Portae Inferi Non Praevalebunt

To believe that a latent and very discrete process continuously improves the quality of life all around is called \u201cto have a positive attitude\u201d. However, there is enough matter all-around for generating some stress and misunderstanding. We need air-conditioners and the more the climate is warming, the faster we will be in the hell. Worrisome data are available about biodiversity. Our earliest ancestor Sahelanthropus tchadensis was living about 7 million years ago. Compared to other species, we are relatively young. A site characterized by low biodiversity may be incompatible with a species (Homo sapiens) born in a very biodiverse space-time. Are we sure that system Earth will be sensible to our will and respond to our influence keeping us in its evolving germination forever? As every species in an expansion phase, humans are experiencing a collective, optimistic, unconscious prospect of immortality. On this point, why do not ask our peers for advice and consider a worldwide organized riposte for: a) Have less impacting actions on the climate, or at least try to stem those too impacting in progress; b) Better use the natural and human resources we own, avoiding excessive losses of time and money; c) Planning the continuity of the humankind, following common hopeful rules. Easier to say than to do, of course

Subsidiarity and a Free Society: The Subsidiary Role of the State in Catholic Social Teaching

One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organisation which can be done by a smaller and simpler organisation. Subsidiarity, understood in this sense, is opposed to forms of centralisation, bureaucratisation, and welfare assistance that deprive citizens of their own responsibility toward themselves, their families, and their societies. Rather, subsidiarity supports personal empowerment and responsibility as much as a proper balance between the public and private spheres, with the resulting recognition of the common good that is inherently achieved through the spontaneous interactions between free and responsible people. Hence, the subsidiarity principle is a bulwark of freedom and it conflicts with all forms of collectivism. It sets the limits for state action

Same-Sex Marriage, Freedom of Speech and Religious Liberty in Australia – A Critical Appraisal

Passing legislation to approve same-sex marriage presents an immediate challenge to free speech and religious liberty. Unfortunately examples from all over the world reveal that legalisation of same-sex marriage may infringe the fundamental rights of the citizen. Some people have been found at the receiving end of severe persecution as well as protracted and expensive legal action for holding the view that marriage should be kept only between a man and a woman. Although the Australian government seems committed to holding a popular plebiscite, so that the people can finally decide on the matter, it is hard to conceive how such debate can be conducted when the advocates of traditional marriage have been prevented from freely voicing their opinions by intolerant ‘gay rights’ activists and anti-free-speech legislation

Dimensional reduction and the equivariant Chern character

We propose a dimensional reduction procedure in the Stolz--Teichner framework of supersymmetric Euclidean field theories (EFTs) that is well-suited in the presence of a finite gauge group or, more generally, for field theories over an orbifold. As an illustration, we give a geometric interpretation of the Chern character for manifolds with an action by a finite group.Comment: 29 pages. Exposition improvements and expanded appendix