Category Archives: Uncategorized

The failure of fuzzy opining

2016-06-07 Another epic fail-01

The following item was part of my daily dose of the Economist this Tuesday the 7th of June:

Class action: China’s university entrance

The 9.4m teenagers taking the two-day exam which starts today have been cramming for years. The tests, known as the gaokao, will (they believe) determine their entire future. Meritocratic exams have been revered in China since imperial times, when any man could sit them to enter the civil service. For centuries they enabled the poor but talented to rise to high office. The gaokao is intended similarly to be a great leveller. But China’s education system is becoming more unfair. The number of university students has increased nearly sevenfold since 1998, but the expanded intake has mostly been from cities, whereas 90% of rural youths leave school at 15 or younger. As a result the country is increasingly divided between those with degrees and those who never even make it to senior high school. Give China’s rulers a failing grade on that test.

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Taxes are worse than theft

2016-03-28 Taxation is the problem

I just wrote two posts that seem to contradict the title of this one.
In the first one, I made the point that the state can harm our financial well being in many ways and taxation is not the worst. Focusing on it is short-sighted.
In the second, I exposed the intellectual laziness of the attacks on taxation, pointing out that the real target should be the enablers of those taxes.

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r/K selection theory – the work ahead

2016-02-07-2.jpg

My previous post on the subject was extolling the virtues of the theory and the book explaining it; in this one I will talk about the gaps in it. While the value of the theory and the reliability of the evidence supporting it is beyond doubt, there are many questions in need of further answers and explanations. It is a new theory, especially as applied to political ideologies and attitudes. The ‘gaps’ in it are just unanswered or not fully explored questions.

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Dear Frau Merkel

2016-02-21 Compassionate mama Merkel

Sehr geehrte Frau Merkel!

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of the Union. I am somewhat puzzled by your actions and I would like to understand your motivations and the reasoning behind them.

Europe and its Union is in its gravest crisis of its existence. You are still not out of the financial one which seems trivial next to the one you created by inviting in possibly millions of ……. well, you don’t even know who. Continue reading →

Freedom’s directions

2016-02-08-1 PJW - SM

This is an interesting conversation raising some interesting questions.

While I always appreciated Stefan’s work, I had some problems with what I considered ‘extreme’ in his positions, his doctrinaire advocacy of Anarcho-Capitalism, his rejection of using political means to advance the cause of freedom.
It seems that in this latest phase of his evolution, Stefan discovered the importance of culture in a way that some libertarians, including some of his followers, may consider a turn toward conservatism.  Continue reading →