The Russian Empire to 1917: Against the Russians themselves unbelievable extremes of espionage, counter-espionage, censorship, provocation, imprisonment without trial and outright brutality were employed; the revolutionaries responded with similar measures crowned by assassination. ibid. ch3
Turkey: The Sultan made feeble efforts to reform in the period 1838-1875 but by the later date he was completely disillutioned with these efforts and shifted over to a policy of ruthless censorship and repression. This repression led at last to the so-called Young Turk rebellion of 1908. ibid. ch4
The old statement that England acquired its empire in a fit of absentmindedness is amusing but does not explain very much. It does, however, contain an element of truth: much of the empire was acquired by private individuals and commercial firms, and was taken over by the British government much later. ibid. The British Imperial Crisis: Africa, Ireland and India to 1926
The destruction of Chinese culture under the impact of Western Civilization was considerably later than the similar destruction of Indian Culture by Europeans. ibid. ch4
The unification of Germany in the decade before 1871 ended a balance of power in Europe which had existed for 250 or even 300 years. During this long period, covering almost ten generations, Britain had been relatively secure and of growing power. She had found this power challenged only by the powers of Western Europe. ibid. ch5
The First World War was a catastrophe of such magnitude that even today the imagination has some difficulty grasping it. In the year 1916, in two battles (Verdun and the Somme), casualties of over 1,700,000 were suffered by both sides. ibid.
Restoration of the gold standard was not something which could be done by a mere act of government. It was admitted even by the most ardent advocates of the gold standard that certain financial relationships would require adjustment before the gold standard could be restored. There were three chief relationships involved. There were (I) the problem of inflation, or the relationship between money and goods; (II) the problem of public debts, or the relationship between governmental income and expenditure; and (III) the problem of price parities, or the relationship between price levels of different countries. ibid. ch7
The international Socialist movement was both a product of the nineteenth century and a revulsion against it. It was rooted in some of the characteristics of the century, such as industrialism, its optimism, its belief in progress, its humanitarianism, its scientific materialism, and its democracy, but it was a revolt against its laissez-faire, its middle-class domination, its nationalism, its urban slums, and its emphasis on the price-profit system as the dominant factor in all human values. ibid. ch8
We really don’t need to pay taxes. We pay taxes because the financial sector and the banks do not want the governments simply to create the money on its own printing press. We pay taxes as a way of keeping down labour. We tax labour and industry but we don’t tax real estate, we hardly tax finance at all, and we don’t tax monopolies, which are large enough to have off-shore banking centres where they don’t pay taxes. We pay taxes so that the 1% can push the whole tax burden on to the 99% and prevent it from rising in the economy. Prevent it from having economic power that might turn into political power to make productivity to help its own living standards and help society instead of helping the 1% to make society worse and worse. Dr Michael Hudson, interview The Keiser Report September 2020
When I was there I always felt like fundamentally it was a force for good. I don’t know if I feel that way any more. The Social Dilemma, Netflix 2020
Is social media making your child depressed? ibid. news
Plastic surgeons have coined a new term for it – Snapshot Dysmorphia – when your patients want surgery so they can look more they do in filtered selfies. ibid.
Today I want to talk about a new agenda for technology. And why we want to do that is because if you ask people what’s wrong in the tech industry right now, there’s a cacophony of grievances, and scandals, and they stole our data, and there’s tech addiction, and there’s fake news and there’s polerization and there’s some elections getting hacked – but is there something beneath all these problems? ibid. Tristan Harris
Jaron Lanier: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. ibid.
‘How much of your life can we get you to give to us?’ ibid. Tim Kendall
‘We now have markets that trade in human futures at scale. And those markets have produced the trillions of dollars that have made the internet companies the richest companies in the history of humanity.’ ibid. Professor Zuboff
‘We’ve created a world in which online connection has become primary … We’ve put deceit and sneakiness at the centre of everything we do.’ ibid. Jaron Lanier
You are being programmed at a deeper level. And you don’t even realise it. ibid.
‘Even knowing how these tricks work, I’m still susceptible to them.’ ibid. expert
‘Everyone in your news feed sounds just like you.’ ibid. Roger McNamee
It’s a disinformation for money business model. ibid.
These things have become digital Frankensteins. ibid.
These markets undermine democracy and they undermine freedom and they should be outlawed. ibid. Zuboff
Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general. These are the enemies of strong societies. Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words, Sky Atlantic 2018