Scot Wick Blog

  Overnight finished the “Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages” Audible audiobook. Also have the Kindle book version, I got it in October for $1.99 on sale, now back at regular price of $15.64. One great thing about the Audible is the narrator, George Backman, fluently pronounces the examples of all the different languages. The author, Gaston Dorren, is Dutch and can speak six languages and read nine more. He wrote the Dutch and English versions himself. There’s a chapter for each language, except Japanese which has two, he says Japanese may be the most difficult language to master. He thinks there’s a good chance AI will render the need to learn other more than one language unnecessary. From the end of the book: “Give AI another decade or so and it may be good enough to convince many people learning English is not essential – and it will almost certainly reinforce the belief of many native English speakers they needn’t learn anything other than English. And is that a good thing

  From book “Babel, Around The World In 20 Languages” by Gaston Dorren. “The world’s 20 biggest languages, which are the subject of this book, are causing the decline of hundreds, even thousands of smaller ones.” "Among them, these 20 languages are the mother tongues of no less than half the population of the world. Take second-language speakers into account, and the numbers are much larger still. Again, the figures are debatable, but it’s safe to claim that at least 75 per cent of people on this planet are able to communicate in one of the Babel Twenty. A less pertinent but more exact figure would be this: over 90 per cent of humankind live in countries where one or more of the twenty are routinely used by central government." 20 Vietnamese | 85 million 19 Korean | 85 million 18 Tamil | 90 million 17 Turkish | 90 million 16 Javanese | 95 million 15 Persian | 110 million 13 Japanese | 130 million 12 Swahili | 135 million 11 German | 200 million 10 French | 250 million 9 Malay

  Made some edits to yesterday’s post of Section 8 comments on book Bully of Asia: Why China's Dream is the New Threat to World Order Section 8 231129 “They [the modern Chinese elites] are generally “cultured” enough to avoid comparing people from other races or cultures to animals or beasts in mixed company, that is to say when foreigners are present. But their true attitude of comes through clearly in private conversations and some literary works.” Racism exists everywhere even here in the melting pot U.S. The best way to minimize then eliminate racism is with interracial marriage. There are many intermarriages in the U.S. including with Chinese where they are celebrated, but in China they are few and berated. A vastly increased number of intermarriages will be a natural outcome of the complete worldwide freedom of travel and residency (as now within the U.S.) after tHAT happens. We will no longer be held captive behind fences facing enforced by oll-knowing “elites,” whose mai

  “Those philosophers who wish to seek out the causes of miracles and to understand the things of nature, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious and proclaimed as such by those the mob adore. For these men know once ignorance is put aside wonderment would be taken away which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.” - Baruch Spinoza

From Bully of Asia: Why China's Dream is the New Threat to World Order. Steven Mosher. 2017. Kindle online sample. Section 8. The Chinese mandarinate, selected on the basis of competitive examinations which tested their knowledge of the Confucian classics, embodied this sense of cultural superiority. If its members condescended to their own people, THE CHINESE MANDARINATE REGARDED FOREIGNERS—THOSE OUTSIDE THE MAGIC CIRCLE OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION—AS SCARCELY HUMAN. There was no more polarizing distinction in the Chinese worldview than that between the Sinified (Chinese or hua) and the un-Sinified (Barbarians or yi). As we have seen, the un-Sinified—those barbarians who had not (yet) adopted Chinese habits of speech, dress, custom, and thought—were often likened to animals. … The Shanhai Jing (“Classic of Mountains and Seas”), written at the time of Christ but still quoted as late as the Qing dynasty, DESCRIBES A WESTERN PEOPLE WITH HUMAN FACES BUT THE BODIES OF SNAKES, and a souther

  Mostly summarized from Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Economics, 5th Ed. PART 12 Short Run Macroeconomic Fluctuations Chapter 34 of 36 The Influence of Monetary and Fiscal Policy on Aggregate Demand Section 6 of 35 … Figure 1 here … Here we look at the two pieces of the theory of liquidity preference: 1· the supply of money 2· the demand for money … 2· The demand for money The liquidity of any asset means the ease with which that asset can be used to buy goods (and services). Money is the most liquid asset since it can directly be used for buying goods. The high liquidity of money explains the demand for it. People choose to hold some money instead of assets that offer a return (interest, dividends, asset value appreciation) because money immediately can be used to buy goods. … There are other factors that determine the quantity of money demanded, but the one emphasized by the theory of liquidity preference is the interest rate. The interest rate is the opportunity cost of holding mo