What if biological weapons existed which selectively killed people of particular nations, races or religions?

It's an interesting idea, isn't it? I think the closest thing to this situation was the extermination of the native peoples of the Americas by European diseases during the period of European colonization of the Americas. For the most part, this was by accident, of course. Because the native people's of the America's came across the Bering Land Bridge, the conditions were so harsh that no disease organisms could survive the passage, so most Euroasian diseaes like smallpox and inlfuenza simply did not exist there. As a result the native people had no immunity, and were exterminated in huge numbers -- estimates ranging from 80% to 98% of the native population died. Now, this may not have been entirely the effects of the diseases, of course. Simply having everyone in a village sick for weeks may have been enough to cause everyone to die of thirst and hunger, with no one healthy enough to collect food, or water. In any case, the extermination of the native peoples of the Americas was a tremendous boon to Europeans, suddenly catapuling them to world dominance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly.

Social Security and Temporary Paper ID's

As a direct result of federal Homeland Security initiatives, many states are no longer allowing people to pick up their driver's licenses and ID's same day, on site. Instead, people are provided with a temporary paper ID just with their name on it, which may be accepted by police officers in state, while driving, but, is of very little use for anything else. For an indeterminate period of time, people have no means of effectively identifying themselves in many contexts, in particular, in social security offices, until and if their actual credential is received in the mail. As a result, the disabled and the elderly may be unable, for an extended and indeterminate period of time, to obtain information or any benefits from social security offices. There appears to be no obvious, practical, security related issue at play here. The Real ID initiative, with isolated, inaccessible credential production facilities, appears to be little more than a bureaucratic make work initiative, a waste of taxpayer time and money. Is there any way to persuade states to make credentials available immediately again, in state, on site, so as to remove this obstruction to the disabled and the elderly from receiving the benefits that they are entitled to? Any thoughts, at all?

What if Diogenes the Cynic had joined Alexander the Great's court, and accompanied him in his conquest of Persia?

Diogenes the Cynic, founder the school of Cynics, believed in being crude, rude, poor and always extremely honest, at all times, and he spent his adult life living in a wooden bathtub, in Athens. This was his route to the perfect philosopher's life. Interestingly, Diogenes the Cynic was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, who could reasonably be said to exemplify precisely the opposite traits. Diogenes is perhaps most famous for carrying a lit lamp in daylight in Athens, and saying he was looking for an honest man. He is also famous for having been sought out by Alexander the Great, and when Alexander asked if there was anything he could do for him Diogenes replied "Yes, you're obstructing the sun, get out of my light!" Diogenes ridiculed Alexander in public, and to his face. But, Alexander had great admiration for philosophers, having had Aristotle himself as his youthful tutor. So, suppose Alexander actually invites Diogenes to join his court entourage and travel with him on his conquests in Persia? How exactly is that going to work out? Well, first of all, given Diogenes' attitude, it seems extremely unlikely that Alexander would be masochistic enough to want to invite him to join his court entourage. Secondly, Diogenes, despite his attitude, was shrewd enough to live to the age of ninety, so, it seems unlikely that he would put himself into such a vulnerable and dangerous position. How dangerous was it to be closely involved with Alexander the Great? Well, Alexander murdered his former second in command, Parmenion, and his close friend Cleitus, who had saved his life. And, in particular, Alexander had murdered Callisthenes, philosopher and cousin of Alexander's tutor, Aristotle? Why? Well, because Callisthenes had publicly refused to grovel at Alexander's feet according to eastern custom, as Alexander adopted Eastern rituals in order to control his Eastern mercenaries and subjects. So, what exactly happens, if Diogenes joins Alexander's court? Bear in mind, in order to maintain order in his Eastern Empire, Alexander was actually forced to adopt some Eastern customs of extreme respect to the Sovereign, which the Greeks found distasteful in the extreme. So, Diogenes' ridiculing presence may actually make it impossible for Alexander to govern his empire, and may lead to mutiny and to Alexander's own death. Of course, Alexander was well aware of this, so, he's unlikely to tolerate it. One way, or another, Diogenes, is likely to end up dead. Possibly Alexander, as well. Thoughts?

quora answers3

Actually, and somewhat counterintuitively, people really lived better in paleolithic times, pre-civilization, than they did in early civilizations. In the sense that they lived quite a bit longer, anyway. While average life expectancies in paleolithic times are estimated by historians to have been well into the thirties, average Roman Empire life expectancy was only 25. Now, what’s particularly counter-intuitive about this is that fertility rates — human population — certainly rose a great deal as a result of civilization. I think this apparent paradox of lower life expectancy with higher fertility is explained by the fact that while the paleolithic people actually had a fairly healthy lifestyle as adults, the women probably didn’t have enough to eat to actually get pregnant to bear children, and the children didn’t have enough to eat to survive. Now the stability and controls of “civilization” did give women enough to eat to get pregnant and bear children, and it gave the children enough food to survive. On the other hand, it exposed everyone to far more war and disease, as a result of greater population concentration, and this killed almost everyone off by a fairly early age, just after they had a few children. The fact is, living in any early civilization would have been pretty awful. A bunch of close-packed, dirty, violent people fighting over every scrap of food, and transferring every type of disease to each other, with no real concept of health care, at all. In contrast, the paleolithic lifestyle, wandering the earth and gathering food in the wilds, was comparatively pleasant and healthy, although the people were often hungry, with no stable, reliable source of food. Still, the paleolithic was probably the “golden age” sung of in almost all civilizations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Really, that depends on what you mean by “science”. Certainly you can question any particular scientific theory or discovery fairly easily. The word “science” really just means knowledge. So, the issue might be simply how much we really know. Naturally, professional scientists will praise themselves and their colleagues to the skies, after all, their livelihood largely depends on their credibility. Scientists will all say that they are making spectacular progress, and that the world should be very grateful to them for doing so. But, the reality is, most people are not particularly impressed with science, and scientists these days. I would argue that scientific progress in the last seventy years has, actually, been very modest. True, we’ve moved forward in computer technology quite rapidly, but, other than that, we haven’t done much of significance. And, the basics of computer technology already existed seventy years ago — computers were used to win the second world war, and the transistor was invented in 1947. A very meaningful indication of how relatively little progress we’ve made lately is the simple fact that life expectancy has only increased by 10% in the U.S. in the last seventy years, while it increased by 75% in the previous seventy years. This despite the enormous investment in health care in the U.S. Obviously, our health care professionals and medical researchers in the U.S. are doing some serious scamming! And, take Elon Musk — please! Here we have a “great inventor” explaining how, every time his Starship blows up, at a billion dollars a pop, it’s a “great success”, and we should give him and his engineers and scientists more money. And, the government and his investors do just that! I can certainly understand how young people would simply see scientists, engineers and doctors as total frauds and scammers these days. It makes perfect sense, to me.

Can temporary paper ID be used at social security offices?

Now that many states in the country are no longer issuing driver's licenses and ID's directly at dmv offices, but are mailing them, sometimes from long distances and many states away, many people are stuck with temporary paper ID's for an indeterminate length of time. Since temporary ID's are often not accepted as proper identification at federal facilities, I was wondering if this might be a problem for senior citizens trying to access or gain information about their social security benefits. Does anyone know if social security offices accept temporary paper ID, or, must seniors wait to see if, or when, they get their actual driver's license or ID card, before they can access a social security office to obtain information about their benefits?

If you're wondering why NASA and SpaceX engineers consider blowing up the Starship a "success'", remember, they get paid a billion dollars each time!

You may be somewhat perplexed as to why NASA and SpaceX engineers consider blowing up Elon Musk's Starship over and over again to be a "success" every time. Actually, it's quite simple. They get paid a billion dollars every time to do it! Yes, that's correct, every single Starship launch, no matter how miserably it fails, costs a cool billion. Wow! Wouldn't you be happy if you were being paid a billion dollars just to blow things up? You remember Elon Musk saying how much he liked to blow things up? Well, do you understand why, now? The fact is, it really doesn't matter in the slightest to Elon Musk whether the Starship ever does anything other than blow up, because, as long as he can keep the U.S. government on the hook to pay for this nonsense, he can get rich doing absolutely nothing of any practical value whatsoever. This is kind of analogous to Donald Trump going for decades getting rich by going bankrupt, and billing the internal revenue service for it. Or, for that matter, the hundred billion dollars or so spent in the last seventy years by physicists failing miserably to develop controlled nuclear fusion. Controlled nuclear fusion is always "just around the corner" as a viable technology, it's always just ten or twenty years away. This seems to be the business plan for an awful lot of scientific and technological development lately, doesn't it? It never gets done, but, it's always making "great strides", it's always "almost there". And the smiling scientist and engineer frauds are cashing their checks, the entire time! Yes, Elon Musk delivers. He delivers scams that make money, because, no question, Elon is a terrific salesmen. And, as long as he makes them money, Elon is a God to his engineers and investors.

answers2 on quora

There’s an interesting comment that Alexander III, the last successful Russian Czar, made about his situation. He said “I’m Czar of all the Russias, I have absolute power. Unless people don’t want to do what I tell them to.” You have to see Stalin’s power in these terms. People obviously DID want to do what he told them to do. Now, you have to bear in mind, that Russia is a big, cold, rough country, open to invasion from all sides, and always has been. Survival is more difficult in Russia than it is in France or the U.S. Throughout history, centralized power was necessary to ensure that most Russians could survive. The Russians in Moscow got a lot of ideas from the Mongol Golden Horde, and the Mongols were totally ruthless in their dealings, and maintained a huge empire. Generally, successful Russian leaders have been very ruthless. Peter the Great, one of Russia's greatest heroes, exterminated 20% of the entire Russian population in slave labor programs to build St. Petersburg, and modernize Russia. Ivan the Terrible executed almost half of his civil servants in order to control corruption. To Russians, violence is acceptable, as long as it ensures that the majority of the population can survive. And, the fact is, Stalin was a very bright, very hard working, and a very clever guy. At just five foot three, and with one arm rendered useless by the beatings his alcoholic father had given him, he had to be extremely resourceful just to survive. He knew people, he knew how to manipulate people, and, he knew about real life. His judgement allowed the Soviets to defeat the Nazis. Soviet war materials production was just as high in WWII as was that of the United States, despite the fact that half the country was occupied by the Nazis! It was Stalin's capacity for work and organization that made this all possible. It was Josef Stalin who turned the USSR into a great world superpower. He killed anyone who got in his way, but, the rest of the Russian population were able to survive, because of him. So, while Stalin certainly did maintain a huge, ruthless and powerful security apparatus to control the USSR, he couldn't possibly have survived in power unless the majority of the Russian people had supported him. And, they did. Because he kept most of them alive!

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I tend to relate a great deal of human behavior to basic biology, and I have some Freudian leanings. I believe many of the differences between men and women are based on the simple fact that young men can conceive as many children in a single day, as women can conceive in an entire lifetime. So, men really have no particular need or reason to have a high degree of control over their immediate social environment in order to propagate their gene pool. They don’t need to stick around and control a community in order that a small number of children can survive. The optimal strategy for men to spread their gene pool, is simply to propagate as much as possible, in as many places as possible, over as far a domain as possible. Hence, why talk to people a lot? It’s a waste of time. They could be seeking out more females, in distant frontiers, rather than wasting their time talking. In contrast, women have to nurture and protect their small brood, in order to survive through their genes, for posterity. They have to control and influence everyone around them, and their small brood, in order to keep them alive. They must survive as long as possible, to bear as many children as possible, and to protect their children, by controlling everyone around them with social control strategies — usually, human communication. Women have to talk about everything, because everything and anything could be relevant to the survival of their small brood of children, while men are busy travelling the world simply trying to “conquer” as many women as possible! ------------------------------- Although the term Nazi actually means “national socialism”, it can be quite easily argued that the terms are totally contradictory, since socialism is, by definition, internationalist, in that it advocates that the world community as a whole should control resources and production, for the common good. In other words, the very term that Hitler coined for his “movement” was a lie! Hitler was a fascist, and fascists believe in a high degree of centralized government control to pursue national interests — there is no internationalist element in fascism, even when fascists temporarily choose to ally themselves with other nations. ------------------------------------ I think Saddam Hussein and his generals were never really expecting to have to fight a Gulf War, almost up the point when actual fighting began. President George Bush Sr. had virtually agreed to his invasion of Kuwait, so, President Hussein was genuinely perplexed by the hysterical American reaction following the invasion. Saddam saw the whole thing as a kind of American game, or bluff. What Saddam didn’t understand was that, with the USSR collapsing, President Bush was actually looking for an opportunity, really any opportunity at all, to allow America to flew its muscles, and show that the U.S. was the only real superpower in the world now. Saddam didn’t realize that he was just being used for this purpose, although he posed no particular threat to the U.S. So, Saddam’s actions were not based on his belief that Iraq was actually more powerful than the U.S., but, that there really was no reason for the U.S. to fight Iraq, so, they wouldn’t. Saddam didn’t understand the broader geopolitical implications of the Gulf War, in terms to confirming American world dominance, which, was its real purpose. ----------------------------------------------- I assume you mean the 1950’s. I would say not only would people from the 1950’s understand our current technology almost perfectly, they would be genuinely stunned by how little progress had been made in 70 years! Remember the difference between 1953 and 1883, the previous 70 years. The electric light and the telephone had scarcely been developed, and, it wasn’t clear to what extent they’d even be practical. Electrification of homes was still almost unknown. Only the crudest automobiles existed in experimental form. Human flight was considered an impossibility, except in balloons. Steam powered trains and boats represented the most advanced technology that really existed, and was widespread. The motion picture wasn’t invented until 1890! The very concept of television did not exist. Computers, obviously, did not exist, since electronics did not exist. In contrast, by 1953, virtually every single major technology currently in existence was already present, and being used by people as a whole. The only single area in which we have made apparent progress is computers and related technologies, and, even there, the fundamentals already existed by 1953. The transistor had been invented in 1947, and computers -- including vacuum tube electronic computers -- had been used to win the second world war. A very nice way of summarizing the issue is to look at average American life expectancy in 1953 -- it was 69. What is average American life expectancy today -- it's 76, just an increase of 10%, in 70 years. What was average American life expectancy in 1883 -- just 40 years of age! In other words, life expectancy increased by 75% between 1883 and 1953! Technology, science, medicine have virtually stopped, in terms of real progress in the last 70 years. It wouldn't take a scientist like Albert Einstein a month to catch up with our technology. Even the average person would be up to scratch in 90 days. We have accomplished virtually nothing in the last 70 years, in technology, despite the frantic efforts of our scientists and engineers to promote themselves.

Why exactly did Oklahoma pull the DL equipment out of all 300 tag agencies in the state in November 2022, and move all DL production to Indiana?

In November 2022, under the aegis of Service Oklahoma, the state of Oklahoma removed the DL equipment from all 300 tag agencies in the state, both for Real ID and conventional ID, and transferred all production of driver's licenses and State ID's to Indiana. So, while up to this point in time, Oklahomans had been able to conveniently pick up their driver's licenses and ID's anytime they wished, now, they have to wait a month or more to get them in the mail from Indiana. Now, I think this had something to do with Real ID production, as mandated by the federal government, since, there were concerns that "Joe's tag agency" might not be able to handle Real ID production security very well. But, there is a large "Department of Public Safety" government office in a secure location in Oklahoma City, and staffed with government workers, which had been producing driver's licenses and ID's, and the DL equipment was pulled out of this DPS station, as well. So, why exactly did the state of Oklahoma do this? Is it saving the state money? Is it a more "secure" arrangement? Does Governor Kevin Stitt have a brother in law in Indiana who owns a DL production factory, and he needed some more business? Any thoughts, at all?

Elon Musk is about to defy both the FAA and Fish & Wildlife, in trying to launch his "Starship". What's the government going to do about it?

In case you hadn't noticed, Elon Musk is playing chicken with the U.S. federal government and is "counting down" to a launch of his "Starship" later this week. He hasn't gone this far before, so, maybe he's actually going to do it? The FAA has not given him approval to launch, and Fish & Wildlife has an environment lawsuit blocking the launch. So, if he does launch, what will the government do about it? They have to do something, and it has to be fairly big, or they will lose all federal regulatory power in this area, and, maybe in others. https://www.yahoo.com/news/spacex-starship-world-most-powerful-100622774.html https://news.yahoo.com/spacex-knocks-sunday-launch-while-230700255.html I suppose it depends on how it goes. Whether successful or not, the government will have to punish him. If he does enormous damage, he'll probably have to go to jail. If the launch is safe and successful, I suspect he'll be massively fined. I mean billions of dollars, as a fine. Which, of course, Elon can afford. Still, even he can't afford scores of multi-billion dollar fines. Or, of course, Elon may just decide to call off his little game of chicken. I suspect, the latter, don't you? You can email the FAA about this, you know, at edai-aero@faa.gov. I just did.

It's illegal for the homeless to have Real ID

I'm wondering how serious a problem this is going to be for the homeless. No one is allowed to have Real ID who is homeless, and without Real ID no one will be allowed on an aircraft, or into secure federal facilities. In addition, it may be that no one will be allowed onto buses without Real ID. So, how big an impact will this have on the ability of the homeless to survive, given that they are, permanently, barred from having Real ID, by federal law? How serious a problem is this likely to become for the homeless, over the coming years? Thoughts?

The path to peace in Ukraine lies in EU membership

Russia really cannot allow Ukraine to join NATO, and, that largely is what the current Russo-Ukraine war is about. Effectively, this would be comparable to allowing Russia or China to set up their thermonuclear missiles in Mexico, all along the Rio Grande, from the standpoint of the United States. It's simply not a happening thing. And, that is precisely the mistake our good friend, President Zelensky of Ukraine, has made. The Ukrainian constitution was originally set up to exclude the possibility of Ukraine joining any military alliances, and that was one of the main reasons Ukraine was allowed to leave the USSR in the first place. Subsequently, this proviso was removed from the Ukrainian constitution, and President Zelensky in particular was making loud noises about wanting to join NATO. Not a good move! Russia's territorial aspirations in Ukraine are significant, but, effectively, they have already been achieved. They wanted Crimea, Donbas and much of the Black Sea coast, and, they have them. And, there's absolutely nothing NATO or Ukraine can do about it. The question is, what exactly do we do now? The first point to understand is that Vladimir Putin is not insane, and, that Vladimir Putin is not a dictator. Russia is a huge, rough country with a difficult climate, and Russia has always been hard to govern. In an effort to modernize Russia, Peter the "Great" exterminated 20% of the Russian population in slave labor programs. That's far beyond Stalin's proportion, and even substantially greater than Mao Zedong's efforts in communist China. Peter the "Great" was almost getting into Khmer Rouge Pol Pot territory! Yet, for Russians, Peter is, still, the "Great". So, however brutal and ruthless Vladimir Putin may be at times, we really do have to see his behavior in the context of Russian leaders of the past. Vladimir Putin is probably one of the best leaders Russia has ever had, and, the Russian people know it. Vladimir Putin was repeatedly elected democratically, and, he is not a dictator. Vladimir Putin has the support of the Russian people. I think, of all Russia's leaders in the past, he could probably be best compared to Alexander I, the "englightened" despot who defeated Napoleon. He's tough, but, he's reasonable. So, is their some arrangement that could be found that would effectively amount to common ground between President Putin of Russia, and President Zelensky of Ukraine, assuming that they are, actually, both fairly reasonable people? I think there might be. I think it would be possible to find considerable common ground between both of these politicians in the area of EU membership. Since Russia itself would very much like to be a member of the EU, there seems no particular reason why they would object to Ukraine being a member of the EU. Indeed, given that Ukraine was non-aligned -- which means, effectively, largely under Russia's control -- I would imagine that Russia would be quite delighted to have Ukraine as a member of the EU. And, there's no way for this war to end without Ukraine being "non-aligned". Now there are degrees of "neutrality", here. Finland was "non-aligned" for decades following WWII, although largely under Russia's control. That, is likely to be Ukraine's fate. But, Ukraine doesn't have to be quite as "non-aligned" as Belarus currently is -- that is, a province of Russia. So, Ukraine gets prosperity through EU membership, although it loses 20% of its best territory to Russia. And, Russia gets a buffer state on its border that's largely under its control, although with considerable internal autonomy, rather like Finland from 1945 through 1990. Also, Russia gets a friendly "in" on its border into the EU. Putin would like that, don't you think?

Why exactly is Homeland Security acting as if it still would be possible to hijack an American airline with box cutters?

Yes, we all know that the horrific 911 attacks were perpetrated by terrorists armed merely with box cutters, which have small enough blades that they don't easily trigger metal detectors. However, we must really bear in mind the fact that the events of 911 were a direct consequence of the psychology of terrorists up to that point in time, which had not been suicidal. It was assumed that terrorists did actually want to survive the results of the terror they inflicted, and, hence, that accommodating them was the best strategy for hostages, if they also wanted to survive. What made the catastrophic damage of 911 possible was this simple fact. If the airline passengers had realized exactly what their captors had in mind, of course, they would simply have attacked and overwhelmed them, the twin towers wouldn't have gone down, and, although some of the airplanes might have gone down, the overall damage done would have been much, much less. If anyone tried to hijack an American airline with box cutters these days, they'd be beaten to death by the passengers. Indeed, if anyone tried to hijack an American airline these days with an AK-47, they'd be beaten to death by the passengers! Nevertheless, really the entire 50 billion dollar annual security expenditure on DHS is based on the assumption that nothing has changed since 911. The entire mass groping phenomenon by security at American airlines is the direct consequence of the assumption that terrorists armed with box cutters could do the same kind of damage now that they did on 911, and, this is patently ridiculous. One can quite readily imagine a time in the not too distant future when all those DHS gropers at American airports will be charged with sexual assault -- remember, no statute of limitations on sexual assault now -- just like lots of doctors are now being charged with sexual assault for what they probably thought were just routine physical exams. These DHS gropers might want to bear this in mind! All it takes is enough ladies going to their district attorneys' offices or filing lawsuits to change the entire attitude to this behavior! Indeed the entire security DHS culture in the U.S. really is quite questionable. Do we really need Real ID? Do we really need all the security around top secret inaccessible facilities for producing driver's licenses and IDs, all the expense and inconvenience of these obstacles to simply obtaining proper identification? Are terrorists still going to be able to crash into skyscrapers because of our simple desire to accommodate them, like the experts told us to do? Are we, as usual, fighting the last battle, rather than the next one?

What if Napoleon had never invaded Russia?

Sure, it was in Napoleon's nature to be aggressive and continuously confrontational with anyone who opposed him, and, sure, Tsar Alexander I was certainly opposing Napoleon by 1812, although they'd been good friends a few years before. Still, Napoleon's generals all advised against the invasion of Russia in 1812, and persistently encouraged him to make peace after the invasion, and during the course of it. So, I think despite the increasing friction between Napoleon and Alexander I, it is conceivable and quite possible that Napoleon might not have invaded Russia. But, what happens then? Well, the first thing that's going to happen, is that the United States is certainly going to do rather better in the War of 1812, against Great Britain. The War of 1812 began just twelve days before Napoleon invaded Russia. I don't believe there was any particular connection between these two events, but, certainly, Napoleon's disastrous failure in Russia subsequently was the primary reason that the United States failed to take much of Canada from Great Britain. Napoleon's disaster in Russia freed up much of the huge British wartime military machine to operate in the North American theater, and the Americans suffered a great deal for that! Otherwise, the Americans likely take the great lakes, in particular, Kingston Ontario, at the junction of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, which was largely the object of the War of 1812. The future of Canada will be very different, with much less British control and much more American control, in general. This will affect the British Empire as a whole, since Canada was the major source of timber for British ships, and the British navy. What about Napoleon's Empire as a whole? How stable is it? I'd say, other than Spain and Portugal which are fighting an effective guerrilla campaign against Napoleon, with British support, it is actually fairly stable, and might actually last for some time. Poland will no doubt be quite happy to have Napoleon backing them up against Russia, the German and Italian territories are too divided to oppose him, and, all things considered, Prussia and Austria might find it easier to continue as Napoleon's ally, than to oppose him. So, Napoleon will continue to prosper, and American success in the War of 1812 promises to undermine Britain's power to the point that Napoleon may be able to rebuild his navy to the point of once more attempting an invasion, perhaps by 1820 or so. And, this time, it might actually be a successful invasion of Britain. Thoughts?

What if Mao Zedong had been executed for gross mismanagement because of The Great Leap Forward, and/or, The Cultural Revolution?

Mao Zedong was a terrific opposition leader for the Communists against the corrupt government of General Chiang Kai Chek and the marginally democratic Kuomintang government of China. He was honest, courageous, creative, kindly, wise, humane and even, up to a point, anyway, democratic. Really. The CP propaganda on this point isn't really propaganda at all, but a fairly accurate portrait of the Mao Zedong who kept the communist party alive during incredible trials and tribulations for decades, and this is confirmed by independent western observers at the time. Now, once he got into power, in 1949, we have a very different story, indeed! So, what, exactly happened, to change Mao Zedong so much, and make him so much more brutal, and even incompetent, once he acquired supreme power in Communist China? I think we may get a hint of this from a comment Mao made, to the effect that the first emperor of China only killed a few hundred intellectuals, while he'd killed millions of them, so, that meant his regime was a much more progressive one! What Mao was referring to specifically is 焚書坑儒 fén shū kēng rú "Burn the books, and bury the Confucian scholars alive!", a standard phrase in Chinese culture for how to deal with members of the intelligentsia when they are obstructing necessary new approaches to dealing with social problems of one type or another. Apparently, Mao saw himself in the tradition of a Chinese emperor, and felt the need to act accordingly. Really! Or, perhaps, we could just say that the problems of actually running the whole of China were so overwhelming that, at least at first, it wasn't clear how to solve them without a very high degree of brutality, and by trying some approaches so off the wall that they could well be, and were actually, totally disastrous. Now, of course, you could say, that as supreme leader, it was impossible to execute Mao Zedong, that the CCP simply couldn't do it. However, bear in mind just how disastrous The Great Leap Forward really was. Mao managed to exterminate tens of millions of his closest allies in the Chinese countryside, the farmers of China, the nation's lifeblood, simply because he thought they could produce more food than they possibly could, and because he thought they could simultaneously industrialize the nation through their own individual efforts. So, Mao had them melt down their hoes and rakes for scrap iron, and he confiscated all their food. If anyone objected, he had them tortured to death. Really! Mao managed to kill more Chinese for no possible practical reason whatsoever than the Japanese did in their systematic campaign of genocide in WWII! Now, the CCP didn't execute Mao Zedong for this gross absurdity committed in the late 1950's. However, Mao was discredited to the point that he was removed from all control over economic and military matters. Instead, Mao was relegated to the role of culture and education minister. After all, what harm could Mao possibly do with young people and culture, right? So, who was really in charge of China during most of the 1960's, with Mao largely discredited? I believe it was probably Lin Biao, the head of the People's liberation Army. After all, unlike Mao Zedong, Lin Biao had had a pretty good run of luck up to this point in time. He'd defeated the forces of the Kuomintang to bring the communists to power in China. He'd driven the Americans out of North Korea, and possibly forestalled an American invasion of China. He'd defeated India and its western backers to retake Tibet and incorporate it once more into China. He was in the process of defeating the Americans in Vietnam. He oversaw the ascension of China to the status of a nuclear power, and, potentially, to becoming a superpower. Not bad at all, right? However, as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And, Lin Biao decided that what China really needed to do, was invade the Soviet Union, to retake much of Siberia for China. So, by the mid-1960's, Lin Biao and the Soviet Union were engaged in an undeclared, and steadily escalating border war. And, this brings us back to Mao Zedong, "harmlessly" occupying his role taking care of culture and education. Mao rather skillfully makes a play for power again, using the enormous number of young people in China to stage a not so small scale civil war against Lin Biao and the rest of the CCP. Lin Biao suppresses it effectively with some difficulty, and, at the cost of millions of Chinese dead. So, why exactly didn't they execute Mao for trying to overthrow the established CCP government and put himself back into power? I think it probably had something to do with what Lin Biao was doing at the border with the USSR. I suspect there were many members of the CCP who were, shall we say, somewhat uneasy about Lin Baio's leadership at this particular point in time. So, they thought it might be a pretty good idea to keep Mao around, just in case they might need him for something. After all, Mao was a very creative and effective kind of guy. Now, towards the end of the 1960's, Leonid Brezhnev contacted Richard Nixon, and, asked quite casually how the Americans would feel about the Soviet Union launching an overwhelming nuclear first strike against communist China, given their current difficulties. Nixon said he wouldn't care for this at all, and this conversation led to the initiation of contacts again between communist China, and the U.S. And, it was Mao Zedong who really persuaded to CCP to accept the American offer of improved diplomatic relations -- which at the time scarcely existed at all -- between the American and Chinese governments. In 1971, Mao Zedong invited Lin Biao and his wife to a friendly dinner at his heavily armed compound, known affectionately now as the "Last Supper". At the conclusion of a delightful and luxurious dinner, Mao bid his guests a fond farewell in their armored car, and then hit them with every rocket in his arsenal. They were reported to have died in a plane crash, and that's exactly what it would have looked like! And, until his death in 1976, Mao was once more the supreme leader of China. So, what if Mao had been executed in either the early or the late 1960's for mismanagement? Given Lin Biao's determination to invade the Soviet Union and reconquer Siberia for China, probably with nuclear weapons at some point, I'd say a thermonuclear war between China and the USSR might have been very probable, whatever the American position might have been on this. Without Mao to counterbalance Lin Biao's power, and eventually to kill Lin Biao, there might not have been any way to stop him. Thoughts?

How can we persuade the Department of Homeland Security to lighten up a bit?

The U.S. is, I believe, the only nation in the world in which airline passengers have, for decades now, been regularly groped in their intimate areas by airport security. Now, why is this, exactly? Even much more terrorist prone nations than the U.S. do not feel the need for this type of procedure. I suppose the idea is that the potential "terrorist" might be hiding plastique explosives not subject to X-ray scanning in their private parts, but, surely there are other approaches, like bomb-sniffing dogs, that would be less intrusive. Is the idea here, simply to inconvenience citizens as much as possible? Possibly, this is a make-work program for security consultants? Perhaps the effects are purely psychological, the government's idea being that the more uncomfortable citizens are, the safer they will feel? Another illustration of these principles is the more recent obsession on the federal government's part with the use of so-called "Real ID", and corresponding security procedures for the production of, and the distribution of Real ID. The federal government has consistently violated the U.S. constitution in the last few years in an effort to force states to conform to federal requirements in this area. Now, of course, the largest states in the Union simply are brushing the feds off, in this case. If the feds mess with the largest states, these states can certainly return the favor with interest, so the largest states haven't particularly changed their procedures, at all. However, in smaller states, particularly those heavily dependent on federal funding, rather bizarre procedures are being employed, such as isolating Real ID production in a single, top secret, heavily guarded facility, which no citizen can ever approach. Thus, citizens can no longer conveniently pick up their credentials when needed in many smaller states, but must depend on the uncertainties and lack of accountability of the mails. Is there any particular security advantage gained by producing driver's licenses in facilities with the security of a U.S. military base or, perhaps, of Fort Knox? If so, it eludes me. So, is there any way at all, that we can persuade the Department of Homeland security to lighten up a bit, here? To be more reasonable, and less of a huge and inconvenient government bureaucracy that actually does rather more harm than good? Any thoughts, at all, on this important issue?

What if Scotland's dynastic uncertainties had begun prior to Edward I ascending to the throne of England?

About the middle of Edward I of England's long, successful and ambitious reign as King of England, the then independent Kingdom of Scotland began experiencing serious conflicts and instability regarding the proper dynastic succession to the throne of Scotland. It was unclear who had the best claim to the throne -- there were actually 13 credible competitors for the throne of Scotland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitors_for_the_Crown_of_Scotland To avoid civil war, the Scots Lords actually formally requested Edward I of England to intervene as an "honest broker", to decide the issue. At the time, England and Scotland had a rather amicable relationship, and the highly successful King of England seemed like the right person to decide the probable best course for the monarchy of Scotland. Also, there was some tradition of English overlordship in Scotland, although the issue here was somewhat equivocal. Edward decided to take advantage of the situation to advance English claims to overlordship of Scotland, and conflicts between himself and the Scottish lords on this issue eventually led to him leading an English invasion of Scotland in 1296. He eventually succeeded, with some difficulty, in establishing effective English control over most of Scotland, and by the time of his death in 1307, Scotland was largely an English dominion. However, Edward's successor, Edward II, was a weak leader, and Scotland gradually gained ground against the English, obtaining full independence within a couple of decades. So, let's suppose that these problems of dynastic succession had begun some years prior to Edward I ascending to the throne of England, in 1272. How might this change history? Given such a golden opportunity right at the start of his reign for imperial conquest, there seems little question that the young Edward would have jumped at the chance. So, we might see an invasion of Scotland a generation earlier than OTL. And, Edward I being a brilliant soldier, this invasion is likely to be successful. And, Edward is likely to be able to maintain control of Scotland till the end of his reign some thirty-five years later. This is quite a long time to retain control of a country. Likely, it would be long enough to establish some English traditions and colonization even in the Scottish highlands, and throughout the nation of Scotland as a whole. So, a subsequent Scottish revolt against English overlordship becomes much less likely, and long term control of Scotland by England almost inevitable. Given a United Kingdom of Scotland and England from the thirteenth century, a War of the Roses becomes less likely, and the hundred years war in France, if it occurs at all, seems rather more likely to turn to England's favor. England will have more resources, more manpower, and less competition. England may well retain control of much of France indefinitely. Thus an English empire across all of Britain and much of France has the potential to, perhaps, turn the whole of Western Europe English, perhaps by the sixteenth century. Thoughts?