chorus competition and it always surprised me that there was always at least 1 or 2 students within the class who played piano well enough to accompany. The whole thing is often run by the students, so you get this move away from a teacher centered thing to student led.
Another factoid that always amazed me, when a broadcaster records/televises a concert, they don't have to train the broadcast staff, they can simply give them annotated orchestra scores because they all can read music to a degree that the score acts as a shot list.
In Willie Ruff's autobiography, Call to Assembly, there is a chapter about the Mitchell-Ruff duo (Ruff plays french horn and bass) going to visit China and lecture at the Shanghai conservatory in 1981, which was 5 years after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The whole chapter is interesting, but this is particularly relevant
One [question] came from an older Chinese teacher. "When you created 'Shanghai Blues' just now," he asked, "did you have a form for it, or a logical plan?"
I said, "I just started tapping my foot, then a theme suggested itself, which I played on the horn, and Mitchell heard it. And he answered And after that we heard and answered, heard and answered, heard and answered."
"But can you play it again?" the professor asked.
"We never can.
He would not accept my answer. "But that is beyond our imagination. Our students here play a piece a hundred times, or two hundred times, to get it exactly right. You play something once-something that has great value-and then you throw it away."
I said that if we played the same music twice in an improvisation, the second time would be no improvisation at all. "We call improvisation the lifeblood of jazz because the performer is challenged to do it better each time."
The old teacher as much as threw up his hands. The mystery persisted.
This isn't to suggest that there are no Asian musicians who improvise, on the local level, there are some folks here whose concerts I go to and have great chops. (perhaps the topic of a future music thread), but I think all of them have had a period overseas where they immersed themselves and then have returned.
On “Cory Doctorow and enshittification”
I am thinking that they are going to end up using chinese tech, and at some point, the Chinese will flip a kill switch and none of our stuff will work.
On “How are you sleeping?”
This discussion has me realize that my panic based dreams have come in distinct phases/periods. The first was when I was a kid and I dreamed I would swim in air, but would be hopelessly slower than other people. It was just like pushing off from the bottom of a pool and doing a dog stroke in air. I'd love to go back and see if I could do that with lucid dreaming, i
The second era, corresponding to hs and uni, was the relatively common one of being in some place with no clothes and everyone else was dressed. Of course, I now realize that no one else noticed and I couldn't tell anyone. Would have been nice to have figured that out then
The last stage, though it hasn't happened recently, I would have sleep paralysis, which would happen when I was totally knackered. I had the impression that someone was in the room and I couldn't move and I couldn't say anything. It wasn't someone like an ax murderer, it was just someone I knew, but it would really be stressful to have them in the room and I couldn't acknowledge them, so I would force myself awake, and in waking up, I felt like I pulled every muscle in my body. Not fun. I had a theory that I was dropping into REM sleep to quickly (I could feel my eyes doing REM even though I just laid my head on the pillow)
I still get very tired, but I feel like my slight ability to lucid dream is actually related to that, because I'm lying in bed and I don't try to move, but I can see everything in the room. On the other hand, it might be because I don't really care if someone comes in the room and I can't talk to them, because I've reached an age where I don't give a shit...
On “It’s Your Party, you can cry if…”
There’s a test, originating in the Labour party in the late 19th century – is he competent to run a whelk stall?
Though the bulk of the attacks iirc were that he was a far left looney. Similar to the way that they went after Mamdani. Which makes me wonder if the problem is that politically, you can't get much traction by complaining how shitty someone might be as a manager, you have to pound them on ideological grounds.
On “Weekend Music Thread #07 Sergei Prokofiev”
Hartmut, didn't know that, though I wonder if having your collaborators imprisoned and shot is another reason not to work with people.
On “It’s Your Party, you can cry if…”
And most serious lefties of my acquaintance say he is also not very bright.
I can see that, though I have to admit, the past 5 or 10 years, I've gotten quite disenchanted with using intelligence as a yardstick for anything. I still get angry when people do stupid things, so I do give intelligence some weight, but I've gotten to the point where kindness and human decency weigh a lot more to me. Unfortunately, I think we are in a time where it is easy to railroad kind people.
On “Site Experiment”
And just an observation about italics. If you look at the image I'm adding below, you can see that the middle comment has the italics but the ones on the left and right don't. I've never been happy with how the site doesn't italicize in the summary, so it looks like the author is saying something that they are quoting. The same problem happens in summarized posts on LGM (see here for an example).
What makes this a bit strange is that the middle one is what would be ideal, but the other two are not. Not sure if there is a fix, but just noticed it.
"
This looks really nice, thank you! I've added a link to the page at the top, next to About our mascot.
On “Open Thread”
Pro bono, thanks, I must have skipped over that chunk of the file. The archive was out of sight, out of mind, so thanks for noting that.
On “It’s Your Party, you can cry if…”
Thanks for all of the comments. I'm still curious what people think of Corbyn and Sultana as well as Polanski. He was recently on The rest is politics and I thought Cory Stewart was going to have a heart attack because Polanski didn't have totals of debt interest the UK gov was liable for at his fingertips. I'm not sure if it was an ambush, Polanski does come off as a bit glib to me, but given the Green's position, I think he has to push the aspirational stuff over the actual planning. I suppose this opens him up to the charge that he is unserious, but this seems like the way they always dismiss any left of center ideas.
Sultana seems like a person who relishes being a chaos agent so the combination of her and Corbyn seems doomed to failure, but I can't tell if that's because every thing I have read pushes that point. The New Statesman podcast was discussing how it was a clash between a federated system, where each group would get a vote or a more purely democratic system where each member would get a vote (if I understood it correctly) but I wasn't sure who was for what.
On “Open Thread”
Oh, and my eye skipped over Michael Cain's 2nd comment, no objections to the plugin or experimentation on the site.
"
lj, is it your belief that ObWi would be better if there were many more threads, like LGM or BJ?
I'm not sure about the enforced binary here and it ignores the underlying dynamics of this site and the sites mentioned. Both LGM and BJ have a stable of frontpagers, so it is not simply a question of more threads, it is more viewpoints. Also, both of those sites have istm a commentariat that is pretty US-centric. It's a bit silly to compare because I think the numbers are so different, but I think the non-US commentators here provide a pretty good counter balance for discussions. With that in mind (and sounding selfish), I want to have enough posts that allow them in particular (as well as everyone in general) to give their viewpoints on things that interest me. That is balanced with a desire not to troll anyone, which I think is an easy thing to slip into.
As far as posting frequency, I feel like I need to post around 2-3 things a week, though it's getting to term end and the weekend music post had me listen to a bunch of stuff and not get it out until (I hope) tomorrow. If that's too many, I can certainly pull back, if people think there need to be more, it might be tough to pull off. This is because there is a ton of stuff to post about the US, but it's getting to the point where it takes me to the point of physical disgust to write about some of the stuff that is happening.
I agree with Tony P's point that all threads are generally open, (and I'll try to get to his suggestions, thanks for those) and they are open because we generally don't have people trying to distract or avoid questions by engaging in what-abouterry.
Anyway, that's my current thoughts.
On “Am I missing something?”
GftNC, AppleTV is 50% off for Black Friday if you want to do a binge. There are some other shows that are pretty good to binge thru as well.
"
Re Badanoch, this by Stephen Bush via Zoe Williams in the Grauniad
There was no state. Who does she think crucified him, an anarchist collective?
On “The surprising philosophy behind Palantir”
India started doing it after it was clear that the world had already overshot the climate boundaries
Yes, it plugs into the idea that Robinson said started the book, which was the observation that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. It is difficult to imagine a profit motive sufficient to move the current titans of industry, though one could imagine a savior complex moving them to do it.
"
The point about geoengineering startups had me think about Kim Stanley Robinson's book The Ministry for the Future, a science fiction work about climate change. Crooked Timber did a seminar on it if you aren't into reading the fiction, but are interested in some of the ideas. I believe Donald mentioned the book for its horrific description of a heat wave in India, which then has India engage in geoengineering, specifically seeding the upper atmosphere with sulfur dioxide. I guess Robinson has a national effort because it avoids the question of capitalism trying to harness geo-engineering, but it seems to me the latter is much more likely than the former.
"
There is a thought that nous' comment puts in my mind. One thing that I note is how German fascism was underpinned by particular notions of science, while the current American instantiation seems to me to completely ignore science. The Germans had notions that we've pretty much abandoned (though they still float around in the cultural psyche, such as eugenics and biological determinism), but I feel like there was a culture of putting science on a pedestal. The discussion of Heritage Americans, which nous notes is infinitely malleable, is, like other MAGA snipes that are chased down, fundamentally unserious. Another example is something like this
https://www.newsweek.com/anti-government-militia-targets-weather-radars-2097670
I suppose that the MAHA movement has some sort of scientific notions, in the idea that science is being perverted to tout vaccines and other medical interventions, and 'real' science just needs people doing internet research (like putting forward invermectin).
I realize that the US has a strong 'know-nothing' streak, but it's remarkable how easy it has been for Trump supporters to simply reject science and I'm wondering what others think.
"
The term "Heritage Americans" is new to me, it's interesting that it is seems like it is trying to plug into the terminology of heritage varieties (also called Heirloom varieties). You can see how, like anti-vax rhetoric, it pulls people who might have been previous placed on the left over to the right.
On “Am I missing something?”
Pro bono, I felt like the last part of the Deputy speaker's admonition was accusing Labour of leaking the OBR report. I've been reading how the budget is supposed to be secret because it could move markets, but it seems like a very anachronistic practice, any government, especially in one in a country that seems to have splintered politically as much as the UK, has to test possible lines. (Another possibility would be to fine media that make misrepresentations about the budget, though I imagine that horse has left the barn)
While the content of Badanoch's reply was unsurprising, the clearly theatrical aspects (changing of voices when inferring Reeve's, the invocation and subsequent dismissal of 'mansplaining') that caught me by surprise.
On “An openish thread featuring the comedy stylings of Steve Witkoff”
GftNC
https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2013/05/10/steve-witkoff-revealed-as-friend-of-indicted-russian-mobster/
"
That's a good point nous, I didn't think of that.
And GftNC, sorry for the late note, but thanks for the pointer to Stewart Lee in The Nerve. His writing is fun, but I prefer the standup a bit more.
"
At first, I thought the conversation was a joke, but here it is (from Cheryl Rofer at LGM)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-25/witkoff-discusses-ukraine-plans-with-key-putin-aide-transcript?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2NDEwMTcyMiwiZXhwIjoxNzY0NzA2NTIyLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNkFGR1dLSkg2VkwwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJGMUM1Mzc1OEY5Qjg0MDZCOUJCNzMyODRDN0RBMEY3QyJ9.R55A7wfpKrimqSTKzT8ij6J3HqjPMIFE84iKN_Bp9Q0&leadSource=uverify%20wall
Rofer points out that one question is who leaked it, and it seems obvious that it is from Rubio's camp, because Rubio wouldn't pee on Witkoff if he were on fire. Other is how it was recorded, which gets into questions of spooks and surveillance. State has their own intelligence service, but the current head of the CIA was in Congress when Rubio was a senator. Maybe I should shout vive le petit Marco!
On “Shabana burns the cakes”
So what happens to nationalism if many more people are either moving from place to place or or at least relocating from where they were raised? Does it become stronger among the relatively few who stay put? How do they handle being outnumbered by “the others”? Do the movers become citizens of the world?
Well, you might have the Dubai model with a small number of citizens (roughly 5% in the case of Dubai) and the rest viewing it transactionally. One could scoff at that, because the numbers are so extreme in the case of Dubai, but the whole discourse of "diversity is what makes us strong" is being discarded like yesterday's trash. While moving from one state to another doesn't trigger dystopian images, you start to get a larger and larger group of people who move further afield.
"
But I would point out that, while you feel your new roots are shallow, you are hardly someone who is perpetually moving. (I’d put the threshold for “perpetually moving”/rootless at relocating every couple of years or less.)
We seem to be reaching a point where everyone will be more like me: perhaps not perpetually moving, but moving enough that the idea of being rooted in a place no longer holds. I feel like that inflection point is coming in the next few decades, helped along by the fact that climate will make the places we live so different from what they were. People may not be perpetually moving, but the place they are living will change with enough speed and strength as to make everyone strangers in their own towns.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.