Новости за 08.03.2016

New entry. Long overdue. The meat is in sections 3 and 4. “Whether we are applying rules or calculating outcomes, we must work with what we presume to be facts though these are always uncertain in various ways. There is never a single and demonstrably correct course of action. Political arguments cannot be proved or disproved; they can only be shown to be more or less convincing than other such arguments”

Enthralling blend of family history and early American history. How should one feel about having among one’s ancestors Juan Ponce de Leon — explorer, conquistador, first governor of Puerto Rico, and deluded seeker of the fountain of eternal youth? “Nineteen and far from home, how does Juan Ponce conduct himself? This is undocumented. Let’s say he was humane and thoughtful. I’ll spin history to better serve myself”

From a monastery library on the English coast, Venerable Bede kept learning alive in the Dark Ages He invented the modern calendar, wrote the first English history, and computed the flow of tides. “Bede’s method was to do sums on his hands, not on paper, with a system of straight and bent fingers in different combinations that could reach 9,999; after that, he says without explaining, you need other parts of the body”

Offered as satire; but arguably a very promising idea. Regulate the customer. “Men who want to pay for sex are exercising a particular sort of freedom which we know could be damaging to other people if used recklessly. It’s like wanting to drive a car. So any man who wants to pay for sex can start by applying for a punter’s licence. He’d have to be examined first, with a full physical, a criminal record check, and a theory test”

In 1911 Franz Kafka proposed a new series of European travel guides, “On The Cheap”, written for the new era of mass tourism. Their slogan would be: “The same pleasure for less money”. According to Max Brod, the project failed because “we didn’t want to disclose our precious secret [to publishers] without an enormous advance.” Kafka also invented an answering machine in 1913, but the idea had already been patented

Landmark essay on the changing shape of German politics. The refugee crisis has forced Merkel into de facto alliance with the left, creating tensions with the CSU and new space for the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD). If the AfD consolidates the far-right vote, Germany will “end up with a political spectrum that is closer to the European norm — but one which is nonetheless uncomfortable given the country’s history”