Positive crankcase ventilation regulator valve performance

Laparoscopic surgery, also known as minimally invasive surgery, has revolutionized the field of surgery by allowing surgeons to perform complex procedures through small incisions. One of the crucial steps in laparoscopic surgery is the creation of a pneumoperitoneum, which involves filling the abdominal cavity with carbon dioxide gas. This creates a workspace for the surgeon, enabling clear visualization and manipulation of the internal organs. However, establishing a safe pneumoperitoneum requires careful consideration and adherence to specific techniques to minimize complications and ensure patient safety.
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The first and foremost consideration in establishing a safe pneumoperitoneum is patient positioning. Proper positioning is crucial for both patient comfort and the surgeon's ability to access the surgical site. The patient is typically placed in a supine position on the operating table, with a slight Trendelenburg tilt to allow the abdominal organs to fall away from the diaphragm. Proper padding and securing of the patient's extremities are also essential to prevent nerve injuries and maintain stability during the procedure.
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Once the patient is adequately positioned, the surgeon selects the entry site for the initial trocar insertion. The most common entry point is the umbilicus, as it provides a central access point to the abdominal cavity. Prior to trocar insertion, local anesthesia is administered to minimize discomfort. Special care should be taken to avoid blood vessels, major organs, and previous surgical scars during trocar placement to prevent injuries.
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Next, the pneumoperitoneum is established by insufflating the abdominal cavity with carbon dioxide gas. This is typically achieved using a Veress needle or a direct trocar insertion technique. The Veress needle technique involves inserting a sharp, spring-loaded needle into the abdominal cavity, followed by the insufflation of gas. The direct trocar insertion technique involves inserting the trocar directly into the abdomen under direct visualization. Both methods have their advantages and potential complications, and the surgeon must choose the appropriate technique based on patient factors and the surgical procedure being performed.
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During gas insufflation, it is crucial to monitor the intra-abdominal pressure (IAP). Excessive pressure can lead to adverse effects such as cardiovascular and respiratory compromise, as well as organ injury. The recommended IAP for most laparoscopic procedures is around 12-15 mmHg. Monitoring devices, such as a pressure transducer connected to the insufflator, are used to continuously measure, and regulate the pressure. It is essential to ensure that the gas flow is regulated and adjusted to maintain the desired pressure within safe limits.
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Another important consideration is the choice of gas used for insufflation. Carbon dioxide is the preferred gas due to its non-flammability, rapid absorption, and minimal risk of embolism. Alternative gases, such as nitrous oxide or air, should be avoided as they can lead to serious complications.
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To minimize the risk of complications associated with pneumoperitoneum, it is essential to maintain a clear visual field throughout the procedure. This is achieved by continuous evacuation of smoke and condensation from the laparoscopic instruments. The use of appropriate suction and smoke evacuation systems is crucial to prevent obscuring the surgeon's view and to minimize the risk of thermal injury from electrocautery devices.
In conclusion, establishing a safe pneumoperitoneum is a critical step in laparoscopic surgery. Patient positioning, careful trocar insertion, monitoring of intra-abdominal pressure, and maintaining a clear visual field are essential elements of this process. Surgeons must adhere to established techniques and guidelines to minimize complications and ensure patient safety. By prioritizing patient well-being and employing best practices, laparoscopic surgeons can optimize outcomes and provide the benefits of minimally invasive surgery to their patients.
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#LaparoscopicSurgery #PatientSafety #MinimallyInvasive #Pneumoperitoneum #SurgicalTechniques #HealthcareHeroes #laparoscopic #surgery #laparoscopy #doctor #surgeon #laparoscopicsurgeon #endoscopy #hospital #laparoscopia #surgical #medical #gynecology #surgicalinstruments #health #gynecologist #t #medicine #endometriosis #cirujano #generalsurgery #veterinary #urology #minimallyinvasivesurgery #vi #healthcare #forceps #laparoscopica #pregnancy

In the very near future and even now, AIs(in all of its forms) are taking human job positions. Since AI doesn't need to sleep, eat, or pretty much anything it would be theoretically able to work 24/7, so it is more like 3 job positions. These three positions used to pay taxes when they were occupied by humans. So when a sizable chunk of the workforce is replaced with a software/hardware entity(AI) that doesn't pay taxes (unless regulated), wouldn't that leave the government with less and less money to perform its duties?

Part One: What it's All About
We must slowly build on my first post, Space Military Structure, which gave a very rough overview of militarism in general, and the types of overarching warfare you might want in your space opera (which I call the four spatial forms, or modes). Now, it's time to actually dig a little deeper on some of the points. I shall gift a strong bias towards WWII. Not because there is nothing of use or import, or importance, from old warfare -- but because it requires too many words, and is not closely related enough to typical space opera. WWII also sets the stage for (almost) everything that came after it, and also saw the height of military leadership under George C. Marshall (U.S.). Although this is biased towards the Americans (U.S.) and the Nazis (Germany proper), you can borrow and alter such systems, doctrines, tactics, leaders, and so on as you require for your own setting/story/military, etc. Just warning you of the primary focus.
Note: I may write on the Communist/Soviet and Japanese side of things in the future. But, beyond a few worthy connections, I cannot possibly detail out the entirety of WWII! I shall just say that some great sources/places in this way would be the Soviet Union (circa 1922-1950), Japan (circa 1931-1945), the Ba'ath Party, and the Hutts (Star Wars; fictional). These have some things in common, actually. More so, the latter. Namely, they are generally what you might call 'Persian style ruling'. They are hyper-wealthy kings or king-type figures, literally living 'like kings', as they enslave everybody else. That's a bit harsh on the Persian Empire, of course, but you get the general theme/motif here, as it did apply to a number of Persian Kings (Darius III comes to mind as a bad ruler). This sort of direction also moves much more in line with classical empire-building and kingdoms, in that it's hereditary (i.e. ruling family, by blood). So, the exact source you focus on depends on the type of setting/story you have, and the governance thereof. (Of course, Stalin's Russia had the feel of Imperialist Russia whilst actually being much more in line with Hitler's Germany, at most levels, so it's quite a complex machine -- likely given its Catholic, nationalist roots, fused with the modernist, secularist Communism.)
In the Nazi context, of course, this was seen through the lens of a 'realm' (Reich), a kind of 'secular empire' which was not built upon a royal family, but a personalist dictator (with major focus on both militarism and propaganda; thus, the people themselves), where the 'blood' concept was shifted from 'ruling family' to 'the nation itself' (the Germans or 'German body' (singular)). This was also felt in a number of other nations, but Hitler's Germany is primary, and the direct source for most major space opera since 1940, so it's highly relevant for our purposes (almost always taking the side of the villains/evil empire, of course -- either in a simple-minded sort of narrative, or a more complex one (a la Star Wars (1977)).
The Americans, of course, had the President. I heard, from Douglas Murray around the time of King Charles' Coronation, that there is an innate tendency of humans towards a hereditary structure (this seems possible enough). We are obsessed with families. This makes logical sense. With this in mind, he defended the existence of the symbolic royal family of England, as a way to 'release' all of that feeling and desire at the national level.
He contrasted it with the American system, and looked to modern America to show its possible faults in this way. America became heavily obsessed with the 'first family', such as 'the Clintons'. Clearly overlaying this older framework onto the American system, which is innately unwise and unhelpful. Not only was the original idea that the President would be rather small, in terms of both power and interest -- but that his family would mean little. Hence, they took the title of president -- as in, 'president of the golf club' or, 'president of the school board'. This was not to replace 'king' or 'emperor' in any sense at all. Quite the contrary. A truly remarkable, and rare, shift in human governance. But, since the 1920s or so, this system seems to have fallen into a more European, kingly form (i.e. big government, and hyper-focus on the president). Just something to consider, if you're aiming at a generic democratic, republican type system. You need to be aware of what is likely to happen, and why, and what is required for X (pre-1920s American system) or Y (post-1920s American system). Of course, globalisation was a factor post-WWI, so you have to take your culture in relation to the wider setting (assuming you have different cultures and peoples trading/living with one another).-But, what is war all about? My understanding would be that war is about five things (in random order): (1) Defence/peacekeeping/protection (both in-country and overseas, etc.); (2) Expansion/general stability and growth -- often greed and akin to totalitarianism); (3) Emotional regulation (at the individual level); (4) Conflict resolution (religious wars, wars over land, etc. -- not that all of these are just); (5) National unity (not always positive -- and closely related to emotional regulation, among other factors and traits, and sub-traits; often (but not always) bleeds over into racial unity and purity)
Obviously, this is quite a simple picture, and war is very complex. But, this is good enough for writing space opera. Every single one of these is key; however, we (likely) want some kind of evil empire to fight, which means all of this needs to be nested in the framework of total war or the Nazi Lebensraum concept. This is primarily under (a) emotional regulation; and (b) expansion. Although Germany had major internal, and some external conflicts and issues circa 1870-1918, this alone was not enough to justify the birth -- and growth -- of Nazism for purely defence or conflict resolution reasons.
Part Two: Hitler's Total War
The primary focus must be on expansion (growth; primarily, beginning around 1927 due to mass starvation, etc.; coupled with totalitarian notions), emotional regulation, and national unity, in relation to Nazi Germany. The only other key element to throw in there would be the requirement to actually solve their major internal problems, but this did not innately require Nazism. But, by the fate of history, it was highly likely to be dealt with by either the Nazis or the by-then Stalinist Communists (which had become quite popular by 1932, at the height of the Depression in Germany).
To quote a German (long after the war): 'It was not a question of whether we were going to become a dictatorship [circa 1932], it was a question of the kind of dictatorship we were going to get: a Nazi dictatorship or a Communist dictatorship'.
Sadly, then, due to the state of affairs at this time, there was no hope for Germany to ever become a non-dictatorship through the 1930s and 1940s. The stage was already set for so many complex, interesting, confusing reasons. A primary problem, noted by Hitler himself, was the general state of Germany itself by 1920 or so (which had actually been a growing problem, and many-faceted since 1870). He writes about this in Mein Kampf (1925), and calls it so: Weimar Republic. This became the normative term by the 1930s. To translate Hitler's thinking: he meant it in the context of, 'the Ally puppet republic -- broken, weak, anti-German republic -- of the city of Weimar, not at all speaking to Germany or the Germans'.
Hitler was mostly correct about that, and many Germans agreed with him (including many pro-German socialists; hence, the name. In the first place, there was a major socialist arm of the Nazi (National Socialist) Party). He was able to weaponise this, and demand radical governmental change to solve some of their internal issues, including the Depression itself.
We should step back a moment. By WWI, Germany was already a fragmented, confused nation -- and there was a rapid growth of pro-war actors and groups by 1914, including Hitler himself. By 1920, Germany was crushed into the mud (quite literally), which gave way for Hitler and others to become seriously radical actors. One issue across Germany at this time was the basic governmental system itself, as the old President, Paul Von Hindenburg, was not up to the task of a modern Germany: but, he had one theme through him -- he hated Hitler. Now, Hitler had learnt from his failed Putsch back in 1923. He learnt to play the system (which he simply called 'the System', not an uncommon theme for a revolutionary group). As a result, he had the idea to take Germany, not so much by force, but by popular vote. And, that's what he did.
However, the Nazi Party's growth was slow, only reaching great power by 1927 or so (more so, 1932), due to: (a) The Depression; (b) Superior propaganda tactics; (c) Positive vision for the future (the Communists were rather unhelpful and depressive -- note, this does not mean that the Nazi vision was objetively positive, it was merely what they were handing to the Germans, in a pro-German context); (d) Extreme street-level violence (akin to the Communist side); (e) Trans-classist outreach (i.e. they tried to reach just about everybody, across the classes and groups, including (1) women; (2) working classes; and (3) the middle/upper classes; and (f) Hitler's remarkable oratory skills, and modern campaigning (i.e. travelling to every town and city he could, speaking directly to the voters, which was quite rare back then, believe it or not)
Shockingly, however, the Communist side was also hyper-popular, and used many of the same tactics and methods by 1932. Hitler saw major victories across this period (1928-1932), almost becoming President (yes, he ran for President). It was not until the famous, and final 'true' German election in 1933 that Hitler won out and became ruler of Germany. But, again: the race was quite close, but the numbers spoke for themselves. By now, Germany (tens of millions of voters) were not voting for the generic socialist or even German parties as they had done back in 1927, but only the two most extreme: Nazi and (semi-pro-German/Stalinist) Communist.
Almost instantly (around two months) did Hitler begin his process of Germanisation (Nazification). We already know from his early speeches and writings that he had such plans in place as early as 1921, give or take (with certain scholars claiming that Hitler had such visions in mind, back in 1914 or prior). The other major view of Hitler's Germany is that it was more of a co-op effort between the Party and the Germans, and that Hitler slowly came to his ideas and policy choices as time went on. Since there is great evidence for both of these visions, I must take a combined view, and say that Hitler had certain ideas/goals from the beginning, with others being later creations and plans.
Regardless, we know one thing for certain: Hitler aimed at total war, and he -- for a short period -- achieved it. Although notions of 'total war' reach back into Prussian and French history (among others), the real birth of it is Nazi Germany, by the mid-1930s (though both the Soviet Union and Fascist Italy may be of note), followed by Japan (more so under the singular ruling Party circa 1942).
We take such things for granted today, even confusing 'war' (as such) with 'total war'; however, we know the differences, and they are profound. First of all, Hitler's shift towards total war is clear by quite a rare notion: the total removal of the law of war. The singular 'law of war' can be understood as the 'fairness of war' or 'moral of war' (not to be confused with the 'art of war', which often speaks to an overarching theory of warfare by a given figure (such as de Saxe or Sun Tzu), which may or may not include core elements of fairness).
The second primary element at play, which you do not see in generic cases of war, is the total militarisation of the nation, of the people.
You likely understand all of this more in the fictional context, than the historical. I could mention the Empire from Star Wars, or the Klingons from Star Trek. They are, in a sense, low-resolution images or caricature of the Nazi machine. This is because the Nazi machine itself is a sort of caricature and is almost impossible to believe. That is how innately anti-human the system was and how anti-Western in its fundamental formulation and doctrines.
But, if you want to your evil empire justice -- or, indeed, want to create a more 'neutral' military empire, then you need to really understand the origins, doctrines, feelings, and core mechanisms and utopian goals of Nazi Germany, beyond the surface notion of, 'evil Fascists'. That's just not enough.
Part Three: What is Enough?; How Did Nazi Germany Function, if at All?
Well, you have to try and put yourself in the shoes of a typical German citizen during 1932, first of all. Imagine that you're naturally proud of your nation, history, and people/culture. Imagine that you're on the street without work or food. Imagine that you're being attacked, literally and symbolically, from the Russians/Communists from the north, and the French/Americans/British from the south and west.
Then, imagine you are filled with shame over the horrible defeat of WWI, and forced shame from the Allies, and the massive war tax, keeping the Germans poor and unfit. And, imagine that you're seeing a very arrogant, powerful, free, wealthy France take more and more of your land, and build up its own army around you. That would make anybody not only angry but extremely desperate and confused, with a burning desire for nationalism and the end to this state of affairs. Throw in an unhealthy dose of pro-German/anti-French (and anti-British and anti-Jewish) propaganda, complete with the already extreme anti-Semitic notions in the air (since at least 1880), and you have set the stage for such a shift of power.
After all, the Jews had their own sub-cultures and wealth, and were not deemed to be 'part of the German body' at all. On top of this, they were deemed as the murderer of God himself (from the Christian view), so it was not a leap for them to shift the blame from the Germans to the Jews, in relation to WWI. Being blamed for WWI and held in the mud by the French was too much for them to handle, once you throw in mass starvation and a broken internal structure.
It's not so much a question to me, that Nazism became the state power, but that it didn't happen sooner. This shows the primary strength of the average German through the 1920s, to still believe in some generic system and free Germany -- not to fall into Communism or Nazism so easily. Sadly, by 1932, this was too much -- and Hitler had his own large paramilitary force by this stage (early on, known as Stormtroopers (I'm sure you know this term from Star Wars)), so shutting down citizens was an easier task.
At that stage, you are likely capable of creating your own sturcture of this sort, for your own space opera wastory. You can really understand how such a system could be created; and why the average man would possibly vote for it.
This is also required to understand military thinking in general. Indeed, a lot of what was going through the average German soldier's head applied to America and almost every other nation, as it spoke to basic values and rituals and doctrines: honour, duty, nationalism, family, and freedom.
(See Christopher Browning's book, Ordinary Men. Jocko actually talks about it on his podcast at one point. Here, Browning goes through a pretty average, pre-Hitler German police unit, which was compelled into Hitler's Germany by the late-1930s. Mostly, older, generic German men. It goes through their journey from perfectly normal policemen into insane mass murderers. How? The same way you reach hell: one, small step at a time. This book single-handedly removes any notion that only special men can be evil, only special men can be killers. Much more difficult to factor into your moral framework is the reality that these are often not special at all -- but ordinary.)
In the case of Nazi Germany itself, this is made much more complex by its bedrock structure, which largely remained until 1942. As I alluded to earlier, one Prussian concept that remained was the idea of going above your superior's head. This came from the time when captains and such had some real power as mid-ranking officers, yet were filled by noblemen and such, that had no idea what they were doing. As a result, the actual soldiers and thinkers below the rank of captain were able to go around said nobleman, to complain to the higher-ups, or to actively take over the nobleman's duties. Hitler ultimately kept this system in place, and even played on it, to create major internal rivalry. This was a fairly decent method in some cases, for a short period; however, it became an unworkable mess by 1942, which is when Hitler finally solved the problem. The problem was, he solved it in a very foolish way, mostly under the KHO (high command), leaving the army disconnected, and hardly paying attention to the other branches by this time. The KHO was not up to the task, due to lack of size and talent.
The other major change he made was utter obeisance up the chain of command. This brought a new problem, however: now, instead of a local officer of mid-rank going over the head of a slightly higher-ranked officer (either to Hitler or otherwise), he now had to obey every order of said commandeofficer, without question or fail. No matter what.
Thus, we now enter the final primary stage of Nazi Germany circa 1943-1945. This is the 'downfall stage', and also the infamous stage of 'just following orders' (as noted as the primary defence plea at the trials). When a Nazi said, 'I was just following orders', what he really meant was, 'I'm not to blame the crime, because I was demanded, almost by divine command, to follow the order, no matter what that order was'. The trials took this into account, and understood the concept well enough, since it was fairly in place in America and England, though this saw a generally less extreme form, and most orders were actually decent from the American command during WWII. Nonetheless, this led to the almost impossible reality of the trials ending with a fair number of either free Nazis, or at least short prison terms. Of course, all top-ranking Nazi Party members were found guilty, regardless of their plea (which ultimately placed all blame on Hitelr himself, at the top of the chain).
Be mindful of such a framework in your own space military structure. One negative outcome of this by 1943, was that the high-ranking Nazis handed most of their duties down the chain of command; thus, forcing lower and lower ranked officers to perform more and more duties. At times, this led to the failure to complete said duties/tasks, or poor judgement. It also gave supreme power to the mid-ranking officers, as they de facto took on the role of the higher-ups. Since these high-ranking officers were many in their numbers and were widespread at all levels (location, ability, plans, etc.), it led to the complete confusion of the Nazi machine and war effort. Of course, this was somewhat the case since 1939, anyway. But, it became even worse by 1943, as Hitler fragmented everything to ensure his own position of power (after all, his worry was, having an actually functional system, like the Americans, would gift far too much power to the generals and other Party members; thus, they could easily overthrow him).
Either way, despite Hitler's supreme focus on his 'singular vision' for Germany (which he also stressed in Mein Kamf), he made some very foolish mistakes, and was dealing with such an innately broken, evil system that he couldn't possibly ensure such things. For example, as early as 1940, we saw major differences in how the generals and leaders of the Gaue, etc. treated their subjects and tasks. For example, when Germany invaded Poland, there was mixed understranding as to how to treat the Polish and others, and how all of this should proceed. It became such a confused mess that some of the leaders wanted to pretty much Germanised the existing Poles, take their land, re-educate them, and take them in as new Reich Citizens (more so, if they were found to be German in any way, at the level of blood). On the other hand, other leaders of the now-annexed Poland wanted to outright murder all the Poles, regardless of their German blood or other considerations.
This sort of cross-purpose working was almost the norm by 1942 across Nazi Germany: again, partly enforced by Hitler himself with his 'rough orders' sort of leadership. Hitler also had the notion that by forcing in-fighting, he would sit back and see who came out on top; thus, ensuring that the best man did the job/task. But, this was a heavily incomplete theory, to say the least.
Back to Star Wars, for a moment: there is some indications that this is how the Empire ran, as well; hence, the horrible leadership of the Empire and its ultimate downfall.
To end the thread of Nazi Germany (for now), I shall point your attention towards the utter secularisation, utopianisation of the society. By 1937, Nazi Germany was not only one of the most powerful cultures on Earth, with one of the greatest standing armies in history, but it had one of the most 'modern' (i.e. post-WII) social systems in place, which included the likes of cheap cruise trips and holiday sites and entertainment items (radios, etc.), primarily aimed at the working classes. Of course, most of this was only possible due to literal blood money and was primarily geared towards propaganda and total Nazification.
At the same time, Hitler began to re-shape Germany in his own image: removing all Jewish (and then Christian/Roman) elements from society... and history. He even tried to re-write the Bible with a so-called Fifth Gospel, as to replace Jesus (a Jew) with a Germanic figure. This failed as the people largely rejected such; however, atheism and secularism in general were radically enforced through the late-1930s and 1940s, and classical faith dropped massively.
At the level of government, Hitler crafted a semi-centralised system, with local rulers (of a district or Gau) that had near-total imperium (meaning, power over their area and subjects). This massively unified Germany and the flow of the culture, come the fragmented, hyper-localised system of the old Germany. Of course, this itself was a struggle to put into place, and by 1942, it was also clear that it's not so easy to control people: they have social networks and sub-systems of their own, and these are the primary driving forces behind settlement structures and otherwise.
Hitler had some sense of this, more so at the border to France, but like with many other fundamental problems of Germany (such as the large anti-Nazi Christian movement), he wanted to put it off until victory.
This is an unwise tactic, if the problems keep growing, as they did. It reminds me somewhat of the Japanese tactic of winning through, 'faith in victory'. Well, victory does not magically appear: you have to actually work towards victory in a stable, logical way. Of course, as I alluded to earlier: the Nazis had major problems in place as early as 1939, so entering/creating the war itself was a grave mistake (as the generals told him at the time). Keep this in mind. You need to actually create a real, functional, multi-faceted system, and a core generalship. You need all the branches working with one another. And, you need to maybe not take over the world, because that's a horrible idea and very difficult. It also helps if you don't waste money and time killing all the Jews and Poles, etc. as you're losing the war. That's just illogical. Then again: the Nazis are not very logical, even Hitler as logical as he was at times. The failed invasion of Russia was also a major issue, but was likely not as big an issue as the other combined factors, actually!
Part Four: Good Generalship
Speaking of generals and the failure of Hitler's leadership, for a more stable evil empire -- or for your other faction/'good guys', you might want to look to America during WWII. Not perfect, of course, and I cannot defend all of its choices or systems or reasoning, but it's certainly one of the best systems that we saw (and there is every indication that America's generalship and army leadership has only become worse since 1945). I also recall some stories of the Navy having some major struggles, too, and just overall downfall of its culture and traditions (begininng as ealry as the 1970s). For example, drinking mostly died out in the Navy by the 1990s, and so the bars were shut down on bases, etc.
One problem with this was the lack of 'telling story' (as they say). This is when the men would meet in the bar, tell stories of war, of the great heroes -- get inspired, and wiser, with any luck. Not sure how widespread this is, but the storytelling and social meeting element of this seems to come back somewhat since then. This is just one example of something deeply important to sailors, and you remove such at your own risk. You need to 'tell story', you need to be inspired, you need to have naval heroes to look up to. The same logic applies to the soldiers of the Army, too.
It's almost like the soul was ripped out of the American military in the 1950s, and it has struggled to put it back in ever since.
So, what did the generalship of WWII look like? What can we learn from it? Well, we have to turn to one George C. Marshall. But, first, let's go back to 1939. America had a standing army of about 200,000 men: pretty standard for peacetime. Very small. By 1945, Marshall stood down a force of over 10 million. Beginning around 1942, America went from a fairly minor military power with relatively little spending, to the greatest military power in the world -- likely, in history.
It all began in WWI, as it turns out. In the first place, the Americans shifted to a more European system by this time, which largely remained through WWII. This is where they got their division system from, and all their numbering systems and such.
Despite popular belief, the Nazi military was not great, logistically speaking. They were good, and tried very hard to fight dozens of nations at once, and deal with tens of millions of people -- but their systems and talent were just not up to the task. It's often noted that the Nazis could not even out-do the Polish counter-intelligence by 1940!
The U.S. military, on the other hand, was elegant beyond measure. You can get a sense of this via its Navy, paying close attention to its ID system, almost impossible turn-over of Victory ships, and its battleships and otherwise major vessels. These are iconic for a reason, and still command and defend the waters of the world today (along with the British submarines and others).
Well, it's worth noting that the Americans were actually fighting for freedom, not just food or world control, like the Nazis and German citizens were. The Americans were also not really forced into battle, unlike the Germans. On top of this, the Americans -- largely thanks to Marshall -- had a profound merit-based system. Nazi Germany, on the other hand, was so racially biased as to be almost self-defeating. Often, for example, high-ranking civil positions, such as a factory chief, would be a Nazi member, regardless of his abilities. On the other hand, if a great worker looked 'too Jewish' he would never be hired (this was mostly done by photo ID, and was understood via big noses and otherwise features).
Although America had its own major racial issues at this time, and was not wonderfully fond of Jews, it had enough wisdom and goodness to primarily focus on merit and ability.
Returning again to WWI for a moment, Marshall himself noted that there was a complete failure of the system. It had hardly moved on for over 100 years (which is to be imagined, as a military system innately requires stability and a lack of change). But, this was too much... the world was changing, and the military was not. Marshall had the wisdom and ability to fix this during WWII as Chief of Staff with extreme power and focus. First of all, he outright fired any general or otherwise not up to the task of WWII. Not even joking. He literally walked up to them, and fired them on the spot. He fired them if they were (a) too old; (b) too aggressive; (c) not aggressive enough; and/or (d) too illogical/stupid.
He would entirely remove them, or relocate them to other positions, where they were either of use, or out of the way.
So, by 1942, Marshall rallied for great action from America, and began his process of re-shaping the American generalship. He did so across a few dimensions. First of all, he understood that America was not Prussia or France or England. He understood that America had its own values and rituals: he lent into that and used it. This was the birth of the American military we see today, to the degree that it's functional and proper. Most of all, this bled down the ranks, to the soldier himself. This is where we get the 'cocky, arrogant American soldier' from. This actually began as a very good thing, showing supreme faith, bravery, and optimism. He made it really easy for us... he wrote a list! I do love a good list...
The four qualities (well, really, about seven) a good general or leader requires, according to Marshall, circa 1920 (in a letter). Clearly, written just after WWI and everything he saw therein:

• Optimism
• Bravery and dutifulness
• Extreme loyalty
• Hopefulness and resolve

Note: An added bit of interest might be that we can blame Marshall for why America has a 'General of the Army' instead of a 'field marshal' (like Europe, etc.). They thought it would be unthinkable to have a 'Marshal Marshall', so by luck of the gods, his name was entirely the wrong name for the job when it came time, in late-1944, for the first ever modern rank of 'marshal', or General of the Army). This is a five-star rank, just above general (full general/four-star general).
(In theory, the six-star general rank would be 'General of the Armies' (plural), though this rank no longer exists in any real sense, though it does apply to Washington, since 1976. In a German context, this is 'Reichsmarschall' (Reich Marshal; which applied to Goring only), one rank above 'field marshal' -- which is also known as 'marshal', 'general field marshal', or 'field marshal general'. Interestingly, Hitler had wanted Goring to take command, if anything should happen to him. But, Goring asked Hitler directly for command towards the end of the war, which made Hitler so angry as to call for his death. I guess, he hurt Hitler's ego, to say the least.)

Written by Russell Kirkland
This discussion of "Taoism" in classical China will begin with the observation that there was actually no such thing, at least not in the sense that is commmonly accepted among non-specialists. Both in Asia and in the West, many scholars, and their students, have ignored the many advances in Taoist studies since the 1970s, and have continued to cling to outdated stereotypes of what Taoism was/is. In particular, they often cling to simplistic notions about "philosophical Taoism" that now seem unable to withstand critical analysis, in light of recent advances in textual and historical research. The concept of "philosophical Taoism" is, to a large extent, a modern fiction, which has been developed and embraced by people around the world for specific and identifiable social, intellectual, and historical reasons.
Current research reveals that the so-called "Taoist school" of classical times was actually "a retrospective creation": it began as the reification of a Han-dynasty bibliographic classification, and it took its present form in post-Han times, i.e., in the third century CE.
The importance of these facts is that we need to press non-specialists to re-evaluate their commonly accepted ideas of what "Taoism" is. For most of this century, there has been nearly universal agreement among philosophers, historians, and the general public — in Asia and in the West — that "Taoism" could simply be equated with a set of ideas that are embodied (or are perceived to be embodied) in the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu. Current research has begun to demonstrate that that common understanding is far too simplistic.
To begin with, it is now clear to most specialists that those two texts were not, in fact, the expositions of two great philosophers, but rather the product of a prolonged period of accretion. That is, each contains ideas from a variety of minds generations or even centuries apart, not to mention different geographical regions. The Chuang-tzu probably originated in scattered jottings of a man named Chuang Chou ca. 320 BCE, and was developed into its present form over the following 500 years. The earlier layers of the Chuang-tzu were apparently composed by someone who had never seen the Tao te ching. For its part, the Tao te ching dates only to around the beginning of the third century BCE, i.e., to several decades after the Chuang-tzu began to be compiled. But once again, there is no evidence that the Tao te ching's compilers were aware either of the ideas of the fourth-century writer Chuang Chou or of the text that eventually came to bear his name. Though the provenance of the Tao te ching is still the subject of debate, one current line of research suggests that it may have emerged from the re-working of oral traditions of a community in the southern state of Ch'u. So far, research has been unable to shed virtually any light upon the identity of its compiler or redactor. And I certainly do not expect to establish that identity here. But what is, in fact, possible is to examine possible evidence of that redactor's familiarity with another ancient text, a text of which few today — even among scholars of Chinese thought or religion — have ever heard. That text is a brief work, about one-half the length of the Tao te ching, entitled the Nei yeh (or "Inner Cultivation").
There is little doubt that the Nei yeh is several generations older than the Tao te ching. It seems to date to some time in the second half of the fourth century BCE. That is, it may have been compiled by a contemporary of Chuang Chou, though again there is virtually no data as to the compiler's identity. The Nei yeh fell out of general circulation when it became incorporated into a larger collection, the Kuan-tzu, sometime before the middle of the second century BCE. After that, it was seldom noted by Chinese scholars or philosophers until the 20th century, and even today its thought and significance have barely begun to be explored.
For instance, though it has never, to my knowledge, hitherto been noticed, the influence of the Nei yeh on Chinese thought was profound and extensive. For example, it is here that one first encounters comprehensible references to the personal cultivation of such forces as ch'i ("life-energy"), ching ("vital essence"), and shen ("spiritual consciousness"). The cultivation of such forces became a central theme in certain versions of modern Taoism, as well as in Chinese medicine. But there is also evidence that the Nei yeh may have profoundly influenced the Tao te ching. In this essay, I attempt to identify basic thematic differences between the Nei yeh, the Chuang-tzu, and the Tao te ching, and to suggest certain interpretive strategies for understanding the relationship among them.
The primary difference between the Nei Yeh and the Tao te ching is signalled by the title of the former. Nei means "internal," and in ancient times yeh meant in one sense "cultivation/production" and in another sense "what one studies." Thus the work's title refers directly to "Inner Cultivation" or "Inner Development." Its contents provide the reader with instruction and advice for applying oneself to a task involving what is inside oneself. That is, it teaches the reader how and why to practice certain specific forms of biospiritual cultivation. In fact, unlike the Tao te ching, the Nei Yeh is concerned with virtually nothing else besides biospiritual cultivation.
The Teachings of the Nei Yeh
The teachings of the Nei Yeh are quite distinct from the ideas that most non-specialists associate with "philosophical Taoism." Its teachings will sound more familiar to people acquainted with the traditions of modern Taoism that focus on the cultivation of ch'i. The Nei Yeh indeed begins with the assumption of a powerful salubrious reality called ch'i, "life-energy." In the Nei Yeh, ch'i is present both within all things and all around them. Within each being, ch'i is centered in the "essence," ching — which Roth describes as "the source of the vital energy in human beings [and] the basis of our health, vitality, and psychological well-being." But the central focus of the Nei Yeh's teachings have to do more with how the individual manages his/her hsin, the "heart/mind." The "heart/mind" is the ruling agency in the individual's biospiritual nexus, i.e., in the entire personal complex of body/mind/heart/spirit). The Nei Yeh's principal teaching is that one should make sure that one's "heart/mind" is balanced and tranquil, without excessive cogitation or emotion. If one can maintain a tranquil "heart/mind," then one will become a receptor of life's salubrious energies, and will be able to retain them; without tranquility, those healthful energies will leave, and one's health, and very life, will become threatened.
In the Nei Yeh, the specific nature and identity of life's desirable energies are still some-what vague. One key term that it uses is shen, "spirit" or "spiritual consciousness." "Spirit" involves perception and comprehension: it is the basis for all higher forms of awareness. According to the Nei Yeh, the practitioner must align his/her biospiritual nexus with the unseen forces of the world in order to attract "spirit" and receive it into one's quietened "heart/mind." One's ability to succeed in this endeavor is called te. Te has often been dubbed a key concept in "philosophical Taoism," but the meaning of the term in the Nei Yeh hardly resembles any of the common descriptions of the term as it is used in the more familiar Taoist texts. In the Nei Yeh, the term te does retain the generic meaning of "the inner moral power of an individual," and even the archaic (Shang-dynasty) concept of te as "a proper disposition toward the unseen forces." But here, te is clearly not a force that is intrinsic to our natures, as many modern descriptions of Te in "philosophical Taoism" would have us believe. Rather, te, like "spirit," is something that we acquire when all elements of the body/heart/mind are completely peaceful and properly aligned. Here we can discern the full meaning of the traditional Chinese explanation that the word te meaning "inner power" may be understood in terms of the homophone te which is the common verb in both classical and modern Chinese for getting or acquiring. In the Nei Yeh, te may be termed "the acquisitional agency," for it is not just what we attract and receive, but that whereby we attract and receive the higher forces of life (e.g., ch'i and shen). What is more, in the Nei Yeh one is told that one's te is something that one must work on each and every day. (Once again, such teachings vary widely from the concept of what Te means in common notions of "philosophical Taoism.") The practitioner builds up his/her te by practicing daily self-control over his/her thought, emotion, and action. One who succeeds at these practices can become a sheng-jen, a "sage." The "sage" is described as being "full of spirit" and "complete in heart/mind and in body."
One might well ask what role the concept of tao plays in the Nei Yeh. The way the term is used in the Nei Yeh does not always coincide with the way it is used in the more familiar texts. In the Nei Yeh, the term tao is actually quite vague: it is sometimes used rather indiscriminately to refer to the salubrious forces of life that the practitioner is working to cultivate. For instance, one passage reads as follows:
The Way is what infuses the structures [of the mind] yet men are unable to secure it. It goes forth but does not return, it comes back but does not stay. Silent! none can hear its sound. Sudden! so it rests in the mind. Obscure! one cannot see its form. Surging! it arises along with me. We cannot see its form, we cannot hear its sound, yet we can put a sequence to its development. Call it "Way."
One also encounters a line that is virtually identical to passages in the Tao te ching: "What gives life to all things and brings them to perfection is called the Way." But otherwise, the term tao is seldom identified in the terms that are familiar to readers the Tao te ching or the Chuang-tzu. In the Nei Yeh, the term is generally used as an equivalent of its technical terms for the spiritual realities that the practitioner is being instructed to attract and retain by means of tranquillizing the heart/mind.
Thematic Contrasts between the Nei Yeh and the Familiar "Taoist Classics"
Clearly, the Nei Yeh has a specific and identifiable focus, articulated in terms comprehensible to the careful reader. But it is also clear that if we are intellectually honest, the teachings of this text are quite distinguishable from those of the more familiar texts of classical Taoism. For instance, while terms like te and tao appear frequently in all the texts, they are used in different senses in different texts, as well as in different passages of the same text. Neither term is thus a "basic concept" of some general philosophical system: each term carried a variety of meanings among the people who developed "Taoist" ideas across ancient China. We should thus beware the common tendency of assuming that certain teachings of the Tao te ching and Chuang-tzu were in any sense representative of a coherent ancient Chinese school of thought, much less normative for identifying "Taoist" beliefs and values in general.
Secondly, it should be noticed that the portrait of the Taoist life in the Nei Yeh is in some ways quite dissimilar to that which we generally encounter in the Tao te ching and Chuang-tzu. For instance, the key to life in the Nei Yeh is one's diligent effort to attract and retain spiritual forces named ch'i, ching and shen. While each of those terms does occur here and there in both the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu, seldom in those texts do we find the specific teachings that are so basic to the Nei Yeh.16 In particular, it is hard to think of passages from either of the more familiar texts that suggest that the thing called tao is a force that can come into or go out of a person, or that one it is necessary to engage in specific practices to get the tao to come or to keep it from going away.17 In the more familiar texts, the term tao generally seems to suggest a universal reality from which one can never really be ontologically separated.
In addition, the practices commended in the Nei Yeh are much more clearly physiological in nature than we are accustomed of thinking of Taoist practice as being. Indeed, one of the reasons that some of the teachings of the Tao te ching have become domesticated in Western culture is that the public believes those teachings to involve no regular, definable practices that involve one's physical existence. According to such beliefs, the Taoist life is essentially stative: it never involves specific practices that carry historical or cultural baggage, and certainly never involves any work.
It should also be noted that the Nei Yeh never presents the spiritual life in terms of "practicing wu-wei." Here, the Taoist life is not a stative life of "just being," or of "being spontaneous," but rather a very active life of specific practices, practices that must be carefully learned and properly performed if one is ever to come into possession of such elusive forces as tao. In this framework, the Taoist life involves personal responsibility, dedication to a life of constant self-discipline, and conscientious daily practice. Moreover, this practice involves the purification and proper ordering of one's body as well as one's "heart/mind." It would be excessive to say that the Nei Yeh teaches a "Taoist yoga," but it clearly does assume that the spiritual life involves practices that also have physical components, even extending to moderation in eating. I thus refer to such activities more broadly as "biospiritual practices."
Neither the Tao te ching nor the Chuang-tzu are so clearly focussed upon biospiritual practices. While they do contain passages that allude to such practices, their writers (or at least the editors) have many other teachings to convey, teachings that are generally absent from the Nei Yeh. For instance, as Rickett observed long ago, the concepts of yin and yang are nowhere seen in the Nei Yeh. Modern beliefs egregiously exaggerate the centrality of those concepts in the Taoist tradition. In reality, the concepts of yin and yang were never specifically Taoist. The terms do appear in the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu, though in quite minor roles. But the world of the Nei Yeh is a world quite devoid of yin and yang.
Other differences between the Nei Yeh and the more familiar texts seem not to have been remarked upon by other readers. For instance, there are few teachings in the Nei Yeh involving issues of government. Though modern conceptions commonly associate Taoism with the life of the individual rather than with social or political concerns, such was never really the case. Social and political concerns always played an important role in Taoism, from classical times into the later imperial period. The Tao te ching, for its part, contains dozens of passages discussing the problems involved with ruling a state. Indeed, some respected scholars have long characterized the Tao te ching as "a handbook for rulers." Such a characterization is actually something of an exaggeration, but the point here is that the Nei Yeh displays little interest in issues of government.
In addition, the Nei Yeh differs from both the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu in that it never critiques or ridicules the beliefs or practices of Confucians. Once again, there is a common misconception that "Taoism" arose as a reaction against Confucianism, and that Taoists always clearly differentiated their teachings from those of the Confucians. However, there is nothing in the Nei Yeh that criticizes Confucian teachings. In fact, there are clear and unmistakable continuities between the teachings of the Nei Yeh and certain elements of the teachings of the 4th-century Confucian known as Mencius. What is missing from the Nei Yeh is the Confucian emphasis upon saving society by reviving within one's personal life the principles of proper moral/social behavior known as li. The reader of the Nei Yeh is taught how to align him/herself with the forces at work in the world, because doing so is necessary for one's personal well-being. There is little trace of a belief that one is responsible for changing society. On the other hand, those who held such beliefs are neither faulted nor mocked. So while sections of both the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu were composed by opponents of Confucianism, such sentiments are not found in the Nei Yeh.
Another theme conspicuously absent is the idea that the ideal society is a small-scale community without civilized technology or complex socio-political institutions. That idea is most familiar to the modern audience from the 80th chapter of the Tao te ching, though there are other examples in the Chuang-tzu. Several scholars have recently begun referring to such ideals as a distinct "phase" or "voice" of early Taoism, to which they refer as "Primitivist." But as some of those scholars have already noted, the Nei Yeh is completely devoid of such ideals. Thus, the Rousseau-esque idea that Taoism consists of a rejection of civilization in favor of simpler ways of living is inaccurate. It would seem that a person could follow the teachings of the Nei Yeh within nearly any social context, and that it never occurred to the text's compilers that any one type of social setting might be preferable to any other. The Nei Yeh does not, therefore, provide the antidote to the Industrial Revolution that Westerns have sometimes claimed to find in "philosophical Taoism."
So if we have here a form of Taoism that is fundamentally disinterested in social issues, would it be correct to say that it is basically more concerned with our place in the universe? Well, in a certain sense, yes, but it is important to note that the Nei Yeh is also unconcerned with many of the cosmological issues with which modern readers are often so fascinated. For example, there is no real discussion of cosmogony in the Nei Yeh. Other Taoist texts sometimes discuss the origin of the world, in terms that sometimes seem to combine poetry with philosophy. But the Nei Yeh contains no such passages. It alludes to no "Non-Being" from which "Being" comes, and it posits no eternal reality ontologically prior to, or separate from, the present world — no "noumenon" to contrast with the "phenomena" of life as we know it. The closest thing to a cosmogonic passage in the Nei Yeh would seem to be its opening lines:
[The vital essence (ching) of all things — This is what makes life come into being: Below, it generates the five grains, Above, it brings about the constellated stars. When it flows in the interstices of Heaven and Earth, It is called "spiritual beings"; When it is stored up inside [a person's] chest, He is called "a sage."]
But here we are clearly dealing with a life-force that operates within the world, a force of generation that is spiritual in nature, and can be localized either within independent spiritual beings or within a person who successfully collects and stores it. But there is no suggestion here of any noumenal reality that has an ontological existence separate from the reality of which we are all a part. "Being" does not come from "Non-Being," and the composers show no interest in constructing any cosmological theories. These facts are brought home most clearly when we encounter the term tao in the text, for as noted earlier, in the Nei Yeh the term tao clearly refers to a transient reality that a person needs to attract and to retain. It is not some universal transcendent that one attains by developing some "mystical gnosis" qualitatively distinct from normal experience.
Nor is there any discussion in the Nei Yeh of the theme of "change." There is little trace, for instance, of the notion that there is un unchanging cosmic force beyond the world of change. Nor is there a poetic image of a sagely person who blissfully flows or drifts along with life's ongoing processes. The latter idea may be present in passages of the Chuang-tzu, but there is nothing like it in the Nei Yeh, any more than there is in the Tao te ching. In the Nei Yeh, one neither transcends change nor adapts to it: there is, in fact, no mention of life as a process of change or flux. Rather, the Nei Yeh teaches that there is a salubrious natural force, or set of forces, that are elusive: they are not ephemeral — they are enduring — but they do not stay in one place unless a person has transformed him/herself into an efficient receiver and receptacle for those forces. A good analogy for them might be radio waves, which are constantly flowing around and through us, but can only be held and put to use by a device that is properly tuned. To extend this metaphor a bit more, the Nei Yeh seems to suggest that we are radios that were all properly designed, and were originally fully functional; but now we experience interference in the form of excessive activity in the heart/mind, and we need to re-tune ourselves to eliminate that interference and begin functioning properly again. For these reasons, it would be correct to say that the Nei Yeh requires self-corrective activity, just as the other Taoist texts do, but that the Nei Yeh's model for understanding and practicing self-correction is fairly unique.
The Nei Yeh also gives the lie to yet other misconceptions of Taoism, including some held by thoughtful philosophers. One such misconception is that Taoist teachings are deeply iconoclastic, antinomian, even revolutionary. According to this view, the basic thrust of Taoism is to jolt the individual into a realization that he/she should reject traditional beliefs and values, condemning them as the artificial constructs of an oppressive society. This interpretation of classical Taoism is not just the conceit of 1960s Hippies who saw it as a condemnation of "establishment culture." Generations of Westerners — Americans in particular, perhaps — have read the Tao te ching, and parts of the Chuang-tzu, as a post-Enlightenment gospel of individual freedom, freedom from the uncomfortable aspects of "Society" in general, and of Western culture in particular.
One version of this modern concept of Taoism can be seen in certain recent analyses by the respected philosopher Chad Hansen. Hansen seems to perpetuate the notion that Taoism is essentially an attempt to undermine acceptance of "convention." He argues that the Tao te ching and Chuang-tzu both begin from a "linguistic skepticism (which) arises against a background assumption that language is a social mechanism for regulating people's behavior." Speaking of the composer of the Tao te ching, Hansen says, "His political and practical advice is almost invariably the reversal of conventional political and moral attitudes. He reverses conventional values, preferences, or desires..." Why? "All learning of distinctions comes with dispositions to prefer one or the other... (But) trained discriminations are not a constantly reliable guide to behavior. Culturally motivated preferences based on those distinctions are, on the whole, unreliable. And they control us in insidious, unnatural ways." While Hansen may be partly or wholly correct in his assessment of the role of culture in forming individuals' dispositions, it is dubious whether that assessment was present in the minds of the Taoists of classical China, particularly in the mind in the compiler of the Tao te ching. Most of Hansen's "Daoist theory of knowledge" is woven from certain themes in Chuang-tzu, where such issues do indeed seem to be addressed. But such intricate treatment of "knowledge," "language," "convention," etc., are not found in the Tao te ching, which addresses concerns that are quite distinguishable from those of the compiler(s) of the Chuang-tzu, especially a variety of moral and political concerns. And in the Nei Yeh, there is no trace of any critique of the relationship between culture and knowledge or desire. The Nei Yeh does not critique "conventional society" and urge us to reject it, nor does it critique language, nor does it urge us to beware socially-inculcated valuations.
There are yet other distinctive features to the teachings of the Nei Yeh. For instance, unlike the Tao te ching, it has nothing to say about issues of gender. There are several passages in the Tao te ching that commend a "feminine" attitude or behavior, such as humility or yielding. Such passages appear to imply that what is wrong with our normal attitudes and behavior is that they are excessively "masculine." Such ideas, however, are seldom seen in texts like the Chuang-tzu, and they are likewise absent from the Nei Yeh. The compilers of the Nei Yeh do teach that there are attitudes and behaviors that we should forego, but there is no gender imagery associated with them.
In this connection, one might ask whether the three texts share the same intended audience. Were any or all of them intended specifically for men? Well, one may infer that when the reader is given advice presumed useful for achieving political goals, the reader was presumed to be male, since, in ancient China, political participation by women was not an option (except for a spouse or immediate family member of a man who held a position of authority). As mentioned earlier, the Nei Yeh is comparable to most sections of the Chuang-tzu in that the reader is seldom assumed to be someone attempting to engage in political rule. It is also true that in ancient China women seldom achieved literacy, so one could argue that any written text was intended only for men. But such reasoning ignores other possibilities, such as that of a family or group that included both men and women, all interested in learning how to live from a text that few of them could actually read themselves. One should also note that the Nei Yeh (like much of the Tao te ching) is composed largely in verse, and that some scholars believe that certain sections "may have been borrowed from some early Taoist hymn."28 We must bear in mind that though ancient China did produce some written texts, it was still largely an oral society, in which most people of either gender acquired and dispensed information and advice primarily, if not exclusively, by word of mouth. The Nei Yeh is almost certainly a text containing teachings that originated in an oral tradition. And there is little in the content of those teachings that would seem to be either more or less practiceable by members of either gender.
Another distinctive feature of the Nei Yeh is that it seems to lack the idea of "Heaven" (T'ien) as a benign guiding force in life. Both the Confucians and the Mohists shared some version of that idea, reflecting more generally held beliefs that dated back to at least the end of the second millennium BCE. Today such ideas are not generally associated with Taoism, for Taoists, by modern definition, believe in an impersonal reality called "Tao" that transcends all other realities, including "Heaven." Such is not entirely the case, of course. Several chapters of the Tao te ching speak of "the Way of Heaven" (T'ien-tao or T'ien-chih-tao), a beneficent force that seems to have will as well as agency. But there is little trace of such ideas in the Nei Yeh.
Finally, we should address the issue of morality. Are the teachings of the Nei Yeh concerned solely with internal self-cultivation? Is there any evidence that the practitioner is ever to give any thought to anyone other than him- or herself? This is a key question, because virtually all modern interpreters, Chinese and Western alike, have accused Taoism of being inimical to the idea that a person should be concerned about others:
{Taoism pictures the person as a wanderer in the void, and perceives his happiness to lie in drifting with the stream, unanchored by the network of demands and responsibilities....[In Taoism, the] happiness one is concerned with is one's own, logically independent of the happiness of others....[The] follower of the Way is necessarily a loner....}
Elsewhere I have attempted to demonstrate that such accusations are wholly inaccurate, at least in regard to the Tao te ching. That text enjoins the reader to practice "goodness" (shan), which involves extending oneself toward others impartially so as to benefit them. In the Tao te ching, the Taoist life is one in which one achieves self-fulfillment as one is selflessly benefitting the lives of others.32 Do we find such ideals in the Nei Yeh? I can find little evidence of them. There are a few passages for which one might be able to make an argument that the reader is to think of providing benefits to others, but none that seems clearly to express such ideals. Certainly, as compared to the Tao te ching, the Nei Yeh lacks any clear moral concern, and does in fact give the overall impression that "the happiness one is concerned with is one's own."
Conclusion
It is clear that the Nei Yeh is quite distinct in content from either the Tao te ching or the Chuang-tzu, despite the texts' many similarities. The Nei Yeh, we should recall, was earlier than the Tao te ching, and could even be interpreted as an example of "the earliest Taoist teachings." The Tao te ching shows clear evidence that its compilers were deeply concerned with the social and political issues that concerned members of other schools of thought, particularly the Mohists and Confucians. One could thus reasonably even characterize the teachings of the Nei Yeh as "original Taoism," and the teachings of the Tao te ching as "applied Taoism." Though the Tao te ching may have, in some sense, emerged from the same general tradition that produced the Nei Yeh, its compilers were interested in the issues of living in human society as much as, if not more than, they were interested in the practice of "inner cultivation." Further attention to the differences among the assumptions and concerns of all these texts should provide greater insight into the divergent communities that produced such materials, and of the divergent models of the Taoist life that they envision.

After doing an exam analysis, I noticed that the PMP Exam Content Outline already shows what the MINDSET should be in approaching the situation-based questions.
People Domain:

1. Task: Manage conflict
   1. Enabler: Identify and address conflicts promptly to maintain a positive team environment and project progress.
2. Task: Lead a team
   1. Enabler: Set clear expectations, provide guidance, and motivate team members to achieve project goals.
3. Task: Support team performance
   1. Enabler: Provide necessary resources, remove obstacles, and offer support to optimize team performance.
4. Task: Empower team members and stakeholders
   1. Enabler: Delegate authority, encourage ownership, and involve stakeholders in decision-making processes.
5. Task: Ensure team members/stakeholders are adequately trained
   1. Enabler: Identify skill gaps, provide training opportunities, and promote continuous learning and development.
6. Task: Build a team
   1. Enabler: Select and onboard team members with the right skills, capabilities, and diversity to enhance team performance.
7. Task: Address and remove impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team
   1. Enabler: Identify and resolve issues that hinder team progress, ensuring a smooth workflow.
8. Task: Negotiate project agreements
   1. Enabler: Facilitate discussions and reach mutually beneficial agreements with stakeholders to establish project expectations.
9. Task: Collaborate with stakeholders
   1. Enabler: Foster open and constructive communication, actively involve stakeholders, and seek their input throughout the project.
10. Task: Build shared understanding
    1. Enabler: Promote effective communication, facilitate discussions, and encourage shared knowledge and understanding among team members and stakeholders.
11. Task: Engage and support virtual teams
    1. Enabler: Leverage virtual collaboration tools, establish clear communication channels, and provide support to remote team members.
12. Task: Define team ground rules
    1. Enabler: Establish agreed-upon norms, guidelines, and communication protocols to promote teamwork and project success.
13. Task: Mentor relevant stakeholders
    1. Enabler: Provide guidance, support, and knowledge transfer to stakeholders, helping them contribute effectively to the project.
14. Task: Promote team performance through the application of emotional intelligence
    1. Enabler: Recognize and manage emotions, build rapport, and foster a positive team culture to enhance overall performance.

Process Domain:

1. Task: Execute project with the urgency required to deliver business value
   1. Enabler: Prioritize tasks, manage dependencies, and drive project execution to achieve timely delivery of value.
2. Task: Manage communications
   1. Enabler: Establish effective communication channels, ensure clear and timely information flow, and engage stakeholders appropriately.
3. Task: Assess and manage risk
   1. Enabler: Identify and analyze risks, develop mitigation strategies, and monitor and respond to potential risks throughout the project.
4. Task: Engage stakeholders
   1. Enabler: Identify stakeholders, understand their needs and expectations, and involve them in project decisions and activities.
5. Task: Plan and manage budget and resources
   1. Enabler: Develop a comprehensive budget, allocate resources effectively, and monitor expenditures to ensure optimal resource utilization.
6. Task: Plan and manage schedule
   1. Enabler: Develop a realistic project schedule, track progress, and manage schedule changes to meet project milestones and deadlines.
7. Task: Plan and manage quality of products/deliverables
   1. Enabler: Define quality standards, establish quality assurance processes, and conduct regular inspections to ensure deliverables meet requirements.
8. Task: Plan and manage scope
   1. Enabler: Define project scope, manage scope changes, and ensure alignment between project objectives and deliverables.
9. Task: Integrate project planning activities
   1. Enabler: Coordinate various planning processes, align project components, and ensure consistency and integration across project activities.
10. Task: Manage project changes
    1. Enabler: Assess change requests, evaluate impacts, obtain approvals, and implement changes following established change management procedures.
11. Task: Plan and manage procurement
    1. Enabler: Identify procurement needs, define procurement strategies, solicit bids, and manage contracts with vendors and suppliers.
12. Task: Manage project artifacts
    1. Enabler: Develop and maintain project documentation, including plans, reports, and records, to ensure accurate and accessible project information.
13. Task: Determine appropriate project methodology/methods and practices
    1. Enabler: Select and tailor project management methodologies, frameworks, and best practices based on project requirements and organizational context.
14. Task: Establish project governance structure
    1. Enabler: Define project roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority, and establish governance processes to ensure effective project oversight.
15. Task: Manage project issues
    1. Enabler: Identify and track project issues, analyze their impact, and implement appropriate actions to resolve or mitigate them.
16. Task: Ensure knowledge transfer for project continuity
    1. Enabler: Document lessons learned, facilitate knowledge sharing, and ensure the transfer of critical project knowledge to support future projects.
17. Task: Plan and manage project/phase closure or transitions
    1. Enabler: Define and execute closure activities, conduct project reviews, and ensure a smooth transition to the next project phase or project closure.

Business Environment Domain:

1. Task: Plan and manage project compliance
   1. Enabler: Understand and comply with relevant laws, regulations, and organizational policies throughout the project lifecycle.
2. Task: Evaluate and deliver project benefits and value
   1. Enabler: Identify and measure project benefits, align project outcomes with organizational objectives, and deliver value to stakeholders.
3. Task: Evaluate and address external business environment changes for impact on scope
   1. Enabler: Monitor external factors, assess their impact on project scope, and proactively adapt the project to address changes.
4. Task: Support organizational change
   1. Enabler: Identify change impacts, develop change management plans, and support stakeholders in adopting and embracing organizational changes.

To test, try to comment on a situation question you have encountered and try to map under what Domain, Task, and Enabler that question would fall. The answer will be patterned with an Enabler.

About: Origin Materials ($ORGN) is a carbon negative materials company engaged in providing sustainable materials by replacing petroleum-based materials with decarbonized materials. The firm, using its platform technology, converts sustainable feedstock, such as sustainably harvested wood, agricultural waste, wood waste, and even corrugated cardboard, into materials and products that are made from fossil feedstock, such as petroleum and natural gas. Its products include food and beverage packaging, clothing, textiles, plastics, car parts, carpeting, tires, adhesives, and soil amendments.
Sustainable Materials: Origin Materials is at the forefront of developing innovative materials from renewable feedstocks, such as biomass and agricultural residues, rather than fossil fuels. This aligns with the growing demand for sustainable products and solutions. The company's technology allows for the production of chemicals and plastics with a significantly reduced carbon footprint compared to traditional petroleum-based materials. As environmental concerns continue to rise, Origin Materials' focus on sustainability positions it well for long-term growth.
Market Potential: The global market for sustainable materials is expanding rapidly. Origin Materials' products have a wide range of applications across industries, including packaging, textiles, automotive, and electronics. As companies and consumers increasingly prioritize environmentally friendly alternatives, Origin Materials has the opportunity to capture a significant market share and benefit from the growing demand for sustainable materials.
Strong Partnerships: Origin Materials has established strategic partnerships with major companies, including Nestlé, Danone, and PepsiCo, to develop and commercialize its sustainable materials. These partnerships provide validation for the company's technology and create a pathway to scale its production and distribution. Collaborations with industry leaders also enhance Origin Materials' market reach and brand recognition, which can lead to further partnerships and customer acquisitions.
Technological Advantage: Origin Materials has developed proprietary technology that enables the conversion of biomass feedstocks into chemical building blocks used in various products. The company's technology is highly scalable and cost-competitive, allowing for the production of sustainable materials at a competitive price point. This technological advantage gives Origin Materials a strong position in the market and potential for continued innovation and improvement.
Favorable Regulatory Environment: Governments worldwide are implementing policies and regulations to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainability. Origin Materials' focus on low-carbon materials aligns with these trends and can benefit from favorable regulatory support. Increased government support for sustainable initiatives, such as tax incentives and subsidies, can further accelerate the adoption of Origin Materials' products.
Origin 1 Manufacturing Plant: Origin 1 is their first commercial plant and is located in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. It is expected to be running by the end of Q2 2023. This commercial-scale plant is anticipated to produce sustainable materials including chloromethylfurfural (“CMF”), which can subsequently be converted into high-performance products used in packaging, textiles, apparel, automotive, and other applications, as well as hydrothermal carbon (“HTC”). HTC can be used in fuel pellets, as activated carbon, and as a replacement for carbon black. Origin’s patented technology platform can turn the carbon found in sustainable wood residues into useful materials while capturing carbon in the process. The plant is expected to be able to convert an estimated 25,000 dry metric tons of biomass each year into products for a wide range of end markets.
Origin 2 Manufacturing Plant: Origin 2 (to be located in Geismar, Louisiana) would produce sustainable carbon-negative materials used to make products such as polyethylene terephthalate (“PET”) plastic, which, in turn, is used in packaging, textiles, apparel, automotive, and other applications, as well as hydrothermal carbon, which can be used in fuel pellets, as activated carbon, and as a replacement for carbon black. Origin’s patented technology platform can turn the carbon found in sustainable wood residues into useful materials while capturing carbon in the process. The 150-acre facility would create an estimated 500 construction jobs, 200 local full-time positions, and between 500 and 1,000 indirect local jobs. The plant would convert an estimated 1 million dry metric tons of wood residues each year into products for a wide range of end markets. Front end design of Origin 2 is underway with detailed engineering set to begin in 2023. Origin had previously disclosed that its Geismar plant is expected to cost approximately $1.1 billion and that the plant is expected to be operational mid-2025. The Bond Commission and Louisiana Public Finance Authority (“LPFA”) Board of Trustees at its September 6, 2022 meeting, have approved of the up to $1.5 billion bond issuance.
Please let me know if I missed anything or if anything is incorrect.

Financial reporting advisory refers to a specialized consulting service provided by professionals or firms to assist organizations with various aspects of financial reporting. It involves offering expert guidance and support to ensure accurate and compliant financial reporting practices. The primary objective of financial reporting advisory is to help companies meet regulatory requirements, improve transparency, and enhance the quality and reliability of their financial statements.
Financial reporting advisory services cover a wide range of areas, including but not limited to:
Interpretation and application of accounting standards: Advising on the correct interpretation and application of accounting standards, such as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), to ensure compliance and accurate financial reporting.
Financial statement preparation and review: Assisting with the preparation and review of financial statements to ensure they present a true and fair view of the company's financial position, performance, and cash flows.
Disclosure requirements: Advising on the disclosure requirements related to financial statements and assisting companies in properly disclosing relevant information to users of the financial statements, such as investors, regulators, and other stakeholders.
Technical accounting issues: Providing guidance on complex accounting issues or transactions, such as revenue recognition, business combinations, leasing arrangements, or financial instruments, to ensure compliance with accounting standards and regulatory requirements.
Financial reporting process improvement: Assessing and enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of financial reporting processes within an organization, including the development of policies, procedures, and internal controls to strengthen financial reporting and internal governance.
Regulatory compliance: Assisting companies in understanding and complying with applicable regulatory requirements, such as filings with securities regulators or other governmental bodies.
Financial reporting advisory services are typically provided by accounting firms, consulting firms, or specialized advisory firms with expertise in accounting, auditing, and financial reporting standards. These services aim to help organizations navigate complex accounting and reporting challenges, maintain transparency, and provide accurate and reliable financial information to stakeholders. If you looking for this service then visit :
https://contetra.com/technical-accounting-international-gaap-advisory-services/

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).
As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.
These are mostly chronologically ordered. Here we go:

Quality Contributions in the Main Motte

@ControlsFreak:

• "No one thinks that when you go to the grocery store, or go to buy a TV, a refrigerator, or car, or anything else, that you should first have to just give them all your financial information so that they can tailor your price."

@OracleOutlook:

• "A definitive list of Catholic Dogmas and their teaching weight has been made, yes."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

• "High-performing brains ride the edge of metastability and wrangle representations easily; low-performing ones waste power fending off chaos and lose track of the context."

@Ethan:

• "Coed settings have their own dynamic."

@gattsuru:

• "A lot of gatekeeping discourse in trans spheres reflected practices based around WPATH SoC v6; while this officially only ran from 2001-2011 (most of that under the name Harry Benjamin International Genders Dysphoria Association), it had a pretty significant foundational effect..."

@Unsaying:

• "So it seems to me that if I'm to be a Christian, this directly implies feeding my child to the dogs. And if I'm to do otherwise, this fully generalizes to Hitler."

@netstack:

• "That’s why, whenever a demagogue starts to gesture at the Other, we think of Hitler. He demonstrated that full arc, from growth to apex to disaster."

@ymeskhout:

• " But ultimately, how scary is it to know your deeply held convictions are subject to materialistic opportunism?"

Contributions for the week of May 1, 2023

@Quantumfreakonomics:

• "The purpose of empathy is to approximate good decision theory."

@ApplesauceIrishCream:

• "I've been trying to get myself to do a writeup of Walter Russell Mead's four traditions of American foreign policy..."

@FiveHourMarathon:

• "A world where Bud Light's customers do at least a little critical examination of what they consume will probably improve the world."

@RandomRanger:

• "Steal money, buy compute."

@Primaprimaprima:

• "Covid didn't really teach us anything new. But I do think it was possibly the first example that showed how spectacularly easy it is to manipulate mass sentiment in the social media age."

@raggedy_anthem:

• "Tourist pamphlets play up Louisiana’s French-ness. In reality, the Creole elite has not been in the driver’s seat since Reconstruction, and arguably since before the Civil War."

@Goodguy:

• "No, we should not allow insane people to roam the subways threatening others. But there are many possible solutions between 'do nothing' and 'kill them all'."

@Felipe:

• "tl;dr - recently I did a flyout for a humanities job in the US, and wow, it put me off returning to US academia in a big way."

@coffee_enjoyer:

• "Christians are not golems designed to do good for outsiders continually."

Contributions for the week of May 8, 2023

@self_made_human:

• "An Indian Abroad in Thailand"

@Folamh3:

• "American cultural exports"

@naraburns:

• "More than 77% of all sex discrimination complaints filed with the OCR are filed by a single person, at a rate of about 20 complaints per day..."

@FiveHourMarathon:

• "Shakespeare, Honor, Unitary Leadership, and How To End the Culture War"

@MadMonzer:

• "Interestingly, I think the difference between the Special Olympics and the Paralympics is a very good intuition pump for the trans and intersex in women's sports issue."

@ymeskhout:

• "Defamation Bear Trap"

@cjet79:

• "Our legal system increasingly resembles a system of 'might makes right' if you have enough powerful people on your side then the law can literally be what you want it to be."

Contributions for the week of May 15, 2023

@Pasha:

• "So yesterday Turkish Presidential and Parliamentary elections took place. I wanted to give an overview of the main characters and themes."

@huadpe:

• "The ironic outcome of this is that for advocates of increased densification, you end up trying to make a fundamentally capitalist argument (less regulation will make us richer) on terms of anything but capitalism."

@Primaprimaprima:

• "I think those high-falutin' art snobs do get some things right (it would be weird if they were so dysfunctional that they got everything exactly wrong)."

@Soriek:

• "Consolidated Markets in Healthcare"

@FCfromSSC:

• "The reason Anheuser-Busch being boycotted is that they got dragged into the culture war."

@FarNearEverywhere:

• "[T]here are people who shoplift because they genuinely have no money and are hungry or their kids are hungry. The vast majority are not these cases."

@raggedy_anthem:

• "You could call Rangel an unwitting pawn of white supremacy, but then you would have to explain the other 95% of his career."

Contributions for the week of May 22, 2023

@ymeskhout:

• "What are the limits of the weak man?"

@cjet79:

• "I sort of lean towards weak-manning not being a thing, and any view that anyone holds is fair game."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

• "I suspect that the biggest intellectual deficit of the rationalist culture is precisely this preoccupation with the meta."

@SecureSignals:

• "The point here is that Holocaust Revisionism went from being a quirky movement of libertarian-adjacent autists to a genuine political dissident movement."

@Soriek:

• "International Updates"

@hydroacetylene:

• "Texas politics update: Articles of impeachment are being floated against attorney general Ken Paxton, the most important culture war figure you don't think of very often."

@urquan:

• "We rarely agree on things, but I absolutely agree with you that the gay and trans movement is motivated by the same impulse that motivates individualist, get-the-government-out-of-my-wallet libertarian conservatism."

@erwgv3g34:

• "Most of what you think you know about sex/romance/dating is a feminist lie, fed to you through a combination of the education system and the media, or people repeating falsehoods they themselves learned from school and movies and TV shows."

@felis-parenthesis:

• "One of the rival positions is monocensorship. The other position is bicensorship."

@HlynkaCG:

• "As I've said before I feel like the left's dominance of academia and traditional media has effectively left a Hobbes-and-Burke-shaped hole in the discourse."

@FCfromSSC:

• "Our established systems are failing en masse, and there's a blatant disconnect between the way things are hypothetically supposed to work, and the way they actually work."

Contributions for the week of May 29, 2023

@ryandv:

• "The message of reddit is no longer the actual thoughts of its users: it's the message of reddit as medium - that is, a highly restrictive diet of information curated by those wanting to impose a particular reality tunnel on its users."

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).
As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.
These are mostly chronologically ordered. Here we go:

Quality Contributions in the Main Motte

@ControlsFreak:

• "No one thinks that when you go to the grocery store, or go to buy a TV, a refrigerator, or car, or anything else, that you should first have to just give them all your financial information so that they can tailor your price."

@OracleOutlook:

• "A definitive list of Catholic Dogmas and their teaching weight has been made, yes."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

• "High-performing brains ride the edge of metastability and wrangle representations easily; low-performing ones waste power fending off chaos and lose track of the context."

@Ethan:

• "Coed settings have their own dynamic."

@gattsuru:

• "A lot of gatekeeping discourse in trans spheres reflected practices based around WPATH SoC v6; while this officially only ran from 2001-2011 (most of that under the name Harry Benjamin International Genders Dysphoria Association), it had a pretty significant foundational effect..."

@Unsaying:

• "So it seems to me that if I'm to be a Christian, this directly implies feeding my child to the dogs. And if I'm to do otherwise, this fully generalizes to Hitler."

@netstack:

• "That’s why, whenever a demagogue starts to gesture at the Other, we think of Hitler. He demonstrated that full arc, from growth to apex to disaster."

@ymeskhout:

• " But ultimately, how scary is it to know your deeply held convictions are subject to materialistic opportunism?"

Contributions for the week of May 1, 2023

@Quantumfreakonomics:

• "The purpose of empathy is to approximate good decision theory."

@ApplesauceIrishCream:

• "I've been trying to get myself to do a writeup of Walter Russell Mead's four traditions of American foreign policy..."

@FiveHourMarathon:

• "A world where Bud Light's customers do at least a little critical examination of what they consume will probably improve the world."

@RandomRanger:

• "Steal money, buy compute."

@Primaprimaprima:

• "Covid didn't really teach us anything new. But I do think it was possibly the first example that showed how spectacularly easy it is to manipulate mass sentiment in the social media age."

@raggedy_anthem:

• "Tourist pamphlets play up Louisiana’s French-ness. In reality, the Creole elite has not been in the driver’s seat since Reconstruction, and arguably since before the Civil War."

@Goodguy:

• "No, we should not allow insane people to roam the subways threatening others. But there are many possible solutions between 'do nothing' and 'kill them all'."

@Felipe:

• "tl;dr - recently I did a flyout for a humanities job in the US, and wow, it put me off returning to US academia in a big way."

@coffee_enjoyer:

• "Christians are not golems designed to do good for outsiders continually."

Contributions for the week of May 8, 2023

@self_made_human:

• "An Indian Abroad in Thailand"

@Folamh3:

• "American cultural exports"

@naraburns:

• "More than 77% of all sex discrimination complaints filed with the OCR are filed by a single person, at a rate of about 20 complaints per day..."

@FiveHourMarathon:

• "Shakespeare, Honor, Unitary Leadership, and How To End the Culture War"

@MadMonzer:

• "Interestingly, I think the difference between the Special Olympics and the Paralympics is a very good intuition pump for the trans and intersex in women's sports issue."

@ymeskhout:

• "Defamation Bear Trap"

@cjet79:

• "Our legal system increasingly resembles a system of 'might makes right' if you have enough powerful people on your side then the law can literally be what you want it to be."

Contributions for the week of May 15, 2023

@Pasha:

• "So yesterday Turkish Presidential and Parliamentary elections took place. I wanted to give an overview of the main characters and themes."

@huadpe:

• "The ironic outcome of this is that for advocates of increased densification, you end up trying to make a fundamentally capitalist argument (less regulation will make us richer) on terms of anything but capitalism."

@Primaprimaprima:

• "I think those high-falutin' art snobs do get some things right (it would be weird if they were so dysfunctional that they got everything exactly wrong)."

@Soriek:

• "Consolidated Markets in Healthcare"

@FCfromSSC:

• "The reason Anheuser-Busch being boycotted is that they got dragged into the culture war."

@FarNearEverywhere:

• "[T]here are people who shoplift because they genuinely have no money and are hungry or their kids are hungry. The vast majority are not these cases."

@raggedy_anthem:

• "You could call Rangel an unwitting pawn of white supremacy, but then you would have to explain the other 95% of his career."

Contributions for the week of May 22, 2023

@ymeskhout:

• "What are the limits of the weak man?"

@cjet79:

• "I sort of lean towards weak-manning not being a thing, and any view that anyone holds is fair game."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

• "I suspect that the biggest intellectual deficit of the rationalist culture is precisely this preoccupation with the meta."

@SecureSignals:

• "The point here is that Holocaust Revisionism went from being a quirky movement of libertarian-adjacent autists to a genuine political dissident movement."

@Soriek:

• "International Updates"

@hydroacetylene:

• "Texas politics update: Articles of impeachment are being floated against attorney general Ken Paxton, the most important culture war figure you don't think of very often."

@urquan:

• "We rarely agree on things, but I absolutely agree with you that the gay and trans movement is motivated by the same impulse that motivates individualist, get-the-government-out-of-my-wallet libertarian conservatism."

@erwgv3g34:

• "Most of what you think you know about sex/romance/dating is a feminist lie, fed to you through a combination of the education system and the media, or people repeating falsehoods they themselves learned from school and movies and TV shows."

@felis-parenthesis:

• "One of the rival positions is monocensorship. The other position is bicensorship."

@HlynkaCG:

• "As I've said before I feel like the left's dominance of academia and traditional media has effectively left a Hobbes-and-Burke-shaped hole in the discourse."

@FCfromSSC:

• "Our established systems are failing en masse, and there's a blatant disconnect between the way things are hypothetically supposed to work, and the way they actually work."

Contributions for the week of May 29, 2023

@ryandv:

• "The message of reddit is no longer the actual thoughts of its users: it's the message of reddit as medium - that is, a highly restrictive diet of information curated by those wanting to impose a particular reality tunnel on its users."

GLV – Gas Lift Valve
HGS – High Gravity Solids
HPHT – High Pressure High Temperature
HSP – Hydraulic Submersible Pump
ICD – Inflow Control Device
ICV – Inflow Control Valve
LIH – Lost In Hole
LS - Long String
MEG – Mono Ethylene Glycol
MIYP – Maximum Internal Yield Pressure
Mnt – Maintenance
MSR acid – Mud Silt Removal acid
MuSol – Mutual Solvent
MVERT – Corrosion log from Baker Hughes
NAPF – Non Aqueous Phase Fluid
NASA – Non Active Side Arm
NPSH – Net Positive Suction Head
NRV - Non Return Valve
OD – Outer Diameter
OGD – Onshore Gas Development
PBR – Polished Bore Receptacle
PBTD – Plug Back Total Depth
PCP – Progressive Cavity Pump
PKR – Packer
PTA – Pressure Transient Analysis
PWRI – Produced Water Re-Injection
PWV – Production Wing Valve
RDF – Reservoir Drilling Fluid
RTTS – Retrievable Test Treat Squeeze
SAP – Sustainable Annulus Pressure
SARA – Saturates, Aromatics, Resins, Asphaltenes
SBF – Synthetic Base Fluid
SCSSSV – Surface Control Sub-Surface Safety Valve
SDA – Self Diverting Agent
SIBHP – Shut-in Bottom Hole Pressure
SICP – Shut-In Casing Pressure
SIDPP – Shut-In Drill Pipe Pressure
SITHP – Shut-In Tubing Hanger Pressure
SIWHP – Shut-In Well Head Pressure
SPF – Shots Per Foot
SPM – Side Pocket Mandrel
SPP – Stand Pipe Pressure
SS - Short String
SSD – Selective Shutting Device
SSD – Sliding Side Door (same as above)
TBG – Tubing
TCP – Tubing Conveyed Perforations
TDS – Total Dissolved Solids
TSS - Total Suspended Solids
UFO – Unable to Flow and Observe (inactive string category)
UMV – Upper Master Valve
UTA – Umbilical Termination Assembly
VDA – Viscous-elastic Diverting Acid
VDL – Variable Density Log
VES – Viscous Elastic Surfactant
VFP – Vertical Flow Performance
VSD – Variable Speed Drive
WDW – Water Disposal Well
WEG – Wireline Entry Guide
WHM – Wellhead Maintenance
WI – Water Injection
WLL – Wireline Logging
WRSCSSV – Wireline Retrievable Surface Control SSV
WSO – Water Shut-Off
WSW – Water Supply Well
XMT – Xmas Tree
XO – Cross Over
YP – Yield Point

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Global Water-Soluble Fertilizer Market Study 2021-2032, by Segment. A new Water-Soluble Fertilizer market research report that keenly observes the 2022 industry and gives a diligent idea regarding the current market, latest market movements, future goals and directions, and regulatory panorama.
The report Water-Soluble Fertilizer market provides highlighting new business opportunities and supporting strategic and tactical decision-making. This report recognizes that in this rapidly-evolving and competitive environment, up-to-date marketing information is essential to monitor performance and make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments and focuses on markets capacities and on the changing structure of the Water-Soluble Fertilizer. The report highlights powerful factors augmenting the demand in the global Water-Soluble Fertilizer market and even those hampering the market on a worldwide scale. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Water-Soluble Fertilizer leading manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the Chemicals & Materials Industry.
The global Water-Soluble Fertilizer market is expected to reach USD 28.7 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 4.9% during the forecast period 2021 to 2030.
Request To Download Free Sample copy of the report @ https://www.sphericalinsights.com/request-sample/1197
Valuable Market Analytical Insights Included in the Report:

1. Size Capacity, Generation, Investment Trends, Regulations and Top Key Company Profiles Scrutinized in New Research.
   
2. Revenue growth of the Water-Soluble Fertilizer Market over the assessment period.
   
3. Rival Information about Future Scenarios and Main Business Opportunity Analysis.
   
4. Recent collaborations, mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships.
   
5. Value chain analysis of prominent players in the Water-Soluble Fertilizer Market.
   
6. Regulatory framework across different regions impacting this market trajectory.
   
7. Recent technological advances and innovations influencing the Water-Soluble Fertilizer Market.
   

Key Players Detail:
Agrium Inc. K+S Aktiengesellschaft Coromandel International Limited Yara International ASA Compo GmbH & Co Haifa Chemicals Limited Israel Chemical Limited Sociedad Quimica Y Minera SA (SQM) The Mosaic Company EuroChem
The Water-Soluble Fertilizer Market Research Report offers a thorough analysis that includes the current situation and potential future growth. This report offers an in-depth look at several key research industry statistics as well as a trend for the future, which aids different sectors in identifying goods and boosting profitability and revenue growth.
Segment Analysis
By Type Nitrogenous Potassic Micronutrients Phosphatic
By Application Foliar Fertigation
This report also splits the market by region:
North America
US
Canada
Mexico
Europe
Germany
Uk
France
Italy
Spain
Russia
Rest of Europe
Asia Pacific
China
Japan
India
South Korea
Australia
Rest of Asia Pacific
South America
Brazil
Argentina
Rest of South America
Middle East & Africa
UAE
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
South Africa
Rest of Middle East & Africa
Check discount for this report: https://www.sphericalinsights.com/request-discount/1197
The scope of the report is to provide a 360-degree view of the market by assessing the entire value chain and analyzing the key Water-Soluble Fertilizer market trends from 2021 to 2032 underlying in specific geographies. Qualitative and quantitative aspects are interlinked to provide rationales on market numbers, CAGR, and forecasts.
Key highlights of the Water-Soluble Fertilizer market report:
Regional demand estimation and forecast
Before commodity price fluctuations
Technology update analysis
Raw material procurement strategy
Competition analysis
Product portfolio matrix
Supplier Management
Cost-benefit analysis
Supply chain optimization analysis
Patent analysis
Market research and development analysis
Mergers and acquisitions
In January 2020, India-based Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation brought over 300 tons of water-soluble fertilizers from China.
Access full Report with Table of Content @ https://www.sphericalinsights.com/reports/water-soluble-fertilizer-market
Whats covered in the report?

1. Overview of the Water-Soluble Fertilizer market.
   
2. The current and forecasted regional (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa) market size data for the Water-Soluble Fertilizer market, based on segement.
   
3. Water-Soluble Fertilizer Market trends.
   
4. Water-Soluble Fertilizer Market drivers.
   
5. Analysis of major company profiles.
   

Why buy?

1. To assess the viability of the business, understand the demand for the Water-Soluble Fertilizer market.
   
2. Identify the established and emerging markets where Water-Soluble Fertilizer products are used.
   
3. Determine the best location for the product and develop a product market strategy based on the position in the value chain.
   
4. Identify the areas of weakness and fill them.
   
5. Create strategies for each of the categories based on the economic and industrial conditions.
   
6. Describe the competitive posture by contrasting the goods with the major market players.
   

About the Spherical Insights
Spherical Insights is a market research and consulting firm which provides actionable market research study, quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight especially designed for decision makers and aids ROI.
which is catering to different industry such as financial sectors, industrial sectors, government organizations, universities, non-profits and corporations. The company's mission is to work with businesses to achieve business objectives and maintain strategic improvements.
Contact Us:
Company Name: Spherical Insights
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1 303 800 4326 (US)
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Global Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer Market Study 2021-2032, by Segment. A new Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer market research report that keenly observes the 2022 industry and gives a diligent idea regarding the current market, latest market movements, future goals and directions, and regulatory panorama. The report Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer market provides highlighting new business opportunities and supporting strategic and tactical decision-making. This report recognizes that in this rapidly-evolving and competitive environment, up-to-date marketing information is essential to monitor performance and make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments and focuses on markets capacities and on the changing structure of the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer. The report highlights powerful factors augmenting the demand in the global Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer market and even those hampering the market on a worldwide scale. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer leading manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the Chemicals & Materials Industry. The Global Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer Market is expected to reach USD 1348.48 million by 2030, at a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period 2021 to 2030. Request To Download Free Sample copy of the report @ https://www.sphericalinsights.com/request-sample/1169 Valuable Market Analytical Insights Included in the Report: 1. Size Capacity, Generation, Investment Trends, Regulations and Top Key Company Profiles Scrutinized in New Research. 2. Revenue growth of the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer Market over the assessment period. 3. Rival Information about Future Scenarios and Main Business Opportunity Analysis. 4. Recent collaborations, mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships. 5. Value chain analysis of prominent players in the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer Market. 6. Regulatory framework across different regions impacting this market trajectory. 7. Recent technological advances and innovations influencing the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer Market. Key Players Detail: Schur Flexibles Holding GesmbH Coveris Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation KURARAY CO., LTD. KUREHA CORPORATION Arkema Chang Chun Group. ProAmpac MULTIFLEX FOLIEN GMBH & CO. KG Vishakha Polyfab Pvt Ltd International Plastic Engineering Co., Ltd Verpackungen GmbH Plastissimo Film Co., Ltd Zhongsu New Materials Technology The Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer Market Research Report offers a thorough analysis that includes the current situation and potential future growth. This report offers an in-depth look at several key research industry statistics as well as a trend for the future, which aids different sectors in identifying goods and boosting profitability and revenue growth. Segment Analysis By Grade Standard Grade Specialty Grade By Application Packaging Pipes & Tubes Films & Sheets Fuel Tanks & Containers This report also splits the market by region: North America US Canada Mexico Europe Germany Uk France Italy Spain Russia Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India South Korea Australia Rest of Asia Pacific South America Brazil Argentina Rest of South America Middle East & Africa UAE Saudi Arabia Qatar South Africa Rest of Middle East & Africa Check discount for this report: https://www.sphericalinsights.com/request-discount/1169 The scope of the report is to provide a 360-degree view of the market by assessing the entire value chain and analyzing the key Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer market trends from 2021 to 2032 underlying in specific geographies. Qualitative and quantitative aspects are interlinked to provide rationales on market numbers, CAGR, and forecasts. Key highlights of the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer market report: Regional demand estimation and forecast Before commodity price fluctuations Technology update analysis Raw material procurement strategy Competition analysis Product portfolio matrix Supplier Management Cost-benefit analysis Supply chain optimization analysis Patent analysis Market research and development analysis Mergers and acquisitions In February 2022, Arkema is set to expand its engineering adhesives segment by acquiring Shanghai Zhiguan Polymer Materials in China. Access full Report with Table of Content @ https://www.sphericalinsights.com/reports/ethylene-vinyl-alcohol-copolymer-market Whats covered in the report? 1. Overview of the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer market. 2. The current and forecasted regional (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa) market size data for the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer market, based on segement. 3. Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer Market trends. 4. Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer Market drivers. 5. Analysis of major company profiles. Why buy? 1. To assess the viability of the business, understand the demand for the Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer market. 2. Identify the established and emerging markets where Ethylene-vinyl Alcohol Copolymer products are used. 3. Determine the best location for the product and develop a product market strategy based on the position in the value chain. 4. Identify the areas of weakness and fill them. 5. Create strategies for each of the categories based on the economic and industrial conditions. 6. Describe the competitive posture by contrasting the goods with the major market players. About the Spherical Insights Spherical Insights is a market research and consulting firm which provides actionable market research study, quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight especially designed for decision makers and aids ROI. which is catering to different industry such as financial sectors, industrial sectors, government organizations, universities, non-profits and corporations. The company's mission is to work with businesses to achieve business objectives and maintain strategic improvements. Contact Us: Company Name: Spherical Insights Email: [email protected] Phone: +1 303 800 4326 (US) Follow Us: LinkedIn Facebook Twitter