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  • mazsa 23:37 on January 2, 2012 Permalink | Reply
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    Hey Europe: sorry about my PM + The Unconstitutional Constitution 

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/the-unconstitutional-constitution/

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/world/europe/rare-opposition-protests-in-hungary.html

     

  • mazsa 18:52 on March 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply
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    European Parliament resolution of 10 March 2011 on media law in Hungary 

    [Press release: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/en/pressroom/content/20110310IPR15259/html/Hungarian-media-needs-to-be-changed-further-says-European-Parliament ]

    [Original:]

    P7_TA-PROV(2011)0094
    Media law in Hungary
    European Parliament resolution of 10 March 2011 on media law in Hungary

    The European Parliament,

    – having regard to Articles 2, 3, 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), Articles 49, 56, 114, 167 and 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) relating to respect for and the promotion and protection of fundamental rights, in particular freedom of expression and information and the right to media pluralism,
    – having regard to Directive 2010/13/EU of 10 March 2010 on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the provision of audiovisual media services (Audiovisual Media Services Directive – AVMSD),
    – having regard to the European Charter on Freedom of the Press of 25 May 2009, to the Commission’s working document on media pluralism in EU Member States (SEC(2007)0032), to the ‘three-step approach to media pluralism’ defined by the Commission, and to the independent study carried out on behalf of the Commission and finalised in 2009,
    – having regard to its resolutions of 22 April 2004 on the risks of violation in the European Union and particularly in Italy of freedom of expression and information [OJ C 104 E, 30.4.2004, p. 1026.], of 25 September 2008 on concentration and pluralism in the media in the European Union [Texts adopted, P6_TA(2008)0459.], and of 7 September 2010 on journalism and new media – creating a public sphere in Europe,
    – having regard to the statements by the Commission, to the parliamentary questions tabled and debates held in the European Parliament on 8 October 2009, regarding freedom of information in Italy, and on 8 September 2010, and to the discussions held in the joint meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE Committee) and the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT Committee) on 17 January 2011 regarding the Hungarian media law,
    – having regard to the decision by the LIBE Committee to request the Fundamental Rights Agency to issue an annual comparative report on the situation with regard to media freedom, pluralism and independent governance in the EU Member States, including indicators,
    – having regard to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, in particular Articles 5(2), 7, and 11 thereof,
    – having regard to Rule 110(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

    A. whereas the European Union is founded on the values of democracy and the rule of law, as stipulated in Article 2 TEU, and consequently guarantees and promotes freedom of expression and of information, as enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and in Article 10 of the ECHR, and recognises the legal value of the rights, freedoms and principles as set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which it has also demonstrated by acceding to the ECHR, for which media freedom and pluralism are essential prerequisites, and whereas these rights include freedom to express opinions and freedom to receive and communicate information without control, interference or pressure from public authorities,
    B. whereas media pluralism and freedom continue to be matters of grave concern in the EU and its Member States, notably in Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic and Estonia, as highlighted by the recent criticism of the media law and constitutional changes enacted in Hungary between June and December 2010 which has been voiced by international organisations, such as the OSCE and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, by a large number of international and national journalists’ organisations, by editors and publishers, by NGOs active in the areas of human rights and civil liberties, and by Member States and the Commission,
    C. whereas the Commission raised concerns and requested information from the Hungarian Government regarding the conformity of the Hungarian media law with the AVMSD and the acquis communautaire in general, notably in relation to the obligation to offer balanced coverage applicable to all audiovisual media service providers, and also questioned whether that law complied with the principle of proportionality and respected the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the country-of-origin principle and registration requirements, and whereas the Hungarian Government responded by providing further information and by commencing the process of amending the law to address the points raised by the Commission,
    D. whereas the OSCE expressed serious reservations regarding the scope of the Hungarian laws (material and territorial scope), freedom of expression and the regulation of content, the appointment of one person to act as the national media and telecommunications authority, and compliance with the principles governing public-service broadcasting [Analysis and assessment of a package of Hungarian legislation and draft legislation on media and telecommunications, prepared by Dr Karol Jakubowicz for the OSCE.], indicating that the new legislation undermined media pluralism, abolished the political and financial independence of the public-service media and cemented the negative features for the free media in the long term, and that the Media Authority and Media Council were politically homogeneous [Letter of 14 January 2010 from the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media to the Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.] and exerted pervasive and centralised governmental and political control over all media; whereas further concerns included the disproportionate and extreme penalties imposed for debatable and undefined reasons, the lack of an automatic procedure for suspending penalties in the event of an appeal to the courts against a Media Authority ruling, the violation of the principle of the confidentiality of journalistic sources and the protection of family values,
    E. sharing the serious reservations expressed by the OSCE in relation to the politically homogeneous composition of the Media Authority and Media Council, the timeframe, the exertion of a pervasive and centralised governmental, judicial and political control over all media, the fact that the most problematic features of the legislation contravene OSCE and international standards on freedom of expression, for example by doing away with the political and financial independence of public-service media, the scope of the regulation (material and territorial), and the decision not to define key terms, making it impossible for journalists to know when they may be breaking the law,
    F. whereas the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights called on the Hungarian authorities, when reviewing the media law, to take account of Council of Europe standards on freedom of expression and media pluralism, the relevant recommendations of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and, in particular, the binding standards set out in the ECHR and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights; whereas he referred to the use of unclear definitions which are open to misinterpretation, the establishment of politically unbalanced regulatory machinery with disproportionate powers which is not subject to full judicial supervision, threats to the independence of public-service broadcast media, and erosion of the protection of journalists’ sources; whereas he also stressed the need for all relevant stakeholders, including opposition parties and civil society, to be able to participate in a meaningful manner in the review of this legislation, which regulates such a fundamental aspect of the functioning of a democratic society [ http://www.coe.int/t/commissioner/News/2011/110201Hungary_en.asp ],
    G. whereas, in a second opinion issued on 25 February 2011, the Commissioner for Human Rights recommends a ‘wholesale review’ of the Hungarian media law package, with the objectives, inter alia, of reinstating precise legislation promoting a pluralistic and independent media, and strengthening the guarantees that media regulatory mechanisms will be immune from political influence [ https://wcd.coe.int/wcd/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1751289 ]; whereas he further states that the media in Hungary must be able to perform their role as watchdog in a pluralistic democratic society and that in order to achieve this, Hungary should abide by its commitments as a member state of the Council of Europe and make the most of that organisation’s expertise in the fields of freedom of expression and media independence and pluralism,
    H. whereas the Hungarian media law should consequently be suspended as a matter of urgency and reviewed on the basis of the Commission’s, OSCE’s and Council of Europe’s comments and proposals, in order to ensure that it is fully in conformity with EU law and European values and standards on media freedom, pluralism and independent media governance,
    I. whereas, despite repeated calls by Parliament for a directive on media freedom, pluralism and independent governance, the Commission has up to now delayed this proposal, which has become increasingly necessary and urgent,
    J. whereas the Copenhagen criteria for EU membership, as established in June 1993 at the Copenhagen European Council, relating to freedom of the press and freedom of expression should be upheld by all EU Member States and enforced through relevant EU legislation,
    K. whereas, in paragraphs 45 and 46 of its judgment in joined Cases C-39/05 P and C-52/05 P, the Court of Justice has held that access to information enables citizens to participate more closely in the decision-making process and guarantees that the administration enjoys greater legitimacy and is more effective and more accountable to the citizen in a democratic system and that it ‘is a precondition for the effective exercise of citizens’ democratic rights’,

    1. Calls on the Hungarian authorities to restore the independence of media governance and halt state interference with freedom of expression and ‘balanced coverage’, and believes that over-regulation of the media is counterproductive, jeopardising effective pluralism in the public sphere;

    2. Welcomes the Commission’s cooperation with the Hungarian authorities to bring Hungarian media law into conformity with EU Treaties and law, and the commencement of the amending process at national level;

    3. Deplores the Commission’s decision to target only three points in connection with the implementation of the acquis communautaire by Hungary and the lack of any reference to Article 30 of the AVMSD, which has the effect of limiting the Commission’s own competence to scrutinise Hungary’s compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights when implementing EU law; urges the Commission to examine Hungary’s compliance with the liability arrangements laid down in Directive 2000/31/EC on electronic commerce and Hungary’s transposition of the EU framework decisions on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law (2008/913/JHA) and on combating terrorism (2008/919/JHA), which include references to freedom of expression and circumventions of the rules on media freedom;

    4. Calls on the Commission to continue the close monitoring and assessment of the conformity of Hungarian media law as amended in accordance with European legislation, particularly with the Charter on Fundamental Rights;

    5. Calls on the Hungarian authorities to involve all stakeholders in the revision of the media law and of the Constitution, which is the basis for a democratic society founded on the rule of law, with appropriate checks and balances to safeguard the fundamental rights of the minority against the risk of the tyranny of the majority;

    6. Calls on the Commission to act, on the basis of Article 265 TFEU, by proposing a legislative initiative pursuant to Article 225 TFEU on media freedom, pluralism and independent governance before the end of the year, thereby overcoming the inadequacies of the EU’s legislative framework on the media, making use of its competences in the fields of the internal market, audiovisual policy, competition, telecommunications, State subsidies, the public-service obligation and the fundamental rights of every person resident on EU territory, with a view to defining at least the minimum essential standards that all Member States must meet and respect in national legislation in order to ensure, guarantee and promote freedom of information and an adequate level of media pluralism and independent media governance;

    7. Calls on the Hungarian authorities to review the media law further on the basis of the comments and proposals made by the European Parliament, the Commission, the OSCE and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights and, in the event that it is found to be incompatible with the letter or spirit of the Treaties or EU law, the Charter of Fundamental Rights or the ECHR, to repeal and not to apply the law or those elements thereof that are found to be incompatible;

    8. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Council of Europe, the governments and parliaments of Member States, the Fundamental Rights Agency, the OSCE and the Council of Europe.

    http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?language=EN&type=TA&reference=20110310&secondRef=TOC

     

  • mazsa 07:41 on February 16, 2011 Permalink | Reply
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    European Parliament: joint motion for a resolution on censorship law in Hungary 

    The four parties (see below) have 358 votes (48% of the total 736 votes; 50%+1: 11 votes are missing).

    Voting: tomorrow, 12-13h

    JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION
    14.2.2011

    pursuant to Rule 110(4) of the Rules of Procedure
    replacing the motions by the following groups:
    Verts/ALE (B7‑0103/2011)
    ALDE (B7‑0104/2011)
    GUE/NGL (B7‑0107/2011)
    S&D (B7‑0112/2011)

    on media law in Hungary

    [...]

    European Parliament resolution on media law in Hungary

    The European Parliament,

    [...]

    1. Calls on the Hungarian authorities to restore the independence of media governance and halt state interference with freedom of expression and balanced media coverage, and believes that over-regulation of the media is counterproductive, jeopardising effective pluralism in the public sphere;

    2. Welcomes the Commission initiative to request clarifications on the Hungarian media law and its conformity with EU Treaties and law and the announcement made by the Hungarian authorities in relation to their readiness to amend the law;

    3. Deplores the Commission’s decision to target only three points in connection with the implementation of the acquis communautaire by Hungary and the lack of any reference to Article 30 of the AVMSD, which has the effect of limiting the Commission’s own competence to scrutinise Hungary’s compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights when implementing EU law; urges the Commission to examine Hungary’s compliance with the liability arrangements laid down in Directive 2000/31/EC on electronic commerce and Hungary’s transposition of the EU framework decisions on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law (2008/913/JHA) and on combating terrorism (2008/919/JHA), which include references to freedom of expression and circumventions of the rules on media freedom;

    4. Calls on the Commission to proceed in a swift and timely manner with its thorough examination of the issue of bringing the Hungarian media law into conformity with European legislation, particularly the Charter on Fundamental Rights, to set a tight deadline for the Hungarian authorities to change the law, and should the deadline not be met, initiate infringement proceedings;

    5. Calls on the Hungarian authorities to involve all stakeholders in the revision of the media law and of the Constitution, which is the basis for a democratic society founded on the rule of law, with appropriate checks and balances to safeguard the fundamental rights of the minority against the risk of the tyranny of the majority;

    6. Calls on the Commission to act, on the basis of Article 265 TFEU, by proposing a legislative initiative pursuant to Article 225 TFEU on media freedom, pluralism and independent governance before the end of the year, thereby overcoming the inadequacies of the EU’s legislative framework on the media, making use of its competences in the fields of the internal market, audiovisual policy, competition, telecommunications, State subsidies, the public-service obligation and the fundamental rights of every person resident on EU territory, with a view to defining at least the minimum essential standards that all Member States must meet and respect in national legislation in order to ensure, guarantee and promote freedom of information and an adequate level of media pluralism and independent media governance;

    7. Calls on the Hungarian authorities, in the event that the media law is found to be incompatible with the letter or spirit of the Treaties or EU law, in particular the Charter of Fundamental Rights, to repeal and not to apply the law or those elements thereof that are found to be incompatible, in accordance with the comments and proposals made by the European Parliament, the Commission, the OSCE and the Council of Europe Commissioner on Human Rights, the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the case-law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights;

    8. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Council of Europe, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Fundamental Rights Agency, the OSCE and the Council of Europe. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=MOTION&reference=P7-RC-2011-0103&language=EN

     

  • mazsa 11:03 on February 12, 2011 Permalink | Reply
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    6 Projects for Internet Access as an Inalienable Right 

    Internet Is Easy Prey For Governments http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/02/07/014258/Internet-Is-Easy-Prey-For-Governments
    Global net crackdown to shatter ‘utopian’ internet: experts http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/global-net-crackdown-to-shatter-utopian-internet-experts-20110204-1ag3i.html

    As the Egyptian protests show, technologies that democratize communications can also centralize control http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/02/egypt-technology.html

    (How Was Egypt’s Internet Access Shut Off? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=egypt-internet-mubarak )

    (USA: Internet ‘kill switch’ bill will return: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20029282-281.html 
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/kill-switch-legislation/ http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/30/0044222/Internet-Kill-Switch-Back-On-the-US-Legislative-Agenda
    Civil
 Liberties
 Issues
 in 
Cybersecurity
 Bill: https://cdt.org/files/pdfs/20100624_joint_cybersec_letter.pdf
    Cf. http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/01/Myth-v-Reality.pdf )

    (How To Stop Domain Names Being Seized By The US Government http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-stop-domain-names-being-seized-by-the-us-government-110205/ )

    (Communicate if Your Government Shuts Off Your Internet http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Communicate_if_Your_Government_Shuts_Off_Your_Internet )

    Should Internet access be an inalienable right? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/28/AR2011012806250.html

    #Egypt Proves We Need a New Net http://rushkoff.com/2011/02/05/egypt-proves-we-need-a-new-net/ (“And, as we saw when push came to shove over WikiLeaks in the United States, how quickly this very same authority can be used to cut off “enemies of the state” from access and funding.”)

    Projects:

    1. Dot-P2P

    Dot-P2P http://dot-p2p.org/ , an alternative DNS hierarchy that resists censorship. The project aims to create a new top-level domain, .p2p, and name-resolution software that will hook into the normal client DNS resolver. (However, the new software will not interfere with name resolution for traditional TLDs like .com and .net.) Dot-p2p developers expect the .p2p service infrastructure to be mobile and hence flexible under attack; by contrast, administration is currently expected to be centralized. However, the developers would like to see a design for decentralized administration as well.
    HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1954391
    Cf. Why the P2P DNS project will not work http://sam.sargeant.name/post/2109713451/p2p-dns-wont-work http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1972834

    2. Tonika

    Tonika http://5ttt.org is an administration-free platform for large-scale open-membership (social) networks with robust security, anonymity, resilience and performance guarantees.
    Comparison: http://blog.5ttt.org/2011/01/egypts-internet-fiasco.html

    3. Starfish

    Goal “Enable the creation of a world-wide user-controlled network of both wired and wirelessnodes based on a distributed architecture.” http://kemenczy.at/files/Starfish%20Concept.pdf

    http://kemenczy.at/index.php/starfish

    4. Digitata

    http://digitata.org plans to provide the resources and information to local communities, NGOs, aid orginisations on how to build a digitata and technical specifications to manufactures who wish to support the principals by creating the hardware. To become a central repository of technical specifications and experiences to help everybody. The ultimate vision to see digitatas grown all over the world where access to the internet and teaching resources is limited, that children around the world have the opportunity to discover technology for themselves. Achieving this by means of low cost mass produced standardised kits which can customised to their environments.

    5. Daihinia
    Daihinia™ http://daihinia.com/ is a tool for WiFi. It turns a simple Ad-Hoc network into a Multi-hop Ad-Hoc network. Multi-hop Ad-Hoc networks offer a higher level of flexibility than the usual Infrastructure Mode: in Infrastructure Mode all the computers have to be in the range of the Access Point, while in Multi-hop Ad-Hoc networks they have to be within one another’s range.

    6. Netsukuku
    Netsukuku http://netsukuku.freaknet.org/ is designed to be a distributed, anonymous mesh network that relies only on normal wireless network cards. FreakNet is even building its own domain name architecture. http://www.masternewmedia.org/the-alternative-p2p-wireless-internet-network-the-netsukuku-idea/
    Code: http://dev.hinezumi.org/browser/netsukuku/sandbox/lukisi/branches

     

  • mazsa 06:57 on February 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply
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    #Bitcoin: someone swapping his own #BTC and USD back-and-forth to create an illusion? 

    Daniel A. Nagy

    Bitcoin has (briefly) reached USD parity and is trading at a 10% spread. I would not have expected that to happen, through it might still be cheating: someone swapping his own BTC and USD back-and-forth to create an illusion. As long as there are no outside parties with large amounts of BTC to tap into this, the guy is safe. Come to think of it, it’s actually not a bad way to bootstrap the digital commodity…

    6 hours ago · Like ·

    You and Attila Lendvai likes this.

    Peter Földiák

    That is what’s called a “market maker”, right?

    6 hours ago · Like

    Daniel A. Nagy

    Not quite. A market maker is one who puts forth both buy and sell offers. He expects to profit and never trades with oneself. One who trades with oneself at an inflated price can expect to lose money.

    6 hours ago · Like

     

  • mazsa 15:47 on February 5, 2011 Permalink | Reply
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    [Video+full text] PM Cameron: this is how it looks like when a politician says something 

    Original: http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2011/02/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference-60293

    Cf.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994

     

  • mazsa 20:00 on January 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply
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    Identity Ecosystem: A Vison of the U.S. Cybersecurity Coordinator 

    “We need a cyber world that enables people to validate their identities securely, but with minimal disclosure of information when they’re doing sensitive transactions (like banking) – and lets them stay anonymous when they’re not (like blogging). We need a vibrant marketplace that provides people with choices among multiple accredited identity providers – both private and public – and choices among multiple credentials. For example, imagine that a student could get a digital credential from her cell phone provider and another one from her university and use either of them to log-in to her bank, her e-mail, her social networking site, and so on, all without having to remember dozens of passwords. Such a marketplace will ensure that no single credential or centralized database can emerge. In this world, we can cut losses from fraud and identity theft, as well as cut costs for businesses and government by reducing inefficient identification procedures. We can put in-person services online without security trade-offs, thereby providing greater convenience for everyone.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/01/07/national-program-office-enhancing-online-trust-and-privacy

     

  • mazsa 14:53 on January 7, 2011 Permalink | Reply
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    Censorship law, European Union (Hungary): quotations & comments 

    Almost full text of

    Quotations:

    Act on the freedom of the press (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak ) and the fundamental rules on media content:

    “TITLE I DEFINITION OF TERMS
    Article 1 [...] 6. Printed press materials: Individual issues of daily newspapers and other periodicals as well as on-line newspapers and news portals provided as a service for profit, for the content of which a natural or legal person or a business association without legal personality bears editorial responsibility, the primary objective of which is to distribute textual or image contents to the public for information, entertainment or training purposes in a printed form or via an electronic communications network.” -

    i.e., blogs with ads are “printed press materials”.

    “TITLE II SCOPE OF THE ACT
    Article 2 (1) This Act shall apply to media services and printed press materials provided by a media content provider established in the Republic of Hungary.
    (2) For the purposes of this Act, a media content provider shall be deemed as established in the Republic of Hungary when it meets the following criteria: [...]
    c) when either the central seat of executive management or the place where editorial decisions are made is located in the territory of the Republic of Hungary, with the majority of the media content provider’s staff being employed in the territory of the Republic of Hungary”

    “Article 3 [...] (4) In case of violation of this Act, the Media Council of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority may proceed and apply sanctions in accordance with the provisions of the Media Act on official proceedings.” –

    Only Fidesz nominees were elected to the Media Council, meaning that no places were left for the opposition or the Fidesz alliance (KDNP) party.

    “TITLE III FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
    Article 4 [...] (3) The exercise of the freedom of the press may not [...] violate public morals [...].” -

    i.e., sensibility of churches and of the majority.

    “Article 5 (1) The Act may set official registration as a precondition for [...] the publication of printed press materials.” -

    e.g. blogs, see the definition above

    “Article 6 – (3) In exceptionally justified cases, courts or authorities may – in the interest of protecting national security and public order or uncovering or preventing criminal acts – require the media service provider and any person employed by or engaged, in any other legal relationship intended for the performance of work, with the media content provider to reveal the identity of the informant.”

    “TITLE VI OBLIGATIONS OF THE PRESS
    Article 13 (1) All media content providers shall provide authentic, rapid and accurate information on local, national and EU affairs and on any event that bears relevance to the citizens of the Republic of Hungary and members of the Hungarian nation.
    (2) Linear and on-demand media content providers engaged in news coverage operations shall provide comprehensive, factual, up-to-date, objective and balanced coverage on local, national and European issues that may be of interest for the general public and on any event bearing relevance to the citizens of the Republic of Hungary and members of the Hungarian nation.”

    “Article 16
    The media content provider shall respect the constitutional order of the Republic of Hungary [...].” -

    the ruling Fidesz party, based on its supermajority in Parliament, have radically limited the scope of constitutional supervision in the country, effectively suspending what was a constitutional democratic republic
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ac8db2a-f1af-11df-bb5a-00144feab49a.html , and de facto pushing national-corporatist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism values on us. Actually, they are creating a new constitution for Hungary, alone, based on de jure these values as well.

    Should we respect a national-corporatist order, be it however constitutional?

    “Article 17 [...] (2) The media content may not offend [...] against – whether expressedly or by implication – [...] any majority as well as any church or religious groups.” – no comment.

    Act on media services and mass media:

    [No comment]:

    “General Provisions
    Article 41 [...] (4) The Authority shall keep an administrative register of [...]
    i) online media products and news portals.”

    “Article 187
    (1) In case of repeated infringement, the Media Council and the Agency shall have the right to impose a fine on the senior officer of the infringing entity in an amount not exceeding HUF 2,000,000 [EUR 7,000], in line with the gravity, nature of the infringement and the circumstances of the particular case. [...]

    Cf. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=GDP/capita+Hugary+/+GDP/capita+UK

    (3) The Media Council and the Agency [...] shall have the right to impose the following legal consequences: [...]
    b) it may impose a fine on the infringer in line with the following limits:
    ba) in case of infringement by a JBE media service provider and the media service provider under the regulations on the limitation of media market concentration, the fine shall be of an amount not exceeding HUF 200,000,000 [more than EUR 700,000]; [...]
    bc) in case of a newspaper of nationwide distribution, the fine shall be of an amount not exceeding HUF 25,000,000 [EUR 90,000]; [...]
    bf) in case of an online media product, the fine shall be of an amount not exceeding HUF 25,000,000 [EUR 90,000];
    bg) in case of a broadcaster, the fine shall be an amount not exceeding HUF 5,000,000;
    bh) in case of an intermediary service provider, the fine shall be of an amount not exceeding HUF 3,000,000 [...]
    d) it may suspend the exercise of the media service provision right for a specific period of time”

    “Responsibility of the broadcasters and intermediary service providers for the broadcasting of media services and media products
    Article 188
    (1) The broadcaster and the intermediary service provider shall be responsible for the broadcasting of media services and media products in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (2)-(4) and Article 189.
    (2) The broadcaster may be obliged to suspend or terminate the broadcasting of media services in accordance with Article 189.
    (3) The intermediary service provider may be obliged to suspend the broadcasting of media services and online media products in accordance with Article 189.
    (4) The broadcaster shall not be responsible for the content of the programme of the media service provider resident in a state party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area and European Convention on Transborder Television and in its supplementary Protocol signed in Strasbourg on 5 May 1989 and promulgated by Act 49 of 1998. The broadcaster, however, may be obliged to suspend the broadcasting of the media service under Article 189, taking into account of the provisions of Articles 176–180.

    Article 189
    (1) When the Media Council resorts to the legal consequence against the media service provider [...] the broadcaster shall [...] terminate the broadcasting of the media service covered in the resolution as defined in the request.
    (2) When [...] the [...] the media service provider fails to fulfil the terms of the final and executable resolution specifying also legal consequences at the request of the Media Council or the Agency, the broadcaster [...] shall suspend the broadcasting of the media service covered in the resolution as defined in the request. [...]
    (4) When — in case of an online media product — [...] the publisher fails to fulfil the terms of the final and
    executable resolution specifying also legal consequences at the request of the Media Council or the Agency, the broadcaster [...] shall suspend the broadcasting of the media product covered in the resolution as defined in the request.     [...]
    (6) When the broadcaster and/or the intermediary service provider fails to fulfil the provisions of the request defined in paragraph (1)–(4), the Media Council or the Agency shall institute ex officio administrative proceedings against the broadcaster or the intermediary service provider and shall have the right to apply the legal consequences defined in Article 187 (3) (bg) or (bh).”

    INTERPRETATION
    Section 203 [...]
    30. Intermediary service provider shall mean the service provider providing services in connection with the information society, which
    a) is engaged in the transmission of the information supplied by the recipient of services through a telecommunications network or the provision access to the telecommunications network (mere conduit and network-access);
    b) [...] (caching);
    c) is engaged in the storage of the information supplied by the recipient of the service (hosting);
    d) [...] (search services). [...]

    42. Media content shall mean any content offered in the course of media services and in media products. [...]

    60. Media product shall mean individual issues of dailies or other periodical papers, internet newspapers or news portals, which are offered as a business service, for the contents of which a natural or legal person, or a business entity with no legal personality has editorial responsibility, and the primary purpose of which is to convey contents consisting of text or images to the general public with the aim of providing information, pleasure or education, in a printed format or through any electronic telecommunications network. [...]”

    In Hungarian:

    Cf.: http://www.ekint.org/ekint_files/File/hungarian%20ngos%20assessing%20the%20second%20wave%20of%20legislation.pdf

     

  • mazsa 08:34 on January 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Front page of Népszabadság: The freedom of the press in Hungary comes to an end 

    Titelseite der Népszabadság: In Ungarn wurde die Pressefreiheit aufgehoben

     

  • mazsa 22:36 on January 1, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Blackout for Hungary 

    “We ask everyone concerned about fundamental rights and free speech to black out its online presence on the 5th January 2011 for 24 hours. To show your outrage and solidarity with the Hungarian media please include this HTML snippet into your site, this will automatically add similar black splashscreen as seen on this site [...]“: http://www.blackout4hungary.net/en/

     

  • mazsa 10:56 on December 30, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    Censoring Ice-T: The first attack by the Hungarian censorship authority 

    “The Hungarian equivalent of FCC established that the Budapest based community radio Tilos endangered the mental, emotional and sexual development of Hungarian children under 16 by airing ICE-T’s It’s On before 9pm. The regulatory body asserts that children understood the lyrics, the ghetto-slang, and were directly influenced by them, and therefore objectify women and glorify violence.” Balázs Bodó

    Original: http://hirek.tilos.hu/?p=1745 [in Hungarian]

     

  • mazsa 19:45 on December 29, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Flashmob, , ,   

    Flashmob against censorship in Hungary [video] 

     

  • mazsa 18:31 on December 29, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    Poll in Die Welt – 63%: Hungary is too dangerous, it has no place in the European Union any more 

    http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article11825311/Europa-darf-Ungarn-jetzt-nicht-isolieren.html

     

  • mazsa 19:03 on December 27, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Linux, , , , ,   

    Kill Bill for Microsoft: Putin Orders Russian Government Move to Free Software 

    http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/12/putin-orders-russian-move-to-gnulinux.html

     

  • mazsa 11:36 on December 25, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Analysis: Violating the rule of law in Hungary 

    Eötvös Károly Institute, Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Transparency International Magyarország:
    Assessing the First Wave of Legislation by Hungary’s New Parliament 23 July 2010 http://helsinki.hu/dokumentum/Hungarian_NGOs_assessing_legislation_July2010.pdf

    Eötvös Károly Institute, Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, Hungarian Helsinki Committee:
    The second wave of legislation by Hungary’s new Parliament – Violating the rule of law 13 December 2010 http://www.ekint.org/ekint_files/File/hungarian%20ngos%20assessing%20the%20second%20wave%20of%20legislation.pdf

     

  • mazsa 08:06 on December 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , ,   

    Posts on Personal Ontology 1.0 alpha on BFO-list 

    Posts:

    0. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/pont

    1. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/dear-bfo-community-let-me-introduce-you-pont-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha

    2. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/re-dear-bfo-community-let-me-introduce-you-pont-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha

    3. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/re-re-dear-bfo-community-let-me-introduce-you-pont-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha

    4. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/re-re-re-dear-bfo-community-let-me-introduce-you-pont-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha

    5. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/re-re-re-re-dear-bfo-community-let-me-introduce-you-pont-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha

    Original:

    https://groups.google.com/group/bfo-discuss/browse_thread/thread/433bfa9718cae15?hl=en

     

  • mazsa 08:04 on December 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,   

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Dear BFO Community, let me introduce you POnt – Personal Ontology 1.0 alpha 

    [Cf. the whole sequence: http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/posts-on-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha-on-bfo-list ]

    On 6 December 2010 04:15, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    >> 2. Alan, in a way it have obtained: I raised this issue as a routine
    >> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment :)
    >
    > I don’t consider thought experiments to be evidence. They are good
    > argument. In this case there are a number of substantive issues that
    > we are far from understanding, so I don’t think the thought experiment
    > is enough.
    > ;-)

    ok

    >> You say that AIs running on the internet would be generically
    >> dependent continuants (not MaterialEntities) and all generically
    >> dependent continuants have material bases, which are presumably
    >> MaterialEntities, specifically, spatially dispersed sets of Objects.
    >
    > Yes.

    ok

    >> You say that I’m an independent continuant while I’m flesh and blood,
    >> “uploading” would change me (still me) into a dependent continuant
    >> with a material basis (presumably a set of Objects), and “downloading”
    >> again would presumably change me back into an independent continuant.
    >
    > I don’t believe I said that.
    > Rather: I don’t really know what constitutes the identity of a person.
    > If it came to be known that this identity could be preserved when
    > uploading, then we would know that it was a kind of generically
    > dependent continuant. When in your body, the body would be the
    > material entity that bears the concretization of that GDC.
    > BFO doesn’t have such an entity (your sense of person/AI) so nothing
    > would need to be changed in BFO should we learn this is possible.
    > However if other ontologies had made a commitment that contradicted
    > this they would need to be changed.

    makes sense and consistent in itself: you say that BFO is independent (and you are agnostic, at least as long as possible) on a lot of issues. The concept of agency/personship is one of them.

    >> But do I have the right to fork
    >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development) BFO at all?
    >
    > You do, but it would be considered bad practice to change any of the
    > intended meanings of BFO terms, or to distribute it in any way that it
    > might be confused by someone to be the real BFO.
    >
    > Better to create another ontology and import and use BFO terms where
    > appropriate.
    >
    >> I feel so that the default copyright for ontologies is
    >> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ but I’d appreciate if you
    >> would publish the copyright (e.g.
    >> http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/ ) of BFO.
    >
    > It is so said in the OWL file
    > http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

    Copyright: thank you, I didn’t notice it.
    Disambiguation: I understand your concern. I’ll do it bona fide.

    >> On 29 November 2010 19:56, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    >>>>[I think it would not be useful to regard
    >>>> her [the AI] as something that has a material basis.
    >>>
    >>> It isn’t a matter of useful. It’s a matter of true.
    >>
    >> I’m sorry I was negligent.
    >>
    >> 1. Clarification: I think it would not be useful to regard an eventual
    >> AI or the uploaded me as a dependent continuant with an independent
    >> continuant material basis which is a scattered set of material
    >> Objects. I think it would be useful to regard an AI and myself to be
    >> independent continuants, invariant to eventual changes in our material
    >> bases.
    >
    > That’s fine. Buy you are not using the terms as BFO intends them.
    > Better to define new additional terms that define things the way think
    > they should be. FWIW, I think it is possible that you don’t understand
    > what it means to be a material basis in BFO.

    ad1. see below

    >> 2. Truth: I think what I say (modified by the Clarification above) is
    >> (ontologically) true = invariant to (ontological) transformations (cf.
    >> the end of my previous letter).
    >
    > Yes, but the truth I was referring to was deeper. There isn’t
    > anything, according to BFO, that doesn’t depend on something material.

    ad2. see below

    >> 3. Usefulness: I think usefulness (and elegance etc.) is not
    >> superfluous in ontological research either. Pragmatic approach to
    >> ontology presupposes usefulness (and at least non-falseness). I think
    >> there are useful ontologies just like there are useful theorems:
    >> “[...]
    >> – useful theorem: theorem that leads to many new ones [...]”
    >
    > It depends on what your definition of ontology is. BFO is trying to be
    > an ontology in the sense of being a catalog of types of things that
    > exist. It is proposed that building ontologies in this sense is
    > already damned useful for it’s targeted purposes.

    I think I understand what material basis means in BFO (but that thought of mine may be a part of the problem:) Let’s check it and see.

    You say that “exists = (matter itself and/or) have material basis”.
    ‘Exists = (matter itself and/or) have material basis’ := ‘X=Mb’

    Case I.

    If you think X=Mb is an axiom of BFO 1.1, it’s ok. Then you can say that

    • either you can slide “information” into the pigeon holes of the BFO 1.1 (e.g. an AI on the internet or the uploaded me or an imaginary magenta unicorn pegasus are generally dependent continuants with material basis),
    • or “information” (which does not have material basis) is nonexistent (it would contradict to the axiom).

    This is the scenario

    • where you say that “BFO is trying to be an ontology in the sense of being a catalog of types of things that exist”, and you reject that meaning of “information” which may or may not have material basis (obviously along with other similar “things”, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether ) presumably as “speculative metaphysics” (à la Kant, Heidegger), and
    • where every continuant with a speculative mind (like me:), be it independent or dependent, using the fact that in BFO 1.1 owl:Thing =/= bfo:Entity, have the legitimate opportunity to reveal other categories under owl:Thing but outside the category bfo:Entity, e.g. a category Nonentity, or a category dolce-lite:Quale.
    • This approach is too “postmodern” to be an ontology in one (the “continental”) meaning (“[Philosophy] the branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being” [= owl:Thing, including a rigorous and exhaustive organization of it that is hierarchical and contains all the relevant entities and their relations]),
    • but it’s ok in the (“analytic”) other (“[Logic] the set of entities presupposed by a theory” / “[computer science] a rigorous and exhaustive organization of some knowledge domain that is usually hierarchical and contains all the relevant entities and their relations”) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ontology

    Case II.

    But if

    • you think that X=Mb is a deep (basic) truth (of ontology in philosophical meaning) mapped into an axiom of BFO, i.e. BFO is a basic ontology in the philosophical meaning above, and
    • tertium non datur,

    then I think X=Mb is simply false.

    (I don’t know whether BFO has this – type II – ambition at all:

    • on one hand, it is so close to it that it would be a sin:) to miss the opportunity,
    • on the other, in BFO 1.1, owl:Thing =/= bfo:Entity as if BFO would not be confident enough to be type II and would ensure place for the diversity of ontologies.)

    Why false? Suppose for a while that I completely accept the solution of BFO 1.1 for AI-s running on the internet (i.e, they are generically dependent continuants, not MaterialEntities, and all generically dependent continuants have material bases, which are MaterialEntities, specifically, spatially dispersed sets of Objects).
    However, this would not solve

    and so would not mean that X=Mb.

    If you say that matter is the nesessary building block for owl:Thing, you make the mistake in logic I made at first (“I may like information to be the “infrastucture” of matter but you are right: for an ontology this would be a superfluous presumption and a logical fallacy of this kind: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/mary/Default.aspx “).

    So in Case II we do the right thing if we abandon our demand for the preeminence of information and of matter and in general of any specific owl:Thing.

    What the universe (more exactly: owl:Thing) is made of at the “fundamental level” is an open empirical (rather than a speculative / a thought experiment kind of) question yet (cf. e.g. http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/12/lhc-spots-no-black-holes-eliminates-some-versions-of-string-theory.ars ): I don’t think so that BFO in Case II should decide on it in advance. BFO in Case II should be explicitely independent on all “speculative mathaphysical” answers.

    Solution

    In Case I: There is no problem to solve.

    Your axioms/categories are yours, mine are mine: there is no further need to argue (you don’t argue fiercely e.g. on Dewey numbers:) and no need to change anything on BFO 1.1. The only (absolutely legitimate!) task left is to keep BFO away form revolution and let it evolve into other disciplines.

    In Case II: Back to the future!

    Fortunately, even if I am right in what I am saying above, BFO itself(!) has a solution for the problem of Case II: your internal solution in Case II is BFO 1.0 ( http://www.ifomis.org/bfo/1.0 ) The structure of the previous version of BFO is “agnostic”: independent on what owl:Thing is supposed to made of.

    Of course, BFO 1.1 is an improvement on 1.0: Disposotion, Function and Role are bundled into a category in 1.0, and bundling Object, FiatObjectPart and ObjectAggregate into a new category in 1.1 is a parallel idea. BFO may retain the new structure in the next version of BFO as well.

    The problem is, as the forensic investigations show:), that this stuctural change was accompanied by the silent introduction of X=Mb by calling the new category ‘MaterialEntity’. This is why BFO 1.1 is not just a harmless improvement of 1.0. From the point of view of Case II, 1.1 is 1.0 constrained by the false X=Mb.

    I think (the Platonic idea of) BFO is deeper than 1.1, and 1.0 is closer to it.

    Suggestions

    I’m a just a user of BFO, not even a heavy one, one among many thousands. You should put my suggestions in their right place.

    For me it is very important to clarify: how would look like the BFO I would be happy to work with, without the need to fork it?

    1. It would be modular: a core and auxiliary axioms (or alternative auxiliary axiom systems). BFO is independent on a lot of issues. The concept of agency/personship is one of them. For me, agency/personship is ontologically important, but you are right: this doesn’t imply that the core of BFO should contain personship. However, it implies that BFO should not preclude the ontological concept of personship.
    BFO should be modular: its core

    • should remain indenpendent on theories in ontology (like the ontological construction of the concept of agency and personship) and
    • should become independent on open empirical questions (like the fundamental constitution of owl:Things).

    2. It would have a Type II core.
    The core of BFO seems to me the right place for the philosophical/continental meaning of ontology (Case II above). This is why
    2.1. I would consider removing the the root category bfo:Entity from BFO. In philosophical meaning of ontology bfo:Entity is not different to owl:Thing, it would be an inappropriate postmodern modesty:) not to erease it.
    2.2. I would change the label of the BFO 1.1 category ‘MaterialEntity’ into another label without reference to matter and to any other specific hypothetical constitution of owl:Thing.
    (2.3. I would revisit the examples and the wording of the definitions of BFO 1.1 based on the arguments above.)

    3. It would have different Type I auxiliary axioms.
    3.A. With the BFO core + X=Mb as an auxiliary axiom, we could essentially reconstruct BFO 1.1.
    3.B. With the BFO core + an auxiliary axiom alternative to X=Mb, I would be able to describe what I think to be ontologically important.

    Results

    In this https://groups.google.com/group/bfo-discuss/browse_thread/thread/433bfa9718cae15 conversation BFO 1.0 has revealed itself as more profound than BFO 1.1. Minor changes in BFO 1.0 could result in a future BFO core independent on material or any other specific hypothetical constitution of owl:Thing. BFO core + auxiliary axiom X=Mb would reconstruct BFO 1.1. BFO core + alternative auxiliary axioms would ensure conceptual space for alternative ontologies without the need to change or fork the BFO core, and without any interference with the reconstructed BFO 1.1.

    [Original: https://groups.google.com/group/bfo-discuss/browse_thread/thread/433bfa9718cae15?hl=en ]

     

  • mazsa 15:42 on December 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Environment, , , tags,   

    Wikileaks Cables Tags Index / Glossary / Source 

    U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Handbook Volume 5 Handbook 3 – TAGS/Terms Handbook http://bofs.blog.is/users/10/bofs/files/us-dos-tags-terms-handbook.pdf

    E.g.
    AINT – Internet Administration
    ASEC – Security
    CIA – Central Intelligence Agency
    KNNP – Nuclear Non- Proliferation
    KCOR – Corruption and Anti-Corruption
    KCRM – Criminal Activity
    KGHG – Global Climate Change
    KHLS – Homeland Security
    KIPR – Intellectual Property Rights
    KTFN – Terrorism Finance Traffic
    NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization
    PBTS – National Boundaries, Territories, and Sovereignty
    PTER – Terrorists and Terrorism
    PINS – National Security
    PINR – Intelligence
    PHUM – Human Rights
    SENV – Environmental Affairs
    TINT – Internet Technology
    TRGY – Energy Technology
    TSPA – Space Activities
    XH – Eastern Europe
    XG – Europe

    Subscribe to Alerts: http://cablesearch.org/?page_id=17

     

  • mazsa 12:01 on December 15, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Which are your favorite Wikileaks-keywords? 

    Write them here anonymously: http://pad.telecomix.org/kulcsszavak
    and/or set up an alert to monitor them: http://cablesearch.org/?page_id=17 (Number of cables:
    1477 Still to go in Wikileaks 99%)

     

  • mazsa 17:48 on December 14, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Proposed Hungarian Media Law Would Threaten Freedom 

    “[...] The law, which is expected to be passed shortly, would provide the National Media and Communications Authority’s (NMHH) Media Council with the authority to impose fines on private newspapers, websites, broadcasters, and other content providers that have violated press rules on “balanced” coverage as well as immoral reporting (such as content involving sex, violence, and alcohol). Fines could be as much as $934,000 for radio and television stations, $120,000 for daily newspapers and online news outlets, and approximately $47,000 for weeklies. Outlets could also be suspended or shut down. The new law, in essence, subjects private media organizations to the rules and regulations that govern public and state-run media and imposes potentially severe penalties for content-related violations.

    “This legislation, combined with other troubling moves against the media, will be a major setback for press freedom in Hungary,” said Karin Karlekar, Managing Editor of Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press index. “Of particular concern is the wording of the supposed ‘violations’ which is very is broad, creating an environment conducive to significant misuse, especially given the extremely polarized political environment in the country.” [...]

    Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the leader of the ruling Fidesz party, appointed a former Fidesz politician as the director of the NMHH’s Media Council for a nine-year term, and the remaining four seats on the Council were filled by Fidesz supporters following a parliamentary vote in October. The new Media Council has been given enhanced regulatory powers and considerable control over all forms of media. In November, additional legislation was adopted that forces journalists to reveal their sources in articles concerning national security or public safety issues. [...]

    Hungary is ranked Free in Freedom in the World 2010, Freedom House’s survey of political rights and civil liberties, and Free in Freedom of the Press 2010.” http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=1292

     

  • mazsa 10:27 on December 14, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , soviet   

    Hungary effectively dismantled its pension reform 

    “Hungary effectively dismantled its pension reform. Hungarian lawmakers voted to roll back a 1997 reform of pensions on Monday, effectively allowing the government to seize up to 10 billion euros in private pension assets to cut the budget deficit while avoiding austerity measures.

    Parliament passed the pension legislation with 250 votes for, 58 votes against and 43 abstentions. Orban’s ruling Fidesz party has a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

    The legislation imposes stiff penalties on Hungarians who do not transfer their pension assets back into the state system by the end of January.

    The government will sell the assets and use the income to cut debt, plug holes in the state pension fund and create room for tax cuts for households and small companies.

    By plugging its budget shortfall with the pension funds and new taxes on banks and mostly foreign-owned businesses, Orban has promised to end years of austerity and bolstered the popularity of his right-of-centre Fidesz party in opinion polls.

    But the strategy – which also includes regaining “financial sovereignty” by ending a 20 billion euro safety net deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund – has worried investors, caused losses in Hungarian assets, and prompted a downgrade by Moody’s ratings agency last week to Baa3, the lowest investment grade. [...]” http://www.euractiv.com/en/euro-finance/poland-hungary-odds-over-pension-reform-ahead-eu-summit-news-500565

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-14/hungarian-lawmakers-approve-pension-fund-overhaul-as-eu-nears-debt-deal.html

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703727804576017782489105222.html

    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BC3YJ20101213

     

  • mazsa 12:56 on December 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Denmark, , , , Poland, , ,   

    The Netherlands to EU: Hands off our pensions 

    “After the effective nationalisation of the private pension schemes in Hungary and Poland last week, only a handful of countries have large pension reserves. Think of the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. [...] The European commission should first ask itself the question: whose money is in the pension funds? These are national funds, paid for by employers and employees. It is not government money. It is not European money. This in itself is more than sufficient reason for the commission not to extend its power to national pension systems. Only for cross-border workers (a tracking service) can an exception be made. [...]

    The temptations in Europe are very large. The Dutch pension sector alone controls more than €750bn ($991bn), about as much as is available in the Eurocrisis fund, if the maximum can ever be used. But this money cannot and will not be brought under European control. The Dutch parliament unanimously approved my recommendation to that effect.

    I count on support from fellow nations and MPs to rely far less on European pensions and money. ”

    http://www.cda.nl/Omtzigt/Actueel/Nieuws/2010/12/49/Hands_off_our_pensions.aspx

    Cf.: http://euractiv.com/en/euro-finance/poland-strikes-pension-deal-with-eu-news-500531

     

  • mazsa 07:10 on December 9, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    War 

    some theaters of it:

    Vs.

     

  • mazsa 16:17 on December 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,   

    Re Re: Re: Dear BFO Community, let me introduce you POnt – Personal Ontology 1.0 alpha 

    [Cf. the whole sequence: http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/posts-on-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha-on-bfo-list ]

    Dear list-members, Alan, Barry and Janna,

    based on the conversation I have set Entity back as a root category in
    POnt https://github.com/mazsa/Personal-Ontology/raw/master/pont.owl :
    thank you for your help.

    On 29 November 2010 19:56, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    > 2010/11/29 Mázsa Péter :
    >> Suppose a (likewise hypothetical) Artificial Intelligence [AI]
    >> running on the internet is a person. Do you think that she has a
    >> material basis / is an independently continuant material object
    >> (bearing a role of person)?
    >
    > The BFO approach would be to deal with that eventuality when and if it obtains.

    On 29 November 2010 20:01, Barry Smith wrote:
    >> 1. You are a person. Are you sure you think that a material basis is
    >> absolutely necessary for you? If you had the opportunity do you think
    >> you would “upload” yourself (= convert yourself into information
    >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading ) before you die? [...]
    >
    > when this is shown to be possible, we will re-address the issue;

    1. Thank you, this is a pragmatic answer, I can live with it.

    2. Alan, in a way it have obtained: I raised this issue as a routine
    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment :)

    On 29 November 2010 19:56, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    > 2010/11/29 Mázsa Péter :
    >>>> What is absolutely necessary for POnt is that there should be a place
    >>>> for Independent Continuants who are not necessarily Material Entities
    >>>> (or Boundaries or Sites).
    >>>
    >>> Why do you need them to be independent? In what way would dependent
    >>> continuant not be correct? Are there some things that do not have a
    >>> material basis?
    >>
    >> I think you think this AI is an independent continuant, but I can’t imagine how you think she is
    >> a material object.
    >
    > I didn’t say the AI was a material entity. I said it was a generically
    > dependent continuant.
    >
    >> If you had the opportunity do you think
    >> you would “upload” yourself (= convert yourself into information
    >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading ) before you die? [...]
    >
    > If possible, I would. Whether possible is an open question.
    > After I uploaded I would have a different material basis (some digital
    > form of memory)
    > In BFO we call such entities generically dependent continuants.

    You say that AIs running on the internet would be generically
    dependent continuants (not MaterialEntities) and all generically
    dependent continuants have material bases, which are presumably
    MaterialEntities, specifically, spatially dispersed sets of Objects.

    You say that I’m an independent continuant while I’m flesh and blood,
    “uploading” would change me (still me) into a dependent continuant
    with a material basis (presumably a set of Objects), and “downloading”
    again would presumably change me back into an independent continuant.

    Similarly, if dependent continuant AIs running on the internet would
    “download” themselves exclusively into robots partitioned in space,
    they would presumably become independent continuants.

    OK, I understand. Whether possible is an open question, but eventually
    and occasionally I / AI might switch my / her ontological status in
    BFO, without ceasing to be myself / herself, so this me / her is
    jumping across ontological categories.

    >> I think filing them into the existing categories of
    >> BFO would be like working with celestial spheres: still usable but
    >> ugly.]
    >
    > Sorry to have offended.
    :) ))
    perhaps I was not PC: celestial spheres are perfect companies for us
    to work with them, e.g. to predict planetary movements and
    configurations; they are just … under-attractive:) to my taste

    On 29 November 2010 20:01, Barry Smith wrote:
    >> I think filing them into the existing categories of
    >> BFO would be like working with celestial spheres: still usable but
    >> ugly.]
    >>
    > there are so many problems facing use of BFO in support of established
    > science, we cannot waste time on merely hypothetical issues; for this you
    > may wish to use DOLCE
    >
    >> I think that what we think of as persons are “things” that do not
    >> necessarily and intuitively have a material basis. Are you convinced
    >> by the thought experiments above?
    >>
    > This is not the issue; the issue is how to ensure BFO is successful in
    > performing the jobs it needs to perform today
    > BS

    OK, this is the (acceptable) pragmatic line. Of course I cannot insist
    on the modification of the preferences of the BFO-community based on
    my unproven thoughts.

    But do I have the right to fork
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development) BFO at all? I
    feel so that the default copyright for ontologies is
    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ but I’d appreciate if you
    would publish the copyright (e.g.
    http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/ ) of BFO.

    On 29 November 2010 19:56, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    >>[I think it would not be useful to regard
    >> her [the AI] as something that has a material basis.
    >
    > It isn’t a matter of useful. It’s a matter of true.

    I’m sorry I was negligent.

    1. Clarification: I think it would not be useful to regard an eventual
    AI or the uploaded me as a dependent continuant with an independent
    continuant material basis which is a scattered set of material
    Objects. I think it would be useful to regard an AI and myself to be
    independent continuants, invariant to eventual changes in our material
    bases.

    2. Truth: I think what I say (modified by the Clarification above) is
    (ontologically) true = invariant to (ontological) transformations (cf.
    the end of my previous letter).

    3. Usefulness: I think usefulness (and elegance etc.) is not
    superfluous in ontological research either. Pragmatic approach to
    ontology presupposes usefulness (and at least non-falseness). I think
    there are useful ontologies just like there are useful theorems:
    “[...] – elegant theorem: theorem whose statement is short and somewhat unique

    • interesting theorem [...]: theorem that cannot readily be deduced

    from earlier ones, but is well connected

    • boring theorem: theorem for which there are many others very much like it
    • useful theorem: theorem that leads to many new ones
    • powerful theorem: theorem that substantially reduces the lengths of

    proofs needed for many others

    • surprising theorem: theorem that appears in an otherwise sparse part

    of the network

    • deep theorem: theorem that connects components of the network that

    otherwise far away

    • important theorem: theorem that allows a broad new area of the

    network to be reached”

    https://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-1176

    P.

    On 29 November 2010 19:56, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    > 2010/11/29 Mázsa Péter :
    >> On 24 November 2010 17:42, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    >>> 2010/11/24 Mázsa Péter :
    >>>> What is absolutely necessary for POnt is that there should be a place
    >>>> for Independent Continuants who are not necessarily Material Entities
    >>>> (or Boundaries or Sites).
    >>>
    >>> Why do you need them to be independent? In what way would dependent
    >>> continuant not be correct? Are there some things that do not have a
    >>> material basis?
    >>
    >> 1. You are a person. Are you sure you think that a material basis is
    >> absolutely necessary for you?
    >
    > Yes.
    >
    >> If you had the opportunity do you think
    >> you would “upload” yourself (= convert yourself into information
    >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading ) before you die? [I think
    >> I would. And I would use e.g. Git
    >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software) for version control, i.e.
    >> branching and merging of my bodiless minds & minds "downloaded" into
    >> other bodies criss-crossing the Earth & the Universe and being happy
    >> not to be dead:]
    >
    > If possible, I would. Whether possible is an open question.
    > After I uploaded I would have a different material basis (some digital
    > form of memory)
    > In BFO we call such entities generically dependent continuants.
    >
    >> 2. Suppose a (likewise hypothetical) Artificial Intelligence [AI]
    >> running on the internet is a person. Do you think that she has a
    >> material basis / is an independently continuant material object
    >> (bearing a role of person)?
    >
    > The BFO approach would be to deal with that eventuality when and if it obtains.
    > In any case, I think, in your formulation, yes, it would have at least
    > one material basis
    >
    >>[I think it would not be useful to regard
    >> her as something that has a material basis.
    >
    > It isn't a matter of useful. It's a matter of true.
    >
    >> I think you think this AI is an independent continuant, but I can't imagine how you think she is
    >> a material object.
    >
    > I didn't say the AI was a material entity. I said it was a generically
    > dependent continuant.
    >
    >> I think filing them into the existing categories of
    >> BFO would be like working with celestial spheres: still usable but
    >> ugly.]
    >
    > Sorry to have offended.
    >
    >> I think that what we think of as persons are “things” that do not
    >> necessarily and intuitively have a material basis. Are you convinced
    >> by the thought experiments above?
    >
    > No.
    >
    > -Alan

    On 29 November 2010 20:01, Barry Smith wrote:
    >
    >
    > 2010/11/29 Mázsa Péter >>
    >> On 24 November 2010 17:42, Alan Ruttenberg
    >> wrote:
    >> > 2010/11/24 Mázsa Péter :
    >> >> What is absolutely necessary for POnt is that there should be a place
    >> >> for Independent Continuants who are not necessarily Material Entities
    >> >> (or Boundaries or Sites).
    >> >
    >> > Why do you need them to be independent? In what way would dependent
    >> > continuant not be correct? Are there some things that do not have a
    >> > material basis?
    >>
    >> 1. You are a person. Are you sure you think that a material basis is
    >> absolutely necessary for you? If you had the opportunity do you think
    >> you would “upload” yourself (= convert yourself into information
    >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading ) before you die? [I think
    >> I would. And I would use e.g. Git
    >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software) for version control, i.e.
    >> branching and merging of my bodiless minds & minds "downloaded" into
    >> other bodies criss-crossing the Earth & the Universe and being happy
    >> not to be dead:]
    >
    > when this is shown to be possible, we will re-address the issue;  
    >>
    >> 2. Suppose a (likewise hypothetical) Artificial Intelligence [AI]
    >> running on the internet is a person. Do you think that she has a
    >> material basis / is an independently continuant material object
    >> (bearing a role of person)? [I think it would not be useful to regard
    >> her as something that has a material basis. I think you think this AI
    >> is an independent continuant, but I can't imagine how you think she is
    >> a material object. I think filing them into the existing categories of
    >> BFO would be like working with celestial spheres: still usable but
    >> ugly.]
    >>
    > there are so many problems facing use of BFO in support of established
    > science, we cannot waste time on merely hypothetical issues; for this you
    > may wish to use DOLCE
    >  
    >>
    >> I think that what we think of as persons are “things” that do not
    >> necessarily and intuitively have a material basis. Are you convinced
    >> by the thought experiments above?
    >>
    > This is not the issue; the issue is how to ensure BFO is successful in
    > performing the jobs it needs to perform today
    > BS

    [Original: https://groups.google.com/group/bfo-discuss/browse_thread/thread/433bfa9718cae15?hl=en ]

     

  • mazsa 09:05 on November 29, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,   

    Re: Re: Dear BFO Community, let me introduce you POnt – Personal Ontology 1.0 alpha 

    [Cf. the whole sequence: http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/posts-on-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha-on-bfo-list ]

    On 24 November 2010 17:42, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    > 2010/11/24 Mázsa Péter:
    >> What is absolutely necessary for POnt is that there should be a place
    >> for Independent Continuants who are not necessarily Material Entities
    >> (or Boundaries or Sites).
    >
    > Why do you need them to be independent? In what way would dependent
    > continuant not be correct? Are there some things that do not have a
    > material basis?

    1. You are a person. Are you sure you think that a material basis is
    absolutely necessary for you? If you had the opportunity do you think
    you would “upload” yourself (= convert yourself into information
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading ) before you die? [I think
    I would. And I would use e.g. Git
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software) for version control, i.e.
    branching and merging of my bodiless minds & minds "downloaded" into
    other bodies criss-crossing the Earth & the Universe and being happy
    not to be dead:]

    2. Suppose a (likewise hypothetical) Artificial Intelligence [AI]
    running on the internet is a person. Do you think that she has a
    material basis / is an independently continuant material object
    (bearing a role of person)? [I think it would not be useful to regard
    her as something that has a material basis. I think you think this AI
    is an independent continuant, but I can't imagine how you think she is
    a material object. I think filing them into the existing categories of
    BFO would be like working with celestial spheres: still usable but
    ugly.]

    I think that what we think of as persons are “things” that do not
    necessarily and intuitively have a material basis. Are you convinced
    by the thought experiments above?

    On 24 November 2010 18:48, Barry Smith wrote:
    > did you look at IAO, which extends Buffalo, and places information artifacts
    > under BFO:generically dependent continuants:
    > http://code.google.com/p/information-artifact-ontology/

    The uploaded and version controlled (information artifact) me might be
    somehow depend on the decesed me – perhaps otherwise than “Borges” on
    “me” in http://www.amherstlecture.org/perry2007/Borges%20and%20I.pdf ,
    but both of us may live with the consciousness that you filed (the
    uploaded) me into the category BFO:generically dependent continuants.

    But what would be the independent continuant material basis of the AI
    on the internet? A set of electrons / photons?

    On 24 November 2010 17:42, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
    > For example, we would consider “Legal person” as a role, and could
    > then define a class of material entities that bear this role. Such a
    > class does not have to be a subclass of homo sapiens.

    Persons are continuants without doubt.

    As I understand you think that

    • you as a homo sapiens are an instance of independently continuant

    material object, and

    • a legal person is a class of independently continuant material

    objects [or a class of other legal persons and independently
    continuant material objects, etc.] bearing a (dependently continuant)
    role of “legal person”.

    The question whether personship is a role has a very long history, my
    favorite contemporary texts on this history are

    http://www.amazon.com/Category-Person-Anthropology-Philosophy-History/dp/0521277574

    and

    http://www.amazon.com/Pluralism-Personality-State-Ideas-Context/dp/0521022630

    (cf. of course http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html
    esp ch. 16. and 2nd part where personship is a role and

    http://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Persons-Oxford-Paperbacks-Parfit/dp/019824908X

    on the logical construction of personship).

    If you think that you are an independently continuant material object
    bearing a role of “natural person”, then you think personship is a
    role. (Or you think that natural persons are unique among persons in
    being independently continuant material objects without bearing a
    role?)

    I think personship is not a role: roles are a kind of connection
    between persons. As I wrote above I think that persons are not
    independently continuant material objects bearing (dependently
    continuant) roles but independent continuants who do not necessarily
    and intuitively have a material basis (“Independent Continuants who
    are not necessarily Material Entities (or Boundaries or Sites)”). E.g.
    I think I am an independent continuant who is necessarily material as
    a body (of a homo sapiens) and as an individual person but not as a
    person.

    The question remains whether the Person-Object divide has ontological
    (vs. “mere” ethical) significance (like the Continuant-Occurent
    divide). If you accept (as I do) or suppose for a moment that “An
    objective fact is one that is invariant under all admissible
    transformations” (Nozick: Invariances

    http://www.amazon.com/Invariances-Structure-Objective-Robert-Nozick/dp/0674012453

    p. 82., in general in part “2. Invariance and Objectivity” pp.
    75-119., and in particular to ethics in chapter “Ethical Truth and
    Ethical Objectivity”, pp. 284-294.) you can see

    • why I insist on invariance in my ethics,
    • why I think that implementing the invariance-requirement is the way

    how we can avoid a contingent definition of person.
    My criticism of BFO “embodied” in POnt stems from the fact that I think that

    • the (hypothetical) transformation of the origin of a person (natural

    vs authored, e.g. material vs uploaded, or individual vs AI) is an
    ontological transformation, and

    • personship is invariant to this transformation as well.

    This is why I think that POnt is a pure ontology, i.e., not
    “contaminated” with ethics, and perhaps with relevance to BFO.

    Peter

    [Original: https://groups.google.com/group/bfo-discuss/browse_thread/thread/433bfa9718cae15?hl=en ]

     

  • admin 06:54 on November 28, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    U.S. & Panama Tax agreement to be signed on the 30th of November in English 

    I want to thank John H, one of my avid readers, for sharing this important information with us.

    Below you will find a machine translation of the Tax agreement that is to be signed by Panama and the U.S. on the 30th of November. I have also included an article from La Prensa with comments by the Minister of Finance and other interested parties.

    My understanding after reading these brief 12 articles is that it gives the U.S. complete access to any information it may request on any U.S. resident or citizen who it believes may hold assets in Panama. [...]

    http://primapanama.blogs.com/_panama_residential_devel/2010/11/us-panama-tax-agreement-in-english.html

     

  • mazsa 16:42 on November 27, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , ,   

    Re: Dear BFO Community, let me introduce you POnt – Personal Ontology 1.0 alpha 

    [Cf. the whole sequence: http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/posts-on-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha-on-bfo-list ]

    Janna Hastings
    Nov 22, 10:26 am:

    Hello,
    I am curious. Can you give a definition for Information as you’ve used it?
    Thanks
    Janna

    Mázsa Péter
    Nov 22, 11:06 am:

    On 22 November 2010 10:26, Janna Hastings wrote:
    > I am curious. Can you give a definition for Information as you’ve used it?

    Hi Janna,
    the “natural” answer is that I use it as a basic concept, i.e. without
    a definition (just like BFO uses Entity). But this does not tell the
    whole story. I use Information (vs matter) as some(thing) not
    necessarily local and/or temporal, but (like matter) likely causal
    (cf. eg. http://lesswrong.com/lw/qr/timeless_causality ).
    P.

    Barry Smith
    Nov 22, 2:18 pm:

    Your proposal, unfortunately, has the unacceptable consequence that every
    instance of material entity is an instance of information.
    I believe that if you really believe this, then DOLCE would be a more
    suitable environment for your work; or potentially also HL7 RIM.
    BS

    Mázsa Péter
    Nov 24, 12:03 pm:

    2010/11/22 Ludger Jansen:
    > Nice try. You might want to check this:
    > http://www.gap5.de/proceedings/pdf/479-491_jansen.pdf

    Thank you Ludger, I like it very much! We are pursuing the same…
    subject:) (e.g. “[...] there are non-natural persons that have no
    intelligence nor emotions of happiness or misery of there own, but
    still are agents [= persons @Jansen] to which actions and their merit
    are appropriated” Jansen,2003 p. 486.)
    Main differences:

    • I think agency is not what constitutes personship, but a necessary

    condition of it. In POnt, there may be agents who are not persons. Or,
    this is at least not excluded. (Cf. eg.

    http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Agency-Metaphysics-Mind-Action/dp/0199…

    )

    • I like your category “status persons” (“things that exist only

    because we believe them to exist” Jansen cites Searle
    “belief-dependent non-beliefs” Jansen,2003 p. 479). I think the
    concept of person is itself a “status”. In POnt, Individual (or:
    [FinesPart, Body, Individual]) is not a “natural person” but a “status
    person” as well, due to common knowledge (common knowledge as I use:
    http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cs/pdf/0006/0006009v1.pdf pp. 14-15.).
    Natural [person] (be it a result of evolution or creation) is not
    preferred over non-natural [person] (be it a result of anyone’s
    creation or belief).

    • In POnt, there are 2 possible origins of your status objects: (1)

    States and Individuals, who are status objects because they are
    elements of a common knowledge partition of agents, based on Axiom 2
    (“2. All parts of a common knowledge partition of agents are agents”)
    and (2) ConstitutedPersons who are status objects based on Axiom 4
    (“4. All ‘persons’ declared by persons and able to speak with one
    voice are persons.”)

    • Both of us think that status persons are not, or not exclusively,

    (material) Objects. (In POnt, persons are originally not material
    Objects, however some persons, SocialPersons, are equivalent to some
    Objects, Social PersonObjects, and some ConstitutedPersons may have
    “incarnations” among Objects as well). But you are not explicit about
    it, I mean how would you implement your system in BFO 1.1, where you
    can not find a place for not necessarily material
    IndependentContinuants?
    > Personally, I would try to seperate the formal ontology of persons from the
    > person ethos thing.

    2 answers:
    1) You are right. For me, this 2 above are inseparable: I’m generating
    persons from ‘persons’ (said to be persons) in the following way:
    “1. All ‘persons’ are agents.
    2. All parts of a common knowledge partition of agents are agents.
    3. All members of a possibly fair society of agents are persons.
    4. All ‘persons’ declared by persons and able to speak with one voice
    are persons.”

    http://theunitedpersons.org/constitution/axiom

    The Axiom-system is determined by the claim that the concept of person
    which is generated by it should be invariant to “any origin, natural
    or authored” and to “any consent, by common right or by constitution”.
    So the person ethos thing (the claim of invariance) determines the
    structure of Axioms.
    This unseparability is undeniably a constraint. But maybe a good kind
    of constraint: I think it makes possible to determine the meaning of
    the concept of person, without any contingency, overdetermination or
    underdetermination.
    (By the way, ethical foundation of personhood is not new, cf. e.g.
    “[...] this book will begin with an ethical assumption about the
    nature of persons, which it will then take as a critical and defining
    starting point for further metaphysical investigation into the kind
    ‘person’.” http://www.amazon.com/Bounds-Agency-Carol-Rovane/dp/0691017166
    p. 5.)
    2) Formally, you can work with the bare axioms without any reference
    to their origin. Starting from here, the formal ontology of person is
    completely separated from the person ethics thing.
    > By the way: What is a “common knowledge partition part”?

    When we speak about “common knowledge partition part”, we use Axiom 2
    above: if the set B is a part (here: element) of a partition [<==> a
    collection of disjoint nonempty subsets of the set A whose union is
    all of the set A] of a set A of agents, and the partition is common
    knowledge among the elements of the set A of agents, then the set B is
    an agent. I call B CommonKnowledgePartitionPart.
    Examles are the equivalent [FinesPart, Body, Individual] and the
    equivalent [NonFinestPart, Territory, State]
    I’m curious… what do you think?
    Peter

    Mázsa Péter
    Nov 24, 5:27 pm:

    On 22 November 2010 14:18, Barry Smith wrote:
    > Your proposal, unfortunately, has the unacceptable consequence that every
    > instance of material entity is an instance of information.
    > I believe that if you really believe this, then DOLCE would be a more
    > suitable environment for your work; or potentially also HL7 RIM.
    > BS

    Barry, I think BFO you initiated is superior to any other ontologies I
    checked – BFO is my revealed preference:)
    Regarding that both the Entity of BFO and the Information of POnt are
    basic concepts, i.e. both without definition (thanks Janna!), I do not
    insist on Information as a root category. POnt can call the root
    category Entity, so I need not give up BFO-tradition + will not lose
    generality (thanks Barry!). I may like information to be the
    “infrastucture” of matter but you are right: for an ontology this
    would be a superfluous presumption and a logical fallacy of this kind:
    http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/mary/Default.aspx .
    What is absolutely necessary for POnt is that there should be a place
    for Independent Continuants who are not necessarily Material Entities
    (or Boundaries or Sites).
    Of course I am not informed enough on the history of BFO, so I am not
    able to decide whether it is a bug of BFO or a feature – hopefully a
    feature, and in this case POnt will be just a fork of BFO, not a
    suggestion for improvement of it.
    ***
    I got 2 private questions independently:
    “I still do not understand the square bracket terms in POnt.”
    “What are the brackets for?”
    Square brackets are generated by SWOOP 2.3beta4 if you declare 2
    categories to be equivalent. If ‘=’ is ‘is equivalent to’, I declared
    that State = Territory = NonFinestPart, and that Individual = Body =
    FinestPart, and that SocialPerson = SocialPersonObject =
    CommonKnowledgePartitionPart. E.g. the meaning of [State, Territory,
    NonFinestPart] (cf. http://theunitedpersons.org/pont ) is that the
    categories of State, Territory and NonFinestPart are equivalent.

    [Original: https://groups.google.com/group/bfo-discuss/browse_thread/thread/433bfa9718cae15?hl=en ]

     

  • mazsa 21:09 on November 25, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , ,   

    Nightmare in Hungary – Forward to the Past 

    https://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2010/11/hungarian_pensions

     

  • mazsa 09:17 on November 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , ,   

    Dear BFO Community, let me introduce you POnt – Personal Ontology 1.0 alpha 

    [Cf. the whole sequence: http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/posts-on-personal-ontology-1-0-alpha-on-bfo-list ]

    ———- Forwarded message ———-
    From: Mázsa Péter Date: 2010/11/22
    Subject: POnt – Personal Ontology 1.0 alpha
    To: bfo-discuss@googlegroups.com

    Dear BFO Community,

    let me introduce you POnt – Personal Ontology 1.0 alpha.

    Home: http://theunitedpersons.org/pont
    Owl file: https://github.com/mazsa/Personal-Ontology/raw/master/pont.owl

    It is a modification of BFO [Basic Formal Ontology http://www.ifomis.org/bfo :

    ], based on this Constitution:

    http://theunitedpersons.org/constitution

    Motivation:
    I’m a big fan of Parts – A Study in Ontology by Simons

    http://www.amazon.com/Parts-Study-Ontology-Peter-Simons/dp/0199241465

    and BFO, and, however short it is (< 1 page), I spent a lot of time
    revealing/creating the Constitution above. I wanted to merge them all.

    My central concern was that agents and persons as defined by the
    Axioms 1-4. http://theunitedpersons.org/constitution/axiom of the
    Constitution didn't fit well in BFO 1.1. I think we need a category
    for Agents: Independent Continuants who are not necessarily Material
    Entities (or Boundaries or Sites). E.g., I don't think we should
    regard Constituted Persons (e.g. corporation / universitas

    http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Universitas.html

    ) as necessarily Objects.

    Main deviation:
    This is why I must replace the root BFO-category Entity for root
    POnt-category Information:

    In POnt, (material) Objects are special
    cases of Information ( = are constrained Information), ensuring a
    place for not necessarily material independent continuants.
    (As a matter of fact, I have another motivation too: I think it may be
    useful to approach from this point of view the trade-off between
    “private ownership” of information and the “public domain”

    “Locke (1690 http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/academic/digitexts/locke/second/locke2nd.txt
    ) was one of the earliest writers to argue that ideas should be
    appropriated by those who originally produced them and thereafter
    protected for a period of time under the principle of natural law for
    the benefit of the public. He identified the trade-off between private
    ownership and the public domain”

    https://www.stanford.edu/group/song/papers/ScienceandPropertyARLSS.pdf

    )

    Implication:
    Notice that my suggestion (the replacement) implies an answer to this question:

    “[...] it is important to clarify what the problem is not. We are not
    asking whether the metaphorical interpretation of the universe as a
    computer is more useful than mislead- ing. We are not even asking
    whether an informational description of the universe, as we know it,
    is possible, at least partly and piecemeal. [...] We are asking
    whether the universe in itself could essentially be made of
    information [...]”

    http://num.math.uni-goettingen.de/schaback/info/mat/floridi_open_problems.pdf

    p. 574

    The replacement (of Entity for Information) implies that universe in
    itself could possibly essentially be made of information with natural
    processes, including causation, as special cases of it (Cf.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics ).

    Notice further that

    • the replacement does not imply predetermination
    • the definition of Agent is “Freedom of some Information”
    • the basic concept “freedom” is not necessarily (but possibly)

    ontologic, it is “at least” epistemologic, i.e., the replacement does
    not exclude predetermination either – we are agnostic on this topic
    and cf. http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_(solution)

    Structure:
    Some Agents [CommonKnowledgePartitionPart
    http://theunitedpersons.org/constitution/axiom/ca2 , including
    FinestPart and NonFinestPart] are equivalent to some Persons
    [SocialPerson http://theunitedpersons.org/constitution/axiom/ca3 ,
    including Individual and State], based on a Theorem (which includes

    http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/PartitionIsEquivalentToAnEquivalenceRelation.html

    ).
    And these Persons are equivalent to some Objects [SocialPersonObject,
    including Body and Territory], based on a Presumption.

    Of course, some SocialPersons (States, Individuals) may have
    constitutions, and some ConstitutedPersons may have “incarnations”
    among Objects (e.g. the United Persons may affiliate some States:)

    Question:
    The replacement of Entity for Information is the main price I think we
    should pay for Persons (or for not necessarily material independent
    continuants) in our ontology. What do you think of it as the
    BFO-community?

    Thank you:
    Peter Mazsa http://mazsa.com

    [Original: https://groups.google.com/group/bfo-discuss/browse_thread/thread/433bfa9718cae15?hl=en ]

     

  • mazsa 10:24 on November 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Smári McCarthy: My Agenda and Emphasis for the Icelandic Constitutional Assembly 

    http://www.smarimccarthy.com/issues_english.pdf

    If you like his Agenda, like him @ FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Smari-McCarthy-a-stjornlagabing/161452417212255

     

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