Archives for category: Choices we make

Diesel-gate

October 1, 2015 //

OK, VW couldn’t figure out how to balance the ever stricter polution norms with the public demand for simultaneously more powerfull and cheaper to run/cleaner diesel engines so they decided to fake it. And it seems they were not the only ones to do that.

This development poses some questions.

– What were they hoping for? Did they really think that something like this could have gone unnoticed for ever?
– What were the regulators thinking? That it’s possible to solve pollution by simply changing some norms?
“Moore’s Law” (“overall processing power for computers will double every two years” has been valid, for a while, in a very young technological field.
Internal combustion engines have been around for more than a century, they are rather old. Everybody knows that it is hard to teach new tricks to an old horse yet we tried to clean exhaust gases well beyond the reasonable instead of radically changing the technology. Computers seemed to be able to help, but only for a while…

Could this be just another ‘application’ of the Peter Principle? “Managers rise to the level of their incompetence?” GM was, sometime ago, the No. 1 Automobile Company. It recently went through a painful bailout. Toyota, the next champion – its methods were studied at the most prestigious management schools – was hugely embarrassed lately by a technological failure.
OK, you might argue that what went on at VW was an ‘upfront’ fraud, not at all an ‘honest’ mistake. Indeed but still a mistake, even if a potentially catastrophic one. Mainly for the shareholders, of course, but also for the rest of us.
A certain dose of distrust towards established authority is healthy for the society, as a whole, while too many proofs of the established figureheads behaving callously generate a diffused disrespect for the law which is really bad for everybody.

In fact what happened at VW is exactly what people tend to do when they do not see any way out of a certain situation.
When they don’t really think that anything bad can happen to them, regardless of whatever they do.
Or both.

So. Is there anything to be learned from here? Except for the oldest lesson history keeps teaching us: ‘reaching the top is easy, staying there is the really tough job’?
Maybe.
Toyota says that transparency, “both inside and outside the company“, is a good way towards avoiding this kind of mistakes. “You have to be able to listen to your customers, not just hear them.“

Tags Dieselgate, internal combustion engine, The Peter Principle, Volkswagen

Categories authoritarianism, Choices we make, Money as goal, Mutual Respect, Psychology, Rule of Law, The kind of world we live in, Transparency

The Ultimate Looser

October 1, 2015 //

Please notice the importance of teamwork!
No matter which of the two partners makes a false move because he/it doesn’t really trust the other, the rider ends, legs up, in the ditch.
It’s also true that from time to time it’s the horse that gets a broken leg but the ultimate looser is, again, the rider – he has to continue on foot!

Tags Kilkenny, Riding, teamwork

Categories Choices we make, Mutual Respect

How about some mutual respect?

September 30, 2015 //

Just another proof that so many of us, theists and atheists alike, make the same mistake, unknowingly.

Basically there is no way to determine whether the world has been made by a god or even if one exists at all yet both sides try to prove their point by invoking what each of them thinks he did or should have done:

“I know there is a god because he told me so – ‘we all have a close and personal relation with God’ “

“Why the almighty god would allow…”

What about trying another tack?

How about keeping our intimate convictions to ourselves?

Do you know what all religions have in common?

‘Love thy neighbors as if they were your brothers’!

At some point the atheist said that each of us interpret the notion of god according to the culture into which each of us has been raised.
How about each of us taking a step further – as in out off the bubble into which we isolate ourselves – and notice that we have a lot of things in common and very few differences?

So, in reality what’s keeping us from truly respecting our neighbors?
Our pride, maybe?

Did I tell you that this is the second thing that most religions have in common?
That pride is considered by most as the hardest obstacle on the road to redemption?

Tags altruism, love thy neighbor, pride, theist versus atheist

Categories Choices we make, Psychology, religion

The butterfly effect.

September 17, 2015 //

I expect they will have more to say tomorrow, but Ahmed's sister asked me to share this photo. A NASA shirt! http://t.co/nR4gt992gB—
Anil Dash (@anildash) September 16, 2015

So. A fourteen year old builds a clock from spare parts, takes it to school and ends up in jail. And, frankly, I have some doubts about his skin color, name or even religion playing a determinant role in the process. They did set a certain framework for what had happened but I’m afraid that sooner or later this kind of harsh reaction to everything out of the bland ordinary might become a norm, involving people of all extractions. Instead of an exception.
If you don’t believe me check here:

“Here’s how a Texas school explained arresting a 14-year-old Muslim boy for making a clock”

But what’s the link to the ‘butterfly effect’?!? “the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state”?!?

After all, a society is indeed a nonlinear system but could we consider it as being deterministic?

For short periods of time and in certain conditions, yes!. I’ll come back to this shortly.

First I’d like to give you my interpretation of the butterfly effect. You see, for a system to be sensible to such a minute influence as a butterfly landing on it, that system has to be in a very unstable configuration. A playing cards castle compared to the Golden Gate bridge. While the second can withstand gale-force winds without even noticing them the first would indeed crumble if a butterfly landed on it.

So, what happened to the American society, as a whole, to become so sensitive? How come a teenager gets a suspension, instead of some small praise, for building a clock and bringing it to school?

Society, as a non deterministic system, was supposed to be able to overcome trauma – like the one inflicted by terrorist attacks.
Eventually it will.
Only this doesn’t happen on its own. Society is made of individual people, it can do anything only if those men and women decide to put that something in practice.
And there’s the catch.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2013, explains that our minds have two intertwined thinking systems. One which is more or less deterministic – we instinctively pull out our hand when we touch a hot stove while nobody thinks very much when riding a bike, after they got familiar with it. And a second sistem which embodies in earnest our humanity – our ability to think reasonably and to be creative.
The first system, the more or less instinctive one, has evolved to help us survive the intense moments of our lives, when we don’t have enough time to make elaborate decisions. The second one is for those times when the immediate danger has subsided, when we have the resources to evaluate what really happened and to prepare for what the future might have in store for us.
Using the information provided by Kahneman it becomes easy to understand that a society where a significant portion of its members use predominantly the first manner of reacting to the outside challenges is a deterministic, hence predictable, system, while a society where people take the time to think for themselves is a lot more flexible one.

The difference between those two situations being not only the amount of fear that exists in that society but, maybe the more important aspect, the manner in which the significant agents in that society react to that fear. If they approach it with calm and evaluate it sensibly is one thing, if they try to use that widespread emotion for their own, narrow, purposes the result is completely different.
The whole system might become so unstable as to be unsettled by a landing butterfly.
Or by a teenager bringing a makeshift clock to class.

Tags Ahmed Mohamed, Daniel Kahneman, Fear, Makeshift Clock, The butterfly effect

Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, politics, Psychology

The second awakening

September 16, 2015 //

‘Europe has never seen such a number of immigrants since the fall of the Roman empire’ and ‘no European country can cope with so many in such a short time’!

I believe you’re already familiar with such headlines, right?

The Greek exodus from Smyrna in Turkey is the seminal event in Tsalikoglou’s haunting novel. Topical Press Agency / Getty Images
Greek tragedies: The Secret Sister is a novel about the impossibility of escaping the past.

Let me remind you of some facts.
“Settlement in Greece was not a uniform experience for the approximately one million Ottoman Greeks who fled Turkey in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish war of 1920-1922. Contemporary primary sources ranging from government reports to eyewitness accounts and memoirs of relief workers point to a mixed reality: while some Ottoman Greek refugees enjoyed hospitality and warm support upon arrival in Greece, many others found settlement in the new country a painful experience of material hardship, segregation, and status deprivation. The precarious circumstances of the massive exodus created the refugee drama. The inability of the Greek state to handle a crisis of such magnitude, along with the serious incidents of refugee discrimination and exploitation by Greek officials ans civilians, exacerbated the refugee’s plight.”

So two war torn countries, Greece and Turkey, were able to absorb, without really major problems, about a million refugees each – 17% and 7.5% of the respective populations. Maybe this will give us some perspective. One million refugees represents less than 0.2% of the current population of the EU and less than 1.2% of the population of Germany.

OK, now you’ll tell me that those headed to Greece and Turkey were going home while these coming to Europe will suffer a cultural shock.
There might be some truth in both assertions, of course. Yet I beg you to read again the quote about the fate of the Greek refugees who ‘came home from Turkey’. In the end they somehow managed to fold in. Same thing happened with the “the (mostly Greek-speaking) Muslim population” that was “compulsory” transferred to Turkey.

So how about we quit whining and start helping these poor people in earnest?

It’s not our responsibility, you say?

Maybe not but how about taking a second glance at history?

The tragedy experienced by the 2 million people exchanged between Turkey and Greece was due, at least in part, to the Treaty of Sevres which was imposed by the Allies to the Ottoman empire and which inspired Kemal Ataturk to raise arms and forge the present day Turkey. Just as the fate experienced now by the Syrian people is influenced not only by Sykes-Picot but also by us dragging our feet while the Assads, both father and son, were massacring their ‘subjects’.

But how about the fate of the Roman Empire that had fallen under the burden of the immigrants?
First of all I must remember you that the Roman Empire had a mixed population to begin with and that the Romans themselves had invited more than one migratory tribe to come in and contribute to the well fare of the empire. For instance the German and Iazyges soldiers that were settled by the Romans in Britain.
Then I must remind you that the western part of the Roman Empire started to crumble only after it had become an extremely authoritarian state, where the rulers were concerned more about fulfilling their obscene pleasures and less with the management of the current problems of the empire. Panem et circenses was their preferred method of governing, if that rings any bells.

The point is that exactly as the protagonists of The Secret Sister cannot escape their history neither of us will be able to escape the consequences of our actions. Or inaction.

And another lesson from the Ancient Times: no wall was ever tall enough to keep out those who really wanted to get in. Neither Hadrian’s nor the Chinese Walls had been able to protect those inside from their own ineptitude.

Tags Angela Merkel, Border fence Hungary, Greek exodus from Turkey, Katastrophe, Sykes-Picot, Syrian refugees, The Treaty of Sevres, Turks exodus from Greece

Categories altruism, Choices we make, collective identity, Frames of mind, The kind of world we live in

Contemporary democracy in full swing

September 12, 2015 //

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015, in Milwaukee. (Morry Gash/AP)

“Clinton hiring consumer marketing specialists “to help imagine Hillary 5.0.” “

Genuine democracy was about open discussion about all issues of public interest. It worked because openness made it so that the truly stupid (people and ideas) were weeded out before inflicting harm on a large scale.

The problem is that openness needs mutual respect.

Only that has become a thing of the past. Nowadays, when everyone knows better, political ideas are marketed like snake oil used to be not so long ago…

“Clinton’s campaign spent $18.7 million in the second quarter, dramatically more than any other. The mid-July report said she received $815,000 worth of services from strategist Joel Benenson’s firm alone. Since then, the campaign launched a $4 million ad blitz in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

“Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist, puts it somewhat more crudely: “Trump’s starring in a reality show of his own making, and treats every appearance like an episode,” chasing ratings in the form of fresh votes. But how do you turn appointment TV into a lasting candidacy? “You need a huge team on the ground doing the nuts-and-bolts work — collecting signatures to be on the ballot in certain states, bringing voters to the polls — and Trump is very late to the party,” says Cohn. “Most of his rivals have been at this over a year, and have those seasoned operatives locked up. And even if they’re available, is he really prepared to pay them a premium now?” ”
This third quote is from Rolling Stone’s “Trump Seriously: On the Trail With the GOP’s Tough Guy” by Bob Solotaroff.

I know some of you are quite familiar with these political realities but don’t you get goose bumps about what’s going on, at least occasionally?

How come these species of political operators are so sure about themselves being entitled to do what they are doing that they have no qualms when doing it?

Can any of these occurrences be, even remotely, associated with the concept of democracy? Or have we, all of us, demoted the whole process to just a little more than ‘mob rule’? A contest among spin doctors about who is the more competent manipulator?

Tags authenticity, Clinton, mob rule, spin doctors, Trump

Categories Choices we make, democracy, Frames of mind, manipulation, politics, The kind of world we live in

Who’s the hypocrite?

September 12, 2015 //

Photo credit: Akram Abahre. While European countries are being lectured about their failure to take in enough refugees, Saudi Arabia – which has taken in precisely zero migrants – has 100,000 air conditioned tents that can house over 3 million people sitting empty.

Those tents have been erected there precisely for the pilgrims who go there for the Hajj. They are empty now because at this time of the year there are no pilgrims, yet.

If the Saudis were to invite refugees to stay, temporarily, in those tents, they would have to provide for those refugees more stable lodging by the time of the next Hajj.

Integrate them, that is.

And this is the reason for which the Syrians are not at all welcome there, just as the Palestinians were not welcome either. They would upset the balance of power.

Basically the rulers of the Gulf states bribe their citizens with money coming in from the rest of the world while shamelessly exploiting imported workforce, allowed to stay only on temporary visas. The Syrians (and the Palestinians) would have to be accepted on a more permanent basis and offered the option for a full citizenship. That would both dilute the per capita revenue of the citizens and introduce a more liberal line of thought in a very conservative society.

Yes, a more liberal line of thought. The Syrians do not insist that their women cover their faces and have tried, repeatedly, to out-throw the ruling family.

So yes, the wealthy Gulf States are indeed very hypocritical “when it comes to helping with the crisis.” (they have helped create) but that’s no excuse for us to follow their example.

After all it is us who came up with the notions of ‘human rights’ and ‘pursuit of happiness’, didn’t we?

Tags bribing your own citizens, dictatorship, Gulf States, hypocrizy, Oil revenues, Palestinian Refugees, Pursuit of Happiness, Saudis, Syrian refugees

Categories altruism, authoritarianism, Choices we make, collective identity, democracy, Frames of mind, human rights

Finally somebody has decided to shed some light on what happened in Greece

August 29, 2015 //

Taking the mic. Varoufakis. Yves Herman/Reuters Varoufakis in conversation with leading academics as Syriza splinters and election beckons in Greece

The strangest thing of all that happened in Greece is not that ‘the emperor has been naked for sometime already’ but the fact that this has been public knowledge.
Yet everybody still pretends everything is OK.

Click on the picture and read the article in The Conversation.
You can also check my previous post on this subject here.

Tags Elections, Greece, Referendum, Syriza, Varoufakis

Categories Choices we make, collective identity, democracy, Economy

Self driving cars. Where to?

August 28, 2015 //

The automobile has been both a huge opportunity for the humankind and a sort of a turning point in its history.

Humans have been faced with an extremely interesting provocation during their entire evolution. In order for the community to become stronger its individual members had to become simultaneously more autonomous and more involved in the communal life.

At first the automobile helped with both. It offered the individual the means to travel faster and further – hence it increased individual autonomy – and it drove people to ‘band together’ – to form the corporations that build automobiles, to build roads and bridges, etc., etc.

After some time the automobile had become a mixed blessing. Not only that a lot of people were dying in car accidents but because in his search for increased efficiency man had invented the ‘assembly line’, thus heavily limiting the erstwhile huge autonomy of the very skilled laborers who used to build the first automobiles. Skills, which usually come with an independent mind, were no longer in such high demand and have been replaced by ‘hard work’. And later by sheer automation.

But at least we were still responsible for driving the damned cars. And, for many of us, that was the only really autonomous thing that we were allowed to do without outside supervision. Except for when the missus was in the co-pilot seat, of course. Just kidding, the husbands are the more obnoxious critics when it comes to driving skills, not the wifes. But the fact remains.

Not for long. In a short while not only that we will be transported by our future self driving cars but they, the cars, will have to obey the police first and only then take us where we told them to go.

And all of this in the name of progress…

Tags automobile, Ben Franklin, driving skills, Essential Liberty a Little Temporary Safety, individual autonomy, Self driving cars

Categories Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, Frames of mind, Psychology

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