#copt point

[librastrai]

Describing Egypt as majority “Egyptian” is being too generous. As far as I know, the majority is, like other countries you mentioned, Arab, and they are not the indigenous people (that’s the Copts, more or less). And yet, Egypt’s official name is the Arab Republic of Egypt. Nasser even made a United Arab Republic with some other countries at one point. Yet, it is Israel, which doesn’t even have “Jewish” in its name, that is the “ethnostate.”

yeah like. it's crazy how the indigenous minorities of these countries get swept under the rug & their cultures forcibly arabized but acknowledging that as colonialism (not "conquest") is the issue. not. the violent colonialism & religious suppression.

[irhabiya]

hey could I ask where I could learn more about the arab spring? I can’t find many resources and most of them are very American. I’m asking partially because my parents mentioned a massacre that happened at a mosque around that time, but I can’t find much of that? They used to study in Egypt which is why they were horrified to hear about the brutality those years ago. Sorry if this sounds disrespectful you can ignore it if so. I just want to better understand the unrest in Egypt that I assume is still ongoing today with Sisi

hi sweetheart <3 this isn't disrespectful at all don't worry

unfortunately i don't really have any specific resources i can point you towards that aren't riddled with usamerican propaganda or leave out key details but i remember reading this article from a while back and it was pretty succinct. read it with a discerning eye and lmk if you have any further questions about the points they raised

the massacre your parents are referencing is probably the Rabaa massacre which happened in august of 2013, the biggest massacre in modern egyptian history. military and police forces killed an estimated 1000 protestors, most of whom were supporters of the muslim brotherhood, some others were simply opposed to the military regaining power.

the main key points you need to understand about egypt's modern history, contemporary history, and the arab spring as a whole, are the following:

egypt had been effectively ruled by a military ruling class since the 50's. nasser's presidency oversaw anti-imperialist policies and policies favoring the working class, but he basically laid out groundwork for 70+ years of military dictatorship

anwar al saddat's presidency involved lots of dramatic changes to our domestic and foreign policies, namely privatization of many sectors, introducing neoliberalism to the country, signing the camp david agreements with israel

mubarak's presidency was essentially a 30 years long continuation of sadat's neoliberalism and corruption, things got worse by the day for your average working class egyptian

the 2011 25th of january revolution in egypt was sparked due to worsening living conditions, and protests igniting many of the neighboring countries. namely tunisia, where street vendor mohammed bouazizi self immolated in protest of harassment he had been receiving from government officials.

it's important to note here that even before the protests in tunisia, there had been dissent from the egyptian working class, many factory workers went on strikes in protest such as in mahalla

the 2011 revolution was not ideologically coherent, in the sense that everyone, from all different political ideologies joined in, from the Muslim brotherhood to leftist coalitions. this will be important for understanding why it fell short of achieving long term goals. it managed to force hosni mubarak to step down

the MB's candidate, mohammed morsi won the 2012 elections, which sparked a lot of upheaval from leftists, liberals and religious minorities such as copts.

in june of 2013, mass protests broke out against his regime demanding that he step down from power, the us-backed military hijacked the protests and enacted a coup which reinstalled the military regime with sisi as president. protestors of the new regime, whether in support of morsi or not, were massacred in Rabaa and other locations leaving an estimated 1000 protestors dead

it's important to note here that it was later revealed that certain groups which were involved in the 2013 counter-revolution were funded and backed by gulf states (mainly the UAE iirc, i need to fact check that though). there was a marked increase in organized violence from these groups (tamarod was one of them) out of nowhere and it all played out in the military's favor in the end, which isn't a coincidence considering who are their biggest allies in the region. i don't think this was covered in the article above

there has been unprecedented efforts of censorship in the country since then, a complete crackdown on dissent. journalists get jailed for tweeting things opposed to the regime all the time. egyptian prisons (which aren't exactly known to be the most humane) are filled with political prisoners. this current regime is the one the US and their gulf allies backed and endorsed, we get billions of dollars in military aid from the US in exchange for carrying out their imperialist interests in the middle east. as for living conditions, it only gets worse by the day for your average egyptian. most major cities are riddled with slums, inflation is through the roof, unemployment is high, most people can barely afford basic necessities, our infrastructure is in desperate need of maintenance and renovations, our economy is almost entirely financed by the US (even putting military aid aside), the UAE, and saudi arabia. and we're drowning in debt. we take imf loans like, every other month lmfao it's bad

a lot happened within the span of 3 years, this is all not to say that the MB were good, not in the slightest. but the US once again interfering with a foreign country's domestic affairs to secure their interests has resulted in nothing but devastation for the overwhelming majority of the people living here.

as for the arab spring as a whole, i think it's disingenuous when people dismiss its entirety as western backed conflict. even though a lot of it is exactly that (see: libya), especially in countries where the revolutions kind of bled into them rather than already having brewing tensions from working class people suffering worsening conditions. in tunisia and egypt, there was already a lot unrest within their populations over material conditions, which is why i mentioned the mahalla strikes. it's a shame our revolution didn't have more coherent, stronger socialist organizers, it's a shame it was killed and hijacked before we ever got to reap its benefits

[gatheringbones]

[“While Marxism-Leninism accorded to a surprising degree with traditional Vietnamese notions of government and society, there were elements within Vietnamese Marxism that appeared completely unfamiliar to Westerners. As scholars such as Pike and Zasloff of the RAND Corporation pointed out, the northern as well as the southern Party cadres seemed to know very little about Marxist doctrine. Few of them could explain the class struggle of the international proletariat against world capitalism or describe what their future society would look like. Even middle-level cadres tended to describe the programs of the Party in such vague terms as “land to the tillers” and “the abolition of classes.” Furthermore, there was a strangely moralistic tone to all of their pronouncements. Eager to show that Communism was essentially un-Vietnamese, Pike, for one, concluded that the People’s Revolutionary Party was not Marxist-Leninist in any philosophical sense at all.

To draw such a conclusion is, however, to misunderstand the place of ideology in a society. Like religion, ideology must rest upon a base of cultural, social, and economic conditions. Many Americans tend to identify Communism as the practice of the Soviet leadership. To do so is to ignore not only important ideological questions but the difference between theory and practice, life and literature. What is “pure Communism”? Which among the Jesuits, the Copts, and the Holy Rollers represents “true Christianity”?

In their awe of the French, some of the early Marxists clung to the debates and conventions of the European parties and ended by communicating as much to the Vietnamese as actors speaking in Shakespearian accents would to a twentieth-century audience. As Lenin and Ho Chi Minh understood, Marxism was not a dead language or a precise set of instructions; it was a theory that required translation into life. The work of Ho Chi Minh was to make that translation for the Vietnamese.

The introduction of Marxism into Vietnam and the development of a Marxist movement were attended by a series of far-reaching debates on revolutionary strategy. At various points in the 1920’s and 1930’s there were three Leninist parties and four Trotskyite factions in Vietnam, all of which took slightly different positions on the issues of the class struggle, of nationalism versus internationalism, and on the problems of alliance with the Soviet Comintern, the Chinese Kuomintang, and the French Communist Party. The Trotskyites in general took a “purist” line, opposing the Comintern and its allies in the Kuomintang, opposing an alliance of the Vietnamese proletariat with the peasants and the national bourgeoisie. For them the proletariat constituted the one true revolutionary class. The industrial workers alone were to participate in the Communist organization.

The curiosity of this line was that the Trotskyite parties were based primarily in Saigon, where there was no urban proletariat to speak of. The Trotskyites disliked French colonialism as much as anyone, but their very exclusiveness drove them to legal activities and finally to dependence on the undependable French left wing. By contrast, Ho Chi Minh’s organization — finally, a coalition of three regional groups called the Indochinese Communist Party — stood for the Leninist program of a two-stage revolution: the first stage a national rebellion uniting the peasants and the bourgeoisie under the leadership of the proletariat, and the second the proletarian, socialist revolution.

Allied with the Comintern and in certain periods, the Chinese Kuomintang, the ICP took what advantages the French Stalinist party could offer it during the period of the Popular Front. At the same time it continued to build, where it could, a popular base among all classes of Vietnamese. When the moment of opportunity came in 1945, Ho Chi Minh resolved this last tactical ambiguity. (And without cost to himself, since the French Communist Party did not contest the government over the issue of decolonization.) Abandoning the “Indochinese Communist Party,” the Dong Duong Cong San Dang, the name that spoke of French colonialism and a political unreality, he formed the Viet Minh (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi), the Vietnam Independence League. At one stroke he rid himself of French influence and class bias. His movement would be nationalist, but it would be nonetheless orthodox from a Marxist-Leninist point of view. The Viet Minh would carry out the first stage of the revolution — a stage that had no fixed duration, but that depended on the development of the various social classes within it.

Upon bringing the name “Vietnam” into the name of his party, Ho Chi Minh took the concomitant step of changing the phrase indicating “socialism” and his future social policy. For cong san, a phrase of Chinese roots suggesting a secular aggregate of individuals, he substituted xa hoi, a Vietnamese phrase linking the future distribution of wealth with the sacred communal traditions of the old village.(Xa Hoi Dang was the name of the socialist party within the Viet Minh.) The second alteration might also seem to be opportunist — was not Marx an atheist? But for Marx revolution meant not a complete break with the past, but rather the fulfillment of what was already taking place within a society. Ho Chi Minh’s new formulation merely reflected the fact that in Vietnam the proletariat remained a small minority. The first stage of the Vietnamese revolution would take place not within a secularly organized industrial society, but within an agrarian community that visualized itself in sacred terms.”]

frances fitzgerald, from fire in the lake: the vietnamese and the americans in vietnam, 1972

[samueldays]

Contra Yishan: Google's Gemini issue is about racial obsession, not a Yudkowsky AI problem.

@yishan wrote a thoughtful thread:

Google’s Gemini issue is not really about woke/DEI, and everyone who is obsessing over it has failed to notice the much, MUCH bigger problem that it represents. [...] If you have a woke/anti-woke axe to grind, kindly set it aside now for a few minutes so that you can hear the rest of what I’m about to say, because it’s going to hit you from out of left field. [...] The important thing is how one of the largest and most capable AI organizations in the world tried to instruct its LLM to do something, and got a totally bonkers result they couldn’t anticipate. What this means is that @ESYudkowsky has a very very strong point. It represents a very strong existence proof for the “instrumental convergence” argument and the “paperclip maximizer” argument in practice.

See full thread at link.

Gemini's code is private and Google's PR flacks tell lies in public, so it's hard to prove anything. Still I think Yishan is wrong and the Gemini issue is about the boring old thing, not the new interesting thing, regardless of how tiresome and cliched it is, and I will try to explain why.

I think Google deliberately set out to blackwash their image generator, and did anticipate the image-generation result, but didn't anticipate the degree of hostile reaction from people who objected to the blackwashing.

Steven Moffat was a summary example of a blackwashing mindset when he remarked:

"We've kind of got to tell a lie. We'll go back into history and there will be black people where, historically, there wouldn't have been, and we won't dwell on that. "We'll say, 'To hell with it, this is the imaginary, better version of the world. By believing in it, we'll summon it forth'."

Moffat was the subject of some controversy when he produced a Doctor Who episode (Thin Ice) featuring a visit to 1814 Britain that looked far less white than the historical record indicates that 1814 Britain was, and he had the Doctor claim in-character that history has been whitewashed.

This is an example that serious, professional, powerful people believe that blackwashing is a moral thing to do. When someone like Moffat says that a blackwashed history is better, and Google Gemini draws a blackwashed history, I think the obvious inference is that Google Gemini is staffed by Moffat-like people who anticipated this result, wanted this result, and deliberately worked to create this result.

The result is only "bonkers" to outsiders who did not want this result.

Yishan says:

It demonstrates quite conclusively that with all our current alignment work, that even at the level of our current LLMs, we are absolutely terrible at predicting how it’s going to execute an intended set of instructions.

No. It is not at all conclusive. "Gemini is staffed by Moffats who like blackwashing" is a simple alternate hypothesis that predicts the observed results. Random AI dysfunction or disalignment does not predict the specific forms that happened at Gemini.

One tester found that when he asked Gemini for "African Kings" it consistently returned all dark-skinned-black royalty despite the existence of lightskinned Mediterranean Africans such as Copts, but when he asked Gemini for "European Kings" it mixed up with some black people, yellow and redskins in regalia.

Gemini is not randomly off-target, nor accurate in one case and wrong in the other, it is specifically thumb-on-scale weighted away from whites and towards blacks.

If there's an alignment problem here, it's the alignment of the Gemini staff. "Woke" and "DEI" and "CRT" are some of the names for this problem, but the names attract flames and disputes over definition. Rather than argue names, I hear that Jack K. at Gemini is the sort of person who asserts "America, where racism is the #1 value our populace seeks to uphold above all".

He is delusional, and I think a good step to fixing Gemini would be to fire him and everyone who agrees with him. America is one of the least racist countries in the world, with so much screaming about racism partly because of widespread agreement that racism is a bad thing, which is what makes the accusation threatening. As Moldbug put it:

The logic of the witch hunter is simple. It has hardly changed since Matthew Hopkins’ day. The first requirement is to invert the reality of power. Power at its most basic level is the power to harm or destroy other human beings. The obvious reality is that witch hunters gang up and destroy witches. Whereas witches are never, ever seen to gang up and destroy witch hunters. In a country where anyone who speaks out against the witches is soon found dangling by his heels from an oak at midnight with his head shrunk to the size of a baseball, we won’t see a lot of witch-hunting and we know there’s a serious witch problem. In a country where witch-hunting is a stable and lucrative career, and also an amateur pastime enjoyed by millions of hobbyists on the weekend, we know there are no real witches worth a damn.

But part of Jack's delusion, in turn, is a deliberate linguistic subversion by the left. Here I apologize for retreading culture war territory, but as far as I can determine it is true and relevant, and it being cliche does not make it less true.

US conservatives, generally, think "racism" is when you discriminate on race, and this is bad, and this should stop. This is the well established meaning of the word, and the meaning that progressives implicitly appeal to for moral weight.

US progressives have some of the same, but have also widespread slogans like "all white people are racist" (with academic motte-and-bailey switch to some excuse like "all complicit in and benefiting from a system of racism" when challenged) and "only white people are racist" (again with motte-and-bailey to "racism is when institutional-structural privilege and power favors you" with a side of America-centrism, et cetera) which combine to "racist" means "white" among progressives.

So for many US progressives, ending racism takes the form of eliminating whiteness and disfavoring whites and erasing white history and generally behaving the way Jack and friends made Gemini behave. (Supposedly. They've shut it down now and I'm late to the party, I can't verify these secondhand screenshots.)

Bringing in Yudkowsky's AI theories adds no predictive or explanatory power that I can see. Occam's Razor says to rule out AI alignment as a problem here. Gemini's behavior is sufficiently explained by common old-fashioned race-hate and bias, which there is evidence for on the Gemini team.

Poor Yudkowsky. I imagine he's having a really bad time now. Imagine working on "AI Safety" in the sense of not killing people, and then the Google "AI Safety" department turns out to be a race-hate department that pisses away your cause's goodwill.

---

I do not have a Twitter account. I do not intend to get a Twitter account, it seems like a trap best stayed out of. I am yelling into the void on my comment section. Any readers are free to send Yishan a link, a full copy of this, or remix and edit it to tweet at him in your own words.

[tamamita]

Saw something that said there are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world and got curious and apparently there are (allegedly) over 2.6 billion Christians, which makes me wonder where the fuck they get the gall to call themselves oppressed or act like they’re the ones in danger of being wiped out, or especially to compare themselves to jews in any way (16mil)

Cunts, the lot of them

Because, taking branches and sub-branches into account, the population is way less. Christianity is not one large community of believers that adhere to one principle doctrine of the Christian religion and differ in many aspects, such as liturgy, theology, race, politics, culture, history and etc. For example, if we consider Christians in the Middle East, which consist of the predominately of Oriental Orthodoxy, such as the Copts and the Assyrians. then you'll realize that there are persecuted groups of Christians, as is the case with many Christians around the Muslim world. My assumption is that your prejudice stems from the filtered exposure of USAmerican Christofascism on this site.

As for Muslims, the same thing could be said there. 10% of the Muslim population are Shi'a Muslims and the fact is that they are institutionally oppressed in various Sunni Muslim countries. I think factoring these points and understanding the historical, political, social and religious context behind these groups, you'll see that it's way more complicated than generalizing two of the greatest religions into one homogeneuous group.

[shorts-wars-confessions]

ive seen people compare preston to shadow the hedgehog but i think hes more like metal sonic actually

theyre both dark blue direct copts of lighter blue characters. they both try to copy their original (albeit for different reasons). they both act as a close loyal associate to their main antagonist creator and the fandom headcanons then to have a parent and child relationship. and they both at some point go against their creator and get a new form and act as the final boss with all the characters in the story comeing together to fight them. i could probably think of more but im lazy :/

also theyre both transfem-*gets shot maria style*

Lol

[secular-jew]

From my friend Hilde Vertlieb, Philadelphia PA, USA.

Now for a little lesson in actual History

In 622 Ad Mohammed was forced to flee Mecca. He and his band of followers were forced out by the Egyptian Polytheist, who did not recognize Mohammed (who was illiterate), his religion, or his fake prophet status. (By the way, while Egypt did hold Jews as slaves, Egypt did recognize Judaism).

Muhammad landed in Medina. And studied Judaism. At this time he incorporated certain parts of Talmudic Law into his newly invented religion, in the hopes of converting Jews to Islam. But the Jewish tribes of Medina, of which there were three, never accepted him as a prophet, and his Islamic Cult was seen as a religion.

So after 2 year in Medina unable to convert the Jews he declared war on the weakest tribe. Starting with the Murder of Ka'b lbn al-Aschraf.

It was said that in 624 AD, Ka'b In al-Aschraf had gone to Mecca to discover why Mohammed was expelled. And Mohammed had him Beheaded. Al-Ashraf was Chief of the Banu Oaynuqa tribe. Keep in mind Judaism was one of the original Tribal cultures, and Medina was roughly 50% jewish, 25% Christian, and 25% pagan. But he was most threatened by the (then very peaceful) Jews and so began the practice of ethnic cleansing. Muhammad ordered all the Jews killed. But his ally Abdullah In Ubayy intervened. And the Banu Oaynuqa tribe was initially spared and exiled to Edri (now Jordan).

In 625, Muhammad attacked the Banu Nadir tribe. They were date farmers. But again Abdullah In Ubayy intervened. As Muslims were not farmers. They were exiled to Khaybar. But forced to practice their religion in secret. As Mohammed permitted no religion but Islam to exist on the Arabian Peninsula. They were kept as Dhimmis and forced to pay exorbitant taxes ( tribute) to Mohammed and Islam.

Back in Medina, only one of the three Jewish tribes remained, and they were the wine makers. And in 627, after the death of Abdullah Ibn Ubbay, he laid siege to the last tribe. This tribe was absolutely destroyed, driven by Mohammed's blood lust and hatred of Jews. The Children were spared but sold off as slaves. The women were also spared but given to Muslim soldiers as sex slaves. And then Muhammad had all the 700-800 men (basically everyone who exhibited puberty, so mostly 14 and older) decapitated in the Market Place of Medina. It was said the blood of Jews flooded the Market of Medina (Muslims now claim it was a mass suicide, you know since beheading is a common suicide choice). By 627 AD Mohammed had essentially destroyed or enslaved the entire population of Jews of Khaybar (now Medina).

After his death in 637 AD all the surviving Jews were expelled to Mesopotamia, which then the Muslims again invaded, and it became Iraq, and newly created Islamic Jihadis, expelled the Jews once again. The point is NONE OF THE LAND WAS MUSLIM, IT IS ALL OCCUPIED TERRITORY. FROM THE MANY CULTURES ISLAM DESTROYED IN THE NAME OF MUHAMMAD AND THEIR RELIGION. I say give it all back. Stop the spread of this malignancy. And push this crew back to the only ground they can claim, which was the area around a cave near Mecca that Mohammed crawled out of. By the way how did Mecca, the place Mohammad was first expelled, become Islam's most Holy site? Interesting question. because none of that region is the property of Islam. By my primary concern is the Jews. The rightful heirs to not only Israel but apparently, Jordan, since at least 624 AD and Khaybar, and Judea, and on and on. Jews were never the occupiers, they were the indigenous, the ones whose land was occupied.

And when they say Jews don't exist, they are European Colonizers, remember and remind them of Islam's perpetual apartheid in the Middle East that expelled Jews (and Christians and Copts), explaining the diaspora -- and how many Jews ended up in Europe and AS THEY OCCUPIED THE JEWISH HOMELAND. While we are at it, tell the Islamist-majority body of the UN to buzz off. Their phony partitions created this mess, by letting THEIR ANTISEMITISM GUIDE THEIR DECISION TO GIVE AWAY JEWISH LAND TO ARAB OCCUPIERS.

[like-tears-in-rain-storms]

Well, that's one way to commemorate the 29th of May, I guess....

I could say a lot about Greece's diplomatic handling of the issue, but I also won't be silent on the fact that Greece is the only Western country who has an actual foreign policy about not only Saint Catherine's Monastery in Mount Sinai, but also the rest of the Orthodox Christian-Coptic antiquities and institutions still functioning in Egypt, despite little-known, little-cared about and longterm intense pressure and harassment (which HAS reached the state of state-ignored if not state-backed terrorism and pogroms on the Coptic/Christian populations).

Christians, Coptic or otherwise, in Egypt have been there almost immediately since first half of the 1st century A.D. (in religious terms, immediately after the historical death of Jesus). That is a 2,000 years presence of the religion and its varying sects, drawn not only from the Greeks (also of ancient presence in Egypt) and Romans, but also of the Pharaonic Egyptian population. Their monastic presence in Mount Sinai can be traced back to the 4th century AD, and Saint Catherine's Monastery was built by Emperor Justinian AND Empress Theodora, in the first half of the 6th century AD. Since then, it has had an uninterrupted presence and been a seminal center for both culture and Christianity in the general Near Eastern area. (It has also been of importance to Muslims and Jews in the region, and considered a meeting point of the three religious cultures. But I won't let this fact obfuscate the core issue that this has to do with the Monastery's Christian identity, the supremacy of which has never been questioned or diminished in any way.)

You might have noticed, if you happen to have even rudimentary historical knowledge, that all this happend at their latest a whole century before Islam ever came into existence, a century and a half before the Arabs even got a solid hold on Egypt. I am mentioning this, because this judicial decision from the Egyptian courts, pendingn for years and fruit of a bitter and intense battle for the complex's ownership between the monks and the Egyptian state, as you might read in the articles above, is not at all unconnected to the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (the previous government, which was ousted by the current one of President Al-Sisi) , or the increased attacks and marginalization upon the non-Muslim populations, Copts among them the most long-suffering, which often takes the form of religious persecution and denial of their rights to religious freedom.

That, of course, has been met with the deepest silence and indifference by the wider world, but seriously one would have to be naive to expect something else of the "humanitarian watches" of the West, or worse, the Islamic states of the East.

Greece is at a very vulnerable state right now diplomatically, as its chief enemy and constant denier of its sovereign rights (denier of several historical crimes and at least four genocides too, but that's neither here nor there) in the region, Turkey, is not only networking with the states of the Levant (and Russia, and Iran, and the US, and Europe), but actively pursuing sensitive diplomacy concerning those sovereign rights with Egypt and Libya, hoping to basically divide economic and geopolitical opportunities in the Mediterranean by cornering Greece off (those who are familiar with the position of Greece in the map, will see why that's both preposterous and frankly ridiculous). I am mentioning this to explain, that Egypt is most certainly counting on Greece not reacting at this certain point in time due to the political pressures involved.

This is coming at the heels of Hagia Sofia in Istanbul being turned back into a mosque, which not only disregards its 1000-year old (for comparison, it has only been a mosque for less than 600 years) history as THE most important and magnificent church in the Romano-Greek Eastern Empire, aka Byzantine Empire, and Orthodox/Greek Christianity, but also led to the covering of its famous mosaics during prayer hours (including with lasers), some of them permanently inaccessible to tourists now, clearly compromising the archaeological and cultural importance of the monument.

Hagia Sophia is a Unesco-protected monument. Unesco did zilch to prevent or at least damage-control this travesty, except its usual lukewarm criticisms. In my opinion, neither the academic community's reaction has been satisfying in the least, much less the wider academic community's in Turkey, which proves that they are majorly politically-minded with their academic calling taking a backstage. I can't wait to see what Unesco will do for St. Catherine's at Sinai, also a protected monument, now that its monastic community will be ousted and its holdings and portable fortunes both seized by the Egyptian state. I did have high hopes for Egypt in the last years due to its innovative cultural politics, among others the excellent Archaeological Museum in Cairo, and its appearance of caring about the diverse and ancient historical heritage of the country, but to say this is disappointing is like saying the ocean is damp - its is both foreboding and enraging, and especially in a country which has had a negative record dealing with its Christian populations during the 20th century, like the little-talked about and propagandized even today as "voluntary" exodus of the Aegyptiote (Greek Egyptians, inhabiting Egypt since before Alexander's times) due to Nasser's nationalization policies.

I am just extremely done with a certain group of countries finding themselves being the curators of hugely significant and precious cultural treasures, stomping all over them and the world whistling away indifferent since no coverage is ever afforded these stories. Especially if those cultural treasures happen to be Christian ones.

[thiziri]

Princess Anne accompanied by her husband Sir Tim Laurence, visiting the National Coastwatch Institution Lookout at Copt Point, Folkestone, on 18 July 2023.

[beardedmrbean]

“You'd think the black community would understand how variations in skin tone happen in every ethnic group, all the screaming about colourism I see, but I suppose that may be reserved for people they don't see as white.”

My dear friend they can’t comprehend that Egypt was a huge trade hub so a lot of ethnics intermingle there much kind how people who have ancestry around Baghdad are mixed.

Also about the Jewish thing…I’m sorry for you guys think ancient people were always inbreed af?

I think a lot of black Americans in general are mixed, I mean I get red as fuck when I’m in the sun for an awhile or mad as hell. I’m pretty sure a like a Central Africans (where most black with slave ancestry are from) can easily spot us it been 400-150 years since we spent foot on Africa

I mean we can easily tell the difference between a white American who have mayflower ancestry to their British and other European counterparts

Also about Jewish skintones….

People know

The Jewish tribes

Intermingle

With the local groups

They settled down with

Well until they were kicked out, again and again

Also it why Jewish people can get TANS I think Jeff Goldblum is an obvious example because I could sworn he pale in some movies while tanner in others.

Not to mention we can tell like the whole Jew Afro thing I think….fuck I forgot his name, the chubby guy from the 21 jump street movies..like he look like a normal white guy but you see pics with him with his hair grown out you see his Jewish roots

Also yeah that thing about Prince of Egypt, oh you mean Jewish Americans eagerly joined an animated project about their people struggle which they can show to their kids and future generations for centuries to come? Vs the clusterfuck that it usually to get Israeli actors around that time?

Also since Rameses II is usually the presumed pharaoh that Moses called brother. And Ramses and along with his relatives mummies shows he ginger

It not rocket science to presumed that Moses and the other Jews were dark af because there had to be a reason why Moses was able to be raised as a Prince without suspicion

Sorry for the rant

My dear friend they can’t comprehend that Egypt was a huge trade hub so a lot of ethnics intermingle there much kind how people who have ancestry around Baghdad are mixed.

Interbreeding is such a bad sounding word for it, but it's totally accurate so ya, that's how ethnicities happen, Coptics in Egypt are a Christian ethnoreligous group. St Mark did his mission after the Resurrection in Egypt this is going to be one of the oldest Christian communities in the world and as far as I know the only one that's also a ethnicity too, Amish too maybe, since they pretty much keep everything in the group.

With the Jewish thing you'll hit similar as you will with the Copts, except Judaism is much older so you can't really pin any single skin tone to Jewish people.

The monarchy was abolished but this is Hali Salisi, last Emperor of Ethiopia and according to the Rastafarian movement the 2nd coming of Jesus. I have questions for Bob Marley.

Family claims lineage back to King Solmon through the Queen of Sheba, not sure how much I buy that but there are/were a lot of Jewish people in Ethiopia, bulk of them are in Israel making Judaism even more white than it was,,,,,,,,,

Pasty mayo munching crackers the lot of them, they need to activate their white privilege I guess.

The Jewish tribes Intermingle With the local groups They settled down with

To a point ya, in some cases it was unavoidable, still when you genetically test the two main European groups they come up closer to the MENA Jewish communities than the locations they settled in,

Not to mention we can tell like the whole Jew Afro thing I think….fuck I forgot his name, the chubby guy from the 21 jump street movies..like he look like a normal white guy but you see pics with him with his hair grown out you see his Jewish roots

It's called a "JewFro" not even a joke btw, you're thinking of Jonah Hill taller one here is Seth Rogan another of the hollywood types with the chosen hairstyle of the chosen people.

Whole VA thing for the most part people weren't paying attention to ethnicity till recently for the most part, Prince of Egypt is actually one that looks like a exception to that from everything I've seen.

also wat

Also since Rameses II is usually the presumed pharaoh that Moses called brother. And Ramses and along with his relatives mummies shows he ginger

Today I learned, granted the next paragraph is dissent to this one and we're not likely to ever actually know.

But maybe we can get some Scotts and Irish to adopt their own version of the hotep life, lmao.

It not rocket science to presumed that Moses and the other Jews were dark af because there had to be a reason why Moses was able to be raised as a Prince without suspicion

Probably not so dark, not in his youth at least. Up till very recently a tan put you in the lower classes because the wealthy didn't need to go out into the sun to labor so the aristocracy would have likely been lighter than the average man.

Now a tan means you have the time to waste laying out in the sun, or you like to hit the tanning booths or spray on places, whole other thing with all of that.

But I digress, he probably did look close enough that it wasn't anything anyone noticed.

__________________________

Something off the current subject for you under the readmore I think you'll like.

Keep forgetting to tack this one, mostly different subject matter, but if you do TikTok you in particular may get a big kick out of this account.

Not African Hippie Kenyan woman who came to the US, fell in love with a white dude, took him back home to meet the family and get married, in Kenya, traditional tribal ceremony and everything, and she has a lot to say

Easy on the eyes too.

I think this is called winning at life. Even with the 'Sears photo center' family pictures.

[vanilla-cigarillos]

Women in Alchemy

Like many aspects of history, woman have been widely removed from the narrative of alchemy’s history. However, this false narrative hides the extraordinary impact that female figures had in the world of alchemical practices.

Michael Maier (German physician and counsellor to Rudolf II Habsburg, a notable alchemist) named women who were able to create the famed Philosopher’s Stone. 

Mary the Jewess

A.k.a. Mary the Prophetess or Maria the Copt; Mary the Jewess was an early alchemist who became known from the works of Zosimos of Panopolis (Greco-Egyptian alchemist). On the basis of this work, Mary the Jewess lived between the first and third centuries A.D. in Alexandria. She is noted as one of the first alchemical writers, with her works not being dated later than the first century.

Mary is credited with the invention of multiple kinds of chemical apparatus, and is considered the first true alchemist of the Western world. She believed that metals had two different genders, and that if you were to join these two together a new entity could be made.

Axiom of Maria

One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes one as the fourth

Carl Jung notably used this axiom as a metaphor for individuation, and wholeness.

Inventions

Tribikos

An alchemical still (alembic) with three arms used to obtain substances purified by distillation

Still used today in chemistry labs

Kerotakis

Device used to heat substances used in alchemy, as well to collect vapors

Bain-marie

A.k.a. “Mary’s bath”

Limits the maximum temperature of a container and its contents to the boiling point of a separate liquid (essentially, it is a double boiler) 

Cleopatra the Alchemist

A Greek alchemist and philosopher active in Alexandria during the 3rd or 4th century A.D. It’s notable that this is not Cleopatra VII, rather this is a pseudonym for an unknown author (or even a group of authors). Despite her hidden identity, Cleopatra the Alchemist is a foundational figure in alchemy, her influence perhaps even pre-dating Zosimos of Panopolis.

Cleopatra the Alchemist is most noted for the Chrusopoeia of Cleopatra, a lone sheet document containing only symbols, drawings and captions. Examples of the imagery seen are the Ouroboros, an inscription saying:

One is the Serpent which has its poison according to two compositions, and One is All and through it is All, and by it is All, and if you have not All, All is nothing.

There are also drawings of “dibikos”, an instrument similar to a kerotakis.

Another is a symbol of the eight-banded star, and many believe the drawing of these star symbols and the crescent shapes above them are a depiction of turning lead into silver.

Paphnutia the Virgin

Living around the time of 300 C.E., Paphnutia was an Egyptian alchemist referred to in the letters between Zosimos of Panopolis and his sister, Theosebeia (also assumed to be an alchemist). Within these letters, Zosimos criticizes his sister for associating with Paphnutia, someone he considered to be uneducated and incorrect in her practice of alchemy. 

Little else is known about her, aside from the possibility that she could have also been a priestess. It’s also theorized that she was connected to a school of alchemy that competed with that of Zosimos.

[aimeedaisies]

Princess Anne accompanied by her husband Sir Tim Laurence, visiting the National Coastwatch Institution Lookout at Copt Point, Folkestone, on 18th July 2023.

📸 - Folkestone Town Sprucer & ITVX

[bijoumikhawal]

speaking of, did I ever kvetch here about the time someone on Twitter clocked that I was Coptic somehow and immediately accused me of being a creationist? Top 10 funny bigot moments

[ukge]

Geology Museums of Britain: Folkestone Museum, Kent

Jon Trevelyan (UK) Recently, I spent a few days on my own down at one of my favourite fossil hunting sites – Copt Point and East Wear Bay in Folkestone. As readers probably know, the Gault Clay at Folkestone is a marine sedimentary deposit from the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) period, consisting mainly of dark grey to blue-grey silty clay, with occasional layers of silt and sand (or put another…

[thiziri]

Princess Anne accompanied by her husband Sir Tim Laurence, visiting the National Coastwatch Institution Lookout at Copt Point, Folkestone, on 18 July 2023.

[ema078215]

Tourisme médical en Égypte. Opportunités et défis

Livres - Ahmed Zaki : Le tourisme médical en Égypte est un secteur vital qui contribue à stimuler l'économie nationale et à renforcer la position du pays sur la carte du tourisme mondial. Grâce à ses ressources naturelles uniques et à son secteur de la santé bien développé, l'Égypte se positionne comme une destination majeure pour le tourisme médical. Dans ce rapport, nous explorons les avantages du tourisme médical en Égypte, ainsi que les défis auxquels il est confronté et les opportunités futures pour le développement de ce secteur vital. Vous pouvez découvrir le tourisme médical grâce aux circuits en Égypte proposés par Cairo Top Tours.

Tourisme médical en Égypte : Avantages et opportunités de croissance

1. Diversité naturelle et ressources thérapeutiques uniques L'Égypte se caractérise par une grande diversité géographique, ce qui lui confère une richesse naturelle unique en termes de ressources thérapeutiques. Les plus importantes de ces ressources sont les suivantes

L'eau minérale : Présente dans des régions telles que l'oasis de Siwa et Assouan, l'eau minérale est utilisée pour traiter de nombreuses maladies chroniques telles que l'arthrite et les infections respiratoires.

Sable noir : Ras El-Bar et Ain Sokhna sont célèbres pour leur sable noir, qui est un agent thérapeutique efficace contre les maladies de la peau et les rhumatismes, attirant les touristes à la recherche de ces remèdes naturels. Le guide de voyage de l'Égypte recommande de visiter les sables noirs d'Égypte.

Possibilités futures de développement du tourisme médical

1. Coopération internationale dans le domaine de la santé L'Égypte peut renforcer sa position dans le tourisme médical en établissant des partenariats avec des institutions internationales de santé et en échangeant des compétences et des technologies médicales. Cette coopération peut améliorer le niveau des services médicaux et attirer davantage de patients internationaux.

2. Développer des programmes touristiques intégrés L'intégration du tourisme médical au tourisme culturel et récréatif est l'une des opportunités futures les plus importantes. L'ajout de visites guidées de sites archéologiques après le traitement peut offrir aux visiteurs une expérience touristique holistique qui associe les bienfaits de la santé à l'appréciation du riche patrimoine culturel de l'Égypte.

Le tourisme médical en Égypte est un domaine prometteur qui recèle un grand potentiel de croissance économique et de développement durable. En améliorant les infrastructures de santé et en promouvant efficacement le secteur, l'Égypte peut devenir une destination de premier plan pour le tourisme médical à l'échelle internationale. Cela nécessite des efforts concertés de la part du gouvernement et du secteur privé pour développer les services et maximiser l'utilisation des ressources naturelles disponibles. N'oubliez pas de visiter les attractions du Caire, notamment les pyramides. Et les attractions pittoresques de Louxor, comme le temple de Karnak.

Lors de votre séjour en Égypte, ne manquez pas de voir le monument le plus connu du Caire, la pyramide de Meidum. Outre les pyramides d'Abusir, il y a la ville d'Abusir. L'un des plus anciens musées égyptiens, le musée copte du Vieux Caire, est une autre destination du Caire. La plus grande sculpture en albâtre jamais construite est le Sphinx d'albâtre de Memphis. N'oubliez pas de vous arrêter au marché aux chameaux de Birqash, au Caire.

En outre, vous pouvez observer le Caire depuis le point le plus élevé, dîner depuis la tour et visiter l'opéra égyptien. Près de Khan Al-Khalili, dans le quartier Al-Hussein, sur la route de la mosquée El Hussein. Visitez le musée d'art islamique pour admirer les superbes œuvres d'art. Enfin, vous pouvez vous rendre à la mosquée d'Amr Ibn Al-Aas, la première mosquée d'Afrique.