Davos Newbies

Good news

The announcement of tremendous arms reductions by Russia and the US is unadulterated good news. We’ve gone too long with a diet of depressing news lately.

The arms control agenda is hardly complete, however. Maybe the good sense on this pact will extend to chemical and biological weapons, one of the areas where the Bush administration has unilaterally pulled out of long-running negotiations.

Healthy pandemonium

Neil Ascherson has long been one of the most perceptive observers of Europe (read his Black Sea and witness someone who truly has panoptic vision). Here’s his take on Fortuyn and the others:

“The populists have a loose jumble of vengeful ideas. But 2002 is not 1932. Nobody thinks that capitalism is collapsing because of Germany’s first big strike in seven years; nobody thinks that democracy has failed because Le Pen gave France such a fright. The only chance for the new populism to stay the course is to produce sparkling, charismatic whistle-blowers as its leaders. In government, and they will often win shares in coalitions, they will be sullen and ineffective. In the end, they may be just what their arch-enemies need. The new populist destiny could be just to blow holes in the grey, smooth surface of power and restore healthy pandemonium to politics.”

Resist the sirens

Quentin Peel writes a balanced appraisal of Pim Fortuyn and the rise of the right in Europe. He echoes my view that immigration is both necessary and welcome in Europe, given the scale of impending demographic change.

“The only sensible answer for Europe’s leaders is to welcome immigration and seek to manage it, not to listen to the siren voices of the far right that would halt it. A free-for-all may be unmanageable, but ‘regulated openness’ should be the goal. In Rotterdam, Mr Fortuyn may have sounded plausible when he said the boat was full, but he was fundamentally wrong.”

Decide for yourself

My comment on Pim Fortuyn on Friday has spurred an interesting discussion. Adam Curry has helpfully provided a link to the LPF manifesto. Read it and decide for yourself Fortuyn’s politics.

How new?

“He argues that all universal computing systems are equivalent; no calculating machine can be more powerful, no computer more sophisticated than the cellular automaton Mr. Wolfram describes. This insight alone, he claims, ‘has vastly richer implications’ than ‘any single collection of laws in science’.” Stephen Wolfram doesn’t feel he needs to be modest. His book, A New Kind of Science, is intended to overturn a signficant amount of scientific thought.

I’m certainly not the one to judge the validity or otherwise of Wolfram’s arguments. But I did hear some odd, juicy tales about the book pre-publication. Wolfram only allowed a few, trusted souls to read the manuscript. Even they were required to sign non-disclosure agreements. Apparently his obsession with secrecy stems from being very appallingly treated over the copyright of a mathematical site he created for Mathematica users.