Archives for category: Mutual Respect

Brexit

July 1, 2016 //

“It was a fair vote. They may not like the outcome but nobody’s saying that the vote was tainted. Maybe by the misinformation ahead of it … but the actual voting process…”

If there is something to be learned from the current debacle is that democracy is about way more than honestly counting the votes.

In fact, if we resume ourselves to that, we’ll end up tied down in a cage known as ‘mob rule’. Who ever succeeds to stir up more efficiently the public sentiment will rule the day and ‘apres nous, le deluge‘.

In order for the democratic process to be efficient – actually democratic, that is – the electorate must have at its disposal all the pertinent information that is available at that moment. If the electorate doesn’t really care and doesn’t mind that information… that’s it. But the information has to be readily available.

And there’s the catch.

If those ‘in charge’ use the media to spur up public sentiment instead of honestly informing the people about the situation at hand then we’ll have a beauty pageant instead of a democratic election. Or referendum.

What we really need to remember, fast, is that for a democracy to maintain its function – weed up the really bad leaders/ideas proposed in the public square – we need to add two things to ‘honestly counting the votes’.

‘Mutual respect’ among all members of a given society and a keen enough interest of a majority of the members of that society in the well being of their community.

‘Democracy’ won’t work properly unless the voters respect each-others, and the government they had, themselves, elected. Simultaneously the government has to treat ‘the people’ with utmost respect, not as if they were hapless children in dire need of close guidance.

At the same time no democracy ever successfully maintained its character unless the ‘leaders’ were constantly remembered of their ‘mortal’ status.

“And the Lord God said, “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.”” Genesis, 3:22

The point being that those who think they can make the difference between good and evil need their feet constantly brought back to the Earth.

In Heaven it was God who did that. Here on Earth God works through the hands of Man. Hence we have to take good care of our own fate.
We won’t be able to do that efficiently unless we start respecting each-others, and each-others’ opinions – because none of us will ever be able to know the entire truth so we’ll be better off collectively if we share our knowledge.
For the very same reason – no one can master all the information that floats around us – all those who try to grab too much power must be treated with ‘extreme caution’. Again, this can be done more efficiently in a collaborative, and respectful, manner.

That’s why I’m convinced that the EU needs to be remodeled, not bulldozed.

Tags Brexit, Donald Trump, EU, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Categories arrogance, authoritarianism, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, corruption, limited rationality, man induced fragility, manipulation, Mindset, Mutual Respect, The kind of world we live in, Trust

There’s no one else to blame but us

June 30, 2016 //

“Isn’t it funny?
You know, when I came here 17 years ago and I said that I want to lead the campaign to get Britain to leave the EU, you all laughed at me.
Well, I have to say, you are not laughing now, are you?”

Now let me get something straight.

This guy has been going to work, as an elected official, with one goal in mind. And one goal only.

To undermine the very institution he was working for.

Not to improve it in any way but to simply dismantle it.

I’m not going to discuss here whether he is right about the shortcomings of the EU or not. (He is)

But I am going to question his modus operandi.

OK, he did point out, very astutely, which are the weak points of the European Union.
And then, instead of proposing ways to mend those problems, he did his ‘best’ to make matters even worse.

That was all that he could do in those circumstances. That’s it. Nobody’s perfect.

But why elect a guy like this, time and time again, into a position where he gets to be paid, handsomely, for making trouble?

And no, he wasn’t a ‘whistle-blower’. He never came forth with anything new.
He just kept milling around a few otherwise well known ideas – most of which are absolutely correct – and then turned them on their head, effectively morphing them into ‘seeds of doom’.

And yes, he was the guy “who has repeatedly criticised wasteful EU spending” and then used 58 000 pounds of EU money to cover a security bill “for just five events held in modest venues such as a darts arena in Essex where there was not a single demonstrator.“

Now go figure.
There are people out there who consider him to be “The Hero of Brexit”….

Tags Brexit, Lew Rockwell, Nigel Farage

Categories arrogance, Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, democracy, Frames of mind, limited rationality, manipulation, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we live in

“Look from above”

June 18, 2016 //

they keep telling us.

As if it would always be obvious where ‘up’ and ‘down’ are…

In his efforts to figure up how society works Max Weber has introduced the concept of “ideal type”:

“Ideal type, a common mental construct in the social sciences derived from observable reality although not conforming to it in detail because of deliberate simplification and exaggeration. It is not ideal in the sense that it is excellent, nor is it an average; it is, rather, a constructed ideal used to approximate reality by selecting and accentuating certain elements.”

In other words, Weber proposed that in order to better understand social interactions we should first divest everything we consider unimportant from whatever we are studying and then concentrate our attention on what, in our opinion, ‘makes the world go round’.

Key words here, in my opinion, being “our opinion”.

Common lore, somewhat older than organized ‘science’, used to speak about ‘put yourself in his shoes’.

To me this way of putting it shows two different things.
Commoners are more humble than scientists – none of them pretends to know which are the aspects that have to be taken into account and which are those that should be discarded – and, maybe even more important, a lot more ‘democratically minded’ – ‘put yourself in his shoes’ plainly states that both opinions, ‘his’ and ‘yours’, have equal value.

In this sense ‘look from above’ seems a rather ‘scientific’ attitude, don’t you think?
By telling somebody that he should search a vantage point and then examine the situation from there actually suggests him to construct one of Weber’s ideal types.

Now, please, don’t get me wrong.
Of course this is exactly how human minds work.
Whenever we look at something – no matter how open minded we believe ourselves to be about it – we do it from a personal point of view. There’s no way that we can reasonably pretend otherwise.

The real problem is what we do next.

When ever we try to put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes we have to make a choice.

We can either try to understand/feel what we would have understood/felt if those things would have happened to us or we can try to imagine what the original owner of the shoes understood/felt then, when things were actually happening to him, in ‘real time’.

I’m sure you all see the difference.

This is why, whenever I’m asked ‘please look at this situation from above and tell me your conclusion’, I always start with ‘all I can do is offer my opinion on this, accompanied by a stern warning: My opinion is just that, an opinion. It can happen to be more accurate than yours but it can also be wrong. If you still want it I’ll gladly put it on the table and let us all discuss it.’

On the practical level Nicholas Nassim Taleb proposes that we should shift our focus from trying to determine which is the best option in a given situation to doing our best to avoid choosing the obviously wrong ones.

‘Obvious’ to those who do not allow themselves to become mesmerized by the illusion that ‘best’ can be identified, o course.

Tags Antifragile, ideal type, Max Weber, Nicholas Nassim Taleb, put yourself in his shoes, Things that gain from disorder

Categories arrogance, authoritarianism, Choices we make, cooperation, effective communication, Frames of mind, limited rationality, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Psychology, Transparency, Trust

‘My family rescued me’

June 13, 2016 //

About 8 years ago a girl meets a guy and they get married.

After four months her family intervenes and helps her get out of a dysfunctional relationship.

He starts another one, has a son, and later kills 50 people in a gay bar some time after a gay couple kissed each-other in front of his child.
“They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, ‘Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that.”

Isn’t this whole thing very descriptive of the situation we are facing now?

Her family noticed something was wrong – he was abusing her – and helped her out.

Eight years later – after having another relationship, after being investigated by the FBI and issued a gun permit – he snaps and kills 50 people.

Where was his family? His friends? His neighbors? His co-workers?

“In other words, Mateen who according to preliminary reports, had been on a terrorist watchlist, and who still managed to obtain weapons thanks to his various licenses and permits just last week, was employed by one of the world’s largest security companies”.

More than 100 years ago, Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, discovered that suicide, while being a very personal decision, is heavily influenced by the strength and quality of the social relations that connect the concerned individual to the rest of the society.

I’m not going to argue now that most acts of terrorism, specially the ones perpetrated in the last 20 or 30 years, are of a suicidal nature. They are but this is a somewhat different problem from what I have in mind right now.

What I’m afraid of is that we, in the West, are killing ourselves.

As a society.

We have stopped caring about the guy next door to the tune of no longer being able to notice that he has become crazy and is about to start shooting.

Left and right.

Us.

Let’s wake up, before there will be no one left to answer the phones.

Tags domestic abuse, Emile Durkheim, family life, gay bar, Orlando shooter, social relations, Suicide

Categories altruism, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, Culture, effective communication, Mutual Respect, religion, The kind of world we live in

Meaning

June 10, 2016 //

Shortly after becoming aware of his own awareness Man figured out that, from then on, his real job will be to attach meaning to everything that was, is and will be happening around him.

The very same moment He freaked out – because of the enormous responsibility that had just fallen upon his head – and invented god to help Him.

There is, of course, no way of knowing for certain whether a real God had interfered, in any way, shape or form, in our evolution.
The fact that so many of us think the world can be explained ‘through itself’ – that there is enough information available to construct a plausible narrative about what went on since the Big Bang – is the real proof of nothing more but the huge cockiness harbored by our inflated egos.
OK, nothing more but a long held tradition suggests that God exists for real only this is no factual demonstration about the nonexistence of God.

On the contrary. The very fact that the tradition held for so long means that God had a real contribution to our life.

It doesn’t really matter whether that God was real or contrived by us.

And the fact that so many of us use their respective gods as pretexts to commit heinous acts sends no other message than that those who commit such crimes have no real understanding about what God really means.

Tags freedom of will, individualism versus collectivism, power of agency, Religious intolerance

Categories arrogance, authoritarianism, Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, Culture, evolution, Frames of mind, limited rationality, manipulation, Mutual Respect, religion, Social justice, The kind of world we live in

Collateral damage

June 6, 2016 //

The moment we try to appraise the value of human life, in monetary terms or in any other way, is the threshold to man made hell.

By simply accepting the notion of collateral damage – that the ‘ultimate goal’ might be considered important enough to justify damage suffered by innocents – we enter the realm of ‘fantasy world’.

The place where wishes trump reality and where desires are considered – by those who entertain them, of course – more important than anything else.

In this realm people cannot get along with each-other, simply because they cannot find any common ground. Whenever a group of people accepts the notion that one life can be considered more important than any another – that individual human lives can be ‘filed’ according to their individual values, sooner or later its members will start fighting each others for preeminence.

‘Top dog’ position becomes not only desirable but also the only thing a ‘rational’ individual will ever pursue. Simply because no other position comes even close and because, by agreeing that human life can be appraised, the members of that group have proclaimed that ‘social life’ is more about competition than about cooperation.

The problem with ‘no holds barred’ competitions being that some of the spectators think they are fun to watch while those in the pit discover very quickly that survival is almost impossible but for the briefest lengths of time.

Tags Collateral damage, competition, no holds barred, survival

Categories arrogance, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, corruption, Frames of mind, Justitie sociala, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we live in

Trump

June 2, 2016 //

When trying to understand a rather complicated phenomenon one has two options.
Amass as much pertinent information as possible and then try to put it together or watch out for questions posed and opinions offered by others on the same subject. And, then again, put them together in your own way, of course.

A friend of mine posted this on FB:
“Trump’s trick is that he has never run on substance, yet his opponents and detractors attempt to attack the substance of how he is wrong. Because there is no substance, they cannot help but miss.”

See what I mean? Why strain your own head when there are people who already have the answer to your question?

All that is left for me to do is elaborate a little.

Well, as the man said, it is hard to be a ‘Trump detractor’ since there is nothing there to detract in the first place!

As for the ‘Trump’s opponents’… here again it’s a matter of understanding the mechanics of human interaction.

This whole thing started when Trump, the ‘perfect opportunist’, noticed that the ‘anti-Establishment’ sentiment was strong enough to present a ‘workable opportunity’.
Which he gleefully grabbed. And started to position himself as the ‘quintessential anti-Establishment candidate’.

As a matter of fact this is also the explanation for why he joined the Republican camp… after lavishing so much money on Clinton, for instance.

““Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding, and she came to my wedding,” the reality-star-turned-politician said at the first GOP presidential debate in Cleveland. “She had no choice because I gave to a foundation.” “

Among the Republicans the anti-Establishment feeling is stronger than among the Democrats – Sanders doesn’t seem able to uproot Clinton.

Now I have to remind you what most Trump supporters were saying a year ago:
‘I don’t like him, as a person, but by supporting him I’m sending a strong message to the Establishment’.

What happened during the last 10 months or so – that so many people have started to ‘like him as a person’ – is very simple to understand. Trump was skillful enough to position himself effectively while those who disliked him started to ‘oppose’ him. And, by doing so, gave him ‘substance’.

You see, engaging a conversation – no matter how ‘heated’ – with somebody means acknowledging his presence. Speaking to somebody means lending him some of your own legitimacy.

The second mistake made by Trump’s opponents was ‘calling names’ to those who spoke in his favor. And, just by doing so, transformed those who at first only wanted to vent their frustration into full-fledged supporters.

What we have now is a perfect example of a man made ‘perfect storm’.
A ‘loose cannon’ candidate whose supporters are experiencing a double layered frustration. A basic one fueled by the bleak economic perspectives faced by the entire middle class which is exacerbated by the disdain so oftenly felt by Trump’s supporters whenever they express their political opinion.

Hopefully Trump will eventually loose. But the ‘perfect storm’ will remain and it will have to be treated with utmost care.
The point being that we should not forget who brought us here.

The Establishment.

Reason tells us that in its own interest the Establishment – who has the most to loose – would be the first to look for a solution.
As we’ve just seen, the Republican half has failed miserably and the Democratic one is following in their footsteps. Judging by the quality of the candidates, of course.

Could this be the reason behind Kim’s endorsement for Trump?

North Korea supports Trump over “Dull” Hillary

Tags Anti-Establishment sentiment, Donald Trump, Dull Hillary, Far sighted candidate, Feel the Bern., Hillary Clinton, the mechanics of human interaction

Categories Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, democracy, effective communication, limited rationality, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Psychology, The kind of world we live in

What ‘Anti-Establishment’ really means.

May 31, 2016 //

Did you know that Trump was selling shirts over the Internet?

Yes, Trump, the guy that so many Americans are going to vote for simply because they are convinced he will completely change the way America works.

Why?
Because he says so.
He presented himself as the quintessential anti-establishment candidate and they bought it.

OK, something has to be changed so I fully understand their exasperation with the current state of the Union.
But is he “the” guy?

And since deeds are, or should be, more convincing than words, lets see if he is as anti-system as he pretends to be.

Well… at some point he did try to use the power of the government in order to con an old lady out of her house, didn’t he?

And he did ‘bribe’ Senator Clinton to come to his wedding. Simply because he had the money…

And now this.
The way I see it the real problem is not the fact that he makes his shirts in Bangladesh in spite of being vocal about the need to preserve American manufacturing jobs. After all it’s his job to conduct his business as he sees fit. And if he is comfortable with doing one thing while saying the complete opposite…. that’s his job too.

But how come so many people take his words for real, without at least perfunctorily checking the facts?
How come so many are they so convinced he is ‘the right guy’ when he sells himself so cheap?

Oh, you didn’t know you could buy a “Donald J Trump Signature Collection” shirt for as little as $12.56!
Why is he doing this? Because he is so anti-Establishment that he doesn’t care about money?
You’re already laughing, right?

Or he simply does it because he can get away with it!
Because we don’t really care. Not anymore…

As one of my friends said about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s ‘Democratic’ counterpart:
” Hard to fathom how someone so openly, unapologetically corrupt can be the front runner. I think that says a lot about what we really expect from our politicians.”

I’m afraid she’s absolutely right.
We are the real culprits here.
‘They’ are simply doing what they are good at, grabbing gleefully whatever opportunities are within their reach, but we are the ones providing those opportunities.

Not only in America.

Tags Donald J. Trump Signature Collection, Donald Trump, email scandal, eminent domain, Hillary Clinton

Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., arrogance, Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, democracy, Frames of mind, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, politics, The kind of world we live in

A prosecutorial Republic

May 25, 2016 //

The New York Times, from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, has found out that Calin Popescu Tariceanu, currently the second most important political persona in Romania, as the Speaker of the Senate, is being investigated “for giving false testimony to aid suspects in a wider real estate graft case.”

“Prosecutors said Tariceanu made untrue statements under oath in April when he was called to testify in an investigation in which …”

OK.
So he isn’t investigated for anything he might have done then but for something he had (not?!?) recently said about the whole thing, now.

“Tariceanu denied wrongdoing and fired back at magistrates, saying “we live in a republic of prosecutors based on the politics of dossiers and handcuffs”.”

At this point it is very important to remember that Mr. Tariceanu has been at the fore front of the Romanian political stage for the last 25 years – for instance he was the Prime Minister from 2004 to 2008, and to mention that he is only one amongst the many Romanian politicians being criminally investigated who deplore the growing importance of the role recently assumed by the Romanian prosecutors.

I’m not going to discuss here the individual merits of each of the corruption cases that have been investigated recently. It is very possible that some of them were started, or closed, because ‘somebody’ had made specific ‘recommendations’. The prosecutors are human beings themselves.

But isn’t it rather strange that so many of the people who have actually honed the finest inner wheels of the contemporary Romanian state are now complaining about the way it works?

During the last 26 years this rather small group of people had countless opportunities to put things on the right track.
It seems that they didn’t succeed. For various reasons.
But it also seems that some of them, at least, had ‘ulterior motives’ for not succeeding.

Some of which are now being unearthed by the prosecutors.

The point being that we shouldn’t become mesmerized by the process.

Let the prosecutors do their job. Under close supervision, of course.
Learn the appropriate lessons.
“Do not steal” is important not so much because it is one of the Ten Commandments but because no society that has condoned theft on a large scale has ever thrived for long long enough to really enjoy the spoils.

Coming back to the Romanian political class – and to the people itself, everybody eventually gets to sleep in the bed each of us has prepared for itself.

If corruption wasn’t so widespread as it is today the prosecutors wouldn’t have been able to launch so many investigations.
If corruption wasn’t so widespread as it is today the ordinary people would have undoubtedly enjoyed a way better life. Maybe one close enough to the point where they wouldn’t have minded so much ‘a little’ corruption.

I have to end this by quoting Traian Basescu, the former President, also a very controversial figure:

“Corruption rests with two sides. I do not want to change responsibility, but it must be shared and assumed. A corrupt civil servant cannot be corrupt if they do not have a partner to put money into their hands, a ministry cannot pay by 50 percent more if there is not a consultant to sustain what the constructor says: ?Yes, we’ll raise the bill’. The ministry finds it impossible to act, because anyone wins in court if one also has the consultant’s advice that they should increase the public works price by 50 percent’, Basescu said at the launch of the Report on the Competitiveness of Romania, an event organised by the Romanian-based American Chamber of Commerce.

The President went on: ‘I believe we must, first and foremost, leave hypocrisy behind. The state alone cannot be corrupt, it has a partner, if there is corruption. The state alone cannot be non-performing, it has a partner. Let us together assume what we have to do. The easiest thing for the private sector to do is to criticise the state and the easiest thing for the state to do is to show indifference to the problems facing the business environment. I believe we are not in such a situation. We all want to have performance, to be competitive.”

Those of you who are interested in learning more about how we got here might start by reading this report by Oxford Business Group.

Tags A republic of prosecutors, do not steal

Categories arrogance, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, corruption, Frames of mind, Money as goal, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Social justice, Tara din care traim, Trust

politics?!?

May 24, 2016 //

Not so long ago I was asking myself “What’s going on there?“.

Now, that my nightmare is very close to becoming reality – both major American parties are about to nominate unpopular candidates for the 2016 presidential elections, I’m wondering about the current meaning attached to the very concept of ‘politics’.

For an impersonal and very theoretically minded observer ‘politics’ would seem to describe the job of those who make it possible for the rest of us to lead our lives in an orderly fashion.

I believe you are familiar with what a ‘super’ does. ‘Super’ as in ‘superintendent’ for a residential building.
“The super must be conversant with every mechanical and technical system in the building, work diplomatically to solve problems in the building, be responsive to residents and be able to work as a team member with the board and the managing agent.”
Not exactly ‘rocket science’ but a very important role. So important that when poorly played the whole thing might very quickly deteriorate beyond repair.

After all, ‘the government’ should do nothing more, and nothing else, but act as a nationwide ‘superintended’ while ‘politics’ should be nothing more, and nothing less, than what we, all the inhabitants of a country, do in order to make sure that the government, our government, does its job. Properly.
Especially when living in one of the so called ‘democratic countries’.

Then how come I’ve got a growing feeling that ‘politics’ have become just another set of means towards specific goals? Goals that are more often than not detrimental to the society, as a whole?

PS.
This is for those of you who are not familiar with how this site works.
By clicking on the pictures, or the highlighted text, you are automatically linked to the sources of the quoted material. Sometimes they might be interesting, to some of you.

Tags ABC News, Battle of the most disliked nominees in decades, Clinton, superintendent, Trump

Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., arrogance, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, corruption, democracy, Frames of mind, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, The kind of world we live in

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