Wednesday: Hili dialogue

March 11, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a “hump day” (“Дзень горба” in Belarusian); it’s Wednesday, March 11, 2026 and Debunking Day. Here’s one: You don’t have free will, even if you feel like it. As biochemist Anthony Cashmore said in the PNAS paper that turned me into a hard determinist:

Here I argue that the way we use the concept of free will is nonsensical. The beauty of the mind of man has nothing to do with free will or any unique hold that biology has on select laws of physics or chemistry. This beauty lies in the complexity of the chemistry and cell biology of the brain, which enables a select few of us to compose like Mozart and Verdi, and the rest of us to appreciate listening to these compositions. The reality is, not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar. The laws of nature are uniform throughout, and these laws do not accommodate the concept of free will.

And don’t listen to those compatibilists who make up new definitions of free will so we can have it despite the fact that we can never do other than what we did. Compatibilists are worried that if people accept determinism (which happens to be true), we’ll all become nihilists and never get out of bed—and society will fall apart. (This is the identical argument made by those promoting religious belief.) They’re wrong. People do just fine without religion (Scandinavia) and “free will” (determinists like Sapolsky and I are neither nihilists nor criminals).

It’s also Johnny Appleseed Day (one of two days thought to be John Chapman’s birthday), National “Eat Your Noodles” Day (why the scare quotes?), Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day, and World Plumbing Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 11 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*According to the WSJ, Trump’s advisors are urging him to find an exit strategy from the war soon. This is in the face of big American opposition to our fight with Iran.

President Trump said he was eyeing a quick end to the war in Iran, as some of his advisers privately urged him to look for an exit plan amid spiking oil prices and concerns that a lengthy conflict could spark political backlash.

Speaking to reporters in Florida on Monday, Trump characterized the military mission as mostly having achieved its goals. “We’re way ahead of schedule,” he said, adding he thought it would be over “very soon.”

He didn’t provide a clear timeline for ending the Iran operation. When asked about helping the Iranian people who have risen up against the regime, Trump sounded ready for a quick conclusion rather than to continue to push for leadership change.

“We want a system that can lead to many years of peace, and if we can’t have that, we might as well get it over with right now,” Trump said. He said he was disappointed in the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Iran’s new supreme leader, a move that signals that Tehran won’t back down.

From the NYT:

In the days after President Trump launched U.S. forces in an attack against Iran, support for the strikes is far lower than what it has been at the beginnings of previous foreign conflicts.

So far, polls have found that most Americans oppose the Iran attacks. Support ranges from 27 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll to 50 percent in a Fox News poll. The wide variation suggests that public opinion is still taking shape as more Americans learn details of the attacks and the aftermath.

But even the highest level of public support for this conflict falls far lower than that at the start of most other conflicts, including World War II, the Korean War and the Iraq War.

Here’s a graph from the NYT article showing how little support this war has compared to others (in the initial days):

With Americans that opposed to our striking Iran, this will constitute strong pressure on Trump to get the conflict over with.  It’s a bit disturbing that he’s not talking any more about regime change, and the nuclear issue seems to have disappeared.  Without resolution of those issues, what will a quick “exit” accomplish, then? But see the next item!

*HOWEVER, our “Secretary of War” has declared that the U.S. will keep fighting until Iran is defeated.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran is “badly losing” in the war and that Tuesday’s airstrikes would be the most intense yet of the campaign against the regime.

“We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated, but we do so on our time line and at our choosing,” Hegseth told a joint press conference with Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Earlier, Iran’s foreign minister said negotiations with the U.S. were off the table, after President Trump said the war will be over “very soon” but that the U.S. military campaign still has further to go.

And from the previous link:

The defense secretary set out three objectives for the U.S. campaign against Iran.

1. Destroy their missiles and their ability to make them.

2. Destroy their navy.

3. Permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons forever.

I don’t see how #3 can be accomplished without regime change.  It would require a binding agreement by Iran, along with repeated and unannounced inspections of Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities. But even that is not enough, as we know from previous experience. And how do we permanently destroy their ability to make missiles?  Finally, they can always rebuild their navy. I fail to understand how these objectives can be achieved unless the government falls and is replaces by a democratic and friendlier one.

*CNN reports that the whereabouts of Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ayatollah and Iran’s appointed new leader, are a mystery.

Nearly 48 hours since being appointed as the third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic in Iran’s history, Mojtaba Khamenei is nowhere to be seen.

No video message has been put out from him addressing the crowds of supporters that have gone onto the streets across Iran to pledge their allegiance to him, nor has a written statement been issued by him or his office. State media has relied on archive footage to introduce him to the audience, and state propaganda networks have heavily relied on AI video and stills to create an image of an all-wise leader who rightly inherits the mantle of leadership.

. . . One clue in the new leader’s absence may come from state media reports that he too has been injured in what’s being dubbed the “Ramadan War.” Perhaps his reported injuries have prevented him from appearing on video, though that wouldn’t explain the lack of a written statement. Another factor could be the disappointment expressed by US President Donald Trump in Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment following his father’s assassination. Asked Monday if the new supreme leader has a target on his back, Trump responded that he didn’t want to say.

But even as the leader remains hidden from sight, it seems the wider body politic is still functioning with little suggestion of a change in the war posture; more public statements of allegiance have emerged from across the spectrum, with the likes of reformist former President Mohammad Khatami releasing a statement on Tuesday. Perhaps the mere thought that the position no longer remains vacant is enough to keep the war momentum going.

Or he could be scared of being killed. If any man in the world should be fearing for his life right now—save those on death row—it would be Khomenei, Jr.  The last two sentences make little sense to me.

*Over at Quillette, Brian Stewart tells us that, despite its many good programs, “The United Nations is going broke.”  But, adds Stewart, it has only itself to blame.

Yet the United Nations endures, not because its critics are wrong about its shortcomings, but because it’s better than nothing. This is faint praise, I realise. Still, it’s sobering to consider that, for all its flaws, the UN remains the only permanent standing forum where representatives of every nation can speak to their international counterparts—and, occasionally, even find ways to co-operate productively.

To give one example, it was in large part thanks to the World Health Organization, a specialised agency of the United Nations, that smallpox was eradicated in the 1970s. Other agencies and related organisations include the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, International Atomic Energy Agency, International Court of Justice, International Monetary Fund, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and the World Bank. All of these multilateral entities have fairly earned their own critics. However, it’s hard to argue that the world would be a safer, healthier, or more culturally enriched place if they did not exist.

But the United Nations now faces a crisis that threatens to impair its global work. On 30 January, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the body is on the brink of “imminent financial collapse,” citing record-high unpaid dues totalling nearly $1.6 billion (all figures US) and outdated budget rules. He cautioned that the UN could run out of cash by mid-2026, and urged member states to pay their assessed contributions in full and on time, or agree to fundamental financial reforms.

The U.S. has been responsible for a lot of the UN’s financial woes. Some of our refusal to pay is good (UNRWA), but other victims of withholding, like cuts to WHO contributions, don’t seem to deserve it.

The United States has long been the single biggest contributor to the UN’s regular budget and peacekeeping operations. That role has granted Washington outsized influence within international circles, but has also fuelled persistent domestic resentment among critics who ask why American taxpayers should underwrite an institution that often seems hostile to western interests.

As one might expect, Donald Trump is sympathetic to this constituency, and his administration (both during its first and second terms) has imposed sweeping cuts on payments to UN bodies, including the World Health Organization and the Human Rights Council. It also permanently halted funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which has been accused of serving the interests of Hamas. Last year, the Trump administration announced its withdrawal from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), on the basis that the agency promotes “woke” and “divisive” cultural postures. This is actually the second time that Trump has ordered this move: He withdrew from UNESCO in 2019, but the United States rejoined in 2023 under Joe Biden’s watch.

Stewart also lauds the UN’s peacekeeping operations, with eleven underway. UNIFIL, the one in Lebanon, is however a huge waste of money, as UNIFIL does nothing to carry out its mission. Here’s a map of the rest of them:

(from article): A map of all UN field missions. Special Political Missions are indicated in purple. Peacekeeping operations are indicated in blue.

In the end, Stewart argues that the UN’s “political theater” has acted to scupper its mission and reduce the dosh the organization rakes in:

It’s a pity that all of this substantive work often gets overshadowed by the performative political theatre that grabs headlines. But to some extent, UN officials only have themselves to blame. The UN chief recently congratulated Iran’s mullahs on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution—which, in case anyone needs reminding, ushered in the ruthless theocracy that just slaughtered tens of thousands of protesters.

This kind of misjudgment contaminates the whole UN brand, not just the organisation’s top administrator. And it isn’t surprising that politicians in many parts of the world are getting tired of paying his invoices.

It’s a pity that the people who run the UN or its agencies are so often hamhanded. If they’d chosen some good people unlike António Guterres and Francesca Albanese, the positive effect would ramify throughout the organization. The UN needs a complete restructuring and an ethical leadership.

*You’ll remember that the Iranian women’s soccer team, before playing a match in Australia, refused to sing their country’s national anthem. It was reported that on the team bus they were making the “SOS” sign, for they’d surely face punishment when they went home. Now I see this with a link to the story that five of them have defected (click photo for link to Jerusalem Post story).  Also, Trump offered to take all 26 members of the team into the U.S. if they wanted to come.

Five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team, who visited Australia to play in the Women’s Asian Cup, were granted permission to stay in the country on Tuesday after international concern broke out over their safety.

An inside source told CNN that two additional people, a player and a member of staff, had also decided to stay in Australia, though officials have yet to confirm.

Last Monday, the players were recorded standing in silence during their national anthem, an action taken by hardliners in Iran as treason.

The women were reportedly forced to sing the anthem during their following two matches, and perform the military salute, but were filmed signing “Help” as they were driven away after their 2-0 loss to the Philippines last week.

Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, who has agreed to provide the women with visas, told reporters that the other team members were also welcome to stay in Australia, noting that the initial five players wanted to stay.

Australian officials identified the players as Zahra Sarbali Alishah, Mona Hamoudi, Zahra Ghanbari, Fatemeh Pasandideh, and Atefeh Ramezanizadeh. They were staying at an undisclosed location under police protection, officials said.

Simon Leske, the co-founder and director of Kindra Migration Lawyers, told The Jerusalem Post that Burke had used his unique powers to grant the women visas and that the players had likely received the subclass 449 temporary humanitarian visa.

“I believe, based on my experience, that it’s likely to be the subclass 449, humanitarian stay, temporary visa, which is a visa that can be used by the minister in very exceptional circumstances where there’s a need for a very quick grant to allow an individual to stay, and would then allow, subsequently, for the minister to grant a permanent visa, and that might take a little bit longer,” Leske explained.

While not able to comment on the diplomatic implications of the move, Leske shared that many Australians campaigned tirelessly for the women, including members of Australia’s own Iranian diaspora community.

“The fact that the minister actually traveled to Brisbane to meet with the players is quite an exceptional situation. I believe that’s probably due to the pressure within the community to show support,” he explained.

This is very heartening. The players surely knew that they would face retribution from Iran, and I’m wondering whether the other 21 players are actually going back to Iran. They will be regarded as traitors, and I wouldn’t bet on them surviving.  Of course those who stay in Australia or the U.S. face the horrible possibility that their relatives will be punished, so it wasn’t an easy decision. But they decided not to sing the national anthem, and surely they knew what that would lead to. I applaud them.  And see the two tweets from Masih below.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s again wondering, “Where’s the kibble?” But unlike Godot, the kibble always appears.

Hili: Life is a constant waiting.
Andrzej: For what?
Hili: For the next meal.

In Polish:

Hili: Życie jest ciągłym czekaniem.
Ja: Na co?
Hili: Na kolejny posiłek.

*******************

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices; this place is looking for constipated employees):

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From the Unitarian Universalist Hysterical Society (you have to be old to get this one):

Two tweets from Masih today, both about the Iranian women footballers who refused to go back to Iran. Sound up:

And some of the defectors:

From UBC political scientist Sally Sharif via Luana. LLMs are “Large language modules,” a form of AI.  AI is going to be the death of universities, or so Luana maintains. (I am agnostic right now.)

A useful idiot:

From reader Bryan, who says, “I used a straightedge on my phone screen, and also looked without glasses – this illusion is amazing.”  Yep, the lines are straight.

One from my feed: those toes are strong!

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial. Imagine hearing this speech as soon as you arrived at Auschwitz (and survived the “selection”:

One from Dr. Cobb. Mother Earwig (sounds like a Beatrix Potter book):

Female Common Earwigs Forficula auricularia are very good mothers. After spending the winter guarding her batch of eggs she cares for the nymphs for several weeks and regurgitates food for them. The nymphs will disperse when they are large enough to fend for themselves. Dartmoor, Devon

— John Walters (@johnwalterswildife.bsky.social) 2026-03-10T10:11:28.619Z

15 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I strongly agree with Luana on AI. My flight controls group at NASA kept a close eye on (artificial) neural networks as early as the 1980’s as to their applicability to piloted flight. I recently sent a 1989 Nature Commentary on neural networks advances by Francis Crick, referenced in Matthew’s excellent Crick biography, to one of my former engineers who has continued to follow the field over all these years and this is what he wrote back to me:

    “Neural Nets have come a long way since 1989. Primarily, I think, due to advances in computer size and speed and the explosion of information, data, and other content stolen from the interwebs. It’s quite clear that the similarity between artificial neural networks and the brain is superficial.

    The current AI models have a long way to go before they have the ability to effectively identify the quality and integrity of the information they ingest. And humans have a long way to go developing heuristics for how to interact with them. My concern is primarily the collateral damage caused by the unintended consequences and lack of integrity and ethics of those pushing adaption to make a buck, and the lack of oversight and concern being expressed from regulators and government watchdogs.

    It’s quite clear that one of the great strengths (and in some cases shortfalls) of the human brain is the ability to develop heuristics that integrate and consolidate vast amounts of information. I’m curious if there are efforts to understand whether heuristics could be integrated into AI to improve it’s effectiveness as a kind of “sanity check.”“

    Ballerina is terrific. Don’t know if you need Dom or if any champagne will do. Certainly more athletic than rednecks playing cornhole or sweeping out the garage (curling).

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  2. One should not be surprised at anything Trump or Hegseth say about Iran since they are making things up on the fly. Shifting objectives, unclear timelines, conflicting messages and information from the administration, and surprise that a war affected the price of oil and gas are indicators of poor planning and a lack of understanding of that complex region. The people running the show are unserious people cosplaying as serious people, which is dangerous.

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  3. This just spurred a thought :

    Pretty sure I have a “will”, but it is constrained. So, “Constrained Will”. I don’t think this is compatibilism, and I think it is a stronger claim than “agency” :

    Test cases :

    -> travel to grocery store with a grocery list : traffic, construction, etc. might change the plan. End up with groceries I did not plan to get.

    -> breathing : rarely pay attention to it. Then, willfully inhale, hold, exhale, etc.

    -> heart rate : same thing. Exercise a bit and it changes in a regular, reproducible way.

    -> mind : changing on a regular basis through no will of its own, e.g. during sleep. Willful, deliberate thought changes mind one way or another. (I distinguish this from “programming”).

    Etc.

    Pretty sure “Free Will” would make the “Free Will” owner omniscient as a God. I think the religious story goes that God endowed humans with “Free Will” – but I’m not sure how that breaks down with “man” becoming united with the undifferentiated whole in the afterlife.

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    1. I honestly don’t understand whether absence of free will necessarily means lack of capacity to make choices. I would like to get into the weeds of this issue to get a better understanding, but do I have enough agency to make a choice that I will spend time reading science and philosophy books instead of spending that time reading history, or gardening, or frittering away an hour on social media? I’m not trying to be facetious, I genuinely am perplexed by this question. And I can’t ignore that giving up my belief in free will has made me more likely to let myself off the hook for my bad choices.

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    2. I think the religious story goes that God endowed humans with “Free Will”

      Of all things, that always made the least sense to me. Even if you allow for “Free Will” to be a matter of degree and perspective¹, an omniscient god always knows what decisions any other agent is going to come up with and that right down to the most minute detail.
      To say that God endowed someone with “Free Will” is like asking if God can create a random number generator which not even he can predict.

      ¹) from the perspective of an algorithmically more complex agent, a simpler agent (which the former can simulate/predict or even estimate with a high degree of confidence) can be said to lack “Free Will”.

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      1. Or create a rock which He cannot lift.

        There is a pair of theological circumlocutia (?) called apophatic and cataphatic theology that comes to mind :

        Since God is so completely removed from anything mortals can know, they use apophatia (?) :

        “God is not Good”

        … anyway, readers can look that up.

        Critical Theorists employ a twisted reflection of this apophatic circumlocution in their negative dialectics.

        But I digress.

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  4. And don’t listen to those compatibilists who make up new definitions of free will […] Compatibilists are worried that if people accept determinism …

    Though we compatibilists would note that Chrysippus of Soli espoused a deterministic and compatibilistic philosophy as far back as c230 BCE, so it’s not all that “new”. And the very essence of compatibilism is thoroughly embracing determinism (and thence making all concepts compatible with it) rather than avoiding determinism.

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  5. Compatibilists are worried that if people accept determinism (which happens to be true), we’ll all become nihilists and never get out of bed—and society will fall apart.

    But if the predisposition towards nihilism involves some genetics than you might expect some ‘free will denying free riders’ to get out of bed and do things that increase their evolutionary fitness. Although the compatibilists that do not succumb to nihilism may also be an evolutionary predisposition that increases fitness.

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  6. I’ll note that the NYT conspicuously left Vietnam off that chart, which had over 60% support, with fewer than 25% opposed, at the beginning of the war. (Those numbers flipped between 1965 and 1973.) They also lard the chart with several popular and minor military actions and, despite their enthusiasm for denouncing them elsewhere, refrain from mentioning the high public support for various Indian Wars. Presumably, the lack of modern public opinion polls from earlier wars now constrains its assessment, which could explain why the article doesn’t address low support, mixed attitudes, or ambivalence toward what became the American Revolution, the Civil War, and WW1. Lack of polling data doesn’t explain why they fail to mention that the public overwhelmingly opposed WW2 prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, despite FDR’s coaxing and pleading. Of course, including any of these wouldn’t have served the editorial purpose.

    Half the country will oppose nearly anything said or done by Trump, or they will question his motives or execution. To a segment of the other half—which includes millions of veterans and families, many scarred by foolish wars—I would suggest that they are guilty of what many a general has been in times past: they are fighting (or avoiding) the last war without recognizing that circumstances now greatly differ.

    Finish the core military objectives, continue targeting leadership, and watch for opportunities on the “regime change” front. Stopping prematurely won’t save the Republicans in the midterms. But giving the House and the Senate to Democrats, who have shown that they care little about public opinion when it clashes with activist demands, could very well give Vance or Rubio the White House. Two years is a very long time in which to demonstrate your excesses.

    Contra Hegseth: nothing is permanent or forever—but they don’t need to be to make them desirable and achievable objectives.

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  7. Yes. The President is looking for an exit to the war, but the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz may force Trump to stay longer and bomb the various bases along the Iranian coast. Here is an excellent map showing the potential targets: https://understandingwar.org/map/iranian-military-base-in-the-strait-of-hormuz-november-14-2025/.

    And quoting from your post above regarding the war goals being unachievable without regime change:

    “3. Permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons forever.

    I don’t see how #3 can be accomplished without regime change.”

    I agree. Without regime change, the U.S. and Israel will be forced into a “mowing the lawn” strategy, whereby Iran will have to be pushed back periodically whenever it started moving (inevitably) closer to a nuclear weapon. Mowing the lawn was the strategy that failed in Gaza, proving that the enemy can rise to become a significant threat even when it is carefully monitored. The risk of a breakout is too great to ignore.

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    1. I agree that regime change is the only winning outcome.

      But I don’t see any way to accomplish it. I was hoping there was some kind of plan but apparently not.

      Very disappointing.

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    2. the U.S. and Israel will be forced into a “mowing the lawn” strategy

      Heh, “lawn” my tuchus, that’s more like noxious weeds.

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  9. The motivation for compatibilism is to make determinism compatible with moral responsibility.

    “Compatibilism emerges as a response to a problem posed by causal determinism. But what problem is that? Well, suppose, as the thesis of causal determinism tells us, that everything that occurs is the inevitable result of the laws of nature and the state of the world in the distant past. If this is the case, then everything human agents do flows from the laws of nature and the way the world was in the distant past. But if what we do is simply the consequence of the laws of nature and the state of the world in the distant past—then we cannot do anything other than what we ultimately do. Nor are we in any meaningful sense the ultimate causal source of our actions, since they have their causal origins in the laws of nature and the state of the world long ago. Determinism therefore seems to prevent human agents from having the freedom to do otherwise, and it also seems to prevent them from being the sources of their actions. If either of these is true, then it’s doubtful that human agents are free or responsible for their actions in any meaningful sense.” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

    However, compatibilism is a wretched subterfuge, according to Kant. So if hard determinism is true, moral responsibility is as illusory as religion.

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