About Information and the Human Mind

Urban Legends

2007-09-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

Debtonation: how globalisation dies:
”when the financial sector faced meltdown it had to rely on the state - in the form of central banks in United States, Europe and Japan alike - to intervene in order to restore a semblance of stability. In the real world, citizens and taxpayers are once again obliged to bear responsibility, and pay the costs incurred by the reckless and unrestrained greed of the world of high finance.”

Your Tax Dollars at work – their real duties...

The end of gentlemanly capitalism:
”Over the past week, we - the rich-world voter and taxpayer - have bailed out the hedge-funds, their bankers and their counterparts caught in the global squeeze on credit. Again. It happened in 2001 and in 1998. The financial system has once more fallen into the soft, bouncy, but ultimately comfortable safety-net (trampoline?) that we - all of us together, through our central banks and the losses we are prepared to underwrite as taxpayers - extend to troubled financiers.”

To repeat:

have bailed out the hedge-funds, their bankers and their counterparts caught in the global squeeze on credit. Again.

So much for “Winners” and “the Strong” – all the hot air about free market, about risks and benefits is just their way of freedom to get everything they want while risking nothing personally, to take the benefits and let us (and the so much blamed state) bear the risks...

Noam Chomsky is right – about the modern “convenient myth”...

Urban Legends, created by the HaveMores to silence the stupid masses (sorry, Bill and Melinda, but you know, you are exceptional), to make them pay and suffer for the Aristocracy.

Pharao told his people he would be god – and Rockefeller tells his people he would be good...

A Shadow of Itself II

2007-09-09T03:58:00.000-07:00

... is the American Constitutional Legality...

found that:

Congress Works To Give NSA Some Leeway on FISA Taps:
”"I think they want to monitor all foreign to U.S. e-mails and phone calls without limitation and without distinguishing whether someone has any relation to terror or not. You boil it down, that is it," a senior legislative counsel at the ACLU, Tim Sparapani, said in an interview yesterday.”

the War on Terror...

with all that evil enemies! Those suspect Americans, talking with all those dangerous aliens like the Brits, the French, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Germans, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Latvians,.....

btw: Who asked the foreigners? Who asked their judges, their legislative? Who cared for their rights?

At least the foreign providers, security specialists and software producers are happy now – good marketing argument not to touch American products or providers and to buy as much as you can to defend yourself against the spying...

Chinese...

A Shadow of Itself

2007-08-19T02:47:00.000-07:00

... is the American Wealth ...

and everyone knows:

Q&A: World stock market falls:
”The value of the world's major companies has taken a tumble as the world's stock markets have plunged in recent days - one of several such sharp declines in the past few months.”

They all wait for the Final Countdown – it’s something like the “Money Chicken Game”: on the one hand no one wants to start the avalanche, on the other hand no one wants to miss this start all know it will come...

Noam Chomsky:
”Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of our industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now it's long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails, as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can.”

(Emphasis Mine)

Money versus Miners

2007-08-12T01:32:00.000-07:00

Rescuers resume Utah miner search:
”US federal mining inspectors have issued 325 citations for alleged safety violations at the mine since January 2004. Of those, 116 were considered "significant and substantial" and likely to cause injury.”

No comment.

Bridges, Steam Pipes and Taxes

2007-08-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

Taxes – in a democracy – are for things like monitoring bridges, steam pipes and other civil infrastructure.

Your (lack of) tax dollars at work...

Daily Life or The Way The World Goes

2007-07-29T04:19:00.000-07:00

Some days ago i had to visit the bathroom of very good friends of mine...

and there happened what sometimes happens – little yellow spots on the floor and i instinctively thought: “What a slut!” Of course, i immediately apologized to her, even though it occurred only inside my head...

but you know: actions depend on decisions, decisions depend on description – our actions and decisions are based on our description of the world outside. What we think determines what we do. So, since i respect that woman, i could never allow myself to think like that, especially because i know that she wasn’t the “causer”. And before i could say “Jack Robinson”, i was pondering about the spots, the right to produce ugly things, the duty to clear them away, Mr. Bush and the Iraq War,the meaning of life and the way, the world goes...

i always do that. I even mulled over the Major and the Minor Arcades and came to the conclusion that the latter must be much younger than the first. Anyway...

of course, i remembered the fierce struggle about toilet seats and the first time i heard of it and that i simply thought: “ridiculous”...

again...

“ridiculous” – especially the women, of course...

because in that struggle they are the losers, the ones who react with outrage...

while the winners scoff at them...

yes, that’s it and i guess, everyone knows that. It is not about sitting or standing, it is not about “the pride of man” and the “nagging wife”...

it is about Mr. Bush mocking the begging death-row inmate...

it is about power creating contempt, about dominance and humiliation, about masters and slaves...

i’ve heard that the French Aristocracy dropped their biological waste also wherever and whenever they wanted. It’s all about the rights without the duties, the right to produce ugly things while others have the duty to clear them away...

even at the core of society, the family, the parents, there has to be a master and a slave...

that is what the toilet seats are all about – and be honest, my dear males, it is not your “freedom” you defend, you do not fear the “dominance” of the women by demanding to “mark your territory” however you want. They just reject the humiliation of duties without rights, they just defend themselves using the principle of reversibility, because (again, be honest, my dear males) if the women would do the ugly things, YOU would never clear them away, wouldn’t you?

And so i shook my head in despair…

to survive, humankind has to learn to live democratically, to reach the state of justice as the optimum for efficiency, because since we act as a whole to kill our Earth, we simply have to act as a whole to learn to safeguard our natural resources. It is all about the fact, that each information processing system, be it cell or society, has an apex of intelligence, a level, where further increase of intelligence would no longer be “economical”, no longer results in a sufficient increase of “profit” = improvement of prognosis and decisions (Gain cost function of intelligence). Our brains, our individual “systems” reached that point once – and invented language to overcome it, showing the way the world goes – towards dense communication among brains, among individuals to create a stable network.

But in a physical world of conservation of energy, resource awareness is a Must to survive, which means, that information processing systems have to care for efficiency, for “load-balancing” of the network of interactions.

For humankind – that simply means: justice.

I know, there is only a small probability, that you can accept this fact: justice as a physical state of a dynamical, interacting system marking the state of the highest efficiency.

But i guess, you may believe the stock market?

Just think of the conclusions of justice as the optimum of efficiency: What does that mean, what happens, when a system moves towards or away from the optimum? What happens with more justice or less justice (given the same resources)? More justice leads to more effectivity, less justice leads to less effectivity. That’s it.

And we, in our “pseudo-democracies”, reached a state where the loss of justice is already so remarkable, that the loss of effectivity becomes...

measurable…

measurable at the stock market level:

Employee Satisfaction and Equity Prices

and it goes on...

Distrust – The Hidden Cost of Control

Work Life Balance, and Productivity

Labor Unrest and the Quality of Production

Strikes, Scabs and Tread Separation

Sure, these studies are fare more sophisticated and scientific than just: “increase of justice => increase of effectivity”…

but i guess, you’ll see what i mean.

We urgently have to overcome the power games in our lifes, because how can we live in democracies without all those Mr. Bushs mocking about others begging for mercies, be it death-row inmates, mothers of KIA soldiers or Iraqi children, if we aren’t even able to live in democracy as parents, as husbands and wives?

Husbands and wives – do you know, that the Afghans not even have a word for “wive”? AFAIK they call them “possession”…

how should people like that be able to reach a state of more dense communications? When half of the population treats the other like goods, not souls? Do you really believe, that masters will ever listen to slaves? No, you don’t – and me too. That’s the reason why i think that the next step of evolution (towards a more dense communication, a more intertwined network of intelligent individuals, creating a body out of disparate parts) will not be done by humankind, but maybe by the successors of the crows.

How should the future look for a species, where the dominant part claims to base his dominance on his ability to dispose his biological waste however he wants? Waste as basis of manly pride? Wouldn’t that mean that every boy’s dream would be to become a garbage man?

Or is it about the “causer” of the waste – the duality of the reproduction organ? So is it about telling the women, that they themselves decide what to do with their body – and never care about the wishes of the women – neither in reproduction nor in hygiene? Wouldn’t that shed an interesting light on the discussion about abortion, where the men also claim to have the right to decide and the women as the “working body” only have the duties? Wouldn’t that shed an interesting light on societies with forced marriages and laws, where rape is the right of the husband upon his wife?

All about power, about masters and slaves…

even at the heart of our lifes, where fathers and mothers, where love and respect should be…

Ask and Embla, Philemon and Baucis…

just a fairy tale of synergy?

Husband and wifes – only rapers and toilet attendants?

how should we be able to survive when our world goes like that?

And so i shake my head in despair...

Varus – Or: To Each Rome Its Own Teutoburg

2007-07-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

If you know Rome, you know the name “Varus” and the “Germanic Tribes”, signifying the end of Rome, and you certainly know the famous words “Quinctili Vare, legiones redde!”. You know the “Battle of Teutoburg Forest” and maybe “Kalkriese”, but do you know “Waldgirmes”?

“Waldgirmes” is the modern name of a Roman “starting city”, abandoned after the disaster in Teutoburg.

After Teutoburg, anything was different for Rome. History was changed:

Roman Empire:
”Being cautious, Augustus secured all territories west of Rhine and contented himself with retaliatory raids. The rivers Rhine and Danube became the permanent borders of the Roman empire in the North.”

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest:
”The battle abruptly ended the period of triumphant and exuberant Roman expansion that had followed the end of the Civil Wars 40 years earlier. Augustus' stepson Tiberius took effective control, and prepared for the continuation of the war. Rome gradually slid into a period of tyranny and oppression lasting much of the rest of the first century.”

Each Empire, like each other Schoolyard Bully, needs the Smell of Death around it, needs the fear instilled even by its name, needs the aura of invincibility – and exactly that Arminius took away. It wasn’t only the fact, that the other people noticed that Rome was defeatable...

Publius Quinctilius Varus:
”So great was the shame, and the ill luck thought to adhere to the numbers of the Legions, that XVII, XVIII and XIX never again appear in the Roman Army's order of battle.”

Rome never forgot Teutoburg and the “Bello Variano” – never was able again to believe its own fairy tale of invincibility.

Teutoburg taught the Romans, that no one ever can forever create an Empire based on believings. And don’t think that Varus was an idiot – he just has to pay the price for ignorance, because ignorance is not always a bliss. Empires are based on power and power is based on control, but to control systems, intelligence and knowledge is much more important than force.

Rome did know that – Rome perfectly, maybe intuitively knew, that brute force isn’t a tool for politics, isn’t a working strategy for society, because you always don’t have to control the direct impact but the consequences, and the consequences of the consequences and the....

and the more force you push into a system, the more interactions and consequences you have to control. To get in power, brute force might work – as long as destruction is your goal, the destruction of the power of the "enemy", but to stay in power, destruction is only counterproductive, because the destruction might easily be the destruction of YOUR power. Remember Croesus, Pythia and the river Halys?

Enters “Waldgirmes”...

The starting city, proving “Phase II”. After the conquest and suppression of the “new land” by brute force and overwhelming destruction, the “redevelopment plan” comes into focus. And this simply means: Build “Second Romes” everywhere, buy the people with luxury and goods and marketplaces, while demanding taxes and compensation for all the fine things – and especially demanding obeisance and slavish obedience.

You surely know “Life of Brian”? Remember the “What have the Romans ever done for us?” sketch?

Doesn’t that sound very familiar? Very modern?

First kill, than cash?

Doesn’t remind you “Waldgirmes” of the plans to get the Iraq oil? First maim their children, then buy their souls with the American Way of Life?

Doesn’t that shed a new light on the comparisons of America with Rome? Rome as “role model” for the “PNAC”...

But for each Rome there is an Arminius – because the more power, the more to control and after a while it is impossible to know enough to control the system, so you become dependent...

dependent on your underlings...

dependent on their input...

Varus wasn’t an idiot, he just couldn’t learn everything about the new provinces he had to “civilize”. He had successfully subdued Syria and so got order to do the same with Provincia Germania. And he did his job, but never had the time to get to know the country and its people...

and he never learnt the language, the portal to the soul...

(reminds you also of Iraq?)

so he simply was dependent on someone who speaks the language and knows the culture...

as the Americans now need today...

and – think of the stories of “Mash” – needed translators and fraternizers since quite a while.

You see what i think? I think that Vietnam is the American Teutoburg, because it was the first time, America suffered “great shame” and for a while, power seemed to have lost its “power”.

But i guess the men of PNAC understood clearly, that invincibility is the foundation of an Empire – and that Augustinus acceptance of the fact, that Provincia Germania couldn’t be annexed by the Roman Way of Life, was the beginning of the end.

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest:
”Augustus' stepson Tiberius took effective control, and prepared for the continuation of the war. Rome gradually slid into a period of tyranny and oppression lasting much of the rest of the first century.”

I guess, Iraq might have had to serve a dual purpose: not only to make somebody money, but to get back invincibility.

But the men of PNAC forgot something very important – the belief in your invincibility cannot be restored by killing more human souls, the knowledge of the defeat will always be stronger.

So i guess, the men of PNAC will maybe learn, what Augustus had gained from cautiousness:

Time.

Time to recover, time to conquer others, time to stay in power – because Augustus knew that Rome could never stand a second Teutoburg.

And looking at the Green Zone, i guess, the men of PNAC now learn, how wise Augustus was.

Who needs terrorists with…?

2007-07-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

Who needs terrorists with leaders like…

Mr. Schäuble.

Do you know Mr. Schäuble? Probably not. Do you know the German famous magazine “Der Spiegel”? Maybe not.

”Spiegel #28/07, ‚Der Preis der Angst’, p. 25:
Der Rechtsstaat, so kann man den Innenminister verstehen, funktioniert nicht mehr…
Dann muss der Rechtsstaat eben dran glauben.
(The Rechtsstaat doesn’t work anymore, the Secretary of Interior can be understood....Therefore the Rechtsstaat has to bite the dust.)”

Rechtsstaat – do you know, what “Rechtsstaat” means?

”The Principle of Constitutional State

I. The Principle of constitutional state includes and grants the following aspects:

The Federal Republic of Germany is a "Rechtsstaat". But what is a Rechtsstaat ? The Idea of Rechtsstaat is not new. Already in the 19th century basic elements of a Rechtsstaat were invented as the division of powers, legality of administration and the possibility for everybody to go to a court to claim his rights. But this only was a kind of formal Rechtsstaat. The recent history of Germany has shown, that these provisions aren´t enough to provide justice.

Even the Nazi-Government kept these formal provisions. But it was possible at this time to make a law, to be applied by the institutions of the formal Rechtsstaat which was unjust.

The Grundgesetz strengthened the Rechtsstaat by adding substantial, material contents to the constitution. As it was possible in former times to adjust the fundamental rights by the law, now its only possible to adjust the law to the fundamental rights. As Art. 1 III demands: The following basic rights shall bind the legislature, the executive and the judiciary as direct enforcable law.

After this provision all important decisions of the state need a basis on a statute that has to be legal under the provisions of the Rechtsstaat and the fundamental rights. In particular the Rechtsstaatsprinzip contains the following principles:

· Division of powers

· Hierarchy of laws

· Primacy of codified law (Vorrang des Gesetzes)

· Provision of legality (Vorbehalt des Gesetzes) - Theory of importance

· Principle of propotionality

· Prohibition of retroactive law - protection of confidence

· Principle of exactly defined law

· Guaranteed legal recourse (Art. 19 IV)

· Independence of judges (Art. 97)

· no one may be removed from the jurisdiction of his lawful judge (Art. 101 I 2)

· Existance of the Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht)

· immediate validity of fundamental rights for all state institutions

II. Impact of the Rechtsstaatsprinzip on the German Law

The Rechtsstaatsprinzip is the one principle with the most important impact on almost every field of law. Not only statutes have to be proved by the Rechtsstaatsprinzip, also administrative decisions and actions as well as court decisions.

To show the importance two very basic impacts will be shown now:

1. The possibility for everyone to go to the constitutional court

One very important impact of the Rechtsstaatsprinzip is everybodies possibility to go to the constitutional court to claim for his constitutional rights. If this opportunity would not be given, the Rechtsstaatsprinzip could not take any effect on the law. If the state would act in a way that does not respect the Rechtsstaatsprinzip and nobody could file an action against it, the state could go on acting in this unjust way without any consequences.

To avoid this and to make the state respect justice, the Grundgesetz provides actions against any kind of constitutional offences. In Art. 93 not only the peoples right to file an action is regulated (Art. 93 I No. 4a). The right to file an action is also given to state institutions with own subjective rights that could not be filed by individuals. E.g. in No. 1 highest Federal Institutions like the Parliament or the government can file an action if they have doubts about the interpretation of the constitution by one of the other federal institutions (E.g. a parliamentary group in the opposition can file an action against a law launched by the majority - of course this forces the Constitutional Court very often to decide political questions; so a decision is not made by over 600 MPs but by 8 Members of the Constitutional Court This fact isoften critizised). In No. 2 the Länder can file an action if there is a disagreement between them and the Federation. In No. 4b also local communities get a right to file.

All kinds of offences against the constition can be checked by the Constitutional Court. Not only offences against basic rights but also offences against the other fundamental principles of the state.

2. The Principle of proportionality

One very important element of the principle of constitional state is the principle of proportionality

All statutes, all adminstrative actions have at least to be proportional. The principle often is the last anchor to protect a right. To point that out: Fundamental rights can legally be limited by a law. Even the Constitution provides this opportunity. (E.g. Art. 8 regulates: All Germans have the right to assemble peacefully and unarmed without prior notification or permission. In the case of outdoor assemblies this right may be restricted by or pursuant to a law.)

After this article the state may restrict the right of outdoor assemblies by a statute, or if there already is this statute the administration e.g. the police can perform particular means at any assembly which offends this law. However neither the law nor the particular means of the administration may offend the Principle of Proportionality. This principle demands that the purpose of the statute or the action has to be fulfilled by an appropriate, necessary and adequate law or action.

This means that a restriction shall only go that far as necessary, not further.

E.g. if there is an outdoor assembly the state could have several means to avoid riots. It could prohibit the whole assembly. This is a appropriate means as it will surely take effect. But is this the only way to avoid riots ? If there is any other action imaginable which could reach this aim as good as a prohibition but which does not totally restrict the right of assembly a prohibition would not be necessesary.

In this particular case one could also think about a restriction to the place where the assebly can meet. If there is a place where riots can easily be controlled it is not necessary to prohibit the whole assembly. It wouls be sufficient to allow the assemply under the condition that ithas to take place at a less dangeraous place (E.g. a demontration of Kurds was replaced by the local authorites of Bonn from the city centre on a saturday to the opposite side of the Rhine)

But at least this less restricting means has also to be adequate. That means that after a comparison of the disadvantages on both sides, the restriction means must not be less important than the restricted right of the assembly.

This principle is to be applied on all law, on all statutes, on all ordninances and of course on all judgements.

(At the moment, the link is not reachable “due to the flooding which occurred in Hull and across Yorkshire on Monday 25 June.”)

”Spiegel #28/07, ‚Der Preis der Angst’, p. 27:
Mit den Kollegen bespricht der Innenminister seinen Plan, das Verfassungsgericht auszuhebeln.
(With other foreign ministers the Secretary of Interior will dicuss his plot to disempower the Constitutional Court)”

Against the Constitutional Court, against the Rechtsstaat...

Germany’s own Secretary of Interior openly and overtly declares the Rechtsstaat as too weak – so conclusion? He is against the Rechtsstaat...

And he is in “good” company: Google search “gegen den Rechtsstaat” (against the Rechtsstaat) shows Schäuble and the RAF (and Jörg Haida, btw)...

i guess, you don’t know the RAF – it was the German terrorist group fiercly fought by Germany in the 80s...

and now, Germany allows her leadership to do exactly the same as the RAF...

and worse...

because you certainly know these famous words:

”‚Nuremberg Diary’, Gilbert, G.M., New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947 (pp. 278-279):

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."”

It works the same way in any country, even in Germany...

and it starts with?

“All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked”...

Remember? “The recent history of Germany has shown, that these provisions aren´t enough to provide justice” – that exactly was the reason for Germany’s “Grundgesetz [to] strengthen[ed] the Rechtsstaat”.

Each and everyone who attacks the Rechtsstaat goes the way of Hitler, because the Rechtsstaat was invented to protect the country against having to suffer the same fate as Nazi-Germany.

How could that have changed?

20 years ago Germany fought the RAF strictly inside the rules of the Rechtsstaat – and as it turned out, it was the only way to go. Germany got rid off the RAF without paying the price of appointing copies of the RAF as government.

What has changed?

The RAF was much more “effective” than Al-Qaeda, at least regarding Germany, and actually, as the “usual deaths” on our streets show, much less effective than cars and trucks – but the RAF couldn’t convince Germany to betray the Rechtsstaats.

There are two things different to the 80s:

America and the Secretary of Interior.

The first changed from a country, where war was not “biz as usual” to a country, where anything goes with the battle cry of “being attacked” (sounds familiar?)

And America is more than just a country for Germany, she is even more than just a friend – she is the “substitute id” of Germany. While Germany allowed Hitler to change history, America always stood tall against the evil, always defended democracy, always respected the human dignity of the individual as the best protection against dictatorship and (yes!) suffering, so it was much easier to deny the own identity and to copy the White Knight, which works fine...

as long as the Knight remained White...

And the second? The Secretary of Interior?

Wolfgang Schäuble:
"On 12 October 1990, Schäuble was the target of an assassination attempt by 32-year-old Dieter Kaufmann, who took the Smith and Wesson of his father and fired three shots at Schäuble after an election campaign event in Oppenau, injuring a bodyguard and Schäuble's backbone and brain severely. Schäuble has been paralysed and confined to a wheelchair ever since.”

Now, think of everything he says and does again.

“War and peace can hardly be distinguished”, “be able to use military means in extreme situations” and especially his urge to control and monitor everything, to look into private lives and computers...

is easily to understand, when you know “Dieter Kaufmann”, isn’t it?

The man is a VICTIM!

Out of a crowd of faceless people there came a shot – and crippled him for life.

His brain will never forget that, will never forget that he could walk and jump and go everywhere he wants until an evil guy destroyed his life – until Dieter Kaufmann.

His brain will never forget the harmless people around him – not able to protect him against Dieter Kaufmann.

His brain will never forget the bodyguards and policemen around him - not able to protect him against Dieter Kaufmann.

His brain will never forget the judges of Dieter Kaufmann – not able to give back his health.

No, of course he wants to avoid anything like that happen once more – he is a VICTIM and i guess, each and every psychotherapist knows the impact of a trauma like that on a human mind.

But why do the Germans follow? They live in peace since decades, they live in a country with one of the highest life expectancies, where the children can go to school and women can walk at night (mostly) without fear.

Decadence of pampered people?

That’s why they risk freedom, family, finances and future? They know about the destiny of people in nations without democracy and law – remember Russia? Remember China? And especially Hitler-Land?

No one should know the price for betraying democracy better than Germany.

”Spiegel #28/07, ‚Der Preis der Angst’, p. 24:
‚Wenn wir erkannt haben, dass jemand an die Wurzel des Gemeinwesens will’, sagt Schäuble, „dann können wir das doch nicht sehenden Auges hinnehmen.’.
(‚When we see, that someone is attacking the roots of the society, we cannot accept this with open eyes’, says Schäuble.)”

Sir, Yes, Sir!

But for me, the root of our society is democracy, is the respect for the individual, the search for the common good, for freedom and human dignity, all represented and protected only and solely by the Rechtsstaat...

and that, Sir, does not go with Big Brother and “killing innocents for protection of innocents”. The “relativity of human dignity” (p. 28), you long for so much (i guess, because you wish, Dieter Kaufmann would have been killed before he could have shot)...

... is nothing else than a "rating" of life - understandable regarding self-preservation, but rating means rating ...

in Life worthy of Life and Life unworthy of Life - and that we know, don't we? Is nothing else than Hitlers attitude towards “untermenschen”.

Nothing else, Mr. Schäuble.

You should know better. Germany should know better.

Btw: For everyone interested in Riverbend – seems she is still alive and healthy and if my wishes could change things...

Yes, guys, that’s the fate of Nobodies, of people like you and me and Riverbend in countries without democracy, without a Rechtsstaat.

Do you really want THAT?

NO!!!

Long Live the Rechtsstaat! Long Live Democracy!

Schlauraffenland

2007-07-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

Steven of the Last Chance Democracy Cafe wrote a story about Heaven – a heaven which sounds more like Disney World than anything else.

That reminded me of the old pan-european tale of Cockaigne, especially in the version of Ludwig Bechstein: “A country where water is wine and the houses made of sausages and roast pork, the fishes are already fried and come when called, just as the birds and young pigs do – that is Schlauraffenland”.

Ok, Stevens world was a little less food-focused, but i guess, that’s only because in our days hunger is not the worst problem for the average person.

And Steven doesn’t mention the next “fine” thing in Schlauraffenland: “Men can exchange their old wives for younger ones and the old wives can bath in the fountain of youth. Losers and lazybones win and get money for sleeping and liars are highly respected. And to be a professor, you have to be a greedy boor.”

Doesn’t that remind you of something?

Then the most interesting – and realistic part of the version of Bechstein: “The ones who are hardworking, do good and avoid evil, will never have friends in Schlauraffenland and will be thrown out, while the incompetent and arrogant are respected as noblemen. The one who lacks any skills becomes a duke, but only the laziest and most unqualified will become king.”

Ah, yes – nowadays we don’t have kings, but presidents...

Like the Bechstein version, Stevens’ heaven is something, rich people already can have: nice houses, good food and fine weather, consumer’s paradises, which doesn’t care for decency or honesty, but just for...

what?

but honestly: rich people's world here on Earth - is truly our heaven?

(Update: Of course, Steven's true heaven looked different)

t*t

2007-07-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

Recently i was asked about the meaning of c² in the famous equation: E = mc². How could it be, that the maximum speed could be squared?

First of all – squares don’t change the origins, so it it actually doesn’t matter if the square is about a maximum or less. The interesting question therefore was the meaning of the square of speed.

And actually, the meaning of “meaning”. But regarding information, meaning is only something like the “amount of information”, we have about something of interest, because we understand something, we know its “meaning”, when we know its states and behaviors. We know, what a “tree” means, because we know how it looks and how it expands biosphere by offering some “extra space” for life, how it reacts on wind and storm: All that is told us by the simple word “tree”, is its “meaning”. Meaning gives us the ability to “reproduce” situations and processes, to trace the steps of the object of our interest and to foresee its actions and changes.

So the real question was, what the square of speed means. Looking at the “components” of speed, way and time, the question seems to be, what square of way and square of time means. Square of way is an area, but what is square of time?

Regarding the universality of time, i used the ansatz that the “time vector” cannot change direction, simply because the “direction” of change is the before-after-direction. Each and every change in each and every thinkable and unthinkable dimension will have only that simple direction: initial state -> end state.

So i looked at multiplications of vectors and decided to use the scalar product with cos(0) = 1. Then the question seems to be reduced to the question, what areas over time could mean and concluded that it means something like the speed of areas.

But honestly, i am not very happy about that reduction of the square of time, because that would mean something like t² = t, which is only correct in case, t would be something like a “normal” dimension, which sounds a little weird. Then there is the fact, that change is only something like “differential time”: change creates time, but it creates it differently, regarding the “velocity” of the system. Think of GPS systems which have to consider relativity’s time dilatation.

When i argue with change, i would have to prove, that the differential can define an integral, which follows the laws of vector multiplication – and then i should have to show, why i use the scalar product in case of time and the vector product in case of the way. Oh, it is not that i wouldn’t have an idea where to start. Remember the definition of information? It describes the requirements for change to be representable by mathematical formulas: elements of change/transformations for a system/quality/eigenschaft, which do not only change the state of the observed "thing", but do it repeatably and coherently – therefore creating a mathematical group and functions on the set of values/states of the observed thing. In that case, each progress, each behavior of that observed thing is a series of changes with a well defined “time’s arrow”. Alas, i haven’t much of an idea how to continue. Would it make sense to link the change directly to physical action, which is always the reason for each and every change in universe, which then may lead to some quantification of time according to Planck’s constant? Then add some pinch of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and cook it on low flame until it is a continuous set of transformations with some symmetries, so that it satisfies the requirements of Noether’s Theorem? Then, maybe, “time’s arrow” would take the form of a vector...

Or not...

But the conclusion – regarding E = mc², which is a proven correlation – is something like the maximum transportability of change of extendend objects (objects with surfaces), related to c as maximum transportability of change (speed of action) for massless (zero-dimensional?) objects, which could mean, that both the transportability of change of the “idealized” object, represented by its “center” and the protection of the coherence of the system, therefore the transportability of change for each subsystem under condition of conservation of the inner cohesion have to be considered (even with v = 0!)

Despite the fact, that this conclusion is based on the scalar product of a “time vector”, there seems to be some sense in that conclusion, because it would even give a hint, why our universe has just three continual and reversible dimensions – because it allows objects, described by only two parameters: center and surface, which is in case of balls center and radius. But that is also just an analogy from the two-body-problem.

Alas, those interesting conclusions depend on a very doubtful step – the reduction of the square of time. So question remains: what about t²?

Weird.

Ubuntu

2007-06-24T02:52:00.000-07:00

Well, actually i didn’t care much about Ubuntu the first time – just another attempt to push Linux, i thought and while i love and respect the concept of Open Source and bet, that the progress in IT in the last years only, really only depends on the power of Open Source and the “Swarm Intelligence” of many good and idealistic programmers and their playground, the Internet, i couldn’t warm to Linux “just for fun”, much too much to get to know the ropes.

So, now and then, i installed the next “easy going Linux” with the same result – too much to read to be able to use it. But then, somewhere along the way, i stumbled across the meaning of Ubuntu...

and got hooked.

Nelson Mandela:
"Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to improve?”

But daily life goes on and i forgot it. Then i looked for a good interactive debugger for Ruby/Rails and got Feisty Fawn – extremely annoyed with my Windows®, which seems to make life hard for the Open Source products, i decided to do it again: to try.

And now? Actually, it is fun to work with Ubuntu, even if you are a beginner...

so excuse me please, i have to go exploring ;-)

The Battle on Global Warming

2007-06-17T02:53:00.001-07:00

Expectedly…

the „real scientists“ now come and play down the human impact on climate change...

and different from the “doomsayers” they are “sure” and so can offer tangible results for politicians to decide what is best for you and me. And the politicians are glad about them, because the “doomsayers” are never able to give certainty like them.

So it seems, that neither politicians nor “real scientists” have ever thought about risk management – at least not, as if they themselves are involved.

We talk about changes in climate of a magnitude, never witnessed by the human species and none of our scientists really knows what that could mean (remember all the surprise in so many articles about how fast change happens?) And that simply means that a probability greater than zero of human extinction exists. Even believers in the Rich and Wealthy know that (Our Final Hour: “Rees is an advocate of the free market solution, and believes that the wealthy will push back the frontiers of space”.)

But when death threatens you – what do you do? Is there really anything too expensive for you as long as you can afford it – to avoid death?

So how can it be that our Rich and Wealthy don’t care about the (rising) probability of human extinction – aka their own death?

Only explanation is that they do believe that they can avoid death – even in times of mass deaths, even when Earth changes from Mother Earth to Kali, they believe to be able to buy life.

They pay for survival for a while (at least Mr. Edgar Bass) – but seem not to have learned from the results, because the Divine Dollar must be mightier than Physics.

Isn’t it?

Biosphere 2:
”In a 1983 interview Prance said "I was attracted to the Institute of Ecotechnics because funds for research were being cut and the institute seemed to have a lot of money which it was willing to spend freely. Along with others, I was ill-used. Their interest in science is not genuine. They seem to have some sort of secret agenda, they seem to be guided by some sort of religious or philosophical system"”

Honni soit qui mal y pense.

How to Kill Memes…

2007-06-10T04:13:00.000-07:00

Remember Math beats Faith?

That’s how to kill memes – by not allowing them to spread. And to prevent them from flying through history you do not have to stop them everywhere. You just have to find the “critical fraction p(c) of nodes”, but even “little knowledge of the well-connected sites is sufficient to strongly reduce p(c)”.

That’s the reason why the governments spy on their citizens by just counting phone calls and the time spent for.

So if you want to attack a meme, say something like “dark-skinned persons are less valuable than light-skinned ones”, don’t waste your energy by convincing followers. They may seem to agree, but when they meet their master, they will change their minds again like weathercocks.

You have to find the “opinion leaders”, the “critical fraction p(c) of nodes” by something like counting – because many people quote them or refer to something they said. Then you have two ways to continue: first) convince them, second) isolate them. Easy to see, that the first way is the most effective one, because you do not only prevent the meme from flourishing, you can use the “connections of the node” to spread the opposite, say “all people are equal”.

But alas, opinion leaders often love “the power to rule the spirit” and are not convincible – so the next advice given by the math of the scale-free network is: destroy their connections.

You see that all the time in politics or business, when they try to defame opponents.

And you can see the risk in this – if you want to kill memes just to better the world, you cannot act like governments or careerists, you cannot pretend, that your “divine end justifies the means” ...

oh, and not just because of some “moral considerations” – it is just about plausibility. To attack memes you have to attack their “plausibility”, their inner strength and coherence, and that inevitably means, that you must be able to offer “more of that”. Memes can only be spread due to their own inner logic. So “evil memes” you spread with evil persons, thoughts and actions and the “good memes” require good persons, thoughts and actions.

That is, how it works.

Innuendo – From Death of the Bees, Democracy and The G8

2007-06-03T03:31:00.000-07:00

Hooray – Free Speech Zones everywhere! Democracy in chains and walls – finally the Divine State of the Middle Age has triumphed, where the Noble Men, so far above the average Hoi Polloi like you and me, are no longer forced to watch us offending their beautiful eyes and minds. Hooray, it is done!

Germany wastes so much money to protect “The Mighty” – wastes millions of bucks to build walls, to pay bodyguards, to lock out the common people, as if they are less worth than “The First Class Persons”...

that’s what they call “democracy” – but as long as you have two classes of men, you simply don’t have understood the principle...

oh, you say – they were needed, they have to protect us all, so they have the right to demand more than others?

my reply? No, they don’t. They are poor losers, not worth a cent.

Look what is the most important thing today – the fight against Global Warming. And look, what they are able to do? Pure nothing – Nil, Nada, Zero.

They waste our lives, futures, children, health, EARTH...

they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, let alone “heads” or forerunners of the solutions...

so we allow our democracy to be killed for losers, people, paid with incredibly high power to do, what incredibly high power should be used for: to save the world...

but what do they do? They take what they can grab – and fail...

Losers, miserable losers, big fat maggots in the bacon...

they just save their own day, not able to care for their own future, too stupid to understand, that even “The Mighty” have bodies, solidly tying them to a working biosphere...

the bees – look at the bees. Think of all the previous mass extinctions – we only could reproduce what we can find. But how about “key species” like the bees? When they vanish plants will not be pollinated, fruits will not ripen, animals will not find their food...

how could we know that, if something like that had happened before? Bees don’t leave marks...

but maybe they leave deserts behind.

So we waste money to pay for dispensable people – because the one thing that would allow to prefer them is when they do preferable things...

like save our world...

but they just waste our time – not even knowing if there is time left...

to be wasted...

Innuendo (Queen):
Just passing our time
While we live according to race, colour or creed
While we rule by blind madness and pure greed
Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion
Through the eons, and on and on

(In memoriam Freddy Mercury)

To Chuck – From Barnita With Love

2007-05-27T03:01:00.001-07:00

Chuck:
War just pisses people off (idiomatic expression,) and causes them to seek revenge, which only perpetuates the cycle.

Barnita and Sanhita Bhandari:
The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy........Florence Shinn

Doomed to war?

Political futility or Which Memes to Replicate?

2007-05-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

Originally, i planned to write about Germany and her women.

When you browse international news, you will repeatedly stumble across short messages about the inferior role, women play in Germany both in industry and politics – each year the same. As marginal as it seems at first glance, it’s a very interesting fact to ponder about...

when you ponder about “individualities” of nations and cultures, about memeplexes and their survival power. Especially Germany is a great example to study “national personality” beyond the usual – there are not many nations experiencing a national trauma like that. And when you ponder about future of humankind, the uber-body of the next evolutionary step, Germany is a really strong hint for something like a “national organism” because of the impact the trauma had on the “national personality” – like the deep mistrust of a positive future (could be? Consequence of the failed nearly absolute trust in the “Endsieg”), like the high propensity to save and buy houses (Could be? Consequence of two harsh times with starvation and loss and currency reforms)...

or like the traditional distribution of roles, which makes Germany to the “Iran” of Europe regarding women, a consequence of what the Germans thougt about Women at least since Goebbels.

I guess, there were some people who didn’t think that women are just inferior breeding cattle not able to do anything else than serve husbands and sons to offer the Fuhrer as many soldiers as possible...

but they kept silent, betrayed Lise Meitner and let Goebbels speak:

German Women:
”The first, best, and most suitable place for the women is in the family, and her most glorious duty is to give children to her people and nation, children who can continue the line of generations and who guarantee the immortality of the nation.”

And so it came that Goebbels speaks until today. Until today women all over the world have to decide between their own wishes and ambitions and the wishes and ambitions of husbands and children. There is not much sympathy for women not surrendering to the usual way of family – and especially not in Germany, where such a behavior is called “feminization of men” since Goebbels, so both offending liberal husbands as “weaklings” and wives as “masculine” aka “against their own inherent nature”:

”The feminization of men always leads to the masculinization of women.”

Take that speech, remove the word “german” and you can easily hold that speech again – and expect standing ovations.

That’s the power of memes in action.

So originally i want to warn about the memes we nowadays are willing to accept and to replicate, because even when we might change our minds...

they may survive and harm our children and grandchildren.

But then Steve posted that entry on the Last Chance Democracy Cafe:

Ladies and Gents — Mr. Charles Pierce:
”I held off on this [impeachment of George W. Bush] because I thought the process was both legally unjustifiable and politically futile.”

and so i started to ponder about “political futility”.

My first thoughts were that this argument should never be an excuse for keeping silent. You will never stop fighting against child rape because it is futile, won’t you? So how can it be that decent people remain silent in case of horrible crimes against humanity – just because “it is politically futile”?

Why do you think Mother Nature gave you a brain? To surrender to power and strength? You don’t need intelligence to give up. So brain means responsibility – means duty.

Then i remembered The White Rose – the incarnation of “political futility”. At a time when the whole world believed the Nazis to be unstoppable, there were some decent young people not willing to keep silent. Despite the fact that they knew they couldn’t win, that they knew that they might not have the least impact on history, they defended what they thought to be right...

to be worth to be defended.

Sophie Scholl:
"Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.”

Then i realized that my original plan – the survival power of memes – and the ponderings about the surrender to “political pragmatism” have some connections, because memes are always the foundation of what is “politically futile” and what is “politically promising”.

Roman Saying:
Qui tacet, consentire videteur
He who is silent appears to consent

Each meme you don’t attack is a meme you support. And how to you “attack memes”? Not with guns, not with muscles...

you attack memes with words.

Keeping silent, e.g. not demanding for impeachment, is therefore supporting the idea, that impeachment is “not worth mentioning”. No one will know, that your silence is just “pragmatism”...

your silence is support. Because memes are attacked with words, not with guns.

“Political futility” might be a difficult challenge, but as a brain owner you are duty bound to act for what you yourself think is right or wrong:

An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (Immanuel Kant):
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians.

Btw: there is a moral to the story about German women and “political futility”.

No one really thought that Merkel would have a chance to be Chancellor, they all mocked about the style of hair and clothing and that she only would be a stopgap after the big scandal of the party. But Merkel didn’t care about “political futility” and so succeeded in being the first female chancellor of Germany, the country without female leaders where the weapon of the “Rabenmutter” is used against working mothers.

So when you think, a war based on greed and arrogance, the killing and maiming of children and justice is a crime to be impeached...

do it.

Fight the meme of the Law of the Strongest, because when you don’t do it, you might have to bear the consequences.

Rev. Martin Niemoller:
First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Big Bang or Little Red Spot Of The Universe

2007-05-13T01:17:00.000-07:00

Farscape (David Kemper):
John: "I'm gonna fail. It's a sin, really. I'm close.
– There's just not enough time."
Aeryn: “It's always about time.”

If you know, what information is, you know, how true it is – it’s always about time.

But my problem is more mundane, is John’s problem: There’s just not enough time...

so just some pieces of the puzzle of why and how our universe started and what “existence” really means.

Don’t forget: It’s always about time.

All our geniuses are simply wrong, when they believe and tell us, that time is the delusion and that stability, the determinism of steadiness is the origin.

Steven Hawking – a genius, but alas, wrong, as long as he doesn’t focus on the primacy of time. Stability is not primary just as little as mathematics is the heart of the universe or even able to describe it (with best greetings from Gödel).

Both are only consequences of information. Or in other words:

Each and every stability is just delusion, appearance, surface...

like the...

geometric whirlpools:
”At high enough rotation speeds, he says, a fluid will always experience some flow instability that creates a symmetrical structure.”

It looks like a “stable structure”, even like different “stable structures” – but it’s just a whirlpool with different speeds...

a wonderful example of dynamic chaos, creating an at least 300 years old stability, is Jupiter’s atmosphere and the Great Red Spot.

But – regarding the Big Bang – another “storm” is much more interesting, the “Little Red Spot”...

a big whirlpool, created by a merger of smaller ones...

Jupiter's Little Red Spot Growing Stronger:
”The Little Red Spot is the only survivor among three white-colored storms that merged together. In the 1940s, the three storms were seen forming in a band slightly below the Great Red Spot. In 1998, two of the storms merged into one, which then merged with the third storm in 2000. In 2005, amateur astronomers noticed that this remaining, larger storm was changing color, and it became known as the Little Red Spot after becoming noticeably red in early 2006.”

Repeatable processes can create waves (and vice versa), standing waves, interference, resonance – can create variety and order in chaos – and not just a simple order. Such created “things” can combine to bigger ones...

and bigger ones, changing attributes like colors or size...

looking like stable giants...

being nothing else than a large whirlpool...

and be honest – doesn’t our universe with all the dancing stars and galaxies and clusters of galaxies looks like a really laaaarge whirlpool of whirlpools of whirlpools?

Back To The Roots

2007-05-06T03:36:00.000-07:00

As it seems, my efforts to pass the baton were not that successful.

Sorry, Miss Celania – and many, many thanks to MoxxieGrl for the great post in reply. And many thanks to both of you for appreciating a network of thoughtful blogs as highly as i do.

Also thanks to Believe in Your Visions, whose site was down for nearly a week, so that he had to reply here. The other ones seem to care not much about the thinking bloggers, or maybe they just don’t care about me or didn’t like my words?

Hard to know.

So i decided to talk about something i do understand a little better than networking.

I want to go back to my roots, want to remember the “Road to Chaos”.

See, everyone is now discussing Global Warming, at least for a day or two...

some say it is dangerous, some say it can be profitable, some say they can’t care less – but no one seems to doubt that it can be calculated and controlled.

Except?

For a chaos mathematician, Heinz-Otto Peitgen, who doubts that climate can be fully modelled. I don’t know why he thinks so, but there are two reasons why he is right.

First reason, in general:

...is my “native” theme – information. Information is repeatable, identifiable action. Information is the foundation of any model or calculation, of any prognosis or control. Information creates process and processes create cycles. Gaia is just that, a complex intertwined network of cycles, offering enough information for enough time, so that a species with a complex intertwined network of neurons could evolve: We, the Avatar of Gaia, the most complex information processing system which the everlasting stream of ordered action could create.

Looking at the definition of information, you see the preconditions to be satisfied to allow calculations and controls: Identity and Repeatability. Both are not that simple as first impressions suggest. Because identity needs uniqueness and repeatability needs time. To detect uniqueness you have to detect an “attribute of all” with a value “never belonging to more than one” instance. The next step is repeatability: after identifying a special kind of change you have to prove that it behaves in the same way “for the whole time”.

It’s all about measuring, you see? All about the difference between physics and mathematics.

In mathematics, you can easily claim “For All” or “It exists” – in physics you cannot do that, because “For all” really means “For all”, not just “for most” – for all in time and space, for all yesterday, now and tomorrow. Mathematics can do that because mathematics doesn’t know time. But physics IS time, is change, is alteration. What was yesterday, is not what is today. And what is today will not be what is tomorrow. There is always a beginning and always an ending, so to consider all members of such a set, you must be able to know all the members of that set from the beginning of the universe “til the end of time”.

You can’t do that. So you never can decide uniqueness and therefore identity in a perfect mathematical manner and likewise you can’t decide repeatability, because you cannot look into the future. What was true yesterday can be wrong tomorrow.

Luckily for life...

it is all about measuring.

So “for all” in physics it can be enough, if it is valid “for all” in a space and time frame, much larger than the space and time frame of the observers. So for information processing systems like biological species it is perfectly sufficient when identity and repeatability are given in their environments longer than several of their own lifetimes.

But...

regarding the modelability of climate – what IS the time frame to detect information? And, more important – what happens with all the events beyond that time frame, what about all the action which is NOT information? Think of the catastrophic mass extinctions about every 62 million years, think about solar cycles (affecting climate), the wandering of the solar system in the galaxy (maybe causing an increase in comets), think of the everlasting action inside our Earth, of the vulcanos able to change weather for some years.

Too many parameters, too many cycles – and too little knowledge about the whole amount of action existing on and around Earth, because there is much more random, faceless action than identifiability and repeatability.

And what we do with our un-wise actions is to increase the ratio randomness/total action ==> to decrease the ratio information/total action, a ratio, which is crucial for any information processing system, which is crucial for the ability of Gaia to build complex cycles and for her ability...

to generate a complex Avatar.

And? Remember that information is the precondition for calculability and controllability aka modelability?

With the decreasing ratio information/total action we lower the calculability of Gaia and her subsystems like climate.

Means?

The more changes we burden Gaia with – the less we can foresee what will happen. Because we really create randomness – and randomness is not predictable.

Means?

We can still calculate some subsystems, but their impact on the whole...

shrinks.

I guess, that is what Heinz-Otto Peitgen wants to tell us, when he says: “we can predict the average temperature of the oceans, but have no clue what that means to climate in toto.”

Second reason, in particular:

Gaia is a chaotic system as well as her subsystem, the climate:

Chaos theory:
”Everyday examples of chaotic systems include weather and climate.”

And chaotic systems can be destroyed in a very dangerous way, easy step by easy step by easy step...

because

”Sensitivity to initial conditions means that each point in such a system is arbitrarily closely approximated by other points with significantly different future trajectories.”

Do you see?

Yes, chaotic systems are “deterministic” in the meaning of “informative” – and yes, they obey the precondition of repeatability: the same initial state always leads to the same end state.

But...

and here, world, introducing the power of infinity to you...

you see, why IKI – infinity kills information...

because that simply means that even “arbitrarily closely approximated” is NOT “equal”...

or IOW: too many variables create too many states, so that it is nearly impossible to reproduce “the same initial state”...

and that means? No ability to predict “this will lead to that state” in toto...

that means

”significantly different future trajectories.”

Hey, rich kiddy, Paris-Hilton-style...

you can’t just do what you want without caring about reality...

you will have to pay, understand?

Because chaotic systems can stand many changes without showing any reaction, they are able to buffer input for a long while “with a poker face”. But when they start to react, it’s high time: Period doubling phase.

I don’t know which variables to choose to find the significant cycles showing period doubling, don’t know if the diminishing of species, the “mass extinction caused by an expanding population of humans, industry and agriculture consuming natural habitats, contamination poisoning the food chain”, if “expected climate damage in North America... [the increase of] tornadoes, drought, flooding and fires” (you know, that statement removed at the behest of the United States) ...

can be used to estimate the “level” of period doubling, to determine the phase of the period doubling cascade, we are in now.

But we all can feel the change of that gigantic chaotic system, our climate. It is happening. Our great Mother Earth changes...

she reacts – but as a chaotic system with much too many subcycles she is NOT predictable...

in toto.

We know that ice ages were triggered by many different factors, we know, that maybe our Earth Was Completely Covered by Ice – several times, but we also know that Earth was warmer.

So what?

What had happened once, can happen twice – but which direction? Warming may be controllable, but warming may also cause a collapse leading to ice ages or leading to deserts...

who knows?

So what – why worry?

Because life survived the ice planet and “Life Flourished When Earth Was Warmer, Scientist Says”:

”"The last 2 million years don't have anywhere near the full range of climate history," Parrish emphasized.”"

And Judith Parrish, the fearleass geologist, who isn’t scared by global warming, tells us, why she isn’t scared:

”The Cretaceous describes the period 113 million to 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the planet. Geological evidence indicates that during the Cretaceous, as during much of the Earth's history, the planet was much warmer than it is today -- and generally warmer than it is projected to be in the next few centuries as the result of a buildup in greenhouse gases."

That means?

That life will survive, Gaia will survive as she survived the complete frost and the hot deserts.

But we, as the “current” Avatar, can’t stand much change away from the current state, because it is “our optimum”. And what happens on top of the hill? There is always only ONE direction to go, Ms. Parrish...

You may understand tectonics, but you don’t have a clue about information and cycles and interactions...

you even don’t see what you yourself say about your own species. Look at your own words:

”The last 2 million years don't have anywhere near the full range of climate history"

But actually, it was exactly that climate – of the last 2 million years – creating our brain, dear. You yourself tell us, that Earth has seen other times...

but WE DID NOT!

We, as her Avatar, should be scared to death, because we, as her Avatar, needs her continuity most. Her current state is/was the state which created us, her current state is/was the state we are optimized to.

Every change of an optimum MUST be a change to the worse. Oh, yes, sure, our species is “scalable”, but how much? When Ms. Parrish herself tells us, that we never experienced the “full range” of climate power of Earth...

How can we be sure that our “scalability” is sufficient for “the full range”?

Can we survive an ice planet? Can we survive a desert planet?

Life will survive, yes.

But our ability to survive is limited – we are too complex, dears. Maintaining and reproducing a body and a brain like ours is a difficult task, a task so challenging, that it was reason for the “premature state” of our babies, weak, helpless, vulnerable.

They, kids, are our Achilles’ heel, ever thought about that? Ever thought, that our culture, our knowledge, our civilization may have started with medicine, just for one reason? Not because of the strong hunters, but because...

of our Achilles’ heel? To let them, the future of the species, survive?

But – who cares about future, isn’t it?

So think again – think and read about chaotic systems, about period doubling, about Gaia, about complexity and interaction and the butterfly effect...

and then, maybe, you see...

what can be.

Not only death of pesky foreigners, not only starvation of Asians or Africans, not only death of your grandchildren...

or death of your children...

it might hit you.

When you drive your SUV, when you waste water and energy and poison the Earth...

it may not wait until you’re gone. The more careless people do that that higher is the propability...

that what you send around...

comes back around.

Comes back right to you.

Are you now scared, dear?

Blogs That Make Me Think

2007-04-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

Usually, i don’t care much about Awards.

Usually, Awards are something to earn money or to manipulate people – the Oscar was invented to push the sales of movies and the Mother’s Cross aimed at a high production in breeding.

So usually, i don’t care much about Awards.

But last week Miss Cellania told me, that she tagged me for the Thinking Blogger Awards. Needless to say, that i – immediately – had to look for it and to google if there is some hidden agenda to manipulate or to fool people...

because it sounds so good!

Too many blogs, not enough thoughts!

Sure, i wouldn’t be that specific...

it’s not only about blogs being meaningless – look around you, watch TV, listen to the news, pick up a paper! Then i guess you know what i want to say...

My aim with this blog is to offer content that is interesting, informative and things that could really help my friends who are reading it.

Ok, i’m not curios...

(and ok, no one believes me about that!)

so i browsed his site to understand, if he was serious about that:

It is called '5 Blogs That Make Me Think' and I am tagging the following bloggers for the first list:

Despite the fact, that he sometimes contradicts himself or sometimes seem to indulge in usual stereotypes, his readers are obviously quite witty and open minded – you know “show me your readers and i tell you who you are”. Besides that, there were some posts, convincing me – like Pictures Worth A Thousand Words.

So, i began to ponder about the five tags to chose...

because the participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

So, first, because the easiest thing to do (s. sidebar):

The second step is the link back – (and also to Miss Cellanias post) – to fulfill the chain backwards.

And last not least...

the continuation...

'5 Blogs That Make Me Think' – shouldn’t be that difficult, i guess...

alas, it wasn’t that easy...

should i tag Miss Cellania back? Seems to make no sense – not because she doesn’t make me think, au contraire, i like her humorous writing about not always so humorous things, but because, first, she is on my blogroll (Cellania - Thoughts for today) since years and, second, it would waste “meme-creation-power”...

and to be invited to support a meme linking between blogs that make you think, means much to me, being the maybe most Fiery Fan of brain.

So, who to tag?

There are many sites making me think like OpenDemocracy, the London based foundation “committed to human rights and democracy”, offering so many articles beyond mainstream media, there is The Club of Rome or The WhiteRose or The Smirking Chimp or TruthOut or In These Times (in memoriam Kurt Vonnegut) or The Brights or Independent Media or Haaretz or CounterPunch or Mother Jones – and don’t forget Buzzflash!

But that aren’t really blogs, are they?

There is also Edge or DailyKos or Fanatical Apathy or Take Back the Media or Opinions You Should Have or The Rude Pundit – they truly made me think, but there is something “Treasure Hunting” about the Thinking Blogger Awards and these blogs are always very well known, need no further “promotion”.

Then there is Warblogging or Voxfux or Impeach Bush or 400ml, the Girl from India, showing me, how similar life is far from here – RIP.

And Riverbend...

Baghdad Burning...

who nearly stopped blogging because of a criminal war and now has to leave her home...

i hope – from the bottom of my heart – that she will survive the escape, and not only for the sake of herself and her family, but for the sake of America...

because if you ever read her stories (“A Girl Blog From Iraq” ISBN 1-55861-489-3), touching, warm, humorous, then you know, why she is called the second “Anne Frank”...

and when she has to die because of despicable people not knowing what decency is, what humanity is or compassion, spelling “human dignity” as P-R-O-F-I-T...

then she will haunt America like Anne Frank haunts Germany.

So, if you love your children, Neocons, at least a tiny teeny little bit, and don’t want them to be spitted at – fall on your knees and pray for her life.

But back to the rules...

Ladies and Gentlemen, here i proudly present my treasures for the Thinking Blogger Awards:

Last Chance Democracy – because i love the stories about Zach and the Three Wise Men since years and because i learned something about the American Aristocracy, i never would have believed before..

Radar Contact – because he missed Warblogging, too, and because of all the interesting links you can find like this or that...

Believe in Your Visions (in German) – because the first thing, you read is: “You may have expected a web portal of a consulting company. Until March, 2001 it would have been like that. Then, in March 2001, Janalie’s leukemia (ALL) was diagnosed.” And believe me, that made me think about the true meaning of life...

Brutal Women – because her point of view is so unusual, that you have to think about her words - and because she writes Fantasy stories – and because of that quote: “Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark place where it leads.” - Erica Jong

and

MoxxieGirl “I would rather someone was wrapped in the Constitution burning the flag than wrapped in the flag burning the Constitution.” – because her passion is unlimited, and because squirrels can fall asleep in her hand...

Peri physeos

2007-04-22T00:54:00.000-07:00

And the Goddess cordially admitted me,
with her hand my right hand held and thus spoke and addressed me;
Oh youth, to the immortal charioteers firmly raised
with the mares that bring you as you come to our halls,
be glad!
since you was not by evil destiny prompted to share this path
- for indeed is beyond men's feet -
but by Rightness as well as Justice.

And you have to know everything,
both the well-rounded truth's unshakable heart,
and mortals' opinions, empty of true faith.
However, these also will you learn,
that false beliefs like true must seem,
pervading everything by all means.

Parmenides, Elea, ca. 500 BC

Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Article 11

2007-04-15T00:53:00.000-07:00

Annals of Congress, 5th Congress, 1797:
”As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

So...

when Bush burns little girls and rapes their mothers...

he can do it in the name of his archaic desert god...

but he does not do it in the name of America.

Period.

Dear Brothers – USA & China

2007-04-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

The two…

now famous all over the world...

for being happily united in belittling the Climate Change...

Scientists, governments clash as report reveals dangers of climate change:
”The United States, China and Saudi Arabia raised the most objections to the phrasing, most often seeking to tone down the certainty of some of the more dire projections...
Patricia Romero Lankao, a sociologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., confirmed to USA TODAY that delegates from the United States, China and Saudi Arabia forced the writers of the report summary to "downplay" the level of certainly about the damage to the environment and species by human-caused warming.”

And?

For belittling the catastrophes in their own countries, as the news told us.

Governments, NGOs call for urgent action on IPCC report:
”Sources said sections removed from the final text included one on the expected climate damage in North America. The draft had originally said that tornadoes, drought, flooding and fires would increase as a result of climate change but this was removed at the behest of the United States.
US officials sidestepped questions by reporters about whether the country had forced out passages that mentioned severe consequences for the US.”

I guess, for the Chinese position, i don’t have to find links...

USA & China...

brothers in greed – both care about their citizens just as long as they can pay for, can pay for justice, can pay for health, can pay for food. Hailed as “Social Darwinsm” they do not waste precious money for the help of “losers”, just enjoy the cheap manpower

brothers in carelessness – both ignore the warnings about the suffering and harm of their own people just for the sake of profits. Katrina? New Orleans? See it as a bless! New Orleans will be richer, cleaner – and whiter!!!!

Eased Out of the Big Easy:
”Jackson predicted New Orleans will slowly draw back as many as 375,000 people, but that only 35 percent to 40 percent of the post-Katrina population would be black. (Before Katrina, New Orleans was two-thirds black.) "I'm telling you, as HUD secretary and having been a developer and a planner, that's how it's going to be." Jackson revealed that he advised Mayor Ray Nagin not to rebuild the overwhelmingly black 9th Ward.”

brothers in lipservice – both call themselves “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Yes! Actually, exact that is the “basic idea” of communism, too. In case of China, no one can understand that, isn’t it? It is so obvious, that an 2,000 year old empire will not be defeated by a simple revolution...

but in case of the young America?

It must be true, that the people are free here! All the movies and all the media tell us this story on and on and on (you know, who said: “Repetition is the lynchpin of propaganda”?) – so it must be true!

Noam Chomsky:
”Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.”

No!

USA & China can’t be brothers?

USA can’t be brother of a totalitarian regime using death penalty and social discrimination...

not allowing change: Tiananmen Square protests of 1989???

But there are some lonely warriors of truth, fighting against the invisible dragons of myths and movies and money:

Bill Moyers “Secret Government”:
”Or how do the people cry foul when their liberties are imperiled, if public officials can break the rules, lie to us about it, and then wave the wand of national security to silence us?
”Can it happen again? You bet it can. The apparatus of secret power remains intact in a huge White House staff operating in the sanctuary of presidential privilege. George Bush has already told the National Security Council to take more responsibility for foreign policy which can of course be exercised beyond public scrutiny. And a lot of people in Washington are calling for more secrecy, not less, including more covert actions. This is a system easily corrupted as the public grows indifferent again, and the press is seduced or distracted. So one day, sadly, we are likely to discover once again that while freedom does have enemies in the world it can also be undermined here at home, in the dark, by those posing as its friends. I’m Bill Moyers. Good night."

Published in 1987...

Changed???

Nothing.

The words are as true as 20 years ago...

or???

Who – in 1987 – had believed, that the USA would send soldiers to kill children for money, oil and power, based on only sloppily patched lies?

Who – in 1987 – had believed, that the USA would openly and overtly use war, the foundation of mass murder, mass destruction and mass suffering, as an “appropriate tool” to feed the greed?

Who – in 1987 – had believed, that the USA wouldn’t even care to disguise the real reasons, but “offered” lies so transparent, that it was a slap in the face of any intelligent person all over the globe?

Noam Chomsky:
”The question is whether privileged elite should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must -- namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena.

And who ever had believed, that the USA would not care about each and every single American? Lost in Iraq, lost in New Orleans? Who could care less, when they don’t have money?

Who cares about tornadoes, drought, flooding and fires?

Governments, NGOs call for urgent action on IPCC report:
”The draft had originally said that tornadoes, drought, flooding and fires would increase as a result of climate change but this was removed at the behest of the United States.”

I guess, in the end even the “Hollywood”-sign might not be protectable...

Death of Democracy

2007-04-01T05:59:00.000-07:00

No, it’s not the aristocracy which kills democracy…

it can be everyone.

Yes, aristocracy is a cancer – reducing the efficiency of a body for the own profit – but like cancer it is not viable on its own, because the self-imposed isolation of the “elites” leads to loss of reality, both in mind and in body. The first is based on the “buffer” of servants around them, forced to bear the consequences of wrong decisions of their masters – therefore “preventing” them from learning – and the second is based on the reduced gene pool of the “uber-human” aristocrats. So the first leads to more and more maladjusted activities, the second to inbreeding and after a while, revolutions or younger aristocrats of other societies will remedy those social deficiencies.

The problem of the democracy is the people themselves...

because the heart and the soul of a democracy is the respect for human dignity. Without respect for human dignity no self-discipline towards the rights of other humans, no voluntary self-restriction just for the sake of others is likely to last for long – and without these self-controlling democracy simply can’t work.

But we are all chimps inside our naked skins...

and chimps are self-focused. Evolutionary developed greed for food and sex controls their life and is directly in conflict with the willing giving up of something for the benefit of others.

So in a democracy each and every person matters in two ways: first as active member to follow the rules and respect the rights of others even though they may be in conflict with the own and second as passive member, as one deserving respect and so deserving this very important and actually very tought requirement of sacrifices.

And now look in the mirror, look around you...

how many people do you know who are just stupid or sociopathic? Who don’t care about anything else than their own little lives, who trampels on other peoples rights or feelings with perfect regularity, who loves to play bargain hunters without considering where the bargains come from and who was fired, whose home is poisoned and whose children are forced to work 16 hours, who steals and rapes as soon as avoiding of punishment seems possible?

You know many of them? A few of them, usually the more intelligent socially disabled, favored by luck or simply by the ignorance of their neigborhood, become rich and powerful, in clear words: awarded for their carelessness, so infiltrating the first decision making levels of egalitarian communities. They are the origin of aristocracies, their wealth and influence the object of admiration, envy and submissiveness.

But the rest? They are the greedy, selfish, even criminal losers, the excuse for any person who has to decide to give up something for someone else – “hey, why should i sacrifice it for them? They will never do it for me!”

And so, greed and selfishness increases and more people’s decency will be challenged.

Your boss in your company? Why should he fight for his staff and risk his career? “Hey, Mr. X or Ms. Y is only a shirker, lazy and lying!”

Your doctor caring for your health? Why should he defend you against the health insurance companies when you burn your candle at both ends just for money or power?

The fish rots from the head – the elites truly are a danger to each and every democracy...

as Aldous Huxley said:

BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED:
But the nature of power is such that even those who have not sought it, but have had it forced upon them, tend to acquire a taste for more. "Lead us not into temptation," we pray -- and with good reason; for when human beings are tempted too enticingly or too long, they generally yield.”

but the biggest danger are the 10-15% stupid or sociopathic people, who are not even willing to be worth the respect, which is the foundation of all relationships...

relationships over time, distance or differences, needing respect and self-discipline...

but those 10-15% don’t care about others, neither their well-being nor their respect – they simply are not able to be part of a democracy, of a “wise crowd”...

au contraire...

they turn wise crowds into mobs, democracies into aristocracies, where the lives of others is just something to get profits from...

where Zivilcourage, the bravery which allows a person to do the decent thing, isn’t even a known word...

Do you…

2007-03-25T01:14:00.000-07:00

turn off the water while soaping or shampooing?

power down electrical equipment when not in use?

watch the portions of food to avoid to be forced to throw it away?

chose the smaller car to save fuel?

pay a higher price for goods produced ecofriendly, for fair trade?

do without glamour and glitter, without luxury and prodigality, without being bootlicked and spoiled?

Oh, yes, i hear you...

why should you? You can afford to waste water, energy, food and chemistry. You can do it – so you will do it...

you’ll visit Vegas or Dubai or Ayers Rock without considering the waste of energy and water – because you can, you have the money, you have the power...

and you have to show that you can...

why?

Can’t you feel the suffering of the Iraqi people for your fuel, the wailing of the starving children because their food is sold to you, the suicide farmers of India because your free market stole their life, the thirsty people of China because their waters are used for your industry?

Oh, yes, i hear you...

why should you? They are losers, you are the winner, you get what you deserve – and they get, what they deserve, you get the wealth and health, they get the death...

and i bet, you believe, that you will belong to the “winners” of Global Warming, too...

because for you, there will always be a place with fresh water, cozy climate, clean air, healthy food and servile slaves, even when Mother Earth collapses...

so why should you stop wasting other people’s living conditions?

ULS

2007-03-18T02:11:00.000-07:00

Ultra-Large-Scale Systems…

quote from the report:
” Like a biological ecosystem, a ULS system comprises a dynamic community of interdependent and competing organisms (in this case, people, computing devices, and organizations) in a complex and changing environment.
...research is needed to understand other models, such as open source, that involve Fostering Non-Competitive Social Collaboration.”

to repeat: “Non-Competitive Social Collaboration” – that, what mammals cannot do, mammals, which are dominated by alpha males, because in case that competition is your entrance to reproduction, you will never give it up – basic law of nature, called “reproductive instinct", often stronger even than the survival instinct.

quote from the report:
”Orchestration involves management and administration but at a scale well beyond that of traditional, centralized, relatively fine-grained controls.”

beyond “traditional, centralized, relatively fine-grained controls”?

Simply means beyond the usual human structures of leaders and followers, of commanders and subordinates, of masters and slaves...

Written for the DOD...

but accepting, that only “Non-Competitive Social Collaboration” might be able to solve the conundrum of the unmanageable complex systems...

isn’t that just a joke? The final realization of competition – warriors – need their own antipodes to “do their job”. Lol.

Ok, ok – the report is focused on IT, but the problem of humankind is the same – an unmanageable complex system, only able to spread poison and destruction, but now forced by Mother Nature herself to work more efficiently together to overcome problems like Global Warming...

Poor mammals...

Reminds you of A Plot for a Science Fiction Novel, Red Moon, On the Tombstone of Humankind – too little and too late, On the Edge of History or Land of the Dead?

Q.E.D

A Plot for a Science Fiction Novel

2007-03-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes i am asked how things could be changed for a better. Yes, some people listen when i talk about the Human Future and the way, evolution has designed for this species by the invention of language – the first evolutionary step between individuals – and the human programming of less dominance and violence towards more justice...

because justice is just a state of interaction – the most efficient one – and because the two great nations following the Law of the Strongest and the Dictate of Profit, USA and China, not only great global players but great global poisoners, prove easily that injust behavior is inefficient behavior...

prove that not caring about environment and people destroys both environment and people.

Ok, if you are a only a Davos Man, you cannot consider the consequences of your actions, because these consequenses are always to be borne by others, by the Chinese Slaves, so easily fired, when the cheap work take its terrible toll on them, by the victims of floods and droughts, by the jobless and the homeless..

by the “human waste” the mighty Davos Men so carelessly “produce” without thinking about what so many betrayed, desperate people may do in the end...

because if you are rich, you don’t have to eat and drink and breathe like others, you just have to pay and all is fine.

“Ahem”, say the people, who listen to me,

“that’s the Status Quo:

an overpopulated world, where the Great Moloch 'human species' is everywhere, devouring everything in its path, leaving nothing behind than desert and waste...

a Great Moloch of single individuals, destroying everything together but avoiding (or not being able?) to act and think together – each cell on its own ignoring the own future and the future of the children...

a cancer of the Earth, ruled itself by the Davos Men (the most successfull cancer cells, confusing their growth with the 'ability to survive')...

and that is where it must go:

bettering communication between individuals to reach the next level of evolution, the Next Generation, able to avoid destruction by thinking and working together for more efficiency – due to the fact that efficiency is indispensable because an overpopulated species needing food or tools and removal of waste, forced (by physics) to use just finite resources has to care not only for effectivity (for results), but also for the clever handling of all the used stuff – simply because only cycles are survivable in nature ...”

hey, Davos Men, you may not be able to understand it – but physics is not bribable. You cannot create water, air and a vibrant Gaia, offering food and medicine, with green paper...

“So”, ask the few people, who listen to me – “how could it be done? How could we prevail upon the selfish people ruled by blind greed (the successful called 'rich', the not so sucessful called 'criminals') to demand what Mother Nature programmed in our head: sometimes to sacrifice for someone else than ourselves, sometimes to care for someone else than ourselves, sometimes to consider the consequences of our actions for someone else? You know the answer”, they say to me – “'but the other one did/has it also', the answer will be. The answer of children when they get less then the other, and so they will not stop to ignore future. They will not do it if they are poor, because they are too busy to survive and they will not do it if they are rich, because they are too busy to get more than others to build the biggest banana heap...

and then?”

I don’t have an answer. I think about brains and how their knowledge depend on their individual experience (by design of active information processing), even sharpened by the “optimization” during childhood, when the brain adjusts itself according to the current environment...

i think about the basic violence in mammals, which accepts rape as “valid strategy” of reproduction because “it works”, structural violence, which uses male competition to reject most of the male individuals in favor of the Highlander principle – the Law of the Strongest as the strategy of improvement...

and then i think of brains – how they learn by experience...

so the brain of mammals always will learn, that “violence works”...

do you see it?

That is – per definitionem – asocial behavior. The future of Humankind, based on language and the “new programming” of lesser dominance and lesser violence calls for another way: the way to MORE social behavior, more group intelligence.

Is the gap too far? The gap between what is and what should be? The inheritance of the body too strong for the “young” freedom of the brain?

I guess, it is – i bet, the Next Generation will not be based on mammals. The Next Generation, the one who may reach the stars, will be successors of crows or ravens or some other intelligent birds, because they know something like “love”, since the first step to a social life is to be able to respect your mate, i guess – something a species of “Highlanders”, Sheiks and other owners of harems, may they be lions or bulls or rams, cannot offer...

so imagine the “Time After” in some thousand years, when the Great Moloch is defeated and vanished from the face of Earth, when life found a way to recycle the poison and brought back information (= regularity and steadiness) and some crows have survived – then they might found an Earth without big terrestrial enemies (as the mammals did after the fall of the dinosaurs) and come back on earth, reshaping their wings to hands to be able to use tools...

imagine that: their capable brains, currently already much more capable than the brains of the early mammals – and their more social “construction”. So they will have a chance to reach the next level after language...

but that is not the plot i thought about...

the plot i thought about, which requires a fantasy author to be written?

It is just the fairy tale which brings us from the Davos Men to the Deciders, from the asocial Chimp societies to the survivable human societies, from the Moloch to the Avatar of Gaia...

i cannot see how it could be...

can you?

Then write the story of the survival of humankind, please...

Red Moon

2007-03-04T05:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday i watched the Red Moon…

i know, the Moon leaves us – and i know that the Moon is the one condition which makes the Earth unique (at least “more unique” than just a sun and a planet of the right dimensions) – so i know when the Moon leaves us, highly developed life may also leave the Earth. And of course, immediately the “rescue attempts” started: What will we do, when...???

you know, the American Way of Solution – stop a comet with the thumb of a “real Superman”, preferably an action actor like Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yesterday i watched the Red Moon...

and i thought about the beauty of physics: the stars shone bright and the full moon seem to watch me watching the sky...

and i remembered a discussion the day before – about human future and how hard it is to convince people that we truly are on the edge of darkness...

and that actually...

no one cares. No one wants to make the first step and give up things others still have...

and because the rich people will never give up anything for anybody else than themselves (you know: "It is harder for a camel to go through a needle's eye than it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.")...

it is simply unlikely that humankind will be able to do what it has to do to survive...

because to destroy, to kill, murder, rape and poison – humankind is perfectly able to “work together”...

but to build, construct, protect and care? Oh no! That’s always the job of someone else!

No, i fear, mammals burdened by the unholy marriage of violence and sex, of lust and power, are basically not able to overcome selfishness – when competence is the only motor of your actions, when the next step in the career is not just a step in life, but the assurance to be allowed to reproduce yourself, when the dictate of the genes rules the daily life...

then you don’t have the chance to act intelligently...

not as species...

or will YOU – YOU YOURSELF – be the first to beat your inner chimp?

The first to drive the smaller car? The first to live in the smaller house? The first to earn less money, just for the sake of your co-workers? The first to eat the regional food instead of the exotic fruits? The first to buy the more expensive fair trade products? The first to go on holiday in the own country just to save aviation fuel?

Oh no, don’t tell me, you do that...

because there is always your inner chimp, whispering that the little bit YOU do consume and waste doesn’t matter...

because chimps can’t count...

because chimps will never understand, that even teeny tiny little bits count in case of 6,555,000,000 (Population Mid-2006) consumers and wasters...

but chimps understand competition – and when you drive the smaller car and offer the lesser income and the unimposing den (house), the female chimps will not sell you sex, will not choose you for reproduction...

so the mammal gene will not allow you to do what has to be done – act responsibly. To “fill the earth”, to make as much offspring as possible is more important than to care for them, to watch over the children you decided to bring into this world...

you prefer to kiss them with the Judas kiss – prefer to play loving parent but not be able to sacrifice superficial negligibilities, because your neighbor doesn’t sacrifice it...

the first rule of Chimps is to care for oneself - so they try to dominate others, to have more power than others, to be able to defend themselves against the envy and greed of others and get what the others have and want...

doesn’t matter what it is, doesn’t matter what it costs...

subdue the Earth and have dominion over everything!

That’s how mammals are, you can’t change them...

and so the rich will never care for the poor – and the poor will never care for their children – and all will never ever care for the whole...

and so???

Yesterday i watched the Red Moon…

and i thought, that humankind doesn’t have to worry if and when the Moon will leave the Earth...

because the intelligent species living at that time will not be successors of mammals – my bet are birds, btw – and so they may be able to work together, use their intelligence not just for the own sake, the own profit and career, not just to steal from others to get more power or rape others to get more sex or destroy what others did only to deny them success ...

using their intelligence not to diminish but to increase knowledge, wealth and skills together, for everyone, because everyone profits from that (principle of Open Source, btw)...

and therefore they may already have invented star ships...

so i guess, the higher intelligence of the next Avatar of Gaia will protect it and its future...

because that is what intelligence is for...

to preserve and to protect....

now and in the future

Yesterday i watched the Red Moon…

On the Tombstone of Humankind – too little and too late?

2007-02-25T00:47:00.000-08:00

You know...

Global Warming is our Moment of Truth...

the ultimate decision where our path will go – we have two directions: move together, creating an Uber-Body or...

or...?!?!?

Why and how you can see it so clearly now?

Just read the scientists (no, not the paid whores of the corporations, but the honest ones) and study the messages of Mother Nature yourself – and then simply look what our nations do...

you and me – we might understand that the Point of No Return comes closer at full speed, we might stop to waste fuel and electricity, we might understand that caring for our fellow humans means caring for ourselves...

but our bosses? Our well-paid, highly respected Alpha Dogs? They’ll never stop barking and biting to get the last bone, hey, they are just “dogs”, you can’t expect more from them...

look from outside at our wonderful blue Mother Earth, the Jewel of Life in the Eternal Darkness...

and you see, that we should act as a whole – because we are able to pollute Earth as a whole, we have to fix the damage...

as a whole...

but our “whole” is too weak, too slow, too un-conscious, too un-aware of what we DO...

as a whole...

we act like the plants in the beginning of life – pollute the air and therefore are threatened to suffocate ourselves. But life survived, sending animals, able to use what is toxic for plants (breathing the oxygen)...

and eating the plants...

so?!?!?

Ok, that’s the second way for humankind...

now consider the way Mother Nature had shown us with the special human programming – just consider what would happen, if...

if our nations would not be guided by Alpha Dogs or Alpha Chimps, sitting on big heaps of bones or bananas and greedily grasping for every little bit of prey – but would act – in toto – as intelligent beings...

if humankind would not have to learn the hard way...

each of the 6 billion souls on their own...

6,555,000,000 “Consumption Machines” (and counting!!!) – each of them must not only be able to get the information, but understand it and...

AND then has to be decent enough to obey the needs...

ah, yeah, i see – now you see the problem: it’s not only the intelligence to understand the problem, but also the decency to discipline yourself, become able to overcome the own selfishness, not because of love for others, but for the own survival...

and yes, it will happen – because Mother Nature will not wait much longer...

humankind will understand, each of the 6 billion souls on their own, one faster, one slower...

but the whole time humankind will not stop to “consume” and produce waste, biological and man-made, mountains of food and waste, reducing flora and fauna while contaminating every little bit of our wonderful Blue Mother...

at high speed...

all together...

in toto...

and now imagine what would be...

if humankind would be able to learn not only to DO things – in toto – but also to UNDERSTAND the consequences of these actions – in toto – and so would be able to avoid harm and to support benefits (you know, that’s exactly the definition of intelligence, the “conquest of the future”)...

faster, according to the needs of survival...

consider that we, as humankind, would not only flood the Earth with billions of polluting and voracious single amoebae, but would at least act as “Slime Molds”, would work together more efficiently and effectively, just “under stress”, just for a while...

just to escape death...

be able to act intelligent and wise – just for a while...

can you do that, Humankind? Behave intellligently – just for a little while?

Just an Aside

2007-02-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

The company „Standard Networks“ from Madison, Wisconsin couldn’t sell its product “Move IT” to a europan Helicopter-manufacturer, but not because of the quality of the product...

simply because Europeans don’t want to be ruled, controlled and managed by the american government, don’t want to be treated like sheep without having a say.

Seems, as if the world outside knows enough about USA to not trust it any more. And seems, as if the world knows that the american companies will always have to obey the american government – and so can’t be trusted either (btw: a BIG plus of Linux). No wonder since that little event, when the american government forced companies like Microsoft, AOL or Yahoo to betray their customers, no matter WHICH country’s law should protect them. No respect for other people – neither persons nor nations....

that is the perfect way to create enemies – disrespect.

And so it seems, as if Mr. McCormack was totally right:

Mark McCormack
When things are equal, people buy from friends. When things are unequal, people still buy from friends. Therefore, make friends.

A better offer: 25 Million

2007-02-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

Not that stingy as the Mother-Earth-Killers – Gores and Bransons $25m offer...

oh yes, i know, the Oil-Lovers will give more than just 10,000 Dollars, because they “sacrifice those Holy Dollars” for each article – and we know the strategy of the American Aristocracy, hailing slavery and robbery as the “Holy Privatization” with millions of dollars poured in press and universities for decades, we know the true value of the money, which is only a “tool of power” to control the underlings...

so maybe we can see a “Bertrands Hint” in that “low offer”?

Maybe exactly that Aristocracy didn’t allow Exxon to offer more? Because in times, when even a George W. Bush must stop raging against Global Warming, when even a George W. Bush tries to tell the dumb world lies about the “decent american way to protect Earth” – so easily to be disproved that it is just painful (like the “liberation of Iraq”, which is now “their own fault”. Btw: you can whine about Putin as long as you want, but he only says, what everyone thinks – the world isn’t as blind and stupid as it might look – it is only corrupt)...

it seems that the “Dear Leaders” have to reconfigure their strategy – because THEY know that Global Warming is true, what will happen and that it will kill nearly the whole humankind: They own the insurances, noticing it since decades...

and THEY know what those hard times mean for them – challenge of their power...

and that’s the reason, why they don’t want to offer too much: just not to attract too much attention, while they play for time...

i guess, they simply need more of that – time – to prepare for the mass migrations and permanent wars to come: build more bunkers and walls, gather more goods and foods and weapons...

you can’t just start a luxury survival trip in a dying starving world without proper preparation <cynical>....

Inflation – The Value of 30 Pieces of Silver in 2007

2007-02-04T02:39:00.000-08:00

Mother Murder and Children starving, genocide, the killing of the future...

betrayal of your family and best friends, of your hope and redemption...

Judas got only 30 pieces of silver – today Exxon is not less stingy!

“Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study”

Just to play the role of “the whore of money” for the next moment – until the next proof is found: “oh, THAT we didn’t know, THAT we couldn’t foresee”.

And what do you think, “offers” one of the richest companies on Earth, making unbelievable profit with poisoning Mother Earth and her children?

10,000 Dollars...

in words:

ten thousand...

Megalomania – The Perfect Recipe for Commiting Suicide

2007-01-28T04:03:00.000-08:00

Take too much power...

Friedrich Nietzsche
One pays heavily for coming to power: power makes stupid.

add to this some Hollywood-actors...

Superman or Bruce Willis, stopping a comet with bare hands or Tommy Lee Jones, stopping lava flows with water flows from helicopters...

look at Schwarzenegger or Willis – then you know that they truly believe what they play. They act as if they are unbeaten heroes...

just some actors, supported by the divine power over the story – by the scriptwriters...

and an audience, not caring about reality...

megalomania...

Bush set for climate change U-turn:

However, Stern warned: 'The US will work it out for itself. Nobody will be telling them what to do, and nobody should.'

Again – who or what gives the US the right to decide about the future of the whole humankind?

Dollars? Nukes? Or “Superiority”? The American, the new Herrenmensch?

The Lord, Who Has All Power In Heaven And On Earth?

Remember the reply of China?

Megalomania...

kills the last bit of intelligence...

Oh yes, America will not permit Gaia to threaten profits and shareholders!

The Superpower will send Supermen, millions of them, with nukes and high tech and the infinite american invincibility to stop Global Warming!

Build some mirrors to reflect the sun!

Spread dust in the atmosphere!

Cover the sea with plastics!

Spray the water of the oceans into the air!

Push more and more uncontrolled force to Gaia! Bring her to her knees! Fight Satan with Beelzebub!

Don’t care about the laws of physics, of the fact, that chaotic systems seem to ignore changes for a while...

and then suddenly break down with no warning.

We are in trouble because of our interventions into a myriad of intertwined cycles – Gaia – we don’t understand.

And now we are stupid enough to believe, we could control the result by more powerful interventions?

Worked out by “scientists”, paid to know, but who always, always have to admit “oh, THAT we didn’t know, THAT we couldn’t foresee” – when the next doomsday messages of Gaia hit them like masters hit their dogs?

Bertrands Paradox
The more you know about a system, the better you know, how that system will behave...
To be able to better foresee the future.

Simply means: The more you know, the better your decisions are, the more the results of your actions change the world in the way you envision.

Yes – and vice versa...

the less you know about the system, the worse are your decisions – but alas, that doesn’t only mean, that your actions change the world less...

it only means, that your uninformed decisions change the world less in the way you want – but the power you invest by your actions is put into the world...

against you.

Remember the Killer Bees? The Cane Toads? Human interventions to "solve problems" - of so-called "scientists", of men without respect for interdependencies...

Global Warming shows that to us, proves us, that you can't put force into a system without changing it – but like the Chinese firing of a satellite-destroying missile, it is just a warning shot.

Be careful.

Be intelligent.

Act informed.

Act wise.

And the first step of the realization, that our uncontrolled, uninformed impact on nature will destroy everything...

has to be – STOP IT! Stop the uncontrolled powers, start to be more precise in your actions!

Stop to cut the Gordian Knot with the sword, when you don’t know, which monsters are bound by the threads!

Start to follow the way, Mother Nature showed us!

Oh yes, but it is more fun to play Superman...

who cares if you kill your own children with your megalomania! As long...

as you have fun...

and maybe you can make some profits! More and more interventions, more and more disturbed cycles of Gaia – maybe America can blind the other nations and demand money for the “protection” – to disturb more, to destroy more...

to “bring Gaia on her knees”.

Subdue the Earth!

Reject the gift of intelligence!

Holy Megalomania, protect us from wisdom...

and survival...

The Last Chance Democracy Cafe

2007-01-21T03:12:00.000-08:00

The Last Chance Democracy Cafe

I love it.

I love the honesty, decency and respect for reality, this ability to see beyond wishes and fears, to accept the world, as it is – question of age, combined with intelligence, creating wisdom out of knowledge out of experience.

But, alas...

exactly that seems to be signaling the near end of this blog. I hope, i’m wrong, but i fear, i’m right. Lesser and lesser replies must lead to resignation...

actually, it’s easy to understand: Because truth doesn’t sell...

people hate the truth, they always prefer the sugar-coated world of fairy tales – they want to be lied to, they want to hear, that all is fine, all is nice and wonderful and...

that especially THEY don’t have to worry and don’t have TO DO anything, that they can enjoy what they have and don’t have to bother about other humans, how their negligence and laziness and carelessness harms them by playing the tree monkeys: not to see, not to hear and not to speak about the evil done in their name, so that they can continue to steal and rob and rape or allow all that without bad conscience...

it’s said, that children behave like their parents: “like father, like son” – but it is also true, that the underlings behave like their bosses: “the fish rots from the head” or clearly spoken: “People get the government they deserve”.

Global Warming? Don’t be annoying! THEY will care about that, THEY will find a way to protect us, WE better go watching Faux...

Rising nuke alarm because of the stupid war-mongering, megalomania and disrespect for the Earth of the American Powerful? Just pay more taxes to pay the Pentagon – THEY will buy more weapons and weapons will protect us...

Rising poverty, explosion of population and wars? Just pay more taxes to pay the Pentagon...

BUT NEVER, EVER TALK ABOUT THAT!

Don’t bother us with the truth – no one wants to hear that.

That’s the lesson of the dying blogs – and the surviving ones. The survivors don’t care about the future, they sell, what people want: superficial nothing without any meaning even for their own life, but a so wonderful distraction from daily life...

Panes et circenses..

and Justitia got a blinder...

don’t care about the future, America, don’t care about the future, World. Just play and eat and kill and enjoy your life...

at least, as long as you can.

That’s how animals live...

but intelligence is the conquest of the future: To see the chances and the risks, to understand the possibilities and dangers, to accept that reality trumps everything and has to be respected to be helpful.

Sleep well, you "WhatMeWorry?"-species...

Future of Blogs

2007-01-14T01:07:00.000-08:00

Just wondering...

recently one of my best online friends stopped blogging...

everywhere i look – mostly no or just a few replies...

yes, the really big sites get reactions – but even there, not that much.

Sure, it’s about me, about my interests, not that sexy: decency, responsibility for your own actions, future orientation, duty-boundness to Mother Nature, Earth and Humankind...

tough philosophy and tough insights in what will happen to us, to our children...

not funny...

not “sexy”...

getting no reactions, tiring for the bloggers until they give up?

Will this be the future of blogs? The same as in TV?

Just selling, some professionals and the rest – “Star Wars Kid”? Just the ones paid for – and the others looking for games and fun, not caring about anything but their own wishes, especially, when their real lifes get boring or is a mess?

Not until now, surely no...

but after a while?

Brave new world...

Information, Entropy and the conservation of...

2007-01-07T08:44:00.000-08:00

hmmm...

of what?

I guess, everyone feels, that entropy and information are something like the two sides of the same coin, so everyone feels, that they both together – somehow – fulfill the “original need” for a conserved quantity.

But we only know, that moving along the timeline, information builds order, entropy destroys it.

Ever heard the name “Gerd Binnig”? Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, 1986, for the scanning tunneling microscope? Besides that, he has developed a theory about the origin of nature...

(oh, not that fundamental as information(<whisper, blink>)

but – admittedly – more specified.

In some forgotten special edition of a nice computer magazine he wrote about his theory – the first time i saw a physicist accepting randomness as original part of reality.

And – of course – it is a theory about conserved quantities, formulated as balancing act between two poles.

He thinks of three pairs of poles or equilibria: “attraction” vs. “isolation” to balance “difference”, “reproduction” vs. “death” to balance “numbers” and “mutation” vs. “selection” to balance “diversity” and called it “Fractal Darwinism”. In fact, he was able to deduce the laws of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics from his axioms.

(btw: do you see the relationship to information? Information does not only focus on the poles and the equilibrium, but also considers the process of balancing, which “drives” the change of values towards this particular state “equilibrium” – as long as the force behind IS information, because otherwise the progress ends. Not the balancing itself is annihilated without information, not the fact, that there has to be an equlibrium, since everything happening arises from quantum noise and so has to have its antipode – but without information, there is not repeatability, no repetition, no progress or evolution.)

Diversity seems to be interesting regarding information and entropy – just because information depends on Distinctness. You can’t have repeatability without distinctness, because repeatability is defined on different states – and states have to be identifiable to be recognizable as “different”. And identity needs uniqueness: stable, different values of at least one attribute of the considered state, which are able to play the role of “the identity” to “name” each state.

Diversity. Without diversity no information no universe.

But diversity isn’t enough to help us get an idea of the conservation quantity, so important for our understanding of physics. Why important? Because we all know the power of entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Then there is Maxwell's demon and Leó Szilárd, combining increase of energy, entropy and information of an observer with a decrease of entropy in the observed system.

Sounds fine – but i thought about Gaia, a highly ordered system based on intertwined information processing cycles, dependent on a “huge amount” of information for a “huge amount” of time. Gaia needs a lot of energy input, so the increase of order as something like crystallized information is well explained, i guess – and when energy ends and entropy will be “freed”, it will destroy the order.

So is the conservation just in consideration of the overall time? But what about the fact, that the Earth is not an isolated system – where in the whole solar system could the increase of the Maxwell’s demon’s entropy be found? In Gaia herself? Considering Shannons definition of entropy as a measure of the average information content associated with a random outcome?

Information needs energy to build differences – entropy deletes differences and transforms energy in the most unuseful kind. Information deletes uncertainty, entropy measures it.

Then there is the Casimir Effect – connecting boundaries to “orderly” behavior of waves and the creation of energy, which doesn’t violate the conservation of energy because of the change of the system's conditions.

Boundaries, differences, diversity, variation, different states, different observables, different values...

+ the motor of change, the infinite action of quantum noise with it’s slight tendency to prefer states such creating time and timelines...

so what about states? Information prefers states, differences – entropy destroys it...

but where’s the conserved quantity? The sum of all values has to be zero?

How about Noether’s Theorem – conserved quantities need continuous groups. I guess, the quantum noise is continuous, but is it a group? At least, it can create energy (s. Casimir Effect)...

(pondering.............)

On the Edge of History

2006-12-31T04:23:00.000-08:00

So. Saddam is dead.

The stronger chimp has killed the weaker one – law has triumphed. The Law of the Strongest, the Law of the Jungle. Don’t ask, whose support carried Saddam, the poor selfish boy, to power, don’t ask, whose weapons killed his victims, just jump and scream and enjoy a hanging!

Don’t bother about guilt, don’t bother about the scaring similarity between Saddams strategies and the methods of the leaders of our western world, both in politics and industry – don’t bother about your own support for your own ruthless alpha-chimp, don’t bother about the daily betrayal of your colleagues and neighbors just to pick up some crumbs here and there, your boss doesn’t want any more.

Don’t bother about the fact, that justice is not a moral thing you can learn by priests. Justice is a state, a state of highest efficiency in an information processing system. You can’t decide by power or by religion, what is just or unjust. You can’t – and even less the highest alpha-chimp:

Friedrich Nietzsche
One pays heavily for coming to power: power makes stupid.

And alpha-chimps are the most stupid of all chimps – they even lost the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror (a characteristic sign of having developed an Ego).

Yes, Justice is all about the Rule of Law, but not the Law of the Jungle.

It's all about the Laws of Physics and Information and they show us that the architecture of information processing systems limits the intelligence - and when you are near the top you have to change the architecture if you want to progress. The last change in architecture was language - language betters the communication and "condense" the "organism" we call human group. Now, regarding globalization, it seems as if the whole humankind starts to become an organism of interactions - too big to survive without order. And greed doesn't provide a useful order, it isn't even able to provide the own survival (as i've read the American Bosses earned much money by firing American employees, but lost massively power over the same time they got richer by selling Know How – the intelligence and knowledge, the core of the information processing system of the American economy – into other countries for 30 silverlings, so endangering their own ability to feed their own greed).

Regarding Global Warming and the Extinction of many, many species, building all together the intertwined cycles of Gaia – the foundation of human life and culture – there is only one thing clear: we are living on an Edge of History, we are living in important times for the survival of the species “Homo Sapiens Sapiens”, the last branch of the once so big tree of the “Hominidae”.

If we have a chance to survive, we only have it when we follow the path of the last survivors of Hominidae – the path that evolution has shown us (since hundreds of thousands of years!)

The Puzzle of Human Society by Robert Boyd, Science Vol. 314, p. 1556:
”In other primate species, access to resources is usually regulated by social dominance. Dominant males monopolize mating and dominant females get better access to food, sleeping sites, and so on. There is little dominance among human foragers, and access to resources is more egalitarian.”

Behaving as our global companies and politicians like the Bush Family, Scaifes, Kochs, Murdochs et al and all the other HaveMores do (selfish, greedy and ruthless) – is just "other primate behavior" - not specific to humans, a true regression in evolution. Seems to be just a matter of time when they get back their pelt.

Specific to humans is lesser dominance and better access to resources for everyone – and it does make sense: keyword “Justice”.

Because each and every step in evolution is a step in bettering information processing:

· The great difference between plants and animals? The Modus Operandi of information processing: Plants only depend on passive processing (DNA), animals need more to master the requirements of movement, they need a real-time-system: the neurons (active processing).

· The subsystems of brain? Bettering of information processing (aka communication), inside the body, introducing "standard procedures" like emotions and instincts and the last step – the Ego as controlling and monitoring system of a high intelligence, type: active processing.

And the very last step of evolution, of bettering communication (language), shows the tendency where to go: language isn't an advance in communication inside our body, inside our own isolated self – language builds the next step and so the next step in evolution will be to strengthen this "new body", a way evolution showed us:

Leaving dominance and greed behind us, they are just part of our apish past and we should get over it, because we now live on the Edge of History.

We are the Chosen – the species to do the step in evolution which can show up as too hard to climb: The step which changed the face of Earth as it happens the first time, as it connected isolated elements of passive processing systems to groups, as it created the variation of complex bodies.

But the architecture of passive processing is much simpler than the architecture of active processing, so it is much easier to combine subsystems to working organisms – that’s one problem Mother Nature has to solve regarding active processing systems, developed enough to be combinable.

The other is – again – Physics, because each and every system has its apex of intelligence, where the gradient of the Gain cost function of intelligence changes from being positive to being negative, meaning that the system can’t gain more intelligence without starting to lose control.

The passive processing system shows that again – look at the similarity in the genetic code of mammals: The genes are 85 percent the same (of mice and men). Yes, sure, the dynamic nature of information allows greater diversification by the “rules engine” (the cell), but fact is, that since the “invention of the mammals”, the potential of the passive processing system of DNA seems to be exhausted...

because information processing systems have to control the processes to avoid complexity changing into chaos, have to protect and preserve the identifiability and repeatability of information, and because each additional element adds usually more than one additional interaction to the system, the chains of action to be controlled increase at least in the magnitude of the added interactions.

Or in other words: It soon gets really complicated.

And so...

efficiency is the magic word. Because the higher the efficiency, the lesser the work to be controlled to manage a given input to get a wished result. The better you approximate this “divine” state, Physics proves to exist with the Principle of Least Action, the lesser efforts you have to waste to get what you want – and to be controlled and monitored.

It’s just – (more or less) simple programming, problems of Load-Balancing and Virtualization and SOA.

Justice. You have to find the “just state” of your system, then you can manage the highest amount of input with your given resources which leads (listen, alpha-chimps! Greed greets!) to the highest amount of output for more than just a moment.

Just do, what humans like to do, when they try to argue against information or information processing systems (like self-organisation or Gaia), when they discuss about goals and intentions, about wishes and decisions to denigrate the theories about information processing systems as anthropomorphism, forgetting that Physics always “choose” states and “decides” what will happen. Each and every physical law allows just a few results – choosing states, the Principle of Least Action – chooses states. You don’t need wishes and dreams to choose and decide, you just need physics.

And to build complex information processing systems you need “justice” in a universe of conservation of energy, where you need access to energy to be able to do the work you need to do to get what you want. It’s simply because resources are always more or less critical.

And so...

we need more efficiency, more Justice to be able to do the next step of evolution. That’s why Mother Natur programmed the “new direction” in the human brains, that’s why humans are “less dominant and more egalitarian” than their “lower siblings”, the apes. It’s because Justice is not a myth of religions, but a physical, therefore measurable (and programmable) state of a real interacting system.

The next Step.

The Edge of History.

Will Mother Nature be able to manage the complexity, will we be able to stand the demands – or will we prefer to be apes, the lower level of lesser complexity and easier way of life?

We are the Chosen – will we miserably fail – or will we leave dominance and greed behind us, will we get over an apish past, which may have been useful...

at its time?

So stop hanging the Saddams of the World, the Rich and the Powerful, the Ruthless and the Parasites – they have to live behind bars as other chimps, they should never be allowed to jump, scream and violate humans to play their “Banana-Heap-Game”, but it is not necessary to kill animals just for fun.

The Edge of History.

And it is not our decision, where to go, at least as long as we don’t love doomsday or believe in stories of Rapture or Valhalla – we just have to be intelligent enough to see the way and to follow it.

The Way to the Stars.

Happy Celebration!

2006-12-24T04:06:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas – for the Christians, Happy Hanukkah – for the Jews, Happy Eid Al Fitr – for the Muslims and Happy Winter Solstice for everyone else on the Northern Hemisphere! (Just forget the inaccuracy of the dates for a moment)

When the light conquers darkness, when the sun comes back and the days become longer, hope also returns. Forget SAD – everything goes, even the greatest threats can be mastered...

greed, selfishness, ruthlessness, exploitation of Earth and people, carelessness for the future, stupidity based on focusing just on the next moment, on the next prey to grab...

isn’t that the “spirit of christmas” and most other light-festivals to get over that?

So again to everyone on the Northern Hemisphere:

Happy Winter Solstice!

It is Happening

2006-12-17T04:46:00.000-08:00

Again, it’s happening, kids.

The fact, that we just don’t like it, will not change anything.

The long predicted “Decline of The Superpower” seems to have started:

"The only tangible asset that can shore up the struggling greenback and, therefore, the American economy, is oil. The US would be signing its own economic death warrant if it leaves Iraq.

But America will leave Iraq; the battle is already being lost and the forces arrayed against the superpower are increasing by the day. The Bush administration has sown too much bad faith and, now, even long-time allies are backing away. Expect to see a slow decline in the next 5 years of American power; a wasting away that parallels the complete dissipation of America’s moral authority. The world will not be ruled by the jailors of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo; and you can take that to the bank.”

And regarding the reality-haters (until) now ruling America, not intelligent enough to accept the power of Reality, it isn’t amazing, that “it” truly happens:

''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

A ruling class, too stupid to see, that nothing will ever beat Reality and that self-overestimation is the best way to fail. But how can pampered rich sons, never forced to pay for the own mistakes, learn Reality?

''Expect to see a slow decline in the next 5 years of American power''

How true – and it happens slowly, silently, not really worldshaking...

not the big bang the breakdown of a superpower should cause...

How Dangerous is the Dollar Drop?

”The perils of a currency crash are not nearly as great as they were in the days of the dollar's absolute dominance 30 or 40 years ago. Globalization has led to the development of a number of growth centers in the world economy which share the burden of turbulence

Gone are the days when an American finance minister could boast: "The dollar is our currency, but it's your problem." ”

Why did you do this to us?

2006-12-10T03:27:00.000-08:00

The carnage in Iraq is going on. A nation, ruled by a dictator, but able to feed her children, to protect (at least most of) her citizens – and to respect her daughters and mothers – changed to a barbaric place of rapers, kidnappers and hangmen.

Not on her own. This happened not just “by accident”. It was caused. Caused by intent, openly prepared with big tam tam, accompanied by warnings that violence will create nothing else than destruction and suffering – and hate – and that the whole Middle East will explode.

And it happened. But the ones wanting the war earned much money, some of them even could avoid bankruptcy and were able to please their shareholders, lead them straight into the seventh heaven of greed. Alas, the mental preparation for war was based on high hopes and ideals, not on greed and selfishness – and many people don’t think of greed as a truly “high ideal”. So to show the mount of money as result of the war might not be enough to please the American people in the face of the carnage and damage the war had caused – at least it might not be enough for most of the american taxpayers, who earned nothing by the war than increase of charges and duties.

So to secure the profits – and not to forget, to avoid claim for compensations! – the war had to keep “smiling”, had to stay shiny, had to look like the White Knight, not like the ugly Grim Reaper, who eats children and destroys toys and bombs weddings.

Remember the ban of king George W. Bush to show the pictures of the coffins of the dead soldiers from the Iraq War, the aversion of main stream media to tell you the truth about “collateral damage” and “KIAs” – to show you that a “KIA” is not something anonymous, not just a “TLA”, but had a face, a mother and a father, often little sons and daughters and “collateral damage” simply means killed and maimed children, brides and cheering families?

It’s because history says: “You elected George W. Bush, so you bear responsibility for his deeds, America”.

It’s because information tells you the truth and helps you to decide the right things (remember Bertrands Paradox?) – and so your fuhrers must try to hide some information from you.

Verboten.

It’s verboten to show you the results of what is done in your name, so that you function like the puppets the puppeteers do love so much.

Verboten.

And so, all is fine, America, isn’t it? You are not guilty of killing children and your own sons, because you “didn’t know that”?

Your are so sensitive, America.

But how about the little fact, that you could have known it if you would have cared? And how about the little fact, that you must pay reparation if you accept guilt?

Yes, in the end, after the last hope was gone to save Iraq, you voted (some of) them out of office, America.

But what’s next? Quo vadis, America? Keeping your eyes closed because you are so sensitive, because you have to protect your children from ugly pictures?

Yesterday i watched a TV report about Gordian Troeller, a deeply democratic and rebellious movie maker. Having experienced the terror of Nazi-Germany and the mostly not heroic reactions of the attacked he stubbornly fought against dominance of any kind (you see, why he is my hero?)

And he spoke into the camera about the fall of Dachau – he told about the “nice landscape” and that artists had lived there – and he told about the trains full of starved people covered with snow, obviously even having tried to drink the blood of others to survive. He had to stop talking because of the memory and with a poker face he added that the Americans then decided to force the Germans to look at what they had allowed to be done near their homes, done in their names.

And he spoke into the camera about the people, shaking their heads and saying: “Oh, we didn’t know that”.

And with his poker face he spoke into the camera how they pretended to be “shocked”.

But then he spoke into the camera about the fine lady, covering her nose with a handkerchief because of the “bad odor” of the tortured bodies.

And the sensitive german lady said to the Americans:

Why did you do this to us?

“That’s how i end this story”, Troeller said into the camera.

Why did you do this to us? – said the Germans forced to watch the “KIAs” and the “collateral damage” done in their names.

Really sensitive people.

Love

2006-12-03T01:59:00.000-08:00

Love, romantic love – the thing, i don’t understand (until now).

I understand brood care: Protection of the offspring. I understand Sex: Learning of the Race. I understand courtship: Males charging, females submitting because of the Control of the Gene.

Everything you can see in animals.

Like spite and altruism, love – between man and woman – can’t be found in chimps. They are good mothers and sometimes even male chimps care for some lonely youngsters, but they are not really well known as the romantic lovers, because to multiply you don’t need love. Rape does it “as well” as the brute domination of females of many lower species (or human cultures) show.

But i remember dogs – the difference between sympathy and sex. I guess it was Konrad Lorenz observing an undying friendship between a male and a female dog, living together all the time...

as long as there wasn’t the time of rut. Then the female had to obey the law of the gene and to mate with the man choosed by the genes. But afterwards – she came back.

And of course...

i remember Konrad Lorenz and his graylag gooses, i remember parrots who are told to live together forever and who deeply mourn about the loss of the other – both really intelligent birds.

And there is the fact of the most intelligent birds (crows and ravens), some more intelligent as three-year-old human children – who are monogamous.

With brains just as big as nuts crows are able to use traffic lights – to open nuts. Do you know that? The Crow puts a nut on a crosswalk during the red phase, hops away at yellow and comes back at red to eat the nut, opened by the cars during the green phase.

Wow – i love that. It’s an absolutely great demonstration of how active processing works.

And it’s a great demonstration that intelligence doesn’t depend on big brains but (i bet) on the ability of brains to develop and maintain standing waves, for which it may be more important to be well intertwined (remember the bigger brains of the Neandertal people?) So it might be that birds living in a 3D-world simply are more apt to understand dynamics (information) than apes and their successors.

And the social intelligence of gooses, parrots, crows and raven shows something like love – love between man and woman.

So it seems as if this special kind of love has something to do with high intelligence and social behavior, supported by the fact, that the hominid males are (as far as i know) the only male mammals able to live in social groups and that spite and altruism, the emotions to protect justice and therefore the wellbeing of the group, are a “late invention” of hominids, (nearly) not to be seen before the human species.

Fine.

But why love? What’s the evolutionary advantage of romantic love, of a love between man and woman for a whole life?

An advantage, temporary monogamy wouldn’t provide?

Is it just because of the high intelligence of active processing, based on individual experience and so creating unique individuals with individual demands and individual needs and individual wishes, so that a bottom-up creation of a lasting couple is as special as the individuals themselves?

But where’s the evolutionary advantage of lasting couples?

The education of children? No, not really plausible. Yes, human children are all “premature births” because of the big brain, they have to be educated and protected for many years. But as Bachofen suggested: to care for the children you don’t need fathers, mother-brothers do the job as well – and brothers never divorce. Would fit very well to the observation that humankind didn’t know about fatherhood before agriculture and livestock breeding. So why should male persons care for children without a reason to do so? Look at those men of our days able to repudiate a child they had pretended to “love” for years – as soon as they learn that the genes of the child are not “made” by themselves.

Triggered love? IF Genes of the child are from me THEN switch on “love” ELSE switch off “love”?

That’s not the true meaning of love.

No, actually, mother-brothers are the better social choice for mothers who just want to care for their children.

Next try: Mothers. They have to love because it is the payment of Mother Nature for the brood care. Why? Because brute force doesn’t work together with high intelligence. Remember the pleasure principle? So it might be that the pattern of love in women isn’t quite precise and therefore able to include male adults – but why should male adults love them back? Ever watched pubescent boys treating their mothers, ever thought about the reasons for initiation rites, the social “cutting the cord”? No, this ansatz doesn’t work either.

Philemon and Baucis.

So where’s the evolutionary advantage of an everlasting love?

Priority Test

2006-11-26T07:20:00.000-08:00

Many of my online friends i’ve never seen, but i know – most of them are not successful. They did not make career, they do not have much money, they are not “VIPs”, they don’t belong to the ruling class of the HaveMores, they are simple humans.

Actually, each and every of my friends is a NIP – a not important person. One of them even choosed his moniker according to that: He called himself “Nemo”.

Another friend of mine has to stand poor health care conditions because of lack of money, so it seems as if lack of money and success is a flaw, the “reward” for being not able to become rich and influential.

But i know it better. Because both are much too proud and hot-tempered to be able to lick boots – and if you are not rich by birth, you have to lick boots, at least every now and then. (And if you are rich? Then beware of being called “Laura”.) Never heard a business men grumble about clients? Do you really believe he will dare to be honest? You can bet, he will do exactly that: lick boots.

So you may understand, why Nemo can’t be successful – too honest and too proud.

Another friend of mine tries to work fulltime while nursing her mother, the next friend took the graveyard shift to care for his little son, suffering from asthma – because the graveyard shift means more money and more time just to be a good dad. Not the perfect employee! The perfect employee offers 24/7 availability to his boss, always in stand-by mode, even at night or in holidays reachable by mobile equipment. Can you imagine a careerist going to the zoo with his little son, always talking to clients? Or reading from Harry Potter? One sentence – ring, ring, ring, blablabla – next sentence – ring, ring, ring, blablabla – next sentence – ring, ring, ring, blablabla – next sentence. Very sexy. I guess, that’s the best strategy to convince your child to learn to read.

Then there is this friend from Eastern Germany: All the world around him crumbled away after the Fall of the Wall, but he didn’t give up. He opened a music store, but then the Internet came and all his world crumbled away, but he didn’t give up, opened an art supply store and now learns all about the Internet. He has seen better times, but he doesn’t moan and he doesn’t whine, he doesn’t beg and he doesn’t plead, he just rolls up his sleeves and gets to work – and enjoys it to do a good job. For him, money would be great, but success is more than just licking the right boots, it’s about effective work and effort, satisfied clients, efficient software or good quality of products and services.

Able to survive great changes in life – on his own, not by daddy and his money, not by the “right” husband or wife, not by mighty sponsers, only by his own energy, creativity and endurance. “The journey is the reward”, he says.

NIPs.

All of my friends are “not important persons”, they got nothing for free, could never fail without having to pay the price. None of them were pampered and protected from reality by the mercy of Daddies Dollars – but they are able to pass the ultimate priority test.

None of them would push away a mother and her child to get the last place on a Titanic lifeboat, none of them will have to understand that the shroud has no pockets and mourn about wrong decisions...

in the face of the ultimate judge, the one who treats all alike, the one who will never be bribable, the one, who can never be doubted:

Death.

(Tsk, tsk, tsk, your own one, George, not the death of others just because spoiled kids love to push buttons! And believe me, George – your death will come, nothing will save you, not even the money of Daddy.)

Death. The own Death.

The perfect priority test: Only the true values survive the face of the Grim Reaper.

Land of the Dead

2006-11-19T03:25:00.000-08:00

The still-living in the vicinity have fled to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a feudal-like government has taken over. Bordered on two sides by two rivers and on the other by an electric barricade, the city has become a sanctuary against the undead threat. Fiddler's Green, the center of this fortress city, is where the rich and powerful live in luxury while the rest of humanity live in poverty around them. Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), a tyrannical businessman, rules with an iron fist and overwhelming firepower.
From Wikipedia

Even so i can’t stand bloody scenes like that, i watched the movie until the end (admittedly not without zapping through different channels sometimes – i don’t like watching chimps eating one another and i don’t like humans doing it, even when they are disguised as zombies).

But despite of that – it was such a realistic movie!

Even in times, when death knocks at the door of humankind – they can’t do anything else than grab, grab, grab.

The zombies of the movie were everywhere – only this one little “sanctuary” seemed to be left on the whole wide world to protect life.

But the inhabitants didn’t care – they played their games of money and power and prostitution and consume, as if nothing had happened, while the zombies came nearer and nearer, eating each person alive whom they could catch.

I watched the “tyrannical businessman” truly believing that he could escape doomsday with colored green paper, watched the soldiers killing other humans for that colored green paper...

and couldn’t stop thinking, if they can’t understand, that colored green paper is just as much worth as the society of humans printing that paper. I watched them bargaining about green paper and couldn’t stop thinking, if they can’t see that only humans decide the value of that paper...

Without humans – no value.

And in that movie, nearly no humans were left – and the rich man wanted to flee with his money from the seemingly last place near and far where humans could live. To be clear: From the last place means, that there were no other places where humans lived.

So who should take his money to serve him?

But because the "tyrannical businessman” was played by Dennis Hopper, i couldn’t help myself to think that this movie is a true parable, because in the end, the businessman died in fire while the colored green paper rains from heaven (or at least from the ceiling).

Zombies...

Living Dead...

People looking as if they live but not caring about family, about future, about friends and foe – just about themselves at that very moment they exist...

People barricading themselves behind walls of stone and soldiers and money – Brazil, Littleton, neighborhood of New Orleans...

Just like the Bushs, Olins, Scaifes, Coors’, Bradleys and Kochs trampling on Mother Earth and their fellow humans for colored green paper...

not able to see the end – the end, Friedrich Nietzsche saw so clearly: The LAST MAN.

Dennis Hoppers’ “Paul Kaufmann” (the german word for “dealer”) – the man too stupid to understand that colored green papier is worth nothing without humans taking it.

A truly realistic movie.

The Augian Stables

2006-11-12T05:02:00.000-08:00

The election is over...

and despite of reports about diverse manipulations (18,000 votes in U.S. House race may be lost), despite the use of massive electronic voting, other nations start to “scrap” (Dutch government scraps plans to use voting computers in 35 cities including Amsterdam, Dutch citizens group cracks Nedap's voting computer)...

the American People were strong enough to show their will.

Despite the fact, that the Media is still owned by the HaveMores, that courts are willing footmen of the executive branch instead of objectively auditing it, that the networks of power are still fully functional, running smoothly and efficiently to get the last bit of money and power for the puppeteers behind the politics...

the wind of change may turn.

The job is tough – the Augian stables of corruption, greed and blatant misuse of power have to be perfectly cleaned and and disinfected as long as the wave of the election is powerful enough to stand tall against those networks of power, which are now as sure as death and taxes already rearranging according to the latest events.

But there are some signs that it could be done:
Democrats Aim to Save Inquiry on Work in Iraq

some hopeful news about the future of elections:
Youth turnout in election biggest in 20 years

And – great news for the freedom of speech:
Democrat Sweep Good News For Net Neutrality

Moment of Truth

2006-11-05T03:18:00.000-08:00

They took absolute power.

They re-invented war as tool just for their fun and profits.

They declared ownership of Space.

They were used to use torture and big lies.

They redirected the stream of taxes into their own accounts.

They bought judges and bullied MPs.

They changed the “Fourth Estate” to “For The State”.

They...

are only the tip of the iceberg.

You can’t change a mighty democracy just with a few men – you need much money, many persons and a lot of time, a crazy lot of time and money and men, infecting the whole organism.

"It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis, 1935
book review by Joe Keohane
[The leaders] most formidable task, convincing Americans to renounce bedrock democratic principles, was already accomplished well before he took power. It was just waiting for its moment.

So...

are they beatable?

And what if they are? What if true investigations would start uncovering the Tangled Webs They Wove?

Can they dare to lose power?

It’s November, the 5^th.

Waiting...

for the Moment of Truth.

It's Happening

2006-10-29T02:50:00.003-08:00

Yesterday i got a letter from my house insurance.

Because of the climate change they would also change – my contract. And if i wouldn’t agree (to something like their right to take whatever they want), they simply would cancel it.

It’s happening, kids.

And we, the people, have to pay the price – we, not the parasitic elites.

Remember Katrina? They have enough money to buy slaves and houses and planes and fuel to flee and live wherever life will still be possible.

At least – as long as it is possible.

They have enough money to become ...

THE LAST MAN.

I will speak unto them of the most contemptible thing:
that, however, is THE LAST MAN!

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.

The Lord, Who Has All Power In Heaven And On Earth

2006-10-22T00:44:00.000-07:00

Listen, World:

U.S. National Space Policy

1. Background

Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.

2. Principles

· The United States considers space capabilities -- including the ground and space segments and supporting links -- vital to its national interests. Consistent with this policy, the United States will: preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space; dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so; take those actions necessary to protect its space capabilities; respond to interference; and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests;

· The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space.

3. United States Space Policy Goals

· Enable unhindered U.S. operations in and through space to defend our interests there;

· Enable a robust science and technology base supporting national security, homeland security, and civil space activities;

5. National Security Space Guidelines

United States national security is critically dependent upon space capabilities, and this dependence will grow.

· Support the President and the Vice President in the performance of Executive functions, and senior Executive Branch national security, homeland security, and foreign policy decisionmakers; other Federal officials, as appropriate; and the enduring constitutional government operations and infrastructure;

· Support and enable defense and intelligence requirements and operations during times of peace, crisis, and through all levels of conflict;

· Develop and deploy space capabilities that sustain U.S. advantage and support defense and intelligence transformation; and

· Employ appropriate planning, programming, and budgeting activities, organizational arrangements, and strategies that result in an operational force structure and optimized space capabilities that support the national and homeland security.

To achieve the goals of this policy, the Secretary of Defense shall:

· Maintain the capabilities to execute the space support, force enhancement, space control, and force application missions;

· Establish specific intelligence requirements that can be met by tactical, operational, or national-level intelligence gathering capabilities;

· Provide, as launch agent for both the defense and intelligence sectors, reliable, affordable, and timely space access for national security purposes;

· Provide space capabilities to support continuous, global strategic and tactical warning as well as multi-layered and integrated missile defenses;

· Develop capabilities, plans, and options to ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries;

Listen, World and do not speak, as long as you are not asked to. Don’t rely on the people, because people of a nation infested by megalomania will never be bothered about that – there is only the glory of “Their Nation” and something else, which is at best usable and at worst to be destroyed.

It was the most difficult year of the war so far, one that subjected us to great moral and material tests. It gave us the task of holding that which we conquered in our glorious offensives of the earlier war years, which is the foundation of our final victory, and of defending it against the raging storm of our enemies with courage and without wavering. In large part we succeeded. We have had it is true to accept losses and setbacks, but they in no way are decisive for the outcome of the war, nor are their causes to be sought in any failure in our morale or material during this long war.

This party that grew out of struggle and stands today in the midst of it as well greets its [President] at the end of this and at the beginning of the next year. It greets him in the name of his people, whose honor and pride it is to lead. (On New Year's Eve)

World, get it finally: Be glad if you are of some use to the The Lord, Who Has All Power In Heaven And On Earth, so that you are allowed to be a member of the coalition of the “Allies” and “Friends”, because that means:

You may survive.

But don’t get confused by those words. Never ask for something without permission, because they are just nice words for you imbeciles and means nothing else than:

Vassals.

By Their Deeds You Shall Know Them

2006-10-15T01:12:00.000-07:00

Information is dynamical – information creates identifiable, repeatable processes, interacting as waves do it all the time, creating information processing systems dominated by their goals with sometimes amusing patterns of behavior:

Cultures of Corruption: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets* (Working Paper) by Ray Fisman and Edward Miguel

We find strong persistence in corruption norms: diplomats from high corruption countries (based on existing survey-based indices) have significantly more parking violations, and these differences persist over time...

We thus interpret diplomats’ behavior as reflecting their underlying propensity to break rules for private gain when enforcement is not a consideration.

(Emphasis mine)

S.3930

2006-10-08T05:57:00.000-07:00

Military Commissions Act of 2006 (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by Senate)[S.3930.ES]

Sec. 948a. Definitions

In this chapter:

(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT- (A) The term `unlawful enemy combatant' means--

(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or

(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.

with:

person:

n 1: a human being; "there was too much for one person to do" [syn: individual, someone, somebody, mortal, human, soul]

2: a person's body (usually including their clothing); "a weapon was hidden on his person"

3: a grammatical category of pronouns and verb forms; "stop talking about yourself in the third person"

Survival of the Losers

2006-10-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

1856.

In Neandertal, a small village near Bonn, Germany, bones were found, bones of a strong man. Fortunately, time was ripe for science to overcome ancient religious frameworks of ideas – Charles Darwin published his famous book “The Origin of Species” (1859).

At that time, Germany was “divided by Christ” – as America is today. While an unknown teacher (Johann Carl Fuhlrott) realized the true nature of the bones, the “powerful pundits”, the careerists of science defended the old-fashioned way of thinking. Looking at the “recipe for success” of careerists they couldn’t do much else – no one makes career out of swimming against the stream.

Theories like “Intelligent Design” prevented the German scientists from what the British were able to do – to see how Mother Nature works. Poor Johann Fuhlrott died before he was proven right – proven by Darwin, proven by the bones of Spy or Cova Negra or Salzgitter or La-Chapelle-Aux-Saints or Engis or Krapina or....

Past and gone.

Now, everyone with eyes – and a at least a rudimentary education in technology – can SEE how knee joints developed to enable the upright walk as you can see the development of cars or planes, everyone with eye can SEE now how the skulls grew to provide more room for brain. You just have to look at it.

But there is a second lesson to learn from Neandertal and Cro-Magnon: a hidden lesson for many people “thinking in the old-fashioned way” of our modern life.

You can see the work of a true artist: Information, holding the Scale of Fate, balancing time and space.

On the one side time prevails, on the other space dominates. Sometimes the scale tends to the left and sometimes to the right – and for both cases Nature provides a strategy to survive, active and passive information processing. For the stable environments passive processing, the easy, quick, body-based knowledge, “the way of the plants” is appropriate, which allows fast reactions, but slow learning, while in varying environments fast learning is much more important than a single fast reaction.

When climate jumps like a Yo-Yo, as it did since the last 3 million years, creating “cycles of glaciation with ice sheets advancing and retreating on 40,000 and 100,000 year time scales. The last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago.” – it creates species and it eliminates species.

Since about that time many human species had come and go – often divided in two branches: strong and weak. The strong adapted physically to their environment, the “weak” mentally: passive and active.

In the end, all were dead – except for Homo Sapiens, the weakest of all. If humans work with chimpanzees, they have to be protected, because a chimp can easily break the bones of the strongest man when he just wants “to play”.

It’s said that the Neandertal people died out because of a new Ice Age – they died out at the time, Homo Sapiens created the first symbols of stone. They died out “despite” the fact, that they were stronger. Sometimes the scientists can’t tell you, if the bones they found were bones of a Neandertal woman or a strong Homo Sapiens man. They died out “despite” the fact, that their brains were bigger – but it seems they weren’t as efficient as the “weaker” brains of our species.

In evolution, it’s all about costs and gains, effectivity and efficiency – of information processing. There are times, when rituals, fixed, body-based knowledge is the better strategy and times, when it kills you.

The Neandertal people were intelligent and strong and flexible – they buried their dead and helped each other, they scratched lines in bones and (naturally) could speak. (Why naturally? Because apes don’t bury their dead.)

For a long time they even managed to live together with the Homo Sapiens, so they must have been able to learn from the new species – but in the end, when climate changed again...

the loser was the one who survived. The weak, feminine species inventing symbols and (my bet) storytelling to protect knowledge about medicine, plants and animals survived, not the strong hunter.

“If you think it's smart to be brainy there are two things you should know: a limited intellect is usually beneficial; and creativity is often the last resort for losers.” – Simon M. Reader

But limited intellect, passive information processing is not always beneficial – when times change, creativity is the only strategy to survive. When times change, rites and experience of the generations doesn’t work any more and individual learning and skills are the only strategy to survive.

Global Warming.

Wings of Change.

Sorting out the strong from the intelligent – the ones adapted for the presence and the ones adapted for the future...

the Strong and the Intelligent - and while the stable Space loves the Strong, the neverending Time is always on the side of the Intelligent.

And Time is stronger...

Please, excuse me, Riverbend

2006-09-24T04:50:00.001-07:00

You don’t write anymore.

You are silenced – silenced by my weakness not to stop heartless men, egotistic to the point of parody.

You are doomed to live in a world of women-haters – come into existence by my incompetence to awake enough fellow humans to start to care about other fellow humans.

You are the new Anne Frank – and i am part of the old Brave New World, again and again looking away and allowing the leading scum of our societies to destroy what is great and hopeful and admireable about this tiny, weak species of naked apes...

the species of losers, forced to be intelligent, forced to be decent to ensure protection by the group – at least, as long as they want to survive...

but then we allowed Fuehrers to lead and command us instead of listening to our brain – allowed scum to make our decisions, the price paid by the mothers and children of the world, on and on and on...

please, Riverbend...

survive...

Souls of Machines

2006-09-17T01:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Robert, i started to watch „Battlestar Galactica“. One of the things he had mentioned was the atypical distribution of roles: the female president forced to make tough decisions while the male warlord was allowed to behave in a balancing and harmonizing way – btw basically the same formula for success as in X-Files, where the woman was analytical and the man had to be mysterious (meaning vague, undefined and without proofs).

But regarding information...

there is an interesting insight into the true nature of information processing systems to be seen in “Battlestar Galactica”, proving how well humans understand information. While there is always a person telling us “they” are just machines, the story tells us the opposite.

“Downloaded”...

tells us once more, how Sharon, “just a Number Eight”, can love and is able to see the difference between good and evil, how she feels guilty and suffers from bad conscience or how a Number Six struggles to accept that she has fallen in love and that she doesn’t want to have a new life, but prefers to suffer to protect the “current body”...

They have names – a member of a production series (“Number Eight”) is called “Sharon” and the “different versions” of Number Six also got different names...

names to identify the “instance”...

i couldn’t have said it better – it’s not about the genes, and it’s not about the body. Sure, both are important to offer the “intelligence”, the “engine and storage” to detect, evaluate, store and retrieve datas and their relations to create a representation of the ongoing information around...

and sure, as long as those active information processing systems are “high intelligence”, they need some pre-programmed default-solutions like “instincts” and “emotions” to be capable of real-time processing...

but these “intelligences” are equal for the whole production series, may it be “Number Eight” or “the Human Species” (ok, the Human Species offers a wider range of varieties, but comparing it with Chimps or Bonobos, you see, what i mean).

That, what makes us all individual, makes us all unique in the whole wide infinity of the universe...

that, what gives us souls, what let us decide what’s right or wrong against anyone else designed like us...

is the unique space-time-path our intelligence had gone...

is our experience...

and that is so impressive about “Battlestar Galactica”. Despite the fact, that some always say “they are only machines”...

the story shows us on and on different “instances” of those highly intelligent active processing systems (able to learn individually) with different lifes and different experiences...

therefore different people with different souls.

And?

They are perfectly right.

Gaia and Her Avatar

2006-09-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

Some days ago, i watched SciFi, you know, Star Trek Anniversary...

where a kind and intelligent astronomer talked about the “reality” of SciFi. In this context he said, that life is likely to be very common in the universe, but despite of this, humans may be very rare because of the complexity of their bodies and brains...

but the scientist wasn’t Prof. Lovelock, so he didn’t mention (or even see?) the simple, basic precondition for the complexity of a single race:

the complexity – and stability – and longevity – of the informative cycles creating an environment, where information is a so overwhelming part of all state-creating action for a so long, long time, that information processing systems are able to develop into multi-hierarchical systems...

Gaia: the totality of all the cycles of life on an “Earth”, a life-capable planet...

The Gaia of a planet decides the complexity of her individuals – and if the Gaia isn’t mighty, the most intelligent subsystem of her can’t be very mighty, too...

so actually – WE are the species representing the power of our Gaia.

We are the Avatars of our Earth, representing her continuity of processing, her balance of cycles, her ability to recreate complex biospheres even in case of global catastrophes...

and what do we do?

We try to reduce her, to beat her...

to “subdue the Earth”...

please, can anybody tell me, why we disgust suicide-attackers? Because they kill others by killing themselves?

All the believers of religions of subduing Gaia...

are nothing else than that.

No other species depends more on Gaia than the most developed one.

Her Avatar.

$100 Billion A Year

2006-09-03T06:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday i’ve listened to a comedian, cynically joking about the 30 percent of food, we use to throw away – we should better offer it to our poor, he said, and therefore saving a lot of money on costs for the social net.

So without comment:

Americans are tossing $100 Billion of Food a Year

US wastes half its food

U.S.-Massive Food Waste & Hunger Side by Side

Hunger Facts: Domestic

Hunger Facts: International

Hunger and Obesity: the Atomic Bomb of Nutrition

Shave $150 a week off your grocery bill

SPOON Stanford Project On Hunger

Cuba's agricultural revolution an example to the world

Reversibility – or – How to judge human interaction

2006-08-27T02:41:00.000-07:00

Imagine if eighty prominent American scholars were invited to Tehran for a conference. After months of securing visas, final clearances, and days of travelling, they arrived at the Tehran airport only to be detained, shackled, and deported back to the United States.

It’s simple:

If you judge something as “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong” between two persons or parties, just try to swap the players and look at the result: Do you still judge it in the same way?

No?

Then you don’t judge, but prejudge – you demonstrate bias, openly, traceably and seeably for anybody without your blinders.

Under the radar: an Iranian and America

I guess, that’s the reason, why nearly all people outside America think about America, the world and everything in another way, because thanks to that great American gift of TV and Internet for a better communication, for freedom of mind through free access to information...

people everywhere are now able to watch News and look for information.

Thanks to TV and Internet the isolation so urgently needed for a working propaganda – will no longer be an excuse in the years to come, because particularly with the Internet the isolation from the truth is only...

voluntary, a willing choice to close your eyes, your ears, your mind...

As if it would be so hard to know what’s right or wrong between humans – the old wisdom of the Golden Rule (“Do to others as you would have them do unto to you” – Jesus) is so easy to verify...

just imagine...

use your fantasy, the great ability of your brain to do simulations...

just swap the roles...

Especially if you demand something from someone – ask yourself, if you would demand it “from the other kind of people” – would you really ask Christians to beg pardon for the Crusade of Mr. Bush?

Because human are first of all – human, human dignity doesn’t differ between male or female, the color of skins, the place of your birth or the amount of money your parents have.

Reversibility.

Human rights are fundamentally about the notion of guaranteeing human beings the right to be treated with respect, honour and dignity.

Quotes of Voltaire

2006-08-20T05:35:00.000-07:00

Found at Wikiquote:

François-Marie Arouet (November 21, 1694 - May 30, 1778) French writer, deist and philosopher; better known by his pen name Voltaire. (Emphasis mine, just for better understanding of his words about religion and churches)

Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours

When we hear news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

All men would then be necessarily equal, if they were without needs. It is the poverty connected with our species which subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly- that is the first law of nature.

Formerly there were those who said: You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is unjust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever is able to make you absurd is able to make you unjust. If the God-given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God-given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes of religion which have overrun the world.

[Christianity] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world.

It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.

Thought depends largely on the stomach. In spite of this, those with the best stomachs are not always the best thinkers.

Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.

Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it. Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty. My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other

Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons.

In a word, we only pray to God because we have made him in our image. We treat him like a pasha, like a sultan whom one may provoke or appease.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid; you must also be well-mannered.

Add to this Kants “What is Enlightenment?” and Nietzsches “Last Man”, then you see:

It doesn’t change much since 1750.

Except for?

Global Population explosion...

Global Waste...

Global Wars...

Global Warming...

Two kinds of people

2006-08-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

Winners and losers...

you say?

And show in a very nice way how a “reflex” works – fast and with only one outcome using a “shortcut” around brain. And Pavlov could demonstrate that there are not only “physical reflexes”, but even trained ones: If you teach an information processing system (using the active mode of processing) to react quickly with only one outcome, you are particularly successful, because you can use ‘pure’ information: an initial state always leads to the same end state. Therefore to learn an initial-state-end-state-pair means to know future (at least partially) – you only have to detect a known (stored in memory) initial state to foresee the result of the process = the end state – to foresee the future. And to foresee the future means being able to decide “proactively”. That’s why each and every information processing system is eager to find information, independent of the processing mode.

What’s the difference between “active” and “passive”?

The active ones can learn new “information” aka new initial-end-state-processings while the passive ones are...

quick.

So each and every information processing systems – forced by the never biased laws of nature – will use passive strategies just for the sake of speed as long as possible, because in reality you have not only to decide what’s best for you but to decide it early enough to avoid harm.

That’s why Pavlov reflexes – in general – are a good thing.

But passive processing has to “pay a price” for the speed – systems using passive processing are not able to learn. And that’s why you have to “decondition” systems been trained wrong, you can’t just argue with them rationally...

like the idea, that all the people can be separated in winners and losers and all the animals (including humans) can be separated in “predator and prey”.

How about the fact, that most of the predators are themselves prey of other predators? How about crows and elephants? How about the fact, that each winner is so often a loser in his whole lifetime?

No, there’s a more basic axis to categorize human minds – actually an axis used in ancient typologies you can see until now in the zodiacal signs and in Tarot (proving the power of memes, but that’s another story and shall be told another time).

The axis uses a very important element of each and every information processing task: positioning. You need positioning to measure and you need measurement to identify and you need identity to detect states, initial states and end states.

And actually, this ancient axis – as amazing as the Celtic calendar with its sophisticated mathematics to describe the informative processes created by the course of sun and moon – uses the only thing, an active information processing system is ever able to know for sure: its own existence (but brain isn’t a pure Solipsist ;-) ). So this axis is described by two poles: endogen and exogen, “inside yourself” and “outside yourself”, which leads us to the “control”, again a basic element of each and every information processing because that’s what’s information processing is all about.

Control.

To detect and to observe, to classify and to analyze, to decide and to react – control of what’s going on and of yourself just for the sake of your own best being. And because control – and the inherent question “Cui Bono” – is the foundation of any information processing simply because each finite system has to reduce the de facto infinity of reality (you know: IKI Infinity Kills Information).

Alas, for high intelligence aka a multilevel hierarchical processing system the “distance to reality”, the simple fact, that each and every processing system has to work with “mappings”, has to create blueprints of the world rather than to be able to “incorporate the whole world outside” includes the risk, that small processing failures on a low level of processing add to a huge mistake in the end of the processing, at the point of decision – with the lethal danger of wrong decisions risking the own survival. So high intelligence has developed many valdiations, trying to verify as much as possible. That’s the reason btw, why you can “reconfigure” a person to remember “wrong memories” – just by giving so much plausible current input AGAINST the remembered, that the system starts to combine the states in other “initial-end”-chains, such reorganizing the whole “knowledge”.

And high intelligence – living in a group – has a “painless” help to verify the own processing: The processing of other members of the group. Because information is physical and a given initial state always leads to the same end state, two information processing systems fed with the same input have to get the same result (as long as they both have the same abilities and goals). In a group, one knows each other and therefore is able to estimate the others abilities and interests – and if another information processing system seems to be as capable as yourself and is likely to share the same interests it should be reaching the same results by using the same input.

So if your friends assure you, that you are right, it’s nothing else than bettering the probability of correctness of your decisions – it betters your chances to survive. That’s why approval is so important for high intelligences.

“But what” – you will ask – “ what does that have to do with the topic?”

Look at such a high intelligence in a group of friends – having to process a nearly infinite amount of information as fast as possible, having to consider not only your own interests but the interests of your protecting group is really a tough job. So you use the advantage of the group, not only protection, but synergy – you willingly are part of the group, the group’s actions, the group’s decisions, the group’s culture and laws and rules to protect your own interests and survival.

And here we’re back on topic.

Because at this point you have to decide – to be controlled by yourself or be controlled by the uber-ego of the group.

“But where is the problem” – you will ask. “The groups interests are your interests, just because if not you would live alone.”

“Yes,” i’ll reply, “but the same interests don’t mean the same decisions. It takes two to process information, always and ever: Two states, initial and end, two processing 'modes', active and passive, two elements, stability and dynamics – and two input factors: input signals and the goals choosing which signal is to be ignored and which is to be processed. So the same interests must not mean the same results, because each member of a group has a slightly different input.”

And laws and rules are standard-decisions – like instincts and emotions they are 80%-solutions for a standard situation detectable by some key signals. But like instincts and emotions they are not able to solve the other existing 20% problems. Therefore, Mother Nature gave us our Ego – the decision point only in case the results of the subsystems (like instincts and emotions) lead to some contradictions. Btw, everytime, instincts and emotions get the same result, Ego isn’t “activated”, that’s why philosophy, the foundation of goals and interests we depend on, is so important, because philosophy is the soil on which even instincts and emotions work (remember Pavlov?)

So everytime a 20%-problem occurs where instincts and emotions, rules and laws don’t fit, you have to use your Ego to verify the input, to check the results of the subsystems and then to do the decision based on the checked and verified results.

Sounds fine.

But in a group – in case of such an irritation – the slightly different input signals might lead to different results – and then you have to decide if you follow your result aka if you can prove your result as being more apt to the situation – or if you follow the results of the others in case they can prove their result as being more apt to the situation.

Still sounds fine.

But remember the power of approval? The lust for approval is an instinct either, given us by Mother Nature because of the “painless verification” approval allows. Alas, that kind of verification only works when the processing systems are separated and only the results are compared. In a human group with the high density of communication based on language, the processings aren’t truly separated – by words you can transfer “milestones” of your processing and so reach some “agreements” how to interprete information...

that’s part of the communication of human groups and it is part of the strength of the human race – but it lowers the advantage of verification. Why? Think of all the biologic inheritance in a human mind, the lust for approval, the fear of the unknown, the hope that daddy will fix it and you see how easy it is to convince a person from something wrong. And then the results of both information processings may be the same, but alas, they are the same wrong results.

And because that’s such a basic problem of high intelligence it needs the most developed “tool” of information processing: the Ego, the ability to check oneself with all the own capabilities and own risks, with all the own input-deciding goals and all the given knowledge to position it against a current situation simply to get the best result, to be able to re-calculate the part of the own processing in a result to estimate if the own wishes had trumped the objective processing.

And because that’s such a basic problem, it touches the basic question of the own ability to make good decisions for oneself, it touches the old fear to decide something wrong which will risk the own existence – and this feds the eagerness to follow the decision of someone else of your group, because the other one also wants to survive – in your group, so it’s likely that the other decision will help you, too.

That’s the reason, why only 20% of the people are self-controlled – says behavioral science. 60% are followers and 20% need control, because without control they are ruled by their bodies, mostly because their biological cycles aren’t as perfectly “normalized” as they should be.

“So what” – you will ask” – “that fits well with winners, they control the situation and are able to force others to follow their own decisions.”

“Oh no” – i will reply – “to control a situation is not, what the definition of a ‘winner’ describes. Think of a hermit in the forest. He perfectly controls his life and everything around him. Do you call him a ‘winner’? I guess, you will not, because a winner has to fight and to win. But do you call a hunter, killing a bear, a ‘winner’? i guess, you will not either, because the bear might be beaten, but no one will call him a ‘loser’ – and a winner needs a loser. So you see, you only can be a winner, if you are able to make someone a loser. And here you have to follow the rules of the group, because who is the winner and who is the loser is not your decision. Read your Konrad Lorenz again, if you think so. The alpha-chimp, a perfect representation of a winner, is dependent on the support of the group. As long as he has the support, he will win – otherwise he loses. It doesn’t matter if he is stronger or weaker – the ‘amount’ of support decides."

That simply means that a wanna-be-alpha has to follow the rules of success of his group to know and to perform the wished actions, classified as “successful” by his group. And in the end, that means that he has to be a good delta, only fighting against members of the own level (and weaker ones), then to be a good gamma, afterwards a good beta and only if he is a lucky careerist, he can become alpha – as long as he is able to beat the next wanna-be-alpha, but in the end he will lose and has to go.

Sure, you can say, he follows his goal to be “the winner”, but that goal isn’t really a “performable” goal, it can’t create objective decisions, because above anything else you have to consider the current group where you want to be seen as “winner”.

Cyclist.

Careerists, winners have to be cyclists: kick downwards, bow upwards.

Look at the pope – a typical alpha male, the one and only to decide in the Catholic Church, previously the most loyal defender of the words of the previous pope.

Or look at the role model of each and every careerist: Albert Speer. First he obeyed to the rules of the Nazis, then he obeyed to the rules of the American democracy – in both systems he was “successful”, a “winner”, but only because he followed the rules better than anybody else.

Actually, winners are just “lucky losers” – look around you, look at those, called “winners”. Are they truly the best – or are they just more lucky as others? Yes, they kiss boots and betray others to be successful but that’s not enough. Most people do that. There always has to be some help to be successful – a friend, a well meaning supporter, not to be sick at the right moment – and there always has to be a necessary fact fulfilled: that there is no stronger wannabe-winner there.

“But what” – you will ask – “what about aristocrats? Those ‘winners' are never forced to prove to be the best because their fathers can pay anybody to do the jobs for them and in case of failure pay the judges and/or scapegoats to be punished for them.”

“They also have to obey the rules of their aristocracy, maybe more than anybody else. Because without the support of the aristocratic ‘network’ they are nothing. Look at the Bushs – look at everything Mr. George W. Bush has done in his life. Use an objective scale (simply by simulating the situation with another actor like ‘Joe Sixpack’) and classify what he has done and i guess, you simply will judge:’Uber-Loser, son by profession’. He will never be able to live on his own.”

“But he is President of America” – you will say.

“Not on his own account. Without the money and the powerful friends of daddy, he would be nothing else than a tramp. And he knows that. He knows that he is nothing without his group as well as any other ‘winner’ knows, because no one is as worried about the own ‘success’ as winners. Look at them, how they mistrust everybody and everything. Mr. Bush doesn’t dare to walk alone on streets, he even has to hide behind sealed manhole covers, needs weeks of preparation and millions of dollars to build the walls of ‘security’ to hide behind.

If you call that ‘to follow his own rules’, i dare to doubt that to live in a Gilded Cage like the Chinese Emperor, hidden behind a huge buffer of walls, weapons and warriors is following the own rules. Why do you think are so many ‘winners’ in the end believers in some odd things or religions, why do so many of them suffer from burn-out? Simply because they don’t follow their own rules but feel forced to so many things...

even as Chinese Emperor or American President.

That’s why the two basic kinds of people are not winners and losers, but the self-controlled and the followers, the free and the obedient.

Look at the poor man able to be happy – or look at the rich one able to be still human – they don’t follow the rules (and characterizations) of the group, the poor doesn’t care about being a ‘loser’ and the rich doesn’t care about social darwinism, about the ‘kill or be killed’-philosophy of the greedy violence (as history proves, the ‘best’ strategy to become very fast very rich).

Look at Van Gogh or Boltzmann.

Not really winners – but following their own rules. And the latter ones show why so many prefer to be followers.

To be self-controlled means to be free.

But Freedom is a really tough job.

“Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” - Mark Twain

What happened to “No American Left Behind”?

2006-08-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful fairy tale, even better known as the Grimm’s Tales...

that America never ever would allow foreigners or nature to harm a single American without sincerely trying to rescue him/her...

by all means...

Hollywood made great movies of brave heroes risking their lifes – successfully of course - to rescue some lonely American out of the hell, either of war or of natural disasters.

Actually, this fairy tale was “true enough” to convince the world, that whenever Americans were involved, the Superpower would not stop the efforts to protect them. You could bet that any other person would be “allowed” to stay in hell...

but that America would do anything to save life and dignity of Americans no one would have doubted...

once upon a time...

American citizens who are trying to leave Lebanon must agree to repay the U.S. government for the cost of their evacuation

Oh yes, the government had to cancel that - but fact is: They tried it.

and the people still believe in this wonderful fairy tale...

James LeFlere, 56, was trying to remain optimistic.
"They're going to get us out of here. It's just hard to hang on at this point," he said.

patiently waiting while what happened?

At one point, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses rolled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line.

Why? Because it’s just “reasonable” to prefer the people "who care for the nation", while the poor are only “waiting for somebody else to take care of them. They have children they can't afford. They're uneducated. They can barely read.”

Well, hell, yes, we should save the rich people first. You know, they're the ones that are responsible for this prosperity.

“All a[mericans] are equal, but some a[mericans] are more equal than others." – Animal Farm

Developing country

2006-07-30T03:15:00.000-07:00

Do you know the main difference between developed and developing countries? No, it’s not the high income per capita, otherwise the “countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates” would be considered developed countries.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness.

The main difference is, that in developed countries even common people are allowed to live in dignity. Even Joe Sixpack and Sally Soccermom, not that bright, not that well informed, not that rich, not that important, not that perfect – are allowed to live, as if all human life and the laughter of children and happiness are values in themselves.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. – JFK's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961, 12:11 EST

Because dignity can’t survive without each of them, a basic level of justice, health, food, cleanness, security, privacy, houses, water and electricity is offered to everyone, even when people may not be able to pay for, yes, even when they are <whisper,shudder>pooooooor</whisper,shudder>...

in developed countries.

Not only the rich ones – being able to pay for lawyers, doctors and power supply everywhere on Earth, even in the darkest regions of Africa or Asia – are allowed to walk tall...

in developed countries.

Now the trumpet summons us again... not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need... not as a call to battle... though embattled we are... but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle... year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation... a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny... poverty... disease... and war itself.