On this day:
1469
Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
1512
Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology (Doctor in Biblia).
1781
At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’ sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau.
1789
Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
1805
Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grand Army of Napoleon at the Battle of Ulm. 30,000 prisoners are captured and 10,000 casualties inflicted on the losers.
1812
Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
1813
The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.
1900
Max Planck, in his house at Grunewald, on the outskirts of Berlin, discovers the law of black body emission (Planck’s law).
1950
The People’s Republic of China joins the Korean War by sending thousands of troops across the Yalu river to fight United Nations forces.
1956
The Soviet Union and Japan sign a Joint Declaration, officially ending the state of war between the two countries that had existed since August 1945.
2005
Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
***
“Make no mistake: What we are dealing with is a real mysterious creature, not a simple and predictable machine. And like all the best fairy tales, the creature is of our own creation. Only by acknowledging it as being real and by mastering our own fears do we even have a chance to understand it, make peace with it, and figure out a way to tame it and live together.”--Jack Clark, whose official title at Anthropic is head of policy
***
Another political concept often heard in our times is “solution.” Early in these essays, I argue that there are no real solutions in politics – only trade-offs. That theme also recurs in the essays that follow, and extends to foreign policy as well as domestic issues, to economics as well as law, to educational issues no less than to issues of race and sex.--Sowell, in a preface
***
A tablet, known as Plimpton 332, was discovered in the early 1900s in Southern Iraq by the American archaeologist and diplomat Edgar Banks, who was the inspiration for Indiana Jones. The true meaning of the tablet has eluded experts until now, but new research by the University of New South Wales, Australia, has shown it is the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table, which was probably used by ancient architects to construct temples, palaces, and canals. However, unlike today’s trigonometry, Babylonian mathematics used a base 60, or sexagesimal system, rather than the 10 that is used today. Because 60 is far easier to divide by three, experts studying the tablet found that the calculations are far more accurate.
The tablet, which is thought to have come from the ancient Sumerian city of Larsa, has been dated to between 1822 and 1762 BC.
***
This is from a Substack that believes the Pens have made an unspoken decision and that this year is not unplanned:
In the meantime, they are clearing long-term cap space, stockpiling picks, and trying to find some hidden gems.
Do you know what that is? That is rebuilding."
***
In California, one of the richest, tech-savvy populations in the world, only 38.4% of public school students showed math proficiency on tests this spring. Only 49.3% met or exceeded state standards in English.
***
Noah Adams, a writer, broadcaster, and storyteller who hosted All Things Considered for 18 years, has died.
Strange episode of a car weaponized in Wichita.
***
Communication changes have allowed us to see more of the world's processes and decisions. It's not reassuring. The two more obvious and dangerous problems are Israel and AI.
There is violence in the street over more than Israel's policies; there is debate over its very existence. Evidence encompasses UN resolutions, the history of the Holocaust, even Old Testament precedent. But, of course, there is no deed to the Promised Land.
AI has scared everyone witless. AI executives are calmly suggesting that AI might initiate the end of the world. That, of course, is worst case. A happier compromise, best case, would be humanity's enslavement. The problem is, AI is everywhere, even in the hands of people less enlightened than Washington. And, like Israel, everyone is assuming good intentions. Who would be so foolish as to use it for ill?
The debates are very heartfelt, and sometimes the losers in the debates can become quite righteous. But both of these arguments exemplify the essence of modern conflict: these intense problems are never clean problems. Often there are collateral elements, never discussed, that are more important.
Israel debates will never be resolved without this unasked--and probably totally unresolvable--question: After whatever dissolution-destruction-evaporation of the Israel problem, what will be done with Israel's 200 nuclear weapons? Why does this question never come up?
And with AI, what will happen if the Americans develop and control it? Or ban it? Will everybody accept their decisions? Will there be no efforts at rogue use? Is there a good history of agreements among nations that have allowed for the effective control of dangerous technologies?
Or are these just two more wistful, bell-the-cat notions, shallow and self-congratulatory, whose main impact is to call attention to the hand-wringing virtuous and, preemptively, absolve them of responsibility?
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