El franquismo sobrevivirá mientras viva el antifranquismo, que todavía sueña con ganar la guerra civil

El franquismo político e institucional murió con la Constitución de 1978. Pero el antifranquismo, no. Esa paradoja explica que el franquismo sobreviva, más allá de los diminutos panteones de la extrema derecha, en el antifranquismo perenne, que todavía sueña con ganar la guerra civil.

Los hinchas de Podexit atribuyen su fracaso electoral el 26-J a los viejos 'fachas', y piden aplicarles la ley del paredón. Se equivocan otra vez. La culpa de su derrota no es del senilismo sino de su antifranquismo redivivo, anacrónico y revanchista.

El franquismo, niños, sólo vive entre vosotros y morirá definitivamente el día en que muera el último antifranquista rezagado.

Los abuelos españoles han salvado a sus nietos porque recuerdan la Guerra Civil

'La efebocracia en boga entraña la creencia en una superioridad moral de los jóvenes que no sólo ha sido contestada en las urnas, sino también en la filosofía, la literatura y la historia. De las fábulas de Esopo al senado romano (senado en latín viene a significar reunión de viejos), la civilización la han construido los consejos de los prudentes y la han defendido los músculos de los guerreros. Por supuesto, en cada tribu el relato custodiado por el sanedrín es diferente, y así como los abuelos británicos han traicionado sin querer a sus nietos porque votaron movidos por el recuerdo de una isla imperial, los abuelos españoles han salvado a los suyos de una amenaza que no necesitan exagerar, porque guardan memoria guerracivilista de su triste certeza. No es que a los viejos les guste la corrupción; no es que les embargue una nostalgia del franquismo que se consuelan con el PP; es que la experiencia les ha persuadido de que no existen los inmaculados, y a cambio han aprendido a ponderar el mal menor entre el asco y la ruina. Tampoco Carmena es una niña, y quizá sea eso lo mejor de su gestión'. | JORGE BUSTOS

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Podemos achaca su bajada el 26-J al “miedo” a que gobernase “lo nuevo”

Será más bien que no les votaron por miedo a lo viejo: el frentepopulismo, 'el pueblo unido jamás será vencido', la demagogia, el matonismo...

110 premios Nobel acusan a Greenpeace de "crimen contra la humanidad" por su oposición a los transgénicos

Los ecologistas son muy propensos a envolverse en el manto de la ciencia cuando consideran que conviene a sus intereses, como en el caso del cambio climático, y a ignorarla por completo cuando no lo hace, como es el caso de los transgénicos. Pero ahora tendrán más complicado hacerlo. Más de un centenar de premios Nobel, en el momento de escribir estas lineas,han firmado una dura carta abierta en la que exigen a Greenpeace que cese en su oposición a los transgénicos en general, y más en concreto al arroz dorado.

La carta recuerda que, cada año, entre 250.000 y medio millón de niños en los países pobres se quedan ciegos por falta de vitamina A, y la mitad de ellos mueren de esa enfermedad menos de un año después. Sumando niños y adultos, UNICEF calcula que mueren por esta enfermedad entre uno y dos millones de personas cada año. Esta enfermedad podría prevenirse gracias a un organismo transgénico, el llamado arroz dorado.

A finales de los años 90, dos científicos europeos, Ingo Potrykus y Peter Beyer, desarrollaron una variedad de arroz –un alimento en el que se basa la dieta en muchos países pobres– que incluía entre sus nutrientes la provitamina A o betacaroteno, un compuesto químico que nuestro cuerpo transforma en vitamina A, gracias al uso de genes provenientes de bacterias y otras plantas, como el maíz o los narcisos. Lo llamaron arroz dorado por su color, por otra parte muy apropiado para hacer una paella. Aunque originalmente su creación contenía un porcentaje demasiado pequeño de provitamina, con el paso de los años se ha mejorado hasta conseguir que 144 gramos de este arroz basten para ingerir la dosis diaria necesaria en una dieta sana.

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El presidente checo reclama un referéndum sobre la pertenencia a la UE y a la OTAN

The seeds of European disconent are spreading. One week after Britain voted to separate amicably with the EU, the president of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman, called for a referendum on his country’s membership in the EU and NATO. Demonstrating a shocking grasp of what democracy truly is, while Zeman wants to remain in both organizations, he wants the public to have a chance to "express themselves" something which sends a spike of terror through the hearts of all unelected Brussels bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, support for the EU is waning in the central European country. In April, a poll conducted by the CVVM institute showed that just 25% of the population is satisfied with their membership in the bloc, as cited by Reuters. Twelve months earlier, that figure had stood at 32%. And so, following on Britain’s vote to exit the EU, Zeman now wants to give the Czech public the chance to decide their own future, as skepticism about the merits of remaining in the bloc continues to rise.

“I disagree with those who are for leaving the European Union,” Czech Radio quoted Zeman as saying on Thursday evening, according to Reuters. “But I will do everything for them to have a referendum and be able to express themselves. And the same goes for a NATO exit too,” he added.

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Bruselas autoriza a Renzi a dar liquidez a la banca italiana

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.- The European Commission on Sunday authorized Italy to use government guarantees to provide liquidity support to its banks, a spokeswoman said, disclosing the first intervention by a European Union government into its banking system following the U.K. vote to leave the EU.

(...)

Italian banks have lost more than half of their market capitalization since the beginning of the year, as investors fret about some EUR360 billion in bad loans still logged on their balance sheets. That drop in market value compares to an average decline of less than one third for European lenders.

Some Italian banks have seen their shares plummet by some 75% in the first half of the year.

A person familiar with the Italian government’s plans said the cabinet of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hoped to use a liquidity backstop to contain investor panic, which could result in a run on deposit and affect banks’ liquidity.

The liquidity support provides a temporary cushion for Italian banks. But it doesn’t solve the broader issue of how to raise sufficient capital to sustain writedowns of loan portfolios gone bad.

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El Constitucional austríaco invalida las elecciones presidenciales que ganó el candidato ecologista

Austria's highest court has annulled the result of the presidential election narrowly lost by the candidate of the far-right Freedom Party.

The party had challenged the result, saying that postal votes had been illegally and improperly handled.

The Freedom Party candidate, Norbert Hofer, lost the election to the former leader of the Greens, Alexander Van der Bellen, by just 30,863 votes or less than one percentage point.

The election will now be re-run.

Announcing the decision, Gerhard Holzinger, head of the Constitutional Court, said: "The challenge brought by Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache against the 22 May election... has been upheld."

He added: "The decision I am announcing today has no winner and no loser, it has only one aim: to strengthen trust in the rule of law a

nd democracy."

Mr Hofer said he was pleased that the court had taken "a difficult decision", adding: "I have great trust in the rule of law." What were the complaints?

In two weeks of hearings, lawyers for the Freedom Party argued that postal ballots were illegally handled in 94 out of 117 districts.

It alleged that thousands of votes were opened earlier than permitted under election rules and some were counted by people unauthorised to do so.

The party also claimed to have evidence that some under-16s and foreigners had been allowed to vote.

In its ruling, the court said election rules had been broken in a way that could have influenced the result.

But it said there was no proof the count had been manipulated.

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Elon Musk está equivocado. No vivimos en una simulación

El fundador de SpaceX y Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, sostiene que solo hay "una posibilidad entre miles de millones" de que vivamos de verdad y no en una simulación de computadora."En 40 años hemos pasado del 'Pong' a masivos juegos en línea con millones de jugadores simultáneos y en 3D, y cada año se mejoran. Pronto tendremos la realidad virtual, la realidad aumentada". Según Elon Musk, en un futuro "los juegos llegarán a ser indistinguibles de la realidad", lo que en su opinión no se trata de un hecho negativo. "O vamos hacia la creación de simulaciones que sean indistinguibles de la realidad, o la civilización dejará de existir".

"Una manzana simulado no puede alimentar a nadie", le responden un filósofo, Riccardo Manzotti, y un científico cognitivo, Andrew Smart:

The key question is what are simulations made of? Or, if you are more poetically inclined, what is the stuff that dreams are made of? Simulations are things that we use to talk or to think about other things. In this respect, they do not step out of Musk’s base reality. They are still base reality. They are made of the same stuff everything else is made of.

For instance, a 10-inch neoprene model of Mount Everest is still an object, albeit an object that is used to refer to a much bigger object. A flight simulator is a physical thing used to refer to real planes. A dynamic simulation on a computer of the galaxy is yet another object made of rather complex networks of electronic gates and devices cleverly connected. It is a dynamic object we use to refer to another object. But nowhere do we meet a pure simulation that is not an object.

The idea that simulations are a sort of immaterial entity that are, despite being dependent on their physical substrate, nonetheless different, is a leftover of the aforementioned belief in a higher—and possibly better—reality. It’s a belief that we have no reason to take seriously. The notion that we may mistake a simulation of the world for the world is both conceptually and empirically flawed.

Conceptually, it is a self-defeating notion—something that if taken to be truth, negates itself. In fact, if, say, simulated water might be a meaningful notion, what would it be made of? It could not be made of real stuff, because if it was, it would no longer be simulated water. However, neither could it be made of simulated stuff, because—that’s the point of being a simulation—there is no such thing as simulated stuff. All we know is physical. All we know belongs, once again, to base reality. Either way, simulated water cannot exist.

Empirically, increasing computational power will not necessarily transform the water of computer games into the wine of a full-fledged simulated world. Making bigger bows and stronger arrows will never lead to an H-Bomb. Sometimes there are conceptual gaps that cannot be bridged by incremental improvements. Living in a simulation is not like building a 1-mile-high tower, which is challenging but possible, but rather like having a planet with a certain mass and no gravity. No amount of technological progress will achieve the latter, no matter what.

Moreover, Musk’s confidence in the development of technology—that massive increases in computational power will transmogrify existing videogames into a real simulated world—is based on the confusion between the ideal notion of simulation, which does not really exist, and the actual thing a simulation is. The ideal notion of simulation is, in turn, based on the notion that there are disembodied minds or a higher level of reality over and above basic reality. This is highly questionable.

Leer en Motherboard el artículo completo.