Replicating memes

I’m worried about the EURO’s M3 if a European version of the IMF (a EMF) is to be installed.

Nonetheless, I think the European community should do it just to strengthen Europe’s economy. I’m not satisfied by Europe’s economic strength: I want it to be undefeatable.

We must not let the IMF solve our problems. Europe might be a political dwarf, but we Europeans should show that we will solve our own problems. We’re an adult composition of cultures with vast amounts of experience. We know how to solve any imaginable problem. And let’s not, in our defeatism, pretend we don’t.

A EMF is a commitment to future member states: Europe often asks them fundamental changes; economic strength is what Europe offers in return. This needs to come at a highest price: Greece will have to fix their deficit problem. Even if their entire population goes on strike. Greece will be an example for countries like my own: Belgium has to fix a serious deficit problem, too.

An EMF comes at an equally high price, and that frightens me a bit: I don’t want the ECB to go as ballistic on money creation as the FED has been last two years. I want the EURO to be the strongest relevant currency mankind has ever created. No matter how insane the rest of the world thinks that ambition is: I believe that keeping the EURO’s M3 in check is a key to creating a wealthy society in Europe.

Politically I want European nations to negotiate more and more often. The European Union is a political dwarf only because finding agreement is hard. But in the long run will our solution be the most negotiated, most tested on this planet.

Together we can deal with anything. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy; it has never been easy: just seventy years ago we were still killing each other. We’re all guilty of that one way or another. And before that it wasn’t any better. Today, not that many people still care: “it wasn’t me”, right? So stop being a bitch about it, then.

It’s time to let it be. It’s time to start a new European century that will be better. With respect for all European cultures, languages, nations, nationalities, values, borders and interests.

But also a European century with economic responsibilities for each member. It’s our strength: we figured out how to keep our population wealthy: let’s continue doing so in the future.

We would rather suffer the visible costs of a few bad decisions than incur the many invisible costs that come from decisions made too slowly - or not at all - because of a stifling bureaucracy.

– Letter by Warren E. Buffett to the shareholders of Berkshire, February 26, 2010

We both agree that Nigel Farage is a complete moron.

Perhaps we should put a damp rag like the one he mentions in his mouth next time he opens it?

Nigel Farage, you’re an disgrace to yourself. The European parliament is no place for personal attacks, and you aren’t fit to carry the title Member of the European Parliament. Please keep the honour to yourself and resign.

Every sensible person outside of the U.K. thinks you should. Even the Euro skeptics do. You’re an embarrassment for your country and its culture, so I hope for the people in the U.K. that they’ll kick you out of politics.

I fear you’re just playing the populist card, and that you’ll even get votes for this from other morons.

This (super) cool .NET developer and good friend came to me at the FOSDEM bar to tell me he was confused about why during the Tracker presentation I was asking people to replace F-Spot and Banshee.

I hope I didn’t say it like that, I would never intent to say that. But I’ll review the video of the presentation as soon as Rob publishes it.

Anyway, to ensure everybody understood correctly what I did wanted to say (whether or not I did, is another question):

The call was to inspire people to reimplement or to provide different implementations of F-Spot’s and Banshee’s data backends, so that they would use an RDF store like tracker-store instead of each app its own metadata database.

I think I also mentioned Rhythmbox in the same sentence because the last thing I would want is to turn this into a .NET vs. anti-.NET debate. It just happens to be that the best GNOME softwares for photo and music management are written in .NET (and that has a good reason).

People who know me also know that I think those anti-.NET people are disruptive ignorable people. I also actively and willingly ignore them (and they should know this). I’m actually a big fan of the Mono platform.

I’ll try to ensure that I don’t create this confusion during presentations anymore.

Not all discussions are easy. If discussions were to be easy, the bar wouldn’t be high enough for your bullshit filter to be effective here.

During dark hours of discussions the nineties syndrome of wanting immediate results plays its role among spectators: It’s not a popular job to be a dissident. It’s not popular to be critical about a (the leader of a) popular idea. This is illustrated by the intellectually absurd criticisms David Schlesinger receives.

Yet is the critic who monitors the organs of a society key to that organ either producing for its stakeholders, or failing and dragging the entire society it serves down with it.

In Western Europe we traded Kings and Popes for a government that is held accountable by an opposition. Many countries and cultures adopted this system of governance. That’s because it undeniably works. If you have a better system in mind, that can be put to the test, please come forward.

It is good that the GNOME foundation board has decided to increase the amount of surveys. But I have one request which I didn’t succeed in raising before the end of last year:

Although I accept the decisive role a group of leadership has to take, I want foundation board members and employees to be held accountable for the decisions they make. Especially the ones where they go against the results of such a survey.

But this is not up to me.

*edit* They are showing an old episode of Married with Children on TV, I’ll be back in half an hour!

Thank you for trying to forbid the burka. I hope my country will also forbid it. We need to protect (but not overprotect) the women of Muslim cultures, cultures who are massively migrating to Western Europe at this moment, against the oppressive anti-woman and religious nature of the burka.

I don’t believe, at all, that the burka is an expression of free speech. I believe it’s an instrument to oppress woman, and that this is its only purpose. There is no place for that in Western European culture. None. And we must be assertive about it.

I’d also like to ask Muslim countries to stay out of the debate: we decide about Western European values, you don’t. Equality between men and woman is a Western European value. If you don’t like that, sorry, it’s not negotiable.

Two posts ago I wrote that something like The Real news is quite unique in the U.S.’s completely broken media.

Today I found an interesting double interview on AlJazeeraEnglish by Riz Khan titled Has the mainstream media in the US replaced serious coverage with “junk news” and tabloidism?

Brzezinski

In the third segment of The Real News‘ interview with Dr. Brzezinski, Paul Jay asks him about Israel’s threat to bomb Iranian Nuclear facilities and the American strategy towards Iran.

Brzezinski talks about how this might force the U.S. out of the region in the short term, how it would affect the price of oil, how the U.S. would be militarily involved and how the U.S. would be alone in this. And what the fundamental consequences for Israel would be.

You can find all three parts of the interview and their transcripts here:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Politics, skimming facebook

It’s Sunday so I skim Facebook a bit. I came across Lefty’s link to a 100 quotes every geek should know blog. Artwork like humor often represents a philosophy. I think this first quote on that blog is a very good meme, also for foundation boards:

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
— Dennis the Peasant, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I’ve been watching The Real News for some time now. It claims to be “the real news” but the reality is that it’s fairly left-wing pro-unions most of the times. Most of their documentaries and interviews are very interesting, though. Nor do they make it difficult to filter out their own bias. It’s quite unique in the U.S.’s completely broken media to have something like The Real News.

This week they are interviewing Brzezinski. People who know Brzezinski, know that that’s a huge interview for them. Watch part one of the interview. Knowing The Real News, part two will probably be released in a week.

Youtube video

The discussion with Richard Stallman ended with requested silence.

I’d like to ask people to use the following meme for future such discussions:

La pensée ne doit jamais se soumettre, ni à un dogme, ni à un parti, ni à une passion, ni à un intérêt, ni à une idée préconçue, ni à quoi que ce soit, si ce n’est aux faits eux-mêmes, parce que, pour elle, se soumettre, ce serait cesser d’être.

– Henri Poincaré, University of Brussels (1909-11-19)

As for the conclusions. I believe this survey result and this analysis are conclusive.

Looks like I found myself a book that I need to read someday:

– Hannah Arendt, The human condition (prologue)

To be a Rubens, is to make paintings

Veel mensen beweren dat indien je de prijs van een product artificieel verhoogt dat je daardoor de producent ervan rijker maakt. Laten we melk als voorbeeld nemen om dit gesprek wat minder abstract te maken.

Europese overheden worden momenteel door belangengroepen en stakende boeren gedwongen om de prijs van melk artificieel te maken. Met andere woorden wordt de overheid gevraagd om het concept van vrije marktprijzen voor melk los te laten. Dus zelf maar te gaan bepalen wat de prijs voor melk hoort te zijn. Niet de markt maar wel politici en belangengroepen moeten dan bepalen wat die prijs zou moeten zijn.

Het probleem is dat volgorde van nut, van melk, niet wijzigt wanneer incompetente mensen een prijs vastleggen.

Met melk kan veel gedaan worden. Je kan er yoghurt mee maken, je kan het gewoon drinken, je kan er een kind een gezond drankje mee geven, je kan er kaas mee maken, je kan er chocolade mee maken, en zo verder. Zoals bijna alle producten is het veelzijdig.

Ieder individu heeft een voorkeurenladder voor zijn melk doelen. Tegenwoordig hebben we een ruilmiddel dat we geld noemen. Maar laten we voor de grap minuten werk gebruiken als eenheidsprijs. Je kan stellen dat een mens een zekere hoeveelheid werktijd over heeft voor ieder van zijn melk doelen.

Laat me een voorbeeld maken. Deze lijst hangt af van persoon tot persoon, maar kan slechts enkel objectief vastgesteld worden door naar handelingen te kijken. Niet door naar iemand zijn beweringen te luisteren. Stel dat we de volgende vaststelling doen bij de man:

• Zijn kind melk geven - 8 minuten werk voor over
• Zelf melk drinken - 6 minuten werk voor over
• Yoghurt eten - 4 minuten werk voor over
• Kaas eten - 4 minuten werk voor over
• Chocolade eten - 3 minuten werk voor over

Dit betekent dat de persoon 8 minuten wil werken om zijn kind een gezonde drank te geven. Hij wil echter maximaal 6 minuten werken om zelf melk te kunnen drinken. Yoghurt vindt hij wel lekker, maar minder belangrijk. Dus heeft de man 4 minuten werk voor yoghurt over. En zo verder.

We zullen om het eenvoudig te houden elk van deze handelingen gelijk stellen aan één liter melk. Dit is in werkelijkheid niet het geval maar het maakt het voorbeeld eenvoudig zonder af te doen aan de logica.

Stel dat we in totaal 10 liter melk hebben voor één man. Hij wil het kind melk geven en heeft daar 8 minuten voor over. Daarna wil hij zelf melk drinken. In totaal verbruikt hij nu 2 liter melk. Hij wil ook yoghurt eten. Hij wil kaas eten, en zelfs chocolade. Al die doelen zijn mogelijk want er is voldoende melk.

De man zal nu al zijn doelen invullen door de melk te kopen aan 3 minuten per liter. Met andere woorden koopt hij in totaal 5 liter melk voor 15 minuten werk. Er is een melk overschot van 5 liter. De producent heeft dus 5 liter teveel geproduceerd. Maar de producent heeft ook werkuren in die melk moeten stoppen. Hij zal dus niet toelaten dat de man oneindig laag gaat in wat hij over heeft voor melk.

Stel nu dat de regering bij wet vastlegt dat een liter melk niet 3 minuten maar wel 5 minuten werk moet kosten. We herhalen ons voorbeeld.

Hij wil nog steeds zijn kind melk geven. Daar heeft hij 8 minuten werk voor over. Daarna drinkt hij zelf melk, daar zou hij 6 minuten werk voor over hebben. Maar voor yoghurt heeft hij niet meer de prijs van 5 minuten werk over, dat is immers meer dan de 4 minuten die hij er voor over heeft. De persoon koopt dus géén yoghurt. Hij koopt ook géén kaas en hij koopt géén chocolade. Die producten kosten allemaal meer dan wat hij over heeft voor de liter melk die ze vereisen. In totaal heeft hij 2 liter melk gekocht voor 10 minuten werk en is er 8 liter overschot.

Door de prijs van melk vast te leggen zorgt de regering er dus voor dat bedrijven die yoghurt, kaas en chocolade maken failliet gaan en creëert het een nog grotere melk overschot.

Het kost ons allen belastingen om die melk op te kopen, en meer aan sociale zekerheid om werkloosheidsuitkeringen uit te betalen voor mensen in de sectoren kaas, chocolade en yoghurt.

Daarbovenop creëert men armoede in landen waar Europa de opgekochte overschot aan melk aan dumpingprijzen op de markt gooit. Hierdoor kunnen plaatselijke boeren niet concurrentieel zijn en worden ze werkloos. In tegenstelling tot werkloos zijn in ons land, wat werkelijk het paradijs op aarde is met brugpensioenen, gratis huisvesting, een legioen aan mensen die werk voor je zoeken en een royale uitkering, betekent het daarginds dat de boer, zijn vrouw en zijn kinderen sterven van de honger.

Dus wanneer we er dan toch ideologie bij roepen dan blijkt dat in een geglobaliseerde samenleving zoals de onze het vastleggen van prijzen door de regering immoreel is.

Ook de boeren die melk produceren gaan mee moeten opdraaien voor extra belastingen. Dat is het enige dat de regering heeft gedaan voor de boer: meer belastingen opgelegd.

Het is dus niet logisch te stellen dat wanneer je de prijs van melk artificieel maakt, dat de producent dan meer geld krijgt. Het enige wat wijzigt, is de omvang van de persoonlijke tabellen van doelen die mensen hebben die in aanmerkingen komen voor melk.

Heel wat leiders van belangengroepen, vooral socialistische, moeten hoogdringend enkele basis lessen economie volgen en moeten nog dringender ophouden met populisme. Zij maken ons land er werkelijk mee kapot en creëren armoede in andere landen.

Iedereen heeft het moeilijk, boeren hoeven geen voorkeursbehandeling te krijgen ten koste van anderen.

The Theory of Interstellar Trade. A paper by Paul Krugman, July 1978.

Not watching youtubers very often I almost forgot about Pat Condell’s video blog. Today I decided to take a look at his latest video material.

Pat Condell is, just like me, an outspoken atheist who enjoys exercising his freedom of speech to criticize various religions. Fairly often he criticizes Islam.

Before I continue I’ll remind people that, like Pat Condell, I have nothing in particular against Islam. I don’t have anything against peaceful people in general. Christian, Muslim, atheist, Buddhist or whatever: I don’t care that much. I don’t believe any of those fairy tales, but it’s your freedom to do! I do care about it when, in for example Western countries, countless Christians try to expunge you from society because “you don’t believe in anything”. For many of them not believing is worse than believing in the wrong God, or being a Satanist, or being a sadist. I want to criticize religions and I want to stress the importance of having the right to criticize religions.

Pat takes on the ultra tolerant liberal left people in this video. Just like Pat I used to be on the liberal left. And just like Pat, because I believe in things like social justice, tolerance and respect, I am no longer on the liberal left. Here’s a quote from the video:

Apologists for evil

In this video Pat talks about banning the burka. Given that wearing a burka in Western countries is most definitely only done to make a pathetic political statement, I think it is indeed a good idea to ban burkas. Besides you’re not allowed to wear ski masks when you enter a bank either. You’re not allowed to walk naked in the streets. Yet countless people are trying to claim that these women should have a right to wear burkas. Framing it that way is of course utter bullshit: the debate isn’t about women rights at all. Claiming that it is, is being intellectually dishonest. The debate is about the right for a Islamist husband to claim ownership over a woman or a girl. This isn’t a right in Western countries. The fact that it isn’t, is a good thing.

Pat also points out that Western feminists are rather silent about women rights in Islam. Usually feminists are assertive and confident but this time, apparently, feminists are muted on the issue. Why is that? Where are they?

Ban the burka

For the person who recently debated religion with me (you know who you are): I recently read “Letter to A Christian Nation” by Sam Harris. Very interesting read. I recommend it!

“Now, we can finally replace Richard Stallman with a small shellscript“

– Alp Toker, Gran Canaria at the Igalia party, 06 juli 2009

I’ll write it in C#

public void ActCrazy () {
   while (true) {
      be incorrect about Mono
   }
}

For some people this post can be controversial. I added a category “controversial” to my blog for people who prefer to filter it.

We start a imaginary experiment where we start with a bottle filled up with food and room left for exactly two worms. We assume worms replicate at a doubling time of one minute. We observed in a previous experiment that the bottle is filled up in exactly one hour. They eat the food as they double themselves, etc (use your imagination).

At 11′O clock in the morning we place two worms in the bottle. At what time will the bottle be full (easy)? At what time will the bottle be half full? At what time is the bottle only 3% filled up?

Humans have a global population growth of about 1.2% per year. It’s about 1% in wealthy countries and about 2-3% in poor countries. If you want to calculate a doubling time you take 70 and you divide it with the growth percentage. Which means that at our current growth rate, we’ll double our total population in 60 years.

In 1950 we were with about 2.7 thousand million people, in 1990 we were with 5 thousand million people. In 2050 we will be with 10 thousand million people. Infinite growth isn’t possible with finite resources. In 2400 years, at current growth rate, the earth’s mass will in theory be roughly equal to the total amount of human flesh.

The main question is, how big is our bottle? Let’s go back to the worms. For the worms the bottle is about 3% filled up at 11:55. It’s half full at 11:59. It’s overpopulated at 12:00. When three new bottles are found and pipes are connected with the first, the three new bottles will be filled up at 12:02. After that will four new bottles be filled up at 12:03. After that you need eight new bottles to survive minute 12:04. In minute 12:05 it starts getting crazy proportions.

Even if our bottle is only 3% filled up now, then still at our retirement age we will inevitably be at 50% capacity. During those retirement years we’ll see the population grow at an enormous speed to maximum capacity within a few years.

I’m among the people who believe that we’re already at 70% capacity of our planet. I think we have about 30 years of finite resources left: doubling the population to 10 thousand million people, is impossible (not unreasonable to think). Moving to another bottle will take us at least several more centuries of top notch space science (so this solution is not applicable). And that’s assuming we can leverage the resources of another planet. Moving to another star is simply out of the question unless we invent technology that allows us to let a huge mass travel at the speed of light (again, the solution isn’t applicable).

A solution that I have in mind? Genetically modifying newborn humans to have an annual fertility frequency and having their fertility enabled at a mature age. Instead of based on the phase of the moon would women be fertile only once per year. And instead of at the average age of 12 would women start becoming fertile at the average age of, for example, 25.

Is genetic modification immoral? Being an atheist I don’t have any believe system that forbids me to tamper with species. It’s indeed still immoral because we don’t know what we are doing, yet. No, morality is not divinely injected by a God. Atheists are born with morals, too.

But if we have to choose between living with each other under the condition of having insufficient resources, or making a change to our species, I know which of the two I will prefer.

Now, if you do believe in a God, then you must also acknowledge that your God’s intention was for us to become intelligent enough to genetically modify our species. If not, why ain’t it stopping us? We, for example, have successfully been genetically selecting dogs for centuries. And we have started genetically modifying them (active modification: interfering with the egg and sperm cells).

Mankind will have to open this difficult discussion sooner or later.

Link for planets

How can we get Europe out of the financial crisis? Of course we do need money to invest in our economy. Is printing money the only way?

We discover that the annual rate of growth of M3 in the Eurozone decreased over the past few months. Trichet has been criticized a lot, but I believe this is unfounded. Our politicians should find other ways to get to money needed to save the economy. As we all know money printing means inflation. Throughout mankind’s history we notice that a highly volatile currency meant social unrest or even wars, whereas a stable currency usually brought welfare.

We have a politician, Guy Verhofstadt, who’s ambition is a seat in the European parliament. I’m not always in agreement with his liberal ideas. However, I based my solution on his concept of a European bond.

The ECB should issue a bond that can only be bought by Europeans. Let’s keep our debt within European borders because we don’t want non-European countries to influence European politics (cfr. China vs. US).

The bond should have an interest rate based on either deflation or inflation of the Euro currency. In periods of deflation the rate must be higher than in periods of inflation, ensuring a guaranteed profit in terms of wealth.

A European law should enforce the guaranteed increase in wealth. This is indeed market influence by European politics and therefore Europe must continue its path of openness. Websites explaining the European economy, such as ECB’s, must be made more accessible.

Instead of the ECB printing money and risking inflation, European member states can now use the money of this bond to invest in useful projects. Defining what is and what isn’t useful will be the main purpose of democratic politics. In early years a lot of the investment will have to go to economic recovery. Nonetheless I believe that we should not lose ourselves in only rescuing the past. Instead we should mostly invest in future viable industries. We have to fix the future, not the past.

If a government wants to get access to the money of the bond it will have to pay an interest rate comparable to the interest rate paid to bond holders. Money supply combined with the interest rate paid by governments will be used to pay back the bonds during the economic recovery.

The bond works as an incentive for the ECB to aim for a near zero inflation. This task isn’t much different from the current task of the ECB, which is to guarantee a low but stable inflation.

When the economy starts recovering, it is the ECB’s responsibility to retract the printed money for paying the interest on the bonds. This must happen precociously. Let’s have macro economists of various European universities define what the best strategy is. It’s of utmost importance that we define a plan to retract the printed money from the market before we issue the bond. Not only must a plan be made, a contract between European member states must be created that guarantees the execution of said plan in any circumstance. Even in the event of war.