Archives for category: Choices we make
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Change

March 29, 2025 //
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 “You have got to be kidding me.”
Hillary Clinton

In nature, change happens. It is produced by chance. According to rules but only when chance starts it. No one plans it, if you leave God out of the picture.
And, evolutionary wise, change ‘remains’ if it doesn’t bother too much. If the individual things/organisms affected by change are able to survive.
Please note that if ‘dramatic’ enough, change may ‘alter’ everything. A star changes constantly but at some point it will become a nova. Or even a supernova. Which event will change everything around it…

In a social setting, things are a tad more complicated.
Change, social change, is initiated. By individuals. Not necessarily according to a plan and almost always ignoring the end results. But it is always initiated by somebody.
And is allowed to stay. Or not…
By those experiencing the consequences. According to what they make of it.
Again, even in the social setting there are rules. Just as in nature. But while the natural rules are enforced by nature itself, the social rules need to be enforced. By people. By those who end up experiencing the consequences of the afore mentioned rules being enforced properly. Or not…

What am I babbling about?

You’re not comfortable with a bragging pussy-grabber signing presidential orders in the Oval Office?
How comfortable were you when Clinton got away with “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!“
You’re not comfortable when ‘US national-security leaders’ establish a private group on a social network to share sensitive data?
How comfortable were you when a Secretary of State had established a private e-mail server to handle official messages? And got away with it…

Do I need to continue?

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

Scarcity

March 27, 2025 //
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“If the only tool you have is a hammer,
you tend to see every problem as a nail”
Abraham Maslow

“The answer: Free market capitalism”?!?

I was arguing in the previous post that we think using images stored in our memory. While we are convinced that we deal with real ‘objects’… ‘Hammers’ versus ‘nails’…

As you should have already noticed, Abraham Maslow had said more or less the same thing sometimes in the first half of the previous century… Well, he was a ‘clinical’ psychologist while I’m nothing more than an engineer. He was interested in how our mind works, I’m interested in the consequences of how our minds work. If you understand what I mean…

‘And what about the pretext you used for today’s post?’

Free market capitalism is nothing but an environment. Man made, for sure, but also ‘natural’. As in ‘evolved’ to the present state as opposed to ‘designed’ in the present state.
Free market capitalism doesn’t do/cause anything. People toiling in this environment do whatever happens here.

Gravity doesn’t cause any falls.

Gravity pulls us, all of us, towards the center of the Earth.
Regardless.
Of us walking sober in the middle of the town versus skating ‘under the influence’ on a thin iced lake in the middle of nowhere.

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

One War Behind

March 4, 2025 //
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Sometimes reading about history is not enough.
You might need to live at least some aspects of it…

I’m sure most of you are familiar with this notion.
With the notion that war is an art and that Sun Tzu was at least a notable teacher. In this domain.
And the second place goes to

Now, that we have established whom we consider to be the THE greatest experts on war, would you be so kind as to tell me when was the last time that China – or Germany, for that matter – had vanquished their opponents? After their respective treaties on war had been compiled…

My point being that a really ‘successful’ war ends with both parties understanding that there’s no point in fighting one.
That whenever the winner starts boasting about their exploits, that war has been fought for nothing. The winner might have won the war but they certainly had lost the peace.
My secondary point – and, maybe, the more important one – being that we tend to treat the current war using the knowledge gathered during the previous one, Which seems rational, right?!?

Yeah… well… The only successful war in our recent history – and only partially at that – was WWII.
WWI was fought for nothing. At the end, the victors had copied the actions of those who had won the previous wars. Imposed hefty reparations upon the vanquished. Hence the advent of Hitler.
WWII was not only terrible but also widespread. France, Germany, Italy, the Central Europe and, to a central extent, the Great Britain have been so thoroughly destroyed that people there did learn their lesson. No more war. Hence a completely different approach to peace than after WWI.
Inclusion of the former aggressor instead of punishment.

The next global war was the Cold one.
Fought mainly between the two WWII victors who had not directly experienced war. The US and the USSR.

What?!?

Well, just think about it.
France, Germany, Italy and so on had been occupied. Experienced hot war on a first hand manner for years on end. Great Britain had not only fought but had also been bombarded.
The US had fought in the war but only Hawai’i had directly experienced it.
And when it comes to the USSR the situation is… complicated. The eastern part of the WWII had been fought mainly in Ukraine and in the western part of Russia proper. The only main city directly affected by war was Sankt Petersburg/Leningrad. The rest of the Russian Federation had experienced less disturbance than western Ukraine in the present conflict.
And what did the free world do after the Cold war had been concluded? Specially the Americans?
Boasted? About their exploits?

How was the loser treated?
The westerners tried to do what the allies had done after WWII? Integrate the loser into the ‘brave new world’? Without understanding that the loser had not accepted its status?

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

And the truth of the matter is…

March 2, 2025 //
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We don’t get what we deserve,
we get what we put up with.

How did we get here?

Then

What is Truth?
Pilate

Well, there are two kinds of truth.
The one you feel with your shin when you hit a coffee table.
And the one you feel in your heart when those present laugh at you hopping on one leg while caressing the hurt one.

Which two kinds of truth divide us, people, into two categories.
Those trying to patch ‘an ever-changing truth’ out of many individual pictures – each of them the consequence of a ‘shin’ happening to connect with a portion of the ‘outside world’. Which people are currently known as ‘scientists’.
And those trying to reach ‘the truth’. By thinking, by divination, by… God only knows what any other means… Philosophers, theologians, quacks…

I was trained as an engineer.
To notice needs and to design solutions while evaluating the possible consequences of those needs being met by the proposed solutions. Which places me squarely into the first category.

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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, teleology

When Goal Trumps Values

February 25, 2025 //
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“Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia acknowledged “constructive changes” in the U.S. position on the conflict. He told the council the resolution was “not an ideal one,” but “a starting point for future efforts towards peaceful settlement.””

By sending the Red Army to invade Ukraine, Putin had crossed a red line.
The rest of the world noticed.

Some played possum. ‘Let’s stay out of it. And maybe, maybe, get something for ourselves’.
The majority said “No! This is too much.”

Russia does have veto-power in the UN Security Council. Hence the dead-lock.

The Biden led US and the EU had chosen to support Ukraine. And to sanction the Putin regime.

Every day, people are being killed. Soldiers on the front and civilians under aerial bombardment.
Reasonable individuals want the fighting to stop.

Easier said than done.
Putin might say: ‘My bad!’ and tell his soldiers to go home.
Ukraine might agree, on its own volition, with enough of Putin’s demands. And, hopefully, get at least a respite.
Or those helping Ukraine might say: ‘We had enough. From now on, you’re on your own.’

Putin is not yet ready to back off. Ukraine is not yet ready to cave in.
‘Somebody’ is getting ready to act as a mediator.

What are the immediate consequences?

Putin is back. No longer an outcast!

Is the rest of the world ready?
For it to go back? Back to what was going on before WWI but on a far wider scale?

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

A reminder

February 1, 2025 //
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History never repeats itself.
Only keeps teaching a lesson until we actually understand it.

‘In 1936, Hitler boldly marched 22,000 German troops into the Rhineland, in a direct contravention of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler offered France and Britain a 25 year non-aggression pact and claimed: “Germany had no territorial demands to make in Europe” ‘.

“In the summer of 1938 Hitler demanded the annexation of the Sudetenland into Germany. At this point Hitler was aware that the Allies were desperate to avoid war, and thought it likely that they would appease his demands.
Hitler threatened war over the issue of the Sudetenland. On 29 – 30 September 1938 the British, Italian, French and German leaders met in Munich to discuss the issue.
The Allies agreed to concede the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for a pledge of peace. This agreement was known as the Munich Pact.”

“On May 3, 1939, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin fired Foreign Minister Maksim Litvinov, who was Jewish and an advocate of collective security, and replaced him with Vyacheslav Molotov, who soon began negotiations with the Nazi foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. The Soviets also kept negotiating with Britain and France, but in the end Stalin chose to reach an agreement with Germany. By doing so he hoped to keep the Soviet Union at peace with Germany and to gain time to build up the Soviet military establishment, which had been badly weakened by the purge of the Red Army officer corps in 1937. The Western democracies’ hesitance in opposing Adolf Hitler, along with Stalin’s own inexplicable personal preference for the Nazis, also played a part in Stalin’s final choice. For his part, Hitler wanted a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union so that his armies could invade Poland virtually unopposed by a major power, after which Germany could deal with the forces of France and Britain in the west without having to simultaneously fight the Soviet Union on a second front in the east.“

What is the lesson here?
That each tyrant believes they can outwit all other tyrants.
That tyrants are convinced they can outwit democratic alliances.
That, in the end, all authoritarian regimes fail. Abysmally. For the simple reason that inability to accept their own faillings makes all authoritarian leaders incapable of coping with change. Unable to adapt. Unable to evolve. Hence all authoritarian regimes are inherently fragile.

And who suffers the consequences?
We do. All of us. “World Wide Wars”, remember?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, Mutual Respect, skin in the game

Einstein

January 31, 2025 //
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“Insanity is doing the same thing
over and over again
and expecting different results”
Rita Mae Brown

“Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

First celebrated as a brilliant physicist, Einstein had later been recognized as an ‘all rounder’.
So much so that he was found ‘guilty’ for other people’s words.

Rita Mae Brown?!?
Why bother mention her? If you want ‘to back’ up such an important saying, you’d better come up with a really famous ‘promoter’. Preferably a dead one…

‘And your point is…?’

On January 27, the day when Auschwitz was liberated 80 years ago, I shared this on FB:

Some people took exception. Interpreting this as an allusion to what’s currently going on in the US, they asked me to ‘be specific’.

“I don’t protest the protesters but their particular way of doing it. Without any consideration for the ‘collateral damage’ and turning a blind eye towards the already experienced facts.”

My point being that Hitler didn’t invent antisemitism. Germany wasn’t the first country where large scale pogroms were organized.
Pogrom is a Russian word. “To wreak havoc, to demolish violently”.
The way I see it, ‘pogrom’ is not only a tragedy – for both victims and perpetrators – but also a symptom.
A symptom that something is amiss in the society which allows it to happen.

To protest something is fully justified.
If unhappy about something, one is fully entitled to try to prevent that something from happening. Again…
But it would be ‘unreasonably’ to ‘prevent’ it in a way that will be even costlier than the ‘feared development’. Particularly ‘unreasonably’ if the method had already been experimented!

Those supporting Hitler were ‘protesting’ the Versailles Treaty.
Just as Lenin’s Bolsheviks were protesting what had happened during the czarist Russia.
Hitler and Lenin protested by perpetrating crimes even more heinous than those they were protesting.

They should have known better.
Those who supported them, of course… for it was the supporters who had ultimately experienced the consequences!
After all, one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the simple fact that this time it is the others who are at the receiving end of what’s going on doesn’t make it right. In no way better than what we have experienced. And continue to… The misery experienced by the others does not annihilate ours!

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

An Explanation

January 28, 2025 //
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American Society Was Built for Populism, Not Elitism
“Technocrats and elites insist that centralized control is best.
Nature and history prove them wrong.”
Karl Zinsmeister, WSJ

Really?

“Tax billionaires out of existence?!?”

And what would be accomplished by doing that?

‘Yet another ‘trickle down theorist’…’

Nope!
Trickle down is an idiocy. It doesn’t work.
Just like ‘taxing billionaires out of existence’. It has been experimented, you know…
It was called communism by those promoting this brilliant idea. So brilliant that it burnt down every society which had tried it.
I lived under communist rule. I know.
There isn’t much difference between all money being controlled by the state/government and too much money being controlled by a handful of billionaires! Meaningful decisions are still being made by a too small number of people…

Yes, taxes are useful.
Besides gathering money to be used, by the government, for the common good.
My point being that taxes are an expression of how a society sees money.

That’s what’s needed. Decision makers who do not put money over everything else!
Any attempt to ‘tax billionaires out of existence’ is already an abuse of power.
Doing it before the society changes its understanding of the matter would be worse than a crime. It would be a horrible mistake.

High marginal taxes accomplish two things. If no loopholes are allowed.
Balance the budget and change the minds of the decision makers. ‘CEO’s’ as well as shareholders.
Convince them to reinvest a bigger share of the profit. Which makes it possible for the company to become more efficient. Which makes it possible for the company to increase wages.
Balancing the budget with money brought in by taxing the high earners makes it possible for the politicians to lower the taxes paid by the Regular Joes. Which would improve their status, their self esteem and their buying power!

Blaming a section of the society for something which needs to be dealt with in concert, by all the members of a society, is counterproductive. To say the least.
It does nothing to solve the real problems and it deepens the already existing rifts.

Blaming the billionaires for what’s going on – for everybody being obsessed with money – is in no way different from blaming the immigrants for most of the people being unsure about tomorrow.

Billionaires, as well as the immigrants, should be ‘exploited’ rather than driven into disappearance.
Each of them are very good at what each of them are doing.
The difference between them consists in the fact that the billionaires set their own wages.

Wages, all wages, are paid by us. By the consumers. Hence it is us who should determine how much each people should get. We, not some of those getting our hard earned money!
How are we going to accomplish that?
Making sure that the market remains free. Functionally free as opposed to controlled by a small number of people. No matter where they come from. The Government, as in communism, or a collection of monopolies. As in oligarchic capitalism.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crises, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, limited rationality, man induced fragility, skin in the game

A warning

January 26, 2025 //
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Celebratory meme posted by ecstatic Trump 47 supporter a few days after the inauguration.

True enough.

Only living in a world where everybody is scared… isn’t that much fun!

Not even for those who have managed to amass all the money in the market.

As somebody who has lived under both communism and not yet free market capitalism I must stress that there’s little difference between communism and monopolistic capitalism presented under the guise of democracy.
Between a social order where all power – political, economic, social, you name it – is concentrated in the hands of a few self selected people pretending to protect the interests of the people. A social order described by those calling the shots as being a ‘popular democracy'(?!?).
And a social order where all power – …. – is concentrated in the hands of the few people who have amassed all the riches in that particular society. And who, behind manipulated -and no longer liberal – democratic mechanisms pretend to protect the interests of the people.

The problem with both situations being the fact that a few people – no matter how capable and/or well intended, if that is the case – cannot manage, over a sizeable amount of time, such a complex thing as a society. Period.

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crises, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, Frames of mind, In English, Mutual Respect, skin in the game

My story

January 21, 2025 //
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We use words to build narratives.
Which, supposedly, help us in our quest for meaning.
Yet everything does nothing more than alleviate our fear.

At some point in my life, some 6 years after Ceausescu had been chased from his presidential palace, I discovered the Stock Exchange. I had read about it, was under the impression that I knew how it worked but never had the opportunity to trade on in. Living in a communist country prevents you from trading on the free market, you know.
To cut a long story short, I had a lot of beginner’s luck.
And I wanted more. So I started to learn about it. Fundamental analysis, technical analysis, accounting… investor’s psychology, decision making theory…

But it wasn’t enough.
So I went back to school. Sociology this time.
I was no longer trying to beat the market, I only wanted to understand what was going on.
Not only in the market but in our minds. By that time, I had already learned that investors were – and still are – torn apart by greed and fear.

So, what’s going on?
What are we doing here?

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