Cybernethics / Cybernéthique

Je visiterai Montréal du 27 décembre 2008 au 3 janvier 2009. Je serai ravi de vous y rencontrer (oui, vous qui lisez ce message là maintenant, et qui y serez). Contactez-moi par email!

Je serai à Paris pour une semaine (peut-être deux?) à partir du Dimanche 28 septembre 2008. Si vous y serez, rencontrons-nous!

Cross-posted to Bureaucrash, here is a little story where I meet the most authentic Polish Capitalist!

( Read more... )

( Lire ces nouvelles urgentes du Zimbabwe (selon le Soleil)... )

Notons aussi les soucis environnementaux à deux vitesses de nos amis national socialistes. L'environnement, ça veut parfois dire sauver nos amis les bêtes des balles des méchants chasseurs. Mais une fois les bébêtes nationalisées, ça veut dire des gentils chasseurs en uniforme gouvernemental qui abattent les nuisibles bestioles maintenant déclarées trop nombreuses. Ah le prestige de l'uniforme! L'environnement ça veut surtout dire un bon prétexte pour justifier tout et n'importe quoi pourvu que ce soit le gouvernement qui le fasse, et qu'il nous balance le mot environnement dans ses explications. L'environnement c'est le nouveau refuge des totalitaires de tout poil. Mot-clef suscitant une réaction émotionelle pavlovienne d'approbation sans critique chez les citoyens préprogrammés.

( Illustration et envoi... )

I will be in Warsaw on June 28th and 29th to speak at the Libertarian International 2008 Spring Conference.

Since I don't want to preach to the choir what they already know or will soon know anyhow, I chose to tackle the topic I think is most missing from such conferences. That's why I announced the title of my future speech to be The Art of Living Free.

Now I have to find a great speech to put under this great title.

I came to Paris for a Surprise Party celebrating my father's 70th birthday. It was a tremendous success. I'm leaving next saturday morning. If you are around, I hope to meet you before then!

Je suis venu à Paris pour une Sauterie Surprise en l'honneur des 70 ans de mon père. Et quelle surprise ce fut! Je repars le matin de samedi prochain 9 février. Si vous êtes dans les environs, j'espère vous revoir d'ici là!

( Visitez Paris... )

Paris devient un double musée. Celui de la splendeur passée, et celui de la déchéance présente.

1938. Un magnat de l'Opéra à privilège perd de l'argent à produire des opéras que nul ne veut regarder. Il fait faillite. L'État le rachète et éponge ses dettes à coups de millions pour qu'il puisse continuer à produire des opéras que nul ne veut regarder.

Décidément, le Front Populaire était activement occupé à perdre la guerre en financant des entreprises inutiles pour satisfaire les goûts particuliers d'une toute petite minorité politiquement connectée au détriment de la majorité des citoyens opprimés, plongés dans une souffrance prolongée au nom du droit d'une élite autoproclamée à leur imposer ses goûts décadents.

Dans la partie musée de l'Opéra, un documentaire de propagande vichyste passe en boucle. L'idéologie nationale socialiste d'alors colle parfaitement à l'idéologie socialiste nationale d'aujourd'hui. On célèbre le collectif de 1200 personnes, qui travaillent dur tous ensembles vers un seul but sous l'autorité du chef, comme un exemple pour une nation en ruine où tous doivent se sacrifier de même.

Cruelle comparaison que celle d'avec le Metropolitan Opera de NYC, dont les comptes positifs sont financés par le public, pour le public, spectateurs et donateurs volontaires, et dont les productions classiques rayonnent sur le monde entier. Oui, il y a des subventions publiques aussi, mais elles n'égalent pas les impôts loin de là; et si les lois fiscales ont forcé l'entreprise à se faire ASBL, l'intervention politique y reste considérablement moindre qu'en France. En fin de compte, c'est bien le public qui paie à mesure de sa satisfaction -- et c'est la satisfaction du public, pas celle de maîtres politiques, que cherche activement à satisfaire l'institution privée.

Je serai de brièvement retour en France du 19 juillet 2007 au 7 août 2007.

I will be having holidays in and around San Francisco, arriving on Sunday Dec 31 at midday, and leaving on January 8 at night. If you are nearby between these dates, I will be most glad to meet you!

In any case, I hope you are happily celebrating the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, Gravmas, or whatever you like to call the gift-giving season.

NB: I haven't been posting much these times. One major reason why not is that I am experiencing hands problems: RSI, CTS, Tendinitis, whatever the name. I'm slowly recovering, but typing quickly becomes uncomfortable then painful.

Two signs of relative lack of civilization in Mexico. First, there are lots of security officers, public or private, everywhere; they are a symptoms of a high crime rate. Streets are much dirtier than in Boston; unhappily, I cannot vouch for Paris being better these days.

The mexican political leaders have always been the minority of mainly spanish ascent, which makes it all the more interesting that they resurrected the cult of old Aztec emperors as emblems of the Nation. As if indians were happier enslaved by the Aztecs than by the Spanish. Sad national identity. Not that you can ever build a positive identity by looking into the past for reasons of pride. Pride can only be a positive attitude when forward looking into future achievements.

In the metro, advertisement is rare, and half of it is government propaganda. That felt oh so very wrong. I'm told the same about a lot of the radio broadcasts. Taxpayers paying through the nose for services most of them (particularly the poorest) don't use, and the service-users being additionally brainwashed into worshipping the plunderous institutions -- oppression surely hasn't stopped because of a change in regime. As a positive side-effect, rich tourists like me are beneficiaries of these subsidies. Happily, the streets have all the normal advertising of the modern world. Mexico is still civilized, despite government.

When downtown, be sure to go the Zocalo, the great central market plaza, with the presidential palace and the Cathedral, where the ruins of the Templo Mayor was recently unearthed. The ruins and their museum are well deserving of a two hour visit.

( Meet Martin... )

Unlike what its name suggests, the museum of Bellas Artes doesn't have a lot of Fine Arts, but it still is well worth the short and cheap visit. You won't find classics there, but mostly copies of those Funny Arts that our XX^th century ancestors used to call Modern, where conceptual jokes replace the exaltation of natural shapes. It notably contains a few mural paintings and other works by well-known mexican and other latin american artists, who obviously spent more time learning communist ideology than acquiring mastery of perspective and anatomy. On the other hand the over-the-top architecture with its marble halls illuminated with sunlight from the glass cupolas is quite worth the visit in and of itself.

Right from the airplane's windowpanes, you can see that Mexico City is an immense dense city, with monuments as beautiful as the weather. Speaking of weather, websites predicted rain and thunder for my stay, which wasn't quite what a bostonite would imagine for a similar forecast. My days were bright and sunny, and rain lasted but a few minutes, in the beginning of the evening. Bring clothes for a sunny weather, and add foldable rain gear and/or an umbrella.

( More tips... )

There was a snowstorm eight days ago, and that's the precisely the time I chose to go out shopping for tidbits at Home Depot. I asked my way twice. The first time near the subway station, a very gentle man explained me the way, under the highway twice along a crooked itinerary. I try to follow his instructions. And then, along what was either the last straight line to Home Depot or a straight line to nowhere, I try ask confirmation from another poor soul lost in the dark and in the snow across the lane. The guy asks violently who I think I am to jump at him, and that says that next time I do that he could hit me or kill me, then continues his way. From what I see of his face, he's saying that defensively, and from the tone of his voice, he sounds like a nice guy who wouldn't hit an innocent man. But he obviously must have grown in quite a bad district, where nice people are abused by violent criminals who poison any cooperative attitude -- and he's tried to develop a carapace to survive there. Up to now, I've mostly been confronted to nice, helpful people in this country, who were raised in a civilized atmosphere of general benevolence. Violent uneducated scum haven't invaded all the cities here as they have in Europe. But apparently, impune rule by aggressive violence is the rule in parts of this country, and that's quite sad. Yet another result of the victim disarmament program of which the rulers are so proud.

My friend Tamu is organizing a special screening of Jason and the Argonauts in presence of Ray Harryhausen on July 24th in Montreal (not 23rd, not 25th), I unhappily won't be able to attend (I wish I could), but I thought some of you might appreciate, especially since you might be around Montreal at said date for Fantasia. I think Tamu clearly underpriced the session, at a 9 measly canadian dollars. Maybe she'll make up the difference selling beers and cheesecakes. Flock in and have fun!

Here I am in a new world. Safe and rested at last after a long journey. It's a new dawn. It's a new day. It's a new life for me. And I'm feeeeling good.

( Read more... )

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.

( Read more... )

It looks like my visa has been issued after all. Therefore, I will be able to come to Boston for a training period! Yippers!

2005-03-08 UPDATE: I got it in my mail this morning. Woohoo!

QOTD, re visas: A pretty face is not a passport, it's a visa and it runs out fast.

Petit extrait du lavage de cerveau insidieux effectué par les rédactions télévisées soviétiques francophones (RTBF, TF1, F2), ce dimanche soir.

( Lire la suite... )

Si vous cherchez un endroit romantique pour une soirée à Bruxelles, allez donc au Grand Mayeur, restaurant tsigane russe, place du Grand Sablon, où un petit orchestre tsigane au violon virtuose vous ravira de 21:00 à 02:00.

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.

( Read more... )

While in the States, I had an argument with, of all persons, a French man. He argued for relativism, that true and false do not matter, and might not exist at all, that every situation is unique, etc. Yeah sure! His example went that everytime he heard that same Opera was unique. And my reply was that everytime he'd have to listen to the noise of a jackhammer for two uninterrupted hours would be just as unique. He was an extreme example of what Ayn Rand called the anti-conceptual mentality.

( Read more... )

When I was in the Boston subway, I saw the following advertisement on the red line, saying that Math is Cool. The next day, the advertisement was gone. Maybe math wasn't cool anymore. But then, there were still ads for learning philosophy, teaching english, etc. Things like that make me feel like Boston is just my kind of town. Think about it: a giant multiversity campus with lots of fascinating museums!

Les couloirs du métro annoncent Pharaon à l'institut du monde arabe, à grand renforts de sponsors étatiques et para-étatiques. Pourquoi pas Dalai Lama à l'institut du monde chinois? Chef Hutu, à l'institut du monde tutsi? Inca à l'institut du monde ibérique? Roi Champa à l'institut du monde vietnamien? Hannibal à l'institut du monde romain? Néanderthal à l'institut du monde Cro-Magnon? Et d'abord pourquoi un institut du monde arabe plutôt que d'aucun autre? Attention, si on laisse faire la vermine qui instigue une telle mascarade, dans quelques années, à l'institut du monde arabe, ce sera Premier ministre israëlien bientôt suivi de Président français. La collection a vocation à s'étendre autant qu'on la laissera faire.

( Lire la suite... )