לאן נעלמה האלימות?
ברוס שנייר אמר שאנחנו חיים בחברה הבטוחה ביותר בתולדות האנושות. בסרטון המבריק הזה, סטיבן פינקר יורד לפרטים. בסוף ההרצאה הוא שואל מה גורם לירידה המדהימה באילומות במרוצת השנים, וזה מאד נוגע לפוסט הקודם על פתרונות לסכסוך שלנו.
פתרון כלכלי לסכסוך
רעיון מעניין מתגלגל בימים האחרונים בבלוגים הכלכליים. הרעיון, של בן אדם עם כשרון מופרז בשם ברוס בואנו דה מסקיטה (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita), הוא לחלק את ההכנסות של התיירות של ישראל והפלסטינאים לפי גודל האוכלוסיה של שני העמים. כיון שהתיירות מושפעת מרמת האלימות באזור, יהיה לשני הצדדים אינטרס כספי למנוע התפרצויות.
In my view, it is a mistake to look for strategies that build mutual trust because it ain’t going to happen. Neither side has any reason to trust the other, for good reason…
I would suggest that all tourist revenue be [divided by] a fixed formula based on the current population of the region, which is roughly 40 percent Palestinian, 60 percent Israeli. The money would go automatically to each side. Now, when there is violence, tourists don’t come. So the tourist revenue is automatically responsive to the level of violence on either side for both sides. You have an accounting firm that both sides agree to, you let the U.N. do it, whatever. It’s completely self-enforcing, it requires no cooperation except the initial agreement by the Israelis that they are going to turn this part of the revenue over, on a fixed formula based on population, to some international agency, and that’s that.
הוא גם אומר:
If you liberate people from the constraint of having to satisfy other people in order to advance themselves, people don’t do good things.
מצד שני, כשאנשים כן צריכים לסחור עם אנשים אחרים כדי להתקדם, הם שלווים להפליא.
הפוליטיקאי הנורמלי
He is willing to embrace any issue, however idiotic, that will get him votes, and he is willing to sacrifice any principle, however sound, that will lose them for him. I do not describe the democratic politician at his inordinate worst; I describe him as he is encountered in the full sunshine of normalcy.
H.L. Mencken, The Politician Under Democracy [via]
משרת מסוכן, אדון נורא
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
ליברטריאניזם ליפי נפש
The Welfare State supposedly redistributes income and reduces poverty. In fact, I believe that the Welfare State redistributes poverty and reduces income.
Bleeding-Heart Libertarianism, Arnold Kling, TCS Daily
הכלכלה היזמית בעולם
האם זה נכון שהעלייה הרוסית היא מרכזית להיי-טק הישראלי? בכל מקרה, המחמאה מתקבלת בברכה:
The Soviet Union spent lavishly on its military and space programmes during the cold war, but because its economic system was ossified there were few spill-over effects. The unintended beneficiary was Israel, arguably the most entrepreneurial economy on earth, because its many Russian émigré scientists now form the core of a vibrant high-tech sector.
The Economist, 13 Oct 2007
גראוצ'ו על פוליטיקה
כל כך קולע, שזה כואב:
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
צ'ה, כפי שהיה
עיתון האקונומיסט זוכר את צ'ה גווארה:
Rather than a Christian romantic, Guevara was a ruthless and dogmatic Marxist, who stood not for liberation but for a new tyranny. In the Sierra Maestra, he shot those suspected of treachery; in victory, Mr Castro placed him in charge of the firing squads that executed “counter-revolutionaries”; as minister of industries, Guevara advocated expropriation down to the last farm and shop. His exhortation to guerrilla warfare, irrespective of political circumstance, lured thousands of idealistic Latin Americans to their deaths, helped to create brutal dictatorships and delayed the achievement of democracy.
…
As Jorge Castañeda, one of Guevara's biographers, notes, Che's lingering influence has retarded the emergence of a modern, democratic left in parts of Latin America. Sadly, most of those who buy the T-shirt neither know nor care.
שומפטר על פוליטיקאים
Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with keeping in the saddle that they can't bother about where they go.
Joseph Alois Schumpeter, in his diary [via Cafe Hayek]
