by Reverse Engineer, Doomstead Diner
Discuss this Video & Article at the Diner Anniversary Table inside the Diner
Despite the title of this article, it has absolutely ZERO to do with Henry 8th, King of England in the early part of the 16th Century, despite the fact it was a very interesting time period, just predating the real birth of Capitalism which didn’t arrive until the 17th Century and the founding of the Bank of England by Master of the Mint at the time, Sir Isaac Newton. Yes, that is the same Isaac Newton famous for Newtonian Mechanics, his Gravity Equation, the Apple falling on his Head and so forth.
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His most significant achievement though was that along with the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, they simultaneously invented The Calculus. You know, that Math class most of you never took, or if you did you only did so because it was required and you hated it and only did the first year of it on Differentiation and Integration. Not so with me, I LOVED mathematics, and took many further courses in Differential Equations (known fondly by Geeks as “DiffEq”) and Partial Differential Equations (PDE), Matrix Algebra, Thermodynamics…yada, yada, yada.
It is Leibniz’ notation we use today, but all the principles are the same, and in Newton’s case, he applied them to the Monetary System of Jolly Old England, way back when. This maneuver essentially took England off the need to use Gold in transactions, and then enabled the development of Markets using various form of notes to do Bizness. Along with their powerful Navy of the time, this is what enabled the tiny island of Brittannia to leapfrog themselves over the much larger nation of Spain, which was at the time well ahead in the race for raiding the resources of the “New World”, including of course vast quantities of Aztec Gold.
In modern market terms,you can think of Isaac as the first “Quant”, and the Calculus as the first “Algo”. Anyhow, I will save this history lesson on mathematics, economics and monetary systems for another day.
This week though has many important Collapse Events ongoing which I might have written about or ranted on in a video. There is Impeachment of course, impending Brexit, Saber-Rattling with Iran & North Korea, Trade nonsense with China, Wildfires in Oz, the cross-country Snowstorm, etc, etc, etc. All worthy topics which we discuss all the time Inside the Diner. However, NO, I didn’t pick any of those topics to rev myself up to write and rant on, because there is a MUCH more important event impending here IMHO (lol).
In February, we mark the 8th Anniversary of the Founding of the Doomstead Diner by myself, Surly & our tech wizard of the time Peter Offerman. It has been an 8 year Roller Coaster ride here of highs & lows, good times & bad times for the Diners. Somehow though, we made it and we are still here reporting on the Collapse of Industrial Civilization. Unbelievably to me at least, we survived so far for 8 fucking years and we are going stronger than ever, now getting Subscriptions from our numerous Lurkers! 
So today’s Doomstead Diner/Collapse Cafe Sunday Brunch Special is an ANNOUNCEMENT of our Anniversary Celebration Week, which will commence February 9th and run until February 16th. I invite all Diners, Lurkers and Blog contributors to discuss aspects of Collapse with me leading up to this week, with text, audio only or video (if you are comfortable going “on camera”). I explain the details of how to contact me on this if you are not an active member of the Diner Forum in the above video, along with other details of how the celebration week will be run.
LONG LIVE THE DOOMSTEAD DINER!
SAVE AS MANY AS YOU CAN
Published on The Doomstead Diner 19 January 2020.
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