A Digital Class Divide?
I am an enthusiast of the digital age. I think its promise of abundant global communication can make the world a better place, and I feel inclined to use big words like “the next step of the human journey” or “the rise of our global consciousness”. The possibilities of a fully interconnected world are tremendous, …
Reading of Jeremy Rifkin: The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism
When a very experienced author like Rifkin presents his ideas on how the Internet of Things changes everything, we can expect an abundance of beautifully crafted sentences. Since the mind of a budding reviewer might suffer from scarcity thereof, I have decided to quote a lot from the book. Explorations of the topic of abundance …
New Year’s Resolution for this Blog
I haven’t written on this place for too long. The reason seems to an unhealthy kind of perfectionism that has crept into my mind. The language, my own ramshackle version of English I am stuck with (because otherwise my audience would be decimated) – I fail to romanticize it anymore, I think it looks bleak …
Collaborative Anti-Consumerism
The word “consumerism” seems to imply that the act of consuming is the essence of our being, something more profound than what existentialism or Freudianism were hinting at. I understand that pushing a shopping cart and loading it with things that we decide all by ourselves to pick from the shelves can occasionally give us …
And (what if) I say, that it is this culture of excessive individualism that has created the constellation where “community” is perceived as some kind of higher purpose, and our “ego” as something low, something we need to be ashamed of. If community is our true value, the individual would be celebrated as the valuable …
Pfffrt.
[series-miru] Pfffrt. Miru is now sixteen months, and she’s adorable. I think I can’t find the words for it, which is a wonderful irony because she is getting more expressive every day. I’ve been meaning to write this for a long time, and I have the feeling it might already be outdated because Miru is …
Let’s call it a day
Suppose a respected scientific magazine would have written in October 1962 during the Cuba missile crisis, that a blow-up was inevitable, or even that the rockets were already in the air. Would the public just shrug it off and go about their business? But this is not the 1960s. In our “information” age, the intensity …
The Enemy we Need?
Starring: Corporations (or rather any constellation that has so much capital at its disposal as to develop the emergent quality of being able to ignore the disastrous “externalities” they cause – of not giving a shit about reality) We are entering a new phase of schizophrenia. In today’s globalized world the military powers might still …
Oath of Hypocrisy
In medicine, doctors swear the Hippocratic Oath, promising that they’ll use their abilities in the best interest of their patients. Whether or not that includes euthanasia doesn’t matter here. The Oath is close to sacred and medical commissions can respond to its violation with severe punishment. When it comes to affairs of the mind, a …
Countdown from Peak Child
I watched an entertaining and instructive talk by Swedish professor Hans Rosling the other day, because YouTube recommended this video. Mr. Rosling introduced himself as a dry statistics professor but did everything humanly possible to maximize the probability of laughter he induced among his mixed audience. Watch the first few minutes of his presentation and …
The Aura of Money
A little anecdote that showed me recently what is wrong with our money: We were eating out in an Indian restaurant, where they serve excellent vegetarian dishes, fresh naan-bread and aromatic rice. The portions were quite large, and we were enjoying the many flavours, while feeding some of the salat cucumbers to our one-year old. …
“But you need money”
Money. I’ve always had enough of it because of my natural thriftiness. So I can’t really speak for those who have experienced real poverty (the UN’s $1.25 a day kind of poverty), and for whom an empty wallet means an empty stomach. I know the predicament of all too many people: They simply need money …
The Average Family
Kansas, 2050. – The shit has hit the fan, years ago. The Surveillance State has diabolical proportions and every citizen gives voice to dissent, shows abnormal behavior or otherwise deviates from the average, is arrested. Family Grey has always lived comfortably, and during the first months after the crises (a term that was used mostly …
Let her do the talking
[series-miru] Miru gets more expressive every day. Her vocal range resembles that of ever more extraordinary songbirds, she can stick out her tongue, pick her father’s nose or anything else that fits her fingers, she can stand for several consecutive minutes, smiling proud of her accomplishment, eat with a spoon, decorate her surroundings with food …
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation introduces vaccine against Affluenza
SEATTLE, Washington – Following recent outrage over a 16-year drunk driver who got convicted to only some rehabilitation after killing two and wounding several other people, because he suffered from “affluenza” (the disease of being insanely rich), a spokesperson of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced that they have successfully developed a vaccine …
Think like a network [draft]
It is nice to focus on our own social group. The search for more community spirit seems to be a common denominator of many people who have fallen, for various reasons, out of love with the individual consumerist worldview and its promise of satisfaction through material saturation. So we head for the exit, we dream …
New Year’s Resolutions
[series-miru] Dear Miru, Three days ago, you turned one year old. We had a great time in Luxemburg, together with our couchsurfing hosts and their wonderful children, who gave you a cake with one candle. From there, we traveled to the Morvan in France, where your parents are doing helpx for the first time. It’s …