Archives for category: man as a measure for all things
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Knowledge

April 3, 2020 //
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Any attempt to learn something, to increase your knowledge about a certain subject, is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to become intimate with it.

Students have two open roads ahead of them.

One which implies a lot of wooing, patience and a certain degree of self appeasement.
The other asks for a direct, almost blunt, approach.
While the first is more like the student dancing around the subject, the second is akin to a hands on combat.

The results are, obviously, different.
Not exactly different. Only fundamentally.

The difference is very much like the difference between courtship and rape.
The end result might be a child. But…

Same thing with art and science.

It is true that in order to have sex, both partners need to be, at least somewhat, naked.
But there is all the difference in the world between having sex and making love!

The end result is only apparently the same!

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Categories arrogance, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, In English, Intent, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children, Transparency, Trust, yes but

SF

April 2, 2020 //
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Where S stands for Sociological.

So. Let me present you with a sociologically fictitious scenario.

We have an intelligent observer and and a trans-galactic vehicle.

There are no details available about the observer except for the fact that it has access to a comprehensive real time stream of data about what is going on inside – or, more exactly, on the surface, of the trans-galactic vehicle.

And here’s what the observer had recorded.

The vehicle is being continuously transformed by its passengers.
In fact, there are two manners in which the passengers change their vehicle.
By interacting directly with it.
And as unintended consequences of the interactions which take place between the passengers themselves.

The passengers are evolving.
During the observation period, some of them had become dominant.
But no matter whether they had become dominant or not, most of the passengers had disappeared. Both as individuals and as species.

The current dominant species is the most intriguing ever.

It displays a strange mix of intelligent behaviors and suicidal tendencies.

It is composed of rather autonomous individuals who are adept at finding ingenious solutions to almost intractable problems.
But, strangely enough, they haven’t yet been able to figure out two basic things:
The limited nature of the vehicle on which they live. In both time and space.
Nor how to balance their individual functional autonomy with their need to cooperate towards their natural goal. The survival of their own species.

If the whole ‘project’ were a SF movie, the text above would have been the opening.
Followed by:

Currently, the dominant passengers are being taught a lesson by the apparently most insignificant amongst those transported by the vehicle. By a virus, as the dominants refer to it.
The virus – like all of its kind, is able to hijack other organisms and somehow convince them to work for him. At a very high cost for the hijacked organisms.
In this case, the hijacked organisms belong to the dominant species.

And what have the individuals belonging to the dominant species chosen to do?
Inform each-other promptly and cooperate earnestly towards the common goal?

Not exactly. Not yet, anyway.

Homework:
What would the intelligent outside observer think about the whole situation?
Would He consider to lend a helping hand?

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Categories awareness, biology, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

Frames

March 28, 2020 //
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https://i.imgflip.com/3ua749.jpg

Well, we must remember that solutions came a lot easier when we refuse to think inside a box. Inside any box. No matter how large or how nice.

Every time I understand/notice that somebody tries to frame my thinking process, I go ‘ballistic’.

I try to raise my mind perpendicularly above the frame. So that I may observe the limits.

Every time when somebody is presented with an ‘either/or’ option there is a strong likelihood that the situation merits a more nuanced approach.
As in ‘yes, the government was terrible at handling COVID-19’ and ‘yes, the government – as our servant, should be mandated by us, the people, to coordinate the help we need in our hour of need’.

How can we reconcile these two?
Simple.
Hire a better government and keep a keen eye on it!

And, if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t democracy meant to do exactly this?

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, fail better, Frames of mind, freedom, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, manipulation, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we are building for our children, Transparency

Progress.

March 26, 2020 //
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Some people are convinced that nothing really changes.
That progress is an empty word.

Others are convinced that progress is everything.

And each category has its ‘extremists’:

Some people are convinced that nothing should be allowed to change.
Others are convinced that all change must be imposed, or at least approved, by them.

And the tug of war between these two categories actually hamper whatever progress happens naturally.

Mind you, both categories shoot themselves in the foot.
Each of them shoots only the ‘specific’ foot but the result is equally crippling… Both end up being iron shackles for the rest of us.

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Categories awareness, Bancuri, Bounded rationality, collective identity, cooperation, evolution, Frames of mind, freedom, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Psychology, religion

Metamorphosis

March 26, 2020 //
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A transformation so drastic that somebody needs to have been at both ends of the process in order to accept that what came out was the same thing as what went in.

The Universe has already went through Metamorphosis 0.1 and 1.0.
The ‘Big Bang’ and the apparition of life.

We’re witnessing Metamorphosis 2.0.
Awareness’ coming of age.

Individuals becoming aware not only of their own awareness but also of their place in the order of things.
Communities becoming aware that each of their individuals are paramount. That ‘no one left behind’ is the only thing that keeps the community together.
Individuals understanding that each of them is equally important yet none of them indispensable.

Individuals and communities alike opening their minds to the fact that none of them might exist without the other.

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Categories altruism, awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, evolutie, feminism, forgiveness, freedom, identitate colectiva, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mindset

Opportunities

March 21, 2020 //
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Smarter people than me are already prepping for the aftermath.
For the opportunities which will have ripened by then.

Which, let’s face it, is a wise thing to do. Most of us would have done it. Prepping for what we fear. And for what we covet.

Also wise would be for us to remember that everything we experience today – the good and the bad of it, together, is the consequence of how we have chosen to use the opportunities opened up by the previous crisis.

And by that before it …

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, Economy, effective communication, evolution, freedom, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

Taleb's Black Swan has been infected by SARS CoV2

March 19, 2020 //
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We’re in the middle of a crises.
Some people believe the crises has been only triggered by the virus. And that it has been mainly caused by ‘globalization’.

I beg to differ. In part.

The crises was indeed triggered by the virus.
But the fact that we are so fragile isn’t the consequence of globalization.
Only by what we have done in the given circumstances.

It wasn’t globalization itself which had made us fragile.
Globalization only extended the opportunity field we had at our disposal.
It was our way of developing those opportunities which had made us fragile.
We had chosen ‘financial efficiency’ over ‘resilience’.
We had chosen to increase profit instead of making it ‘more and more sure’ that we’ll be able to survive.
In a sense, we have been acting as if we’d lost touch with reality.
With the hard reality….

There is nothing to suggest that we knew what we were doing. Then.
But we won’t have any excuses left once that we will have reached the other side.

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Categories awareness, biology, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, In English, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Money as goal, Mutual Respect, Psychology, Trust

Purveyors of meaning.

March 8, 2020 //
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The only real difference between us and the rest of the living world is our ability to make informed decisions.

Since this is a rather vast subject, I shall divide it into chapters.

  1. From feeling to sentiment.

Something prompts us into action. Always. No matter whether we are aware of it or not, there is an underlying cause for each of our actions.
And when we speak about actions which imply our awareness, those causes penetrate our conscience as feelings.

We, more or less automatically, pull back our hands when they touch a hot stove. That is a reaction. Caused by a feeling.

Most of us – the able bodied, of course, would consider going into fire to save a loved one. Or a stranger. Even if pursuing that line of action might get us burned.
‘Going into fire’ – compared to ‘pulling back our hands’, implies making a decision. Which action – ‘making a decision’, is caused by a sentiment.

Sentiment being a feeling which has penetrated not only our conscience but our self-awareness as well.
We not only feel a sentiment, we relate to it. We’re not only aware of it, we elaborate on it.

Hence the difference between a reaction and a decision.
For as long as we allow ourselves to be driven by feelings, we only react to what’s going on around us.
If, and only when, we successfully transform feelings into sentiments we are able to actually decide. To control, to a degree, what’s happening in/to our lives.

To add some meaning to our, otherwise ‘mere’, existence.

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Categories awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, In English, Intent, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game

Why older people have such a hard time changing their minds

March 7, 2020 //
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And the more important the subject – or closer to their hearts, the harder for them to reconsider their position.

I’m very close to 60 myself and I haven’t yet made peace with my dad.
We’re very good business partners, he lives in the same house with me – my mom passed away almost 25 years ago, and yet not a single day passes without us locking horns.

This morning, it finally downed on me.
He cannot accept my version of things because that would mean he had been wrong – on certain issues, during his entire life.

And what makes me so sure that my version of things is the right one?!?

Simply because his position is:
‘You should be the wiser one. You told me such and such for so long and I haven’t budged. Maybe you should have grown accustomed to the situation long ago and accepted it’.

I actually can accept that, after a certain age, human brain looses some of its flexibility. That is one of the saddest facts of life.
Only we had this very same discussion, on and of, for the last 40 or so years. Both of us were in our prime. He still is…

To make things clearer, before we get to the important part, the differences between us are of a cultural nature.
He is a born and bred Armenian while I’m a mixed breed. He grew up in a consistent cultural environment while I had to adapt to carrying a funny name and to uncountable social changes. He has a clear understanding of the world – which had served him well, while I’m full of questions. And still looking for answers.

And finally, I found one of them.

The funny thing being that I was already aware of the concept for at least 10 years now.

“Cognitive dissonance, the mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information. The unease or tension that the conflict arouses in people is relieved by one of several defensive maneuvers: they reject, explain away, or avoid the new information; persuade themselves that no conflict really exists; reconcile the differences; or resort to any other defensive means of preserving stability or order in their conceptions of the world and of themselves. The concept was developed in the 1950s by American psychologist Leon Festinger and became a major point of discussion and research.”

Can you imagine an Eastern Mediterranean patriarch – something all men seeped in that culture attempt to become when growing older, caving in to contrarian opinions expressed by his totally unconventional son?

Can you imagine a successful ‘old timer’ accepting that the methods he had used to get to the top might actually be the causes for what we experience now?

“The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Imagine now what would have happened if the world would have been ruled by people who had made up their minds some 200 years ago.
Then imagine what would have happened if we would have forgotten what had happened 200 years ago…

Cherish your old ones – cause they made you possible, but don’t take them too seriously. It hurts.

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, Frames of mind, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

Democracy

March 6, 2020 //
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According to Abe Lincoln, democracy is about “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

No photo description available.

But what if not enough of the ‘people’ care about who governs them? Nor towards what?

A couple of years ago a previously unknown author had come up with a “radical new theory“. One which maintains that “modern American elections are rarely shaped by voters changing their minds, but rather by shifts in who decides to vote in the first place“.

The picture above is proof that Rachel Bitecofer, the ‘previously unknown author’, is right.

On the other hand, Barend ter Haar, among others, ‘suggests’ that “democracy is a form of conflict management within states“.

The last proposition also makes a lot of sense.
Democracy, when functional, lowers ‘political temperature’ to levels where individual members of the community/nation may focus on identifying and solving the problems which might endanger the survival of the entire social organism.
Otherwise put, democracy dramatically increases the survival chances of the communities who are wise enough to maintain its true character. Who are wise enough to make it work. Properly.

What prompted me to believe such a thing?
Look back in history. All authoritarian regimes – a.k.a. ’empires’, have eventually crumbled under their own weight while no democracy has ever ‘folded its hand’ before loosing first its democratic character.

Which brings us to ‘what is the gist of democracy’?
Or, in ter Haar’s terms, who is responsible for maintaining it? Who ‘runs’ the “conflict management within states”?

This is where I part ways with ter Haar.
For me, democracy is something natural. It has to come from within.
There is no one who can, or should, manage it.
Administer it – as in accurately counting the ballots and making sure that rules are followed, obviously. Actually managing the process?!?. No! That would defeat the very purpose of the democratic process. For the people to find its own way.

But there are so many who can spoil it… Willingly or unwillingly!

First among them being those who decide to stay at home.
To keep mum.
For whatever reason!

Because those who keep mum are those who allow the ‘pirates’ to ‘steal’ the helm.
Just as keeping quiet is the worst attitude when somebody bullies you, staying at home on election day empowers those with less than fully democratic attitudes to ascend to power.

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Categories arrogance, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, Culture, democracy, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, politics, Psychology, The kind of world we are building for our children, Transparency, Trust
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