Tag: raufnexusbooks

Exploring Words with Distant Meanings Through Their Common Roots | April 07 2025, 16:32

I wrote a script that finds pairs of words connected by a common origin but have evolved to differ significantly in modern meaning.

I actually came up with this project an hour and a half ago, between meetings I threw together something using Python and ChatGPT, and here are the first results. Importantly, these results come not from ChatGPT, but from the script working with dictionaries.

For example, grammar – glamour. The word glamour originates from the Scottish pronunciation of the word grammar (meaning “knowledge,” especially magical). The early association of grammar with secret knowledge transformed into “glamour” as “magical enchantment.”

It turns out that Jack is a diminutive form of John, evolved through Jankin.

It turns out that espresso and sprain share a common root—the Latin exprimere, meaning “to press out, extract.”

debut and butt. They share a common root: Old French but—”goal.” Debut: from French débuter—”to start a game,” literally “to make the first strike at the goal.” Butt: in the sense of “target” (e.g. the butt of a joke), also from but—”goal, target.”

Technical details: What does the script do?

1. First, it downloads a vast array of data from the English Wiktionary (Kaikki) and a large language model FastText, which knows the “meaning” of words in the form of vectors.

2. Then it analyzes the etymology (origin) of words, finding their common “ancestors”—ancient words (etymons) from which the modern ones derive.

3. It then selects only those words that are full dictionary entries in Wiktionary and are commonly found in modern English (filtering out very rare or archaic words).

4. Then it measures the “distance” between meanings using word vectors (word embeddings) from FastText. By comparing these vectors, the script calculates how far the meanings of words with a common root have diverged. Low similarity in vectors indicates a significant difference in meaning.

5. It then finds “distant relatives”: Ultimately, the script searches for and displays pairs of common words that were once “relatives” but today their meanings are as distant from each other as possible.

The script still generates quite a lot of “noise,” but I have a clear idea of how to clean it up.

Read more of such goodness by clicking here –> #RaufLikesEtymology

Modern Take on Theodora: Opera, Martyrs, and Pole Dancing | January 28 2025, 01:55

I finished “Theodora”. It’s a three-hour opera in a production by the Royal Opera House. About Christian saints and martyrs Theodora and Didymus, who lived in the 4th century in what’s now modern Syria. On stage – prostitutes, pole dances, a bomb, essentially, the full package.

And yes, originally it’s not an opera, but an oratorio, meaning originally on stage there is a chorus that sings for three hours, and nothing else happens. In the production, however, the oratorio is decked out like an opera, plus a bit more.

In short. The plot. Briefly. Valens, the Roman envoy, forces everyone to worship Roman gods, and threatens to execute those who refuse. Theodora, a Christian, does not comply. Her lover, Didymus, secretly converted to Christianity, tries to save her by disguising himself in her dress. In the end, Theodora surrenders to the enemies to save Didymus, and both die as martyrs for their faith. Afterwards, they were canonized by Christians in gratitude.

The oratorio is in English. That’s unusual in itself. Well.. in English. “Vouchsafe, dread Sir, a gracious ear. Lowly the matron bow’d, and bore away the prize…”. English from three hundred years ago. I understood “Carmen” in French with subtitles better. But no matter, there are translations you can hold in your hand and glance at one-eyed, plus everything happens veeery slowly there.

So, what we have here. A classic plot on a religious theme. In Katie Mitchell’s production, they decided to break all norms at once, making the oratorio into an opera and also setting it in modern times. It turned out pretty cool, actually.

Katie Mitchell situates the action in, as they called in an Alicante publication, a “Putin-like” embassy in Antioch, where rooms function as a brothel. This is the first theatre piece to involve an intimacy coordinator for sex and violence scenes (Ita O’Brien).

Valens, the Roman envoy in Antioch, wears a red sweater. He hasn’t heard of the #MeToo movement, hence the brothel accommodates “comfort women” for him and his bodyguards. They in red lingerie dance on poles in the red room (kind of a striptease; Holly Weston and Kelly Vee).

Next, we are introduced to Septimius, Valens’ head of security. His task is to ensure that all citizens publicly worship Roman gods as a sign of loyalty. Otherwise – death.

Here comes Didymus, one of the bodyguards. Didymus used to believe in Roman gods but secretly converted to Christianity. He’s in love with the Christian Theodora, the head of the household staff at the embassy.

Theodora plans an assassination attempt on Valens with a homemade explosive. They actually assemble it on stage with duct tape and some stuff.

Septimius uncovers the conspiracy and defuses the bomb. Theodora’s punishment – she becomes a “comfort woman”. For this, they dress her up as Marilyn Monroe. Oh, actually, it seems more like Louise Brooks, but never mind, they look alike.

Then the drama continues with an escape, Didymus saves Theodora, then the other way around. But ultimately, as in all operas, things end up not very well, but specifically in Mitchell’s production, good prevails over evil.

The role of Didymus is played by Jakub Józef Orliński. He has a beautiful scene where he changes into heels and a shimmering dress, in which he continues to perform until the end of the opera.

Jakub has a rather unusual voice. He is a countertenor. It’s the highest male voice. After castrati fell out of favor – quite rare. Google it, his voice is very beautiful. I’ll leave a few links in the comments.

One of the scenes towards the end reminds me of the café scene from “Pulp Fiction”.

The first performance of “Theodora” was in London, at the Royal Theatre in Covent Garden in 1750, and this production 272 years later comes from there too. Quite symbolic. True, back then it flopped – almost no audience. But now, it’s a classic.

Navigating the Nexus: Harari on Information Networks and AI | January 19 2025, 16:42

Well, I finally finished reading Yuval Harari’s “Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.” Quite interesting, although I was expecting more controversy, especially from a historian who likely doesn’t quite understand what’s under AI’s hood. But it turned out to be quite good. The theses extracted from the book without context sound quite odd. For example, Harari writes that it would be more accurate to call AI Alien Intelligence—not because it possesses consciousness, but because its methods of thinking and problem-solving are completely alien to our human experience.

It’s particularly fascinating how he views political systems as information structures: democracy with its decentralized flow of information and autocracy with its drive for control. An attempt to understand how information governs us, our choices, and our societies.

Overall, the parallels drawn between the AI revolution and past historical events are quite intriguing. Harari cites examples of how social network algorithms aimed at increasing engagement have contributed (and continue to contribute) to the spread of misinformation and the fomenting of hatred. He references real cases, such as the tragic events in Myanmar, where Facebook was used to spread falsehoods that led to violence. Because falsehoods positively affected engagement—they simply got more clicks—and this function was optimized by Facebook for better advertising metrics. Ultimately, a relatively simple AI behind the newsfeed led to bloodshed.

I liked Harari’s example from Nick Bostrom’s book “Superintelligence,” which is a thought experiment. Bostrom suggests imagining a paperclip factory acquiring a superintelligent AI, and the factory manager assigns the AI, seemingly simple, the task of producing as many paperclips as possible. In pursuit of this goal, the computer takes over the Earth, destroys all humans, sends expeditions to capture additional planets, and uses vast resources to fill the entire galaxy with paperclip factories. The essence of the thought experiment is that the computer did exactly what it was instructed to do.

Of course, it’s hard not to notice that Harari sometimes succumbs too much to alarmism. For example, he describes AI as something already spiraling out of control, though there are many technical constraints that inhibit its development. Nevertheless, his book is not a prediction, but an invitation to a discussion. A discussion about how technologies change our understanding of truth, freedom, and even reality.

P.S. I also liked this fragment:

“…It’s no wonder that politicians around the world spend a lot of time and effort recounting historical narratives. The aforementioned example with Vladimir Putin is hardly an exception. In 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan first met with General Than Shwe, the then-dictator of Myanmar. Annan was advised to start the conversation first to prevent the general from monopolizing the talk, as the meeting was supposed to last only twenty minutes. But Than Shwe spoke first and almost for an hour about the history of Myanmar, leaving almost no opportunity for the UN Secretary-General to speak.”

Surprisingly, Harari did not include interviews with Tucker Carlson 🙂

Exploring Enumerations in Literature with Armen Zakharov | January 16 2025, 20:38

As always, splendid, inspired, uplifting, interesting, informative, original, stylish, surprising, with bright eyes, love, kindness, and respect for listeners both male and female, admirers of all genders, adults and the not-so-much, with numerous examples of extensive, lengthy, homogeneous, and mismatched lists consisting of synonyms, antonyms, names of cities, rivers, books, small towns, hotels, people of various professions, characters, appearances, and writers of all times and nations the new video from Armen Zakharov, with Fedor or without, about lists, inventories, catalogs, enumerations in literature.

https://youtu.be/eVL5FO9NQFM?si=4zTltBfi3QJcRyi_

Surveillance and Society: Insights from Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari | December 20 2024, 00:59

I’m currently reading Yuval Noah Harari’s “Nexus,” where an interesting story about a Romanian computer scientist named George Iosifescu is described (see my previous notes on the topic – #raufnexus). In 1976, Iosifescu came to his office and found a man sitting at his desk. Iosifescu introduced himself, but the man did not respond. He went about his business while the man just quietly sat, watched the computer screen, and made notes. Overall, it was apparent that he had arrived from the Romanian secret police.

It’s intriguing to look at work through the eyes of this agent. Imagine you have breakfast and then go spend your entire day in someone else’s office in silence, jotting things down. And so for thirteen years! Thirteen, Karl!

For thirteen years, Iosifescu came to work, and the man was always there, at the desk, to observe and record something. It all ended only with the fall of the Romanian government. Harari writes that Iosifescu never found out the man’s name.

But if you think about it, by 2024 we essentially have the same situation, only our agents are digital, numerous, and the data they collect are somewhat scattered and disconnected. Harari quite rightly notes that we are approaching the moment when a pervasive computer network will be able to monitor the population of entire countries around the clock.

Harari also has an interesting story about the mass collection of handwriting samples in Romania. When the Romanian regime discovered anonymous letters criticizing them, sent to Radio Free Europe, Ceaușescu ordered handwriting samples to be collected from all 20 million citizens. Students wrote essays, and adults wrote autobiographies, which were then passed to the Securitate archives. Even typewriter owners were required to register them and provide sample texts.

It’s interesting—they collected them, but how were they supposed to search through such a volume of information? It was probably not intended at all. Perhaps this database was used to create evidence—if someone was suspected, data from various databases were collected about them, and attempts were made to use it in their case. If something accidentally or not coincidentally matched, then that’s it, case closed, person imprisoned.

* * *

I also liked the idea of information networks.

In tribal societies, where there were no written documents or bureaucracy, the human network consisted only of two chains:

1) “person-person” and

2) “person-story” (forming the chain person-story-person).

Power belongs to those who control the nodes connecting different chains. These nodes are the tribe’s foundational myths. Charismatic leaders, orators, and creators of myths were adept at using these stories to shape identity, create alliances, and impact emotions.

In human networks associated with written documents and bureaucratic procedures, society is partly based on interactions between people and documents. In addition to the chains “person-person” and “person-story,” such societies are held together by the chains “person-document.”

Thus, there are three types of chains:

1) person-person

2) person-story

3) person-document

This has led to changes in the distribution of power. Since documents became an important node linking many social chains, significant power was vested in them, and experts in the complex logic of working with documents became new authoritative figures. Administrators, accountants, and lawyers mastered not only reading and writing skills but also the ability to create forms, organize archives, and manage bureaucratic processes.

The person-person chain can be related to the family, the person-document—to the church.

But there are two more chains that have emerged quite recently:

4) computer-person

5) computer-computer

An example of “computer-person” includes social networks like Facebook and TikTok. These chains differ from traditional “person-document” chains because computers can use their power to make decisions, create ideas, and deeply manipulate proximity to influence people in a way that no document could. The Bible has had a profound influence on billions of people, even as a silent document. Now imagine a sacred book that can not only speak and listen but also recognize your deepest fears and hopes and continuously shape them. Indeed, algorithms on social networks (and not only), according to Harari, can influence human behavior on their own, not because the authors of these algorithms embedded such behavior in them. A good example is the accusations against Facebook for inciting hatred in Myanmar, as the social network promoted posts that gained popularity, which were actually about genocide.

Secondly, Harari writes, “computer-computer” chains are emerging, in which computers interact with each other autonomously, and this interaction is rapidly gaining complexity, which can no longer be untangled without the help of other algorithms. Algorithms of this interaction were developed and debugged on volumes that were still understandable and could be troubleshooted, but then it starts “magic”. An example is trading bots and algorithmic trading in general, and for instance, the “flash crash” of 2010, when the U.S. stock market crashed by trillions of dollars within minutes, only to recover just as quickly. The causes of this flash crash were later found, but it was not easy (and there were several reasons).

#raufnexus

Unpacking Stalin’s Great Terror: A Critical Analysis | December 12 2024, 23:35

Reading Harari on Stalin’s Great Terror #raufnexus. Indeed, it is one of the most gruesome chapters in the history of totalitarianism.

Main theses and figures:

The system consisted of three branches: the state apparatus (1.6 million people), the party (2.4 million members) and the secret police (270,000 employees + millions of informants).

Everyone watched each other: the governor was under the supervision of the party commissar, followed by the NKVD, and the NKVD was divided into competing units. This almost completely prevented rebellions against the center.

Party leadership:

Out of 33 members of the Politburo (1919–1938), 14 were executed (42%).

Out of 139 members of the Central Committee of the party (1934) — 98 were executed (70%).

At the XVIII Congress (1939) only 2% of the delegates from the XVII Congress (1934) were able to attend, the rest had been repressed.

Secret police:

The system destroyed itself from within. Genrikh Yagoda, who started the terror, was executed. His successor Nikolai Yezhov was also executed two years later.

By 1941, of the 39 NKVD generals (1935), only two remained alive. One was executed after Stalin’s death, the other died in a mental hospital. It turned out that the profession “NKVD general” was one of the most dangerous in the world.

Red Army:

In the 1930s, 10% of officers were repressed. Among them:

– 83% of division commanders,

– 89% of admirals,

– 87% of army generals,

– 60% of marshals.

Exploring Information Networks and Governance in Harari’s Nexus | December 11 2024, 14:29

Continuing (this is part 3) to share the main theses of the new book Nexus by Harari. See previous parts here #raufnexus

The first part of the book explores concepts of information and information networks, examining them through the lens of memetics. Harari describes information as a tool that unites people and forms common myths or worldviews. Well, I’ve mentioned this in previous posts.

Moving on, he discusses forms of governance. Harari proposes a model where democracies and autocracies differ in how they manage information:

1) Autocracies centralize information, suppress dissent, prioritizing order over the pursuit of truth.

2) Democracies decentralize information flows, allowing for error correction and a closer approach to truth, even at the cost of some chaos. The main feature of democracies is the recognition that people can make mistakes and have mechanisms for self-correction. And it’s not just majority rule or elections. It includes various human rights and civil liberties that the majority cannot infringe upon. While different among democracies, they generally come from the same pool.

Dictatorships, in contrast to democracies, view the Center as infallible, weakening independent verification mechanisms.

He writes that democracies were long limited by small scales until telecommunications enabled the development of modern democratic institutions. Well, how do you gather people from a large territory, many of whom speak their own languages and live with local issues, knowing nothing about the problems of their neighbors, much less about the issues of an entire country or empire.

And that autocracy often emerged not because the ruler was so inclined, but because anything else technically could not work. Example — the Roman Empire. Without the Internet and media, there’s just no way to establish democracy there. Democracies worked in small Greek cities and even those with “asterisks.”

In short, without the media, internet, and TV, democracies in any sizeable communities are impossible in the modern world.

Harari believes that progress in AI disproportionately strengthens totalitarian systems by enabling mass surveillance and suppression of dissenters. In other words, AI gives less to democracies than to autocracies. Technologies often amplify the spread of disinformation rather than truth, leading to catastrophic consequences like Europe’s witch hunts or ethnic cleansings in Myanmar.

About social networks: Social network algorithms optimizing engagement provoke polarization and the rise of populism, weakening democratic systems. This is not an accidental outcome of the technologies but a systemic problem. How to solve it, Harari has not yet proposed, but I haven’t finished reading yet.

Harari provides an interesting example (although very well-known):

He writes that a far more ambitious project of totalitarianism could have been implemented by the Qin dynasty in ancient China (221–206 BC). Why it could have, and not was implemented is because there’s little information on the results, only the process. To consolidate power, Qin Shi Huang aimed to destroy any regional forces that could challenge him. Local aristocracy’s lands and wealth were confiscated, and regional elites were relocated to the empire’s capital, Xianyang.

Look what he came up with:

On the bright side — he introduced a new simplified script, standardized coins, measures of weight, and length. A road network was built, radiating from Xianyang (the capital), with uniform inns, stations, and military posts.

But at the same time, a very deep militarization of society was carried out:

Each man was assigned a military rank, and the population was divided into groups of five. People were not allowed to change their residence without permission; even sleeping at a friend’s required identification (remember, you had to register if you moved to a new city for more than 3 days in the USSR and early Russia?).

The official ideology became legalism, asserting that people are inherently selfish, requiring strict laws and punishments to manage them. Like in “Election Day 2” — “the people are wonderful! But individuals are crap!”

Confucianism and Taoism were banned, books with ‘soft’ views were destroyed. No relaxation allowed!

Literature criticizing the dynasty was confiscated, and dissenting scholars were persecuted.

Total militarization and the concentration of resources for military purposes led to economic problems, wastefulness, and public discontent. Harsh laws, huge taxes, and a hostile attitude toward regional elites exacerbated this dissatisfaction. Limited resources of agrarian societies and the low efficiency of information technologies made it impossible to control the entire empire. As a result, in 209 BC, uprisings began by discontented peasants, regional elites, and even officials. Fifteen years after its foundation, the Qin dynasty fell.

After a series of wars, power was transferred to the Han dynasty, which abandoned totalitarian methods in favor of a softer, autocratic system based on Confucian principles. Emperors of Han, like their Roman contemporaries, managed only key aspects of society, allowing regions significant autonomy. Full-scale totalitarianism remained a dream of ancient rulers, whose realization became possible only with the development of modern technologies.

(Reading on, can write more if interested. Just keep supporting with likes and shares (especially!) for motivation)

#raufnexus

Exploring Reality and Fiction in Harari’s “Nexus” | December 07 2024, 21:31

I bought a book by Harari called Nexus at the airport. Lately, his public appearances have drifted into something odd, and I initially didn’t want to buy the book, but I got engrossed in the first chapter at the store and ended up getting it. And just like that, the first 100 pages flew by unnoticed.

It presents a very interesting view of the world and thoughts and facts in general. I’ll be taking notes for myself, sharing here, in case you find it interesting too.

For example, his reflections on what information is.

According to Harari, information is not what informs us about things, but rather what forms connections between what is already in the brain, and Harari introduces a succinct description of this — putting things “in formation.” “Horoscopes put lovers in astrological formations, propaganda broadcasts put voters in political formations, and march songs put soldiers in military formations.”

In other words, information allows us to create a new reality where masses of people agree on the value of a concept or create new ways to generate information.

Information sometimes represents reality, and sometimes it doesn’t. But it always connects the dots into a network — this is its fundamental characteristic.

About reality. According to Harari, truth is the accurate representation of certain aspects of reality. Reality is objective, but complex and includes at least multiple points of view.

No information can fully represent reality because any description focuses on certain aspects while ignoring others.

This, by the way, answers the question of what history then studies. Think about it, each event had a huge number of eyes and ears connected to it, not to mention the brains that only complicate the information from the multitude of eyes and ears.

According to his theory, the main function of information is to create connections among people and form networks (religious, social, political, etc.). An example given is the Bible, which, despite numerous errors in describing reality, has united billions of people, creating religious communities.

Harari believes that technologies increase the volume and speed of information, but do not guarantee the growth of truth and wisdom.

In the second chapter, he writes about the importance of stories and about the balance between truth and order.

According to Harari, it is stories that allowed early humans to cooperate through “man-story” chains, not just through personal connections, as is still the case with monkeys, for example. It’s a complex thought, but the examples explain it: the Catholic Church (1.4 billion people united by the Bible), global trade (stories about currencies, brands, corporations, etc.).

Brands are stories that associate a product or persona with certain values or emotions. Example: Coca-Cola is associated with joy and youth, despite issues like obesity or pollution.

Harari introduces a new term — intersubjective reality as an extension of objective (rocks, mountains, asteroids) and subjective (emotions, pain, pleasure). The thing is, stories may not be (and often aren’t) truthful. But they create a reality that people begin to believe in. Religion thrives on this. Obviously, nothing is known about Jesus as a historical figure, but as an intersubjective reality, he is known to billions.

He introduces a “formula” for the balance of truth (laws of nature, incontrovertible facts, etc.) and order (political, economic, cultural). For survival, informational networks must maintain it. He asserts that often order is easier to maintain through fictions and myths than through truth. For example, the obviously “truthful” Darwinian theory of evolution undermines religious myths, which causes resistance.

Prioritizing order over truth can lead to powerful, but dangerous networks (for example, Nazi Germany). Accordingly, truth is compensated by different types of fiction: religious dogmas, national myths, legends, ideologies.

About fictions: Harari asserts that all human political systems are based on fictions, which help maintain social order. Recognizing fiction as a human-made construct simplifies its change, but complicates its acceptance, as people might ask: “Why should I follow this if it’s just a human invention?”

From the interesting examples — the U.S. Constitution, which begins with the words that it was created by people. This approach allows for its amendment. For example, it allowed the abolition of slavery with the 13th Amendment 100 years later. But the Ten Commandments, for example, begin with the words that their origin is divine. This excludes the possibility of changes, as any revision is perceived as blasphemy. For instance, in the Ten Commandments, slavery is recognized as the norm (the 10th Commandment only prohibits envying a neighbor’s slaves, but not the institution of slavery itself).

Russian tsars, for example, claimed they ruled by the will of God. Muslim caliphs relied on the Quran as the supreme source of law. Chinese emperors proclaimed themselves “sons of heaven”.

He writes that truth is necessary for progress, but it must be combined with fictions that unite people and that successful societies are those that use truth for adaptation and progress, but at the same time maintain order through inspiring and uniting fictions.

Should I share more of this? I’m already several chapters ahead, and it gets even more interesting there.

#raufnexus

(there’s more — click on the tag)