Sunday, March 17, 2024

How Immigration Contributed to the Fall of the Roman Empire

They say that those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. When I learned several years back about the factors that contributed to the decline and fall of Rome, I was not surprised at the role immigration played. What did-and still does--surprise me is how the immigration issue is never brought up as something that has historical precedents. 

Immigration was not the sole factor in the fall of Rome, but it was definitely one of the factors that contributed to the fall of this once-great empire. And when one looks back at this period of history, it all makes sense. (Common sense is no longer common, unfortunately.)

During the later years of the Roman Empire, particularly in the 4th and 5th centuries AD, the empire faced significant challenges from both external invasions and internal unrest. Here are a couple of the ways immigration played a role in these challenges. Look at the parallels to what's been happening in Europe and the U.S. today. 


Economic Strain 
The influx of immigrants placed strain on the Roman economy, particularly as the empire struggled to provide resources and employment for its growing population. Immigrants often settled in urban areas, leading to overcrowding, unemployment, and social unrest. This economic strain further weakened the empire's ability to defend itself against external threats. (Sound familiar?)


Cultural and Social Change
Immigration also brought about cultural and social changes within the Roman Empire. As immigrants settled in Roman territory, they brought with them their own languages, customs, and beliefs, leading to increased cultural diversity and, in some cases, tensions between different ethnic and religious groups. These divisions weakened the sense of unity and cohesion that had been essential to the stability of the empire.


We constantly hear people extol the virtues of diversity, but how is that working out in real life over in the EU which has embraced diversity to almost a radical degree? According to Douglas Murray: 


But the argument for mass migration on the grounds of 'diversity' as being a good in itself ignores one huge and until recently unspeakable issue. Just as most cultures have good and things to say for themselves, all have some bad and disagreeable things about them too. And while the positives can be stressed and exaggerated from the outset, any negatives take years to admit, if they are admitted at all.


It strikes me as strange that our culture has become so polarized that we cannot discuss anything with resorting to name-calling. If one argues against mass immigration, they are labelled a xenophobe.


In the last decades of the Roman Empire, there were all kinds of groups fleeing into Roman territory seeking a better opportunity. Visigoths, Vandals and Huns came because they were fleeing the conflicts in their own lands. According to historians the pressure from these migrations contributed to the weakening and eventual collapse of central authority.  


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Immigration wasn't the only thing that undermined the Roman Empire. There were other causes as well, including some quite familiar to us today like overexpansion, military overspending and government corruption. Nevertheless, immigration played a part.


I'm just sowing seeds here. There are reasons to be concerned about the direction things are going. Those speaking frankly may have useful contributions on this matter and ought not be dismissed out of hand. My gut tells me things will be getting worse before they get better unless honest discussions are allowed to take place in our communities, cities and highest levels of government. I'm less than optimistic.


Thursday, March 14, 2024

The TikTok Saga Illustrates How Andy Grove Was Right: Only the Paranoid Survive

"Do you want to hear one more?
This one's a real knee-slapper."
The House of Representatives has approved a bill to cut off TikTok in the U.S. The bill, titled Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (H.R.7521), will be signed by President Joe Biden as soon as the Senate approves it. 

This brief blog post is not about the pros and cons of TikTok, nor is it aboutthe pros and cons of our government shutting it down. Rather, it is about a lesson I learned the hard way on Facebook a couple years ago.

At some point in time I was monetizing my blog with Google ads, and even though the revenue stream was mainly a trickle, there were monthly deposits made to my credit union account. It was daily habit to write, publish, then share on other social media, primarily Twitter and Facebook. Because I wrote frequently about the local arts scene, a large percentage of my readers came through the Facebook platform.

Suddenly, without explanation, I was unable to share my blog on Facebook. And since the Zuckerberg-founded enterprise also owns Instagram, my blog was also restricted there as well. 

The lesson is this: if you do not own the digital real estate where you have established your business, you're vulnerable to having everything you've built get dismantled.

This experience prompted me to see who are currently the biggest financial beneficiaries on TikTok. So I asked Google, which replied:

According to explodingtopics.com, the highest-paid TikTok influencers in 2024 are:

  • Charli D'Amelio: Estimated earnings of $17.5 million
  • Dixie D'Amelio: Estimated earnings of $10 million
  • Addison Rae: Estimated earnings of $8.5 million
  • Khaby Lame: Estimated earnings of $5 million
  • Bella Poarch: Estimated earnings of $5 million
  • Josh Richards: Estimated earnings of $5 million
I never heard of any of these people but superficial skim on Google shows that the top three are all young women. Addison Rae has 88 million followers.

If you wonder how they make their money, it varies. Once they have become established as influencers, they can get ad revenue or payment for promoting other companies. Some become a brand themselves and profit from selling their own products. And many profit by sharing their videos on other platforms.

Not everyone is making the big bucks the six names above are pulling in, but if Congress pulls the plug I'm guessing that a lot of these social media personalities will take a financial hit, as will many of the smaller fish swimming in this cyber-sea of social media enterprises.

According to Wikipedia the Senegal-born Khaby Lame has surpassed Addison Rae in number of followers and as of June 2022 had 142 million followers just by being an "everyman." You can read Khaby Lame's story here.  Or watch him do his comic antics here

142 million followers? Wowzer.

Lesson #2: When it's going good, don't take it for granted. Only the paranoid survive.

RELATED LINK:

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Shrinkflation Is Not A Joke, It's Inflation

"Remembering" (AI-e collaboration)
If I am a baker and the cost of flour goes up, and the taxes on my bakery building go up, and the wages of my employees go up, it seems apparent that my prices would have to go up. 

If I own a cookie factory, and my taxes go up plus my costs for raw materials, and wages go up to keep my employees, I have very few options in order to break even. Option One: raise my prices. Option Two: reduce the number of cookies in the package, or... Option Three: reduce the size of the cookies in the package. This latter is what the president mockingly calls Shrinkflation.

President Biden seems to get a kick out of deriding businesses that make their products smaller. Does he not understand that it's GOVERNMENT POLICIES that are causing this? A business has to make a profit in order to pay for the cost of doing business. When businesses fail to make money, they eventually go out of business. Why this is not obvious to most people is a mystery to me. 

So the president brags about his policies making life better while things keep getting worse and people living in the trenches, down on the streets, know it. 

President Biden wants to have the FDA punish companies that reduce the number of chips in a bag or the size of cookies in a package. Which means what? The prices for these products will have to go up. 

When I go through the grocery story lines and buy four items for twenty or twenty-five dollars, I see people fork over $200 for a couple bags of groceries. I'm not sure how they can do it. Eventually it will be $200 for one bag of groceries. In short, this is another form of "shrinkflation" in which grocery stories give us fewer goods for the same amount of cash. Should we punish the grocers also?

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Worth Reading (if able): Biden's Partisan State of Disunion

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As Ronald Reagan famously observed, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." 

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Saturday, March 9, 2024

Elias Carver's Forlorn Farewell

In the quiet expanse of the Midwest, a man named Elias Carver moved through the motions of his mundane existence, oblivious to the imminent moment that awaited him with each careless step. It was rumored that something apocalyptic would happen on this, the last day of 1899, the last day of the century. Pastor Jordan had preached about it the previous Sunday, though Elias had been absent for one reason or another.


This morning Elias rose to the clatter of the kitchen, the aroma of frying bacon and the shrill tones of his wife's morning proclamations. He sat at the table, indifferent to the last hearty breakfast he would ever devour. His gaze lingered on the newspaper, the ink-stained fingers of history spreading tales of an era departing.


As he swallowed the last remnants of his eggs, Elias harbored no inkling that this was his final meal, the last time his taste buds would dance to the rhythm of his wife's culinary melody. The banality of bacon and eggs concealed the gravity of the moment.


Venturing out into the wooded expanse that had been his sanctuary for years, Elias trod the familiar trails with an absent mind. The rustling leaves and the creaking sighs of ancient oaks went unnoticed, for he saw none of the intricate beauty displayed on this last walk through the woods. As the verdant cathedral of nature enveloped him in its silent farewell, Elias remained deaf to the hymns.


Returning home, he engaged in the age-old ritual of marital discord. This last argument echoed through the halls. The weight of unspoken farewells lingered in the air. Elias and his wife sparred with words, unaware that this was the culmination of years of verbal battles – the final skirmish before the silence that eternity promised.


In the evening, his children played in the fading light, their laughter echoing in the yard. Oblivious to the significance of the moment, Elias watched them with casual detachment. The last time he would witness their innocent joy slipped away in the useless passage of time, dissolving like a mist.


The day meandered into night. Elias retired to bed, closing his eyes to the world. Dreams of forgotten days and faces unseen danced through the corridors of his mind. Little did he know, as slumber claimed him, that these dreams would also be his last. Before dawn Elias would be absorbed into the silence of eternal rest.


During these final minutes of the century Elias Carver's heart ceased its rhythmic dance as the world he'd known faded into the realm of yesterday. That last day, now passed, left behind the remnants of a life lived without appreciation or reverence, hours that slipped away unnoticed, like whispers in the wind. 


As the new century dawned, friends from long ago were struck by the news. Each recalled how inspiring he'd once been, always talking about "living large" and making an impact on the world unfolding before them. How very small the footprint of his life had become in the end.  


Thursday, March 7, 2024

Copernicus, Galileo, and Free Speech -- There Are Lessons Here

At the Galileo Museum in Florence.
What do you do if you're an outlier, ahead of the curve on a matter of historical or social significance? Or someone who has made a discovery that goes against public opinion?

When Copernicus observed and then proved that the earth went around the sun, and not vice versa, he only published this revelation at the end of his life. Had there been freedom of speech, accompanied by free thought and free inquiry, the "Copernican revolution" may have begun much earlier.

Galileo paid a price for his inquiries into how the universe works. His 1633 imprisonment was primarily due to his support for the heliocentric model of the solar system--that sun was the center of our solar system--which contradicted the geocentric model endorsed by the Church at the time. Galileo's advocacy for the ideas proposed by Copernicus, challenged the prevailing religious and scientific beliefs of the era. He was found guilty of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church and was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.

Today this power to elevate or destroy careers is no longer wielded by the Church. It belongs to the State and the mob. Free speech without repercussions appears to remain an unattainable ideal, like Quixote's impossible dream. 

These "Throwback Thursday" thoughts came to mind as I reflected again on Ibsen's Enemy of the People.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Fitzcarraldo's Eccentric Audacity

A few weeks back I watched the Werner Herzog film Fitzcarraldo, starring Klaus Kinski.

At its core, Fitzcarraldo is a story about obsession, ambition, and the pursuit of one's dreams against all odds. Based on a true story, it's about a man so mesmerized by opera that he wants to build an opera house in the jungles of Peru, with the hope of having Enrico Caruso perform there.

Fitzcarraldo is the crazy but true story of Brian Feeney Fitzgerald, and Irishman rubber baron who is determined to bring a steamship 1200 miles up the Amazon into the Peruvian rainforest. This event took place over one hundred years ago while there may have still been cannibalism, a time when native peoples produced shrunken heads to trade to museum collectors.

Herzog's making of this film proved to be as audacious as Fitzcarraldo's efforts, which included transporting their riverboat over a mountain at one point. The film itself became controversial due to the multiple deaths that occured while in the making, as well as two plane crashes and more. (You can find all the behind-the-scenes drama here.)

The real life Fitzcarraldo--Carlos Fitzcarrald--was indeed a rubber baron, but the steamship he transported up the river and over a mountain was 32 tons, and not the 320 ton behemoth in the film.

The movie begins with several minutes of an Enrico Caruso opera which Klaus Kinski and his wife (?) Molly (played by Claudia Cardinale) have travelled 1200 miles to see. During the performance, Caruso points in Fitz's direction, which he takes as a sign to pursue the dream in his head.

The film's breathtaking cinematography stood out to critics, earning praise for Werner Herzog's exceptional skill behind the camera. Herzog's mastery doesn't just capture stunning landscapes, it transports the audience into Fitzcarraldo's world, conveying the immense scale and daring of his ambitious endeavor.


One of the film's themes was the clash between civilization and the wilderness. As Fitzcarraldo ventures deeper into the heart of the jungle, he grapples with the moral and ethical implications of his actions and the impact of his ambition on the indigenous people and the environment, issues that remain unresolved even today.


Just as opera was a central feature of Fitzcarraldo's ambition so, too, it is a thread woven through the film from beginning to end. You don't like opera? I myself found it fascinating the manner in which this music formed a bridge between the "civilized" world and these isolated peoples almost untouched by the world we've created and known.


By contemporary standards the pace of this film is too slow. The glorious vistas are also lost on the small screen. Nevertheless, as a metaphor for audacity, it excels. 


Post Script: For younger theater-goers who do not know Herzog, you might recognize him from his appearance as The Zec in the film Jack Reacher. If you saw the film with Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall (among others), then you will recall the extremes to which the Zec had gone to obtain his freedom.


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Ali, Dylan and Gorgeous George: Audacity as a Marketing Tool

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

From Ancient Efforts to Modern Miracles: The Ever-Evolving Story of Cataract Surgery

Yesterday, my wife Susie had cataract surgery. When the process was explained it stimulated many questions. How did doctors learn how to do this, to remove the lens in an eyeball and replace it with a better lens? When did people first begin to have cataracts and how did they deal with it? 

For what it's worth, a cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye. The formation of cataracts is a natural phenomenon in the aging process. It's different from glaucoma, an eye disease which damages the optic nerve.

The history of cataract surgery spans thousands of years. As you can imagine, humankind's earliest attempts to solve this eye problem were quite crude, especially compared to our modern advancements. I asked ChatGPT to outline the history of cataract surgery. I'm sure the earliest efforts would make you wince. 

Here's an outline of this eye surgery's key milestones:

  • Ancient Times: Cataract surgery has ancient origins, with evidence of attempts to treat cataracts found in Egyptian and Indian texts dating back to 29–30 BCE. Ancient surgeons often attempted to dislodge cataracts from the eye using sharp instruments.
  • Medieval Arab Surgeons: During the medieval period, Arab physicians made significant contributions to ophthalmic surgery. They developed techniques such as couching, where a needle or sharp instrument was used to displace the clouded lens to the bottom of the eye, allowing some vision to be restored. However, this method did not restore clear vision and carried a high risk of complications.
  • 16th to 18th Centuries: European surgeons continued to refine techniques for cataract surgery, but outcomes remained poor, often resulting in blindness or severe complications.
  • 18th Century: The introduction of the extracapsular cataract extraction technique by French surgeon Jacques Daviel in the 18th century marked a significant advancement. This technique involved making an incision in the eye and removing the lens while leaving the lens capsule intact.
  • 19th Century: The development of anesthesia and a better understanding of antiseptic techniques in the 19th century led to safer cataract surgeries. Surgeons began to experiment with intraocular lens implantation, but initial attempts were largely unsuccessful due to issues with biocompatibility and rejection.
  • 20th Century: The 20th century saw significant advancements in cataract surgery techniques and technology. In the 1940s, Sir Harold Ridley pioneered the use of intraocular lenses (IOLs), which are now a standard part of modern cataract surgery. The introduction of phacoemulsification in the 1960s revolutionized cataract surgery by allowing the lens to be broken up and aspirated through a tiny incision, leading to quicker recovery times and fewer complications.
  • 21st Century: Cataract surgery continued to evolve in the 21st century with the introduction of femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery, which offers greater precision and customization. Additionally, advancements in IOL technology have led to improved outcomes, including multifocal and toric lenses that can correct presbyopia and astigmatism.

Today, cataract surgery is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures worldwide, with a high success rate and minimal risk of complications. As you can see, dealing with cataracts has certainly come a long way. Today it has become a cornerstone of modern ophthalmic practice.


Did you enjoy reading this? Did you learn something new? Feel free to leave a comment.


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