Africa

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In the examination of African peoples, I have finished connecting African cities. From now on, I am going to be putting more emphasis on connecting Asiatic peoples and Western Civilization. Although I would like to develop African social mechanics, I need to develop the connections to Western Civilization and Asiatic peoples first.

The first step in a more detailed examination of African peoples is Eastern African peoples. For now, this involves connection to neighboring peoples of Southern Africa, Western Africa, and Central Africa.

Central East African peoples are being considered along with to Ethiopia and South Sudan

I may have already mentioned my choice of Kenya as a starting point. Although Tanzania is larger, I have chosen Kenya because of its more or less central location.

I begin in Northwestern Kenya, in what was known as the Rift Valley province. This is noted for what is geologically the East African rift, and is the site of Lake Turkana (formerly called Lake Rudolf). This has international borders with Ethiopia to the North, South Sudan to the Northeast, Uganda to the East, and Tanzania to the south. This has possible migration routes into the Nile Valley, the Omoe River into Ethiopia, and southward into Tanzania.

There are several neighboring former provinces. The first of these to be considered is the Western province, which borders on Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa and a source of the Nile River, and also borders Uganda. The second is the Eastern province, which principally an elevated region west of the Rift valley, and also borders Ethiopia.

It may be noticed that as I go smaller in geographic scope, I will give more attention to the nearer neighbors.

Oceangate Titan

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I was not particularly interested in the massive search and rescue operation when the submersible lost contact. I don’t have any particular sympathy for the people who died: Death is a part of life and will happen to everyone, and as far as I am concerned, they had the right to spend their money as they wished doing what they wanted. I don’t even particularly condemn morbid curiosity as a motive for the trip. That would be hypocritical.

I am concerned with the judgement nature has rendered on the CEO’s design philosophy and practice. We don’t know yet which of the many possible points of failure was responsible. Speculation has focused on the shape, composite material, and the possibility that fatigue induced by repeated dives created an unanticipated weakness.

However, we do know that the collective engineering experience of those who design vehicles at the cutting edge of technology for operation in hostile and poorly known environments was repeatedly ignored. We know that the designers took shortcuts in established methods of engineering, such as testing materials and designs to destruction in order establish safety factors for those materials and designs, and staying well within them, before risking precious human lives. We also know that the easiest person to fool is yourself. The CEO of Oceangate Titan was concerned that the opinion of safety experts would kill his dreams. He should have had more respect for the laws of physics. There is no mercy in them, and no forgiveness for errors made by fallible humans. If you ignore the laws that govern the behavior of materials that compose your vessel, the ocean will crush you. In this case, it has rendered an irreversible and final judgement that he was reckless and foolish.

Buzz, Buzz

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I’ve been concentrating the past few days on connecting peoples of the world to specific communities, working through cities of India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. The demand for African cities was getting to be too much to be put off.

Arrangements

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I have finally connected peoples of the world and particular Oriental cities, and am now examining South Asian cities. These may be more useful in studies of antiquity.

I’m still working on African peoples. African cities are on hold for now, partly because I still have a long way to go through connecting cities to peoples of the world, but also because in my development scheme, I want to get more caught up with elements of social mechanics. For Eastern Africa, I am familiar in general terms with the influence of Middle Eastern and South Asian peoples and the modern influence of Western peoples, but I want to make these connections more explicit.

Chinese cities

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I mentioned that for purposes of examining peoples of the world, I need to connect to specific cities. I have worked through cities of Western Civilization, and am now connecting to Asian cities, specifically those of China. I have gone through Southern Coastal China and South Central China and I am working through North Central China. For some time, China has been on the back of my mind, so it will be good to deal with it and scratch that itch.

Although I would like to get to African cities, this will take a little while yet. In the meantime, there are other things I can do with Africa and African peoples.

The Saw Meets the Work

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I decided that for purposes of developing history, I needed to rearrange my priorities from the largest peoples, to the oldest peoples. Oho! Aha! This works a lot better in giving me a way to begin at the beginning and coordinate my attempts at writing with my research in the knowledge base.

This does not mean that all is solved. Although I begin with African peoples, These are not as well as developed as I need, and there are still reasons to examine Asiatic peoples and Western Civilization first. But now I have a better reason for examining it besides “that’s the next thing on the list.” The single biggest obstacle to my studies at present is still connecting peoples of the world to particular cities. I now have links to almost all the cities of Western Civilization.

Now, for the beginning in prehistory. I find that my links to periods of later history are deficient, so I need to do some catching up and connect periods of classical and medieval history and antiquity. This should allow me to follow the role of different peoples in the study of prehistory better.

This also gives some new direction to my reading. Instead of just my own personal preferences in recreational reading, I need to learn more about the peoples I will be writing about. Using Goodreads as a reference source for fiction or nonfiction about Kenya, I have picked “Petals of Blood” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o. This would never have been my free choice, but as long as I am addicted to reading anyway, I might as well use it for educational purposes. Right? Right??

Ahead of myself

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One of the effects of my approach to the review of history is that I frequently find myself adding details to periods well ahead of the one I am actually working in. For the early 2nd millennium BC, I actually only have summaries of Egyptian, Anatolian, India, and Pakistan. Other smaller nations that were important during this period have only been pulled back and filled in for later periods. Things start to become a little more interesting in the early 1st millennium BC

I am still using the centuries of this period to prompt the development of history in general. This is being connected to elements of government. I am also developping other periods of antiquity, classical and medieval history, and modern history. These centuries are prompting the 20th century, 21st century, and early mid 21st century include more details of US states . Sociology in general is being connected to Asian religion, and peoples of the world to Brazilian cities. Western Civilization is still being connected to United States cities.

From the beginning

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No, I’m not starting over again, but I did shift from the “up an down the stairs” to the straightforward historical approach. This time, I have made it through the early 3rd millennium BC. This approach tends to be tedious and slow, because there is a lot of overhead: I am pulling subjects back through later centuries.

History in general is still being connected to particular religions. By now I am mostly through pagan religions, and before long, I should be able to move on to other topics. I am still connecting modern history to psychology, and the 21st century to particular states of the US. For peoples of the world, I have finally finished connecting Anglic cities. Although Antiquity deals chiefly with Asiatic peoples, for now it seems more useful to bring back Western Civilization through centuries of classical and medieval history. As I work forward through periods of history, there will more and more detail to bring in.

Trip, trip, trip

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Up and down the stairs. Metaphorical stairs…my heart doesn’t like the real thing, and I am thankfully living in a flat place where they are not a regular necessity,

At any rate, I was going through the connections of sociology to religions of the world and ran into some unfinished business: Namely, that I had not yet connected history. Ops. So I’ll put that on pause for now and connect history to religions.

The next step on the ladder is peoples of the world. As I it turns out, these are not yet connected to very many specific cities, At present, I am making these connections, and beginning with cities of the US. This will help in the next stage.

The next step is, particularly, Western Civilization. This also needs to be connected more directly to individual cities.

The next step is Western cities. With these, I am making connections to lower level areas such as psychology, the human body, and science.

The next step is Anglic peoples, those of North America, British isles, and Australia. I had been working on connecting these to institutions, but I have have partly diverted to connections to cities and other peoples.

The next few steps are Anglic cities, Anglo-American peoples and cities, United Stats and its cities, the Norteasthern US and its cities, down to New York state and New York City. Several of these steps need to be broadened, but I can at least get to it.

Oh dear

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Was my last post in January!?!? No, my dear readers, if there are any of you out there, I am not dead. I have been in a bit of a funk. My efforts to review my programing fell off, and I took about a month to explore Evequest. (it,l once again got too clogged and complicated. I have been working on broadening my Knowledge Base.

In trying to bring history to life, I have a distinct preference to begin at the beginning, in prehistory, so I have been trying to broaden the connections of prehistory to other subjects. That’s finally done for now. I have connected history in general to all the nations of the world and connected Western Civilization, communities, nearly all of social mechanics, and religion to other major subjects. I’m still working on getting government well connected.

I believe I have reached a point where I have enough detail to be close to examining Africa. We shall see what develops.