King Ibrahim

 

  Homosexuality has been banned and criminalized in Burkina Faso under the regime led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré. 

  Individuals convicted of homosexual acts or similar practices face 2 to 5 years in prison, in addition to financial penalties that can reach up to 10 million CFA francs, equivalent to roughly 17,000 dollars. 

  There are also sanctions for behaviors or acts that promote or advocate for LGBTQ+ practices, and foreign citizens who violate this new decree face immediate deportation.

   This decision aligns Burkina Faso with over 30 African nations that legally penalize homosexuality.

   Ibrahim Traoré’s government follows an economic strategy close to a nationalist, Pan-Africanist form of socialism, heavily inspired by the legacy of Thomas Sankara, the country's Marxist revolutionary leader from the 1980s. 

  Traoré openly rejects the Western free market.

  Since gold is Burkina Faso’s main export, the Traoré administration radically shifted its stance toward foreign mining companies by revoking the exploration licenses of Western multinationals, nationalizing reserves, and taking direct control of them.

  Furthermore, the government built the country's first state-owned gold refinery to process the metal locally, keeping the added value within the domestic economy.   

  The state also began investing directly in creating national industries, inaugurating state-owned food processing plants, such as tomato paste factories,and the country's first state-owned dairy and pharmaceutical factories. 

  By breaking ties with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Western axis, the government sought alternative financing and strategic partnerships with nations like Russia and China, utilizing a state and military cooperation model.

  When he seized power through a coup d'état in September 2022, Traoré promised to hold elections and return power to a civilian government by July 2024. 

  However, in 2023, Traoré declared that holding elections was not the country’s priority while about a third of the national territory remained under the control of jihadist terrorist groups.

  The regime's political behavior grew increasingly authoritarian, especially following drastic decisions made between early 2025 and 2026. 

  In early 2026, the government decreed the dissolution and banning of all political parties in the country, arguing that "party proliferation" caused internal divisions and hindered the fight against terrorism. 

  International and local media outlets were suspended or expelled. 

  Human rights activists, journalists, and government critics have been arbitrarily detained or forcibly sent to the front lines as punishment through the compulsory military conscription of dissidents.

   Ibrahim Traoré himself publicly stated in speeches on state TV that Burkina Faso's population should forget the Western concept of democracy, claiming that this model "does not work for us" in the current context of national survival. 

  Although a significant portion of the local population supports Traoré due to his nationalist rhetoric and promise to restore security, the elimination of political pluralism, the banning of parties, and the unilateral extension of his own mandate meet all the classic criteria that define a contemporary military dictatorship.

  Africa being Africa. 

  Will Burkina Faso actually succeed? 

  For "King" Ibrahim Traoré and his "court," it already has. 

  As for Burkina Faso as a whole, it's just another country with ambitions of becoming China, but it "probably" won't even surpass Angola...

Terapia da Lógica - Link

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The Distraction Economy

 

Jennifer: The World Cup is just a rich people's party that poor people celebrate lol. 

  It’s 22 millionaires on the field making even more money. 

  What do the people watching get out of it? 

  NOTHING!

William: A lot of them actually started out poor and made it big. 

  Good for them. 

  They were lucky to be born with that kind of athletic talent and to get a shot at it. 

  Plus, they deserve credit for grinding through grueling physical workouts almost every single day.

  Besides, the future of the economy is all about entertainment and leisure. 

  All kinds of gaming, traveling, and going out, that’s what’s going to move the big bucks. 

  A robot isn't going to feel the thrill of playing or watching soccer for you.

  Just look at what actually drives the internet. 

  It’s interactions. 

  It’s our distraction. 

  Seeing and being seen, or reading and being read.    

  The economy is going to revolve more and more around our search for pleasure and distraction... obviously, excesses should be avoided... but there will always be people addicted to something... even jumping off huge heights attached to a bungee cord...

  “A 21-year-old woman, Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas, died after being launched without a safety rope during a rope jump from a height of about 130 feet (40 meters). 

  The accident occurred on June 13, 2026, at the structure known as 'Ponte do Esqueleto' (Skeleton Bridge), located between Limeira and Cordeirópolis, in upstate São Paulo.”

  (Globo)

 

 Filosofia Matemática - Link

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The Cost of PIX

 

  I often hear people say that PIX is free, but that doesn't mean the system doesn't have a cost.

  The Central Bank reports that PIX costs about 10 million dollars a year to run.

   For a system that handles over 240 million transactions in a single day, this direct maintenance cost on the part of the monetary authority is considered surprisingly low.

  However, the truth is that most of the actual processing and security costs were passed on to the financial institutions themselves. 

  Each bank or fintech has to maintain its own IT infrastructure, connection APIs, and robust anti-fraud systems to handle the sheer volume of PIX transactions.

  By law, PIX is only free for individuals. Businesses (corporate accounts) pay fees to send or receive PIX at most banks. It is precisely this fee charged to businesses that helps financial institutions cover their operational costs.

  Why am I writing this?

  I’m not trying to take away the government's credit for organizing the system. 

  But notice that the heavy lifting and the costs actually fall on the PRIVATE SECTOR, which is so commonly demonized in Brazilian culture.

Filosofia Matemática - Link

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Social Conditioning

 

 

Tom: We’re raised and conditioned to view life as a logical sequence, but reality isn't linear. 

  Careers, relationships, and maturity don't follow a script. 

  This expectation of constant progress only breeds suffering. 

  Young people think a single choice defines the next 50 years, and adults feel like failures just because they don't know where they're headed. 

  Our minds try to turn chaos into a narrative just to comfort us, but real life doesn't have a screenwriter.    

  Sometimes, an unexpected setback is just a problem, there's no profound lesson behind it. 

  Realizing this is liberating: changing course isn't a failure, and being confused doesn't mean everything has gone wrong.

William: Look at the case of poverty. 

  I don’t get why everyone thinks they were born to be rich! 

  If you aren't highly successful by 30... people blame it on the diabolical engineering of some system that's blocking the "natural course of things", as if the natural course meant that even if you're born poor, you're supposed to get rich by 30, or 40 at the latest. 😉

  I disagree with Tom when he suggests we are conditioned to see life as a logical sequence. 

  I wish that were the case. 

  One of the things children are told the most is that they can be whatever they want to be.

  And I don’t just blame adults for what comes next. 

  From an early age, I noticed that one person's limitations or potential can be vastly different from another's. 

  Some classmates learned easily, while others really struggled. 

  Some had well-structured, caring homes, while others lived in troubled households. 

  What I mean is that a child, regardless of their environment, has their own grasp on reality, or lack thereof. 

  Daydreaming too much can't just be blamed on some "conditioning" Tom thinks is happening, which honestly downplays our own ability to perceive things.

  My own perception, independent of my parents' "conditioning," is this:

  Poverty is humanity's natural state. 

  Just look at how indigenous peoples or our ancestors lived, scarce resources, simple lives, no accumulation of wealth. 

  When kings and courts emerged, wealth remained the exception; the majority stayed poor. 

  Capitalism brought advancements and expanded the middle class, but wealth is still a reality for only a few.

  Anyone who says poverty is merely a social construct ignores reality. 

  From the moment of birth, we already know the social conditions a child will be brought into. 

  Parents, when deciding to have children, are well aware of the economic situation awaiting them. 

  If everyone has only the bare necessities, it doesn't mean they are rich; it means they live within the natural limitation of resources.

Filosofia Matemática - Link

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