Rubrics » Bridging News
The Geopolitical Gamble Between Global Digitalisation and Green Trends
Ever since mankind first began applying its reasoning and inventiveness towards manipulating the elements of its natural environment to suit his needs and want, humanity became engaged in a profound, mutually transformational relationship with nature. Man’s surrounding environment heavily influenced man’s views and beliefs about his origins, role and purpose in this world as well as the origins, role and purpose of the world and the cosmos. While man’s needs and beliefs led him to explore new ways of meeting his existential (food, shelter etc.), individual (artistic expression, occupational needs etc.) and transcendental needs (religion, cosmogony, the search for ultimate meaning and what lies at the roots of reality etc.), the impact of the human species on the planet began to take shape, slowly but surely over many millennia and generations, growing ever more complex as man’s knowledge, tools and needs grew in breadth and depth. More
Poetic Inquiry into Human Thought Foundations (I)
The argument for a multidisciplinary approach to comprehension of human thought and its translation into action seems to be irreproachable, as it demonstrates a thorough knowledge of sociohistorical phenomena and their propagation across times marked by remarkable events aplenty. However, the crossover of arts – of which da Vinci probably is the most telling example – is not as common as this much more common and mere “intellectual multilateralism” of appealing and borrowing from different fields of knowledge. Could there possibly be anything more beautiful and sublime than a sculpture represented in a wondrous painting More
Russia’s Game in the Sea of Azov
Since its declaration of independence in 1991, Kiev has identified the situation in Crimea as a national security vulnerability in the wake of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s presence in Sevastopol.Negotiations with Moscow, completed in 1997, laid the groundwork for a treaty that would resolve the Soviet legacy, with Russia receiving 81.7% of the fleet while Ukraine only 18.3%, or 87 vessels and one submarine. More
Is Bitcoin the Costly Highway?
Bitcoin has recently reached a new all-time high in terms of USD, going over $ 62,500. Just as every other time it has happened, this time again there are voices that rejoice the feat and numerous others that decry its sheer volatility, bubble behaviour, deflationary character and, most of all, humongous costs and energy consumption.One tool that monitors Bitcoin’s energy consumption, Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index estimates that Bitcoin’s share of the world consumption of electricity is 0,49%, close to 109 TWh annually. More
Through Scientism to Neo-Paganism. On Millennialism of the Ecological Rite
The environmentalist ideology tends, in my opinion, to supplant what was referred to as “political education” during the communist era (Marxist humanism or the Marxist concept of education). It is explicitly or implicitly covered in the kindergarten and elementary school curricula. However, neither high school nor college are spared. Furthermore, few believe that this fact warrants attention because, after all, what could be wrong with environmental awareness? Environmentalism appears to be a completely harmless discipline that encompasses all aspects of life: nature, animal species, pollution prevention and cleanup, tree planting, waste reduction, and recycling. Teamwork, “extra-curricular” activities, activism, walks, outdoor excursions and volunteerism are all included. Irresistible to children, adolescents, and decent, sensitive women. Once again, there is no way to fail. It is especially true as preoccupations can develop an aura of serious activity, public commitment, and even a genuine green apostolate over time. Moreover, when it comes to the apostolate, even for religious persons or believers, the concept does not appear – and can hardly appear – to be in the slightest bit suspicious[1]. It is all due to the idea that man is merely God’s messenger at the helm of the created world, which he should treat with respect and reverence rather than mockery. More
![Investiți în România! [Invest in Romania!] – A New Season at TVR International](http://www.themarketforideas.com:443/img/w-315/h-0/images/articles/2021/01/Current Issue/investiti-in-romania-invest-in-romania-a-new-season-at-tvr-international-a697.jpg)
Investiți în România! [Invest in Romania!] – A New Season at TVR International
Economics has the benefit of representing a “popular” science, a non-exclusivist one, being accessible to all those who are accustomed to judging with their own minds. But investments, guided by economic common sense, have a “heroic” component, accessible to those who, additionally, have courage.As economists-journalists, we apply, as we understand that it is constantly applied to us, the very “logic of economics” – it is within us and we are part of it. More
ASE reconfirms, for the third consecutive year, the first place in Romania, according to the prestigious Times Higher Education World University Rankings, 2022 edition
The Bucharest University of Economic Studies (Academia de Studii Economice din București – ASE), the leader of economic and public administration education in Romania, is listed for the third time in a row as the best university in Romania, according to the 2022 edition of the prestigious Times Higher Education World University Rankings, published on September 2, this year. More
The Need for Resilience in the EU Economy
The concept of resilience (lat. risiliere) became frequently used in public discourse in recent years. Originally used by scientists, it has a long history in various disciplines (physics, materials science, engineering, psychology, ecology)[1] before the crises that have emerged worldwide in the last decades led to its appropriation by international organizations (UN, OECD, IMF, World Bank etc.) and various decision-makers. They integrated it into their strategies, guidelines and transformed resilience into a public policy desideratum. More
Technology’s Dominion: An Ever-Tightening Web of Dependency
Although some degree of indeterminacy circumscribes perception and communication, it does not follow that the information which filters through our perceptual screens must be false or illusory. Norbert Wiener characterized it as “the devil of confusion, not of willful malice.” His concern was with the loss or distortion of information – analogous to entropy – in the process itself. It is a problem which bedevils our best efforts to find a common ground for understanding. More
An Economic Perspective on the Ant Colony
Ever since I explored the surrealism around Salvador Dali’s creative universe, I have been fascinated in particular by one of his prevailing iconographic motifs symbolizing death, putrefaction, moral degradation as well as his dark spectrum of sexual desires: the swarming ants. Dali’s artistry largely consisted of exposing his subconscious imagery through these seemingly unobtrusive symbols. Despite this, however, what do we actually know about ants? More
Three “Mister K” and Our Recovery from Eastern European “Kafkian” Absurdum
In Kafka’s novel, Das Schloß [The Castle], there is a gentleman bearing the name “K” who unsuccessfully tries to obtain a hearing with the enigmatic ruler of a bureaucratic citadel dominating, physically and psychically, an alienated village community, to secure a living in that surreal neighbourhood. In Der Prozess [The Trial], a certain Joseph K. gets arrested and accused by an obscure authority for a crime never unveiled, either to him or anyone else (including the millions of readers of the novel). In Amerika [America], the main character, Karl Rossmann, lives a David-Coppefield-ian life within an illusive and deluding “new world”. All three novels are part of the “absurdist literature”, are unfinished and are posthumous. Even though Kafka didn’t experience communism, his novels can be seen as a crude premonition of that epoch. In the present essay we shall speak, however, about three different characters whose names start with the Kafkian effigy “K” and whose professional careers were devoted to the extraction of Eastern Europe from the absurdum of communism: the Polish philosopher and historian of ideas Leszek Kołakowski (1927-2009), the Hungarian economist János Kornai (1928-2021) and the ex-President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus (b. 1941). More
Social Justice – A Key Tool to Fight Against Social Inequality
By considering that social justice is a principle for generating the basic structure of the society, three such approaches to social justice theory are known in the specialty literature: the approach based on fairness, the approach based on capability and the approach based on entitlement. Some considerations about each type of approach will be presented below. More
