Leon on Everything

A few nights ago, I finally got around to watching something on Netflix. It was a show called “Altered Carbon”. You might have heard of it, it is Big. The basic premise of the show is that in some distant future people have a device inserted into the connection between the spinal cord and the brain called the “Stack”. This “Stack” stores all the electric signals that happen in the brain. When someone dies, his “Stack” gets inserted into another body and animates the brain. As such the other body will have the consciousness of the previous person and so, they claim, people end up living forever. Of course, with sci-fi scenery, sex, drugs and violence you suspend disbelief and get on with the story, which is entertaining. But this post is not about entertainment, it is about a branch of philosophy long seen as a form of mental masturbation: Metaphysics. So, let us step in the world of the consciousness metaphysicist armed with his favorite tool: A thought experiment. Let us imagin...

The single thing that has characterized the Israeli Palestinian conflict is how intractable it has been to solve. People on the different sides have ascribed this intractability to “The Other Side” not willing to compromise. Other parties from the West have taken a higher ground and blamed both sides equally for their problems. I think assigning blame is a good exercise for historians to ponder when there aren’t such political or national interests at stake. Where the people are concerned, however, what really matters is an expedient solution that allows both sides to live and enjoy the maximal amount of well being. This might not be a “two State Solution”. Maybe to end the conflict, it should be done so on one party’s terms. Maybe that means a one-state solution, but only for one party. And a “No State” solution for the other. Is that possible? As the saying goes to the victor goes the spoils. The Jews being the consistent victors in the various wars waged against them (or by th...

I was reading an article in The Economist Magazine about India's Middle Class. It says that Big companies are disappointed at the size and consumption habits of this Indian middle class. It seems over there, inequality is on the rise, and therefore most of the gains are going to the top so-called one percenters. Hence not much is trickling down to the middle class which in turn can't afford to consume as much as the world's large companies expect of them. Inequality has been a significant topic in recent years. It has been given more impetus with Economists like Thomas Piketty, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Gordon.  And the statistics seem to prove them right. When we look at the world's  global Gross Domestic Product, this figure is about 78 trillion US dollars. If divided equally among people this translates to 10,000 USD per person. However, nearly a half of the global population lives on 2.5 dollars a day. These people living on less than a thousand do...