exchemist

Yes that’s a fair point, certainly. However in the 1970s, the period I was referring to in which Marxism was so popular among humanities students, it was seen as a political programme, to be implemented by overthrow of the establishment in some way. If today it is merely seen as one lens, or axis, through which to view and analyse economics, that would allay the concerns of those like me that remember all the Marxist-inspired dictatorships of that earlier era. As it happens I think it is fairly unhelpful, in that it proposes an irreconcilable antagonism between capital and labour that strikes me - from my experience working in a European oil and gas major - as a bit antediluvian and simplistic. But it is true that some modern corporations like Amazon do seem to fit that analysis.

The link I supplied was evidence-based, was it not?

Hmm, I’m not sure your radical prescription is justified by the evidence: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/open-gently/201806/is-schizophrenia-hereditary-not-as-much-as-we-thought

The hint of underage sex will have resonance for Musk, given his own father’s, ahem, odd- though legal - arrangements….. But yes, the bust-up many of us predicted has finally happened and is more vitriolic than I for one had dreamed, heh, heh. Let’s hope the collapse in Tesla’s share price makes Musk think twice about more far-right meddling, or political funding, in Europe.

Your maternal grandfather was 9 yrs older than mine then. Nutmeg is interesting. Good with things like cauliflower. Can also go in mashed potatoes but you must be careful to use only a trace. I suspect in the days of simple roasts, a few condiments on the table were more of a requirement, to season and flavour the meat. Rosemary is good with lamb. I’m not sure how to use mace. Sage good with pork. I was delighted to find damsons on the market stall a couple of years ago, in early September. I bought a couple of kilos, stewed them up with sugar and froze them in batches. A real taste of childhood - and excellent with Greek yoghourt.

All of it is a sermon, moralising about the political condition of the world. My objection to so much of this Marxist stuff is one gets these sermons about how bad everything allegedly is but, as I have already pointed out, no practical political programme. Most importantly, there is no hint as to how any of the ideas can be put into practice by democratic choice at the ballot box. What would a Marxist candidate party’s manifesto look like? If, as you claim, Marxism can be compatible with democracy, there needs to be some engagement with that issue, especially in view of Marxism’s bad historical record wherever it has been tried. Historically, the route to a Marxist government has been violent revolution, followed by a one party state - and coercion of the population by secret police. Those of us old enough to remember the Soviet Bloc and Maoist China will need a lot of convincing that this particular leopard has changed its spots.

Interesting. Was this salt used domestically, in days gone by, as a flavouring? I must say I have never heard of such a thing.

No it isn’t at all. Fake implies deception.

There is no evidence here of any poll being “faked”. This just seems to be another of your unsupported assertions.

“Vinegar powder”? That must be utter nonsense. The essential ingredient of all vinegars is acetic acid, which even in pure form is liquid at RTP. The caster sugar explanation seems the most likely, especially since it would be applied in larger quantities than salt or pepper and thus would require a larger dispenser. My grandparents, who grew up in the Edwardian era, had a silver bowl for caster sugar with a special spoon with holes in, to allow you to shake caster sugar onto stewed fruit, which was a common dessert, often using cooking apples (Bramleys - very English), plums, damsons or gooseberries from the garden, or onto strawberries etc in season. People have rather given up making these cooked fruits, which tended to be rather acid and needed sugar to sweeten them. You almost never see gooseberries or damsons in the shops any more. By the way, you don’t mix mustard powder with vinegar. Just water. There used to be little silver, often lidded containers with blue glass inserts for mustard, together with a tiny spoon, as part of the cruet set. I have a couple, though I never use them. People no longer often serve joints of beef or ham, carved at table, which was their main use. ( I do mix up mustard from powder for ham, but tend to use ready-made Dijon mustard for beef, which has both oil and vinegar in it and has a milder taste. Mustard powder is also good in Welsh rabbit and cheese soufflés.)

Nice sermon, but again, nothing here to suggest a practical political programme that could be implemented without coercion of the people. It reminds me of the ideologically rigid speeches I used to hear at university in the 1970s. I’m sorry but I don’t see anything here that can take a 2025 liberal democratic society forward.

This still offers no argument for what Marxism has to offer us today, let alone any reason to suppose it would not lead, once again, to a one party police state that oppresses the people, as it has every time in history up to now. Because that, like it or not, is the historical “baggage” that Marxism carries. If you think it can be adopted in a liberal democracy, it will have to persuade the people to choose it voluntarily. For that, its dreadful historical record will have to be convincingly addressed.

Yes but we are in 2025 now. Appealing to the world of 150 years ago is of limited relevance in arguing what, if anything, Marxism has to offer us today. Such things as workers rights, health and safety at work laws, universal suffrage etc were not won for us by Marxists but by left of centre political parties, working within a parliamentary democracy.

It never has been historically, though.

Quite. The common feature is a political ideology that maintains it knows better what is good for people than the people know for themselves. So it imposes a system on society and uses coercion to achieve conformity. All Marxist states have done this, without exception. The means of coercion used naturally end up similar to those used by far right dictators. And thus the system often leads to similar cults of personality around an all powerful leader: Stalin, Mao, Enver Hoxha, Tito, Fidel Castro, Kim Il Sung…….. It is quite ridiculous for any Marxist today to ignore or deny the historical tendency of the ideology to breed such characters. There has never been a Marxist state that was also a liberal democracy. Any modern expression of Marxism needs to face its past and convince people of what it would do differently to prevent repetition. And I, for one, will take a lot of convincing.

So the greenish colour of the nodules is Fe(II), reduced from the general red/brown Fe(III) of the sandstone by the presence of hydrocarbons, as indicated by the high carbon content of the nodules.

What’s the origin of the nodules? I note the Oklahoma ones are over 40% carbon. Since I’m aware crude oil has vanadium and other heavy metals in it , I wonder if these nodules may be derived from petroleum seepage or something, from deeper lying rocks.

The Marxists of the 1970s, when I was an undergraduate, were the classic exemplars of the rigid ideologues I am talking about. It was obvious that all the countries that had embraced Marxism were autocratic police states and economic failures, yet as each example was exposed they flitted dutifully to the next, until that too was shown to be awful. Russia, China, Cuba, even Albania, all had their turn as the hoped-for Marxist paradise. The Marxist students were mainly to be found in the humanities at my university. I remember my mother, teaching English at a school with a Marxist head of department, telling me of visiting Stratford-upon-Avon. As the coach wound its way through pretty English villages, this guy gloomily remarked with a sigh:”Somehow I don’t think there ever will be a revolution in this country.”

That, again, was not always so, though I expect it may be today. There was a time when many on the Left seemed determined to fit the world into their ideology, regardless of the evidence. At that time it was the centre-Right where one found the pragmatists, interested in what worked rather than ideology.

I’d prefer Schubert’s, I think.🙂

As far as I’m aware, there are no quantum computers in existence, due to the problems of preventing decoherence. More IT hype from the tech bros, or is that too cynical of me?😉

Very interesting. I didn’t know about the Western Interior Seaway until now. Nor that the first part of the Tertiary has been renamed Palaeogene. Palaeocene I knew, but there seems to be now this umbrella term for a wider timespan within the Cenozoic. It’s hard to keep up…..

Surely, given these data, you should be able to calculate where this body should be now, and get astronomers to look for it or estimate the gravitational effect it should be having on other bodies in the solar system, shouldn’t you? This article points out that any such object should be easily detectable:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm

It’s getting very hard to detect any meaning in this thread.

But nobody here has “described” anything. Why are you starting in the middle of a non-existent conversation? Did you write this yourself? If not, you should cite the source.