Wednesday 10 December 2014

Defeat the seven headed beast


The seven headed beast seems to be a universal image, appearing in different cultures. It is mentioned in Saint-John's Book of Revelation, but also in eastern mythology. It is a nice metaphor for the economic crisis that we don't seem to be able to defeat and that we have in common with the countries in the East.

1) The first head stands for the psychological aspects of the crisis. The crisis destroyed confidence and created anxiety. Individual anxiety created mass anxiety and mass anxiety created individual anxiety. Anxiety created hyperactivity and Beschleunigung. Hyperactivity and Beschleunigung created anxiety.

2) The second head stands for the moral aspects of the crisis. Hubris and greed pushed the world into this crisis. Generosity needs to take us out again. The economic crisis is also a moral crisis, a crisis of good and evil.

3) The third head stands for the financial-monetary aspects of the crisis. There is the stability of the banks and the stability of the currency. Some European politicians claim we have already beheaded this third head.

4) The fourth head stands for the socio-economic aspects of the crisis. The increased poverty. The insurrection of the middle classes. The Keynesian question: should we inject money in the economy (De Grauwe) or should we promote austerity (Merkel)?

5) The fifth head stands for the political aspects of the crisis. How do we master government debt? How fair is our taxation? How do we deal with migration in times of crisis? What to do when jobs and capital want to leave the country and poor people want to enter the country?

6) The sixth head stands for the technological aspects of the crisis. The technicity and lack of transparancy that created the crisis. The increased complexity of technology that makes investment cost and investment return unpredictable. Even qualified manpower feels helpless in the daily battle of complexity. The loss of control in management.

7) The seventh head stands for the geo-political aspects of the crisis. The depletion of raw materials and agriculture soil. Ecology and mobility, The globalisation and the clash of civilisations.

It is never sufficient to cut off one head of the beast. If you leave one head untouched, this head will be your death.

So it is clear that this requires a collective effort. Let me know what would be your preferred head to cut off. But remember it is not always the knight who wins. Sometimes the dragon wins.

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Europe: quo vadis - where are you going?

In the nineties, everybody was enthusiastic about Europe. A lot of things were changing. We witnessed the unification of West and East Europe. We saw the introduction of a European standard for mobile phones. We got a free trade market, free and guaranteed competition between European companies, and the introduction of a single European currency, the Euro. New member states arrived and poor regions received European support.

Now, twenty years later, we don’t perceive a lot of things moving. The mobile phone roaming tariffs are going down – but very gradually. Behind the scenes, product regulation and harmonisation is still taking place, but most people don’t notice. Europe is now imposing austerity measures on the member states, and this causes nothing but pain. Europe still invests in R&D, but the budgets are very fragmented. Large investments in infrastructure are staying behind, even if you would be able to prove the long term benefits (e.g. reduced traffic jams). You can say that Europe has done a lot of things at the economic side, but the process is slowing down because the economy is paralysed.

At the social side, not so much has happened, at least in my perception. Social security, health insurance, unemployment allowance, child allowance, pension schemes, etc… are still national matters. As a consequence, you still have to change health care insurance and child allowance fund every time you start working in a different country. It is still an administrative burden. You have no idea what your pension will be if you have worked in more than one member state. I had hoped for more progress in these areas. The reason why this is so complicated, is clear: the member states still want to keep control over the money they spend. Each member state continues with its own taxation scheme and as a result, we still have huge taxation differences between member states. Strangely enough, no European politician considers this as a barrier to free competition.

The European delegates (Commission, Council, Parliament) are still determined by the national member states, so that only national interests are protected. If it continues like this, the European construction will fail. The first cracks in the building are already visible.

I also refer to "In Europe".

Picture from Rostislav Glinsky / Shutterstock.com

Tuesday 7 October 2014

SETI - Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence

Who remembers the wonderful series "Cosmos", presented by astronomer Carl Sagan in the early '80s? It was a wonderful series of documentaries about the universe and its origins. The series was important in my life because it rose my interest in science and technology and it changed my view on life in many ways. Carl Sagan was a team member of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence task force initiated by Frank Drake and he devoted one episode to the work in the SETI laboratories.

Frank Drake became famous with his equation, in which he tried to estimate the number of "intelligent" civilisations in the universe. An intelligent civilisation would be a form of life that would be creative and curious enough to develop the technology to explore the universe and see whether other intelligent civilisations exist. The equation starts from the total number of stars, derives the stars with planets, derives the planets with the right conditions,etc. He came to the conclusion that the total number of intelligent civilisations in the universe was actually quite high, but that the different civilisations would live on average very remotely from each other. 

Drake also started to work on a radio ground station (Arecibo) that could send messages into the universe and that could listen to signals from other stars that may contain an "intelligent" message.

Well after 40 years, the SETI work is not over yet. National Geographic reported in its July edition on the latest evolutions. The good news is that recent astronomy research revealed that there are actually much more suited planets than Drake conservatively estimated years ago. Moreover, recent biology research revealed that life can occur and flourish in much more severe conditions and on a much broader range of planets  than we anticipated 40 years ago. The search for complex molecules on Mars and Jupiter's moons continues. Frank Drake, now 84, is still active (admirable) and would like to look for optical signals to pursue his quest for signs of extra-terrestrial life. 

It is a fascinating thought but seen the distances, it remains unlikely we will receive a visit soon, let alone make a visit. On the other hand, every encounter of two civilations has always led to the destruction of the civilation being visited and to the success of the visiting civilisation. In other words, if we go there, it could happen we destroy another civilisation. If we are found here on Earth by another civilisation, we are likely to end up like the Indians after they had been found in Amerika in the 16th century. I refer to earlier blogs like Biosphere 2 and Guns, Germs and Steel.

Monday 8 September 2014

Mir hunn e neie Feierwon


The word Feier-won literally means Fire-Wagon or Chariot of Fire in Luxembourgish. It stands for the first steam locomotive, which was really a Chariot of Fire from the perspective of the people who saw it for the first time. The Feierwon became the title of a song written by Michel Lentz at the occasion of the opening of the Luxembourgish railway station in 1859. The same song also carried the famous sentence "Mir wölle bleiwe wat mir sinn" (We want to stay what we are) in its refrain.

De Feierwon was also a symbol of the heavy steal industry in the south in the so-called Minette region of Luxembourg. It was an important industrial era for Luxembourg. But like in similar regions outside of Luxembourg like Wallonia and the Saar area, the steal industry declined and Luxembourg had to reconvert its economy to other sources of income.

Thanks to a good cooperation between political and economic actors, this succeeded very well. Banking came up and now audio-visual and satellite industry are the activities in which Luxembourg shows its strengths. It proves you don't need to be a large country to be successful. Efficient decision making is more important.

When SES had launched its first satellite, back in 1988, the prince-héritier, now Grand Duke said: "Mir hunn e neie Feierwon!" - We have a new chariot of fire. He made the perfect hit: a seamless link between the old steal industry and the new technology era. At the same time, the image is extremely well-chosen: a satellite launched by a rocket is literally a chariot of fire, certainly no less than a steam engine and probably resembling the very first "chariot of fire" on which the prophet Elia left his earthly existence according to the Old Testament.

You may say that this is nice but economic success remains of course dependent on good financial results. True, but the history of the satellite industry shows that at critical moments, people also needed some kind of belief, a willingness to do the unlikely or the impossible. A good economic vision can be supported by an engagement built on cultural convictions. It determines the identity of a country or a region.

I refer to my earlier blog Luxembourg and Economics of Good and Evil. Picture: Bocman1973 / Shutterstock.com

Sunday 31 August 2014

You are your time


Time has become an extremely valuable good. In this time of "Beschleunigung" - acceleration, we have to spend our time in a responsible way and we may have to justify our time use to our boss, our family members and to ourselves.

What we spend our time on, will be highly dependent on our identity, including our hierarchy of values. We may spend time to our job, to our partner and our children, to our hobby or to contemplation. But we may also lose time in traffic, or lose time on the internet reading and writing a lot of Facebook idleness.

Our identity determines our time use. We have to be aware, however, that the opposite is also true: our time use determines our identity. Therefore, an important question is: does my time use reflect my identity, does it reflect the person I want to be? If not, I am actually a slave and should be doing something else.

Most people complain they spend too much time at work and on the Internet in general and not enough to family. I rarely hear people say they spend too much time with their children. I also rarely hear people say they don't spend enough time on Facebook. In general, we tend to do too much activities that keep the mind restless and the body inactive. We don't spend enough time on children, parents and neighbours, activities that keep the body active and appease the mind.

It means we do not truly master our time, we have become the slave of time consuming addictions. Internet addiction has become a real threat for education. It is an addiction comparable to alcohol or tobacco addiction. This addiction is not totally new; television addiction is a problem reported already 40 years ago. But the level of interactivity and instant rewarding (likes) of the Internet brings the information addiction to the next level. The challenge in educating the next generation is to learn the children to master their time. We can only do this if we master our time ourselves. So let me stop here and spend some time with the children...

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Belief creates the actual fact


Being convinced that something is achievable, makes it achievable. This is obvious in many cases. If you know something is achievable, you will doubt less, take more risks and go straight to the target. This is true in many types of progress, be it in personal performance or in group performance, in sports or in music, in technical innovation or in entering new markets.

But we could also revert the sentence: the actual fact creates belief. In many cases, we have belief because there is already some evidence that the goal is being achieved. Very often cause and consequence can't be clearly distinguished. They just reinforce each other.

There are goals that seem very difficult to achieve. Things like real human progress: "no more war", friendship and tolerance. Let us call it "peace". Can belief create peace? Yes, but this belief is very difficult. In that case, we can start with faith. In my language (Dutch) there is only one word for belief and faith: "geloof". This is a pity, because faith is not the same as belief. Faith is rather a combination of willingness to believe, loyalty and trust. But this Dutch ambiguity now leads me to the question if faith can create peace? Can faith create belief?

Well, it can't be proven scientifically. Historically, we can't demonstrate any real progress. In two thousand years time, we have moved as far as an asthmatic ant with a heavy load of shopping. Do we want to believe in peace? Yes, we want to believe and we should believe but at this point in time, it seems to remain a matter of faith.

Tuesday 8 July 2014

Beschleunigung

Beschleunigung ("Acceleration") is a book written by German sociologist Hartmut Rosa. The subject is the pace of change in society.

The fisherman's story sets the scene very well. A lonely fisherman enjoys his fishing along the seaside. When an entrepreneur comes by, and tells him he could catch much more by investing in a new net, a new boat, etc... the fun is over. The fisherman asks the entrepreneur why he should change the way he fishes. Obviously: to become richer... Indeed, but what is the advantage of that? Well, you don't have to work anymore and you could spend your entire day doing what you like: fishing. Well, that is exactly what I'm doing already, says the fisherman. We all know the fisherman will now be condemned to change.

We all feel like the fisherman from time to time, we don't realise we chase the other fishermen as if we were entrepreneurs. Society is increasingly turning into a "maelstrom". "Fluids" and "turbulence" are the physical metaphors  for our accelerating society. The author believes this increased speed is not just to be understood as "more of the same in less time". He believes the "Beschleunigung" radically changed society.

He points out that acceleration manifests itself in different ways. There is the technical acceleration, well known as the multiplication of scientific and technical breakthroughs. There is the increased neurotic pace of daily life. And finally there is the increased rate at which we change our social environment: our work, our suppliers, our associations, and even our "life" mates. The author believes we have come to a point that these three accelerations are even reinforcing each other.

Hartmut Rosa reveals some underlying motives. The changing environment encourages us to keep all options open and we have become afraid of missing opportunities. On top of that, our uncertainty forces us to take nothing for granted. We have to justify what we are doing with our time and the pressure has become totalitarian.

Like always, there are paradoxes. The increased "turbulence" (my own metaphor) also leads to a new "steady-state" , even "status-quo". More and more, we have the feeling nothing "really" changes. For many  people, this lack of orientation and meaning is problematic.

It goes without saying that "Beschleunigung" is just one, interesting way to characterise "our time". There may be other ways to interpret the current evolution. Whatever the interpretation is, steadfastness and resilience in the pursuit of a meaningful life seem to be key qualities to survive well in the accelerating society.

I refer to my earlier blogs: "Lifestyle", "Time and energy in households" and "Status anxiety".

Monday 23 June 2014

Sustainability engineering


Sustainability is not only a political issue, it is also a scientific and technical one. Sustainability engineering is an upcoming discipline. Generating renewable energy by means of solar cells and windmills is one important topic. Active and passive heating of houses is another one. Furthermore we need water production, economic use, treatment and recuperation. Waste minimisation and handling is also a key topic.

Sustainability engineering requires multidisciplinary knowledge and skills. Chemical and biochemical engineering, materials science, civil engineering, agricultural engineering, electrical engineering, meteorology, etc. I already expressed my belief in the possibilities of interdisciplinary research and development.

The R&D will cost a lot of money but there will be a good return on investment. I'm glad my country is working on the Princess Elisabeth Station in Antarctica to create a sustainable station. In such remote places, it is very useful to build semi-autonomous facilities, so that you are not dependent on a permanent provision of fuel in your station. This makes economic and ecologic sense. Moreover, the experience with the Antarctic station will lead to innovation, to new products and services that can be offered on the market by the participating companies.

And yet the reason why we should deploy an Antarctic station needs to be seen larger than economy and ecology alone. We even need to see this research as a long term survival necessity. Suppose a man-made or natural disaster creates a severe unbalance in the composition of the earth's atmosphere. According to scientists, this is not so unlikely. We have to be aware there is simply no emergency exit here. We need to build semi-autonomous and autonomous life systems that will give our children a chance of survival when it goes wrong with the earth's atmosphere. We don't have to consider space travel if we are not even capable of building semi-autonomous facilities on earth. And we have to start now to be ready when it is really needed.

I also refer to earlier articles such as: "Durban", "Heat" and "Biosphere 2". The Biosphere 2 experiment received a bad press, but I'm convinced our descendants will consider it to be one of the most important experiments of the past century.

The picture is from the International Polar Foundation.


Monday 12 May 2014

Insurrection of the middle classes?

Everywhere in Europe, the opposition parties seem to win the elections, until ... they join the government. Nowhere in Europe, the people seem satisfied with politics. Why is that?

The key is the middle class. Middle class can be independent merchants, small entrepreneurs, but also highly qualified employees in private or public service. The traditional paradigm of the middle class is that if you work hard, you improve your situation, you make money, you save, you invest and you make even more money, there may be risk but in the end you discover you end up far better than your parents. This is no longer the case. Why? Because the middle class is no longer in the middle.

Being in the middle means: have access to capital from the 'upper' class and have access to labour from the 'lower' class. Both are problematic today.

A first problem is the access to capital. The interest rates are close to zero but should be negative if they followed the free market. The extreme risk averse behaviour of the capital markets implies that risk capital is difficult to get. The upper class saves (and gets richer) but doesn't invest. The governments keep the banks alive but this costs tax money. The middle class has to pay this.

The second problem is the access to labour. Skilled labour has become rare and expensive. Unskilled labour lives from social allowances. This also costs tax money. The middle class has to pay again.

As a result, the middle class works but doesn't earn. No wonder its dissatisfaction becomes visible in its voting behaviour. The political class neither wants to touch the value of money nor the social allowances. Therefore, even blue governments aren't capable of reducing taxes: on the contrary: taxes will inevitably increase. The middle class will continue suffering. What we need is a systemic reset of the economy. See also the Economics of Good and Evil.

Picture from Shay Yacobinski / Shutterstock.com

Monday 7 April 2014

Poverty: source of all trouble

I am deeply convinced poverty is the source of all man-made trouble. Apart from trouble imposed by nature (disasters), all man-made trouble like war and oppression originally come from poverty, or at least from large income differences. Our new pope was right to turn 'poverty' into the key performance indicator of the Church.

There are different viewpoints on how to deal with poverty. At the political level, there are two approaches:

The 'republican' approach is to emphasise the personal responsibility. Study, work hard, and you will get there. The state is only there to give equal chances. But we all know this doesn't work for everybody and everywhere. We know equal chances are not equal if your parents happen to be poor. In our "equal chances" rat race, one rat starts with new shoes, the other rat starts with a rucksack full of stones. At the end of the race, the winning rat writes a book on how he made it.

The 'democratic' approach is to emphasise the role of the government. The government redistributes wealth and creates social peace. The disadvantage is here the loss of motivation. It is often easier to live from an allowance than to do a decent job. All western societies now struggle with this problem.

Politically, both approaches are needed. You need to encourage hard work by rewarding it and you need to redistribute. The disadvantage of the political solution is that it never works sufficiently. Poverty remains. Moreover, if you happen to be poor, it is your own fault. If you're struck by poverty, you will not only get a bad education, you will also get the contempt of the rich on top. We live in a meritocratic logic. This logic has the advantage for the rich that they don't have to do anything for the poor, no matter whether the state intervenes or not. Therefore, the rich always prefer to maintain meritocracy.

Money is not enough. The key is education. Politics can do a lot to improve education at school. But it is not good at improving education in families. Perhaps the battle against "ghettos" would be a good start. But even then, the political level will never be enough. There is also the moral level.

The rich need to help the poor, not because they are forced by the government, but because it is their moral duty; it is a duty that comes from within, probably out of gratitude to God or to Lady Fortuna. In Islam, this is the moral obligation of the zakat. In christian tradition, poverty can even be a virtue, something we choose consciously, not an inflicted fate. Soberness and simplicity are a start. Let us follow these islamic and christian rules and virtues. It is also good for the environment.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

The style is the entire human being


Recognition doesn't come by itself. We work hard and like to show our achievements. Generally people are recognised because of what they know and because of what they do. Truth en goodness are the invisible gold we chase. However, in this time of efficiency, one component is often forgotten: beauty. It is not only important what we say and what we do; it is equally important how we do it.

A nice story not only requires a good plot and a good structure, it is also requires a good storyteller and a good format. The shape and the style is also important. Style is the little extra that we do to please our fellow human being with the things we make and do. Style appears in our Culture with capital C: the great arts like architecture, painting, sculptures, etc... The ancient Greek had a Dorian and an Ionian building style. But style also appears in our culture with small c: the daily lifestyle: clothing, dining, writing letters and blogs on the Internet.

Looking at 'style' today and comparing with ancient times, one could ask the question what happened to style? It seems like impossible to recognise a contemporary style, whether it is style in the great arts or style in the daily life. In today's society, there doesn't seem to be a common denominator anymore. The only thing we could say is that style is no longer a collective item. Style is no longer the characteristic of a society; it has become the most individual property. Style is now 100% determined by the individual. We live in a society without style, yet full of styleful people. And perhaps that is then our 'contemporary' style.

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Traditions

Traditions are an important element of our culture and our identity. Our traditions are a little bit at risk in this time of business and busy-ness; they don't seem to fit well in this age where time is more important than beauty.

And yet, I think traditions will become even more important than they already were. First, they have the potential to unite people from very different background in the same local culture. They can play an important role in the integration of newcomers in our local society. Secondly, they are the best antidote against modern diseases like loneliness, burnout and depression.

Luxembourg, a country that needs to integrate a lot of newcomers, is a smart country. I was very happy to see that Luxembourg keeps many of its traditions alive (liichten, buergbrennen, klibberen, etc..). Here is my first video on this blog: the burning of the 'jackstraw' (Stréimänchen) in the town of Remich on the Mosel bridge.

See my earlier blog on lifestyle


Monday 27 January 2014

Senatores boni viri, senatus autem mala bestia

"Senators are good men, the senate, on the other hand, is an evil beast." This roman wisdom has reached our time through the writings of Cicero. The wisdom indicates there is a difference between how individual people behave (usually kind) and how groups can behave (like a monster). It is an interesting philosophical question why this is the case.

One can indeed often observe a certain "dynamics" in groups, where the interest of the group supersedes anything, even human rights. Even though 'a group' as such should not be able to claim anything more than respect for individual human rights. In meetings, companies or associations, it often happens that the group takes decisions which almost no individual member would ever take.

1) Try to convince a group to do good for external people (that don't belong to the group): it is almost impossible, because a single opponent in the group is sufficient to block your proposal. 2) Try to convince a group to condemn an external person or an external group: it is extremely easy. In the very rare case you have an opponent, he will immediately be considered disloyal to the group. It only takes one disapproving sentence and "mischief is afoot", the entire group will end up inventing the most cruel measure against that person. Because people essentially seek recognition in the group they belong to, groups have a tendency to behave in a very selfish way. And as groups have no 'soul' of their own as individuals have, they can't be held accountable in the same way as individual people can.

There are plenty of examples. Is the main genocide of the 20th century the work of an individual (Hitler) or the work of a group? We like to say the first, but we know it is at least the combination of both. How should you behave as an individual if you happen to live in Germany in 193x? In the Bible, Jesus' death is not really attributed to an individual person. He is first condemned by the Sanhedrin (a group), later the mob (another group) prefers his death over the death of Barrabas. Individual people played their role, but only the group was able to show such a lack of pity.

Are there examples where a group behaves better than individual people? Perhaps social security could be considered a case where a group is more generous than an individual, but you could argue that social security is only the ransom that politicians pay for social peace, and that social security is not really born out of generosity of the contributors (moreover it doesn't 'feel' like that).

What is the implication? That it is always wise to consider the potential cruelties we may be committing on behalf of the groups we belong to. Exaggerated loyalty to the group, combined with an unconscious 'omerta', may lead to complicities we regret later on. I also refer to my earlier blog about bullying.