Archives for category: Mutual Respect
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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

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

Head scratch

January 14, 2025 //
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“Intelligence is the ability to think, reason, and understand
instead of doing things automatically or by instinct.
Nerve cells, after all, do not have intelligence of their own.“

Theoretically, we do have a certain understanding regarding the thing we call ‘intelligence’. After all, there are some dictionary entries discussing the matter.
But when it comes to measuring the said intelligence… nothing is straightforward anymore. So we still have a lot to learn about the thing. About our ability to understand, after all… About our ability to understand, period, including our own intelligence.

Click the picture above and read the article. It is interesting. The most interesting part being what it misses.

The first really intelligent computer application put together by man was the one who defeated Garry Kasparov.
Has anyone been invited to play chess by an application?
Is anybody aware of any chess or go application who had any initiative? Meaningful initiative? Other than making this or that move only AFTER a human had initiated the game?

What are we discussing here?
The intelligence level of any of the many, present or future, artificial intelligence applications or their ability to become aware? Aware of anything…

Furthermore, when we discuss whether AI, ANI, AGI or even ASI would erase humankind from the face of the Earth… nobody has yet mentioned us. After all, we are the ones building the applications. The computers on which we run the applications…
Instead of worrying whether any of the AI versions would do anything to us, we should worry about what some of us will do after they will have laid their hands on a really powerful AI application!

““There’s going to be things we do and the superintelligences just get fed up with the fact that we’re so incompetent and just replace us.”
Nearly 10 years ago, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla Motors, told American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson that he believes AI will domesticate humans like pets.
Hinton ventures that we’ll be kept in the same way we keep tigers around.
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t. But we’re not going to control things anymore,” he said. “

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

“I don’t know!”

January 11, 2025 //
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Total BS. ISS distance from Earth is 408 km.
So, the Moon should be…
I don’t know. You do the math.
In this picture, it looks like ISS is orbiting the Moon, not the Earth.”
Somebody on the Internet

“I don’t know. You do the math!”
But you do have the right to express your opinion, right?
Me

„I disapprove of what you say,
but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
Voltaire

Oui maître, mais…
‘I will defend to the death your right to make a fool of yourself. To demonstrate your ignorance…’
OK, I get it. Only your attitude stems from your conviction that everybody who is able to read is also able to understand the meaning of what they read…
Which is no longer valid!

What do we need to do?
Educate? The readers…
Censor? The aberrant? And who will ‘put the stamp’?!? Who will be the trusted arbiter playing God?
Wait till the consequences of our laisez-faire will rattle their skulls against our crossed bones?

Or simply wake up?
Remember that mutual respect is paramount for our collective survival.
And that asking before sentencing is the smart thing to do….

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

“peut on rire de Dieu?”

November 22, 2024 //
0

“Dans tous les cas,
la seule « condition » est de le faire
dans les limites de ce que permet la loi”
Aurel, dessinateur de presse au Canard enchaîné

Would you poke fun at a volcano?
No? Because it doesn’t make any sense?
But would you poke fun at people who, 800 years ago, prayed to a ‘volcanic god’ asking for ‘mercy’?
Why? Only because (we currently know that) ‘it doesn’t work like that’?!?

OK, forget about the volcano.
Would you make fun of Shoah? Also known as the Holocaust.
No, because it’s illegal? Otherwise you would have mocked a tragedy?!?

It’s not illegal to fall down.
And impossible to ‘ignore’ gravity. Just as impossible as it is to ignore a volcano!
We laugh our eyes out when clowns pretend to fall.
Nobody laughs at a volcano.
Hence it is us who choose what is funny and what isn’t. Just as it is still us who choose whether to obey the law or not. We’re talking about the human laws here, not about the natural ones…

Which brings us closer to the gist of this post.

For the believers, God is everything. Both the entire world and their reference point. Without their God, the world loses its meaning. Without their God, the believers lose their bearings.
Making fun of God, of any god, is no different from making fun of a volcano.

‘You’re making absolutely no sense. No sense whatsoever.
A volcano is a real thing. Sometimes too real, even. While God, all gods, …
Nonsense. Absolute nonsense!’

Do you have faith in vaccines?
Why? Because they work? Because they save a lot of lives?
Despite vaccines being rather expensive and despite the fact that some guys have become obscenely rich as a consequence of people needing vaccines, and other medicines, in order to survive, right?
Have you ever made fun of vaccines? Of obscenely rich people, no matter how they got their money?

Do you understand how religion works?
How religion actually works… Psychologically, sociologically, etc.
No more than you understand vaccines?
Or you just consider religion to be a hoax while vaccines are a scientific fact?
Why? Because you have been told so by reputable people? By people in whom you have absolute trust?

So.
You trust doctors to the tune of allowing them to mess up with your immune system.
And you trust those thinkers who try to convince us not only that God doesn’t exist but also that religion is the “opiate of the masses“. “An ideological tool that legitimates and defends the interests of the dominant, wealthy classes in the population.” According to Marx, that was. Karl Marx. The guy advertising the advent of the communist happiness uber alles…

Let’s backpedal for a while.
You’re OK with vaccines and hate the fact that some people get way too much money for selling those vaccines. You’re OK with the idea of making fun of rich people but not of vaccines. Because vaccines save lives while obscenely rich people are… well… obscene!

Let’s get back to religion.
Making fun of vaccines doesn’t make sense. To you. To us, actually. Because they’re not funny. Because they are a scientific fact. And because they save lives.
Making fun of God also doesn’t make sense. For the believers. For those who truly believe in God.

For those who have a different understanding of the world than we do.

What would you think about people who dismiss vaccines?
The scientific concept of vaccination, not a specific vaccine.
You consider them…?
From your point of view, their reference point is way out of this world? That they have lost their bearings?
That they actually deny the reality? Your/our reality?

That’s exactly what also happens when people make fun of God. Of any god.
Those who believe in God – in the particular god which is the target of the joke but also in all other gods – feel queasy. ‘Sea-sick’. Their world and their bearings are being put into jeopardy. Which puts them into a very difficult position.
There are only two ways out of their conundrum.
To consider the jester as being clueless. As having no idea.
Or to consider the jester as an ‘agent provocateur’. To consider the whole thing as being an insult.

You have a concern and you want to express it? As the law allows you to do?
How about doing it in a considerate manner?
In an efficient manner! In such a way as to get through…
Insulting people, or being considered clueless, doesn’t help if you want to be heard by the other side.
If you want the other side to listen, carefully, to what you need to say.

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, Mutual Respect, Psychology, religion, teleology, Trust

What on Earth just happened?!?

November 20, 2024 //
1

“If you’re an academic (like me),
Epstein has a particularly uncomfortable example
of how people in a perfectly comfortable profession like mine
can be happy and yet still itch with ressentiment about others
whose talents seem more valued than our own.
“Why does some ignorant lawyer have enough money to buy a villa in Tuscany
when one knows so much more about the art of the Italian Renaissance?
What kind of society permits this state of things to exist?
A seriously unjust one, that’s what kind.””
Our worst enemy..., Tom Nichols

Aaron Mostofsky, the guy pictured above, “has worked as an assistant architect in New York“.
Which means he must have at least some idea about the ‘art of the Italian Renaissance’, right?
And now I wonder. His ressentiment had been seeded in his soul during college? Earlier?

Popper, Karl Raymund, had witnessed the entire XX-the century. Both WWs and their aftermath. The advent of the USSR, that of the III-rd Reich and that of the Red China. And the defeat of the imperialistic Japan. Him insisting that collectivism – as put in practice by the fascists and by the communists – leads to a very dark cul-de-sac is spot on and perfectly aligned with what history teaches us.
But who has enough time to read nowadays … we glance at the internet, catch a meme … interpret it according to our own weltanschauung… and then storm the Capitol!
Because the individual is above the state. “An end in itself”…

The teachers/parents should have done a better job? At explaining what Popper had in mind? At teaching the next generation that you don’t ransack the Capitol whenever you don’t like the outcome of an election?

Which teachers?
Which parents?

WE?!?

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Own-Worst-Enemy-Democracy/dp/0197518877

https://www.routledge.com/After-The-Open-Society-Selected-Social-and-Political-Writings/Popper-Turner-Shearmur/p/book/9780415610230

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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, human rights, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, Trust

Choices

November 19, 2024 //
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A marginal benefit is the additional benefit received by a consumer, producer, or society
due to the consumption or production of an additional unit of a product.

When do you stop cleaning something? How do you determine it is clean enough?

When do you stop cleaning the living room? When there’s no more visible dirt, right?
When do you stop cleaning an operating room? You follow the procedure and you check using the appropriate methods and apparati, right?
When do you stop cleaning the operating room where your child will have their life-saving surgery? I’m afraid the surgeon will have to drive you out of the room. You’ll never declare it clean enough….

My point being that we’re rational only as far as there’s nothing personal involved in the choice we have to make.

And as soon as we’re personally invested in the whole thing, we suddenly start to rationalize.
To find rational arguments which favor the position we’ve already adopted. The decision we’ve already made.

My child deserves the best!

Which is true, of course. For as long as we really know what’s good for them…

What capitalism has to do with any of this?!?

Well, most of the ‘hoarders’ rationalize their habit by ‘blaming it’ on their children.
“I have to take care of their future”.
In their attempt to control the future, the hoarders convince themselves that amassing capital will shield them, and their children, from insecurity.

Which is partially true. If the hoarded capital is sustainable…

“I am 82 years old, I have 4 children, 11 grandchildren, 2 great-grandchildren and a room of 12 square meters.
I no longer have a home or expensive things, but I have someone who will clean my room, prepare food and change my bedding, measure my blood pressure and weigh me.
I no longer have the laughter of my grandchildren, I don’t see them growing, hugging and arguing. Some come to me every 15 days, some every three or four months, and some never.
I don’t bake cakes, I don’t dig up the garden. I still have hobbies and I like to read, but my eyes quickly hurt.
I don’t know how much longer, but I have to get used to this loneliness.”
“Author unknown”

Every time I read something like this over the internet – more and more often – I remember that it was us.
We have raised our children into what they are today.

We have amassed vast amounts of financial capital – fiat money – believing that our children will be grateful.
We had not been there when they were growing up. We had not been there when they were learning things.
And now we are the ones who don’t understand why there are no more bonds between us. Between us and our children. Why our children see the world differently from how we do it…

Is it to late?

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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

Setting things right

November 17, 2024 //
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Or should I say “straight”?!?
After all, not everything that comes from the right is ‘right’.
Not everything that comes from the left is ‘wrong’. Or good…
And even ‘straight’ has always been complicated but nobody seemed to care!

Neither ignorance or education can do anything.
On their own. Education is a process and ignorance a mere situation.

It’s what the educated choose to do with their knowledge that makes the difference!

The key words in the statements above are “I always believed” and “It seems”.

It’s not ignorance that’s going to willingly destroy anything and it was the educated which had always ‘produced’. Moved things towards carefully chosen goals. ‘Rationally’ chosen goals, according to the latest fad.
Everything there is is the consequence of something initiated by educated people. The good, the bad and even the very ugly!

‘Another biased and inconsiderate post.
You completely dis-consider the ignorant. Assuming they are impotent and inconsequential.’

I’m afraid somebody else is assuming things.
First of all, there are no ignorant. Only the actual idiots are ignorant and they cannot do much. We, all the rest, start learning from the first minute of our life. Each according to how lucky we are.
Secondly, even the highest educated ignore most of the existing knowledge. But that doesn’t make them ignorant. The most important thing a person must learn before calling itself ‘educated’ is that nobody, that person included, will ever know enough.
Thirdly, all action is initiated from a piece of information. One starts to look for food after realizing they are hungry. After transforming a feeling into a resolution and making a plan to fulfill that resolution. A reaction – like pulling back your hand from a hot stove – doesn’t need much thinking indeed. But that’s only a reaction. Not at all a carefully, supposedly rationally, chosen goal.

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

Who is in charge here?!?

November 16, 2024 //
0

“Facts don’t care about your feelings.“

It’s the act which does the trick.

It is the fact that it was you who had determined whether to keep them or not as they were given to you which actually affirms ‘it’.

Simple, actually, if you consider it with an open mind…

And here’s another question.

How wise is it for people to not care about other people’s feelings?

‘Cause I don’t expect facts to care about feelings. Mine or anybody else’s…

Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, Trust
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