The failure of fuzzy opining

The following item was part of my daily dose of the Economist this Tuesday the 7^th of June:

Class action: China’s university entrance

The 9.4m teenagers taking the two-day exam which starts today have been cramming for years. The tests, known as the gaokao, will (they believe) determine their entire future. Meritocratic exams have been revered in China since imperial times, when any man could sit them to enter the civil service. For centuries they enabled the poor but talented to rise to high office. The gaokao is intended similarly to be a great leveller. But China’s education system is becoming more unfair. The number of university students has increased nearly sevenfold since 1998, but the expanded intake has mostly been from cities, whereas 90% of rural youths leave school at 15 or younger. As a result the country is increasingly divided between those with degrees and those who never even make it to senior high school. Give China’s rulers a failing grade on that test.

The sexy politics of gender-science

I am not happy to write this post. It is in a way sad that I have to. I believe I made all the arguments and all the explanations in my previous posts (Let’s be careful what we wish for, Why it matters and ‘Scientific’ gender diversity), but it seems that, yet again, I ran into the problems of the ideological divide.

“Scientific” gender diversity

I had a conversation with a couple of scientists a few months ago that I still cannot get over.
They are both biologists by training. She left the field of scientific research decades ago, but he is a world renown geneticist, head of a research lab. They are both, also, left-liberals.

The glorious victory of Islam

Whether we like it or not, acknowledge it or not, Islam is at war with us and it is winning.

The sublime wisdom of Islam

 

 

 

 

 

 

I keep telling people that there is no better way to understand Islam than reading the original sources and through listening to their opinion leaders, yet I have the feeling that not many do. I will try to make it a little easier for them with a collection of quotes.

Islam IS the religion of peace

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
(George Orwell, 1984)

I grew up as an abused child. My step-father was an alcoholic sadist. I learned very early in my life the meaning of ‘peace’: continuous appeasement and unquestioning submission to the capricious will of those with power over us just so that they let us be.

Immigration – the economics

Karl Marx called the second branch of his system “political economy’ for a reason. In the totalitarian system he envisioned, there is no difference between political and economic decisions as there is no economy outside the politically managed system. The more statist a political system gets, the more political its economy will become. Talking about the economic aspects of immigration in this post I will inevitably touch on many political problems.
My next post will be more about the political circus around immigration than the structural problems I will address in this one.

Immigration: the questions of morality

When it comes to refugees and immigrants, the moral question seems to be the most important to most people. Don’t we have a moral obligation to help? It seems like a simple question, but giving the first ‘YES’ answer will only raise more questions.

Immigration – the cultural considerations

The sign says: Welcome to Czech lands.
Caption:
“Every Muslim refugee has to do two things before entering our land:
He has to draw a caricature of the Prophet and consume a plate of pork roast with dumplings and sauerkraut.
This is the custom of our land.”

Immigration: the philosophical case

To put it bluntly: there is no libertarian philosophical case for open borders.
To put it in a different way, libertarians must choose between property rights and open borders.
We cannot have it both ways.