Cică unul era cam fustangiu. Avea și niște obiceiuri sexuale destul de ‘condimentante’. Colac peste pupază, avea și un papagal… Vorbitor!
Obiceiul tipului era să invite câte o ‘doritoare’ la el acasă și, înainte de a ‘trece la treabă’ să ‘negocieze’ cu ea ce urma să se întâmple. N-are rost să intrăm în amanunte.
Doar că tipul avea o problemă. Pe la jumătatea negocierilor și apoi pe toată durata ‘întâmplărilor’ papagalul se cam băga în seamă. ‘Insera’ tot felul de comentarii. Hazlii, nimic de zis, doar că diminuau concentrarea preopinenților. Nu e ușor să joci în Kama Sutra atunci când te umflă râsul!
Așa că tipul s-a hotărât. Că trebuie să pună piciorul în prag. Sau cortina pe colivie… Nimic! Papagalul continua să comenteze.
A fost nevoie de o discuție tete-a-tete. Sau tete-a-bec…
„Dacă te prind că mai scoți o vorbă, o singură vorbă, îți smulg toate penele!”
Treaba a funcționat o vreme. Papagalul se potolise. Mai ales că după un timp tipul ridicase cortina de pe colivie și papagalul se putea bucura din nou de spectacol…
Până când una dintre preopinente s-a dovedit a fi pe măsura tipului. Și a venit cu câteva idei proprii! Așa că cei doi au început negocieri serioase. Poziții, secvențe, alea alea…
La un moment dat, papagalul nu mai rezistă. Și face următorul anunț:
Îmi bag picioarele-n ele de pene, astea sunt faze de comentat!
19 Iulie 202130 August 202130 August 2021, mai pe-nserat
Cum era aia cu ‘doi iepuri dintr-un foc’? Uite ca în politică se poate…
I was arguing in my previous post that our job is to determine meaning.
And to steer our actions in such a manner as to disturb as little as possible the natural equilibrium. Primum non nocere. The most important thing is to not endanger survival. Of everybody and of everything.
Please compare the next two memes.
Which one makes more sense? What each of them tells us about how their respective author sees us, the rest of the people?
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Plants transform water, minerals and sunshine into organic matter. Herbivores transform plant matter into meat. Predators cull the misfit among the herbivores. Scavengers return the ‘discrete components’ back to where they belong. At the start of the cycle.
Please note that this train of transformations happens both above and below water. That it includes all living organisms we know about. And that it constantly reshapes the environment.
The oxygen we breathe had been produced, at first, by some primitive bacteria. The soil which currently nurtures the plants which feed everybody else is a ‘by product’ of past and present organisms.
And so on.
Life is a web. Each of the species, a knot in this web.
Each member of a species gives some and takes some from the web. And, in doing this, keeps the web alive. Gives strength to each knot and keeps the entire web in one piece. In one functional piece.
At first, we – humans, as well at the rest of the apes, have been playing ‘top dog’. We’ve always taken more than we’ve been giving back. Apes have very few natural predators, except for viruses and bacteria. But what we used to take wasn’t that much out of proportion as to make a noticeable dent. As to endanger the big picture.
Until we, humans, have invented agriculture. Have actually enslaved plants and animals to serve us. Shaped the world to cater for our needs. Transformed forests into savannas to feed our animals and savannas into fields for our crops. Then fields into cities for our dwellings and industrial parks for our factories.
Enslaving the nature hasn’t been enough. We have enslaved our own brethren to work in our place. To take care of our animals, to tend our crops, to clean our houses, even to nurse our new-born.
And we have started to fight among ourselves. Attempting to control more and more of the Earth, we have stepped on each-other’s toes. Then ‘we’ have started to push back against ‘them’. By force, if necessary. By deadly force, if we saw fit.
Here’s were we stand now.
Our current contribution is negative. We have polluted the planet way beyond its short term capacity to cope with all the refuse we’re stacking on its back. We have burned enough of the fossil fuel which had been accumulated during hundreds of millions of years that we have thus changed the composition of the atmosphere. Changed it in the wrong direction… By hunting and by ‘repurposing’ the land we have contributed to the huge bio-diversity loss we are currently witnessing.
Some of us have started to understand what’s going on. Not only to understand but also to attempt to remedy the situation.
When one country had fallen under the ‘spell’ of terrorists – and a danger for all other countries, a large coalition of ‘interested parties’ have stepped in. And tried to make things right. For a host of reasons, that effort turned sour. And the ‘interested parties’ have decided to leave.
Amid all that mayhem, a lonely soul had remained steadfast. And spun the Earth in the other direction in his desperate attempt to save his protegees from the advancing Taliban. In his successful attempt to save his protegees from the advancing Taliban…
The way I see it, we – humans, are here to impart meaning to everything we get in contact with.
Now, what’s the meaning of the ‘story’ above?
Are we finally understanding the responsibility we have towards the rest of the living world? Or we’re still arrogant enough to do as we please? Without any consideration for what’s going to happen next?
As I said before. Humans don’t have any natural predators. Except for bacteria, viruses … and other people.
A little over three centuries ago, a certain Thomas Malthus maintained “that infinite human hopes for social happiness must be vain, for population will always tend to outrun the growth of production.” Let me add that Malthus had been educated at the Jesus College in Cambridge – where he had received his master of arts degree in 1791, and had taken his “holy orders” in 1797. Had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1821, elected a member of the French Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, to the Royal Academy of Berlin… and so on… Until now, Malthus has been proven wrong. We somehow managed to feed ourselves. In fact, despite the fact that we’re now roughly 8 times more numerous than we were in 1800, most of us eat far better than most of Malthus’ contemporaries. Live way longer. Lead far happier lives. Not without ‘associated’ costs. Borne mainly by the environment. And by some of the ‘others’.
The problem being that the things which had worried Malthus – population growth and the limited nature of the Earth, are true only in part. Yes, population growth puts indeed a lot of pressure on the limited Earth we currently inhabit, but the main thing which limits our “social happiness” is our limited understanding of what’s going on here.
Our self centered and self serving image of the world. Our own inability to find a long term, life preserving meaning for the things which happen around us.
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OK. So the Spanish needed a word for ‘what to do when dealing with things royal’ and borrowed the French word for ‘label’. Things worked, the French noticed and borrowed the new meaning back into their own vocabulary. In the end, when the English developed the formal side of their ‘royal life’, they looked no further. Why invent a new word when there already was one which worked?
But very soon the whole thing had grown out of proportion. At first a ‘simple’ guide teaching the neophytes how to avoid the wrath of the initiates, it had ended as a straight jacket. Stifling everybody, including the star of the show, the king himself. The very guy whose wrath was supposed to be avoided by adhering to the etiquette…
For instance, using ‘they’ instead of either ‘he’ or ‘she’. Specially in writing and as a must when the gender identity isn’t clear.
At first a ‘simple’ guide teaching the neophytes how to avoid the wrath of the initiates, it had ended as a straight jacket…
Why am I not astonished?!?
There is a whole literature about PC having gone mad. Some for and some against the idea, of course. Some blame the ‘enthusiasts’ on one side, others the ‘manipulative’ on the other. Which ‘enthusiasts’ and ‘manipulative’ can be found on both sides…
The end result?
When I grew up, being polite mandated a man to hold the door open for women to pass. For perfect strangers as well as for a wife, a daughter, a friend, a co-worker. Do this today and you’ll certainly get some angry frowns…
Does it make any sense?
Being politically correct or dismissing it as an attack against freedom? Of speech in particular and of freedom in general?
Neither. Does it make any sense to transform everything into a weapon? Both political correctness and freedom being included into ‘everything’!
Does it make any sense to frown upon somebody who holds the door for you, just because you are a woman? Does it make any sense to frown upon somebody who tells you it’s counterproductive to tell somebody they are stupid? Simply because the more stupid they are, the less are they inclined to understand what you want to convey…
So. We, people, have already managed to spoil two well intended ‘guides’. Which have both started as tools to facilitate interaction and ended up a straight jacket and a subject for quarrel, respectively.
What’s going on here? Am I the only one who believes this kind of behavior is self destructive?
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I say this makes absolutely no sense. It’s not only insulting for the nay-sayers, it’s actually dangerous for ourselves.
For all of us. Vaccinated, unvaccinated and unvaccinables.
Let me explain. The US Army, and all other successful ones, live by ‘no one left behind’. Far more than its technological prowess, this constitutes its main strength. Each of the individuals involved feel that they belong there. That no matter what will happen in the battle field, none of them will be ‘left behind’. It is this collective sentiment which transforms a motley collection of ‘misfits’ into the most powerful army in the world. The fact that the ‘home team’ foots the bill for the most technologically advanced ‘tools of war’ only adds to that strength. That huge bill being itself a proof of the powerful bond which exists between those who ‘serve’ and the general population. ‘No one left behind’ once again.
Flash back to the nay-sayers.
I’m convinced they’re completely mistaken. That Covid is for real, that vaccines work – even if imperfectly, that the mask is useful – and that calling it ‘face diaper’ is insulting. And I’m also convinced that we should rather hear them out than call them ‘unhinged’.
For two reasons. The first, and most obvious, being that calling them names opens up the door for them calling us names. How soon after a session of name-calling do you think we’ll regain ‘mutual recognition’? How soon after a session of name calling will we able to regain our ability to ‘speak freely’? And to listen in earnest what the others have to say? The second, and the more important one, being that it’s hugely important for us, for all of us, to understand the reasons which fuel this ‘nay-saying’. What made the nay-saying propaganda so successful.
isn’t going to bridge the growing gap which yawns our society apart.
The fact that Trump – and his minions, have been instrumental in the digging of the gap is one thing. His ‘thing’. In which direction each of us pushes – what each of us does about the present situation, is quite another thing. Our ‘thing’, this time.
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In primul articol e vorba despre talibanizare. Despre talibanizarea Romaniei.
Inclusiv despre momentul in care capetenia Academiei Romane ne indeamna sa refacem ‘unitatea de nezdruncinat’ dintre biserica – evident ortodoxa, si natiune. Prin intermediul – din nou evident, al familiei traditionale.
In al doilea, despre inconstienta. In principal, despre inconstienta la volan.”Unde te duci, inconstientule?” Ce faci cand ai, in sfarsit, ‘putere de decizie’?
Dai ‘militaria jos din pod’? “Există o singură soluție pentru toată aceeastă nebunie, pentru care militez până la capăt: „parul” legii.
“Pe bune?!?
“Parul legii” in tara care considera ca ‘legea este o bariera peste care sar caii, pe sub care trec cainii si in fata careia se opresc doar boii’?
Se plang unii ca asistam la ‘disolutia statului’. Manifestata si prin ‘indisciplina la volan’. Pe mine unul ma cam doare undeva de disolutia statului. Si de indisciplina rutiera. Astea doua sunt doar niste simptome. Ne-am cam desprins de realitate. Nu ne mai pasa de celalalt. Poate doar de rude. Si de tovarasii din gasca. Nu mai intelegem ca de unii singuri – sau in grupuri mici, nu putem supravietui pe termen lung. Poate ca ne-o fi bine pe termen scurt – daca reusim sa tragem tunul ala pe care il tot visam. Sau daca ajungem la sfarsitul drumului fara sa ne pocnim de ceva.
Problema fiind ca daca reusim ‘tunul’ contribuim la demolarea societatii in ansamblu. Daca mergem ca nebunii pe sosea – in mod ‘inconstient’, contribuim la insecuritatea generala.
Ce ma doare este indiferenta generala. Nimanui nu-i mai pasa de nimic. Nici macar de soarta lui. Nu-i pasa sau se comporta ca si cum nu i-ar pasa. Ceea ce e totuna.
Iar statul, adica cooperarea dintre noi, isi va reveni abia dupa ce ne va fi revenit noua mintea la cap. Daca vom incerca sa intarim autoritatea statului inainte ca revenirea noastra sa fi avut loc, nu vom face decat sa instauram unul dintre multiplele fascisme disponibile.
Basically, Adam Smith and Ayn Rand had the same thing in their minds.
How society works and how individuals meet their needs in a social context.
And both of them had reached the same solution. That capitalism was good.
Unfortunately – for Ayn Rand’s fans, any similitude between them stops here.
Adam Smith had described a reality. Something which had evolved, naturally, in the cultural milieu to which he had happened to belong.
Ayn Rand was trying to push a social model.
The fact that what Rand was trying to push was very close to what Smith had described is, indeed, important. But the difference between something which had evolved naturally and the very same something which had been imposed, by force, is also important.
Let me give you an example.
Christianity. Much of what we have today – from ‘human rights’ to the very concept of ‘science’, has it’s roots down in the principles exposed in the Bible. South America is, now, a Christian territory. Populated by people who had immigrated as Christians and by people – just as Christian as the first category, who had been born to parents having other beliefs. Parents who had been forcefully ‘conversed’ to Christianity.
It’s easy to notice that people in South America don’t fare as well as those in Europe, North America or Australia. Why? They are Christians, South America uses the same capitalism and the same democracy as the rest of the ‘civilized’ world… why are the results so different?
Don’t bring ethnicity into discussion! The explanation is simple and has nothing to do with ethnicity.
While in Europe, North America and Australia Christianity and capitalism had evolved naturally – in the sense that they had occurred in Europe and had been translated by the European immigrants to North America and Australia, in South America – and in other places, Christianity and capitalism had been forcefully imposed by the immigrants upon the much larger local populations.
Just as Communism had been forcefully imposed by the Lenin led Bolsheviks upon the Russian People.
Forget about the fact that communism had failed, no matter how hard some people have tried to make it work, while capitalism works for real – when used properly. My point is that whenever somebody tries to force something upon somebody else, the results will never rise to the expected level. No matter how good that ‘something’ might be.
Are you familiar with ‘you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink’? Leading it to water is enough. Whenever somebody becomes ‘enthusiastic’ enough to try to force a horse to drink, the results …. no matter how skillful the ‘enthusiast’ might be…
And there’s another ‘small’ thing which makes a hell of a difference. Adam Smith’s main point was that the whole society benefits from the functioning of the free market. Where each ‘agent’ competes with the others towards meeting his own goal. Which competition – as long as it remains free, results in everybody – well, almost, having a better life. Ayn Rand’s point being that the free market is there only for the benefit of the ‘strongest’. Which is in line with Lenin’s view on the matter… ‘The Bolsheviks merit to lead the revolution because they are the strongest…’
‘Și chiar crezi că o să înțeleagă cineva ce ai vrut să spui?’ ‘Ce? Că n-ai decât să spui ce vrei dar că pentru a acționa trebuie să îndeplinești niște condiții speciale? Iisus n-a osândit pe nimeni… ce ne îndrituiește pe noi să-mpărțim oamenii pe categorii?’
Driven by hunger, trained by habit and enhanced by hope.
That’s how we, humans – a.k.a. conscious animals – operate.
Hunger must be satisfied. Animals do it instinctively. They can be trained, some of them, only that training is based solely on memory and reward. Their individual contribution to the end result is small.
Humans do it conscientiously. As in ‘on purpose’. They identify first the available food sources – according to their training, rank them – according to their acquired tastes and to the relative ease with which food can be obtained from each of them, and proceed to feed themselves only after all these steps had been performed. However perfunctorily. It is easy to notice that here individuals have a lot more lee-way. Their contributions to the process can be substantial.
In all of those three phases. And beyond.
When choosing.
When ‘training’ others how to choose.
And when determining that we’ve had enough. That time is ripe to let others feed themselves.
Why are all these people fleeing? From their own country? Because the Taliban have arrived?
What made these youngsters – very much similar to those above, to choose the Taliban side of the conflict? And what made the Taliban ultimately more successful than the ‘democratically elected’ Afghan Government? The Americans deciding it was time for the Afghan People to stand on their own two feet?
As I said at the beginning of the post, we, humans, have a lot more lee-way than the rest of the animals. None of us is entirely free but each of us has some agency. Some power to influence the destiny of other people. When exercising that power we’re all influenced by our previously received conditioning and by the present circumstances. When pressed by ‘urgent considerations’ very few of us remain aware of the fact that present day decisions set the scene for what’s going to happen tomorrow. When pressed by what we consider to be ‘urgent’ we forget about ‘primum non nocere’. When caving in to urgency we forget that we are the ones going to live with the consequences of our present decisions.
The Afghans flee their country because they have lost hope. The Afghan soldiers have caved in because they have lost hope. The Afghans who have joined the Taliban have done that because they felt there was no other hope.
Who will have to make do in these circumstances? When are we going to take responsibility for our own fate? When are we going to start building our own hopes?
Bearing in mind that we have only one Earth at our disposal? And that if we play our cards right, the sky is the only limit?
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Most steps ‘forward’ had been made at the expense of those daring to put one foot in front of the other. Fernao de Magalhaes and Marie Sklodowska Curie had been but two of the examples.
But what kind of ‘moving forward’ is to find yourself shackled en route to a plantation in the ‘Brave New World’? Or nuked?
That’s the whole point. How do you balance the urge to explore with the need to survive?
What convinced Fernao de Magalhaes – and his men, that it was a good thing – for them, at least, to climb aboard those primitive ships and attempt to reach the Indies by sailing towards the ‘wrong’ direction? What made Marie Sklodowska Curie – and other scientists, overcome barriers previously considered insurmountable in their quest for knowledge? Putting themselves, and us, in great danger?
Fast forward to the XXI-st century. Following in the steps of de Magalhaes, Bruno and Curie, we’ve explored almost all corners of the Earth, peered into the womb of the Universe, named the entire table of Mendeleev, and reached the present state of civilization. In doing so, we’ve changed the composition of the atmosphere we breathe, polluted the water we drink, exhausted the soil which grows our food and, the worst, have soured whatever mutual understanding ever existed among ourselves.
After some 75 years of relative peace we’ve become more callous than ever. Judging by what’s being said on TV, shared on social media… and, most importantly, by how we react when our fellow human beings are in danger. Or in need…
We refuse to wear a mask – because it doesn’t offer perfect protection and it has been mandated by the government. We refuse to give up fossil fuel – because ‘it has not yet been scientifically proven beyond any reasonable doubt that all the global warming has been produced by us’. We refuse to pay taxes – because they are ‘theft sanctioned by the government.’
All these in the name of ‘defending our God sanctioned liberty’…
We steal much of the help we send to those in need. We pay those who work for us as little as we can, regardless of the consequences. And we declare, nonchalantly, that ‘greed is good’. We continue to notice the skin color of those we interact with. And to pass judgement on them starting from this ‘piece of information’. We continue to consider that women should ‘behave properly’ and ‘mind their own business’.
We allow ‘spin doctors’ into our minds. We welcome them, even. And let them ‘fine tune’ our biases…
How are we going to survive this huge amount of ‘progress’? That which we’ve brought upon our own heads? When are the ‘spin doctors’ going to realize the Earth is finite? Not flat. Limited!
What are they going to do when the shit they’ve sown into our heads will finally hit the fan? Where are they going to hide?
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nicichiarasa 