The World According to Phreeman

Demolishing America

2009-09-02T21:10:00.005+02:00

America is under siege. But it is not Bin Laden with his suicide bombers or Kim Jong-Il with nukes who are at America’s gates.

Let’s face it: America is sick. It has developed serious symptoms. The rising national debt, the painful condition of the banking sector, the declining competitiveness of American carmakers, and the horrendous foreign trade deficit—the list of America’s serious problems is long. These days, the land of unlimited opportunity continues losing its attractiveness for immigrants and businesses—a quality that used to prove its greatness. To the migrants, America used to be the only free, libertarian society of choice, an icon of freedom and liberty, and a great economic power in which one wants to participate. But now it appears increasingly weak, helpless, and confused. How could such decay happen to a country that won the Cold War against the once so mighty Soviet Union?

Bin Laden, the rich Saudi who was educated and trained by the CIA to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan, knows a lot about his (as he says) worst enemy. However, while he might be able to destroy a building or two, he is surely unable to defeat the whole country. All the militant Islamists on this planet will not dent the US military strength, nor are they able to break the spirit of American citizens. After the 9/11 attacks, many voices proclaimed an oncoming decline of the US as the last remaining world power. So far it has not happened, and even if it does eventually happen in the future, then it is unlikely to be linked to any single event such as the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. It would take more than just blowing bombs and killing innocent people to really wreck this huge, rich and powerful country.

So what is the diagnosis? What destructive forces are there at work? Is America just sick or is it being poisoned? And who exactly is the attacker?

It is not a foreign force; it is America that has become its own enemy. Odds are that it is about to commit suicide.

Behold: America’s true enemies

There are worse enemies of America out there than some old, fanatical Arabs. They live within the US borders, not abroad. They pretend to be the country’s leaders. They sit in the Senate and the Congress, cast slick speeches (read off their teleprompters), and stand for greed, selfishness, and complacency. They are powerful, and they always seek just one thing: yet more power.

And more power they are about to receive, because they have mastered the universal strategy of power: fear. Exploiting fears in order to manipulate public opinion is the cheapest, though very effective, old trick. Fear of unemployment, fear of sickness, fear of a too-weak social net, and fear of being an underdog in the midst of rich and prosperous peers—fear has many faces.

A natural instinct that saved our lives back in the Stone Age, in the modern world, fear is often the worst possible advisor. Lee Iacocca, the famous former CEO of Chrysler, once said, “If a leader makes decisions based on fear, then he has already lost.” Indeed, if people are pressed by fear and anxiety to vote for something, they will most likely end up voting in favor of their own ultimate doom.

These days, fear seems to be omnipresent in all media channels. This is bad news. Fearsome societies tend to destroy themselves by giving up on hope and falling for devil’s advocates. They use fear to justify false promises of safety and security that are likely to create a huge national budget overhead, so huge that it may crush the United States under its weight.

What do Americans fear these days so much that they may vote for questionable saviors? The answer is buried in daily press headlines. Today, many journalists make their living from writing about issues such as:

Establishing a welfare state
Establishing obligatory health insurance
Saving the Earth from Global Warming
Saving America from Evil States and terrorists

These are modern, American or even global megatrends. Most fearful and anxious headlines are made of some combination of the above. Politicians exploit these fears, using short-lived polls, various lobbyists, and obscure industrial, private and political interest groups. Every megatrend has its own anatomy, but they have one thing in common: they promise to save the nation from doom and gloom, offering solutions based either on massive tax increases, intrusively changing the population’s behavior, or both.

Let us take a closer look at these megatrends and what is likely to be their impact on the United States of America.

Nuking the USA with the Welfare State Ideology

Confronted with uncertainties of the recent economic turmoil, ever more Americans seem to believe that a centralistic state would effectively provide more social security. Voters are increasingly ready and willing to sacrifice their liberty in return. Propelled by this massive change in public opinion, European welfare state models are becoming popular in the USA. In newspapers and talk shows, European social security systems are presented as desirable alternatives to the American status quo.

Unfortunately, this sudden affection for European social policies is based on a widespread misconception of the European reality. The truth is that most Europeans, traditionally anxious, scared of innovations, and overly fixated on social security and safety, are being increasingly economically strangled by their uber-states.

An integral part of the myth of blessings of a social welfare state is that taxing rich and giving the money to the poor is a just and right thing to do. In reality, there are never as many rich people as would be required to create a noticeable improvement in the living conditions of the poor. It is the middle class that is massively taxed and penalized as “rich.” Sadly, it is not the poor people who profit from this wealth redistribution machine. The ones really profiting are individuals and clans who control the flow of money: corrupt politicians, big enterprises, and mushrooming state bureaucracies.

If American voters knew it, they would think twice. It appears highly unlikely that US voters would favor such a system; however, this assumption is only valid provided that the voters know what they are actually voting for. The case in point is that most Americans know little about the European reality and the way their social systems work.

By their very nature, European models of welfare society are generally based on envy, fear, and false promises of wealth and safety. The resulting widely spread obsession with “social justice” throughout Western Europe is increasingly eliminating economic freedoms to a level comparable to the situation in socialist countries in the Eastern Europe of the 1980s. Today, a typical European eyes an entrepreneur with distrust as a dubious individual with obscure intentions, and a wannabe, antisocial rich. In Europe, being wealthy is perceived as a sin, and it is only confessed under pressure. Consequently, basic economic activities decrease, less and less new businesses are being created, and even the number of big corporations diminishes as they acquire each other. This circumstance is being ignored by Europeans and their politicians, and it has been that way for decades; it only now becomes very obvious, so that many investors start wondering whether they have any real choice when investing in blue chips.

In America, in contrast, numerous startup businesses have traditionally been of crucial importance. Many businesses created in recent decades created splendid success stories. Comparing the number of successful US startups that have become multi-billion dollar enterprises in the last 15 years—such as eBay, Google, and Yahoo—to the number of their European counterparts makes a clear statement.

Destroying the positive entrepreneurial attitude by introducing EU-style ideology of “social justice and equality,” thus effectively establishing a European-like welfare state, would undercut the roots of the American tree of prosperity and wealth. Overtaxing successful Americans and redistributing the wealth to (possibly just lazy) individuals would choke off the flow of new products and services, and thus further weaken the American economy and eventually destroy its competitiveness.

Besides, increasing taxes on the so-called “rich” to raise money to pay for ever more social benefits would make America unattractive to highly skilled and motivated young migrants. The list of successful American immigrants (from Albert Einstein to Sergei Brin, one of Google’s founders) is long, but it would stop growing at some point. A similar list in, say, Germany, is practically empty. It is common sense that immigrants brought wealth and prosperity to America. They would go somewhere else if America adopted the European welfare state model, and accelerate America’s decline.

It has only recently become clear that welfare state systems are not sustainable. For example, it seems to be a great idea that the German pensions are directly paid by German workers. Private pensions backed by capital investments play a minor role in Germany. About fifty years ago, German politicians issued a law that completely eliminated private pensions in favor of the direct redistribution of money from younger, working Germans to pensioners. Thanks to the young population, it worked well for a few decades, but now it slowly becomes a dangerous burden. Due to the demographic progress common to nearly all aging, industrialized nations, the Germans now have growing trouble with paying the pensions. To save the system from collapsing, the entry age for retirees has been recently increased from 65 to 67, and further increasing it up to 69 or even higher is currently a seriously discussed issue. It is very likely that, in ten or twenty years, the entry age will be 72 or 75 years. It is an obvious bankruptcy declaration from the German welfare state.

With these insights in mind, it becomes clear that the current trend to the social welfare ideology is not based on facts. Some are attracted to it because they fear being worse off than others, an underdog, a loser in a prospering society, a poor have-not dominated by the rich. This fear is being exploited by many populist US politicians who often quote the European repressive welfare state principle as a superior system. They want to manipulate the US population into accepting it, even if it clearly collides with the traditional, individualist, liberal society they have been a part of for centuries and despite the fact that it generally neglects everything for which the American Dream stands. Massive wealth redistribution, inseparable from the welfare state ideology, accompanied by rising taxes and bureaucratic repressions, would radically demoralize the American population, abolish entrepreneurship, and ruin America’s economy in a worse way than all atomic bombs that had been threatening it for decades during the Cold War.

Poisoning America with Total Health Insurance

It is hard to argue that the American system of health insurance consisting of Medicaid, Medicare, and powered by employer-paid benefits is virtually broken. Selling insurance benefits through corporations instead of directly to individuals has led to a situation in which tens of millions of US citizens, such as small business owners or unemployed, do not have the chance to have reasonable health insurance. At the same time, most insured employees are chained to their companies because the health insurance benefit levels can significantly vary. This system openly contradicts the traditional American spirit of freedom of choice and individual mobility. It becomes more expensive each year, and that damages the competiveness of American companies compared to their rivals in Asia or other continents.

But instead of creating a simple and transparent insurance system, American politicians began favoring insurance systems like the one that is established in Germany. These systems serve as examples of how a centralized, state-owned insurance could cure the sick American system. Could a model similar to the European standards solve this American misery? Not so fast. Again, things look great from a distance but are quite different in reality.

Let us take a closer look at the so often praised German model. Many Americans would be surprised to learn that, in Germany, two very different classes of medical insurance systems coexist. One is a state-owned system of public health insurance, maintained by state-owned (or equivalent) insurance institutions, obligatory to anyone who earns less than 48,000 EUR/year (about USD 68,000 at current exchange rate). The other is privately funded and is only available to small minorities like wealthier citizens or certain state employees with life-long contracts.

It is easy to imagine the consequences of this dual system. The private insurance is there for the rich, whereas the compulsory public insurance is for the poor citizens. The publicly insured patients wait for months until they can visit a doctor of their choice. As long as no evidence of terminal or at least a very serious health threat is at hand, exceedingly long waiting times are inevitable. In addition, some doctors generally refuse receiving publicly insured patients at all. In contrast, privately insured patients are received within days or even directly without any waiting time at all by any doctor of their choice, country-wide. The real reason for this situation is that doctors can (and do) bill much higher sums for the treatment of privately insured patients. This is the logical consequence of the fact that the public health insurance tariffs controlled by the government are focused on lowering costs, whereas private insurances focus on keeping their customers happy.

Another result of this dual system is that many modern and important treatments such as magnetic resonance tomography, advanced dental services, homeopathic treatments, and many more services are utterly excluded from the public insurance plans.

Paradoxically, since the public insurance pays for all medicine directly to the drugstores, German drug prices are skyrocketing and have become outrageously high compared to their American or Canadian counterparts.

The German public insurance system, despite the shrinking range of services, has been losing billions of Euros every year, while private insurance institutes thrive and continue their cherry-picking strategy, which is attracting healthy, wealthy and young customers, and thus further improving their cash flow. Meanwhile, the German system has become imbalanced and exceedingly unjust. Interestingly, the problem is vehemently denied by most German authorities across established political parties, and the German mainstream media are surprisingly quiet on this issue. Except for occasional articles in the tabloid press, these problems are rarely publicly discussed. The reason for this strange silence becomes clear considering the fact that, as a general exception from the aforementioned income limitations, politicians and freelance journalists enjoy unrestricted access to private health insurance! It is hardly surprising that they are little interested in changing the status quo and naturally prefer to keep silent.

How would such a system benefit US society? Obviously, it would not. Could the flaws of European systems be avoided? It seems very unlikely. American lobbyists are enormously active during the current discussion about the health reform bill. During three months this year, pharmaceutical lobbies spent 40 million dollars on lobby work in Washington, and this amount of money is not paid for sheer spending pleasure. It is not farfetched to assume that they would like to have the European model, since it would force poor Americans even deeper into the Medicaid system, while benefitting the rich Americans with a free choice of “additional” services. Besides, having insurance companies directly pay for drugs, thus following the German example, would dramatically increase drug retail prices and increase profits for pharmaceutical companies. American society would pay significantly more for health services and drugs, and it would require more tax money to cover these costs for the publicly insured, while improving the actual benefits for just a small minority. Unfortunately, this (wealthy) minority has a large influence on the political decision-making process. Because of that, if any system will be adopted, it will most likely be a European-style system.

What would be the result? The increase of wealth redistribution activities required to pay for a state-owned health insurance system would increase the general sense of injustice and inequality. It would undermine the morale and solidarity of American society. It would lead to social unrest as it would cost the American taxpayer more and more money each year. While the current system is flawed, a system of compulsory, state-owned insurance would be a poisonous shot in the arm of the American dream, and the resulting disease would be very difficult to cure.

Frying America with Global Warming

Ever since the idea of global warming was invented, the scientific community used it to raise funding for research projects and facilities. It may or may not be true that the climate is heating up, and it may or may not be true that if the change is objectively taking place, it is caused by human-created CO2. In any case, effecting media showdowns like the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” or Al Gore’s public relations coup “The Inconvenient ‘Truth’” have propelled the sense of anxiety among numerous countries around our globe. Once again, fear is used to condition voters to do something they actually would never do if left to their own devices.

What has been happening in Europe in terms of “green” trends during the last two decades is a road sign for America’s future. The financial impact of “going green” can be tremendous. In Germany, for example, the fear level has been pushed so high that the German taxpayer has agreed to pay enormous environmental taxes on electricity and gas, in addition to all other taxes they pay already. Considering all direct and indirect taxes, the tax burden of a young, single German is about 70% of his gross income. Meanwhile, the German government subsidizes various “alternative” energy initiatives and corporations with enormous funds, instead of investing the money in education or the country’s basic infrastructure. German auto makers receive billions of Euros in governmental aid for the development of “alternative” car engines. This is another wealth redistribution scheme, from tax payers to corporations and government organizations.

Unfortunately, this example is likely to be copied by US politicians. The recent crisis is becoming the turning point for environmentalists in the US. They love the idea of a virtually unlimited funding source generated by the green future angst. They have achieved remarkable propaganda results. Today, no one dares to openly question the “global warming” ideology. This circumstance limits the freedom of speech; it also generates numerous opportunities for corrupt politicians to give taxpayers’ money to their favorite friends who are in the “alternative energy” business, since it is politically incorrect to question supporting the environmentalists. Their businesses do not work to improve our lives—they supposedly work to improve lives of our presumed grandchildren. They do not follow rules of the free market, because the value of their products actually lies in the ideology that made them. The very same politicians who participate in these economic activities give fiery public speeches on the blessings of environmentalism and dangerous consequences of global warming. We are being manipulated into blind followers of an unproven ideology that aims at changing our everyday behavior against our very interests. Environmentalism, at least in its current form, contradicts values that once made the United States the promise land for millions of immigrants: freedom of speech, freedom of choice, and the right to an individual way of life.

If this development continues, Americans will have to swallow giant tax hikes in the name of saving the planet. An uncontrolled expansion of the federal government interfering in individual lives, aimed at changing individual behavior, will accelerate. The result would slowly but surely turn the USA into a reform school for the impoverished environmentalists.

Squeezing America with Evil Empires

The infamous September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center buildings in New York were a horrible event. I remember exactly where I was back then and I recall the feeling of total disbelief and astonishment, confronted with ever worse news during that day. However, times following that day were even more mindboggling. War on terror, war in Afghanistan and the second Iraq War became a substantial part of daily news.

It is understandable that Americans wanted to seek, find, fight, and conquer the enemy who was accountable for the terrorist attacks. However, the ideology that developed around this “war on terror” is meanwhile becoming more frightening than the terrorists. In recent years, we have heard many stories about the “axis of evil,” the “dark forces,” “sleeping cells” and “shoe bombers” lurking around the globe. In dark shadows of these ideologies, and encouraged by numerous presidential executive orders, the privately owned American military-industrial complex quickly moved on to make profits. Trillions of tax dollars have already been spent on wars in the current decade, and even more is likely to be required.

Inside the US borders, the fear campaign has lead to limitations of personal freedom on a scale unseen in the entire history of the United States. Not only have public officials and private contractors of Homeland Security and other services gained a practically unlimited power over all aspects of the private lives of all citizens, but the computerized bureaucracies gain access to our very minds. The “war on terror” has permitted a situation in which all personal data, regardless of its relevancy or source, is centrally managed and used for random searches for supposedly suspicious patterns. It truly reminds me of futuristic visions from George Orwell and Aldous Huxley describing totalitarian, tyrannical societies. What is happening in the UK, where there are probably more CCTV cameras used by government officials to spy on their own citizens in London than people living in the city, is about to be implemented with even more accuracy and a bigger impact in the USA. It seemed unthinkable just a decade ago. Controlling and manipulating free citizens contradicts everything America was built upon. This atmosphere of fear combined with total control and ever more centralized authority is truly reminiscent of the Russian Empire in the 19th Century.

The American taxpayer is squeezed and stretched by the funding needs of the emerging, authoritarian “super state” that is trying to “save” its citizens from its supposed enemies. The officials do not hesitate to use the fears of foreign “evil empires” to suppress protests and to forcefully generate more tax income. Americans increasingly have the impression that the rest of the world dislikes them, while it in fact is not a general worldwide trend at all. In fact, the American optimistic attitude, economic diversity and power, still relatively deregulated economy and its superior products, pop culture and movies, and the extraordinary variety of choices offered to virtually every citizen are attributes admired and often copied by many countries. There is no need for the Americans to develop any kind of an inferiority complex.

Unfortunately, it does not stop the American ruling elite from further imposing the “evil empire” propaganda on American people. Be it North Korea, Cuba, Iran or some other country – there is always some country out there or some obscure terrorist group that will be considered the next Evil Empire, another ultimate danger that must by all means be fought and destroyed. American citizens, many of them having a limited educational background, are often unaware of what is in fact being talked about. They are made believe that the American way of living, American-style democracy, American ethics, and American industry are the only really working and worthwhile state models. However, in most of the Islamic world, practically no one wants the American-style democracy; they are perfectly happy with some kind of theocracy and that is the only model they would collectively readily accept. To most experts on the matter, the idea is apparently absurd that some sort of European-like Enlightenment, ending the assumed Islamic Dark Ages, should be expected, and then a modern democracy would be emerge.

Compared to the messianic, Evil-Empire-fighting, world-saving attitude, the Monroe doctrine of the 19th century sounds like a great idea. It is not to be confused with isolationism. In our globalized economy, isolationism would be an obviously silly idea. The question is not whether or not to be part of the global community; it is whether to bomb supposedly “bad guys” or to stay home. Accepting that other countries have their own ways of being perfectly happy with their completely different systems and attitudes would save the American taxpayer trillions of dollars.

The costs of being a self-elected World Savior are huge. The Iraq war alone costs $100,000 US per minute. The officially communicated budget of the US Department of Defense in 2008 showed almost half trillion dollars. However, it does not include all military-associated costs expensed on accounts of the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and other military and paramilitary organizations and projects. It is probably safe to assume that more than a trillion dollars a year are spent on DoD official costs, military actions, nation building activities (e.g., in Iraq), military and paramilitary (e.g., Blackwater) personnel and material expenses, and development and maintenance of equipment for solely or primarily military use.

A trillion dollars, or $1,000,000,000,000 US. That is a huge amount of money. And yet, still more is demanded by US lobbies and politicians to save America from being overrun by supposedly malicious foreign enemies. As compared to that, the education costs present less than a tenth of the above sum in the US federal budget. How does it fit together? A cynic would say that, obviously, bombing confused foreigners appears to be a better business than educating own children.

How long will America be able to bear this incredible weight on its shoulders?

Nothing to worry about?

Optimists see no fundamental problems with America. They have some good arguments. The USA is still the largest economy in the world. It is globalized, efficient, less regulated than most of its foreign competitors, and wealthier. The USA still has the AAA credit rating, and US bonds are gladly accepted by foreign investors and governments. Besides, much of the remaining world is dependent on the buying mood of American consumers. China, for example, would face a dramatic economic decline if the USA suddenly stopped importing Chinese goods. Many other countries are very dependent on exporting their products to the American market, which is considered to be the world’s most attractive one.

Besides, other countries are not much better off. They maintain huge deficits, gigantic debts (especially in relation to their GDP) and often enough mismanage their own financial affairs. So maybe it’s not all that bad. Might the USA re-emerge from its problems even stronger and even accelerate its growth and dominance?

The answer is: yes, it could be the case, as long as the four chimeras described above become defeated. The key insight is that only at first glance does it appear as if others are better off following those ideas. For example, it is true that Germany only spends 8% on its defense, which is a fairly low portion of its budget. But it pays less than 5% on education. Almost 50% of the German tax income is spent on social benefits and retirement costs, a fact that demonstrates how expensive a welfare state can become. Germany already spends about 15% of its state income on interest costs, and Germany’s debt is gigantic compared to its GDP, while the German health insurance system becomes increasingly strained.

Optimists should read the small print. It is not the military budget alone that threatens the American way of life. Welfare state fantasies, rising health insurance costs, and costs of fighting “global warming”—even the largest and most dynamic economy imaginable would inevitably collapse under its own weight facing such staggering funding demands. If US lobbies cannot be stopped and Americans do not return to their core values—freedom, liberty, individual independence— then the once mighty and wealthy United States of America might be soon heading for its total demolishment.

Not all is lost

I still believe that America has a good chance of saving itself from economic demolishment. Yes, America is sick, and it refuses to go to the doctor. And even if it does, it lies to the doctor about its real problems. What is worse: instead of visiting a doctor, America now decided to go to the barefoot doctor, a medicine man. Copying security-centric, social welfare state-oriented patterns from Europe will not heal America. Welfare state leads to some form of socialism, and socialism has always failed. This experience is too obvious to be totally ignored by American voters. I believe that Americans will eventually realize the real danger. There are still people like Dr. Ron Paul and many others who resist and fight the demolition team. Someday they and their followers will hopefully get a real chance to speak up and gain influence on the course of affairs.

Besides, in the past, every crisis has motivated Americans to develop an even more hard-working, optimistic, entrepreneurial attitude. America used to rise like Phoenix from the ashes.

The question is how much ideological ashes one has to dump on it to bury the fiery bird for good. Let us hope that no one will ever try.

Rock the Nations, Part III: Ruling by Messianism

2008-06-23T23:45:00.010+02:00

Saving the planet has been our ultimate pastime for centuries, but ruining it is the most common result. Obviously, something is wrong with our messianic attitude.

Hero wanted. Must have pulse.

Regardless of the widespread belief in democracy based on diversity of opinions, we crave heroes and mass-uniting ideologies. Be it boredom with our lives, anxiety or just plain group dynamics, we tend to need a strong leader who gives us a clearly defined perspective, a predefined ‘way to go.’ Politicians like J.F. Kennedy, military leaders like Alexander the Great, or top terrorists like Osama bin Laden all have one thing in common: the masses follow them blindly, no questions asked. Put aside their moral, national or racial background; by promoting their personal ideas, myths, and goals, they offer us the ultimate cure to anxiety, frustration, and weltschmerz.

Heroes are ubiquitous in both ancient and modern history. We tend to look up to individuals who offer us some kind of ‘vision,’ a supernatural objective that becomes ‘common sense,’ a public property. This vision can be very simple (let us win a tournament) or overly ambitious (we will conquer the world), and it magically mobilizes the crowd to blindly follow the self-elected leader. Some goals may promise stardom and fame or dominance over other nations; some just a plain ‘we are the winners’ kind of feeling. It must be simple so that the common citizen can jump on the bandwagon without too much thinking. Look at popular mass idols, such as star soccer players. Soccer is, just like most of the sport disciplines, not too challenging intellectually, and it does not carry a promise of a material gain to the fans. Twenty-two guys chasing a leather ball are basically just twenty-two guys chasing a leather ball, with a very simple purpose: place that piece of rag behind the other team’s guy with number ‘one’ on his t-shirt. Despite the absurdity of this game, whole nations follow soccer tournaments as if they were a matter of life or death. Interestingly, not the entire national soccer team is admired and loved equally. There are always favorites who are interviewed in the press, discussed in the media, and known by literally every child in their home country.

That is, once again, what the crowds need. They need heroes. However, the heroes must stand for something. If soccer were just a local pastime of some small town or other individual place on Earth, it wouldn’t have the power to excite the masses. Obviously, the concept of a ‘national soccer team’ is the critical fuel powering the whole idea. The team wins for the entire nation, and people celebrate the game and their soccer heroes as if they were part of it, despite the fact that modern soccer teams are mostly made up of immigrants who came from foreign countries, simply following the call of big money. The vision of being the ‘winning country’ and of ‘saving the nation’ from being beaten by foreign soccer teams seems to unite the crowd into a single, simple-minded fan club.

Similar reflections can be made about most other ‘visions’ and ‘heroes’, be that charismatic politicians with their supposed reforms, tough military leaders with their national enemy concepts, etc. There is always a big vision behind them: they are heroes who promise to save the world from some ugly, dangerous, or at least generally unpleasant thing.

Who are those heroes we worship so passionately? The ‘heroes’ do not necessarily have to be overly smart, beautiful or talented (though it does sometimes help); sometimes they are just lucky—in the right place at the right time. They just happen to fill gaps that open shortly before they came, and will instantly close when they die.

Nazis and communists wanted to save the world too

One reason why we follow those more or less phony individuals and trust their promises is our odd urge to save the world. It is our very private world we want to save; the very personal, small space that represents the immediate environment of a human individual. Defending it is manifestation of the fundamental struggle for survival. This instinct is the most powerful one. However, individuals tend to adjust their survival strategies to broader mainstream trends. Since an individual does not have the power to know everything, he will tend to follow the majority of the population, thus hoping to avoid mistakes based on lack of individual knowledge or its proper information. Consequently, uniting masses on that lowest psychological level is probably the strongest social force imaginable, and it is fascinating to see how our authorities, our heroes and leaders, use it to turn us into mindless, obedient agents. It is hard to see the truth behind their strategies. In fact, it is bewildering that nobody is ever interested in scrutinizing them. In my favorite example of the popular mass trend, the environmental anxiety and the fear of global warming offers interesting insights. This megatrend is irrational because in most cases it is induced by mass media only. It is not based on individual understanding of complex scientific matters. I have never met anyone who has actually ever seen numerical results of a climate simulation, or even knows anything about how those algorithms work. Interestingly, the ‘scientific’ simulation results turn out to be moving targets. Recently, the estimated climate-warming curve had to be very significantly corrected, as the climate scientists were forced to admit that the average temperature had not increased for the past ten years, a fact which very clearly contradicted virtually all known preceding forecasts. It does sound like a real ‘Climate-Gate’ affair that has the potential to shake the foundations of the global warming fan community. But what was the reaction of the world population to this baffling fact? Lo and behold, no one cared!

The lame excuse of the scientific community, which explains that the mistake happened because the oceans had not been considered while designing the original simulation rules, does not make the global warming hypothesis any more credible. In fact, it actually proves that the scientists’ work on climate forecasts is error prone and produces arbitrary results. However, people’s readiness to sacrifice their freedoms and wealth in exchange for the promise of ‘saving the world’ remains unshaken. It is but a blind faith, a religious submission, a common belief based on willingness to trust and obediently follow the prophets. It appears as if people just want to believe myths. It seems as if we prefer to stick to our beloved ideology, even if it turns out to be falsified.

What makes things worse is the fact that we ignore the damage resulting from the ideas propagated by our leaders and heroes. We just don’t want to hear the bad news, as long as saving the world remains the main goal of our favorite vision. That is why the idealistic do-gooders of this world are able to cause so much suffering, death and destruction. Socialists, communists, and fascists – they all proclaimed to rescue us from the ultimate evil. They wanted to save the world too.

Stupid is as stupid does

Our readiness to sacrifice our values and even our lives in the name of some phony ideologies is astonishing. Why are we willing to do that? Maybe, in order to avoid too much thinking, we ‘outsource’ our world-saving, heroic desires to our leaders and the obscure forces behind them. Having done that, we just switch certain areas of our brains off. Perhaps most of us just lack the self-esteem required to stick unwaveringly to our own ideas and principles. We often prefer the chewed-for ones.

And the heroes, prophets and messiahs all rush to offer us various ideologies that sound pretty, are nicely packaged, and make us feel good. They offer us their ‘ultimate solutions’ to our worries, organize great mass events to make us feel united, create enemy images we want to believe in, and make us think that we are going to be all-time winners. Their goal is to satisfy mass anxieties and popular longings of ordinary individuals so that the solutions are usually oversimplified and one-dimensional.

Some of those simplified ‘ultimate solutions’ remind me fatally of the Nazi’s endloesung (‘final solution,’ the idea that led to the holocaust) rhetoric. Such ideas are designed to satisfy our need to feel superior toward other people and nations. For example, the blurred idea of the ‘social welfare state’ in some European countries is constantly being upheld by the almighty PR agencies and propagated by state-loyal mass media as the best way to organize a country, as opposed to the ‘cowboy capitalism,’ as the US system is frequently called. No one ever cares to see actual similarities or differences—most Europeans just take this opinion for granted. The result of this idealistic attitude will be a European superstate, an obscure, bureaucratic monster, in which no one understands who is in charge, the taxes are constantly rising, and individual freedoms and liberties are being increasingly undermined. Still, most Europeans blindly believe in the social welfare myth, come hell or high water.

The results of our ignorant obedience can be severe, as the previously mentioned example of the ecological hysteria shows. Certain grimy opinion makers, like Al Gore, literally ‘rock’ our nations by frightening them first and then showing them solutions that ultimately benefit the leaders themselves most, e.g., trading of carbon emission rights. Al Gore owns a fund that has shares in carbon rights trading agencies. That is, of course, a pure accident, as some may like to make us believe. The amazingly brilliant PR-action of Al Gore, the movie An Inconvenient Truth, is probably the first and so far only commercial advertisement in history that people actually paid to see in movie theatres. Gore is just one little example. In nearly every country, at least one ‘ecological prophet’ successfully advertises his or her vision of saving the world by redirecting money flow in a way that actually benefits the prophets and the powerful profiteers behind them. The consequences are alarming. The shaky, short-term ‘oil scarcity’ arguments are currently being used by speculators as an excuse to drive the crude oil prices to the current breathtaking levels. At the same time, the romantic idea of replacing fossil oil by biofuel does more harm than good, since the farmers increasingly prefer producing heavily subsidized oil-bearing plants, the food prices are rising quickly worldwide, causing hunger in many poorer regions around the world. Also, the Kyoto-protocol, which basically solves nothing, is used to force developing countries to pay a far higher price for building their infrastructure and implementing individual mobility, than the developed, rich countries have ever paid. And, ideologically motivated huge spending on public transportation often causes even more energy waste than wisely improving the individual automobile-based traffic strategy on highways and in the cities.

The self-elected messiahs, the doom-and-gloom preachers, and other idealistic heroes tell us what to think. They influence our beliefs and our beliefs eventually affect our doings. As a result, we act irresponsibly. Stupid is as stupid does, and those phony individuals and their ideologies often tend to make us believe and do many stupid things.

Money for nothing

We pay a huge price for following obscure megatrends. Our future, our money, and our freedom are all at stake. The middle class and the lower class in dozens of countries around the world suffer most. It is not some kind of global conflict in which rich countries try to outmaneuver the poor ones; the manipulated ‘megatrends’ impact everyone. For example, the aforementioned environmental craze is not only hurting the poorest of the world; it has a heavy impact on populations of developed countries. It is actually even worse than it looks, because our generation is currently being double-tricked. For one, our forefathers left us with collapsing social welfare states, and we—the 20 to 50-year-olds—are paying the bill. At the same time, we are supposed to sign another carte blanche to save our planet in the distant future from some ‘global warming’ chimera! Indeed, we are paying it all twice: first for the mistakes made in the past, and second for saving the supposedly rotten future world! For whom are we saving this planet anyway? Did our fathers and grandfathers think that way? Certainly, they did not.

When talking about the often advertised need for ‘responsibility for future generations,’ I would like to know how we get the idea that our children and grandchildren will ever thank us for our supposedly wonderful ‘global solutions.’ Who will receive the benefits from the ever-rising taxes and social fees, the supposed environmental wonders, and the overpriced ‘clean energy’ sources we work so hard to pay for today? Our children? Think twice. It is more likely that our peers, the industry captains and smart politicians, are the ones who are stuffing their pockets with what we are paying them as a contribution to their plan to save our world from supposedly inevitable evils.

We have agreed to work very hard for the promise of a better future. Putting aside the question whether to trust our leaders or not, we who provide all the money to create this ‘better future’ will never be part of it. We will be dead by the time the promised payout is supposed to happen. By that time, our children and grandchildren will most likely face a different reality, in which some other heroes and prophets will teach them that they have to pay again for all the blessings we are paying already today, because of some new ‘shadow of the future,’ a made-up menace that only benefits the gang of messiahs, heroes, and their lobby.

Solve the puzzle

The most alarming fact is that the governments around the world know exactly how our infantile desire for heroes and ideologies works. They misuse their knowledge effectively to give us the feeling that we are doing the ‘right thing’ when we do what we are being told. But we are not doing the right thing. We are not Jesuses, not Mother Theresas, not heroes. We are just being taken in for our own stupidity.

We must finally stop thinking in the categories of saving the world. It has never paid off. We should learn to be more humble and honest with ourselves. We won’t save the world. No one will. We live on a gigantic planet, and it will take care of itself. We, the proud Homo sapiens, are just visitors, passing by, and we will fade away when our time comes. There is nothing frightening about it—we all know very well that none of us will come out of here alive anyway. We will not be able to take our clean environment with us, or our political system of social ‘justice,’ or anything else we believe to be our ultimate solution to all evil on Earth.

If we really want to do something good, then we should just let our world work as it naturally does when we let it. We need true free capitalism (which is radically different from the big state-supported corporations we are seeing today), small governments, more personal involvement in our local communities. These are simple solutions that actually work by default. We do not need any prophet to make them function. They have worked for centuries despite being frequently interrupted by many mega-trends, wars and ideologies that fatally exploit the ‘save the world’ principle.

Besides, we should put more faith in the intelligence and abilities of future generations. Various horrible visions propagated just 100 or 200 years ago about the horrors of the future world never came true. Humans have this wonderful, unique ability to work out good solutions in nearly any thinkable situation, regardless of its criticality and the level of urgency for immediate action. Our children will make it work. They must have the chance to figure it out by themselves. They deserve it. We must not limit them with our ideologies. Instead, we should respect the liberty of our children and grandchildren to live their own lives. The unlimited freedom of minds is all they need to meet the future challenges, of which we do not have the slightest idea today. Let them find their own way to deal with what is then their reality. We are so very arrogant to think that we can somehow design the future world. Many of our fathers followed that damned path of ignorance, arrogance, and violence. We should prove that we are wise enough to avoid repeating their mistakes.

Rock the Nations, Part II: Ruling by Fear and Distraction

2008-05-14T22:27:00.008+02:00

Wars, climate change, tax reforms, food industry scandals, oil prices, credit crises—TV, radio and the Internet are brimming with bad news. Amok killers, terrorists, an increasing number of traffic casualties, plane crashes, the raising cancer rate, illegal drugs, social unrest, and various forms of mass discrimination—the world seems to be a mess. And we feel guilty. Something must be done against this creeping Armageddon. So we start to separate our house garbage; we struggle to lower our energy consumption; we avoid usage of non-returnable bottles; we use less running water, and so on. We are notoriously busy, much too busy for what it is worth. What is worse: we are apparently supposed to be busy.

Behold the next menace!

Think about the future. What images come to mind? Is it more like a warm, sunny, peaceful day or a rather dark, stormy, cold and misty night? The mainstream media is overloaded with stories about evil and worrisome things expected two, five, ten or thirty years from now. The more you listen, the more you worry. Hunger in the Third World, war in Afghanistan and in Iraq, terrorist attacks, traffic jams everywhere, pollution in mega-cities, job loss—it is a never-ending flood of bad news. Time after time, a new depressing mega-trend appears and makes the list longer. In the future, horrible things are supposed to happen: the climate will kill millions, we will run out of oil, the world will become overcrowded and prone to mass diseases, and it will be full of dangerous weapons and terrorists. How is this place worth living in?

You feel guilty and anxious. You feel like you must do something. But what can that be? Your politicians care for you and bring you new laws, regulations, and rules. They ask you to do more for your society, so that we can prevent the menacing Armageddon. You go out and buy separate trashcans, which allow you to sort out supposedly valuable resources and put them in specially designed different color cans. You take the time to learn the meaning of various green and blue signs on wrappings and boxes, so you can separate one kind of trash from the other. Some garbage must go to the blue can, others to the yellow one, and another to the grey one. You work harder and longer to pay your garbage man for the new, expensive waste disposal system. You collect paper and bring it to the central paper collecting point.

You learn from the news that energy becomes an issue. It must be saved, which is logical, since you have been told that we are running out of the resources and the world’s climate is allegedly in danger. You work overtime to buy a more expensive car powered by biodiesel. Then you take the long way home every few days, so you can stop at the only gas station in your area where you can refuel your car. You start reading a lot about the environment and ‘sustainable’ energy. At the same time, natural gas and heating oil are becoming more expensive. It is logical, you think, because these resources are becoming scarce, and you have been told that it will worsen soon. You work even more overtime so you can pay for the improvement of your house’s isolation and new, energy-saving water boilers.

Recently, you have been hearing a lot about how dangerous your food may be. One food poisoning scandal after another occurs, and you know you must take care of it. You start buying the expensive organic food. Some of it is only available in the next town over, so you need more time for your regular shopping. Since you want to save the valuable energy, you start using mass transportation, which turns out to consume twice as much of your time as going by car. You do not mind, since you know, it is for a good cause.

Suddenly, another war breaks out somewhere. Terrorists attack a town in your country. Your politicians will tell you that you need to worry more to help prevent more attacks and wars, or fight the new, just war against the attackers. You can ease your conscience by paying additional ‘anti-terror tax.’ In fact, you must pay the new tax; it is not voluntarily. So you work more to pay the new taxes, since all other things are also becoming more expensive, because of the increasing environmental taxes posed on energy and transportation in your country.

Distracted, busy, and harmless

Every time bad news spreads all over the world, we look for support from our politicians. Our politicians love to help us, and we are supposed to be grateful and give them our votes. What would we do without them?

We would probably live a happy and free life. The problem is that most of that bad news imprisons us in a sinister dungeon of despair. Even if it sounds like a paranoid idea, for our politicians and rulers it almost looks like it is essential to keep us busy. Being busy, we never have the time to question authority, PR-cooked news, and lame buzz. We will do as we are told. We ‘outsource’ our reasoning to the mainstream media and become a dumb crowd of weak, easy-to-control, brainless lemmings, and we will follow any mass trend designed by its makers.
Ruling is easier if your subjects are confused. If you are a politician and lucky to have mastered the Six-Omega process to generate arbitrary amounts of tax revenue, you will always have enough money to pay your PR agencies to create, boost, and maintain the next distracting trend. People are so easy to manipulate that they will never even notice that they are actually being rocked into oblivion.

Busy citizens are harmless.

All you have to do to stay in power is to maintain a high level of distraction and generate a flood of new rules and regulations.

4E: Extract, Exaggerate, Extrapolate, Exhaust

Our ‘elites’ control us using a simple 4E process: extract, exaggerate, extrapolate, exhaust.

Extract: Pick a new event or scientific theory and extract the worst case scenario from it.
Exaggerate: Inflate risks and catastrophic scenarios until they appear monstrous and frightening.
Extrapolate: Construct a future projection of your doom scenario and warn that, if nothing is done, mankind becomes extinct.
Exhaust: Constantly reiterate and spread the bad news through every available information channel to the mass audience.

The following explains how 4E works in detail.

1. Extract

Nearly any development of a complex nature can be made important. An army of scientists around the world make their livings by discovering and analyzing current and future trends in various disciplines, such as medicine, social behavior, economy, environment and climate, etc. Most of the issues are complex, much too complex to be understood by 95% of the world’s population, and it is practically irrelevant if they are real or objectively absurd. The trick here is to extract the ‘evil core’ – an arbitrarily simplified thought behind some scientific theory, something that seems dangerous enough to attract the attention of the masses. Since our survival instinct is probably the most intense and ancient attribute of human nature, targeting the possible extinction of mankind will always draw maximal attention.

In this phase of the 4E process, it is important to pick an issue and talk about it in public to examine the people’s reaction. As usual, use PR agencies and ghost writers to generate and publish appropriate articles, ‘white papers’ and news snippets. Since you are not the only one looking for a sensation, you do not have to generate the whole buzz by yourself. Thousands of journalists, economists, scientists and politicians around the world are feverishly struggling for attention and publicity. Once they notice a new ‘trend,’ they will usually quickly jump on the bandwagon and amplify your ‘scientific insight,’ hoping to become the cutting edge of another new sensation.

2. Exaggerate

Now that you have created buzz and others take to it, it is time to openly take the lead over your new trend. People have heard or read about the menace. However, they are uncertain how to react. Do not be moderate; otherwise, your new idea will be ignored. You must create a kind of intense angst. Multiply your statistical data by a so-called ‘reality factor’ to suggest that the supposedly real numbers are in fact much, much higher than your statistical data shows. Use terms such as ‘more and more’ or ‘ever more’ or ‘exponential growth’ to create maximal confusion. The population should not only know the assumed danger, they must believe that there is a lot more to it than ‘officially’ published. Conspiracy theories are very helpful here, and it is always good to hint about mighty dubious interest groups, and to express your fear that they are using ‘billions of dollars’ to suppress the free flow of information regarding the new danger.

3. Extrapolate

The human brain uses linear extrapolation to predict upcoming events and situations. This wonderful feature allows us to act before dangerous events occur. It can also be used to influence whole populations in a most arbitrary manner, since assumptions about the future are naturally hard to prove a priori. However, to be more effective, you should consider using a steeper extrapolation type. Our brains are quite good at handling linear extrapolation, but they hopelessly fail to process exponential data. Exposing your population to the Euler’s function will induce brain shortcuts preventing them from rethinking the future menace theory you are propagating.

A very effective method to add credibility to the usually unverifiable future fears is the popular trick called ‘The Shadow of the Future.’ It consists of the following ingredients:

A simple description of a possible future danger.
An arbitrary, complex, scientific ‘proof,’ which is not based on facts (which you don’t have), but on very fine, complicated assumptions and simulations and opinions of serious scientists.
A semi-honest admittance that we do not have 100% proof of the new theory, but if we don’t do something today, it would then be too late to save ourselves from the assumed catastrophe.

The Shadow of the Future was successfully used to create most of the misleading trends of our time, including ‘the Great European Hunger theory’ from the Club of Rome, the ‘Dying Woods Hysteria,’ the ‘Communist Menace,’ and of course, to motivate nearly all wars of the past and current centuries.

In any case, this phase is most effective if the total extinction of the human race is either openly or implicitly included in your argumentation.

4. Exhaust

Use your legislative force to impose new regulations on your subordinates. The regulations will be followed by the majority of them without any significant resistance. It works so flawlessly because of the following effects:

The majority of the population believes that anything that was repeated hundreds of times on TV is true.
The law is the law is the law.
Since people believe that they are doing the right and just thing, they will punish their fellow citizens who try to disobey. Such individuals will be stigmatized as being asocial, immoral or even criminal. This behavioral pattern is typical for all social networks, including friends and neighbors. The rebels will often even be denounced to the police by their peers, especially if you wisely include appropriate punishment in your new law or regulations.
Since you are a democratic elected politician, people will believe that they support their community by following your new restrictions.

Your measures can and should be reiterated and extended. You can always increase the pressure on the public opinion by using statistics, surveys, scientifically funded campaigns, and PR-generated press releases. People must believe in the rightness of your message.

The most important component of this phase is the ‘call for action’ part of your new measures. The citizens must be forced to add new, legally required activities to their daily burden. They will become ever busier with this absurd but widely established and accepted overhead, which is the core objective of the 4E process.

Who fears the lack of fear?

Imagine a magical button, which, when pressed, would immediately stop you from worrying about all the small and big issues that appear so immensely important today. No doubt, the secret service would instantly eliminate the creator of this device.

Escaping the carefully designed, sad reality is meant to be hard for us. The more we are pressed to believe that our future is dark and gloomy, the harder it is made for us to find a relief.

I am not a fan of drugs like marihuana, but I understand the fact that for some of us, it is hard to bear this bleak, cheaply cooked up, negativity-overloaded, depressing reality in a completely sober state of mind. Drugs like marihuana help some relax and stop running in circles. They allow their consumers to break out from the rat race with relatively few unpleasant side effects, as opposed to getting drunk, for example. Conscious and relaxed citizens – that indeed does sound absurd! Could it be the reason why our rulers fear that exotic weed and its likes like hellfire? What would they perceive as being more dangerous than this condition of complete let-go? If we stop worrying, we might all of a sudden have plenty of time to think of ‘evil’ things, such as freedom and independence!

The level of violent suppression of marihuana consumption is enormous. Around 2,000,000 arrests occur each year in the US alone (!) due to marihuana-related law violations. At the same time, marihuana and similar drugs are harmless compared to other, legal drugs, like alcohol, and yet our governments fight them with all brutality. So why do the officials fear it so much? Is it because drugs set us virtually free and thus make us ungovernable?

It may be the case, although marihuana appears to have a smaller impact on its consumers’ minds than imagined. In the Netherlands, for instance, anyone can smoke marihuana at will, and the Dutch still keep worrying and complaining all the same.

But then again, maybe, in spite of its legality, the Dutch just don’t smoke enough marihuana after all, so that its influence on the broad population remains marginal.

When “everyone knows” something to be true…

I am not trying to pursue you to start smoking marihuana. Quite the opposite is my intent. It is not what you smoke or eat; it is what you focus on. It is the brainless political correctness, and the hopeless surrender to manipulative trends that will harm you most. You know that you are being fooled when every one around you believes something just for the sake of it, simply because ‘everyone knows it,’ without really understanding the issue.

The mainstream media are politically correct these days, which means that they are monotone, manipulative and just plain dumb. I would call it ‘negative education’ – it reduces the amount of rational information in your brain and replaces it with useless, bubble-gum pseudo-knowledge, false prophecies, PR news releases, and misleading advice. It is a dangerous kind of neurological programming, because it affects the weakest of us the most: our offspring. Once you let your children watch TV unattended (if at all), you are about to destroy their ability to think independently and to effectively challenge the authorities.

…it means that nobody knows nothing (Andy Grove)

Radio, newspapers, and, admittedly, many Internet offerings are all part of this massive brain damage. This is not another silly conspiracy theory. It is simply business as usual. As mentioned before, it is easy to create a sense of fear and destruction using modern media and PR agencies. It has been practiced for decades, since Barney and Goebbels demonstrated the power of Public Relations.

The steady exposure to the mainstream media causes the utmost damage, mainly because of the already mentioned reiteration effect. When a message is broadcasted and repeated in large quantities, it becomes subjectively true. This is a fundamental mechanism used by the advertisement industry. Individuals want to join the rest of the tribe, and (untruly) suggesting that the majority of the population is just heading in a new direction exploits this instinct. We should be cautious every time we notice that something is recurrently reasserted in the media. It is usually a product of another interest group that is trying to make us believe something that definitely does not benefit us, unless you are a part of this lobby.

We should listen to what Mr. Grove, the legendary CEO of Intel Inc., once said: ‘If everybody knows something, nobody knows nothing.’

Shoot the messenger

If a supposed message is steadily reiterated, and people mindlessly believe the messenger, then it is most likely to be neither true nor should we believe it, and the messenger should be shot.

The messenger should only be shot figuratively, of course. You should ignore anyone who talks to you unasked. You have decades of your own life experience, and you will find surprisingly many answers yourself if you only try. However, being critical, well-informed and propaganda savvy usually depends on the quality of your education.

Education appears to be our only hope to fix this mess. It is the best (and possibly the only) way to fight stupidity, passiveness, and ignorance. That is why school is such an important place. However, watch carefully who teaches your children. Despite their utmost importance, university degrees do not necessarily guarantee that their bearers are independent-thinking individuals. In fact, there are many quite dumb teachers out there, especially in public schools, but also at many private institutions. Therefore, we obviously must educate ourselves first in order to be able to select the right school for our children. It is our duty as members of the global human community to provide our offspring with the most objective, comprehensive, well-balanced education. Remember, our children will soon be voters.

We must learn how to resist the doomsayers’ message, even if it is omnipresent across media channels. If we surrender to the doomsayer, then we lose the battle. Instead, we should learn how to protect our individual freedom and liberty through skepticism towards new mega-trends. We must not get distracted and confused by horrifying prophecies. Too many times millions of innocent lives are wasted through mass trends created by evil masters of doom propaganda. Maybe it is better for us to recognize that we are not here to save the world—we are here to live our own lives, and we should take responsibility for our personal future.

I am not suggesting that we should become passive and isolated. I rather suggest that we should be generally more skeptical and care more for our local communities. This is the place we know and can influence best. This puts us in control of our destiny far more effectively than any globally propagated ideology. This helps us to take control of our lives and brightens up our perspectives. One human life is fragile and short. It is just too precious to be wasted through the Shadow of the Future.

Rock the Nations, Part 1: Ruling by Tax Hikes

2008-04-18T20:20:00.022+02:00

In the next few articles, I will discuss the nature of power over the masses and the way our politicians manage their nations. We are being ‘rocked’ by our leaders, like an intoxicated crowd at an open-air live performance in the 1960s. This is not how it was supposed to be. I believe in the importance of a conscious decision, whether we want to remain part of this delirium or wake up and vote for self-determination and freedom. Since every nation receives the government it deserves, it is important to know more about the true nature of political power. The upcoming articles are an attempt to analyze some of its essential aspects. If we learn the simple rules used by our leaders to disguise their true agenda — to squeeze more money out of our pockets, to make us obedient, and to control our minds — then we will finally get better governments.

I believe in the vision of a human society that is free and educated to be resistant against manipulation, propaganda, and lies. With this blog, I want to contribute to this vision. I hope you not only enjoy the articles, but are inspired by them to rethink some of the popular stereotypes. I am looking forward to your comments and e-mails. Enjoy!

Rock the Nations, Part 1: Ruling by Tax Hikes

Did you know that there are 36 types of taxes in the USA? Similar numbers apply to most countries around the globe. We lost our orientation in the tax jungle ages ago. How is it possible that our politicians are able to impose new fees and get away unpunished with increasing the tax burden at will?

Tax Squeeze with Ease

Who are the men and women in charge, the ones who rule the fate of many and govern our countries? Are they truly extraordinary individuals? Can just about anyone become President or Prime Minister of a democratic country? What are the skills necessary for such office?

It depends. Any fool can rule with enough cash at hand, but it takes a lot of talent to do it when money is scarce. Given the way our politicians are elected, I cannot see a single reason why any one of them should be assumed to be above average (I actually think that they are mediocre at best, especially regarding their management skills). Therefore, a typical ruling politician will continuously look for more money. The most obvious legal source of funds is, of course, the taxpayer’s pocket. Taxpayers are easy victims for numerous reasons:

The tax authorities possess a nearly unlimited power over their citizens; thus, any tax law can be executed without limits.
The rulers, not the citizens, make laws. If the citizens are handled properly (see ‘Six-Omega’ method below), they remain powerless. Masses are easier to fool than small groups or individuals.
If the citizens give away their money, they become more dependent upon the state, and thus will be more likely to vote as the rulers expect them to (e.g., for the next tax hike)
A new tax is likely to stay in force for decades and centuries.
Even if the tax was established with a specific goal in mind, the purpose itself is quickly forgotten and the income from the new tax can be used at will. For example, the German ‘sparkling wine tax’ was introduced in 1902 to help pay bills for the Kaiser Wilhelm’s navy. Needless to say, this tax is still valid today.
‘Everyone else does it, too’ – high taxes have become normality in most countries. Because it is so easy to establish them, various tax types are readily copied and introduced from one country to another.

We have become accustomed to the frequent robbery committed on us by our taxman because the official propaganda makes low taxes appear ‘wrong.’ The countries that have considerably more liberal taxation laws are discriminated by the others, because the high-tax countries fear the incalculable influence of those ‘bad examples.’ Certain tax authorities would chase their citizens, who emigrated to the so-called ‘tax heavens’ (low-tax areas), virtually anywhere around the globe and use every available force to make them pay penalty taxes. Other countries have a general ‘global taxation law,’ which means that the citizens are by default forced to pay taxes to the country of their origin no matter where they currently live. Killing in affection means maxium 15 years of prison (in various EU countries), but tax evasion may result in spending the rest of one’s life in jail.

It seems as if paying taxes is more important than life.

Unfortunately, that otherwise paranoid idea appears to be our reality. High taxes enable sub-average politicians to stay in power, and power has always been more attractive than other people’s lives. The increasing tax revenue helps the inept politicians stay in charge, regardless of their qualities and deeds. In other words, by accepting high taxes we have the very guarantee to be ruled by low profile politicians.

SIX-OMEGA: Raise billions in six easy steps

It may appear surprising that, in some cases, we accept paying up to 80% or even 90% taxes (e.g., for gasoline, it includes VAT plus the income tax already paid on every cent you spend). It frightens me to see that we accept sacrificing 30 or 40 years of our lives to working exclusively for our governments. Confronted with such numbers, one inevitably gets the impression that we live with some kind of a modern slavery. While certain taxes appear sensible because we need to pay for our infrastructure such as roads and railways, there is no plausible explanation for the fact that 60 or more percent of the national income is consumed by the government.

It has not always been that way, and it is not the natural way of managing a community or a nation. It is just that our own rulers have taken us in. They use a simple process that I call ‘Six-Omega,’ as opposed to the well-known ‘Six-Sigma’ methodology used to improve production processes.

Six-Omega’s main purpose is to increase the tax revenue flow by any desired amount, without a rationally explainable reason. It consists of the following simple steps:

Induce Fear: Create a sense of urgency.
Criminalize the scapegoat: Find a scapegoat and talk about it.
Call to arms: Urge everyone to fight the scapegoat. Put a high price tag on it.
Blackmail the nay-sayers: Demand a new tax/tax hike and publicly punish the opponents as betrayer of the good cause.
Tax: Introduce the new tax or tax hike. Call it a ‘reform.’
Quiet down: Avoid discussing the recent tax ‘reform’ in public. People are busy with their everyday lives and won’t bother to ask anymore.

There is nothing magical about this procedure. Let us take a closer look at the details.

1. Induce Fear

You need a ‘good’ or ‘just’ cause to make your planned tax hike plausible. You cannot always use the same reason or else it will appear queer even to the most average and ignorant citizen. Thus, you need to make up a new one.

In this first Six-Omega phase, you pay the PR agencies to create a large number of fake ‘news’ stories containing pseudo-information and warnings of a new danger, for example:

Traffic is killing children in the streets
Climate is changing (global warming)
The neighboring country increases its army’s headcount
Trees in our woods are suffering and dying from a virus or environmental contamination
Our trash is ‘littering our landscape to death’
The Internet uses too much electricity
Children become ‘addicted’ to computer games
Terrorist ‘sleepers’ are everywhere

In any case you should find something that can be counted or measured easily so the new tax can be calculated. Use human emotions such as envy, hate, sense of justice, and (most of all) angst to create the buzz. Use the so-called representative studies (which your subsidiaries pay for you, do not pay them directly) and publish ‘insight’ articles, full of ‘scientific’ authorities (university professors, PhDs and other scientists are humans, too, and usually feel that they are being underpaid and really need the money) and doom warnings (the ‘shadow of the future’ trick).

You do not need to worry that people will unmask the artificially created buzz; 60-80% of all news are generated by the PR professionals anyway, so you are in good company.

2. Criminalize the scapegoat

In this phase, a named wrongdoer must be found and stigmatized as a public enemy. People must quickly learn to dislike or even hate the scapegoat and want it gone or at least punished severely. The range of potential scapegoats is surprisingly large. For example, relating to the previous phase, you might target car drivers, power plants, the oil industry, tourists, the manufacturing industry, ‘evil’ citizens throwing bottles and cans on the roadside, Internet providers and Google alike, computer game developers, the software industry in general, foreigners and citizens with foreign descent, etc.

Remember that it is scientifically proven that any human community needs a scapegoat to purify their collective conscience. In the previous step, you have already created the sense of guilt; now you are pointing your voters to the source of the evil. People will gladly accept this ‘solution.’

3. Call to arms

People want to fight the evil. We all want to be good. We feel good being a part of the ‘right’ movement in our communities. This otherwise wonderful and valuable human nature can be easily abused for your purposes. All you need to do now is repeat the urgent need to fight the previously invented reason and the inevitable necessity of punishing the scapegoat. PR agencies are, once again, very useful here. Remember that it is nearly irrelevant how much your PR campaign costs— you are about to raise billions for your ramshackle administration.

4. Blackmail the nay-sayers

Unfortunately, some (usually very few) citizens are not as easy to manipulate as the rest of the crowd. Some of the nay-sayers will often be respected and influential individuals who raise their voices against your good cause. It is essential to put them to silence. Since you already have billions of the taxpayers’ money and they don’t, you are in the favorable position to hire the best PR agencies for a longer time than your opponents. Use the agencies to crack down on the nay-sayers and stigmatize them. The easiest way to do that is to imply some interdependencies between the nay-sayers and the scapegoat(s) introduced in the second phase of the Six-Omega process. Also, repeat that they are ultimately hurting the community and damage the ‘good cause’ established in the first phase.

During this phase, you need to prepare the new tax law or written regulation and put it on your parliament’s agenda. You know that bureaucratic procedures take their time. If your parliament works particularly slowly, you might like to move this step up to the previous phase. Remember that it is important to make your new tax easy to disguise. The best taxes are invisible to the taxpayers; they become an integral part of the price tag. It will make phase six of Six-Omega even easier. You may also establish an entirely new tax type. People will become confused by the large number of various tax types and simply stop asking silly questions.

You can use public surveys to prove the efficiency of your propaganda. As soon as you receive sufficient public support in at least two consecutive surveys, you must quickly move on to the next phase.

5. Tax!

This, of course, is the most pleasant moment. At this point, everyone is already tired of the continuous discussion over your new tax and is glad to have it done.

The end of this phase does not necessarily mean that you instantly receive your new money. Often the new tax does not become effective until the end of the fiscal year, for example. It does not matter much since the bill has passed your parliament—it has already become a law. Your additional money source has been kick-started and is ready to roll!

6. Quiet down

It is important to completely deactivate your propaganda machine now. Do not talk about the new tax ever unless forced to do otherwise. The people in your country are too busy or too passive to start another discussion. Thus, if you keep quiet, your new tax will become self-evident, natural and normal. You do not need any surveys or polls to prove it. Passivity and ignorance is written into your crowd’s DNA.

After a reasonable period, you may stop using your tax revenue for the original cause. Since you have been smart enough to introduce the tax as a disguised, integral part of the price tag (see Step 4), it disappears in the midst of other direct and indirect taxes. I guarantee that no one will ever bother to control what happens with the money raised with your new tax. Use it at will.

The Aftermath

If you assume that tax hikes state a risk to the political position of our rulers, you should think twice. Six-Omega does not weaken the rulers’ position – it in fact makes it stronger! The job of establishing the good cause and stigmatizing the scapegoats is performed anonymously by discrete PR agencies. However, the rescue (read: new tax) is offered openly and offensively by the ruling saviors. The result is astonishing: not only are the rulers able to easily introduce new taxes, but it also turns them into national heroes who have once again saved the nation from the potential disaster and punished the ugly scapegoats! What more can the crowd desire?

The crowd, of course, is fooled to its possibly greatest harm. Just as I wrote previously, accepting high taxes inevitably leads to even more taxes and steadily worsens the quality of our administrations. It erodes our life quality, reduces our freedom, demolishes our retirement plans, and directs vast money amounts in erratic directions. Money (tax money in this case) means power; power corrupts; corruption means less efficiency; less efficiency increases the need for more money.

Wake Up, Neo

Are you frightened? If not, then you were not paying attention. Maybe the following comparison between the old exchange economy and the modern world will help you see the actual problem more clearly.

In ancient times, if you had a cow, you would maintain it and earn, say, a jar of milk per day. You would then go to your neighbor and exchange the milk for some eggs. You now have 10 eggs—they are all yours! Your neighbor has a jar of fresh milk. It is 100% his. You and your neighbor have paid 0% taxes.

Today you work 8 hours for 300 money units (let us call them ‘Coins’). You will pay 40% income tax (including social security, which is, of course, just another tax type). You now have 180 Coins. You go to your local shop and buy clothes for 180 Coins. Twenty percent (36 Coins) will be paid immediately as ‘value added tax’ (or any other local sales tax of your choice). The store owner now holds 144 Coins in his hands. But wait, before he spends them, he must pay 40% of income tax. He now owns 86.4 Coins he can spend to buy some goods. Effectively, 71% of the work went as taxes to your government’s pocket. In other words, 8 hours of your hard work is worth 86.4 Coins instead of the 300 Coins you had formally earned. This is a mild example of what happens to the fruits of your hard work; if you decide to fill up your car instead, thanks to the ‘environmental’ and other additional taxes you might even end up with an overall tax rate as high as 95%!

Are you still calm? You may be a die-hard optimist, but not for long anymore. Think of the flood of bad news in the media. Why is bad news a better business than good news? Day in and day out you are being bombarded with news informing you about catastrophes, murders, hungers, epidemics and plane crashes that occur 20,000 miles from your home and do not affect you in the slightest way at all. Why are you learning so little about love, happiness, merry family life, well-educated children, and increasing wealth of nations? This is because it is easier to make money with bad news. New taxes require bad news. You cannot introduce a new tax or raise existing taxes by using good news at all! Thus, an increasing amount of bad news will be favored or cooked up in big numbers, and thrown at your poor brain to make you feel miserable, tired, and guilty. In the big scheme of things, bad news means more and higher taxes, and accepting more taxes is a guarantee for more bad news in the future. If you do not say no to this frenzy, you will most likely continue to pay ever-higher taxes, live an unhappy life, and die in misery.

Still want to hear more? Let us talk about war. Wars are truly bad news and a great opportunity to introduce new tax fees (see Step 1 in Six-Omega). Remember my example of the German ‘sparkling wine tax’ from 1902? Our rulers actually might tend to think that war is good business (as they probably do so anyway). If you do not oppose the ‘high taxes are good for you’ propaganda, you are actually taking your share of responsibility for many future wars. Moreover, it is not limited to wars that directly affect your country—you carry responsibility for the worldwide community of top politicians who all know each other and mutually support their actions. For example, in many EU countries, various anti-terror taxes were introduced shortly after 9/11. While publicly protesting against the Iraq war, the EU governments draw huge profits from the ‘war on terror.’

It is time to swallow the red pill and wake up, Neo.

The Time Has Come…

Do you really want to waste your life and be taxed back into the Stone Age? Remember the collapse of the Roman Empire? One of the reasons for its failure was the unbearable level of taxation, which had a devastating effect on the morale of the population during the last days of the Empire. From the point of view of an ordinary Roman citizen, it was just not worth fighting for anymore.

Why for God’s sake should we allow it to happen again? Is history a science that just proves that we do not learn anything from our past? If you are a father (so am I) or a mother, you should feel responsible for the future of your children. Remember, there is no easy escape from this miserable prison, not even by emigration, since the concept of ruling by tax hikes is used in most countries around the globe. Thus, we must act in our local communities. Do not be part of a lie—stand up and do something!

What can you do? It is up to you. Violence will not solve the problem—word of mouth will do it instead. We should speak out. It works! You will be surprised how many desperate taxpayers are awaiting it.

Are large corporations doomed to fail?

2008-04-03T18:47:00.007+02:00

Would you like to work for a large company or prefer a smaller one, possibly a start-up? Big corporations are often a hostile place to work in. After a short period, many high-potentials turn into passive, frustrated low-performers. If they become the majority of the workforce, it can have severe consequences for their employers. Are all big organizations damned to fail in the long run?

Capitalistic aberrations: when small companies become large institutions

It is often said that small businesses are more efficient than large businesses. The decisions are made quickly, the bureaucracy is kept low, the staff can be hired and fired quickly according to their performance, usage of resources is highly optimized, etc. Small businesses are generally more agile and can move quicker depending to market conditions.

While various studies may show this in numbers, this observation comes mainly from my own experience as a CEO of a small incorporated company. Highly motivated generalists were using short communication paths to implement new ideas and quickly find solutions to any obstacles. The result was high performance and profitability. It is relatively easy to generate 30% return on equity in such an environment. As opposed to that, only very few large corporations reach such respectable ROE ratio.

Many changes take place in a company during its growth. The number of employees and subcontractors is growing and so is the number of customers. At some point, the original founders/owners hire middle management and eventually lose the direct touch with many parts of their firm. The employed managers and staff hired by them become increasingly different from what the original founders had in mind. It is logical to consider that hired managers choose to be employees mostly because they usually do not have the qualities required for an entrepreneur to create and run their own businesses. Thus, the company begins losing its focus on products and customers – the employees tend to be busy with their own careers, which often collide with the core interests of the firm. The most dramatic efficiency decline often occurs when the original founders hire a CEO to run their businesses. Steve Jobs and Michael Dell are well-known examples of CEOs whose companies suffered from dramatic results of their withdrawals.

The politicommercial catch 22

Nearly every large corporation was once a small, dynamic startup company. This may have been ten, fifty, or maybe more than a hundred years ago. Today, these organizations are so big that it can be safely assumed that to have left the break-even of efficiency far behind them. How can we explain that, given that large companies obviously tend to be less effective, they did not stop growing when they reached their optimal size? What seems to be an economic paradox can be easily explained by considering the coherence between business and the government (local or countrywide, depending on scale). The authorities are interested in supporting large companies and the companies’ employees are also voters. Thus, when a big firm has a problem and faces the risk of downsizing its staff, the authorities would have a problem as well and will thus try to avert the layoffs. Usually, the authority will not openly discuss the real causes of such crisis, since it would usually immediately affect the company’s management and maybe even accelerate the otherwise economically inevitable consequences. Instead, in the majority of cases a ‘solution’ is found, which normally consists of some kind of significant subventions taken from the taxpayer’s money. In such manner, management mistakes remain unpunished. Because of this experience, the management becomes less motivated to manage their business properly, since they know that next time, even if they make mistakes, the government will again willingly help them.

This process takes place in virtually every enterprise, and in every democratic country. When a company reaches the size that becomes ‘visible’ to politicians, this spiral of failings and bailouts soon sets in and never stops anymore. While this fatal symbiosis of politics and business delivers some short-term advantages (the employees keep their jobs a little longer), it leads to the situation when all growing companies actually expect that kind of help from the government. I would like to call it a ‘politicommercial’ Catch 22.

Helping corrupt businesses by giving them the taxpayer’s money is like paying a privatized fire department on per-fire basis. Soon, the number of fires magically explodes and at the end of the day, the fire department office itself, being the last house standing, burns down to the ground.

Lost in the corporate maze

Almost all large companies would eventually fail if they played by the rules of the free market. However, at some point, they actually cease being capitalistic. Instead, they gradually become state-owned, commercial organizations. While the shareholders (often state-owned funds) continue demanding profitability, the employed management becomes less interested in generating profits through innovation, efficiency, and entrepreneurship. It simply becomes clear that if something really goes wrong, the authorities will provide required financial help anyway.

In this manner, typical ‘line organizations’ emerge. The employees stop thinking in profits, and start thinking in careers. The promotion criteria become less dependent on the ability to understand and run the business; instead, the ability to navigate through ‘corporate jungle’, mastering the political correctness, having a highly manipulative mindset, and using ‘political’ skills become the qualities most beneficial for the individual employee. It is less important to lead by example and effectively persuade, and more vital to just dominate the others and to have the ‘right network’ (have powerful allies amongst the influential colleagues). This process systematically erodes the company and, in extreme cases, leads to an environment that is similar to that of a royal court rather than a commercial, market-oriented business.

Employees in such firms start taking care of what really counts for their personal forthcoming: their ‘political’ skills. Socializing with the ‘right’ people becomes the most important activity on the priorities shortlist. The larger the organization, the more time is needed (wasted) to manage the personal network.

While the time spent on political activities increases, the time used for productive work decreases accordingly. This is one possible explanation of the Parkinson’s Law, which claims that any organization grows 5-7% per year, regardless if it is objectively explainable in terms of more business to be managed (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law for more details on Parkinson’s Law). As managers often define their power and influence by the number of subordinates, on every occasion more people are hired than it would otherwise be economically necessary. The company is growing for the growth’s sake.

It is probably safe to say that nearly every traditional business organization either goes out of business or goes down that bumpy road. Sad but true, such businesses are effectively run by low-profile politicians and – ultimately – by the government. Such corporations rarely fail in terms of bankruptcy – they just mutate into political-driven social swamps. They get lost in the political maze and never come back; the zombies of the capitalistic economy.

Talk the talk - or walk

Many young graduates, unable to distinct rationality from the propaganda of big corporations (also called ‘public relations’), fall for promises of an employment perspective that often eventually turn out to be an illusion. At the beginning, they tend to be passionate, naïve, and highly involved. After a few years (often much earlier), they apparently realize that the rules of the game differ in almost every aspect from what they assumed in the first place.

As a business consultant, I often meet young, disillusioned, passive, and depressed individuals who were ‘high potentials’ once before. I can still sense the energy that is now being suppressed and wasted. In the typical scheme of ‘them’ vs. ‘us’ (which usually mean ‘higher management’ vs. ‘lower management’), nearly all of them complain about the high level of ‘political activities’ within their company. In the light of the prior considerations, it is unavoidable that those young people either become ‘spoiled’ and join the cynical, political crowd, or quit to join another company, or maybe even start their own small businesses.

Lean down, power up

The public perception of companies has changed. We don’t care about ‘Apple Inc.’ – we talk about iPhone and iPod. It’s ‘Blackberry’, not ‘RIM Ltd.’. We don’t really bother asking where the products come from – we want to buy a product we like, not the company behind it. Today’s products are results of well-managed projects, whether they are cars, phones, or refrigerators. The speed at which today’s businesses must act has become overwhelming. The traditionally steady, continuous way of providing market goods has been replaced with more short-term, delivery-focused, project-oriented structures. New products are not resulting from the work of the line management anymore; they are often successful in spite of it. Traditional line organizations often fail miserably when it comes to project management. They are not made to move at a fast pace – instead, they are good at preserving the status quo, which is actually one of their core problems. The corporate mindsets, focused on politics and personal careers, are unable and unwilling to return to the origins of their companies: the market-driven economy.

So what is the solution to this ‘politicommercial’ Catch 22? It is the concept of lean organizations that employ only a small number of highly dedicated key players who specialize in managing projects. In other words, the best way of doing business appears to be an ‘ever lasting startup’. We should accept that commercial success has nothing to do with the number of hired employees. In a lean company, the amount of the political waste is low if experts are hired only for the lifetime of the project. The old argument of a necessity of retaining the core know-how in the heads of key employees has become meaningless in the age of job-hopping anyway. We can always find and engage the right specialists on the free market. The most efficient and rewarding projects I have ever seen in my life consisted of up to 95% freelance experts. As opposed to that, the worst project nightmares I have witnessed occurred when mainly line employees were deployed to do the project work (in this case, using line employees generally doesn’t make much sense for obvious reasons). Compared to that, working with freelance contractors has been most often a wonderful experience.

In my opinion, powerful, lean companies are most likely to be commercially successful in the long run. For ‘good ol’ corporations’ it is probably too late to turn around. Therefore, my firm belief is that it is better for young potentials to take a look at lean (and/or smaller) companies and maybe join them as an independent contractor for the lifetime of a project, instead of selling their souls to the demons of political corruptness and the so-called ‘career’. Provided proper skills and enthusiasm, they will be more successful and are more likely to preserve their integrity, which is the basic prerequisite for a happy and fulfilled life.

The war over digital minds

2008-03-18T18:30:00.009+01:00

True believers, zealots, fanatics, and ideological guerrilla fighters crowd the digital universe. Rational thinking is not welcome there. The open source hype serves as a great example of this phenomenon. It is dangerous to question the supposedly “evil nature of Microsoft” or the “fabulous business perspectives of open source ventures.” Open source qualifies as a religion ersatz.

The Gods we made

In order to master the complexity of our lives, our brains are designed to simplify and believe. Our lives are much too short and the world is much too complicated to be understood in every detail. Since it is impossible to know virtually everything, we adapt abstract concepts instead of attempting to collect detailed knowledge. We often have no other choice but simply to believe. Because so many things are so complex, the only way to stay sane is to take a “logical shortcut” and explain them using the concept of “God.” Otherwise, we would be running ever faster in circles, desperately trying to understand the universe surrounding us. Thus, we just cannot live without God. As Voltaire suggested, if there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.

Modern societies tend to reject the monotheist, traditional God. However, if God is a necessity, then it means that people who have lost their traditional faith are obviously an easy target for anyone offering a quick replacement. It does not have to be perfect, but it must be quickly available and instantly ready to use. Interestingly, it does not need to be ONE God. In fact, monotheism is a relatively new concept. Ancient tribes used to have dozens – if not hundreds – of Gods with various responsibilities.

Our “God replacements” are weak and short-lived; thus, we are seldom content with just one God. Therefore, we have many: a “God of emancipation and feminism,” a “God of safety,” a “God of liberty,” a “God of nationalism,” a “God of socialism,” a “God of war,” a “God of environmentalism,” a “God of sex,” a “God of money,” a “God of political correctness,” and so on. We sometimes call them “mega-trends” or “ideologies.” We also have many minor, auxiliary Gods, and many of them were created by modern computer technology, such as “God of iPhone,” “God of Microsoft,” “God of Linux,” and “God of open source.” We sometimes refer to them as “trends” or “products.”

“The less you know, the more you believe” (Bono)

Interest groups create and support new Gods in order to achieve their specific, egoistic aims. Some Gods become abused. For example, the tobacco industry supported the female emancipation movements in the 1920s and later in order to double the size of the market for cigarettes. The providers of alternative energy supplies praise and would do nearly anything for the “God of environmentalism.” Virtually every industry creates its own “Gods” to conquer the markets. As a technology fan, consultant and management advisor, I have been watching various “Gods” come and go for the past 25 years. Many semi-religious wars were carried out in this exciting environment. I, too, was a faithful crusader more than once in those battles over digital minds, as I like to call it. Back then, in the 1980s, Sinclair Spectrum partisans were fighting the Commodore C64 crowd. Then Amiga zealots were wrestling with Atari fanatics (with some crossfire from Acorn RISC prophets). Then an army of Windows tanks rolled around the OS/2 Maginot Line and conquered the PC continent. These days, Linux conspirators are trying to blow up the Microsoft fortress. This is what some refer to as “OS wars” (operating systems wars). Other disciplines deliver at least as good examples. Visual Basic pragmatists were trying to knock down the C++ priests; RISC processor believers were trying to nuke the CISC camp . . . This list, which could go on for hours, brings back countless memories of things we religiously believed in and which came to pass a long time ago.

Since the time of the home computer ZX81 in the early 1980s, the IT PR industry has been very successful in using the fan community as a weapon to fight the naysayers. At first glance, this phenomenon appears so astonishingly bizarre that some may blush recalling the countless, wasted hours spent arguing over absurd bits and bytes. Many friendships perished in the heat of religious disputes over supposed pluses and minuses of either hardware or software. Sadly, this situation has not improved since those days. Quite the opposite is true. For example, expressing any positive opinions on either Windows or Linux in front of IT experts will often trigger a furious, religious crossfire of “digital crusaders” fighting for their “just causes.”

Digital crusaders can be a scary species. When exposed to a different opinion, they become dangerous. For example, try to give a Linux zealot a Word document and ask him to proofread it. I would not be surprised at all if you received the result as an XML file, or an Open Office file at best. If you feel adventurous, try to insist on using only Word documents. The chances are good that you will be confronted with the purest hatred you have ever experienced.

Hate is an important emotion, used by the professional creators of our contemporary “Gods” to mobilize the crowds. Hate usually eliminates logical reasoning, and that is the primary goal of propagandists. Rationally thinking, it is irrelevant who supplies the software components for your projects. If Windows does the trick, then let that be it. If Linux delivers on promise and covers all requirements, why not go for it. Similarly, in software design, it is irrelevant if you call it “modular,” “EAI” or “SOA.” In principle, they all are alike. As opposed to those shiny acronyms, you cannot go wrong with Niklaus Wirth’s data structures and Erich Gamma’s design patterns. Sadly, this advice often remains ignored. We seem to prefer beliefs to facts.

“Jesus, he knows me…”

We want to believe the right thing. The desire to be “on the right side” is so genuinely human that it seems odd that we handle it so poorly. Instead of keeping a sound distance, we often get very emotional. For example, when asked why open source is supposed to be a better solution in a certain context, a typical open source evangelist will get excited describing the evil nature of Microsoft. He will request you to declare your belief that the fat Linux penguin will overthrow the sinister “Evil Empire” in Redmond. Indeed, he is ready to die for his God. He knows for sure he is “on the right side.” It feels good. It makes his day. It is his God. By asking him this question, you are giving him the opportunity to prove that he can fight the Great Evil of this world. His entire personality seems to consist of the certainty that this God will save the world.

Not surprisingly, he is doing as he was told by someone who declared himself “God’s own herald.” It reminds me of the music video clip by Genesis called “Jesus, he knows me”. There are popular individuals in the open source scene who “talk” to the God of Open Source. They have created and now lead the hype. They have defined the enemy to be fought against. They are profiting from it.

However, drawing core motivation from purely being against someone or something is a two-edged sword. Microsoft bashers and Windows haters are fighting their exaggerated enemy images. Reducing a religion to an ordinary fight is easy; there is no need to look for real answers. The existence of a particular “enemy” is the answer to everything. It is the ancient “God vs. Devil” mentality. But what would become of such a God if the Satan perished?

In fact, the bare existence of Microsoft seems to be the main reason why the open source movement even exists in its present form. Since hating Microsoft seems to be the core motivation, the open source hype would disappear overnight if Microsoft went out of business.

Minding your own business

“I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side,” says Treebeard in Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings. It sounds like a very reasonable attitude. I would even go so far as to say that it is the foundation and a primary destiny of humans to be independent individuals. It is not natural to be used as a tool by other humans to maximize one’s profit. It doesn’t matter to me if it is an open or closed source interest group. I fancy I am immune to the open source hysteria because my God is not digitalized. Therefore, I consequently mind my own business, not someone else’s.

I am neither being paid by Microsoft, nor am I an open source hater. I use it just as I use “closed” source commercial products. Open source just happens to be a particularly good example of a diffuse, manipulative ideology, a “God for the masses.”

The more I think about it, the more I conclude that believing in a monotheistic, almighty and good God is the best possible solution. Practically thinking, having an abstract, more or less distant, non-interventionist God offers several advantages. In most cases, he will not squeeze money out of our wallets. He will not make us hurt ourselves. He is unlikely to make us addicted to any material thing or industrial product. He offers protection against those self-made Gods, for he would not leave space for other, false Gods created by humans to dominate other humans.

For the open source maniacs and all other zealots of our temporary Gods out there, it is actually quite good news. We can set ourselves free if we want to. We can stop letting others use us as tools to boost their businesses by mobilizing us to fight the “pagans” (read: their competitors). We can reject the artificial Gods who tend to make us aggressive and frustrated. We can learn to use our wits instead of our emotions. Ironically, monotheism turns out to be a very rational thing. Being rational can be beautiful.

In short, we can do what the Dark Priests of Minor Gods fear most: we can go on minding our own business. Doesn’t that sound revolutionary?

Presidents, freedom, and the transatlantic copy shop

2008-03-07T07:46:00.012+01:00

“Bashing America” is a popular pastime in Europe. When German politicians want to denounce an economy-liberal idea, they often express the willingness to prevent “American conditions” in their country. Ironically, it does not keep the Europeans from notorious copying of many new ideas and often questionable trends that are already popular in the United States. It explains why the Europeans have reasons to worry about the outcome of the US presidential campaign, for it may affect the original patterns and thus rule the fate of many.

“Don’t ask what your country can do for you…”

Every European child knows the famous quote said by President J.F. Kennedy. This circumstance is not proof of the social welfare state being a superior idea. It merely indicates an interesting behavior pattern, which may be characterized as “unidirectional transatlantic cultural replication syndrome.” In other words, many ideas, which are popular in the US, will most likely be adopted and widely accepted in Europe. The opposite is seldom the case, whereas the Europeans systematically avoid admitting it in public, the obvious or disguised plagiarism is notorious. For example, the Europeans have mor-or-less copied the following trends and ideas:

Punishment of “disguised employment”
Female emancipation
Political correctness
Anti-discrimination laws
Legalization of easy line tapping through Secret Service and even the police
Anti-terror laws and security measures (such as fingerprints databases, etc.)
Smoking bans in public places and restaurants
Many cultural phenomena, such as blue jeans, Disney cartoons, various localized sitcom concepts, talk show concepts, etc.

The dominance of the US-lead-Anglo-Saxon culture is so dramatic that in some European countries, local governments enforce quotas by a law limiting the number of English songs broadcasted, in order to “protect” the original, domestic culture.

Interestingly, the blunt copies of American trends often turn out to be only skin-deep. Europeans adapt those US-originated ideas that best fit their local mindset. There are considerable differences between the US and European mentalities, in spite of our common European roots (this statement, of course, only apply to certain portions of the populations, since obviously other ethnic and cultural minorities live in both communities). An outstanding example of what happens when decision makers ignore these differences was the catastrophic failure of Wal-Mart in its attempt to conquer the German retail market (which ended up in a complete withdrawal). One of the reasons was the fact that German employees simply refused to obey the “be-nice-and-smile-for-money” policy set up by Wal-Mart management. As opposed to that, American employees willingly accept this behavioral regulation.

Perhaps the most important difference between the transatlantic mindsets is the “freedom or safety” dilemma. The “make-do” attitude and a relatively high degree of self-responsibility, typical for the US population, are notably less popular in Europe. The typical European will crave safety, security, and social warmth. The idea of personal freedom – while facing uncertain future – frightens the Europeans.

“…ask what you can do for your country.”

My impression is that, when exposed to slogans like the aforementioned J.F.K. citation, Europeans actually hear a different message. Translated to “Europish,” it would rather read like, “Don’t look at what it takes, give yourself away, and we – the Big, Caring, Almighty, and Wealthy State – will take care of your life. Don’t worry; we know best what’s good for you.”

The problem with this “copy-and-paste” pattern is that only a specific type of trends is being copied. An average European does not realize how diverse and conservative the American society is. It has more “to the left” and almost totalitarian aspects (e.g., the restrictive US tax system), others are conservative and liberal (e.g., the labor law). Because the Europeans are generally more prone to “leftist” ideas, they would select and reuse only that sort of trends. It is not a coincidence. Many EU leaders have “deeply red” political past and cultivate adequate beliefs. Mr. Barroso, for example, the current President of the powerful European Commission, was a Maoist (!) leader in Portugal in the 1970s. We have no reason to assume that he now has become a passionate advocate of free markets and independent thinking. The example of Mr. Barroso is representative for the sort of individuals constituting the EU ruling elite.

Better alternatives, ignored

While comparing the US and EU societies is difficult in many respects, some differences are obvious. The most prominent example is the different perception of unorthodox opinions. For example, individuals like Dr. Ron Paul, one of the Republican candidates for the US presidential election, are typically an American phenomenon. Interestingly, Dr. Paul has a noticeably large following, given the fact that American PR agencies choose to ignore Dr. Paul utterly. Dr. Paul questions many otherwise popular and widely accepted concepts such as Fed and the standard fiscal policy, arguing that they contradict the original US constitution and are the true root cause for many of the current US problems. As opposed to the US example, it seems safe to assume that a person such as Dr. Paul is impossible in Europe (just as some say, Mr. Bill Gates would most likely have both started and ended up as a dishwasher on the Old Continent).

It is hard to imagine the European consequences if Dr. Paul surprisingly won the presidential campaign in the US. Nearly all opinions of Dr. Paul contradict the European mentality, which favors social security, strong government, and the enviousness-driven desire of equality of incomes. Interestingly, the mainstream of the EU population is remarkably unaware of the laws of the capitalistic economy, so the majority of Europeans just follow “common sense” in that matters. Unfortunately, this European “common sense” argues that capitalism is a bad thing, as opposed to high taxes, which are believed to be a good thing because they are necessary to keep strong governments running, and that personal freedom is nothing compared to personal security.
If Dr. Paul became the next US President, the EU elite, used to copying the ideas from overseas, would be lost in the dark.

Hope for America – Hope for EU

The Europeans should worry about the outcome of the US presidential campaign. If a more leftist leader were elected for President, the decline of the USA would be just a matter of a time, with consequences for the entire planet. I do not mean military issues. I worry much more about the intellectual and economic aspects, which influence the rest of the world far more than the entire, monstrous American military-industrial complex.

Should the USA tap into social (or even socialist) thinking patterns and thus disassemble its leading qualities – who would take the lead? The alternatives look rather gloomy. The EU, being latent or openly leftist, fragmented, with a fast aging population, would not be able to develop the dynamic, determined attitude that is indispensable for this role. China – often praised as the assumingly “emerging world power” – is only superficially a democratic country, but in the reality, China is of course a mostly totalitarian and extremely materialistic society. China imitates certain western-style democratic concepts just to maintain its status as an acceptable trading partner of the world community. Russia falls mostly in the same category, except that it is more obviously nationalistic and aggressive. India seems to be unwilling or unable to become involved in important world affairs that do not immediately affect Indian interests. I would rather not mention the Arab countries in this context. It inevitably becomes obvious that the result of America’s failure to retain its leading role would be most likely a scary ideological vacuum. This vacuum would enable totalitarian states to dominate the world to make it a dull, sad, materialistic, and desperate place.

This scenario sounds like a sinister Hollywood horror movie. We can only hope that it never becomes a bitter reality.

The outlook

The outcome of the current presidential campaign will mark an important milestone. Unfortunately, none of the leading candidates supports the freedom-oriented, economy-liberal way of thinking. Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton are good at promising social gifts – that is the socialist drug for the masses. Republican candidates such as McCain seem to be convinced that war is the best way to live in peace. Dr. Paul is just not getting enough traction, despite his remarkable popularity in the Internet. Generally, it is frustrating to see the lack of clear orientation among the US intellectual elite.

So what can we, EU citizens, do about it? Not much, so it seems. Are we supposed to sit on our hands and wait? Well, we are still free to speak out and talk about our concerns, freely – at least in most cases. In the age of Web 2.0, every individual can express his or her opinion with very little effort, so that to millions of others can read it. Inspiring fellow citizens to think just a bit further outside the box will help a little. I am sure it is worth a try, and that is why I am here. You can do it, too.

The time has come to give up the freebies

2008-02-21T23:55:00.006+01:00

In his revolutionary book, Propaganda, (first published in 1928) Eduard Bernays, the father of “modern public relations,” argues that propaganda may be used as a legitimate weapon against unfair competitors and a legitimate tool to pursue truth and honesty in daily business and political life. Ironically, only five years after the book was published, the very same strategy was used by German propaganda ueberfather, Joseph Goebbels, to motivate millions of Germans to go to war and to justify the most systematic and industrialized genocide in the history of mankind.

I am talking about freedom - real, pure, individual freedom, which includes both body and mind. It is obvious that even if we are physically unrestricted, as long as our minds are enslaved, then we are not free. Again, it is mind over matter. The human mind is a sensitive and mysterious device, constantly eager to learn from what it reads and hears. Unimaginably complex, the human brain operates based on some surprisingly simple rules. One of those is the rule of subconscious reasoning. Our seemingly conscious decisions are evidently based on everything that we have heard, seen, and felt, which is compiled into rules and stored in our subconscious mind. Therefore, few things are more important than the kind and quality of information that we are receiving. Those, who control this information flow, are truly in charge. These people may use propaganda to gain this control ultimately.

It is interesting how we insist on healthy food and worry about a myriad of other more or less abstract things (such as climate change), but ignore the hygiene of our minds. We do not watch closely enough to what our brains feed on; we allow anything to be put on the dinner plate of our mind. For example, we are willing to accept seemingly “free” offerings (such as software or music) in exchange for allowing other people (such as the advertising industry) to project indescribable amounts of propaganda (such as commercials and PR messages) into our brains. The manipulative content is infused into our minds in the form of web banners, advertising spots, sales promotions, marketing campaigns, radio commercials, and public relation messages. The latter form of propaganda is the most dangerous one; since, the actual sales message is cloaked in a nice “news” wrapping that is commonly used by news broadcasts or serious newspapers. For this reason, we are often unable or simply do not bother to separate the truth from a manipulated, suggestive message.

We allow this to happen every day. Without noticing it, we increasingly become dependent on pseudo-information, which was carefully designed to cause this kind of addiction. It is funny how some of us pretend to be in total control of ourselves despite the opposite being so obviously true. As a result, many of our seemingly free decisions are not free at all; they were, in fact, previously prepared and transmitted to our brains. We are just following this hidden advice, whether we want to follow it or not. This is how we are plugged into the Matrix; we have been plugged into it of our own accord. However, the consequences are severe. We have increasingly become an easy-to-control voting mass. There are many dark powers out there that are urgently interested in gaining this control. I think that it is our very basic human duty to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions. For example, why is it that the terrorists seem to be more successful in their propaganda war against us than vice versa? Is it maybe because the terrorists finally figured out how to master the very same methods of mass control that are being used by all Western ruling classes to keep their nations under control. If we do not have the ability to separate the true and false ingredients from our “own” propaganda, then how much of the terrorists’ propaganda can even be recognized?

It appears that we are losing this informational warfare. Western civilization is becoming weaker every day. We are suffering from the autoimmune disease of omnipresent and omnipotent media-based propaganda. It is said that today, 60-80% of all information included in the news channels is based on propaganda (Public Relations). What has been good for the industry in the past hundred years now seems to be finally backfiring on us. It is frightening to see how many of us internalize factually anything that is written or said in the news. So, we claim to know that we are running out of oil in twenty years, that we are destroying the world climate, that the western form of democracy is the best possible form of government, which fits any culture on our planet, that our social security systems are better than all others, that constant inflation is a natural law of life, that our infants must receive all of the possible vaccinations regardless of the known and unknown risks, that we should behave in a certain way as a man or as an emancipated woman, and that an effective tax level of 60%, or even 80%, is normal and well-justified. Even worse, some of us become tools of the disguised individuals and organizations behind the propaganda. These victims are the true “believers” and “agents” of the hidden message; they are aggressive and dangerous to anyone confronting them with a different opinion.

We have no choice, but to question so-called “common sense.” Who or what is the source of the beliefs being distributed in our media channels? There is a political or business-oriented motivation behind every PR message. It is not about the truth. Just consider how many things turned out to be completely wrong despite being said to be true for a long time (until they were obviously proven to be complete nonsense). Remember the famous spinach affair and how healthy spinach was supposed to be? For hours, days, and weeks, cumulated PR messages, carrying the message of wonderfully healthy spinach, were designed and broadcasted to all nations around the world. Until finally, it turned out that high iron content was just a plain mistake. It had been a mistake for decades, but no one cared. Take the Great European Hunger prophecy for another instance. Decades ago, the Club of Rome predicted hunger in Europe by the end of the last century. In the decades following that statement, this prediction was taken for granted. Today, the EU is sitting on mountains of corn and butter. Remember the computer fans wars, “Atari against Commodore”? Neither system ultimately was the best; it was the PC that won the race. The list of untrue, but strongly and commonly believed statements and prophecies could be continued for hours. Ask yourself, why do we believe in the many myths and legends about the Middle East, Iran, Iraq, the social justification of Islamic extremism, and unconditional equality of the sexes (just to name a few examples)? Why do people blindly believe in open source software as the true saviour from the evil monopolists?

The answer is because we were told to think that way. We were hit and manipulated by propaganda. Because we are so vulnerable to propaganda, we are even willing to give away our freedom for a piece of cheap junk and even more propaganda to top it off. Anyone who knows the laws and tools of public relations can gain easy access to our brains. This, of course, includes the terrorists.

We do not receive any education about resisting propaganda. That kind of literacy is obviously of the least interest to our leaders. Even in Germany, a country that has suffered from propaganda in so many ways, only the symptoms are stigmatized not propaganda itself The governments have decided to continue using propaganda in every possible way, because there is nothing else that is easier.

Yet, the time has come to resist. We must learn how to reject propaganda in ANY form. I believe there is no way to distinguish between “good” and “evil” propaganda. Either we reject it utterly or nothing will change for the better. It is impossible to resist selectively one “bad” kind of propaganda and accept the “good” kind. We have neither the abilities nor the resources to distinguish between them. We will follow the wrong advice with severe consequences. The increasingly media-savvy and more-or-less evil leaders from all over the world will have easy access to our minds; they will be able increasingly to manipulate our decisions, our votes, and eventually even our fate. It sounds dramatic, but seems increasingly comprehensible; if we try to keep all things as they are (or as they are believed by us to be), we might eventually be facing an ultimate loss of our freedom and our wealth.

What happens if we indeed manage to reject any form of propaganda? It is not only our leaders and our national rulers, who would forfeit much of their beloved power. We would have to give up much of our comfort and leave the warm spot in the seemingly safe cage of convenience and security. We would have to give up “sponsored” products, “advertisement-supported” and “free” services, “free” software, “free” music, and “free” entertainment offerings. Of course, they are not really free at all. We just do not pay for them immediately. Those offerings are not really free, nor are their consumers. The consumers are just pushing the fat iron plug deeper into the backs of their heads by accepting the foul deals and following the misleading promises. They are giving in to the Matrix.

By rejecting propaganda, we would truly change our world. In the current US election campaign, the term, “change,” is being abused beyond recognition. But, what we will probably see happen is that this wonderful, still relatively free country will continue tumbling down the road of dependency, limited personal freedom, fake security, and latent despair. Americans have already given up much of their original freedom for the false promise of safety and security. This is not the American spirit, as we know it; it is quite the opposite of it.

It is time for a real change. IT IS TIME TO GIVE UP THE FREEBIES. We need a different culture: a culture of truth, respect, and hope, instead of manipulation, cynicism, and apathy. We must educate our children to understand the power and the mechanics of propaganda, even if it means that we will sacrifice some – or maybe most – of our beloved habits and goodies. We should learn and teach how to decide freely what to think, what to buy, and what to do. Our decisions must be based on information that is possibly objective and neutral. If we do not act soon, then others will; they will do it to our maximum harm.

Think about it. “Did you exchange,” as the old Pink Floyd song goes, “a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?” Maybe it is time to go outside. In case, you did not know - the door of your cage is unlocked. It has always been.