Nu te lupta cu porcul în noroi.
Tu obosești iar lui îi place
.

Cele două zicători de mai sus sunt adevărate dar incomplete.
Trebuie interpretate.
Iar interpretările, precum toate celelalte ‘prelucrări mentale’, depind de dispoziția generală a interpretului precum și de implicarea sa emoțională în subiectul supus ‘prelucrării’.

Un om tracasat de frecușurile zilnice și fără prea multă dispoziție de a se mai gândi la altceva decât la ziua de mâine le va lua ca pe un îndemn să stea în banca lui. Că e prea greu să schimbi ceva și, oricum, doar unui nebun i-ar păsa de chestia asta. Nebunul fiind floarea care răsare ‘peste rând’.
Cineva puțin mai curajos și care, pe indiferent ce cale, a priceput că ‘așa nu se mai poate’, vede aspectele practice ale situației.

‘Dacă chiar vrei să te iei la trântă cu porcul, ia un furtun cu apă. Dă noroiul jos de pe el. Împinge-l undeva unde e curat. Și mai cheamă câțiva oameni să te ajute!’

Corupția, căci despre ea e vorba în propoziție, e de două feluri.
‘Inițială’ și ‘de etapă’.

Regimul comunist a fost corupt de la început.
Prin definiție.
Orice revoluție este o ‘rupere’ a ceea ce a fost până atunci. Violentă prin natura ei, are ca rezultat punerea în practică a dorințelor revoluționarilor. Urmată, mai devreme sau mai târziu de o contrarevoluție. Manifestă sau aproape nevăzută, contrarevoluția echilibrează, măcar într-o oarecare măsură, dorințele revoluționarilor cu realitatea practică.
Cu alte cuvinte, orice proces revoluționar – duetul revoluție, contrarevoluție – constă în două straturi de corupție. În prima fază este coruptă, violent, realitatea pre-existentă iar în a doua etapă sunt corupte, în foarte mare parte, intențiile revoluționarilor. A două fază poate fi la fel de violentă ca prima sau atât de molcomă încât trece neobservată. Vezi contra-revoluția ce a urmat Revoluția Franceză și procesul lent care a dus la prăbușirea tuturor regimurilor comuniste.

Există și o corupție de etapă.
Chiar și în regimurile care funcționează cu adevărat, în cele democratice, apar perioade de criză. Crize economice, crize produse de agresiuni externe, crize apărute ca urmare a auto-suficienței… Fiecare dintre aceste crize sunt ferestre de oportunitate pentru cei cu porniri corupte. Societatea, în ansamblul ei, este prea ocupată să facă față crizei și neglijează, pentru o vreme, fenomenul corupției. Până când consecințele corupției încep să pună în pericol însăși supraviețuirea societății. Care societate – vorbesc aici despre modul în care funcționează organismul social, nu despre supraviețuirea fizică a locuitorilor – va continua doar în măsura în care sistemul ei imunitar – adică justiția sprijinită, măcar moral, de suficient de mulți dintre locuitori – reușeste să readucă corupția la un nivel supraviețuibil.

În paranteză fiind spus, ‘eradicarea corupției’ este o lozincă goală. E ca și cum ți-ai propune să interzici strănutul în public… Poți doar să le ceri oamenilor ca atunci când le vine să strănute să o facă în plica cotului sau în batistă. Și să se abțină când le vine să fie corupți. Sau să corupă pe alții. Iar pe cei care nu se abțin să-i bagi la pușcărie…

Corupția din România actuală are trei mari surse.
Corupția inițială. Am fost singura țară din estul Europei unde prăbușirea comunismului a avut un caracter revoluționar. Corupția din timpul regimului comunist nu a fost suficient de puternică încât să ducă la disoluția completă a regimului. A fost nevoie de un grup de revoluționari care să rupă gura târgului. Care să servească de catalizator al nemulțumirii populare. Care grup de revoluționari a reușit, în mare măsură, să-și pună pecetea asupra destinului post-comunist al României. Urmată, în mod firesc, de o corupere contra-revoluționară a intențiilor originale.
O corupție de origine ‘externă’. Adică din afara aparatului de stat. Corupția inițială fiind, de la început, adăpostită în chiar trupul statului. Și aici am să citez un specialist. „„Să ieşim din ipocrizie. Dacă există corupţie, singur statul nu poate fi corupt, are un partener. Statul nu poate fi singur neperformant. Are un partener şi acesta este economia privată”, a susţinut preşedintele Băsescu”. Decembrie 2011.
Și o corupție de etapă. Care vine, de fapt, încă de pe vremea fanarioților. Cei care aveau de unde îi mituiau pe cei aflați la putere pentru a fi lăsați în pace. Obicei care s-a perpetuat până în zilele noastre. Omul de rând care dă bacșis medicului care nu-i cere face acest lucru. Preotul care face o mare donație pentru episcopie înainte de a primi parohie. Angajatul – la stat – care ‘se simte’… toate astea fac parte din obișnuință. Că acest obicei a fost întărit de cei care obișnuit să primească… e tot o consecință culturală. Un obicei care vine din istorie.

Ce vreau să spun cu chestia asta?

Mai țineți minte promisiunile care i-au convins pe cetățeni să voteze Convenția Democratică în 1996?

„Presedintele Emil Constantinescu a declarat (în Decembrie 1997) ca cei 15.000 de specialisti pe care CDR ii anunta in campania electorala exista, dar ca au refuzat, dintr-un motiv sau altul, sa-si asume responsabilitati. Constantinescu a participat la primul Congres National al membrilor seniori ai Ligii Studentilor, purtind un dialog direct, timp de trei ore, cu liderii de dupa 1989 ai studentilor. El i-a indrumat pe cei prezenti sa “penetreze” in administratia locala si sa sprijine procesul de inlaturare a structurilor birocratice si greoaie.”

Ar fi păcat să repetăm experiența.
Oana Gheorghiu a spus prezent!

Sunt două diferențe între România și celelalte țări/economii menționate în tabel.
Una mică, dar fundamentală, și alta uriașă.

Datoria publică a României este mică. Doar 55% din PIB. Bine, mare parte din banii ăia au fost cheltuiți aiurea dar… măcar ne-am ridicat nivelul de trai. Am văzut și noi cum e să trăim bine. Mai bine…
Avem pentru ce să tragem.

Cealaltă diferență, aia uriașă, e un fel de pară mălăiață în capul lui Nătăfleță.
Stă să ne cadă în brațe și noi ne cam ferim de ea…

Altfel spus, suntem martorii și victimele luptei dintre lăcomie și prostie!

Pentru motive care nu nu au nici o legătură cu vre-un merit de-al nostru – UE are nevoie ca România să rămână un pol de stabilitate – Matușa Europa a pregătit o grămada de bani pe care vrea să ne-o toarne în poală.
Dar vrea și ea niște chestii de banii ăștia!

Principala condiție?
Să mai închidem robinetul! Să nu mai aruncăm atât de mulți bani pe geam…
Bine, nu chiar tot deficitul ăla a fost cheltuit aiurea… Doar partea aia care nu a produs mare lucru. Doar șpăgile electorale decartate anul trecut și ‘decât’ banii sifonați din bugetul statului de către ‘interesele speciale’.

Din punct de vedere practic, UE ne mituiește să ne reducem deficitul.
Iar noi vrem să luăm cât mai mult și să dăm cât mai puțin înapoi! Adică să reducem cât mai puțin din deficit…
Ne dorim banii europeni dar visăm – unii dintre noi – să împărțim în continuare tot felul de subvenții ‘clienților politici’.

Bănuiesc că e clar în ce constă prostia genului ăsta de lăcomie!

Nota bene.
Radu Georgescu nu se hazardează să facă vre-un ‘pronostic’.
Ne promite un ‘festival’.
Dar nu ne spune cum se va termina…
Pentru că nu are de unde să știe! Ce ne hotărâm noi să facem…

Poate ne vine mintea la cap!


And the LORD God said,
Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.

After learning godlike skills – after becoming a conscious human being, that is – man has set his sights on the next target.
Apportioning blame. Finding culprits. The only way forward, right? Bulldoze the obstacles away, lose the dead weight and you’ll get there a lot faster.
Where? Where is that elusive ‘there’? We’ll find out about the place when we’ll get there!

If we’ll get there… If we’ll ever get anywhere with that attitude, for that matter!

Researching for this post, I came across Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity.

First things first.
Bonhoeffer was a German theologian who happened to come of age right when Hitler was confiscating political power in Germany. Even though Bonhoeffer belonged to a church which denounced violence, even in self defense, Bonhoeffer eventually joined a conspiracy trying to assassinate the dictator.
“Here the law is being broken, violated,” he deplored. It might be true that “the commandment is broken out of dire necessity,” but to say he broke the commandment of necessity is still to say he broke the commandment. Rather than pretend this was some positive moral good, Bonhoeffer instead threw himself at God’s feet and begged forgiveness for the sin he could not but commit.

In his writings, Bonhoeffer was abundantly clear.

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 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.
‘Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly.


The key concept here, as I read Bonhoeffer’s work, is that external liberation must come first. As a precondition for the ‘internal liberation’. For a shackled individual, reaching a peaceful state of mind is almost impossible. And since nobody can exercise their will in a free manner unless their mind is ‘level’….
Further more, in order to learn one needs an open mind. A free, level and open mind. And being able/willing to learn is the only road out of ‘stupid-land’. The only way to overcome the ‘what I already know is plenty’ attitude.
Only a free individual can choose to independently examine the facts. A shackled one will almost always give up. And accept whatever official version is being shoveled down their throat.

And here’s the catch.
In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with 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 grown up, and being socialized, under a communist regime – somewhat different but not entirely from the nazism experienced by Bonhoeffer – I understand how it is to live under symbolical duress. Under a constant deluge of lies. Which were meant to effectively shackle us. Not to educate but to condition us.
During that time, I had also noticed the deluge was poured by intellectuals. The very people who were supposed to do the exact opposite. To enlighten us. To elevate the willing people to the ‘next level’. Teachers, writers, artists … and even clergy. Not all the intellectuals were involved in this process but all those used by the dictating party to destroy both our external and internal freedom did belong to the intellectual caste.

Communism and nazism had been somewhat ‘natural’ occurrences.
Ruthless political operators – evil people, in Bonhoeffer’s words – have noticed an opportunity – the existence of economically distressed people – and used their ‘knowledge of words’ to ideologically shackle those people to symbolical totem-posts.

What is currently going on is akin to a suicide of sorts.
We might believe those who had instated communism and fascism had good intentions. Misguided – to say the least, according to the horrible results attained by those regimes, but well intended naive individuals.
Nowadays, after having already experienced those episodes, we should be threading very carefully…
The same level of popular dissatisfaction, the same level of finger-pointing, of frustration… everything stirred up and brought to paroxysm by the same kind of manipulation.
Propaganda spun by the same kind of callous intellectuals as those involved in the advent of communism and fascism. I call them callous because this time they should know better. It is their job to know these things. For it is the intellectuals who are supposed, according to their social role, to “know good and evil”.

This is why I cringe every time I see/hear/read an intellectual who blames the ‘stupid people’ for what’s going on.
Blaming the ‘others’ for things they have done unwittingly is a huge error. For one simple reason.
It’s self defeating. And, hence, treasonous!
We all, both the ‘stupid’ and the rest of us, need to liberate ourselves. From the “slogans, catchwords and the like, that have” been used to shackle us, all of us, into a state of ideological prostration.

We blame them. They blame us. And those who have planned all this cannot believe how successful they have been.
But for the very shortest of times…
Social uniformity begets ‘morass’. Like water, a society needs to flow in order to remain reasonably clean. To remain functional.
Communism, artificial equality, brings everything to a stand-still.
On the other hand, too much social disparity, too much power concentrated in a very small number of hands while the rest are reduced to a state of prostration, begets revolution. Like a body of water perched on a cliff wanting to climb down, a strung up society will, eventually, find ‘relief’. Sometimes explosively.
It is the intellectuals who need to figure this out. For it is them who fare worst under all dictatorial regimes. Regardless of anything a dictator might promise.

In the 1970s, Carlo Cipolla, a social psychologist, developed FIVE LAWS OF STUPIDITY. The term itself, he said, wasn’t a description of intellectual acuity, but of social responsibility. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person, or to a group of persons, while deriving no gain for himself, and possibly incurring losses. Cases in which someone takes an action by which both parties gained, was deemed intelligent.

Cipolla’s words are correct. But incomplete.
Even if the individual who causes losses to others people do it for personal gain, their endeavor is still stupid! Because that ‘thing’ is unsustainable! People taking advantage of other people leads the whole party into a dead-end.
Adam Smith was describing ‘the butcher, the brewer and the baker working for their own personal interest and so driving forward the entire market/society’. The entire society!
Indeed! Only those people were working together!
Not each of them against all others! Those who tried to con their business partners were thrown away!That was the essence of Adam Smith’s free market!
The freedom enjoyed by everybody. The freedom from being swindled.

Do you feel free?


And the Truth shall set you free.

Heidegger, the philosopher, has an interesting take on this ‘truth’ thing.
Nobody does, and never will, know everything about anything. Lest of all about ‘everything’. Hence nobody has access to a ‘true’ piece of knowledge.
Furthermore, ‘truth’ is about communication. About a message. An expressed piece of knowledge. And since there is no language precise enough to allow a communicator to cram into a message all they want to express… nor precise enough to allow a ‘reader’ to figure out everything the communicator had attempted to express…
Which drives Heidegger to posit that truth depends on intent. On a communicator sharing honestly everything they know about a subject. On a communicator allowing the receiver of the message to reach their own conclusion.

I ended my previous post by mentioning the ‘fairy tales’ our ancestors have spun in order to ease their ‘passage into the great unknown’. Thus making their lives bearable. Enjoyable, even.
In those times, ‘the truth’ – the unconcealed truth, in Heidegger’s terms – was that nothing made sense. That life itself was a meaningless joke. As a Romanian saying goes, ‘life resembles a hair from the private parts of the body. Short and full of shit…’
I’m not going to make a historical inventory of the various fairy tales the humankind has used to lullaby itself into accepting life as it used to be. Enough to say that they, the fairy tales, did the trick. Helped us reach the present stage.

I’m going to make a break here.
And notice that any, or even all, of those fairy tales might, eventually, be proven as being true. No matter how improbable this might be. I’m not an atheist. I just don’t know whether a god, or more, do exist.
What I do know is that, by their own admission, all of those stories have been spun by people.
Each of those stories is about what the original ‘spinner’ saw fit to communicate on the subject.
And the better stories, those who made more sense in the particular circumstances where they had survived, made it up to the present.
Helped the respective believers to survive. Helped some of them to thrive, even.

Now, today, we need to make up our minds.
Accept that our consciences are works in progress.
That consciousness is a space caught up in an accelerating evolution. A cauldron of sorts.
That each of those ‘fairy tales’ was useful in its own time. That the need to mitigate our cognitive dissonances continues to exist.
That we’re responsible for our future. Nothing new here.
And that there’s no one to save us. Not now. Or after we will have fucked up everything.


The ‘Truth’ being that ‘Give me Liberty or give me Death’ was a very effective call at arms.
On the face of it, on the ‘logical front’, it doesn’t make much sense.
‘Death’ was, and continues to be, inexorable. Why, for the sake of ‘liberty’, jeopardize the few precious moments left to be experienced as a living creature? Specially when, according to the lore considered valid when Patrick Henry had uttered the words, a second life was going to open just ‘after’…
‘The Devil is in the details’!
The belief in the ‘after-world’ works both ways. It encourages the freedom-fighters to take risks – believing they will get their reward ‘afterwards’ – and encourages the prudent to endure. Believing that they will get also get their reward ‘afterwards’.

Now, that I’ve ‘spilled it out’, I must confess that I’ve successfully convinced myself.
I’ve rationalized, according to my standards, my belief that it’s our responsibility.
To understand and accept that we’re responsible for the consequences we’re leaving for those coming after us.
I don’t know what we should do. I’m no prophet.
But I do know what we shouldn’t.
You do too!

Give me Liberty or give me Death.
Patrick Henry

I argued in the previous two posts that we, humans, live in a three layered reality.
At the intersection of three spaces.

One driven by a ‘primeval’ set of rules and inhabited by Democritus’ atoms.
The living one. Inhabited by individual living organisms, ‘suffering’ the consequences of evolution and subject to laws pertaining to the biological realm.
And what we call ‘reality’. A space opened up by our self-awareness. Inhabited by our individual consciences and furnished with culture. I prefer to call that space ‘consciousness’.

These three spaces have a few things in common.
The actual, physical, place where they exist.
The primeval set of rules. Which is valid for all those inhabiting these/this mingled space(s). The chemistry going on inside a living organism is no different from that happening in the inanimate world and the body of a fully conscious human continues to be pulled by gravity. Despite the fact that conscious human beings have have been building, and flying, airplanes for quite a while now.
And a few ‘principles’ which ‘transgress’ from one space to another.

‘Inertia’.
A ‘body’ tends to continue as it was. To move, on a ‘straight’ trajectory, or to stay put. Until subjected to a ‘burst of energy’.
‘Survival instinct’.
A living organism tends to go on living. Until subjected to a ‘burst of energy’ or until it wears down.
‘Cognitive ‘Consonance”.
Conscious subjects need to maintain a certain congruence. To close/rationalize whatever cognitive dissonances which happen to challenge their ‘Weltanschauung’. The story which imparts sense to their existence.

‘Inertia’ keeps the physical world together, ‘survival instinct’ drives individual living organisms to keep struggling against all odds and ‘cognitive consonance’ pulls us back from the precipice Nietzsche warned us about. “If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you”.

I’ve been speaking about three spaces. The older being the home and growing place for the newer one.
Each of them being different from the previous one. But still having a lot in common.

Here’s another thing shared by all three spaces.
‘Evolution’.
The concept – everything we speak about is a ‘concept’, first and foremost – has evolved out of our need to make sense of things. To make sense of what we noticed as going on in the world. Species disappearing and fresh ones springing up to make good use of new opportunities. All of these species having a lot in common and ‘evolving’ in order to survive changes in their environment.
Well, if we look closer, ‘evolution’ takes place in all of those three spaces I mentioned.

Hydrogen, the first ‘species’ of atoms, gets together with other of their own kind and engender Helium. The process which keeps our Sun both hot and from gravitationally collapsing into a white dwarf.
A gas, hydrogen, ‘coalesces’ gravitationally and evolves into a star. Hydrogen, the ‘basic’ chemical element, gets together with other members of their own species and evolves into the next chemical element. Through a nuclear reaction, but that’s another subject… And so on, until all the fuel is spent and the star either contracts into a white dwarf or explodes into a supernova. And then contracts into a black hole…

The main difference between the evolution of the living things and the evolution taking place in the inanimate realm residing in how ‘individual destinies’ end up in each realm.
‘Radioactive’ elements are unstable by definition. Bound to become simpler but not to ‘dissolve’ into their initial components, as individual living organisms do.
‘Stable’ elements are… well… stable. Expected to remain as such, unless they are sucked up into a star and transformed into something else. But to ‘die’, not even then …
Stars ‘become’, ‘live’ and then become something else. Never ‘die’ ‘properly’!

Living things, on the other hand, are ‘actually born’, live and then actually die. The former organism ‘releases’ the chemical components back into the nature. To be – sometimes, if ever – part of another organism.

Until consciousness – the space – has been opened, to harbor individual consciences, ‘death’ didn’t ‘exist’.
The process of dying happened unnoticed. Unnoticed and unnamed, of course. Not yet conceptualized, to use a fancy word.

Imagine now the complete bafflement which had engulfed the first conscious individuals who stared into the abyss. Who noticed and then attempted to understand death…
What kind of cognitive dissonance must have been experienced at that point? At that stage in the evolution of what we currently call ‘consciousness’?
Hence the various ‘cosmogonies’. Stories about how the world came to be.
‘Fairy tales’ meant to assuage fear rather than to explain anything. To ease the way out in order to make survival probable for as long as possible.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22322778-a-history-of-religious-ideas-3-vols

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/terror-management-theory

“WE ARE GOING TO CONTINUE TO FOCUS ON SOLVING PROBLEMS
FOR HARDWORKING AMERICAN TAXPAYERS”

LEADER JEFFRIES

(You might want to read my previous post before this one.
If you haven’t already done that, of course…)

Democrit’s atoms come with a clear cut set of rules. ‘Trapping’ them into a very predictable ‘future’. ‘If conditions are such and such, each of them atoms will do this and that’.
Furthermore, and as far as we know, that set of clear cut rules is valid everywhere. Was since the start of time and will remain valid for as long as the world will remain ‘as such’.
Our current understanding of the world – leaving aside various religiously motivated cosmogonies – actually depends on that set of clear cut rules being consistent over space and time.

At some point in time, and space, another set of rules had appeared. Even if we weren’t there to notice the event… Meaning that that appearance was a natural occurrence. We don’t yet know how that happened – not exactly, any-way – but we are satisfied that the first set of rules didn’t have to be broken in order for the second to appear. We consider that no miracle was necessary for life to happen. That happenstance and the first set of rules are a sufficient explanation.

This second set of rules is somewhat laxer than the first one.
It still traps those who have to obey it into a certain behavior but those respecting it enjoy a way wider ‘lee-way’ than Democrit’s atoms. The second set of rules makes it possible for evolution to happen.

While the individuals involved – atoms in the first case and individual living organisms in the second – don’t have any say in the matter, the first set of rules is consistent in space and time while the second one depends on the specifics of each region of the space and evolves in time.
Still trapped, but differently. The limitations pertaining to the first set of rules are drastic – life needs a very ‘narrow’ ‘window of opportunity’ in order to remain viable – yet the second set of rules ‘enshrines’ a certain amount of ‘individual freedom’. In the sense that individual living organisms do have a certain say when it comes to their own survival while the individual species have the ability to adapt to whatever changes happen where they have to survive.

Very recently – in the cosmological time-frame – yet another set of rules. Opening yet another space/place. Consciousness.
Not unlike a Matryoshka…, the first set of rules ‘opens’ the space where everything happens. Exists, but somehow ‘insulated’ when it comes to the passage of time.
The second set of rules opens a ‘narrower’ space. Narrower in the sense that life needs a very ‘narrow’ set of temperature, atmospheric pressure and the presence of certain substances. But a lot wider in the sense that the individuals involved have a certain autonomy and a certain sensitivity in the passage of time.
The third set of rules, the one opening up the space we call ‘consciousness’ is ‘written on the go’.

It does have a certain consistency.
For the simple reason that it is ‘written’ by statistically similar ‘authors’.
Take language, for example. One of the sub-sets belonging to the third set. It is shared solely by members of a single species, wielding more or less similar brains. OK, different languages have appeared in different geo-historical conditions but every human being who happens to be alive is potentially able to learn any of the languages ever spoken on Earth…
This third set of rules is usually referred to as ‘culture’. In the wider sense of the word. Information which is passed from one generation to the next one. Information which, shared among the members of the living generation, makes them conscious human beings.

I know, this is a startling manner of looking at things.
Please allow me to shed some light on the matter from another angle.
We have – we have noticed, more exactly – a ‘First Set of Rules’. FSR, let’s call it. Ingrained into the building blocks of the ‘real world’. Which rules will, hopefully, remain as they are for the entire foreseeable future… otherwise life, as we know it, will cease to exist in a jiffy.
We have also noticed, while attempting to understand ‘life’, a SSR. Second Set of Rules. Describing/making possible what we call life. Which life is, by nature/definition an evolving process. Hence the rules themselves not only allow a certain lee-way but also are bound to be rewritten whenever possible. Whenever the ‘altered version’ doesn’t jeopardize the survival of the individual harboring that version.
And whenever the accumulated alterations happen to be beneficial … a new rule is in place. Or a new species, according to the biologists.
The TSR is a work in process. A lot more so than the SSR. In the sense that each individual ‘rule’ – piece of information added to the corpus of work usually known as culture – has been put there teleologically. On purpose. Never fully aware of all the implications but always as the consequence of a conscious act.

This being the moment when I remind you that this blog is about “exploring the consequences of our limited conscience”.

https://books.google.ro/books/about/What_Evolution_Is.html?id=i8jx-ZyRRkkC&redir_esc=y

https://constructivist.info/1/3/091 regarding self awareness/consciousness

“As a white family, [we were] being told we’re racist
and not given the same opportunities because of the colour of our skin,”
“My daughters growing up in this world — we just couldn’t have it.”
In a bid to expedite his family’s citizenship applications,
Mr Huffman joined Russia’s military.

As living organisms, we are defined by the genes inherited from our parents.
As socialized human beings, our thoughts are shaped by the particular culture seeping through our consciences.
As politically governed inhabitants of various countries, our destinies depend on the wisdom of those calling the shots. On more than one level…

We don’t have much to say when it comes to our genes.
We can always interpret the tenets of the above mentioned cultures.
As citizens, and very much depending on the particulars of each ‘polity’, we can always try to influence the decision making process.

We cannot do much about our genes for a very simple reason. They are part and parcel of our ‘inner-workings’. The immutable part of what we are.
We can interpret culture and attempt to influence others because of our consciousness. Our ability to develop a certain kind of awareness.

Consciousness, the ability, can be construed as a space. The place where our individual consciences exist, meet and interact.
Our individual consciences can be understood as atoms inhabiting the consciousness.
Like all other spaces. consciousness has dimensions. Hence regions. Each region ‘functioning’ according to certain sets of rules. Sets of rules otherwise known as ‘cultures’.
Culture, in general and each of the individual ones, is ‘alive’. Just as life itself is ‘alive’.

Unfortunately, life is only ‘aware’. Not yet aware of it’s own self. Not yet conscious. Only a certain species of individual living organisms has, as far, developed this ability.
‘Culture’ – a living thing because it is animated by individual living organisms, the conscious ones – is also ‘aware’. Just as life is ‘aware’. But, again like life, culture has not yet developed a full consciousness. And awareness of

Atoms, in the real world as well as the individual consciences inhabiting consciousness, ‘cooperate’.
Democrit’s atoms, in various combinations, constitute the ‘real’ world. Including here the individual living organisms harboring individual consciences.
Conscious ‘atoms’, the individual consciences harbored by the living organisms which have been able to develop one, are about to take over a portion of the above mentioned ‘real’ world.

Unless they destroy it first…



“Weaver pointed out that the word “information”
in communication theory is not related to what you do say, but to what you could say.
That is, information is a measure of one’s freedom of choice when one selects a message”

Space is where ‘evolution’ happens.
Where interaction shapes whatever is.

For space to exist, something must be there. Space needs ‘limits’. Which define it.
‘There’s a gap between these two bricks’.
‘This pile of bricks blocks the way’

‘Space’ is, simultaneously, a place, a concept and a word.
We, writing and reading about it, exist. Somewhere. Somewhere in ‘space’…
We’ve realized that. That we exist. Hence we came up with the concept.
We needed to share that knowledge. To discuss it. We needed the word!

A wise man, using tools crafted by his predecessors, has calculated that whatever exists in space shapes its form. The heavier the object, the deeper the dent.
Which depth of the dent influences the flow of time…

Time… the metric we use to measure ‘evolution’. The order and speed of happening…
Time… Another ‘thing’ which exists, simultaneously, as a ‘reality’, a concept and a word.

Einstein, the wise man with the calculus, did his thing trying to understand. To put together an explanation for everything.
Reading his findings, the results of his calculating, we can push our imagination.
How about switching time for space?

How about considering ‘time’ as being the place where events exist? Interact, producing the ‘space’ needed for that process?
Where the ‘weight’ of events, their ‘importance’, shapes the form of time. Which form of time influences the space ‘becoming’ as a consequence of those events existing/interacting in the place called time…

My point being …
You see, Einstein’s predecessors had developed what we call ‘mathematics’.
Our predecessors, also called ‘ancestors’, had developed a thing called language. Used it to communicate.
Among themselves, as individuals, and among themselves – as a cultural species – and the surrounding reality.
Language as the tool we use to digest and reshape the reality… Before we ‘do’ anything, we think about it. Using language to parse pertinent information stored in memory. Using language to consult with others. Using language to coordinate with others…

One of the languages we’ve developed is mathematics.
Einstein, using this language, reached a ‘conclusion’. Wrote a story. Others call it a theory.
Convincing enough for interested people to try. To try to prove it, to try to disprove it. To attempt to implement it into practice…

We exist.
In space, using whatever resources we can identify and building time as a consequence of our actions. We do this using language. To explore, think and coordinate.
That’s how we’re calling things. Space is where things happen and time is the ‘conclusion’ of whatever we do. Mathematics suggest that time and space are interchangeable.

So what?!?

Have we already solved all our immediate problems?

After all, we’re the only adults in the room. In the limited space called planet Earth.
Or, at least and for all that it might matter, we’re the only adults in the room who care. Who should care about our own fate…
Time’s running out, faster on the route we’re currently using!

The Ancient Greeks made the difference between Nomos and Phusis.
Phusis was Nature and Nomos was what they made of it. And as long as the story ‘held water’… that was it.

By figuring out that they were the link between Phusis and Nomos, the Ancient Greeks were capable of integrating the miraculous into their daily lives. As long as they kept believing ‘the story’…
For as long as ‘faith’ was doing its magic, things were OK.
They, individually speaking, didn’t feel the need for much additional explanation. They kept figuring out what they could and accepted the rest. As belonging to the ‘other’ half of the realm they were inhabiting. People and gods sharing the same (cultural) space….

Phusis was what there was and Nomos was the words they used to describe what they saw.
The words they used to make sense of what they were living. The words they used to spin ‘the story’ which kept them at ease with everything they couldn’t figure out.

Phusis and Nomos, together, was what made us possible. What we call ‘the Western Way of life’.

At some point, we’ve started to study physics.
Newton figured out gravity. Not why things fell down, only the rate at which they did it. 9.81 m/second squared at sea level.
Using far more advanced mathematical gimmicks, Einstein was able to calculate a lot more. But we still don’t know why mass tends to pull together. But we stopped worrying about it… now that we’ve been able to measure G. “Big G”, the gravitational constant, different from the “small g” measured by… Galileo Galilei. Forget it.
The point being that we still don’t know why mass tends to pull together, to coagulate, as opposed to attempting to dissipate. As gases do… as long as there’s enough heat available!

To cut the long story short, we’ve cut out the miraculous from what we consider to be normal. Acceptabil in nominal terms.
We attempt to measure everything. And to calculate what we cannot measure.

After all this time, we haven’t yet been able to accept our limits.
Which is good.
We keep pushing them.

Only sometimes we push them too hard.
We keep pushing those limits where they have given up previously. And we don’t always notice what’s really going on.

Trying to understand physics, we’ve learned to fly. Hot air balloons, fixed wing air-crafts, rotary wing air-crafts, Lunar landing modules, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles…
Trying to understand chemistry, we’ve learned to transform matter. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the materials we use, prescription drugs, life-saving vaccines, poison gasses….
Trying to understand biology, we’ve learned to influence evolution. Cross-bred plants and animals, decoded – and then coded back – genetic information…
Trying to understand economics, we’ve built the world as we currently have it. And put together the Efficient Market Hypothesis which keeps failing us…
Trying to understand consciousness we’re messing up everything. Fake-news, post-truth, “artificial intelligence”…

And we still don’t know why mass tends to coagulate, how life came up to be, how consciousness grew up on top of everything…

Pentru România, și pentru restul Europei, ideal ar fi ca Rusia să fie în interiorul Europei. Și nu în afara ei, uitându-se cu jind la bunătățile din vitrină. Cel mai bine ar fi să intre republică cu republică și nu ca un întreg. Bine, după ce se va mai fi prăbușit odată, tot sub povara propriei greutăți, probabil că n-o să mai rămână în forma/componența actuală.

Problema noastră, atât a Europei cât și a Rusiei, este că nu am înțeles nimic din primele două războaie mondiale.

Cel de al doilea a fost o consecință a primului. A modului în care învingătorii i-au tratat pe învinși. I-au jefuit. Sub pretextul despăgubirilor de război. Criza existențială din Germania postbelică a facilitat ascensiunea nazismului, care nazism – precum toate dictaturile – a avut nevoie să se proiecteze în exterior.

WWIII a fost la fel de idiot precum WWI.

WWI a fost o consecință a faptului că părțile implicate n-au fost în stare să vadă mai departe de lungul nasului. Să înțeleagă ce urma să se întâmple. Dacă/atunci când fiecare dintre ele respecta, cu ochii închiși, toate angajamentele asumate.
WWIII – cunoscut și sub numele de Războiul Rece – a fost o consecință a faptului că fiecare dintre părțile implicate au respectat, în literă și în spirit, angajamentele deja luate. Angajamentele luate de fiecare dintre părți în fața populațiilor respective… Europa de Vest promisese libertate și prosperitate, lagărul comunist promisese o egalitate forțată ce urma să fie implementată în condițiile în care populația era forțată să asculte și să pună în practică, cu capul plecat, aberațiile ideologice proferate de către ‘cei mai avansați fii ai clasei muncitoare’. Conform Manifestului Comunist pus la cale de Karl Marx…

După WWII, învingătorii au avut grijă, fiecare în felul său, să-i integreze pe învinși. După ce ambele părți au convenit să scoată nazismul și fascismul în afara legii. Și să-i judece pe criminalii care aduseseră pe capul lumii întregi toate nenorocirile acelor ani. Ambele porțiuni ale Germaniei, Italia și Japonia au fost integrate, fiecare dintre ele și după o purificare aproape ritualică, acolo unde le-a fost norocul să ajungă. Germania de Vest, Italia și Japonia în lumea liberă, Germania de Est împreună cu ‘despăgubirile de război’ pretinse de Rusia – adică aproape întreaga Europă de Est – au fost integrate în lagărul socialist.

După WWIII, în mare parte similar cu ce s-a întâmplat după WWI, Marele Învins a fost lăsat să se descurce de unul singur. Comunismul nu a fost judecat, și cu atât mai puțin, scos în afara legii. Mă refer aici la comunismul dictatorial aplicat, cu forța terorii, în ‘democrațiile populare’. Iar singurul dictator comunist care a simțit pe pielea lui consecințele faptelor sale a fost împușcat ca un câine. În loc să fi fost judecat pentru faptele sale!

‘De unul singur’ nu se poate. Am lăsat Rusia post-sovietică să ‘se descurce’. Suferim consecințele. Precum în Germania post WWI, spațiul politic a fost ocupat, și în Rusia aflată în criza economică inevitabilă după o astfel de reașezare, tot de o guvernare dictatorială. Care, și ea, are nevoie să se proiecteze în afara spațiului pe care îl controlează deja.
Pentru că nu știe/poate să supraviețuiască altfel!