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Barrabas

April 21, 2022 //
4

We have a fact and two conflicting interpretations.

Barrabas is mentioned in al four gospels.
Which has to mean something.

One interpretation posits that the whole story was made up.
That Barrabas himself was not a real person and that there was no such thing as a “custom whereby the Romans would release a condemned prisoner on the occasion of a holy day“
OK, but for what reason?
“to shift the blame for Jesus’ death away from the Roman authorities and onto the shoulders of the Jews“
By the time the gospels had been written, most of the Christians were living under the Roman authority and outside Palestine. So a little benevolence curried from the Romans couldn’t hurt…
Except the Jews…
“Historically, the release of Barabbas at the crowd’s behest, and their subsequent demands to crucify Jesus, have been used to justify anti-Semitism. Many have placed blame for Christ’s death on the Jews, commonly citing Matthew 27:25, in which the crowd shouts, “His blood be on us and on our children!”“

Another interpretation takes the opposite view.
The whole episode is considered to be true as described and interprets Barrabas as “a flesh-and-blood symbol for you and for me. At this moment the Gospel story paints Barabbas as Everyone. The guilty go free, and the Holy One dies. Barabbas becomes the first one who can say, “Jesus died for me.”“

Being an agnostic, somewhat simplifies things. For me.
At the emotional level, I prefer the second interpretation.
At the rational level, I appreciate the effort made by the first interpretation towards finding a logical explanation for the whole thing. Which explanation might actually be true. In the sense that the evangelists, all four of them, might have indeed tried to lessen the Roman responsibility for Christ’s death.

What bothers me is why so many of the readers have accepted the story as plausible?
A crowd to send a bandit to freedom and an innocent to death?
How likely is this?

But what if the crowd was biased?

Well, not the crowd, since the episode was most likely invented.
The individuals who had a message to convey to their readers. To us.

Let’s start with the beginning. The Old Testament.
According to this writing, the covenants were made between God and the people of Israel. Which gave the people of Israel a special place. They were His people. The chosen ones.
The New Testament changes all this. Jesus died for all of those who accept his sacrifice.
The Jews are no longer the only chosen ones.

The way I see it, the ordinary Jews have no problem with this.
I have no knowledge of Jews discriminating against Christians. Except for the claims made by the anti-Semites…
I’m not so sure though about the likes of Caiaphas… “a member of the council when he gave his opinion that Jesus should be put to death “for the people, and that the whole nation perish not”“
After all, Caiaphas – and all those in the same position, were the only ones who had anything to lose as a consequence of Jesus’s teachings.
As a consequence of all people, not only those who followed the likes of Caiaphas, being able to consider themselves as being children of the same God.
Only the likes of Caiaphas had anything to lose from all followers of Christ considering themselves equal among themselves.

Not at all different from what had happened after Luther had nailed his famous theses to the door of the Wittenberg church.
The established hierarchy felt it’s throne was becoming wobbly and reacted forcefully…

What if the real meaning of the whole Barrabas story is for us, the readers of the Gospels, to be extra careful when we evaluate the ‘recommendations’ given to us by the ‘authorities’ of the moment?
Specially when those ‘authorities’ are about to loose their clout…

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, arrogance, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology

To talk or not to talk…

April 21, 2022 //
0

Just came across this meme.

It was shared on a FB-wall and somebody had commented that “Institutionally they are not your friends.”

My ‘jerked’ comment was:

“Institutionally, cops should be your ‘last resort’ friends.

The fact that too many of them are not, and the fact that too many of us consider them, as a category, to be unfriendly, is proof of how dysfunctional our society has become.

Cops used to be ‘unfriendly’ when I grew up. In communist Romania. When the cops were used, by the communist state, to preserve their power. The communist power over the entire society.

In the free countries of today, the cops are the sole barrier separating our persona and private property from the hands of the criminals.

Without their presence…

Or, putting it the other way around, we have but the cops we deserve. Train and motivate them properly and you’ll have good cops!”

At a second glance, I had an inkling.
Is it possible for the whole thing to be nothing more than a ‘marketing campaign’? Organized by the only people interested in increasing litigation?

Interested in altering the relative stability of our political establishment?

The police, by properly performing their duties – the world over, not only in the communist countries, contribute to the political stability of those respective countries.
For the police to properly perform their duties, there must to exist a proper trust between the general population and the police itself. The population must see the police as their friends of last resort while the police must see the general public as both their employer and their responsibility.
The population must be open in their relationship with the police while the police must treat respectfully every individual, including the suspects and the convicts.

In the communist regime I grew up, the police couldn’t fulfill its duties. Exactly between there was a ‘trust’ barrier between the general public and the police. Between the oppressed and the armed hand of the oppressor.
The communist regime I grew up under, in Romania, had eventually collapsed.
Exactly because of the malignant mistrust between the general public – The People, and the government. The police being nothing but a portion of the government itself.

Who is interested in the collapse of the democratic regimes?
Who is mostly interested in wedging apart the government from The People?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, democracy, effective communication, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, Social justice, teleology, Trust

The worst case scenario.

April 18, 2022 //
1

No, Putin’s henchmen executing a nuclear attack isn’t the worst case scenario.

This is.

People around the world asking themselves ‘how is it possible for an army belonging to a civilized country – one currently holding the right to veto any UN Security Council decision, might behave in such a horrible manner’?!?
How is it possible for a civilized people, the Russian people, to allow something like this to happen?

After the Cold War had been lost by the Soviet Union, the world over was under the impression that the liberal-democratic and capitalist model had ‘won’. That nobody could any longer advocate for an alternative.
Nine years later, Russia was on the verge of collapse. After following – ineptly, the capitalist mantra – greed is good, the Russian people was almost dying of hunger. That’s how the Russians had fallen under Putin’s spell. He had turned around the Russian economy and earned the gratitude of the ordinary Russian people.

  • But he had done nothing but reigning in Yeltsin’s oligarchs… and got filthy rich in the process!

Yes, but the ordinary Russians had enjoyed, for some 15 years, a life they had never thought possible. A life of relative abundance.
At a relatively low cost. At a cost they were already accustomed with.

The Russian people has been been accustomed, since always, to keep its mouth shut.
That’s so deeply ingrained into their minds that most of them never even dream of speaking up….

  • OK, OK… but what is the link between your ‘worst case scenario’ and the Russian people being unable to ‘speak up’?!?

Putin is able to do what he is currently doing because nobody is challenging his decisions.
Nobody inside Russia…

Because nobody inside Russia is challenging his decisions – and a ‘handful’ of ‘dimwits’ actually executes those decisions, the rest of the world is under the impression that the Russian people is OK with what’s going on in Ukraine.

  • And who are you to tell us that ‘regular Ivan’ would challenge Putin’s decisions if he had any opportunity?!?

I didn’t say that!
If you are under that impression, I’m afraid I haven’t made my point yet.

You see, what we really need to do is to ‘fold’ the Russian people into our ‘Weltanschauung’.
To welcome them into our social and cultural space.

The current war will end. One way or another.
Putin will die. Sooner or later.
But until the Russian people will learn that with us is far better that against us… we – all of us, will live on a ‘tight-rope’.

My impression, watching the horrors committed by the Russian army, is that those horrors have been ordered by Putin for one reason. And one reason only.

To convince us, the rest of the world, that the Russian people is nothing but a bunch of savages.
That they deserve no compassion.

That their leader – Putin, must be offered an easy way out – at the expense of the Ukrainians, and that the Russian people must be left to rot at his disposal.
That the Russian people deserves nothing. Nothing but to be left at the mercy of their ruthless and mind-twisting sheep-master.

That is the worst case scenario.
Us accepting that another people, any people, is worthless.

Putin’s followers – Le Pen and Orban being but the most obvious examples, are eagerly waiting for that to happen.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology

Pe Drumul către Iad

April 4, 2022 //
0

Dacă aș crede în Dumnezeu, Rusia lui Putin ar fi pentru mine Diavolul.
Dar nu cred. Așa că spuneți dumneavoastră cum pot fi numiți acei români care vor continua să fie putiniști, neutraliști și relativiști în fața Iadului adus în lume de ruși?

De fiecare dată când cineva spune „iadul adus pe lume de ruși” putiniștii își freacă mâinile.

Iadul a fost adus pe lume, iadul despre care vorbim acum, de către Putin. Ajutat de câteva mâini la fel de criminale ca ale lui și de către o mare masă de ‘nedumeriți’ care, practic, (încă) nu-și dau seama ce li se întâmplă.

Atunci când spunem „iadul a fost adus pe lume de ruși”, adică de toți rușii, îi băgăm pe toți în aceiași oală. În aceiași oală ‘criminală’.

Adică îi facem jocul lui Putin!

Ce își doresc dictatorii? Toți dictatorii?

Ca ‘supușii’ lor să stea ‘strâns uniți în jurul „Marelui Conducător”’?

Ce ne dorim noi, cei care vrem să scăpăm de alde Putin?

Ca ‘supușii’ să vadă, odată, cât de ‘gol’ este împăratul lor?

Și cum să facă supușii acest lucru? Cum să vadă cât de gol este împăratul dacă noi, cu pana noastră, îi împingem, strâns, cu spatele la respectivul împărat?!?

Dacă, prin cuvintele noastre, validăm minciunile împărătești?
El, Putin, le spune rușilor că fără el, fără protecția lui, sunt pierduți.
Iar noi, care abia așteptăm să scăpăm de Putin – adică abia așteptăm ca rușii să ne scape de Putin, spunem că ‘rușii aduc iadul pe pământ’…

Mai întâi trebuie să facem noi diferența între criminali și nedumeriți.

Abia după aceea putem să pretindem nedumeriților să vadă goliciunea lui Putin.

Și, ca să răspund la întrebare, românii care continuă să fie putiniști după toate cele întâmplate sunt, și ei, de două feluri. Criminali – plătiți sau, efectiv, ‘duși cu pluta’, și ‘nedumeriți’.
Și aici trebuie să învățăm – tot noi, cei care ne pretindem democrați deschiși la minte, cum să-i deosebim.
Altfel nu vom reuși niciodată să-i ajutăm pe nedumeriți să deschidă ochii.

Tratându-i pe toți la fel, ca pe niște „vite”, îi vom ajuta pe criminali să mâne întreaga ‘cireadă’ – inclusiv pe noi, la abator!

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Categories 1989, alegerile pe care le facem, autoritarism, cadre mentale, Ce tara lasam copiilor nostri?, comunicare efectiva, constiinta de sine, cooperare, Cu pielea la bataie, Democratie, evolutie, identitate colectiva, In limba Romana, Incredere, Intentie, Omul ca masura a tuturor lucrurilor, politica, psihologie, Respect Mutual., teleology

White Washing

March 31, 2022 //
0
Putin advisers ‘too afraid to tell him the truth’ on Ukraine: US official
“Putin didn’t even know his military was using and losing conscripts in Ukraine, showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian president,” the official said.

There are two ‘things’ which collide here.

Dictators tend to drive away really competent people and those remaining tend to put the entire blame on the ‘guy on top’.

As many of you already know, I grew up in the communist Romania. Ruled by Nicolae Ceausescu, the dictator who ended up being shot on Christmas Day, 1989.

At 28, I was already familiar with the notion of ‘yes-people’. Decision makers who ruled our daily lives were surrounded by people who provided the ‘right’ answers, effectively isolating the decision makers from the reality.
This ‘development’ being the fundamental explanation for how all dictatorial regimes, including the communist ones, ended up in abject failure. For ‘how’, not for ‘why’ – but this is another issue.

After Ceausescu was toppled, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I first heard

‘He didn’t know what was going on. Had his close advisers kept him in touch with the real situation, he would have taken the proper decisions to rectify things’

Really?!?

Who had selected his ‘close advisers’?!?

Who prevented him from asking ‘a second opinion’? From stepping out of his office and ….

Who, step by step, had ‘created’ the ‘atmosphere’ which had driven all those unwilling to lick where ‘he’ had spat to flee, living ‘him’ surrounded by sycophants?

Sycophants attempting, after Ceausescu had been toppled, to pile all the blame on his shoulders…

I’m afraid we are witnessing a replay, with Putin as the lead character.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, manipulation, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

I shed some this morning.

March 17, 2022 //
0

I grew up in a communist country, Romania.

Russian films were ‘readily’ available.
Some of them were good. Really good.

Besides going to the movies, I was an avid reader.
I must confess that the ‘great Russian classics’ didn’t impress me. No special reason.
But I did read a lot of Russian literature. About the partizans fighting the Nazis during WWII, about the communists fighting for freedom – for their version of freedom, in the early ‘920-ies, some Sci-Fi novels about the happy lives the Russians were going to live in the next millennium.

This morning I was listening to the radio.
The news bulletin was, of course, about what’s going on in Ukraine.

A refugee, a woman who had fled accompanied by her young daughter – her husband and her son remained at home to fight, was speaking in her native language.
I know that Ukrainian is different from Russian. But for my ears they sound very much the same.

Imagine what I felt.

I grew up associating the Russian language with the struggle for freedom. With the promise of a better world.

As I learned things… my understanding of history had become more ‘nuanced’.
The Soviet Union had collapsed after Afghanistan. The regime finally got what was coming to it.
As Putin crushed Chechnya, killed Litvinenko, ‘peacefully’ occupied Crimea … things were no longer ‘nuanced’…

But this!

They say that an image is worth a thousand words… I’m no longer sure about that!

There is so much violence paraded in front of our yes that our ‘retina’ has become calloused.

Hearing that brave woman trying to convey her tragedy in a language I associated in my childhood with the promise of liberty really did it for me.

This time the oppressor itself was speaking Russian.
Russian soldiers were doing the very same thing the Russian people had experienced during the WWII. And they were doing it to their ‘brothers’.

Russian soldiers were turning Kyiv into rubble!
Kyiv, the birth place of the Rus-ian people…

All this conveyed in a language which, for me, sounds very much the same as the language I had associated in my childhood with the quest for freedom.

I wept.

Hoping the Kremlin will learn to understand tears.
Maybe not the present ruler but at least the stony walls…

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, evolution, human rights, In English, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

‘Hiccups’ in time

March 4, 2022 //
0

Circa 840, “three noble brothers” of Viking origin – Rurik, Sineus and Truvor, established “what came to be called Kievan Rus”.

“Rus,” which is where the name “Russia” comes from, purportedly derives from an old Nordic word for “men who row.”

882. Oleg the Prophet captures Kyiv and moves the capital of the Viking kingdom from Novgorod to Kyiv.
Thus the Rus becomes Kievan.

1703. Peter the Great of Rus-sia established Sank Petersburg as a bulwark against the Swedish Kingdom.
The city served as Russia’s capital from 1712 to 1918

1941. Hitler breaks the German Soviet Non Aggression Pact and starts a war against the Soviet Union.
Leningrad – the city formerly known as Sankt Petersburg, had been put under siege from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944

2022. February 24. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the present day ruler of Rus-sia, in complete defiance of the Budapest Memorandum, started a “special military operation” meant to achieve the “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,”

Kyiv hasn’t been besieged yet but has already been under heavy bombardment.

I’m Romanian.
Romanians don’t have very fond memories of what had happened to their country whenever the Russian soldiers had come by to ‘visit’.
As a teenager I read The 900 Days The Siege of Leningrad, 1968, by Harrison Salisbury

And wept.

Now, an already old man, I check out, on the Internet, what’s going out in Kyiv – the former capital of the Kievan Rus.

And weep.

Homo homini lupus has become a massive understatement.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, fail better, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

After you get used to it…

March 3, 2022 //
0

My late mother used to quote a co-worker:

After you get used to it, being hanged becomes bearable.

Let me give you some context.

I live in Romania. You know, that country which shot its dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, on the Christmas Day 1989.

I was drafted to the army in October 1980. When I left home, you could still find food to buy. Soap, chocolate, washing powder, toilet paper… you name it. Nothing fancy but life was ‘normal’.
Nine months later, in July 1981, food was already scarce.

In 1985, things were already bad. You had to queue up for anything you needed. For all of the above mentioned items.

By 1988, things had become even worse. On top of what I had already mentioned, rolling blackouts were common. Those of us who lived in apartments connected to central heating were ‘enjoying’ running hot water for only a few hours a day/a few days a week. And shivered during the entire winter.

I’m telling you all these because in December 1989 most of us were hugely surprised when communism had fallen. With a bang.

We’d become so accustomed with what was happening to us that we were convinced our lives were ‘normal’.

Compare that to what you see below.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that we had only 1 (one) TV channel. Which was on for 2 hours each working day from Monday to Saturday and 12 hours on Sunday. And 80% of what was churned out was pure propaganda.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, democracy, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

Which sanctions do not work

February 26, 2022 //
0

This is a stub.

Basically, this post will reinterpret the arguments used in the previous one.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, arrogance, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Psychology, teleology, Trust

Confusion versus misunderstanding

February 26, 2022 //
0

This is a stub.

‘This time is different’. https://www.economist.com/media/pdf/this-time-is-different-reinhart-e.pdf

History teaches us that each and every empire has collapsed. Usually under it’s own weight. Pareto has given us a valid explanation – each structure which doesn’t have to ‘refresh’ itself tends to become clogged with self serving individuals, near-sighted enough to ‘forget’ that none of them (none of us, actually) is able to survive ‘outside’. Yet each ’emperor’ allows themselves to believe that this time is different. I’m better than all my predecessors. And their followers allow this to happen, just as Pareto had taught us.

‘They is a rational operator hence they must have a reasonable objective’.
That’s how people raised/educated in a reasonable environment think/interpret the actions of other people.
This being the reason for democratically groomed leaders having such a hard time when they need to understand how dictators operate. This being the reason for democratically groomed political operators having such a hard time when it comes to identify skillful would be dictators.

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/russias-road-to-autocracy/

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Categories 1989, arrogance, Bounded rationality, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, Stub, teleology, Trust
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