Resist the new Rome by Osama bin Laden

[EWolfe]

Resist the

[scott_harpell]

Things like signs, letters to each other, you know, highbrow stuff. On a political level, a literate populace is also considered one of the requirements to maintaining a stable democracy.

 

this shows how little you know. litteracy rates were boosted so that the propaganda would be more easily dispersed. another element necessary for a stable democracy is not believing that you are going to be killed by your own government. a girl in my history class back east was telling a story about how her grandfather rolled a cigarette on a newspaper that had a picture of a government official on it and disapeared the next day... never to be seen again... quite the story an there are millions more like it.

[cj001f]

this shows how little you know. litteracy rates were boosted so that the propaganda would be more easily dispersed.

I full well realize that. That's why the literacy rate in the causcauses went from 1% in 1920 to almost 100% - becausing eliminating a language is the first step to eliminating a culture.

 

Because something was designed for partly ulterior motives (the interstate system as a tool of national defense) doesn't negate it's value. Literacy almost always (except in say, the cultural revolution) has been a passport to betterment for the individual, and therefore, the society.

[scott_harpell]

anyone can get someone to learn to read if the stick a gun in their face. sure... literacy is good, but AT WHAT COST? Literacy is not much good when you are starving, your parents are dead and your culture is fading befoer your very eyes.

[Dru]

anyone can get someone to learn to read if the stick a gun in their face. sure... literacy is good, but AT WHAT COST? Literacy is not much good when you are starving, your parents are dead and your culture is fading befoer your very eyes.

 

and crime is rampant, life expectancy rapidly decreasing, and the government is either in bed with or at war with the oligarchs?

[cj001f]

Literacy is not much good when you are starving, your parents are dead and your culture is fading befoer your very eyes.

Scott-

It's clear you don't know that much about the Russia aside from some 2-bit horror stories. I suggest some reading, The Russian Century, B Moyhnahan to start. And then read about the conditions in Russia prior to communism. Where people were dragged off and shot for insulting the tsar.

 

And an educated populace, that can read of the horrors of it's regime, through underground newspapers, is the beginning of the undoing of a communist society. Look at the changes beginning in China, as an increasingly affluent educated middle class begins to want more freedom.

[scott_harpell]

and the government is either in bed with or at war with the oligarchs?

 

and usually at the same time too.

[cj001f]

and crime is rampant, life expectancy rapidly decreasing, and the government is either in bed with or at war with the oligarchs?

Capitalism - AT WHAT COST!

[Dru]

Look at the changes beginning in China, as an increasingly affluent educated middle class begins to want more freedom.

 

It's not good for the civet cats!

[scott_harpell]

Literacy is not much good when you are starving, your parents are dead and your culture is fading befoer your very eyes.

Scott-

It's clear you don't know that much about the Russia aside from some 2-bit horror stories. I suggest some reading, The Russian Century, B Moyhnahan to start. And then read about the conditions in Russia prior to communism. Where people were dragged off and shot for insulting the tsar.

 

And an educated populace, that can read of the horrors of it's regime, through underground newspapers, is the beginning of the undoing of a communist society. Look at the changes beginning in China, as an increasingly affluent educated middle class begins to want more freedom.

 

Uhm. yeah So, the merits of the Socialist contributions are only the one leading to the fall of said system. Two bit horror stories huh? So... the ukranian massacre was ok cause the soviets put a book in their hands first? 10-20 million people dead but hey! at least they could read! i think it is you that needs to read up. I have lived there twice and even gone to school there for a year taking 90% history courses in russian and english. How about you not trivialize the murders of millions of various ethnic groups as "two-bit horrow stories" huh?

[scott_harpell]

and crime is rampant, life expectancy rapidly decreasing, and the government is either in bed with or at war with the oligarchs?

Capitalism - AT WHAT COST!

 

just because i dont like soviet-government does not mean i am a capitalist. nice try though.

[cj001f]

All those people you studied with I'm sure hated the Communists for teaching them to read. For someone who studied there your perspective is sadly lacking. Or are you against ridden as you sit in your home, and think "at what cost to the indians did I obtain this?"

[scott_harpell]

All those people you studied with I'm sure hated the Communists for teaching them to read.

 

No, they hate them for killing their mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, friends and countrymen. What's next? Are you going to tell me that this did not happen?

[cj001f]

All those people you studied with I'm sure hated the Communists for teaching them to read.

No, they hate them for killing their mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, friends and countrymen. What's next? Are you going to tell me that this did not happen?

All I've said this whole argument Scott is that the same regime that taught them how to read and write, killed their mothers and fathers. The 2 are not of the same order of magnitude (one a decent positive, the other a massive negative), but both should be considered in one's assessment of the regime.

 

Particularly when one criticizes those in the past for an infatuation with Russia, say in the 1930's, when it's plusses where in great relief (rapid industrialization, a growing economy, increase in literacy, etc) and it's negatives (dekulakisation of the Ukraine, murder, torture, etc.) were well hidden away from the world.

[scott_harpell]

So you feel that them being able to read evens out the fact that their family members are killed? They were farmers! Do you think that because they could now read Marx they were happy despite the fact that their culture was lost, their family dead and their stomachs empty. How dare you say that something as trivial as literacy can even out the murder of so many millions of people?

[cj001f]

So you feel that them being able to read evens out the fact that their family members are killed?

Scott-

Read above. Read. Here's a hint (literacy=+, murders=-(*10^3))

[scott_harpell]

So you feel that them being able to read evens out the fact that their family members are killed?

Scott-

Read above. Read. Here's a hint (literacy=+, murders=-(*10^3))

but both should be considered in one's assessment of the regime.

 

these statements seem to be contradictory. no-one said litteracy was bad.

[iain]

no-one said litteracy was bad.

[Dru]

whan angst was spelled as against by cj10000f was also a good one. it took me a few seconds to figure out what "against ridden" meant

[Fairweather]

From Associated Press:

 

Russian May Have Solved Math Mystery

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

 

SAN FRANCISCO — A publicity-shy Russian researcher who labors in near-seclusion may have solved one of mathematics' oldest and most abstruse problems, the Poincare Conjecture (search).

 

Evidence has been mounting since November 2002 that Grigori "Grisha" Perelman has cracked the 100-year-old problem, which seeks to explain the geometry of three-dimensional space.

 

If Perelman succeeded, he could be eligible for a $1 million prize offered by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Clay Mathematics Institute (search), formed to identify the world's seven toughest math problems.

 

Mathematicians around the world have been checking Perelman's work in search of the kind of flaws that have sunk the many other supposed solutions to a problem first presented by the French mathematician Henri Poincare in 1904.

 

"This is arguably the most famous unsolved problem in math and has been for some time," said Bruce Kleiner, a University of Michigan (search) math professor reviewing Perelman's work.

 

Perelman's work has advanced the furthest without falling apart, and there is optimism that it will ultimately hold up.

 

"I don't think there's been a single example of a proof that has gotten this much attention and has withstood the scrutiny as it has so far," Kleiner said.

 

Not since Princeton University researcher Andrew Wiles cracked the 350-year-old Fermat's Last Theorem a decade ago has the math world been so consumed with one problem.

 

Perelman is a researcher at St. Peterburg-based Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the Russian Academy. Colleagues describe him as brilliant and say he spent his formative years in the United States, then spent eight years quietly working in Russia without publishing any of his works in science journals.

 

Whether he attempts to collect the prize money is as much a mystery as the Poincare Conjecture itself. He did not respond to an e-mail query from The Associated Press and has declined interviews with other media in the past.

 

The institute's rules state that to collect on a proof, winners must publish their work in a science journal and withstand two years of scrutiny afterward.

 

Though Perelman emerged from relative seclusion last year and gave lectures to math experts at various U.S. colleges, he appears uninterested in submitting his work to a journal and has not openly discussed the prize money. He has instead posted three papers and corresponding data on a Web site.

 

James Carlson, the institute's president, said that since Perelman's work is undergoing, in effect, a peer review by the world's brightest math minds, he may yet qualify for the prize.

 

Math experts are confident they will soon be able to decide definitively if Perelman has solved the problem. They are analyzing his use of such esoteric concepts as the "Ricci flow," "modulo diffeomorphism" and "maximal horns."

 

"They are very complicated papers and there are so many moving parts to them," said Columbia University math professor John Morgan. "It's very easy to slip up a little bit. It's a long process."

 

The Poincare Conjecture is a highly abstract problem that only the most gifted math wizards love and truly understand.

 

Poincare made strides in understanding three-dimensional spaces — the kind, for instance, that an airplane flies through, made up of north-south, east-west and up-down measurements. His question, or conjecture, was whether two-dimensional calculations could be easily modified to answer similar questions about 3-D spaces. He was pretty sure the answer was yes but could not prove it mathematically.

 

Answering the question may help scientists better understand the shape of the universe. Beyond that, it may have no application to everyday life.

 

There have been numerous "solutions" to the Poincare Conjecture that have ultimately failed. Two years ago, Martin Dunwoody of Southampton University in England caused a sensation when he posted his six-page proposed solution on a university Web site. Within months, Dunwoody's proposal was shot down.

[cj001f]

whan angst was spelled as against by cj10000f was also a good one. it took me a few seconds to figure out what "against ridden" meant

I've been thinking I should change my avatar to Mr. Malaprop

[JayB]

...Where people were dragged off and shot for insulting the tsar.

 

 

Something like 4000 political prisoners were executed in the century prior to the revolution. Horrible. At the peak of The Terror the Communists were executing 1000 a day. More horrible. This is in addition to those worked to death or starved for political purposes. I'm surprised to see you dismiss them as two bit.

[scrambler]

...Where people were dragged off and shot for insulting the tsar.

 

 

Something like 4000 political prisoners were executed in the century prior to the revolution. At the peak of The Terror the Communists were executing 1000 a day. This is in addition to those worked to death or starved for political purposes. I'm surprised to see you dismiss them as two bit.

 

Perhaps analogous to the Terror that followed the toppling of the monarchy in France. What comes after in a revolution often turns into a tyrant as bad as the one disposed.

 

Both revolutions had anti-Christian elements and seemed to proceed as pendulum-like responses to atrocities committed in the name of the Church (the Inquisition, crusades against so-called heretics, corruption among clerics, political manipulation leading to war, etc.).

[Dru]

"resist much, obey little"

[cj001f]

Something like 4000 political prisoners were executed in the century prior to the revolution. Horrible.

JayB-

Hundreds if not thousands of jews were killed in the pogrom of October 18, 1905 alone. The government of the tsar is just as culpable for these deaths. I find and average of 40 prisoners a year - thats one every 9 days, a bit low for 19th century Russia (Serfdom was in effect for 1/2 of that time period!) I don't dismiss random executions as 2-bit, they are disturbing and disgusting. I dismiss 2nd hand ancedotes that are over 20 years old as 2-bit.