Cybernethics / Cybernéthique

A quoi ça sert l'amour? (Cám ơn, Tamu) [Aussi là: 1, 2, 3 -- voir aussi ces autres courts-métrages.]

On the first weekend of April, I attended the Spring 2005 Convention of Libertarian International, in Sofia, Bulgaria, as organized by the Bulgarian Society for Individual Liberty. I was a speaker, and my speech was about Capitalism as the Institution of Ethics. The notes for my speech are now available on my web site.

On se souvient rarement d'un rêve, et rarement des détails, sauf à la rigueur de vagues détails, juste après s'être réveillé. Celui-là m'a donné envie de vous le raconter en brodant un peu pour recréer tous les détails et supposés implicites, qui semblent évidents durant le rêve, et indicibles après. C'est l'histoire d'un jeune couple glamour qui a tout pour être heureux mais ne l'est pas.

mood: sleepy

music: Kate Bush - Brazil

This weekend, I've been sorting a lot of old paperwork from my previous life, trying to find a few things to liquidate all my pending business in France. My oh my. I just re-saw Brazil and it feels so true-to-life.

While digging through the pile of paper, I found a few melodies I had written, but also this AFCish haïku:

Thunder in a tin
Waves of flesh, seeking mates
Failure self-fulfills

In a bus to NYC early in January 2005, I met this gorgeous girl who was reading a course in Economics. The textbook was open on a praise of the Fed and its role in regulating the National Economy, with an opposing page in a special color denoting higher science, that justified this role based on one macroeconomic equation by Keynes. It was too tempting, so I started a conversation.

Don't miss the following short text by Ayn Rand: The Only Path To Tomorrow (1944). I've also added at the end of The Death Of Politics by Karl Hess (1969) the original reactions of the readers.

All of that courtesy of my friend E., whom I made wait much longer than politeness allows. One thing that's good about being dumped is that you suddenly have time and inspiration to do stupid things like putting on your website documents long due for publication.

Sometimes I indulge in political discussion with socialists, and after a lot of heat, I realize that the discussion isn't going anywhere because each participant has a different base approach to thinking at all. Notably, I'm a "rational" (NT) on the MBTI, whereas most other people are not, and are thus not prone to being receptive at all to the rough logical reasoning that comes to me naturally. The most important thing to me is the truth of statements and logical rigor of arguments. That's why you see me insist on ideas being "correct" or "false", and nitpicking on what looks as boring details to you, yet are crucial turn to me. That's why you'll find blunt insulting or shocking things I'd see as concise and precise rational statements, whereas I'll find moronic or dishonest things that to you are obvious sincere casual statements. Because we have the same temperament. Now, I can't change you by mere wishful thinking. But I can improve myself by some strainous effort. So I've decided to improve.

Yes, it's very personal, but in case you didn't notice yet, I'm an exhibitionist indeed. L: non, je ne suis pas sage. But naughty as I may be, at least I don't waste my soul and money in hostess bars.

Le soir entre sept et neuf heures, les rues des quartiers animés sont pleines de japonais et japonaises qui sortent et sont ouverts à la rencontre. Mais bien vite, la rue n'est plus qu'un lieu de transit, toute l'action se passant à l'intérieur -- l'intérieur de quoi? Difficile à dire, pour un gaijin. De nombreux bars tout petits; à l'étage, des bars à hôtesse, des jeunes gars en complet racolent à l'entrée, encadrant parfois une ou deux hôtesses sur le trottoir.

Au cas où vous votre guide l'aurait omis, un bon plan à Kyoto pour qui parle anglais mais pas japonais est le club Metro, un peu excentré (prix immobiliers obligent) mais facilement accessible, sortie 2 de la station Mutaramachi ligne Keihan. La piste est complètement pleine de onze heures au matin. Bonne musique. Surtout des étrangers, mais quelques japonaises intéressantes (et une seule suffit).

And that includes females too, mutatis mutandis:

So as to fill my blog, I salvaged this old unpublished draft from my dustbin; I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but maybe it's food for thought for you, and you may come up with something better -- and maybe even something better that's well known for a long time by in evopsy circles.

Amongst humans, like in most species, (and particularly so in days of welfare state,) children can survive without high paternal involvement: indeed, female genes have already chosen the high parental investment strategy before birth, so that rearing of children after birth is but an extension of their strategy, whereas it goes opposite to the initial male strategy of small gamets. There are exceptions, of course, and paternal parental investment is rather high in humans as compared to other species; in any case, what matters is that there is high potential for lack of paternal involvement in children rearing, whereas there is little such potential for maternal involvement.

mood: sleepy

music: Salsa

Said Calvin Coolidge:

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

And he's right. Persistence is everything. And though I've long wanted to someday implement Orthogonal Persistence, I admit I have a lot of trouble trying to achieve explicit persistence, or having the right stuff to persist to begin with. Let's improve this year!

mood: calm

Mon ami David Madore m'écrit une lettre fort pertinente au sujet de mon blog, avec comme à son habitude cette pénétration exceptionnelle qui est la sienne. Il met le doigt sur certains points essentiels qui ne vous ont je l'espère pas échappé, en tout cas qui méritaient d'être discutés. Voici le texte complet de sa lettre, et ma réponse incise. Merci donc à David.

So many things to say, so little time to blog. I think the bilingual constraint is overkill for me, and I'd rather do most everything in just one language: the overhead of blogging is high enough and doesn't need be tripled by the need to translate everything. I have had so many libertarian ideas to share, computer science ideas to expose, etc. -- I will have to reserve time to do that in my schedule.

I'm currently near Berlin at the Chaos Communication Camp 2003, demonstrating my Lisp Machine in the Hack Center under the DS-GROK-LC flag. It's rare enough being able to see that many diverse rational people at the same place that such an opportunity to feel both commonly sane and uncommonly unique shouldn't be neglected; it gives you hope in mankind, really.

A stand here sells "space waffeln" -- THC-enhanced wafers. I had a try.