Truth and Justice are not found through Alliances

Our opinions are coloured by our alliances and friendships. It is good to be aware of this. Love and hatred follow a sign multiplication rule, which works as follows:

• The friend of my friend is my friend. (++ => +)
• The enemy of my friend is my enemy. (-+ => -)
• The friend of my enemy is my enemy. (+- => -)
• The enemy of my enemy is my friend. (-- => +)

The logic is a very simple survival logic. We do what we think is best for ourselves. We divide the world in two groups: the ones who are good to us and the ones who are bad - anyway. Our opinions are correspondingly influenced by these relationships. We tend to agree with our friends and disagree with our enemies. We see this in national and international politics. And it always leads to polarisation.

In national politics, we see in all countries the great left - right divide. If you belong to the left or to the right, you are very likely to have different opinions on just about everything: immigration, nuclear power, genetic engineering, abortion, gay marriage and environment. Our friends from the same side are always right, our enemies at the other side are always wrong. We also see that each side is very critical to the other side. From the other party, a slight slip of the tongue will not be forgiven, but from the own party members even criminal acts can count on understanding. We saw some examples in Belgian politics recently.

In international politics we saw years ago that Yasser Arafat was supporting Saddam Hoessein because they had a common enemy. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Today we see the United States supporting autocratic fundamentalist regimes, only because they are an ally against other evil forces.

This "rule" also explains why gossip is so tempting. If you talk evil to someone about his enemy, this person will consider you to be a friend, because you seem to be defending his perspective and his interest. In 1930' Germany, you could  make good friends with your countrymen by insulting Jews and you could make dangerous enemies by defending them. In 2015' Belgium, you can now make good friends by warning people against Islamic dangers, even  if they are very unlikely to encounter these in their own residential area.

The problem with the sign multiplication rule described above is that it misleads us. Truth and justice are not found through alliances and friendships and certainly not through prejudice and gossip. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend and the friend of my enemy is not necessarily my enemy. My best friend may have committed a bad crime and my worst enemy may well be his innocent victim. To reach justice, we need to use our conscience, not our relationships.

This is the great message from prophets and philosophers. The Samaritan, the Jew or the Muslim may well be my new good friend anyway and it may be my oldest friend who actually needs to check his conscience. Truth and justice are reached through individual reason and conscience, not through alliances.

See also my blog: mainstream versus democracy.

Africa: something has changed

I still remember the days that Africa was hardly mentioned in the commercial world of satellite and telecommunications operators. This has changed significantly in the last 10-15 years. Africa has become a key continent in commercial business awareness.

Africa is of course a continent with growth perspectives. It is an ideal continent for satellite services. Not every village can be connected with fibre optic or coaxial cables but every village can watch television and surf on the internet using satellite terminals. This bridges the so-called digital divide in the world: poor and/or remote regions also get access to the digital world.

It is good to recognise that our global economy also shows some positive evolutions. More about this on the SES blog:

Explore the potential of the African continent.

Social web addiction

Social web addiction is a real plague. We experience it everywhere, even at work meetings. Some people start surfing on the social web as soon as they see the chance. They don't look up if you talk to them. You need to send them an e-mail or a chat sentence for them to react. This addiction is not different from other addictions like smoking. It is annoying for the people around and it is even annoying for the addicted person himself. The addicted person needs more strength to stop than to continue and the weakest characters suffer more from addiction than the strongest. Note that 40 years ago, television addiction was a major source of concern for parents and it still exists today, with or without internet addiction on top of it.

Why do we get so addicted? It is not so much because we learn so many new things. We do it because we are social beings. We seek recognition. The advantage of the social web is that recognition becomes quantifiably visible in number of connections, recommendations, likes and comments. But this also nurtures our narcism. The social web gives us the impression we are important and relevant. We seem to tell important things and the other people are there to read all this. The problem is that we all have the same asymmetric, egocentric view. The most important content on the web is always our own. (In this case my blog, that you may read.)

Why is social web addiction a problem? It is not a problem because the social web is more superficial than the "real" world. The social web is just as real and just as superficial as the world we knew from before the social web. In fact, the social web is a mirror image of the "real" world. In daily  talk, we are also narcistic. In the "real" world (whatever that may be), we also believe our "content" (talk) is the most important and hardly listen to what other people have to say.

The true reason why social web addiction is a problem is that the people who are physically around us (children, parents, neighbours, direct colleagues) don't get enough attention. This is a problem if they are not part of our web discussion groups.

What is the solution? I believe we need to create time limits and we need to create routine. Suppose you could force yourself not to go on the social web before all your homework is done. Suppose you would be aware that web surfing in a meeting is impolite to the meeting organiser. Suppose you could force yourself never to do two things at the same time (especially if driving a car is one of them). Suppose you could always stop your social web activities at 10:00 PM. Suppose you would never go on the social web more than once per day. I guess you could turn a lot of time in quality time. You would not be frustrated about missing the things you would not have liked anyway.

I also refer to my earlier blogs: you are your time , raising kids in the 21st century and netwerkverslaving.

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech was originally invented to allow socially weaker minorities to stand up for their rights against a powerful establishment. Freedom of speech is not a safe conduct for the majority to make fun of socially weaker minorities. We know from previous century where such fun can lead us. As the Muslims make out the socially weaker minority in our society, we should be particularly concerned about THEIR freedom of speech. Advanced societies and advanced written press should particularly offer a platform to the socially weaker groups.

The terrorist is someone who is essentially impatient. It is his social weakness that becomes unbearable to him and he decides to destroy this weakness in an act of despair. A competition driven society that ignores its spiritual values will see more terrorists at work, no matter what the "cause" is. The reason is that in such society, the consequence of being socially weak is indeed totally unbearable: you are excluded and start suffering from complete alienation. The focus on common, sometimes "forgotten", values in the different manifestations was therefore not a coincidence.

cars, ships, trains and planes connected

All moving vehicles will be connected soon to the Internet. This is valid for cars, buses, ships, trains and planes. There are several reasons for doing this. First, we need to have more and data exchange with the vehicle itself. This is the so-called telematics. Vehicles tend to have more and more sensors and more complicated software, This requires regular sensor reading and software updates. A vehicle is also an object of value; there may be reasons to follow its position, speed and status. This evolution is a part of the so-called Internet-of-Things (IoT) evolution.

In some years from now, cars, ships, trains and planes will be driven by computers. Or they will be remotely piloted by someone who is not inside. This requires reliable communication links. Autonomy and mobility will no longer be the privilege of those who can drive a car. This may seem scary. What if the computer is wrong? Very true, but don't forget how many people die today because of human errors and tiredness.

A second reason why we need data connections to cars is that passengers inside want to stay connected while travelling. This is already happening in buses and trains through the GSM network, but using satellites, we will also remain connected while travelling in ships and planes.

What is the impact on our life? Well first, we will remain connected to our employer even longer. A trip will no longer be an excuse for not answering an e-mail. On the other hand, we will also remain connected to our home base and share our travel experience instantly. There may be security and privacy implications. Social web sites will be used more and more to release travelling frustration. We will share and witness more and more arrogant driving behaviour on Facebook; this is not really what we were looking for, on the other hand it may discourage such driving behaviour. Passengers' smartphones may also relay images of security incidents in public transportation. Tracing relatives who are delayed in traffic will also become more easy. And in the long term, cars will drive for us. This will most probably increase the road capacity and reduce the chance of accidents and traffic jams.

I refer to earlier blogs: "Satellite Navigation can save your life", "e-call" and "Satellite navigation and communication".

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.

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