A possible explanation for why the ‘capital’ is so mistrusted today might be the fact that not so long ago capital meant above all trust while now capital mostly means nothing more but a huge pile of fiat money….
Archives for category: Psychology
Doi copii, unul de 4 si altul de 6 ani, iesiti la plimbare in parcul Tei, s-au indepartat de bunica lor, au fost atacati de caini ‘comunitari’ iar unul dintre ei a fost omorit.
Oare din ce ‘comunitate’ or fi facand parte acei caini?
Cu ocazia asta am aflat, ascultand diverse posturi de televiziune, ca ’16 000 de bucuresteni au fost muscati de caini in 2012 conform spitalului Matei Bals’. Pai daca 16000 s-au dus la spital inseamna ca daca vrem sa aproximam numarul real al celor care au fost muscati trebuie sa INCEPEM de la 16 000 si sa ne gandim la citi sa mai adaugam.
Eu unul am fost muscat de trei ori si m-am dus la spital doar de doua. Aplicand acest algoritm (total ‘nestiintific’ si subiectiv) ajungem deja la peste 20 000.
Avand in vedere ca estimarile oficiale spun ca sunt aproximativ 60 000 de ‘comunitari’ ar rezulta fie ca o treime din ei sunt suficient de agresivi incit sa muste, in medie, o data pe an fie ca unii dintre ei sunt atat de agresivi incit sa faca ‘treaba’ tuturor celorlalti. Intrebarea e cum sa ii deosebesti…
Si apropo de ‘treaba’…La o medie extrem de ‘conservatoare’ de 1kg pe saptamana rezulta ca 60 de tone de ‘treaba mare’ de caine se adauga in fiecare saptamana la mizeria care sufoca din ce in ce mai mult Bucurestiul.
Facem ceva pe tema asta?
Vorbeam intr-o postare anterioara despre cum, interpretandu-l ‘entuziast’ pe Descartes, am ajuns la concluzia ca ‘ratiunea il face pe om’.
Iata aici o noua dovada altceva il face pe om si nu ratiunea pura. Aceasta din urma este doar un mecanism, o modalitate de a asambla si folosi in scop propriu informatiile pe care le avem la indemana.
Catre ce scop? Ne putem folosi de ratiune pentru a incerca sa raspundem si la aceasta intrebare. Din pacate vom obtine doar atat, un raspuns. Atunci cind vom alege cu adevarat catre ce scop sa ne indreptam vor intra in joc caracterul nostru, bunul simt, educatia… Adica exact ceea ce am acumulat pina in acel moment din interactiunea cu oamenii de care ne-am ‘lovit’ de-a lungul vietii. Unii ar zice ca din acest moment intervine ‘morala’.
Se poate spune si asa. Eu prefer explicatia lui Humberto Maturana:
‘Oamenii nu sunt singurele fiinte constiente. Si cainele e constient, simte atunci cind este lovit. Spre deosebire de caine insa omul este constient de faptul ca este constient.
Iar aceasta constiinta nu a aparut din intimplare la unul dintre indivizi si apoi s-a raspandit pentru ca a fost folositoare ci a aparut prin interactiunea intensa si repetata intre indivizii societatii, mai ales prin intermediul limbajului. Acesta din urma a aparut tot asa, ‘intre’ indivizi, si impreuna, constiinta de a fi constienti impreuna cu abilitatea de a comunica idei in intreaga lor complexitate, au transformat o grupurile de ‘maimute’ pre-umane in societatile (aproape) umane de astazi.
Sa nu uitam totusi contributia esentiala a lui Descartes. El a inceput rationamentul sau cu ‘Dubito ergo…’
Asa gandesc cu adevarat oamenii: “Ce ar fi daca…” Unii ajung la concluzia “Ce tie nu-ti place altuia nu-i face”, altii la “cum sa fac sa mai castig odata alegerile”.
Poate ca ar fi timpul sa inceapa si alegatorii sa gandeasca: “Ce ar fi daca…?”
Dupa 1990 au plecat din tara trei feluri de oameni:
– Unii care au plecat la munca pentru ca aici nu prea mai gaseau slujbe bine platite. In foarte mare majoritate curajosi, muncitori si cinstiti. Plecarea lor a lasat tara cu mai putin oameni bine pregatiti si cu o concentratie mai mare de lasi, hoti si lenesi.
– Unii care s-au dus la furat. Plecarea astora a mai scazut numarul gainarilor si a cersetorilor.
– Altii care au plecat de scarba. Faceau parte din patura educata si, in plus, erau mai curajosi decit media intelectualilor. Plecarea lor nu doar a redus nivelul mediu de inteligenta ci, mult mai important, a redus imens numarul liderilor potentiali care in afara de inteligenta sa mai aibe si curajul de a fi cinstiti.
Daca plecarea celor din primele doua categorii a adus citeva neajunsuri si un mare avantaj – o gramada imensa de bani trimisa in tara – plecarea celor din a doua categorie a provocat o catastrofa: a decapitat poporul din punct de vedere politic.
Tocmai am terminat de citit rezultatele ultimului sondaj Sociopol.
Eu unul nu mai inteleg nimic:
– cam 70% cred ca ar fi bine ca niste lucruri sa se intimple
– cam tot atatia cred ca guvernul va lua masurile necesare ca acele lucruri sa se intimple intr-adevar
– cu toate astea 60% din populatie crede ca tara merge intr-o directie gresita.
– Culmea e ca in pofida faptului ca tara merge intr-o directie gresita tot cam vreo 60% zic ca treaba asta nu ii intereseaza asa ca nu se vor duce la vot.
Ce sa inteleg din toata chestia asta? Ca subiectele asupra carora au fost intrebati oamenii nu prea sunt de inters? Nici Rosia Montana, nici gazele de sist, nici macar directia in care se indreapta tara?
This is a NASA satellite picture of the forest fire currently raging in California.
How did things became so bad: “An average of 5 million acres burns every year in the United States, causing millions of dollars in damage.”?
What should we do?
About the fires? I don’t know, I’ll leave this to the specialists. 
The problem is that I recently saw the picture above on the FB. My comment was:
“You wish…
‘Too big to fail’ is a human concept, not a natural occurrence.
Watch what happened to the dino’s and last time I checked elephants and whales weren’t doing that well either.
And while we didn’t have anything to do with the fate of the dinosaurs it was us who hunted the elephants, the whales, the dodo birds and so on…
The Earth is not at all too big to fail but rather it should be too important for us to meddle with!”
Another issue: The so called Global Warming.
– Everybody agrees that carbon dioxide is indeed a ‘hot house gas’ and that we produce huge, and growing, amounts of it.
– England has seen a resurgence of commercial wineries.
– French, Spanish and other grapes have so much sugar that wines reach now an alcoholic concentration of 14-14.5% on a regular basis.
And the list can go on.
Yet we not only choose to ignore the deluge of carbon dioxide (chlorofluorocarbons, another class of hot house gases were only recently banned) we unleashed onto the Earth’s atmosphere but also try to deny what’s going on around us: ” “Global Warning Has Stopped”? How to Fool People Using “Cherry-Picked” Climate Data”.
Now what am I driving at? That we should go back in time and live in caves like our fore fathers?
Certainly NOT!
Actually for the time being I’m not that worried about the global warming – the heat spell that transformed the the southern Greenland into the pastures where Erik the Red fed his sheep had been probably more intense, the same places are not (yet at least) green again.
Moreover the contribution of the carbon dioxide to all this is debatable and debated. (The chlorofluorocarbons were banned because they destroy the ozone layer, that’s another human contribution to the well being of the planet.)
BUT WHY RISK IT?
We strongly need another economic ‘seed’ – like wool clothing and then steel were for England and like the automobiles and airplanes were for the US.
So why not transform this potentially dangerous situation into a win-win situation and turn the global economy around by building a carbon dioxide free future?
“Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum”
This was the original.
We have chosen to keep only ‘cogito ergo sum’ and be extremely proud of the fact humans are the only animals able to reason.
Really?
There is a small video that makes me wonder.…(You can enjoy all of it later, for the purpose of this post please watch from 28:01 to 32:00)
The way I see it, the monkey IS able to reason but is unable to refrain itself. When the situation allowed for ‘cold reasoning’ – when only numbers where involved, not real candy – he displayed the same kind of reasoning as the one we’d usually do.
By contrast, it is us, humans, who have the unique ability to think discursively – please see one of my previous posts about this – and hence the possibility to ask ourselves “what if?”
Maybe this is what Descartes wanted to convey to us, that it’s our capacity to ‘dubito’ that makes us humans, after all.
PS. Here you have the full transcription of that video.
Stretching this concept we may conclude that the market is efficient (the prices reflect the ‘real’ value of the traded assets) because every economic agent acts rationally and that all the pertinent information is always available for everybody. This last sentence might sound far-fetched indeed but: “The third form, known as the strong form (or strong-form efficiency), states that asset prices adjust almost instantaneously not only to new public information but also to new private information.” (ibidem)
So, theoretically, we have perfectly rational economic agents and free flowing information.
In this case (no emotions involved, no shenanigans, brains in perfect working order) why on Earth do we still need the market?
One trained professional (OK, a board, a panel, something: the workload is too big for one individual) would be enough to settle prices based on available information and to adjust them as new information come in, right?
Are you flabbergasted? Well, you should! This is exactly how communists used to run the economies of the ‘popular democracies’ where they had risen to power. (It seems that in the 20 years since the fall of the European communism the concept of ‘popular democracy’ has evolved but nobody notices that this is a huge pleonasm – any real democracy is indeed ‘popular’. The communists used the concept to suggest that only the communist democracy – an oxymoron – was a true democracy; all other forms of democracies being deemed incomplete.
OK, so what’s the point of all this?
Well, some people advocate total deregulation of the economy/market.
As contemporary events have shown us economic trends in a mis-regulated environment give birth to ‘too big to fail’ entities. I’m afraid that a completely deregulated one will produce, in time, nothing but even bigger conglomerates.
So what should we do? Tighten the existing regulation?
NO!!!
We should adopt a much simpler set of rules based on on a staunch philosophy: maintaining the real freedom of the market instead of allowing the ‘significant’ agents to bend the rules in their favor.
Regulation should just state what is unacceptable and not give recommendations, directives, indications, etc.
It should be a must and not at all an oxymoron.
Morals were a time sanctioned method of getting along with the others which was based on religious precepts.
In time people understood the benefits of cooperation versus thuggery and thus the need for the religious backup disappeared. Ethics were born.
Nowadays some try to convince us that life is a zero sum game (it isn’t) and that ‘ethics are for the faint hearted’.
Not true. This conviction arises from falsely understanding the Darwin’s natural selection as the ‘survival of the fittest’!
Ernst Myer demonstrates clearly that this is absolutely wrong: ‘what is “the fittest” ?’ ‘You can be ‘fittest’ only by taking into account one or more parameters but those parameters might never describe completely a situation. Moreover ‘situations’ have a knack for changing so becoming the ‘fittest’ is a useless performance. In NNT’s terms is a (futile) attempt at robustness. Mayr says that in reality natural selection is about the demise of the unable to adapt. (Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is).
Now is anybody naive enough to believe that one can adapt to new circumstances solely by oneself, without any outside help? And what help can one expect while finding oneself alone in a corner after a long enough spell of behaving unethically?
PS Thanks Vince Pomal for the very interesting question!
The animate kingdom usually REacts to stimuli/situations. If hungry a preset sequence (genetically acquired or previously learned) is set in motion without much internal deliberation. The same goes for when evasive actions are needed. This kind of reactions are usually called ‘reflexes’ or ‘acquired reflexes’.
Humans use them too. We pull our hands when we touch a hot object and we use our arm to protect our head against an incoming stick even though we know this is going to hurt. And no, this is not a rational decision. It is made too quickly for the brain to have had time to reason. If that was the case the brain would have ordered the entire body to move.
I like to use a slightly different name for this kind of interactions: ‘integrative-reflex responses’. Integrative because all available data are used, simultaneously, and reflex because they not based on reason but on a pre-existing pattern.
But humans are able to use yet another method. We reference past experiences, try to establish how relevant they are for the present situation and then adapt the solution we used then to the current problem. Sometimes we confront the possible answer with a filter, usually of a moral, legal or ‘traditional’ nature.
For me this kind of reactions is ‘rational -discursive’: ‘rational’ because it implies rational choice and ‘discursive’ because it is sequenced in time. Moreover both ‘reasoning’ and ‘sequencing’ are made using language – most of us think and remember by speaking to ourselves, right?
Here you have a practical example of these two different attitudes in action: humans stick to what they have already learned because nothing really prods them to change anything to the time proven strategy while the monkey jumps directly to the conclusion once the relevant information becomes available.
The (surprising?) conclusion reached by Victoria Horner: “we are better of because of this!”
Also, our ability to build a discourse about something gives us the ability to make mental projections – to ACT, that is.
