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Knowledge is a communal process, a journey, rather than a destination.  To find each other’s errors, then correct them.  To discard ideas that have been disconfirmed.  The constitution of knowledge is meant to provide guidance on how to handle differences of perspectives.  Viewpoint diversity is needed, with each claim going through challenges and accommodation to enable a social convergence.  To hear different viewpoints, requires tolerance of a contentious intellectual culture.  Making claims and validating ideas without personal attacks, and without anyone having a final say.  Not even personal authority can validate claims, as everyone is fallible.  The constitution of knowledge creates an epistemic environment where people are protected, but their ideas are not.

While the constitution of knowledge is meant to enable society to have better information, society can face an epistemic crisis in which the quality and sources of information have been degraded.  As people are not able to tell the difference between truth and falsehood.  Some ways that information can be degraded is through ideological tribalism, trolling, and canceling.  An epistemic crisis comes about when people attack the informational environment, not just people or facts.

Humans are social animals that depend not on forming true beliefs, but beliefs that lead to social success.  What matters is what the group believes.  As people want to belong to a tribe, there is a willingness to purposefully interpret information incorrectly, to protect the tribe.  Internet trolls confuse and disrupt, while cancelers coerce.  Rather than seek to improve the knowledge base, trolls weaponize outrage to capture attention which demobilizes people through demoralization.  Cancelers signal tribal support, by expressing public outrage that is meant to isolate and intimidate the opposition rather than provide fair criticism.  Through attacks on epistemic sources, viewpoint diversity has become endangered.

 

Certainty might be sought after, but certainty is not compatible with knowledge.  Alternatively there is fallibilism, that any belief is to be discarded when there is experience against them.  With fallibilism, uncertainty is ubiquitous but obtaining knowledge is still possible.  Knowledge is always provisional.  Fallibilist search for errors, as disconfirmation can be found.  What remains by removing the errors, is the best available knowledge.

It is through the communal process of error correction that each scientist’s biases can be limited.  Scientists are biased, and they might not recognize their own biases, but they can spot other people’s biases.  By having different biases, each scientist can see the mistakes of the others. 

 

The constitution of knowledge is meant to compel and organize social negotiation.  To accept challenges to claims, and seek to compromise or accommodate.  To be resilient and innovate without the system breaking down.  Competition with belief systems provides a need to compromise them. 

Constitution of knowledge does not require people to agree on facts.  It requires people with different views towards social convergence.  Real intellectual pluralism and viewpoint diversity need to be actively sought for.  Agreement on ideas is not viewpoint diversity. 

Reality-based (error-seeking) communities are accountable to each other, not a higher authority.  There is a separation between the idea and the person.  Ideas can be attacked, but not the character of the person. 

The constitution of knowledge has commitments to fallibilism, objectivity, exclusivity, disconfirmation, and accountability.  There is also an internal value of epistemic conscience of not selecting favorable data or hiding unfavorable data.  Fallibilism is about accepting being wrong.  Objectivity is about the empirical rule, that people are interchangeable.  Exclusivity is about using the constitutions rules for objectivity.  Disconfirmation is needed to challenge claims rather than just confirm already accepted claims.  Accountability is about making mistakes acceptable, not to punish them too harshly.

 

People defer to their tribes for beliefs and attitudes.  Groups establish a shared perception of reality.  People are tribal and change their belief system to the tribe’s views, to prevent a loss of social reputation and group identity.  Evolutionary habituated to defend the group’s ideas, to prevent alienation from the group.  When the group’s values are threatened, people interpret evidence incorrectly to protect the group.

Reason does not override group identity.  Group solidarity creates ideological conflict.  Creating epistemic tribalism.  People publicly conform to information they privately know is false.  Totalitarian regimes require everyone to pretend to believe ideas, that they know privately to be false.  Ideological tribes believe that only one side can prevail, requiring the destruction of the other side’s political force.

With neutral data that is not part of an ideological background, a person can interpret data well.  But when data is shown to be about a passionate topic attached to an ideological background, the person interprets the data based on ideological background.  Emotionally charged issues enable the exploitation and manipulation of people.  Although emotions rationalize political loyalties, people claim that policy views were formed through reason. 

More intelligent people were better able to interpret neutral data, but had more biased interpretations for the passionate topics.  Intelligence enables people to better rationalize false beliefs.  Intelligence does not necessarily make people open-minded, or self-critical thinking.  Motivated reasoning weaponized intelligence against reality.  Seeing others as a wrong, while not seeing the individual as biased. 

 

Journalists are meant to seek accuracy, obtain a comment from the target, consider varied viewpoints, among other factors to avoid a conflict of interest.  There are times when the news are wrong and therefore retract the entries.  Errors are meant to signal integrity, but those attacking information see error correction as proof of corruption.

Digital media reverses the social incentives of the reality-based community.  Rather than slowing down information flow by reviewing and testing before sharing, digital media favors instantaneity and impulsivity.  Anonymity makes people lose accountability and become sociopathic.  Misinformation tends to be more inflammatory and shared then boring reality.  Digital media promotes ad hominem attacks rather than marginalizes them.  Digital media attacks the person rather than the idea. 

For internet trolls, the point is capturing attention, rather than the quality of the content.  Troll epistemology is destructive.  It does not create knowledge, trust, or settle disagreements.  What troll epistemology does is reduce the information environment of reality-based communities.  Propaganda creates the condition in which people cannot tell the difference between truth and falsehood, or even methods of distinguishing between them.  Demoralization is a source of political power, as it demobilizes people.  Demotivating people to feel helpless, that they cannot change anything, that there is no alternative to the totalitarian regime.

Cancelers do not even read the content that they are canceling.  What canceling is about is signaling support for their group rather than any targeted idea or person.  Cancel campaigns are meant to isolate, intimidate, and demoralize rather than provide fair criticism.  While criticism wants to influence through rational persuasion.  Canceling is propaganda warfare that shapes the informational battlefield against knowledge.

Emotional safetyism is problematic as it prevents having conversations about ideas that makes people feel unsafe.  Turing all experiences into threats.  Creates conflict through perpetual anger.  While reality-based community rewards challenging claims, safety-based community rewards emotional demonstrations that hinder challengers.  Rather than preventing harmful ideas, they enabling harmful ideas.  Enabling a censorship of every idea and person.  Creating conditions for self-censorship through norm police, has the consequence of building resentment that becomes expressed by voting for a demagogue. 

 

There is an idealism about science, about error correcting systems.  As error correcting is a community function, there is a conflict between the ideal outcomes and group dynamics.  The referenced tribal biases, and weaponizing intelligence against reality.  The focus is on the ideal outcomes, the benefits of error correcting, while not referencing the potential consequences of error correcting.  Skepticism about information is needed for error correcting, but skepticism can be misused.  Troll epistemic attacks leverage uncertainty and turn it against the community.  Creating the referenced epistemic crisis of not knowing what information to trust.

The author’s claims about tribal biases, causing people to confirm ideas favorable to the tribe while disregard ideas unfavorable to the tribe.  Tribal biases effect the author as well.  The author is a journalist, and in this book fought for journalistic integrity.  The author and many journalists might have integrity, but not every journalist.  The author defends news making retractions after an error, and how journalists are fact based.  The problem is that published news tend to be viewed way more than the retractions, therefore the errors are not actually corrected for the public.  Journalists might be fact based, but they can deliver some facts while avoiding other facts which changes how the information is interpretated. 

The author blames social media with quick spread of information, and misinformation.  Being quick to spread means not being able to check and validate the information as much as the slower news mediums.  The problem is that the slower news are not ideal either. 

In part, the author makes the case that personal authority is antagonistic to knowledge development.  But then the author wants professionalism and institutionalism which enable an authority, even as they are described as being without.  Disapproves of amateurs, but that is contradictory to the claims of error correcting.  People start as amateurs and then improve themselves through error correcting.  

Jews were settling in the Middle East since the 19th century, but Israel was made possible by early 20th mass immigration due to persecution, consequences of war, and anti-immigration policies of other states.  Ideas of settling Palestine were a 19th century Christian Zionist invention.  Supported by the British as a way to overcome colonialization limitations in the area, which would have given the British access to the area along with allies. 

To take territory that would become Israel, a historic claim was made on the land.  That the people owned the land who did not live on it for over two millennia, while denying the right to the land to those who lived on the land continuously for centuries.  That the local people did not claim self-determination. 

Sovereign ownership of the land was justified by a myth, that the land was the ancestral land in possession of the Jewish people.  An exile was part of the myth, an exile that never happened.  A myth of a people having a desire to return to the ancestral land, but when Jewish groups were expelled from other regions due to religious persecution, they did not historically want to seek refuge in the sacred land.  Jews relocated to other locations.

 

Myths were created by disregarding history.  To avoid the history of Judaism as a dynamic and proselytizing religion.  To pretend that history does not contain various Judaized kingdoms that flourished.  To forget the converted Jews by the Judaized kingdoms.  Myths meant to disregard the territory’s local peasants.

There was no exile, nor was there yearning to return.  Faithful Jews spread across the world.  Jews were not limited to a small territory, but where to be found everywhere.  Believers not through punishment.   

The myth was developed to get Western sympathy, particularly Protestant Christian community who preceded Zionists ideas.

 

The term Land of Israel came after the destruction of the Temple.  With the area being defined as Palestina by the Roman Empire.  It was during the 20th century that the Land of Israel became a theological concept due to the Protestants.  It was the Puritans which interested the Bible as historical text before the Jewish Zionists.  That was when the geonational concept was refined.  Israel as a homeland came after nationalism, making sacrificing for the sake of homeland a much later interpretation and myth.

 

Founded on fluid borders, which had the option of expanding.  And did expand.  Founded on ideas that Jews were persecuted who had nowhere else to go, but the territorial expansion and military victory that were not related to Jewish suffering.

 

Jews had been powerless and persecuted, but had become powerful and abused their power.  The persecuted had become the persecutors.

They portrayed themselves as saviors rather than conquerors of foreign lands.  There is debate whether Palestinians left willingly or because of the bombings.  Many have justified Zionist colonization by the ancestral lands claim.  Israel controls a large Palestinian population who have no sovereignty.

 

The focus is on how the concept of Israel came to be.  The myths involved in making Israel, and breaking the myths.  The practical reason for how Israel came to be.  This is not a detailed political or social history of Israel. 

Until the 15th century, the east held power and wealth while the west was impoverished.  But the relative status was reversed.  The rise of the west was due to various empowering factors, that the east either lost or lacked.  As the west rose, the rest began to adapt western institutions and operational methods. 

Six factors brought power to the west which were competition, science, property rights, medicine, a consumer society, and a work ethic.   Decentralized decision making enabled competition, that created conditions for a need to improve to be able to overcome rivals.  Science was used to systematically understand the world, which provided military advantages.  Property rights provided an incentive for people to invest in their future, and resolve disputes peacefully.  Medicine improved health and life expectancy.  The consumer society enabled a sustainable system of economic development.  A work ethic that enabled the production of wealth. 

 

The west and east are homogenized, using different states to compare and contrast each other.  Making each state representative of other western or eastern states.  The different factors are represented through different states, rather than how they coalesced and effected a state.  Although the factors can be generalized, they did not affect each state on either side the same way.  

The factors were influential, but there is a survivorship bias.  The evidence given supported the claim that the factors gave rise to the west, but nothing on societies that had the factors while did not rise.  The book focuses on events and the factors during and after the 15th century, with some information about the empowering factors before the 15th century in the east.  Showing the effect of the factors before the 15th century on the east would have given the factors more validity. 

The empowering factors were not the only factors effecting states.  Historically wealthy states had their successes, and problems.  The focus on only the empowering factors leading to success, creates data gaps that can lead to a wrong understanding on the effect of the factors. 

The author complains about the lack of historic learning.  That when people do learn from history, that they learn idiosyncratic history without connection.  This book does not improve historic explanations by much, as the examples are idiosyncratic even if they are generalized.  Sometimes the context and explanations do not match.  The explanations need to be improved.  

Humans are social animals.  Wanting to belong to a tribe is normal, but the tribal categories are not.  There are different ways to understand the political spectrum.  The essentialist theory of ideology, or alternatively, the social theory of ideology.  Principles or group dynamics.  The essentialist theory of ideology claims that all political issues are related to a single underlying issue, an essence.  That diverse issues are connected to a unifying essence.  That people find a tribe that that fits all of the myriad issues they agree with.  The social theory of ideology claims that diverse issues are connected by a tribe.  People choose a tribe, then defer to the tribe for their values.  People are socialized into the values of the tribe, then construct a narrative to justify their choices.   

Political discussions tend to assume that there is an essence to each tribe, that there is an underlying theme for each tribe.  But no such underlying theme exists.  The political spectrum of left or right is not an indicator of what an individual thinks about ideas.  All it indicates, is a commitment to a tribe.  When making claims, people signal support for a tribe rather than the claim.  They signal tribal solidarity, rather than adherence to principles.  People are willing to abandon their beliefs, but not their tribes.

Ideologies do not define tribes, rather, it is the tribe that defines ideologies.  The tribe makes a decision, even if opposing eve0rything they have done before, then the people justify the decision and following actions as being in accordance with the essence.  What essentialism does is reduce cognitive ability, as it enables a confirmation bias.  The more intelligent people are better able to misinterpret information to protect their tribe, and justify tribal prejudice.

 

The political parties have similar decision and do similar activities, they just do them differently.  But they want to create division, thereby claim that the opposition is different.  Both claim to want to reverse their opposition’s policies.

The political spectrum is defined in a way that includes people who have polar opposite ideas, but are forced to be on one side.  Narratives can be created about any essence that unite diverse issues.  A narrative that validates false beliefs.  The tribes redefine terms to make the opposing tribe guilty by definition.

Even if a political party changes its policy entirely, their supporters consider it a move to their side whether left/right.  Under the essentialist theory, no matter the change in policy is a further move to in their direction.  They define a move to a side based on what their party does.  A case of circular reasoning, as they redefine the conclusion by the conclusion. 

The political spectrum is useful for coalitions.  To share values during a specific place and time, but there is no underlying essence.  People have not changed their values, but the ideologies have.  As the tribes have changed their values, the people now stand on opposing tribes.

Reality is complex, with a search for an essence part of a need for simplicity.  The problem of the search, is that the simplification loses content and harms dialogue rather than aid in understanding.

 

Ideological tribalism turned people away from respecting other people’s rights, democratic values, accepting election outcomes, and follow the rule of law.  Essentialism leads to conformism and hostility, which creates tribal stereotypes that become self-fulfilling.  Tribal identity leads to hating the alternative.  Disagreements can be divisive, but the animosity is amplified by tribal identity.  Discrimination has become acceptable when using ideological labels.

Although people need to be part of a tribe, people deny their tribalism.  Essentialist theory disguises tribalism.  People earn membership in their tribe by signaling their support for the tribe’s claims.  Extremist reaffirm tribal commitment when signaling support for the tribe’s claims, it does not mean they agree with the belief itself.  Although people will claim to follow the same principles.  Left-right essentialism persists to hide partisan values, to be tribal without feeling tribal.  To conform to tribal values without admitting the conformation.

Tribalism is not a problem, the problem is not acknowledging tribalism.  The problem is assuming that the socialization process does not affect the individual, when it actually does.  The self-deception makes ideological essentialism attractive.  They claim to be principled when actually they invent stories of their ideological coherence.  The essentialist illusion enables the party to change principles without losing membership.  Essentialism allows parties to change policies without appearing to change anything.

Essentialism reduces cognitive ability.  Ideological Essentialism leads to confirmation bias, and a willingness to misinterpret information.  To be self-righteous, and self-justify.  Essentialism turns intelligence as a tool against reality.  The more educated are able to defend their claims better than the uneducated.  Intelligence enables the rationalization of self-deception about the opposition, to justify tribal prejudices.  

There have been many inappropriate studies done on tribal fear sensitivity.  The studies were inappropriate because they checked for sensitivity using questions meant to illicit a response from what an opposing tribe would fear.  Individuals in a tribe have similar fears, defined by the tribe.  When the studies asked neutral questions, the different tribes turn out to be equally considerate on various aspects.  Although neither tribe is more intolerant in general, each tribe is intolerant to the other tribe.

 

Before the 1920s, Americans might have had different political parties, but there was no political spectrum.  The parties stood for certain political principles during the moment.  Later historians anachronistically imposed a political spectrum on those of the past, even if they did not actually think in those categories. 

What turned the American political system into a political spectrum was reporting done on the Russian Revolution.  As the Russians categorized between left-right spectrum, the reporters used the terminology.  But starting in 1919, journalists applied the left-right to competing factions of American socialists.  The terms were then domesticated to the main parties. 

As more political dimensions were added, Americans retained a unidimensional model.  Although the unidimensional approach was obsolete due to the proliferation of political issues, the ideologues would not change the way they approached the issues.  What ideologues wanted was for them to be right about everything, and the opposition to be wrong about everything. 

 

Recognizing susceptibility to the essentialist myth is a step to overcome the problems that essentialism creates.  Recognizing that the myth creates distortions.  As essentialism packages ideas, the reverse is to use granularity by referencing the ideas separately.  This is part of a way to change the way ideologies are discussed.  Use constructive political disagreement. 

There are many tribes, which means that there are options to choose from.  As there are tribes that hurt the person and society, people should find better tribes to belong to. 

 

The focus of this book is on the problems of the essentialist political framework.  There are many examples given as evidence, they are diverse but short and can be self-similar.  The explanation of the resolutions are more limited, and tend to have mixed qualities.  

Science is a collaborative effort in error correcting information and improving on the knowledge that is available.  As a collaborative effort, as a social field, the research needs to be shared and people convinced.  Scientists are humans themselves, who have human biases.  Scientists choose how to approach their research, they choose how to interpret their research and competing research, choose whether to publish or not, and choose how to persuade others.  Each choice contains biases that can and has led to the spread of misinformation. 

Scientists have been trusted, and are trusting themselves, but the system has enabled those who can exploit the system of science to wield power.  The scientific community has perverse incentives as those who are untrustworthy are more likely to be promoted for they are willing to compromise the research process, than the trustworthy who seek to improve the knowledge base.  Incentives that reduce the reliability of research. 

Research is shared through a publication, but what is wanted for publishing is not necessarily what is needed to be published.  What often gets published are the exciting results, exaggerated, misleading, and often wrong.  The research that challenges or replicates other research are not welcome in publishing, even though they are needed to provide the limitations and legitimacy for the claims.  Not publishing seemingly unimportant research, distorts the scientific record and enables harmful outcomes.  There are costs to time, effort, and money when using and providing research that is uninformative.

The practice of science has been corrupted.  Rather than error correcting, science enables misinformation to spread.  Science needs to change how it is practiced to enable trust in the community.  This book provides guidance on how science has been exploited, and methods to improve the practice of science.

 

Science depends on a communal process to find errors and faults to determine whether claims are reliable and important.  Being a communal process, requires persuading peers.  But by focusing too much on persuading peers, scientists lose track of the purpose of science which is to get closer to truth.  Persuading peers can take on various human biases that reduce the validity of the scientific process. 

Skepticism is supposed to be the basic norm of science, but has enabled incompetence, delusion, lies, and self-deception.  The very ideal that scientists hold about science, that of an error correcting system, has given space to research done with human biases while claiming to be objective and unbiased. 

 

Scientific studies need to be replicated to prove that the results did not come by chance, fraud, or equipment error.  Replication is meant to prevent false findings, bad experiments, and inappropriate data.  But replication is not taken seriously, and studies are not often replicated.  Claims are accepted without checking for replication.  There are barely any attempts to replicate prior results.  Creating a replication crisis, in various fields.  When replication is attempted, many results fail to replicate.  Various research results are used to make policy and health choices that have immediate negative consequences when the results have not been replicated.

News and journals focus on the new and exciting research, which tend to be primarily positive results with a few null results.  Positive results are those in which discoveries are made, while null results are those in which no discovery is made.  Repeat studies are usually rejected from publications, even if they show a different or contradictory result than the original.  Scientist choose to publish results when they have positive research while not publishing null results.  As positive, flashy, novel, newsworthy results are rewarded much more, scientist are incentivized to produce those results, and convince others that the research has the wanted attributes.  Creating a publication bias.  By failing to publish null results, there is an exaggerated importance of effects that create misleading beliefs.  Publication bias distorts the information that is used to make decisions, leading to making decisions based on partial information.  Decisions that are liable to create problems. 

To get hired and promoted, scientists need published papers with appropriate journals.  Universities are ranked by the papers they produce, which results in a publish or perish mentality.  As scientists have limited time to publish papers along with the rest of their responsibilities, the scientific standards become bypassed.  Quantity matters more than quality.  Scientists can split their research into many papers, providing an artificially better CV.  Without knowing the content of the papers, readers of one or few can think there is more evidence for results than there actually is.  Low citation count can be an underappreciated work, but scientists are willing to publish useless works to secure jobs and grants rather than advance science. 

Hype can be very harmful in science.  Many press releases give recommendations to change behavior based on results that the research could not support.  Press releases are important because journalists are time-pressed and therefore closely copy the language of the press release.  This is known as churnalism.  The problem with hyped science is that while the hyped research gets a lot of attention, the refutations are barely able to catch up.  The scientific system incentivizes the lack of caution, restraint, and skepticism.

Peer review is enough to prevent flawed ideas from being published.  Peer-review researchers can prevent alternative conclusions from being published.  The h-index ranks citations based on number of studies, but this measure can be corrupted.  Reviewers created conditions to make sure that papers they published listed the reviewer’s papers.  Researchers have even created a citation cartel with editors collaborating with others for citations. 

There are even problems with reproducibility.  Results do not reproduce using the same data.  Often because the method of reporting was not clear enough, or steps were left out of the report. 

Papers that have been proved to be wrong are retracted.  They remain in the literature with a retracted mark indicating that the paper is no longer considered legitimate. 

 

Not even highly respected scientific institutions are exempt from protecting their reputation by protecting the activities of fraudsters.  Fraud comes about by exploiting trust.  There will always be those who want fame and success above other concerns.  Fraud does disproportionate damage to science because it takes time to investigate the findings, which takes researchers away from their own research.  Fraud also wastes money through theft, people spending money trying to obtain results that were never real, and researches waste their funds trying to replicate fraudulent research.  Fraud damages the reputation of scientists. 

Although relatively few papers are retracted, for various reasons that include fraud.  Anonymous surveys asking scientists if they committed fraud results in a relatively large portion of scientists admitting to fraud.  Worse, as the portion of fraud increased when asked about known other researchers committing fraud.  The actual numbers are higher, because not everyone would be willing to admit to fraud even anonymously. 

Researchers can put in fake numbers into their papers to make their paper appear more attractive than it actually is.  But that means that everyone who is looking at the paper and making use of the paper, are using wrong information.  There are instances when measurements are accidentally incorrectly recorded, known as measurement error.  There is an expectation that numbers are noisy.  But, made up numbers do not have the properties of genuinely collected data. 

There is sampling error which means generating wrong interpretations about the population from the sample.  The different samples can have different averages, along with chance providing very different averages. 

P-value indicates the potential randomness of getting a result if the hypothesis was not true.  It does not indicate if the result is true or important.  Statistical significance is given a p-value of 0.05, which is an arbitrary number.  Significance does not indicate a worthy result.  Scientists can also p-hack.  They can run a plethora of tests until they find a test that is statistically significant.  Alternatively retroactively come up with a hypothesis after they find a result they approve of.   Both versions of p-hacking invalidates the p-value as they create methods of getting results through random chance.  Running many tests increases the likelihood of getting a significant result by random chance.  Without sharing the results that were not significant, leads to people being convinced of fake results.  More opportunities means more chances for false-positive results.  P-hacking is a way to make noise appear valuable. 

 

What is measured gets focused on.  Creating conditions that make the metric meaningless, which overrides genuine scientific progress.  Removing arbitrary measures is not necessarily going to resolve bad research practices, for that might introduce other sources of subjectivity. 

Pre-registration enables researchers to be accountable to what they are planning to do.  If a paper has the condition of being published no matter the results, as long as they maintain the pre-registration plan, then that eliminates many incentives for bias and fraud. 

 

The listed problems of science are common in life.  What the author does is reference the problems with scientists as their source.  This book is critical of how science operates, for by knowing where science can go wrong, can science be corrected.

The author references the lack of publications on replication and null results from which no discoveries are made.  Both types are needed in science, but they can also be corrupted. 

Hybrid warfare is a mixture of covert and conventional overt actions.  Covert actions enable a more effective use of conventional efforts.  Sovereign states use hidden methods to interfere with other states which prepare advantageous conditions for conventional efforts.  Covert actions increase the chances for successful conventional forces operations.  Hybrid warfare is a method of managing political competition and overt warfare through deception and ambiguity.  Meant to reduce costs to international politics and reduce the loss of troops in overt military conflict.  Hybrid warfare enables the projection of power with plausible deniability. 

Russia has historically needed to use hybrid warfare to defend their sovereignty and intervene in other states.  Before an intervention, Russian operatives gain access to a target government using diplomatic ties.  The operatives then generate civil unrest through propaganda, politics, and economics.  While seeking and gathering individuals who are sympathetic to Russian causes and ideology.  These actions reduce political and military resistance to Russian narrative and demands.  Chaos from civil unrest changes the operational environment to favor Russia, and justifies Russian intervention as a way to resolve the crisis.  In this way Russia has opportunities to influence the policies of the target government. 

 

Russia is using the same type of warfare strategy for centuries, as there are similar geopolitical constants.  The Russian winter was used to deter invaders as invaders could not concentrate their forces nor could they protect long supply lines. 

Russia uses buffer states to protect its sovereignty rather than military might across its vast border.  During the USSR phase, there were neighboring states that had socialism imposed on them.  The states had their cultures, economies, and identities suppressed.  The states became known as the Eastern Bloc, and were meant to prevent Western influence.  When the USSR regime collapsed, many buffer states gained independence.  Russia has been trying to rebuild the buffer states network since the fall of the USSR.

During the 1990s, democracies have proven a more effective governance method than centrally-planned governance.  Russia was destitute and feared invasion from the West.  Many sought U.S. allegiance to defend against USSR influence, but Russia was not longer seen as a threat after the fall of the USSR, which led to many U.S. allies to question their reliance on the U.S.  As U.S. foreign policy had become to be seen as a distraction, Russia gained foreign influence.

After WW2, growth was not dependent on new territories and colonial possessions.  Growth was obtained through economic expansion that was facilitated by U.S. efforts to protect the global commons, the sea borne routes.  Rather than colonize, Russia creates permanent client-states that support Russian choices.

 

While Boris Yeltsin decentralized military authority to prevent any from having a monopoly of information and provide a system of checks and balances on power.  Vladimir Putin centralized military authority into the FSB.  

Russia has long term information gathering operations, but their effectiveness has been negligible.  They are not trusted in Russia after being undercover for a long time.

Russia uses paramilitary groups for overt political subversion, and prevents rival states from building coalitions.  Russia also uses a mercenary organization to take actions.  These are considered military advisors, but are mercenaries.  They enable actions that appear to be voluntary on their own behave, but they obtain a salary from a Russian proxy.  They are considered volunteers and tend to be disavowed and disbanded after the conflict is over.  When caught, Russia claims they are volunteers or soldiers on extended leave. 

Russian soldiers have psychological problems from how they are treated.  Russian soldiers deal with various abuses from their colleagues, and hierarchy.  Conditions of military barracks are a factor of low retention rates of soldiers. 

 

This book focuses on Russia, while the ideas of hybrid warfare are applicable to all groups of power.  The book was dedicated to those with military experience, with many parts of the book focusing on the miliary aspects.  A diverse set of factors that influence political decisions are acknowledged and provided, but they tend to be limited. 

Hybrid warfare increases the chance of successful outcomes, but does not determine them.  The author describes the successes and failures of hybrid warfare from which Russia learned how to change operating procedures.  Hybrid warfare is referenced as something comparatively new, while the methods described have been used throughout history.  The appearance of novelty may come from a survivorship bias that favors the overt actions, more than the covert actions. 

The caveat of hybrid warfare not being something new can be described in more detail.  The covert actions are meant to be hidden which makes them more difficult to recognize and acknowledge.  Alternatively, the overt actions are salient and are given the credit for their efforts.  Creating a survivorship bias in favor of overt action while minimizing the information on covert actions. 

Hybrid warfare is meant to influence other states to favor Russia decisions, prevent political counter criticism, and reduce resistance to Russia.  But, the author references that various states became resistant to Russia due to Russian efforts, gained independence from Russia, and sought out Russia’s political opposition to defend against Russia.  What are missing are the methods Russia uses or can use to influence other states to be willing to want to join Russia rather than oppose Russia. 

Ancient Chinese architecture might not have survived the ravages of time, but the way of ruling, thinking and behaving has endured.  Chinese traditions did not end with a fall of a government.  The traditions were rebuilt by forthcoming governments.  The methods were flexible, and could be adapted to by supporting or opposing them.  The autocratic elements of the traditions were used by the Chinese Communist Party for social engineering purposes. 

Rather than a religion, Chinese ethics philosophy of Confucianism was used to coordinate people’s behavior.  A malleable system that enabled its various interpretations throughout Chinese history, that provided an understanding on how to treat others.  Deference was needed for superiors.  Chinese sense of superiority was evident by foreign governments throughout history, which created a variety of misinterpretations from each perspective.  China was portrayed as virtuous, no matter their actions.  That China’s interventions in other regions were for the benefit of the others, to civilize the barbarians. 

China uses history as a weapon by disregarding unfavorable events, and changing events to favor Chinese views.  During the 20th century, China turned away from Dynasty and monarchy, but the methods were similar.  The government only accepted as true what they wanted to, and blamed others for that which could not be denied.  Using philosophy that enabled people’s deference to society over their own interests.  Inventing new methods to deal with problem, using prior methods differently, and applying foreign ideas in their own way. 

 

Confucianism is an ethic, rather than a religion.  Confucianism had mixed qualities, but what Confucianism did was provide an ethics that brought government and people together.  The ethics coordinated behavior.  Confucianism was malleable and could represent different ideas to different people and contexts. Confucian claims of virtue could be misused and favor the individual who does the action. 

Heaven was favorable to people, but had imperatives.  To have virtue, humans need to be filial, respectful, and obedient.  Confucius and Mencius logical systems overlapped with religious views and law-and-order Legalism.  Ordinary Chinese carefully paid deference to the Gods, emperor, and their immediate superiors.

Confucianism was made possible by government enforcement, through Legalism and institutions of governance.  A legal framework that could use physical force.  Emperor had a practical interest in statecraft, rather than the supernatural. 

China has an enduring us-and-them system, a distinction between Chinese and Barbarian.  That China is the civilizing force and natural rulers of barbarians who are a lesser breed.  That the barbarians should be grateful to be influenced by China.  These views create a tendency to overlook what China learned from other people.  Foreign agents that interacted with the Chinese court, commented on Chinese sense of superiority.

The emperor was the representative of Heaven and Earth.  Giving justifications and virtue to any decisions made by the emperor.  When China attacked neighboring states, or governments who sought independence, China maintained a claim of virtue for their actions.  That their actions were justified and meant for the betterment of the people they were intervening in, to rid them of an oppressive regime.  Attacking a neighbor was a favor to lesser people, as that enabled Heaven to reestablished a proper order.  Chinese like to pretend that barbarians have accepted China’s reign of virtue rather than admit how regularly China had to use force against barbarians. 

Given their superiority attitude, China has a history of making political gifts given to them, be seen as tribute.  In this way, the supposed gifting party appears to have submitted to China, and China accepted them as a vassal.  These views caused conflict.  What is rarely referenced are the times that China had given gifts and tribute to others. 

China has a large Han majority who do not have much territory.  With minority nationalities who have the vast territory and resources.

 

For China, history is a political tool.  Changing and interpreting what happened to fit political goals.  Even archaeology is a political project.  Myths about history are used as political weapons.

Chinese history does reference events in which China was not the superior force.  Does not reference when China could not get its way.  Does not reference when others did not accept Chinese ways with China not being able to do anything about the situation.  This occurred when negotiating with semi-equal forces. 

One China has become the ideology, but Mao thought that China was to be divided into 27 countries.  China believes that any territory that has come into contact with China, has become part of China and is part of China’s history.  While other states that lost territory do not dispute the loss of the territory, China does dispute their prior losses.  Even the territories that were part of the conquerors of China are considered to be Chinese history and territory.

 

Emperors had a succession problem as they needed to designate a child, but they had many children.  Conflict and power struggles threatened the stability of the polity.  Gaining power through murder was common in ancient China and in the Communist Party.  Legitimacy and succession are perpetual problems. 

 

After the collapse of the monarchy, China has been trying to reconcile the methods of monarchy and fitting into the different political understandings.  They have kept much the same, while the changes have not made them into an effective state that manages the different social expectations of the era.  Unlike a democratic state whose political system is shaped and reshaped continuously by the citizens decisions.  China’s imperial components remain even if the imperial structure was removed.  China still relies on imperial repression and myths to hold together the diverse cultures. 

During the early 20th century, when the Qing Dynasty was failing, many provinces declared independence.  Their reasons for independence were diverse, but they could not apply different political systems than those already used.  The revolutionaries had immediate success, but could not provide a constructive agenda afterwards.

Mao wanted China to be neutral to foreign governments.  But the Chinese Communist Party saw central power as a tool for China’s advancement.  Provincial autonomy and federalism were dismissed.  The feudalism that emerged after Qing Dynasty, was party new and partly a continuation.  New western tools such as the railroad, were used as methods of power to control the kingdom.  Bolshevism offered China a way to be progressive and anti-Western, while also provide quick solutions to Western influence on China. 

One party state meant that no alternative political parties were allowed, no elections, or free press.  A system akin to an emperor, authoritarian, political tutor.  CCP’s reach was greater than prior governance structures.  CCP branches existed in every county.  A surveillance network meant to foster benevolent paternalism and work.  The party controlled communication and what everyone was able to do.  Socialism was omnipresent, with class categories separating various peoples, and how the individual was meant to subordinate to the collective purpose.  Truth was what the CCP wanted truth to be.  There needed to be unfailing loyalty in the leader, who was infallible and needed to be constantly studied.  Death was an accepted means of punishment to maintain the collective morality.

Mao recognized that very little information came to Mao.  Mao chose what to hear which were only favorable information about the Great Leap.  Information that could not be denied, Mao blamed the problems on scapegoats which were class enemies.  Mao could not accept socialism as a flawed political system, therefore did not accept outcomes that indicated the flaws.

Ideology began to be reduced during Deng’s changes, but that did not allow for plurality of ideologies.  There was no individual independence, nor was criticizing China an option.  People were trusted with their money, but not their minds.  What was allowed was what the Communist Party found acceptable.  Publishers were shut down for politically incorrect viewpoints. 

China is oppressive and afraid of its own people.  Freedoms have been experimented with, giving some freedoms to people, but the government has generally opted for repression when disorder was a perceived threat.  The legal system remained harsh and was attached to the wants of the political party rather than justice and proportioned appropriate punishment.  The state depends on confessions, false confessions, to justify the system.

Marketization under Deng enabled private firms, and joint ventures between the foreign and local capital.  The private business and joint ventures crowded out state factories.  State factories began to produce less share of the market, and they were mainly losing money.  Banks were closely attached to the government that lead to the subsidization of state factories, which made profit and loss meaningless.  China’s socialism is enduring, transforming into market socialism rather than becoming capitalistic.

 

The focus of the book is on China during the 20th century.  There is a lot of information on China’s history before that era, but that information is sporadic and is used to provide evidence for a claim.  The reader would need to research more Chinese history for a better understanding of the events. 

The struggle between a changing and changeless China is part of the myth structure that the author describes, disagreeing with, but applies as a theme in the book.  The problem is that appearances of similarity, does not represent similarity in anything but appearance.  There were ideas and methods that appear to be a theme, but what makes them similar is their association with China rather than the core claims being consistent.  The ideas and methods were influential, but as the author recognizes, they have been misused and reinterpreted. 

The author expresses Chinas flexibility and creativity, and criticism when considering China as perpetually stagnant, changeless, and isolated, as those views were formed by the end of the Qing Dynasty which had become rigid.  But throughout the book the author considers various themes in China to have been reused, used differently, but still considered consistent even if much has changed.  Alternatively, the author provides the impression that other states have more completely changed their political systems.  Other states also have used their historic methods to legitimize their own political structures through support or disagreement with the prior methods.  Just as Chinese governments had chosen how to use their historic methods to legitimize their rule.     

Electronics have become ubiquitous and they run on integrated circuits, referred to as chips.  Chips have become a strategic product for consumer markets and military power.  Access to chips and control of chip production gives states the ability to defend their interests.  Chip development was accelerated due to a need for miliary applications, but then the military became dependent on consumer markets to fund R&D that would enable military applications. 

Chip manufacturing is complex and requires a global supply chain network to obtain the components, tools, and resources needed for production.  Few firms are capable of providing something needed within the production chain.  A global division of labor that spread the costs of production.  The complex and concentrated network was the result of a series of private and public decisions.  To obtain favorable political influence, and to enable profits. 

 

There are many different types of firms that enable the production of chips.  From the resources, tools, software, design, manufacturing, the final assembly with product that needed the chip.  No matter where on the supply chain a firm is, they have contacts in Silicon Valley.  Silicon Valley created a supply chain network that made it practically impossible to produce chips with input from Silicon Valley.  Other states have to rely on Silicon Valley for tools, software, and customers.  R&D efforts in Silicon Valley are paid by the large consumer market of America.  Other states have entered chip production industry through subsidizing firms, but they still have Silicon Valley connections.

The science behind transistors has been clearer than how to manufacture them reliably.  A division of labor that was given prominence in this book was between firms that design the chips and firms that manufacture the chips.  Firms used to design and manufacture chips, but that has become too expensive which led to a division of labor between designing the chips and manufacturing them.  The Mead-Conway Revolution enabled students to design chips that were then quickly fabricated without the students actually going to fabrication facilities. 

Mass production works with standardized parts.  For chip manufacturing, standardization was impossible.  There are too many sensitive variables in various aspects of production.   Chips also advance every few years, which required changing the tools that make them.  Chips had gotten extremely small by the 1990s, but possible to be smaller.  The problem was that it required more precise lithography tools which were difficult to mass produce. 

Chip fabrication has become too expensive for all but a few firms.  The expense caused the division of labor between chip design and manufacturing, with claims that some firms might not have survived if they needed to build chip manufacturing capacity along with design aspects.  Alternatively, Samsung has a conflict of interest as it produces consumer goods along with chip production.  Therefore, competing with their own customers.  By 2010s, chip production became less profitable than selling ads on apps.  

Manufacturing chips was a labor intensive process.  Charlie Sporck used strategies to keep unions weak, but also provided stock options to employees.  Women were hired because they were cheaper.  America did not have enough cheap labor to produce chips at scale, which lead to efforts to offshore assembly. 

The public sector with military and space paid for chip R&D initially.  But as governments cut costs, civilian products became the source of revenue that paid for R&D. 

Many U.S. tech firms were going bankrupt during the 1980s, which lead to claims that they might be desperate enough to sell valuable technologies.

 

Although mechanical computers were created before WW2, their technological capacity was accelerated due to the war.  Bombers used a mechanism to compute when to drop the bombs.  A few inputs and only one output.  The outcomes were better than pilot guesswork.  Even with the mechanism, bombs rarely hit their targets, with the war being decided on quantity of bombs rather than the mechanisms accuracy.  More calculations would be needed for accuracy.  Mechanical gears were then replaced by computers with electrical charges. 

 

The USSR was effective at producing various resources in quantities, but lacked the advanced manufacturing to produce quality.  USSR was not able to obtain advanced technologies due to limited transfers to communist countries. 

Obtaining chips through spy networks and theft did not help USSR as the chips did not come with instructions on how the chip was made.  Chip production was complicated and relied on knowledge that was not contained within a single source.  Copying chips was also not an effective strategy because chip technology advanced far too quick to enable the copy strategy to be effective.  What the copy strategy did was keep USSR technologically behind. 

The USSR had poor management of chip manufacturers, which relied mostly on military demand.  USSR also lacked an international supply chain.  An international supply chain that enabled U.S. and other states to spread R&D costs. 

Americans could not compete with the quantity of weapons with USSR, but they could compete in quality.  War became a contest of accuracy which the U.S. had an advantage.  U.S. reliance on technological superiority to win makes chips a strategic product.

America helped rebuild Japan and supported Japan’s technological capacity to have Japan bound to American system.  Alternatively, Taiwan wanted to have American company’s plants in Taiwan for Americans to want to defend Taiwan which would foster economic growth and political stability.  Semiconductor assembly facilities were globally based and integrated into U.S. politics rather than communist states.   

 

Spying among chip facilities was the norm.  Domestic, and foreign spying.  There were many accusations and legal cases against each other for stealing employees, ideas, and intellectual property. 

While some governments, like Japan, subsidized chipmakers and enabled them to work together.  Other government, like the U.S., had antitrust laws that prevented chip firms from colluding.  U.S. firms claimed Japan’s efforts were evidence of unfair competition.  This is during a time when U.S. firms were losing a competitive advantage, while the U.S. government were funding the firms through other ventures such as providing grants for speculative technologies and innovation.  Japan had cheaper capital to fund firms due to lower interest rates, and Japan was funding firms that in the U.S. would have been driven to bankruptcy.  As Japan was gaining more of the chip market, Japan did not consider their practices unfair given U.S. providing chipmakers help such as in the form of defense contracts. 

During the 1980, American manufacturers in multiple industries such as chip makers, steel, and cars were losing their competitive advantage.  The claim was that while Americans were investing in lawyers, Japan was investing in engineers.  The Japanese work culture was more effective. 

Japan’s production capacity in chipmaking made it possible for Japan to make claims against America rather than the previous American lead agendas since 1945.

   

In China, Mao promoted farming and reduced the capacity to rely on foreign investments and generally invest in technology.  Electronics were deemed anti-socialist.  Alternatively, in other countries such as Taiwan, and South Korea, leaders were putting farmers into the manufacturing plant position. 

China might be able to provide software for e-commerce and related products, but is reliant on foreign hardware.  China provided subsidies for fabrication plants in provinces, which were investments based on politics that lead to them being inefficient.  They rely on subsidies and do not produce meaningful technology. 

What gives China an advantage is doing business with failing foreign companies that provide China with technological information in exchange for saving their business.

 

This book is a scientific, political, and economic history of chip production.  Some of the history themes repeat, and can make the history appear self-similar just with different competitors. 

Progress depends on explanations.  On good explanations.  Explanations are claims about what something is and how that something behaves.  Problems are a conflict within the explanation, with problems resolved by a good explanation that resolves the conflict within them.  Problems fail to be resolved when they rely on bad explanations.  Problems are inevitable but are soluble with good explanations. 

Problems come for various sources such as communication which can create a problem with misinterpretation, and physical reality can create a problem for survival.  The various sources create potentially infinite problems.  As the potential problems are infinite, they require infinite progress to resolve them.  Resolving some or many problems, still leaves an infinite of problems.  Making progress always at the beginning of infinity.  Progress has no bounds, as there will always be an infinite more to accomplish.   

Explanations are an act of creativity.  Scientific theories start as guesses that are error corrected and improved upon.  Theories are not derived from anything, not even from experiences.  But experiences shape which theories survive.  Testable predictions are not enough in science, for predictions do not self-explain how something works.  Understanding how something works requires an explanation.  Explanations themselves are not enough for a variety of claims can be made to explain testable evidence.  A fundamental flaw of bad explanations is that they drastically vary their claims without changing the predictions.

 

Empiricism has limits about what is not experienced.  Much of reality cannot be experienced.  Predictions about what has not been experienced, and are based on how they are.  The problem is that the future is not like the past.  Logical deductions based on experiences does not explain anything other than what has been experienced.    

Experiences are based on the senses.  The senses might not be deceptive, but the interpretations derived from the senses can be.  Making them part of the explanation paradigm for the Interpretations are fallible, and therefore can be improved through criticism and testing.  Empiricism is flawed because it requires pre-existing knowledge to know what to observe and how to interpret the information.

 

Science needing authority is a misconception derived from a need for certainly.  A bias called justificationism.  This leads to trying to prevent ideas from changing.

Static societies remove the source of ideas which is creativity.  They generate institutions that prevent people from coming up with new ideas.

Alternatively there is fallibilism which goes against authoritative sources of knowledge.  In this view, people create knowledge through better understanding of what is and expecting the ideas to be challenged and improved.  That the ideas will change.  Knowledge does not have an authority to rely on, it comes from any source.  The Enlightenment created a tradition of criticism. 

 

Testability nor prediction is the purpose of science because appearances are not self-explanatory.  If appearances contained self-evident explanations, there would be no need for science.  Testable predictions do not explain how something works.  That requires an explanation, which are claims about reality for the workings of the appearance. 

Bad explanations, even with testable predictions, are unscientific.  Many theories are rejected without experimentation because they are bad explanations.  Removing a faulty theory is not enough, for a better explanation is needed.  Good explanations are hard to vary without being tested.  Predictions are made from good explanations, while prophecy are claims about the unknowable.

Claims have become more distant from everyday experiences, which makes misinterpretation more likely.  Science becomes better even with the misinterpretations, as science can error-correct the interpretations and fill in data gaps.  Misinterpretations can come from communication, as the same words can have different meanings for the recipient and communicator, requiring guesswork which is subject to error correction. 

Knowledge that has become common is background knowledge, rules of thumb.  They appear to be explanationless predictions, but there are always explanations for them. 

 

Biological knowledge is non-explanatory which makes it have limited reach and depend on random mutations.  Explanatory human knowledge has unlimited reach and are based on conjectures that are constructed intentionally for a purpose.

Evolution has created many defects in the biological species.  Evolution can make beneficial and harmful changes to biology.  Defects which are in conflict with a designer. 

 

Earth is sometimes portrayed as a space ship that provides all that humans needs to sustain themselves.  That humans are squandering what the Earth has provided.  That humans are insignificant.  The problem with this view is that most of the universe is cold, dark, and empty which makes Earth remarkably untypical. 

Much of Earth’s environment leads to death for humans rather than a life-supporting system made for humans.  It takes human ingenuity to designing technology to enable them to live in the life threatening system.  Extinctions of the past occurred because the beings were living the lifestyles they evolved to rather than adept to changing conditions.  Nature did provide raw materials for survival, but it took knowledge to make use of the materials to enable people to survive and thrive.  Evolution did not provide knowledge on how to transform the materials.  It is explanatory knowledge that gives people power to transform nature.  It takes the right knowledge to accommodate people no matter the environment, whether space ship or ruined biosphere.  Civilizations of the past were destroyed for lack of knowledge on how to resolve their problem. 

 

An explanation is needed to understand how something works, but the logic of what makes a good and bad explanation needs a better explanation, as they can appear contradictory.  Most chapters provide an example of a bad explanation, the errors contained in the explanation, how to correct the explanation, and a better explanation.  Taking the reader through the process of obtaining better explanations.  The examples are diverse, with their quality depending on the readers understanding and interest in the topic. 

Norse mythology has been influential through the acts of historical leaders and fictional heroes.  Influencing many societies with their norms and customs.  The Norse pantheon contained many diverse characters, and usually part of a conflict.  It was a conflict that reduced the Ten Worlds, to Nine Worlds.  It was a death of a giant that made the middle earth, the land of humanity.  Worlds cosmically tied by a world-tree.  With conflict, there is also peace and how the different groups interacted with each other.  But that is not to forget the looming fate of Ragnarök.  This is a short book describing the power of the gods, the types of worlds, the different types of beings, and historic events and fiction that propagated the myths. 

 

This is a short introductory book to Norse Mythology.  It does not contain a systematic analysis.  Just a short description of the major gods, beings, heroes, and worlds.