Filmes enganam

O anárquico Velho Oeste não era nada selvagem

por Peter J. Hill,

Cem anos de filmes de faroeste nos ensinaram que era assim que se vivia e se morria no Velho Oeste americano. Aquele que fosse mais rápido no gatilho vivia apenas para duelar novamente no dia seguinte. Era como se a vida fosse um contínuo torneio eliminatório de pedra, papel e tesoura, o qual só acabava quando você morria.

Porém, a realidade era outra. E muito diferente....

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Porque futebol ("soccer") é mais emocial que religião

"Soccer is often more deeply felt than religion," says Franklin Foer, author of How Soccer Explains the World. "I don't see tribalism ever really disappearing. ... People are almost hardwired to identify as groups. And ... group identity always runs the risk of being chauvinistic." 

-- "Soccer is not only small business business. It's also a bad one. Anyone who spends any time inside soccer discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the soccer business."

Veja o ranking atual:
As ao primeiras colocações do ranking da Fifa:.
1. Espanha 1.871 pontos.
2. Holanda 1.661.
3. Alemanha 1.417.
4. Inglaterra 1.146.
5. Brasil 1.130.
6. Itália 1.059.
7. Portugal 1.046.
8. Croácia 1.033.
9. México 1.007.
.10. Argentina 979.

Ciência e religião

  O papel crucial da religião no desenvolvimento da ciência econômica

por Murray N. Rothbard

Por que será que, por exemplo, a tradição da utilidade subjetiva prosperou no Continente, especialmente na França e na Itália, sendo depois ressuscitada particularmente na Áustria, ao passo que as teorias de que o valor das coisas dependia do "trabalho contido nelas" ou do custo da produção surgiram especialmente na Grã-Bretanha? O historiador Emil Kauder atribuiu essa diferença à profunda influência da religião: os escolásticos, a França, a Itália e a Áustria eram católicos, e o catolicismo enfatiza que o consumo é o objetivo da produção, e que a satisfação (utilidade) e o prazer do consumidor — pelo menos com moderação — são atividades e objetivos valorosos.

A tradição britânica, ao contrário, a começar pelo próprio Adam Smith, era calvinista, e refletia a ênfase calvinista no trabalho duro e exaustivo como sendo não apenas algo bom, mas também um grande bem em si mesmo, ao passo que o prazer oriundo do consumo é, na melhor das hipóteses, um mal necessário, um mero requisito para se dar continuidade ao trabalho e à produção.

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Pi is wrong

"... When we say that “$\pi$ is wrong”, we mean that $\pi$ is a confusing and unnatural choice for the circle constant. In particular, since a circle is defined as the set of points a fixed distance—the radius—from a given point, a more natural definition for the circle constant uses $r$ in place of $D$: \[ \mathrm{circle\ constant} \equiv \frac{C}{r}. \] Because the diameter of a circle is twice its radius, this number is numerically equal to $2\pi$. Like $\pi$, it is transcendental and hence irrational, and (as we’ll see in Section 2) its use in mathematics is similarly widespread...."
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O caso Galileu

A Igreja Católica: Construtora da Civilização - O Caso Galileu 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpuz3LEny28&feature=related

Ensino com as novas mídias

Enseñar aprendiendo con los medios sociales

José Luis Orihuela

9 de junio de 2011 | Universidad Francisco Marroquín

http://newmedia.ufm.edu/gsm/index.php?title=Orihuelaensenaraprendiendo

Cngresso Inovação e Criatividade

 Nos dias 29 de junho a 01 de julho de 2011 será realizado o I Congresso Internacional de Criatividade e Inovação, com o tema: Criatividade e Inovação: Visão e prática em diferentes contextos. Neste evento, pesquisadores nacionais e internacionais vêm  apresentar seus  trabalhos e debater questões relacionadas às mais diferentes áreas e seus impactos nos processos e produtos decorrentes da síntese entre a criatividade e a  inovação...
A Associação Brasileira de Criatividade e Inovação (CRIABRASILIS) é uma entidade científica e cultural, sem fins lucrativos, que visa agregar profissionais, estudiosos e interessados em criatividade e inovação visando alcançar o desenvolvimento da sociedade brasileira. Maiores informações em www.criabrasilis.org.br.

Mito e realidade da educação universitária nos Estados Unidos de hoje

Is college worth it? Just consider the following statistics about how much debt our young Americans are going into just to get an "education"....
#1 According to the Student Loan Debt Clock, total student loan debt in the United States will surpass the 1 trillion dollar mark in early 2012.
#2 Total student loan debt in the United States is increasing by approximately $2854 every single second.
#3 The average college student now leaves school with $24,000 in student loan debt.
#4 Approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.
#5 The total amount of student loan debt in the United States now exceeds the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.
#6 Over the past 25 years, the cost of college tuition has increased at an average rate that is approximately 6% higher than the general rate of inflation.
#7 Back in 1952, a full year of tuition at Harvard was only $600. Today, it is $35,568.
#8 Average yearly tuition at U.S. private universities is now up to $27,293. That has increased by 29% in just the past five years.
#9 The cost of college textbooks has tripled over the past decade.
#10 Since 1978, the cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent.
#11 One survey found that 23 percent of college students actually use credit cards to pay for tuition or fees.
Sadly, the quality of the education that our young people are receiving in return is absolutely pathetic.
Personally, I spent a total of 8 years attending universities in the United States. I saw first hand what a joke most college courses are.
The truth is that things have gotten so bad that the family dog might just be able to pass most college courses in the United States today.
In a previous article I authored entitled "Student Loan Debt Hell: 21 Statistics That Will Make You Think Twice About Going To College", I noted many statistics that seem to indicate that the quality of college education in the United States has declined dramatically. The following are a few of those statistics....
- The typical U.S. college student spends less than 30 hours a week on academics.
- According to very extensive research detailed in a new book entitled "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses", 45 percent of U.S. college students exhibit "no significant gains in learning" after two years in college.
- Today, college students spend approximately 50% less time studying than U.S. college students did just a few decades ago.
- 35% of U.S. college students spend 5 hours or less studying per week.
- 50% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to write more than 20 pages.
- 32% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to read more than 40 pages in a week.
- U.S. college students spend 24% of their time sleeping, 51% of their time socializing and 7% of their time studying.
- Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor's degree within four years.
Pretty depressing, eh?
A college education may not be what it once was, but it is a great way to get into massive amounts of debt.
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O colapso da educação nos Estados Unidos

The following is what PIMCO's Bill Gross had to say about the pathetic state of college education in America in one of his recent newsletters.....

All of us who have been there know an undergraduate education is primarily a four year vacation interrupted by periodic bouts of cramming or Google plagiarizing, but at least it used to serve a purpose. It weeded out underachievers and proved at a minimum that you could pass an SAT test. For those who made it to the good schools, it proved that your parents had enough money to either bribe administrators or hire SAT tutors to increase your score by 500 points. And a degree represented that the graduate could “party hearty” for long stretches of time and establish social networking skills that would prove invaluable later on at office cocktail parties or interactively via Facebook. College was great as long as the jobs were there.

It wouldn't be so bad if college was not so darn expensive. Tuition alone at many schools is 30, 40 or even 50 thousand dollars a year.
According to recent Pew Research Center polling, 75% of Americans believe that college is too expensive for most Americans to afford.
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Mudar o mundo

"You say you want a revolution? Well you know, we all want to change the world" Beatles

Sociologia Econômica da inovação, ciência e tecnologia

Professor Dr. Antony Peter Mueller

antonymueller@yahoo.com

(79) 81 53 40 22

EMENTA

SOCIOLOGIA ECONÔMICA

DA INOVAÇÃO, TECNOLOGIA E CIÊNCIA

2. semestre de 2011, quinta-feira 8:00-12:00 horas no NPPSC

I.                    Objetivos

Inovação, tecnologia e ciência são temáticas centrais da moderna sociologia econômica por causa da profunda relevância para a sociedade moderna, para o crescimento e o desenvolvimento econômico e suas raízes e conseqüências sociais. Como já foi diagnosticado de Schumpeter, seguinte de sua própria natureza, o capitalismo moderno é um sistema de inovação permanente. Neste sentido o seminário serve para um entendimento melhor do sistema sócio-econômico da atualidade.

O objetivo didático do seminário “Sociologia Econômica” é familiarizar os participantes com as novas abordagens desta disciplina e capacitar o estudante para utilizar as teorias, conceitos e técnicas na pesquisa nas áreas de inovação, tecnologia e ciência.

Especificamente, os objetivos do seminário consistem em ampliar e fortalecer a capacidade do estudante de trabalhar com amplias e flexíveis estruturas analíticas incluindo o uso de ferramentas metodológicas como a abordagem causal-realística baseada na teoria da ação humana. Em vez de conseguir uma abordagem reducionista, se procura conscientemente favorecer uma análise focada em estudar os fatores de complexidade, incerteza e contingência.

As perguntas centrais de pesquisa são:

a) Quais são os fatores que determinam as formas e os níveis da inovação?

b) Como impactam estas inovações em sua vez sobre a sociedade?

c) Quais são as relações entre sociedade (cultura), ciência, tecnologia e inovação?

II.                 Programação

Espera-se a participação ativa dos estudantes com apresentações formais e contribuições nos debates. O trabalho final consiste em um artigo científico de 15 até 20 paginas. As últimas aulas do seminário vão ser organizadas na forma de um congresso cientifico onde os participantes apresentam os seus trabalhos em diversas “mesas” sob a liderança de um “chairman” e com dois até três palestrantes e os respectivos comentaristas.

O seminário está orientado preparar o participante para este “evento” incluindo a assistência para publicar o trabalho.

Uma aula do seminário tipicamente vai se dividir em duas partes: a primeira parte (90 minutos) consiste numa apresentação seguida na segunda parte para debate. 

            Temas de tratar

1. Áreas, métodos e técnicas analíticas da “sociológica econômica”
2. A “Nova Sociologia Econômica” e a "Nova Teoria das Instituições"
3. Fundamentos sócio-econômicos do capitalismo moderno
4. Tecnologia e ciência como raízes de riqueza das nações
5. Modernização e anti-modernização
6. Sociologia e cultura da ciência e tecnologia

Temas para trabalhos
1.     Análise conceitual de tecnologia e inovação

2.     Relações entre cultura, ciência e tecnologia

3.      Análise histórica de tecnologia e inovação

4.      Tecnologia e inovação sob o olhar sociológico e econômico

5.      O modelo schumpeteriano da inovação

6.      Análise sociológica da “destruição criativa”

7.      Progresso tecnológico, crescimento econômico e desenvolvimento

8.      Impactos distributivos do progresso tecnológico

9.      Educação, a formação de capital humano e inovação

10.  Sociologia econômica das novas tecnologias

11.  Sociologia econômica das novas mídias

12.  Tecnologia e ética

13.  Política pública da inovação

14.  Inovação no contexto América Latina

15.  Inovação no Brasil

Bibliografia

Handbooks

Beckert, Jens/Milan Zafirovski (eds.), 2006: International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology. London: Routledge.

Berger, Suzanne/Ronald Dore (eds.), 1996: National Diversity and Global Capitalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Block, Fred, 1990: Postindustrial Possibilities: A Critique of Economic Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Carruthers, Bruce/Sarah Babb, 2000: Economy/Society: Markets, Meanings, and Social Structure. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.

Dobbin, Frank, 2004: The New Economic Sociology: A Reader. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Granovetter, Mark/Richard Swedberg (eds.), 2001: The Sociology of Economic Life. 2nd edition. Boulder: Westview Press.

Guillén, Mauro F., et al., 2002: The New Economic Sociology: Developments in an Emerging Field. New York: Russel Sage Foundation.

Hollingsworth, Rogers/Robert Boyer (eds.), 1997: Contemporary Capitalism: The Embeddedness of Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

North, Douglass, 1990: Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Smelser, J. Neil/Richard Swedberg, 2005: The Handbook of Economic Sociology. 2nd edition, 1st edition 1994. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Swedberg, Richard, 2003: Principles of Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Trigilia, Carlo, 2002: Economic Sociology. State, Market and Society in Modern Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell.

Williamson, Oliver E., 1985: The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational

Contracting. New York: Free Press.

Textos em português e espanhol

LOPES, Jr, Edmilson. As potencialidades analíticas da Nova Sociologia Econômica. Sociedade e Estado, UnB, 17(1), 2002, pp. 39-62.
DURKHEIM, Emile. Da divisão do trabalho social. Varias edições. (Livro I, Capitulo VII: Solidariedade orgânica e solidariedade contratual).
DURKHEIM, Emile. Lições de sociologia: a moral, o direito e o Estado. São Paulo: T. A. Queiroz; Ed. da USP, 1983 (Lições 15 a 18).
STEINER, Philippe. Le fait social économique chez Durkheim. Revue Française de Sociologie, 33, pp. 621-641, 1992.
VEBLEN, Thorstein. A teoria da classe ociosa. São Paulo: Pioneira, 1965, pp. 74-102
 WEBER, Max. Economia e Sociedade. Brasília: UnB, 1991
PARETO, Vilfredo. Tratado de sociologia geral. Preliminares e As ações não-lógicas. In: José Albertino Rodrigues (Org.). Vilfredo Pareto: sociologia. São Paulo: Ática, 1984, pp. 32-59.
ARON, Raymon. As etapas do pensamento sociológico. São Paulo: Martins Fontes; Brasília: UnB, 1990, pp. 379-418.
SCHUMPETER, Joseph. A teoria do desenvolvimento econômico. São Paulo: Nova Cultural, 1988, pp.43-66 (Cap. II: o fenômeno fundamental do desenvolvimento econômico).
MAUSS, Marcel. Ensaio sobre a dádiva. Lisboa: Edições 70, 2001, pp. 49-58 e pp. 175-197. (Introdução e conclusão).
GODBOUT, Jacques. O espírito da dádiva. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget, 1997, pp. 9-31 (Introdução).
NICOLAS, Guy. O dom ritual, face velada da modernidade. In: Martins, Paulo Henrique (Org.). A dádiva entre os modernos. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes, 2002, pp. 33-62.
POLANYI, Karl. A Grande Transformação. Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 2000, pp. 62-75 e 89-98 (Cap. 4: Sociedades e sistemas econômicos, e cap. 6: O mercado auto-regulável e as mercadorias fictícias).
WANDERLEY, Fernanda. Avanços e desafios da Nova Sociologia Econômica: notas sobre os estudos sociológicos do mercado – uma introdução. Sociedade e Estado, UnB, 17(1), 2002, pp. 15-38.
BOURDIEU, Pierre. É possível um ato desinteressado? In: Razões práticas. Sobre a teoria da ação. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1996, pp.137-156. 
Fligstein, Neil. Mercado como política: uma abordagem político-cultural das instituições de mercado. Contemporaneidade e Educação, 9, pp. 26-55, 2001.

Guimarães, Nadya Araujo. “A alquimia organizacional: qualificação e construção do conhecimento”. In:

Caminhos Cruzados. Estratégias de Empresas e Trajetórias de Trabalhadores, S.Paulo, Ed. 34, 2004,cap. 5, pp. 169-225.

Leite, Marcia de Paula. “Trabalho e qualificação na cadeia automotiva: novas tendências, velhos problemas”. In: Alice Abreu (org.) Produção Flexível e Novas Institucionalidades na América Latina. Rio de Janeiro, Ed. UFRJ, 2000, pp. 107-127.

Mueller,  Antony P., Investimentos: bons e ruins, Ordem Livre, Março 2011

Lima, Jacob. “A subcontratação em cooperativas de trabalho no Nordeste: descentralização produtiva e

flexibilização das relações de trabalho”. In: Alice Abreu (org.) Produção Flexível e Novas Institucionalidades na América Latina. Rio de Janeiro, Ed. UFRJ, 2000, pp. 255-272

RUBEN, Guilhermo Raúl. Empresários e globalização. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais. No 18, ano 7, 1992. p.p 71- 87.

DINIZ, Eli e BOSCHI, Renato. Liderança empresariais e problemas da estratégia liberal no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais. No 23, 1993. p.p 101-119.

:

DONADONE, Julio César e GRÜN, Roberto. “Flexões semânticas e transformações sociais no Brasil dos

últimos 30 anos: a janela aberta pelo estudo do mundo do trabalho para a compreensão da dinâmica social do período. XXIV Encontro Anual da ANPOCS. p.p1-28.

GRÜN, Roberto. Quem é moderno? Um estudo sobre as estratégias discursivas de gerentes brasileiros. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais. No 18, ano 7, 1992. p.p 96-108.

GRÜN, Roberto. Modelos de empresa, modelos de mundo: sobre algumas características culturais da nova ordem econômica e da resistência a ela. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais. No 41, 1999. p.p 121-140.

ABRAMO, Lais e TODARO, Rosalba. “Género y trabajo en las decisiones empresariale”. Revista

Latinoamericana de Estudios del Trabajo. No 7, ALAST, São Paulo 1998, pp. 77-96.

HIRATA, Helena.” Divisão sexual do trabalho: o Estado das artes”. In Nova Divisão Sexual do Trabalho?

Um olhar voltado para a empresa e a sociedade.São Paulo, Boitempo, pp. 273-289.

HIRATA, Helena. “Vida reprodutiva e produção: família e empresa no Japão”. In Nova Divisão Sexual doTrabalho? Um olhar voltado para a empresa e a sociedade. São Paulo, Boitempo, pp. 133-146.

STANDING, Guy. “La inseguridad laboral”. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios del Trabajo. No 11, 2000, p.p. 47-105.

CARDOSO, Adalberto, COMIN, Alvaro e GUIMARÃES, Nadya (2001) “Os deserdados da indústria

reestruturação produtiva e trajetórias intersetoriais de trabalhadores demitidos da indústria brasileira” In:

Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios del Trabajo, n. 13 (Julio-Dic.), Buenos Aires – Asociación

Latinoamericana de Estudios del Trabajo, pp. 17-52

Mueller, Antony P., O papel do entrepreneur no desenvolvimento econômico, Ordem Livre, Abril 2011

Mais informações, mais referências bibliográficas, mais textos:

www.socec.blogspot.com

 www.continentaleconomics.com

www.economianova.blogspot.com

Mais recursos:

Sociologia econômica: http://continentaleconomics.com/AulasOnlineSocec.html

Crescimento econômico: http://continentaleconomics.com/AulasOnlineCrescimentoEconomico.html

Desenvolvimento:

http://continentaleconomics.com/AulasOnlineDesenvolvimentoEconomico.html

Schumpeter:http://continentaleconomics.com/AulasOnlineSchumpeter.html

Escola Austríaca:

http://continentaleconomics.com/AulasOnlineEconomiaAustriaca.html

SICITEC: http://www.socitec.pro.br/

ASA’s section on economic sociology: http://www2.asanet.org/sectionecon/

ESA economic sociology: http://www.europeansociology.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=29

Editais IESP

O Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos (IESP), da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, publicou os editais para a seleção das turmas de doutorado e mestrado em Ciência Política e Sociologia de 2012. Para maiores informações visite no nosso site, http://www.iesp.uerj.br, e a página dos editais: http://www.iesp.uerj.br/pos-graduacao/edital-2012.

Citações

"... Dr Blei and Mr Gerrish have devised an alternative to the citation indices beloved of scientific publishers. These reflect how often a particular publication or author is cited as a source by others. High scores are treated as a proxy for high impact. But a proxy is all they are.
Dr Blei and Mr Gerrish are not claiming their method is necessarily a better proxy. But it can cast its net more widely, depending on the set of documents fed into it at the beginning. Citation indices, which work only where publications refer to their sources explicitly, form a tiny nebula in the digital universe. News articles, blog posts and e-mails often lack a systematic reference list that could be used to make a citation index. Yet they, too, are part of what makes an idea influential..."
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liberdade para cometer suicídio

Ludwig von Mises: "There is no kind of freedom and liberty other than the kind which the market economy brings about. In a totalitarian hegemonic society the only freedom that is left to the individual, because it cannot be denied to him, is the freedom to commit suicide." - Human Action

O livro do futuro

Mudança da velha forma de publicar

pela a nova:

Fonte

O futuro do livro - o livro do futuro

— CRAIG MOD, June 2011  

The future book — the digital book — is no longer an immutable brick. It's ethereal and networked, emerging publicly in fits and starts. An artifact ‘complete’ for only the briefest of moments. Shifting deliberately. Layered with our shared marginalia. And demanding engagement with the promise of community implicit in its form.

The book of the past reveals its individual experienceuniquely. The book of the future reveals our collective experience.

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Ciência & Vida

Convite - Revista Sociologia Ciência & Vida

Prezados(as)

Venho convidá-los(as) a compor a lista de colaboradores da Coluna TV Impressa da Revista Sociologia Ciência & Vida. A revista, da Editora Escala, passou a circular nacionalmente em 2006, depois houve mudanças no corpo editorial e a mesma passou a ter publicação bimestral. A Editora Ponto A assumiu a publicação da Revista e a Coordenadora Editorial me deu a incumbência de buscar colaboradores dispostos a escrever na Coluna. Esta aborda sociologicamente/antropologicamente as notícias exibidas na mídia, são 04 notas por edição, com 1000 caracteres de espaço de texto e 50 de título (em anexo envio um modelo). São notas curtas portanto. A idéia é que as notas atinjam o público juvenil que está prestando vestibular, mas também o público universitário.

Sugeri para Coordenadora Editorial que a Coluna deveria ter vários participantes em cada edição, a fim de garantir uma diversidade territorial e de abordagens teóricas das Ciências Sociais. Por isso gostaria de convidá-los(as) a compor a equipe de colaboradores da Revista, podendo ser solicitados para escrever nesta coluna. Na coluna será publicado o nome do autor, sua titulação, local da titulação e algum item acadêmico importante que o mesmo queira destacar (tudo muito breve devido ao espaço pequeno da coluna – duas páginas, com a possibilidade de quatro futuramente).

Contacto: ortiz_vinicius@yahoo.com.br

Feliz aniversário, Fernando

Fernando Pessoa (*13 de Junho de 1888)

• Tudo vale a pena / Se a alma não é pequena.
• Poema "Mar Português", Versos 7-.

Ensino inovativo

A prisão, a fábrica e o militar como modelo para a escola - até hoje?

Dois tipos de probabilidade

Daniel Sanches explica:

Class Probability and Case Probability

According to Mises, there are two approaches that the human mind can take concerning incomplete knowledge of real affairs: class probability and case probability.
The most important thing to note about this distinction is that class probability has to do with frequency, and case probability does not. Another important thing to note is that class probability has to do with causality and nature, while case probability has to do with teleology and human choice.[5]
Mises defines the two kinds of probability in Human Action.

Class probability means: We know or assume to know, with regard to the problem concerned, everything about the behavior of a whole class of events or phenomena; but about the actual singular events or phenomena we know nothing but that they are elements of this class.[6]

Case probability means: We know, with regard to a particular event, some of the factors which determine its outcome; but there are other determining factors about which we know nothing.[7]

Here are some examples Mises gives of each type.

Class Probability	Case Probability
Gambling (Lottery Tickets, Roulette, etc.)	Betting (Sports Wagers, Political Bets, etc.)
Engineering Margins and Medical Prognoses	Historical Scholarship
Business-Inventory Vicissitudes	Entrepreneurial Speculation
Purchasing Insurance

Karl Marx

A crítica mais profunda da obra de Marx agora online.

Educação no Brasil

Análise da OECD
Brazil has come a long way from its colonial days where education of
the local population had not been a priority. This chapter describes how
modern Brazil has extended public basic education to over 95% of the
population; established assessment systems using an internationally
benchmarked index that measures the progress of each school against
a baseline; created student-based funding formulas that distribute
funds fairly within states; used conditional cash transfers to lift poor
families out of poverty through education; and encouraged states and
municipalities to take actions to improve education in individual schools.
Brazil has enjoyed 15 years of economic and political stability that has
enabled it to develop a range of solid industries that now export to the
world. Consumption is up among its citizens and this continues to fuel
the Brazilian economy.
Average PISA scores for Brazil have improved in all subjects measured
over the last ten years. While these scores are well below the OECD
average and obviously do not place Brazil among the high-performing
countries, such gains do suggest that Brazil has put in place federal
policies based on a coherent vision that appear to be generating some
consistent improvements. The challenge now is to raise the level of
education of its citizens high enough to enable them to take commerce
and industry to competitive levels in a global marketplace.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/52/33/46581300.pdf

Wolfram's "nova ciência"

Is the universe a computer?
Dr Wolfram believes that all the vastly different complex processes seen in nature, from the markings on a seashell to weather systems to intelligence itself, are the products of such simple computations. The idea that mathematics underpins the laws of nature, which now seems obvious, was once radical. Dr Wolfram proposes an even deeper law, that the universe is underpinned by a set of simple computational rules capable of producing vast complexity, and that nature is just “sampling what’s out there in the computational universe”. He claims that applying NKS widely could lead to advances not only in mathematics and computing but also physics, biology and even the social sciences.
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Deflação

Deflação pode ser uma coisa boa?

07 de Junho de 2011 - por Antony Mueller 


Atualmente existe quase um consenso entre os banqueiros centrais de que a deflação deve ser evitada a todo custo.
No entanto, quando um indivíduo aleatoriamente escolhido é perguntado se prefere os preços mais altos ou mais baixos para as coisas que compra, certamente responderá que os preços baixos são preferíveis.
Então como é que deflação de preços não é um objetivo proclamado da política monetária? Por que as autoridades monetárias anunciam “metas de inflação” em vez de oferecerem a opção em favor de preços mais baixos? Por que não temos uma deflação de preços, mas quase permanentemente temos inflação dos preços?
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A China dos milionários

At the Beijing Sports Car Club, a $220,000 Porsche SE 911 counts as an entry-level model... The number of millionaires in China jumped 31 percent last year to more than 1.1 million, and with an average age of 39, they are 15 years younger than their U.S. and European peers. Car clubs, nonexistent in the country two years ago, provide enthusiasts with a venue to demonstrate their vehicles and carmakers an opportunity to win more converts.
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Política: A presunção de competências pelos incompetentes

"In the course of any given year, Congress votes on taxes, medical care, military spending, foreign aid, agriculture, labor, international trade, airlines, housing, insurance, courts, natural resources, and much more.
There are professionals who have spent their entire adult lives specializing in just one of these fields. They idea that Congress can be competent in all these areas simultaneously is staggering. Yet, far from pulling back – as banks or other private enterprises must, if they don't want to be ruined financially by operating beyond the range of their competence – Congress is constantly expanding further into more fields."
Thomas Sowell

Uma curta história da universidade

Gary North explica: 
The first university, Bologna, was begun in 1088. It was a law school. It taught the newly rediscovered system of Roman civil law, as interpreted by Justinian in the sixth century. Then came the University of Paris in the mid-twelfth century and Oxford in the early thirteenth. They offered young men a chance at getting lifetime jobs in law, the church, or the state. In other words, they sold security.
The curriculum was formal: grammar, logic, and rhetoric to get in, plus arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. If you survived four years, you got to study theology and philosophy. Was any of this useful academically? Only if you planned to become a bureaucrat or other functionary.
The college system was created mainly for political and social control. It gave the church and the state a formal way to screen candidates for the highest levels of the enforcement system. The university was about power most of all.
The faculties had their own goals. They wanted independence. They got it. That is why graduation ceremonies involve caps and gowns. The robes symbolize authority. The universities were a separate legal jurisdiction. The faculty members could not be removed at will by higher authorities. There was a layer of protective legality and bureaucracy in between them and the source of their funding.
This was the sweetest of all deals. The faculties screened access by their own rules. They did not have to raise their funding. They had control over the curriculum. They had control over the students. They could not be fired easily. It was the bureaucrat's dream: control without economic responsibility.
Today, it's called academic freedom. It culminates in tenure: career immunity from everything except the worst kind of moral infraction...
The faculties have the sweetest career deal on earth: comfortable income, little work (once tenured), complete control in the classroom, graduate students who teach freshmen and do research that can be appropriated by senior professors, four months of paid vacation, a paid sabbatical year one year in seven, and free faculty parking lots. They get paid to read.
In the United States, the revenue flow into higher education is in the range of $400 billion a year. This is an immense industry. What does it produce? Myths, mainly. The main one is the myth of the educated student with an inquiring, open mind. The reality is closer to Animal House.
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Progresso

•   "O progresso é precisamente aquilo não previsto pelas regras e regulamentos."
• - Ludwig von Mises
•  
• "Sem um desvio do normal, progresso é impossível."

- Frank Zappa

Aprende como pensar criticamente (critical thinking)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg&feature=player_embedded

Matemática ruinosa

Reviews
"Points to the over-reliance on financial models and quantitative techniques as what ultimately brought down the financial markets. Sure, many of us feel that we have heard enough on this topic-do we really need another book about the financial mess and how it all began? Yes, we do. . . Triana's impressive knowledge and experience allows him to dig deeper and go beyond the mere musings of his published peers."
—Risk Management Magazine"Readers of this book may make quite a lot of noise. . . Some will cheer out loud; others will yelp as cherished beliefs are torn into. At times, the book is deliberately incendiary. Triana is trying to stimulate debate. . . On the whole, this is a good read."
—The Financial Times, July 23rd 2009
"...calls for a return to "good old fashioned commonsense decision making"."
—Daily Express, June 4th 2009
"This book explains how it is that theoretical finance can fail dramatically in the real world."
—Finanace & Management Faculty, June 2009
"The book is fizzing with ideas"
—The Economist, June 29th 2009
" Triana’s book will ruffle a lot of feathers, but it also will make many readers think hard."
—BizEd
"A deeply unsettling insider account of how bogus mathematics overtook finance and was a key contributor to the financial collapse of 2008-2009 . . . With deep insight, Triana deconstructs the "pillars" of mathematical finance . . . Like Nassim Taleb, celebrated author of The Black Swan (2007), Triana is calling for major surgical reform of such business schools' curricula. An important addition to our deeper understanding of how finance must be reformed."
—Hazel Henderson, Ethical Markets
"Should the Nobel Prize for economics be abolished? That is one of the suggestions in Pablo Triana's provocative book "Lecturing Birds on Flying: Can Mathematical Theories Destroy the Markets?" . . . As Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in his witty introduction to the book, giving someone the wrong map is worse than giving them no map at all. . . a good read. Some may find the elaborate prose closer to Cervantes than to, say, Nobel Prize winner Robert Merton -- annoying. But perhaps Cervantes is the right writer to emulate when tilting at windmills. "
—LA Times
"The highlight of Triana's book is his valuable insights into the problems with mathematical economic models, which make his argument quite forceful."
—Shanghaidaily.com

Estatísticas falsas

THEODORE STURGEON, an American science-fiction writer, once observed that “95% of everything is crap”. John Ioannidis, a Greek epidemiologist, would not go that far. His benchmark is 50%. 
Veja: Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
John P. A. Ioannidis
Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science. 
 Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science

Política social

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. --George Bernard Shaw

"Imagine"

Imagine um mundo sem propriedade intelectual
Veja:
 A World Without Intellectual Property












 

Primazia do indivíduo

"Every human being is a unique individual. Any attempt to replace the personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism." -- Hermann Hesse -- Author (1877--1962)

A escola como prisão

18 Signs That Life In U.S. Public Schools Is Now Essentially Equivalent To Life In U.S. Prisons

"... life in many U.S. public schools is now essentially equivalent to life in U.S. prisons.
Most parents don't realize this, but our students have very few rights when they are in school.
Our public school students are being watched, tracked, recorded, searched and controlled like never before...
The following are 18 signs that life in our public schools is now very similar to life in our prisons....
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Os limites do Estado

Frederick Rauscher explica na Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"There is only one innate right," says Kant, "Freedom (independence from being constrained by another's choice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law". Kant rejects any other basis for the state, in particular arguing that the welfare of citizens cannot be the basis of state power. He argues that a state cannot legitimately impose any particular conception of happiness upon its citizens. To do so would be for the ruler to treat citizens as children, assuming that they are unable to understand what is truly useful or harmful to themselves.
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