Showing posts with label survival. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 November 2022

china, mandarin and domestic dominance

The French state only recognises the French language as 'official':

Although in the US, there is no 'official language':

FYI: English isn't the official language of the United States | CNN

On the other hand, the Chinese government wants to impose Mandarin on the rest of the country it controls - simply as a means of control:

Cantonese v Mandarin: When Hong Kong languages get political - BBC News

The quest to save Cantonese in a world dominated by Mandarin - Los Angeles Times

China Plans Mandarin Domestic Dominance by 2025 - Language Magazine

The New European's linguist Peter Trudgill looks at the issue:

The land of the midnight sun

Despite its vast size, China insists on having only one time zone. It shows the same rigid approach to language
PETER TRUDGILL
The fact that the USA is now the only country in the world to measure temperature in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius can be interpreted as indicating the relative lack of interest many Americans have in the world beyond their own borders. Similarly, the extraordinary fact that China has only one time zone can be interpreted as indicating the lack of regard the Chinese state has for many of its own citizens.
China is approximately the same size as the USA. Both countries are very roughly three thousand miles across. But whereas the USA has four time zones – Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern (plus two more for Alaska and Hawai’i) – China has only one – Peking or Beijing Time. Three thousand miles is as far as London is from Quebec City, far away on the other side of the Atlantic, and in terms of time zones five hours behind the United Kingdom.
This centrist Chinese policy is very symbolic of the remarkably autocratic and anti-democratic nature of the Chinese system, which in the case of time zones is very hostile to the needs of many Chinese citizens as human beings. In China’s westernmost regions, sunsets can be witnessed at midnight; and people have to get up to go to work many hours before sunrise. When it is 7am in the Chinese capital, it is also 7am three thousand miles to the west.
Unsurprisingly, the persecuted Turkic-speaking Uighur people of Xinjiang, in the far west of China, very often ignore Beijing Time and instead use their own unofficial local time zone, Xinjiang or Ürümqi Time, which is 2 hours behind Peking Time. (Ürümqi is the capital of the Uyghur Autonomous Region, although “autonomous” is a rather misleading term these days.) If you arrange to meet someone in Ürümqi at 11 o’clock, you will need to know if they are an indigenous Uighur or a colonial Han Chinese, because otherwise you might be two hours early (or late).
The purpose of this time-zone policy, as inherited from Chairman Mao with his Communist Party goal of total control, is apparently “to unify the nation”.
This is the same objective which is, sadly, wreaking havoc on the many different languages of China. The languages of the colonised peoples of China, such as Tibetan, Mongolian and Uighur, are predictably under very considerable pressure, official and unofficial, from Mandarin Chinese.
But perhaps more surprisingly, the many different non-Mandarin Chinese languages of the Han Chinese people themselves, such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Shanghainese – often wrongly referred to as “dialects” in China – are also under attack in the interests of “national unity”.
China’s autocratic president, Xi Jinping, has tried to reinforce a single, uniform Chinese identity through discouraging the usage of all languages except Mandarin, and indeed Mandarin now seems to be being spoken by over 80% of the population, as compared to perhaps 70% 20 years ago.
Many younger people are no longer able to speak their local Chinese language, and it does not help that local TV stations are often banned from broadcasting in these languages. Even the Szechuanese language of the former paramount leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, seems to have disappeared from the airwaves, and civil servants have been banned from using it in their places of work.

The land of the midnight sun - The New European

Tuesday, 29 March 2022

not every english/swedish/german/russian-speaker is english/swedish/german/russian

Not every speaker of English is English - of course:

List of countries by English-speaking population - Wikipedia

And 'English literature' is simply any literature written in English:

English literature is the literature which is distinctly written in the English language, as opposed to differing languages. English literature includes literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England nor primarily English-speaking nations; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Thomas Pynchon is American, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, and Vladimir Nabokov was Russian, but all are considered important writers in the history of English literature. In other words, English literature is as diverse as the varieties and dialects of English spoken around the world in countries originally colonized by the British.

Jay Doubleyou: english literature

There is a sizeable Swedish-speaking population in Finland:

Swedish Speakers - Minority Rights Group

Swedish-speaking population of Finland - Wikipedia

And they identify themselves as Finns:

Are there Swedish speakers in Finland who identify as ethnically Swedish, or do they all identify as Finns whose native language is Swedish? - Quora

Finland's foremost composer was a Swedish-speaker:

Sibelius was, after all, part of Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority (as was his great early champion Robert Kajanus). He spoke Swedish as his first language, wrote his diaries in Swedish, gave his daughters Swedish names and, when interviewed by Finnish radio in 1948 at the age of 83, asked if he might speak in Swedish (the request was firmly quashed).
Sibelius was 52 when Finland became independent. He lived the majority of his life under Russian rule and was much influenced by Russian music, as the first symphony shows. In what precise way should this music therefore be described as Finnish, or as the essence of Finnishness?

Holding out for a hero: the spirit of Sibelius is summoned to celebrate Finland's centenary | Classical music | The Guardian

One of the foremost writers in German was a Jewish resident of Prague:

Franz Kafka: German or Jewish? | Gabriel Josipovici

The Israeli and German Archive Battled Over Kafka - The Atlantic

As German as Kafka

Franz Kafka Wrote in German : Czechs Pay Scant Homage to Their Greatest Writer - Los Angeles Times

The foremost writer of detective stories in German was from Switzerland:

The Friedrich Glauser Prize (Friedrich-Glauser-Preis, sometimes Friedrich-Glauser-Krimipreis) honors the best crime novel written in German. It is named after Swiss author Friedrich Glauser, considered to be the first crime novelist to publish in German.

The Friedrich Glauser Prize: A Literary Award for Crime Fiction.

Swiss Germans definitely do not see themselves as German:

A survey conducted in the city of Zurich has shown that Germans are considered less likable than other Western Europeans.

Why Swiss-Germans dislike Germans | Request PDF

Cultural differences between Germany and Switzerland

How is Swiss German Different to German? - Chatterblog

Do the Austrians and the Swiss identify as German people (ethnically, not nationally) or have they distanced themselves like the Dutch? - Quora

Finally, there is a lot of literature written in Russian by Ukrainians:

Historically, many famous writers of Russian literature were born and lived in Ukraine. Nikolai Gogol is probably the most famous example of shared Russo-Ukrainian heritage: Ukrainian by descent, he wrote in Russian, and significantly contributed to culture of both nations. Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kiev, as well as poet Ilya Erenburg. A number of notable Russian writers and poets hailed from Odessa, including Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, Anna Akhmatova, Isaak Babel. Russian child poet Nika Turbina was born in Yalta, Crimea.
A significant number of contemporary authors from Ukraine write in Russian.[66] This is especially notable within science fiction and fantasy genres.[66] Kharkiv is considered the "capital city" of Ukrainian sci-fi and fantasy, it is home to several popular Russophone Ukrainian writers...

Russian language in Ukraine - Wikipedia

Ukraine's most famous writer today writes in Russian:

Andrey Yuryevich Kurkov (Ukrainian: Андрій Юрійович Курков; Russian: Андре́й Ю́рьевич Курко́в; born 23 April 1961 in Leningrad, USSR) is a Ukrainian author and an independent thinker who writes in Russian. He is the author of 19 novels, including the bestselling Death and the Penguin, nine books for children, and about 20 documentary, fiction and TV movie scripts. His work is currently translated into 37 languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Swedish, Persian and Hebrew, and published in 65 countries.[1] Kurkov, who has long been a respected commentator on Ukraine for the international media, notably in Europe and the United States, has written assorted articles for various publications worldwide. His books are full of black humour, post-Soviet reality and elements of surrealism.

Andrey Kurkov - Wikipedia

And he has very strong opinions about the language:

Ukraine's star author Kurkov says his native Russian should be curbed

Writer Andrey Kurkov tells Ukraine’s story: ‘It’s my duty. This is my front line’

Putin’s bombs and missiles rain down, but he will never destroy Ukraine’s culture | Andrey Kurkov | The Guardian

ANDREY KURKOV on how citizens are refusing to bend to Russia's bullying | Daily Mail Online

Andrey Kurkov: “It’s impossible to say that all the world is behind Ukraine” - New Statesman

Andrey Kurkov: Ukrainians will never be Russians | News | The Sunday Times

'He is ready to die for the country': Famed Ukrainian writer on Zelensky - CNN Video

You can read this in three languages:

The Archeology of War | The New Yorker

Археологія війни | The New Yorker

Археология войны | The New Yorker

Friday, 19 June 2015

survival lesson-plans, games and activities

Monday, 20 October 2014

anthropocene

Earlier this week, the 'Working Group on the Anthropocene' met in Berlin:

Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy

You are in: Home » Working Groups

WORKING GROUP ON THE 'ANTHROPOCENE'

WHAT IS THE 'ANTHROPOCENE'? - CURRENT DEFINITION AND STATUS

The 'Anthropocene' is a term widely used since its coining by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000 to denote the present time interval, in which many geologically significant conditions and processes are profoundly altered by human activities. These include changes in: erosion and sediment transport associated with a variety of anthropogenic processes, including colonisation, agriculture, urbanisation and global warming. the chemical composition of the atmosphere, oceans and soils, with significant anthropogenic perturbations of the cycles of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and various metals. environmental conditions generated by these perturbations; these include global warming, ocean acidification and spreading oceanic 'dead zones'. the biosphere both on land and in the sea, as a result of habitat loss, predation, species invasions and the physical and chemical changes noted above.

The 'Anthropocene' is not a formally defined geological unit within the Geological Time Scale. A proposal to formalise the 'Anthropocene' is being developed by the 'Anthropocene' Working Group for consideration by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, with a current target date of 2016. Care should be taken to distinguish the concept of an 'Anthropocene' from the previously used termAnthropogene (cf. below**).

The 'Anthropocene' is currently being considered by the Working Group as a potential geological epoch, i.e. at the same hierarchical level as the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, with the implication that it is within the Quaternary Period, but that the Holocene has terminated. It might, alternatively, also be considered at a lower (Age) hierarchical level; that would imply it is a subdivision of the ongoing Holocene Epoch.

Broadly, to be accepted as a formal term the 'Anthropocene' needs to be (a) scientifically justified (i.e. the 'geological signal' currently being produced in strata now forming must be sufficiently large, clear and distinctive) and (b) useful as a formal term to the scientific community. In terms of (b), the currently informal term 'Anthropocene' has already proven to be very useful to the global change research community and thus will continue to be used, but it remains to be determined whether formalisation within the Geological Time Scale would make it more useful or broaden its usefulness to other scientific communities, such as the geological community.

The beginning of the 'Anthropocene' is most generally considered to be at c. 1800 CE, around the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Europe (Crutzen's original suggestion); other potential candidates for time boundaries have been suggested, at both earlier dates (within or even before the Holocene) or later (e.g. at the start of the nuclear age). A formal 'Anthropocene' might be defined either with reference to a particular point within a stratal section, that is, a Global Stratigraphic Section and Point (GSSP), colloquially known as a 'golden spike; or, by a designated time boundary (a Global Standard Stratigraphic Age).

The 'Anthropocene' has emerged as a popular scientific term used by scientists, the scientifically engaged public and the media to designate the period of Earth's history during which humans have a decisive influence on the state, dynamics and future of the Earth system. It is widely agreed that the Earth is currently in this state.

Subcomission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, ICS » Working Groups

This is from the Independent:

Anthropocene: We might be about to move from the Holocene to a new epoch

Experts meet to discuss humanity's devastating effect on our planet

CHRISTOPHER HOOTON Thursday 16 October 2014

After 11,700 years, the Holocene epoch may be coming to an end, with a group of geologists, climate scientists and ecologists meeting in Berlin this week to decide whether humanity's impact on the planet has been big enough to deserve a new time period: the Anthropocene.

The term, coined in the 1980s by ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer, takes its prefix from the Ancient Greek word for human because its proponents believe the influence of humanity on the Earth's atmosphere and crust in the last few centuries is so significant as to constitute a new geological epoch.

The Anthropocene Working Group assembles in Berlin on Friday, an interdisciplinary body of scientists and humanists working under the umbrella of the International Commission on Stratigraphy and "tasked with developing a proposal for the formal ratification of the Anthropocene as an official unit amending the Geological Time Scale".

The AWG will examine the shift in the biophysical conditions of the Earth humans have brought about (Picture: Getty)

The 30-strong group, which includes a lawyer, has outlined two key questions which it will address during deliberations at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt:

"How does the recent cognition of the immense quantitative shift in the biophysical conditions of the Earth affect both scientific research and a political response to these changes?" and "Does the Anthropocene also pose a profound qualitative shift, a paradigm shift for the ways in which science, politics, and law advance accordingly?"

Following the Pleistocene, we have for the last 11,700 years lived in the Holocene epoch, which is characterised by the warmer and wetter conditions that came after the end of the last ice age and has seen humans establish new territories and the Earth's population soar.

Experts aim to "develop a proposal for the formal ratification of the Anthropocene as an official unit amending the Geological Time Scale" (Félix Pharand-Deschênes/Globaïa)

Many scientists are happy with the Holocene as a term, but after Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist popularised the "Anthropocene" at the turn of the millennium it refuses to go away and the ICS has deemed it in need of serious debate.

Based around a series of presentations by members of the AWG and statements from invited speakers from the humanities, the social sciences, and political fields, the forum will "discuss both the extraordinary changes to the Earth system as well as its consequences in setting new agendas for governing, researching, and disseminating crucial knowledge."
In pictures: Changing climate around the world1 of 15

Greenland: Calved icebergs from the nearby Twin Glaciers are seen floating on the water in Qaqortoq, Greenland: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The group has given itself until 2016 to come up with a proposal to submit to the ISC, which ultimately determines what time period we live in - this might seem like a long way away, but when you consider the earliest epoch, the Paleozoic, began approximately 541 to 252 million years ago, it's just a speck in the Earth's history.

Anthropocene: We might be about to move from the Holocene to a new epoch - Science - News - The Independent

And this is from the NewYork Times from a participant in that Berlin meeting:

ANTHROPOCENE
Does the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans, Deserve a Golden Spike?

By ANDREW C. REVKIN OCTOBER 16, 2014 6:45 PM
16 Comments

Many boundaries in geological history are demarcated physically with a golden spike in a particular rock layer, as here near Pueblo, Colo. (GSSP is the acronym for Global Stratotype Section and Point .)Credit Brad Sageman, Northwestern University

BERLIN — I just participated in the first face-to-face meeting of the Anthropocene Working Group , a subset of a branch of the International Commission on Stratigraphy examining whether humanity’s growth spurt (in both numbers and resource appetites ) has caused sufficient change to Earth systems to leave a discernible trace in layered rocks that will build and endure far into the future.

Here’s another way to frame the question: Have we left the Holocene Epoch — the warm interval since the end of the last ice age some 10,000 years ago — and entered what is increasingly described as a geological epoch or age of our own making? (A 2011 paper, “The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives,” is the best scientific overview; also read this fine Paul Voosen story on the Anthropocene concept .)

As Ian Sample reported in The Guardian , some geologists frown on the idea:

Phil Gibbard, a geologist at Cambridge who set up the working group in the first place, is one. “ I’m not in favour of this being defined formally as a division of geological time. I think it’s an extraordinarily difficult thing to do,” he said. “We are living in an interglacial period and there’s no question we’re still within that period, and it’s called the holocene.”

But the consensus of those gathered on Thursday was clearly in support of the Anthropocene, although there are still plenty of questions to answer — like whether it’s an age within the Holocene or a new geological epoch in its own right, and when it started. (The consensus on Thursday appeared to be the mid twentieth century, reflecting various indicators of humanity’s surge, from exponential growth in resource extraction to radionuclides from nuclear weapon tests .)

Another question on the table at the meeting was whether the Anthropocene deserves a spike like this one near Pueblo, Colo. , which indicates the beginning of the Turonian Age , 93.5 million years ago.

Big transitions in the planet’s geological history get a “golden spike,” a bronze marker placed on a particular exposed rock layer that serves as a reference for a substantial global shift in conditions. The formal term is a Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP ). Other more murky transitions are demarcated by a date, or Global Standard Stratigraphic Age (GSSA ).

A formal decision won’t come for several years as this working group’s findings work their way up the earth sciences chain. (It will also be vital for the initial team — very white, Western and male — to shift to a composition more representative of the global population.)

On Friday and through the weekend, the host institution for the meeting, Berlin’s House of World Cultures , which has focused on the Anthropocene for two years, will hold a series of arts events and discussions surrounding the science.

Disclosure note | I’m a member of the Anthropocene Working Group because of my 1992 book on global warming , in which I proposed one of various framings of this era:

"Perhaps earth scientists of the future will name this new post-Holocene era for its causative element — for us. We are entering an age that might someday be referred to as, say, the Anthrocene. After all, it is a geological age of our own making."

Does the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans, Deserve a Golden Spike? - NYTimes.com

Here is a video:

Welcome to the Anthropocene on Vimeo

And here are others:

Futures Forum: Climate Change: the film

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

start up your own country

Would you like to set up and be part of a new country?
What would it look like?

Published on 17 Dec 2012

Why seastead? Joe Quirk, co-author of the forthcoming seasteading book, has more than a couple of reasons. Joe was one of dozens who attended the Seasteading Conference 2012 in San Francisco, which brought together dedicated adventure seekers and entrepreneurs looking to transform the ocean into the next frontier for humanity. Every great change throughout history has begun with a group of individuals who dreamt up a desire, and then acted to make their vision a reality. The number of reasons behind the desire to seastead are as numerous as the number of people in our community. Why are you seasteading?

Why Seastead? The Seasteading Institute Promotional Video - YouTube
The Seasteading Institute | Opening humanity's next frontier

Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by the government of any standing nation. Most proposed seasteads have been modified cruising vessels. Other proposed structures have included a refitted oil platform, a decommissioned anti-aircraft platform, and custom-built floating islands.^[1] No one has created a state on the high seas that has been recognized as a sovereign nation, although the Principality of Sealand is a disputed micronation formed on a discarded sea fort near Suffolk, England.^[2]

The closest things to a seastead that have been built so far are large ocean-going ships sometimes called "floating cities", and smallerfloating islands.

Seasteading - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 'most popular novel ever' according to the Modern Library is 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand:
100 Best Novels « Modern Library
Jay Doubleyou: english literature
Atlas Shrugged - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Free cities:
Honduras shrugged

Two start-ups want to try out libertarian ideas in the country’s new special development regions

Dec 10th 2011 | From the print edition

DISGUSTED by an increasingly invasive state, America's most capable entrepreneurs retreat to Galt's Gulch, a libertarian commune. That was the theme of Ayn Rand's magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged”, a sacred text for libertarians ever since it was published in 1957. Actually creating such an enclave has been the dream of many fans of small government (or of none at all). Several have had a try at it, but their efforts have always ended in disaster (see table).

Now, for the first time, libertarians have a real chance to implement their ideas. In addition to a big special development region, the Honduran government intends to approve two smaller zones. And two libertarian-leaning start-ups have already signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding with the Honduran government to develop them.

One firm goes by the name of Future Cities Development Corporation. It was co-founded by Patri Friedman, a grandson of Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics, and until recently executive director of the Seasteading Institute, a group producing research on how to build ocean-based communes. The other is called Grupo Ciudades Libres (Free Cities Group) and is the brainchild of Michael Strong and Kevin Lyons, two entrepreneurs and libertarian activists.

Both share a purpose: to build “free cities”. Last April all three spoke at a conference organised by Universidad Francisco Marroquín, a libertarian outfit in Guatemala. In September they and Giancarlo Ibárgüen, the university's president, launched the Free Cities Institute, a think-tank, to foster the cause.

As so often with enthusiasts, divisions within the cause run deep. The two firms hail from different parts of the libertarian spectrum. Mr Friedman is an outspoken critic of democracy. It is “ill-suited for a libertarian state”, he wrote in an essay in 2009—because it is “rigged against libertarians” (they would always lose) and inefficient. Rather than giving its citizens a voice, he argues, they should be free to exit; cities should compete for them by offering the best services.

Free cities: Honduras shrugged | The Economist

The Free Cities Institute | Let A Thousand Nations Bloom

Startup Cities Institute.
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Tuesday, 8 July 2014

climate change

There has been a lot of media created around the issue of 'climate change':
Futures Forum: Climate Change: the film

With a lot of bitter argument in the English-speaking world:
Forum: "Climate science has been dragged into the American-style culture wars that are turning British intellectual life into a battlefield."

And yet it was Margaret Thatcher who both promoted research into climate change - and who voiced 'scepticism' later:
Futures Forum: The continuing politicisation of the climate change

The UK's meteorological office 'supports' the idea:
Futures Forum: The Met Office... and Climate Change
Futures Forum: Storms and flooding >> climate change >> cutting carbon ... ... from the UK Met Office to the EU summit

What about flooding in the UK?
Futures Forum: Flooding in the West Country... and climate change
Futures Forum: Environment Secretary Owen Paterson visits Sidmouth seafront and beaches

And what about cars?
Futures Forum: What to do about car emissions ... and what to do about plane emissions ...
Futures Forum: The End of Suburbia: ten years on

What are we going to do about energy?
Futures Forum: A wind farm for the Jurassic Coast?
Futures Forum: The aesthetics of development: power plants and windfarms
Futures Forum: Tidal reef in Swansea Bay
Futures Forum: District heating systems run on waste... from Scandanavia
Futures Forum: Retrofitting housing to cut down on energy use - the options

How about 'fracking'?
Futures Forum: Fracking vs European dependence on imported Russian gas
Futures Forum: Fracking: 'the party's over': Peak Oil now forecast for 2020
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Monday, 26 March 2012

juliane köpcke

Final moments of Werner Herzog's 2000 made for TV documentary Wings of Hope about plane crash survivor Juliane Köpcke . Herzog uses the vorspiel to Wagner's Das Rheingold.

LIsten to Juliane on BBC Radio 4's Midweek (from about 24 minutes into the programme):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01dht1v

Juliane Koepcke grew up in Lima and the rainforests of Peru where her parents founded the Panguana ecological research station. On Christmas Eve 1971, she boarded an internal flight from Lima to Pucallpa with her mother. The plane carrying 92 passengers crashed into dense Amazonian jungle killing everyone on board apart from Juliane. Landing in the jungle, she survived for ten days before being rescued. Now a biologist herself, she continues to fight to save the rainforests of Peru. Her book When I Fell from the Sky is published by Nicholas Brealey publishing.
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