caesar novus

Well, on the individual level I think that movie at least shows how you might use Gandhi's bag of "shaming" tricks to your advantage in a Machiavellian way once in a while. Especially with a bad neighbor - you tend to shy away from direct confrontation anyway because it can turn into a poisonous feud, and now you are stuck in each others face all the time. At the mass historical level, Gandhi is taken as the inspiration to Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and various democracy protests like China 1989. I suspect that MLK did engender restraint and genuine shame to defuse a LOT of potential violence in bringing on US civil rights. Not sure about the South African/Zimbabwe changeover - there were some distasteful flavors of substituting one gang of overlords to another abusive one. China case didn't actually accomplish shame I think, but I heard the perception of shame from world spectators actually affected the rulers to do certain economic if not democratic reforms.

I was just knocked out by the interweaving of Gandhi principles into a Bollywood romantic/comedy/musical/crime film, and wondered how much "Gandhi-ing" (their phrase) lives on in India or abroad, or was he just a passing eccentric put into prominence from the backdrop of events? We have probably all seen pious films about his stoic goodness, and maybe even some reality checks like hypocrisy in his family life. But this entertaining movie seemed a moving and inspiring presentation of certain Gandhi ideals, and introspection rather than usual demonizing of Britain: Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) reviewed at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456144/ It's playing free at my nearby university; but can we assume the poor quality but free free version on video.google.com is pirated? Favorite scenes: Speech at 40 minute mark declaring India is wasting it's independence and freedom by allowing corruption and inefficiency that Gandhi would abhor (although not sure he disliked bureaucracy and it's consequences). Around 1:53 in a great Gandhi inspired agony-aunt sequence some chronic vandalism by a neighbor is stopped by a kindness offensive. The wonderful thing was seeing a (sometimes violent) gangster start to use Gandhi principles to clash with (sometimes violent) rivals and win. Not because he melted into sentimental mush, but because it could work. Inflict the rival with kindness, show you suffer their acts with stoicism, and they break down in shame. Note this works when the rival knows he is morally in the wrong, so I would deny that the recent "occupy" protests or older "globalization" protests use these principles since they confront false populist scapegoats. Also I don't see kindness to victims (very Christian focus upon Gandhi) as a key principle - it's the difficult process of repeated kindness towards a brazen wrongdoer and restraint from violence against them. This is what characters of the film are pushed to attempt, and I would like to see a sequel working thru more of this applied-philosophy. Of course the goal is to get results from the offenders, so I personally see no need to forego a plan B as prison or execution! Actually this movie is a sequel and has another planned, but not Gandhi-related I believe.

I could only stand about 2 seconds of the promo for the Smithsonian show just on entertainment value alone, so expect that will just run a few shows and die a natural death. Reality shows are spreading like cancer due to ratings, but that one looked like one of the frequent reject experiments. And almost nobody watches the over-the-top Spike network. There isn't much of monetary value buried in US except for Spanish treasure ships sunken off Florida, and for reasons I don't understand the silver and gold seems to all get reclaimed by Spain without even paying a removal fee. Oh, confederate artifacts from the Civil war can be valuable, but not without provenance. A digger can't provide provenance to distinguish his item from the vast majority of faked confederate items (even the originals often crudely made so cannot be distinguished by inspection). The Naked Archeologist did a show claiming the great majority of important archeo finds in Israel were done illegally by amateurs. They tried to show the loss of context info was overridden by the benefits. The approved diggers were way too slow and didn't know where to look except when following the amateurs. They acknowledged the highly professional theft rings were a problem, and even that their whole thesis was debatable. I think the worst part is diggers targeting just outside the boundary of historical parks. Recent finds have shown history taking place a bit offset from the preserved park, and the periphery is open to digging up stuff that is of great historical but not monetary value. Maybe American archeologists need a kick like this into a preservaton mindset. In my region, a museum was berated into returning artifacts to supposed native descendants who then secretly reburied it. The museum director who tried to sue for return was fired. Not an isolated case.

Ancient China was famous for it's tough civil service exams and they are still in use today. The author of http://www.booktv.org/Watch/13167/What+the+US+Can+Learn+from+China+An+OpenMinded+Guide+to+Treating+Our+Greatest+Competitor+as+Our+Greatest+Teacher.aspx further states that high national officials not only have to be the 1 in 5 that could pass that test, but additionally have to first prove merit in real world administration in terms of measurable results. This is proposed as a successful model, in contrast with corrupt and incompetant government at the LOCAL Chinese level. So how do other governments thru history match up? For instance ancient Rome - was the most preparation you could expect was to have a Greek tutor, or sort of apprenticeship from your father? Besides many obviously unprepared emperors, was there a more organized tier below that?

44 Arrested in Greece for Antiquities Trafficking http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/03/04/world/europe/AP-EU-Greece-Stolen-Antiquities.html?_r=1&ref=news Police said they confiscated 9,200 silver and bronze coins dating from the 6th century B.C. to Byzantine times

Can anyone vouch for the quality of this, like by choosing a bit of history you are familiar with and see how true his story is? Probably this is fine, but I remember downloading all kinds of Roman history in the early days of podcasts and gradually realized they were often questionable accounts by enthusiasts just skimming thru a book and stereotyping at will. Sure, that is what I do in this very forum, but at least here it is exposed for people to dispute and correct.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but it is a reference I return to from time to time: Rome and Environs, an archeological guide, by Fillipo Coarelli http://moreintelligentlife.com/node/450 Notable by being a translation from the Italian so you can tap in to that knowledge base, or at least a spin that english readers may have been missing. What I really like is the disclosure of what is known vs guesswork. Not the usual omnicient pronouncements that "this is the house of Titus" but rather this is thought to be x or possibly y, only due to a pot shard marking of z. Also I like the way the coverage isn't ruthlessly cut off at Rome city boundaries, but fuzzed out to include notable outlying sites. Do I have to have finished these books - my enthusiasm gets numbed when dashing to the finish line, esp to meet a library deadline: Berlin diary: the journal of a foreign correspondent, 1934-1941 William Shirer http://books.google.com/books/about/Berlin_diary.html?id=ExOVUEzmCo8C Wow, an almost lmost un-put-downable memoir that anticipates everything from Hitler but was published quite early - a couple days before the invasion of Russia. I was hesitating to read his tome of rise and fall of 3rd reich, and tried this more personal story of him scrambling around Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and London to cover events as they were interpreted at the time. I wondered what the allies knew and when they knew it, but the problem was the correspondents knew all and Britain and France wouldn't listen. He meets German generals that are appalled by Hitler, and crowds of women in hysterical excitement over him. He is quick to assess various figures as dupes, clowns, and so on... but seems to marvel at Hitlers ability to seduce both western diplomats and non-nazi Germans.

Oh, I'm sorry - my article is over a year old. I just read the hardcopy at a university library that normally sends year old mags for binding, so assumed it was from THIS January. I guess that magazine isn't very leading edge anyway.

I thought executions of Christians by pagan Romans typically had mitigating circumstances. Didn't they simply ask the Christians to show respect to pagan gods so the gods didn't take revenge on the community? Not to believe in them, just avoid jinxing everyone by not attending to superstitious ritual. Sort of like someone today asking you to not walk under a ladder and bring bad luck. Or not to "diss" a gangster - you don't have to actually have respect or change your beliefs. Romans could apparently hate and curse a pagan god privately, but must be manipulatively complient in public ritual. So maybe the Christian refusal to go thru empty motions wasn't really required due to incompatibly with their faith, but almost a suicidal choice to attain some religious transcendance (like some suicide bombers of today?). Or are these delusions of a Roman lover (pax romana and all that)?

Really good pictures, although google+/picassa puts up (soft) obstacles for nonmembers to view or comment. Can we vote on your next destination? Besides something Roman, how about warming up in Sicily next month? Get the grey skies out of those archeo photos. Nice to view places I missed, unless they break my heart. Bergamo pains me because I wasn't able to visit it with Ryanair or whatever. I think that tank picture you have there is the same model as in the giant Bovington Tank museum in UK (Wool train station, then walk bikepath 2km northwest) posted as an Italian flamethrower. They said if you drive at full speed, it catches up with flames and self-immolates (African campaign).

Not sure how much of this is news: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Secrets-of-the-Colosseum.html

The Walls_of Rome by Nic Fields http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Walls_of_Rome.html?id=SDxrLQymWWwC My ebook version is on my tablet currently in for repairs and I haven't even finished it, but waiting won't lead to a more critical review anyway because I am crazy about the subject. I became fascinated by the wall and it's sprawling and varied juxtaposition into modern Rome on my last (ever?) visit to Rome. So the subject is amazing, and this book at least gives morsels of text and photos on it. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant by Ulysses Grant http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4367/4367-h/4367-h.htm or audio http://www.archive.org/details/memoirs_grant_1105_librivox Note: I only advocate chapters 2-16, which excludes boyhood and US civil war, where he felt obligated to provide more details than modern readers may enjoy. This leaves his reluctant entry into the military, Mexican war and observations of what was really leading to the US civil war. This part is surprising and refreshing - at least it seemed so as I listened to audio version in a noisey distracting environment (I have new DIGITAL noise-cancelling earbuds on order to improve that http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360185,00.asp ). You may know this was an immense best seller published by Mark Twain, who surprisingly had a friendship with this general/president who shaped the course of US military techniques for a century to come. But his early narrative is so unexpected and picturesque of the young country. He reluctantly goes to West Point military academy just to get some free teaching credentials. He is sent to Texas and Mexico with an antiwar attitude... as did most of the generals! One general, (later president Zachary Taylor) is like a peacenik hippie - riding into war in civilian clothes (sidesaddle!) but always winning battles when vastly outnumbered. They use charm offensives when possible with Mexican villagers, and wring their hands about needless casualties. Grant makes sly observations of his superiors and his peers who he will eventually dominate in the civil war. It gave colorful background of the region, such as various leave-of-absences. They can take weeks or months to go anywhere by all means of rustic transportation - it kind of reminded me of a diary from the Mexican army point of view http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/central/books/reviews/delapena.html where an impressionable observer relates the things that amaze them on their journey. Also, the observations of pre-civil war tensions (beginning of part 2) bring to life issues which we tend to overlook or stereotype. He points out how new states have been paid or fought for by northern taxpayers, only to have them turned into slave states by a minority of tricky politicians for example. And somehow there is an old fashioned Roman epic flavor to book. EDIT: Whew, I have a bad case of the "I should have said"'s after attending a talk by a Civil War scholar from Friedrich Schiller University of Jena! They are having multiple conferences in Germany on the global significance of this US war, with lots of quoting of Karl Marx. Somebody please tell them to read chapter 16 of Grant on the attitudes engendering the war.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/02/20/world/europe/AP-EU-Greece-Museum-Robbery.html?ref=news

Wouldn't they start with political integration to match the currency integration? Then they can either impose money transfers from strong to weak regions. Or better yet impose structural labor reforms which would let the weak regions grow their way out of trouble. But I wonder if that is too brute force. Maybe it is right that west Germany suffers anything to integrate east Germany, yet not so much for Greece. And north Italy will suffer to carry along south Italy, but not so much for Portugal. Maybe US states shouldn't all carry their weakest peers along. There is maybe a subtle hierarchy that might work best (zone, country, subregion, municipality) which I don't think Rome would use for taxes or whatever.

This is the premise of a multi billion penalty applied to a major US bank yesterday I believe. But the background story is that was mainly in response to extreme threats and intimidation to lenders from regulators trying to push low income folks into home ownership (bipartisan effort). I think most banks responded with their heads in their hands knowing they would have to throw away money. A few reckless cowboys (B players, shunted to this doomed sideshow) thought they could make the best of an unavoidable situation, and decided little real harm would be done because the unaffordable houses would continue gaining value like it had for decades and leave a profit in the change in ownership. Capitalist darwinism doesn't become that desperate on it's own, or we would have restaurants sneaking poison into their competitors dishes, like they have historically done in China. Maybe, like democracy, free markets are the worst solution except everything else that has been tried. Have you some suggested curbs that wouldn't be worse than the disease? I think financial regulators should have the doctors oath of "first, do no harm" and avoid crippling unintended consequences. One last anecdote that proves I don't know what. I believe a German Landesbank was so conservatively regulated that it couldn't survive according to Economist magazine. Instead of asking for relief it went to a satellite office of US AIG for their high yield mortgage repackages, because they were too new to regulate against. When these went bad, a modest haircut was being negotiated. But the US decided for some reason to fully bail out AIG and sent a staggering amount of cash to overregulated Germans who were berating the US for underregulation.

This reality check approach should not go excessively astray to grand philosophical generalizations. Competitive capitalism will automatically adjust and correct compensations based on how pleased the paying customers are, unless there is something sticky and flawed. Many sticky parts are well known, long decried by capitalists themselves, but nobody wants to address the boring root causes. Huge incomes can be very worthwhile. For instance there are maybe 4 people on earth who have a track record restoring utterly broken big companies to health. After the financial crash, populist pressures prevented paying premium salaries to them to save jobs and companies (you pay them a lot because tough decisions make enemies and get them fired soon). It should be like hiring a plumber - it's your own business if you choose to pay a lot for a high value service, and not society's business. For examples of flaws, the majority of businesses incorporate in Delaware state. Carl Icahn portrays this like the way ships used to all be registered in Liberia - sort a way to escape responsible laws. This shields high executives from being responsible to the shareholders who pay them, due to sweetheart state law. There is no reason gov't should mandate income caps - just get out of the way so the payers can use their natural frugality to do this. Another flaw is letting people to use high financial leverage, but that was allowed for investment bankers as well as everyday homebuyers with low down payment (US politicians caused much of the problem pushing gov't backed mortgages to favored deadbeat demographics). This top down populist outrage is so mistaken when you look at the details. Take the example of the day "occupiers" advocated everybody switch from banks to credit unions due to "greedy" bank fees. Well, those fees were just caused by irresponsible populist regulators. They recently forced the banks to not charge fees for dumb things like overdrafts or whatever - I could hardly believe it at the time. Of course, then banks had to stick the fees to everyone for services previously free to anyone with reasonable track records. I think the structural problem is not with the rich as in Roman times, but the freeloaders who actually hold disproportionate voting power thru perverse common interests. Especially by 2014 over half US voters will pay no income tax, and actually reap tax credits for pleasantries I would never dream of buying for myself. They have no voting incentive at all to wisely conserve or allocate gov't expenditures. Similarly the huge gov't employee sector is a voting block for squandering expenditures and benefits (think of the famous Spanish air controllers earning over a million). Same for state level - I have posted articles about the widespread police "chief's disease" where they can double and triple dip in a pension very young. This imbalance is mostly what is behind Europe's (sovereign) debt problem, but the populist bandwagon beats on the banks. Banks are on on the mend (when not forced to hold "piig" debt) and financial salaries are dropping to earth to the point where NY, CA, and London have to worry about gaps in tax revenue. The real problems seems to be how public workers or non-taxpayers gain subversive voting power due to the intensity of their special interest which overwhelms the diffuse citizen interest which is really more important. As for the power of the rich, the 1% highest incomers pay 40% of the income tax and have been spending their political contributions on the party which least represents their interests (to hope for favors from winners).

They sent me a priority code of 63703 for up to 80% off courses this month, and another 20% off orders over $100 at http://www.thegreatcourses.com/nam If classical history lectures make too stuffy xmas gifts, may I suggest vintage movies from your favorite sources: Up Pompeii, 1971 zany British comedy http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067916/ Caligula, 1979 handbook for orgies, esp in 160 min version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080491/

That is a very typical article nowdays. I can hardly believe how American ideals of "equal opportunity" are being forgotten in favor of the eurosocialism ideals of "equal outcome". And be careful about how it mixes up concepts of income vs wealth - often implying need for self destructive tax policies. America is on the brink of falling for this due to forgetting it's heritage, and then only Asia will remain a merit-based dynamic economy. Wealth and income extremes are not inherently bad. The process of people getting there may be good or broken. For instance some corporate titan may get an insane income, and even a zillion for being fired. But it is the dumbest possible approach to put gov't limits on this. This income is strictly an issue between the company shareholder owners and the titan. Something is broken if the shareholders overpay because they have no incentive to. Therefore fine tune that feedback loop. A highly paid titan may be providing incredible benefits to the society at large by providing affordable technology that changes life for the better (the hated railroad barons did this). Probably inherited wealth should be taxed more severely than now. But high incomes actually are taxed near the limit to where it becomes destructive to the economy to tax more. That's aside from tax loopholes, which are notorious and unfair, but popular. Think of frugal folks with saved wealth who can choose 1) a comfy life with low additional income and taxes, or 2) a risky life with high returning investments and high taxes. The risky approach helps society fund businesses and factory construction that create jobs. But most new businesses fail, so you have to lightly tax the high returns for the rare winners in #2 strategy. They get demonized, but the broke failures (who could have been them) are overlooked. There are also problems with gov't mandated raising of the low end of income. Before mid 1960's low income urban neighborhoods strived for upward mobility - with all their problems, they were more civil and tidy than today. Then the entitlement fairy came in to turn them into lawless, chaotic, environments with folks often too fat and content to do much work, which now is done for them by desperate immigrants. Not that a darwinian approach is ideal, but the mindless equality of results approach is full of pitfalls. Another example is raising minimum wages. Put yourself in in an employer's shoes with 10 minimum wage employees who are not yet very timely, efficient, or dependable. Force him to raise the wages, and he will need to replace them with 6 more efficient workers at more than minimum wage. Whether it's income or education or job promotion, the focus must stay on equal opportunity and not equal results. Frugality, work ethic, delayed gratification, etc should be allowed to give the almost infinite economic advantage they may naturally confer (to not only that person, but society - remember uncharitable beast that was Steve Jobs). The results-oriented thinking is being misused all around - such as gender success studies etc. Focus on the fairness of the process, and don't jump to conclusions about the results implying unfairness. Utopian thinking usually spawns perverse incentives with horrible side effects because life is complex.

A bit more about what I did... I sent polite but concerned emails with web references to not only those in charge of this "peace institute" but to those consorting with them (celebrating or supporting). I emailed media editors who had praised them, as well as Chinese scholars and political scientists concerned with violence. Results: One political scientist was alarmed and very supportive. One other peace institute seemed surprised that all bad things don't originate in the west. Some polite thanks from a Chinese scholar. No reply from newspaper or TV folks or celebrities or those in charge. No publicity at all - just a pause, or are they laying low from the issues I raised? Next step? I give up - it's in the hands of you with more history background. The poliSci guy gave me a contact to raise more alarm, but said it would be hard. Another possible direction is challenging the credentials of their tax exempt institution. You can research a lot about it on the web, and many of those are at least technically fraudulant. Eg. it appears to me the organization could be set up to allow Zhou's US relatives to travel between published mail drops (which appear to include vacation mansions) free or tax free. The US IRS website will list their tax exempt status, and you might tell they are breaking the rules by cross checking with other online data. For example they may be under loose rules of a small organization, but have actually grown to where much more is required. Unfortunately the "goodness" of an organization doesn't seem to count - I saw another that celebrated bad and illegal behavior with contributions being tax deductible. BTW if you run across one you like, you can snag it's tax number and set things up to donate to it when you die, even without a will. It's called a TOD feature of a money account - transfer upon death. It amazes me this is possible, but I guess if you have creditors they will have the right to try to "claw back" this money you transferred to charity.

I saw a request on Cspan TV for viewers to email them suggestions of nonfiction book talks to televise. I believe they gave the email address activated by clicking "book tv" halfway down http://www.booktv.org/Contact.aspx . Usually this means an online video of the authors talk will be long available on their site. So if you know any author doing their introductory booktours in US bookstores or where ever, maybe let them know.

I can't locate a recent thread here about what the Romans might do about the problems of today. Feel free to move this post to the bottom of that thread or where ever it might belong. Not sure if the focus was on violence or economics. The former is a bit easier to compare, and I think Steven Pinker gives a good framework http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12923/The+Better+Angels+of+Our+Nature.aspx . It is about his latest book, but I bet he has his background data online estimating violence of various kinds in Roman days. In general he makes the surprising conclusion of a huge decreasing trend of killings and violence - especially hunters and gatherers were in no peaceful paradise. He talks about the formation of states and their ability and motivation to quell internal violence. As the Roman domination spread, I think this entailed the famous Pax Romana. He talks about the enlightenment period where the ruled get influence over the rulers, and this tends to quell violence from the rulers against the ruled. Maybe we see that in the Roman Republic although it unraveled. Not sure if it happened with King John's Magna Carta in Britain because didn't he later abrogate that because it came under duress? American revolution made the decisive move here, with other efforts such as French revolution having bumpy but eventual progress. Anyway, it appears we are already succeeding well in reducing violence thru the very means trailblazed by Romans in their republic and pax romana. Although you would hardly know it because the way the press is ever more efficient in sensationalizing such problems. I don't know how the Romans dealt with economic cycles, but I think the current distress has some silver linings in putting the brakes on unsustainable entitlements, borrowing and excessive green spending. They really came from an excess of naive democratic power (populism) with no adults at the controls. Was that how the Roman republic unraveled? I think if we keep to our principles like the Romans in the face of Hannibal's rampage, this storm will abate and pave the way for realistic progress.

Here is holiday downtime activity for history buffs wanting a change of pace. How about some activism in resolving a bipolar spread in the reputation of Zhou En Lai? I suspect those promoting his angelic side have crass motivations that need to be confronted, at least with email. I have done that, but can't push it too far due to not having the background to assess the claims from Univ. Hong Kong that Zhou was probably the biggest mass murderer in history. He is being promoted as a heroic peacemaker and role model for taming the bad habits of western civilization (a Gandhi, ML King, Mandela). Supported by US politicos like Kissinger and Chinese Americans. On the other hand scholars in Hong Kong and the mainland are disclosing his primary role in the biggest mass murder in history. China's great famine around 1960 is depicted as no food shortage, but deliberate starving of 45 million people (almost equal of global WW2 killings) for Zhou's rather than Mao's agenda. Sources: Here is an hour video of Prof. Dikotter research depicting the great famine as deliberate, horrifying, and violent killing on a scale the planet hadn't seen, just to free up food that Zhou wanted to export for ideological reasons http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11976/Maos+Great+Famine+The+History+of+Chinas+Most+Devastating+Catastrophe+19581962.aspx Here is a review of his book (with mainland China collaboration) http://chinalawandpolicy.com/2011/04/18/book-review-frank-dikotters-maos-great-famine/ But here is a foundation with various special events and big names celebrating his angelic record as a role model http://www.americachinabridge.com/print/Zhou-Enlai-Peace-Institute-en-web.pdf

I thought the situation was US state educators had to choose from textbooks that are tailored to the biggest customer (California) mandates. That biases textbook history to leftward fringe, such as depicting western civilization as introducing mainly wickedness, oppression, and imperialism into a virginal paradise, instead of the enlightenment transforming the world for instance. Oh, with Texas a growing market, a few kook right wing textbooks can occasionally surface. Maybe this market-driven dominance will become less with a switchover to cheaper softcopy textbooks on tablets. Then the next step is this history is transmitted thru an education system flawed by labor practices more tailored towards coal mines of 100 years ago; protecting teachers rather than educating students. However this transmission of a history orthodoxy can have a good effect of undercutting it's own message. Just like the way state churches drove Europeans into secularism, US students grow up into a fascination about "real" history and were once known to support books and multiple cable channels on history (before they became all about UFOs or lumberjacks). Well that's my naive impression, but to get back to the core of the article which quoted Niall Ferguson... see http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12950/After+Words+Niall+Ferguson+Civilization+The+West+and+the+Rest+hosted+by+Susan+Jacoby.aspx video about what is, isn't, and should be taught about history in both US and UK. I agree with him saying historical concepts such as the successful innovations of the west (from Rome thru German/Scottish/British/American enlightenment) has to be taught in order that we don't drift from them. But how to do it can involve a can of worms with the important stuff being censored by the left in an overkill attempt to prevent jingoism. The detailed alternative of "just the facts, ma'am" is kind of hard too, due to the long histories of places like the UK where students would just drown in the endless lists of kings.

Pardon me for dragging out this baitfest, but this cultural sidelight seemed suitable grist for a cultural forum. I think the Zero wasn't some epitome of Japanese thought, but borne from a maverick designer who turned priorities upside down in order to meet extreme requirements with a wimpy engine. Sort of like the original Sony designer or the designer of that wankel powered Japanese sportscar - revered in the west but thought a bit beyond the pale by contemporary peers. The Japanese army had armored aircraft early, so that wasn't a cultural no-no. But the (elitist) navy posted such extreme requirements for the Zero that the available wimpy engine couldn't drag armor along with the aircraft. In fact it couldn't support a conventional aircraft alone, so all designers gave up on the project except one whacko who thought he might do it by inventing a lighter alloy of aluminum (called duraluminum although it is brittle and corrodes easily). The Zero had to have insane range unprecedented for a fighter (like the later Mustang) and the lightness and sleekness may have followed from this more than a desire to be superaerobatic or a tolerance for fragility. I think the later Japanese designs like Raiden and Sheidin (sp?) were quite comparable to western designs in various tradeoffs, but they were probably hanger queens due to shortage of fuel and pilots.

You could say that about most great men. Including some of the ones we discuss on this forum, such as Augustus. I had some of my grumpiness about Steve Jobs softened by the hours and hours of accolades on CNBC by people like (ex)? Google CEO Schmidt, webbrowser god Andreessen, and others who didn't have motivations to sentimentalize or gloss over Jobs (like his canned biography on the same channel). These people, who I consider saviors of an egalitarian internet, have been adversaries of people like Bill Gates trying to build sort of fascist utopias where naive and charmed customers are kept on their money-making reservation. They were even adversaries of Steve Jobs too, whose ipad, ipod touch really attempts the same (Amazon's new fire tablets may be a copycat, designed to be a "trojan horse" that channels you into buying their product... held not by you, but in big-brother's icloud). Anyway they really emphasized the idealism of Jobs and the ruthlessness needed to smash the complacent music empire for instance, sticking their customers who only wanted one song with overpriced bloated CDs. Now he became a little more successful than expected, and keeps charmed customers roped in Apple's own overpriced reservation, but at least they can find more freedom if they shop further afield. They talked about his insane attention to artistic product design, which was so rare for crass innovators or marketeers. You could claim this was to gain market share too, but who cares about the motives if the "invisible hand" converts selfish desires into consumer opportunities? I think another ruthless innovator, Bill Gates, would get a very different response. In my view his contribution was to mow down choice, competition, and excellence. The Euro attempt to sue for his crushing of Andreessen was only the tip of the iceburg - he only escaped domestic monopoly lawsuits in his early days due to blind eyes by those wanting to see him hitting back at large older companies. In fact he crushed a thousand flowers in the form of small time software producers who would have made computer much less nerdy than today. But instead he gave mediocre freebie substitutes to captive customers. The accolades included the jobs he created. I hesitate to weep for Chinese or American employees, who really have a choice to work elsewhere. Those jobs are for the achievers rather than the faint hearted or clock watchers, except in my case where by sort of accident I once became a clueless seatwarmer responsible for a key Apple component. This was in the period when Steve Jobs had been kicked out of Apple and maze bright employees were abandoning ship of even companion companies as Apple went down the drain. It was amazing that Steve Jobs was able to revive Apple when rejoining. As for the Chinese employees, I starting visiting China in the very bleak days of 1980 when it almost seemed like a concentration camp without hope. There were poorer parts of Asia and Africa, but not with such a look of thwarted expectations in people's eyes. China has become so dynamic in years since, and while pollution and worker burnout may be overdue for remedy, I am sure that the 1980 people would have lept in a time machine to now if given the chance. I think the issue is more of provincial gov't corruption pushing/milking the hot industries, which neither the top Chinese gov't or western company partners can fully control. For the US employees, I used to be in the stodgy big tech company world that let their brain trust just mellow out and generate patents. Easy to get along with everyone, and even to generate a world-beating prototype innovation. But you rarely saw results all the way to consumer like today's famous robber baron punks. There are always obstacles - either internal turf battles or external competition... that seems to need ruthless bad mannered people to push thru to the finish line. So I am going to remain angry about Bill Gates, regardless of his returning blood money back to charity, but maybe give a pass to Steve Jobs. The face book founder seems pretty unethical, but I haven't looked into that in detail. Hurray for Andreessen, the googleplex, and others.