Or, otherwise put, Musk – who in 2008 was left of center, currently finds himself in a moderate conservative position because the woke progressives have displaced the center. To the left of where Musk was in 2008. And where he still is…
This might have not been uttered by Churchill but nevertheless rises some questions…
The first reaction, for the ‘average person’, is to ‘love’ this post.
The ‘normal’ reaction, for the ‘fact-checkers’ among us, is to ask ourselves:
Is this actually true?
Heidegger has something really interesting to say about the subject. I’m gonna put it succinctly and bluntly.
None of us knows everything about anything. Not even about the most trivial thing. Because the very nature of our knowledge and of our manner of expressing it – language, none of us is able to ‘put together’ even the simplest ‘absolute’ truth.
Hence, according to Heidegger, we have as many truths as there are people interested on the subject.
‘Then the African Proverb is a ‘lie’?’
Nope.
The African Proverb pictured above is a meta-truth. Heidegger’s truths, as well as those discussed by Popper, all converge towards the ‘absolute’ one. As each of the ‘people interested on the subject’ dig deeper, each of them gets closer to the kernel. Probably none of them will ever get exactly ‘there’ but their respective positions will become ever closer.
Meanwhile, there’s nothing like a ‘meta-lie’. As we had ‘truth’ and ‘meta-truth’. A lie, any lie, is also a meta-truth.
We know – we are under the impression, more exactly, that we’ll never reach ‘the absolute truth’. About any subject, let alone the ‘absolute-absolute’ one. But we can conceive that there is one. Somewhere. At least about individual points of interest.
Do we even have the concept of an absolute lie? What would that be? How could that even be expressed?
This being the reason for some of us being able to come up with so ‘plausible’ lies. They put so much truth into their words that it becomes harder and harder for us to notice that the ‘proposed conclusion’ is misleading.
That, in fact, they are lying through their teeth.
The fact that too many self styled liberals hold on to their ill begotten wealth while distributing a lot of quilt doesn’t obliterate the fact that very few of the ‘self believed’ conservatives share much of their wealth… while seldom admitting any responsibility for what had happened in the past. And continues to this day, in very insidious ways.
As for any attempt at a radical transformation of both economy and society – as in making them actually free for all us – white, black and all the other hues… forget it.
NB. All of us will eventually lose. Everything. Things are becoming too lopsided.
What does ‘worst’ mean in this circumstances? Until now, I was under the impression that ‘critics’ were good. That in a democratic setting, the critics are those who pull at our sleeves when we go astray. That the critics are those who bring us back to the straight and narrow. How can ‘critics’ become ‘bad’? Let alone “worst”…
As many of you already know, I grew up under a communist regime. In Ceausescu’s Romania. That was were I learned to decipher messages transmitted using the ‘wooden language’. Or, in Orwell’s parlance, “newspeak”…
Here’s what I make of Elon Musk’s words:
‘From now on, the “digital town square where matters vital to the future of mankind are debated” is mine. Mine to make what I see fit of it. To “make better” under my own terms. And if you don’t like it, keep ‘barking’. There’s nothing you can do to me. I’m going to make Twitter ‘private’. A.k.a. free from any ‘market interference’. Furthermore, your ‘barking’ will only increase the traffic. Hence the money I’ll be making on the back of your ‘free speech’.’
Twenty four years ago, in 1998, I spent a fortnight visiting Tunisia. I still remember the discussions I had with my wife. In our native Romania, we – the country, not the two of us – already had a couple of malls – which were quite new for us. Each time that we entered a Tunisian suk – also known as a bazaar, we felt like strolling through a mall.
In the Middle Ages, a suk was the property of the local sheik. Even if each ‘stall’ was operated as an individual business, the whole thing was run at the whim of the local ruler. According to the laws of the land, but still at the mercy of the landlord.
Each mall, the building, is owned by a company. And, the business, operated by another. Usually by a chain. Hence the ‘freedom’ of the individual businesses ‘housed’ by each mall is ‘defined’ by the rules put in place by the owners and the operators. Under the laws and by laws valid for the physical location of the building but still at the ‘mercy’ of those who own/operate the mall.
From now on, the “digital town square where matters vital to the future of the mankind” are ‘freely debated’ by us will be owned and operated by yet another one of Elon Musk’s enterprises. Who, for now at least, promises to welcome his “worst” critics, whatever that might mean.
And an after thought. A way shorter translation of Musk’s words might be: ‘Freedom of speech means being able to say ‘those who criticize me are bad people”. With the corollary that some are worse than others…
When Mario de Andrade found out that he had but one life, he had set for himself a certain goal. To live his second life in a certain way. In the way he considered worthwhile.
We’re about to find out that we have but one planet.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens is a species of cultured animals simultaneously capable to place a highly sophisticated IR telescope on an orbit around their native planet, the Earth, and to reduce a country to a pile of rubble.
Interestingly enough, the technology used to accomplish both, the rocket, has been imagined a little more than a century ago. By, among others, Herman Oberth.
He had built his first rocket as a school project, when he was 14. About then he also came up with the concept of a multistaged rocket. Lack of resources convinced him to study medicine. After only two years he was drafted into the German Imperial Army to serve during WWI. Initially as a foot soldier and then moved to a medical unit. In that period he found enough “spare time” to conduct experiments which had later enabled him to present “designs of a missile using liquid propellant with a range of 290 km to Hermann von Stein, the Prussian Minister of War.“ During WWII he had worked at Peenemunde, were he was awarded a decoration for bravery during an aerial attack, and then at the German WASAG organization developing solid fueled anti-aircraft rockets.
Between the wars he had contributed to a series of experiments in Germany. For one of which he was helped by an 18 years student. Werner von Braun.
Humans, as a species, have harbored the same ‘amount’ of brain for the last 200 000 years. That was when the Homo Sapiens had arrived. But that brain had produced something only about 70 000 years ago. That’s why the second Sapiens was added, by us, to the name of those living since that time. To underline the fact that humans had become ‘fully’ conscious only ‘recently’. That having a big brain was not enough. That becoming fully human also implied self awareness. Wisdom…
Apparently that’s not enough. After experiencing, first hand, the horrors of WWI such a creative mind as Herman Oberth’s was still capable of building offensive weapons for Hitler. After experiencing, first hand, the horrors of WWII such a creative mind as Herman Oberth’s was still able of joining an extreme right political party…
After experiencing, first hand, the horrors of WWII at the hands of the nazi, the modern day, post communist, Russia is capable of inflicting the same kind of horrors to their close cousins, the Ukrainians.
When are we going to become Sapiens enough to stop this insanity? To concentrate our creativity exclusively towards ‘elevating’ purposes?
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…
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?
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.
What if there are only individual reasons for each of the experiences each of us passes through?
Many of those reasons belonging to the ‘experimenters’ themselves and all reasons – even if the individuals who provide the actual causes are not aware of all the consequences, belong to us. To us, humans.
I have no way of determining whether there is any ‘supreme being’ but what I understand of this world has led me to the conclusion that this ‘aspect’ is irrelevant. For us. For those of us who are currently alive.
That supreme being, if it exists, has done nothing more than to provide a set of opportunities. The world in which our ancestors – some 1500 generations ago, have become conscious human beings. The rest is of our own doing.
Influenced a lot by the specific circumstances in which each culture has been developed – by those having to make do in those specific circumstances, but still ultimately ours.
This ‘conclusion’ is the sole solution I had been able to come up with to the conundrum which opposes the notions of ‘free will’ and karma/fate/you name it.
nicichiarasa 