Ryan Arthur > Recent Status Updates

The terror inflicted on families has been horrifyingly portrayed by Patricia Evangelista. I find myself disgusted with the crass approach law enforcement willingly participated in the execution of drug addicts and traffickers. To even renounce one's ways and not commit to the usage or peddling of drugs isn't a safe bet. Duterte's drug war was merely an excuse to murder.

I'm amazed by the blatant elitism exhibited by Kim Il-sung and the high officials of his regime. Not only because they aspire live in a socialist state, but because everyone else with the same ideological leanings willingly accepts it. The sheer number of women Kim had children with is also staggering, but that's not nearly as startling as the details surrounding the relations he had with teenage girls.

At this point in the book, Martin is describing his first entries into North Korea and taking note of how much the state cares about their perception to outsiders. He's in constant company by guides and reserved only to inspect things they want him to. Meanwhile, it is in this late 1970s, early 1980s that South Korea has begun to pull away in terms of economic success.

Approaching this book with little knowledge on North Korea, I've already learned much when it comes to the DPRK's origin story, their fight against Japanese imperialists, internal squabbles with differing communist groups, and the Korean War. Now that the story has moved along to DPRK's early decades of establishing themselves, I find some of the decisions Kim Il-sung to be faulty, and odd that he's still praised.

Tienten had not done much better in Vice-Admiral Seymour's absence. Colonel Hoover and other allied foreigners banded together to fight off hordes of Boxer assaults and artillery, defending what they had with few forces. Despite the successful missions to obtain control of forts Tongku and Taku, the siege would prove harrowing for the defenders.

Vice-Admiral Seymour's journey to reach Peking was comprised of hardship. Some due to the lack of preparation from being in a rush to provide reinforcement and most being from the deliberate sabotage by the peasants to prevent quick travel via rail. Of the seventeen days Seymour's men were out, they saw action on fourteen of them. The decision had been made to turn back to Tientsin, leaving those at the capitol.

The rebellion has begun and it starts not with a whisper, but the blood curdling screams of foreigners being hacked and mutilated to death by the Boxers. Western diplomats are holding off in the legation quarter and have fortified their defensive postures. They hope to hold out for Vice-Admiral Seymour, but that may prove ineffective...

Many of those who had been in the know had been reading the signs - the Boxers were preparing for a purge of foreigners from China. Though these signs would be apparent among the veteran inhabitants, those who didn't understand the signs continued with their lives with a seemingly haziness attributed to the violence erupting around them.

The Boxer uprising would appear to have risen during an emphasis on old traditional beliefs, xenophobia, and rampant rumors. The Empress would identify their usefulness in driving out foreign influences without having to pay, and took advantage.

Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi seems like a formidable head of state. Western diplomats were blinded by their self supposed superiority and blind imperial ambitions not to take notice of the many factors at play that built resentment among the Chinese. Italy thinking they could enter into the scene with a complete lack in legitimate claim and failing to follow through set the stage for resistance.

Previous focus on teaching mathematics has come in the form of memorization, as opposed to an actual understanding of arithmetic. This has led to innumeracy among children in the West. Importance has been placed on moving children away from becoming mere computation machines and relearning what the relationship with numbers is with our lives.

Great quote from Karl Popper: "The natural numbers are the work of men, the product of human language and of human thought".

Ch. 19 covers Nonaccumulation - briefly. I'm convinced that these remaining chapters in the book are long-winded and unnecessary. Eisentstein's argument is started on how our hunger-gathering ancestors hadn't lived a life of accumulation and that it came about with the rise of agriculture. Then a discussion about a proto-cult promulgating nonaccumulation comes into the picture. Things are certainly off the rails...

Ch. 18 was supposed to be about Relearning Gift Culture, which I feel could be a book all on its own. Not much time is spent on insisting we relearn how to give gifts. Considering how important gift giving is to the Sacred Economy, I would have hoped the author spent more than 14 pages on the topic. Instead, much of the heavy work is directed towards Marcel Mauss' The Gift. I guess I'll have to go read that work now.

...analysis to explain exactly HOW any of this would work. As I stated earlier, Eisenstein is making predictions and prescriptions, without going through the work to demonstrate how any of it works. I believe that he requires the hopeful to take his word for it, as opposed to being shown any proofs with how it works altogether. For all of what sounds nice, the lack of these details dissuades me from his stance.