Ironic or what?

August 21, 2013 //
0

David Miranda’s detention!

Am I the only one noticing the irony of all this?

“They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn’t co-operate,”

Miranda?!?

“The U.K. Terrorism Act of 2000 under which he was waylaid allows authorities to question individuals passing through British airports for up to nine hours and to confiscate their property for up to seven days, without any evidence or reasonable suspicion that they have done anything wrong.”

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

Oh, I forgot. He is not an American citizen and this didn’t happen in the US. Actually it didn’t even happen in Great Britain proper either: “What you instead have is a kind of vacuum that is not quite Britain, not quite not Britain, in which this Act enables people to interrogate people for up to nine hours and seize all their belongings with no checks and balances.”

This is indeed the definition of artificial Limbo!

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Categories politics

Natural human rights?!?

August 20, 2013 //
0

Here is a “Chronology of the History of the Rights of Man”.

Nothing natural here. Either you are a believer and then the ‘Rights of Man’ derive from “God created man in his own image” (KJV, 1:27, probably the most important contribution Christianity made to the welfare of the humankind) or you don’t and then you are wise enough as to understand that the communities/nations that applied this concept have fared better in times past and have a lot better chance of surviving whatever the future will throw at them than the rest of them.

Rivers of ink may be used to discuss the matter but the facts are simple. The entire history of man is the history of the individual becoming more and more autonomous by building stronger and stronger ties with the rest of the society. This may sound paradoxically but it isn’t as I’ll try to convince you in the coming days.

If you don’t have enough patience you may read ‘Starship Troopers’ by Robert Heinlein for a more convoluted version of the same argument.

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Categories Culture, Psychology

“The Story of Your Enslavement”

August 19, 2013 //
1

Fright of death enables ‘human farming’.

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Categories Psychology

Over education? I don’t think so.

August 19, 2013 //
0

Somehow I disagree with the notion of ‘over-education’… warped-education maybe?
My take is that nowadays the formal education system errs in two directions: induces false hopes coupled with an ineffective attitude: “Carefully toe the line and everything will come out fine.”
In a way this is true, only for two different groups of people: those who toe the line are not the same as those for whom everything comes out fine.
And this also valid for what is happening in the advertising business.

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Categories Culture, Economy, Psychology

Peter Principle

August 15, 2013 //
0

“[i]n time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties”

The explanation for Peter’s Principle might be NNT‘s concept of fragility: exaggerated reliance on things that worked in the past eventually lead to fragility: the higher management promote individuals according to their PAST performance and those very individuals became more and more self sufficient as they climb up the ladder.
So ‘higher management’ neglect to check if the individual actually has the right qualifications to fulfill his new tasks and the individual neglects to keep on learning new skills as he gets more and more promotions.

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Categories Culture, Psychology

Acid wielding monsters

August 15, 2013 //
0

Monsters.
They had been led to believe by those who raised them, including their mothers, that they were sooo special that they were going to enjoy semi-god status all their lives. And when this didn’t happen, for reasons relative to their behavior or not, they couldn’t stomach the situation and lashed out to those whom they perceived as being the culprits.
So it’s not only their upbringing, it’s just that their upbringing didn’t do anything to tame their overgrown and misshaped egos.
And that’s why I believe they are monsters, deformed beyond their individual capacity to deal with their deformity.
Interestingly enough acid attacks are not a modern occurrence nor perpetrated exclusively by men:
“Vitriol appeared in Europe during the 16th century, and a recorded case of an acid attack occurred in 17th century France under the rule of Louis XIV (Bodnar, Rougo, Grolleau et al 4). Many reports suggest vitriolic attacks were in vogue during the late nineteenth century in the United Kingdom and Europe (Guillais 149; Shapiro 79; Harris 238; Hartman 239).
A ‘wave of vitriolage’ occurred, particularly in France, where in 1879, 16 cases of vitriol attacks went before the assize court; and from 1888 to 1890 there were 83 reported cases (Hartman 240; Guillais 149). The rhetorical and theatrical term La Vitrioleuse was coined, and their violent acts were widely reported in the popular press as ‘crimes of passion’, perpetrated predominantly by women against other women, and “fuelled by jealousy, vengeance or madness and provoked by betrayal or disappointment” (Shapiro 139).”

“IT WAS LIKE BURNING IN HELL”: A COMPARATIVE EXPLORATION OF ACID ATTACK VIOLENCE

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Categories Culture, Psychology

Despre alegeri

August 14, 2013 //
1

Aflindu-ma la Cluj am pus, nevinovat, intrebarea de baraj:
‘- Oare cum a fost reales Boc primar la Cluj dupa ce o tara intreaga l-a dat deoparte ca pe o masea stricata?
– Pentru ca atunci cind a fost primar au mers bine lucrurile in Cluj?
– Pai atunci Tariceanu ar fi trebuit sa castige detasat alegerile din 2008. Romania n-a dus-o niciodata mai bine decit intre 2004 si 2008.
– Da, dar asta nu s-a datorat lui Tariceanu. Asa au fost vremurile, toate tarile din Europa au dus-o bine din punct de vedere economic in perioada aia.
– Si Boc cind a fost primar? Nu tot intre 2004 si 2008?’

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Categories Economy, politics, Psychology

Short term profit or long time survival?

August 13, 2013 //
1

In tough times, abandon your employees! 

Tags
Categories Economy

August 12, 2013 //
0

making the best of what ever happens to you doesn’t necessarily mean that you should put up with what ever shit people throw at you!

Categories Uncategorized

Again about the egg/chicken conundrum

August 12, 2013 //
1

This post was spurred by a very interesting exchange on the FB: 

“Why do people choose negativity over positivity?”

Well… probably because if you pay attention to the ‘wrongs’ of this world you  increase your chances of survival so we are somehow conditioned for this, simply because more of those who don’t die earlier than those who do….

And this brings me to ‘why survive?’

Simple, this is the only way you can enjoy ‘happiness’.

So are we entitled to do whatever, I mean absolutely whatever, in order to survive? Well…
For one it depends on what one understands about survival. For me it isn’t enough to be alive. I also need to be able to meet myself inside my consciousness without being ashamed of myself.
But there is also another reason for us to behave. A normal society responds quickly when individuals start acting in ways that endanger the survival of others.

So what is left of ‘pursuit of happiness’? Maybe this a misunderstanding. If we believe ‘happiness’ to be a valid goal in life then we’ll try to maximize it, sometimes – because we are not ‘perfect’ – at the expense of our survive-ability: we smoke, we eat and drink too much, we do drugs…

What about understanding ‘happiness’ as an indicator for ‘being on the right track’ for long time survival? What about using the good-feeling sensation we experience when we are having a nice meal as an indicator that we had enough instead of an incentive to continue gorging?.

For more information about how to be happy in a ‘survivable’ way try Csikszentmihalyi’s “Flow”.

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Categories Culture, Psychology
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