Referenda are a terrible way to take political decisions, particularly complex ones. A simplified “yes” or “no” rarely qualify as valid answer. Real politics is all about the gray areas in between. Furthermore in matters of importance for a society it is imperative to reach consensus, a requirement that cannot...
Category: Democracy
The political anticlimax of climate change
Our planet is warming up. Scientists agree that global average temperature is about 0.6oC higher than it was a century ago and that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen by about 30 percent over the past 200 years, mostly because of the burning of fossil fuels. Although the causal...
The roots (and futility) of conservation
The modern idea of conservation was born in 19th century evangelical United States and has its roots in literary - i.e. anti-evolution - Christian ideas about life on Earth and the age of our planet. According to these ideas, life on Earth is static and does not evolve. It was created ex nihilo...
Temnothorax de Condorset
How the collective intelligence of social animals can provide a new paradigm for ecological decision-making (notes of a lecture at Panteion University) Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was a pioneer in applying mathematics to the social sciences. His jury theorem states that if each member of a voting group is more likely than not...