Selfie.

This picture is taken in a beautiful part of America and the sign tells a story of that place. Look at all the marks that the foreigners left as a sign of their appreciation, to show the world that they traveled all the way to this great place. I chose this picture and changed it to use it as a commentary on our society that is heading more and more towards a “me” focused world instead of a world where the other (you) also counts. People say more and more: “I don’t want refugees because I don’t trust them” instead of YOU come from a country destroyed by a war and YOU have it much worse than I have so YOU can come here.

The internet brought the world and its people closer together compared to 20, 50 or a 100 years ago but this technical marvel has not brought our hearts closer together. Twitter brought us the Arab spring and a fifth of the world is connected on Facebook and you would think that we would be more understanding of each other. Instead we see more and more people and governments closing their doors and longing back to the day’s where everything was neat in a box and labeled for clarity. Our modern need to take selfies is a vivid reminder of this, we like to share with the world a picture of ourselves, look at me.

I was this week for work in Amsterdam and there I saw the famous selfie sticks in use and I paid some attention. To be fair, the people were taking photos of all the sites, but they stuck their head in front of it and the camera every time. Imagine these people showing their pictures back home to some family members: here is a picture of me, and me, and me and my friend, and me etc. They showed the world where they have been instead of what that other world looks like. But maybe I’m not fair, 20 years ago it was not possible to easily make selfies with the film camera’s we had back then and it was a lot of work to send a couple of hundred friends a copy of your pictures. Maybe the modern technique has only awoken a slumbering need in us humans. Maybe there was never a Youtah and always a Metah

Day 660, Everything looks crooked in this picture.

Day's pictures, Society

Write

Everything looks crooked in this picture.

If I stare at it I get dizzy.

The president of the united states of America is not known for his wise words but he knows how to grab attention. In the beginning I sometimes compared him with Hitler, but I would not say that anymore. Hitler was also a disturbed man, but he had a few strong ideals that guided him and Trump has no idea. So, luckily there is no Hitler, or the kind of followers he had, in today’s society. For the people that are interested in it you can find many books on how he rose from humble scum to a powerful one. Hitler has written about his success and how he got there, he is quite honest about it to and if you read the following quotes you might wonder why his followers were not offended.

–How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.

-Strength lies not in defense but in attack.

-The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.

-The art of leadership… consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.

Adolf Hitler

-In the first quote he tells you that the people you govern don’t think. It all depends what you include in the thinking process. Most people vote for what their “thinking”, there gut, tells them, if that is mostly self interest than you can debate if that is real thinking. Maybe thinking must include the consequences of your vote beyond your own and immediate self-interest. If Hitler means that that looking beyond yourself is missing than he is right. People that only think about themselves are easier to manipulate. But overall it is a generalization that superficially seems to be true.

-The second quote sound like it comes directly from a movie script and a lot of people praise the person who doesn’t role over but attacks. But you can also see it as coming from insecurity, a fear of immanent failure where the attack is the only way out. Attacking is most of the time the easiest route to follow because it is mostly fueled my ancient urges and instincts. A defense on the other hand is more a cerebral exercise and needs more time to get in motion. That Hitler associates it with strength is probably because it comes naturally to him, he is famous for hating intellectuals (with their sound arguments).

-The third quote goes together with my conclusion of the first, that selfish people are easier to manipulate, and the second that most people attack instead of defend when attacked. Rhetoric is the art of juggling with words till the people are in awe of you. It doesn’t matter so mush what the words are you use, what matter is the emotions it generates in the masses. As I told you before I think that most people vote for what is immediate in their own interest, but if it comes to choosing we are all insecure and then it will help if you are in a group, one of the masses. It’s easier to go right if everybody goes right, you have to be strong if you want to go the opposite way, group pressure is a well-known psychological mechanism.

-The fourth quote is more of a rhetorical trick and everybody that was part of a group knows how this goes.

Hitler was not a stupid man, but I doubt that he came up with these observations himself. There have always been rulers that used their skills of rhetoric and manipulation to gain power and some of them were probably aware of what they did and how they did it. But as I am happy that we have no Hitler today, but we have a nice example in our modern politics in the form of Trump, who probably would claim that Hitler stole these quotes from him. And to be clear, Trump is maybe like Hitler, but he fortunately misses one key aspect and that is an ideology, as long as he doesn’t start a nuclear war it is all just hot air and forgotten in a couple of years. If I am wrong than we are in trouble because Trump has way more power than Hitler ever had.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived. Niccolo Machiavelli

When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be tough. Donald Trump

Day 657, I think.

Day's pictures, Society, Video

As long as I remember, around Reagan’s appearance in Spitting Image, I found American politics way more interesting than our own. In the Netherlands there is also happening a lot but on the world stage the impact is like a mosquito bite compared to America’s elephant foot on a to. Reagan became president when I was around 8 and we only had two Dutch speaking TV-channel, every week they had Spitting Image on and my young mind was confronted with those crazy characters. My mother made us also aware at that young age that if those crazy characters, American and the Soviet Union started shooting atomic bombs at each other and us that we would go to the biggest city, so we would die instantly instead of slowly, heavy stuff for a 10 yer old boy.

There was that kind of fear in the beginning of the eighties and my mother was no communist, but she was also no fan of Reagan, who according to most leftists started bumping his chest and provoking the Soviet Union after the relative peaceful 70s. Luckily the Soviet Union imploded under its own weight and failure, so America could unload their frustrations somewhere else and disturb central America instead of kids in Holland. After Reagan you had Bush the first who I don’t remember besides the war with Iraq over Kuwait, I guess he left no impression and maybe that’s for the best and why he only stayed for one turn. Then there was flashy boy Clinton who also accomplished nothing beside showing what Americans are good in and that his hypocrisy. But for the rest I don’t know, for Europeans these so-called democrats are like what we call the right wing. The economy was booming but there was no improvement of (economic) justice. But when Bush the second stole the presidency I started paying attention. I remember Bush as a comedic figure and a puppet that, in mine opinion, should be locked up for mass murder together with his cronies. For me, America was becoming this big fat general that for some reason thinks it can bully the world. Imagine if Russia or Germany had military basis all over the world like America has, it’s crazy. I don’t mind America as a big power but with a little bit more intelligence please. Well, after comedic Bush and the decapitation of the economy we got Obama. Obama seems to me a genuine decent guy that was somewhat naïve in thinking he could do anything good in a country that still has one foot in the wild west. Because of his stalemate with congress his presidency was pretty disappointing to me. The thing that sticks in my memory is the killing with remote controlled drones, something a decent person would see as the first step in desensitizing warfare*. After Obama I thought that Clinton the second would win, and America would go on standing still like it is doing since the seventies. Bernie Sanders was off course in my eyes a good guy that was more genuine than all the other suits you see shuffling around in American politics, but I have my doubt if America is willing to change… And off course they won’t, they elected Trump. I don’t want to offend my American Family and friends any more, but I really start to doubt the general level of basic education in that country, it’s like you need lots of money to get a somewhat decent education over there. Americans are proud, like children of their new drawing, of their country and like to say that they live in the “land of the free”, or in other words: I don’t give a fuck about others. Bush might be a war criminal, but he could make fun of himself and that quality shows that he knows that we are all stupid and ignorant and trying. The Trump as president has nothing genuine or humble about him and that is the greatest crime you could do as a human being.

No one on earth has a user manual for living on planet earth. We are all figuring it out, and it’s ok if you think what that button does but that doesn’t say you know what that button does.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance. Confucius

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. George Bernard Shaw

The greatest enemy of progress is the illusion of knowledge. John Young

*After Vietnam, the people back home complained about the more than 50 000 deaths and that let to the first gulf war where mush more was accomplished with less cost. The problem is that the millions of Vietnamese that died will never be an argument for not going to war. Look at the second gulf war where there were also relative view casualties on the American side but several hundred thousand casualties among Iraqi civilians. If you have drones that fight for you, and you have only the cost of bullets that stops you from going to war, the chance is that there will be more wars.

FAX

Society

Facts (short for Proven), sometimes called the truth or facts that are proven (the latter short for proven facts), is the proven-facts transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a brain connected to a head or other sentient device. The original proof is scanned with a fact machine (or a fact-copier), which processes the contents (text or images) as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitlesson, and then transmitting it through the school system in the form of audio-frequency tones. The receiving fact machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy.^[1] Early systems used direct conversions of truth darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines modulate the transmitted audio frequencies using a digital representation of the page which is compressed to quickly transmit areas which are all-white or all-black.

Fat naked people

Society

I wanted to no more about civilian casualties of war, or Collateral damage. While doing research on the internet I came upon this site from the Watson Institute. The article goes about civilian casualties in wars that America started. They did research that shows that “The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of March 2015, approximately 210,000 civilians have died violent deaths as a result of the wars.” There are other numbers to, if you search for Casualties of the Iraq War you will find among others this wiki page that reads: “Official estimates of Iraq War casualties range from 110,000 to 460,000. Other estimates, such as the 2006 Lancet study, and the 2007 Opinion Research Business survey, put the numbers as high as 650,000 and 1.2 million respectively”. If even big institutes and universities can’t make up their mind with all their available resources than I, sitting behind my computer, will of course never find out the truth. But if you assume it is the lowest number, and only for the war that America started in Iraq in 2003, than 110,000-civilian’s casualties are still a lot.

Maybe I am crazy, but I immediately see in front of me a dull meeting room. In this room there is some bad lightning, lukewarm coffee and numbers scribbled on a board. There are a couple of people sitting at a big table, It looks like all middle-aged white man. They discuss the tolerated number of casualties of the war they are about to start. They sit there all smug. Probably thinking in themselves: “look at me, sitting here at the big table, making big decision, I am so serious, I am so important…wonder what’s for dinner tonight”. But it’s true, there was a table like that, in a room like that, with just a few old, probably fat and white, guys deciding over the willful killing of thousands of civilians, and every war kills civilians. They might claim it’s the state that goes to war, and they are just the tools that do it, but…

Specner-Tunick-Stadschouwburg-theatre-2014

Spencer Tunick – Widewalls

Picture this: try to see everybody naked in a big field. Naked we are all the same, without all the bells and whistles you will never know if that person is a hairdresser, a plumber or a congressman. We are all the same in that imaginary naked world but for some reason these fat white men started pointing at some people by a tree with a comfortable couch. The fat men give the order to kill them, they want the couch. These followers do that and… some bystanders get also killed. If you take away all the bells and whistles you end up with this picture. Collateral damage is what they call it, but at the end that is not what it is, It’s just a bunch of people that wanted something no matter the cost they, don’t care that some bystanders might die. Observing a group of naked people doing this ritual would surely make you wonder, put them some cloth on and call them president and general and it suddenly makes more sense…sadly, now it fits in a whole familiar narrative.

Every person that died in such an unjust war is murdered.

I’m not against war, if in the imaginary field full of naked people someone start beating his neighbor to death and you send your strongest friend there to stop him, first with words off course, and he accidentally hit the murderers younger brother that was standing to close. You might cal it collateral damage where an innocent bystander got hit, but there was a good cause. (I know, where do you draw the line, but morals without a line are no morals, passivism is no solution) It is generally agreed on that the Iraq war was not necessary and if there was a stronger power than America we would have seen some self-righteous American statesmen on the stand in Den Haag. Every person that died in such an unjust war is murdered. Nietzsche has this idea that morals get their value from the powerful, and he is right in that, America is not punished for the murder of more than 100,000 innocent bystanders because they are the most powerful country and can make the rules. Most Americans still go to bed without thinking about that, they just don’t seem to care. Would you stay in a country that murdered 100,000 man, woman and children?

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. Noam Chomsky

I struggle with these things, I like America, my fiancé is from America, I’ve been there several times, I wouldn’t mind living there for a while, I like going to the zoo. Its a beautiful country. Hollywood has softened my critical mind. The “idea of America” is almost always influenced by the media at large. Movies, comedy shows, news and so on. They all paint a picture, positive or negative, but they paint it. America is a big country, friendly people, racism, hamburgers, religious, funny presidents, ridiculous wealthy people, red

Mongolian warrior and ruler Genghis Khan created the largest empire in the world, the Mongol Empire, by destroying individual tribes in Northeast Asia. biography.com

necks, new Yorker’s, guns, American dream, poverty, and off course their wars. And If you slightly lift the Hollywood vail in front of your critical mind, you also see that Americans are not really interested in the rest of the world, I see this fake “Hollywood America” that is as narcissistic, nihilistic and schizophrenic as can be, but also has an air of innocence and naivete over itself. That’s how I see America, and that is a different picture than I have of a Hitler-Germany, a Stalin-USSR or a Mao-China, but they have something in common. They all rationalize their murderers rule over there subjects. And yes, I think we are all, the whole world, subjects of America. They have by far the most powerful military and culture in the world. They can pollute what they want, bully other countries, and start wars when they see fit. That kind of power corrupts and they are masters in rationalizing it. In 500 years, when their power and culture is no longer dominant, they will write about America in the 21^st century in a similar way as we now write about Genghis Khan or the Conquistadors. We write about these murderer’s figures and groups, there adventures and complement it with some hard facts about them, including a list of there wars and casualties. That’s it, in 500 years America will be reduced to some anecdotes in a corner of a history book, and a list next to it of all the peoples it murdered.

I know (of) a lot of good Americans but I don’t think it matters when the current is so strong against them, they will also be judged by time an get lost…maybe we all are.

“What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. . . . For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end. . . .” Friedrich Nietzsche

“Nihilism is a natural consequence of a culture (or civilization) ruled and regulated by categories that mask manipulation, mastery and domination of peoples and nature.” Cornel West

The problem of democracy

Society

There is only democracy because we have no answer to the question of how we should govern ourselves. The people that govern us are following the whims of the constituent and hence steer the boat erratically across the sea of time, every now and then catching a wave from the side. The only thing that keeps order in this imaginary boat is the relative order in the steer house, not every sailor gets a swing at the big wheel, and even a drunken skipper can be sent to their quarters.

After 1945, most prosperous nations are democracies. Before the war there were also democracies, but the chosen leaders were often granted more power. Its often said that Hitler came to power by democratic means, but his takeover of the government and consequently becoming a dictator is for the most part due to the system behind their democracy. Their system let him strategically move around his opponents and even let him use a law that gave him basically dictatorial powers. In Germany the inconsistent behavior of the voters where not the biggest cause for the rise to power of Hitler, the long tentacles of their peculiar history provided a system of government that allowed the rise of authoritarian rulers. England has a better history in this regard and it’s not surprising that the voters over there kicked their war winning prime minister (Churchill) on the curbs without causing a problem when the power had to be handed over.

A definition of democracy is that the power lies with the people. Most of the times this power is given to a representative, of the people, and from there a whole system is built made out of ministers, prime ministers, senators, parliaments and more. This system works, more or less, as a mood stabilizer, dampening the worst decision of the constituency. The different representatives can decide not to work with a racist party, even if they get a sizable part of the votes. But the people that vote still contribute to the main direction the country is going despite of the stabilizing power of the legislative and executive power.

Even more important than the stabilizing effect of the legislative and executive power for our fortune is the separation of powers or simply said: the agreement amongst citizens that prevent their ruler from ignoring or making laws that are made by the citizens. This system is developed in the 18^th century where a king could still make laws, and order the police and judges what to do with these laws. They slowly moved to a separate entity for law making (legislative Power), and even the king had to obey these laws. The judges became also independent (judicative Power), so they were free to interpret the laws and were no longer ordered on how to interpret them. Later these potentates became a symbolic head of state or were replaced by something less ancient and their power was more formally divided between the Legislative Power (parliament, normally in two chambers), executive Power (government and administration) and judicative Power (courts of justice)

This separation of power takes more direct influence away from the people in so far the main direction of the country is concerned. There are some fundamental laws in each country that cannot be change by a simple majority vote like for example the constitution in America. So, together with our governmental system they ensure a certain stability for the long term. But for the short term we still have these ridiculous elections where the direction of a country is often determent by a minority that cannot make up their mind, a majority of the voters stay with their side for a long time.

It is not easy to come up with a better system. I have never studied politics, the things I say about democracy and the separation of power should be common knowledge, and I don’t pretend to know all the nuances. My problem is not this system we’ve built but the question of how you resolve differences of opinion. Giving everybody a vote is one way to solve a dispute but there are some questions where this can be dangerous. In a debate there are a lot of questions that you can answer with your opinion, for example birth control. There are no hard facts for or against it, your subjective feeling should decide your answer and in a democratic society each individual can decide if they want to use birth control and no law should be made enforcing or withholding it. But debating about the health risks of smoking is another story, there are too many hard facts about the negative effects of it. Forbidding people from smoking in certain places is no problem because it affects other people and its accepted that it is harmful towards others. But a law that forbids people from smoking is not good because the negative effects of smoking only effects the smoker, and in a democracy, we should be allowed to be boss over your own body. We can agree on these two I hope but with the next example, climate change, it gets more difficult. With climate change we also have an overwhelming amount of evidence, like with smoking, but not allowing cigarettes in a bar takes away some freedom, most people understand the reasons why. It took more than 60 years before the risks of smoking were finally accepted to a point that lawmakers could make some laws prohibiting smoking in certain places and labeling cigarettes with warnings. Imagine if these laws were enacted, 60 years ago, because scientist recommended it and the voters believed them. Countless people would have been saved from unnecessary painful deaths. The same problem we have now with climate change where political motivated opinions prevent us from taking strong and necessary actions. People are easy persuaded by warnings that their gasoline will be more expensive, and their freedom taken away, things that touch people directly, so they think. You have a problem when you debate a climate change denier, they more or less deny the science that they also rely on when they go to the hospital or drive a car. It is not rational, and as long as their grandfather hasn’t died of climate change related illnesses they will probably not change their mind. Like with the birth control example, you cannot say that it is just a matter of opinion because there are facts.

With climate change you touch a sore point in our democracy. The people that know, the scientist, say: go there. But the people that are in power, the voters, don’t necessarily understand why, and are easily persuaded to choose a goal not so far away. Why would I pay for something I will not benefit from…I don’t care about the world my children have to live in. The voter and their representatives can debate a lot about birth control, and as long as no one forbids either birth control or the beliefs against it there is no problem but for the things that matter, like climate change, democracy is a bad system.

In my fantasy democratic system, in a galaxy far, far away, there are no elections. The people have to write an essay, starting when they are 15, and repeat it every 5 years. In that essay they have to tell about their dreams, likes, dislikes, point of view and whatever makes their stance in life clear. Everybody does that every 5 years of their life, this way you have a constant stream of opinions that the government can use to steer their decision making with. In an ideal world some kind of artificial intelligence would read all of these letters and come up with some kind of guideline. In this system everybody has an equal vote, there are good reasons for this, you’ll get in shady waters if you give a philosopher, who writes a 50 pages essay more say than someone who just manages to fill 1 page. The effort is important, even if your level of motivation might be determined by your genes, you have to draw the line somewhere. These essays follow some rules of course, like a minimum length, and it has to show an understanding of the arguments and not a summary of someone else’s ideas, something a A.I. can simply find out.

This society offers, of course, free lessons on every level and in every field of science necessary to make a good essay, filled with well thought out arguments, to ensure a good functioning democracy…maybe we should start with this last part.

Veterans

Society

After a long week in the field.

I joined the Dutch Marines in September 1992. I was one of the last that got drafted in military service. Rather than serving the mandatory 12 moths with the army I applied for the Dutch marines or “het Korps Mariniers”. After a rigorous selection of 2 days, only 2 were left of the more than 100 that started the selection. You can understand that I felt some pride to be found physically and mentally fit for the Marines. The Dutch Marines is the oldest branch of the armed forces in the Netherlands and among the oldest in the world. It was founded in 1665 and has a long history with soldiers on board ships and across the different Dutch colonies. When I joined in 1992 the Soviet Union was just dissolved but a big part of our training was still focused on a potential war with that country. After the basic training of six months you normally train in the mountains and the snow of Norway because that is the part of the NATO territory we supposed to defend from the Russians. Besides the silliness of that the training was really good for me and I can recommend it to everyone.

Our camp in a small village.

There is a lot of physical training, but you quickly find out that strong and bulky muscles are not what gets you through the day. After days with almost no sleep, constant movement, and harassments and specially the hunger you are so tired that no physical strength is strong enough to let you put your feet before the other till you are home. You have to find a way around all the pain in your own head and convince yourself to go on and ignore the pain. Experiences like that stay valuable for the rest of your life. Every time I encounter some setback I can use these skills I learned during that half year. It was extra valuable because the punishment was voluntary. I was drafted but joining the Marines was voluntary. Our sergeant was constantly reminding us that we could quit at any moment and hop in the warm car. Because of this voluntary suffering you need to motivate yourself to go on, it’s not a random circumstance that threw you in a situation where you had no choice to go on.

Discipline

It wasn’t easy going back to civilian life after 3 years. People often say that they could never last in a hierarchical, militaristic system, but it has its advantages if everybody knows what their roll is at the workplace. I’ve worked in enough places, since I left, where everybody is a so called equal and you have to untangle the whole messed up social structure to find out who is really in charge and is pulling the strings behind the curtain. If my sergeant told me to do something I did it, maybe I didn’t like it but that’s not important, it was clear from who it came from and who ordered him. In civilian life you have to gift-wrap every order to a subordinate because you could offend someone. Don’t get me wrong, there were enough problems within this military system, communication between 2 or more people is difficult no matter what system you have.

The biggest difference I noticed was that within the marines you could tell someone that you didn’t like him, you can have disagreements, but if it was necessary, everybody did their job and you would do yours even for the person you didn’t like. One reason why you do that is because you all have been through the same experiences and that binds you. Colleagues in civilian life have not necessarily experienced that kind of bond besides the that you have the same job. Because of the lack of a common ground it’s easier to…how shall I say it…get lied to in your face. If you want to draw a chart of all the relations between coworkers in a normal workplace, with all the likes, dislike, lies, and so on, you end up with an incomprehensible mess. That’s the world where we live in and that’s why I sometimes miss the military system.

Another reason is that in the military there is normally a clear and common goal. For example, guard duties, you have to rely on each other. In civilian life you also have to rely on each other but the cost are most of the time not as high if one slacks, and one slacks often.

We collected weapons used in the many wars Cambodia endured.

I never been in situation like so many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was in Cambodia for 5 months and besides the threat of driving over a mine and the occasional whistle of a bullet, probably from a hunter, there was not much danger. There were a couple of moment when our colleagues from mine demolition forgot to tell us that they would blow up some mines and we thus thought that hell broke loose or when the Cambodians started shooting at each other outside our camp and it would take us a while to assess the situation. we also encountered some hardened soldiers, probably Khmer rouge or of one of the many private armies, that could stare at you with eyes that looked like they had killed. At the end it was our job, we did our routines and duties, endured the heat, meager accommodations and third-world sanitation. There were some casualties in our battalion and that’s never easy but statistically they would also have occurred when we would stayed at home. But the people that lost their buddies in a firefight or are under direct fire go to a whole different experience and a group like that will bond even stronger than my colleagues and I did over our shared experiences in Cambodia. That’s why so many veterans have problems adjusting to society, as if a part of their communication is in another language, one that the people back home will never understand. Their experiences are not only unimaginable for others but their way of communicating has also changed.

The experiences that my colleagues and I went thru will have a permanent place in our mind. Most of us have dealt with our individual experiences during that time and have adjusted to normal life. But there are many soldiers like us that have gone thru so much more that I can understand the hardship they have to go thru while returning to civil society. Not all of these soldiers have problems but for the ones that have we need to support them with everything we have. In western Europe and America there are problems enough with handling these people, it’s easier to send someone to war than to take care of them when they return. But there are also millions of soldiers around the world that never had a choice, that are thrown into wars for reasons that they have no knowledge of. Whole generations will grow up with the scars of these wars, because the pain is often past on.

Tax robbers

Society

Why are rich individuals and large companies trying to evade paying taxes in the country that gave them the stable climate and infrastructure that was necessary to grow their businesses. If they are so smart that they think it’s all because of them that they and their company succeed let them try the same thing in a poor country without a decent infrastructure and a well-educated labor force.

Why are people so upset about paying taxes? Countries that are famous for their high tax rates are also high on the list of happiest countries. Paying taxes makes everybody happier. Countries are also better as a whole when the gap between the higher and lower incomes are small.

I think it’s laziness if people defend rich people and companies with the argument that I often here, companies like Apple and Google/Alphabet need so much money and pay high salaries because of all the things they invent. If I remember correctly, lots of companies like this were founded by people with little money and resources and their first products were more revolutionary than everything they invented after that. Money was not the only thing that drove these people, they had ideas and vision and worked with that. That spirit disappears often when a company gets big and fat, by than they need all the incentives they can get to move.

Companies can pay more taxes, if they cut wages on the top management, that obviously only works for the money and not because they believe in something or have a vision. High income individuals can also pay more taxes till we spread the wealth we have better. The generations that live now are born in this wealth, we have done nothing for it except maintaining it. This wealth is made the last few hundred years and in big parts by entrepreneurs that bought cheap or stole from peoples that were not ready for this kind of trade and power and could not resist. They got rich exploiting the poor and uneducated.

In many cultures money is still the number one motivator and that’s a shame because if it wasn’t and we would stick our heads together as a world we could solve a lot of problems.

USA vs EU

Society

Today I wanted to watch a video on You Tube from someone I follow. Normally he talks about his tools and projects but this time he wanted to rant about gun rights, he is off course an American. For me it’s almost unbelievable that two so similar cultures can be so far apart on this issue. I don’t want to go too much into details but if there were hardly any gun related homicide in America we wouldn’t have this discussion.

I am from the Netherlands and having a gun in your house to protect yourself was unheard of. You can join a club and get a license but that was for the sport. I can’t remember it ever being something we talked about, even in politics there was, to my best recollection, never a discussion over gun control. There are around 170 murders in the Nederland’s each year and in 40% of the cases there was a firearm used. That’s around 70 or less than 0.5 per 100.000. In American this number is around 3.5 per 100.000 See here for an overview. If you look at this list then there are countries like France, Sweden and Norway where almost 30% of the people have guns in the house but with similar homicide numbers as in the Netherlands. Having guns is not the biggest issue, I live now in Norway and in the beginning, I found it strange that you could buy hunting rifles in the local outdoor store but it’s a big thing here and where I live there are in general almost no crimes and murders are rare to, despite the many hunting rifles that are circulating here.

There is no discussion that there are more guns and murders in America than in Europe, that’s just counting and numbers. There is a lot discussion going on about the reason, and what to do about it.

I know that there are a lot of Americans that want gun laws just as they are in Europe. If I may generalize I will say that these people are also more tolerant to minorities, less religious and more left leaning. Among a larger group there is a strong animosity towards big government, health care, identity cards or socialism.

Americans talk a lot about their freedom and opportunities, but again, the numbers don’t lie. In most countries in Europe you have a better chance to climb the social ladder than in America. Freedom in America has more meaning if you have money, in Europe your own qualities have more to say in your success. If you are poor, have the wrong color and been born in the wrong neighborhood you can be proud if you climb out of it in America, but how many talented boys and girls that started way behind the rest haven’t made it, and how many mediocre boys and girls took their place. In America there is still more of a class system like it was in England or India where class and blood divides you in have and have-nots. Where and how you are born play a big part in your life, a lot of your freedom is immediately curtailed or multiplied at your birth. America is the land of the privileged.

Maybe this lack of talented and educated people play part in what is happening in America. I pointed out the love for more guns, so you can protect yourself against all those other guns, the denial of climate change, there addiction to gas guzzling v8s, their ridiculous religions, war on drugs, addiction to prescription pills and finally their latest choice for leader, and I had so much hope after the last one. If I take the Netherlands as an example than you can say that our rightwing is more like leftwing in America if it’s about freedom, abortion, drugs, healthcare, unemployment. And the large rightwing/republican group with their anti-abortion, anti-science and religious fervor are represented in the Netherlands but it’s a tiny minority. There are large groups in America that live in a mono culture where everything fits their beliefs. This kind of brainwashing is harder to do in a more tolerant and open society with more equality. Better, more diverse end accessible education is probably the solution but it is engrained in the American soul, so it might take a while.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Philosopher king

Society

“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers” Plato

This is a quote from the Republic, a famous book/dialog between Plato and Socrates. I let this quote speak for itself and don’t go into the details.

What is a modern definition of a philosopher: “a person who offers views or theories on profound questions in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and other related fields.” Or “a person who is rationally or sensibly calm, especially under trying circumstances.” According to dictionary.com I like this one from the Urban dictionary: “The kind of person that looks at the world in a way that very few people can. This person looks at all the angles of any given situation and judges dispassionately. This person is never understood, mainly because they think about things that could potentially break the spirit of those around them. Many people do not like the philosopher.” Read more

Philosophers like to think about problems that most people don’t want to think about or just don’t have the time or ability for. The world that Plato lived in was different. In his time the supposed king ruled over relative view people, if you look at the communication lines between the ruler, the people and adversaries, it could take days for the news to reach you and days to respond. There was probably more time to contemplate and les to manage on an hourly basis.

A philosopher could probably be a king or leader of some sort in the modern world, but there would be no time to contemplate, study, read 6 books, discuss and theorize over every decision that must be made. A ruler can be a philosophers but he cannot rule as a philosopher.

Luckily, we have now (2017) someone as president of the USA who says about himself the following: “I don’t even consider myself ambitious.” — “60 Minutes”, 1985 and “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault” — Twitter and this one “I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world. It is a dangerous world out there — it’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” — on sleeping with women who could have STDs, “The Howard Stern Show”

Obviously, he comes close to a philosopher king, he doesn’t do it because he’s ambitious, he is really smart and brave. Let’s see how some of his idea’s stack up to his fellow philosophers from the past.

Trump about making money, “I made a lot of money and I made it too easily, to the point of boredom.” — Vanity Fair, 1990 It’s not much of a philosophy but he might say that the capitalistic system is easily misused, like other philosophers also did.

Other philosophers: “Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate”. Bertrand Russell

“The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all … The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands – the ownership and control of their livelihoods – are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.” Helen Keller,

“There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied.” Fidel Castro

“The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods.” John Maynard Keynes

In this next quote Trump obviously points out that a lack of education is bad for democracy. “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.” –Donald Trump on his performance with poorly educated voters who helped him win the Nevada Caucus, Feb. 23, 2016

Franklin D. Roosevelt is so honored with his new colleague that he turned around in his grave, to have a better look, or something. He also had something to say about education, something a lot of poor people have problems getting enough off. “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education”.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Nelson Mandela

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education”. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. Benjamin Franklin

The stereotypical philosopher would probably be a bad “King” but some critical thinking would not be bad. Sadly we live in a world where everybody is telling the emperor that he has no cloth on and it doesn’t matter.

God is dead

Society

“Even a small step in the wrong direction could take a country on the path of catastrophe.”
This is a quote from Robert Kempner, a German lawyer who served as assistant U.S. chief council during the Nuremburg trials.
I heard this quote when I was listening to the book The Devil’s Diary and I had to write it down. Ever since a well know president of the most powerful country in the world told us that “there are some fine people amongst these neo-Nazi’s” (I’m paraphrasing) , I had to freshen up on what those “fine people” think.

Bergen Belsen mass grave.

I think there’s nobody that knows what’s going on in this man’s mind, we can only react to that what he says even if it’s something blurred out in the heat of the moment. The Nazi’s killed woman and children in cold blood by the millions, everyone who denies that or somehow condones it should not be taken serious.
There are no words to describe this, I have no words for it and it will probably take a long time to find some. I don’t understand how people could work with a person like this, who obviously has no clue in what happened in the second world war. We live in depressing times and if this is not a “smal” step I don’t know what is.
But, George Carlin point’s out something in the following quote that has sadly a lot of truth in it:
“Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: ‘The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.'”
Remember that this is not only happening in America but in a lot of different countries . A lot of people are no longer following some basic rules like “Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these» Mark 12:31. These people literally say that they don’t care about refugees”, they cannot see the bigger picture, that we all have created this mess in the world we live in. They don’t see that we live on this planet together and must take care of it together. But nationalism, selfishness and nihilism are obviously going strong.
The christian people that are so often blaming Friedrich Nietzsche for saying that “god is dead” obviously don’t understand that Nietzsche warned for a world without a god despite he himself not being religious. That humanity was not ready to live without the 10 commandments (to put it simple), and he was right. A lot of these so called christians are for closed borders thus they do not “love your neighbor…” or they really hate themselves. There is no so called christian love any more, god is really dead.
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Democracy from all sides

Society

If the truth is a circle and I can only see one part of it, and I realize that, I than cannot proclaim to know the truth. I can proclaim my side of the truth, my part of what I can see but not much more. I think this is self-evident but if I look at myself I know that I have enough opinions without knowing all or at least more of the circle or truth.

If two people both stand on opposite sides of a statue and describe the side they see then they are off course both right as far as describing their side, but if a third person walks around the statue and describes it there is a bigger chance that that description tells you more about the statue as a whole, it’s more truthful despite all three were telling the truth.

Off course you can argue that the two-people standing on one side and not took the effort to walk around where purposely not telling the whole truth. If than again they were bound to their place you could argue that they were telling the(ir) truth.

Can we expect in any form of discourse that all people that take part try to “walk around the statue” so that we at least can collect all description of that statue and democratically come to a consensus as to its form.

Is it ok if one or more stay on one side and thus give more weight to that side, skewing the results Is that democratic?

What about the people that cannot see, or touch the statue and still form an opinion. That is a problem, and it can lead to a miss representation of the statue if the teachers that inform the blind and senseless are given to much power in their description of the different sides.