AlJazeera recently featured an excellent article by Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona in its opinion section. In his article Zabala emphasizes that in our digital world, in which the internet and social networks have become as common as “the air we breathe,” critical thinking is more important than ever. Some quotes from the full article: It is interesting to notice how often this question is answered simply by noting the amount of time we spend online (following the US presidential campaign or admiring MOMA‘s online collection) rather than by qualifying our ability to interpret the…
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Sex, Lies and Julian Assange (documentary)
Julian Assange and Wikileaks continue to be popular topics for the media, although most of the media coverage is either biased or superficial. Sex, Lies and Julian Assange, reported by Andrew Fowler and presented by Kerry O’Brien, is an exception to this trend. In the brief space of 43 minutes, the investigative documentary revisits the advent of Wikileaks and the controversy surrounding its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Through well-selected interviews and detailed research, especially on the sexual offence allegations in Sweden, the documentary presents the story of Wikileaks and Julian Assange in a remarkably clear, unbiased way. It states what the mainstream…
Julian Assange interviews Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali
The official description of 10th episode of The World Tomorrow reads as follows: A surprise Arab drive for freedom, the West’s structural crisis and new hope coming from Latin America. That’s the modern world in the eyes of Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali, two prominent thinkers and this week’s guests on Julian Assange’s show on RT.
Criticism of The Spirit Level
Earlier this year the RSA hosted a debate on The Spirit Level, the highly influential book by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson. That book and the subsequent TED lecture by Wilkinson provided what seemed to many like an extraordinarily strong case for the idea that income inequality is the driving force in social dysfunction and that reducing income inequality will benefit virtually everyone in wealthy societies, even those at the top of the economic pyramid. The sobering RSA debate presents evidence and arguments to the contrary, from Christopher Snowdon and Peter Saunders. The main critique that Snowdon and Saunders advance, a…
Why the US and Israel are the greatest threats to peace
One of the most remarkable things about Noam Chomsky is his ability to distance himself from conventional assumptions and biases. Throughout his career, not only in his political writings but also his work in linguistics and the philosophy of language, he engages in thought-experiments which ask what conclusions an objective observer, a Martian, for instance, would draw were he to examine the problem at hand without the usual biases and presuppositions. This strategy is on display once again in a characteristically insightful piece by Chomsky recently posted on Alternet entitled “Why the US and Israel are the greatest threats to…
The Israeli lobby and how it operates
In his blog post entitled “The Israel lobby and how it operates,” Lawrence Davidson provides a simple, step-by-step account of how the Israel Lobby works its magic on the US Congress. This account provides a clear and compelling answer to a question that perplexes many observers of US foreign policy, the question of exactly why the American political establishment doggedly supports the state of Israel even though Israel is pursuing objectives that run contrary to US national interests. Davidson ends with an apt quote from Cicero: “Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit,” translated as: “No fortification is such that…
Interview with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy
Originally aired on GamaTV, August 30, 2012, Uruguayan journalist Jorge Gestoso interviews Julian Assange from within the Ecuadorian Embassy. In this wide-ranging and fascinating interview Gestoso asks Assange if the Wikileaks’ cause is worth dying for. Assange answers yes. The interview can be seen here:
Anonymous leaks alleged governmental surveillance data
The Anonymous collective recently released one million and one Apple UDIDs, the unique device identifiers used by Apple for its iPhones, iMacs, iPads, etc. Within their release-statement, Anonymous gave detailed information on the origin of these UDIDs, claiming that they came from an FBI computer. In fact the database they accessed had information on and from more than 12 million devices. Before publishing this information Anonymous edited out personal data such as names, cell numbers, addresses zip codes, etc. leaving only the data columns, which would enable users to look up whether their devices are listed or not. According to…
CO2 emissions drop, but natural gas won’t save us
Last month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a drop in U.S. carbon emissions to a 20 year low, basically matching the carbon emissions of 1992. The media’s coverage of this report was brief and rather one-sided. Here are a few representative samples: Kevin Begos from the Associated Press: Many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. While conservation efforts, the lagging economy and greater use of renewable…
Applying the laws of robotics to smart phones
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the visionary science fiction author Isaac Asimov. In his books and stories these rules were introduced to ensure robots would serve the goal to maximize human well-being, serving their direct masters in the first place and secondarily any other human being. These rules read as follows: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.A robot must…
The culture wars come to Korea
The Unites States has had a heavy influence on Korea ever since the end of the Japanese colonial period following WWII. Along with a temporary US military government and a large contingent of US troops has come a heavy dose of American ideology and religion. Not surprisingly, South Korea now finds itself mired in an American style battle between science and religion. Gallup surveys have found that around 40 percent of Americans do not believe in evolution. A 2009 South Korean survey found that about one-third of Koreans don’t believe in evolution and, more shockingly, that 40 percent of biology teachers believe…
Iceland Was Right, We Were Wrong: The IMF (by Jeff Nielson)
Jeff Nielson has published an article well worth reading on the global financial crisis and its economic consequences. Originally published in The Street, the article explains the alternative strategy Iceland implemented to combat it’s dire situation after the financial meltdown and concludes that Iceland was not only different but right, which in turn suggests that everyone else was wrong. The following is a selection of paragraphs from the full article, which can be found here: Now in what may be the greatest economic “mea culpa” in history, we have the media admitting that this government/banking/propaganda-machine troika has been wrong all along. They have…
Can democracy exist without trust? (TED lecture by Ivan Krastev)
The following lecture is by Ivan Krastev, a political scientist and chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, in Sofia, a research and analysis NGO on democracy and trust. Here are a few interesting quotes from the talk: Democracy is the only game in town. The problem is [when] people start to believe that it is not a game worth playing. And when we talk about the internet – yes it’s true, internet connected all of us, but we also know, that the internet created these equal chambers and political ghettos, in which for all your life, you can stay…
Julian Assange interviews Nabeel Rajab & Alaa Abd El-Fattah (The World Tomorrow)
In the fourth episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow Julian Assange speaks with two leading Arab revolutionaries in the middle of conflict, Alaa Abd El-Fattah from Egypt and Nabeel Rajab from Bahrain. Alaa Abd El-Fattah is a long time Egyptian blogger, programmer and political activist. His parents were human rights campaigners under Anwar Sadat; his sister Mona Seif became a Twitter star during the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and is a founder of the No Military Trials for Civilians group formed under the post-Mubarak military junta. El-Fattah was imprisoned for 45 days in 2006 for protesting under the Mubarak regime, and…
The plastic bottle solar light-bulb (creative responses)
From the category “Creative responses to environmental challenges“: The plastic bottle solar light-bulb. Simply cut a hole in your roof, stick in and seal a water filled plastic bottle, and you get a free, solar-powered daytime light-bulb.
Highs and lows in debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Two recent debates on Democracy Now (here and here) regarding the BDS movement really stand out as remarkable in the history of debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In both of these debates, opposition to the BDS movement comes from Rabbi Arthur Waskow. While he is opposed to a BDS movement against Israel, he clearly acknowledges Israel’s flagrant violations of international law and insists that the brutal occupation of Palestinian territory must be brought to an end. For him the only question is how best to do it. Because of this common ground, there is a level of civility and mutual respect…
Julian Assange interviews Cypherpunks (The World Tomorrow)
In the 8th and 9th episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow, Julian Assange is joined by cypherpunks from the US, Germany, and France to discuss the future of our increasingly digitalized world. What is the ultimate purpose of Twitter, Facebook and other social media? What is the current state of online privacy and data protection? These are some the questions examined in this excellent two-part discussion with people who understand perhaps better than anyone else the challenges that cyberspace poses to human freedom. Part I: Part II:
Freedom of thought and open-source software (lecture by Eben Moglen)
Eben Moglen, professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, as well as founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center and long-term supporter of organizations like the Free Software Foundation, is a lecturer and free software/open-source advocate. Though the following lecture and interview only covers so much, they do serve as a good introduction to his extensive body of work. Why Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media and Why Free Media Require Free Technology This lecture was held during the Re:publica 2012 conference in Berlin. It describes in detail why the current societal model, in which proprietary…
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The description to this video reads “Journey into the world of contemporary online social interaction” and could be seen as a short, but compelling cinematic interpretation of many issues and concerns outlined in Sherry Turkle‘s groundbreaking “Together Alone: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other“. This video will resonate with many of the so-called “digital natives”. In light this video’s targeted viewers, it is very interesting to read some of the comments made by reddit users after it was posted there. The comments vary along the entire spectrum: Even without their devices, I’ve seen coworkers ignore…
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