Interesting perspective on why military interventions do not work. https://nonzero.substack.com/p/afghanistan-3-unlearned-lessons
The term "Christian Taliban" is trending on the bird site.
While I believe many in the US deserve that moniker, I also believe that the risk of the US taking the same trajectory as Afghanistan is highly unlikely.
This is not because the US-based Christian Taliban are weak.
It's because at least a plurality of US citizens are dedicated to the ideals of America.
Many will take up arms to support America.
Many will choose to die to uphold them.
That didn't happen in Afghanistan.
After trying for 20 years to adjust a country's culture and power structure, we have failed.
IMHO, the pending fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is not a testament to the US's lack of effort but a consequence of a dominantly homogeneous culture. This is a multi-millennial-old culture, yet it has made such little progress WRT human rights, technology and governance. I believe this inertia is driven by "tradition", which becomes entrenched when the culture is homogeneous.
I believe a large component of wisdom is the construction of more accurate groups to clarify the complexity of reality.
The risk to wisdom is having excessive confidence that the grouping is accurate for the topic being discussed.
Racism is in the domain of inaccurate grouping. Many attributes are irrelevant.
Sloppy grouping is also found when discussing liberals, conservatives, Americans, Southerners, Californians, Techies, Gen-Xers, Boomers, Gays and White Males.
Any other sloppy groups?
Fun story told by an SR-71 pilot, involving speed checks, and how a crew is formed.
'Researchers suggest that this makes mine water one of the UK's largest underused clean energy sources' 😎
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210706-how-flooded-coal-mines-could-heat-homes
An insight after just causing a Twitter shitstorm: A simpleton cannot distinguish a person's position from a legitimate curiosity about the topic. Simpletons believe all topics are easy to understand and there is no need for additional exploration. And, the more confident they are the uglier they get.
Entrepreneur, Inventor, Passionate Rationalist, Transparent