Archives for category: The kind of world we are building for our children
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Three rules

May 13, 2021 //
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1. Always remember that your ‘ride’ doubles up as your home.
And as your pantry!
‘Redecorate’ with extreme caution and be extra careful when it comes to ‘waste disposal’. For the simple reason that today’s stool will, sometime in the near future, become tomorrow’s lunch. No ‘ride’ is infinite, you know… “all come from dust, and all return to dust“, remember?

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently captured a unique view of Earth from the spacecraft’s vantage point in orbit around the moon.

2. Treat the entire ‘crew’ as your family. For the simple reason that no mutiny has ever ended well… Even the winning parties have been presented with huge ‘cleaning up’ bills… while there is a very short supply of desert – but habitable – ‘islands’ where the loosing parties might be left to fend for themselves. So, in the end, all those interested in continuing their lives must – the sooner the better – find where is the middle ground between them.

Another fantastic thing to see at the fortified church of Biertan is the marital prison, precisely what its name suggests. Legend has it that whenever a married couple in Biertan wanted to divorce, they had to go through a particular test first. They were locked inside a room within the fortified church walls, and they were forced to use one bed, one chair, and one set of cutlery for two whole weeks. 
After this time period, if they still wanted to divorce, they were free to do so. However, in 400 years, only one couple is said to have gone through with the divorce in the end. If that’s not exemplary couples therapy, I don’t know what is.  

3. ‘I’ll be dead long before the hit shits the fan’ is no longer a viable option.
If Covid hasn’t taught you that already…
There’s a huge difference between dying comfortably in your bed, with a cold glass of water just a wish away, and gasping for air, alone, with other moribund people as your only company!

“Beyond the images, the cremation grounds bear a painful routine of trauma that will weigh on families long after the headlines fade. The pandemic has stripped the final rites of their usual space and dignity.
Instead, this intimate ritual has become both a public display, with the world watching India’s crisis, and a lonely burden.”

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, biology, 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, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

Freedom

May 4, 2021 //
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Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

Get a vaccine, wear a mask…

“You can’t deprive others of their liberty without forfeiting your own. Liberty is lost with every person seeking to control others for their comfort and sentiment.”

Getting a vaccine and wearing a mask are sensible things to do, right?

Establishing a free environment, where all individuals might enjoy their liberties, is also a sensible thing!

For the simple reason that even a casual examination of history provides ample proof that freer societies fare far better than those which curtail individual freedoms.

Simpler said than done…
Mention the mandatory mask and the imperative advice to get vaccinated to those passionate about individual liberty and you have a hornets’ nest on your hands.

Or maybe this is an excellent occasion to discuss the ‘gap’ we constantly need to bridge between individual freedoms and a free society?

Can you have a free society composed of slaves?

The answer depends on who gives it to you.
I’d spent the first 30 years of my life under communist rule.
My country, Romania, was declared, by those who were ruling it at that time, as being free. Both domestically and internationally.
The only free individual was the ruler. Nicolae Ceausescu. He was the only guy who could do as he pleased. And only for a while… Until 25 December 1989…
In the end, the regime had crumbled and the only ‘free’ individual had met with the consequences of how he had chosen to use his freedom.

So no, you cannot have a free society when one individual, or a group of individuals, impose their will on everybody else.

‘Your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins’

Otherwise put, if you refuse to get vaccinated/wear a mask you might be instrumental in getting me sick. Or dead.

‘Might’! It’s the ‘might’ part which troubles you!
Why should you shoulder a minimal risk/discomfort for my safety? Specially when you’re not convinced that my safety is in danger… Or, maybe, you’re thinking ‘let him take whatever precautionary measures he considers to be necessary!’

Because of India, that’s why!

Do you consider present day India to be a free society?
Do you consider that people currently living in India are truly enjoying their freedom? Today?!?

And no, I’m not going to contrast what’s going on in India with what the Chinese government had done.
First pretend nothing had happened then lock up the entire population.

No!
I’m going to contrast what’s going on in India with how the ‘other’ China had reacted to the Covid pandemic. Or with the South Korean response.

Different economic realities… Different cultures…
Maybe!
But also different levels of economic and social disruption!

Don’t tell me that what’s going on in today’s India won’t have repercussions!

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, freedom, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children

Nature

April 27, 2021 //
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Nature is made of atoms.

Same thing is valid for viruses. And for people.

Both viruses and people are atoms put together according to specific sets of rules.
Further more, the same sets of specific rules determine how each of them interact with the places where each of them happen to live.

I need to make a pause here.
And mention the fact that life alters, profoundly – if given enough time, the space where it ‘unfolds’.
For instance, the blue-green algae have transformed the Earth atmosphere into what it is today.

We balk at it today but blue-algae, also known as Cyanobacteria, is responsible for the Earth atmosphere having so much free oxygen.

Same thing is valid for viruses. And for people.

Viruses which kill too much of what they get in contact with do not survive for long.
They either peter out, like Ebola usually does, or have been wiped out. Like small pox was. And polio is close to be.

People who destroy too much around them… soon find out they no longer have a viable home.

And this is valid both for individuals and for the entire species.

Nature, on the other hand, doesn’t care.
It simply goes on.

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

Stupidity vs Malice

April 6, 2021 //
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I feel the need to disagree vehemently!

The malicious has made an option. Had chosen. Willingly! And, supposedly – according to the hypothesis being discussed here, knowingly.

The ‘stupid’ just stays put. Until the relevant information penetrates his ‘thick skull’.
It’s not his fault that those who attempt to convince him are not skillful enough.

And if the ‘stupid’ happens to be in a ‘powerful’ position… (hence his inability to understand fast enough is liable to produce considerable damage) who needs to be chastised?

The ‘stupid’ himself? Who presumably ‘doesn’t have a clue’ about what’s going on?
The malicious who had made the whole situation possible?
The ‘lazy bystandards’? Who had allowed this to happen? Out of carelessness?

Or those who are liable to suffer the consequences? Who had understood what was going on but…

On the other hand… Could Dietrich Bonhoefer – a renowned pastor and theologian, utter such ‘simplistic’ words? So callous?

“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”

Click to access Dietrich_Bonhoeffer_Letters_from_Prison.pdf
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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices that we make, collective identity, complementary ways of attending knowlege, effective communication, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children

Artificial intelligence

March 10, 2021 //
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I had recently shared this image on FB:

“Those are called Witches Stairs. Allegedly, witches can’t climb up them. You will occasionally find them in very, very old New England homes.

(photo by Daphne Canard)”

Yesterday I got a notice from FB:

I presume this was the ‘consequence’ of some artificial intelligence employed by FB doing its job.

Doesn’t make much sense but…

For whatever reason, I made a screen capture of the notice and shared it on FB.
A friend asked me about the original post.
I looked it up and it was no longer there!
I searched FB for the picture… and there it was. Shared multiple times by multiple people. Sometimes with the accompanying text, sometimes baren.
And, at least once, bearing a very similar warning:

I’m not questioning FB motives for fact checking the information on its walls.
That’s a good idea.
Only I’m not so sure the ‘artificial’ intelligence FB uses to implement that idea is intelligent enough for the task….

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Categories awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children

Mental gymnastics

March 9, 2021 //
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Meghan and Harry had a chat with Oprah.
Which had eventually been broadcasted on TV.
Basically, there was nothing new nor really interesting there. For me, anyway.
Yet there’s a lot of reaction.

I don’t really care about the reason for which the royals have treated Markle the way they did.
About the reason which convinced the couple to speak up.
The individual reasons for those who comment on the internet to do it as each of them had chosen to do it.

There are two points I need to make here.

The fact that they are rich and famous doesn’t change the fact that the oppression they’re speaking about is real….Maybe they experience it differently… maybe they have it easier when speaking about it… but opression continues to be dealt. Among us, by people like us.

And, secondly but just as important, those three weren’t discussing about mere oppression.
They were talking about racist oppression!

Could this be the reason for so many people taking issues on this subject?

I fully agree with Sowell but the fact that Sowell is right doesn’t change the fact that we’re the ones responsible for present day racism.

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

Cancel culture?!?

February 16, 2021 //
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‘Are you nuts? or something?
Isn’t exactly this what the Europeans had been doing all over the world? For the last five centuries?
And you attempt to ‘nuance’ it?
Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?!?’

Ashamed of what some of my predecessors have done, yes!
Also ashamed of what some of my contemporaries are doing.
Right now, as opposed to back then.

And since there’s nothing to be done about the past, but to learn from it, and everything to be done about the future, right now, I’d rather have at least some of those statues still standing.

In public squares!
Maybe not in the same places, maybe not in the same settings. But still in public!
Hiding them in museums would mean taking them out of the limelight. Out of public scrutiny!
If we are to learn anything from past mistakes we must focus on them. Putting those statues aside because we feel too strongly about them would only serve those who don’t want to admit mistakes had been perpetrated. Who actually don’t want to own our past.

Those who had promoted Jim Crow legislation had erected the confederate statues as a symbol of their regained public influence.
Obliterating the statues won’t make anything suddenly right. The consequences of Jim Crow won’t disappear, as if by magic, along with the statues. They didn’t disappear when the legislation had been abolished and they won’t disappear now.
If we want to put the past behind us, we must accomplish what has to be accomplished. We need to make things right, not hide away the prickliest pieces of evidence.

Demolishing statues won’t help any of those living in still segregated neighborhoods. Won’t help the children going to heavily underfunded schools. And so on…
Demolishing statues will only help those who will certainly ask, in a few short years, if nothing changes in our hearts and minds:

What more do they want?!?

We’ve even dispatched those damn statues!!!

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Categories 1989, authoritarianism, awareness, Black Lives Matter, Bounded rationality, Choices that we make, collective identity, democracy, Economy, effective communication, evolution, In English, limited rationality, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children, Transparency, Trust

“Cultural Dementia”

February 14, 2021 //
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“The popularity of authors like Deutsch, Sandbrook and Foote – men of very different calibre in many different ways, but all wordsmiths who form history into desirably unchallenging packages for certain kinds of audience – is undeniable. It points to a conclusion that the wider historical profession, from schoolteachers to internationally renowned critical scholars, struggles to overcome. People, and specially people from priviledged groups, do not want historians to tell them bad things about their tresured identities. They will, indeed, forcefully react against such challenges, when given the political rallying-calls that allow them to do so. In that sense, it must be said, they do not want history. They want what they are increasingly getting: a cosy blanket of half remembering and convenient forgetting that is cushioning their slide down the slope to full-blown cultural dementia.”

Cultural Dementia, David Andress, 2018

If you have the stomach for the whole of it…

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Categories arrogance, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices that we make, collective identity, complementary ways of attending knowlege, cooperation, democracy, evolutie, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, moral hazard, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we are building for our children

O Tempora, O Mores…

December 15, 2020 //
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A few short weeks ago, Trump and his supportes were celebrating the Supreme Court as the last bastion of normalcy. As they saw it…
Presently, the still President of the United States acuse many of the judges, including all members of the Supreme Court, of not having ‘enough courage’.

Consequences?

Who could have imagined something like this a few short years ago?
The most powerfull democracy on Earth being the scene of such a tantrum?

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

‘Me first’ versus ‘We, together’.

December 15, 2020 //
0

Socialism!!!

Yeah.. tell that to Otto von Bismark…

Why did I even mention his name?
Simple. He was the first secular – anti-clerical, to be more precise, political leader to consider a society as an ‘organism’.
He passionately hated the self styled ‘socialists’ yet he had treated the ‘working class’ a lot fairer than the future ‘popular democracies’ which revindicated themselves from Marx’s teachings.

But enough, for now, about Marx’s blunders.

Who among us has not yet read a personal improvement book?
And what was it about?
How to make yourself ‘better’?

How to ‘stand out’?!?

How many of you have read a ‘personal improvement’ book which mentioned ‘fitting in’ as opposed to ‘standing out’ at all costs?
Finding a place where your contribution will make a more significant ‘difference’ towards the shared well being versus making ‘your’ difference more noticeable to the whole world?

‘Do such books even exist?!?’

Yep!
And the first three which come to my mind – well, four actually, are:

– The Bible,

– The Wealth of Nations – coupled with The Theory of Moral Sentiments, of course,

– The Origin and Evolution of Species.

Also helpful would be
– What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr and
– The Social Construction of Reality by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann.

I’d start with the last two though. And then jump directly to Adam Smith.

Happy reading!

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, In English, Intent, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust
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