Month: September 2010

Premise: The second debate in the 911 series follows hot on the heels of the earlier debate. The basic argument in short is that all of the modern, democratic, affluent world (US, EU, Japan, Australia, Russia?) is entering a period of significant upheaval. The philosopher Zizek already suggested that “modern society probably won’t be able…

Premise: Fact: over 75% of people outside the US believe that 9/11 was at some level an ‘inside job’. To many people inside the US this is a very distressing fact. The dutch government governing parties have openly referenced to not make any official comment what they did term the ‘severe inconsistencies’ in the 911…

Premise: We did three events this weekend. The first was about the events surrounding 9/11 and it made a case that the event itself was rather dubious when looked at it closely. The second event postulated that oil was behind this and oil is an increasing concern in international politics. The third event postulated the…

WITHOUT MISSING A SINGLE WEEK – I’m back with a new offensive oppositional statement… ‘In a few years, probably no more than 5 or 10, it will be possible, safe, and affordable to have babies gestate in a lab, and then have the genes altered. IThis would initially only be available to rich people, and…

THE ISSUE In the last few years, we have seen marvels emerge in the realm of ingenuity, from boffins and scientists and eggheads – that have introduced coruscating transformations that evoked wonder in everyone, but also a sense if dread. Sometimes normal folks just wonder, where is all this technological wizardry headed. I mean, one…

““What is causing debts in western democracies. Populist politicians that promise the world to their constituents to get elected? A prevalent culture of cost dumping where everyone externalizes their misery over the fence for someone else to deal with? Human selfishness? The corporatist system? Corruption? Parasitical elements in western democracies … Democracy itself? Overpopulation, and…

I occasionally engage ‘people’ in discussion about stuff they don’t know. It is something I should not do since it is something that makes neither them nor me happy. The other day I described the idea of ‘3D Printing’ to a person and why it has relevance to their business. Instead of keen interest I…

O-SPAN Classic: CIA Accidentally Overthrows Costa Rica

““Narcotic substances… ranging from cannabis…to cocaine… to heroin. After examples of tests in Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland and many other places in Europe, and also increasingly in the US itself, we find ourselves in the land where the international community can be all but certain that the War on Drugs has failed, most types on…

“What happened after the attack on the world trade center wasn’t exactly … tasteful. Some suggest that america made wrong choices. What is worse – there is an increasingly polarized way of thinking about this. Right wingers everywhere latch on to ‘islamization’ and portray it as a danger. ‘Leftists’ don’t even acknowledge Islamization and blame…

In your last ‘Socialist Party’ circulaire your complained that in the divisional formula dutch society used to spend money – A collapsing Greek economy riddled with tax fraud, and corrupt banks got saved while old people are sidelined. As you so eloquently put it: Terecht zeggen deze ouderen dat de overheid wel klaarstaat voor de…

And she does so here.

assumption: “Israel” exists less than a century. It emerged by dictate under arguably unprecedented political compromise. Some palestinians argue they drew the short end of the stick of the emergence of the state of Israel, and that’s an understatement probably. Israeli don’t have much of an alternative however, especially at this stage. They will not…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0drT_L4G8w8&fs=1&hl=en_US] So, what is the shape of the debating center at Cosmosia?

assumption: We have global overpopulation. So what would a viable longterm solution? Is the ‘malthusian’ debate settled, especially considering that we might run out of oil… is oil depletion really all that bad? Isn’t there ‘plenty space’ ? Some say we need ten planets as is, others say we can easily have 30 billion people….

I did the First attempt at Red versus Blue debate format on saterday 4 september and that didn’t work – but that’s only natural. First formula’s never work. Prototype’s always break. So I am updating the prototype today (5 september 2010) and I wonder if my earlier version, Khannea of (say) the year 1990, would…

Reprinted from here Despair has many causes. Personal disability and mortality cause despair. People feel despair regarding disability or death of loved ones. The Singularity will create perfect eternal health therefore health-related despair will be vanish, but in the meantime poverty prohibits access to sophisticated healthcare. Money is the biggest source of despair for many…