KJ Un Chooses Nuclear War Path instead of Peace and Prosperity

Choosing peace and prosperity when the opportunity arises instead of war is nominally at least the better choice. North Korea's Kim Jong Un apparently is duplicitous about his desire for peace and prosperity. His signals to President Trump regarding denuclearization were nothing more than deceit to continue nuclear development through other means. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pompeo-cites-progress-in-north-korea-nuclear-talks-1530967772

 North Korean leaders played the Clinton administration famously even getting Sect. of State Madeleine Albright to synthetic belly-jig dance . President Trump is unlikely to be so compliant in return for sweet nothings for the media that mean nothing.

KJ Un may be looking to the mid-term election and playing for time hoping that loose democrat party appeasers will return to take over government. Its not really a bad tactic yet it might not work out to well.

 When the former Soviet Union and President Gorbachev faced a similar probably of occupying an inferior strategic military and economic position the leadership choose to just allow glasnost and perestroika to run full course. Peace and prosperity were a better direction than war. Other than Democrat Party failure to work well with Russia after the end of the cold war bringing distrust to those considering letting down their guard and choosing to join mainstream western economics, the decision to change for Russia worked out reasonably well with few casualties, no war and debatably an improvement in the lifestyle of Russian.              

If North Korea rapidly denuclearizes, allows free expression and travel between north and south for business, and officially ends the Korean War, it would be better off quite swiftly and remarkably. Korea could become a technology strongman comparable to Germany. American soy beans could flow by the hundreds of thousands of tons to bring quality vegetable protein to the undernourished. There would be no chance of civil war between northerners and southerners. Therefore I believe Rocket Man is not playing with a full deck.

Roman Empire Teleology

Caesar's conquest of Gaul was a necessary historical progression. Transalpine Gaul became a vast producer of produce for Rome in addition to other considerations. In a way it was necessary for Rome to conquer Gaul after the invasions from northerners that Caesar's uncle Marius thwarted (he buried 150,000 at Marseilles and the fields were said to be rich with fertilizer for produce).

Gaul was colonized by upper class Romans that enjoyed vast estates. They had too enjoyable of a lifestyle and it was somewhat rotted from within. It is worth recollecting that it was the Huns and their speed of light comparatively speaking cavalry that showed the way to end the Roman Empire. The Legions couldn't move as quickly, and were corrupted with foreign recruits. Rome had a kind of natural lifestyle and ended rather naturally. It was a bridge nation between old civilizations and the new Europe and became a vehicle for the dissemination of Christianity. Really quite remarkable. A divine plan.

On the Proposition that Ideologies are Subititutes for Religion (Nietzsche)

Good ideas exist in-themselves after they are made and used by others. Formalizing ideas and using them politically instead of thinking for-oneself is a problem of course. Today a generality for political platforms is that they elect inertially normal social symbols that cannot reform social structure or economics as required externally for-itself.

Nietzche was wrong about a lot of things. Only one guy attended his college philology lectures- a janitor at the school. He regard the people as unthinking ants following customs in the village globally while he probably saw himself as Zarathustra living on a hill looking down upon the comedy-tragedy, metaphorically speaking.

Is political ideology the same as or a replacement for religious and theological belief? The answer to that is of course no. Political affiliation has no potential for providing salvation unto eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Can prople that just pretend to be religious with an imitation of Christianity behave empirically in some way as comfortable Democrat Party cadre if they jump ship because they believe Christian association isn't socially as valuable in the present godless, mindless epoch? of course.

Sociological behavior is different than what ideas are. Organizational structures may have similarities yet with different intellectual content or the lack of it. It depends how one is viewing human behavior; as an atheist and empirical scientific behaviorist, as a theolgican with true faith, as a social self-promoting opportunist etc. and so forth.

The First City in Europe Was Discovered by Manojlo Milošević

It depends on what the meaning of 'bigger' is. Akad and Sumer where marvelous civilization with the famous ziggurats. Square miles or the size of structures and temples might be criteria for example.  Fragments of the Tale of Gilgamesh on clay tablets date to 5000 B.C.

Europe in the mesolithic and the early neolithic was less civilized or structured. Yet a Serbian farmer named Manojlo Milošević in 1960 discovered a city site dating to 9500 B.C. that continued may be until 7200-6500 B.C. Keep in mind that Jericho dates to 10,000 B.C. or earlier.

 The Serbian city-the first in Europe, ws on a good fishing spot on the Danube and named Lepenski Vir. It was a small town rather than a vast civilization. Yet its architecture had its Frank Loyd Wright moments with earth houses  of triangular shape and concrete-like floors. In some respects human urban design hasn't improved much the last 12,000 years and has the same basic reasoning for its shape and resource use.

  Much cvilization technology moved through Anatolia into Europe. Europeans had been living in Europe for tens of thousands of years though without much in the way of urban design. Lepenski Vir was a definate upgrade in style and permanence for Europeans.

By 3500 B.C. there were some fairly elaborate smaller cities made of stone and wood even as far as Scotland. I have omitted mentioning the Mycenain civilization in the early to mid second milenium B.C. The first alphabet and writing in Europe arrived with them. They were probably from the Minoan civilization of Crete and Thera originaly and may have fled after the great explosive volcanic eruption that destroyed the primary city of that civilization and gave rise to the legends of Atlantis.

The first alphabet that was phonetic likely was formed by Moses.

Nothing In London for Pres Trump to See

President Trump apparently must make a trip to England as a kind of Presidential duty. Somehow with his knowledge of the place he has managed to avoid going to London. I visited England in 1987 and flew aboard a PanAM flight that cut over a bit of Scotland on the way to Heathrow. Iceland is really the feature attraction of flying to England. After Iceland its all downhill in a land without glaciers. It was late November and I stayed in London a night. There really isn't anything in London that one who has visited Des Moine Iowa would miss.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/06/donald-trump-to-avoid-london-during-uk-visit

The British Museum of Science is there and it is kind of neat. There is a moving sidewalk around outside of it that lets one walk very briskly. The Tower of London has a nice weapons collection in the basement and there is a good fish and chips vendor on the street some distance away.  That's about it. London has a lot of people, subways with deep escalator rides that lose novelty quickly, yet it's a good place to rent a car and drive to Lands End or Liverpool to catch a boat to Ireland.

More Thai Cave Rescue Ideas

Engineers from Elon Musk and some equipment will arrive in Thailand to help makie a rescue plan for 13 boys and coach trapped deep underground in a cave. All or nothing approaches to cave rescue resemble NASA planetary and lunar mission planning paradigms that are all or nothing. It is possible to cut down the problem to smaller pieces. One could place particular site-specific oxygen relief umbrellas anchored with climber's bolts to the cave floor where there are water obstructions so the distance to cross and desparation is reduced.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/asia/thai-cave-rescue-options-intl/index.html

Locating extra air bottles on the way is something like having Sherpas place supplies for a summit attempt on the mountain closest to the moon on Earth; Chimborazo in Ecuador. It is not necessary to make a complete summit attempt from sea level in one shot; it's o.k. to traverse pieces of the journey and even make way to the Whymper hut at 15,000 feet for an overnight rest before getting up early to hike to the summit (properly equipped of course).

The submerged areas of the cave should be 'bridged' with site specific crossing techniques (unless the Musk idea of an inflatable tube that would cross most of the cave length is readily applicable). Different means of providing air to portions of the cave that are submerged- a variegated approach to solving the equation, would be like Newton's approach to inventing the integral calculus.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/asia/thai-cave-rescue-elon-musk-intl/index.html

A Way to Study Philosophy

It is reasonably simple to become a reader of philosophy. It is great stuff. Worth a lifetime investment. Yet if you are interested in being a philosopher then the values one has will be counter-cyclical to those of many modern people and hence sometimes challenging.
 One may start off reading Plato's dialogues and then find a book about the Pre-Socratics such as Parmenides and Heraclitus. Bertrand Russell wrote a book named 'A History of Philosophy' as did Coppleston write another. Philosophy means 'the love of wisdom', and wisdom is about knowing what human life is, where human society and its values fit into the scheme of the physical cosmos, the relation of matter to mind and what spirit is as distinct from non-sensible matter.

Philosophy in a way is a record of the larger paradigm of the journey of human intellectual development and moral values since the dawn of civilization. A philosopher should be able to differentiate the various religions and cultural styles and content of world civilization as well as know the state of the art in contemporary cosmology. There are many books out there...to many really to read in a lifetime, about philosophy which is why it is useful to take a philosophy 101 course. There are free on-line philosophy courses at an introductory level at coursera.org that I highly recommend. Enjoy- philosophy is a lifetime avocation."1The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

2To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

3To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

4To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

5A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

6To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."-KJV