The Chinese Room Revisited
Whole forests have been wasted in the effort to refute the Chinese Room Thought Experiment proposed by Searle in 1980 and refined (really derived from axioms) in 1990. The experiment envisages a room in which an English speaker sits, equipped...
Grudging Foreign Aid
Yankee Go Home. Nato is Nazo. American trash culture. The graffiti adorn every wall, the contempt seems to be universal. America and Americans are perceived to be uglier than ever before. It borders on hatred and xenophobia. Are we talking about...
The Madman and The Iraqi War
It is the war of the sated against the famished, the obese against the emaciated, the affluent against the impoverished, the democracies against tyranny, perhaps Christianity against Islam and definitely the West against the Orient. It is the...
Harmony
On the phone, hushed voices, in our bedroom, late afternoon, Noa declines an offer to meet with her lover. I stand in the corridor, book in hand, listening intently, refusing to believe.
By Sam Vaknin Author of “Malignant Self-love:...
Global Recession and FDI in CEE
How will the credit crunch of 2007 affect foreign direct investment in Central and Eastern Europe? What if it develops into a full scale recession in the West and especially in the USA?
It is instructive to study the effects on the region of...
Free Economic Zones in Eastern and Central Europe
Ten years ago, then Ukrainian President, Leonid Kuchma, told an assembly of senior customs service officials that “it is necessary to put an end to (Ukraine’s 11 free economic and 9 priority) zones (and) liquidate them completely....
School Shootings
Healthy narcissism is common in adolescents. Their narcissistic defenses help them cope with the anxieties and fears engendered by the demands and challenges of modern society: leaving home, going to college, sexual performance, marriage, and...
The Kleptocracies of Eastern and Central Europe
The process of transition from communism to capitalism was largely hijacked either by outright criminals in budding outfits of organized crime – or by pernicious and all-pervasive kleptocracies: politicians and political parties bent on...
German Lessons for Korea
By late 2010, a succession war was simmering in North Korea. His panoply of suddenly-bestowed senior political and military posts notwithstanding, the generals and military establishment were less than happy and impressed with Kim Jong-un, the...
Danger: Banks Ahead!
The crisis that started in 2008 is a banking crisis and it is still going strong. Banks all over the world over-leveraged their capital and extended loans unwisely to the undeserving. American financial institutions lent money to homeowners...
