The lost sensation of pearls

 

Life is about experiencing sensations.

Now, look at these paintings. Do you feel enchanted, stunned, enraged, baffled by them? I bet you don't. But these paintings were absolutely sensational when they were made. 

I estimate the tsarina you see left is wearing about half a billion in today's euro's worth of diamonds and pearls. The girl to the right seems caught in the act when she donned the most prized possession of her mistress, a set of pearl earrings. 

Pearls were handed down in families for centuries until they lost their value with the arrival of cultivated pearls in 1907. Before that, pearls were more expensive than diamonds. 

Definite proof of the cultural quirk that resulted in Brexit

 

Brexiting. A series on being English. # 13

Here is a short but definite proof of the element in English culture that, inexorably, led to Brexit. 

The British elite Remainers wanted to stay in the EU on the supposition, if not the conviction, that they could mould (AE: mold) the European Union to their liking. The British elite Leavers wanted to leave the EU because they thought changing it to their liking would prove to be impossible. Both the Remainers and the Brexiteers thought they knew better than the Continentals. It is this commonality of rock-solid belief in British superiority that created Brexit.

It is perfectly illustrated by a speech by David Cameron, Prime Minister of Great Britain from May 11, 2010, to July 13, 2016. Remember that David Cameron called the referendum on Brexit which was held on June 23, 2016.

In his speech on November 14^th, 2011, at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in London, David Cameron said:

Essay: The Impossibility of Truth

What is truth? Is there an absolute truth? Does truth exist at all?
Why are there different words for truth, reality and actuality?

Whatever you consider the truth, it has a frail health. It can be distorted, twisted, hidden and even blown away in any which way.

In the last couple of years, the question of what truth is has become a pressing one. The consequences of different views on 'truths' have led to tectonic changes in the political landscape all across the Western hemisphere. In 2016, both in the USA and in UK propaganda campaigns were conducted that, like any hard-hitting propaganda campaign, were based on base emotions, false promises, fantasies presented as facts, and one-liners presented as policy based on truth. Upon close inspection, most of it, if not all of it, was nonsense. But who has the time and who wants to pay the effort and hours to inspect the utterances of politicians more closely? The news media? They have been cast aside as 'fake news' and now all promote some political agenda or another of the owners. The social media? They offer a degree of negativity and uninformed trolling like nobody has ever seen in the history of Man. The end result was that about half of the electorate believed the propaganda campaigns. It was like flipping a coin and this time the coin fell twice on heads for the trolls.

When so many people believe something, however outrageous it may be, it becomes a foundation of policy, news channels and education. And therefore one must understand the mechanisms behind how such new 'truths' can become actual truths.

Tesla, Rothko and the misinterpretation of "Less is More".

My experience has been that people tend to simplify things to a degree that they cannot be understood or solved any more. Contexts and history are left out because they are not visible to the bodily eye.

Especially in politics we see this happen but it happens in many fields.

Mechanisms of obtaining a real and definitive solution are replaced with one-liners and opinions not germane to the problem, without paying much attention to the particulars of the actual problem at hand.

You can make millions with it, even billions, or become president of the USA with it, but it won't solve anything and only complicates matters further because a false solution has been added to the problem which already was full of confusing elements.

On the competition of nations, #02. The basic factor.

The basic factor that determines the power of a nation is the mental condition of its population.

From this we derive the maxim that the mental condition of a population determines its competitive power.

This is a broad, sweeping statement, yet if not heeded, a nation will fail.

The general conception of understanding the world, as offered by news media and many pundits, is

Political science revisited. The basics of mass manipulation.

Political science revisited. The basics of mass manipulation.

(This is the second publication on the science of mass manipultion. The first contained the sources and history and can be found HERE (click).)

In Randy Newman's time, we took politics with irony. Perhaps, everyone has been too naive. The bad guys seem to be getting the upper hand.

My conclusion from perusing the history of despots through the ages, is.

The people who lie with every word, 

make sure they are well heard. 

The people who want to do you in, 

say they are helping you to win.

No doubt, you will know examples of this yourself.

The only safguard we have is this:

In 2000, for a brief moment, the EU got it right

A neat PDF version of this article, complete with literature list and useful references and links, can be downloaded HERE.

The deplorable story of the Lisbon Strategy

or

How the European Union squandered the one chance it had to come to par with the USA, China and Japan in technology

In casual conversation in Europe today, it is popular to talk about the unicorns and the incredible capital gains of early investors in Apple and Alibaba. However, these are stories of other cultures, other continents, made possible by different attitudes to risk than are found in Europe. In The Netherlands, even in Europe, such stories do not exist. 

The Dutch golden age (1575 – 1672) owed its success to entrepreneurs and financiers who were not afraid to take risks and explore the new. I refer to the brilliant book of the historian Simon Schama called The Embarrassment of Riches and an article about the wealth of the Dutch nation, although there are also references to it in Samuel Pepys diary. From the 18^th century onwards, the Dutch culture edged inexorably toward risk avoidance. Even in modern times where technology develops at supersonic speeds, cherry picking in venture capital firms is done much on the basis of 'proven business' and 'minimizing risk', and this is seen as 'sound investment strategy'. But this 'sound' investment strategy is as perilous as it gets, for the end result of the self-indulgent way of investment policies is that Europe is lagging hopelessly behind in bringing its technological and scientific prowess to market, or, in the vernacular of European politics, Europe is missing out on 'valorisation'.  

The creation of technologically advanced behemoths is