Low acceptance levels are the bane of societal progress

An experience shared by many is that people in general tend to accept only what they already know or have experience of. A complicating factor is that people want a commonality of knowledge or experience, for this commonality makes them feel safe. They do not want to stand out. People who do, tend to be ostracized. Listen to conversations at dinner tables and even speeches in congresses. One would expect people to dare address the new in those places but only minor deviations are deemed acceptable and these are then only addressed in a facetious way or, as in scientific circles, as a posited reason, phenomenon, or explanation, in other words, as a suggestion or proposition, not as a fact. 

The low acceptance level of people stems from

Cult expert tells how to deflate the Trump balloon and pop his cult into oblivion.

Top psychologist and ‘The Cult Of Trump’ author explores the mindset of MAGA Republican’s blind loyalty to a dangerous autocrat. 

Although I do not agree with what this psychologist says about the brain and so on, I agree with everything this brave man says regarding the Trump cult and the person of Donald Trump who has proven himself to be the most dangerous person on this planet today. 

Trump is destroying the USA in its capacity as rock-solid guard of democracy. If America goes fascist, as Trump and his cronies try to do, all of the world will follow. All of a sudden all wanna-be autocrats, wanna-be dictators, criminals and other low-life feel free to start their journey toward suppression of the freedom of the masses. 

"We need worldwide education on how the mind works." I could not agree more. We also need worldwide education on how ruthless people use the weaknesses of the human mind to make people into obedient zombies who can't think nor perceive anymore. 

You can find how mass manipulation works and the history of mass persuasion here (https://bit.ly/MassManipulationScience) and 

Money for Tavares excessive, or is it?

 Money for Tavares excessive, or is it?

Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Stellantis said “the EV cost burden is 'beyond the limits' for automakers”, in other words, it is impossible to turn Stellantis into an EV company. And yet the Dare Forward 2030 plan asks him to do so with 75 models (sic) and 5 mln car sales/yr. The sacrifice of his happy life to achieve this will be ‘compensated’ for with €220 million if he succeeds. Tavares already earns more than twice as much as the next legacy car CEO in Europe, Diess, i.e. €19 mln versus €8 mln. CEO Zips of BMW got €5.3 million and Kelanius of Mercedes-Benz had to make-do with €5.9 million.

This situation raised quite a few eyebrows in Paris where excessive CEO payments are severely frowned upon and not a few people want to limit them. Fortunately for Tavares, his paymaster is a Dutch holding company. But the question remains. Why? How come? Here’s the straight yet convoluted answer.

Why science, and perhaps everything, is flawed.

Are you aware that mathematicians and physicians and economists and political theorist and countless other scientists say that their science is flawed? It is an amazing observation.

The flaw is that they have taken the human element out of it and then, afterwards, say something is wrong or missing. 

In essence, people invent a statement or rule and although this is actually a premise, they call it 'truth'. The next step is that they develop a whole world of on top of it. 

It happens in religion (theïstic or not), mathematics, statistics, music, politics, in the explanation of societies and economics, physics, investing, the list is long . It cannot be understood without

The real Golden Rule

 

The GOLDEN RULE used to be:

Don't do to others what you don't want to be done to yourself.

or its variant: 

Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.

BUT .....

 

A Nigerian banker once confessed to me:

“Oh, but I do apply the golden rule, too, you know.   

It reads: He who has the gold, makes the rules.”

 

If there are no guns involved, most of business and diplomacy becomes more easily to comprehend.

Amsterdam, May 19, 2021

Charles van der Hoog

philospher of culture

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. 

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

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

New book reveals extraterrestrial reality: When an Alien Speaks to You

A popular report on unusual interviews with a being of extraterrestrial origin whose remarkable views and philosophical insights about Earth, other planets, space travel, space warfare, civilisation, and other lives gave insights and new-found laws about life and living. Includes descriptions of two instruments never heard of before.

Is there something new, i.e. not on the web already?

All of it was new stuff. None of his answers and stories can be found on the web except one. After all was said and done, an unexpected metamessage seemed to emerge that would change our lives for the better if taken up and applied. 

How do they solve problems?  See Goodie #1.

Aspects of the elusive concept of greatness

We know greatness when we see it but find it difficult to define for ourselves. Some people are born with a talent for greatness, others manage to develop it. 

Many presidents of nations and large corporations try to establish a legacy that will make them be remembered as "a great leader". Most of them fail miserably in that particular goal because they have not understood what greatness is and if you do not know what it is, you won't know how to attain to it either.

Louise Brooks and the most imitated hairstyle of modern times

After the Great War (1914-1919) everything changed. All of a sudden, people liberated themselves from the conventions of the pre-war period that had put everybody in a straightjacket of rules and do's and don'ts which had even emprisoned politicians and kings and queens into ways of thinking that were impossible to keep up, yet were considered the only right way. It led to WW I and the fall of the German Empire, the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire, and, eventually, the British Empire. Before the war, fashion was like politics. Thick with mores, centuries old dress habits, unwieldy, unbefitting and not fitting the times of fast travel and industrialisation that were making the new world. One of the things that came forward from centuries of habits was the immensely complex hairdo's for women. There was only one effort to do something about it, and that started in an

On the competition of nations

On the competition of nations  

When civilian leadership lives high morals, it provides military leadership with paths to victory.

When civilian leadership lacks high morals, it tends to be selfish and tends to interfere with military leadership. This leads to weakness and, ultimately, to self-destruction regardless of its military strength.
Greed is the lowest of motives. Greed degrades leadership.

A society with high morals uses its inner strength to obtain economic and political power.
A society with low morals uses its military strength to obtain economic and political power.

No society can obtain strength on economics alone. Social cohesion must be achieved by non-economic means.

From a presentation by dr Charles van der Hoog, Philosopher of Culture, February 27, 2012.

The sources for human manipulation through propaganda and advertising

The sources for human manipulation through propaganda and advertising

(This is one of the texts American party strategists did not want you to read.)

The campaigning of Donald Trump of 2015 until this day is an excellent example of how and why manipulation of people works. What is said here could be said for the Brexit campaign and any campaign including the famous Mitterrand campaign of 1981, La Force Tranquille, but Trump is more visible.

How come Trump could win?
The personality of Donald Trump is explained in the eBook Predicting Donald Trump, Understanding a Stable Genius. It is mandatory reading for anyone that is affected by Trump or has to deal with him, which is almost everybody in the West, these days.
Persuasion know-how for mass communication campaigns (propaganda, public relations, advertising) is a different subject altogether that stands on its own but it is obvious that one needs a certain type of personal identity that is immediately recognisable for a persuasive propaganda campaign to work.
Look at the picture with the airplanes. (You can click it for more detail.) On top, we see an airplane in the background with the text "United States of America". Apparently, this is Airforce One, the private jet of the President of the USA. In the front, we see a crowd listening to, ostensibly, the President of the USA. Note the size of the president in the picture in relation to the airplane, his location and his posture.
Below that we see Donald Trump, posing as a presidential candidate. His airplane is half the size of Airforce One but because he is standing close to it, it looks bigger than Airforce One on the picture. And he is also clearly visible whereas the president was a bit difficult to find.
The next thing to note is the posture. The president, Obama, is using the posture of a lecturer, or a father who reprimands his children. This is good for his image with readers of The New Yorker and other intellectuals but is not going down well, on a subconscious level, with people who are in attendance. They look bored.
Now look at the posture of Donald Trump.  His arms are wide, all-inclusive. It is the well-known universal pose of a father who is inviting his children to come to him for a hug or protection. This

Clash of civilisations leaves politicians confused

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless you also read the two others. But of these, the only trustworthy one is the last (the book of their art).John Ruskin

A civilisation encompasses different cultures but all these cultures use the same basic ideas and technologies. With modern unifying technologies and hypercommunication all civilizatons on this planet tend to converge. In the end, only differences in cultures will be left.
But for the time being we can distinguish the following civilizations:
The Western Civilisation,
The Eastern Civilisation,
The Arabian or Islamitic Civilisation,
The Mid-African Civilisation which is actually a collection of different civilisations but these are too hard to distinguish for Western people so we leave it at that;
A few of prehistoric civilisations that are still alive and can be found in remote areas like the Amazon rainforest and the polar regions in the north.

From this simplified definition we can develop a better understanding of what is going on with immigration and why it bothers the populations of Western Europe so much even though they have had no problems with immigrations in the last five centuries.

The Laws of Invention

The Laws of Invention

It is obvious to anyone who has seen the lack of realism in the policies that politicians put out to stimulate invention, that their policies are not based upon a proper understanding of the phenomenon of invention. Perhaps it is a wise move to start and try to formulate such laws.

For investors trying to find moneymaking inventions and for inventors trying to attract investors there are other laws and rules to consider. As soon as money and business is involved, things become mundane, sordid even, and practical, in other words, one has to cater to the current needs of Mankind and gear oneself to the craziness of Man. This may be the subject of a future blog. This issue is for long-term thinkers and politicians.

Dictators like uniformity, dominators like loyalty

Dictators like uniformity, dominators like loyalty

Understanding Donald Trump Series #05

Dictators and Dominators Series #01

You can always assess whether a government leader is a suppressive controller or simply someone who wants to dominate a variety of people. The latter trait is clearly visible today in the 2017 President Of The United States (of America), the POTUS, Donald Trump.
The dictator, by contrast, likes uniformity for he has given up on loyalty. Obedience to a dictator is not gotten from merit but from fear. Often, it starts with obedience from trust that they all work toward a shared vision of the future. Generally, this includes more freedom ("Free China", "Cuba libre", "Lebensraum", "Liberté, Fraternité, Égalité"), but when that vision has been realized, it continues by enforcing

A note on lingua franca

A note on lingua franca

On the Human Condition Series # 01

The subject of lingua franca is an interesting one as it is the only means by which people can start to understand one-another in order to get some kind of world peace.

The term lingua franca

Lingua franca means ‘free language”. 

A lingua franca is a language that can be used freely by anyone without being considered part of the people, race or area from which the language originates. Using a lingua franca, then, does not reflect one’s race or culture. It simply is a