Just Finished Reading: The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes (FP: 1919)

The war was finally, and thankfully, over. But large swaths of the European continent lay in ruin. But worse was the economic dislocation caused by 5 years of total warfare with mines destroyed, forests cut down, farmland unusable, shipping at the bottom of the ocean and crushing debt on both sides. With winter coming something needed to be done to bring the intricate and complex economic relations back ‘on-line’ and get trade moving again. The Paris Peace Conference was an ideal place to debate such issues and come up with solutions. But its main protagonists had other ideas. More than aware of the problems facing the victorious allies they had a solution before them they could not resist – they would make Germany pay for the war.

As someone who attended the conference as part of the British delegation Keynes had a ring-side seat to one of the most important periods in European and human history. Germany had surrendered – though not unconditionally. They had agreed to lay down their arms on the understanding that they had voiced initial agreement to US President Wilson’s 14 Points. The European victors, and particularly the French, had other ideas. Attacked twice in less than 50 years they were determined to secure their Eastern border by ensuring that Germany could never attack them again – by beggaring her for generations to come. By giving away her productive regions to Poland and taking enormous quantities of coal and other commodities for herself France intended to ensure that Germany could not use her growing economic and technological prowess to rise again to threaten the peace of Europe. Taking her shipping, waterway, coastal and deep sea, taking her colonies and foreign investments wherever they were and even taking part of her gold reserves putting great pressure on her currency they turned the screw at every opportunity. But there was one last demand that had to be met: Reparations – not just to cover the cost of the war to the Allies but punitive damages and a rate (with interest) that many knew was simply beyond Germany’s power to pay. Forced to agree by a belligerent population back home the British could only hope that the provisions of the Peace Settlement could be fixed later by the League of Nations. The Americans meanwhile could do little but look on as they were outmanoeuvred time and again by far more sophisticated politicians from France and Britain.

Seeing clearly what was about to happen Keynes wrote the book that brought him to public attention and pointed out the folly of imposing dangerously punitive demands on the Germans whilst, at the same time, denying her the opportunity to grow her economy in order to pay her debt to the rest of Europe. Clearly, he argued with staggering prescience, at some point in the future the forces of reaction would rise motivated by the call of ‘can’t pay, won’t pay’ at which point all hell would break loose. Sadly Keynes was not listened to and sadly he was right in his assessment. Whilst the results of the Peace Conference cannot be said to have caused the Second World War they most certainly primed the gun and aimed it at the heart of Europe. Maybe without the Crash of ’29 it might have been possible to revisit Germany’s economic straightjacket and to resolve the underlying tensions and, therefore, avoid the next war. Somehow I don’t think this would’ve happened. There was far too much animosity within the European family to ‘let Germany off easy’. The Crash cocked the gun in 1929 and, ten years later, Hitler pulled the trigger. Without the crushing consequences of the Peace Conference Hitler would’ve been unlikely to be in a position to do so and would have been unlikely to have had a gun to fire in the first place. This important and significant book shows exactly why the conditions existed in 1929 for the Wall Street Crash to have such a huge impact on the German economy and on European history. To understand the origins of the Second World War you really need to read this. Recommended to all those interested in the making of WW2. 

More on the end of and the consequences of the First World War and more on Economics to follow.

Cartoon Time.

Life..... erm..... finds a way.............

Play It Again, Sam…………………

Although my tastes in music are pretty wide – actually very wide – I do have favourites. Favourite genres, favourite decades, favourite bands, artists, styles and favourite CD’s (yes, I’m of that generation). So I find myself listening to whole albums – remember them! – and memorising every track, every pause and the start of every next track. I was going to list the 10 CDs I listen to most but when I started putting together a pile it turned out to be a few more than 10, and that was without listing the compilation sets I have……

So, without more ado, the presently most popular CDs in my house are:

Play – Moby
Fallen – Evanescence
Endlessly – Duffy
Rockferry – Duffy
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Radio Sunnydale – Various Artists
Visage – Visage
Crossroad: The Best of Bon Jovi – Bon Jovi
Methods of Dance – Various Artists
Brand New Eyes – Paramore
B.R.M.C – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Insomnia: The Best of Faithless – Faithless
Pyramid – The Alan Parsons Project
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album – Various Artists
Vienna – Ultravox
Eyes Open – Snow Patrol
Stay Gold – First Aid Kit
Bright Soundtrack – Various Artists
Different Dimensions – Tomita
Autoamerican – Blondie
A Hundred Million Suns – Snow Patrol
The Best Ever Time to Relax – Various Artists
The Big Black and Blue – First Aid Kit
Argus – Wishbone Ash
Bulletproof Picasso – Train
Let It Bleed – The Rolling Stones
Becoming X – Sneaker Pimps
The Lions Roar – First Aid Kit
Ray of Light – Madonna
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Score – Christopher Beck
The Anvil – Visage
Zerospace – Kidney Thieves
Final Straw – Snow Patrol
Fire Within – Birdy

….and now I have a lot of my favourite music in one stack of CDs….. [rubs hands].

Cartoon Time.

Google 'to end' Pentagon Artificial Intelligence project

From The BBC

2 June 2018

Google will not renew a contract to do artificial intelligence work for the US Pentagon, company sources say. The decision follows strong opposition in the technology giant's workforce. A number of Google employees resigned and thousands of others signed a protest petition against taking part in the Pentagon project, known as Maven. They feared it was the first step towards using artificial intelligence for lethal purposes. There has been no official statement from Google. According to company sources, top executive Diane Greene told staff on Friday there would be no follow-up after the current contract expired next March. But Kate Conger, a journalist for the technology news website Gizmodo, told the BBC that Google had not cancelled Project Maven and did not appear to have ruled out future work with the military. The contract is reported to be worth less than $10m (£7.5m) to Google but could potentially lead to more extensive cooperation with the Pentagon.

Project Maven involves using machine learning and engineering talent to distinguish people and objects in drone videos. In April up to 4,000 Google employees signed an open letter saying that by its involvement in the project the internet giant was putting users' trust at risk, as well as ignoring its "moral and ethical responsibility". A report by Gizmodo said that senior leadership at the company was deeply conflicted about the effects of the partnership with the Pentagon. Internal emails suggested that executives saw the contract as a huge opportunity while being concerned about how the company's involvement would be perceived, Gizmodo said.

[Apparently the Pentagon are in preliminary talks with a previously unknown Californian start-up company called Cyberdyne Systems. It’s CEO, Miles Bennett Dyson (pictured), stated that the project started by Google will be renamed Skynet and will incorporate a neural-net as the base for its Artificial Intelligence core network……..]

Good advice....

Just Finished Reading: The Two Cultures by C P Snow (FP: 1959/1964/1993)

In 1959 C P Snow gave the Rede Lecture at Cambridge University. In it he stated that there are two cultures within the academy who not only barely communicate with each other but look on the other with hostility and derision. Those cultures are Science and what is known today as the Humanities. Snow contended that in recent years – from the 1930’s to the late 50’s in England in particular – the two main braches of knowledge and intellectual exploration had begun talking past each other with both sides increasingly ignoring the advances or pronouncements of its counterpart. Such things could be forgiven, or even ignored, if they had no effect. But such a divorce, and especially an acrimonious one, has consequences and potentially serious ones at that. From the 30’s onwards both science and technology had been advancing at increasing speed with each passing year having a greater impact on the world around us. This was never truer than after 1945 with the detonation of the first atomic bomb. It became obvious that every educated person should have at least an appreciation of science and technology – if not any great knowledge – but that politicians and world leaders should have much more. Without such a basic knowledge ill-educated electorates cannot vote sensibly on important issues of the day and national leaders cannot tell when scientific advisors are giving poor advice – which it must be appreciated is a possibility. Likewise the scientific community needs to resist an ‘ivory tower’ temptation to hold themselves above the fray and to look on the world dispassionately in other to make rational decisions that could lead to the deaths of millions. Without fellow feeling, without a connection to the human condition, without an understanding of life from the level of the street it is all too easy to make wrong and dangerous decisions far too casually. This is the danger of the split Snow recognised in 1959.

He had no idea that the publication of his lecture would have the effect it did. He received letters from across the world, many positive but a few critical and occasionally with much vitriol, so quickly realised he had touched a rather raw nerve. After much thought and reflection he gave a second lecture in 1963 to address some of the issues raised, to explain some of the misunderstandings and to modify his views where needed. This made up the second part of this slim volume. Preceding the whole thing – in my 1993 Canto Classics edition – was a long, detaile4d and very interesting introduction by Stefan Collini who set the context of both talks and critiqued some of Snow’s ideas and assertions.

Overall this was a very interesting (and seminal) discussion of what education is for, who the dominance of one school or culture over the other works to the detriment of both, and how important it is for everyone – not just the ultimate decision makers – to have at least a basic understanding of scientific fundamentals. As Collini says this has yet to happen fully but, largely because of television, is a great deal better than during the 1960’s. So, there is hope but as always it seems more, much more, needs to be done. The rise of technical education and the higher profile of science is helping but general scientific ignorance can no longer be shrugged off. With technology becoming daily more important it is vital that we understand what we have in our hands, where it’s going and what we can do to channel technological advances in a way that serves humanity. It’s time we all became more educated.   

Cartoon Time.

Shouldn't have ordered the XXXXXXXXXL pizza........