Everything you know about Pythagoras is wrong

A genuinely interesting article from the LRB about Pythagoras. Far from being the founder of mathematics, he was actually some sort of proto-L. Ron Hubbard or Shoko Asahara who used thought control techniques, arbitrary rules and far-out superman stories to convince his followers he was Apollo. Not content to abstain from beans, ponder numerology and speculate about reincarnation, his restless acolytes succeeded in seizing power in several southern Italian cities.

The article raises some interesting questions, starting from the interesting insight that the conventional legend of Pythagoras as history's first mathematician is in fact totally wrong. This was established by one giant and completely obscure book first published in 1962 as Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaus und Platon.

This raises the question: Why is it that so many significant discoveries in the field of classics are:

1. Established by one dedicated scholar?
   
2. Totally unknown outside the field by otherwise well-educated people?

Two anecdotes

1. The man we know as "Ivan the Terrible" is called, in Russia, "Ivan the Awesome."
2. William Wilberforce, famous abolitionist and opponent of the slave trade, was an opium addict. It makes sense if you know where he came from.
   

We hoped for the best but things turned out like always

Do you think this article will start changing their minds? I'm not holding my breath.

For more on the appeal of dictators to "progressives," read this.

"They thought they were going to get the easy A from old RoboCop"

Sick of being offered total bullshit like "Screamers," Peter Weller decided to upgrade his skills. So he went back to school to study art history and now he teaches at UCLA. I swear I'm not making this up.

Incidentally, "Screamers" was a little bit of low-budget Cancon, often available for your viewing pleasure late at night or on boring Sunday afternoons. It was filmed in Montréal, which in the mid-90s was a pretty good stand-in for a deserted, fly-blown nuclear wasteland, at least in parts of the downtown. Now, not so much. The most memorable part of the film for me was how the screenwriters managed to have their main characters smoke in the movie. They dyed the cigarettes red and claimed they were necessary to prevent radiation poisoning. This was patiently explained in a totally superflorous conversation between Weller and his co-star, whoever that was.

The Use of Knowledge in Society

A fascinating, faaascinating article about, uh, ice shortages after a hurricane in North Carolina from Michael Munger. It's got everything you need - a gratuitous mention of the awesomest-sounding cape in America (Cape Fear), rednecks, chainsaws, and the po-lice. Yeehaw!

"Vegetable Oil Mogul Hit With RPG"

For amazing crime stories, you can't beat the "Crime Watch" section of the Moscow Times. The stories of gangland killings, stabbings, rapes, arson and general calamity are entertaining in themselves, but what really keeps me reading them are the little gruesome details that are uniquely Russian. For your delectation:

• Filmmaker Murdered, Flushed Down Toilet
• Girl, 15, Kills Attacker With His Own Knife
• Man Killed By Grenade Detonated In Pocket
• Former Pilot Accused of Hawking Illicit Wine
• Landlord Dismembered 2 Victims
• Vegetable Oil Mogul Hit With RPG

It's impossible to cheat an honest man

Predictably, the Enron scandal generated more heat than light. A large company with scores of investors went bust, wiping out the savings of little guys and giving big companies who loaned to Enron a scare. The affaire Enron provided a convenient cudgel for populist politicians, who held the company up as an example of cowboy capitalism. Their analysis of the collapse blamed the greed of Enron's upper management, claiming that executives like Ken Lay, Andrew Fastow and Jeffrey Skilling had lied to investors about the financial health of the company and the numerous "special purpose entities" used to conceal a dwindling cash flow. The result of all the fallout was the massive (and massively expensive) Sarbanes–Oxley act, which attempts to smoke out "corporate criminals" by generating massive amounts of paperwork.

This analysis makes for a tidy narrative. It has all we want in a story: the (now lost) state of grace, the evil villains, the clear-cut crime and the well-deserved punishment. However, as this fascinating article by Malcolm Gladwell explains, this narrative is totally wrong and the conclusions it draws - about investors as well as executives - is completely misleading.

All the information about Enron's side deals, its "special purpose entities," its cashflow and its liabilities was right there, in black and white. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the story of Enron's dwindling cash flow derived all his information from publicly-available filings that any investor could request. There was no real deception- and no heroic digging for the truth. The signs that something was horribly wrong were all there for anybody to see - if they wanted to see it.

Every once in a while, scandals like Bre-X and Enron come along. And we all pretend to be shocked, shocked when the inevitable happens. But who is fooling who? The investors who lost their shirts were looking to make a quick buck without understanding anything about the company they invested in and their curiosity was drowned under a spirit of boosterism and avarice. Their investing behaviour resembled taking a flyer on the ponies rather than a business activity.

"You can't cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump."