A series on The Disruptive Dependency Theory -- Part 2

 In my previous post, I had offered some introductory comments on the Disruptive Dependency Theory. I reproduce them below.

The Disruptive Dependency Theory states that the world can be viewed in terms of “core” and “periphery” nations. Thus, there is a "core" set of nations in the world that are strong and a "periphery" that is relatively weak. I have stated before that this has been the state of the world since the end of the Second World War, and this is primarily because the models under development are stable because many assumptions can be made about the world since 1945.

The nations in the "core" are the strong nations. This includes the United States, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom. What constitutes the "periphery" is a bit nebulous, but certainly the weakest nations such as island nations (Vanuatu, Togo, Jamaica, Antigua & Barbuda) belong the periphery. However, I would hasten to add that this has actually described the state of the world for a long while before that, viz., since the Advent of Agriculture. The nations in the core use the following to exert their influence on the nations in the periphery: (a) political strategies; (b) economic strategies; (c) social and cultural strategies; (d) technological strategies. It is important to note that this sort of modelling of the world by dividing it into “strong states” and “weak states” should not be interpreted as a model that only applies to World Politics, post-1945. In fact, this has been the underlying logic from much further back – from the advent of Agriculture itself.

This material is cut-and-pasted from a Teaching Note I had prepared for a class on Leadership. Please make necessary adjustments mentally if the phrase "this Teaching Document" appears anywhere. Let us continue. 

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Indeed, it is the shift from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to that of the agriculturalist that led to this model. It is this shift that led to the greater differentiation of the members of the species Homo Sapiens into the categories of “weak” and “strong”. With agriculture came: (a) the need to demarcate farms and protect their boundaries – from both members of the species Homo Sapiens as well as the members of other species of animals; (b) the need to protect one’s farmland through the course of the growth of the crops planted; and (c) the need to protect one’s harvest(s) from other human beings and from animals.

A photograph of Queen Victoria, Queen of 

the "United" Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

In this post, I discuss among other things: (a) how reliable ChatGPT is, in terms of fact checking history; (b) the problems with using ChatGPT to write history; (c) how colonial historians have often deliberately misinterpreted history; and (d) whether Niall Ferguson could be plausibly considered an early edition, “wetware” version of ChatGPT. Part (d) is the most entertaining part. On this point, I actually find for the claim. That is, it can be fairly concluded from this discussion that Niall Ferguson’s conclusions on the effects of the British Empire cannot be assigned any credibility, just like ChatGPT; however, his prose has the redeeming quality that it is likely to be grammatically correct. 

 

 

Using ChatGPT to generate words and phrase not present in the English but only in other languages

 

There are many words for which there are no exact translations into English. I wanted ChatGPT to get me a few words like that on the topic of money, and here are a few examples, courtesy ChatGPT and my Googling:

A1. "Schadenfreude" (German) - This word refers to the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction that one derives from another person's misfortune or failure. It is sometimes used to describe the feeling of satisfaction that one might feel when someone who owes them money is unable to repay it.

A2. "Seigneur-terrasse" (French) - one who spends much time but little money in a cafe. Literally, a terrace lord.

A3. "Kintsugi" (Japanese) - This word refers to the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, silver, or platinum. It is often used metaphorically to describe the process of repairing and improving one's financial situation after experiencing a setback or hardship.

A4. "Dar mico" (Carribean Spanish) to consume without paying.

A5. "Fika" (Swedish) - This word refers to a coffee break that is often accompanied by pastries or snacks. While not directly related to money, it is often used to describe a social activity that is done without spending a lot of money.

Let us review that output. I would agree and concur if anyone said that many of these words are only tangentially about money, and, in fact, the one phrase that is actually about money is the one I got out of my collection, viz., "Dar mico". Let us give ChatGPT another spin. In the next section follow a few more words. Again, courtesy ChatGPT, mostly, and again supposedly on the topic of money.

B1. Zechreller (German) someone who leaves without paying the bill

B2. "Hygge" (Danish) - This word refers to a feeling of coziness, warmth, and contentment. It is often used to describe a lifestyle that values simple pleasures and experiences over material possessions.

B3. Piottaro (Italian) - One who carries very little cash.

B4. "Saudade" (Portuguese) - This word refers to a feeling of nostalgic longing or melancholy. While not directly related to money, it is often used to describe the feeling of missing a time in one's life when they were financially secure or had a higher standard of living.

Now, reviewing that output once again, B1 and B3 were from my collection. The others are by ChatGPT. Note that the ones by ChatGPT are actually not quite about money. This tells you something about some of the limitations of ChatGPT. 

If you are writing a book about words not found in English but only in other languages, a lot of the grunt work has to be done by you, since you cannot at all be certain whether what ChatGPT outputted is somewhat correct, somewhat wrong or even mostly wrong. Also, since you are often working with multiple languages and since you don’t know some of the other languages in question, you have to rely on the word of other writers.

 

“An honest intellectual must admit to their areas of ignorance”

Now, consider the following proposition. An honest intellectual must admit to their areas of ignorance. That is, they should admit to not knowing things they do not know, but this is only significant to the extent that affects the interpretation of one’s intellectual output. The significance of such an acknowledgement preceding or succeeding one’s work varies from field to field. Such a need is felt the least in mathematics. Thus, Donald Knuth need not admit virtually anything about what he doesn’t know since, as a mathematician and as a computer scientist, there is little that he publishes that is fundamentally affected even by his choice of language, viz., English. There is slightly more need in the sciences, but still not much needs to be admitted by way of lack of knowledge in areas from optics to statics to dynamics.

But this is not the case with the humanities. For it is in the humanities that biases can swiftly creep in unnoticed. And there is probably no area where one has to be more careful about bias than the “inglorious” history of the British Empire. Historians of British history have routinely wrote the narrative favoring the Empire and, often, specifically the Current King or Queen, viz., the monarch reigning at that given point of time. Since the British Royal Family has always frowned upon negative interpretation of not only themselves but even their ancestors, one does not expect to find that every historian would produce a version of the history of the British Royal Family or the history of the British Empire that goes into detail about the suffering imposed by the Empire on the colonized.