There are articles and video clips on ther Internet and in the public debate about the danger of a Muslim takeover of the Western world, through sheer demographic forces.

Why is Islam so frightening for many Europeans? I believe it’s not the religion per se but the anachronistic social conservative world view associated with Islam and the Muslim population. Assuming that a backward social order (e.g. discrimination against women, prosecution of religios minorities, cruel penal systems, et cetera) is not the necessary consequence of Islam but only a (strongly) correlated factor, there is no indication that the increase of Muslim population will cause an decline of Western living standards. I believe that the advance of Islam in Europe will not cause a religious paradigm shift with Islam becoming the established religion, but rather the de-establishment of already established religions, leading to a more secular society.

My belief in the superiority of  the political system born by the  European Enlightenment let me conclude that Islam will not subvert Europe, but be rather reformed by it.

However, I do not believe that my optimism describes a necessary course of history. It is possible that xenophobia will alienate and radicalise the Muslim population and that misguided policies lead us into a clash of cultures.

We should have an open discourse about Islam and Europe. And as guiding principles, I propose the following two points:

1. No religion or ideology is above universal human rights and democracy.
2. Islam is not a danger to the world.

into camel cases, numerals, underscores and initial lower cases. Let’s see whether it is going to spread from the electronic world into printing.

Stuck for over half an hour in the tunnel towards Bank this evening. Not fun.

Egoism is only an aspect of altruism. Self-interest exists because it most efficiently channels individual capacities for the benefit of the community.

Since people exist only as social beings, egoism and altruism are two sides of the same coin, like centripedal vs centrifugal force..

Gelb werfen Lampen ihre Schatten
über leere Wege und kalte Luft.

Dumpf rauschen Reifen und Motoren
in der Ferne.

Menschen huschen langsam, geordnet
durch ihr Leben, wie Schafe großer Herden,
und schieben die Unwilligen durch die Massen.

Aus der Einsamkeit ist keine Flucht.

In the case when the unborn fetus is known to have a severe genetic defect?

There are some Objectivists [Diana Hsieh, Nicholas Provenzo] who defend this position, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the opinion is shared by people from the left [Erik S Nelson, 2], especially cynicists who see handicapped people as an attack on the sacred welfare state.

I find their arguments, based on a crude form of utilitarianism, very unconvincing. Simply, because the value of life is not determined by its economic output for the society nor by a simple sum of happiness and misery, because there are intangible values that all people can produce regardless  their economic capacity and because happiness and misery are two different qualities that cannot be set in an equation.

To combat the anarchy among the states?

Why would states want to be regulated by a larger structure? It might be necessary for people to form states since an anarchy of hundred thousands or millions of individuals form a chaos of Hobbesian dimension. But there are only two hundred states. An analogous number of people would never conceive the necessity to form a state, but prefer the live in a rather egalitarian face-to-face society.

The reasons why international organisations are formed is because the difference in power is much more significant among states than among individual people. The most strong person can be subdued by three or four well-organised opponents. A strong state however can swamp over half a continent with little resistance.

Therefore, international organisations help smaller states to subdue powerful ones. Id est, they exist to prevent wars, which is very different to the formation of states or federations of states (states or federacies are formed to act against an external threat).

Nowadays, the task of international organisations is not only the prevention of wars, but to “foster cooperations” amongst states in many fields, like health care, trade, nuclear energy, environment etc. Like states that have extended their power from the provision of peace to every aspect of life.

A website aggregates comments on blogs and newspapers and sort them according to the issues discussed.

User case: I search for “abortion” and the website displays all comments made on the topic.

I one faced the argument that political centralisation is desirable since all big companies, like Tesco, have centralised management structure, and are thus successful. I have no idea to what an extent transnational corporations are centrally organised, but it is probably above the degree I want to see in politics.

My counterargument: Centralisation may benefit a business, that is, the managers and shareholders. To optimise their salary, the manager have to satisfy the shareholders, who want higher profits. The net effect for consumers is competitive prices and services. It is all in the service of self-interest. However, for a politician to optimise their profit, the best way is through rent-seeking, which is best achieved in a political system with low accountability and transparency.

And the bigger a government, ie the more centralised, is, the less accountable and transparent is it (Do I have to prove that?). That is, the only people a centralised government benefits are the politicians. And sadly they do not profit the most from serving the people, but by seeking political rent.

IT – Data infrastructure

Today’s data infrastructure may be as primitive as prehistorical shelters are to our modern architecture. The size of data will grow with the increase of transfer speed. Files will have a higher resolution, become more redundant and more secure. Maybe, 50% to 80% of the size of a file will be contributed by encryption and security measures. That is, if we still define data using files and folders.

Natural law

Maybe instead of defining natural law as something existing in the “state of nature” or by divine grace, we could define natural law as a legal system that we expect in a hypothetical Open or Great Society. That is, we abandon the belief in natural justice, and substitute it with the model of a perfect society. Law may be artificial, but it is not arbitrary. It is only left to define a perfect society.