hISTORY eNDS EVERYWHERE:

Death throes of a dictatorship? (William Fear, 26 February, 2024, The Critic)

Since it seized power in February 2021, Myanmar’s military — known as the Tatmadaw — has been facing heavy armed resistance from an array of ethnic-minority and pro-democracy militant groups. The coup was mounted following a landslide election victory by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy in November of 2020. Much like they did in 1990, the Tatmadaw declared the result false, threw Aung San Suu Kyi back under house arrest, and assumed power themselves.

At first, the people of Myanmar protested against the coup peacefully, but the situation quickly degenerated into violent clashes between protestors and police. A civil war quickly followed, as the military attempted to suppress the numerous militant groups that emerged in opposition to the junta.

Although the military still controls most major population centres, they are losing ground. The reason why is not entirely military-related: Myanmar’s army is well supplied with Russian and Chinese materiel. A more fundamental problem is afflicting the Tatmadaw: collapsing morale, and an inability to recruit new soldiers.

TRYING TO BUILD WITHOUT A FOUNDATION:

Free Will, Pragmatism, And The Things Best Left Unsaid (David Kordahl, 2/26/24, 3Quarks)

Though William James’s pragmatism is a variety of empiricism, it’s easy to see why it never caught on among natural scientists. (The physicists I’ve read who gesture toward pragmatism instead cite Charles Sanders Pierce, who was himself a mathematician and natural scientist.) Most natural scientists are motivated to discover something about the objective, mind-independent properties of nature, not just relations between human concepts, constrained by our environment.

Pragmatism stipulates that we recognize scientific theories as human tools, levers that we use to augment our possibilities. We should adopt whatever theories prove most helpful. To reproduce another emphasized maxim of James: “Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest.”

Reason fails at the first hurdle, when it can not establish that anything is mind-independent.

THANKS, VLAD!:

Blow to Putin as Europe breaks free of Russian oil for good (Jonathan Leake, 2/26/24, The Telegraph)

Analysts found that the UK and much of Europe have reversed a years-long rise in reliance on Russian oil and gas before the Ukraine conflict, shifting instead to other suppliers such as the US and Canada.

Jorge Leon, Rystad’s senior vice president for oil markets, said: “I think people underestimated how flexible the energy system is.

“Just before the war, just the idea of, we’re going to stop buying oil and gas directly from Russia, would have been crazy. But it has largely happened.”

Now destroy his oil infrastructure.