Don’t you dare to tell me how to take care of my body! Or that I should wear those face diapers of yours and that I should accept to be immunized! According to my book, my individual right to be the sole master of my body trumps your collective right to survive a pandemic. And, by the way, this whole Covid thing is a fraud.
On the other hand, the same book I’ve already mentioned gives me the right to deny all women their right to determine what happens to their own wombs. I infer from reading that book that an unborn fetus is a person – even before it had overcome the viability threshold and despite Roe vs. Wade. The way I see it, my simple declaration – that an unborn fetus is a full blown person, is reason enough for me to consider that anybody performing an abortion – or aiding a woman to have an abortion, is committing a crime. And being witness to a crime is detrimental to my well being. To my spiritual well being, in particular. Hence whenever I learn that an abortion has happened, I’m entitled to receive damages.
A bunch of ideologically motivated criminals got together and perpetrated a horrible act of terrorism. A group pf courageous passengers got together and partially foiled the terrorists’ plans.
Both the terrorists and the courageous passengers eventually died. The terrorists died killing people while the heroes died saving lives. The terrorists didn’t reach their ultimate goal – the US is still standing proud. The heroes did achieve their goal. The hijacked plane crushed in a field, far from the target the terrorists aimed to destroy.
Doing something alongside others isn’t enough. For that something to end up well, the goal must be wholesome!
“Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.” “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
Is it possible to wage war upon a concept? Is it possible to win a war against a concept?
So what are we going to do? Cave in? Only because we cannot win a war against a concept?!?
How about redefining the problem?
How about choosing an achievable goal? After all, we’ve been reasonably good at beating the terrorists themselves. And those harboring them…
Only if we had made some difference between these two! Between the terrorists and those in the middle of whom they were hiding. And continue to hide…
Let’s get back to square one.
How does terrorism work?
Some ‘agents’ determine that what they want cannot be achieved in normal ways. And choose instead to use terrorism as their tool ‘of choice’.
What do they need?
Man power, material resources, pertinent knowledge, time to organize the ‘heist’, a place to put it all together and a practical method to apply the ‘pressure’.
There are some things which are hard to control. Not impossible but hard. Material resources, for instance. A knife, or even a cutter blade, can be used for terrorist purposes. Money are also a very fungible resource.
Place is also a tricky thing. A remote ‘hamlet’ is easy to find. But transporting a terrorist ‘solution’ from a remote hamlet to a place where that ‘solution’ might produce the intended result is not so simple.
Time. The longer it takes to design a ‘solution’ and to implement it, the easier for the general public to find out what’s going on.
Pertinent knowledge. The more sophisticated the solution, the more pertinent knowledge is needed. Which knowledge comes comes attached to the man-power involved.
So. What drives a knowledgeable person to use their skills towards producing terror? Hard to say. And hard to change the mind of a person who has already become a terrorist. Either a person who had spent years descending into the ‘mood’ or somebody who had been convinced on the spur of the moment to ‘participate’ as a suicidal driver. Explosive vest wearer. Or knife wielder.
The above mentioned motives make it hard, almost impossibly hard, to prevent terrorist acts committed by deranged persons, specially when they act alone. Or as a very small ‘team’.
But when we the ‘solution’ has a certain degree of sophistication – terrorist plots, that is, there are many kinds of people involved. Initiators/backers, operatives, facilitators and ‘neighbors’.
It’s hard, almost impossible to change the minds of a determined ‘initiator’. Or of some of the ‘operatives’. The initiators tend to be sociopaths while many of the operators, specially those committing suicide, must be ‘hopeless persons’. Not only clinically depressed but outright hopeless.
But the rest?
Why would anybody back a terrorist plot if there’s another way of achieving a goal? There’s always the sociopathic explanation but not all ‘backers’ are sociopaths. Not in an obvious manner, anyway…
Which brings us to the facilitators and the neighbors.
We have, broadly, two situations. When the terrorists want to inflict pain in the middle of the enemy territory or when the terrorists want to gain control over a territory.
In 2015 ten terrorists have killed some 130 people in Paris. Wounded a couple of hundreds. And wrecked the lives of many others. Nine of them had been killed by the law enforcement agencies. On the spot or during the next few days. Only one of the assailants has survived and had been apprehended later. The process has just begun. Besides the surviving shooter there are other 19 other people against which have been brought charges. “some are accused of helping the gang without necessarily knowing the extent of the conspiracy.“ Many of the accused, including some of the assailants, have lived – at least for a while, in Molenbeek, Belgium. A suburban commune where quite a high percentage of the population feel ‘there’s no way out’.
Are you familiar with the studies which maintain that both people and mice prefer social interaction to using drugs? Statistically speaking, of course. A very few individuals get hooked and cannot give up while the vast majority stop using drugs when conditions return to normal. When the American soldiers had come back from the VietNam war, for instance.
Same thing is valid with ‘terrorism’. Along with other kinds of fundamentalism.
When too many members of a community become despondent some can be ‘converted’, many others will help – even if not engage directly, while the majority will turn a blind eye to what’s happening in their middle.
That’s why the terrorists who had wreaked havoc in Paris had been able to organize themselves in Molenbeek without the police finding out what was going on. That’s why the Americans had not been able to wipe out the Taliban. And why the Taliban have grabbed back power so quickly once the Americans had decided to pull back. Because not enough of those living there – in both Molenbeek and Afghanistan, were hopeful about their future.
Because not enough of the Afghani hearts and minds have been won over.
I’m afraid that making “no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them” wasn’t helpful. On the contrary…
And please, please, click the first picture and read the article.
Had I been obsessed with ‘efficiency’, as too many of my earthling children are, I would have distributed pretexts for happiness in a different manner.
The more an individual was capable of being happy, the more reasons for ‘that’ I would have given to that person.
Since I’m more interested in personal development, I let them exercise their freedom. Their freedom of choice.
Hence I spread ‘reasons for happiness’ in a random way. Having nothing to do with their personal merit nor with their ability to transform those ‘reasons’ into actual happiness.
And I continue to wait. For them to learn.
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And maybe the same kind of thinking had motivated this ‘concerned citizen’…
An almost empty beach. Half past five in the evening. One person – some sources maintain it was a woman, other refrain from specifying this, notices a woman ‘pleasuring’ herself. That person ‘duly’ records the incident using her phone and then reports it to the police. The ‘trespasser’ is identified – she didn’t even try to hide, admits to the ‘offense’ and is eventually “booked for indecent exposure and disorderly conduct”.
Remember that only one person had noticed what was going on. And was hurt in their feelings. So hurt that they had to alert the authorities.
There are some things each of us should do in moderation.
Drink, eat, ‘rest’…
There are some things each of us should never do.
Lie, steal, kill.
The things we must do ‘depend’ upon our DNA. Unless we do what our DNA tells us to do, we die.
The things we shouldn’t do have been determined culturally. Our fore-fathers have noticed that not doing ‘those things’ helped a lot. That communities who taught their members to not do those things survived a lot easier and fared a lot better than those communities who had been ‘lax’ about ‘things’. Teaching what to do and what to not do across generations transformed learned information into culture.
In time, culture has fulfilled the same function as DNA.
DNA had made it possible for life to exist. For species to survive. And to evolve when needed. When the environment had changed.
Culture had made it possible for communities to survive. Individuals belonging to each generation didn’t had to reinvent fire each time they were cold. Or afraid. Or hungry. They just remembered what their ancestors had taught them and put it into practice.
But there’s also a huge difference between DNA and culture. Both consist of information passed over generations and both are instrumental in the survival of those who depend on that information being put to use. The difference consists in the fact that DNA actually demands a certain behavior while culture only recommends certain ‘answers’.
There’s more.
DNA is a ‘language’. It has ‘letters’, ‘syntactic’ rules and even means to correct errors. Culture uses languages as a vehicle.
Both code information using ‘letters’ and ‘words’ but they differ in how that information is passed to the next generation. DNA passes that information in a way more ‘rigid’ manner than culture does.
While it is true that slight differences occur whenever genetic information is passed from one generation to another – that’s how evolution works, those ‘directly interested’ in the process have nothing to say about this whole thing. The differences occur accidentally and survive only if they don’t harm the organisms where they appear.
With cultural information things happen in the exact opposite manner. Differences occur only when enough individuals notice that it would be beneficial for them to change that particular habit in that particular manner.
And now we have reached the moment to contemplate another similarity.
As the DNA has become more elaborate, the ‘superior’ organisms had enjoyed more individual ‘freedom’. Or ‘lee-way’. Insects have more lee-way than worms, fish have more lee-way than star-fish, dogs have more lee-way than frogs and humans have more freedom than the rest of the apes have lee-way. Similarly, people belonging to the hunter-gatherer culture had accrued a lot more freedom when they had learned – and taught it to their children, how to make fire. And so on. Those who had learned how to grow their own food – and passed the information to the next generations, had far less chances of dying of hunger. And a lot more lee-way to conduct war… Those who had learned how to make metal tools were a lot freer than those who shaped their tools out of stone. And very soon the stone-shapers had been ‘subdued’ by those yielding bronze weapons.
And so on to the present day. Those who have become adept users of mass-media are seeding ‘change’ into the minds of the naive.
I only hope that they will eventually find out what Ernst Mayr had to say about this process.
The problem with the ‘lee-way’ generated by culture being that whenever it becomes too wide the whole system becomes fragile.
Whenever people get high enough on freedom they forget that in order to survive we need to remain inside the ‘straight and narrow’ mandated by DNA and endorsed by culture.
Otherwise put, being torn between musts and don’ts is far better than being stuck. In a grave.
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I was arguing in my previous post that our job is to determine meaning.
And to steer our actions in such a manner as to disturb as little as possible the natural equilibrium. Primum non nocere. The most important thing is to not endanger survival. Of everybody and of everything.
Please compare the next two memes.
Which one makes more sense? What each of them tells us about how their respective author sees us, the rest of the people?
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Plants transform water, minerals and sunshine into organic matter. Herbivores transform plant matter into meat. Predators cull the misfit among the herbivores. Scavengers return the ‘discrete components’ back to where they belong. At the start of the cycle.
Please note that this train of transformations happens both above and below water. That it includes all living organisms we know about. And that it constantly reshapes the environment.
The oxygen we breathe had been produced, at first, by some primitive bacteria. The soil which currently nurtures the plants which feed everybody else is a ‘by product’ of past and present organisms.
And so on.
Life is a web. Each of the species, a knot in this web.
Each member of a species gives some and takes some from the web. And, in doing this, keeps the web alive. Gives strength to each knot and keeps the entire web in one piece. In one functional piece.
At first, we – humans, as well at the rest of the apes, have been playing ‘top dog’. We’ve always taken more than we’ve been giving back. Apes have very few natural predators, except for viruses and bacteria. But what we used to take wasn’t that much out of proportion as to make a noticeable dent. As to endanger the big picture.
Until we, humans, have invented agriculture. Have actually enslaved plants and animals to serve us. Shaped the world to cater for our needs. Transformed forests into savannas to feed our animals and savannas into fields for our crops. Then fields into cities for our dwellings and industrial parks for our factories.
Enslaving the nature hasn’t been enough. We have enslaved our own brethren to work in our place. To take care of our animals, to tend our crops, to clean our houses, even to nurse our new-born.
And we have started to fight among ourselves. Attempting to control more and more of the Earth, we have stepped on each-other’s toes. Then ‘we’ have started to push back against ‘them’. By force, if necessary. By deadly force, if we saw fit.
Here’s were we stand now.
Our current contribution is negative. We have polluted the planet way beyond its short term capacity to cope with all the refuse we’re stacking on its back. We have burned enough of the fossil fuel which had been accumulated during hundreds of millions of years that we have thus changed the composition of the atmosphere. Changed it in the wrong direction… By hunting and by ‘repurposing’ the land we have contributed to the huge bio-diversity loss we are currently witnessing.
Some of us have started to understand what’s going on. Not only to understand but also to attempt to remedy the situation.
When one country had fallen under the ‘spell’ of terrorists – and a danger for all other countries, a large coalition of ‘interested parties’ have stepped in. And tried to make things right. For a host of reasons, that effort turned sour. And the ‘interested parties’ have decided to leave.
Amid all that mayhem, a lonely soul had remained steadfast. And spun the Earth in the other direction in his desperate attempt to save his protegees from the advancing Taliban. In his successful attempt to save his protegees from the advancing Taliban…
The way I see it, we – humans, are here to impart meaning to everything we get in contact with.
Now, what’s the meaning of the ‘story’ above?
Are we finally understanding the responsibility we have towards the rest of the living world? Or we’re still arrogant enough to do as we please? Without any consideration for what’s going to happen next?
As I said before. Humans don’t have any natural predators. Except for bacteria, viruses … and other people.
A little over three centuries ago, a certain Thomas Malthus maintained “that infinite human hopes for social happiness must be vain, for population will always tend to outrun the growth of production.” Let me add that Malthus had been educated at the Jesus College in Cambridge – where he had received his master of arts degree in 1791, and had taken his “holy orders” in 1797. Had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1821, elected a member of the French Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, to the Royal Academy of Berlin… and so on… Until now, Malthus has been proven wrong. We somehow managed to feed ourselves. In fact, despite the fact that we’re now roughly 8 times more numerous than we were in 1800, most of us eat far better than most of Malthus’ contemporaries. Live way longer. Lead far happier lives. Not without ‘associated’ costs. Borne mainly by the environment. And by some of the ‘others’.
The problem being that the things which had worried Malthus – population growth and the limited nature of the Earth, are true only in part. Yes, population growth puts indeed a lot of pressure on the limited Earth we currently inhabit, but the main thing which limits our “social happiness” is our limited understanding of what’s going on here.
Our self centered and self serving image of the world. Our own inability to find a long term, life preserving meaning for the things which happen around us.
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
OK. So the Spanish needed a word for ‘what to do when dealing with things royal’ and borrowed the French word for ‘label’. Things worked, the French noticed and borrowed the new meaning back into their own vocabulary. In the end, when the English developed the formal side of their ‘royal life’, they looked no further. Why invent a new word when there already was one which worked?
But very soon the whole thing had grown out of proportion. At first a ‘simple’ guide teaching the neophytes how to avoid the wrath of the initiates, it had ended as a straight jacket. Stifling everybody, including the star of the show, the king himself. The very guy whose wrath was supposed to be avoided by adhering to the etiquette…
For instance, using ‘they’ instead of either ‘he’ or ‘she’. Specially in writing and as a must when the gender identity isn’t clear.
At first a ‘simple’ guide teaching the neophytes how to avoid the wrath of the initiates, it had ended as a straight jacket…
Why am I not astonished?!?
There is a whole literature about PC having gone mad. Some for and some against the idea, of course. Some blame the ‘enthusiasts’ on one side, others the ‘manipulative’ on the other. Which ‘enthusiasts’ and ‘manipulative’ can be found on both sides…
The end result?
When I grew up, being polite mandated a man to hold the door open for women to pass. For perfect strangers as well as for a wife, a daughter, a friend, a co-worker. Do this today and you’ll certainly get some angry frowns…
Does it make any sense?
Being politically correct or dismissing it as an attack against freedom? Of speech in particular and of freedom in general?
Neither. Does it make any sense to transform everything into a weapon? Both political correctness and freedom being included into ‘everything’!
Does it make any sense to frown upon somebody who holds the door for you, just because you are a woman? Does it make any sense to frown upon somebody who tells you it’s counterproductive to tell somebody they are stupid? Simply because the more stupid they are, the less are they inclined to understand what you want to convey…
So. We, people, have already managed to spoil two well intended ‘guides’. Which have both started as tools to facilitate interaction and ended up a straight jacket and a subject for quarrel, respectively.
What’s going on here? Am I the only one who believes this kind of behavior is self destructive?
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
I say this makes absolutely no sense. It’s not only insulting for the nay-sayers, it’s actually dangerous for ourselves.
For all of us. Vaccinated, unvaccinated and unvaccinables.
Let me explain. The US Army, and all other successful ones, live by ‘no one left behind’. Far more than its technological prowess, this constitutes its main strength. Each of the individuals involved feel that they belong there. That no matter what will happen in the battle field, none of them will be ‘left behind’. It is this collective sentiment which transforms a motley collection of ‘misfits’ into the most powerful army in the world. The fact that the ‘home team’ foots the bill for the most technologically advanced ‘tools of war’ only adds to that strength. That huge bill being itself a proof of the powerful bond which exists between those who ‘serve’ and the general population. ‘No one left behind’ once again.
Flash back to the nay-sayers.
I’m convinced they’re completely mistaken. That Covid is for real, that vaccines work – even if imperfectly, that the mask is useful – and that calling it ‘face diaper’ is insulting. And I’m also convinced that we should rather hear them out than call them ‘unhinged’.
For two reasons. The first, and most obvious, being that calling them names opens up the door for them calling us names. How soon after a session of name-calling do you think we’ll regain ‘mutual recognition’? How soon after a session of name calling will we able to regain our ability to ‘speak freely’? And to listen in earnest what the others have to say? The second, and the more important one, being that it’s hugely important for us, for all of us, to understand the reasons which fuel this ‘nay-saying’. What made the nay-saying propaganda so successful.
isn’t going to bridge the growing gap which yawns our society apart.
The fact that Trump – and his minions, have been instrumental in the digging of the gap is one thing. His ‘thing’. In which direction each of us pushes – what each of us does about the present situation, is quite another thing. Our ‘thing’, this time.
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated! Another very efficient way to help would be to share my posts.
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
nicichiarasa 