Press release, David Orban, Tolerance as a Guiding Principle

PRESS RELEAS
AL-ANDALUS, Monday, April 21, 2008

The Inaugural Ibn Khaldun Lecture

DavidOrban Agnon
“Tolerance As A Guiding Principle For Societies And Technologies: The Rise of Robust Information Systems”
Sunday, 27, April, 2008 at 2:00 pm slt

Preceded by:

Kelvinblue Oh, Electric Blues (Live Performance)
Sunday, 27, April, 2008 at 1:00 pm slt

Also Featuring This Week:

Chat in Al-Andalus

Ashcroft Burnham: “The Metaverse Republic”
Friday, 25, April, 2008 at 3:00 pm slt

Preceded by:

Winters Kanto, Piano Recital (Live Performance)
Friday, 25, April, 2008 at 2:00 pm slt

We are pleased to announce that the Inaugural Ibn Khaldun Lecture will be held this Sunday, 27, April, 2008 at 2:00 pm slt in the Abd-Ar-Rahman III Auditorium of Al-Andalus Alhambra. The Lecture is entitled: “Tolerance As A Guiding Principle For Societies And Technologies: The Rise of Robust Information Systems” and will be delivered by DavidOrban Agnon.

http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=1419295&date=1209330000

David is particularly interested in the birth of new social organizations in online-worlds. Therefore, in his lecture, he will analyze the analogies between the tolerance and resilience of healthy societies as they recognize the value of the contribution of different cultures and people, and the fault-tolerance of networks like the Internet, which keep working even if their parts behave in an unexpected manner.

David Orban is a Hungarian-born physics enthusiast and Information Technology professional who lectures widely throughout Europe on issues related to physics, technology, the internet and Second Life. He studied physics at Padova University, in Italy -where he read books such as “Godel, Escher, Bach” by Douglas Hofstadter, and others by Dennett, Penrose, and the likes. He then moved to Milano where he pursued his work. Today, he is CEO of Questar, a software firm in Milano. He is described by one of his former classmates as an individual with “a broad scientific culture and very clear ideas - a better word would be “vision” - on several fundamental issues on science, computing, and technology”. David has his own website, blog and wiki (http://www.davidorban.com )where he discusses issues that interest him and shares his activities with a wider audience.

The Ibn Khaldun Lecture series is a bi-monthly event held in Al-Andalus, showcasing a distinguished speaker on an issue which explores various aspects of the interaction between culture and the public sphere across real and virtual worlds. It is named after Abu Zayd ‘Abdu r-Rahman bin Muhammad bin Khaldun) (May 27, 1332 AD/732 AH – March 19, 1406 AD/808 AH) - a famous historian, scholar, theologian, and statesman born in present-day Tunisia. He is considered the forerunner of several social scientific disciplines: demography, cultural history, historiography, the philosophy of history, sociology, and modern economics. He is sometimes considered to be a "father" of these disciplines, or even the social sciences in general, for anticipating many elements of these disciplines centuries before they were founded. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in Greek), the first volume of his book on universal history, Kitab al-Ibar.

The Lecture will be preceded, from 1 pm slt to 2 pm lst, by a live concert with Kelvinblue Oh, spinning his unique Electric Blues tunes. Ain't nothin' like it in Secondlife! Kelvinblue's reputation as SL's best blues performer in well known: no one lights the fires of his audience like he does. Once you hear his deep voice and amazing acoustic guitar, you too will become convinced there ain't nothin' wrong with the blues!

The Al-Andalus Caliphate Project is a SecondLife attempt to reconstruct 13th Century Moor Alhambra and build around this virtual space a community of individuals willing to explore the modalities of interaction between different languages, nationalities, religions and cultures shaped by authentic Islamic principles.

Those principles include political participation, separation of powers, justice and the rule of law. Membership in the community is open to all, regardless of sim land ownership, second life premium status, species of avatar, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or any other traditionally separatist classification, either real or apparent. The plan is to create a system of political and legal governance, based on notions of community self-governance, active citizen participation, equality, dignity, social justice, democracy and human rights.

As part of its commitment to provide high-quality educational and entertainment events, Al-Andalus also features a weekly discussion series, entitled the Chat in Al-Andalus, where members of our extended community leads a discussion centered around their SL and RL activities as they relate to the general aims of the Al-Andalus Project. This week, our Chat in Al-Andalus features Al-Andalus Citizen and English Barrister Ashcroft Burnham, who will talk about the progress of his ground-breaking SL project, ‘The Metaverse Republic”.

http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=1419040&date=1209160800

The Metaverse Republic ( http://www.metaverserepublic.org/ ), currently work in progress, will be a legal system for Second Life, with real powers of enforcement originating in user-created tools, and a democratic parliament. There are many disputes and potential disputes in SecondLife that could benefit from formal resolution: disputes about broken agreements, land use, alleged griefing, extortion, etc. The Metaverse Republic aims to provide an effective and fair system for resolving such disputes. After the presentation, Ashcroft will answer questions from the audience and lead a discussion on related topics of interest.

Immediately prior to this, well-known Argentinian pianist Wnters Kanto will perform a live piano recital. Winters Kanto is a professional RL pianist with over 14yrs experience.. playing the 'houses' and 'halls' throughout South America.. Winters has a huge following throughout the continent.. Playing classical as well as Tango ballads, Bossa Jazz, and Boleros... Winters is a master of 'craft' and composition. He’s been playing Second Life a relatively short period of time but has already created a huge following and with soft mellow tunes and a smooth approach.