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Cultura del odio

Un mes ha pasado desde mi último post sobre la tremenda crisis que nos está asolando. En él intenté expresar mi frustración, pesadumbre, enfado y cabreo por las reacciones que estaba viendo a mi alrededor durante las primeras semanas del impacto de la pandemia en Europa. Parece mentira, pero tras este tiempo… me he quedado corto.

Muchas cosas han cambiado desde entonces, y muchas más (espero) cambiarán cuando un nuevo rumbo nos guíe a una nueva normalidad. Y es que yo así lo creo; no vamos a “volver” a como estábamos antes. Entraremos en un nuevo estadio al que llamaremos normal donde cosas clave van a modificar la forma en que nos relacionamos, socializamos, comunicamos y vivimos en una sociedad nueva.

Durante este mes me he dado cuenta de muchas más cosas de las que ya hablaba en mi primer post sobre la pandemia.

Política

Como ya había comentado, la política es la que ha “liado” aún más el problema. Puede que de aquí a unos años se hagan estudios socio-políticos sobre esta etapa y concluyan sobre las mismas premisas: en tiempos de pandemias la ciencia tiene que ser el gestor, no la política. En casos como el que estamos viviendo la política debe pasar a un segundo plano; así de claro y rotundo. No tiene sentido que el gobierno y gestión de una crisis donde los intereses económicos, políticos y derivados sean los que primen cada decisión. Puede que sea una idea utópica, pero en muchos países nos hubiera ido mejor si toda decisión de estado hubiera recaído en la representación de un organismo científico global (al menos europeo si hablamos en esta región) y el gobierno de turno se limitara a la operativa del cumplimiento de esas decisiones. Por lo que he ido observando, muchas decisiones acertadas se hubieran tomado más rápidamente y muchas vidas se hubieran salvado.

Luego está el juego de siempre. La guerra entre gobierno – oposición donde todo vale y se usan victimas, argumentos, falsos bulos y cualquier cosa para lanzarlo al bando contrario sin importar la verdad o las consecuencias. Lo que importa en esa guerra es la ideología de cada bando. Me he dado cuenta que es la “sofisticación” de la guerra tradicional donde, en vez de disparar balas, se disparan consignas sin importar los daños colaterales… ¿es eso la política? ¿o es que se ha degradado a lo largo de los años a tal nivel que ya no se puede encontrar similitudes a lo que fue hace tiempo?

Sociedad

Creo que nadie puede dudar de la dualidad que hemos visto en este tiempo. Por un lado están los que se toman la situación desde un punto de vista racional e intentan sobrellevarlo con información veraz e investigación. Por otro lado están los que utilizan el odio para intentar (no sé para qué motivo) desestabilizar el pensamiento colectivo y difundir sus ideas a través de un odio más propio de algo endémico que racional. Y en esto es lo que me centraba en mi anterior post. Esa gente que, por algún motivo que se me escapa (y puede que sea objetivo de alguna tesis futura), dejan de lado su raciocinio y anteponen su ideología por delante de cualquier cosa. Incluso vidas humanas o la propia ciencia. Y es que hay mucha gente que defendía la gestión de algunos países prominentes de Europa y al cabo de unas pocas semanas se ha visto (empírico) que se han convertido en primeras cabezas de países con más infectados y muertos del mundo.

¿A qué se debe esa corriente? ¿qué es lo que hace que una persona vuelque toda la culpa a la ideología contraria en algo que está por encima de eso? es como culpar a un gobierno por un terremoto o similar… Entiendo y creo que han habido errores en la gestión de muchos países; errores que han provocado muertes. Pero culpar, no por la gestión, si no por la ideología política me parece ciertamente de una falta de conocimiento y sentido común brutal. El odio como vía de transmisión apoyado por medias verdades y bulos en esta sociedad hiper-conectada, donde esta gente encuentra un campo abierto y sin limites.

Creo que esta será una de las grandes crisis que tendremos cuando esto pase: crisis social. Espero que de alguna manera, esa parte de la población haga un examen de conciencia más profundo y no cometa el error de usar ese pensamiento erróneo para dar poder a alguien que se aproveche de esta situación (me temo que así será).

Como decía Jiddu Krishnamurti: “No es saludable estar bien adaptado a una sociedad profundamente enferma“

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Ideología por encima de todo

España necesita mascarillas, respiradores y equipos para los sanitarios. Sin duda. Pero por encima de cualquier cosa, España necesita culpar a unos o a otros y crear opinión… opinión de mierda.

Lo digo así de duro y vehemente porque eso es lo que veo en España desde el comienzo de esta crisis, y cada día más. Una sociedad podrida donde más de uno se esta alegrando por lo que está pasando simplemente porque el gobierno ha gestionado y reaccionado fatal ante la crisis.

¡SEÑORES, HAY GENTE MURIENDO CADA MINUTO! Basta ya de pedir dimisiones, que si Venezuela, que si rojos… Miren a su alrededor. España no lo ha hecho ESPECTACULARMENTE peor ni ESPECTACULARMENTE mejor que cualquier otro país de su entorno. La distinción entre izquierdas y derechas no va a ser útil para separar a los que mejor y peor obraron durante la pandemia cuando esto pase.

Me da asco ver como gente está aprovechando lo que está pasando para reforzar sus ideologías políticas… ¡INCONSCIENTES! Sus ideas no importan NADA. Esto no es cosa de ideologías ni de banderas. Eso no va a curar a personas ni va a hacer que los contagios sigan produciéndose.

La catástrofe de gestión en España (y ojo, en otros países por igual) es por la incompetencia de los dirigentes, por no hacer caso de lo que estaba pasando en otros países y actuar por adelantado, por haber engañado a la gente desde el principio de la crisis, por intentar salvarse ellos antes que a la ciudadanía y no reconocer sus errores. Pero NO POR SER UN GOBIERNO DE IZQUIERDAS O DE DERECHAS. Las cosas serían muy parecidas si fueran de un lado político o del otro (ya se está viendo en países dispares). Llegará el momento de pasar factura a todos estos dirigentes, por supuesto. Pero no sean ingenuos, no sean cortos de miras.

Y luego hay gente que se pregunta por qué España no está en un escalón más alto en el concierto mundial. Pues por cuestiones como esta. Una sociedad de pandereta, dual absolutista de equipos de fútbol: o eres de derechas o de izquierdas, o eres franquista o eres comunista, o eres pro monárquico o republicano… da igual que la gente esté muriéndose y que COVID-19 sea la primera causa de muerte en España a día de hoy. Da igual mientras la ideología vaya por delante… Pues no, basta ya.

Ojalá esta crisis llegue a hacer que esto cambie en la sociedad española de una vez por todas (aunque visto lo visto… seguiremos en las mismas).

Basta ya, yo me bajo aquí…

Fuente: Cuando la ideología es más importante que la vida

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(dis)Information is Power

In 1990 Alvin Toffler (best known for his book Future Shock) wrote a book called “Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century” (Goodreads). In that book, Toffler described three types of power:

  • Force (physical power)
  • Wealth (economic power)
  • Knowledge (the power of information)

Or, as it is better described on his chapter 2: Muscle, Money and Mind.

After the first decade of 21st Century, I would add one more type: Deception.

Since several years back the access to information has become massively fast and easy. One person can access to old and new information in a matter of minutes (or seconds) with one hand. The growth of Internet, information services and social media engineered to connect everyone with everyone helped to share what is happening in one remote part of the World with everyone around the glove in just a few minutes. This is so big that nowadays news agencies and newspapers are way behind of spreading breaking news as they cannot keep up with the pace of how news are shared through Internet. And the true is that today, every person with a mobile or computer with Internet access is a real “news agency”.

In my opinion this is great. Never in history we had such a big megaphone for the people and the opportunity to (a) spread any news which is happening in real time and (b) access to most of human knowledge everywhere.

But as always, every great advance has its drawback. The nature of Internet is to be open and democratic; and although some countries try to block and control it, they will be putting doors to the field. This will give an advantage for some people to spread false information intentionally and hide it with half trues; doing it in a smart way and continuously so false news will easily become true news where even the most prestigious newspapers will print their front page with them.

Fake news are now a fact when a couple of years back no one believed this can be happening. Today a normal person can have a big audience of several thousand people who can read/watch/listen what this person says (think in an average youtuber or blogger who easily can reach these numbers of followers). This is power and as all kind of power can be used wisely or foolishly.

Here is where deception comes out strong. The era of information we are living on is sometimes used to spread hoaxes and frame an illusion to the wide audience that is built to generate some kind of benefit to the ones orchestrating it. We have recent examples with the new populism used with some politicians and successfully achieved their goals: Trump campaign, Brexit and recent VOX campaign in Spain are good examples of it.

This is a very interesting and complex topic: why people are blindly following ideas that, when they are deeply analysed are smoke bombs? What I think about this is that people do not well understand some topics, they build an opinion under their own logic, share this opinion to a wide audience and there are other people who believe them. This make a perfect primordial soup for guiding and manipulate thoughts if someone knows how to build a masterplan for this.

Sometimes can be difficult to scape from these trends. However I believe there are ways not to fall on this; one simple way is to contrast the news with different sources, find the original source and most important COMMON SENSE; even if its definition is changing… But this is a different story for another post.

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Evolution or Utopia?

Another complex topic, another difficult post to write so… again, bear with me if I ramble too much.

We have been told that we are living in the best and most advanced society of what we know so far; and I am partly agree with it. There is no doubt that there have not been a society more advanced in history if we consider our technology, medicine and life expectancy. As for what we know so far, we are lucky to live in a time where we are seeing pinnacle advances almost every day.

And yet we do not believe it. At least not widely as it supposed to be if it is really the case. In fact, there is a hopeless feeling when people talk about how are we evolving in our society and what human race is becoming. There are resounding reasons to feel like this:

  • We are immerse in a social crisis where fundamental values like empathy, common sense and kindness are being supplanted by materialism, envy and corruption.
  • Social isolation has drastically increased in mass societies and hyper communicated; which is a paradox.
  • Generally speaking, in most modern countries have been a turn over within their communities where criminals are being victimised, and victims being criminalised.
  • Populism is a global trend now and people are making important decisions and choosing their leaders following an immediate response without thinking enough the consequences even for the mid term.
  • The geopolitical framework is the most instable of the last 60 years. This is triggering global threats for each new conflict that fires up.

These are some of the reasons (I don’t want to make the post that long) and examples for each there are a lot. Even while I am writing this post I can feel this hopeless feeling but we must always think in a wider perspective of the things. I am more inline with the opinion of some sociologist which is that our global society is starting a period of change; and this is good news because when we speak of change on global society means evolve to a better place.

Don’t take it wrong though. This does not mean it is going to be an easy and effortless. I believe the change we are going to suffer will be one of the biggest, a big leap. But this will cost huge amount of suffering, periods of apparent darkness and several turning points leading us to a better society.

One important role to play in this theatre of change will the technology. We are already immerse on a tech-time but we barely scratched its potential for us to achieve things we still cannot envise yet. The AI is one part of the forthcoming technology advance that will have an important impact in this change; specially the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) which will allow us to recreate human level intelligence completely to help us and it will be the starting point to achieve the long-time dreamed free-job society where human will just live and robots will work to sustain financial, tax and social care needs. It sounds utopian, at least for now, but the pathway for this is closer that we think.

There is a lot to talk about these lines. Right now I am reading a book that talk about this analysing the AI today and the paths it is taking for the future; all from a technology perspective. Once I finish it I would like to make a new post talking about all is discussed there but if you like this topic, I strongly recommend to read Life 3.0: Being human in the age of Artificial Intelligence from Max Tegmark, a Swedish-American physicist and cosmologist from the MIT and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit organization backed by big names such Elon Musk or Stephen Hawking, and whose work has helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.

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Financial Domination

Money is necessary in any today’s society; no matter if you live in the first, second or third world. The concept of money appeared thousands of years ago as an evolution from the ancient exchange goods: they were unsustainable.

In reality, money give us wellness (or it should). All and all money, more than an object, it is a medium or an asset.

The people, including myself, we have an important dissociation with the money: we love it on one side, and hate it on the other. Anyway money itself it is not bad neither good, however it has some big cancers which I will try to explain three of them:

1 – CREDIT

One of the biggest “cancers” today. Financial institutions create this artificial “money” which is totally inflationist. Any bank in the world could create money from nothing, like magic. And they can do it because there is a legal framework that allows them to create that magic.

Here are two examples how this works:

  • In the USA for each real dollar, banks can credit 10 dollars (1×10). If someone put $100 in the account, the bank could give $1,000 as credit ($900 created from nothing and sell as real money).
  • In Europe, for each real euro, banks can credit 100 euros (1×100). If someone put 100€ in the account, the bank could give 10,000€ as credit (9,900€ created from nothing and sell as real money).

As you can see this leads to big problems; big expenses where easily can happen global crisis like in 2007 (the two frameworks above can influence globally in some way or another).

2 – HOSTILITY OF THE ENVIRONMENT

We live in a hostile environment to access money. Someone has created the environment in a way that it is difficult, complicated to access to this valuable good. We have been locked down in this environment to slave us and make us believe to agree to be enslave and to other things that in other circumstances we would not agree to. If you need a lot of money, or you debt it, most likely you became docile like a rush; a very flexible person capable to accept things unacceptable.

This is the spectrum if you enter in the world of work as an employee. But the environment becomes even more hostile if you decide to create your own business. In this case, your government is the one who will punch you with a bunch of bureaucratic barriers so you could not create your company easily.

In any case, governments and financial institutions will constantly record how you exactly use your money (what I call the CCMoney) like a Big Brother. In multiple cases also, governments have limited the movements of money creating laws against this (i.e. not able to pay more than 1,000€ in cash in some European countries). And there are of course the sway of taxes that are created without clear reasons.

3 – HAVE MONEY = LOSE MONEY

Money is the most fickle thing in the world. A lot of entities and bodies operating around the money will try to take it from you. I will explain with an example:

Imagine you have an amount of money.

  • If you decide not to move the money, your bank will charge you for keeping it (maintenance fees).
  • If you decide to widthraw some money, you bank will charge you for it (if you do it from ATM of different bank or similar).
  • If you decide to spend your money, the government will take part of it (as taxes). But also, if this spend is to buy a house or a car, the government will ask you to pay more taxes (yes, you have to pay taxes after you pay taxes).
  • When you get your monthly salary, the government will take part of it (again taxes).
  • If you decide to donate your money, also you need to pay taxes.
  • When you inherit money, you need to pay taxes for that.
  • If you have a company which generates benefits, part of it will go to the government.
  • If you win a price like lotto, you need to give a big chunk to the government.

I understand that taxes are needed to maintain a country and a social wellness. My point is to show the unjustified abuse of what we need to pay to governments and bank gangs. Don’t get fooled; we are living in a system that is not perfect (no matter what we have been told) and it is not sustainable as we saw in 2007. Too much to change for individuals, but at least if we question the system and to ourselves, there is chance to find the path for a better place.

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