Disclaimer

Hey and Welcome!

As this is my first post, for your sake, but mostly for mine, I think it is fitting to explain the blog. I came up with it for two main reasons. To be able to go on about what interests me without boring people too much and in order to have a place to help me keep in touch with people with whom I no longer have the opportunity to see on a regular base.

First, this is a place to stay in touch. A place where I can share my thoughts about events and ideas with far away friends, whom I would want to share these thoughts but with whom discussing these over the phone may seem waistful given the limited amount of times we get to catch up. More than for anyone else, this is a blog for you guys whom I was unable to keep by my side, but whose brain I'd still like to be able to pick.

Secondly, this is a fairly selfish enterprise, if enterprise is the word. The idea is for it to be a repository of some thoughts, titled in a manner that attempts to give direction to what is otherwise a chaotic and random collection of pseudo-intellectual outbursts. The fact that it is public reinforces this and forces me to organise my thoughts and clarify my opinions...

The idea is "obviously" and "oh, so humbly", to use this as a space to reflect about world peace, tolerance and prosperity. Moreover, it is also an attempt for me to try to practice whatever knowledge of social sciences I have acquired over the last couple of years and see how useful it is in understanding present events and in inferring the likelihood of the coming ones.

"Rebuilding Babel" has nothing to do with religious or conservative notions of moral decadence or with exiling the people of Israel. If anything it is inspired by the idea that human beings are one people and that, as such, we deserve to be united in one society, with some level of common body politic, to manage our interactions and their unexpected and undesired consequences. Should we have a world government? Why? If so, what should it do? What should it look like? and the ultimate question, Should an earth government be desirable, how should it be achieved? or alternatively, if it is undesirable, how should it be avoided?

Biased as I am, I must apologise for the limited scope of analysis or reflections I may include. It will most likely incorporate some rather crude notions of economics and politics, and a disproportionate inspiration from Europe's history and the present process of European integration. This is where other people might come in handy. I ask that you bear with me and beg that you politely correct any inaccurate theoretical or empirical assertions that I may come up with. As a shourt cut, my thought process tends to (over)simplify things and I will surely be wrong more often than not.

I would also really like to know more about Asia and the Middle East, the Americas, Oceania and Africa. So please feel free to complement or correct any of my comments with examples from places. Some of these places will probably be over represented just for the fact that they have more history (understood as a written and organised record of events) than others which were unable to develop writing or whose records were to a large extent destroyed by, not so innocent, civilizing efforts from (Western) conquerors and colonial presence. But quantity is not quality, so it’s not very clear.

One final note... This is profoundly annoying, but for my sake, I would really be grateful if people were able to use a minimal amount of references, when these apply. It is not because I am geeky, though I probably am, and it is not because I am evaluating people. It's just that if you are using someone else's idea and he or she put it down in a book or an article, it is likely that he or she wrote it better and more at length than you did, and if you can refer to him or her, I can then go read it for myself and make up my own mind.

This being said I do hope that you may find this interesting and look forward to all and any comments.

(hehe, I am looking forward to checking this blog in 5 years... It will be hilarious to read this post and notice that in that time I have not received a single comment... )