what if we change the game and all of a sudden the spiritual theory gives us technologies that are impossible with a theory that says that spaceime is fundamental

the answer is you can know it, but but you know it when you let go of all concepts and you don't try. If you're trying to get there, then you don't see what you already are.

through the lens of reality that you see the world and that you believe the world is what becomes the meaning of life

1971 – 5.15pm – UFO – Reflections In The Water (ATV Midlands)

poem Children Learn What They Live by Dorothy Nolte. There are variations of it, but the first line is essentially: If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

"What if Artists Were Your Strategic Weapon in the Boardroom?

Philip, Rey (Editor)1 Show affiliations 1. Theory of Ontological Consciousness Project Description This interdisciplinary essay explores a forgotten hypothesis at the intersection of physics, philosophy, and fiction: that consciousness is not a byproduct of matter, but its ontological foundation. Tracing this idea from Heraclitus and Plato to Schrödinger and Penrose, the article integrates metaphysical traditions with quantum models and critiques of materialist reductionism. It introduces the Theory of Ontological Consciousness (TOC) — a literary-philosophical framework proposing ψ̂–Φ interactions as the generative basis of spacetime and form. The essay also reinterprets empirical anomalies, such as those documented by the Global Consciousness Project, as potential signatures of an underlying field of universal consciousness.  For more on the Theory of Ontological Consciousness, visit www.toc-reality.org and follow new updates via Medium    -   https://medium.com/@philiprey.org

John Stuart Mill once said, referring to the different sides in intellectual controversies, they tend to be “in the right in what they affirmed, though in the wrong in what they denied.”

Let’s deepen this ability to hold paradox. Consider holding multiple physicaland temporal layers in mind simultaneously—when you eat lunch, such as aspinach salad, consider the connectedness of you, the spinach you’re eating,and the ground from which it grew. When you eat the spinach, it is no longe

what would it mean for the dollar to lose its position as the world's reserve currency?

This is Vera Papa Sova. She spent the last year dating far right men in New York City for a story for cosmopolitan magazine. They're the most insecure men I've ever sat down with. It was really difficult to have some of these days because they were so insecure, because they don't really know who they are, and they don't know how to figure that out.

Your design should strongly depend from your purpose.

Ask yourself what is the main purpose of storing this data? Do you intend to actually send mail to the person at the address? Track demographics, populations? Be able to ask callers for their correct address as part of some basic authentication/verification? All of the above? None of the above? Depending on your actual need, you will determine either a) it doesn't really matter, and you can go for a free-text approach, or b) structured/specific fields for all countries, or c) country specific architecture.

mindfulness can support all five clusters of transformative capacities

Jin's operation was based in China, and he used encrypted communications and cryptocurrencies to conduct his business. The investigation involved a team of agents from various federal agencies, including the DEA, FBI, and IRS, who worked together to gather evidence and track down Jin's associates in the US. One of these associates, Bin Wang, was arrested in 2017 and later sentenced to six years in prison. The team discovered that Jin was using a company in Tonga to ship his packages, and that he was offering a wide range of synthetic opioids, including carfentanil and U-48800. As the investigation continued, the team found that Jin's operation was linked to numerous death cases across the US, and that he was using his websites to sell drugs to customers in the US. The team eventually identified Jin as Fujing Zheng, a 35-year-old man from Shanghai, and his father, Guanghua Zheng, who was 62. The Zhengs were found to be operating a sophisticated online drug trafficking operation, using encrypted communications and cryptocurrencies to conduct their business. Despite the evidence gathered, the Chinese government refused to extradite the Zhengs to the US, citing a lack of evidence. The US government eventually indicted the Zhengs and shut down their websites, but they remain at large in China. The investigation highlighted the challenges of combating online drug trafficking, particularly when it involves foreign nationals and jurisdictions.

deal to distribute fentanyl in China, which marked the beginning of China's ability to produce fentanyl.

turning conscientious objectors . . . into heroes of the antimilitarism movement could unwittingly perpetuate exactly the sort of masculinized privilege that nurtures militarism”

archetype of the hypermasculine wheelchair-bound veteran dissenter.

The figure of the grieving mother is a collectivity, with women characterized as part of a population of mothers with a collective experience of loss. Their dissent is practiced through invocations of a dead or imperiled soldier child, who signifies the claim to associative military masculinity. In contrast, the perspective of the returning veteran is grounded in individual experience. The film depicts women as caregivers, with their dissenting subjecthood derived from their relationships with men.

this narrative of personal growth and triumph is complicated by the fact that Tomas's newfound power and authority are rooted in traditional masculine ideals. The film ultimately suggests that the military peace movement is shaped by masculinized privilege, which can be both productive and limiting.

White Ribbon Campaign, which originated in Canada and has a branch in England, is a group of men committed to discussing and ending male violence against women. However, there is a lack of groups of men in the anti-militarist and peace movements who analyze and resist the deformation of manhood by militarization. For war to end, men need to become self-aware and refuse the violence expected of them, and the association of masculinity with militarism. Some men, such as those in the Turkish conscientious objectors movement and South Korean anti-militarist men, are starting to listen to feminist ideas and take on board their perspectives.

hat governments cannot militarize without making women complicit, that wars rely on specific forms of masculinity, and that grappling with the militarization of women and men must be done together.

The party used stereotypes of Muslim men as rapists and Hindu goddesses to mobilize women's support, while also enforcing control over female sexuality and personhood.

No Pride in War (NPIW) challenged the involvement of BAE Systems and the Red Arrows in Pride marches, accusing them of "pinkwashing" and glossing over militarized violence by focusing on LGBT inclusion.

Sisters, formed an all-women and non-binary anti-militarist group to highlight the gendered politics of the arms trade and build solidarity with Syrian women affected by conflict.

opposing militarism requires resisting patriarchy, heterosexism, and racialized configurations of queer inclusion/exclusion.

OxyContin prescriptions for non-cancer related pain increased from 670,000 in 1997 to 6.2 million in 2002. However, it is essential to note that other opioid drugs, such as Vicodin and Percocet, were also widely prescribed and contributed to the crisis.

A man named Jeff, who struggled with addiction, shared his story of how he became hooked on opioids, including OxyContin, and eventually turned to heroin. He believes that his impulsive decision to try opioids as a teenager set him on a path of destruction. Jeff's story highlights the devastating consequences of the opioid epidemic, which has affected many lives.

2008, Johnny Sullivan, a construction worker who had appeared in a Purdue promotional video, died after becoming addicted to the drug.

The reformulation of OxyContin has been linked to an increase in heroin overdoses, as users have turned to cheaper and more accessible alternatives. Purdue Pharma has acknowledged the opioid crisis, but maintains that it has taken steps to address it, including sponsoring prescription monitoring programs and underwriting drug-abuse education. However, critics argue that the company's actions are insufficient and that it has not done enough to prevent the addiction and overdose associated with OxyContin.

1999 study found that 13% of patients who used OxyContin for headaches became addicted

This led to a shift in the culture of prescribing, which has been linked to the opioid crisis. Experts, including Andrew Kolodny, the co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative, attribute the lion's share of the blame for the crisis to Purdue's actions. The Sacklers' wealth has been built on the backs of millions of people who have become addicted to OxyContin, and their philanthropic efforts have not made up for the harm caused by their business practices.

Much later followup-

Private militias have provided criminal groups with greater mobility and fighting power, enabling them to engage in large-scale violence and seek control of criminal markets and territories beyond their home towns. The Mexican case highlights the need for democratic elites to reform authoritarian judicial and security institutions and to punish state agents who protected organized crime, in order to prevent the intertwining of democratic politics and the criminal underworld.

efectors from the state judicial police

The spread of subnational party alternation in states with drug trafficking routes and the proliferation of private militias led to the outbreak of intercartel wars. The development of private militias allowed cartels to contest their rivals' control over drug trafficking territories, leading to largescale criminal violence.

the state judicial police in Mexico became the main repressive force against political dissidents, and also gained the upper hand in providing informal protection to drug cartels.

In Mexico, the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy did not introduce major security-sector reforms, making the expansion of OCGs and the outbreak of large-scale criminal violence more probable. Subnational political alternation, particularly the variation in party alternation across subnational regions, can also contribute to the outbreak of criminal wars. The structure of informal networks of government protection for criminals forged during the authoritarian period is crucial in understanding this link.

political alternation and the rotation of parties in state gubernatorial power undermined the informal networks of protection that had facilitated the cartels' operations under one-party rule. Without protection, cartels created their own private militias to defend themselves from rival groups and incoming opposition authorities.

The Peña Nieto administration in Mexico proposed a government commission to spend $9 billion to combat drug violence in the most violent municipalities. The plan included longer school days, drug-addiction treatment programs, and public-works projects. The administration also focused on disrupting street gangs and criminals hired by cartels, rather than targeting top drug traffickers. However, despite initial gains, violence in rural Mexico surged again by 2017 due to Mexican cartels' increased involvement in the heroin market and the boom in methamphetamine production.

orrupt agents have been found to be in the pay of cartels, waving tons of drugs and unauthorized immigrants across the border in return for millions of dollars. By 2018, it was estimated that corrupt agents made up around 1 to 5 percent of the CBP's 60,000-strong workforce.

The US government provided funding and training to the Mexican government to fight the cartels, but the efforts were criticized for being ineffective and corrupt. The Mérida Initiative, a $2.3 billion plan, was launched to help Mexico confront threats to its national security, but much of the money went to private US contractor corporations. Corruption was a significant problem, with cartel gunmen killing over 2,200 policemen, 200 soldiers, and scores of federal officials. The cartels also infiltrated the government, with many officials being bribed or working directly for the cartels. The drug trade was linked to Mexico's incomplete transition to democracy, and the cartels took over essential local and regional administrative functions in many regions.

naloa Cartel, in particular, was successful in cooperating with the authorities, using informants to snitch on their enemies and leaking information to the US and Mexican agents.

The Mexican and US authorities employed a "divide and conquer" strategy in their drug war efforts, which involved exploiting existing divisions between trafficking groups and creating new ones. This tactic led to catastrophic consequences, including the deaths of many people who got in the way or were killed as suspected informants.

"narco-democracy" was characterized by a gradual and uneven takeover of the state by drug traffickers, with the taxed becoming the tax collectors.

In return, they received protection, with local cops blocking roads to allow cocaine-packed planes to land, federal cops lifting roadblocks to allow smugglers' trucks to pass through, and generals giving traffickers warnings about imminent raids.

Traffickers also paid off members of leading political families, including President Salinas's brother Raúl.

This "state capture" involved massive bribes, with estimates suggesting that traffickers spent nearly $500 million on corrupting state authorities per year.

nearly 80 years, the Mexican authorities had protected drug traffickers from prosecution, but this arrangement began to break down in the 1990s. The increased profits from drug trafficking and the decline of state power put the narcos in control, and they took over running the country's drug protection rackets.

elationship between drug traffickers and the Mexican authorities changed, with the power dynamics shifting in favor of the narcos.

Ethnic Studies came out of struggle and for the past five decades our discipline has always been in a place of contention, so whatever iteration of hate or misjudgement is not new.

US government also responded by developing the "kingpin strategy," which aimed to "decapitate" the cartels by targeting their leaders for execution or capture.

misconception of the trade being run by a few massive, price-fixing 'cartels'.

Poincare anticipated the frustration of an important group of would-be computer users when he said, "The question is not, 'What is the answer?' The question is, 'What is the question?'"

the greatest risk is always the bio like biow weapons

A single kill by drone, for example, involves anywhere from 100 to 200 people

The US government classifies any male eligible for combat as a potential enemy combatant, producing an embodied target of drone warfare.

This gaze is also productive of turning people into objects, classifying, categorizing, and making them knowable as potential targets.

The development of drone warfare is linked to a masculine framework of thinking, where the fleshy body is seen as getting in the way of war. Drones are presented as more reliable, intelligent, and vigilant than humans, and are seen as surpassing all human limitations. This masculine framework is evident in the way drones are represented as "just warriors," more humane in their precision and rational calculations. The relationship between masculinity and vision is also explored, where vision is seen as a way to signify a leap out of the marked body and into the conquering gaze from nowhere.

threat that drone warfare involves hypermasculine killing machines (Masters 2005; Manjikian 2014) or that it entrenches the distinction between “our” space and “their” space (Gregory 2011), either of which would make violence easier

Narrative offers a way to access bodily experiences, such as those of killing with or dying by drones,6 that are otherwise “impossible to reproduce” by those who live them (Wibben 2011, 44)

This can involve studying the experiences of bodies coded as women, gay, or of color in flying drones.

The experience of killing with drones can be both hypermasculine and emasculating, as operators are both invulnerable to physical harm and removed from the traditional masculine ideals of combat.

The technostrategic discourses of drone warfare also distance the use of lethal technology from its deadly consequences, using rational language, euphemism, and abstraction. The altered spatiotemporal experience of drone warfare makes killing easier, but it also raises questions about the masculinity of drone operators. They are often depicted as being in the domestic sphere, juxtaposing their combat experience with running errands for their spouses or coaching a kids' soccer team.

Drones are "genderqueer bodies" that do not track onto male-female, human-machine binaries.

The experience of killing with drones deviates from two main axes that orient killing in war: the home-combat and distance-intimacy binaries.

to reflect upon, to celebrate and enact Religio is to fundamentally enhance our agency, the disclosure of the world and our connectedness to it. And what else could be more valuable to us? What else could be more valuable to us?

it is phenomenologically impossible for me to Perspectively know what it is like to be dead, because whenever I try to conjure up a frame (indicates the smallest, central box in the diagram), “Oh, I'm in a dark room! But wait, I'm still there in the dark room. There's the hereness and the nowness… Oh well, then I'm nowhere! Well, then I'm just an empty…!” No matter what I do, I can't get a framing that has within it my own non-existence, perspectively.

their kids aren’t interested in the grueling work of farming.

Until some company or scientist says ‘Here’s the proof! We can definitely have a safety mechanism that can scale to any level of intelligence,’ I don’t think we should be developing those general superintelligences.We can get most of the benefits we want from narrow AI, systems

Over a 10-year period, up until three weeks before his death, we exchanged 150 letters. After Oliver passed away, I had to find a way to handle my sadness. So, I revisited all our letters and wrote a new book, Dear Oliver: An Unexpected Friendship with Oliver Sacks, as a tribute to exploration, letter-writing, friendship, and Oliver Sacks.

once I began to see in 3D, I realized how wrong I had been. My theoretical knowledge of stereopsis did not prepare me in the least for the experience of seeing in stereo. Dr. Sacks must have suspected that stereopsis would provide me with an astonishing new way of seeing, one that I could not even have imagined

I answered Dr. Sacks’s question casually, saying that I believed that I knew what it was like to see in 3D. After all, I was a neurobiology professor and had read plenty of scientific papers on stereopsis.

Yanis Varoufakis’s 2023 book Technofeudalism.

Did you know that learning about the time from just before you were conceived until after you were born, could improve the quality of your life?

cooperate with ‘the perpetrator’ empathetically

ape (or allegations of rape) became increasingly entangled in survival strategies, and in which women were encouraged to represent themselves as survivors of rape in order to establish themselves as legitimate recipients of humanitarian aid

"victim-appropriation" to access donor funding, which led to women representing themselves as rape survivors to receive aid.

It also highlights the importance of linking research on MSV to broader conversations on rape culture and gender-based violence, as MSV has been largely left out of international discussions and academic work on sexual violence and rape culture.

he analysis reveals that media coverage is dominated by five themes: military justice, institutional structure, culture, gender/gender integration, and change. Gender is a relatively minor focus throughout media coverage, with attention to court cases dominating the majority of the coverage.

Institutional gaslighting includes political strategies to resist critiques of the institution or discredit evidence that undermines the authority or carefully crafted image of the institution.

Military exceptionalism is shaped by ideals of "good militaries" and "good soldiers," which are constructed as necessarily white, masculine, exclusive, and reproduced through the regulation of sex and the exclusion of women and racialized groups.

the book unite with a singular message of justified inaction, which helps answer the core question of how the public comes to normalize, accept, and diminish the problem of MSV.

edia coverage of MSV is shaped by gender bias and "rape myths," which are prejudicial, stereotyped, or false beliefs about rape, rape victims, and rapists.

Across all global land area, models underestimate positive trends exceeding 0.5 °C per decade in widening of the upper tail of extreme surface temperature distributions by a factor of four compared to reanalysis data and exhibit a lower fraction of significantly increasing trends overall.

What is a realistic timeframe on which “the point of no return” should be understood muchbetter and its implications communicated?

participation in Pride marches blurs the lines between public and private spaces.

Neo-feudalism: few platforms of Silicon Valley oligarchs who own the US government and rule the world

To effectively combat the roots of fascism, it is crucial to integrate both horizontal and vertical decentralized decision-making structures.

's definitely a main reason when people receive love attention recognition they stop being fascist in fact there are a whole host of studies where people have consciously gone into far right spaces listen to people befriended them and then these people very often leave that space again why because they're getting attention and recognition

why do fascist men stop being fascist yeah you got it when they get a girlfriend

I would say the epigenetic inheritance that has to occur there and how it occurs must be contributing a very large fraction indeed to the differentiation process

1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was adopted by consensus at a conference in Vienna in 1988. The Convention aimed to provide more effective weapons against the illicit drug trade, which had become a growing concern due to the influence of organized crime groups. The Convention is an instrument of international criminal law, designed to globally harmonize national criminal laws and enforcement actions to decrease illicit drug trafficking by criminalization and punishment.

1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances expanded the scope of international drug control to include synthetic drugs

1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs marked a shift in the international community's approach to drug control, moving beyond simply regulating the production and trade of drugs to focus on individual drug users.

the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent transfer of the League's drug control bodies to the United States marked a shift in the balance of power, paving the way for the United States to play a crucial role in shaping the emerging post-war world order, including international drug control.

1990s and 2000s saw a shift towards a more nuanced approach to drug control, with a greater emphasis on harm reduction and public health.

1980s, the international community continued to grapple with the issue of drug abuse and trafficking, leading to the formulation of the International Drug Abuse Control Strategy and the development of new treaties and soft law instruments.

reflected the influence of Western manufacturing countries, which sought to protect their commercial interests. The 1972 Amending Protocol to the Single Convention strengthened the international drug control system, but maintained its prohibitive ethos and supply-side focus. The Protocol expanded provisions for treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention measures, but did not fundamentally change the Single Convention.

focused on regulating the licit trade, which inevitably led to the development of an illegal market.

1936 Trafficking Convention sought to strengthen the existing transnational legal framework, but its complexity and encroachment upon legal areas considered sovereign by many states meant it failed to win widespread acceptance.

1931 Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs introduced a proscriptive manufacturing limitation system, where parties were required to provide estimates of national drug requirements to the Drug Supervisory Body (DSB).

1925 International Opium Convention established a standardized import-export certification system to regulate drug movements between parties and included cannabis within a multilateral treaty for the first time.

international drug control system began in 1909 with the Shanghai Opium Commission, which aimed to address the "opium problem." The commission's recommendations led to the first legally binding multilateral treaty in 1912, which restricted opium use to medical purposes.

The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) focused on punishing users in the informal market, while largely ignoring the medical market. This led to a misreading of the situation, where authorities attributed the success of the medical market to the "good customers" rather than the more humane and effective policies. As a result, the medical market remained relatively invisible, and its lessons were not applied to future drug policy.

nhance the stigma of addiction and preserve his bureau's budget.

rise of heroin use

addiction as a moral failing rather than a disease. The law also led to the criminalization of drug use, with many people being arrested and imprisoned for drug-related offenses. The punitive approach to drug control was driven by a native-born Protestant desire to police and control non-white communities, and it was accompanied by public demonization of drug users and sellers.

African Americans in the South,

new drug crises were already brewing in both licit and illicit markets by the 1950s.

divide was fueled by anxieties about race, class, and sexuality,

esponse to the public health consequences of rising opioid and cocaine use in the late 19th century.

The Act was intended to gather information

Webb-Kenyon Act, which prohibited shipments of liquor to states that prohibited its sale. The prohibition movement gained strength, and in 1917, the House passed a Prohibition resolution, which eventually became part of the Constitution.

The public and congressmen believed that narcotics, including opiates and cocaine, had no value except as medicine and were associated with foreigners or alien subgroups.

n the early 20th century, the medical profession had a high rate of addiction, with around 2% of physicians being addicts.

practical significance of the law was still debated among the groups affected, and there was no general agreement on what would be the desirable or actual enforcement of the law.

The law was the result of international pressure, particularly from the Hague Convention, and was seen as a way to redeem the American government's international pledges.

law required records to be kept of all narcotics transactions, and copies of these records were to be kept by district internal revenue offices.

The AMA favored restrictive legislation, but also wanted to ensure that any bill had a maximum chance of passage. After several revisions, the Harrison Act was finally passed in December 1914.

Executive Committee to monitor the status of the legislation and make revisions.

he American Pharmaceutical Association called for a National Drug Trade Conference (NDTC) to bring together representatives from various trade associations to discuss the proposed legislation.

worked with Representative Francis Burton Harrison, a Democrat, to introduce a bill that would eliminate the use of narcotics except for medical purposes.

912, Hamilton Wright returned to the United States with the goal of increasing support for the International Opium Convention and ensuring the passage of domestic legislation to control narcotics.

The Hague Opium Convention was an international conference held in 1911-1912, where 12 nations gathered to discuss the regulation of opium and other drugs.

Dr. Wright believed that the Shanghai meeting gave the United States a moral obligation to appear with a clean slate before asking other nations to enact drastic legislation.

The resolutions included calls for the gradual suppression of opium smoking, the reexamination of national laws, and the control of morphine and other opium derivatives. The commission also recommended that nations not export opium to countries whose laws prohibit its importation. The meeting was significant because it marked the beginning of an American tradition in narcotic control, which emphasized the enactment of strict domestic legislation as an example to other nations.

he Shanghai Opium Commission was a meeting of 13 nations, including the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, that convened on February 1, 1909, to discuss the opium problem.

Dr. Wright launched a national survey to collect information on the use of opium and its derivatives in the United States, and the State Department requested federal anti-narcotic legislation before the Shanghai meeting. This led to the passage of the first federal antinarcotic legislation in 1909, which banned the importation of smoking opium.

in the United States, there was growing concern about the opium trade and its impact on China.

The US government faced opposition from anti-opium groups,

The US acquired the Philippines in 1898, following the Spanish-American War, and with it, an opium problem.

and its management in state-buildin

worshiped Pan Hu, a legendary figure, as part of their New Year's celebrations.

he treatment is anecdotal

"Miao albums" that were compiled by officials responsible for governing frontier areas during the late Yongzheng or early Qianlong periods. These albums contained illustrations and texts describing the customs and practices of different ethnic minority groups in southwest China.

Qing Imperial Illustrations of Tributary Peoples was based on direct observation,

China saw a rise in ethnographic representation of different peoples, including the development of a systematic ethnography of ethnic minority groups.

including external characteristics, social activities, and mental constitution.

closely tied to colonization as part of European expansion.

Eckhout's works are examples of this term because they are products of the period in which the genre of the ethnographic portrait was created.

Albert Eckhout, which occupy a transitional space between the national type of the 16th and 17th centuries and the racial categories that developed in the 18th and 19th centuries.

7th century, the representation of skin color began to take on more importance, and engravings of Africans and Americans started to suggest differences in complexion.

The chapter also explores the development of anthropology and ethnography as academic disciplines, which began to take shape in the 19th century.

embarking on the search for a completely different economic and social system. But what can this look like?

the way the brain works is the brain believes what it what it imagines

everything is part of a lar system right now that begins to open up into the realm of soul and what do we mean by Soul

we go from first person to second person to third person to Fourth to fifth to sixth person perspective those are actual cognitive structures

Emerson is, “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

co-constitution of masculinities and militaries is a key factor in their power.

hy military masculinities are the sites where boundary-making activity takes place, and Belkin suggests that it may be because nation-states and militaries are closely tied, and the military occupies an important symbolic position in nation-states.

male-male rape in military culture, which is both taboo and a means of socialization.

militarized masculinities may not just suppress the taboo or obscene but also incite and produce it.

militarized masculinities are about violence, but this violence is sanitized and legitimized, distinguishing it from other forms of violence.

hat intersectionality should be used to challenge the hegemonic position of men (and some women) in national military contexts, and to acknowledge the structural inequalities in global peacekeeping economies.

zebras unite

TLDR

China Sea as the edge of the world and is used to imagine the margins of the world as a realm of marvels and unknown dangers.

Benjamin's travelogue is a product of his imagination, influenced by biblical authority and rumors, rather than actual geographical knowledge.

Jewish utopia in the Arabian Peninsula, where 300,000 Jews live in 40 cities and 200 villages, free from the rule of gentiles.

universal Jewish community that despite its dispersion among various Muslim and Christian regimes still managed to preserve a strong sense of unity and cohesion

"a day's journey" to indicate close social interactions among Jewish communities,

rather a way to link places along a real but somewhat abstracted route.

medieval understanding of travel writing.

mprecise unit of "a day's journey" and the parasang, an ancient Persian unit of measurement

geography is experienced through human movement on specific routes.

literary grid that allows the author to reflect on the medieval world from a Jewish perspective.

The regime's discourse was directed not only at domestic audiences but also at international ones, particularly in the West, where it sought to project its strength and legitimacy through civilizational language that focused on barbarizing the opposition.

discourse of racial militarism to justify its brutal crackdown on opposition groups, particularly those with Islamic affiliations.

ecular militarism also plays a role in othering and excluding those who seek a greater role for religion in political and public life.

reinforce a masculinist nationalism through militarism

Syria's militarist state has been shaped by its experience of colonization, and its militarism is directly connected to the country's anticolonialism

The ideal masculine identity was tied to militarism

Racial militarism played a significant role in shaping insider-outsider boundaries of national identity, with militarism performing an exclusionary function within the nation-state.

The construction of the "Other" was also racialized

militarism, which was used to facilitate the transition from one epoch of human development to the next.

militarism is not only shaped by colonialism but also perpetuates racial hierarchies and civilizational anxiety.

The Periplus also describes the route from China to India, where silk was shipped by land via Bactria to Barygaza and then via the Ganges River to Limyrike. This passage provides evidence of connections between China and Rome during the first century of the Common Era. The trade links were significant, with many travelers focusing on trade, particularly silk, which formed an important part of the economies of several societies.

Zhang Qian's journey provided the Chinese with valuable information about the lands and peoples of Central Asia, and his report to Emperor Wudi helped to establish trade networks between China and Central Asia.

diplomatic mission to the Yuezhi nomads in modern-day Uzbekistan, led by an official named Zhang Qian. Zhang Qian's journey was a significant one, as it marked the beginning of Chinese travel to Central Asia.

Chinese princesses were sent to marry the Xiongnu leaders as part of the treaty agreement.

Peace and Friendship" accords, established a framework for relations between the Chinese and the Xiongnu that lasted for about 150 years.

he first emperor of the Han dynasty, Liu Bang, was a former official who had once been in charge of policing a section of the imperial highway system.

imperial courier network

The construction of a network of five great tree-lined 'fast roads' that converged on his capital at Xianyang linked the city to the eastern, southern, and northern regions of the empire.

The Chinese took an important lead in promoting travel, with formal state policy involved in promoting travel