Câtă dreptate poate avea omul ăsta…
Alegerile alea au fost cu adevarat libere!
‘Niciodată ca atunci agenda politicienilor nu s-a identificat atât de puternic cu agenda publică’…
Foarte corect!
Numai că, având în vedere starea în care ne aflăm acum, la 30 de ani ‘dupe’, rezultă că nici politicienii și nici ‘agenda publică’ nu au prea avut cine știe ce viziune. Pe termen mediu/lung….
This being the most convincing argument that we really need to quit ‘smoking’.
Just think of it.
Inhale, exhale.
Inhale, exhale.
Inhale, exhale…
I know you can do this, breathe, without thinking.
You’ve actually done it since your birth. And you’ll continue doing it after you’ll have reached the end of this post.
But right now you should be fully aware that your lungs have only one opening.
What has to come out – what doesn’t belong in there, needs to exit from where it came in in the first place. Which is rather hard for anything which isn’t air.
That’s why dust, tar, or even microbes, should not go in there at all.
Quit smoking. And quit belching smoke into the atmosphere.
Let’s get to the second part of the post. Presumably, the more interesting one.
Click on the image and read the whole thing.
Now tell me why would somebody attempt to ‘debunk’ such a lie in the first place? Is smoking something worth arguing for?
Oops… so the whole thing revolves, again, around money…
And, if I understand correctly the point proposed by the author quoted above, a certain Fredrik Eich, there isn’t much of a difference between being duped into giving up and starting/continuing to smoke.
No, I don’t like being duped myself.
That’s why I’m telling it straight.
Lungs have only one opening. Don’t let yourselves be duped into believing that smoking isn’t that bad for you. That some smog is inevitable for a thriving economy.
After all, this is how ‘they’ make ‘their’ money.
Now, after proof-reading this, I wonder.
What do the dupers breathe?
Do they have their, private, atmosphere?
Have they duped themselves into believing everything is as pink as a pair of healthy lungs?
As a species, I mean…
We’ve ‘invented’ mutual respect.
Based on it, we created the two institutions which allowed us to get where we are now. Democracy and free market capitalism.
I’ll make a short detour for those who are not ‘convinced’.
Democracy, the functional kind, starts from the premise that it is impossible for an individual to know everything. And that together we know much more than each of us. This being the reason for any democratic process starting with an intense discussion. Whoever has something to say, takes the stand and whoever is interested in the well being of the community pays attention. To learn where to cast their votes.
Free market capitalism starts, too, from the premise that it is impossible for an individual to know everything. That nobody, be it an individual or a group of people, might be smart enough to call all the economic shots needed for entire society to ‘feed itself’ on the long run.
These two fundamental institutions operate on the basis of mutual respect between those who live within them. The people exchange ideas and goods on the principle that the transactions are done voluntarily and in good faith. That deception is just an exception.
These two institutions made it possible for us to cooperate into building the present reality. We have developed enough technology that we are able to produce enough food for everybody.
We went to the moon
We have enough weapons to destroy the entire planet.
Each of us can communicate, almost instantly, with almost anyone on the planet.
And? What do we do in these conditions?
Although there still are many of us who are starving, we throw away food. For various reasons.
Most satellites are used (and) for military purposes.
Although we could not have ‘arrived’ if we hadn’t ‘invented’ mutual respect, we currently use information technology mainly to spread fake news and ‘consume’ pornography.
Is this really okay?
How much longer is this going to last?
Ca specie.
Am descoperit respectul reciproc.
Pe baza lui am creat cele două instituții care ne-au permis să ajungem unde suntem acum. Democrația și capitalismul de piață liberă.
Am să fac o scurtă pauză, pentru cei ce nu sunt convinși.
Democrația, cea funcțională, pleacă de la premiza că nimeni nu le știe pe toate. Dar că împreună știm mai mult mai multe decât fiecare dintre noi.
De aceea orice proces democratic începe cu o mare discuție. Cei care consideră că au ceva de spus iau cuvântul iar cei interesați cu adevărat de soarta societății în care trăiesc ascultă cu atenție. Ca să știe cu cine votează.
Capitalismul de piață cu adevărat liberă pleacă, și el, tot de la premisa că nimeni nu le știe pe toate. Că nimeni, individ sau grup de indivizi, nu e suficient de capabil să ia toate deciziile de natură economică necesare pentru ca o întreagă societate să aibă ce mânca pe termen lung.
Aceste două instituții fundamentale funcționeză pe baza respectului reciproc dintre cei care trăiesc în interiorul lor. Aceștia schimba între ei idei și bunuri după principiul că tranzacțiile se fac de bună voie și cu bună credință.
Că înșelătoria este doar o excepție.
Cooperând în cadrul acestor două institții am ajuns unde suntem acum.
Am dezvoltat suficientă tehnologie încât avem, aproape cu toții, ce să mâncăm.
Am ajuns pe lună.
Avem suficient armament încât putem distruge toată planeta.
Fiecare dintre noi poate comunica, aproape instantaneu, cu aproape oricine de pe planeta.
Și?
Ce facem în condițiile astea?
Cu toate că mai sunt semeni de-ai noștri care mor de foame, aruncăm mâncare la gunoi. Din diverse motive.
Cei mai mulți sateliți sunt folosiți (și) în scop militar.
Cu toate că am ajuns aici pe baza respectului reciproc folosim tehnologia informației preponderent pentru a răspândi fake-news și a ‘consuma’ pornografie.
O fi bine?
O mai ducem mult asa?
Messages which are knowingly incomplete, false or both at the same time.
Why?
Because they have no alternative, want to achieve something or need to survive.
As soon as a person achieves a certain level of self-awareness – read consciousness, they realize that no ‘communication event’ will ever be complete. That nobody will ever be able to communicate everything they know, about the most insignificant subject, to anybody else.
Then what? Stop talking?
Or assume personal responsibility for everything that leaves your lips?
As soon as a person achieves a certain level of self-awareness, they realize there’s more in life than mere survival.
As soon as their consciences bloom – in concert with the accrued influence exercised by the ‘environment’, individuals set goals for themselves. Which goals become integral part of the ‘ongoing project’. Of the self-actualizing conscience. Achieving, or failing, each of those goals leaves an indelible mark on the conscience itself. On the manner in which each individual relates to their environment.
Since achieving is far more ‘satisfying’ than failing, conscience is naturally biased towards ‘achieving’. If the ‘environment’ ‘allows’ it, the bias becomes more and more ‘slanted’.
The messages used by the individuals – by their conscience, to be more precise, will increasingly serve the purpose of achieving goals rather than the purpose of ‘honest communication’.
As soon as a person achieves a certain level of self-awareness, that conscience wants to survive.
Mind you, not the person but the conscience.
‘?!?
Conscience cannot exist without the mind/body which supports it….’
OK, tell that to people who believe their souls are going places after their mortal bodies expire. Then try to demonstrate to yourself, honestly, that those people are wrong. That there’s no chance for their belief to be ‘true’.
But metaphysics are hard.
Let me give you a far lighter example.
Smoking. Or drinking. Driving fast. Eating that extra piece of chocolate…
Don’t tell me you never did anything ‘foolish’. That you never lied to yourself: ‘This cannot happen to me. Chances are so small that … Only this time….’
‘But otherwise nobody would ever be able to ‘leave their houses’. We’d be all completely paralyzed with fear…’
Yeap! That’s exactly what I mean. Conscience needs to lie to herself in order to remain functional. Otherwise she would not allow the physical body who sustains her to assume any risk.
They would both suffocate.
Regulations don’t really work unless they reflect the mindset of the majority…
And here’s how it works.
The rule about driving on the ‘right’ side of the road is observed without much need for enforcement.
Because the consequences are clear. And consistent, unless you drive a tank.
People had the same problem with condoms.
Until HIV came along…
Nowadays very few people engage in casual sex without one.
Give us time and … if SARS-CoV 2 will be around for long enough…
Most of us consider corpses as being inert.
And those individuals who are in deeper stages of coma.
Living organisms, on the other hand, are considered as being reactive.
They drink when thirsty, eat when hungry, run when in danger…
As for behaving in a pro-active manner… things are no longer so simple.
Ants, for example, are constantly praised for their behavior.
While crickets are disparaged for their recklessness …
But what about the dung beetle?
Also proactive?
They dig shelters and provide them with food for the next generation.
If this isn’t proactive behavior… I don’t know what else would qualify.
‘But … really?!? Can a beetle be ‘accused’ of behaving in a pro-active manner? An insect? Are you nuts?’
I’ll make a small break now. And point your attention to something I find very interesting.
“Life isn’t predictable and it’s a good idea to be prepared”.
Prepared for what?!? For God’s sake… remember? ‘Life isn’t predictable’!
Hello!!! The ant is hoarding food during the summer exactly because she doesn’t want to starve during the winter. She absolutely knows that winter is coming. She prepares herself because she knows what’s going to happen! Duh…
Coming back to the beetle, no, I ain’t nuts. I’m only trying to suggest that species act as if being proactive. Individual organisms do not necessarily behave in a proactive manner but species always do. Those who don’t… disappear soon enough.
Nothing existed before we came around. To notice.
They were there, alright. But didn’t existed, yet.
Most dictionaries do not discriminate between ‘being’ and ‘existing’.
But I still recall, vividly, those moments when – as a teenager, I tried to make myself remarked by the girl I fancied at that moment. More often than I’d like to remember, it was as if I didn’t existed at all.
I was standing there, making a fool of myself, yet I didn’t existed at all.
Simply because I wasn’t noticed.
By the significant one.
There are a lot of people who prod us to ‘think out of the box’.
And a few who dare to warn us about the perils of pushing it too far…
I’m gonna invite you to the next level.
Instead of sending your imagination to think outside the box – while the rest of you remains comfortably inside, let’s step outside ‘in person’.
Classic thinking outside the box does nothing but enlarges the box. Brings inside a portion of the outside. Moves the walls.
Bringing in a lot of additional clutter in the process.
By stepping outside, physically, you have the opportunity to actually see the problem as an ‘independent’ box. Separated from you and separated from the environment.
How about this for a change in perspective?
This way it will be easier for you to notice, and carefully examine, the links which exist between you and the problem. Between ‘the’ problem and the rest of the problems. Between the problems and the environment. The place where you have to cope with the problems.
The place where you live.
And that, my friend, is your biggest problem.
How to step out of your own life.
In order to make it better.
Let’s face it, in the present circumstances the picture above might mean a lot of things.
It can be a prank – somebody might have made the whole thing up just for the fun of it.
It can also express the frustration of somebody who isn’t such a good speller. Or of somebody who suffers from dyslexia?
What really interests me is how we, the ‘intellectual’ public, react to things like these.
Do we understand the frustration which lies at the bottom of this?
Do we even try to?
Or we just dismiss it as being a manifestation of stupid?
No, I don’t consider the economy as being more important than life preservation. Some very sound arguments can be found here.
But I’m absolutely convinced that treating the ‘others’ with disdain is what brought us here in the first place.
You don’t like the manner in which the likes of Trump treat those who don’t agree with them?
Then why are you doing the very same thing?
You consider yourself to be better than Trump?
Prove it.
Be nicer than him, not worse.
nicichiarasa 