erroneous thoughts

In the United Kingdom, Lord Peter Mandelson, also known as “Mandy”, has been for some time now trying to implement a “three-strikes-and-you-are-out” law, to address the “problem” of online “piracy”. Public outcry has of course ensued, but isn’t it so much better when besides complaining, you’re also being witty, not to mention tremendously fun? Well, that’s exactly what British musician Dan Bull did, yet again

I’m not that much informed on most EU stuff, but one of the ideas I had about the treaty of Lisbon, was that it was essentially the same thing as the proposed European Constitution (proposed but rejected a few years earlier), with a new “look and feel”. And guess what, turns out it was true. In this petition, 20 reasons are given to reject the Lisbon treaty. It’s aimed at Irish people (Ireland did a referendum on the issue, and the majority of voters voted against the treaty), and the first reason states:

1 The Lisbon Treaty agreed by EU leaders in November 2007 is almost identical to the EU Constitution agreed by EU leaders in 2004.
The Constitution was democratically rejected by the electorates of France and the Netherlands in referenda in the summer of 2005. They objected to the undemocratic and right-wing content of the Constitution. That EU leaders have returned with the same text in a different format is undemocratic and is an insult to the democratically-expressed wishes of the peoples of France and the Netherlands.

However, the most worrisome, IMHO, are these (emphasis added):

14 Article 28c mandates: “Member states shall undertake to improve their military capabilities.” Taken with the “start-up fund” and “specific procedures for guaranteeing rapid access to appropriations… for urgent financing of [unspecified] initiatives in the framework of the common foreign and security policy” (detailed in Article 28d), member states will be obliged to increase their financial contributions to the military capabilities of the EU.

15 Article 28/7 reaffirms that “commitments and co-operation” in the area of common security and defence “shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”. This effective alignment to NATO is not balanced with any commitment to protect the neutrality of member states such as Ireland.

The major role for the military, during peace time, is to enforce a nation’s sovereignty, namely by guaranteeing its territorial integrity. To transfer this role to the EU effectively changes its nature. And it does so in a very dangerous way, for it subtly crafts the same kind of alliances that a century ago, swiftly caused the assassination of an Austrian nobleman to transform into a gigantic conflict that plunged the entire world — it now goes by the name of World War I.

To finish up, I want to add the following: as a Portuguese citizen, one of the things that shocked me the most to hear about the Lisbon treaty, was our President (Head of State) saying that (in a comment regarding Ireland’s rejection) governments should not do any kind of referenda regarding international treaties! Yes, he said that, in a TV interview. On this, the only thing I can say is that at the core of any healthy democracy, lies the sovereignty of its people. Alienations of that sovereignty, such as the one proposed, irrespective of their motivations, subvert the democratic regime. For it keeps the name “democracy”, but slowly reduces the amount of power that the actual people can wield — de facto decreasing their freedom. Healthy democracies endure as long as we are able and willing to strive for freedom, true freedom, and not just the illusion thereof.

So things have been quiet for a while. A big while. I was involved in a pretty big project, that ended in the meantime, and in that meantime off I went in vacations.

But far from me the thought of minds being left idle, here’s something to churn those surplus neurons: If only gay sex caused global warming.

Yup, you read that correctly. It’s a small article, that I first heard of while reading a not so small book, that revolves around the reasons of why we (as a species, but I’m guessing the author meant US americans in particular) care so much about terrorism, and so little about global warming:

The odds of this [global warming] happening in the next few decades are better than the odds that a disgruntled Saudi will sneak onto an airplane and detonate a shoe bomb. And yet our government will spend billions of dollars this year to prevent global terrorism and … well, essentially nothing to prevent global warming.

Now, if indeed gay sex (or anything else that goes against established moral rules) caused global warming, we would mobilize and demand action be taken, for “Moral emotions are the brain’s call to action.” This is indeed one of the problems with global warming: “It doesn’t cause our blood to boil (at least not figuratively)“, and that’s also the reason for the article’s name.

The author deals with three more problems that threaten to render global warming into oblivion — at least while it doesn’t come back for revenge. First, “global warming lacks a mustache” — seriously. We tend to overestimate big time threats that come from other humans, while systematically underestimating those not related to human intent, viz. natural disasters. Indeed “If two airplanes had been hit by lightning and crashed into a New York skyscraper, few of us would be able to name the date on which it happened.” Secondly, environmentalists’ discourse to the contrary, global warming is not happening fast enough — fast enough for us to actually realize it, in a “oh my God we need to DO SOMETHING about this” kind of way.

The third reason, which is the one besides this post’s title, has to do our good old brains. If they originally evolved to allow better and quicker responses to a changing environment, we now have within our grasp the ability of not only responding to environmental changes, but also predict them before they actually happen. But there’s the rub:

But this innovation is in the early stages of development. The application that allows us to respond to visible baseballs is ancient and reliable, but the add-on utility that allows us to respond to threats that loom in an unseen future is still in beta testing.

I guess it remains to be seen if we can drop off the beta before falling victim of what might well prove to be the ultimate software bug.

É a primeira vez que vejo um detentor de um cargo público dizer isto:

“Pouco a pouco há uma espécie de pequeno cerco a determinadas liberdades individuais, que o cidadão em nome da segurança aceita”, acrescentou Pinto Monteiro. “Penso que é um perigoso ir por aí”.

Oxalá seja apenas a primeira de muitas.

And money. Lawrence Lessig gives this talk about how money breeds mistrust. And one of the first examples he gives is the spectacularly increase in the number of parents that refuse to vaccinate their children. And why? Essentially because from their point of view, the doctors prescribe the drugs subject to the money they receive from pharmaceutical companies. Even if the doctor is completely unbiased, if he receives that money, the patients’ trust in the doctor is undermined. And without that trust, the number of children without vaccination will keep rising. Others examples are given.

And then the same argument is applied to politics. In order to find out if money was influencing policy makers’ decisions, he tells the story of a bill proposing copyright extension: +20 years. The question in this case was quite simple: can this extension of copyright increase the public good? The government said the answer was ‘yes’, they (Lessig et al.) said the answer was ‘no’. And in that answer, they’re were joined, Lessig tells, by a right-wing conservative economist, who said he’d only joined them if in their report they included the words no brainer. So the government got the answer wrong. Why? Either because there really are no brains in the government, or the brains in there where influenced by money. Considering the dimension of the copyright industry, on which one would you bet?

Ordem dos Engenheiros, dos Médicos, dos Advogados, etc. Todas existem com o objectivo de regular profissões que se supõem de cariz altamente especializado, prestando assim, um serviço essencial à sociedade. A tal ponto assim é, que o próprio exercício de algumas profissões está condicionado à adesão da respectiva Ordem:

Sou licenciado em Economia. Tenho dois mestrados e um doutoramento em Economia. Sou professor de Economia numa universidade pública. Sou membro da Associação Económica Europeia. Tenho artigos publicados em revistas científicas internacionais de Economia. Com todas estas qualificações, o Estado português não me reconhece como economista. Porquê? Porque não estou inscrito na Ordem dos Economistas.

Médicos e advogados são outros exemplos bem conhecidos da mesma situação (mas não os engenheiros, principalmente os informáticos, muito para alívio do autor).

Mas o autor do texto cujo link disponibilizei acima, Luís Aguiar-Conraria, professor do Departamento de Economia da Universidade do Minho, afirma que a crescente organização dos profissionais dessas áreas em verdadeiras “corporações profissionais” tem deturpado aquilo que se supunha ser o objectivo das Ordens: em vez de zelar pelo bom funcionamento das profissões em questão, cada vez mais se transformam em organizações de defesa dos profissionais que delas fazem parte. Se isto é assim ou não, (e se for, até que ponto o é), não sei. Mas tendo em conta o interesse público da questão, era bom esclarece-la.

Termino reproduzindo da íntegra os últimos quatro parágrafos. Caveat Lector.

Esperar-se-ia que as Ordens Profissionais e outras corporações dessem formação adequada sobre o exercício da profissão e que procedessem a um controlo de qualidade, punindo infracções a códigos deontológicos. É isto que observamos? Claramente, não. Há uns anos, por exemplo, não houve qualquer condenação aos médicos que passaram centenas de atestados a alunos de Guimarães para faltarem aos exames. Há uns dias, a Inspecção-Geral de Saúde concluiu que a um número alarmante de baixas médicas nem sequer correspondia um único registo clínico do “doente”. De ambas as vezes, a reacção da Ordem dos Médicos foi dizer que os médicos não são polícias. Se nem com estes escândalos mediáticos as Ordens actuam, o que esperar no dia-a-dia? Na verdade, em vez de garantirem as melhores práticas, as Ordens protegem, de uma forma autista, os seus associados.

A única acção visível da Ordem dos Médicos tem sido a de limitar o número de médicos. Desde que existe, tem-se esforçado por impedir a abertura de novos cursos de medicina e o aumento do número de vagas nos cursos já existentes. Quase sempre com sucesso. Os farmacêuticos têm conseguido impedir a abertura de novas farmácias. Mesmo a ténue e meritória liberalização ensaiada pelo governo Sócrates serve os interesses das farmácias instaladas. A Ordem dos Notários quer o monopólio da autenticação de documentos. A Ordem dos Arquitectos recusou-se a reconhecer o curso de Arquitectura da Universidade Fernando Pessoa. A Ordem dos Revisores Oficiais de Contas exige uma licenciatura adequada e obriga os candidatos a sujeitarem-se a quatro exames escritos e um oral. Cada exame custa 300 euros. Antes dos exames os candidatos são aconselhados a frequentar um curso de preparação com quatro módulos, que decorre ao longo de um ano. O custo de cada módulo é de 1650 euros. A pequena minoria que passa nos exames tem ainda de fazer um estágio de três anos com remunerações baixíssimas.

As estratégias variam, mas o objectivo é o mesmo: criar barreiras hercúleas que impeçam o acesso à profissão. É este o papel das Ordens. Restringir a oferta e a concorrência. Os efeitos de tamanhos obstáculos são óbvios. Já em 1776, Adam Smith escrevia que “os privilégios exclusivos das corporações, os estatutos de aprendizagem, e todas as leis que, em empregos determinados, restringem a concorrência (…) tendem a sustentar salários e lucros a um nível superior à sua taxa natural. Tais sobrevalorizações podem durar tanto quanto as regulamentações que lhe deram origem”.

Não vale a pena ter ilusões. As Ordens, e outras corporações profissionais, servem para garantir remunerações anormalmente elevadas aos seus associados, perpetuando os seus privilégios, prejudicando e subjugando o interesse público a interesses privados.

The following video offers an engaging explanation of why money, in our current societies, is essentially, debt. If you find yourself thinking what exactly does that mean, watch the video. If on the other hand, you’re thinking that’s nonsense, then just ask yourself this: what exactly is the substance of money? And then watch the video.

The only way to embed this video is to use iframes, which is not allowed in WordPress. so instead you can go the page where the video is hosted, here. Alternatively, you can download the video from this url.

Apesar do título em inglês, este artigo é sobre a nossa lusa nação, e, pasme-se, é para dizer bem. Eu, que tanto critico os nossos governantes, desta vez tenho que dar a mão à palmatória: o ministro da cultura, José António Pinto Ribeiro, disse isto a respeito da “3 strike law”:

Nós somos um país que tem uma história e um regime de Estado de Direito específicos. A história é que vivemos 48 anos sobre a ditadura e portanto não compreendemos facilmente soluções que tenham uma leitura possível censória – que alguém está a ver o que estamos a fazer.

Mas não ficou por aqui. Para além de mostrar claramente que o copyright nunca poderá justificar a censura, o ministro foi mais longe dizendo que fazer o download de filmes ou músicas da net é “como alguém encontra notas de banco no chão [. . .] são de quem as agarrar”.

Como não podia deixar de ser, isto enfureceu muita gente, que acha o copyright um direito sacrossanto, que deve ser protegido doa a quem doer. Já escrevi muito sobre o porquê de tais posições estarem erradas, não me repito aqui. Termino com uma nota final: é muito positivo termos um governante que não cai no exagero em que infelizmente caiu o governo francês. No entanto é preciso ter em conta que o senhor Ribeiro não é nenhum “radical” do copyright, uma vez defende a extensão do mesmo, por exemplo. Mesmo assim, do mal, o menos.

OK, disclaimer: I am by no means a legal expert, let alone an expert in US law. But then again, neither is A. Scalia. Unless in the US ‘legal expert’ means to be able subvert a law that says that torture is prohibited, and re-shaping it as saying that torture as a form of punishment, is prohibited. I.e., if you’re being tortured by someone, by no better reason that he felt like it (i.e. he’s not in any way punishing you for something you did), then that’s allowed!! And the cherry on top of the cake: he can even afford to claim that “That’s my view, and it happens to be correct”! US? Leaders of the free world??! Right…

Here’s the tube:

Even a child would instinctively see the flaw in his reasoning: if torture is always excessive punishment, that is, even when there is something to punish for, then it’s obvious that it is still even more excessive and disproportionate when being carried out without a reason to perform any sort of punishment in the first place! And yet, this is precisely what Scalia has publicly stated. The Founding Fathers may well be nauseating in their graves…

I think that it was John Locke who once said that when law ends, tyranny begins. While this may not be the end of law in America, it resembles it far too closely.

PS: Thanks to Pedro for the link to the tube