One of the important aspects of democracy is the debate. It is obvious that there will be alternative points of views and one will want to express this view to come to a viable solution so that everyone can be satisfied at the end result. Sometimes there will be compromise, sometimes there will be consensus, and sometimes it may just come to a majority.
The latest issue in US politics is its health care reform. Unfortunately there seems to be no debate. There are many attempts at setting up the proper stage for this debate to happen, but when the participants show up, you get nonsense. On one side you have some intellectual sounding rhetoric stamped with jargon that can only be understood by those who speak the same language.... and it certainly doesn't sound like English to the unfamiliar; and on the other side you have shouting and yelling that prevents any neutral observer from hearing the foreign dialect of the intellectual.
Agree or disagree with either position, it doesn't matter because there is a pretty high chance that you don't know the nuts and bolts of the issue, nor what either side are actually trying to say. In a nutshell, you have one side explaining in technical terms that health care reform is great and is not dangerous and the explanations become steeped with the latest astrological formulas (what we call economics in the 21st century).... and somehow these intellectuals believe that the jargon will silence the doubters.... the other side yells things like "You are lying to me!" or "This policy will destroy my car engine." or the best yet: "We can't believe in this policy because the President is not even an American citizen."
Well the problem is a debate amongst the uninformed (both sides). The solution is to have a better education system available to all citizens. Currently we have grade school which teaches reading, writing and arithmetic.... and a post-secondary educational system that emphasizes more on technical achievements than on thinking or realizing of issues.
The high school graduate believes himself skilled enough in recognizing how to scrutinize a debate of ideas between intellectuals. A first year university student studying in politics realizes very quickly how inadequate most of us are in scrutinizing political issues. The university graduate believes himself intelligent because he can speak the jargon of the intellectual.... unfortunately, most of what is said is complete foolishness.
Previous blogs mentioned our society's problem on lack of time. Well once time is regained, we would have to provide free education for any who want it.... this includes university all the way to the PhD level. We would have to stop companies from requiring advanced education when it isn't needed.... we only want those who wish to learn more to actually benefit from advanced education. Profit motive is a wrong motive to seek advanced education. The necessity of paying off a debt for a university education limits choices of subjects on what will provide the easiest way to pay off this debt (another form of profit motivation). Who will want to learn how to distinguish a rational form of argument versus rhetorical manipulation of emotions if the other choice is to learn about how to maximize profits for some corporation which is definitely not a democratic institution? The corporation will hire you if you can make them more profit not if you can be a better democratic citizen.
So the first thing to do is to provide time for each citizen, instead of forcing the citizens into wage-slaves for corporations who care nothing for democracy but care only for profits. This extra time should allow citizens to further their education without economic pressure. In other words, some form of stipend should be provided to cover rent and food (and I don't mean junk food which seems to be the university student's diet because they can't afford the better meals). When both of these things are covered, the third thing to do is to streamline the university classes so that they become less about jargon to make yourself sound intelligent but rather to say things in everyday words so that non-experts can understand with little effort. The most ironic thing I personally have found in my own university studies was that the scholars who studied how we communicate with each other were the most difficult texts to comprehend. It seems that complex sounding words are supposed to impress the uneducated.
The education system should focus on taking one's time to think things through instead of trying to come to a quick solution (without thinking of the consequences). DeBono once used an illustration about 2 chickens. One of these chickens was slightly blind while the first chicken had perfect eyesight. The experiment using these two chickens was to lower them onto one side of a box with a dish of food on the other side of the box. The first chicken with perfect eyesight went straight for the food and gobbled up the food happily. The other chicken would poke away at the ground and eventually get to the dish. Our capitalist system promotes the first chicken, the quick-thinker who gets to the solution. The second experiment had a glass wall in between the dish and the chicken. This wall did not go from one side to the other but it was in the middle leaving enough room for the chicken to go on either side and bypass the glass wall. Well the first chicken with perfect eyesight goes straight for the food dish, and bangs into the wall over and over.... trying to get to the food but never able to. The second chicken, who does not see the food just pokes on the ground and eventually bypasses the glass wall and then gets to the food. Life tends to have a lot more glass walls than we seem to realize and our current society promotes one form of thinking and punishes the alternative.
Free university and more time would bring more balance and improve our society and prevent tremendously easy problems that we have suffered if we just think for 3 seconds. Our current economic crisis could have been completely prevented had we had some decision maker have the luxury of time to just think about an issue or a citizenry the luxury of time to debate where our society is going.
So what society do you want? The capitalist is already using propaganda to say that the consumer makes better decisions than anyone else (greed determines our goals), the communist is trying to regain credibility by insisting that the worker should be given more economic power to make better social decisions for the majority. Why are we stuck in this consumer versus laborer dichotomy? Both are economic foolishness dreamt up by philosophers who began their philosophy with foolish assumptions that could have been easily been torn down like a house of cards if someone would have taken 3 seconds to just think about it. (To be fair, if their assumptions are accurate, the following logic that follows within their economic models are proper).... Why not focus on the democratic model... the insistence that we make our society full of responsible citizens. Our current democracy is really flawed and in many cases quite undemocratic, but we can correct this if we, as citizens take back what was stolen from us by thieves and reclaim our time and our money.
If a corporate entity (an artificial citizen under the law of most nations) has more budget than the poorest nation state.... there is definitely something wrong. This non-living artificial citizen, who is not even a real human being (a modern version of a built up idol/statue), should not have anywhere near the budget of the poorest nation-state government in our current international community. Nevermind the fact that these non-human artificial citizens should have the political clout to move society toward more profit at the cost of human dignity.
We either fight on economic arguments including how we spend our budgets (both foolish exercises), or we fight on democratic arguments and we give ourselves the time to do it and the proper educational opportunities to achieve this.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Einstein in the Bakery
Einstein was lucky, I mean look at his background... he flunked out in high school and most people were convinced that he was below average. Throughout his life people wondered at his intelligence because he had to be told to bring an umbrella when it was raining so that he would not get wet. When Einstein decided to write about physics, EVERY single university physics journal rejected his writings. Einstein managed to publish in a philosophical journal and through luck, some physicists bothered to read and give this idea a chance, and then: the story we hear in school about Einstein being brilliant becomes reality. So yeah, Einstein was lucky.
How many Einsteins are out there waiting to be discovered? Waiting to be given a decent chance to work at something which will have tremendous impact in our society? Probably many of our great intellectual heroes have had similar backgrounds of being unrecognized by most until a stroke of luck gave them their chance to shine. Problem is, for every genius discovered there may be dozens who go unrecognized.
This reminds of two stories, the first is with the Simpsons cartoon, Homer is laying on the couch watching some TV and little baby Maggie is on a toy piano playing an elaborate piece of classical music. Homer, being annoyed at having his TV viewing interrupted, yells at little baby Maggie to stop that racket.... Maggie, obedient, stops playing (society forever losing another Einstein). The second story is from Neal Stephenson's book "Cryptonomicon". Here we have one of the main characters filling out a standardized test to see how smart he is.... the first question is about how a boat is going upriver at a certain speed and how the current of the river is going at another speed and the question asks how long it will take the boat to reach destination X. The main character spends the entire time of the test answering question 1 by coming up with a formula to distinguish how the water temperature can affect the speed of the current and depending on the curves of the river combined with the depth and the spin cycle of the boat engine, this would allow (and here the test ends with question 1 unanswered).... The correction of the test places the main character in the least intellectually stimulating job environment you can imagine.... of course later in the book our main character is "discovered" to be brilliant in code breaking....
So what does all of this have to do with Einstein in a bakery? Well if Einstein is undiscovered and is not placed in an area which will help society discover new things, where would this Einstein be? Why not a bakery? Einstein needs to work at a job to eat, doesn't he? Well if Einstein is at a bakery, you can imagine that he isn't doing very well at his job. Remember the real Einstein, he flunked out of high school and was considered dumb, the world of Physics rejected Einstein's papers, he didn't know how to dress for whatever occasion.... so imagine this Einstein serving you bread at a bakery. Not very impressive huh? Now consider how management would view him.
Management is not concerned about placing people in the proper areas in society to help society out with new discoveries; no, management is only interested in making Einstein a better baker and by hook or by crook they will transform him into some kind of baker or fire him if they can't succeed. The problem is this: how do we get society's Einsteins to be recognized and placed in an area which will do society (and the Einstein in question) the greater benefit? Standardized tests to measure potential?
Remember, if management can not recognize an Einstein in their midst, how can a someone who corrects a standardized test be able to judge how or why a person answered just 1 question on an IQ test and got it wrong? And lets assume for argument's sake, that Einstein #A does do well in a standardized test with pretty decent scores placing him in the top 5 percentile.... how does he go about getting a job? Where does he go to allow his "potential" be used in his full capacity?
Is the homeless person you met last week an undiscovered musical genius like Mozart? How about the janitor who mopped the floor behind you in the shopping center: an undiscovered genius who could study biochemistry and discover the cure for cancer in a short afternoon? The homeless person is faced with a non-understanding bureaucracy who judges him in a similar way as the janitor is judged.... on his immediate performance. Which is probably a pathetic performance if you compare it to the average Joe....
Now let us assume that Einstein #A manages to get a job interview for some large corporation which can potentially allow him to use his talents.... how does he sell himself? "I can play chess and beat the computer on any setting in under 15 moves." The interviewer would most likely not have a clue what this really means and probably reject Einstein #A as being too arrogant.... or hire him as stock room clerk..... and then have management make fun of him because he can't tell the difference between duck tape and masking tape after being on the job for 6 months.
So if you are one of these Einsteins out there.... use the saying "I'm just an Einstein in the bakery" when describing yourself (maybe someone intelligent will notice and bother asking you what you mean and perhaps has some actual power to help you (and society) get to the ideal position for you)..... or you'll just feel better by saying it (who knows).... If you know someone who is "weird" and "dumb" yet has something intelligent about him, perhaps he is an Einstein waiting to be discovered..... and you should try to help him (or her) with your talents that this Einstein seems to lack.... vouch for him, encourage him.... this can help society out and therefore you as well.
Of course, the danger with this is that you can have people like "Sex" from the "So You Think You Can Dance" franchise who shows up every year to the auditions and tells the judges that he is someone who "believes in himself" and is an excellent dancer.... and when he begins to dance, it is quite obvious even to non-dance experts that he is mediocre at best..... So I don't wish to see intellectual morons believing themselves to be Einsteins in bakeries, because that is not the intent of this blog. Dance is easy to gauge between skilled and unskilled but you need experienced dancers to distinguish between great skill and decent skill.... For the matters of brains and intellect, it is not so easy to distinguish between skilled and unskilled.... (and sometimes management does not want to recognize such talent because they fear that they will lose their edge over their underlings because the Einstein will publicly point out management flaws once discovered).
So how many Einsteins in the bakery do you know?
How many Einsteins are out there waiting to be discovered? Waiting to be given a decent chance to work at something which will have tremendous impact in our society? Probably many of our great intellectual heroes have had similar backgrounds of being unrecognized by most until a stroke of luck gave them their chance to shine. Problem is, for every genius discovered there may be dozens who go unrecognized.
This reminds of two stories, the first is with the Simpsons cartoon, Homer is laying on the couch watching some TV and little baby Maggie is on a toy piano playing an elaborate piece of classical music. Homer, being annoyed at having his TV viewing interrupted, yells at little baby Maggie to stop that racket.... Maggie, obedient, stops playing (society forever losing another Einstein). The second story is from Neal Stephenson's book "Cryptonomicon". Here we have one of the main characters filling out a standardized test to see how smart he is.... the first question is about how a boat is going upriver at a certain speed and how the current of the river is going at another speed and the question asks how long it will take the boat to reach destination X. The main character spends the entire time of the test answering question 1 by coming up with a formula to distinguish how the water temperature can affect the speed of the current and depending on the curves of the river combined with the depth and the spin cycle of the boat engine, this would allow (and here the test ends with question 1 unanswered).... The correction of the test places the main character in the least intellectually stimulating job environment you can imagine.... of course later in the book our main character is "discovered" to be brilliant in code breaking....
So what does all of this have to do with Einstein in a bakery? Well if Einstein is undiscovered and is not placed in an area which will help society discover new things, where would this Einstein be? Why not a bakery? Einstein needs to work at a job to eat, doesn't he? Well if Einstein is at a bakery, you can imagine that he isn't doing very well at his job. Remember the real Einstein, he flunked out of high school and was considered dumb, the world of Physics rejected Einstein's papers, he didn't know how to dress for whatever occasion.... so imagine this Einstein serving you bread at a bakery. Not very impressive huh? Now consider how management would view him.
Management is not concerned about placing people in the proper areas in society to help society out with new discoveries; no, management is only interested in making Einstein a better baker and by hook or by crook they will transform him into some kind of baker or fire him if they can't succeed. The problem is this: how do we get society's Einsteins to be recognized and placed in an area which will do society (and the Einstein in question) the greater benefit? Standardized tests to measure potential?
Remember, if management can not recognize an Einstein in their midst, how can a someone who corrects a standardized test be able to judge how or why a person answered just 1 question on an IQ test and got it wrong? And lets assume for argument's sake, that Einstein #A does do well in a standardized test with pretty decent scores placing him in the top 5 percentile.... how does he go about getting a job? Where does he go to allow his "potential" be used in his full capacity?
Is the homeless person you met last week an undiscovered musical genius like Mozart? How about the janitor who mopped the floor behind you in the shopping center: an undiscovered genius who could study biochemistry and discover the cure for cancer in a short afternoon? The homeless person is faced with a non-understanding bureaucracy who judges him in a similar way as the janitor is judged.... on his immediate performance. Which is probably a pathetic performance if you compare it to the average Joe....
Now let us assume that Einstein #A manages to get a job interview for some large corporation which can potentially allow him to use his talents.... how does he sell himself? "I can play chess and beat the computer on any setting in under 15 moves." The interviewer would most likely not have a clue what this really means and probably reject Einstein #A as being too arrogant.... or hire him as stock room clerk..... and then have management make fun of him because he can't tell the difference between duck tape and masking tape after being on the job for 6 months.
So if you are one of these Einsteins out there.... use the saying "I'm just an Einstein in the bakery" when describing yourself (maybe someone intelligent will notice and bother asking you what you mean and perhaps has some actual power to help you (and society) get to the ideal position for you)..... or you'll just feel better by saying it (who knows).... If you know someone who is "weird" and "dumb" yet has something intelligent about him, perhaps he is an Einstein waiting to be discovered..... and you should try to help him (or her) with your talents that this Einstein seems to lack.... vouch for him, encourage him.... this can help society out and therefore you as well.
Of course, the danger with this is that you can have people like "Sex" from the "So You Think You Can Dance" franchise who shows up every year to the auditions and tells the judges that he is someone who "believes in himself" and is an excellent dancer.... and when he begins to dance, it is quite obvious even to non-dance experts that he is mediocre at best..... So I don't wish to see intellectual morons believing themselves to be Einsteins in bakeries, because that is not the intent of this blog. Dance is easy to gauge between skilled and unskilled but you need experienced dancers to distinguish between great skill and decent skill.... For the matters of brains and intellect, it is not so easy to distinguish between skilled and unskilled.... (and sometimes management does not want to recognize such talent because they fear that they will lose their edge over their underlings because the Einstein will publicly point out management flaws once discovered).
So how many Einsteins in the bakery do you know?
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Critiquing Democracy
Any political scientist who believes that our current system of democracy is working generally well should work in customer relations for at least six months to shatter this delusion. Grade school teaches us that our democracy works well because we have elections every few years and that we can get rid of leaders that we don't like. Is that what democracy is all about? Simple elections? We have a population that is so ill-informed about the issues or even how the system works that we actually allow this population base to decide the future for us all?
Well the current system prevents that. The bureaucracy in place informs the current leaders of what is possible and what is not based upon contracts and guarantees signed by previous administrations. The leaders just put a smile on and charismatically inform us that everything is going according to plan and then try to figure out how to budget the shrinking finances. The cynics among us say "business as usual" and nothing important changes. Election ads have little to no substance about any issue. Look at the latest conservative campaign against Michael. He was out of the country for x amount of years..... and that's relevant how? At least with Stephane they pointed out the internal flaws of Stephane's own claim.
So the current system prevents ill-informed voters from voting foolishly by keeping them in the dark with flashy ad campaigns, politicians which are more charismatic than intelligent so they can say nonsense and have the majority swoon over the way they said the pretty words. And whoever is in power has so many checks and balances that they can not make any sweeping change that would help society at large..... not that they could mobilize the population at large to support them. How can a rational explanation that takes 90 minutes to understand compete with the flashy catch phrase of an opponent?
I put too much emphasis on charisma over intelligence? Just look at the speeches from George as President of the US versus the speeches from Barack as President. The Daily Show showed half a dozen excerpts which had both George and Barack saying essentially the same thing. When George said it, he was arrogant and no one would listen to what he was saying.... Meanwhile, Barack says it and we are all enthralled at the wise words and how we should listen to his advice. These are the same people who vote who could not distinguish that both leaders of opposing political parties said essentially the same things about the same issues.
You don't agree with something? Base it upon the text, not upon the delivery of that text. Of course to do that we must change how our current system works. Why do people not bother with reading the text and focus on the feel-good of the charismatic catch-phrases to make decisions? Lack of time is the best answer. Democracy requires every voter to be aware of the issues and not rely upon 3rd party interpretations. The news companies are more interested in selling you the news with sensationalism than with genuine information. A car accident this morning is the latest headline news on this morning's news.... forget the fact that the American Congress is about to vote on a law which will give the police the right to invade your privacy without the consent of a Judge first..... we want to see the car accident..... its sensational, not boring.
Ask random people if they can tell you the latest gossip from TMZ or if they know what 60 minutes was about last week (assuming they even know the show "60 minutes"). A democracy needs its citizens to be informed and educated on the many issues at hand. Currently we work longer hours than peasants in the Middle Ages. The peasants in the Middle Ages did not have political responsibilities and had a lot of leisure time on their hands. We have political responsibilities and we spend most of our energy for the benefit of someone else's profit.... who I guarantee you takes his time to look at the political issues and determines what is best for his pocket book.... and he calls that work, yet this same employer denies us that same time to allow us to educate ourselves of the issues.
Comparison-->
Peasant, wakes up does the chores around the home which includes the farming and repairing stuff. In the end he gives a portion of his crop to the Landlord. No one asks his opinion about anything so the peasant does not need to be aware of decisions and he suffers the whims of his landlord.
Today's worker, wakes up and does chores (which are not tabulated as work) around the house to keep things clean and repairing personal stuff. Heads off to work which can take up to an hour to reach (still not tabulated as work), works "officially" (this is tabulated) for a set amount of time where his lunch is measured scientifically and his breaks are counted up to the second to avoid lost productivity. Then the worker finishes his day and heads back home, does more chores around the house (again not tabulated in the calculated work hours)..... The worker is then exhausted and spends the remaining time either A) on leisure to decompress from a hard day's work (this can be video games or television watching or music listening or even drinking at a bar with other workmates) or B) doing extracurricular work activities which are not paid for nor counted on actual work hours worked but that you need to do if you want that promotion... or even to avoid being laid off when the budget cuts force lay-offs.
Using the above comparison of the peasant in the Middle Ages versus today's worker.... who of the two would actually have the time to be properly informed or educated of the issues?
To make democracy work we have to remember that we are citizens. The communists believe that the workers should decide, the capitalists believe that the industrialist should decide. We are supposed to be in a democracy in which citizens should decide. We need time for education and leisure to have clear heads so that we can make proper decisions and anyone who thinks that this is innapropriate and lazy I will just point out the rich. The rich have the time for education and for leisure and they make the most out of it by making sure that their political ideals are pursued and they keep their opponents busy with slave labor.
Should the rich ever be forced to work like the poor do, we would see them protesting loudly. As I have mentioned in previous blogs. We have the technology to work less hours and still maintain our lifestyle. Perhaps we would have 50% less choices in consumer products but we would definitely be in a democracy where we educate ourselves, we would have a proper leisure time to enjoy our consumer products and we would know how to vote based upon the issues and not upon the charismatic catch phrases.
My source comes from the Wikipedia entry where it shows 13th century male peasant working annually 1620 hours while it shows Canada in 2004 working 1717 hours and the USA working 1777 hours. Just remember; first, the peasants were not under the yoke of Taylorism where working was scientifically measured to the second and secondly, the peasants would be considered at work even when repairing one's own house while our 2004 measurements are only based upon "official" hours under some employer....
Isn't technology supposed to make us more free? Are we not supposedly in a democracy as opposed to the illusion of one? Does it not seem that we are more under the yoke of an employer who gives us an illusion of choice by voting for nonsense every few years?
If democracy is to work as it is supposed to, then we need the tools to insure and ensure its success. At this moment, we may be losing our democracy.... at least in North America.
Well the current system prevents that. The bureaucracy in place informs the current leaders of what is possible and what is not based upon contracts and guarantees signed by previous administrations. The leaders just put a smile on and charismatically inform us that everything is going according to plan and then try to figure out how to budget the shrinking finances. The cynics among us say "business as usual" and nothing important changes. Election ads have little to no substance about any issue. Look at the latest conservative campaign against Michael. He was out of the country for x amount of years..... and that's relevant how? At least with Stephane they pointed out the internal flaws of Stephane's own claim.
So the current system prevents ill-informed voters from voting foolishly by keeping them in the dark with flashy ad campaigns, politicians which are more charismatic than intelligent so they can say nonsense and have the majority swoon over the way they said the pretty words. And whoever is in power has so many checks and balances that they can not make any sweeping change that would help society at large..... not that they could mobilize the population at large to support them. How can a rational explanation that takes 90 minutes to understand compete with the flashy catch phrase of an opponent?
I put too much emphasis on charisma over intelligence? Just look at the speeches from George as President of the US versus the speeches from Barack as President. The Daily Show showed half a dozen excerpts which had both George and Barack saying essentially the same thing. When George said it, he was arrogant and no one would listen to what he was saying.... Meanwhile, Barack says it and we are all enthralled at the wise words and how we should listen to his advice. These are the same people who vote who could not distinguish that both leaders of opposing political parties said essentially the same things about the same issues.
You don't agree with something? Base it upon the text, not upon the delivery of that text. Of course to do that we must change how our current system works. Why do people not bother with reading the text and focus on the feel-good of the charismatic catch-phrases to make decisions? Lack of time is the best answer. Democracy requires every voter to be aware of the issues and not rely upon 3rd party interpretations. The news companies are more interested in selling you the news with sensationalism than with genuine information. A car accident this morning is the latest headline news on this morning's news.... forget the fact that the American Congress is about to vote on a law which will give the police the right to invade your privacy without the consent of a Judge first..... we want to see the car accident..... its sensational, not boring.
Ask random people if they can tell you the latest gossip from TMZ or if they know what 60 minutes was about last week (assuming they even know the show "60 minutes"). A democracy needs its citizens to be informed and educated on the many issues at hand. Currently we work longer hours than peasants in the Middle Ages. The peasants in the Middle Ages did not have political responsibilities and had a lot of leisure time on their hands. We have political responsibilities and we spend most of our energy for the benefit of someone else's profit.... who I guarantee you takes his time to look at the political issues and determines what is best for his pocket book.... and he calls that work, yet this same employer denies us that same time to allow us to educate ourselves of the issues.
Comparison-->
Peasant, wakes up does the chores around the home which includes the farming and repairing stuff. In the end he gives a portion of his crop to the Landlord. No one asks his opinion about anything so the peasant does not need to be aware of decisions and he suffers the whims of his landlord.
Today's worker, wakes up and does chores (which are not tabulated as work) around the house to keep things clean and repairing personal stuff. Heads off to work which can take up to an hour to reach (still not tabulated as work), works "officially" (this is tabulated) for a set amount of time where his lunch is measured scientifically and his breaks are counted up to the second to avoid lost productivity. Then the worker finishes his day and heads back home, does more chores around the house (again not tabulated in the calculated work hours)..... The worker is then exhausted and spends the remaining time either A) on leisure to decompress from a hard day's work (this can be video games or television watching or music listening or even drinking at a bar with other workmates) or B) doing extracurricular work activities which are not paid for nor counted on actual work hours worked but that you need to do if you want that promotion... or even to avoid being laid off when the budget cuts force lay-offs.
Using the above comparison of the peasant in the Middle Ages versus today's worker.... who of the two would actually have the time to be properly informed or educated of the issues?
To make democracy work we have to remember that we are citizens. The communists believe that the workers should decide, the capitalists believe that the industrialist should decide. We are supposed to be in a democracy in which citizens should decide. We need time for education and leisure to have clear heads so that we can make proper decisions and anyone who thinks that this is innapropriate and lazy I will just point out the rich. The rich have the time for education and for leisure and they make the most out of it by making sure that their political ideals are pursued and they keep their opponents busy with slave labor.
Should the rich ever be forced to work like the poor do, we would see them protesting loudly. As I have mentioned in previous blogs. We have the technology to work less hours and still maintain our lifestyle. Perhaps we would have 50% less choices in consumer products but we would definitely be in a democracy where we educate ourselves, we would have a proper leisure time to enjoy our consumer products and we would know how to vote based upon the issues and not upon the charismatic catch phrases.
My source comes from the Wikipedia entry where it shows 13th century male peasant working annually 1620 hours while it shows Canada in 2004 working 1717 hours and the USA working 1777 hours. Just remember; first, the peasants were not under the yoke of Taylorism where working was scientifically measured to the second and secondly, the peasants would be considered at work even when repairing one's own house while our 2004 measurements are only based upon "official" hours under some employer....
Isn't technology supposed to make us more free? Are we not supposedly in a democracy as opposed to the illusion of one? Does it not seem that we are more under the yoke of an employer who gives us an illusion of choice by voting for nonsense every few years?
If democracy is to work as it is supposed to, then we need the tools to insure and ensure its success. At this moment, we may be losing our democracy.... at least in North America.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Types of Apologies
You don't have to live for very long before you witness an apology or offer one of your own or even receive one from someone else. What is ironic is that we tend to gloss over what the apology really means or we just presume a meaning which may or may not be entirely accurate. Sort of like when you ask someone how they are doing today and you only half listen to the response which will usually be "I'm fine thanks, and you?" Its the kind of ritual we do that can get lost through repetition. Do you really care how a colleague you only see for seconds a day is doing? Will that colleague express his sadness of having had an argument with his brother or sister about who will bring mom to the hospital next for her check-up to see if she needs new medication? Chances are you don't want to hear someone else's problems because you have enough on your own, so the ritual continues: "Hi Fred, how are you today?" "I'm doing great!" And off you go and repeat: "Hi Sue, how are you today?" "Happy as can be!". We all perpetuate the illusion of having happy little lives and that all the problems are manageable.
But the focus of this particular blog is not to look into how we don't really communicate what we really want to, but rather how similar our apologies are to the way we ritualize our polite greetings. So if you hear an apology, how genuine is it? If you offer an apology to someone, what are you actually saying? You could seperate apologies into different types from worse to best. Naturally it is difficult to interpret which type a person is using because you are not a mind reader or a heart reader, just like you don't know what a person is thinking when they say hello to you with a smile. (Is he thinking about that goal that was scored by his favorite sports team or does he think that your shirt looks funny?)
The 1st type of apology (being the worse) >>I HAVE TO APOLOGIZE<<
I am apologizing because my position forces me to say sorry. I still think you are completely in the wrong and that you should not be doing activity X, but because I want to keep my job/career/position of prestige I must offer you some kind of apology to satisfy your ego or power trip by losing my dignity in preference to your superiority. This is the kind of apology you will see waiters giving to obnoxious clients in a restaurant who are annoyed that the steak they ordered 20 seconds ago has not arrived on their table before they even picked up their menu to decide what they were going to order. And I have witnessed this kind of situation many times. I think this is the worse type of apology because the person offering it is demeaning himself while the person receiving the apology gets high on a false premise and is encouraged to demand more apologies if he can not have his cake and eat it as well. Some rich people can get trapped in demanding apologies from the poor on anything and everything, it becomes a psychological drug/domination.
The 2nd type of apology (being the next worse) >>I GOT CAUGHT<<
Well I am apologizing to you because you caught me doing something genuinely wrong and I know its wrong. I apologize because if I don't, you will punish me worse and I want you to think that I will not do it again so that we can forget about this and I will find new ways to do the same wrong thing again without getting caught a second time. You can recognize this when the first thing that is asked by the person who got caught is this: "How did you catch me?" or "How did you know it was me?"
Our entire legal system, in order to protect the innocent from being jailed, proceeds with the explanation of how the person was caught to prove to the jury that the crime actually did take place. Now this legal system does help the innocent in defending themselves and this is admirable; unfortunately, on the flip side it also gives ammunition to the guilty to become more and more shrewd so that they are that much more difficult to get caught.
Just watch a child who was caught taking cookies out of the cookie jar when he was not allowed to take cookies without permission. You see the crumbs around his face and you point it out to him. The child apologizes for taking the cookies. Next time, he will wipe his precious little mouth so that you do not realize that he took more cookies. You point out that there are crumbs on his shirt and he will wipe the crumbs off there next time.... and on and on. Now if a child is cunning, how much more is the adult who gets caught?
3rd type of apology (least worse, but not the best) >>I REGRET THE CONSEQUENCES<<
This seems to be the most common form of apology we use as a society and as individuals. I am sorry of the negative consequences that my actions have caused, it is most unfortunate and I hope that these consequences do not happen again when I continue to do the actions which caused the negative consequences in the first place. I do not believe that my actions should be modified in any way but I do feel bad for the negative consequences which I refuse to believe are directly linked with my actions so I will continue in my wrong behavior and apologize for the unfortunate side effects.
This type of apology is currently being used to make us feel better for our current economic downturn. We all know what caused the recession, and to solve it we continue to do the very actions that put us in this mess in the first place. On more individual levels, this is where you see the song "Cats In The Cradle" by Ugly Kid Joe make sense. In it, the dad is constantly apologetic for not being there for his son because of X, Y or Z reason. The son accepts the apology and grows up still requesting the dad's attention and the dad regrets and apologizes, yet continues with the wrong action..... Of course the song gives us the negative results of these kinds of apologies and the dad loses his son as a result in the end because the son imitates his dad so well and apologizes to him the same way for not being there.
I am so sorry that I ended sleeping with someone else because I got drunk at some party and left with that person..... I deeply regret the consequences of this action..... and what shall I do next weekend? Well I will go and get drunk again (and hopefully not repeat the negative consequences).
I consider this the least worse of the apologies but I still categorize it as in the worse category nonetheless.
4th type of apology (the one we should strive for) >>I REVERSE MY PREVIOUS DIRECTION<<
I apologize for what I have done and will avoid doing any action that will encourage me in any way, to do this again. In other words, if my job prevents me from seeing my baby's first steps, I will strive to limit the hours at my work so that I can enjoy the true joys of life: my family. I regret that I missed the baseball game where my child got a homerun, I will attempt to find a job that enables me to spend more time with my family. I apologize that I slept with that person, I will strive to limit my alcohol consumption and ask friends to help me out if I start getting flirtatious with a stranger so that I do not betray my true love.
Our society apologizes that our current system puts decent people out of work and rewards leaders who steal our money from our pockets, our society will stop using consumption and greed to encourage economic growth and impose 99% WORLDWIDE taxes on profit to recuperate our stolen money and redistribute the 90% of the wealth in the hands of 10% of the population to the rest of us. Our society will no longer complain about the limited government budgets that are funded by the poor to serve the rich and constantly struggling to pay for deficits and health care and education, our society will get the money where it happens to be located and pay for these services that were promised us 200 years ago.
Perhaps we should start a timer where everyone gets an equal amount of resources/money and allow the current capitalist system to run for 50 years, then stop the clock, redistribute everyone's wealth again equally and restart the race. How would you like to start the year 2010 with 25 million dollars in your hands? Every other human on the planet starts with the exact same amount, and off you go.... if you succeed: YAY, and you will be honored at the year 2060 as you give away your extras.... if you fail: too bad, but there is hope, because on 2060, you will get a fair shot again..... just try to survive until then (much like 75% of the population have been doing the past few centuries). Could you accept this kind of apology from society for the current wrongdoings? Or shall we tolerate society's 3rd type of apology that it is currently giving us?
But the focus of this particular blog is not to look into how we don't really communicate what we really want to, but rather how similar our apologies are to the way we ritualize our polite greetings. So if you hear an apology, how genuine is it? If you offer an apology to someone, what are you actually saying? You could seperate apologies into different types from worse to best. Naturally it is difficult to interpret which type a person is using because you are not a mind reader or a heart reader, just like you don't know what a person is thinking when they say hello to you with a smile. (Is he thinking about that goal that was scored by his favorite sports team or does he think that your shirt looks funny?)
The 1st type of apology (being the worse) >>I HAVE TO APOLOGIZE<<
I am apologizing because my position forces me to say sorry. I still think you are completely in the wrong and that you should not be doing activity X, but because I want to keep my job/career/position of prestige I must offer you some kind of apology to satisfy your ego or power trip by losing my dignity in preference to your superiority. This is the kind of apology you will see waiters giving to obnoxious clients in a restaurant who are annoyed that the steak they ordered 20 seconds ago has not arrived on their table before they even picked up their menu to decide what they were going to order. And I have witnessed this kind of situation many times. I think this is the worse type of apology because the person offering it is demeaning himself while the person receiving the apology gets high on a false premise and is encouraged to demand more apologies if he can not have his cake and eat it as well. Some rich people can get trapped in demanding apologies from the poor on anything and everything, it becomes a psychological drug/domination.
The 2nd type of apology (being the next worse) >>I GOT CAUGHT<<
Well I am apologizing to you because you caught me doing something genuinely wrong and I know its wrong. I apologize because if I don't, you will punish me worse and I want you to think that I will not do it again so that we can forget about this and I will find new ways to do the same wrong thing again without getting caught a second time. You can recognize this when the first thing that is asked by the person who got caught is this: "How did you catch me?" or "How did you know it was me?"
Our entire legal system, in order to protect the innocent from being jailed, proceeds with the explanation of how the person was caught to prove to the jury that the crime actually did take place. Now this legal system does help the innocent in defending themselves and this is admirable; unfortunately, on the flip side it also gives ammunition to the guilty to become more and more shrewd so that they are that much more difficult to get caught.
Just watch a child who was caught taking cookies out of the cookie jar when he was not allowed to take cookies without permission. You see the crumbs around his face and you point it out to him. The child apologizes for taking the cookies. Next time, he will wipe his precious little mouth so that you do not realize that he took more cookies. You point out that there are crumbs on his shirt and he will wipe the crumbs off there next time.... and on and on. Now if a child is cunning, how much more is the adult who gets caught?
3rd type of apology (least worse, but not the best) >>I REGRET THE CONSEQUENCES<<
This seems to be the most common form of apology we use as a society and as individuals. I am sorry of the negative consequences that my actions have caused, it is most unfortunate and I hope that these consequences do not happen again when I continue to do the actions which caused the negative consequences in the first place. I do not believe that my actions should be modified in any way but I do feel bad for the negative consequences which I refuse to believe are directly linked with my actions so I will continue in my wrong behavior and apologize for the unfortunate side effects.
This type of apology is currently being used to make us feel better for our current economic downturn. We all know what caused the recession, and to solve it we continue to do the very actions that put us in this mess in the first place. On more individual levels, this is where you see the song "Cats In The Cradle" by Ugly Kid Joe make sense. In it, the dad is constantly apologetic for not being there for his son because of X, Y or Z reason. The son accepts the apology and grows up still requesting the dad's attention and the dad regrets and apologizes, yet continues with the wrong action..... Of course the song gives us the negative results of these kinds of apologies and the dad loses his son as a result in the end because the son imitates his dad so well and apologizes to him the same way for not being there.
I am so sorry that I ended sleeping with someone else because I got drunk at some party and left with that person..... I deeply regret the consequences of this action..... and what shall I do next weekend? Well I will go and get drunk again (and hopefully not repeat the negative consequences).
I consider this the least worse of the apologies but I still categorize it as in the worse category nonetheless.
4th type of apology (the one we should strive for) >>I REVERSE MY PREVIOUS DIRECTION<<
I apologize for what I have done and will avoid doing any action that will encourage me in any way, to do this again. In other words, if my job prevents me from seeing my baby's first steps, I will strive to limit the hours at my work so that I can enjoy the true joys of life: my family. I regret that I missed the baseball game where my child got a homerun, I will attempt to find a job that enables me to spend more time with my family. I apologize that I slept with that person, I will strive to limit my alcohol consumption and ask friends to help me out if I start getting flirtatious with a stranger so that I do not betray my true love.
Our society apologizes that our current system puts decent people out of work and rewards leaders who steal our money from our pockets, our society will stop using consumption and greed to encourage economic growth and impose 99% WORLDWIDE taxes on profit to recuperate our stolen money and redistribute the 90% of the wealth in the hands of 10% of the population to the rest of us. Our society will no longer complain about the limited government budgets that are funded by the poor to serve the rich and constantly struggling to pay for deficits and health care and education, our society will get the money where it happens to be located and pay for these services that were promised us 200 years ago.
Perhaps we should start a timer where everyone gets an equal amount of resources/money and allow the current capitalist system to run for 50 years, then stop the clock, redistribute everyone's wealth again equally and restart the race. How would you like to start the year 2010 with 25 million dollars in your hands? Every other human on the planet starts with the exact same amount, and off you go.... if you succeed: YAY, and you will be honored at the year 2060 as you give away your extras.... if you fail: too bad, but there is hope, because on 2060, you will get a fair shot again..... just try to survive until then (much like 75% of the population have been doing the past few centuries). Could you accept this kind of apology from society for the current wrongdoings? Or shall we tolerate society's 3rd type of apology that it is currently giving us?
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Appearances of Corporate Benevolence
Now that the listeriosis crisis is still fresh in our memories, the scrutiny on the safety practices are in place and things are being changed. Also, the economic crisis being what it is, encourages a scrutiny on certain corporations and their bookkeeping practices in giving out bonuses while filing for bankruptcy.
But what happened? The meatpacking plant that brought about the listeriosis bacteria had a proper safety procedure on paper which "technically" allowed for someone to raise the alarm if they had a suspicion. The corporations that offered bonuses for a job well done were offered based upon the measuring of performance which looked "technically" decent on paper.
Well it seems that perhaps what the corporations tell themselves or to the public at large does not correspond to the realities of the day to day operations. On the one hand, the meatpacking plant says "safety first" but during the work hour, the employee is rewarded in going quicker than before to prove he is productive which automatically means that safety is sacrificed. The employee focuses on what is measurable: like his speed to produce and ignores the safety concerns that would slow him down. This is how he gets his promotion, this is what he is encouraged to do by his direct supervisors who also have to answer their higher ups with statistics of good performance. One can almost hear a naive employee say to his supervisor: "But head office or our training video says to take this extra step to ensure proper safety." To which the supervisor answers the employee: "I don't care what the training video or head office says, they don't deal with day to day operations, do it the quick way and things will be fine."
This mentality is also seen when statistics demonstrate that corporate bosses have done well enough to deserve a bonus the very day the corporation is declaring for bankruptcy. One thing is easily measured and this is where the lowly employee all the way up to the corporate boss excel in getting their promotion or their bonus and then there is the reality. The listeriosis tragedy did occur and the corporation has gone bankrupt. Although we have scrutiny today, the lessons will be forgotten and we will continue to base our performance more on reaction speed than on proper thinking or proper precautions.
This reminds me of the car manufacturer who judges whether or not they should recall a defective car part by statistics of how many would get injured and how much they could sue the company versus the cost of recalling all the defective parts. If the cost of suing the car manufacturer is 2 million and it would cost 3 million to recall the defective parts that would cause accidents.... well the car manufacturer ignores the recall and believes that they just saved 1 million dollars. Yet this same car manufacturer has brochures that indicates that the safety of their parts are of paramount importance.
How can we trust the benevolence of any corporation whose primary focus is on an artificially created resource we call money? How can we trust a corporation that rewards each of its employees to focus on productivity which is easily measured while ignoring its own corporate vision of proper ethical practices? We all work in places like these, the proof is in the news. Yesterday it was company X, today its company Y, tommorrow it may be the company where you work at.... but they all suffer the same problem and no one is willing to truly fix the problem, only put a bandaid to give the appearance of healing.
Can the bandaid stop a stomach ache? Yet that is how we attempt to solve our economic crisis: You have a headache? Put this bandaid on your forehead. You are bleeding on your elbow? Take this aspirin. In the meantime, true doctors in society are still unrecognized and still attempt to give the proper diagnosis despite their lack of time to do so.
Oh and note how I do not blame any one particular company or any specific individual. I believe the problem is systemic as well as individual responsibility.... but too often we point the finger at one specific person or corporation and turn it into a scapegoat while the other individuals or other corporations who do the exact same practice hide in the shadows and pretend that they are innocent. So the news already has the names of corporations or individuals that you can sneer at, I don't need to add more fuel to the fire of sneering. I wish we would do less snearing and more soul-searching/thinking to actually attempt at transforming our flawed system into something better. But then again, our employers won't give us the time to actually think about solutions. So the citizen who practices democracy is transformed into the employee who produces and the consumer who consumes.... who needs to think under those circumstances?
But what happened? The meatpacking plant that brought about the listeriosis bacteria had a proper safety procedure on paper which "technically" allowed for someone to raise the alarm if they had a suspicion. The corporations that offered bonuses for a job well done were offered based upon the measuring of performance which looked "technically" decent on paper.
Well it seems that perhaps what the corporations tell themselves or to the public at large does not correspond to the realities of the day to day operations. On the one hand, the meatpacking plant says "safety first" but during the work hour, the employee is rewarded in going quicker than before to prove he is productive which automatically means that safety is sacrificed. The employee focuses on what is measurable: like his speed to produce and ignores the safety concerns that would slow him down. This is how he gets his promotion, this is what he is encouraged to do by his direct supervisors who also have to answer their higher ups with statistics of good performance. One can almost hear a naive employee say to his supervisor: "But head office or our training video says to take this extra step to ensure proper safety." To which the supervisor answers the employee: "I don't care what the training video or head office says, they don't deal with day to day operations, do it the quick way and things will be fine."
This mentality is also seen when statistics demonstrate that corporate bosses have done well enough to deserve a bonus the very day the corporation is declaring for bankruptcy. One thing is easily measured and this is where the lowly employee all the way up to the corporate boss excel in getting their promotion or their bonus and then there is the reality. The listeriosis tragedy did occur and the corporation has gone bankrupt. Although we have scrutiny today, the lessons will be forgotten and we will continue to base our performance more on reaction speed than on proper thinking or proper precautions.
This reminds me of the car manufacturer who judges whether or not they should recall a defective car part by statistics of how many would get injured and how much they could sue the company versus the cost of recalling all the defective parts. If the cost of suing the car manufacturer is 2 million and it would cost 3 million to recall the defective parts that would cause accidents.... well the car manufacturer ignores the recall and believes that they just saved 1 million dollars. Yet this same car manufacturer has brochures that indicates that the safety of their parts are of paramount importance.
How can we trust the benevolence of any corporation whose primary focus is on an artificially created resource we call money? How can we trust a corporation that rewards each of its employees to focus on productivity which is easily measured while ignoring its own corporate vision of proper ethical practices? We all work in places like these, the proof is in the news. Yesterday it was company X, today its company Y, tommorrow it may be the company where you work at.... but they all suffer the same problem and no one is willing to truly fix the problem, only put a bandaid to give the appearance of healing.
Can the bandaid stop a stomach ache? Yet that is how we attempt to solve our economic crisis: You have a headache? Put this bandaid on your forehead. You are bleeding on your elbow? Take this aspirin. In the meantime, true doctors in society are still unrecognized and still attempt to give the proper diagnosis despite their lack of time to do so.
Oh and note how I do not blame any one particular company or any specific individual. I believe the problem is systemic as well as individual responsibility.... but too often we point the finger at one specific person or corporation and turn it into a scapegoat while the other individuals or other corporations who do the exact same practice hide in the shadows and pretend that they are innocent. So the news already has the names of corporations or individuals that you can sneer at, I don't need to add more fuel to the fire of sneering. I wish we would do less snearing and more soul-searching/thinking to actually attempt at transforming our flawed system into something better. But then again, our employers won't give us the time to actually think about solutions. So the citizen who practices democracy is transformed into the employee who produces and the consumer who consumes.... who needs to think under those circumstances?
Friday, March 20, 2009
Sad Irony
You spend years telling your housemates that the metaphorical house is not built to withstand earthquakes. For years, you are ridiculed and left to fend for yourself because you are a "doom and gloom" sayer. Then the earthquake strikes. Many parts of this house fall apart. Yesterday's experts who ignored completely what you said are now using the identical words you used in previous years to say that the house is not built properly to withstand earthquakes.
What is happening after the earthquake is the attempt to place blame on someone, so for every room that has collapsed we attempt to find the carpenter who worked on that particular room and expect him to fix it to earthquake proof standards and we scrutinize his very tools and his methodology. When the carpenter takes his 3 day long lunch break (which he always took before the earthquake struck), the experts who were responsible for allowing this 3 day long break to happen in the first place begin pulling their hair and are ready to lynch this particular carpenter. Other unrelated carpenters wisely hide in the woodwork so as to not be the next targets of lynch mobs. What the mobs don't seem to know is that they are being guided by the same experts who allowed this disaster to happen. The experts received money from the carpenters to pronounce publicly that the house was safe, the experts negotiated contracts that allowed the carpenters to have 3 day long lunch breaks.... Its only after the earthquake hit the house did the experts smoothly became the housemate's best defender against the carpenter.... after all the experts don't want to be targetedby the mob so they concentrate on assigning blame on the carpenter who was unlucky enough to have worked on the collapsed room.
So here we have it, our economy has gone poof, the unlucky corporations/industrialists who were following the accepted procedures of how our society is run are now being grilled by our politicians who never did anything about this economy until after it went poof. The politicians are trying to take responsibility now and are seeking someone to blame for this disaster. Are things going to change for the better? Here is what will happen, the rooms which have collapsed will be rebuilt using earthquake proof methods, the carpenters who have been unlucky enough to be behind these rooms will be forced to reduce their 3 day lunch breaks to a mere 6 hour lunch break. Other carpenters who were lucky enough not to be in the spotlight will volunteer to fix up their assigned rooms to make it more earthquake proof but in reality it will be mere cosmetic changes. The experts will then be bought off as before to say that the house is now earthquake proof. In the end, the house will be in worse shape and everyone will congratulate themselves at having averted the last disaster and prevented the next one..... until the next earthquake strikes.
What happens to the people who warned everyone that the house was not earthquake proof in the first place before the disaster struck? Well they are still ignored as doom and gloom sayers even though once again history has proven them correct. They will only be accepted as experts if they accept to be bought off and say that the Emperor is wearing the latest fashion. Seems like the Emperor is still naked after all of this. When do we truly change our carpenters and experts and replace them with hard-workers and wise individuals? Why are we still accepting lazy rich people as our CEOs who would get fired after the second week of a real job for being lazy? Why are we still accepting politicians who before the earthquake, said that everything was built properly and then poof after the house collapses they act as if they are outraged at having been duped.... yet decide to let the same people dupe them again?
Sad irony, the house will receive some overhaul but in the end will still not be earthquake proof because to truly do that we would have to rebuild it from scratch and no one is ready to do that. And the solution offered is still to try to get the citizenry to become avid consumers to restart the economy which is exactly what brought us to where we are today..... Sad irony.
So here we have it, our economy has gone poof, the unlucky corporations/industrialists who were following the accepted procedures of how our society is run are now being grilled by our politicians who never did anything about this economy until after it went poof. The politicians are trying to take responsibility now and are seeking someone to blame for this disaster. Are things going to change for the better? Here is what will happen, the rooms which have collapsed will be rebuilt using earthquake proof methods, the carpenters who have been unlucky enough to be behind these rooms will be forced to reduce their 3 day lunch breaks to a mere 6 hour lunch break. Other carpenters who were lucky enough not to be in the spotlight will volunteer to fix up their assigned rooms to make it more earthquake proof but in reality it will be mere cosmetic changes. The experts will then be bought off as before to say that the house is now earthquake proof. In the end, the house will be in worse shape and everyone will congratulate themselves at having averted the last disaster and prevented the next one..... until the next earthquake strikes.
What happens to the people who warned everyone that the house was not earthquake proof in the first place before the disaster struck? Well they are still ignored as doom and gloom sayers even though once again history has proven them correct. They will only be accepted as experts if they accept to be bought off and say that the Emperor is wearing the latest fashion. Seems like the Emperor is still naked after all of this. When do we truly change our carpenters and experts and replace them with hard-workers and wise individuals? Why are we still accepting lazy rich people as our CEOs who would get fired after the second week of a real job for being lazy? Why are we still accepting politicians who before the earthquake, said that everything was built properly and then poof after the house collapses they act as if they are outraged at having been duped.... yet decide to let the same people dupe them again?
Sad irony, the house will receive some overhaul but in the end will still not be earthquake proof because to truly do that we would have to rebuild it from scratch and no one is ready to do that. And the solution offered is still to try to get the citizenry to become avid consumers to restart the economy which is exactly what brought us to where we are today..... Sad irony.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Why the rich get richer.
There is a common saying: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life." This is a saying that gives comfort to the rich as they convince themselves of their benevolence to the poor who are ignorant. It justifies the action of not giving the poor what they need but rather making the poor jump through more hoops to get their daily bread (or fish).
What this saying neglects to mention is that while you are teaching the man how to fish, he is already starving and needs the fish NOW so then he can concentrate on the lessons. It also neglects to mention how the "teacher" loans him fish until the lessons are over to keep the student alive enough to finish the lessons.... and then the "teacher" gives the student the bill (the price for having learned such an invaluable lesson and also to pay back the loan while the student was learning how to feed himself for life).... the price is fair, for every 4 fish caught, one goes to the "teacher"....
With this scenario, the "teacher" just needs to teach 3 people how to fish and he never has to fish again and can now spend time on other pursuits.... hence he spends his free time to acquire more fish without having to fish for himself and he can then pay for bodyguards with fish to protect himself when the students wise up to the con and decide to "renegotiate" this "deal".
Of course, if you go far back in time, you discover that the student's ancestors knew how to fish but were prevented from teaching their children how to fish because the "teacher's" ancestors made a clever-sounding proposal that conned those ancestors and took advantage of them back then.... (but then again this blog is not about 3rd world history so we won't go and explore what that particular deal may have been about).... suffice it to say, the poor is not learning to fish free of charge, and he is not given fish while he learns how to fish for himself, everything is a loan to make the individual independent..... except for the fact that he is now indentured to his teacher for life.
There is a common riddle or choice given to test one's wisdom: You have a choice of receiving a one time gift of ten thousand dollars to do with what you want with it, or you can receive a penny on the first day of the month and each succeeding day of the month you get double of what you received on the previous day until the end of the month. How do you choose? If you are shrewd, you will take the penny which doubles each day of the month so that by day #21, you have received over ten thousand dollars for that day (without counting everything else that you have accumulated during the previous days). With a standard 30 day month you receive on the last day: over 5 million dollars.
Now the rich congratulate themselves again because they consider themselves generous for offering this "gift" to the poor.... so that when the poor chooses the immediate 10 thousand dollars, the rich can then say that the poor "chose" to be poor and that the rich gave them a fair shot. If you are poor and have no money, can you wait 10 days before you can afford to buy one loaf of bread for the day? Well the rich who proposed this choice know that you can't and they scoff at the poor for choosing the "wrong" choice because if they were given the choice, they would take the penny on day one and allow it to double..... They already have food in their kitchen, so they can afford to wait 21 days before seeing the results of their wise choice.....
The irony in all of this? Well the rich are given this choice by our governments to help jumpstart our economy whenever the economy is in a crisis.... Look at how we are "solving" the current economic crisis.... Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has the right idea, we should give the money to the poor who are about to lose their houses so that they can repay their debts to the banks and that way the banks regain what they lost..... the wise solution. Instead, we want to reward the rich who stole from the collectivity, who conned the majority by giving them more money so that they can con and steal from more of us.....
And that is why the rich get richer, we don't learn from our losses.... "Fool me once, shame on you.... Fool me twice, shame on me."..... Well we definitely should SHAME ourselves for giving the tools to thieves and liars..... AGAIN.
What this saying neglects to mention is that while you are teaching the man how to fish, he is already starving and needs the fish NOW so then he can concentrate on the lessons. It also neglects to mention how the "teacher" loans him fish until the lessons are over to keep the student alive enough to finish the lessons.... and then the "teacher" gives the student the bill (the price for having learned such an invaluable lesson and also to pay back the loan while the student was learning how to feed himself for life).... the price is fair, for every 4 fish caught, one goes to the "teacher"....
With this scenario, the "teacher" just needs to teach 3 people how to fish and he never has to fish again and can now spend time on other pursuits.... hence he spends his free time to acquire more fish without having to fish for himself and he can then pay for bodyguards with fish to protect himself when the students wise up to the con and decide to "renegotiate" this "deal".
Of course, if you go far back in time, you discover that the student's ancestors knew how to fish but were prevented from teaching their children how to fish because the "teacher's" ancestors made a clever-sounding proposal that conned those ancestors and took advantage of them back then.... (but then again this blog is not about 3rd world history so we won't go and explore what that particular deal may have been about).... suffice it to say, the poor is not learning to fish free of charge, and he is not given fish while he learns how to fish for himself, everything is a loan to make the individual independent..... except for the fact that he is now indentured to his teacher for life.
There is a common riddle or choice given to test one's wisdom: You have a choice of receiving a one time gift of ten thousand dollars to do with what you want with it, or you can receive a penny on the first day of the month and each succeeding day of the month you get double of what you received on the previous day until the end of the month. How do you choose? If you are shrewd, you will take the penny which doubles each day of the month so that by day #21, you have received over ten thousand dollars for that day (without counting everything else that you have accumulated during the previous days). With a standard 30 day month you receive on the last day: over 5 million dollars.
Now the rich congratulate themselves again because they consider themselves generous for offering this "gift" to the poor.... so that when the poor chooses the immediate 10 thousand dollars, the rich can then say that the poor "chose" to be poor and that the rich gave them a fair shot. If you are poor and have no money, can you wait 10 days before you can afford to buy one loaf of bread for the day? Well the rich who proposed this choice know that you can't and they scoff at the poor for choosing the "wrong" choice because if they were given the choice, they would take the penny on day one and allow it to double..... They already have food in their kitchen, so they can afford to wait 21 days before seeing the results of their wise choice.....
The irony in all of this? Well the rich are given this choice by our governments to help jumpstart our economy whenever the economy is in a crisis.... Look at how we are "solving" the current economic crisis.... Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has the right idea, we should give the money to the poor who are about to lose their houses so that they can repay their debts to the banks and that way the banks regain what they lost..... the wise solution. Instead, we want to reward the rich who stole from the collectivity, who conned the majority by giving them more money so that they can con and steal from more of us.....
And that is why the rich get richer, we don't learn from our losses.... "Fool me once, shame on you.... Fool me twice, shame on me."..... Well we definitely should SHAME ourselves for giving the tools to thieves and liars..... AGAIN.
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