Jonathan Brun

Great Goals, Great Peril

Video of JFK Above Found Here

The Great goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him home safely was born out of fear, but gave America its wings to overcome the Soviet Union.

Great article in the NY Times

Since Apollo 11, the missions to space have been of ever decreasing glory. Though notable in the scientific achievement, they fail to grasp the world and make us look, uin unison, towards the heavens and say “We can”.

The sad state of the United States foreign policy will likely drain prestige from their empire, resources from their nation and put pressure on their debt and currency. The catalyst with may possibly re-awaken America is the successful lunar mission by one of the three nations who have announced suich plans: China, India and Japan – all by 2020.

Just as September 11th woke America up to the Islamic world, space exploration by another nation will wake America from their descent into complacency, lack of investment in non-military technology and political apathy.

You need a very powerful electric prod to move a cow.

The History of Oil

A very interesting way of presenting the history of oil. 45 minutes long, but worth it.

Micro-Finance, the way of the future

Just read this book. Amazing. I cried. It is the way of the future.

Micro-Finance empowers the very poor with small loans to help them overcome their cycle of just having enough money to feed themselves, and not enough to save and invest in their activities or children.

The website www.kiva.org has just got a ton of press in the past few day (oprah, SVN…) (i just gave it more). The site allows you to directly loan small amounts of money to people around the world who are trying to improve their lives. This is taking micro-loans and opening it up even more, make the market more liquid and the community more global.

I have been watching the site for while and they seem to have a good set-up.

What I love about micro-finance is that it is based on the same logic as open-source technologies and collaborative work.

Some of the features are

• Strict rules: repayment in one year with weekly payments
• This is similar to strong rules set by central body of programmers who do open source software
• Easy way to identify delinquencies
• Groups are made of 5 people, the first two must complete half their loan before two more in the group receive theirs.
• This reduces the work of enforcing loans as they pretty much self-enforce themselves. This is much like wikipedia or linux where people in the community weed out the useless individuals without the intervention of the central body
• Anyone can participate – no collateral needed
• Primarily focused towards women – who are more honest and better at managing money (among other things)
• Scalable and applicable anywhere in the world – even the industrialized world
• People get bigger and bigger loans upon completion of their previous loans

Great stuff, really, run out and get the book.

The French, the English and the Ugly

Interesting debate on billingualism on Québec. Full Thread here on facebook.

The Original Post:

«On est une province bilingue, qui va de plus en plus vers trilingue, quadrilingue. Donc, je pense que c’est important de parler autant en anglais qu’en français, deux langues qui sont égales, qui sont reconnues au Québec» – François Beaudry, président de la Commission jeunesse du PLQ

Êtes-vous d’accord ou pas en accord avec cette position ?
Bon débat respectueux tout le monde. Nous ferons un effort de modération afin de ne pas personnaliser le débat…

And My Reply:

Let me try to address this. I am bilingual, Quebecois and Canadian. Dire que le Québec est le Québec parce qu’on parle le français n’est simplement pas vrai. Yes, we share a common language and by extension a common culture – colloquialisms, musicians, writers, and leaders.

Mais, ce qui nous tient ensemble est nos valeurs, notamment le libéralisme. Essaie de trouver en Amérique du Nord une joie de vivre comme celle de Montréal, la ville de Québec ou les petites villes à travers le Québec.

We cannot draw a line in the sand and say Quebecers are francophone the others are not. This smacks of racism and fear. In a globalized, connected world, he who segregates himself gets crushed – not the other way around. We must be open to cultures and languages, not try to tell people which ones are good and which ones belong overseas.

Sans la loi 101, je crois qu’il est très probable que la langue française aura été reléguée aux petits villages. Cela dite, il faut éviter les abus tels que les contraventions contre les entreprises au Chinatown qui ont leurs affiches en chinois ou les Anglophones qui ne peuvent pas communiquer avec leurs médecins en anglais.

Le français est une langue incroyable et nous ne devons pas insulter les anglophones pour le faire croître.

By including people of all backgrounds into Quebec society, we will create something much stronger than any uni-lingual society. Oui, français en premier, mais anglais comme deuxième langue officielle. Nous avons laissé tomber la société décrite dans “Two Solitudes” de Hugh MacLennan et il ne faut jamais retourner.

Si on respectait vraiment la langue officielle du territoire québécois, nous parlerions tous l’abénaki, algonquin, attikamek, cri, inuktitut, micmac, mohawk, montagnais et naskapi.

“If we unite, we will form a political nationality independent of the national origin and religion of individuals.” — 1865 George-Étienne Cartier

Cordialement,

Jonathan Olivier Brun

Donc, je suis d’accord avec François.

Interesting debate on billingualism on Québec. Full thread here on facebook.

The Original Post:

«On est une province bilingue, qui va de plus en plus vers trilingue, quadrilingue. Donc, je pense que c’est important de parler autant en anglais qu’en français, deux langues qui sont égales, qui sont reconnues au Québec» – François Beaudry, président de la Commission jeunesse du PLQ

Êtes-vous d’accord ou pas avec cette position ?
Bon débat respectueux tout le monde. Nous ferons un effort de modération afin de ne pas personnaliser le débat…

And My Reply:

Let me try to address this. I am bilingual, Quebecois and Canadian. Dire que le Québec est le Québec parce qu’on parle le français n’est simplement pas vrai. Yes, we share a common language and by extension a common culture – colloquialisms, musicians, writers, and leaders.

Mais, ce qui nous tient ensemble est nos valeurs, notamment le libéralisme. Difficile de trouver en Amérique du Nord une joie de vivre comme celle de Montréal, la ville de Québec ou les petites villes à travers le Québec.

We cannot draw a line in the sand and say Quebecers are francophone the others are not. This smacks of racism and fear. In a globalized, connected world, he who segregates himself gets crushed – not the other way around. We must be open to cultures and languages, not try to tell people which ones are good and which ones belong overseas.

Sans la loi 101, je crois qu’il est très probable que la langue française serait reléguée aux petits villages. Cela dit, il faut éviter les abus tels que les contraventions contre les entreprises au Chinatown qui ont leurs affiches en chinois ou les Anglophones qui ne peuvent pas communiquer avec leur médecin en anglais.

Le français est une belle langue et il n’est pas necessaire de contraindre les anglophone pour la faire croître.

By including people of all backgrounds into Quebec society, we will create something much stronger than an uni-lingual society. Oui, français en premier, mais anglais comme deuxième langue officielle. Nous avons laissé tomber la société décrite dans “Two Solitudes” de Hugh MacLennan et il ne faut jamais y retourner.

Si on respectait vraiment la langue officielle du territoire québécois, nous parlerions tous l’abénaki, l’algonquin, l’attikamek, le cri, l’inuktitut, le micmac, le mohawk, le montagnais et le naskapi.

“If we unite, we will form a political nationality independent of the national origin and religion of individuals.” — 1865 George-Étienne Cartier

Cordialement,

Jonathan Olivier Brun

Anarchy Today

Building on the debate in the previous post. Chomsky’s dream of a “free” society is actually emerging via the internet. Just read the book Wikinomics in which the authors argue that mass collaboration is the way of the future. Some of that collaboration is free and other is paid. The point is that people are being liberated from their life commitment to a company.

With increased education, increased access to information and amazing communication tools – the socialist anarchy that Chomsky’s dream is coming true. It will take a few more years to see what really happens, but the trend towards open-source is growing exponentially.

Also, the self-regulating online communities (second life, wikipedia, linux…) are proving that humans do have an ingrained idea of right and wrong. They do not need to be taught by institutions what to do – contrary to Foucault’s assertion that the judicial system is a class control mechanism.

We have a natural desire to learn and work.