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In yesterday’s discussion of colonies, #AdamSmith was really good on a lot of issues—particularly on condemning murdering Indigenous people, despoiling colonies in search of gold that ain't there, and then pretending you're doing it all for God. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

 Today, Smithketeers, will not be such a feel-good day. You will not be heartened. You might want to pour a cup of tea. Or something much stronger. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Smith starts by noting that the colonies of developed nations where the “natives easily give place to the new settlers” get rich and cultured faster than anywhere else.

That phrase “give place to” cloaks a lot of horrors. (IV.vii.b.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
The reason colonies can do so well (for everyone but the Indigenous peoples, that is) is that settlers import the social, political, and technical know-how from the old country. (IV.vii.b.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
There’s lots of land, which means you need lots of workers and are willing to pay them high wages.
Workers + land + money ➡ kids!
And more people ➡ prosperity. (IV.vii.b.2–3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
You know what else is great for economic growth? Being very far away from the old country. Land gives scope to grow and prosper, but distance gives independence. (IV.vii.b.6) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
[It’s probably some kind of wacky coincidence that Smith is publishing stuff like this in 1776. It’s not like independence and colonies were hot topics or anything. @iealondon>] (IV.vii.b.4) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Spanish colonies were flashy successes at first because of all the plundering.
Other European colonies were less immediately splendid. Being less immediately splendid helped with the independence. (IV.vii.b.7) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Smith finds himself in the awkward position of approving of the progress the colonies have made in spite of his opposition to the "cruel destruction of the natives". (IV.vii.b.7) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
It takes a minute—#AdamSmith gonna Adam Smith—but he gets to the real point of this section: No colonies have made more rapid progress than the English colonies in North America. (IV.vii.b.7–15) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Why are the English colonies in North America doing so well? Land and liberty, y'all! (IV.vii.b.16) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
English colonies have good institutions, like minimal engrossing of land, minimal or no primogeniture, moderate taxes, and a wide market for their goods. All those things help them flourish. (IV.vii.b.17–21) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
A quick word on taxes, because our @collegeboard #APUSH exams didn’t prep us for this. Smith says colonies are expensive, and the English colonists have never contributed to the defense of England or to the support of its government. (IV.vii.b.20) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Smith also says that tithes are unknown in the colonies and that their clergy are supported by small stipends or by voluntary contributions. (IV.vii.b.20) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
(He’s probably right. He *is* #AdamSmith. But we, the SmithTweeters, had to recalibrate our thinking here for a bit.) (IV.vii.b.20) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Know what else is great for prosperity? Not being under the control of the East India Company. Unlike other colonies, American colonies could directly export many commodities: grain, lumber, salted provisions, fish, sugar, rum, etc. (IV.vii.b.22–31) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
And sugar and rum take us to the triangular trade, which Smith passes over in one sentence. 😑 You can learn more about it here. (IV.vii.b.32) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

https://t.co/7l6vzHdlm5
Smith provides (as Smith does) a long list of commodities the colonists were forced to send to England rather than trade freely. The goal was to keep the prices down so English merchants could profit. (IV.vii.b.34–36) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Colonists were allowed to trade freely in raw materials but as soon as anything was manufactured, even for use *in the colonies*, things got dodgy. Like. Hats had to be bought from England. (IV.vii.b.42) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Wool (the English are very. protective. of. their. wool. industry) can only be processed at home, not in mills. (IV.vii.b.42) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
These restrictions, says Smith, are an unjust violation of the most sacred rights of mankind.

Like. Sure. But MAN. He couldn't have said that about the triangular trade?! Especially since he compares these restrictions to slavery. (IV.vii.b.44) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
We just...we wish he’d done better. Even though we know he’s already doing better than the vast majority of 18th-century thinkers. (IV.vii.b.44) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
In general, Smith says, the policies of Great Britain towards its colonies are less repressive than most. #LowBar
Politically, they're independent: local legislatures, representative government, non-tyrannical executives. (IV.vii.b.50–51) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Now Smith is going to talk about the sugar colonies and about slavery.
Smith does not like slavery. He’s opposed for moral and economic reasons.
But he does need to analyze it. (IV.vii.b.54) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Sugar cultivation is carried on by slaves in all the European colonies. This may be because the work is so punishingly hard. But the profit and success of these colonies depend on the good treatment of the slaves. (IV.vii.b.54) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
[As much, that is, as it is possible to say that any enslaved being is “treated well.” He DOES call slavery an “unfortunate law”...but again. We wanted more.] (IV.vii.b.54) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
French planters generally treat their slaves better than English planters do because their government keeps a closer eye on them.
English planters, having more liberty, used it to be awful. (IV.vii.b.54) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Free governments are bad for slaves in two ways. First, free governments depend on the support of the people. Including slave owners (who tend to be wealthy and powerful). This makes it hard to pass laws to protect slaves. (IV.vii.b.54) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Second, governments can only protect slaves by arbitrarily interfering with the "property" of enslavers.

On both counts, this is where the focus on freedom in the English colonies is a bad thing. (IV.vii.b.54–55) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Smith's verdict? The policy of Europe “has very little to boast of” in the establishment, government, or prosperity of its colonies.
They were begun in folly and injustice and led to the destruction of harmless peoples. (IV.vii.b.58–59) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Even in colonies that weren’t established for greed and conquest, it was "the disorder and injustice of the European governments, which peopled and cultivated America."

No points awarded for war and persecution. #Good (IV.vii.b.61–62) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Even the best of Mother Countries has done almost nothing to aid their colonies’ success. The most they’ve been able to do is provide the people and the institutions they bring with them. (IV.vii.b.64) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
So we’d like to have had some ringing abolitionist rhetoric from Smith here, but that’s not his project in this work. He IS making a solid case that colonies aren’t good for ANYONE, really. We’ll take it for what it’s worth. More tomorrow! #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

More from @AdamSmithWorks

@AdamSmithWorks
@AdamSmithWorks
@adamsmithworks
Yesterday #AdamSmith said things work pretty well when people have perfect liberty to choose a trade and where to practice it? In this half of the chapter he specifies the ways people aren’t at perfect liberty, and whose fault it is. (I.x.c.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

And (spoiler) it's government policy’s fault! They restrain competition in some places, increase it in others, and obstruct free movement of labor. (I.x.c.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Many government restraints on competition are “as foolish as can well be imagined.” Like how coachmakers can’t make the wheels for coaches, but wheelmakers can make coaches. (I.x.c.9) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Lots of the rules he objects to have to do with apprenticeships, which may be one reason he’s not a fan of apprenticeship in general. (I.x.c.11) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Your labor belongs to you. It’s unjust for anyone to interfere with your sacred right to work. That doesn’t mean they have to hire you, just that it is a violation if a guild or government forbids someone from working. (I.x.c.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
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@AdamSmithWorks
@AdamSmithWorks
@adamsmithworks
Wages, profits, and rents have “natural rates” regulated by the general conditions of the society in which they exist. (I.vii.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

When the price of any commodity = price of rent + profit + labor + price of getting it to market, the commodity is sold at its “natural price.” (I.vii.4–5) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

And that all means the commodity has been sold for what it is worth—what it really costs. (I.vii.5) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

The price for which a commodity is sold ought to include a seller’s profit, because that’s how sellers pay themselves, just like they pay the wages of the laborers who work for them, who get their goods to market, etc. (I.vii.5) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweet

Nerds among you may recognize the concept of economic profit here: it matters to the owners of stock whether they could have done better by using their stock elsewhere, not just whether they covered their costs. (I.vii.5) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets #WeLoveNerds
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@AdamSmithWorks
@AdamSmithWorks
@adamsmithworks
#DivisionOfLAbor, we love it! Except it *does* make it a lot harder to provide for our own wants directly. We live by exchanging and cooperating with others. (I.iv.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

#AdamSmith is too smart to think all this exchanging and cooperating got worked out easily from the very beginning. There must have been bumps in the road. (I.iv.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Butchers could have so much meat to trade with bakers/brewers that they could end up with an unusable surplus of bread/beer. That stalls trade. Smart people would work to have a supply of an always-useful trade item on hand. (I.iv.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

(We, the SmithTweeters, have never encountered a surplus of bread or beer we couldn't handle. But let’s assume Smith knows what he’s talking about.) (I.iv.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


This is how we get money, folks! We want a stable, always desirable, easily stored, and easily transportable thing we can trade for other stuff! (I.iv.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
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@AdamSmithWorks
@AdamSmithWorks
@adamsmithworks
Today we're gonna talk about profits. They come from stock! #AdamSmith reminds us that stock is any resource paid for in advance when doing business. In general, profits and wages don't move together. (I.ix.1–2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

As stock goes up, there's more of it to employ more workers (by paying them or providing machines for them to work or both). This raises wages! But new stock competes with existing stock, which tends to lower profit. (I.ix.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

If you thought figuring out the average wages of labor was complicated, don't even think about trying to figure out the average profit of stock. Basically impossible. Luckily, the rate of interest tends to vary with the profits of stock. (I.ix.3–4) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Lots of laws have tried to control interest rates and stop usury. They've all failed to do either. (I.ix.5–9) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Profits and wages rising together is unusual, but it happens. In particular, in new colonies. (I.ix.11) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
TRADING , FINANCE
@AdamSmithWorks
@AdamSmithWorks
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OK. Chapter 7 of Book 4 of #WealthOfNations is tough going. It's long. It's serious. It's all about colonies.

We can take comfort, though, in knowing that the chapter #AdamSmith says is about colonies is, in fact, about colonies. (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


Colonies were a vexed subject when #AdamSmith was writing, and they’re even more complicated now. So, before we even get to the tweeting, here’s a link to that thread on Smith and “savage nations.” (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets


The reason for the ancient Greeks and Romans to settle colonies was straightforward: they didn’t have enough space for their growing populations. Their colonies were treated as “emancipated children”—connected but independent. (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

(Both these things are in contrast to the European colonies, as we'll see.) (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Ancient Greeks and Romans needed more space because the land was owned by an increasingly small number of citizens and farming and nearly all trades and arts were performed by slaves. It was hard for a poor freeman to improve his life. (IV.vii.a.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
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So much #FactCheckBait being put out by IT Cell today and so many people biting.

What is #FactCheckBait? Fascists putting out tweets or messages with very obvious rebuttal properties. So non-fascists are distracted by rebutting or fact checking them. And the fascists get more name recognition. What have the top sanghi twitter accounts done other than provoke?

Why are so many sanghi bigot handles famous & well followed on Twitter despite having no notable quality other than getting called out by liberals? Cos that's all it takes. If they can fool liberals into QTing or even screenshot-ing them, they become heroes and then are like


Another example of #FactCheckBait. This sanghi wants you to identify them while pointing out the very obvious flaws in their logic. This sanghi is counting on it to improve their visibility. Don't give them that oxygen. Call them out like this, without IDs, if you must.


As pointed out by @bongopondit, peak #FactCheckBait was Ted Cruz saying rejoining the Paris climate agreement was about appeasing Paris not Pittsburgh. He knows it's BS. He's an evil psychopath but not dumb. He wants you to QT him and distract from his insurrection efforts.
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1/ One year of destroyed economies, social isolation & deep social splits calls for an anniversary ⬇️thread ⬇️ to celebrate the RT-qPCR manuscript by Christian Drosten (@c_drosten) & Victor Corman (@vmcorman), submitted on 21st Jan 2020 to @Eurosurveillanc. #UnbiasedScience


2/ Before this very publication, virologists were neither treated like superstars, nor were they considered icons or half-gods. In 2009, Drosten almost succeeded in installing the false premise virology could supersede holistic medical sciences as discussed in this thread.

3/ Drosten is a virologist. He neither has any background in epidemiology, nor has he ever worked in the civil service. He also doesn’t have a background in public health. Yet he and his colleagues affect our daily lives to the level of whom to meet up or how to flush the toilet.


4/ Before January 2020, Drosten and Corman were common virologists at Charité Berlin, whenever they were not involved in economic implications (https://t.co/UTDwG8U7Du). Other than that, they looked at coronaviruses in dromedary calves in the Middle East or Africa. 😍 #cute


5/ Finally in Jan 2020, the published paper laid the theoretical grounds for the current pandemic, the RT-qPCR mass testing-religion, for which he was awarded his second German Federal Cross of Merit (he received the first one in 2005 for developing the SARS-CoV PCR test).
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1. Most people are aware of the fail doxes posted by Jamilla Moor on @Snakeeater36 and myself. I'm going to go into the details (in layman terms) of exactly how a specific group of duhnonymous idiots came up with these fail doxes & I'll prove that they're wrong.

2. @Snakeeater36 posted this screenshot on his TL. He had exposed the page source code on tweet which included an image. Anyone can do this in Chrome by opening a tweet, clicking on the image, then right click on any open space on the screen, select "inspect", then "network".

3. In fact I did the same by pulling up a different tweet and image. You'll see the IP highlighted in yellow and the region Dallas TX. It's not my IP. It belongs to Akamai which is identified. Why is that important.......


4. Well Akamai is a Content Delivery Network also known as a CDN. A CDN, is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers (make note of the term "proxy" servers) and their data centers. More later on why this is important relative to the fail doxes.

5. CDNs allow companies like Twitter to provide better performance in uploading content, like images, by distributing the service spatially relative to end users. Rather than pushing content directly (left), Twitter uses CDN networks (right) to push/pull images from end users.
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Demagogue_Bingo 🔶🌍🇪🇺🥛⚖...
@BingoDemagogue
@AuthorMonika No; we have been British here long before we were Scottish. British comes from 'Pritani' which is what the people here called themselves and the whole island before the Romans invaded.

When the Romans were here they Latinised this to Britannia, but also, for example, the Vindolanda tablets found at Hadrian's wall record the locals north of the wall as 'Britunculi' ' the little britons'

Looking at the post Roman period the 'scots' were Irish pirates who started to invade and colonize from the west. There has been a tribal split known between the 'British' - which covered the central belt where most of 'Scots' still live now, and the 'picts' to the North.


Now the latest research on the Picts suggests from their language that they and the 'British' had an originally common source and both from a same root proto-british language.


Then if you move forward to the Declaration of Arbroath - it literally says that the Scots invaded from Ireland and 'expulsis primo Britonibus et Pictis omnio deletis' - 'first routed the British then destroyed every single Pict'
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Two things can be true at once:
1. There is an issue with hostility some academics have faced on some issues
2. Another academic who himself uses threats of legal action to bully colleagues into silence is not a good faith champion of the free speech cause


I have kept quiet about Matthew's recent outpourings on here but as my estwhile co-author has now seen fit to portray me as an enabler of oppression I think I have a right to reply. So I will.

I consider Matthew to be a colleague and a friend, and we had a longstanding agreement not to engage in disputes on twitter. I disagree with much in the article @UOzkirimli wrote on his research in @openDemocracy but I strongly support his right to express such critical views

I therefore find it outrageous that Matthew saw fit to bully @openDemocracy with legal threats, seeking it seems to stifle criticism of his own work. Such behaviour is simply wrong, and completely inconsistent with an academic commitment to free speech.

I am not embroiling myself in the various other cases Matt lists because, unlike him, I think attention to the detail matters and I don't have time to research each of these cases in detail.
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THE MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE AND HISTORY OF SWASTIK

The Swastik is a geometrical figure and an ancient religious icon. Swastik has been Sanatan Dharma’s symbol of auspiciousness – mangalya since time immemorial.


The name swastika comes from Sanskrit (Devanagari: स्वस्तिक, pronounced: swastik) &denotes “conducive to wellbeing or auspicious”.
The word Swastik has a definite etymological origin in Sanskrit. It is derived from the roots su – meaning “well or auspicious” & as meaning “being”.


"सु अस्ति येन तत स्वस्तिकं"
Swastik is de symbol through which everything auspicios occurs

Scholars believe word’s origin in Vedas,known as Swasti mantra;

"🕉स्वस्ति ना इन्द्रो वृधश्रवाहा
स्वस्ति ना पूषा विश्ववेदाहा
स्वस्तिनास्तरक्ष्यो अरिश्तनेमिही
स्वस्तिनो बृहस्पतिर्दधातु"


It translates to," O famed Indra, redeem us. O Pusha, the beholder of all knowledge, redeem us. Redeem us O Garudji, of limitless speed and O Bruhaspati, redeem us".

SWASTIK’s COSMIC ORIGIN

The Swastika represents the living creation in the whole Cosmos.


Hindu astronomers divide the ecliptic circle of cosmos in 27 divisions called https://t.co/sLeuV1R2eQ this manner a cross forms in 4 directions in the celestial sky. At centre of this cross is Dhruva(Polestar). In a line from Dhruva, the stars known as Saptarishi can be observed.
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