life

Day 3780, conversations.

Daily picture, My thoughts

Only the lucky few will have real conversations
the rest of us can read about them

Is there a difference between a king sitting on his throne 5,000 years ago, deciding the fate of his kingdom, and the CEO, autocratic leader, or dictator ruling over their kingdom today?

The leaders of today and those of the past share one thing: they have conversations that matter. The conversations we ordinary citizens have also matter, but only in certain circumstances do they influence the direction of a state, a large company, or the world.

Who can really tell Trump, Putin, or Xi Jinping what to do? These leaders have advisers who have some influence over their decisions, but we, ordinary citizens, have almost none.

I suspect that only a few thousand people, at any given moment, are having the conversations that shape the direction we, as a world, and our individual countries and large companies take. I don’t say these conversations are fruitful, but they are there. Most of the conversations, newspaper articles, and documentaries we ordinary people produce never reach those rooms where the important decisions are made. This is not by design; it is simply how societies tend to function. Revolutions happen, and democracies can replace rulers, but once the dust has settled, a relatively small group once again finds itself making the decisions.

There is no real solution, in the sense that there are no obvious first steps toward a fundamentally better system. The difference between people living 5,000 years ago and now is surprisingly small when you look at how we think, process our surroundings, and how easily we are influenced. Many people still prefer a strong figure to lead them, even when they rationally know that the path this leader is taking them down is the wrong one. It is often better to go the wrong way with a strong leader than to remain where we are with a weak one. A strong leader can derive their power either from their ability to persuade others or from their control over other forms of power, such as an obedient army. These days you can endlessly read about how these different forms of power are divided around the world and why, but if you strip it down, it is still power that leads, not necessarily wisdom.

I was inspired to write this story by the two people you see in this picture. They are having a lively discussion while the people in the background are on the move, some watching their phones. The statues represent different groups in society. Every ruling class, whether in a democracy, a monarchy, or a dictatorship, has to keep these groups sufficiently satisfied. In the background you see the Parliament of Norway. Norway is objectively one of the better democracies to live in, and although Norwegians can vote, almost all important decisions are still made by a relatively small group of people.

 

Day 3779,

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Daybreak
Book V

507 Against the tyranny of the true.- Even ifwe were mad enough to consider all our opinions true, we should still not want them alone to exist-: I cannot see why it should be desirable that truth alone should rule and be omnipotent; it is enough for me that it should possess great power. But it must be able to struggle and have opponents, and one must be able to find relief from it from time to time in untruth – otherwise it will become boring, powerless and tasteless to us, and make us the same.

Day 3774, Keiji Nishitani.

Daily picture, Quotes


On the one hand, nihilism is a problem that transcends time and space and is rooted in the essence of human being, an existential problem in which the being of the self is revealed to the self itself as something groundless. On the other hand, it is a historical and social phenomenon, an object of the study of history. The phenomenon of nihilism shows that our historical life has lost its ground as objective spirit, that the value system which supports this life has broken down, and that the entirety of social and historical life has loosened itself from its foundations. Nihilism is a sign of the collapse of the social order externally and of spiritual decay internally – and as such signifies a time of great upheaval. Viewed in this way, one might say that it is a general phenomenon that occurs from time to time in the course of history. 

Keiji Nishitani, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism page 3 (1990)

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Day 3772, in excess.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Daybreak
Book V

500 Against the grain– A thinker can for years on end force himself to think against the grain: that is to say, to pursue not the thoughts which offer themselves from within him but those to which an office, a prescribed schedule, an arbitrary kind of industriousness seem to oblige him. In the end, however, he will fall sick: for this apparently moral overcoming of himself will ruin his nervous energy just as thoroughly as any regularly indulged in excess could do.

Day 3767, now imagine.

Daily picture, My thoughts

Every day, thousands of children die from preventable causes in which hunger and malnutrition play a decisive role. UNICEF estimates that undernutrition contributes to nearly half of all deaths of children under five.

Suppose that giving these children a realistic chance at a future, not just emergency food, but the nutrition and support needed to survive and develop, this would cost roughly 15 billion dollars per year. This is in the range of estimates made by international organizations.

Now imagine that this cost were shared only by households in the world’s high-income countries.

There are roughly 540 million households in these countries.

That means each household would contribute approximately:

  • $28 per year
  • $2.30 per month

Expressed as a share of income, this is about 0.02% of the average household’s annual income.

To put that into perspective:

  • less than the price of a cup of coffee each month,
  • less than half the price of a beer in many countries,
  • about one-fifth of a typical monthly streaming subscription,
  • less than the cost of a pair of shoelaces over an entire year.

Of course, the world is more complicated than this calculation suggests. Money alone does not solve hunger. Distribution, conflict, corruption, healthcare, sanitation, education and local governance all matter.

But even if the real cost turned out to be twice as high, or three times as high, the contribution required from households in wealthy countries would still be remarkably small.

Another perspective is to compare the 15 billion dollars needed to help these thousands of starving children with what these high-income countries (OECD) spend on other things.

 

  • OECD countries’ military spending                            $1.4–1.5 trillion
  • Global fossil fuel support                                           $916 billion
  • Global advertising                                                      $1 trillion
  • Global luxury goods market                                       $400–500 billion

 

Seeing these numbers makes me wonder what is going on. Thirty years ago, I saw with my own eyes how people lived in a third-world country, and they were relatively well off, but the comparison with how I lived at home, how almost everybody lived in the country where I was born, is stark.

The easy conclusion is that people are, on average, just cruel and would rather spend their money on a beer than on helping another human being.

The average rich country reserves 0.34% of its national income for aid, while the UN target is 0.7%. Only Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Luxembourg do this. If the other rich countries went to 0.7%, the problem would not be solved, but it would help a lot.

I don’t know why people are so greedy, if you can call them that. I studied history and journalism and read thousands of books in search of answers. I found many, but also none. I write about it, as I do now, but it has no impact. The practical step I started taking is looking for good charities and changing my lifestyle so I can start giving away at least 10% of my income in the future.

I give to several programs that help children directly, as well as to GiveDirectly, which gives money to individuals or households directly with no strings attached. Some of these households live on a few dollars a day, and an injection of 700 dollars, for instance, can change their lives forever.

I grew up seeing people die of hunger on the news. It is old news, yet we still cannot come together to do something about it. I do what I can as an individual, but the governments that can make a difference are representing the people, and for some reason, the majority of these voters choose not to give.

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