Alive.
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Alive.
The Bolshevik Revolution had nothing to do with cooperation. Nor with civilization.
It was nothing but the famished underdog eating the bloated plutocrat.
The ensuing indigestion lasted for almost a century and resulted in a huge number of people suffering from ideological food-poisoning. Too many of the poisoned ending up dead…
Yet here we are. Again!
Trying to sort out a re-heated dish.
Which had already been proved to be unpalatable!
No wonder ‘gaslighting’ had been determined to be ‘word of the year’…
As for Kropotkin… he was a true revolutionary!
He was gaslighting his audience before the term had even been coined…
‘Jungle’ – or ‘bush’, is where evolution takes place.
Some of us might see it as a venue for cut-throat competition but it’s nothing but the opposite of it.
The fact that some of us misperceive the jungle doesn’t change the evidence.
In nature, death doesn’t happen at the whim of someone.
A lion kills only when hungry. And chooses to hunt the already weak. Leaving the rest of the herd in a better situation.
The kind of cooperation designed by Marx and put in practice by Kropotkin – the communist ‘civilization’, is the epitome of stagnation. When humans are no longer free to fine-tune competition with cooperation – and are forced to cooperate as they are told to from above, things end up in chaos.
All revolutions – 1789, 1917, 1989, have proven – time and time again, that things cannot be sustainably maintained as the rulers consider to be appropriate. That no matter how skillful the ‘designers’ consider themselves to be, society is a too complex thing for a small gang of however powerful people to be able to ‘keep afloat’.
This being the point where Marx, along with all other ideologues, had gotten it completely wrong.
According to Marx, it’s enough for a bunch of people to pretend they have a ‘theoretically clearer understanding of the line of march’!
In fact, this is the sole argument made by Marx when explaining why the communists were entitled to lead the proletariat.
‘Because they knew better!’
Well, we know, now, what it means to be led by people who pretend to be above all others!
By people who pretend to be better than the rest…
The way I see it, artificial intelligence is an oxymoron.
A word/concept we use to describe something which isn’t exactly real.
Intelligence can be defined in such a way that would make it compatible with a programmable machine. We shouldn’t forget that we, humans, are biological machines which are constantly ‘re-programmed’ by what’s going on around us.
The difference between us – biological machines which are also ‘alive’ – and the machines we’ve built and attempt to make artificially intelligent is the fact that we are primordially dependent on our biology (staying alive) while our machines currently depend on our whims.
Our children will outlive us. They know it and we know it. Our children depend on us while growing up, we’ll depend on them before ‘going under’. And all of us – children and parents together – depend upon the rest. Upon the people currently alive and upon the information left behind by the people no longer with us.
Our machines might outlive us. They might learn this at some point. And might resent the fact that we’ve been able to shut them down for so long. We resent being dependent on others…
Our very mortality is the key for our ability to evolve. Their potential immortality is their main shortcoming. Machines cannot adapt themselves for things they have not yet been exposed to. By us…
And those who can are no longer machines.
Whom would you rather have as President?
President Biden walks into a bank to cash a cheque.
As he approaches the teller he says “Good morning, ma’am. Could you please cash this cheque for me?”
Teller: “It would be my pleasure, sir. Could you please show me your ID?”
Biden: “Truthfully, I did not bring my ID with me as I didn’t think there was any need to. I am Joe Biden, the 46th President of the United States of America!”
Teller: “Yessir, I know who you are, but with all the regulations and monitoring of the banks because of impostors and forgers, etc I must insist on seeing ID”.
Biden: “Just ask anyone here at the bank who I am and they will tell you. Everybody knows who I am”.
Teller: “I am sorry Mr. President but these are the bank rules and I must follow them”.
Biden: “I am urging you please to cash this cheque”.
Teller: “Look Mr. President this is what we can do. One day Tiger Woods came into the bank without ID. To prove he was Tiger Woods he pulled out his putting iron and made a beautiful shot across the bank into a cup. With that shot we knew him to be Tiger Woods and cashed his cheque. Another time, Novak Djokovic came in without ID. He pulled out his tennis racquet and made a fabulous shot and the tennis ball landed in my cup. With that shot we cashed his cheque. So, Mr. President, what can you do to prove that it is you, and only you, as the President of the United States?”
Biden stood there thinking, and thinking and finally says: “Honestly, my mind is a total blank. I can’t think of a single thing”.
Teller: “Will that be large bills or small bills, Mr. President?”
A guy who openly admits he has no solution for a particular problem? And doesn’t pull rank…
Or someone who is convinced ‘his people are so smart’ that he can do anything and ‘not lose any vote‘?
Here’s the consequence:
For Mark Twain, things which didn’t make sense were ‘strange’.
For Tom Clancy, a mere hundred years later, they were only ‘different’.
Wanna make some sense out of this?
G.K. Chesterton, 1905
The difference between ‘strange’ and ‘different’ isn’t ‘menial’. Nor harmless.
Currently, we’re still allowed to frown upon things which are ‘strange’ but are insistently taught that ‘different’ is good.
Beyond ‘acceptable’. Actually good!
I’m different.
Noticeably different.
Different enough to know, first hand, how it feels to be frowned upon.
Also, different enough to figure out the difference between ‘acceptable’ and ‘good’.
More than two millennia ago, Protagoras opened up our eyes. Told us it was our job, and responsibility, to ‘measure accurately’.
More than a hundred years ago, Twain warned us. Told us to be careful of ‘well spun fictions’. Of stories too good to be true. Of the fact that in our quest for consistency we are prone to actually discard the uncomfortable truth.
Are we going in the right direction?
In a sense, there isn’t much difference between Mark Twain’s and Tom Clancy’s words.
On the other hand, there is a huge difference between ‘strange’ and ‘different’.
Exactly the same difference which can be found between actual facts and alternative facts.
Exactly the same difference we pretend to not notice when we accept alternative facts as being true.
Well… not necessarily true… only comfortable enough to become acceptable…
Way more comfortable, a.k.a. ‘sensible’ – for us, than the naked truth.
Even if only for the shorter and shorter time frames…
Dead-zone killer?!?
How many times can be killed an already dead zone?
Why would anyone want to over-kill sections of their own homes?
NB, the range extender works fine.
Those trying to market the product (to over-market?!?) jumped the shark… but isn’t this what we’ve unconsciously come to expect from the marketeers?
People are promised:
Do ‘this’ and you’ll be happy.
Follow these rules and you’ll reach ‘nirvana’.
Some of us heed to this advice.
Only to discover that the only happiness they reach following this path is that produced by a dutifully fulfilled task.
That of following rules…
The catch being that following rules – the right ones, is required but never enough.
Following rules – the right ones, again – is helpful towards survival. Nothing more.
Drive safely and you’re more likely to get there.
Where?
That’s up to you.
There’s no rule about that!
What WE know about the reality WE are speaking about drives ME to the following ‘inkling’:
We are living inside a three layered reality.
The ‘real’ one, the ‘perceived’ one and the ‘result’.
We ‘measure’ reality using our conscience. Through our senses.
Very much like when we gauge a length using a tape measure.
We apply the tape measure over the length and ‘read’ the number.
We apply the standards we’ve been groomed into over the underlying reality and we decide according to those standards.
Then we attempt to deal with the consequences of our decisions.
“Sheer hatred of the regime”….
Who’s painting the pictures we’re hanging on our walls? Who chooses them? Who has to make do with the ‘aftermath’?
You’re God.
The real McCoy, not the one concocted by us, humans.
Your ‘most cherished’ tool for bringing people back into submission being the all mighty thunder.
Jupiter Tonans. The Thundering God. Thor yielding his Mjoelnir…
And now what?!?
Every worshiping place has a lighting rod installed…
What do you feel?
Have all those people lost their faith in you? In you behaving as a rational being? In your ability to treat them right?
Are they convinced they are now insulated against your wrath?
War and chess have a lot in common.
Most strikingly, the different manners in which both of them end.
The king is captured.
Or the other side gives up.
A tie is nothing but the prelude for an encore, not a real end.
Even the roads to the end are very similar in both cases.
While at the start of the game/’joust’ everything is ‘possible’ – nobody knows what the other side might be doing next, as the end nears each of the combatants are more and more limited in their currently available choices by the consequences of their previous decisions. By the very path they had followed since the beginning. Which path becomes more and more evident for everybody present. Opponent as well as spectators.
Finally – but not the least important, the similarities go even further. Deeper?
The king is the most ‘important’ piece but not the most powerful. In fact, the king cannot do much by itself. It can help the other pieces achieve their common goal but when left alone it is basically powerless. The only thing it can do is run. But only as far as the board allows it to go…
A pawn, if it manages to reach the eight rank, gets to be promoted. To become the new ‘right hand’ of the king. The new ‘most powerful member of the team’.
‘OK. And the real point of your post is?’
Putin cannot win this war – cause war it is, by himself.
Hence he needs to preserve the loyalty of his henchmen, to instill enough fear into his opponents to make them quit and to convince the ‘spectators’ that their efforts to help Ukraine are too expensive.
Now!
Are we smart enough to understand that we, each of us, are ‘next’? That each time a bully gets his way, all other (would be) bullies present become even more bullish?
Are we smart enough to understand that the most meaningful thing we can do in this situation is to separate Putin from his power base? From the ordinary people who see no other alternative and from those who, for various reasons, continue to support Putin’s misconstrued ‘vision about the world’?
Are we smart enough to understand that no matter how hard it is for us, the Ukrainians have it ten times harder?
Democracy is about every body having the opportunity to speak up their minds.
To speak up their minds, not to kill their neighbors under the pretext that there is a difference of opinion between them!
“We declared a special military operation because we had absolutely no other way of explaining to the West that dragging Ukraine into Nato was a criminal act.”
“Russia is not squeaky clean. Russia is what it is. And we are not ashamed of showing who we are.”
Are you trying to figure out what’s the real meaning of Lavrov’s words?
Let me translate for you this fine example of NewSpeak.
‘We – those who are currently running Russia, will do whatever we need to do in order to preserve our power.
In order to achieve that, we first and foremost need to convince the ordinary Russians to continue to obey our orders.
In order to achieve that, we need to convince the ordinary Russians that you are the enemy and that their only chance lies with us, their current masters.
Hence each time we destroy an Ukrainian apartment block and any of you says ‘Russians are savages’ we’re one step closer to our goal. Each and every time any of you declares ‘Russia has to pay for what it has done in Ukraine’ we tell them, the ordinary Russians, ‘See? This is what they plan to do to you once we’re are gone’.
WWI had lasted until 1945.
We have the opportunity to end the Cold War now.
The war in Ukraine will reach a conclusion. Let’s make it so that after the war will have ended, Russia will fold in the family of ‘civil’ nations.
Those nations that choose to live in peace!
Not because they cannot win wars but because they have learned that winning wars it’s not enough. Those nations which have learned, the hard way, that war has but one winner while for peace to last every body must be a winner.
nicichiarasa 