I fail to see how this is tautological.

How is that antithetical to the scientific method? Science uses routinely uses manufactured conceptual instruments, theoretical objects and even applies mundane concepts in a metaphorical way. Science is a struggle to create theoretical frameworks that explain observations, and this is why in times of crisis science often turns to philosophy, since old frameworks might not be doing it anymore and philosophy provides new ones, as it happened with the crisis of classical mechanics, for example. This is a relevant example because it relates to the issues of space being absolute or relative and time as well.

Share it with us please please please.

“Thing is that there’s no “before”, because time itself started with the big bang.”

Good to know modern science is catching up to fourth century theology:

“There was therefore never any time when you had not made anything, because you made time itself.”

Saint Augustine posited in “Confessions” that before the Universe was created there was no time. Also, that the Universe was not made in any “place” because no place existed before the Universe existed(space is also created with the Universe).

For exact argumentation you can refer to the text, I suppose(chapter XI). I just think it is fascinating that conceptual tools and concepts developed by theologians and philosophers more than 1500 years ago are still incredibly useful.

Well, maybe I should not have used FRG and GDR as an example. I should say that this is not the point I was originally trying to make.

I used those as an example because they are similar countries, and contrasted it with comparing a european nation with a undeveloped african/asian nation. I was not trying to criticise east germany really, and I admit there are many reasons why it was and still is I suppose lacking compared to the west.

Well if you didn’t I do not know how I can possibly explain your previous comment.

So you claim the USSR did not support East Germany because of anti-german sentiments, while the west invested quite a lot into the reconstruction of FRG. I am afraid I am not qualified to assess how accurate that claim is(the former half of it, specifically). But I am deeply skeptical about this, since it would be quite a useful propaganda tool both domestically and in the west. Also, the east had a communist government and it distanced itself from it’s past. The internationalist ideology of the USSR should have triumphed over the nationalist sentiments that might have existed.

However, I should say, that the main point of my original comment still stands. Of course, there are always many factors at play and it is not the case that the disparity between the east and the west can be attributed to the economic system alone. However, this does not mean that such comparisons are not valid, and I still would say that comparing european countries to underdeveloped countries to say that life in eastern Europe “wasn’t that bad” is quite absurd.

If only there was a superpower leading a blok of nations rivaling the west that could have supported east Germany…

Why would you not compare european communist countries woth european capitalist countries? Sure, africans and asians were poorer, but that goes without saying, honestly, what does that even have to do with this matter?

East Germany was poorer than west Germany. That tells us something. The fact that Ethiopia or whatever was poorer does not really tell us much about ehich economic system is better.