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Choice

March 16, 2023 //
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Basically, there are two meta-rules.

According to the first, if you follow the precepts – to the letter – you get ‘there’.
According to the second, avoiding the forbidden sets the stage for things going your way.

Unfortunately, things are not as simple as they look at first sight.
The first meta-rule deals with individuals. Getting ‘there’ is each individual’s job. They have to do what they are supposed to and failing to fulfill any item banishes the unworthy from the cherished ‘prize’.
The second one is even ‘trickier’. While its precepts must be followed, again, by the individual followers, the ‘spoils’ belong more to the community rather than to the individual. On top of that, they are not ‘certain’! Following the rule only ‘sets the stage’. Disobeying the rule makes it certain that the goal will never be reached while following it only ‘opens the door’. Makes it possible for each of the community members to search for their individual paths towards their particular goals.

Do I need to remember you that both these rules exist only in our heads?
As figments of our imaginations?
And that the difference between the two can be observed at the practical level?

The first rule can never be fulfilled. Nobody can follow it to its ultimate consequence. No matter how hard any of us might try. It would be like measuring with infinite precision. Something will always happen. Go wrong. Throw us back to where we have started.
The second one also leads to disappointment. Some members of the community will inevitably attempt to cut corners. Take the easy way out … Hence the rule needs policing. You’ve certainly witnessed at least on occasion when ‘bad (money) has driven out good’… at least temporarily! Furthermore, some members of the community – while faithfully sticking to the rule, will still fail to get ‘there’. Set their aims too high, didn’t have what it takes… or simply had lots and lots of bad luck! But regardless of the why’s, not getting there still generates disappointment. Usually directed at the rule… and creates a lot of doubt towards the weltanschauung based on the rule…

Which way out?
How to choose?

Would it be helpful to notice that, historically speaking, the communities which have followed the second rule, primum non nocere, have fared decently while those who had attempted to prescribe, and impose, a ‘recipe for happiness’ have invariably failed?
‘Don’t do anything, upon another, which you wouldn’t welcome when done upon you’ versus ‘treat all the others exactly as you would like to be treated yourself’?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology

Too late?

March 13, 2023 //
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-Now that it doesn’t work anymore, why don’t you do something about it?
-Like what?
-Preventive action? As in ‘it’s easier to prevent it from happening than to fix it afterwards’?
-Sounds good. But the real problem here is not what’s going to happen – which is bad, but the fact that we’ve become blind. Blinded by ideology. By us convincing ourselves that we are right.
That we are right and the others are wrong! That ‘otherness’ is wrong…
Furthermore, the other is not only wrong but also pigheaded. They don’t want to listen! They are so stupid that their inability to let any fresh idea into their thick skulls will take us, all of us, into living hell!
You see, any successful preventive action needs at least one of the following:
A powerful enough ‘agent’ to take the matter into their hands. One who knows exactly what’s needed, can do it, and has no qualms about it.
A powerful enough coalition of people who learn what’s needed. And then convince the community to act.
Nowadays, the only agent powerful enough to implement, single-handedly, a solution is the US. But people there cannot see eye to eye with each-other. The only thing they agree about is that the others are idiots. Too many of the Republicans have followed Trump into the ‘all Democrats are idiots’ mantra while too many of the Democrats are convinced there’s no way anybody could convince the Republicans of anything which isn’t spelled in the Bible.
And, unfortunately, the rest of the world is equally divided along more or less the same line.
The ‘icing on the cake’ being the fact that many otherwise intelligent people have identified this situation as being ‘full of opportunities’. For each of them… Without realizing that the further they go down this lane, the deeper they dig themselves in quicksand. Taking all of us along with them!
What kind of preventive action might prevent something like this?!?
– But why?!? If you see it, if I can follow your argument about it… then surely they must see it too!
– They see it all right. The elephant has not only driven us into the corners of the room but has already cracked a fair amount of china… But they see only a side of it.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the elephant is only a puppy. It still has a lot to grow. As it is, there are many people who are convinced there’s a lot of time left for us to ‘wait and see’. And further compounded by the fact that so many of us want to find the culprit first. To find somebody to blame for letting the elephant in!
You see, nobody wants to accept that we’ve made this elephant. In here! In our midst. Nobody had brought the elephant in, we’ve all contributed to it’s birth. Some more than others but that doesn’t really matter anymore. Anyway, since its birth, most of us have contributed to it reaching its present size.
– Then all that’s left for you to do is to paint the elephant. To make it as visible as possible. So that when people will come to their senses, they’ll have something to look at…
Further more, it’s very likely that other people have also seen it. And don’t speak up because they’re convinced there’s nobody else who sees it as they do.

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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, collective identity, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, skin in the game

‘Handles’

March 12, 2023 //
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I’m afraid things are a little bit more complicated.
In this translation, the Turkish proverb puts the onus on the ‘forest’ for what’s going on.
Which isn’t helpful. It somehow validates the notion that ‘people’ get what they deserve.
The way I see it, the responsibility belongs to the wooden handles. The axes – the steel parts, do what is in their nature to do. Axes split wood, dictators dictate… and so on.
On the other hand, those who ‘help in the process’… While it also is in their ‘wooden’ nature to be helpful, the handles do not necessarily have to attach themselves to forest hacking axes.
While it is in their nature to give advice, analysts and pundits do not necessarily have to court the Trumps/Putins/Xis of this world.

Blaming the people for voting for those who are being put forward by very skill full political promoters is not that different from blaming the victim of a rape. Yes, she should have known better than to drink that much at the party but the rapist didn’t necessarily had to take advantage of her.

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Categories 1989, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology

Alien report

March 10, 2023 //
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In the beginning was the word

– How did you manage to mess things up so thoroughly?
– By allowing too much coherence to slip away. After we – well, some of us, already had a fair understanding about how things worked. About how we got there in the first place.
– Would you care to elaborate?
– Things went on more or less linearly up to when we had learned to speak. That was when it had all started. When we had realized what a start was.
And that was it.
Speaking to each other allowed us to access the second level of consciousness. Self awareness.
Speaking to ourselves – a.k.a. ‘thinking’, gave us the illusion of ‘knowing’.
‘Knowing’ led to ‘knowing better’ and ‘knowing better’ gave birth to arrogance.
For a while, this process had been kept in check by the harsh reality. People, like all living organisms, have certain needs. Basic needs. Food, shelter… During most of our evolution, getting enough food and shelter consumed most of our resources. And time. Only a very small number of people had enough spare time. And energy left for thinking. And only a very small percentage of this already small number of people used their minds to think about anything else but how to preserve their privileged status. Which status was the source of their ‘spare time’ in the first time…
Slowly but surely, those having something else in their minds besides their selfish self interest have come up with a thing called ‘technology’. By carefully, and considerately, watching those who worked, the selfish thinkers have noticed that from time to time and from craftsperson to craftperson there could be noticed small differences in how things were done. Hence the concept of ‘how things are done’. With the natural sequel of ‘let’s do things in a better way’.
Technology made it possible for workers to be more productive. Communities as a whole became more productive. Hence increased the possibility for more people to have spare time for thinking.
Some communities made good use of this new possibility while others failed to do so. Usually for reasons depending on the ‘general conditions’ and not at all imputable to the communities themselves.
Unfortunately, technology also had two less fortunate consequences.
By freeing more and more people from want, it also freed them from ‘religion’.
Until that moment, people who were ‘excluded’ from society – who did not partake in ‘religion’, could not survive on their own for any significant length of time. After the advent of technology, reclusion no longer meant almost instant death.
Technology also produced ‘hard science’. A corpus of knowledge about how nature works. Which knowledge can be summarized as a collection of natural laws.
No longer depending as much on their contemporaries and cognizant of those natural laws, some of the thinkers – whose numbers had been constantly swelled by the continuously improved technology, have reached the conclusion that through thinking a human might, given enough time and resources, understand basically everything.
Some of those had become dictators. Others had become consultants.
Both categories extremely confident in their own knowledge. Arrogant, even.
This is how we messed things up. This bad.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, arrogance, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, religion, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

Which way out?

March 6, 2023 //
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Word of mouth has it that a dissatisfied customer will be more vocal than a happier one.
A search over the internet yields unconvincing results. The statistical jury seems to be still out on this one.

A misspell in the search window unveiled something a lot more interesting.

The brain is hard wired to recognize an angry voice. As well as an angry face.

Are we aware of all this?
Probably not. Statistically speaking…

And this is important why?

Being able to recognize anger makes it easier for us to deal with conflict.
Individuals who do it better have more chances to survive when involved in dangerous situations. Or even to turn them around. To find ways in which to use conflict in a profitable manner. Profitable for them… And only time will tell for how long!
Communities adept at taming conflict into something useful have greater chances to survive than those less able to deal with it.

Now, where are we in this moment?
Do we talk to each other? Are we aware of what’s going on around us? Cognizant enough to take the appropriate measures?
Or do we just vent out our bile? Creating such an environment that no coherent answer will be presented when needed?

Are we, each of us, part of the solution?
Or we just create more and more problem?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, fail better, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, Trust

Instrument

March 6, 2023 //
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‘War is over when the goals have been achieved, not when the enemy had been destroyed.
While sometimes you have to utterly obliterate the enemy in order to achieve your goals, this is not always necessarily true.‘

Hari Bucur-Marcu

This makes a lot of sense, right?

Yeah, sort of…

The problem with this approach being that this understanding degrades war to a simple instrument.

Something used by a decision maker towards the achievement of certain ‘goals’.

The problem with this approach being that it obliterates the decision power of all other people involved in it. Of everybody else but of those calling the shots. Pun intended!

All analysts commenting Putin’s ‘special military operation’ babble on about Putin’s goals.
‘Ukraine will never be able to crush Russia, militarily, so we need to understand what’s going on in Putin’s mind.
In order to be able to ‘bribe’ him into ending the war. Or to black mail him. Only we need to understand first what will constitute a too big of a price for him to pay.’

On the other hand, Putin seems to be thinking along the same lines.
‘I need to preserve my position. MY power. Ukraine is a bad example for the Russian people. They have shifted their ‘allegiance’ and want to build a real democracy. I cannot allow this to happen, otherwise I’ll be next.
Now, how much pain do I have to inflict in order to achieve my goal? Directly, upon the Ukrainians and indirectly, upon the rest of the world?’

Meanwhile, the rest of those involved in this situation bear the brunt of the war. Directly and indirectly.

Some of them understand what’s going on and some don’t.

My point being that not all instruments are born equal.
While all are nothing but mere ‘sticks’ in the hands of the agents wielding them, choosing to use a certain instrument among the available alternatives speaks volumes about the agent making the choice.

What are we, reasonable creatures, to understand when an agent chooses an instrument which debases all other creatures to the role of ‘kill or be killed’?
For whatever reason and under whatever pretext?
Is that agent ever going to stop? To stop setting ‘goals’, further and further away?

Specially after having the ‘first installment’ safely tucked under the belt…

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication

Audi alteram partem

March 5, 2023 //
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„Despre morți, doar adevărul”
Așa m-a învățat unul dintre preoții care m-au botezat. Vreo 50 de ani după aceea, cu puțină vreme înainte ca el însuși să devină ‘subiect de discuții’.

Nu i s-a bătătorit bine pământul pe mormânt și ‘adevărul’ despre Șora a început să iasă la iveală.

„Bine, oamenii care au citit minim trei cărți din colecția BPT s-au prins imediat că Mihai Șora, personajul de pe Facebook, n-avea nicio legătură cu omul Mihai Șora. Iar cei ce-l cunoscuseră personal știau că fusese un bolșevic, că a fost marginalizat doar pentru că era țuțărul Anei Pauker, că în Guvernul Petre Roman a fost chiar invers, omul a fost printre singurii care a ținut să rămână, în ciuda minerilor, că n-a fondat nicio colecție, doar a fost cenzorul ei și că, în principiu, e cam dus (din cauza vârstei) și nu scrie el fanteziile alea. Deci, două creaturi diferite.
Dar astea nu contează, pentru că lumea atunci, ca și acum, nu avea nevoie de omul Mihai Șora, de-ăia erau destui, ci de personajul Mihai Șora, din care sunt puțini.”

Cred ca ce deranjează cel mai tare la genul ăsta de oameni – adică la ‘Șora’, este ‘răzgândirea’ lor. Și amănuntul că răzgândirea lor a avut succes la public…

Imaginați-vă un Iliescu ieșit pe post și declarând că, de fapt, capitalismul de piață liberă și democrația autentică sunt, în practica de zi cu zi, mult mai bune decât ‘despotismul luminat’. Chestia aia pe care a încercat el sa o pună ‘în opera’. Înaintea lui Putin dar asta e altă discuție.

Avem într-adevar nevoie de ‘consistență’. De ‘consistency’… dar n-am gasit altă ‘traducere’. Avem atât de mare nevoie de consistență încât uităm de lecția fiului risipitor. Și de faptul că dumnezeu îl iubește mai mult pe păcătosul întors în turma decât pe neprihănitul care n-a avut vreodată ocazia să păcătuiască. Care, de fapt, nu a putut să greșească.
Care nu a reușit să-și înțeleagă greșeala, să și-o recunoască – măcar în sinea lui, ca apoi să facă un minim efort pentru a îndrepta ceva din ea.

Revenind la ‘moș Tăgârță’, spuneau unii la TV ca el a ‘înființat’ Biblioteca pentru Toti. Dacă e adevărat, tipul ăsta a facut mai mult pentru cultura română decât 95% din așa considerații intelectuali mioritici.

Cercetând internetul, aflu că Șora doar a reînființat BpT. Uite că „țuțărul Anei Pauker” făcuse ceva bun încă de pe vremea comunismului.

https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioteca_pentru_to%C8%9Bi

Și atunci? Cum rămâne cu adevărul? La ce mai folosește spunerea lui?

Spunerea unui lucru… are niște consecințe. Nu neapărat ‘consistente’ cu scopurile vorbitorului.
Adevărul devine adevărat doar odată cu acceptarea lui ca atare de către ascultător.

Spunerea unui adevăr ‘adevărat’ are ca consecință lămurirea lucrurilor.
Rostirea unor jumătăți de adevăruri, înghițite pe nemestecate de către ascultători pentru că se potrivesc cu credințele împământenite deja în mințile acestora, reușește să întrețină – cel puțin pe termen scurt, ‘ceața’. Face în așa fel încât situația să rămână favorabilă pescuitorilor în ape tulburi.

Ăsta fiind motivul pentru care ‘răzgândiții’ sunt blamați atât de intens. Toți cei cărora le convine situația actuală sunt îngroziți de idea că s-ar mai putea răzgândi și alții. Subiectul ‘răzgândirii’ lor nici măcar nu contează!
Actul răzgândirii, în sine, este obiectul anatemei! Idea că ‘publicul’ ar putea gândi… fiecare cu/de capul lui…

Chestia asta provoacă frisoane.
De la dictatori până influenceri!
Tuturor celor care își arogă misiunea de a gândi pentru ceilalți.

Și totuși.
De ce „despre morți, doar adevărul”?!? De ce nu e suficient ‘despre morți, numai de bine’?

Morții nu se mai pot apăra. Nu mai pot minți în numele lor.
Dar noi putem.

Noi suntem singurii care mai putem. Minți.
Și, în același timp, noi suntem singurii care mai putem apăra adevărul.
Adevărul care este în același timp al lor, al morților, și al nostru. Al nostru, cei care mai avem încă atât de mult de pierdut. Adică totul!

Care adevăr trebuie rostit, repetat și apărat tocmai pentru că altfel ‘întunericul ne va fi ispită’.

Abia am ieșit din 50 de ani de ‘întuneric’.
Dinspre răsărit ne momește o altă ‘ispită’.
Singura noastră șansă este ca din ce în ce mai mulți dintre noi să se ‘răzgândească’.
Să înțeleagă că fiecare dintre noi e supus greșelii și că e OK să revii la calea cea dreaptă.

Și mai trebuie ceva.
Trebuie să învățăm, cu toții, să ‘iertăm greșiților noștri’!
Să învățăm, cu toții, să prețuim răzgândirea.

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Categories 1989, alegerile pe care le facem, aroganta, cadre mentale, comunicare efectiva, constiinta de sine, cooperare, Cu pielea la bataie, cultura, evolutie, identitate colectiva, In limba Romana, Incredere, Intentie, Omul ca masura a tuturor lucrurilor, psihologie, respect mutual, Tara din care traim

Use it or lose it

March 4, 2023 //
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Trying to make sense of this this proverb, one might find handy a deeper understanding of ‘it’.

I’ll be arguing in a future post about the synthetic nature of equality. A concept we came up with, based on things found in the natural world. But the concept itself has no natural precursor. It was invented by us and exists exclusively in our minds.

On the other hand, liberty – the ‘it’ I’m writing about right now – is ‘artificial’. Another concept we’ve came up with, based on things found in the natural world.
But one which has evolved from a natural precursor. It still exists exclusively in our minds – like all other concepts, but we didn’t actually invent it. We only noticed its natural precursor and built on in.

Orangutans are freer than us. They live individualistic lives, depending on no one but themselves. They are strong enough to do this and they live in such a manner and place that they don’t have to face any natural enemies. We, humans – their cousins, are the only agents powerful enough to represent a real danger for them.
Gorillas are less free than us. They live in strict autarchies, where they need nothing but what already exists in their domains – the plants they feed on, and where they respect the strict discipline imposed by their strictly authoritarian male leaders. Which are the only free(ish) members of the groups.
Chimpanzees and bonobos, each in their own way, are the closest to us. Some freer than others but none as free as the orangutans.

None of our cousins have the concept of liberty. As far as we know, they long for it – for freedom, that is – when they lose it. Hence they feel (for) it. But they haven’t, as far as we know it, came up with the notion of it. This being the reason for which the concept of liberty might be synthetic – like all other concepts, but liberty itself is artificial.

Our experience of liberty has a lot in common with what our cousins feel when they lose theirs. When they lose theirs to us!
We being the only agents who, after synthesizing the concept of liberty, have taken the process a step further.
Have started to take prisoners. And to justify our actions!

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

Pod peste timp

February 17, 2023 //
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Ludovic ics i v pretindea că “L’etat c’est Moi”.

Noi, democrați fiind, pretindem că ‘l’etat c’est nous’.

Da’ dăm vina tot pe el pentru ce nu ne convine!

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Categories 1989, alegerile pe care le facem, comunicare efectiva, constiinta de sine, Cu pielea la bataie, evolutie, identitate colectiva, In limba Romana, Omul ca masura a tuturor lucrurilor, psihologie, rationalitate limitata, Tara din care traim

Minsk

February 13, 2023 //
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7 years after the accord had been signed, and never implemented, Putin had ordered his army to invade, again, Ukraine.
Using Lukashenko’s Belarus as a springboard.

As of now, all five people who had signed the accord had failed. In more ways than one.
None of their stated goals have been achieved.
The three democratically elected leaders had failed in the sense that they had not been able to prevent the escalation of the conflict.
The two dictators have not, as of yet, been able to fulfill their ‘promises’.

For almost a year now, Ukraine had been able to defend itself against the Russian aggression. In the first days of the ‘special operation’, Ukraine had managed to do this alone! Only after the initial surprise had given birth to hope, the ‘west’ had started to send in meaningful assistance.
Which strongly suggests that a people which is in control of its own fate – as in ‘democratically decides its own future’ – has a greater ability to fight than a people sent to the battle field at the whims of a dictator.

One by one, the democratically elected signatories of the Minsk agreement had been replaced. One way or another, all of them peaceful. Not necessarily as a consequence of this particular failure but, nevertheless, they are no longer able to make any other hugely significant mistake.
The two dictators continue to dictate. To make mistakes and to defend their previous mistakes. To cause misery.

Looking at the whole thing from a distance, the situation is simple.

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”

Frank Herbert

Unfortunately, things are even worse. Not only that power is magnetic to the corruptible but also most ‘ordinary’ people tend to have a hard time acknowledging mistake.
Once committed, even by the most incorruptible person, a mistake gets a life of its own. And works hard at convincing the perpetrator to ‘hide’ it. Hence to commit even worse mistakes.

Now, why is power magnetic for the corruptible?
Because power makes it possible for the ‘agent’ to ‘hide’ a lot of mistakes!

The way I see it, people have a knack for learning on the run.
The shape of the learning curve and the duration of the process depends on the particulars of each situation but all people eventually get there. Those who survive to that point, of course…

What’s to be learned from all this?

The obvious, my dear Watson!

All those five powerful agents in the picture above have failed.
Yet the French and the Germans fare a lot better than the Russians and the Belorussians while the Ukrainians fight better than the Russians.

What’s the main difference between those two ‘sides’?

Those who fare better change their leaders more easily and more often?
Before their mistakes pile up? And become ‘too big to fail’?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, effective communication, evolution, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, Trust
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