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A ‘plague’ comes before the fall: lessons from Roman history

May 23, 2024

A ‘plague’ comes before the fall: lessons from Roman history

Colosseum.The ruins of the Colosseum in Rome. Credit: Livioandronico2013. CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Pax Romana—the 200-year “golden age” of the Roman Empire—was a marvel of diversity, connectivity, and unchallenged hegemony. By the middle of the second century AD, imperial Rome ruled territory across three different continents. Roughly one-quarter of the Earth’s population, some 60 million people, lived under Rome’s vast aegis, and the emperors of the age—most notably Marcus Aurelius—enjoyed the consent of those they governed. The Empire’s elites—witnessing the disciplined legions, widespread religiosity, cultural efflorescence, and dominant economy—likely expected their world order to endure forever.

In the year 166 AD, however, seemingly eternal Rome was caught completely off-guard as a deadly novel disease swept across the Eurasian landmass. It ransacked Rome’s cities for at least a decade and preceded centuries of decline. This major biological event—now known as the Antonine plague—appears to have been the world’s first pandemic.

Historians hotly debate its death toll—with estimates ranging from 2 percent to 35 percent mortality—and its broader social and economic effects. The disease itself remains undiagnosed. The great Greek physician Galen described its main symptoms as fever, throat ulcers, and a pustular rash. Some have suspected it was measles or smallpox, but modern analysis provides reasons to doubt these as the possible culprits. Human remains from the Antonine plague period, meanwhile, have thus far failed to yield genetic evidence sufficient to identify the pathogen.

Although the plague did not on its own cut short Rome’s dominance, it struck an empire that was confronting multiple challenges beneath a veneer of prosperity and growth—factors that modern-day infectious disease experts might recognize as creating the ideal conditions for pandemics. Much remains unknown about the Antonine plague; in some ways, modern scholars are just as in the dark about this first pandemic as its contemporary victims…

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Escobar: The ‘Doomsday Clock’ Is Speeding Up

January 30, 2023

Escobar: The ‘Doomsday Clock’ Is Speeding Up

The Doomsday Clock, set by the US-based magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, has been moved to 90 seconds to midnight…

That’s the closest ever to total nuclear doom, the global catastrophe.

The Clock had been set at 100 seconds since 2020. The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board and a group of sponsors – which includes 10 Nobel laureates – have focused on “Russia’s war on Ukraine” (their terminology) as the main reason.

Yet they did not bother to explain non-stop American rhetoric (the US is the only nation that adopts “first strike” in a nuclear confrontation) and the fact that this is a US proxy war against Russia with Ukraine used as cannon fodder.

The Bulletin also attributes malignant designs to China, Iran and North Korea, while mentioning, only in passing, that “the last remaining nuclear weapons treaty between Russia and the United States, New START, stands in jeopardy”.

“Unless the two parties resume negotiations and find a basis for further reductions, the treaty will expire in February 2026.”

As it stands, the prospects of a US-Russia negotiation on New START are less than zero.

Now cue to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov making it very clear that war against Russia is not hybrid anymore, it’s “almost” real.

“Almost” in fact means “90 seconds.”

So why is this all happening?

The Mother of All Intel Failures

Former British diplomat Alastair Crooke has concisely explained how Russian resilience – much in the spirit of Iranian resilience past four decades – completely smashed the assumptions of Anglo-American intelligence.

Talk about the Mother of All Intel Failures – in fact even more astonishing than the non-existent Iraqi WMDs (in the run-up to Shock and Awe in 2003, anyone with a brain knew Baghdad had discontinued its weapons program already in the 1990s.)

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Report Warns Risk of Nuclear War At Its Highest Since US Nuked Japan

December 29, 2022

Report Warns Risk of Nuclear War At Its Highest Since US Nuked Japan

President Biden has recognized the risk of nuclear war but continues to escalate against Moscow

A Swedish group that assesses catastrophic risks warned in its annual report this year that the risk of nuclear weapons use is higher today than at any point since the US dropped nuclear weapons on Japan in 1945, AFP reported on Tuesday.

Kennette Benedict, an advisor to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists who led the report for the Global Challenges Foundation, said the risk of nuclear war was greater than during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The report warned that an all-out nuclear exchange would send enough dust in the air to block sunlight resulting in “a period of chaos and violence, during which most of the surviving world population would die from hunger.”

President Biden acknowledged the risk back in October when he said the chances of nuclear “armageddon” are higher today than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Despite his recognition of the danger of his policy of supporting Ukraine against Russia, Biden continues to escalate US involvement in the war, and there is no end in sight to the fighting.

Ukraine’s war effort is entirely reliant on Western support, and the US is not just sending weapons but also providing training, intelligence, and other kinds of targeting support. According to recent media reports, the Pentagon now tacitly backs Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, and the CIA is directing sabotage operations inside Russia.

Russian officials have made clear that they believe they are not just fighting Ukrainian forces in the war but also the US and NATO. This means Russia has the pretext to launch strikes on the US and NATO, although there’s no sign that such a decision has been made.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

What “longtermism” gets wrong about climate change

December 12, 2022

What “longtermism” gets wrong about climate change

 Corn affected by 2013 drought in Texas. Global warming is making summer droughts in Texas longer and more severe. USDA photo by Bob Nichols

In his new book What We Owe the Future, William MacAskill outlines the case for what he calls “longtermism.” That’s not just another word for long-term thinking. It’s an ideology and movement founded on some highly controversial ideas in ethics.

Longtermism calls for policies that most people, including those who advocate for long-term thinking, would find implausible or even repugnant. For example, longtermists like MacAskill argue that the more “happy people” who exist in the universe, the better the universe will become. “Bigger is better,” as MacAskill puts it in his book. Longtermism suggests we should not only have more children right now to improve the world, but ultimately colonize the accessible universe, even creating planet-size computers in space in which astronomically large populations of digital people live in virtual-reality simulations.

Backed by an enormous promotional budget of roughly $10 million that helped make What We Owe the Future a bestseller, MacAskill’s book aims to make the case for longtermism. Major media outlets like The New Yorker and The Guardian have reported on the movement, and MacAskill recently appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Longtermism’s ideology is gaining visibility among the general public and has already infiltrated the tech industry, governments, and universities. Tech billionaires like Elon Musk, who described longtermism as “a close match for my own philosophy,” have touted the book, and a recent article in the UN Dispatch noted that “the foreign policy community in general and the United Nations in particular are beginning to embrace longtermism.” So it’s important to understand what this ideology is, what its priorities are, and how it could be dangerous.

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As Nations Get Ready for Nuclear War, Their Governments Work to Create the Illusion of Safety

January 26, 2019

As Nations Get Ready for Nuclear War, Their Governments Work to Create the Illusion of Safety

Ever since the U.S. atomic bombings of Japanese cities in August 1945, a specter has haunted the world―the specter of nuclear annihilation.

The latest report from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, issued on January 24, reminds us that the prospect of nuclear catastrophe remains all too real.  Citing the extraordinary danger of nuclear disaster, the editors and the distinguished panel of experts upon whom they relied reset their famous “Doomsday Clock” at two minutes to midnight.

This grim warning from the scientists is well-justified.  The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from the painstakingly-negotiated 2015 nuclear weapons agreement with Iran and is in the process of withdrawing from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia.  In addition, the 2010 New Start Treaty, which caps the number of strategic nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia, is scheduled to expire in 2021, thus leaving no limits on the world’s largest nuclear arsenals for the first time since 1972.  According to Trump, this agreement, too, is a “bad deal,” and his hawkish national security advisor, John Bolton, has denounced it as “unilateral disarmament.”

Furthermore, while nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements crumble, a major nuclear weapons buildup is underway by all nine nuclear powers.  The U.S. government alone has embarked on an extensive “modernization” of its entire nuclear weapons complex, designed to provide new, improved nuclear weapons and upgraded or new facilities for their production.  The cost to U.S. taxpayers has been estimated to run somewhere between $1.2 trillion and $2 trillion.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin used his televised 2018 State of the Union address to laud his own nation’s advances in nuclear weaponry. 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Countdown to Doomsday: Daniel Ellsberg and the Nuclear Papers 

February 2, 2018

Countdown to Doomsday: Daniel Ellsberg and the Nuclear Papers 

Photo by August Muench | CC BY 2.0

Just as the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the Doomsday Clock closer than it has ever been to our species extinction point reports show that the U.S. warfare state is moving its latest high-tech rendition of tactical nuclear weapons, the B-61 “Gravity Bomb,” to airbases on the island of Guam. Is this an attempt to intimidate North Korea? Or is it a stage in a crackpot plan to destroy NK’s ability to carry out what that state has stated categorically is its defensive strategy against just such an attack?

Every sane individual I know understands that as long as nuclear weapons exist someday, and that day looms sooner every day, they will be used. The sponsors of the Bulletin, the Union of Concerned Scientists, was established after World War II and the atomic incinerations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by some of the very scientists and technicians who had made the bomb possible and who then understood the nature of the monstrous evil they had unleashed. Though Albert Einstein was not one of those scientists his theoretical physics had abetted the basic formula for fission and the Bomb and, believing that Nazi Germany was working on a bomb too, he urged President Franklin Roosevelt to undertake the Manhattan Project. He came sorrowfully to regret this action and spoke regularly about his opposition to war and the nuclear age. “If only I had known,” he declared, “I should have become a watchmaker.”

The renowned physicist also focused attention on the existential quandary unique to the human species when he said “Mankind invented the atomic bomb but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.” Has there ever been another species that actively enabled the instruments of  its own extermination?

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Two Minutes to Doomsday 

January 30, 2018

Two Minutes to Doomsday 

Photo by Toby Scott | CC BY 2.0

Not since 1953, when the U.S. and the Soviets exploded thermonuclear bombs, has the world been such a powder keg!

Only recently, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock forward 30 seconds. It now registers two minutes to midnight. Verily, it’s lights out when the clock strikes 12:00 midnight. Ka-boom, it’s over!

What’s going on?

Hitherto, in the aftermath of the Cold War, the clock was set all the way back to 17 minutes to midnight. Thereafter, it wasn’t until 1998, when India and Pakistan staged back-to-back nuclear weapon testing, that the famous timepiece moved forward into single digits once again. It’s important to note that resetting the clock is not a frivolous undertaking. A group of distinguished scientists make that decision.

Here’s the rationale for the move closer to the dreaded midnight hour: Upon the election of Trump, the Science and Security Board for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock to 2 ½ minutes to midnight. That was based upon extraordinarily provocative nasty destabilizing verbiage from the president himself. Indeed, he is commander in chief, ahem.

Thereafter, following the self-crowning glory of Trump’s inauguration, which was an absolute bust, especially as worldwide protests in the streets vastly outnumbered the inauguration, global risks have measurably increased with leaders Trump & Kim exchanging simplistic infantile barbs at every opportunity.

Not only, it’s also a fact that global risks have compounded via U.S.-Russian relations, featuring more conflict than cooperation, as the two Super Powers crank up tensions: (1) continuing NATO military exercises along borders, (2) undermining the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, (3) upgrading nuclear arsenals, and (4) eschewing arms-control negotiations. Truly, America is in conflict within all categories that ricochet into holocaust.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

According to the Doomsday Clock, the End Is Near

January 27, 2018

According to the Doomsday Clock, the End Is Near

The hypothetical “Doomsday Clock” is closer to midnight – the hour of doom – than it has been since 1953, the year that the US and the USSR both tested hydrogen bombs at the beginning of the global nuclear arms race.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) announced on Tuesday that the time on the clock was now two minutes to midnight. The BAS is a group of science and policy experts who assess human advancement…and risk…say that we’re getting alarmingly close to the Zero Hour. Their statement said:

To: Leaders and citizens of the worldRe: Two minutes to midnightDate: January 25, 2018

In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as dangerous as it has been since World War II.

The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program made remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks to North Korea itself, other countries in the region, and the United States.Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions by both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation.

But the dangers brewing on the Korean Peninsula were not the only nuclear risks evident in 2017: The United States and Russia remained at odds, continuing military exercises along the borders of NATO, undermining the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), upgrading their nuclear arsenals, and eschewing arms control negotiations.

In the Asia-Pacific region, tensions over the South China Sea have increased, with relations between the United States and China insufficient to re-establish a stable security situation.

In South Asia, Pakistan and India have continued to build ever-larger arsenals of nuclear weapons.

And in the Middle East, uncertainty about continued US support for the landmark Iranian nuclear deal adds to a bleak overall picture.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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