It often surprises me to watch presidential candidates debate about how to deal with several problems occurring today in the United States. I am not an American, and I don’t vote for the U.S. presidency. However, through social networking in Facebook and Google+, and what I read in the news daily, it seems that Americans are looking for a good candidate for the presidency.
The right-wing is now divided between the more intelligent conservatives and the Tea Party. I agree with the economist Robert H. Frank when he said that if you use Venn diagrams you will be able to see that the set of issues the Tea Party is angry about and the set of issues the Tea Party is confused about intersect perfectly in one whole circle. When they describe Obama as being a socialist bordering on Nazism and Marxism, they are not really thinking. The fact that Nazi means national-socialism does not mean that the sort of socialism that socialists in general are asking for involve concentration camps. Tea Partiers forget how many Marxists and Communists were persecuted by the Nazi regime, and how Hitler expressed his hate for them in Mein Kampf. Needless to say that not all socialists are Marxists. There are anarcho-syndicalists or libertarian socialists, which involve socialism comprised of free federation of communities of workes without the existence of a state. There are also socialist-democrats (and I count myself as one of them) who essentially advocate for a mixed economy where the free market should have its own place, but regulated by the government, while the government would assume the responsibility of certain essential goods.
Yet, Obama is none of these things. Supposedly, he is a liberal (pro-capitalist, but centrist), although I agree with Bill Maher that he is not even liberal. This means that Tea Party and other people in the right have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. If Obama were a socialist a la Soviet Union, he would have socialized all banks and private enterprises at this stage of his command. He hasn’t. He has only carried out a bad Keynesian approach, which is different from a Marxist approach. Marx wanted to abolish capitalism. Keynes wanted the government to intervene to save capitalism. Much of what Obama has done has been to temporarily assume the shares of some companies and bail out others which are “too big to fail”. I don’t think that this was a good approach to companies responsible for the economic downfall, but ever since Bush, this has been the tendency of the federal government (and most industrialized governments thus far).
On the other hand, for many liberals and progressives, Obama’s term has been an abysmal failure. Progressives elected him because he did talk about change in Washington, D.C., no more business as usual. He wasted a lot of valuable time trying to be “conciliatory” to an anti-conciliatory right-wing, especially when Congress was dominated by the Democratic Party. Before the 2008 elections, I knew he would also be a failure in terms of human rights. Before he was elected president, he voted for FISA. He promised to end the Iraq war and he did, but after three wasted years spending money on it, increasing the national debt exponentially. He promised to close Guantanamo … that never happened. He promised that his administration would be crystal clear regarding Iraq and government affairs in general, yet, the year 2011 is an all-time record of secrecy and censorship regarding freedom of expression (see the statement made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation). To make matters worse, still in the midst of a recession (with a timid sort of recovery), as we speak the President is preparing U.S. forces in the Ormuz Straight in an apparent plan to attack Iran. Suppose the U.S. win, will it stay in the same way that the U.S. stayed in Iraq, draining the U.S. economy and needlessly increase its debt? Obama has also been the president who has most enforced anti-immigration laws (more than Bush or any other Republican administration ever has), especially Hispanic illegal immigrants. And last, but not least, he signed the damnable National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 recently (December 2011) which opens the door to violations of human rights against American citizens. In almost all accounts, from a progressive and even liberal standpoints, Obama’s administration has been significantly worse than Bush’s.
Both the right and the left are looking for new options, and the U.S. is paying close attention to Republican presidential candidates, given that the Democrats are pretty much stuck with Obama. What completely amazes me among all the candidates is the apparent blindness regarding taxes. Even Rick Santorum, a candidate I certainly do not respect (politically at least), stated that for job creation, we need to reduce corporate manufacturing rates to zero percent, and I know of other Republican candidates who would perfectly agree with that plan.
This is insanity!
Since when tax-exemption in any industry has been key for job creation?
Let’s Read Adam Smith Again!
Republicans and conservatives in general are supposedly followers of Adam Smith. I’m a socialist, but I can really, really appreciate Smith’s invisible hand doctrine. There are some forms of selfishness which benefit the public by creating innovation at low cost. If selfish people enter in the business world, in an environment of competition, the market will make sure that the public will have the best quality product at the lowest market price possible. This is perhaps one of the greatest insights in the history of political economy. Yet Smith himself was a lot wiser than his supposed disciples. Not always would the market benefit the public. We should take into account these passages from The Wealth of Nations:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible, indeed, to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. (p. 111)
To widen the market, and to narrow the competitiion, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can only serve to enable dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, as absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ough always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it (pp. 213-214).
Yet, for some reason many people on the right, especially those of the Tea Party, readily ignore Smith’s advice. Smith’s position is not that the government should not participate in the economy …. period. On the contrary, when things are unequal, and certain people “of the same trade” conspire and oppress the public, the role of government is precisely to set the laws and regulations in order to prevent that from happening. Smith’s advice that government should not intervene with the economy has more to do with the fact that many people of “the same trade” will seek to go to government so that a certain bill is passed, so that a new law will benefit corporations in detriment of the public. In such cases, government should just stay out of the way, not legislate such policies, and let the “invisible hand” of the market rule.
However, there are some other aspects about Adam Smith’s doctrine which are usually overlooked by many of his supposed fans when they propose tax exemptions as the way of creating jobs. In the third chapter of The Wealth of Nations, Smith talks extensively about division of labor. This chapter is very illuminating.
As we all know, Smith held that the wealth of nations is basically the product of three components:
- Rent of Land
- Salary
- Benefits
Rent of the land involves the sort of payment for facilities that you need for production (although in The Wealth of Nations Smith uses the term “land” in a broad sense, Smith uses examples of agriculture to convey his point). Salary is the nominal labor price which you pay your workers, while the benefits involve the profit component. Note that Smith did not dismiss taxes. Smith recommended that taxes should be established on luxury, as well as on the rent of land, not over benefits. (See an excellent brief summary on his views on taxes here). Actually, he elaborated extensively (about one third of his work) on how governments should tax. Certainly he, an ethicist, would have never subscribed to the slogan that “all tax is theft”. Yet, I want to differ from Smith regardding the idea that profit should not be taxed, and suppose tax on benefits to use Smith’s own theory to get to the point I want to make.
Notice that, though taxes themselves can serve to regulate the economy (e.g. taxes on luxury), nowhere in Smith’s analysis taxes (or lack of them) play any role whatsoever in creating jobs. That is because in the third chapter of The Wealth of Nations, Smith reveals the most fundamental aspect of job creation …. the size of the market (pp. 10-11, 21-25). When I explain Adam Smith to my students, I always say: “I wish that there were massive sales of philosophy books all over the world, so that we see the fruits of such industry of thinking and rationality. Yet, since the market of the Twilight series is much greater (yuck!), I guarantee you that the number of workers producing Twilight products is greater than those producing philosophy books (grumpy face)”. Since the Twilight market is a lot greater than the Husserl market, then the number of employees needed for the Twilight market will be a lot greater than the Husserl market.
Of course, taxes should not be so high as to strangle an industry. Taxes which require a hundred percent of profits would make any industry fail miserably. Yet, with more moderate taxes, let’s suppose 15% or 30% or so, an industry might persist (depending on the circumstances). Yet, once a right tax rate has been required by the state and the federal government, then the question is whether reducing it will create jobs. The answer is no, for reasons given by Smith himself in that third chapter. I will use a more “down to earth” analogy.
Let’s say that I want to create a business selling toasters in Puerto Rico. I do a market analysis and I find that in order to satisfy the effective demand (the number of people who want my products and can pay for them), I will need to hire 500 workers. I hire these workers, and the production process and sales lead to a net profit of $1,000,000.00 this year (without taxes). Suppose that I need to pay 15% taxes on profit. Then that means, that at the end of the day I will end up with $850,000.00.
Now, what would happen if the government, for whatever reason, wants to lower taxes to provide economic incentives (supposing that my market size remains the same)? Does it create more jobs? Not really. If my market research still shows that all I need is 500 workers, then hiring more workers than that will not give me an economic advantage over my rivals. As Adam Smith pointed out, the quality of production depends greatly on the ratio between those workers who are actually producing and those who are not (p. 8). If I hire more workers than I actually need, then that would be a disadvantage in the market.
On the other hand, it is perfectly conceivable that I could use that money to increase my workers’ salary. Yet, that would not be creating jobs, would it? All I am doing is keeping the same number of employees, but I would be paying them more. On the other hand, due to the competition in the market, if my rivals are not increasing their worker’s salaries, then that would mean that increasing my workers’ salaries would be another disadvantage in the marketplace.
So, what did the tax reduction accomplish? Making me richer … and that’s it. Let’s say that politicians wanted to reduce the tax rate from 15% to 5%, then I would end up with $950,000.00 profit. In other words, I would end up with $100,000.00 more without creating a single more job in the process!
Conclusion for Part 1
What we have seen here is just the beginning of how the right-wing (especially the radicals of the Tea Party) completely misunderstand basic economic concepts and how the economy works. Lower tax rates on corporations, taken on principle and completely decontextualizing the proposal, can be an incentive for industry but in detriment of the public. There is simply no way that a general policy of tax exemption will create jobs, simply because taxes (or lack of them) have no relationship at all with job creation. This is because job creation is directly related to market size (supply & effective demand), not to tax rates.
In other words, the key to creating more jobs is to create a market, and, as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, only government has the means, the motive, and the power to create those markets, and turn things around …. even if that means more government spending and debt! The problem with the federal government today is that it has made little effort in creating these markets through the component of effective demand, spent too much money bailing out corporations which are “too big to fail”, and spent trillions of dollars in a war everyone knew would not be won in the end. I’m sad to say that both Bush and Obama have contributed to this crisis.
This is not all I have to say about the subject, it is only the beginning. I want to talk in later posts about the role of tax exemption in the globalized world, and in the U.S. For now, I leave you with some final thoughts by Bill Maher.
References
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. US: The Pennsylvania State University. (It can be downloaded here for free in its entirety in PDF Format).
“Religions Never Change”
“Religions never change”, said a dear friend and adopted sister of mine when I posted something about using the best aspects of religious practice for peace. I know what she meant. Religions have been used very often to manipulate people, to make them act unethically, even engaging wars in the name of God. She, as a pacifist, rejects all of that. As a matter of fact, she has been heavily influenced by the so-called “New Atheists” (Richard Dawkins in particular and his book The God Delusion).
It is not a surprise that the renowned biologist and militant atheist P. Z. Myers stated that if you want children to reject Christianity completely, you have to do one thing: make them read the Bible.
Yes, there are wonderful stories there, but much of the content leaves much to be desired. Yet, children usually do not read these passages. I remember when I was teaching Humanities, I was about to talk about the Hebrew society, and was naming my students the best Bible translations (to Spanish) available to them. Then I described some inconsistencies in the Bible, while a dear student of mine was looking at me with disbelief. One of the inconsistencies I pointed out was that after David killed Goliath of Gath by cutting his head off (1 Sam. 17:40-54), but later, Goliath appeared alive and well just to be killed by Elhanan son of Jair (2 Sam. 21:29). She shouted with surprise: ”I have NEVER heard of David cutting Goliath’s head off!”
Of course she was surprised! She was never taught that very gruesome part of the Bible. She was taught that David killed Goliath by throwing a stone at his forehead. Bible school didn’t tell her about the beheading. Yet, as I eventually showed her at the end of the class with the Bible in hand, that is not exactly what the Bible says:
Putting his hand in his bag, [David] took out a stone, slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead; the stone penetrated his forehead and he fell face downwards on the ground. Thus David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; he hit the Philistine and killed him, though he had no sword in his hand. David ran and stood over the Philistine, seized his sword, pulled it from the scabbard, despatched him and cut off his head. (1 Sam. 17: 49-51).
She was surprised once again, because no one told her that part of Goliath’s death.
[Note: If you have a King James Version translation in English or a Reina-Valera translation in Spanish, the passage 2 Sam 21:29 has been changed purposely to hide the contradiction. Yet the rest of the Bible translations show the real translation, that Goliath appears much later.]
In the Christian right, there is much emphasis on how violent the Q’uran is, and how, because of it, all (or at least most) Muslims are violent. Yet, they (convenientely) forget how violent the Bible is.
Yahweh Elohim can be said to be slow to anger and rich in mercy (Ps. 145:8), yet you have to look at many of the passages in the Pentateuch and Minor Prophets to see that His anger sparks at the slightest provocation, and, sometimes, no provocation. Take this incident, for instance:
They transported the ark of Elohim on a new cart and brought it out of Abinadab’s house which is on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drove the cart, Uzzah walked alongside the ark of God and Ahio went in front. David and the whole House of Israel danced before Yahweh with all their might, singing to the accompaniment of harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals. When they came to Nancon’s threshing-floor, Uzzah reached his hand out to the ark of God and steadied it, as the oxen were making it tilt. This roused Yahweh’s anger against Uzzah, and for this crime Elohim struck him down on the spot, and there he died beside the ark of God. (2 Sam 6:3-7).
We can understand why David was a bit pissed at Yahweh for doing that (2 Sam. 6:8). Any person who reads this passage, whether believer or not, will have the impression that Yahweh’s penalty doesn’t quite fit the “crime” … if it can be called a “crime” in any sense.
Yahweh is also not short of promoting genocide. For example, Yahweh commanded the annihilation of the Midianites (Num. 31:1).
The Isaelites took the Midianite women and their little ones captive and carried off all their cattle, all their flocks and all their goods as booty. They set fire to the towns where they lived and to all their encampments. Then, taking all their booty, everything they had captured, human and animal, they brought the captives, spoil and booty to Moses, the priest Eleazar and the whole communityof Israelites at the camp on the Plains of Moab, near the Jordan by Jericho.
Moses, the priest Eleazar and all the leaders of the community went out of the camp to meet them. Moses was enraged with the officers of the army, the commanders of the thousands and commanders of the hundreds who had come back from this military expedition. He said, ‘Why have you spared the life of all the women? They were the very ones who, on Balaam’s advice, caused the Israelites to be unfaithful to Yahweh in the affair at Peor: hence the plague which struck Yahweh’s community. So kill all the male children and kill all the women who have ever slept with a man; but spare the lives of the young girls who have never slept with a man, and keep them for yourselves. (Num. 31:9-18)
In other words, kill all children and married women … and, by the way, you may keep the young virgins to rape them. There are other passages which actually suggest to kill babies or rip a pregnant woman’s womb apart, especially when they are the enemy (2 Kings 6:12; Is. 13:16; Hos. 14:1, Neh. 3:10; Ps. 137:9). There are other examples of genocide, such as the command to kill the Amalekites. Samuel told Saul to ”… crush Amalek; put him under the curse of destruction with all that he possesses. Do not spare him, but kill [every] man and woman, babe and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” (1 Sam. 15:2-3). Yahweh also consents to slavery, sometimes more humane slavery for ones, but worse slave treatment for others (Ex. 21:2-11,20-21; Lev. 25:44-46).
My, my, my! These are the passages which are forgotten when many believers present the Bible as the story of “God’s love throughout history”! These are the passages not taught in Bible school. Yet, they are definitely there. According to the scholar Raymund Schwager, the Hebrew Bible alone (the Old Testament with the exception of the Deuterocanonical books),
contains six hundred passages that explicitly talk about nations, kings, or individuals attacking, destroying, and killing others. … Aside from the approximately one thousand verses in which Yahweh himself appears as the direct executioner of violent punishments, and the many texts in which the Lord delivers the criminal to the punisher’s sword, in over one hundred other passages Yahweh expressly gives the command to kill people (Schwager, 2000, pp. 47, 60).
According to Matthew White, supposedly there are 1.2 million deaths from mass killing in the Bible (excluding the half million dead due to the war between Judah and Israel in 2 Chron. 13 for considering it implausible). I have to add the fact that many of the battles told in the Hebrew Bible did not actually take place, but I’ll explain it in a future blog post in these series.
Yet Religions have Changed …
One of the things I had to tell my friend and sister when she stated that “religions don’t change” is that the fact that religions have changed refutes her arguments. If you don’t believe me, believe Steven Pinker. He is not exactly an ardent defender of religion. He is quite the opposite, an ardent critic of religion, especially in the most harmful aspects of it in relation to public policy. He is also an advocate for the hypothesis of what in neuroscience has been called “the God module”, a module which enable many people to believe in God, life after death or a world beyond our own.
Yet, recently he published a book I wholeheartedly recommend called, The Better Angels of our Nature.
The main argument of his book will seem very strange in light of the many battles, wars, and terrorist acts which occur every day … He thinks that violence in the world has declined. Yes! No kidding! Violence in the world has really declined! Even violence in religion has declined, and Pinker, as critic of religion he is, is honest enough to recognize its decline … which confirms his point! After talking about all of the unethical parts of the Bible, he then says:
If you think that by reviewing the literal content of the Hebrew Bible I am trying to impugn the billions of people who revere it today, then you are missing the point. The overwhelming majority of observant Jews and Christians are, needless to say, thoroughly decent people who do not sanction genocide, rape, slavery, or stoning people for frivolous infractions. Their revenrence for the Bible is purely talismanic. In recent millenia and centuries the Bible has been spin-doctored, allegorized, superseded by less violent texts (the Talmud among Jews and the New Testament among Christians), or discreetly ignored. And that is the point. Sensibilities toward violence have changed so much that religious people today compartmentalize their attitude to the Bible. They pay it lip service as a symbol of morality, while getting their actual morality from more modern principles (Pinker, 2011, pp. 11-12).
Much later, when he talks about more objectionable material from the New Testament (although less violent than the Old Testament), and the most unethical attitudes from early Christians (especially after Christianity was adopted as official religion by the Roman Empire) he states:
Once again, the point of this discussion is not to accuse Christians of endorsing torture and persecution. Of course most devout Christians today are thoroughly tolerant and humane people. Even those who thunder from televised pulpits do not call for burning heretics alive or hoisting Jews on the strappado. The question is why they don’t, given that their beliefs imply that it would serve the greater good. The answer is that people in the West today compartmentalize their religious ideology. When they affirm their faith in houses of worship, they profess beliefs that have barely changed in two thousand years. But when it comes to their actions, they respect modern norms of nonviolence and toleration, a benevolent hypocrisy for which we should all be grateful (Pinker, 2011, p. 17).
The only aspect where I part from Pinker’s company has to do with the statement that Christianity has “barely” changed its doctrine. Quite the contrary, as Hans Küng has pointed out in his work on Judaism, Christianity and Islam, although some of their paradigmatic core principles are preserved for millenia, the ever-changing historical reality of Christians (Jews and Muslims) and interactions among themselves have made them adopt a variety of philosophical and theological standpoints. In Christianity the Bible was not seen the same way by everyone during its Neo-Platonic stage, nor its Aristotelian stage, not even during the Protestant Reformation or the Counter-Reformation, not even today.
The part about the “benevolent hypocrisy” should not be taken to be an ill-willed criticism against Christians. After all, we are all hypocrites in one level or another, as many cognitive scientists know very well. Yet, in many cases it cannot be said that this is because “readers ignore passages”. Many theologians were perfectly aware of such passages, yet provided rational philosophical and theological basis to confront them or deal with them. Unfortunately, not many believers read these theologians.
What these Series are About
Yet, why is the Bible the way it is? Why are there hateful passages? In fact, why are there contradictions in the Bible? How can we understand these contradictions? Didn’t anyone notice that these passages were there? Militant atheists love to laugh at these passages to embarrass Christians in the process. Yet, such behavior contributes little to the conversation.
I want to explore the Bible from a very unusual standpoint, from an evolutionary standpoint. Yes, mostly from a Darwinian standpoint. The degree of violence we find in the Bible (and antiquity in general) will be described more accurately as the result of biological evolutionary processes. The eventual process of change in religion (in many cases for the better) can be understood as the way cultural evolution interacts with biological evolution in order to benefit greater and greater groups of humans. Contrary to what has been stated, religion has been a great force of group cohesion, yet it is not the only one.
In my next blog post, I will present a brief summary of current Darwinian evolution, especially the parts regarding our present discussion.
On a side note, I was always dissatisfied with official Catholic theology on revelation. Although the theology worked on and elaborated in the Second Vatican Council is a great advance, it is not enough. I hope that much of the reflections I have to offer will serve, in the end, a scientific and philosophical basis for a more adequate unerstanding of the Bible, and what do we mean when we say that it is God’s Word.
References
The New Jerusalem Bible. (1989). NY: Doubleday.
Pinker, S. The better angels of our nature: why violence has declined. US: Viking.
Schwager, R. (2000). Must there be scapegoats? Violence and redemption in the Bible NY: Crossroad.
White, M. (2011). The great big books of horrible things. The definitive chronicle of history’s 100 worst atrocities. NY: Norton.
Aunque soy miembro del Movimiento Unión Soberanista (MUS), este artículo representa mi punto de vista, no necesariamente los del MUS.
Propuestas Absurdas …
Imaginemos un gobierno que legisle en Puerto Rico para votar por algo totalmente descabellado (ya estamos en ese tipo de gobierno, pero sigan leyendo … ). Por ejemplo, el gobierno convoca al pueblo a un referéndum en torno al Bentley que se compró la modelo Maripily recientemente. Usted vota “Sí”, si usted opina que Maripily debería quedarse con su Bentley; “No” si usted opina que ella debería cambiarlo por un Toyota Yaris. En nuestra fantasía, podemos imaginar que dicho proyecto de ley pasa por el Senado, la Cámara de Representantes y es firmada por el gobernador. El referéndum se llevaría a cabo justo en el momento de las elecciones, cuyo proceso conllevaría un costo adicional de $10 millones a $20 millones. ¿Qué pensaríamos todos?
Pensaríamos que lo más probable nuestra legislatura y el gobernador deberían ser internados en Capestrano. No obstante, imaginemos que estos distinguidos y honorables funcionarios nos dicen que “en una democracia, el pueblo tiene el derecho a expresarse”. Es más, nos dice también “no desprecies nunca el poder del voto, porque el voto es tu derecho“. Para todos los que amamos los ideales democráticos, estas frases nos apelan emocionalmente. Ciertamente, debemos valorar nuestro derecho a votar por nuestros líderes, nuestro futuro y el de nuestros hijos y nietos. Sin embargo, aun con toda esta apelación emocional, vemos con claridad que un voto en un referéndum en torno al Bentley de Maripily no merece un gasto de $10 a $20 millones, ni tampoco el esfuerzo de los funcionarios de colegio, ni tan siquiera el esfuerzo de la viejita de 90 años que en cada elección se suele levantar bien tempranito en la mañana para ir a votar. Estaríamos plenamente justificados al pensar que ese tipo de referéndum sería una pérdida miserable de tiempo y de dinero.
Reflexionemos al respecto. ¿Por qué sería una pédida? La contestación es tan sencilla como racional: porque ese tipo de referéndum no tendría consecuencias políticas de ningún tipo. ¡¿Qué rayos le importa al público si Maripily se compró un Bentley o no?! (¡¿Escuchaste Vocero?!)
El plebiscito propuesto por el Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP) y modificado y adoptado por el Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) es menos absurdo que eso, pero aun así absurdo en muchos sentidos. Una vez más, surge la pregunta de si debemos participar o no en el plebiscito propuesto. Mi respuesta es que no, porque, como en el caso del referéndum del Bentley de Maripily, no tendría efecto político alguno.
Un Plebiscito Claramente Amañado … 1998
Mucha gente que favorece el plebiscito se ha hecho de oídos sordos a los planteamientos que ahora hace el ex-gobernador Pedro Rosselló. No es exactamente mi gobernador favorito (bastante lejos de eso), pero tiene la razón cuando está en lo correcto. Bajo su gobierno se llevaron a cabo dos plebiscitos criollos: el de 1993 y el de 1998. Él resalta claramente el plebiscito del 98 como un ejemplo de un error que no se debe volverse a cometer. Dicha consulta presentaba varias opciones, cuyas definiciones fueron impuestas a la “trágala” por el PNP, definiendo las opciones como le daba la gana, y se le dio más fondos a la estadidad que a las demás opciones. Se diseñó el plebiscito para perjudicar al Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) al establecer una separación entre la opción del territorio y la de la libre asociación. A ese problema se le añade el hecho de que Puerto Rico acababa de pasar por el estrago de un huracán ese mismo año.
El PPD, maestros de la indefinición, pero a la vez políticamente astutos, decidieron vaciar su rechazo al plebiscito y a las políticas de Rosselló en la opción de “Ninguna de las Anteriores”. La ligera mayoría de los votantes, disgustados con esta consulta, votaron por “Ninguna de las Anteriores” (50.3%). En aquella época el PIP participó bajo el razonamiento de “no dejar a los estadistas correr solos”, además de utilizar los trillados argumentos de “un voto más es mejor que un voto menos”, “esto es un momento propicio para educar sobre la independencia”, etc. La mayoría del independentismo le dio la espalda al PIP, por lo que el resultado para la independencia fue un mísero 2.5%, el primero de varios cantazos que recibiría el PIP en el ámbito electoral desde entonces. Ante el resultado de la opción de estadidad (46.5%), el estadoísmo estuvo en total negación en torno a los resultados, alegando que había ganado la estadidad por un 94.1%. A fin de cuentas, fue el PPD (y gracias a ellos, la colonia) el que ganó en el proceso. Ni la estadidad, ni la independencia (sin hablar de la libre asociación – 0.3%) adelantaron un centímetro a su causa.
Sin embargo, en Puerto Rico ocurre un proceso mucho más profundo con este acercamiento al status. En esta práctica efímera de estos plebiscitos criollos, o esfuerzos de crear plebiscitos amañados mediante legislación federal (léase – Proyecto Fernós Murray o el Proyecto Young), el Congreso de Estados Unidos siempre ha concluído de la siguiente manera: resuelvan primero el conflicto entre ustedes y después vengan a nosotros para discutir el status. Esta es una excusa barata del Congreso de los Estados Unidos para atender lo que es su responsabilidad desde 1898. Sin embargo, tampoco debemos desoír lo que tienen que decir. A menos que no haya un proceso unitario para resolver el problema del status, no habrá un resultado político efectivo para su resolución, y tampoco el Congreso nos hará caso. Esta es la razón principal para rechazar estos plebiscitos criollos.
El PIP Propone su Estrategia y el PNP la Adopta
Si hubo algo positivo que hizo el PIP durante el término de Aníbal Acevedo Vilá fue proponer algo que fue inmediatamente aceptado por los tres partidos políticos: un referéndum para exigirle al gobierno de Estados Unidos que resolviera el asunto lo más pronto posible, y la elección de un mecanismo procesal para ello. El pueblo podría elegir la Asamblea Constitucional de Status de entre las opcione ofrecidas como un mecanismo procesal. Tras la aprobación unánime de los miembros de los tres partidos políticos en la legislatura, y después de reiteradas promesas de Acevedo Vilá para respaldar dicho proyecto de status, el gobernador determinó no firmarlo. Ahora Aníbal dice que “está arrepentido” de no haber respaldado ese consenso tripartita.
Una cosa que a mí siempre me llama la atención es que los gobernadores siempre se arrepienten demasiado tarde de lo que no hicieron y que claramente (¡se caía de la mata!) pudieron haber hecho. Una vez más, el PPD, especialmente sus líderes, son maestros del inmovilismo.
Ante la derrota del PIP en el año 2008 (2.0%), especialmente con un candidato del calibre de Edwin Irizarry Mora (quien, en mi opinión, hubiera sido un excelentísimo gobernador de Puerto Rico), ese partido empezó a hacer denuevo una “reevaluación” de sí mismo. Uno de los resultados de esa reevaluación aparentemente incluyó la molestia de muchos sectores del independentismo a la tendencia del PIP a participar en los plebiscitos criollos. De hecho, el mismo Rubén Berríos Martínez, con su boca de comer, en el programa radial Fuego Cruzado, había dicho que ya se había acabado el favorecimiento a los plebiscitos criollos porque no daban ningún resultado.
¡Cuánta sorpresa no sería del independentismo en general cuando no fue sino el mismo PIP que planteó la necesidad de … (¡adivinen!) … un plebiscito criollo! Este plebiscito fue adoptado por el PNP y rechazado por el PPD. ¿Cuál será la estrategia del PPD ante el plebiscito? Solamente Dios lo sabe. Al menos el MUS no irá al plebiscito. ¡Buena decisión! El PIP y el PNP irán al plebiscito. Los muy queridos amigos de Alianza Pro-Libre Asociación Soberana (ALAS) también participarán (estrategia que considero totalmente equivocada).
La razón de por qué el PIP y ALAS estarán detrás de este plebiscito se debe a que el pueblo responderá a dos preguntas. La primera esencialmente pregunta si Puerto Rico desea continuar bajo la cláusula territorial o no. La segunda, pregunta en torno a si queremos ser un estado, o una república independiente, o ser un “Estado Libre Asociado Soberano”. En el caso de ambas organizaciones, el favorecimiento a este plebiscito yace en la primera pregunta. Si los puertorriqueños en general rechazan el coloniaje, entonces ya ni Estados Unidos ni el PPD pueden alegar que es nuestro deseo continuar con el presente status quo. Como el movimiento pro-estadidad, el independentismo y el libre-asociacionismo son mayoría absoluta sobre la opción de la colonia, el resultado inevitable es el de un claro rechazo de parte de la mayoría de los puertorriqueños al presente coloniaje.
En el caso particular del PIP, no en el de ALAS, también hay otro interés y es que ante la derrota aplastante del PIP en las elecciones, el PIP quiere ser relevante para la discusión del status, sino, muere como partido político. El problema es que la muerte del PIP está sellada a nivel electoral. Antes, el PIP tenía que convencer a los independentistas, incluyendo a los de otras organizaciones que votaran por este. Sin embargo, ante el quebrantamiento de la palabra del PIP de no volver a participar en plebiscitos criollos, y ante el hecho de que ninguna otra organización independentista (incluyendo a aquellas que tradicionalmente han estado del lado del PIP en las elecciones) está en la disposición de participar en este plebiscito, auguro que los votos para el PIP en el 2012 van a ser menos que los del 2008. Ante la inscripción del MUS y del Partido del Pueblo Trabajador (PPT), se le restarán votos al PIP. Lo siento por el querido amigo Juan Dalmau, quien es una persona inteligente, talentosa, con mucha voluntad para ayudar a nuestro pueblo, pero con esta actitud pipiola, no volverá a inscribirse el partido y, a mi juicio, pasará a la historia.
Las razones del PNP son otras, y he aquí por qué el supuesto “claro” mandato de rechazar a la colonia no será tan claro. El plebiscito está diseñado para perjudicar al PPD al crear una división entre sus miembros. Por un lado, una buena parte de los populares rechaza el coloniaje (o todavía creen el mito de que no somos colonia), por lo que nunca votarían por el coloniaje en la primera pregunta del plebiscito. Por otro lado, la mayoría del PPD no está clara en torno a lo que quiere decir “Estado Libre Asociado Soberano”: ¿es el ELA con más poderes? ¿Es libre asociación soberana como lo reconoce el Derecho Internacional? ¿Perderíamos la ciudadanía americana? Por supuesto, ALAS asumiría el liderato de esa opción, por lo que le tocaría a ellos explicarla. Sin embargo, el pánico que sienten muchos miembros del liderato popular a la palabra “soberanía” los hará irse en contra de esa opción y dirigirán sus esfuerzos contra cualquier discusión de un Puerto Rico soberano. Como resultado, el plebiscito intenta debilitar al PPD.
Más aún, esto se celebraría durante las elecciones, un momento clave para el PNP ante el evidente fracaso de la administración Fortuño y el estado de desesperación del país a causa del desempleo y el aumento vertiginoso de la criminalidad. Al menos parte del liderato del PNP piensa que al abogar por la estadidad y a hacer campaña a su favor, el PNP podrá evadir el tema del fracaso de Fortuño para concentrarse en las “bondades de la estadidad”. De esta manera, ante un PNP fortalecido con esta estrategia y un PPD debilitado por la división, haría que el PNP ganara las próximas elecciones del 2012.
¿Por qué Falla la Propuesta?
La pregunta de muchos que favorecen este proceso es ¿por qué no participar? Mi pregunta a ellos es: ¿Por qué participar?
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El plebiscito propuesto no es un proceso serio de status. El PNP lo ha garantizado más allá de toda duda.
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Al igual que en 1998, el pueblo no se encuentra en un ambiente de discusión seria de estos asuntos, ya que está abrumado por el colapso económico de Puerto Rico. El argumento de “educar al pueblo” en una época electoral se cae, ya que los puertorriqueños van a estar más concentrados en los candidatos a la gobernación y a la legislatura que al problema del status.
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Un plebiscito junto a las elecciones confundirán al pueblo. (Nota: Por favor, no me vengan a decir que “el pueblo sabe más que esto” y que “estoy subestimando la sabiduría del pueblo”. Mi experiencia me dice que esto no es así. Si hubiera solamente un planteamiento en el referéndum, no tendría mucho problema en este aspecto. Sin embargo, de aquí a las elecciones, las campañas políticas confundirán al pueblo de una manera espectacular: haran campaña para la abstención, para participar, para votar por esto, para no votar por aquello, para mezclar la estadidad con Fortuño, para acusar a los estadolibristas de estadistas de closet, etc. En un plebiscito sencillito como el de 1998, no hubo manera de desligar ese plebiscito con la situación del país, prácticamente convirtiéndose en un plebiscito “administración Rosselló ‘sí’ o ‘no’”. ¿Cón qué base se va a alegar que el pueblo no hará lo mismo en el plebiscito propuesto? Lo más probable es que, al igual que 1998, los resultados no tendrán nada que ver con la preferencia de status y mucho que ver con el estado de ánimo de los votantes en relación con Fortuño y su administración. También, mi experiencia como funcionario de colegio es que todo ese proceso también será confuso para mucha gente que desea votar. Ahora con las nuevas máquinas de conteo de votos –EN LAS QUE YO NO CONFÍO– será más confuso todavía para los que no están acostumbrados a ese sistema.)
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El mero hecho de que el plebiscito va a estar amañado por el circo local hará que Estados Unidos ignore por completo los resultados. Si el PPD va a una abstención o a una campaña de daño a la papeleta, o a votar en blanco, entonces el Congreso no interpretará los resultados como un “claro” rechazo al coloniaje.
- Se crearán nuevas divisiones en el pueblo de Puerto Rico.
Noten que no me importa que se lleve a cabo un plebiscito que, aunque criollo, tenga valor estratégico. Estoy de acuerdo con muchos que aunque desde un punto de vista moral no se debería ofrecer a un pueblo el coloniaje como opción, yo no tendría ningún problema si tuviera algún efecto político para la descolonización. El problema es que el plebiscito propuesto ahora, como está diseñado, tendrá poca o ninguna consecuencia política para la descolonización y mucho menos para la independencia de Puerto Rico. Las razones que acabo de señalar deben ser suficientes para descartar cualquier participación en esa farsa. En ese sentido, esta consulta no sería distinta al referéndum en torno al Bentley de Maripily. Será una pérdida de tiempo y de dinero.
En tal caso, lo que procede es el boicot.
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In my dreams would I have imagined that I would read a book like this, especially during my research regarding applications of Darwinism to social. I know that in some tangential way, Darwin’s theory of evolution was related to the way we create economic systems. Darwinian natural selection has to do with the competition among individuals and groups for scarce resources. Humanity’s economic systems have to do with the distribution of scarce wealth. Also, we have to look at the fact that we inherit much of our behaviors from our ancestral animal behaviors regarding scarce resources. Yet, economic systems are conventional and, in a way, unrelated to nature.
Yet, there is a challenge being made by Robert H. Frank in his new book, The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good. He predicts something rather odd: in a hundred years from now, if you ask professional economists who do they consider the father of their own discipline, instead of Adam Smith, most of them would say “Charles Darwin”.
Charles Darwin??!!!
Yeah, Charles Darwin!
Before you place Frank in a psychiatric facility (at least in your imagination), he invites us to take a look at the way Darwin describes natural selection processes. He reminds us of Darwin’s initial development of multilevel group selection, and how individual interests relate to group interests. For example, how did the gazelle accomplish its current average speed? Classic Darwinian natural selection would tell us that it is the result of species warfare. Nature selects gazelles who have the ability to escape predators using fast speed. In this case, through reproduction, the fastest gazelles pass on genes that will benefit the group. In this case, individual interests and group interests agree completely, since the group on average is better able to escape predators.
The same happens at the economic level. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market works perfectly in this case, because the competition among individuals or among companies benefit both individuals and groups.
Yet, there are other scenarios. The cover of Frank’s book tells us all about it. Consider the bull elk. They have antlers which function as weapons in order to compete with other males for female. The winner, gets to pass on genes. So, from the point of view of the interest of the individual bull elk, the bigger the antlers, the better! This leads to the prevalence of larger and larger antlers. Yet, the process cannot continue ad infinitum. Having very big antlers is a disadvantage from a group standpoint: large antlers increase the risk of getting stuck among tree branches in densely wooded areas, hence the risk of being eaten by wolves. If those genes are passed along, they would compromise the group. In this case, individual and group interests diverge.
The same thing happens with the economy. Too much competition among individuals or corporations can lead to the sort of negative externality which can be a real problem, even a threat, to the group. In this case, when too much competition happens, and the interests of the individuals and groups diverge, Smith’s “invisible hand” breaks down.
Frank even adds another imaginary, amusing, but interesting statement. If bull elk were to be asked in a referendum whether to reduce their antlers by half, they would overwhelmingly favor it! Of course, such experiment cannot be carried out with actual bull elk, but we can do so with humans. We don’t have antlers, of course, but we are often found in competition, sometimes too much competition. Frank gives the example of an actual experiment being carried out with hockey players. Thomas Schelling, an economist, has pointed out the fact that when hockey players are individually given the choice of using their helmets or not, they usually tend not to wear helmets, yet, when they are asked to vote to implement a rule for the group to wear them or not, they invariably vote in favor of wearing helmets. Why is that? If you make individuals choose whether or not to wear helmets, they will choose not to, because not wearing a helmet increases a player’s advantage. Maybe he can see or hear better than players who are wearing helmets. As a result, those players who use to wear helmets will now choose not to, to gain that advantage. At the end of the day, no one will wear helmets, and everyone would end up having equal advantage. The downside of not wearing helmets, though, is that everyone is at risk of serious head injury. Everyone is worse off. This is similar to the bull elk having horns too big, there is excessive competition. So, when hockey players are asked whether to implement a rule requiring everyone to wear helmets, they will vote in its favor. A simple nod or loose agreement among players is not enough, they need a collective mandate.
The same thing happens to states. During the Cold War there was a huge amount of waste due to the arms race. In this sense, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were incredibly wasteful. In order to control that, they couldn’t control that race just with winks among their representatives and diplomats, but rather by signing treaties to slow the pace of competition or to disarm very harmful weapons. The treaty would include checking on each other’s facilities in order to be certain that this would be carried out. That’s how they could use enough money for education, health care, utilities, and so on, without spending it most or all on the arms race.
Frank argues persuasively that, contrary to what many progressives think, many of the ills of the economy are not produced by the prevalence of monopolies and oligopolies, but rather by too much competition. Libertarians are usually right when they say that government is wasteful. Yet, excessive competition can be incredibly wasteful too, in ways that are many times more harmful than government. Just one example (of the many offered in the book) when rich people celebrate parties for children’s birthdays. Here another element creeps in the competition process, the degree in which people spend on those kinds of parties is not based on absolute position, but on relative position. As a result, if you are a millionaire who celebrates their fifteen years-old birthday with a $5 million party, perhaps your neighbor will want to do it better and spend $6.5 million party for his fifteen-years old. This process will go on indefinitely leading to big waste of money. This is not a hypothetical situation, this really happens! At the end of the day, the children will be just as special, nobody is happier no matter how much money has been spent, so the money is … wasted … literally!
In these cases, Frank does not suggest that we forbid $5 million parties, but rather establish a steep progressive consumption tax that will persuade rich people not to spend too much. The state or federal income obtained through this consumption tax will serve for roads, bridges, security, firefighting, police, and so on. This will benefit both the rich and the poor. Frank argues that if you are a smart rich man, you would love to live in a place with those sorts of rules and laws.
Of course, libertarians and people of the Tea Party will say that all tax is theft, that we should diminish the government. Interesting thought, but, as Frank points out, we need to tax something. If we don’t tax, there can’t be a state, if there is no state then another country will invade … and you’ll end up paying taxes to that country.
Frank shows that in many cases, taxes are a unintrusive way to stir corporations and businesses away from the sort of harmful behavior which arises due to too much competition. The problem that we have now is that we are usually taxing the wrong thing: the payroll tax or the savings tax. Yet, we don’t tax harmful behavior enough. We usually penalize them, but don’t tax them.
The author of The Darwin Economy uses this Darwinian framework to evaluate the economy. Unlike bull elks or gazelles, who can’t communicate and cannot act in ways which are against their nature, we can make better choices. Darwin helps us evaluate these competitive dynamics that occur even in the economy, lets us evaluate the problem, while simultaneously helping economists point out possible ways of solving these problems. Within this framework, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” insight is just a special case of a broader and more general understanding of competition. There are criticisms to both progressives and libertarians alike.
He applies this reasoning to lots of cases: such as pollution control, employees competition for better salary and safety, housing, alcohol, among many other aspects o the economy. It is also an invitation to many in the right wing to really think about how taxes can be beneficial for society as a whole when done the right way. Tax should not be a forbidden subject, especially in the United States. Let’s scap taxes to all useful activities, and tax to discourage activities, especially those which can cause harm to others: noise, carbon dioxide, road congestion, etc. Have a progressive consumption tax, not an income tax.
This is a fascinating book and I highy recommend it. For me, it has been very illuminating.
Video – Part I
Video – Part II
Confieso que me encanta el tema de lo paranormal, aunque lo trato con cierto grado de escepticismo. A fin de cuentas, la inmensa mayoría de lo que se consideró una vez paranormal o sobrenatural se ha desmitificado como una broma pesada (hoax), fraude, fenómeno natural o hechura del ser humano. Sí, considero que hay algo de verdad en muchos alegatos, pero la mala noticia es que hay poca o ninguna evidencia contundente de ellos. Mientras eso sea así, lo paranormal debe considerarse como metafísico (no científico) hasta que pueda ser contrastable por experimentación.
De entre los fenómenos paranormales que me encantan estudiar están los OVNIs. Cerca del noventa y cinco porciento de los fenómenos reportados a nivel mundial son bromas pesadas, fraudes, mala identificación de artefactos voladores o fenómenos naturales. Lo que hace el fenómeno interesante es el restante 5% del que no se tiene explicación todavía. Sin embargo, no necesariamente cada uno de los casos de este 5% es extraterrestre, sino más bien fenómenos que todavía no comprendemos bien. No se puede excluir a priori la posibilidad de que vengan extraterrestres a este planeta y nos estén estudiando. He escuchado a varias personas, muchas de ellas que jamás hubiera pensado testigos de este fenómeno, que han visto artefactos en el cielo que no han podido explicar satisfactoriamente. No tengo ninguna razón para dudar de sus testimonios.
Aún así, estos temas se discuten mucho a nivel popular. Lo que resulta increíble es que mucha gente del público, incluso algunos dizque expertos en el tema, están altamente desorientados en cuanto el asunto OVNI. Puedo mencionar como uno de los charlatanes principales a Reinaldo Ríos (el “genio”, ideólogo detrás del ovnipuerto de Lajas). Otros libros se han hecho populares como los de Zechariah Sitchin y su desacreditada tesis del planeta Nibiru. Uno de los temas que trabajó Sitchin tuvo que ver con la posibilidad de que los extraterrestres hayan causado un brinco en la evolución humana al llevar a cabo ingeniería genética con nuestros ancestros, especialmente con primates de hace 300,000 años atrás. Según él los seres humanos fuimos productos de ingeniería genética extraterrestre.
Recientemente, este tema se discutió en Puerto Rico en un programa de Radio. Ustedes podrán pensar, tal vez, en el programa La Otra Realidad, del distinguido antropólogo Andrew Álvarez. No … no fue ese programa. ¿Algún programa con Jorge Martín? Eh … no, tampoco. Me estoy refiriendo al programa de Benny Frankie Cerezo, Voz Primera, en Radio Isla en el 1320 AM (Puerto Rico).
Tal vez se estén preguntando cómo será eso posible, ya que Voz Primera trata de política, no de temas paranormales. Eso fue lo que pensé también. Sin embargo, el Lcdo. Cerezo, a quien yo admiro y respeto muchísimo, le interesó hablar del tema en su programa de radio. Él discutió un artículo que él encontró en Internet sobre un supuesto descubrimiento de genes extraterrestres en el ADN del ser humano. Tal supuesto descubrimiento me intrigó mucho y empecé a buscar información al respecto. El Lcdo. Cerezo hizo referencia a este artículo en The Canadian en torno al tema, y se titula “Scientists find Extraterrestrial genes in Human DNA“. Al leerlo me percato en seguida de que, a pesar de que el Lcdo. Cerezo hablaba de Francis Crick, en realidad, el artículo trataba de Sam Chang, un profesor que alega que una gran parte del ADN humano es código genético extraterrestre. (¡¿?!)
¿Cómo se llegó a esta intrigante conclusión? Pues, según el artículo, a una gran parte de nuestro ADN se le conoce como “ADN basura” (junk DNA), que es un término que se refiere a partes de nuestro ADN que no codifican proteínas. El problema es que el artículo desorienta al público cuando alega que esta mayoría del material genético humano que no codifica tiene una función desconocida. Por tanto, este “ADN basura” es genética extraterrestre que se halla empotrada junto a nuestros genes cuya función sí conocemos. El problema es que la inmensa mayoría del ADN basura no es funcional, no es que se desconozcan su función, sino que NO funcionan … punto.
Mucha gente llamó después a Voz Primera diciendo que lo más probable eso era cierto, porque era inconcebible que nosotros seamos los únicos en el universo. Esto es un non-sequitur de primera categoría. Es cierto que lo más probable es que haya vida en otros planetas, pero de ahí no se sigue que tengamos genes extraterrestres.
¿Qué es el “ADN Basura”?
Tenemos que comenzar hablando de qué es un “ADN basura”, éste es un término para significar a aquellos genes que no cumplen con una función de codificar para proteínas. Usted y yo estamos literalmente construidos proteínicamente a partir de lo que dicta nuestro ADN, nuestro código genético. Sin embargo, no todo nuestro ADN codifica.
Por razones que explicaremos más adelante, sería insensato referirnos a estos genes como “ADN basura”, aunque para efectos de la discusión la usaré. Aún lo que se considera “basura” podría ser funcional. Por ejemplo, algunos genes que antes se pensaba ser no-funcionales, realmente no codificaban para proteínas, pero sí sirven como interruptores (switches). Por otro lado, una gran parte de nuestro código genético no es funcional en ningún sentido. ¿Quiere decir esto que contenemos código extraterrestre en nuestro ADN? ¡Difícilmente! El ADN basura no es código extraterrestre, sino más bien residuos de nuestro proceso evolutivo. Lejos de revelarse nuestro ADN como extraterrestre, se revela más bien como puramente terrestre, especialmente gracias a los estudios extensos en cuanto a la trayectoria evolutiva de nuestros antepasados.
Evolución es, en Parte, Repetición Genética
Uno de los factores que ha generado tantos genes no-codificantes y no-funcionales se debe al hecho de que algunas secuencias genéticas son repetitivas. Cerca de la mitad de nuestro código genético se compone de secuencias repetitivas. Esto no se debe a que los genes se repiten como una especie de combinación binaria de unos y ceros o como una especie de código Morse extraterrestre escondido en el ADN. Esto se debe a un fenómeno hartamente conocido, porque estos son genes específicos llamados por los geneticistas “elementos transponibles” o “transposones“. Un transposón es una secuencia genética en un segmento de nuestro ADN que se copia o brinca a otras partes de nuestro ADN. Francis Collins nos revela por qué, a pesar de que genera mucha “basura” en nuestro ADN, no es sensato llamarles “ADN basura”: de vez en cuando, durante nuestro proceso evolutivo, esos transposones pueden generar funciones accidentalmente en un proceso evolutivo.
¿Cómo sabemos que esto no es código extraterrestre? Es bien sencillo. Compartimos el 95% de nuestro código genético con los demás seres vivos, incluyendo la posición que ocupan mucho de transposones. A menos que se adopte la posición implausible de que los extraterrestres hayan llevado a cabo todo un programa de ingeniería genética durante 3.5 mil millones de años de tal manera que parezca un producto evolutivo azaroso, no podemos creer que los transposones sean de origen extraterrestre.
Cuando Genes Funcionales Dejan de Funcionar
Otra fuente de ADN no-funcional ocurre cuando material genético que funcionaba anteriormente para nuestros ancestros, dejaron de funcionar para nosotros. Esto hace que prevalezcan otros genes no-funcionales llamados “pseudogenes“. Déjenme darles un ejemplo.
Tal vez usted es dueño de alguna mascota, un perro o un gato. Si eso es así, usted se habrá fijado que en los alimentos para su mascota no hay ingredientes para proveerles Vitamina C. Usted tampoco debe forzarles a consumir Vitamina C en pastillas. Esto se debe a que ellos no necesitan que se les provea Vitamina C … a nosotros sí. ¿Por qué esto ocurre?
Esta ilustración representa visualmente la secuencia genética de nuestro ADN para la creación de Vitamina C durante el desarrollo del ser humano. Este gen se encuentra en el cromosoma 16 y contiene cinco copias del gen que se expresa proteínicamente en varias etapas de nuestro desarrollo embriónico y fetal. Si miran la barra superior a mano izquierda, podrán ver un gen con la letra epsilon (ε) que es el que codifica en el periodo embriónico, y los genes Gγ y Aγ que codifican en el periodo fetal. Los genes δ y β codifican para el periodo adulto. Sin embargo usted podrá haberse percatado de un gen representado en rojo con las letras psi-beta (ψβ). La letra psi (ψ) se utiliza para indicar un pseudogen, es decir, un gen no-funcional que no condifica. La razón de por qué no codifica se encuentra al examinar el gen en sí mismo. El problema se halla en la “señal de comienzo” que por error al momento de copiar el gen, se encuentra defectuoso.
¿Cómo sabemos que este pseudogen es producto de la evolución? Por una sencilla razón: los primates contemporáneos más cercanos a nosotros en el proceso evolutivo (chimpancés y gorilas) tienen exactamente el mismo error, exactamente en el mismo lugar del código genético. Estos pseudogenes también forman parte del llamado “ADN basura”. Si los extraterrestres programaron los genes de esta manera… realmente deben ser geniales para venir a este planeta, pero deben tener una pésima capacidad de inteligencia para hacer ciertos genes funcionales. Especialmente cuando nuestros perros o gatos, en este sentido, tienen una mejor genética que nosotros.
Virus y Enfermedades
Otros aspectos relacionados al “ADN basura” tienen que ver con enfermedades contraídas por nuestros ancestros. El siguiente ejemplo no es de un gen “basura”, pero sí nos da una idea de la dinámica que generó muchos pseudogenes en nuestro código genético. Nuestro ancestros fueron muchos, desde la primera de las bacterias hasta el Australopitecus afarensis. Muchos de ellos ciertamente murieron de enfermedades, algunas de ellas virales. Los virus no son otra cosa que un código genético envuelto en un caparazón proteínico. Cuando un virus aterriza en una célula, le inserta su código genético causando la reproducción del virus dentro de la célula y su eventual muerte. Estos nuevos virus se siguen reproduciendo indefinidamente. Sin embargo, de vez en cuando ese código genético accidentalmente se empotra en nuestro ADN y puede convertirse en más “ADN basura” o en genes funcionales beneficiosos para el organismo.
Una de las razones por la que no creo que el virus de inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH), el virus causante del SIDA, fue creado en algún laboratorio en África se debe a que el virus ha estado rondando aparentemente por millones de años. ¿Cómo lo sabemos? Por una razón bien sencilla: nosotros tenemos el código genético de su ancestro empotrado en nuestro ADN. ¿No me creen? Este artículo publicado en la prestigiosa revista Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) lo demuestra (se puede bajar el artículo en PDF gratis). Se ha calculado que fue hace 80 millones de años que apareció este virus, y eso se debe a que los primates más cercanos a nosotros: los chimpancés, gorilas y orangutanes, tienen exactamente esta secuencia del ADN en el mismo lugar de su código genético. Nuestro ancestro común vivió hace 80 millones de años. Este ancestro, aparentemente, fue víctima de un contagio masivo de este virus, lo que explica por qué ese gen sobrevivió empotrado en nuestro código genético, produciendo una ventaja para los sobrevivientes ya que cumple una función en nuestro organismo (selección natural).
¿Dónde está la Evidencia Positiva de Genes Extraterrestres?
Por mucho tiempo, se pensó que los seres humanos no descendían de los neandertales. Esto no era un asunto pequeño, ya que hubo una extensa discusión entre los científicos en torno al problema de si los neandertales eran de la misma especie humana o si eran de una especie distinta. Nosotros somos Homo sapiens sapiens. Si los neandertales eran de otra especie, entonces llegarían a ser Homo neanderthalensis, y si eran de nuestra especie, entonces eran Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, es decir, pertenecen al género Homo, a la especie sapiens y a la sub-especie neanderthalensis).
Desde el año pasado el debate ha terminado. Los neandertales son, sin lugar a dudas, especie humana, pero pertenecientes a una subespecie. ¿Cómo lo sabemos? Primero aclaremos que es lo que quiere decir el término “especie” en biología. Una especie consiste en organismos semejantes que se reproducen entre sí y producen crías fértiles. Así que lo que debemos preguntarnos es si los neandertales y los seres humanos pudieron reproducirse entre sí y producir crías fértiles. Para ello necesitamos dos cosas:
- El código genético de los neandertales y encontrar sus distintivos en relación con otros grupos.
- Contrastar estos distintivos con el genoma humano.
Gracias a que los restos neandertales han conservado material genético (degradado), se ha podido reconstruir el genoma neandertal y se ha podido identificar sus distintivos. También se han contrastado estos distintivos con el genoma humano. La conclusión es inequívoca. Los neandertales y los seres humanos somos dos ramas procedentes de un ancestro común bien cercano a nosotros. Los neandertales salieron de África y llegaron a Europa antes que los seres humanos. Cuando llegaron los seres humanos hubo un apareamiento de parte de ambos grupos. Como resultado de ello, los seres humanos de pura ascendencia africana no heredaron genes neandertales, pero los de ascendencia europea, asiática y americana sí. En otras palabras, los neandertales y los humanos somos la misma especie, pero distintas subespecies.
He aquí una evidencia positiva de genes neandertales en los seres humanos.
¿¿¿Y los genes extraterrestres???
¿Tenemos genes disponibles de extraterrestres voluntarios que los hayan querido donar para nuestro conocimiento? La contestación es “No”. ¿Ha habido algún cadáver distintivamente extraterrestre disponible al público del cual hemos extraído código genético para hacer una comparación semejante a la que hemos hecho con los neandertales? No. ¿Enconces en qué RAYETES se basa el supuesto alegato de que los seres humanos tenemos genes extraterrestres?
¿Por Que se Menciona a Francis Crick?
Surge entonces la pregunta de por qué el Lcdo. Cerezo menciona a Francis Crick. Para los que no lo sepan, Crick fue uno de los dos científicos que descubrió la estructura del ADN y en cuanto a esto las ciencias le estarán eternamente agradecidas. Sin embargo, no puede decir lo mismo de lo que dijo algunos años después. Entre los científicos se ha propuesto lo que se ha conocido como panspermia. Panspermia es la propuesta de que de una manera u otra la vida se originó por intervención extraterrestre. Hay dos tipos de propuestas de panspermia. La primera es la panspermia no-dirigida, que propone que hace miles de millones de años la Tierra no tuvo suficiente material para crear la sopa orgánica de la cual surgiría la vida y, por ende, esos químicos necesarios para la vida tuvieron que haber surgido de material extraterrestre (es decir, material proveniente de fuera de la Tierra). Por otro lado, Crick favoreció la panspermia dirigida, es decir, la teoría de que la vida surgió a raíz de ingeniería extraterrestre (entendida en términos de seres inteligentes de otros planetas). Los científicos ven posibilidad a la panspermia no-dirigida, pero no a la panspermia dirigida.
La propuesta de Crick surge del justificado asombro en torno a la estructura del ADN. El ADN es una estructura que parecía, en aquella época, resultado de un acto de “programación” genético que parecía no haber surgido a partir de actividad de la naturaleza. Es como si “alguien” hubiera diseñado todo para que se produzcan los seres vivos y los seres humanos particularmente.
¿Por qué los científicos no favorecen la panspermia dirigida? No porque los científicos quieren “esconder” ese “hecho”, como se insinuó en el programa Voz Primera. El problema es que tras el estudio exhaustivo del ADN humano y del de los demás seres vivos, todo señala al hecho de que el código genético no fue diseñado. Aunque no comprendemos totalmente a cabalidad cómo se originó el ADN or el ARN, sí sabemos, al estudiar su estructura parece indicar que todo fue más bien producto accidental siguiendo las leyes naturales más que un código hábilmente diseñado por algún ser inteligente.
Entonces, ¿Qué Hay de la Investigación del Profesor Chang?
Pues … hay dos posibles alternativas a este supuesto descubrimiento de genes extraterrestres:
- O The Canadian escribió un artículo que es un fraude o una broma (el artículo no tiene fecha, por lo cual no puedo verificar si era una broma de “April fools” o del “día de los Santos Inocentes”).
- O sencillamente The Canadian no verificó los datos del Profesor Chang, ni contrastó la información con científicos justificadamente escépticos en torno al tema.
Para mí es un misterio (rayando en perplejidad) cómo el Prof. Chang (y su equipo) llegó a una conclusión tan controvertible en torno al genoma humano, cuando se sabe de sobra el origen del “ADN basura” en nuestro código genético y que no es “off world” como alega el artículo. El artículo empeora más la situación cuando incluye problemas de “exopolítica”, o incluso alegatos de supuestos encuentros como los de supuestos venusianos de George Adamski. A pesar de que sus fotos y videos se han desmitificado un millón de ocasiones por expertos, aparentemente Adamski sigue siendo uno de esos fraudes que se niega a morir, especialmente en artículos en The Canadian.
En vista de esto, parece que la investigación del Prof. Chang y su equipo es un trip de grandes magnitudes.
Referencias
Burnie D. (2004). Evolución: una guía básica sobre cóo se adaptan y subsisten los seres vivos. México: Editorial Planeta.
Collins, F. S. (2010). The language of life: DNA and the revolution of personalized medicine. NY: HarperCollins.
Fairbanks, D. J. (2010). Relics of Eden: the powerful evidence of evolution in human DNA. NY: Prometheus Books.
Futuyma, D. J. (2009). Evolution. US: Sinauer Associates.
Miller, K. R. (2008). Only a theory: evolution and the battle for America’s Soul. US: Penguin.
Shubin, N. (2009). Your inner fish: a journey into the 3.5 billion-year history of the human body. NY: Vintage.
Fashions in the Academy
In these few months I have become increasingly aware of one fact which is permeating the academic world, certain myths are being propagated around the academy. When I began (unfortunately not concluded) my history graduate courses, I learned how fashions can overrule sound reasoning. Although I feel a great respect towards Marxism, and use it extensively to evaluate injustices inherent to the system, it is very hard to combat some views which should be counted as outdated, such as the predictions made by Marx regarding what a socialist society will be, and its outcome as communism (Marx’s conception of “communism” of course, not the Soviet Union distortion of that ideal), or even the most outdated dialectical materialism.
Worse still is the fact that it is very hard to struggle against postmodern fashions (especially Puerto Rico and some universities in the U.S.) when, practically, in the rest of the world it is out of fashion. At least in one of my history graduate courses, it has been hard to sell the idea that if you use more solid conceptual and philosophical grounds to build a historic framework, then you will be able to interpret historical data with greater accuracy than if you use deeply flawed and refuted-long-ago-arguments regarding human psyche or culture. These either come from the most questionable areas of psychoanalysis or the most disreputed areas of cultural studies. Many of these movements are well intended. I simply admire postfeminists for struggling for women’s rights, and the rights of the GLBTTQ community (… btw.. if there are more letters to refer to this community … sorry, but my political correctness has some limits). Still, I would hardly base any liberating philosophy on the shoulders of Judith Butler or Sandra Harding, whose philosophies have been extensively shown wrong time and again, and whose abuse of philosophical notions is more than evident. However, I would love to build a liberating philosophy on the grounds set by Susan Haack or Judith Jarvis Thompson (who are much better philosophers). I remember Our Lord’s parable on the house built on the rock being firm, while the one built on sandy grounds being subject to fail. This is what I see right now in the academy. For example, certain areas of postfeminism want to understand society and sexuality on purely cultural grounds, paradoxically, deny their own bodies and sexuality by denying human nature.
The Fashion of “Business Ethics”
Yet, some flawed thinking invade the academy again, and again. This does not merely happen in Humanities and Social Sciences, but also occurs in business. In recent years, the myth of “business ethics” is invading the academy, and it is something that really troubles me. It has an imperialistic aspiration to look at ethics from a very specific point of view, one which values the sort of ethics which is purely dedicated to business.
Ethics as a field belongs to philosophy, it has a philosophical foundation. I’m not going to deal with philosophical foundations here, since I do it elsewhere. However, I want to point this: practically every area of applied ethics has recognized basic philosophical investigations, concepts, criticisms, and challenges. From environmental ethics and bioethics, to ethics of law, all applied ethics fields have recognized them. The exception to this apparent rule is “business ethics”.
The fields in applied ethics in generally argue their cases from several philosophical standpoints, such as virtue ethics, deontological or teleological ethics. Yet, in business ethics, I notice that too few of this is discussed, at least in teaching at college level. As a matter of fact, well instructed bioethicists are very aware of deontology, teleology, naturalistic fallacies, idealistic fallacies and the like, discussions on these views are almost absent in the classrooms where “business ethics” is taught, and if taught, they provide very weak rationale to dismiss them as unimportant for the discussion at hand. Even the business ethics textbooks have no reference at all to this (not the Postscript, at the bottom of this post).
This is incomprehensible to a philosopher until you realize something. If business ethics (a genuine philosophical field of business ethics) were about how to look at business from a critical standpoint, especially using virtue, deontological and teleological views, and then suggest to business the best course of action which has the best outcome for society (humanity as an end-in-itself), I would have no problems at all. This is what is being discussed in bioethics in relation to biotechnology, or environmental ethics regarding environmental regulations. Yet “business ethics” is a different thing.
To give you an idea of what I mean, look at this page on “business ethics“. Look at the way it defines “ethics”: moral guidelines which govern good behavior. Nothing further from the truth. If by “ethics” they understand a “code of conduct”, that is one thing, but “business ethics” should be more than this if it claims to be “applied ethics”.
Then it says:
Behaving ethically in business is widely regarded as good business practice. To provide you with a couple of quotes:“Being good is good business.” ~ Dame Anita Roddick“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business” ~ Henry Ford
Unfortunately these are false statements. Both of them show a level confusion. One thing is being fiscally responsible for a corporation, and another is being ethical. Not always being ethically good is a good business decision, nor always doing a good business decision is ethically good. Whoever believes otherwise is either self-deceiving or brainwashed by this “business ethics” propaganda. Of course, the propaganda is made more plausible when it propagates the concept of “corporate social responsibility” (CSR), and the questionable assertion that an ethical firm shoud be “morally or ethically responsible”: that the corporation should be a moral agent.
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First, notice that none of these are ethical arguments, these are cost-benefit analyses. In other words, none of these analyses are made on the basis on whether these “ethical moves” should be adopted because they are ethically good for the employees (who are, ethically speaking, ends-in-themselves). Instead, my friends argue this on the basis of the profit motive, which, in itself, is not an ethical value. In Kant’s own words, even if corporations end up adopting these policies, they would do it in conformity with ethical duty, not for ethical duty, i.e. they will fulfill their duty out of reasons completely foreign to the ethical reasons for duty.
- Yes, we agree! All of these studies are true, yet, multinational corporations have not made the move towards that, which means that they have actually made cost-benefit analyses on the issue, and determined that it is not profitable to make such a move towards higher wages or pay health care to their sweatshop employees.
But … But … Corporations Do Serve People!
So, are You Suggesting that There Should Not Be Business Ethics?
- That ethics and economy are essentially different: being ethical does not guarantee success (if by “success” you mean rich and you’ll enterprise will survive overall competition), and that being successful does not imply that you are successful because you are ethical. Therefore, corporations are not moral agents. You and I are moral agents, but corporations are amoral entities.
- That corporations are just a means, not ends-in-themselves: This is conceptually understood in current conversations regarding business ethics, unfortunately it does not translate into actions. Some people actually believe that by placing people in business ethics courses will make people decide ethically. The problem is that the corporate machine is built in such a way that internally making money and the corporation itself are not considered as a means to an end, but ends-in-themselves.
This last point is one that many business people have not fully digested, and one of the reasons why people who call for privatization of everything, and turning all the commons to private property, do not get about corporations. Corporations are only accountable to shareholders, not to you or me as persons. Therefore, giving a public institution to a private enterprise is giving it to an unaccountable tyranny (in the words of Noam Chomsky). This is not an axaggeration, it is the truth. If you give an institution to serve a corporation, the corporation will use it for its own ends, not ours.
My Nirvana
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
I want your skin to serve as the place
where, in dances, I disappear my self
to savor on you the drops of time
which melt in my thoughts and your dreams.
I want to use your sweat, your breath,
to break the silence into minute pieces of air,
and translate it into our choice
to connect in space with our touch…
… to be lost in a sea of candle lights,
and in your lips
be gently embraced by your streams.
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In 2006 I published this book for the first time, and I’m proud to say that this is the fourth edition of The Relation between Formal Science and Natural Science. In this book, I use Edmund Husserl’s philosophy of logic and mathematics, as well as his semantic doctrine, in order to understand the nature of formal sciences. It posits the existence of ideal meanings and mathematical objects, which are themselves a condition of possibility for any truth and any science whatsoever. It advocates for the search for a criterion to determine the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments, while rejecting Quine’s arguments against it. At the same time it rejects several antiplatonist options such as Mario Bunge’s fictionalism, and Karl Popper’s semiplatonism, while proposing Husserlian epistemology of mathematics as an alternative, which is essentially a sort of "rationalist epistemology" as Jerrold Katz suggested. Finally, the book criticizes the Quine-Putnam theses, especially the one which states that logic and mathematics can be revised in light of recalcitrant experience. Usually three cases for such revision are constantly presented in this debate: quantum logic, non-euclidean geometry and the general theory of relativity, and chaos theory. I show that none of these a posteriori matters-of-fact have revised any a priori formal fields such as mathematics and logic.
The book’s website has also undergone major surgery, changing it from plain HTML to a Drupal platform. This is how it used to look like:
(Click for Larger Version)
This is how it looks like:
(Click for Larger Version)
You can look at the new website by going to http://uos.pmrb.net. I hope you like it. Any comments or questions about it, please, let me know.
The book is completely available online under different formats. You can download it for free and copy it as many times as you wish just under two conditions: the original work will be preserved verbatim, and no commercial use of it is allowed unless you have reached an agreement with me. Additional to this, because the cover is a derived copylefted version of a GPLed wallpaper in KDE-Look.org, I released the cover and all of its new graphic elements under the GNU GPL as well, and allow people to download it and use it as they wish commercially or non-commercially as long as they comply with that license.
The book is also available for sale for now in Lulu.com.
I hope that this book will help contribute to a clearer understanding about the nature and role of formal sciences such as logic and mathematics, and natural sciences such as physics and biology.
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Hace un tiempo publiqué en mi página de internet mi primera obra educativa de curso de ética que estoy dando en el Colegio Universitario de Cayey,en la Universidad de Puerto Rico y se titulaba "¿Por qué somos seres morales? Una perspectiva biológica". Ahora hice disponible solamente en PDF y ODF (pronto lo haré disponible en DjVu y versión interactiva) de "¿Qué es la Ética? Una perspectiva filosófica". Este segundo material educativo debe considerarse continuación del primero. Si alguna persona quiere leer "¿Qué es la ética?" sin consultar "¿Por qué somos seres morales?" podría tener algunas lagunas durante la lectura.
Este material es la versión 0.1, lo que significa que esto es solo el comienzo del desarrollo de este material y está incompleto. Hace falta, por lo menos, una sección de preguntas guía y vocabulario, hacen falta ejercicios para aplicar los conceptos filosóficos a problemas cotidianos y también falta una sección que recomiende información disponible en libros y la internet en torno al tema de la ética. También faltan algunas referencias para que algunas aserciones del escrito tengan unas bases más firmes, aunque aclaro que he hecho lo posible para sustanciar las aserciones tanto con estudios científicos como con obras filosóficas que han sido clave para la discusión de la ética en general.
También, como v. 0.1 es una versión bien temprana puede ser que se hayan colado mis errores estilísticos usuales, pero estoy abierto a que se me señalen mis errores.
Como el lector o la lectora se dará cuenta en seguida, el escrito no es "políticamente correcto". Critico a los religiosos y antireligiosos, a varios sectores de los sistemas democráticos (especialmente a aquellos que siguen ciegamente a los partidos políticos), critico también al cientificismo que, a pesar de las objeciones de Daniel Dennett, sí existe y que es defendido por varias personas que han publicado obras que ahora tienen mucho alcance popular (pienso en Sam Harris y su obra The Moral Landscape). Esto se debe a que no importa cuáles son nuestras convicciones económicas, políticas y religiosas, siempre hace falta una reflexión genuinamente y honestamente crítica de nuestras posiciones.
Se conciben a la filosofía y a la ética como empresas racionales, por lo que, tal vez, a los irracionalistas no les gustará para nada mi postura. Mantengo también una postura admitidamente contraria a la moda quineana que prevalece en la filosofía anglosajona, porque distingo (contra Quine y sus seguidores) entre verdades-de-razón y verdades-de-hecho según las distinguieron Leibniz y Hume. Entiendo que esta posición es fundamental para cualquier filosofía que quiera establecerse sobre unas bases metafísicas y epistemológicas sólidas. Ya argumenté en contra de Quine en mi libro The Relation between Formal Science and Natural Science, porque el famoso "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" solo critica la versión carnapiana de la distinción de los juicios analíticos y sintéticos sin tocar otras versiones como la de Frege o la de Husserl. El holismo quineano también es un non-sequitur, el hecho de que Carnap no distinga efectivamente entre ambos tipos de juicio no significa que tengamos que sucumbir a un holismo tan descabellado que las ciencias formales sean revisables a la luz de la experiencia recalcitrante.
En el material que acabo de publicar, argumento que la ética es una ciencia que pertenece al ámbito de las verdades-de-razón, no hay nada en ella que pertenezca al ámbito de la experiencia y, por ende, la ética es una rama de la filosofía … no de las ciencias, la política y la religión.
Debido a que la mayoría de mis estudiantes son de administración de empresas y no tiene formación filosófica, prácticamente ofrezco una sección que es un "crash course" en Platón y Aristóteles, porque ellos son los que nos han legado las herramientas conceptuales para la filosofía en general, incluyendo a la ética. Expongo una breve discusión de la falacia naturalista (o la dicotomía "valor"-"hecho") y trato de proveer brevemente unas bases para todo lo que se va a discutir en futuras clases de ética.
También tengo la idea de que esta serie de escritos podría convertirse fácilmente en un libro de texto de ética. Los dos materiales de ética que he publicado hasta ahora podrían corresponder a los dos primeros capítulos de ese texto. Veamos hasta dónde llega esta idea.
Como siempre, el texto está disponible en formatos PDF y ODF bajo unas licencias libres compatibles con la definición de "obra cultural libre" y de "conocimiento abierto". Estas licencias son las Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License y la GNU Free Documentation License. Espero que sea de su agrado. Pueden bajar "¿Qué es la Ética?" presionando en los iconos abajo, o yendo a mi página de internet.
P. D. – Toda crítica, dentro de lo razonable, será bienvenida. Pueden escribirme a: prosario2000@gmail.com.
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Recently I’ve been reading much of QuestionCopyright.org’s website, listening to Richard Stallman’s MIT speech "Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks" (here is the written version), and reflecting on Cory Doctorow’s "eBooks: Neither e nor Books" and Nina Paley’s blog about the subject. After all of that, I decided to make available for free (as Stallman would say: "Free" as in "free speech" and "free" as "free beer") all of the eBook versions available (PDF, DjVu, and ODF).
In general, I’m combining two different ideas. First, when my book becomes freely available to the public, and it is able to "spread it around", there will be a better chance that it will be read. The problem with using the "All rights reserved" version of copyright is that it condemns you to obscurity (as Cory Doctorow points out), especially in the digital world. So, I made sure of three things:
- The formats must be read in any operative system platform (be it proprietary or free). This is the reason why I do not create my eBooks in any proprietary format. The license lets people do the proper modifications of the original file, including proprietary formats, but I do not encourage this behavior. You should not be locked in to a single eReader device.
- The files must be DRM-free, so that people can use, modify, and copy the file so that derived works can be created, hence encouraging culture (as it has always done), and also to guarantee the scalability of copying of my work.
- The work must be under a license consistent with the Free Cultural Works definition and the Open Knowledge definition, at the same time this license must encourage copyleft. This will not take away what I understand are reader’s fundamental rights regarding eBooks.
This is combined with an idea suggested by Richard Stallman regarding music files. His MIT speech about the subject, he talks about a measure which can be implemented very easily in the case of eBooks. He said that in order to avoid penalizing fans for copying music, the music industry must change its ways of making money. He suggested that you can encourage companies or artists to make music files which, when circulated, include a small disposition which will appear in the listener’s own computer screen (or device) which suggests a dollar donation. It won’t get in the way of enjoying the music, it won’t forbid anyone to do anything. It just sits there, but it serves as a reminder that if a fan likes the music track and wishes to support the artist, it can be good to contribute with a donation.
So, in essence, what I did was to make these eBooks available for free, which will encourage people to copy the file. At the same time, this file has a disposition which is up in a corner, not too visible to bother the reader, but visible enough to remind him or her that they can support my work through a donation. The disposition itself is a hyperlink to the "Donations" page in Creative Heart‘s website. At the same time, if anyone is interested in not having that disposition, that version of the eBook is available for sale. Needless to say that the paperback version of the book is available if they want it. I want the eBook versions of my book "sell themselves" (so-to-speak).
You can download Creative Heart directly in this webpage.
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