Whenever you plan, or prepare for war, you need to identify the threat, and study it in detail. This requires a ‘Dutch Uncle’-mentality, a term I borrowed from Larry Johnson, former CIA-analyst, and these days a valued guest on many shows where developments in our ‘Forever Wars’ are discussed. With …
Blog posts : "In English"
What's in a name?
Elon Musk is trolling ‘Socialists’, self-proclaimed ‘Lefties’ and ‘Europe’ whenever he gets a chance. He receives plenty of heat because of it, and ‘Europe’ is after ‘X’ and ‘Grok’, the ‘AI’ embedded in ‘X’, or to be used as ‘stand alone’ assistant. At the same time, he exposes stupid ‘Right Wingers…
Is it a cure, or the cause?
In ancient Greece, the philosopher Socrates warned the people that if they failed to educated the young, democracy would fail. Plato, his pupil, concluded that democracy would necessarily end in tyranny. His point of view carried much weight among the ‘Founding Fathers’ in the USA, who rejected demo…
It is lonely at the top
Decades ago I picked up a book at a bookstore on Venice Beach, doubling as the ‘Side Walk Café’, with the tantalizing title: ‘You are being lied to’. On the cover it said it was ‘The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths’. One of the contributors listed …
The end of the line
For us, human beings, death and decay is the end of the line, unless you subscribe to some form of ‘afterlife’, or ‘rebirth’. Being sentient as a species refers to the awareness of the ‘end’, feeding our drive to accomplish things before we are too old, and the lights go out. Elon Musk posited that …
The writing is on the wall
From the early stone-age till today, people have used walls to convey messages to their fellow men. In the form of pictures, and later in words by the time the witten language developed into a more sophisticated tool. The internet is one huge ‘message-board’. It contains serious articles, and ugly g…
Send someone serious
By the looks of it, Trump prevented a *massive* escalation of the war with Russia, for the moment, as he ordered Zelensky to call off the dogs. Yes, that is assuming that Zelensky had a plan to launch an attack on Moscow during the May 9 Victory Day celebrations. We cannot know if he had such plans,…
A pattern emerges
We, the 'common people', are fed events through the news-services and we generate our own individual observations through our actions. Even without consciously thinking, but thinking nevertheless, we try to fit all these events and observations in our existing worldview. We create 'explanations'. On…
Obscured by clouds
Though I'm a fan of Pink Floyd, this article is not about the album by that name, or Babet Schroeder's movie for which it was the soundtrack, although it is fitting. The search for humanity, not obscured by our own subjective ideas of 'civilisation', has always been close to me. It most certainly is…
What will happen on May Ninth?
As the world is holding it's breath over what will come out of the latest developments in the Middle East, there was this interview with former Secretary of State Blinken, who defended dropping Afghanistan like a hot potato, because they needed the 80.000 mercenaries (contractors) for the next war, …
A new world with every passing day
That's life. Well, not for everybody, but Frank Sinatra sang about it. 'Riding High in April, Shot Down in May'. Typically the sort of life people in 'Showbiz' lead. Gamblers. 'Life is a casino'. Speculators. Politicians. Not investors or people planning a career in the *real* economy. The version o…
Uncontrolled demolition
When planning for the future, you will have to decide what to do with existing structures blocking your plans, or making matters 'complicated' (expensive). Invariably there will be multiple 'schools of thought', coinciding with individual interests. In the run-up to the 'Credit Crisis' I sold my com…
You still do not get it, do you?
The *real* threat of 'AI' is that it will reveal what is true, and what is not. Especially in the world of 'money creation'. Most people I talk to are unaware of where money is 'born', and where it goes to 'die'. This includes economists, conditioned at universities and institutions where economic t…
If you break it, you own it
In my childhood, there were still shopkeepers who warned clients with signs that if they broke something, or damaged it, they were obliged to pay the listed price. At the same time my parents were not insured, as far as I know. So they instilled a notion in us to be responsible, and that they would …
You are either with us, or you are with the enemy
For ages leaders have offered us this stark, black versus white, choice. Lights on, or Lights off. While I invariably opt for the Light, I refuse to follow Leaders claiming they represent it. This article is inspired by an interview Elon Musk gave, or rather, a 'talk', in which he provided an upbeat…
No more 'Mr. Nice Guy'.
Donald J. Trump posted a meme at four o'clock in the morning depicting him in a suit, wearing dark sunglasses and a serious gun, in front of smoking rubble and explosions, telling the public that he was done being 'Mr. Nice Guy'. The text said that 'Tehran' had better 'Get Smart' soon. Dr. Robert Gl…
An 'Empire' state of mind
In my youth, the government considered the father of a family the 'head of the household'. This was in line with patriarchal 'thinking', clearly the foundation of mono-religious cultures, with a male 'God' as creator, and 'Eve' ruining everything for humanity as she allowed herself to take a bite fr…
It is all Sigmund Freud's fault
If you are a regular visitor to this blog, I hope you understand that I'm not serious. This is not a parody account either, so what is it I'm trying to convey with this title? The message is that no problem exists in isolation. A problem being something which is perceived by an individual, or group …
Keeping a Cool Head, or drinking the Kool Aid
You may not be familiar with the meaning of 'drinking the Kool Aid', but that is a reference to the mass suicide in Jonestown, where the leader of the 'Peoples Temple' cult served his followers a 'Flavor Aid' drink laced with cyanide and various drugs, misrepresented as 'Kool Aid', when he found him…
We do not have a destiny as a species
Many decades ago, researchers ran experiments in a lab with colonies of mice. As expected, colonies of mice provided with plenty of food and comfort began to expand rapidly. Until they reached an invisible barrier. Reproduction stagnated, fertility dropped, and they began to attack other mice, inclu…
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