As a Catholic, I understood the reference to Avignon Papacy to mean the US will create a separate papacy, distinct from Leo and under the control of Trump.
I think that you are correct. I was looking for this in the comments.
At that period in history, the French kingdom (catholic) was at war with the Spanish kingdom (also catholic) and Italian kingdoms/duchies. A pope had immense political power because of the fervor of the people. If the pope excommunicated a king, he would lose a lot of power in his kingdom and all catholic countries would have a good reason to declare war. Hence, the strategical relocation of "a" pope in the city of Avignon, under French "protection".
I believe the threat is to "protect" a new pope in the US. Whether catholic (maybe other christian denominations) Americans would support it...
There are Catholics who argue that Francis and Leo are not real Catholics and will argue Trump is the chosen one. Some are my family members. I am as always speechless.
Yeah. Trump fits the definition of "the whore of Babylon" to a T (a sex maniac coming from New York) and not only they are unable to even imagine it, they think the exact opposite.
I hear similar from my own Mother. I don't know the extent of what she believes, because I don't want to ask, but there is a strong rejection of Leo among the American right. It seems as simple as challenging Trump to a degree, and retroactively finding justification for invalidating the pope. I suppose I could dip into her media diet and find out myself.
With my family members, it is useless for me to bring up the fact that Ratzinger/Benedict supervised the revised Catechism. They don’t believe in that categorically.
Individual contributors (ICs) who build and operate capabilities, the model, the intelligence layer, and the interfaces. They are deep specialists and experts in a specific layer of the system. The world model provides the context that a manager used to provide, so ICs can make decisions about their layer without waiting to be told what to do.
Directly Responsible Individuals (DRI) who own specific cross-cutting problems or opportunities and customer outcomes. A DRI might own the problem of merchant churn in a specific segment for 90 days, with full authority to pull resources from the world model team, the lending capability team, and the interface team as needed. DRIs may persist on certain problems or move elsewhere to solve new ones.
Player-coaches who combine building with developing people. They replace the traditional manager whose primary job was information routing. A player-coach still writes code or builds models or designs interfaces. They also invest in the growth of the people around them. They don't spend their days in status meetings, alignment sessions, and priority negotiations. The world model handles alignment. The DRI structure handles strategy and priority. The player-coach handles craft and people.
To give a sports analogy. The player-coaches are the coach who rose through the ranks and now gets to choose and develop the other players on the team. The individual contributors are functional specialists e.g., defender, halfback, forward etc. The DRI "own" specific scenarios e.g.: penalty kicks, throw-in at the corner etc.
I looked at the source code and asked Gemini to interpret. This is what it said.
What is "German"?
According to the website, being German is characterized by cultural patterns rather than neurological ones. It involves internalizing a specific set of values derived from the German philosophical tradition, including:
Precision and Order: A deep-seated need for systematic thought and structured environments.
Directness: A preference for clear, unambiguous communication.
The Moral Weight of Punctuality: Viewing being on time as a "basic moral obligation" and a sign of respect.
Kant's Categorical Imperative: The tendency to act only according to principles that one believes should be universal laws.
The site humorously notes that being "German" means you are "difficult to work with" in the way all serious, systematic people are, which it considers a compliment.
What is "Autistic"?
The website describes these patterns as neurological rather than cultural. Key features include:
Intensity of Focus: A high capacity for deep concentration on specific topics or tasks.
Difficulty with Ambiguity: Finding unclear instructions or vague social niceties (like "we should get coffee sometime") confusing or even distressing.
Literal Interpretation: A "literal relationship to what people say versus what they mean," leading to a refusal to accept confusion as a resting state.
Systematic Mind in a Non-Systematic World: Having a mind built for systems while living in a world where social rules are unwritten and constantly shifting.
The site notes that for these individuals, the gap between "how things are and how they ought to be" is a source of "constant, low-grade irritation".
You are, as far as this diagnostic can establish, neither specifically German in your cognitive habits nor particularly autistic in your neurological profile. You are something rarer in the context of people who take quizzes like this: apparently normal about it.
The map is interesting. I was a bit confused which one was the main route though. Is it, starting from Xian China, go west skirting the Gobi desert, then choose a mountain pass either north or south of Tajikistan, pass through modern day Iran, and finally to Constantinople?
It's not really accurate to think of a "main" route when discussing the silk roads. Different goods were transported by different routes, depending on the locations of markets and local conditions.
But yes, the chang'an<->gansu corridor<->Fergana valley is often called a principal overland route. Many of the caravans that went south of the pamirs would rejoin in Merv, while the maritime routes would often rejoin in a Mediterranean port like Tyre (during the roman period) or cities like Basra in the medieval period.
Just keep in mind that this map (and any other depiction) of the silk roads is necessarily incomplete. This map omits important areas like Kashmir because the authors simply haven't visited. Depicting the thousands of known sites is overwhelming, and the connections between them were often intermittent.
Unrelated. I found this China propaganda video depicting its interpretation of the Iran war entertaining. It talks about the “flowing valley of gold” the Hormuz Strait, the “white eagle alliance” the USA, and “white eagle gold tickets” the petrodollar.
https://www.ibm.com/history/sage
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