It’s absolutely normal, and perfectly OK, for magnolias to be in full bloom on the First of March.
In Bucharest.
Climate change is a leftist hoax!
Hoax
0
Tao, Karma, Future
Time, like everything else human, has two sides. Like a coin.
A ‘base’ and an interpretation.
There’s no interpretation without a base – even hallucinations are based on ‘something’ – and there’s nothing which has penetrated human conscience and ever managed to evade interpretation.
In fact, human conscience needs to interpret, to assign meaning to, everything it ‘sees’. Everything it perceives.
Anything which is uninterpretable, which has no meaning, cannot be controlled. It is, hence, dangerous.
If you don’t know what’s going to happen next, you can assume anything. And since assuming the worst – and preparing for it – is far more useful towards survival than sleeping over it, we are biased towards erring on the side of caution. And towards relentlessly searching for meaning.
Time, like everything else human, is both a phenomenon – it happens – and a concept.
The difference between the ‘time’ of a star and the human time being that ours has a name – given by us – and that the star cannot do anything about it. While we do!
We can do things to and about time!
We named it, we measure it, we attempt to interpret it…. and we try to do the best of it!
We try to do, while alive, what we consider to be ‘the best’.
The best (?!?) for whom?
Tao.
The ‘road’.
If everything flows, it has to flow ‘somewhere’.
Not only from the start/spring to the ‘end’ (?!?)/never tranquil sea. Everything flowing needs a ‘riverbed’ to flow ‘through’. A plant needs soil to sprout, grow, bear fruit and ‘return to nature’. Even a star needs an Universe in order to shine… besides enough ‘fuel’, of course!
I have started this post by saying that there’s no interpretation without a ‘base’ and that we, conscious human beings, need to attach meaning (a.k.a. interpretations) to everything of which we become aware.
Same thing here. For anything to happen, a venue is needed. Some wise people in our past have used ‘Tao’ as a name for THE venue. For the venue where everything takes place.
Karma.
At first, when conscience had dawned on us, we were alone in the ‘dark’. And afraid about what was going to happen to us. To assuage that fear, we have identified God. As the ‘the meaning’ of the world.
At first, when both the world and time seemed to be endless – to us, consequences came from God. We had to behave. Or else…
God was there to punish each and every transgression. Sometimes using one of us as his proxy.
After a while, some of our ancestors have learned to write. To reliably transfer information over generations. Very soon, those ancestors of ours have learned the link between cause and effect. Between behavior and consequence. Very soon God had become an outside observer. Or was out-rightly forgotten. But Karma survived.
Future.
I keep hearing that ‘evolution has no purpose’.
Like many other human utterances, this one conveys far more information about the utterer than about the phenomenon described by the utterer.
‘This wooden table has 4 legs’.
We learn about the table that it is in front of us, that it is made of wood and ‘has’ 4 legs.
We learn about the utterer that:
It was conscious when uttering those words. Only conscious agents are capable of ‘speaking like a human’.
It has, at some point, learned to speak. English, and possibly other languages.
It has, at some point, learned to count. At least up to four. And it had conserved that ability up the moment when it uttered those words.
It was capable of identifying ‘wood’ as a material.
When uttering that phrase, it was in a ‘casual’ state of mind. A ‘scientifically minded person’, a ‘grammar nazy’, for example – when in that mood, would not attribute human ‘abilities’ to a table. Which table is a mere object and objects cannot posses other objects. Tables cannot ‘have’, hence that person was speaking colloquially.
Or, given the current ‘technological’ developments, those words might have very well been uttered by a statistically ‘minded’ AI application…. A man made ‘parrot’!
See what I mean?
Let’s go back to the presumably purposeless evolution.
Evolution is a phenomenon. Like a thunder. It takes a lot more time to unfold than a thunder, it’s about as hard as a thunder to predict the exact point where it will ‘strike’ but we know enough about both to be able to point out, quite reliably, a few ‘rules’ about how both phenomena take place. About where, when and how they will unfold.
What’s the purpose of thunder? To ‘close the circuit’? To discharge the energy pent up in the cloud?
I’m afraid that attributing purpose to thunder is akin to allowing tables to ‘have’ legs. What we have here is a ‘figure of speech’. An ‘implicit’ figure of speech… so implicit that it’s not even considered as such…
Same thing when it comes to evolution.
Which evolution is paramount to survival.
Just as no cloud can accumulate ad infinitum electric energy – hence thunder – no living thing ever – no species, more exactly – has yet been able to survive ‘everything’. Everything mother nature has thrown at it.
Hence ‘evolution’! Which is a mere process which makes life possible. In certain conditions – in a certain Tao – after it had sprung up. And, again, attributing purpose to evolution is akin to allowing a table to own legs.
Then what about ‘future’?
If God no longer decides for us – the God we have identified – and if evolution is ‘pointless’… then ‘future is blind’?!?
Not so fast!
Question: Where was God at Auschwitz?
Answer: Where was man at Auschwitz?
Could any of those present at Auschwitz have done anything to fundamentally change the outcome?
Probably not.
Could we, as a species, have done – have behaved, actually – in such a manner as to avoid Auschwitz altogether? Specially after the Armenian Genocide had already taken place?
Should we, as a species, have done differently when so many Tutsi had been killed in Rwanda?
When 8000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys had been murdered in Srebrenica?
See what I mean?
About the future?
About our future?
“Eternity and endless return?”
Or past mistakes haunting us through time?
Until we figure out the way forward? Or else…
Un tip, cel din imaginea de mai sus, s-a apucat și el să facă influencing pe Tic-Tok.
Și cică i-a ieșit! Nu stiu câte milioane de vizualizări…
Drept pentru care s-au repezit tot felul de ‘invidioși’ să-l înjure. Că-i prost, ca are burtă, că ‘halatul’…, că ‘asta-i țara’…
Măi oameni buni… chill că dați în alte alea!
Omul ăsta face misto!
Voi ați urmărit clipul? Click pe poză și ne vedem după…
Tipul zice că vrea să facă cafea cu lapte punând lapte în machineta! Adică în expresorul ăla care se pune pe aragaz… Normal că laptele s-ar arde și ar apărea ‘plasticul’! Doar că tipul nici măcar nu s-a obosit să strice o machineta….
În ce priveste plasticul din lapte, adică microplasticul din laptele pe care-l mâncăm, treaba e cât se poate de serioasă:
https://spotmedia.ro/stiri/sanatate/premiera-alarmanta-a-fost-gasit-plastic-si-in-laptele-matern
http://journal.pan.olsztyn.pl/Microplastics-in-a-Traditional-Turkish-Dairy-Product-Ayran,163061,0,2.html
‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic
in order to be True.
It also needs to be epistemologically correct.’
Oscar Hoffman, 1930-2017
This morning (February 22, 2013, thanks FB) I had a very interesting discussion with my son.
Trying to ‘soften’ him up to my arguments I said: “I don’t understand how a person with such a command of logic as yourself is unwilling to accept that…”
I should have seen this coming:
“If you have such an admiration for MY logic why don’t YOU accept that…”
That very moment I recalled a lecture by Professor Oscar Hoffman: ‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic…’
How do you translate that to a 13 years old?
“Look here. Being Logical is only the beginning. You cannot do anything without it but it isn’t enough just by itself. It’s only the formal side of Things”.
And that was the very moment when inspiration hit me:
“Let me give you an example. You have a lot of wooden pieces: spheres, cubes, pyramids, cylinders, cones..etc. and two boards with holes in them: circles, squares, triangles. Your task is to put each wooden piece through the corresponding hole but you must also follow a second rule: half the wooden pieces are made of red oak and they belong to the red board while the other half are made of birch and they belong to the blue board”.
“Let’s presume you have no idea about either geometry or kinds of wood. Using logic you might separate red oak from fir using the grain and then learn to thread various shapes each through the corresponding hole. But no amount of logic will ever enable you to associate the correct pile of wooden pieces to which colored board unless somebody tells you which pile is made of red oak and which pile is made of fir.
Savvy?”
I’m proud to report that he got the point!
Present day edit.
He remembers the discussion but neither of us can recall where it started!
“Man as a measure for all things“
In order to survive, individual organisms have to ‘communicate’ with their exterior. To import nutrients and to export the by-products of their metabolism.
In order to thrive, individual organisms need to know as much as possible about what’s going on as far as possible.
In order to maintain their congruence – read sanity, individual organisms which happen to be aware of their own selves have to make sense of what’s going on around them.
We, the only fully conscious beings know to man – to us, gather information using what we call ‘senses’. In order to survive, thrive and make sense of the world we smell, taste, touch, listen to and look at it. At the world.
Smelling and tasting have very much in common with ‘feeding’. The organism ‘imports’ tiny bits from the surrounding reality and uses them to learn things about what’s going on around it.
Touching is the first sense which ‘closes’ the frontier between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’.
Hearing is about becoming aware of other things interacting among themselves. Hearing a stream flowing means water moving relative to the banks. Also, hearing means both the hearer’s ears and the interacting things reside inside the same sound transmitting medium.
Seeing means becoming aware of light bouncing off things happening to be ‘in range’. The seer’s ability to see depends on light being emitted in such a manner as to be reflected – or obscured – by the observed object towards the eyes of the seer.
Making sense of things means integrating gathered information into a scenario where no piece of information contradicts any other. Specially any byte of information stored in the long term memory and held to be true.
Language is the tool we use to convey information.
To speak our minds…
The consequences of tool use – messages, in this case – depend on the yielder.
The consequences of shooting a gun depend mainly on the person aiming the gun.
The consequences of using language … depend on those who are at the both ends of the ‘barrel’.
Messages – consequences of language being used to put together batches of information with the intent of transmitting them to an audience – are interpreted as soon as they reach their ‘target’.
Meaning – what the receptor makes of a message, using the same languaging tools as those put to work by the emitter – depends mainly on the receptor. In fact, most of the times, there’s more information to be gleaned from a message than that intended to be conveyed by the person initiating the exchange.
The text attributed to Orwell is too simplistic and too misleading to had been penned by Orwell.
Hence Google…
“There is no substantive evidence that George Orwell who died in 1950 made this remark. The earliest known matching statement appeared in a column in the Washington Times newspaper written by the film critic and essayist Richard Grenier in 1993“
If interested in who said what and what Orwell thought about the subject… just click on the link above.
I’ll only add the reasons for which I know it to be a misleading affirmation.
The factual truth is that only dictators need to be guarded by rough men during their sleep. And during the rest of their lives…
We, the rest of ‘the people’, go to sleep at night knowing there’s only a very slim chance to be targeted by thieves. Yes, we know that the police will likely come to investigate after the fact. After the fact…
But we also know that we are less likely to fall prey to violence than those living in other countries because our societies work better than those which are more violent than ours.
Because our society works better, not because we employ more ‘rough men’ to guard us…
On the contrary!
The more violent a country, the more ‘popular’ the ‘rough men’ are. On both ‘sides of the isle’!
And the more violent a country, the less peacefully people sleep in that country…
And the truth shall set you free.
There’s no other meaning but that attached by men to the stories they had spun themselves. For their own use.
Children are afraid of the dark. Not of ‘darkness’ but of ‘the dark’.
Children, not babies!
All babies let us know when they wake up. For the simple reason that they wake up to eat. Or to have their diapers changed.
With small children – babies who had developed a certain level of self awareness – things are a little more complicated. They need more than simple sustenance. They need to learn. Their budding consciences needs to fit themselves into the world. Play being the first step.
But play is impossible ‘in the dark’. Specially when previous experiences, hastened by ‘well meant warnings from well wishing adults’, suggest that ‘the dark’ is full of ‘hidden’ dangers.
In fact, it’s actually fascinating to observe how self awareness transforms darkness into the dark.
Sheep – who are hunted during the night by various predators – don’t go into depression at sunset. OK, sheep are never alone and their senses – other than vision – are far sharper than ours. But I’m sure you understand what I’m driving at. While the rest of the animals do not have problems related to darkness, we – humans – are not comfortable in ‘the dark’. To the tune of developing various forms of phobia. From claustrophobia to agoraphobia.
Simply because conscience – our ability to observe ourselves experiencing life – realizes it can observe/control less when in ‘the dark’. When its ability to see/influence what’s going on is reduced.
The point being that it’s our consciousness which makes the difference between darkness – lack of light – and ‘the dark’. That place/situation in which the conscious agents who cannot see/intervene experience their impotence.
And call it for what it is.
‘The dark’.
We, the people
Imagine yourself living some 4000 years ago.
Yes, you who have enough spare time to read things like these and are open minded enough to continue.
Who don’t worry too much about what you’re going to eat tomorrow and who would like to figure out what life’s about. What’s the meaning of all this which is going on around you.
You who have just figured out you’re different from the rest of the animals.
That you’re able to think.
And that you’ll never make it alone.
That no matter how smart you are, you’ll never be able to pull it on your own.
That no matter how strong you are, now, you’ll always need to be helped by your brethren.
E plin orașul de reclame care te invită să-ți montezi panouri fotovoltaice pe casă.
În condiții foarte avantajoase. Tu dai vreo 2000 de lei, programul european plătește restul până la 3.5 kw iar firma care montează pune și ea 1,5 kw.
Durează ceva dar după ce termini… ți-a pus dumnezeu mâna în cap!
Nu mai plătești curentul în viața ta…
O instalație de 5kw produce într-un an între 3,5 și 5,5 Mwh, in funcție de orientarea panourilor.
Adică ai de consumat minim 300 kwh pe lună.
Asta până îți vine prima factură….
Și constați că trebuie să plătești TVA pentru curentul produs de tine și depozitat în rețea!
Lucrurile merg cam așa.
Panourile produc curent atunci când bate lumina pe ele. Adică ziua. Iar dacă bate soarele, produc mult mai mult decât poate consuma o gospodărie normală. Ceea ce e OK. Curentul produs în plus este injectat în rețea – că d-aia se cheamă că ești prosumator – și recuperat noaptea, iarna și în zilele când nu bate soarele. Curentul injectat în rețea este vândut de distribuitor ‘la botul calului’, adică vecinilor tăi. Fără nici un fel de cost, pe moment, pentru distribuitorul de curent. Fără cheltuieli de transport, practic fără pierderi…
Asta din punct de vedere tehnic.
Din punct de vedere comercial… se schimba lucrurile.
Practica actuală este ca distribuitorul să-ți trimită o factură din care rezultă că tu, prosumator, trebuie să plătești TVA pentru curentul pe care îl iei din rețea. Curent pe care tot tu l-ai impins mai devreme acolo!
Bine, în factura aia mai apar niște chestii dar…
Hai să o luăm altfel.
Legislația prevede că atunci când are loc un ‘schimb de proprietate’ între o firmă plătitoare de TVA și un client al său, firma facturează și clientul achită o taxă pe valoarea adaugată. Același lucru este valabil și în situația în care ‘schimbul de proprietate’ apare sub forma unei prestări de servicii. Adică indiferent dacă firma îți montează un geam sau doar ți-l spală, tu ai de plătit un TVA. Singura diferență între cele două situații fiind aceea că dacă doar îți spală geamul, tu nu plătești TVA și pe valoarea geamului în sine. Tot așa, atunci când duci o haină la curățat, plătești TVA doar pe valoarea serviciului prestat, nu și pe valoarea hainei.
În situația asta, când e vorba despre o marfă greu de depozitat, lucrurile sunt ușor diferite dar doar din punct de vedere tehnic.
Pentru distribuitorul de curent ar fi foarte greu să țină undeva curentul produs de tine până când vei avea nevoie de el. Și nici n-are rost să facă așa ceva. Așa că pur și simplu îl vinde. Îl vinde vecinilor tăi. Care oricum cumpărau curent. Care nu-și pun panouri pentru că au acoperișul orientat spre nord. Sau din cine știe ce alte motive.
După care, atunci cănd tu nu mai produci curent, tot distribuitorul îți dă înapoi cât curent ai nevoie din cantitatea deja vândută. Sau mai mult… Iar dacă după doi ani de zile nu ai reușit să consumi tot curentul produs de tine – și vândut de mult de către distribuitor – atunci mai ai ceva de luat.
În tot acest du-te vino nu apare nici un schimb de proprietate. Curentul rămâne tot timpul al tău, distribuitorul doar îl plimbă de colo-colo. Tot ce face distribuitorul este să presteze un serviciu. Preia curentul, îl vinde, îl cumpără înapoi de la altcineva, și ți-l pune la dispoziție când/dacă ai nevoie de el.
Bineînțeles că lucrurile nu sunt simple. Atât din punct de vedere tehnic cât și din punct de vedere economic și contabil.
N-am să vă plictisesc cu considerente tehnice. Voi constata doar că piața nu este încă pregătită pentru toată daravera asta. Dar asta e. Nimeni nu se naște pregătit pentru nimic și lucrurile nu sunt foarte complicate.
Dar ce ne facem cu zona economică și contabilă?
Statul are nevoie de TVA. Distribuitorul are nevoie să factureze cuiva TVA-ul cu care s-a încărcat atunci când a cumpărat curentul pe care îl distribuie. Inclusiv curentul pe care îl cumpără ca să-ți dea ție înapoi curentul pe care l-ai împins în rețea atunci când bătea soarele…
Păi tocmai ce vorbirăm. Curentul impins de prosumator în rețea este vândut/consumat/facturat instantaneu în imediata apropiere a prosumatorului.
Sunt prea mulți prosumatori într-o anumită zonă? Și prea puțini consumatori pasivi?
Păi cine l-a obligat pe distribuitorul de curent să mai încheie contracte de prosumator?
Cine nu-l lasă pe distribuitor să modernizeze posturile de transformare în așa fel încât să poată injecta energie în nivelul superior al rețelei electrice? Trebuie să investească niște bani?
Și uite-așa am ajuns la miezul problemei.
Care e diferența între un parc fotovoltaic care acoperă două dealuri undeva la țară și aceiași putere instalată în mijlocul unui oraș.
Prețul negociat pentru curent, condițiile de livrare și câteva amanunte.
Prețul primit de un investitor in panouri FV e mult mai mic decât cel pe care distribuitorul a fost obligat de catre reglementator să-l ia în calcul atunci când face regularizările cu prosumatorul.
Acest lucru are câteva explicații.
Curentul produs într-un parc FV trebuie transportat, transformat și apoi distribuit. Toate aceste procese implică costuri și pierderi. Curentul produs de prosumatori este deja la tensiunea potrivită pentru consum și a fost produs în imediata apropiere a locului de consum.
Curentul produs de prosumatori este mai constant decât cel produs de un parc FV cu o putere instalată echivalentă. Atunci când trece un nor pe cer, efectul e mult mai puternic asupra unui parc FV – unde panourile sunt unul lângă celălalt – decât asupra unor prosumatori răspândiți pe o suprafață mult mai mare.
Mai rămâne problema supra-producției. Pot să fie, într-adevăr, anumite zone în care producția de curent a prosumatorilor să fie mai mare decât cererea din momentul respectiv. Doar că acest ultim aspect poate fi rezolvat prin redimensionarea/reutilarea stațiilor de transformare.
Și atunci?
De ce ești obligat tu, prosumatorule, să plătești TVA pentru o marfă produsă și consumată de tine?
OK, e normal să plătești serviciul de depozitare și TVA-ul aferent. Dar atât!
Și dacă citești factura pe cant, vei observa că deja faci lucrul acesta. În diverse moduri.
nicichiarasa 