"College Conspiracy" - a destruição da educação superior nos EUA

College Conspiracy is the most comprehensive documentary ever produced about higher education in the U.S. The film exposes the facts and truth about America's college education system. 'College Conspiracy' was produced over a six-month period by NIA's team of expert Austrian economists with the help of thousands of NIA members who contributed their ideas and personal stories for the film. NIA believes the U.S. college education system is a scam that turns vulnerable young Americans into debt slaves for life.
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O mito da significância estatística

“McCloskey and Ziliak have been pushing this very elementary, very correct, very important argument through several articles over several years and for reasons I cannot fathom it is still resisted. If it takes a book to get it across, I hope this book will do it. It ought to.”

—Thomas Schelling, Distinguished University Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, and 2005 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics

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Como identificar ciência ruim

http://www.ted.com Every day there are news reports of new health advice, but how can you know if they're right? Doctor and epidemiologist Ben Goldacre shows us, at high speed, the ways evidence can be distorted, from the blindingly obvious nutrition claims to the very subtle tricks of the pharmaceutical industry.

Video palestra

Argumentação

Como aprender sabedoria

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. - Confucius

Metodologia

"There is no method but to be very intelligent." -- T.S. Eliot

Enem

Você quer passar na prova do Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (Enem), obter uma excelente nota de corte e estar entre os primeiros no SiSU? Então, confira o conteúdo programático da parte de história do Enem. Fiquem ligados que existem várias faculdades e universidades públicas que utilizam parcial ou integralmente a nota do Enem. E este número tende a aumentar! Se você deseja conhecer mais sobre o Enem, clique aqui.
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O engano da redistribuição

"Muitos dos interessados na distribuição do bolo querem sobretudo o controle da faca"

Política externa americana

Guerra

A guerra do Lincoln

The Latest Update on the Costs of (Lincoln's) War

Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on May 29, 2012 02:26 PM

Since the turn of the 20th century historians have used the 620,000 number as the "official" death toll of the War to Prevent Southern Independence; 300,000 Southerners and 320,000 Northerners. In addition, at least 50,000 Southern civilians were murdered. The 620,000 figure is greater than the number of all Americans who died in all other wars combined, up to the present day. In addition, it is relevant that the population of the U.S. was about one tenth of what it is today. Thus, standardizing for today's population, it would be the equivalent of 6.2 million American war deaths in four years. The number of combatants who were maimed for life was more than double the number of deaths. In a couple of years after the war the state of Mississippi spent almost its entire state government budget on artificial limbs.
The history profession is rapidly accepting an updated number of 750,000 war deaths, however. One way to look at this shocking number is to look at it as an economist should look at it: All other nations of the world, including most of the Northern states in the U.S., found a way to end slavery peacefully in the nineteenth century, as Jim Powell documents in his book, Greatest Emancipations: How the West Abolished Slavery. Why, then, was the Republican Party the only political party in the world that abandoned the tried and true tactic of peaceful emancipation? As Powell writes on page 240 of Greatest Emancipations: "Some people have objected that the United States couldn't have bought the freedom of all the slaves, because this would have cost too much. But buying the freedom of slaves was not more expensive than war," wrote the former student of F.A. Hayek. "Nothing is more costly than war! The costs include people killed or disabled, destroyed property, high taxes inflation, military expenditures, shortages, war-related famines and epidemics—plus long-term consequences that often include more wars. The billions of dollars of Union military expenditures during the Civil War would have been better spent reducing the number of slaveholders and slaves, accelerating progress toward total emancipation."
The Official Spin by the Lincoln Cult will probably be something like this: We should revere King Lincoln even more than we do now since he must have suffered so much, knowing that all of those Americans perished during his regime.

Apresentação música pop alemã

Sociedades complexas precisam leis simples

Complex Societies Need Simple Laws

"If you have 10,000 regulations," Winston Churchill said, "you destroy all respect for law."

He was right. But Churchill never imagined a government that would add 10,000 year after
year. That's what we have in America. We have 160,000 pages of rules from the feds alone.
States and localities have probably doubled that. We have so many rules that legal specialists
can't keep up. Criminal lawyers call the rules "incomprehensible." They are. They are also "uncountable." Congress has created so many criminal offenses that the American Bar
Association says it would be futile to even attempt to estimate the total.

So what do the politicians and bureaucrats of the permanent government do? They pass
more rules.

That's not good. It paralyzes life.
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Brasil no caminho perigoso

Leandro Roque explica: "A quantidade de medidas totalitárias editadas pelo atual governo, e o ritmo em que elas são produzidas, é certamente um recorde na história da nação. Não há absolutamente uma só semana em que não haja pelo menos três notícias que explicitem a concupiscência de poder do atual governo. Ainda pior do que as medidas em si, é ver a mídia propagandeando tais medidas de maneira quase jubilosa, para não dizer exultante....

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Transformação

A mente humana

• "Men are governed by opinion; this opinion is as much influenced by appearances as by realities." -- Alexander Hamilton, letter of James Duane, September 3, 1780.

Eugenia na América

By the late 1920s, 376 American colleges were offering courses in eugenics. The army of enthusiasts included, at various times, the presidents of Yale, Harvard, Stanford, the American Museum of Natural History, and the universities of Michigan, Wisconsin, and California. State fairs also embraced the eugenic cause. Known for celebrating grand champion sows and other masterworks of animal husbandry, they now added a “human stock” section, where competitors vied for the blue ribbon in the “Fitter Families” contest. A traveling display warned, “Some people are born to be a burden on the rest,” above a light that flashed every 15 seconds to indicate that another “$100 of your money” had just gone “for the care of a person with bad heredity.”
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Mercado e moralidade

The notion that the market economy makes people greedy, selfish, and amoral is simply fallacious.
Herbert Gintis

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Guerra e o sistema de banco central

Quem ganha com "políticas públicas"

Bob Higgs explica

Keynes - o santo moderno de todos os governos

The theory of output as a whole, which is what The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state.

John Maynard Keynes

In looking at and assessing the economic paradigm of John Maynard Keynes — a man himself fixated on aggregates — we must look at the aggregate of his thought, and the aggregate of his ideology.

Keynes was not just an economist. Between 1937 and 1944 he served as the head of the Eugenics Society and once called eugenics ”the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists.” And Keynes, we should add, understood that economics was a branch of sociology. So let’s be clear: Keynes thought eugenics was more important, more significant, and more genuine than economics.

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Ron Paul's Ten Principles

Ron Paul’s Ten Principles of a Free Society

Posted on May 26, 2012 by Admin

This is the Appendix to Ron Paul’s book, Liberty Defined.

1.   Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government.

2.   All peaceful, voluntary economic and social associations are permitted; consent is the basis of the social and economic order.

3.   Justly acquired property is privately owned by individuals and voluntary groups, and this ownership cannot be arbitrarily voided by governments.

4.   Government may not redistribute private wealth or grant special privileges to any individual or group.

5.   Individuals are responsible for their own actions; government cannot and should not protect us from ourselves.

6.   Government may not claim the monopoly over a people’s money and governments must never engage in official counterfeiting, even in the name of macroeconomic stability.

7.   Aggressive wars, even when called preventative, and even when they pertain only to trade relations, are forbidden.

8.   Jury nullification, that is, the right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, is a right of the people and the courtroom norm.

9.   All forms of involuntary servitude are prohibited, not only slavery but also conscription, forced association, and forced welfare distribution.

10.  Government must obey the law that it expects other people to obey and thereby must never use force to mold behavior, manipulate social outcomes, manage the economy, or tell other countries how to behave.

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Guerra e dinheiro

"The government of the Western nations, whether monarchical or republican, had passed into the invisible hands of a plutocracy, international in power and grasp. It was, I venture to suggest, this semi-occult power which....pushed the mass of the American people into the cauldron of World War I." British military historian Major General J.F.C. Fuller, 1941

Estado, governo e a história da escravidão

Why We Couldn't Abolish Slavery Then and Can't Abolish Government Now
Robert Higgs
Slavery existed for thousands of years, in all sorts of societies and all parts of the world. To imagine human social life without it required an extraordinary effort. Yet, from time to time, eccentrics emerged to oppose it, most of them arguing that slavery is a moral monstrosity and therefore people should get rid of it. Such advocates generally elicited reactions that ranged from gentle amusement to harsh scorn and violent assault. Mais

Arguments Against the Abolition of Slavery and Arguments Against the Abolition of Government (as We Know It)

Slavery is natural.	Government (as we know it) is natural.
Slavery has always existed.	Government (as we know it) has always existed.
Every society on earth has slavery.	Every society on earth has government (as we know it)
The slaves are not capable of taking care of themselves.	The people are not capable of taking care of themselves
Without masters, the slaves will die off.	Without government (as we know it), the people will die off.
Where the common people are free, they are even worse off than slaves	Where the common people have no government (as we know it), they are much worse off (e.g., Somalia).
Getting rid of slavery would occasion great bloodshed and other evils.	Getting rid of government (as we know it) would occasion great bloodshed and other evils.
Without slavery, the former slaves would run amuck, stealing, raping, killing, and generally causing mayhem.	Without government (as we know it), the people would run amuck, stealing, raping, killing, and generally causing mayhem.
Trying to get rid of slavery is foolishly utopian and impractical; only a fuzzy-headed dreamer would advance such a cockamamie proposal.	Trying to get rid of government (as we know it) is foolishly utopian and impractical; only a fuzzy-headed dreamer would advance such a cockamamie proposal.
Forget abolition. A far better plan is to keep the slaves sufficiently well fed, clothed, housed, and occasionally entertained and to take their minds off their exploitation by encouraging them to focus on the better life that awaits them in the hereafter.	Forget anarchy. A far better plan is to keep the ordinary people sufficiently well fed, clothed, housed, and entertained and to take their minds off their exploitation by encouraging them to focus on the better life that awaits them in the hereafter.

Vergonha europeia - um poema de Günter Grass

Europas Schande
Ein Gedicht von Günter Grass
Dem Chaos nah, weil dem Markt nicht gerecht,
bist fern Du dem Land, das die Wiege Dir lieh.
Was mit der Seele gesucht, gefunden Dir galt,
wird abgetan nun, unter Schrottwert taxiert.
Als Schuldner nackt an den Pranger gestellt, leidet ein Land,
dem Dank zu schulden Dir Redensart war.
Zur Armut verurteiltes Land, dessen Reichtum
gepflegt Museen schmückt: von Dir gehütete Beute.
Die mit der Waffen Gewalt das inselgesegnete Land
heimgesucht, trugen zur Uniform Hölderlin im Tornister.
Kaum noch geduldetes Land, dessen Obristen von Dir
einst als Bündnispartner geduldet wurden.
Rechtloses Land, dem der Rechthaber Macht
den Gürtel enger und enger schnallt.
Dir trotzend trägt Antigone Schwarz und landesweit
kleidet Trauer das Volk, dessen Gast Du gewesen.
Außer Landes jedoch hat dem Krösus verwandtes Gefolge
alles, was gülden glänzt gehortet in Deinen Tresoren.
Sauf endlich, sauf! schreien der Kommissare Claqueure,
doch zornig gibt Sokrates Dir den Becher randvoll zurück.
Verfluchen im Chor, was eigen Dir ist, werden die Götter,
deren Olymp zu enteignen Dein Wille verlangt.
Geistlos verkümmern wirst Du ohne das Land,
dessen Geist Dich, Europa, erdachte.

Bankers always win

THE joke recounted by the boss of a large Italian bank is an old one, but it captures the moment. Two hikers are picnicking when a bear appears. When one laces up his boots to run, his friend scoffs that he can’t outrun a bear. The shod hiker retorts that it is not the bear he needs to outrun, merely his fellow hiker. “We’re sitting at the picnic with our boots still on,” says the bank boss.
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Um milagre justicial brasileiro aconteceu

Fazer cópia de CD ou livro para uso próprio deixará de ser crime

Cópia integral de uma obra para uso pessoal, desde que não tenha objetivo de lucro, será descriminalizada; atualmente, a pena por essa conduta pode chegar a 4 anos

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Transformação do mercado dos livres de texto

May 21 (Reuters) - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers Inc, whose textbooks have been a staple in American schoolhouses for decades, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday after agreeing with creditors to eliminate $3.1 billion of debt.
The "pre-packaged" bankruptcy would give control of Houghton Mifflin to its lenders.
It comes as cash-strapped state and local governments defer or cancel education-related purchases, reducing demand for textbooks for students from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Traditional book publishers also face pressure from the online availability of published material, including e-books.
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Um experimento fatal

The Soviet Union lasted as a socialist worker's paradise from 1917 until 1991. As a direct result of that experiment, at least 30 million Russians died. It may have been twice that. China's experiment was shorter: 1949 to 1978. Perhaps 60 million Chinese died.
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Notas sobre a III. Conferência de Escola Austríaca no Brasil

"Épico!", disse um participante ao final do evento. "Inesquecível!", acrescentou outro. "Quando você chora na palestra do Tucker e não é chamada de maluca, você sabe que está entre irmãos", confessou uma participante. "Emocionante mesmo", concluiu mais um. "Surreal", finalizou outro.
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Chamada de artigos

É com imensa satisfação que informamos, neste momento, a abertura da chamada de trabalhos para a primeira edição da revista Prelúdios, organizada e mantida pelos estudantes da Pós-Graduação em Ciências Sociais da Universidade Federal da Bahia (PPGCS/UFBA). Convidamos todos os interessados em enviar entrevistas, resenhas ou artigos científicos à revista Prelúdios para que visitem a nossa página no www.revistapreludios.com.br, onde estão apresentadas todas as informações necessárias à submissão de trabalhos. O fechamento do prazo para o recebimento das propostas destinadas à primeira edição ocorrerá no dia 23/06/2012.

Linha Editorial

Com periodicidade semestral e publicação digital, a revista Prelúdios está aberta ao recebimento de entrevistas, artigos e resenhas inéditos de caráter científico – ou seja, resultantes de pesquisa, seja ela empírica ou teórica – na área de Ciências Sociais. Seus números serão identificados por temáticas, as quais poderão ser definidas antes ou depois do fechamento do grupo de trabalhos.

A chamada de artigos da Revista Prelúdios está permanentemente aberta, restando ao conselho editorial o direito de definir, a cada semestre, uma data para a reunião definitiva dos trabalhos que farão parte do número seguinte. Após esta etapa, as contribuições serão submetidas a parecer para publicação no próximo número.

Um país cada vez mais evangélico

O pastor Ricardo Godim (foto), 54, da Igreja Betesda, escreveu em seu blog que precisou refletir por 15 anos para tomar coragem de modo a  expressar, agora, o seu temor de que o Brasil se torne “crente”, que é o sonho, disse, do “subgrupo do cristianismo e do protestantismo conhecido como movimento evangélico”.

Leia mais em http://www.paulopes.com.br/2011/02/pastor-escreve-deus-nos-livre-de-um.html#ixzz1veRb0MUc
Reprodução deste texto só poderá ser feita com o crédito e link da origem.

A grande transformação da educação superior

In the coming decade, emerging technologies will thoroughly transform higher education. Although distance learning and computer-assisted education have been around since the 1960s, financial pressures are forcing institutions to develop aggressive online programs.
When education goes online, how professors teach, what students learn and how institutions are structured will change significantly.
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Teste sua acuidade mental

Para testar a sua acuidade mental, responda às seguintes perguntas (não espreitar as respostas!):
To test your mental acuity, answer the following questions (no peeking at the answers!):
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Nova revista acadêmica

Studia Humana

Studia Humana  is a new English language journal. It is a multi-disciplinary peer reviewed journal publishing contributions on any aspect of human sciences such as political economy, sociology, political science and philosophy. The editors invite the submission of articles, book reviews, discussions, responses, and notices from professional scientists. It is particularly interested in publishing contributions by new authors who pursue their academic development. One of the objectives of SH is the provision of a suitable platform for the discussion in all areas of human sciences beyond the limits of Western-centrism, with emphasis on problems of post-Socialist European states and ideas marginal to mainstream. The editorial board includes Steve Horwitz, Walter Block, and Jesús Huerta de Soto.

A ética do mercado livre

The Left has seized on our economic troubles as an excuse to “blame the rich guy” and paint a picture of capitalism and the free market as selfish, greedy, and cruel. Democrats in Congress and “Occupy” protesters across the country assert that the free market is not only unforgiving, it’s morally corrupt. According to President Obama and his allies, only by allowing the government to heavily control and regulate business and by redistributing the wealth can we ensure fairness and compassion.

Exactly the opposite is true, says Father Robert A. Sirico in his thought–provoking new book, The Moral Case for a Free Economy. Father Sirico argues that a free economy actually promotes charity, selflessness, and kindness. And in The Moral Case for a Free Economy, he shows why free-market capitalism is not only the best way to ensure individual success and national prosperity but is also the surest route to a moral and socially–just society. In The Moral Case for a Free Economy, Father Sirico shows:Why we can’t have freedom without a free economy and why the best way to help the poor is to a start a businessWhy charity works—but welfare doesn’tHow Father Sirico himself converted from being a leftist colleague of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden to recognizing the merits of a free economyIn this heated presidential election year, the Left will argue that capitalism may produce winners, but it is cruel and unfair. But as Sirico proves in The Moral Case for a Free Economy, capitalism does not simply provide opportunity for material success, but it ensures a more ethical and moral society as well.
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Maximize o seu poder intelectual

Train Your Brain for Monk-Like Focus

The moment you get effortlessly lost in work goes by any number of names: focus, concentration, escapism, flow, and countless others. It's the point where you're able to blur the world around you and calibrate your brain to pay attention to one single task. It's your sweet spot. It's when you Get Things Done. Your entire cognitive effort is concentrated on one task and when you're in that moment the outside world disappears.
We all struggle to maintain focus in our daily lives. Endless distractions keep our brains from focusing on a task as we struggle to get things done at work and complete projects around the house. But what's actually happening in your brain when you're lost in a project? And more importantly, how can you train to induce that focused state in yourself?
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Trabalhando no Wall Street

“I wanted to be a somebody in the eyes of myself and others,” he wrote on the blog Wall Street Oasis. “But most of all, I wanted money. Why? Because money is freedom. Money means I can wear what I want, live where I want, go where I want, eat what I want, be who I want. Money would make me happy. Right?”
Wrong. Ridley explains: “In fact, money didn’t seem to make any of the bankers happy. Not one person in the roughly 200 I got to know in banking were happy. Yet all earned multiples of the national average salary.”
He then explained why he was so unhappy. “Like everyone there, I worked my ass to the bone, working mind-numbingly boring work,” he continued. “15 hour days were a minimum, 16-17 were normal, 20+ were frequent and once or twice a month there would be the dreaded all-nighter. I worked around 2 out of every 4 weekends in some form. I was never free, I always had my blackberry with me, and thus I could never truly detach myself from the job.”
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O fim da educação como sabemos

Is College’s Stone Age About to End? 
By Mark C. Taylor 
 Excessive specialization has created a culture of expertise that has distorted higher education and had a negative impact on faculty members, students and the broader society.
While global transportation, communications and information technologies have created interconnection, academic disciplines and fields have, paradoxically, become more fragmented and isolated. Universities boast of their global expansion and vision, but they are mostly siloed institutions ill-adapted to a networked world.
While academic specialization has long been decried and ridiculed, insufficient attention has been paid to the influence that narrowly defined research has had on undergraduate teaching and the structure of colleges and universities. With online education taking off at traditional institutions, the hope is that learning breaks out of these cocoons. But as we have already discovered in the political arena, increased connectivity can create new divisions that deepen social discord. The rise of online learning may create more rifts in fields and curricula, or it may reorganize higher education for the better.
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Historia europeia

Veja a história europeia territorial desde o ano 1000 AD em menos de quatro minutos. 
http://www.malgusto.com/video/54192/timelapse-mapa-Europa-desde-1000-dc-hasta-ahora.html

O lado oculto do dólar americana

What's All That Creepy Occult Stuff
On our money?

This video examines and reveals various secrets held by the highest ranking members of the world's secret society networks including the freemasonic "illuminati" or "enlightened ones". Symbology has a very high emphasis among such groups as they respect and understand the power they hold in affecting the world around us.

The American dollar bill is packed full of occultic significance all of which is explained such as the language used, the pyramid, the all seeing eye, the numerology and the owl of moloch. The Bohemian Grove is also briefly discussed given the connection it has with the very same pagan deity being worshipped by some of the world's leading and most powerful politicians, industrialists and media moguls. Excerpts were taken from a lecture given by researcher and historian Jordan Maxwell. (7:38)
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Uma leitura obrigatória

Ludwig von Mises
O cálculo econômico sob o socialismo 

Prefácio de Yuri Maltsev

O século XX testemunhou o surgimento, o desenvolvimento e o colapso do mais trágico experimento da história humana: o socialismo.  Esse experimento resultou em monstruosas perdas humanas, na destruição de economias potencialmente ricas e em colossais desastres ecológicos.  Tal experimento (teoricamente) acabou, mas a devastação continuará afetando a vida e a saúde das inúmeras gerações vindouras.
Mas a verdadeira tragédia desse experimento é que Ludwig von Mises e seus seguidores — dentre as melhores mentes econômicas deste século — já haviam desmascarado e explicitado toda a realidade do socialismo ainda em 1920.  Entretanto, o alerta deles foi completamente ignorado.
No presente ensaio, "O Cálculo Econômico sob o Socialismo", Mises examina as alegações mais fundamentais do marxismo.  Ao fazer isso, Mises expõe o socialismo como sendo um esquema que, além de utópico, é ilógico, antieconômico e impraticável em sua essência.  Ele é "impossível" e destinado ao fracasso porque é desprovido da fundamentação lógica da economia; o socialismo não fornece meio algum para se fazer qualquer cálculo econômico objetivo — o que, por conseguinte, impede que os recursos sejam alocados em suas aplicações mais produtivas.  Em 1920, entretanto, o entusiasmo pelo socialismo era tão forte, principalmente entre os intelectuais ocidentais, que esta pequena e perspicaz obra-prima de Mises não apenas não foi compreendida, como também foi deliberadamente distorcida pelos seus críticos.
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"Ineptocracy" - O sistema do governo mais popular

Chamada de artigos

A revista Socitec e-prints convida professores e alunos de pós-graduação a enviar artigos e resenhas para a publicação de nossos próximos volumes.

A revista on-line do Grupo de Pesquisa Sociedade, Ciência e Técnica (SOCITEC) aceita artigos na área de Sociologia e áreas afins sob os seguintes temas:

- A sócio-gênese da técnica;

- Agir técnico, modernidade e racionalização;

- Novas tecnologias e suas consequências sociais;

- Filosofia da técnica;

- Antropologia da técnica;

- Técnica e ciência;

- A contingência da técnica e sociedade de risco;

- Técnica e ética;

- Desenvolvimento social e técnicas sustentáveis;

- Políticas públicas em ciência e tecnologia.

Os trabalhos serão submetidos à Comissão Editorial que avaliará seu enquadramento na linha editorial da revista, que reserva-se o direito de publicar ou não o material espontaneamente enviado à redação. Os artigos devem ser enviados para: gruposocitec@gmail.com. 

 

Prazo para envio (para a edição jan-jul/2012): 15 de junho.

Maiores informações: http://www.socitec.pro.br/publicacoes/socitec-e-prints/.

Descubra sua orientação política

O grupo apartidário Estudantes Pela Liberdade (EPL) lançou na internet o Diagrama de Nolan, esquema que ajuda as pessoas a descobrirem suas tendências ideológicas com base nas respostas dadas num questionário.
O questionário é simples e direto, composto por 10 frases divididas nas áreas de "Questões Civis" e "Questões econômicas", onde o participante pode opinar se concorda, discorda ou "talvez" diante do que foi colocado.
David Nolan - Cientista político formado pelo Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), o libertário David Nolan acreditava que o modelo de representação que considera apenas a esquerda e a direita não é eficiente o bastante.
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Test

A cirse da educação superior

Private universities with large endowments often start the cycle. Schools such as Harvard University and New York University, for example, take on billion-dollar debts. In a trickle-down effect, less affluent schools also feel pressure to borrow and spend -- money they do not have.

Gaming the System

This is not the only cause of financial difficulties, but it makes them worse. Richard Kneedler, who was president of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania for 14 years,estimated in 2009 that an astonishing two-thirds of the 700 private colleges he studied were at risk of financial failure.
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Medo por nada

Leia como políticos e a prensa exageram e inventam riscos e perigos que não existem.

Immer wieder verursachen sie uns schlaflose Nächte: aufgeregte Meldungen über erhöhte Dioxinwerte in Eiern, genetisch veränderte Pflanzen oder krebserregende Stoffe in Babyschnullern. Doch was steckt wirklich hinter den Gefahren, vor denen uns die Panikmaschinerie so eindringlich warnt? Walter Krämer deckt auf: Oft genug sitzen wir einer Berichterstattung auf, die statistische Daten verzerrt oder verkürzt darstellt. So entpuppt sich eine erhöhte Pestizidbelastung bei Obst und Gemüse zumeist als harmlos. Schließlich sind 99 Prozent der Giftstoffe biologischen Ursprungs, und die Belastung durch chemische Rückstände beträgt lediglich ein Prozent. Wer es schafft, sich von solchen falschen Ängsten zu befreien, wird der nächsten Massenhysterie erfolgreich widerstehen. Dieses Buch zeigt, wie es geht. Mais

Inovação na educação superior

Innovation in Higher Education

By Peter G. Klein

Wednesday,May16th,2012

I posted last week on Organizations and Markets about the tepid,and entirely predictable, reaction of the higher education establishment to the information technology revolution. Mainline universities loudly proclaim their love of online learning — and pedagogical innovation more generally — while doing everything possible to retard it. The strategy has been to make a few easy, low-cost, conservative moves that preserve the status quo, such as putting some existing courses online, while trying to suppress the innovative outsiders like Phoenix, DeVry, TED, Kahn Academy, etc. It’s a classic example of what Clayton Christensen calls sustaining innovation — incremental changes that keep the existing market structure intact. The last thing the higher-ed establishment wants is disruptive innovation that challenges its dominant incumbent position.
As Morgan Brown wrote earlier this year, universities are guilds, and it’s this organizational structure, not bad leadership or the wrong ideology, that underlies the universities’ hostility to markets. If there is fundamental reform, it will surely come from outside the guild system, not within it. It’s great that Harvard and MIT and other elite universities are offering some classes online. But look instead to bolder experiments like the Mises Academy — not a duplicate of the standard degree program, but a modular, flexible, focused approach to teaching Austrian economics and related subjects. Call it guerrilla teaching. Let’s see where this new movement can go!
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A maior revolução de todas

Gen LaGreca explica:
"... Without any middlemen or gatekeepers, with virtually no costs involved, and with self-marketing possible through social media and other Internet channels, electronic publishing is creating a robust market for new writers and books. For example, one novelist who was unable to find an agent or publisher has self-published two of her novels on Kindle. With her books priced at $2.99 and with a 70 percent royalty from Kindle, she earns approximately $2 per book. She is selling 55 books per day, or 20,000 books per year, which amounts to sales of $60,000 and royalties to her of $40,000. (As a simple comparison, without getting into the complexities of book contracts, this author might earn a royalty of approximately 10 percent from a traditional publisher, which would require her to achieve sales of $400,000 to earn as much money as she does self-publishing on Kindle.) Other authors are doing even better, including two self-published novelists who have become members of the Kindle Million Club in copies sold. These writers started with nothing — they were not among the favored few selected by agents and trade publishers, and they had no publicists or book tours — yet, thanks to electronic publishing, they are making a living, with some achieving stunning success.
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Leia também: A internet e o futuro da liberadade

Leitura obrigatória

Étienne de La Boétie
O Discurso da Servidão Voluntária
Discours de la servitude volontaireTradução de Laymert Garcia dos Santos
Introdução de Murray N. Rothbard
Tradução de Fernando Fiori Chiocca
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Como acontece um colapso monetário?

Víedo apresentação: How money dies

O que está por trás do sistema monetário moderno?

THE MONEY MASTERS is a historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned "central" bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.

If you like this film, please share it with a friend and support the makers by purchasing a full quality DVD here
http://www.themoneymasters.com/430-2/

NEW - Secret of Oz DVD (Updated version of The Money Masters)
http://www.themoneymasters.com/430-2/

Intervencionismo governamental não faz sentido

Brian Caplan explica:
"... For example, we spend trillions fighting terrorism, but mere billions reducing traffic fatalities. And the reason isn't that terrorism readily responds to money, while traffic fatalities don't. We spend 10% of our budget helping relatively poor Americans, but use the Coast Guard to prevent Haitians from sailing here to shine shoes to save their starving kids. Again, the reason isn't that cash is a panacea for relative American poverty, or that Haitian immigration doesn't put food on Haitian kids' tables. Once you make a token effort to suppress your Just World bias, actually existing government intervention looks incredibly arbitrary...."
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Democracia brasileira em ação

Senado decide não divulgar salários de funcionários

Para diretora-geral da Casa, vencimentos dos servidores devem ser uma informação protegida

Lisandra Paraguassu, da Agência Estado

BRASÍLIA - O salários dos servidores do Senado estão a salvo da Lei de Acesso à Informação Pública. A mesa diretora aprovou nesta quarta-feira, 16, um ato que regulamenta o processo de acesso às informações produzidas pela Casa, mas a diretora-geral, Doris Marize Peixoto, deixou claro que o Senado vê o vencimentos dos funcionários como uma informação protegida.
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Estudar para aprender nada

Report: First two years of college show small gains

 By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

Nearly half of the nation's undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college, in large part because colleges don't make academics a priority, a new report shows.

Instructors tend to be more focused on their own faculty research than teaching younger students, who in turn are more tuned in to their social lives, according to the report, based on a book titled Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Findings are based on transcripts and surveys of more than 3,000 full-time traditional-age students on 29 campuses nationwide, along with their results on the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test that gauges students' critical thinking, analytic reasoning and writing skills.

After two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36% showed little change.

Students also spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago, the research shows.

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Educação superior na América

19 Things That All High School Students Should Be Told Before They Go To College
"... If we would just be honest with our high school students ahead of time, it would save many of them a whole lot of pain later.
Higher education is not necessarily a bad thing. But these days when it comes to higher education the goal should be to get as much for your money as you possibly can. You don't want to end up spending four years of your life and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a degree in "art history" or "political science".
If you are going to get a college degree, choose a field that will actually advance your career and try to spend as little as you can. Unless you have wealthy parents who can pay for it all, the goal should be to make as big of a profit on your education as possible.
Unfortunately, most young Americans are not told the truth and they end up falling for the scam and many of them end up as debt slaves for decades.
The following are 19 things that all high school students should be told before they go to college....
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Greve na UFS

Casamento gay

Gay Marriage, Like All Marriage, Not Worth Celebrating

Beware of governments granting the "right" to enter onerous lifelong contracts.

Thaddeus Russell | May 16, 2012

"... The idea that the state should promote, sanction, and regulate monogamous relationships gained currency in the 16th century as a reaction to Europe’s first sexual revolution. Public, group, and what we now call homosexual sex were commonplace, prostitution was rampant and generally unpunished, pornographic books and pamphlets were widely popular, and laws against adultery and divorce went unenforced. Martin Luther and other leaders of the Protestant Reformation seized upon marriage as a means though which to curb unchristian freedoms and bring about social order..."
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Leis e corrupção

Brasil na vista de estrangeiros

Uma avaliação de dois participantes da III. Conferência da Escola Austríaca no Brasil
http://lfb.org/today/brazil-and-the-spirit-of-liberty/
http://dailyreckoning.com/author/joelbowman/

Os benefícios da gordura

Bring back butter... and cheese, red meat and whole milk! How our low-fat obsession may harm our health, says nutritionist

By Zoe Harcombe

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2143477/Bring-butter--cheese-red-meat-milk-How-low-fat-obsession-harm-health-says-nutritionist.html#ixzz1v436LTOf

Conferência da Escola Austríaca EUA 2013

Austrian Scholars Conference 2013

March 21-23 2013

Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama

REGISTER HERE!

(Students use the scholarship application form at the end of this page.)

The Austrian Scholars Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, and for scholars interested or working in this intellectual tradition, it is the event of the year. The director of the conference is Joseph Salerno of Pace University.
Over the course of three full days, the Austrian Scholars Conference offers presentations on economics, history, philosophy, and the humanities, in addition to named lectures by the leaders in the field. It combines all the opportunities of a professional meeting, with the added attraction of hearing and presenting new and innovative research, engaging in vigorous debate, and interacting with like-minded scholars who share research interests.
Papers and panels cover a wide range of fields that impact on the Austrian paradigm, including: monetary theory; international trade; money and banking; methodology; history of thought; economic history; business cycles; geography; interventionism; literature; political philosophy; philosophy of science; society, culture, and religion; business regulation; environmental political economy; and history and theory of war.
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Sistema monetário-financeiro

"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages...will bear its burden without complaint, and perhaps without suspecting that the system is inimical to their best interests." -- Rothschild Brothers of London communique' to associates in New York June 25, 1863

Concurso de Ensaio Hayek

Instituto Liberdade 11 de Maio de 2012 09:29 Hayek Essay Contest 2012/Mont Pelerin Society:Announcing MPS Essay Contest for ages 35 and younger on F.A. Hayek and free banking with $5,000 in total prize money for top 3 essays and travel grants to 2012 MPS General Meeting in Prague! read more @ http://www.il-rs.org.br/ingles/info/det_event.php?recordID=192 http://www.il-rs.org.br/ingles/info/det_event.php?recordID=192 www.il-rs.org.br

Darwinismo em uma palávra

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." -- Charles Darwin

Educação do estado-babá

Schools are deliberately failing to correct spelling errors to avoid 'damaging pupils' self esteem'

• Teachers 'told to correct no more than three mistakes in one piece of work' because 'too much red pen is discouraging'
• MP has called for Commons debate on what he calls 'false kindness' - but refuses to name offending school
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Escolas privadas para os pobres

Private Schools for the Poor

All across the developing world, from Ghana to Pakistan to China, poor parents are turning away from public schools and investing their meager incomes in low-cost private education for their children—and seeing positive results. 

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Transmissão ao vivo

A III Conferência de Escola Austríaca realizado pelo IMB terá transmissão ao vivo a partir deste sábado, 12 de maio, às 9 horas da manhã. Peter Schiff, Jeffrey Tucker, Walter Block, Philipp Bagus, Helio Beltrão, Ubiratan Iorio, Antony Mueller, José Manuel Moreira e Fabio Barbieri fornecerão explicações sólidas para os fenômenos econômicos da atualidade. Após o enorme sucesso de suas duas conferências anteriores, o IMB fará esta sua terceira conferência com a certeza de que será a melhor e mais completa de todas.
O link para a transmissão ao vivo do evento será disponibilizado em breve.
E clique aqui para acompanhar a programação e não perder nenhuma palestra.
Link para transmissão ao vivo:
http://wm02.mediaservices.ws/cmembuguacuon1-live

III. Conferência de Escola Austríaca no Brasil

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Conferência sobre a Escola Austríaca na Argentina

Áudio do "Triunfo do estado-babá"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE4nOTgatgo&feature=youtu.be
via Dillon

Avaliação do banco central como instituição

The Ultimate Disorganizing Organization
Mises Daily: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 by Peter G. Klein
"... In the remarks below I evaluate the Federal Reserve System — and the institution of central banking more generally — from the perspective of an organizational economist. While I strongly disagree with many of the key policies of the Federal Reserve Board both before and after the financial crisis and Great Recession, my argument does not focus on particular actions taken by this or that chair and board. The problem is not that the Fed has made some mistakes — perhaps addressed by restating its statutory mandate, scrutinizing its behavior more carefully, and so on — but that the very institution of a central monetary authority is inherently destabilizing and harmful to entrepreneurship and economic growth..."
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Estado-babá

Antony P. Mueller:O triunfo do estado-babá

Entre a multidão das etiquetas que foram inventadas para caracterizar o moderno sistema político poucos aparecem mais adequadas que chamar o estado moderno “estado-babá”. Capitalismo, imperialismo, estado de bem-estar, estado de guerra – cada um dessas características cabe mais ou …

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Sociologia da tecnologia

The historian of science Thomas Kuhn used to advise his students to read the books and papers of the past not for their insights into present-day science but, to the contrary, to notice what was strange about them. Those puzzling ideas, he believed, could reveal the hidden and deep assumptions of their age.
The same may apply to the technology and commerce of the past. And few of its innovations seem odder today than the smoking lounge on the airship Hindenburg, which caught fire upon landing at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey on May 6, 1937.
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Hoje celebramos o aniversário de Hayek

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A pretensão de conhecimento

O texto clássico não apenas para nosso tempo, mas sim para todos os tempos
Friedrich A. Hayek: A Pretensão de Conhecimento.
Palestra em ocasião do seu recebimento do Nobel de economia:
Leia com atenção

A natureza dos governos

H.L. Mencken:

"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods."

Duolingo

With Duolingo you learn a language for free,
and simultaneously translate the Web.
http://duolingo.com/

Inovação? Assim não!

Ronaldo Lemos: Inpi deve atrasar inovação no Brasil

DE SÃO PAULO

O Brasil anda capenga em inovação. E pode ficar pior por causa do Inpi (o Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial) responsável pelo registro de marcas e patentes. Ele quer que o país passe a aceitar patentes de software. Hoje a proteção é feita por direito autoral, seguindo regra da OMC.
"Usar patentes para software é quase como matar mosca com bomba atômica", diz Ronaldo Lemos, colunista da "Ilustrada".
Segundo o colunista, as patentes engessam o sistema e condenam o país ao atraso.
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Aniversário - 5 de Maio

Karl Heinrich Marx (Tréveris, 5 de maio de 1818
fundador da doutrina comunista moderna ...Durante a vida de Marx, suas ideias receberam pouca atenção de outros estudiosos. Talvez o maior interesse tenha se verificado na Rússia, onde, em 1872, foi publicada a primeira tradução do Tomo I d'O Capital.--

Veja o resultado:

Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished in this farming area, known as the breadbasket of Europe, with the people deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands.
…beginning in 1929, over 5,000 Ukrainian scholars, scientists, cultural and religious leaders were arrested after being falsely accused of plotting an armed revolt. Those arrested were either shot without a trial or deported to prison camps in remote areas of Russia.
Some researchers estimate that ten million persons were thrown out of their homes, put on railroad box cars and deported to "special settlements" in the wilderness of Siberia during this era, with up to a third of them perishing amid the frigid living conditions. Men and older boys, along with childless women and unmarried girls, also became slave-workers in Soviet-run mines.

By the end of 1933, nearly 25 percent of the population of the Ukraine, including three million children, had perished. The Kulaks as a class were destroyed and an entire nation of village farmers had been laid low...

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Educação para todos

Education for Everyone.

We offer courses from the top universities, for free.
Learn from world-class professors, watch high quality lectures, achieve mastery via interactive exercises, and collaborate with a global community of students.
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Reajuste de bolsas de mestrado e doutroado

Bolsas de mestrado e doutorado terão reajuste de 10%

Valor estava congelado havia quatro anos; mestrando ganhará R$ 1.320 e doutorando, R$ 1.980

Carlos Lordelo e Cristiane Nascimento, do Estadão.edu

As bolsas pagas pelo governo federal a estudantes de pós-graduação stricto sensu sofrerão um reajuste de 10% a partir de 1.º de julho. Os valores estavam congelados havia quatro anos. Os mestrandos passarão a receber R$ 1.320 mensais e os doutorandos, R$ 1.980.
Em janeiro também deve ocorrer uma correção na bolsa para repor inflação. Ainda não está definido se será considerado todo o período sem reajuste ou apenas o ano de 2012.

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Revolução educacional

The Campus Tsunami

By DAVID BROOKS

This week, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology committed $60 million to offer free online courses from both universities. Two Stanford professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, have formed a company, Coursera, which offers interactive courses in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics and engineering. Their partners include Stanford, Michigan, Penn and Princeton. Many other elite universities, including Yale and Carnegie Mellon, are moving aggressively online. President John Hennessy of Stanford summed up the emerging view in an article by Ken Auletta in The New Yorker, “There’s a tsunami coming.”
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Vida

‎"The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing." -- St Thomas Aquinas

A chave para a felicidade individual e o bem-estar social

Veja a palestra do Rory Sutherland sobre a importância de "reframing".
http://www.ted.com The circumstances of our lives may matter less than how we see them, says Rory Sutherland. At TEDxAthens, he makes a compelling case for how reframing is the key to happiness.

Veja no fim da palestra as referências a praxeologia.

III. Conferência de Escola Austríaca no Brasil

Mais informações

O que passou na Ucrànica em 1932-33?

The Ukrainian Famine 1932–1933

The death toll from famine in the Soviet Union at this time is estimated at between 5 and 10 million people. The worst crop failure of late tsarist Russia, in 1892, had caused 375,000 to 400,000 deaths. Most modern scholars agree that the famine was caused by the policies of the government of the Soviet Union under Stalin, rather than by natural reasons. According to Alan Bullock, "the total Soviet grain crop was no worse than that of 1931 ... it was not a crop failure but the excessive demands of the state, ruthlessly enforced, that cost the lives of as many as five million Ukrainian peasants." Stalin refused to release large grain reserves that could have alleviated the famine, while continuing to export grain; he was convinced that the Ukrainian peasants had hidden grain away and strictly enforced draconian new collective-farm theft laws in response.
Professor Michael Ellman concludes that Ukrainians were victims of genocide in 1932–33 according to a more relaxed definition that is favored by some specialists in the field of genocide studies. He asserts that Soviet policies greatly exacerbated the famine's death toll. Although 1.8 million tonnes of grain were exported during the height of the starvation – enough to feed 5 million people for one year – the use of torture and execution to extract grain under the Law of Spikelets, the use of force to prevent starving peasants from fleeing the worst-affected areas, and the refusal to import grain or secure international humanitarian aid to alleviate conditions led to incalculable human suffering in the Ukraine.
Current estimates on the total number of casualties within Soviet Ukraine range mostly from 2.2 million to 4 to 5 million.

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