The German Genius is an 850 page marathon (excluding notes) by Peter Watson who's not an academic but an ex NYT/Sunday Times journalist and it shows. It's a brilliantly readable unputdownable (in my view) account of how, in a reviewers words, a ton of Germans from the 17th to the early 20th century 'have done more than anything else to create the modern West'. It also offers a fascinating account of how the later appalling developments in the early 1900s onward came about so disastrously. If you only browse the book in a bookshop, read the three pages of comments from reviewers! Last word to Peter Watson 'The United States and Great Britain may speak English but more than they know, they think German'.
'There are zero examples of any intelligent species which is vastly more capable than another species, yet surrenders control ... to the less capable species'.
True with genuine species. But we should take note of the plentiful counter examples within human societies. How about politicians and our method of choosing those people to whom we delegate the most critical decisions regarding our and the Earth's future? We select politicians mostly either by rote or via their persuasive rhetoric, their general personality & likeability and probably least of all by their intellectual capability or indeed general capability in too many cases. That is not to say intellectuals are necessarily any better at the job. There are numerous other examples in human organizations as we know, sometimes to our cost. Truth is that we cannot even agree on how, as a species together with the other life forms on Earth, we can all 'flourish' though there are lots of great examples working in local environments.
What a great idea recording & collating these remarkable instances. It tells us so much about actual and, who knows, potential human capabilities. Rather exciting!
> Leavis represents plenty of what is worst about them
As in 'Leavis promptly informed his audience that Snow "is as intellectually undistinguished as it is possible to be’, an ‘intellectual nullity", and ‘portentously ignorant’. This must be an example of what Wikipedia reports from one critic 'the passionate advocate degenerated into the hectoring bigot.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._R._Leavis
From a comment further up: 'If you don't know, the unfortunate way the EU is structured, the Parliament cannot initiate legislation. They can only vote on whatever the Commission puts in front of them.'.
I wish this was available for young folk in Romania: As it happens: macOS: 2.70% of desktop operating-system usage in Romania; OS X: 2.55%; Combined Apple desktop share: approximately 5.25%; Windows: 90.65%; Linux: 4.02% or so AI tells me.
What are you, a mind-reader? Skip the politics - it isn't about that. Merely that statements about 'everyone' are crap. If using 'everyone' is a figure of speech then time to junk it in this kind of context.
As Romanians will tell you in August 2026, you can't run nuclear power stations without a cooling mechanism. In this case, it's Danube which is failing to offer that. Fusion is almost nowhere to be seen.
You're not going to do anything at all without money as a fungible exchange mechanism (a sometime measure of 'value'). Capitalists see value in things and try to generate that value. Yes, politicians and the rest of us have the job of regulating that process and sometime fail to do a good job. Do you know the right thing to do? I doubt it. You seriously do not see this as an immensely complicated issue? Finally please give chapter and verse for the 'dying'. Maybe compare the world of 2026 with that of 1900 and the quality of life for people in general and our concern for the life on this planet. Concern isn't action but it's a necessary prerequisite for it.
Not true. El Nino (increases CO2) and Albedo (long term - it's decreasing) are problematic issues in this area. If it's settled science why bother to even consider other factors? Doubtful if humanity would survive the catastrophe resulting from a global interdiction of the kind you suggest and we're not dense for understanding that. Greening of the planet (plants need carbon to grow) which has contributed $trillions to world productivity would also taper off. Moreover the related sulfate emissions actually mask warming - reductions in these emissions is related to some of the recent temperature increases. So you could likely get a temporary spike in warming. All that said, there are sensible routes to reducing human influence on the planet.
We should be aware that the Iranian regime exists in a environment that justifies lying in situations where they sense the need to do so. It should be admitted that they are not the only ones.
What's the point of this? The title is not a new idea and there's naught else. Nothing wrong with a paywall but how about a link to a worthwhile discussion on this topic that we can actually read.
A refresh related to one of your points: Statista says for the US: Birds killed by wind turbines: about 140,000 to 680,000 birds per year. Bats ~ over 1 million bats killed per year in North America (~926,856 bats in the U.S. in 2023 and ~85,841.6 bats in Canada in 2020, totaling ~1,012,697 bats). Europe: ~780,000 total bat deaths per year across the USA, Germany, Canada, and the UK. And finally: ~7 bats per year per MW of installed capacity. This is one of the prices for collecting an extremely dilute form of energy. The latter statement is not put forward as an argument at all; merely a statement of fact. We shrug our shoulders and say - 'we'll live with that'. Others can detail the immense contribution of bats to the Agricultural Industry.
Certainly, lighter roasts are less intensive in taste than the darker versions. We should be aware though that frorm the health angle, dark roasts have significantly less polyphenols. Food Chemistry 129 (2011) 991–1000. Cheap coffee? Good news from this paper at least - Robusta (source for most 'Instant') offers a bit more than Arabica.