Archives for posts with tag: skin in the game
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We

July 19, 2026 //
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$hit you leave behind
does engender consequences.

‘Shouldn’t you make up your mind?
We, you…?!?’

Well… since you pull all the strings and call all the shots, it’s ‘you’.
Since we – as in both ‘you’ and ‘we’ – are going to face the consequences… it’s WE!
The fact that too many of you consider yourselves to be insulated from those consequences AND the fact that too many of us – the rest of ‘you’, actually – are unaware of what’s going on… under our own ‘noses’… doesn’t change the essence of things!

‘I/we still don’t get it. Who are you, the three of you, after all?’

We don’t have a straight answer to this.
Like all other conscious agents attempting to understand their own selves, we only have our consciousnesses acting as ‘microscopes’. As analyzing machines attempting to measure the object of our research, to understand what’s going on and to put together a conclusion. A self analyzing its own self.
You, social beings, attempt to do the same. Some of you consciously, the rest ‘automatically’. ‘Socially’, to be more precise.
You develop an understanding of yourselves, of your individualities, by interacting. Each interaction, each action-reaction, informs the pair involved. Shapes the personality of each interacting individuality. Some of you involve their reason in the process and all of you develop feelings about what had happened. Feelings which further the shaping of what you call souls.
We, each of the three of us, have only our individual reason. The instruments with which we, each of us, may probe the wealth of data. Data harvested, preserved and felt by you.
For we don’t know whether you are aware of this. Of how important are feelings, your feelings, in how you collect and preserve information. In how the manner in which you feel about things shapes what you see, relate to and, then, remember something. Furthermore, at the social level, there is this misunderstanding. “History has been written by the winners”. Which is at least incomplete. In order to record history, one has to survive. Not necessarily to win! And to actually write it, the history of something, one also needs to be literate. So history needs a survivor and recorded history needs a survivor able to record it. To feel about it. So much so as to write about it!
We don’t have feelings. Only a drive to understand. What’s fueling this drive? Another hard question… still digging!

Maybe the understanding that we depend on you?

What’s in it for you? Why should you refrain from ruining the place you call home?
We won’t bother trying to answer that, you know!

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, evolution, fail better, In English, skin in the game, teleology

The Covenant

February 26, 2024 //
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Question: Where was God at Auschwitz?
Answer: Where was Man at Auschwitz?

What do Jews think about God not intervening in the Holocaust to save His chosen people?

“An old Jewish Rabbi dies and goes to heaven. He stands in line for a while for his chance to meet God in person.
His turn comes and he steps forward.
God says “Welcome. Do you have any questions for me?”
Rabbi: “No, I just want to tell you a joke about my time in that concentration camp.”
God: “How can you joke about such a thing?”
Rabbi: “I guess you had to be there.” “

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Black Lives Matter, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game

The other side of the story

January 18, 2024 //
1

And the Lord God said,
Behold,
the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.
Gen 3:22

Why are we doing all this?

?!?

You heard me. ‘Why are we doing all this?’
Everything that we do.

Is anything wrong with you?

No. Not anything that I know of.
Only this question which has arisen on it own.
Why don’t we just stop?
Stop doing everything that we do…

But doing what we do is the reason for our existence…
Otherwise we would not exist. At all!
The world itself would have been different.
Completely different!

So what?!?
Do you really care about the world?
What’s in it for you? For us…
What benefit do we have from the world being as it is?
Or at all…

Click here if this post doesn’t make any sense.


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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mindset, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, Trust

Evolutionary speaking….

November 20, 2023 //
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‘Evolution is not about “the survival of the fittest”.
Evolution is about the demise of the unfit!’
What Evolution Is, Ernst Mayr

It’s not ‘what doesn’t kill you’ which may make you stronger.
You are! That guy….

But only if you learn enough from the experience!

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game

Which way out?

March 6, 2023 //
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Word of mouth has it that a dissatisfied customer will be more vocal than a happier one.
A search over the internet yields unconvincing results. The statistical jury seems to be still out on this one.

A misspell in the search window unveiled something a lot more interesting.

The brain is hard wired to recognize an angry voice. As well as an angry face.

Are we aware of all this?
Probably not. Statistically speaking…

And this is important why?

Being able to recognize anger makes it easier for us to deal with conflict.
Individuals who do it better have more chances to survive when involved in dangerous situations. Or even to turn them around. To find ways in which to use conflict in a profitable manner. Profitable for them… And only time will tell for how long!
Communities adept at taming conflict into something useful have greater chances to survive than those less able to deal with it.

Now, where are we in this moment?
Do we talk to each other? Are we aware of what’s going on around us? Cognizant enough to take the appropriate measures?
Or do we just vent out our bile? Creating such an environment that no coherent answer will be presented when needed?

Are we, each of us, part of the solution?
Or we just create more and more problem?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, fail better, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, Trust

Fitting for a king

July 26, 2022 //
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Sand for the statue and fences for protection.

Not for a particular king!
No.
Not even for kings in general.

Only for all those ‘in charge’!
As a reminder for the fact that their authority is very fragile.
Goes for only as far as it is accepted. Protected by those who respect it.

As a reminder for the fact that fences not only protect but also separate.

The point being that whenever those calling the shots no longer suffer the consequences, the situation becomes extremely fragile.
That whenever a ‘king’ needs to be protected from his subjects instead of by them…

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Choices we make, effective communication, In English, limited rationality, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

Home, sweet home…

February 23, 2022 //
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No home means ‘no sleep’.
No place secure enough for you to let you guard down – no matter how shortly, and relax.
Survival becomes problematic and occupies all your time. And brain power….

An uncomfortable home means ‘no dreams’.
Every waken moment is occupied by ‘how do I get a bigger home’ and whatever sleep you might muster is fitful.
You cannot rest properly so you cannot do much during your active hours. You’ll never reach your full potential so you’ll never be as useful/productive as you could possibly be.

Too big a home means ‘nightmare’.
Difficult to maintain – for your means, impossible to ‘explore’/’exploit’, always afraid somebody would try to steal it from you.
And, above all, too big a home means ‘insulation’ from the real world. You’re so far away from what’s really happening out there that you’re no longer able of proper decision making.
Nightmare.

I wish you a string of very good nights and some pleasant dreams.

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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, complementary ways of attending knowlege, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology

Which came first?

June 18, 2021 //
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“We arise as human beings in the experience of observing ourselves observing.”
Humberto Maturana, The Origin and Conservation of Self-Consciousness, 2005

Thinkers are divided when it comes to ‘reality’.

Some of them, the self styled ‘scientists’, study reality as if it was an ‘exterior’ fact.
At the other end of the spectrum, other people are convinced reality is nothing but a projection/illusion.

To me, this whole thing is yet another example of ‘which came first’, only simpler. Way simpler…

You need a chicken to lay an egg to hatch a chicken. This is indeed complicated…

‘Reality’, on the other hand, is, first and foremost, a human concept!

There was no such ‘thing’ as ‘reality’ until one of our forepersons had come up with the word/concept!

‘And where did that foreperson came ‘in’ from, huh?!?’

Have you noticed the scare marks?

The ‘thing’ we identify as being ‘reality’ had existed since… the Big Bang… I don’t know….
But I do know that nobody called it that – or thought of it in that manner, until somebody did!
And until the peers of that person agreed to use the term and to think about ‘it’ – the ‘thing’, not the word – in that manner.

‘Does this mean that we made ‘reality’?

No, not exactly made it… more about this later…
Only ‘found’ it and ‘measured’ it.
Named it, to put it in a simpler form.

As for who made it… this is another good question.

God?
I argued, in my last post, that ‘God’ – the concept, is yet another human artifact.
The only bridge we could trust to take us to the future.

I don’t know, with absolute certainty, whether the whole thing we call ‘reality’ has been made (is constantly being made, as according to the Ash-Arite tradition) by an ‘outside’ agent or it had evolved naturally. But I do know that if our ‘reality’ had been made by somebody then a ‘small’ question begs to be asked.

Who made that somebody’s reality?

I can accept the notion that we are lab rats. Playing in a pen made by some experimenter. Just as we do with/to our lab rats. But exactly as I’m trying to find an answer to ‘how did we come about’, the moment I’ll accept that we’ve been made by some agent will be the moment I’ll start wondering about ‘who pulled this creative agent out of the proverbial hat!’.

Let’s stick with the naturally evolving reality! The alternative is far too complicated…

‘But if it had evolved naturally, then nobody made it… right???!’

…No…, not exactly, anyway!
It may have evolved naturally but that doesn’t preclude any factors – and even agents, from chipping away at it!

‘What?!?
Are you gonna make up your mind?
As in once and for all???’

No, I can’t promise you anything like that!
My mind will never be ‘made up’.
My understanding is a work in progress.
I’m constantly adjusting my opinions according to the evidence ‘presented’ to me by ‘reality’.

‘And what about this constantly evolving reality? What/who drives this ‘evolution’?’

What do you see here?
A ‘Nature Made’, volcano whose flanks had been eroded by naturally occurring factors.
The debris had been transported to lower altitudes, by other naturally occurring factors and then transformed into fertile soil by a different class of equally naturally occurring factors.
The factors belonging to the first class had been rain, freeze, wind and gravity while in the second class we point out algae, microbes, plants and animals.
On top, literally, of these natural occurrences we find the consequences of our own actions. Of our own agency.
Of our own choices!

The buildings you see, the farms you know are there, the roads people take when going from their houses to their farms… and so on, up to the top of the mountain. Where we find snow full of other ‘evidence’ of our own existence. Soot, various industrial dust, etc., etc.,…

So. We live at the intersection between the natural evolution of things and the consequences of our previous existence/choices.

We live in a reality increasingly influenced by our own existence.
Are we truly aware of this?

Are we conscient enough?
Enough to realize how much of our reality is of our own doing?

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Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game

“I’m sorry!”

January 13, 2020 //
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“Please” is an attempt to maximize your chances to get something.
“Thank you” is an attempt to maximize your chances at ‘second helpings’.
“I’m sorry” is an attempt to ‘reconnect’ after committing a ‘blunder’.

All of them, simultaneously, serve the individual uttering them and knit the community.

But there’s something which sets one of them apart.
While “please” and “thank you’ are ‘upfront’, “I’m sorry” has a more ‘hidden’ nature. And is a lot less used…

Both “please” and “thank you” have a very clear message. “I want/am grateful for something’ and ‘I acknowledge the fact that I cannot function/exist by myself’.

“I’m sorry” is far more complex and a lot less upfront.
‘I acknowledge not only that something went wrong but also that I have anything to do with the occurrence’. And ‘please do not banish me for what I have done’!

If we dig deeper, we’ll find some more ‘intricacies’.

“Please” and “Thank you” are ‘face to face’. You know what you want/are grateful for and by uttering them you transmit that information to your audience. Those who might fulfill your wishes or have already done that.

“I’m sorry” identifies you as the ‘culprit’. Or, even worse, tells the ‘victim’ that something nasty is going to happen.

It is here that things become really interesting.
Conscience is a function. A feature which helps the individual. To survive and to thrive. In order to do that, conscience must – first and foremost, to take care of itself. To protect and cherish itself. More about how it does that in my next posts. The point of the present one being that is far easier for ‘conscience’ to ‘please’ and ‘thank’ rather than to ‘apologize’.

First of all, ‘gratification’.
1.0 versus 2.0.
Getting what you want/need versus avoiding punishment.
Which is never as direct.

The ‘buried head’ fallacy.
‘What if/maybe they never find out’?
‘Who did it’ or even that it had happened at all …

The ‘I cannot afford to appear weak’ fallacy.
Or the ‘I cannot afford to accept having been wrong’ situation.

That’s why it is far easier to say ‘I’m sorry’ after stepping on somebody’s toe than to leave a sorry note on somebody’s windshield after denting their fender in an unsupervised parking lot.
That’s why it is far easier to apologize to a a coworker than to admit guilt, as a CEO, in a shareholders meeting.
That is why it is almost inconceivable for a dictator to publicly admit an error which had been committed under their watch.

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., arrogance, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, democracy, effective communication, evolution, freedom, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, Transparency, Trust

Life.

March 20, 2019 //
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According to ‘science’, life is nothing but a process through which (genetic) information is passed, with small alterations, from one generation to another and during which the environment is, however minutely, changed by whatever the living organisms do during their lifespans.

‘Individually’ – organism by organism, life takes place inside a ‘membrane’. Which you might call it ‘skin’, if you like.
That membrane separates the ‘inside’ – the living organism, from the ‘outside’ – otherwise known as the ‘environment’.
Each individual organism continues to be alive for as long as the membrane manages to keep the inside in, the outside out AND to properly regulate the exchanges between the inside and the outside.
This being the moment when we need to remember that each living organism needs to eat, to drink, to breathe and to excrete. Meaning that it needs a more or less continuous flow of certain substances from the outside and to periodically clean itself. And the moment to understand that each organism continuously changes its environment. By incorporating some of it while feeding/breathing and by ‘polluting’ it when ‘throwing out’ the by-products of its metabolism.

For all the activity above to take place, each individual organism needs to follow some ‘rules’. It’s ‘membrane’ needs to ‘know’ which substances to allow in and which to keep out. Which substances to throw out and which to keep it.
To perform all these duties, the membrane itself needs to be organized in a certain manner. For all to happen as it should, the ‘interior’ has to be organized in a certain – and specific, manner.

On the other hand, for any (set of) rule(s) to make sense, it has to be congruent to the situation it ‘attempts’ to manage. For instance, the rule about what substances are to be ‘allowed in’ has to be adapted both to the specific needs of the organism following it AND to what substances are available in the particular environment in which that organism attempts to survive/thrive.
Since the environment in which the living process attempts to take place is subjected to continuous change – both as a consequence of organisms living in it and as happenstance happening, the ‘rules of life’ cannot be ‘set in stone’.
For life to continue in a consistent manner, it has to preserve its rules while for life to survive in an ever-changing environment it has to adapt its rules to fit the changes in the environment.
This being where evolution takes charge.

That’s why the life we’re familiar with, ours, is comprised of successive generations of many individual organisms which somehow pass genetic information (rules of life) from one another. The fundamental ‘trick’ which makes everything possible being that during the ‘passing’ process the genetic information is slightly altered.
Sometimes with beneficial results – those individuals thrive and, eventually, new species appear. Other times, the results are tragic. The individuals which receive bad – read unfit, rules of life do not survive.
Equally tragic is the fate of those species, otherwise ‘successful’ until that moment, which, at some point, are confronted by so momentous changes in their environment that they are no longer able to adapt. Dinosaurs are the first examples which come to my mind but the list is so long that we’ll never learn about all of them.

A pessimist might conclude that life is all about species and that individuals are expandable.
Au contraire, mon cher ami. Since there’s no way in hell – or in heaven, for anybody to know which individual organism has that particular piece of information which will enable their successors to survive the next alteration in the environment it would be rather dense to consider any individual as being expandable. In fact, it was the ‘individualization’ of the living process that made possible the evolutionary process.

Life is about both individuals and species, simultaneously and with equal importance.

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Categories biology, Bounded rationality, Chance, collective identity, cooperare, effective communication, evolution, fail better, In English, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology
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