Archives for posts with tag: confusion
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There is no vaccine against narrow-mindedness.

January 24, 2015 //
3

Vaccines work.
OK, there are exceptions. Some batches are botched, some people develop allergies, some viruses mutate so fast that in those cases vaccination isn’t very effective.
But as a principle vaccination works as intended.

Despite all that, some people choose to deny their children the protection offered by vaccines, without any specific reason – such as an allergy or something similar. Just because they have heard that vaccination may cause autism. Or other equivalent baloney. Against advice vehemently pressed by most doctors.

As a consequence, people have re-started to die. After contracting perfectly preventable diseases.

vaccination

I have a rather ambivalent attitude towards Ayn Rand. I admire her razor sharp mind yet I find her a little too callous for my liking.

But sometimes it’s exactly this combination of traits that helps her pin point the essence of a situation:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/the-new-measles/384738/

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Categories Choices we make, politics, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in

Homo homini lupus.

January 19, 2015 //
6
Cheadle slaves

Click on the picture to read the article.

Don Cheadle learns that his ancestors were owned as slaves by the Chickasaw Nation and that after the end of the Civil War the five ‘Civilized Nations’ refused to liberate their slaves. Further more, after the Chickasaw agreed to liberate their slaves they didn’t offer them citizenship.

It seems that the ancient Romans were right when they said that ‘homo homini lupus’ – men act like wolves do towards other people.

Only his can be interpreted in two apparently conflicting ways:
‘Man predates on other people’
or
‘Man helps his mates, just as wolves do’.

In reality both interpretations are valid simultaneously.
Men coagulate into packs, just like wolves do, and then go prey on other human packs, called ‘herds’ by the ‘hunters’. Somewhat similar to what wolves do, only that wolves do not prey on members of their own species.

And something else. Wolves do this mostly by instinct and on a ‘need to do’ basis. We do it knowingly and because we feel there’s something wrong in there we have to find ‘excuses’ for our acts. Some of us almost never fail to come up with new ones.
‘Ideology’ being just one of the many currently available.

Or we may choose to act the better side of ourselves.

we-carry-kevan-2

http://wecarrykevan.com/

.Other quite interesting ideas on this subject can be found here:
http://associatesmind.com/2013/05/09/homo-homini-lupus-est-man-is-a-wolf-to-his-fellow-man/

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Categories Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in

Man, the strangest creature that ever roamed this Earth

January 9, 2015 //
1

Yesterday I went to the French embassy in Bucharest and lighted a candle in mourning for the people killed during the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack.

I, an agnostic, using a religious symbol in remembrance of a group of people killed by a couple of (intolerant self proclaimed) defenders of religious values for poking tasteless fun at some religious symbols.

Je suis Charlie

While there I noticed a mother who brought her very small child to a ‘shrine’ build in the memory of people who authored such extreme works of art that some of them cannot be shown, under any circumstances, to underage audiences.
(I really do consider that what those people created were indeed works of art. Only not all art is contemporary with the moment of time when it was created so, maybe, it should be saved for ulterior audience… and, hence, shown to a very limited selection of the people currently roaming the Earth.)

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Categories Psychology, The kind of world we live in

Cancer as a matter of bad luck.

January 3, 2015 //
1

The recent shift on how both the scientific community and the press relate to cancer is just another proof that we are currently undergoing a subtle change in the way we understand the world.

Yes, we continue to be fascinated with the notion of ‘the primordial cause’ and to go way out into the improbable in search for that cause while we still tend to ‘forget’ – or even actively chose to neglect – that most things, cancer included, usually are the result of a string of events and not of a single occurrence. Identifying only one event in that string as ‘the cause’ is rather ‘dense’, don’t you think?

Yet, despite of all of the above, this development has a bright silver lining. For the third time in the history of science and for the first in the history of popular media lady luck is being presented as a valid scientific explanation of anything. This very fact is a huge step towards a new understanding of how vast the world really is and of what we, mere human beings, might or might not be able to do/understand in/of it.

The first two instances when this has happened – Charles Darwin mentioning the role of hazard in biological evolution and Schrodinger using his famous cat to explain the intricacies of subatomic physics – the general public (and a considerable portion of the scientific community) somehow managed to avoid grasping the huge importance of hazard in nature and, frightened, found solace in the welcoming arms of God.

This is the first time, in my knowledge anyway, that God was not mentioned, yet, in connection with such an important subject for us all.

Good news, isn’t it?

For those who want to find out more about chance and cancer these two recent articles are a good starting point into the matter:

“Majority of cancers occur because of random mutations…” offers a succinct presentation of the development while
“Are two thirds of cancers really due to bad luck” brings welcome clarifications on the limits of the scientific method – statistical analysis – used by the authors of the original study.

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Categories Psychology, The kind of world we live in

Marx misled us horribly

December 12, 2014 //
0

‘We already know that, why are you bothering us?’

“labour-power can appear upon the market as a commodity, only if, and so far as, its possessor, the individual whose labour-power it is, offers it for sale, or sells it, as a commodity”

“labour is not a commodity”

OK, reconcile these two declarations… The first belongs to Marx himself while the second is an integral part of the 1944 Philadelphia Declaration made by the International Labor Organization… And if any of you has any doubts about the ILO thinking not being heavily tainted by Marxism please check this out: “the war against want requires to be carried on with unrelenting vigour within each nation, and by continuous and concerted international effort in which the representatives of workers and employers, enjoying equal status with those of governments, join with them in free discussion and democratic decision with a view to the promotion of the common welfare.” Not exactly the Communist Manifesto itself but too close to it for my comfort.

So is it or is it not?

No it isn’t. Not even Marx ever thought it was.

When Marx speaks of labor power as a commodity he only wants to demonstrate the need for the worker to be free in order for the system to function. For him this is the difference between feudalism – when the peasant (the worker of those times) was heavily dependent on the land owner – and capitalism – where the possesor of the labour power is free to sell ‘his commodity’ to the higher bider – is the existence of the free market where commodities – including ‘labour power’, which is traded as if it was a commodity – are exchanged. And the fact that the market is free also determines individual freedom of both the worker and the capitalist, seller and buyer of the labour power.

But this trading of labour power as if it was a commodity doesn’t transform it into a real commodity.

In fact labour is more a form of communication than anything else.
By labouring the worker transforms something into something else, usually in a way that is not so easily reproduced, not even for low skilled jobs. Had it been possible to automate the working process we would have used exclusively robots or morons. Do you really think a robot or a moron could flip burghers at McDonald’s? Are you sure you’d like that to happen?

Confused?
It’s not that complicated. Marx had an insight – that human history is nothing but the story of the individual man enjoing more and more autonomy – and then blew it. He took it upon himself not only to speed up the history of the mankind but also to lead us (even against our will) where he thought that we should finally arrive (communism). Rather arrogant, don’t you thing?
In time that arrogance seems to have mellowed somewhat (or became more conceited?) but it is still very much alive: ‘the war against want requires to be carried…to the promotion of the common welfare’….

What is that ‘the common welfare’? Can something like that ever be determined? Even in a ‘democratic’ way?!?

Had Marx refrained himself at studying the effects of increased individual autonomy on the workings of the human society he would have been considered the undisputed thinker of the second millennium and we’d have been sparred from witnessing (or experiencing) the horrors of communism…  I know, I know, counter-factual history is not acceptable… just saying…

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Categories politics, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in

It takes THREE to tango

November 24, 2014 //
1

ce ne tine pe loc

The caption on this photo maintains that ‘sometimes the only thing that keeps you from going forward resides solely in your head’.

I completely agree with that idea.

Meanwhile I find it extremely funny that the image illustrates only what’s going on in the mind of the caption-er!!!

If you don’t believe me go and honk near the horse!

My point is that both horse and rider know that tying the reins on something is just a ‘stay put’ message from the rider and nothing more.

The photographer found the entire thing too funny and didn’t stop to consider the situation in any depth. Something in his head had stopped him!

As to who’s the third person needed for a tango session… have you ever tried to dance without music? Easier to do it alone…

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Categories Psychology, Respect Mutual.

Conscience vs Matter

September 18, 2014 //
0

I’m afraid things are just a little bit more complicated than that.
It is true that we need our conscience in order to perceive matter but that doesn’t mean that we actually create matter when we perceive it.
The short (and long) of this is that matter existed long before monkeys started walking consciously on this Earth.

Humberto Maturana did a jolly good job at explaining all this: http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/pub/hvf/papers/maturana05selfconsciousness.html

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Categories Psychology

“Intelligent design”

June 28, 2014 //
0

intelligent design

 

So this is what ‘intelligent design’ is about!

In fact it’s funny even if rather inappropriate since pigs appeared on the face of the Earth long after dinosaurs went extinct.

Thanks to “I fucking love science” for this subject and for the cartoon.

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Categories The world as described in jokes, yes but

“A urine powered generator?!? Don’t be so silly!”

June 24, 2014 //
5

urine powered generator

So what do we have here?

Four crafty teenage Nigerian girls have put together an ingenuous rig for a ‘science and technology’ fair.

“The system works like this:

Along the whole way there are one-way valves for security, but let’s be honest that this is something of an explosive device…”

A well meaning ‘eager beaver’ journalist wanting to help promote their exploit  has branded the whole contraption as an ‘urine powered generator’.

An then the hell broke loose:

“It is all over the Internet and news, three Nigerian school girls have invented a urine-powered generator that can produce electricity for 6 hours from a single litre of urine!

Really? Sadly, no.

I can’t find an original source for this story, where did it come from? [was it here?] Are there really some Nigerian school girls with a urine-powered generator or is this just a hoax? Either way, all those journalists that repeated the story really should be ashamed of themselves, it is so obviously wrong and/or untrue.”

 

I’m not in the business of apportioning blame all over the internet but after finding out about this succession of events I started to have serious doubts about who is wrong and who should be ashamed of themselves….

I’m sure that most of you have already understood where I’m headed to but please bear with me.

So OK, the ‘eager beaver’ has indeed stretched the reality a little bit. It’s not an ‘urine powered generator’ but an ingenuous ‘science project’ presented by some teen age students.
So what was it that brought the wrath of the ‘eco-scammer’ on those ‘poor’ girls? Or even on the writer of the original article…
Who, and where, claimed that the contraption produced more energy than it consumed? Yes, those arguments involving thermodynamics and all that scientific mambo-jumbo that he is mentioning inside his article are absolutely correct (“trust me, I’m an engineer”, a real one that is) but perfectly misplaced.
As is the original title but while that title is an innocent exaggeration the second article is a malicious  (or myopic?) and undeserved rebuttal.

Getting back to what had started all this, that ‘thing’ is not a ‘generator’ but can be used as an accumulator!
Solar panels produce energy when the sun is up but people need light at night, obviously.
Even more importantly, solar panels produce a type of current (DC) which can be used to ‘split’ water into hydrogen and oxygen and to light a special kind of bulb but for little else. If you want to power a ‘modern appliance’, a refrigerator for instance, you need an inverter – a pricy device that transforms DC into AC.
On the other hand the type of gas powered generator used by those crafty students is relatively cheap and common enough almost everywhere in the world. Adapting it to run on hydrogen is easy, this feat was not even mentioned in the original article.

So the real meaning of what those 4 girls did is that they came up with a way to replace a costly scheme comprising a lot of batteries and an inverter with a gas bottle, an already largely available gas powered generator, an electrolytic cell and two filters.

Not a small feat, by any means!
If you take some time to think about it, of course.

And yes, there are four girls that did this, not three like the ‘eco-scammer’, who probably didn’t even bother to read the original article, wrote insouciantly after merely taking a glance at the photo that came with the inappropriately titled  news.

The original story can be read here: http://makerfaireafrica.com/2012/11/06/a-urine-powered-generator/
and the ‘eco-scammer’ rebuttal here: http://www.eco-scams.com/archives/790

 

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Categories Pamflet, Psychology, The kind of world we live in, yes but

“Industrial Age”

June 12, 2014 //
0

Industrial Age

I found this picture on Bob Colgan’s FB page accompanied by the following caption:

“THE LONGER You stare at this…….the more you realize how wrong the Industrial Age has been“

I don’t want to sound apologetic but isn’t it that the ‘Industrial Age’ is nothing but a set of circumstances that lays at our discretion the technical/social means for us to complain about the shortcomings of the very ‘Industrial Age’ itself?

What if it is US that are responsible for the way WE (mis)use the means at OUR disposal?

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., Economy, politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in, yes but
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