Archives for category: effective communication

One of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West.
He revolutionized military organization and training;
sponsored the Napoleonic Code, the prototype of later civil-law codes;
reorganized education; and established the long-lived Concordat with the papacy.
He was the moving spirit behind the intertwined series of conflicts known as the Napoleonic Wars, which had revolutionary repercussions, both militarily and politically,
in Europe as well as other parts of the world.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Napoleon-I

Exasperated, the XIX-th century France had decided to change everything.

Please note that despite the rather inept leadership offered by the last three kings, France was the dominant European power of the moment. Economically, demographically and militarily.
Exasperated people tend to make rather poor decisions.

Napoleon Bonaparte was permitted to rise to power. To absolute power…
He yielded that power in such a way that he had angered most of his neighbors. Most of France’s neighbors… Which had banded together and defeated him. Twice.

Which was a premiere.
A bully put down by an alliance… A bunch of autocrats put off by another who decided they had enough.

The same template was used against Germany’s dictators. Both Wilhelm II and Hitler had been put down by coalitions. By people fed up with their antics.
A somewhat similar thing happened during the Cold War. A bullying regime, the Soviets, was kept in check by an informal ‘coalition of the willing’. ‘Informal’ in the sense that NATO was only the ‘tip of the iceberg. In reality, the Soviet Union had been defeated by the ‘free world’ working in concert.

Nowadays, ‘living in interesting times’, we witness another coalition taking shape.
Three authoritarian leaders ‘pushed together’ by a fourth one… By the antics perpetrated by a guy pretending to uphold freedom. Absolute freedom…!

Probably the most important of the ‘solved‘ wars…

Xi needs Putin to remain in power. To keep the Western Europe focused on something else but China.
Trump needs Putin to remain in power. Otherwise the Western Union would stop begging for protection. And stop buying American built ‘defense hardware’…
Meanwhile, various ‘fragments of the world’ pursue their own interests… as perceived by their respective leaders, of course!

In America,
voters don’t pick their politicians.
Politicians pick their voters.”

Wayne Dawkins

America is the land of the free.
‘The people’ can, according to the Constitution, choose among the candidates.
The politicians can, also in ‘certain’ conditions, choose their voters…

And those so inclined can choose their gender!

Do I have a problem with that?

No!
But I find it very interesting that ‘gender-mandering’ is such a divisive subject.
Very revealing, actually.

Let me start with the beginning.
“The word gerrymander (originally written Gerry-mander; a portmanteau of the name Gerry and the animal salamander) was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette[b] on 26 March 1812 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. This word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts Senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry, later Vice President of the United States. Gerry, who personally disapproved of the practice, signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts for the benefit of the Democratic-Republican Party.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering.
In this context, it’s worth mentioning that the Democratic-Republican party very soon later divided itself into the present day Republican and Democratic parties…

So, gerrymandering is one of the many common traits shared by both parties…
“The Founders frequently wrote about the dangers of political parties. They often labeled them “factions” that were divisive and rooted in self-interest. In Federalist #10, James Madison wrote that factions were a majority or minority animated by “some common impulse of passion, or of interest” harmful to the rights of others and the common good. They could be a source of unjust laws and a threat to popular self-government. President George Washington concurred and warned in his 1796 Farewell Address that “the baneful effects of the spirit of party” included strong passions, jealousies and revenge, dissention, and despotism.” https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-history-of-political-parties-in-the-united-states

“Some common impulse of passion, or of interest”

And there is a common impulse of passion. And of interest!
Both parties want power. And in order to get it…

Hence not only gerrymandering – used by both parties – but also ‘gender-mandering’.
Using gender as a bone of contention. A very useful posturing pretext…

Who, but those experiencing gender-dysphoria, is actually interested in the subject?
Maybe those baffled by the insistence with which some trans-women demand to be allowed to participate in professional sports… against cis-women, of course!

On the other hand… as a posturing pretext, the subject is invaluable!
To some, it epitomizes ‘you can be whatever you want to become’. ‘Progress’ in its purest form.
To others, it is anathema. The very notion of ‘against’. Against of nature, defying God’s will, you name it!

Did I make myself clear?

What about those living ‘in hell’?!? ‘Caught in the wrong person’?
Who cares about them?!? They are few enough to be negligible. Except for when a scapegoat is in order…

Evolution is not about ‘survival of the fittest’.
Evolution is about the demise of the unfit.

Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is, 2001

Well, it actually makes a lot of sense.

Being healthy is relative.
On having a diagnostic hanging over your head.

Here’s another way of looking at things.

Functional versus dysfunctional.
For as long as one is functional, that person is not a burden for anybody. Regardless of any diagnostic.
Even a dysfunctional person can be useful for those around them. Even if that person is completely dependent on those taking care of them. A good word spoken at the right moment makes wonders.

So yes, I would also love to die ‘healthy’. As in trying to do my best to be useful.
At least, to be as light a burden as possible.

On the other hand, health is yet another virtual thing. ‘Virtual’ as in man made…
Until not so long ago, ’cause of death’ for people over a certain age was always ‘old age’.
No longer. No matter how old the deceased, the body is transported to a medical facility and the particular cause of death is forensically determined.
It makes perfect sense. Scientifically speaking. There is no such thing as too much data, specially when it comes to something as precious to us as human life.
And it raises a ‘somewhat’ unreasonable kind of hope. That sometime, somehow, all causes of death will be mitigated. Diagnosed and treated.
That life will become ‘longer’. That we, humans, will live if not forever… then until an accident will happen to shorten our destiny.

Can you imagine something like that?
People living for 3 or 4 hundreds of years?

No retirement.
No risk taken.
No change…

Do your own thinking!

How many times did you came across this message? ‘Do your own thinking!’. ‘Do your own research!’. ‘Don’t believe everything you are told!’

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? What’s wrong in googling up a subject before making up your mind? What’s wrong in storming your brain before calling something one way or another?

Let’s examine something else first.
There are ways in which we relate to ‘reality’. ‘Conservatively’ or ‘open-mindedly’.
And no, this has very little to do with our intelligence or with our level of education.

It depends on how important the subject at hand is to our well being and whether we have already made up our mind about it!

How open minded are you when it comes to spending the last money you have in your pocket? With no prospect of getting any in the near future?
How open minded do you remain after you have already declared, publicly, one way or another?

Most of those lavishly spraying their audience with ‘use your own heads’ – in my FB feed – also told their followers to avoid vaccines, at all cost. The one against Covid in particular – ‘it will eventually kill you’, but also those against measles. ‘It might cause autism’.

How this thing works?

Survival bias.
We not only want to survive, physically, but also to ‘feel good’. To preserve the good opinion we have constructed about ourselves.

This being the reason for which those of us who struggle to find their next meal will not take time to consider any philosophical subject. Will gladly accept the more ‘convincingly’ stated opinion and get back to the more important task of ‘foraging’.
And this being the reason for which those of us already entertaining a strong opinion about a subject see the world ‘differently’. Effectively associate different meaning to the same words!

“Do your own thinking” actually means different things to different people.
For those who have already made up their minds it means “feel free to stick to your own opinion”.
While for those who, for whatever reason, are open-minded about the subject at hand it means “please hear me out”.

Take your pick.

Each situation comes with possibilities.
Which of them happen, and in which order, determine the ‘future’.

As of now, AI – plain vanilla, generative and even agentic – is nothing but a tool.

A tool used by us to peruse what ever information it has access to. Information already ‘generated’ by us…
A tool used to organize, and present, said information according to algorithms. Algorithms learned from us…
A tool used to solve tasks we have set for it. According to our needs, whims and, above all, our ability to relate with the surrounding reality.

And now we’re scratching our collective head.
Wondering why the result isn’t that different from the one we get when using our own heads…

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/18/generative_ai_zero_return_95_percent

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/19/us_government_ai_procurement

Things happen.
The consequences of which

reshape what we call ‘reality’.

‘Things happening’ is how ‘reality’ works.
Is how we came about…

Believers and nonbelievers alike, all of us are consequences of ‘things happening’. ‘Naturally’ or ‘as commanded by God’.

‘Reality’, on the other hand…
What we call ‘reality’ is determined by ‘us’.

(What we call) reality is the consequence of things happening inside itself.
Consider a huge cauldron full of ‘events’. What’s going on inside that cauldron, each stage ‘reached’ by its content depends on what happened inside that cauldron. And to that cauldron if we accept the ‘god’ hypothesis.
Which ‘god hypothesis’ only compounds the reality. Which can be construed as being simple, evolving in an unhindered manner, or being run by a (bunch of) god(s).
Examined in this manner, the existence of a putative god doesn’t change much, does it?

Reality being shaped by what’s happening inside it leads to further considerations:
We, humans as part of this reality, have had played a role in all this. And continue to contribute to the process.
We, humans, as part of this reality, are one of the many consequences engendered by this whole ‘evolutionary’ process.

Another way of looking at this produces another train of thoughts.
Until we had reached the conscious state, things had happened exclusively in a ‘natural’ manner.
Furthermore, until that moment there was no difference between ‘natural’ and ‘non-natural’.
For the simple reason that there was nobody to make it…
Nobody able, let alone willing, to make that difference!

The gist of today’s post being the fact that we are shaping reality according to our wishes.
Not entirely, not fully aware of what we’re doing, yet our actions have more and more important consequences.

Let me give you an example.
Until not so long ago – historically speaking, all empires – most socio-political arrangements, usually known as ‘states’, functioned as authoritarian regimes – used to crash under their own weight, had been crushed by the competing empires ‘happening’ in their vicinity or a combination thereof. The Western part of the Roman empire, weakened by the mistakes perpetrated by its rulers, had been ‘dismantled’ by the nomadic people who fancied the riches accumulated inside its borders.
The process had many iterations. An aggressor, a would be ‘imperator’, noticed an opportunity. What he considered to be an opportunity…
Mounted an aggression. And was either successful or defeated…

Until Napoleon Bonaparte had stirred so thoroughly the hornets nest that enough people noticed what was going on. Were aggravated enough to spring into action.
So they banded together, twice, and sent the initially successful aggressor where he belonged. In exile!

For the first time in modern history – as far as I know it – an aggressor had been ‘tamed’ by a ‘coalition of the willing’.
The same process had unfolded during WWI, WWII and WWIII. Otherwise known as the Cold War.

The only other example which comes to my mind – but I’m no historian – was the Persian Empire being defeated by a coalition led by Athens. Some 2500 years ago…

What’s keeping us from understanding this simple thing?
That unless we band together, we’re at the mercy of whoever puts up a fierce enough aggression?

https://www.britannica.com/event/Greco-Persian-Wars

Kiss an ass for long enough, its owner will become god.
And start behaving accordingly…

We all know that no communist regime has ever worked. For long…
Some of us have noticed that all empires, all imperial regimes, eventually collapsed. Under their own weight. Under the weight of accumulated errors…

The mechanism is simple.
Lord Acton was convinced that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Frank Herbert, looking from the other direction, argued: “It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible”.
My experience suggests that both were right. Power is magnetic to the corruptible and when enjoying it those in power are subjected to innumerable ‘temptations’. Already corruptible, most of them indulge themselves…

Democracy is nothing but a weeding mechanism. “The People”, realizing that (some of) those in power have become too corrupted, have the necessary tools to weed them out. To replace those corrupted politicians peacefully.
With other politicians, not – as yet, anyway – as corrupted as those sent away.

Imperial regimes, the communist ones included, do not have such mechanisms.
The already corruptible, once in power, sink deeper and deeper into corruption. Become more and more impervious to any advice. More and more confident in their own infallibility. More and more prone to making bigger and bigger errors.
The consequences of which errors keep pilling one on top of the other.
Until nothing works anymore…

Which is why all reasonable political regimes have limits.
Elections are organized on a timely manner.
And no more than two presidential mandates, for example.

Given all of the above, I’m afraid. Petrified, actually.
Two people are going to meet, in a short time, pretending to solve…
The entire planet seems mesmerized!
Two people are going to determine the fate of billions!?!

Are we nuts?


Mind what you wish for,
for it might happen…

Putin wants to survive while Trump wants the same thing.
Xi also wants Putin to survive…

Without Putin(ism), Europe wouldn’t spend a dime on weapons. On American weapons!
America would have to develop and maintain alone the hardware needed to keep Xi at bay.

Once Putin gone, the Russian people will completely turn their attention towards Europe.
Leaving the ‘Chinese model’ stranded. In limbo…

What do we want?!?
Who cares?!? But now, that you’ve asked…

We want America back!
The already great America…
The one wise enough to save Europe from itself. Twice!
The one wise enough to help Japan back on its feet after WWII.
The one wise, and brave, enough to defend South Korea.
The one wise enough to understand that behaving like a bull in a China shop might be fun. For a while… but inexorably produces a fine mess… Specially when the bull owns much of the china being traded in that shop!

America does have a huge responsibility in maintaining the world in a working state. For the simple reason that America’s wealth depends, directly and indirectly, on the smooth functioning of the increasingly integrated world market.
Forgetting this, and concentrating your attention on ‘particular interests’, vested or not, is nothing short of blinding yourself. Of shutting reality out!

And we want Europe back!
Europe has already done the same mistake America is about to commit.
Behaved like the bull in the China shop. Literally. Then, overwhelmed by the consequences, left out without clearing up the mess.

Finally, but equally important, we need China – along with all other ‘wishful thinkers’ – to learn.
To understand that behaving like a bull in the China shop, even if you do it at home, doesn’t help anybody. Not in the long run.
Everybody, including the bull, ends up in tatters…

And God saw every thing that he had made,
and,
behold, it was very good.

Our fore-fore fathers believed that the birth of gods was what had transformed the primordial chaos into a more orderly cosmos. A place where man could live, as long as he didn’t fall on the bad side of the local gods.

Our fore fathers, those who had invented monotheism, had condensed the previous generation of gods into a single one. Thus unifying the space and the time. Transforming Cosmos into the Universe.

We’ve given up god altogether.
We no longer believe in a unifying God. Some of us have given up religious belief while others continue to have faith in a personal god. Often times shared with the other members of their particular religious community.

But even though we no longer believe in a unifying god, we still consider that we all share the same world. The same Universe. Even if some of us consider the Earth to be flat…

So.
Our fore-fore fathers used common sense and hired human-like gods to make sense of and to bring order in their particular portions of the world. In those times, each region – or each piece of the world – was a cosmos in itself. Governed by a specific set of arrangements between those who lived there and the gods they believed in. And the people who had to move to another cosmos, or were conquered by people coming from another cosmos, usually changed their belief accordingly. Simply because faith came with the territory.
Our fore – fathers used philosophy to understand there was, and continues to be, only one world. Only one Nature. And changed their belief accordingly. After all, and after learning enough, one world and one god makes more sense than a plethora of gods running wild and doing as they please… One world… one God… obvious enough… but which God to believe in? Particularly when ‘I’m a jealous God’.

Since then, God no longer comes with the territory… but comes with those who believe in him.

It’s no longer god who makes sense of the world.
It’s the believers who choose their belief. Choose what to make of their world.

Of the one, otherwise known as ‘single’, world we have at our disposal.
“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”