Archives for category: awareness
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Frames

March 28, 2020 //
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https://i.imgflip.com/3ua749.jpg

Well, we must remember that solutions came a lot easier when we refuse to think inside a box. Inside any box. No matter how large or how nice.

Every time I understand/notice that somebody tries to frame my thinking process, I go ‘ballistic’.

I try to raise my mind perpendicularly above the frame. So that I may observe the limits.

Every time when somebody is presented with an ‘either/or’ option there is a strong likelihood that the situation merits a more nuanced approach.
As in ‘yes, the government was terrible at handling COVID-19’ and ‘yes, the government – as our servant, should be mandated by us, the people, to coordinate the help we need in our hour of need’.

How can we reconcile these two?
Simple.
Hire a better government and keep a keen eye on it!

And, if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t democracy meant to do exactly this?

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, fail better, Frames of mind, freedom, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, manipulation, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we are building for our children, Transparency

So close. Yet so far apart…

March 28, 2020 //
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About half of our manufactured goods come from China. From half-way around the world. A shipping container needs about a month to arrive to Rotterdam from Shanghai. While ordering the merchandise takes some five minutes over the internet.

Shanghai is in China. A country so far away that hourly wages are a fraction of those in Europe. Or in the US. That being the reason for so many of our manufactured goods coming from there.

China is a country so far away that it took more than a month for the rest of the world to find out that a pandemic was brewing in Wuhan.
China is a country so far away that the CDC expert embedded in China’s Disease Control Agency was deemed useless by the current American Administration.

China is a country close enough for the Chinese tourists to had been a staple for the Italian hospitality industry. “5.3 million overnight stays in 2018“
China is a country far enough for an “official opening ceremony” to had been “held at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, a multicultural complex, in the Italian capital on Tuesday, at the presence of Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage, Activities and Tourism Dario Franceschini and Chinese Minister of Culture and Tourism Luo Shugang.”

The ceremony was held because “2020 has been designated the China-Italy year of culture and tourism, as the year marks the 50th anniversary of China-Italy diplomatic ties.”
“Tuesday” was the 21st of January 2020.

The same day

  • United States confirms its first case in Washington state, a man who traveled to the Wuhan area.
  • China confirms two additional deaths, a sixty-six-year-old man and a forty-eight-year-old woman
  • New cases are announced in China, including in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai.
  • Chinese state media raises number of confirmed cases to 291 and confirms 15 medical workers in Wuhan have been diagnosed with pneumonia.
  • Hong Kong confirms its first case, a person in their thirties.
  • Taiwan confirms its first case, a woman in her fifties.

The above timeline was ‘borrowed’ – through the Internet, of course, yet another example for how close we are of eachother, from https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/updated-timeline-coronavirus on 3/28/2020, 12:30 GMT
Which Internet pulls us together by pooling information/data while simultaneously rips us apart by feeding us a constant stream of fake news.

We are so close together that you can send/receive almost everything (from) almost everywhere.
We are so close together that everybody who has a smart phone can see their similarly equipped buddies halfway across the world.

We’re so far apart that we still have to make up our collective mind about which comes first. The Economy or the People.
We’re so far apart that we haven’t figured out yet that there’s no such thing as a running economy without enough able bodied and mentally sane people. To produce, transport, distribute and buy the things we need.
We’re so far apart that we haven’t yet figured out that the present number of people cannot survive – let alone maintain a decent living standard, without a running economy.

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Categories awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, Economy, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, In English, limited rationality, man induced fragility, Money as goal, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Psychology, skin in the game, The kind of world we are building for our children

Progress.

March 26, 2020 //
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Some people are convinced that nothing really changes.
That progress is an empty word.

Others are convinced that progress is everything.

And each category has its ‘extremists’:

Some people are convinced that nothing should be allowed to change.
Others are convinced that all change must be imposed, or at least approved, by them.

And the tug of war between these two categories actually hamper whatever progress happens naturally.

Mind you, both categories shoot themselves in the foot.
Each of them shoots only the ‘specific’ foot but the result is equally crippling… Both end up being iron shackles for the rest of us.

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Categories awareness, Bancuri, Bounded rationality, collective identity, cooperation, evolution, Frames of mind, freedom, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Psychology, religion

Metamorphosis

March 26, 2020 //
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A transformation so drastic that somebody needs to have been at both ends of the process in order to accept that what came out was the same thing as what went in.

The Universe has already went through Metamorphosis 0.1 and 1.0.
The ‘Big Bang’ and the apparition of life.

We’re witnessing Metamorphosis 2.0.
Awareness’ coming of age.

Individuals becoming aware not only of their own awareness but also of their place in the order of things.
Communities becoming aware that each of their individuals are paramount. That ‘no one left behind’ is the only thing that keeps the community together.
Individuals understanding that each of them is equally important yet none of them indispensable.

Individuals and communities alike opening their minds to the fact that none of them might exist without the other.

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Categories altruism, awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, evolutie, feminism, forgiveness, freedom, identitate colectiva, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mindset

Simply a matter of understanding.

March 24, 2020 //
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Life, in general, is a matter of calibrating the intercourse between the inside of the organism and the environment in which it tries to survive. Or thrive…

Social life, both in general and in particular, is a matter of calibrating social intercourse between the members of a society in such a manner that, statistically speaking, the individual members would find it easier to survive/thrive in the given physical environment.
Simply because each surviving/thriving individual adds resilience to the social organism/network.

COVID-19 is nothing but yet another test.
For now – for as long a so many of us are still in ‘surviving mode’, it doesn’t matter “how” or “why”.
All that matter is ‘what’.

“What WE do about it!”

Distance ourselves from the others and allow the pandemic to cool down?
Distance ourselves from the others and allow each of our individual minds to think for itself?

While keeping in mind that long term survival requires the physical presence of as many of us as possible? That our own long term well being requires us to cooperate towards that common goal? As Adam Smith taught us?

Then things will eventually cool down.

And we will have been learned yet another thing.

Both individually and as a cultured species.

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, cooperation, Culture, effective communication, evolution, In English, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, politics, Psychology, religion, skin in the game

"Mullahs & COVID-19: Iran’s failing response reflects regime’s priorities"

March 22, 2020 //
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If you live on the Moon, or if enough time had passed since I’ve written this, click on the picture to read Jonathan Spyer’s excellent rendition of the facts which have driven me to post this.

Or you may proceed.

For me, there is a striking resemblance between what’s going on in Iran and what would happen in a hardcore libertarian society.

The mullahs are concerned only with spreading/enforcing their faith and consider everything else will take care of itself.

The extreme libertarians are concerned exclusively with upholding their understanding of liberty and consider that everything else would take care of itself. By itself.

And I’m convinced that everything will indeed take of itself!
After all, life has continued after communism had failed.
The communist leaders had been professedly concerned exclusively with enforcing their understanding of equality. And convinced that everything else would had taken care of itself. If only that equality could have been instated…

Yet I don’t think communism will be missed.
By those who had experienced it hard enough to understand it…

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, freedom, In English, man induced fragility, Psychology, religion, The kind of world we are building for our children

Insider trading.

March 21, 2020 //
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Let me make something clear.
Crystal clear!

Money, and its ‘derivatives’ – from ‘capital’ to ‘financial market’ and ‘stock exchange’, are the tools we used to get where we are now.
Without them we would be still foraging in the woods.

Only something rather insidious has started to eat the whole scaffolding from inside.
Same process has been happening with weapons. We invented them for hunting. Then used them for self protection. Against large beasts and fellow humans.
Finally, after using them to conquer and defend our liberty, we used them to subjugate others. To impose our will upon some other people.

In other words, we used guns to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Unwittingly.
Both as hapless individuals and as a cultural species.

Money – and its derivatives, have suffered the same degradation.
We used it, at first, to coordinate our efforts.
The Stock Exchange had been an excellent way to coordinate otherwise disparate means. Very few of the corporations who have changed the world into what it is now – for good and for bad, wouldn’t have come to life without the money which fuel them.
Nowadays, too many of those who trade on the Stock Market do it in a ‘barren’ manner.

They do not contribute anything but extract value.
The inside traders being only the visible part of the iceberg.
Which iceberg might tank the whole contemporary ‘arrangement’.

If we keep sleeping during our watch.
And there’s no one else on deck…

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, effective communication, fail better, In English, man induced fragility, Money as goal, Politically induced fragility, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children

Opportunities

March 21, 2020 //
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Smarter people than me are already prepping for the aftermath.
For the opportunities which will have ripened by then.

Which, let’s face it, is a wise thing to do. Most of us would have done it. Prepping for what we fear. And for what we covet.

Also wise would be for us to remember that everything we experience today – the good and the bad of it, together, is the consequence of how we have chosen to use the opportunities opened up by the previous crisis.

And by that before it …

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, Economy, effective communication, evolution, freedom, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

Predictions.

March 19, 2020 //
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Why is it so hard to predict anything?
So hard that some people believe that ‘no prediction will ever be accurate’?

Which is simultaneously true and false!
First of all, it is a prediction.
Hence, it is supposed to be false.
But it’s true!

Then, if all predictions are going to be false, why bother?

Because sometimes it works.
Or, at least, it works good enough to be useful.

Hence this query.

“Will economists ever be as good at forecasting as meteorologists?“
I must thank Tim Harford for this excellent question.

No. For a very simple reason.

Meteorology has to do with physics. Something which doesn’t change as you learn more about it. Only the researcher’s understanding of what is going on goes deeper and deeper into the matter.

Economy has to do with both hard facts – how much coal/arable land is available at one moment, and psychological unknowns.
What people will do if/when….
The hard facts might change – just as meteorological data does. But in a rather foreseeable manner.
What people will do… is a lot harder to predict. Simply because people change their understanding of facts, based on what they learn.

Just as the meteorologists do.
And while it is relatively easy to predict that meteorology will become more and more accurate – for the foreseeable future, at least, it is a lot harder to predict what the meteorologists will do as a consequence of their increased abilities.

Specially when a lot of money is involved.

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, In English, man induced fragility, Money as goal, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we are building for our children

Taleb's Black Swan has been infected by SARS CoV2

March 19, 2020 //
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We’re in the middle of a crises.
Some people believe the crises has been only triggered by the virus. And that it has been mainly caused by ‘globalization’.

I beg to differ. In part.

The crises was indeed triggered by the virus.
But the fact that we are so fragile isn’t the consequence of globalization.
Only by what we have done in the given circumstances.

It wasn’t globalization itself which had made us fragile.
Globalization only extended the opportunity field we had at our disposal.
It was our way of developing those opportunities which had made us fragile.
We had chosen ‘financial efficiency’ over ‘resilience’.
We had chosen to increase profit instead of making it ‘more and more sure’ that we’ll be able to survive.
In a sense, we have been acting as if we’d lost touch with reality.
With the hard reality….

There is nothing to suggest that we knew what we were doing. Then.
But we won’t have any excuses left once that we will have reached the other side.

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Categories awareness, biology, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, In English, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Money as goal, Mutual Respect, Psychology, Trust
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