Globally Rational

//Yesterday, I outlined the best possible sequence of events that could follow from Israel’s recent prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. The best-case scenario required some forward thinking from the educated part of the population, which would (hopefully) eventually start to promote tolerance. However, here is what will happen if even the educated people let […]

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//I think we can all agree that the best possible solution to the Israel problem would be something that involves minimal violence and casualties.  So here is what I’m expecting (as promised in yesterday’s post):
Best-case (realistic)

May/June 2008: Israel works out a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah (done).
The next few months: the first exchange gives way to […]

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//Until recently, Israel has been adamant about not negotiating with Hamas and Hezbollah; they went so far as to condemn Jimmy Carter for meeting with Hamas leaders. George W. Bush even visited Israel a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their statehood (which many Palestinians considered a slap in the […]

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//If you do a Google search for “rise and fall of the empire”, you’ll get lots of results about the British and Roman empires, and maybe about the Third Reich. You might also see something about the great post-medieval empires, such as those of Spain, France, Portugal, the Ottomans, and the Mughals. There’s a possibility […]

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//I read a great article today in which a bunch of experts gather together to talk about what globalization will do to world languages.
Here are some excerpts, in case you don’t want to read the whole thing. Of course, my comments are at the end.
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Rudimentary English might still be the most convenient means […]

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//I’d like to announce the first edition of “Predictions,” scheduled for June 3, 2008. This will be a “blog carnival” whose purpose is to bring together blog posts using rational thought processes to point out interesting trends that our society seems to be following.
Click here to view details or to find out how to submit […]

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//I don’t think I have to tell anybody about the obvious ramifications of the recent cyclone in Myanmar.  All obvious points aside, I think the bigger issue might be that the tragedy happened in a fertile area at a time when the world is approaching a hunger crisis and, possibly, a Malthusian catastrophe.
Now we’re finding […]

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//You can count on the Japanese to top the British GPS-based radio show that I wrote about in the first installment of “Digital Dogtags” (click here to see it).
The Tokyo-based Fujitaka Company is seeking approval for a new system which will determine a person’s age from a digital photograph.  The system approximates your age (at […]

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//About a week ago, I wrote about how humanity seems to be disturbingly close to the mass die-off that Thomas Malthus predicted 200 years ago. In that last week, I’ve come across a huge amount of additional evidence suggesting that this theoretical catastrophe might soon become a reality:

Food riots have been taking place around […]

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//Anybody who has seen futuristic movies such as Minority Report has wondered if - or, rather, when - we will actually start to see those personal identification systems. We always get ideas about a time when every person’s identity will be known by a global computer system, so that the authorities can know when […]

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