Archives for category: Choices we make
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Wishing for the best.

August 6, 2024 //
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Expect nothing.
You’ll never be disappointed.
Buddhism 101

Language, one the tools we use for thinking, is an interesting subject.
For study!

Whenever there are two different words referring to something not exactly different, there’s a huge opportunity. For us to understand how our minds work.

Buddha said nothing about wishing. As far as I know, and I’m not an expert in Buddhism…
But since all those who bother themselves to help us becoming the better – read happier – version of us quote Buddha as speaking exclusively about ‘expecting’ and nothing about ‘wishing’ … I’ll just consider it yet another fact of life.

When speaking about expectations, Buddha starts by saying that “attachment to desire causes suffering“.
Which brings us back to the minute differences between words!
Wishes, desires… expectations…

Buddha’s first Noble Truth is stated as “Life is Suffering“. Very interesting formulation but today’s subject is somewhat different.
Life, as we experience it, needs a living organism.
Which living organism, in order to remain alive, has to meet some of its own ‘needs’. Subsistence, shelter…
For us to experience something – including life – we need to become and remain conscious. We need to build and preserve self-esteem…
For our living organism to inform our conscience about its needs, the body sends sensations to the higher echelons of the mind. Where sensation is transformed into perception. And becomes desire.

‘Pangs’ become perceptions of hunger. And our mind discovers that it – or ‘we’, as in ‘body and mind’?!? – desires to eat.
Is there any reasonable way in which we – any of us – may give up trying to fulfill this desire? This need, actually…

‘I wish I had eggs for breakfast!’
Nothing unreasonable about that, right? Nothing likely to make us suffer…

Well, maybe for us.
For me, writing this on a computer, and for you reading my thoughts over the internet. Highly unlikely for any of us to be unable to fulfill such a ‘dream’. Those allergic to eggs are excepted, of course.

This being the moment when I draw your attention to what other people may think. Feel…
Parents who can feed their children nothing but stale bread. If at all. And not for lack of trying!
Hungry teenagers who expect their parents to be able to feed them. Decently…

“Fifteen-year-old Cyril Jose was a tin-miner’s son from Cornwall. With the region suffering from heavy unemployment, the boy with a strong sense of adventure joined up.”https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29934965

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game

Imagine

July 31, 2024 //
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The Polish state broadcaster on Saturday suspended
a television journalist who, during the Olympic Games opening ceremony,
reacted to a performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” by saying it was a “vision of communism.”

And now I wonder…

What kind of communism had Przemyslaw Babiarz, the Polish journalist, experienced?
And where, since the Polish people did not enjoy what had been dished to them by the communist rulers?!?

What a waste of energy….
John Lennon had invited us to dream!
The communists, the real ones, had acted worse than the worst robber barons.
What I had experienced under communist rule, in Romania, had nothing to do with what Lennon had invited us to dream about.
Comparing Lennon’s dreams with the crimes committed by the communists is narrow minded to say the least.
Firing a guy for airing a ‘less than inspired’ statement and pretending to do it in the name of “Mutual understanding, tolerance, reconciliation” is nothing short of idiocy!
For it gives ammunition, and plenty of it, to those who wish to torpedo any mutual understanding and tolerance that still survives.

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

No, not really!

July 30, 2024 //
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My first hand experience has driven me to understand:
That ‘government’ – which is nothing but an instrument – will be hijacked whenever ‘the people’ doesn’t pay enough attention. Or has been incapacitated. One way or another.
That communism is just another pretext used by those yearning to hijack the government. And that those people would use any pretext to ‘prime’ the attention of those they want to use in their quest. In their quest to hijack the government.
That democracy – the kind that works – is not about electing the best man for the job. For the simple reason that there’s no way to determine what that person will have to do! The actual things they will be confronted with! In practice, the really useful kind of democracy is that which makes it simple for the people to remove from power/refuse those obviously unfit for the task.

For instance, what’s currently going on in Venezuela. The people tries to remove Maduro from office and the incumbent president refuses to go.

Sounds familiar?
Happened, tentatively, even where democracy was considered ‘too deep rooted to collapse’?

The third thing I understood living under a communist regime was that reproductive rights are very important. That if you want women to have more children, you have to make them ‘feel good’ about it!
That banning abortion will get you nowhere. That banning abortion – and books – will only show your true nature.

I’m vocal about these three things. Including on FB.
Exposing these ideas on FB made it so that I have friends who love Trump and friends who hate Trump.
As a matter of fact and all things considered, I’d describe myself as a Republican rather than as a Democrat. A never-Trumper Republican…

A couple of days ago, the meme above had been shared by a FB friend of mine. A Democrat.
Yesterday it was shared by a Trump die-hard.

Is this strange?

No, not really. We’re all people. Normal people concerned about the future.
The current situation is the consequence of what we’ve done.
Allowed ourselves to be divided into camps.
By those willing to do anything in order to hijack the government. Even if only temporarily.

How many of you cringe when hearing ‘X party/candidate has won the elections’?
Why do we continue to listen when the talking head/would be influencer makes such a horrible mistake?
An electoral process is about us deciding our fate, not a pageant!
Our collective fate!
We, as a community/people, are supposed to be the winners, not any of the candidates/parties…

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Categories 1989, authoritarianism, awareness, Choices we make, In English, Respect Mutual., teleology, Trust

Gaming the System

July 18, 2024 //
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“To use rules or laws to get what you want in an unfair but legal way”
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

Having a name for ‘it’ means that we’re aware of it’s existence.
We’re still using it, though.
It is wise?

We’re not the first ones to use the method.
The HIV virus has somehow ‘learned’ to hide itself inside our immune system.
Not only to ‘bend the rules of life’ – all viruses do that for a living – but to bend the very rules of immunity!
But we are the first ones to use ‘it’ knowingly!

Not fully aware of the consequences but nevertheless on purpose!

How did we get here?

By ‘gaming’ the laws of nature!
Our ancestors believed flying was reserved for birds. By making good use of what we’ve learned about the ‘system’, we’ve been able to overcome many of our limitations.
We’ve also overcame our common sense…

We forget our planet is limited.
Vast but still limited.
We also tend to forget that our knowledge/understanding is also limited.
We’ve become so confident in our ability to game the system that we tend to ignore the two facts I’ve just mentioned.

Even worse, we’ve given up ‘the brotherhood of man’.
We’ve become humans by talking to each-other. By hunting together. By tilling the earth together.
Then we’ve started to fight. For the same earth we’ve been tilling together…
We’ve invented ‘capitalism’. A manner of doing business which relies mostly on trust. On the rational expectation that the partners will rather fulfill their respective parts of the deal than becoming known as fraudsters.
About the same time, we’ve also invented ‘democracy’. A social arrangement relying on mutual respect.

And we “saw that it was good“.
It lasted for a while…

Recently, capitalism has been gamed into a relentless hunt for profit.
Currently, democracy is being played with alternative facts.

We’re becoming viruses!
Some of us, anyway.


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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, skin in the game, Trust

Skinning cats

July 11, 2024 //
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With Chandler Owen, A. Philip Randolph founded and became co-editor of The Messenger,
an African American socialist magazine, in 1917.
In 1925, Randolph established the first predominantly black labor union,
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, to improve working conditions
for the nearly 10,000 black railroad employees.
The Brotherhood would enjoy longstanding prominence in the labor and civil rights movements.

According to the English lore, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”.
According to the cat, ‘who cares about how I lose my coat? I’ll end up dead anyway!’
According to the fur tanners, ‘the manner of skinning the pelt is of utmost importance for the end-result of the operation’.

Whom to believe? Specially since all of them seem to be right…

Well, truth has a marked tendency for being complicated.
Hard to comprehend in its entirety and even harder to express in a concise manner.
Meanwhile we, conscious human beings, have a marked tendency to notice only what we’re interested in. To notice only what we care about…

In fact, the manner in which we notice things speaks volumes about who we are. About how we relate to what we call ‘reality’.

The white colonists inhabiting a certain area in Northern America had become ‘Free Americans’ after fighting the British. Only after they had freed themselves through battle!
A. Philip Randoph had fought for his freedom. And for human rights.

All this fighting leads to a bout of pondering.
Are we free together? As in ‘all of us’ and ‘once and for all’?
Or our freedom is defined against other people? Who might try to steal our liberty from us?

What is freedom, after all?
A zero sum game? Where liberty is up for grabs but in limited supply?
Or a ‘grace’ we impart with and upon our fellow human beings?
Something to be jealously guarded or something to be collectively and cooperatively maintained and enhanced?

And one final question.
Why would anyone attempt to steal other people’s freedom?
When history gives us plenty of evidence that whenever freedom was out to be shared people were happy while whenever freedom was in short supply the entire society eventually crumbled under it’s own weight…

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

Notionally

June 22, 2024 //
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“Your Liberty To Swing Your Fist Ends
Just Where My Nose Begins“

Now, what would you have done if this guy had started to swing his fists? In the very proximity of your precious nose?
“Stood your ground” or gave him enough ‘space to exercise’?

You’re not exactly comfortable with the current meaning of ‘stand your ground’?

Then maybe it’s high time for us to understand that ‘stand your ground’ is the direct consequence of ‘your liberty ends where my nose begins’.

Not comfortable with the current situation?

Then maybe it’s high time for us to come up with another definition for liberty.
One which brings forward the cooperative effort which made liberty possible in the first place.
Instead of the confrontational one currently in use. Which serves perfectly the interests of those powerful enough to define evolution as “survival of the fittest”.
Which serves perfectly the interests of those powerful enough to be convinced that only those able to defend their liberty are worthy to be free.

The key word here being “their”, not “liberty”!
For this kind of people, for the Capones of this world, freedom – their freedom – is something to be appropriated rather than shared.

Think about it!
Do you remember the argument ‘the west has provoked the current situation’?

“Mr Farage said he had been arguing since the 1990s that “the ever eastward expansion” of the Nato military alliance and the EU was giving President Putin “a reason to [give to] his Russian people to say they’re coming for us again and to go to war”.
He added: “We provoked this war. Of course, it’s [President Putin’s] fault.””

What kind of freedom do we want?
For us and for our children?
The kind that must be constantly wrenched from the likes of Putin or one shared freely among all those present?
Built cooperatively or defended against all others?

Shaking willing hands or swinging fists?

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Categories 1989, awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, skin in the game, Trust

On knowing

June 19, 2024 //
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“The only thing I know is that I know nothing,
and i am not quite sure that i know that.“
Socrates

“The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man,
but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.“
Bertrand Russell

Socrates and Bertrand Russel, both, knew everything there was to be known in their respective times.
Socrates and Bertrand Russel, both, had enough guts to acknowledge their doubts. To themselves and to the rest of us.

On the other hand, Russell presents us with a very interesting riddle.
Is it possible for a naturally occurring thing to become a vice?

““Humans have an affinity for ethanol (plant-derived alcohol), and captive primates are well known to like to drink anthropogenically sourced ethanol,” Dudley told Sciam.com….
The appeal of naturally occurring alcohol has not yet been investigated because, in the handful of previous studies, animals expressed no interest. Anthropologist Katherine Milton of UC Berkeley surveyed primate researchers, working with 22 species, on whether they had seen animals reach for fermented fruit. All said they had not. Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev studying bats reported that the animals shunned foods with elevated alcohol concentrations, despite higher sugar levels. Perhaps this is because,  says animal physiologist Berry Pinshow, a co-author of that study, “a drunk bat is a dead bat.””

Cynthia Graber, Scientific American, 2008

Humans, and their pets, also get fat.
Humans – some of them and alone, this time – like to get ‘high’. Exclusively on naturally occurring substances, until recently.

Humans are the only animal species – known to ‘man’ – displaying a certain kind of consciousness. Self-awareness, as defined by Humberto Maturana. Also known as ‘Human Consciousness’.

So, consciousness drove us to become vicious?
To eat too much? To drink alcohol? To use drugs?
To introduce other animals to drugs? In the name of science…

The way I see this, consciousness didn’t drive us to become vicious.
Only made it possible.

Being aware of ourselves – being able to observe ourselves ‘in the act’, according to Maturana – has added ‘purpose’ to the whole thing.
Animals do experience pleasure. Pet your pet and then call me a liar.
Animals have even learned from us to ask for pleasure. Many of our pets beg for food and to be petted.
But most wild animals – with the exception of pentailed treeshrews, whatever they might be – shun alcohol. While capable of learning to ‘douse their angst’ from us. In captivity…
Which makes us the only species which has learned to behave viciously on its own. By itself…

To over indulge on purpose.
Do you have a better definition for vice?

Which brings us back to Russell’s “intellectual vice”.

Which intellectual vice does have two aspects.
Overconfidence in one’s own intellectual prowess and over-reliance on other people’s expressed opinions, despite those opinions having a very slim chance of being true. The point being that the second aspect is a ‘simplification’ of the first one. The opinions believed despite being unrealistic do match the biases entertained by the believer.
By the ‘vicious’ believer, albeit the second aspect is less vicious than the first one. Where the overconfident should have known better.

To over-think on purpose.
To convince yourself of your own rectitude… on your own or with the help of others…

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, skin in the game

Thought experiment

June 10, 2024 //
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Imagine a beach.
Where enough of the patrons pick up rocks and throw them into a pile whenever they move around.
Where enough of the patrons throw the trash into the bin instead of leaving it for the employees to do .
Would you feel any better?

You don’t work there?
No, you don’t! But would you feel better?

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Categories awareness, Choices we make, cooperation, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, skin in the game

Freedom of speech

June 8, 2024 //
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“Only freedom of speech with repercussions isn’t anything special.
That has existed throughout every dictatorship.
If we consider freedom of speech as a value,
it must be something else.”

Whenever somebody opens their mouth, they reveals things about themselves.

That’s a repercussion.

Whenever somebody acts upon information gleaned this way, those acts also have repercussions.

The repercussions belonging to the second category are the ones which ensure that, in the end, every dictatorship ends up in failure. In abject failure.

Out of fear, everybody shuts up. So nobody yells anymore ‘The emperor is naked. And about to be run over by a bus’. So the emperor, and his henchmen, end up hanged by an angry mob. Process usually called retribution. Or revolution?

““We are not extremists. We are just angry,” explains Lazar Potrebic, a 25-year-old from a Hungarian minority in Serbia who is entitled to vote.

He – and many of his peers – are worried about the future, and feel that the more traditional parties are not listening to their concerns.

“We feel like our needs are not being met. People our age are taking really important life steps. We’re getting our first jobs, thinking about starting a family…but if you look around Europe, rent prices are going through the roof – and it’s hard to get work.”

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Of course the feeling of not being listened to when you’re young, of not being part of the equation, is nothing new. But many of the parties on the far right are actively courting the young vote, says Dave Sinardet, a professor of political science at the Free University of Brussels.

“The radical right channels anti-establishment feelings,” he told the BBC. “They have a bit of a rebellious vibe – especially when it comes to their anti-woke agenda – and that appeals to young people.””

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, Trust

Cock-sure Ignorance…

May 3, 2024 //
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I’m acquainted with a relatively large number of people. From all walks of life. My experience suggests that it’s not the ignorance which is the problem but our (collective) unwillingness to accept/assume it. After all, we are ignorant. All of us, albeit in various degrees. Even the smartest amongst us ‘controls’ more ignorance than knowledge.

The real problem stems from us being cock-sure about things. Across the board!

Some of the smart ones are fully aware about the fact that they don’t know everything. But only some.

Some of the ‘ignorant’ are aware of their ignorance. Not all of them, but way many more than the smart ones. Simply because it’s easier to notice how much more you have to learn when you are at the start of the process.

And the problem is compounded by the fact that some of the smart ones who have chosen to ignore their ignorance team up – or more exactly organize – the ignorant who refuse to learn. This being the reason for so many actual human beings behaving as if they were some faintly intelligent ‘bots’.

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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game
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