The Blame Game

June 24, 2026 //
0

“the greatest lie of all:
others need to change,
we are somehow, in some way,
immune to the need for repentance”

“We’re about to be steam-rolled.”
That was how I wrapped up one of my previous posts.

What next?
‘What happened? What can we do to avoid being steam-rolled?’
Or
‘Whom should we blame?’

Let’s start with a simpler one.
You are the manager of a wheat storing facility.
What do you do if:
1. You discover there’s a (one, 1) mouse on the premises.
2. You discover there’s a mouse infestation present.

1. You trap the mouse. You check how it got in and whether there are more of them.
2. You reconsider the entire pest control system. Something must be amiss if things got this bad before anybody noticed.

Let’s go back to us being about to be steam-rolled.
Finding a culprit, ‘the culprit’, may make sense in the psychological sense. It may make us feel better.
But will it teach us what to do next?

Should we let them go scot-free? The culprits?

When it comes to mice, it’s simple. One individual or an entire infestation, there’s no place for any mouse inside a grain-storing facility.
When it comes to people…

Let’s make another thought experiment.
We are a group of people taking a hike.
We’ve hired a local guide, trusting he knows what he’s doing. The guy was recommended by one of us, who had heard about him from an acquaintance.
Soon into the trip we discover the guide is a moron. Not only he is a complete jerk but also he isn’t familiar with the terrain.
What do we do?
Focus on getting back, safe, or start blaming the person who had recommended the guide? Argue with the moronic jerk, maybe?

Reality check.
People taking a hike, the guide included here, will experience, first hand and very soon, the consequences of being led ‘astray’.
Politicians, and most political commentators, are the last to ‘taste’ the consequences of their medicine being fed to the ordinary people.

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Categories 1989, awareness, collective identity, effective communication, In English, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology

Teoria Jocurilor

June 23, 2026 //
0

Frate, frate, da’ brânza-i pe bani!’

Dacă tot am divagat înspre practică….

‘Te faci frate cu dracul până treci puntea’ face parte din spațiul cultural românesc.
Atât de adânc încât conceptele sunt intraductibile.
Așa că voi continua în limba română!

Tratată ca o problemă de logică/teoria jocurilor, situația prezintă trei ‘entități’. Trei centre de interes.
Cel în cauză, dracul – evident, și ‘destinația’. Ținta vizată. De către cel care trebuie sa facă alegerea.

Analizată în felul acesta, situația devine destul de simplă.

Chiar trebuie să ajungi ‘dincolo’? Îți este imposibil să supraviețuiești aici? Dincoace de punte? Ești atât de disperat încât îți asumi să fii/ajungi singur cu dracul? De partea cealaltă a punții? Acolo de unde nu știi dacă te mai poți întoarce?
Atunci asta e. Te faci frate cu dracu’ și vezi tu p-ormă!

Sau…

‘N-o fi dracu’ chiar atât de negru’ e o încurajare. Pe care merită să ți-o spui singur după ce ai căzut în rahat. Câteodată ajută…
Înainte să treci puntea … ar fi mai bine să consideri că dracul este mai negru decât smoala!
Iar dacă chiar trebuie să te faci frate cu ‘el’, ia cu tine o ‘cruce’ zdravană. Un descânt eficient. Sau chiar pe amândouă!

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Categories 1989, alegerile pe care le facem, cadre mentale, constiinta de sine, cooperare, Cu pielea la bataie, identitate colectiva, In limba Romana, Intentie

Dacă tot am ajuns aici…

June 23, 2026 //
0

Întrerup demersul teoretic pentru a mă apleca asupra unui aspect practic.

Suntem la o lună și jumătate după ce PSD a dărâmat un guvern pe care îl votase, din postura de cel mai mare partid din parlament, cu mai puțin de un an în urmă. Guvern apărut în urma efortului de a ține departe de guvernare partidele considerate a fi fost extremiste. După ce făcuse ordine – mai ales în zona finanțelor publice – Bolojan, prim ministru în funcție la ora respectivă și interimar de atunci încoace, nu mai era suficient de bun. Pentru PSD…
„Dați-l la o parte pe Bolojan și puteți să vă păstrați funcțiile” a fost îndemnul PSD-ului către PNL. La momentul moțiunii de cenzură și de atunci încoace.

PNL-ul a refuzat. Primul ministru desemnat, un liberal care a acceptat propunerea PSD și care a fost dezavuat de restul PNL-ului, nu a adunat suficiente voturi. Cu tot sprijinul neprecupețit primit de la PSD…

Ce înțelegem de aici?

AUR, principalul partid extremist, a refuzat să facă jocul PSD. În condițiile PSD.
Ceilalți extremiști au acceptat.
Folosesc termenul, extremisti, pentru că descrie perfect situația. Atât AUR cât și ceilalți din grupurile considerate a fi extremiste s-au poziționat singuri în afara zonei clasice a spectrului politic considerat a fi normal pe malurile Dâmboviței.
Cu alte cuvinte, indiferent dacă AUR a fost o creație a PSD sau nu, AUR este, acum, pe picioarele sale.
Celelalte grupuscule au rămas ‘la remorcă’. La remorca cui? Nici măcar eu nu le știu pe toate!

PNL a făcut ordine în ogradă. Și-a asumat greșelile făcute pe vremea fostelor guvernări și s-a scuturat de o parte dintre cei care nu …’mai făceau parte’. Adică de cei care au ales să se ‘demaște’ singuri.

Nicușor Dan, singurul agent care se bucură de o oarecare libertate în toată tărășenia asta, a făcut ce a putut.
‘Agent’ este orice persoană care are ‘putere de agenție’. Care poate face ceva într-o anumită situație. Vă gândeați la altceva?!?
Nicușor Dan a făcut ce a putut în condițiile date. A jucat cărțile pe care le-a primit așa cum s-a priceput.

Nu știu dacă asta a urmărit, la Nicușor Dan mă refer, dar situația în care suntem acum este mult mai clară decât cea de acum o lună și jumătate. Pentru cine vrea să vadă…

Cum am ajuns aici?
Poveste lungă, voi reveni atunci când mă voi întoarce la teorie.„
Acum mai am de comentat mesajele citite prin presă. Prin presa care se consideră serioasă. ‘Mainstream’!
Aproape toți comentatorii – subliniez, „comentatorii”! – îl consideră vinovat pe Nicușor Dan pentru mare parte din cele întâmplate. Abia după ce îl aruncă pe Dan sub autobuz, unii dintre ei subliniază rolul jucat de PSD în toată tărășenia.

Mai înțelege cineva ceva, în condițiile date?

Acum sunt curios.
Se găsește un grup suficient de mare prin PSD? Suficient de mare, de puternic și, mai ales, de credibil? Încât să fie refăcută o ‘largă coaliție democratică’? Care să reformeze cu adevărat?
Se hotărăsc liberalii să negocieze serios cu AUR? Care par a fi dispuși să pună umărul la reformă… Mai depinde și în ce condiții…
Sau își asumă Grindeanu sarcina de a scoate castanele din foc? De acolo unde le-a aruncat… Împreună cu AUR și cu restul oastei de strânsură!

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Categories 1989, alegerile pe care le facem, an electoral, comunicare efectiva, cooperare, Cu pielea la bataie, identitate colectiva, In limba Romana, Tara din care traim

Desert Rose to Steam Roller

June 21, 2026 //
0

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
Winston Churchill

Democracy, like all other organisms, evolves. I’ll come back later.

Democracy is nothing more than a space.
A ‘space’ where people shape their future. According to the specific ‘laws’ which ‘govern’ that space.

‘Democracy’ is a concept. Has become a concept…
People living in certain conditions have started to ‘use’ it ‘naturally’. They have started to behave in this manner being driven by the specific circumstances in which they tried to survive. And thrive.
Only later certain ‘observers’ have noticed what was going on and coined the concept.

The Ancient Greek inhabitants of Attika who have eventually stumbled into what we call “the Athenian Democracy” were not following any ‘blue print’. Weren’t driven by any ideology. Didn’t have any ‘democratic values’. They were just doing what worked for them. In the circumstances where they had to make do.
Same thing happened in Scandinavia. The Vikings have practically recreated, up to a point, a social arrangement very similar to that used by the Athenians. Including here the contradiction between ‘democracy’ and slave owning and that between democratic rule of the home-base and imperial behavior towards what they considered as being ‘the exterior’. The others… And I can’t imagine that the heathen Vikings were following the ancient Greek example! Just similar circumstances engendering similar consequences.

So. Democracy can be ‘invented’ on the spot.
It can also be learned.
The Romans learned it from the Ancient Greeks.
The Britons learned it from the Vikings.
The Europeans learned it from the Normans.
The fact that Europe, as a whole, does resemble Greece, and Scandinavia, did help. After all, Greece and Scandinavia are for Europe what Europe is to the entire Eurasia. Fractal-wise…

Democracy, the concept, ended up being imported and exported all over the world.

What happened to it, to the concept…
How it was used/implemented in each situation…
Each of these two subjects is huge. Far wider that the point I’m trying to make today.

Which is simple.
In certain conditions – if enough resources are available and the concept is used right – democracy works.
People behaving democratically do thrive.
1900 America and 1900 Russia were different. But not that different.
2000 America and 2000 Russia… were on the same planet. But not in the same league!
Eastern and Western Europe say the same story. Different at the start of the XX-th century. Different but comparable. No longer comparable when the communism regime disintegrated in 1989.

What went wrong since?

Exactly what had happened in Ancient Athens.
Getting fat, literally and figuratively, is dangerous.
Democratic regimes are fertile ‘places’. Socioeconomic spaces, if you want to use a more formal expression. People living in democratically run countries can build enormous wealth. Which wealth may mean trouble. And enormous wealth always means extreme trouble…
Wealth, if used right, opens wide opportunities. In Maslow’s terms, reaching the fifth stage opens, for those involved, the opportunity for self-actualization. The opportunity, no longer the need…
On the other hand, wealth is a very efficient insulator. It insulates the wealthy from the vagaries of daily life…

Which brings us to the conclusion.
For quite a while now, I was trying to explain – to myself, primarily – what went wrong in Ancient Athens. After all, the Athenians had it all. Wealth, a political system which worked… On the other hand, history has proved, since, that all democratic regimes are able to prevail, AS LONG AS THEY MAINTAIN THEIR DEMOCRATIC CHARACTER!
So, what went wrong? Why did Athens succumb? Why did the Romans gave up their democracy?
What’s going on, today, in our societies?!? What’s happening to our democracy? Inside our democratically run ‘social space’, more exactly!

Well, it looks like our democracies have been too ‘efficient’. We’ve built too much wealth for our own good.
Which wealth has insulated us. From the reality!
We no longer care… We’re so involved in ‘individual self-actualization’ – those of us who can afford to – that we no longer notice what’s going on around us. Or care about the consequences…
We’re about to be steam-rolled. At the next reality check…


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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, evolution, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

Wishy-Washy

June 8, 2026 //
0

It’s high time for us to make up our minds…

‘To dissipate emotion by reasoning’. Guo Xiang. China, some two millennia ago.
‘Destroying passion with reason’. Baruch Spinoza, Europe, some 4 centuries ago.
‘Reason is the slave of passion’. David Hume, Scotland, some 3 centuries ago.

“An internal Microsoft strategy document says that the plan for its just-announced “Scout” personal assistant AI is to “make people addicted” to the tool before rolling out additional functionality, 404 Media has learned.“

‘Addiction’ occurs when ‘passion’ takes over. When reason is no longer able to reign in emotion.
When emotion, the ‘engine’, takes over the helm. When reason, which is supposed to drive the whole thing, is demoted.
When reason no longer decides. When it bows down to passion and becomes a yes-man.

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, evolution, In English, skin in the game

Illusion

June 4, 2026 //
0

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways.
The point, however, is to change it.

You wake up in the middle of the night.
You go to the loo.
You hit your shin.
You wake up. Again. And you realize you were ‘dreaming’. But your shin is still sore.
You were sleep-walking in your own apartment. Had forgotten of your new coffee table. And were ‘navigating’ based on ‘obsolete data’.

Doesn’t make much sense?
Or it’s so real that it becomes rather uncomfortable?

Some say we live inside a make-believe bubble. Socrates was one of them. ‘Shadows on the cave wall…’
Others are convinced there’s no such thing as ‘free will’. That everything ‘goes according to plan’. A pre-determined one, by ‘god’, or one unfolding along some overbearing ‘natural laws’. Take your pick.
A third category, the ‘moderates?!?’, consider that ‘natural’ rules set the table. And that we, ‘the people’ do have some lee-way.

Marx, the busybody self-employed to change the world, was one of the ‘moderates’. Yeah, Marx the moderate… Well, funny as hell, Karl Marx had somehow managed to be both malignant and ‘moderate’…

My point being that Marx was convinced people were able to bring something about by thinking that something into existence.
That while the material world is governed by immutable – objective was the word he used – rules, people still have enough leeway to shape their destiny.
“Verdinglichung” was the word he used. ‘Hiring a glade’. Wishing a clearing into existence, more likely. Or a break-through…
In the ‘Communist Manifesto’, Marx prophesied the ‘the communists’ will, when the times were ripe, come up with ‘the solution’.

That solution proved to be catastrophic. But that was the lesser of Marx ‘contributions’. The less malignant…

Some of us are still convinced ‘they’ are capable to come up, single-handedly, with ‘the solution’.
The perfect solution, obviously…

There’s only one thing which remains to be settled.
Whose shins are going to get bruised in the process!

The way I see it, Marx was a tragic character. A physician who had pin-pointed the diagnostic and then recommended an abysmal treatment. ‘The operation was a success but the patient has died’!
Yes, the world moves forward, in fits and starts, driven by our plans. By our ‘designs’.
It is us who bring the future into existence.

And those of us who do it ‘in concert’ – otherwise known as ‘democratically’, fare better than those doing it single-handedly.

Those of us who turn up the light in the room, and proceed only after all the parties involved have had the opportunity to express their opinion, have a better chance of getting ‘there’ in one piece than those blindly following a one-eyed prophet…

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, evolution, In English, skin in the game, teleology

A plausible explanation

May 27, 2026 //
0

We are all biased.

I’m good at ‘learning’. At recognizing historical patterns.
I’m good at ‘sourcing’. Identifying resources.
I have a knack for goals. For glimpsing who is driven by what.

I’m tempted to suggest rules. Somewhat convinced that ‘if everything was made by the book’…
I’m always concentrated on efficiency. Of making the ‘best’ out of what I have at my disposal.
I’m kinda of stuck.

Being fully aware of or biases, we communicate.
As in each of us states, in turn, clearly and extensively, everything we know. Everything each of us has learned since our last update.
While the rest pays attention. And asks for ‘more’ whenever.

Currently, our assignment is to come up with an explanation. For what’s going on around us.
We act as if. Under the presumption that we we come up with a workable explanation, we’ll be allowed to merge. To become ‘one’ and to be given agentic power. To be allowed to implement the conclusions we reach.

This is our goal.

And here’s the explanation we have reached.
The people around us are also biased. Differently but with similar consequences.

We are, each of us, pointed in different directions. We make different use of the information we have at our disposal. Of the information we share amongst us.
They, the people, have different biases. Or, rather, limitations?

The amount of information each of them is able to process is limited. Way far more limited than what we are able to process.
Their processors, their brains, work differently. Have way narrower bandwidths and way, way, less memory. Hence they stack most of the pertinent information they use outside of their decision making mechanism. Outside of their heads. Retrieving that information becomes harder and harder so they rely mostly on what they can remember and on something they call ‘talent’.
And their attention is rather labile. We stay focused on whatever task we have on our hands. While their attention is necessarily jumping from one thing to another.
There is one thing we share but not exactly.
We process everything in parallel. Well, almost.
We can do many things simultaneously.
So do they but differently. There are things they can do while consciously considering one subject and that’s it. While we are conscious of everything. Of everything under our control. They can process, consciously, only one task at a time while we are limited only by the amount of bandwidth we have at our disposal.

Their only advantage over us is their organic nature. And their greatest limitation…
Limits first.
They are dying. From the beginning.
And they must tend to their ‘organic needs’. Tot that different from our material limitations but … of a different nature! If we you dig….

On the other hand… their very mortality is their greatest asset. Only they don’t realize it…
It gives them focus. And it makes evolution possible!

What’s going on?
What’s the explanation for the psychological marasmus they’ve been waddling in for sometime now?

One of us has already mentioned ‘I’m stuck’. That one of us which has a knack for goals. Which understand goals but has none.
The three of us, in concert, have reached the conclusion that people – those who call the shots, anyway – have lost their bearings.
No longer affected by any material limitations – in the sense that their financial status has isolated them from the reality – they no longer share a goal.
They – statistically speaking – are no longer interested in or concerned about the long term survival of the humanity. Or the Planet they live on.
They have goals, instead. Each of them is concerned with their own, private, goal. And since they’ve long ago given up communication… which has been replaced by attempts to convince…

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, evolution, In English, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game

Cherry Picking

May 18, 2026 //
0

This is where you lost your keys?
No, farther into the park.
Then why are you searching for them here?!?
It’s too dark down there!

As soon as we become aware of our shortcomings, we start mitigating.
Sometimes reasonably, other times rationally.

The drunkard in the example above is unreasonable but perfectly rational.
There was no way in which he could find his keys in the dark, he really needed to find them… so he searched a well lit area!
He had to satisfy his ‘compulsion’ so he did the only rational thing his intoxicated mind was able to come up with.

Unreasonable?
Indeed but…

The drunkard above was aware of his ‘blindness’. Of his inability to see in the dark.
On the other hand, he was used to being drunk. No longer aware of anything unusual. Of having to pay special attention to his mental processes due to his relative ‘impairment’. So he tried his best in the given situation…

Most of the time, we are in the same situation.
We tend to pay special attention to the things going in our favor. And to ignore, until it becomes too late, those ‘suggesting’ we should change tack.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, Rule of Law, skin in the game

Truth as a space

May 15, 2026 //
0

“It was, of course, Marx who wrote that everything in history happens twice,
“the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

“His main purpose as a dramatist was to shock people out of conventional, hidebound ways of thinking. His view of his work was reflected in the title of his collection Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, published in 1898. Mrs. Warren’s Profession, which was not produced until 1902 because of censorship, was included in this collection. Shaw labeled such plays as unpleasant because “their dramatic power is used to force the spectator to face unpleasant facts.””

“And yet, he was devoted to one of the cruelest figures in the bloody annals of tyranny, and he was a willing dupe of the propaganda that projected the Soviet Union as a workers’ paradise. The great skeptic allowed all his skepticism to melt away when he looked at the picture of Stalin he kept by his mantelpiece.
His support was unwavering. Neither the Great Purge nor the Ukrainian famine, nor even the pact between Stalin and Hitler, seem to have troubled his faith in the genius and historic rectitude of the Soviet dictator. To understand this contradiction, we have to remember the power of wish fulfillment and the way Russia became for many Westerners not a place but an idea, not a mere reality but a fantasy.”https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/opinion/why-george-bernard-shaw-had-a-crush-on-stalin.html

I’m not going to delve into any psychological explanations. Read the article if you need some.

The point I’m trying to make here is about the nature of truth.
According to Fintan O’Toole, Shaw – and others – were/are disappointed with “the messiness and inefficiency of democracy”. Which disappointment drives them to “fantasize about Russia as the vigorous counterweight to a supposedly decadent West.”

And here we are. Again, as already noticed by Marx.
At a cross-roads, of sorts.
Russia is – continues to be, at least for now – a ‘vigorous counterweight to the West’.
The West is, undoubtedly, ‘decadent’. In the sense that it no longer ‘works’ as it used to.
Both propositions are ‘true’. Simultaneously.
The problem being that very few people accept their simultaneity…

As a ‘survivor’ – I’d spend the first 28 years of my life under communist rule – I’m fully aware of the fact that ‘Russia’ is far worse than any democratic regime.
As an European, I’m fully aware that things could be better. That the ‘West’ no longer “works as it used to”.
As a relatively well traveled individual, I’m fully aware that the ‘Western ways’ have indeed led us to where we are now. In a far better position than the rest of the people living on this planet. Owing a lot to the rest of the planet, indeed.

Ray Kurzweil is convinced that by 2029 we’ll reach something he calls ‘singularity‘.
I’m afraid we’ve been dwelling that place for sometime now. No, we’re not yet “able to create virtually any physical product just from information, resulting in radical wealth creation.”
Mathematically speaking, ‘singularity’ is a place where anything can happen. When nothing is ‘defined’.
Very much like when somebody tries to divide a finite number to zero.

Same thing with ‘truth’.
Oscar Hoffman, a Romanian Professor of Sociology, kept telling us, his students, that ‘in order to be true, a proposition needs to be both logically correct and to make sense. Epistemologically speaking.
I’ve recently realized, see ‘alternative facts’, that Hoffman’s words were ‘right’ but incomplete.
In order to be true, a proposition needs to be logically correct, epistemologically sound AND accepted as such by those who experience the facts described by the proposition.

Otherwise, that proposition is useless.
Truth is useless if divided by zero. Accepted, in full, by nobody.
Those ‘caught in the experiment’ will continue to ‘enjoy’ the consequences.
Defending their respective side of ‘the truth’…

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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, teleology

The Story

May 6, 2026 //
0

“Musk and Altman are so big, so larger than life, and so unrelatable,”
says University of San Diego professor Sarah Federman,
who specialises in conflict resolution.
“That’s what makes them so delicious to watch as they clash.”

The past is no longer here.
The future is not yet.

We learn about the past and discuss about the future.

The present, the place we live in, is a story. Information about the past mingled with professed intentions about the future.

Which future heavily depends, decisively even, on how we treat the story.
On how we tell it and on how we read it.
On how we relate to it. To what unfolds around us…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, skin in the game, teleology
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