Posted: 9/24/2018
The almost exclusive faith in and reliance on Science as if a religion or a god has probably never been greater than today. This faith is almost irrational not least because of the many massive errors of science in the past
Scientists have come to be seen as demigods or priests of truth or prophets or oracles. Unfortunately, scientists are only human, all too human!
In modern times, fanaticism is often based on unverified and unproven scientific conjectures propagated as laws of nature
Such blind faith in Science is the superstition of modern times. Another irony of history
Common sense requires sound skepticism!
Monday, September 24, 2018
On Civil Society And Acts Of Crime
Posted: 9/24/2018
Introduction
This blog post is primarily focused on Western democracies, but, I suspect, my discussion here has some relevance to other parts of the world as well.
Definition Of Crime
Theft, fraud, physical violence resulting in injury or death against humans (includes eg. poisoning), physical violence against or damage to property. Negligence or recklessness which harms others.
A crime committed to (purportedly) correct another crime or a previous crime is still a crime.
Not every crime defined by law is actually a crime. This is a very important point to keep in mind!
Premise
In a civilized and under the rule of law society there are basically no justifications for crime! There is absolutely not justification for career criminals!
Many Pseudo & Wrong Justifications Of Crime
Plenty of pseudo, but influential justifications for crime were promulgated and steadily promoted over the centuries. Unfortunately, they have gained great popularity and familiarity.
Robin Hood excuse: To steal from the rich and give it to the poor often with the implied or insinuated accusation that the rich themselves are thieves and that is why or how they got rich. Perhaps, there was some truth to this excuse centuries ago or when it comes to uncivilized societies or societies without the rule of law. Most of the times, thieves steal for themselves only and rarely give anything to the poor.
Social or environmental causes of crime excuse: This is a very popular excuse especially among lefties! It is society or environmental circumstances are at fault why some members of society choose a career of crime. How convenient is that to explain away and to absolve individual responsibility! Once you accept this excuse, its proponents demand a Big Government to take care of it by expanding e.g. the welfare state.
Poverty as excuse: This is a particular lame excuse! There are many non criminal and voluntary ways available in a civil society to overcome or reduce poverty. Many individuals in a civil society are willing to provide voluntary help or relieve to those in poverty. Crime as a means of taking justice into your own hands is not acceptable.
Substance or other addiction excuse: Poor addicts cannot help themselves but to commit crimes to sustain their lives of addiction or so it goes. In prison, addicted criminals could receive medical treatment for their addiction. Whether to legalize drugs is another topic. How to deal with intramural (in prison) drug dealers is another question.
White collar versus blue collar crime excuse: This is another one of the famous, often repeated excuses. The excuse tends to go like this that white collar criminals:
- Face much less law enforcement
- Rarely go to jail
- Can afford to hire much better attorneys for their defense
- Evidence against them is much harder to come by
These arguments are flimsy and do not hold up to scrutiny, e.g. the victims of white collar crimes are often very sophisticated themselves and should have better known or the victims do not even choose to indict the criminal for various reasons.
Opportunity makes a thief excuse: Yes, of course, put the blame on the victim of a crime. Good defenses against crime often do not come cheap and these defenses need to be constantly updated and 100% maintained 24 hours year round, while a criminal (like a terrorist) has to succeed only once at a time, manner, and place of his/her choosing. A very asymmetric advantage of a criminal.
The Economic View Of Crime
To summarize:
- Criminals are rational, planning, and calculating like other humans.Criminals constantly weigh the benefits and disadvantages of committing a crime versus a law abiding life
- Criminals tend to fear or avoid crimes punished with harsh sentences
- Criminals tend to avoid strong crime preventative measures
- Crimes pays very well for some career criminals. Therefore, many try to become such criminals themselves
- The very asymmetric advantage of a criminal, because he exploits human trust and wish to live in peace and harmony. The huge advantage of a criminal of choosing where, when and how to commit a crime
Ultima Ratio Justification
One of the very few acceptable justifications for crime would be the threat of imminent starvation of the person or a loved one of the person. E.g. the person steals food, because the person tried everything humanly possible to obtain food legally, but the person failed due to no fault of his or her own.
Widespread Complacency About Crime
It appears, there is a widespread complacency about crimes in Western democracies:
- There will always be some crime committed. Crimes cannot be completely eliminated
- Criminals should be given more opportunities to become a law abiding citizen and a valuable member of society
- It is society’s fault at large that we have criminals. So let’s treat criminals as human as possible
In a civil society, (not even petty) crimes should never be ignored or taken lightly. Crimes undermine the foundation of a civil society. Crimes encourage further crimes.
Friday, September 21, 2018
On The Political Influence Of Super Rich Individuals
Posted: 9/21/2018
Introduction
This post is mainly focused on the situation in the U.S., but the implications and discussion may well apply to other Western democracies. Not naming any of the individuals in this post is on purpose.
The rich probably have always influenced politics and government in human history (in good and bad ways). First, they were mostly noble men or women, later successful businessmen and businesswomen joined in.
Rich entrepreneurs have been made easy targets or scapegoats throughout history by ideologues, intellectuals, and common people, quite often undeservedly.
There were a number of super rich entrepreneurial individuals or families during the medieval ages that wielded influence and power significantly beyond their place of business or residence (e.g. Fuggers, Medici). However, the modern phenomenon that considerable numbers of citizens of all backgrounds can amass enormous wealth during their lifetime as entrepreneurs has probably not been experienced before the industrial revolution and before capitalism (classical liberalism).
The Situation In The United States
Currently, there are about 585 billionaires living in the U.S. (Source). Let’s ignore, for arguments sake, the many multi millionaires ($100+ millions).
Any of these 585 billionaires has the potential to easily spend millions if not tens of millions of dollars or more to influence e.g. political elections and/or the legislative process. Several of those billionaires are frequently reported to actively and persistently influence politics on a large and national, regional, and local scale. They have become household names and poster children. They represent the spectrum of political ideologies. It is presumed that some of the political activities of these billionaires were even motivated to drive more business sales and profits.
It is certainly of some concern, when super rich people can wield far more political influence than the average citizen. Equality of opportunity or one person, one vote may ring hollow. Economic freedom might be in jeopardy etc. One may not even safely assume that these politically active billionaires are successfully neutralizing or countervailing each other (e.g. each leftists are roughly cancelled out by a rightists or extremists are roughly cancelled out by moderates).
This situation certainly has become a hot button issue for some time!
Remedies, Solutions, Or Proposals
What to do and what not to do about it in a civilized society governed by a constitution? Some proposals and thoughts:
- Do we even need a solution? Perhaps, the actual political influence of these billionaires is highly mischaracterized or largely exaggerated
- Ignore or accept and/or live with the situation? On the grounds, there is nothing or little illegal about it or there is not sufficient justification to do something about it?
- Expropriation or targeted taxation are unconstitutional and illegitimate
- Prohibition, criminalization, or punishment of activities aimed at influencing politics? Unconstitutional or at least controversial
- More legal transparency requirements regarding activities and/or money flows? A very double edged sword. How effective?
- Could citizens effectively boycott or disinvest from businesses of political active billionaires who they disagree with? Some of these billionaires are in businesses or some businesses of billionaires cannot be easily boycotted or disinvested from by citizens. To some extent this has been happening in the U.S., but what is the impact? Some citizens have just done the opposite and started to support businesses of these billionaires they agreed with
- Citizens asking politicians to sign and commit to a pledge that they don’t accept any money from businesses or significant amounts of direct or indirect money from any individual. So voters could judge a politician by their lack of commitment etc.? Signed pledges by politicians have been tried in the U.S. and, I believe, they have had some positive impact
- Citizens founding a new political party with the expressed commitment to e.g. eliminate or diminish the political influence of billionaires on their party. This also has been tried in the U.S. with some or limited success
- More media or watchdog reporting or coverage on the political activities of billionaires. I am afraid some billionaires have purchased media outlets or fund such watch dogs already. Many journalists or reporters are partisan themselves etc.
- Some billionaires have publicly pledged to give away substantial amounts of their wealth to various philanthropic causes while still alive. Would some billionaires voluntarily be willing to pledge to largely refrain from political activities or to fully disclose their political activities and intentions? Hope, they do
- Are there other proposals? Maybe, but at the moment I am not aware
Conclusion
This issue will most likely not go away anytime soon. Widely acceptable solutions (in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence), if necessary, will take time and are not easily to come by.
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Hope For A Spectacular Free Trade Agreement Between U.S. And UK
Posted: 9/19/2019
Yes, President Trump and Prime Minister May have a lifetime opportunity to show the world what a true free trade agreement could look like that deserves its name. Let’s pray and hope that these two leaders will seize the opportunity and open a new era of advancing free trade around the world.
Since World War II the global elites duped the citizens of the world by claiming free trade when in fact they negotiated largely managed trade. Particularly shameful was the treatment of developing or emerging economies.
March 29, 2019 is Brexit day! A glorious and important day that will go down in history! By being free again of the restraints imposed by the statist and centralist EU, the UK has an enormous opportunity to become an powerhouse of economic freedom again like during Scottish Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
Liberty minded think tanks have already started working on drafts or proposals for such a free trade agreement (Disclaimer: I have not yet read these free trade agreement proposals):
Monday, September 17, 2018
Secondary Genome Analysis In Under 1 Hour!
Posted: 9/17/2018
Today (9/17/2018) I read this news release from Nvidia: What’s in Your Genome? Startup Speeds DNA Analysis with GPUs
Quotes (emphasis added):
- “Now, the bottleneck for genomic insights is the computational analysis that follows sequencing. It’s the process of detecting key markers and outliers, called variants, in the genetic data.”
- “Parabricks, a startup based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and NVIDIA Inception member, is shrinking the time this analysis takes from a couple days to under an hour. “It’s the first application for secondary analysis of genomic data on a GPU, and it fully matches the state-of-the-art analytical pipeline,” …”
- “... Running on a single NVIDIA DGX-1 server, Parabricks’ software can process more than 12,000 whole genomes per year ...”
Very impressive!
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Ponzi And The SEC
Posted: 9/16/2018
Trigger
Just watched this History Channel documentary about Ponzi: In Search Of History - Charles Ponzi & His Scheme (History Channel Documentary). Ponzi actually had a long history of petty crime of fraud and theft before his infamous Ponzi scheme.
“... In its heyday, nearly 75% of Boston's police force had invested in Ponzi's scheme. Ponzi's investors even included those closest to him, like his chauffeur John Collins and his own brother-in-law. … ” (Source 1)
Some people even send Ponzi money for future investments while he was in prison after his conviction for fraud! Hope springs eternal! After release from prison he started a new swindle in another state, i.e. Florida.
An Irony Of History
I was so stunned when the above documentary mentioned the name of the company under which Charles Ponzi conducted his scheme: Securities Exchange Company (abbreviated SEC). Ponzi started his fraudulent company in 1920.
The all powerful and unconstitutional U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was formed in 1934, in the aftermath of the Wall Street stock market crash of 1928, is also commonly abbreviated as SEC. Was this name deliberately chosen?
As they say truth or reality is often stranger than fiction!
Sources:
Friday, September 14, 2018
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Tower Of Babel Resurrected
Posted: 9/12/2018
Trigger
Just read this latest blog by Facebook AI Research: Expanding automatic machine translation to more languages. Facebook claims it added 24 more languages to their automated translation service. “We are now serving translations for a total of 4,504 language directions (a pair of languages between which we offer translation, e.g., English to Spanish).”
This is just report about many other reports published in the last two years or so describing major advances in neural machine translation.
Breaking Down The Language Barrier Fast
No doubt, this has the potential to bring more peace on earth. Misunderstandings will become rarer.
Will most humans soon be able to easily talk to each other no matter what language they grew up with or what languages they have learnt?
Will finally literature written in uncommon languages become more accessible?
Ideas and news will travel faster and wider irrespective of language!
Copyrights And Massive Anachronism Of The European Parliament
Posted:
Trigger
Just read EU UND URHEBERRECHT : Ein guter Tag (roughly EU and copyrights: A blessed day). Today (9/12/2018), the EU Parliament voted by a large majority (438 yes to 226 no votes) to apply controversial, legacy copyrights to the Internet.
The journalist, who wrote this article for a leading German news media outlet, is in full praise of this measure. As so often, journalists are not the brightest, but they think they are.
Here is another, more critical article: EU Parliament just voted on controversial Copyright Reform — the outlook is grim
To quote (emphasis added; disclosure: I did not ask for permission to quote from this article):
- “... Article 11 (a.k.a. link tax) will force anyone using snippets of journalistic online content to get a license from the publisher first — essentially outlawing current business models of most aggregators and news apps. This can also possibly threaten the hyperlink and give power to publishers at the cost of public good.”
- “On the other hand, Article 13 (a.k.a. censorship machines) will make platforms responsible for monitoring user behavior to stop copyright infringements, but basically means only huge platforms will have the resources to let users comment or share content; there’s a worry that this could lead to broader censorship, with free speech vehicles — like parody, satire, or even protest videos — potentially untenable under this system”
A Massive Anachronism
Caveat: I have not followed this momentous development in much detail. Pardon my ignorance
- European politicians have again demonstrated that they think or pretend that Europe is still the navel of the world (axis mundi). An arrogance unbecoming
- European politicians demonstrated their huge ignorance of the digital age by applying outdated copyright laws to the Internet instead of reforming or adopting the outdated, legacy copyrights (which are extremely excessive, I blogged about it several times, e.g. here)
- This law may also be an expression of dim witted European animus towards large social media corporations or the dominance of U.S. corporations, which they appear to loath
- It is perhaps another acknowledgment of continued European decline and irrelevance on the world stage
- Among other things, I understand this new law would hold e.g. social media companies responsible for users’ who violated copyrights.
- For hundreds of years, copyright laws were used by governments to control information and to stymie human progress and the exchange of ideas. Copyrights are extremely one sided and stacked in favor of publishers and authors against consumers or the public at large
- It would be an irony or a so called (expected) unintended consequence if this law does not in effect promote or strengthen the position of large Internet companies at the expense of smaller rivals
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