Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Ops, denominação errada...

Outrage as Pence brings out Messianic ‘rabbi’ to pray for synagogue victims (Times of Israel):

US Vice President Mike Pence sparked outrage on Monday when the “rabbi” he invited onto the stage to say a prayer for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre turned out to be a Messianic Christian, who invoked “Jesus the Messiah” at the event.

However, a spokesperson for Pence later said he did not know Rabbi Loren Jacobs of the Messianic congregation Shema Yisrael, when he called him onto the stage to offer a prayer for the victims during a Michigan campaign stop.

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God and Father of my Lord and Savior Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, and my God and Father too,” Jacobs, wearing a tallit, intoned, causing much consternation, two days after a gunman who said all Jews should be killed shot dead 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the worst attack on Jews in US history.
Chamar-lhes "cristãos" e pôr rabi entre aspas, como faz o Times of Israel, será também discutível (seria como por entre aspas o papa dos coptas ou os popes ortodoxos só porque não são o papa da Igreja Católica), mas de certo os judeus messiânicos são muito diferentes dos judeus tradicionais (p.ex., aceitam Cristo como Messias e filho de Deus), nomeadamente com os da sinagoga alvo do atentado.

Sunday, October 28, 2018

O apoio do Forum de São Paulo à ditadura da Nicáragua

The scandalous position of the São Paulo forum on Nicaragua, por Ernesto Herrera, International Viewpoint (o site da IV Internacional "trotskista-mandelista").

Friday, October 26, 2018

Deixem de chamar "hiperatividade" ao "deficit de atenção e hiperatividade"!

E chamar-lhe "hiperatividade com deficit de atenção" (em vez de "deficit de atenção com hiperatividade", que penso ser algo mais parecido com o nome formal), como é feito aqui, não melhora muito, acho eu (já que continua a dar a ideia que o ponto central é a hiperatividade, e que o deficit de atenção é um detalhe adicional).

Isso torna-se bastante relevante na discussão sobre a ritalina, que pelo que sei é essencialmente um medicamento para tratar o deficit de atenção, mais do que a hiperatividade (trata-se de um estimulante para aumentar a concentração).

Já agora, a teoria também muito popular que "as crianças hiperativas são é mal-educadas" faz pouco sentido se nos lembrarmos do "deficit de atenção" - poderá ser possível ensinar (nem que seja com uma combinação de castigos e/ou recompensas) uma criança a ficar quieta; mas será possível ensiná-las a concentrar o pensamento num assunto em vez de o cérebro estar a saltar de assunto para assunto? É que não me parece quer isso seja sequer uma coisa que o indivíduo consiga controlar (é algo parecido com a tal história "tenta não pensar em rinocerontes cor-de-rosa").

[Nota - como já escrevi algures, não me admirava nada que eu mesmo andasse perto do "deficit de atenção sem hiperatividade", mas talvez seja apenas hipocondria mental da minha parte]

Monday, October 22, 2018

O espectro de The Militant

The Spectre of Militan, por Stephen Daker, no New Socialist:

Really, the fear of Militant is about something quite different. It isn’t about the noisy but tiny remnants of British Trotskyism, and it’s not about nationalising the top 200 monopolies, or illegal budgets, or council house building in Liverpool, or even about the Poll Tax. It’s about that distinction that Kinnock made between the left that mainstream politics in Britain finds acceptable – working patiently within the Mother of Parliaments, frequently content with heroic defeat – and that which it finds unacceptable, that is equally comfortable with civil disobedience and distrust of our venerable institutions. Patently, Momentum is not much like Militant – it isn’t a secretive, clandestine organisation, and it emerged precisely from within the ‘legitimate’ left around the veteran Bennites. But most Momentum members would surely reject being told what which parts of the left are legitimate and which are not, and would consider direct action as being as ‘legitimate’ as waiting for the next Labour government. That’s why the spectre of Militant hangs over it.

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Vaga de agitação no planeta Terra

From Baghdad to Kyiv to Haiti, people everywhere are rising up. The U.S. is a big part of the problem, por Will Bunch (The Philadelphia Inquirer):

Heard about Baghdad? Heard about Haiti? Heard about Kyiv, Ukraine?

It’s life during a wartime, of sorts, against the 21st century rot of corrupt governance, inequality and injustice, and in accelerating fashion over the course of 2019 it’s been spreading across every time zone and every major continent, from the now-bloodied streets of Iraq to the faded capitals of South America to the vast central squares of Eastern Europe. (...)

The autumn of 2019 is fast becoming the most revolutionary season on Planet Earth since 1989 (with 2011 in the argument) when the Berlin Wall fell and it took a dictator’s tanks to subdue protesters at Tiananmen Square. This time, the fires burn differently from place to place, but the sparks are pretty much the same everywhere.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Sobre "Ghostland" (aviso - spoilers)

Quando estava a ver o filme "Ghostland", uma coisa que me ocorreu (para aí a meia hora de filme) foi que era interessante que tivesse sido a irmã aparentemente com os pés na terra a ter ficado maluca e a viver num delírio, enquanto a fã de literatura de terror que aparentemente vivia no mundo da fantasia é que tinha conseguido passar por cima dos acontecimentos e tornar-se bem sucedida na vida; mas depois até pensei que não era nada de especial - afinal, quase por definição o argumentista do filme também será uma espécie de autor de histórias de terror, logo é natural que dê uma visão positiva da proto-escritora. Claro que alguns minutos mais tarde percebi que nada do que eu estava a pensar fazia qualquer sentido (mas, de qualquer forma, acho que mesmo assim, a irmã fantasista, quando desceu à terra e finalmente começou a fazer alguma coisa, revelou-se mais expedita do que a outra).

Uma nota pessoal - eu tenho vários livros de Horace P. Lovecraft em casa (exemplo) e acho que sou um caso extremo de personalidade INTP (a maior parte dos leitores ficarão a pensar o que é que esta nota pessoal interessa, mas talvez alguns perceberão a relevância e implicações).

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Elizabeth Warren é (um bocado) índia

Elizabeth Warren Carries Native American DNA – She’s Running!, por Razib Khan:

The proportion of ancestry is not large. But it is clearly there. They compared to the Utah white and British European 1000 Genomes populations, which is a good standard for Old Stock Anglo-Americans. She’s clearly an outlier, with about an order of magnitude more “Native American” ancestry. So it’s unlikely to be some artifact. (...)

But we know that Warren’s family background is such that a shift toward a Northeast Asian group is likely to be Native American. Not Chukchi. Further analysis could confirm, but the most likely hypothesis is that this is a woman of Northwest European ancestry with some Native American ancestry.

Friday, October 12, 2018

Os "grievance studies" da direita

Right-Wing Grievance Studies, por Bryan Caplan:

But what if, like me, you deplore all theories of collective guilt? You could just condemn the standard examples of “grievance studies” and move on.* But the judicious move is to see whether the standard list is complete. All of Sokal 2.0’s targets were decidedly left-wing. Does grievance studies have any right-wing analogues?

If you limit your domain to academia, maybe not. Given left-wing dominance in higher education, that’s hardly surprising. But you only have to mildly expand the search grid to find thriving examples of right-wing grievance studies.

First and foremost, there is “right-wing populism” also known as “nativism” or just “anti-immigration movements.” (...)

The same goes for the numerous conservatives eager to escalate the “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam. Though it seems unfair to accuse them of outright “hatred” for Muslims, it also seems blind to deny their antipathy. (...)

Isn’t there any important difference between left- and right-wing grievance studies? The fundamental question, too big to address here, is the extent to which each grievance study’s antipathy and self-pity are justified. The more visible difference, though, is that left-wing grievance studies is too drenched in obscure academic jargon to reach the common man. Right-wing grievance studies, in contrast, attempts to speak to the masses in their own language, which sharply increases the probability that politicians will eventually make their brand of antipathy and self-pity the law of the land.

Thursday, October 04, 2018

Acerca de "Sokal hoaxes"

Há alguma grande diferença entre fazer um "Sokal hoax" e simplesmente conhecer uma corrente de pensamento oposta o suficiente para conseguir escrever um texto como se tivesse sido escrito por alguém do "clube"? Isto é, imagine-se que um keynesiano conhecia a escola económica austríaca o suficiente para conseguir escrever, com um nome falso, um artigo expondo opiniões "austríacas" e conseguir que fosse publicado no Journal of Libertarian Studies ou algo do tipo; e depois aparecia em público revelando que os tinha enganado. E depois?

Tuesday, October 02, 2018

O poder económico e as quase-ditaduras da América Central

How big business enables authoritarianism in Central America, por Javier Gutiérrez (Global Americans):

Governments in Central America have long had difficulties accepting checks and balances on their power. But as complacent private sector leaders maintain their support for corrupt and violent regimes—so long as it helps their business—don’t expect democratic change anytime soon. The recent ascent of authoritarianism in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua is just the latest example of how elites’ continued backing of the status quo is one of the region’s top problems.