The Frog and the Boiling Pot

Today i wondered what to talk about. Information is so easy, so basic with it its consequences “strategy and structure of information processing systems”, that sometimes it is hard to discuss again and again the same simple things. On the other hand – our whole universe with all the different details and interactions is build on that base...

which seems so hard to understand for people that even the highest paid experts don’t know what information is until now, just because of the infinity of details created by an informational universe.

Thanks to Robert from Greenseptember, i know now what to write about, because he told us that his wife starts to worry about the state of the States and that he wouldn’t blame her for waiting so long to see what’s going on in a nation, where a government gets too powerful and has too much information on its citizens (“sleepwalking into a surveillance society”). I agreed, despite the fact, that the destruction of separation of powers simply proves, that democracy can’t exist in that country.

Because democracy needs a “Rechtsstaat” (Constitutional State) to survive. Oh yes, many dictatorships and facist regimes kept strictly formal provisions of their law (with the emphasis on “their”), so a Constitutional State isn’t enough to create a democracy, but can’t be ignored. Btw, in mathematics you call a constraint like that “necessary”, while the “democracy” is just a “sufficient” condition, because if a democracy exists, it has to be a Constitutional State, but that doesn’t work vice versa: If a Constitutional State exists, it may be a democracy, but it can be a dictatorship either.

A democracy needs a more developed Constitutional State, a “Rechtsstaat” – it has to have a working system of separation of powers to assure that justice is able to prevail in a society, because justice is the immune system of a human group to protect equilibrium of interests of its members. Why? Because justice makes the group stronger, more effective and more efficient, simply because when interests are hurt humans start to defend themselves and stop to work together.

It’s that easy.

But back to Roberts wife, a woman we know very much about because we know Robert, so we like her even when we never met her. How can a reasonable and intelligent woman like her not be shocked and awed by the fact, that her nation can’t be a democracy any longer since the first time, when her president added statements to a bill, that he would follow the law, when he wants and ignore it, when he don’t?

Because it didn’t happen suddenly.

Since the 1930’s, the long forgotten time when America was interested in her masses, the powerful people intrigued against losing their power. They installed the Pavlov Reflex against communism to prevent common people from working together to defend their interests and rights and nearly managed to get the absolute power with McCarthy’s help. But the grassroots of America were strong and stopped that guy.

The next head of the Hydra to be cut off was Nixon.

And it took longer every time and the heads didn’t stop to grow. Slowly, but surely the Old America, defending the rights of everybody, transformed into the New America, where rights have to be paid. Not many fought against that development. Why? Because the powerful managed to install another Pavlov-Reflex: the will to be a winner by hook or by crook. Therefore it can’t matter when “justice” demands to be paid, since you can pay as long as you aren’t a loser, so to be treated unjustly is just your own fault.

That’s the way people got used to struggle alone to make ends meet – on their own, for if they ask for help, they would be called communists or losers.

America forgot the words of her Founding Father Ben Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776): We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

America forgot the true meaning of the words “United We Stand”, reduced it to a simple hooray for war.

So slowly, but surely the common people of America starve – today they need chinese money to purchase chinese goods on credit. Btw: 2005 seems to be a year, when they spent more than they had. Last time America spent more than she earnt, was 1933, the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who “helped American people regain faith in themselves” while being a “true communist” in the modern interpretation of the word: he installed Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.

It took more than seventy years to destroy the separation of powers in America, that’s a long long time of boiling peoples interests.

Look at New Orleans! The houses of the poor are nothing more than an “event” for tourists, no need to help, because if they can’t help themselves...

they are losers.

And if they gather together to help each other...

they are communists.

The water is really hot now – but does the frog jump?

No.

Because the frog jumps if he is thrown into the boiling pot – and survives.

But if you put the frog into lukewarm water and boil it slowly...

slowly...

he get’s used to...

and dies.

Why?

Slowly changing environments support passive information processing because of the speedy reactions of that kind of processing, slowly changing environments lull the brain, the hero of active processing systems on Earth because of the apparent ease of comprehension...

therefore even with smart brains and eyes wide open sleepwalking into disaster, if it comes slowly enough to get used to.