2020: uncontrollable

 The year 2020 started with a pandemic caused by the desire of Chine Communist Party to control a virus.

They thought that controlling information and shutting town could tame the virus.

Later leaders of UK and US, Trump and Johnson gave us assurances that they controll the situation.

Now both countries have the higher cases in the western world.

In Minneapolis a cop pressed the knee on a afro-american to control him. He killed him and triggered the biggest riots since '60.

Now in January Trump didn't want to lose control of US and gathered a crowd and invited it to attack Washington DC Capitol. I don't know what he really wanted to do. He is insane. Maybe a coup ?

In US you can't. States have a lot of power.

The 2020 was ruined by the our leaders illusion that they can control life and by the trust we bestowed on them. 

We can't control nature, we can't control people.

The best is to prepare for the worse, and expect that things will go haywire.

The book: "The 6 Secrets of Intelligence", whining westerners and masks

 I just listened the Mikhaila Peterson podcast featuring Yeonmi Park, in which they talk about North Korea.

In the first part they said that people don't understand how lucky people in the West are, they are fighting for animal rights, and against racism but in North Korea people don't have minimum rights.

Yeonmi said that people infected with corona virus are left to die in concentration camps.

At the end they "revolted" against the US government who fines people who don't wear masks and against South Korean government that can send you in prison for not wearing masks.

I  don't understand why they are complaining, in North Korea you got shot for not respecting prevention measures against corona infection. 

Stop whining, join the herd, obey your leaders and wear masks. :)

But I am biased for being in favour of wearing masks. I was in an hospital for respiratory diseases before pandemic and everybody used masks. 

Maybe they were in something. 

Maybe they knew it before and didn't say anything. 

Where are the conspiracy theoreticians when you need them ? 

Why nobody speaks about this ?

Why media doesn't report that before pandemic medics,nurses and other care taker wear mask in infection diseases sections?

Who wants to hide the truth ?

Sorry I got carried away.

Now I am reading The Six Secrets of Intelligence by Craig Adams, which is an manual of Aristotelian logic applied to our world.

I just finished the chapter of analogy or comparation on plain english. The analogy analysis can be applied to this episode.

The secret is to compare the right characteristics.

An example of bad analogy is this:

Nord Korea and US armies have uniforms and ranks, hence the US army is the same as NK.

South Korea has US troops on its soil and because US army and NK army are the same. South Korea has NK troops on its soil.

The same is with masks, Chinese and US governments demand wearing the masks, so US government is like the Chinese government and wants to restrict your rights. 

Why we don't use this to number plates ?

Both government require cars to have number plates, so both want to track you and limits your civil rights.

How we differentiate between measures applied for general good and measures made to limit your rights ?

Car number plates, masks are measures that applied to all. Xi Jinping and Joe Biden have number plates and wear masks, and their rights are restricted as everybody else.

Xi Jinping can criticize anyone in China but not everybody can criticize him.

Joe Biden can criticize anyone and everyone can criticize him.

This a characteristic that separates neatly China from US.

In an authoritarian regime rules are not applied to all, they are applied discretionary. Some are more equal than others to quote my favourite author George Orwell.

The real threat for your rights comes from discretionary measures applied to some. Because people advantaged by the discretionary measures might have a leverage on you.

Discriminatory racist measures in US are the best example of authoritarian measures in an democratic law system. White administration, and business people had a leverage over the black people.

Another good example is when a company is in bed with government and wins all kind of contract for infrastructure, water and energy supply. The company has a leverage over you if you are in competition with it, or if you are its customer.

In some countries leverage cause by discretionary measured increased, see Sicilian mafia, and Russian mafia.

In other leverage decreased see US who gave up racist policies in '60 and France who gave women rights after war. Switzerland gave women rights to vote in '74. 

In conclusion:

1. Not every measure taken by an authoritarian government is authoritarian and against your rights
2. Not every measure taken by an democratic government is for common good or for your own good
3. The way to determine if a measure is for common good or not is to check if it applies to all ranks of society. If it doesn't then it is not for your common good. Of course some politicians ignored the laws that they requested from plebs, they didn't wear masks, they shook hands with covid patients, but they paid with their health. Corona is egalitarian.
4. I am disappointed by Mikhaila Peterson, I thought that some of her father critical thinking have percolated to her, but it percolated only resistance to authority. I hope that her wrong opinions are sincere and not only a political stance. Political cynicism would destroy her father work. I think both Jordan and Mikaila Peterson should read and analyse Aristotel logic.

About allegedly stolen election in US

 Donald Trump and his allies are complaining that they have their elections stolen.

Let's not forget who is Donald Trump: he is the leader of free world, allegedly the most powerful man in the world. He can order FBI,CIA,IRS to make investigations.

He is not an opposition leader in Russia,Belarus,Venezuela or other country with dictators.

He could not say that he simply watched how his election got stolen, and he couldn't do anything.

He can blame on the Deep state, how much he wants but the Hillary Clinton's private mail server investigation by FBI brought him some votes. He didn't complain about Deep state then.

And his anti-China actions gain him support of many from CIA and military who worried about its rise.

Intelligence agencies, police and military are institutions that wants to keep the situation as it is.

Communism fell in Eastern Europe, because the government could not keep the situation as it was and it become worse, and finally the institution of force turned against incompetent civilian government. Similar things happen in Brasil.

Either Trump didn't know how to use his resources to prevent a fraud and he is incompetent and he must go either he could not control the "deep state" and he must go.

To rule a country you must be smart and moral.

Meaning of life

 I hear a lot of people wondering: "What is the meaning of life ?"

Also a lot of books were written on this subject.

My opinion is that you will know the meaning of your life, when life is almost over.

Then you will look back an say "I did this and this and this is the meaning of my life"

Till then focus on the present. In what you should do now and not regret tomorrow.

The whole life is a sum of "now"s.

Belarus situation is a win-win situation for Russia

 If the intention of Russia is to swallow Belarus, then it is the right time.

If the revolutionaries over throw Lucashenko and a civil conflict continues, then Putin can intervine to reestablish order, like he did in Donetsk

If Lucashenko wins he will between EU pressure to comply with elections and Putin pressure to subordinate Moscow even more. 

If he submits to Putin, then he will keep his job.

In this economic crisis, it is hard to find a job as a dictator.

Technology of the future

 There are technologies that improve resource extraction like steam powered water pumps who improved coal extraction and technologies that increase consumption of the resources like the steam locomotive who used coal.

I think our technologies have developed to increase consumption, every body pick the best fruits from supermarket, everyone wants air conditioning units, everybody wants big cars, new clothes, new cell phones.

Truck and planes haul food from all over the world but food productivity is stagnant.

Other extraction technologies such as mining and oil drilling are stagnant. They don't provide enough.

Because the extractive technologies don't keep the pace with consumptive energies, there will be a shift towards extractive technologies development.

The consumption will be reduced in 2 ways, quantity will be reduced, number of brands will be reduced.

About management

 In rally car there are 2 seats one for pilot and one for co-pilot.

The pilot drives the car, the co-pilot says what turn is next. Left 30 degrees, right 60 degrees.

In this way the pilot focus on driving and doesn't waste time to take decisions and  can go faster.

Who is the manager in this case ? The pilot who has the throttle and the wheel or the co-pilot who gives orders ?

The real management should be like co-piloting: detachment from actual implementation, forward looking and trusted.

The employee who doesn't receives from manager a clear direction is like a pilot without a co-pilot: he has to drive slower to be careful about turns. He will finish the race but it will lose.

People build houses without managers, but if you need to build the pyramids, the great wall of China, Hagia Sofia or any other big project you need good managers.

Anarchists and libertarians are against  hierarchical structures, but without hierarchical structures in which someone must be separated from actual implementation in look forward we would live today in mud huts.

But as we saw in Stalin's,Hitler and Mao's case, wrong guy in top of a hierarchy can do more harm than good.

Here comes the power relations: the pilot and co-pilot are not subordinates,are dependent of each other one drives and another give directions, and wrong teams are eliminated from competition. 

So roles must be separated but a interdependence must be between actors and team must be set under competitive pressure.

The democracy separated the power of the state and made a dependence between government and people. Electoral system weeds out the combinations that don't work.

But if the co-pilot is not believed the democracy is losing the race.

In dictatorship we see the opposite: concentration of power, dependence, no selective pressure from inside the country and if the country is big enough no selection from outside either.

The direction is clear, but wrong, the pilot is not motivated to drive fast enough.