Deze partij heeft in het Europese Parlement al jaren veel invloed samen met gelijkgestemde partijen uit andere EU landen en via de vrouwen en mannen van de Fraction of the Greens/EFA zie greens-efa.eu. (EFA= European Free Association). Zie wie dat nu al zijn op die site.
De kandidaten voor MEP zijn zeer divers en kunnen volgens mij het best gekarakteriseerd worden als VERKENNERS / ONTDEKKERS / EXPERIMENTEERDERS. Ze deden en doen liefst dingen waarvan “iedereen zegt dat het niet kan”. Ze durven al paden naar de toekomst te betreden. Onder andere op ICT gebied en nieuwe digitale toepassingen waar nieuw werk en waardecreatie uit kan komen in harmonie met de Natuur. Mensenrechten voor onze burgers en democratie beschermen en de Civil-Society versterken. Respect voor verbeteringen en werk van vakmensen, zoals evolutie in de Natuur plaatsvindt. Innovatie niet laten tegenhouden door gevestigde belangen (WEF) en aandeelhouderswaarde. Voorbeeld: boeren die algen willen kweken met zonlicht en varkensmest.
Dit is belangrijk in verband met de komende *Subsidiariteit (besluitvorming verschuift van nationaal naar boven EN naar beneden), * De-centralisaties en * Regionalisatie in de EU.
Deze combi-partij biedt perspectief voor jongeren, in tegenstelling tot de rechtse sprookjes-groepering die nu een regering in Nederland gaat vormen, die bijna alleen maar in achteruitkijkspiegels lijkt te kijken.
jaap van till, TheConnectivist en lijstduwer voor deze partij.
(A) In 1973 Mark Granovetter, sociologist at the John Hopkins University, published an unexpected discovery [1]. By interviewing post-grads how they got their first job he found that not family members (strong ties), or advertisements or job bureaus gave them the best suggested directions to find fitting jobs, but just passing far family members or aquaintences had the best ideas who to contact. Granovetter called them “weak ties” to distinguish them from the day to day contacts of “strong ties”. In fact these interpersonal weak ties have great cohesive power and even provide relations between groups.
(B) That is why I coined the term “#Btwieners” for these very valuable weak tie providers. See [2] . They are not weak at all.
These vital civilians :
Are respected and recognized members of more than one tribe / cultural cooperating group. So they can transmit recommendations during team formations to let a certain highly skilled specialist from other tribe to contribute in such holistic co-creating team, consisting of very diverse members.
Can move freely between several tribes, like Gandalf The Grey did, That is why i named these unique people Btwieners.
The result of this network weaving is value creation and STABILITY.
They visit in small teams, repair damaged parts of systems and then travel to other places.
(C) In fact weak links/ weak ties/ btwieners are active all over nature, as shown in the impressive book by prof. Csermely [3]. This book shows that weak links are active in human brains, biochemical systems, ecologies, ant hills, etc,
Summary: How can our societies be stabilized in a crisis? Why can we enjoy and understand Shakespeare? Why are fruitflies uniform? How do omnivorous eating habits aid our survival? What makes the Mona Lisa’s smile beautiful? How do women keep our social structures intact? – Could there possibly be a single answer to all these questions? This book shows that the statement: “weak links stabilize complex systems” provides the key to understanding each of these intriguing puzzles, and many others too. The author (recipient of several distinguished science communication prizes) uses weak (low affinity, low probability) interactions as a thread to introduce a vast variety of networks from proteins to economics and ecosystems. Many people, from Nobel Laureates to high-school students have helped to make the book understandable to all interested readers. This unique book and the ideas it develops will have a significant impact on many, seemingly diverse, fields of study.
(D) How do Btwieners in society develop. The start is that kind people with empathy and certain skills assist and help others to (a) articulate their problem or bottleneck for success. (b) often this results in refering the person that needs assistence to somebody who maybe knows more about this particular problem. It can be shown in practice that the solution will be found within six (6) steps. Or there is none. It is essential that the the fact of good result is messaged back in the chain, so the referers know that it is solved and to know if the right persons where recommended. This is called the “networking activity” and it involves far more than passing business cards. This is where Btwieners appear since referals can cross any border or boundary. The only hing that counts is if a problem can be solved and the shoesize or haircollour of the solver is of no importance at all. (NL:) De Btwieners zelf leren van elk probleem wat ze helpen oplossen en vinden het plezierig als dingen weer werkend kunnen worden gemaakt. En het is steeds weer een verrassing hoe deskundig bijna iederen is die je in je “Netwerk” om hulp vraagt en hen ook weer helpt als zij ergens mee worstelen.
(E) (NL:) Ik beveel u van harte aan om op een van de kandidaten voor het Europese Parlement te stemmen van de partij < @Piratenpartij & @DeGroenen > op 6 Juni 2024, want het zijn stuk voor stuk Btwieners.
Jaap van Till, TheConnectivist
PS. Suggested “sign” for transcultural tie / link : _&_
[1] “The Strength of Weak Ties”, Mark S. Granovetter; American Journal of Sociology Vol. 78, No. 6 (May, 1973) , pp. 1360-1380 (21 pages.
[3] Peter Csermely, “Weak Links: The Universal Key to the Stability of Networks and Complex Systems” (The Frontiers Collection) Springer; 2006th Edition
In order to define a shared vision on the future it is a precondition that you make two mental track switches from the “old thinking” which is grinding to a halt all over the world.
Two ingrained prejudices are no longer valid, furthermore goverments and leaders show they can not cope with “complexity” (interrelatedness of social and economic systems). Living beings and living systems exhibit such emergent behaviour of complexity. These can not be taken apart like mechanical systems to see how they work, because this kills them. Combining them and hoping they exhibit emergent behaviour by synergy is the way forward. That creates value !!
This book has been available since October 2023 as hardcover ,but is now sold out. A pocket edition will be launched on May 15, 2024. And a film version is in preparation.
The full title = “The Invisible Doctrine – The Secret History of Neoliberalism – (& How It Came To Control Your Life)” by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson.
The NeoLiberalism = capitalist economic theory, all around us in action under different names: Chicago School of Economics theory, “letting the market do its work”, WEF ideology, et.al. It was very succesfully started by Mrs. Thatcher and Ronald Raegan to revitalise the stuttering social-economic systems in the industrial age. Stuttering from endless union interventions and well intended Labour governments. Neolib provided new incentives to innovate and build successful enterprises with less govt interference. It brought prosperity but now it has run out of steam since the negative effects of it have accumulated. The recipe does not work anymore, and is grinding to a halt. Core activity is that enterpreneurs extract value, with production and sales of their wares and services, at the expense of people and Nature. To name it less friendly, it is a new form of slavery, as Marx warned would result. And it has no regard for what the extraction of raw materials and fossil fuels, water did to Nature. Also waste did not concern them. Again, it provided great incentives and wealth for some but this was distributed very unequally.
The description of this book is as follows:
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We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental wellbeing; even the planet we inhabit – the very air we breathe. So pervasive has it become that, for most people, it has no name. It seems unavoidable, like a natural law.
But trace it back to its roots, and we discover that it is neither inevitable nor immutable. It was conceived, propagated, and then concealed by the powerful few. It is time to bring it into the light – and, in doing so, to find an alternative* worth fighting for.
Neoliberalism. Do you know what it is?
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I blog about this book because it is one of the reasons we have to think of alternatives*: different and new ways to create value and live in societies which are part of Nature. I hope to present how that can start in my next blog.
I recommend you pre-order this new book from star journalist Anne Applebaum, because she has reported very brilliant and accurate analyses of what is happening in the societies of Europa and elsewhere. In Hungary, Poland, Russian Federation, but also about the populist political parties in France, Germany and the UK. And she wrote standard books about the Holodomor famine in Ukraine, organised on purpose by Stalin.
In my humble opinion, diktators (and their present day version: networks of control structures) are not feasible in the long run, because a. they have been formed in reaction to the inability to cope with COMPLEXITY. And their remedy to that is simplification, isolation, “cleaning” (jailing and killing civilians), and suppressing diversity and creativity (innovation). And b. they hire loyal people at the expense of competent ones. And c. they suppress any criticism or challengers to their power. The extreme examples of them are Oligarchs, who even fear their own security guards.
Jaap van Till, TheConnectivist
The book is described as follows:
Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
“All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country can arm, equip, and train the police in another. The propagandists share resources-the troll farms that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote the propaganda of another-and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America. Unlike military or political alliances from other times and places, this group doesn’t operate like a bloc, but rather like an agglomeration of companies: Autocracy, Inc. Their relations are not based on values, but are rather transactional, which is why they operate so easily across ideological, geographical, and cultural lines. In truth, they are in full agreement about only one thing: Their dislike of us, the inhabitants of the democratic world, and their desire to see both our political systems and our values undermine. That shared understanding of the world-where it comes from, why it lasts, how it works, how the democratic world has unwittingly helped to consolidate it, and how we can help bring it down-is the subject of this book.”
About the possible effects of AI and more specific the new NVIDIA GPU chipsets evolving on the digital infrastuctures required datarates. And the rollout of wifi 7.
Last week I did read the press releases from NVIDIA that showed their new Blackwell GB200 etc. chips with more power and less energy consumption as the H200 chip family that data centers are installing right now. See: nvidianews.nvidia.com and also take a look at the Keynote of its president Jensen Huang at the GTC developers conf in San Jose. https://www.nvidia.com/gtc/keynote/?nvid=nv-int-unbr-611784
This info makes me dizzy. The speed in which this AI tech in developing is baffling. Journalist still describe this company as producers of GPU’s, but it is much more. Structural changes and breakthroughs in ICT and a lot of other fields are taking place. Like digital biology ! Not just Moore’s Law at work of doubling numbers of transistors but doubling of TerraFlops processing in parallel on images, patterns and videos as in our brains too.
In this case the value chain is: ASML- TSMC- NVIDIA- NLG5 . The real change is that this is a split from IT processing of text and data —> TO Processing of Images and Patterns. and cross referencing them from large datasets. In fact our human brain is also split in two segments regarding to functionality: (briefly)
A. Sounds signals throug ears and language, syntax, semiotics, logic and meaning and memories
B. Light images through the eyes, with parallel paths to the brain where the images are filtered and sharpened, patterns are extracted movement recognized and models are compared and remembered.
Only on higher levels in the brain these two segments are combined and made conscious. So the emergence of NVIDIA Processors for images signals for me that ICT is going through a structural change. See the speech of Jensen Huang again with his as a background.
Lots of new records for processing and storage in central systems as well as CPE’s, but I recommend you watch also the load and increased capacity demands on digital connections this will have !
Although many have recently forecasted that the Edholm Law graph (logarithmic chart of Customer Premises network access speed aka bandwidth (link capacity in Mbp/sec) versus time [years] will from a streight line (doubling every 18 months?) will bend down / level off in the future. I forecast that it will continue on this line at least. This will mean that we will have to wire our digital infrastructure with 10 Gbps —> 100 Gbps access and up. Possibly using multple fibers for each home, office and plant. And the consequence will also be that we must develop full optical switches and routers asap.
In other words : while everybody is awed by the GigaFlops of the new microprocessors, and storage systems will we have to upgrade our optic fiber links & grids and dataswitches sooner or later?
Well, for decades both processing and datarates have grown by a fantastic rate. Below is Moore’s Law stating that transistor count per processor chip vs time would double roughly every 18 months (in my notation W(transistors density) = 18 [months], and costs halved. Notice it is exponential growth (constant repeated doubling time).
ASML in recent years was able to develop lithograpy systems for chips that kept following this Law.
Moore’s Law
Edholm’s Law, attributed to Phil Edholm CTO of Nortel at the time noticed a similar rapid rise in Internet network access speeds. W(network access speed) = 18 months
Edholm’s Law
I started as a young engineer in 1972 doing timesharing access with a TTY with dial-up modem to the Honeywell Bull computer in California with end-end speed at 110 bits/sec.
My home connection with opt fiber is now 4 Gb/s peak capacity. (Delta Networks, NL). So that confirms the above prognosis. People have kept asking me for decades “will this speed/ bandwidth/ datarate demand continue to rise, or will it level off ??
1. It is difficult to imagine for many, but yes it will. “But but but …. people can not digest such large dataflow.” No they can not. Human braincapacity is approximately 2400 bits/second (?). TV watching does not count because that can hardly count as information :-). My grandchildren can watch and process higher information rates when they are gaming. But that is not the point. As Kees Neggers, then CEO of SURFnet (the NREN of NL) once made the following remark: “humans may not digest info from faster links, but computer – computer conversations & traffic can”.
2. Up to recently internet datatraffic was for a large part Ethernet — Ethernet links between LAN’s. And on the bottom of your Apple laptop you could read that the Internet chip connected to the internal parallel bus was specified as Ethernet at 100 Mb/s *). So it is not surprising that Wide Area Networks where provided with 100 Mbps (ADSL on twisted pairs) and more recently with multiple Gb/s.
*)And that was odd, since the Laptop could connect with 100 Mb/s, the incumbent France Telecom (FT) operator testified in the Senate in Paris “that no client in France would even need a faster connection than 2 Mbit/seconds”. Not really surprising because that is what they offered : 30B+D ISDN (=2Mb/s)connections for connection of PABX in-plant telephone switches and phoneline 2B+D 64 Kb/s for consumers.
Upper level of the bus speeds of the present processors (for example the Apple M2 multicoreprocessors) [clock rate n GHz] is multiple Gb/s.
From this observation I derived VAN TILL’s CONJECTURE.:
The network connection Wide Area access speed will grow in time until it matches the internal device BUS speed of the more and more complex processors and datastores.
As above, so below
In other words, my conjecture says: “As Inside, so Outside” to paraphrase the famous Hermetic Rule which is The Law of Correspondence : “As above, so below; as below, so above.”. It may be a good idea for the British to apply this to Brexit (isolation is not very clever). And Populist politicians should notice this too.
That is why Moore and Edholm curves grow (explode) as fast as eachother 🙂 and they are NOT leveling off.
Why is this ? Most simple explanation is that people do not want their computer or smartphone to behave and respond different from when the are processing data stored on their device or when they are connected to a cloud computer somewhere else on the planet (slight delays due to the speed of light through the cables are ok as long as the delays are not varying).
3. The Van Till Conjecture let loose on the NVIDIA new chips in 2024, means that the needed external connections will have to handle 800 Gb/s (Specs Spectrum-X800 Ethernet) between AI servers. But following my logic it will in a few years have to grow to 1.8 TByte/sec bidirectional bus between GPUs inside the NVIDIA dual chip, which translates to about 14 Tb/s external links, which will be required in 2039.
The present world record for optic fiber link capacity is 22.9 Petabits/s (multiple fibers in parallel) was set at Eindhoven University, see my FFECTIEFF list of “champions” number 50. So link speeds can go up.
5. I do not ask you to believe me. I am just telling you. So tell it to your network operator. But ask her first to sit down.
6. To dive into more detail the defined version of Edholm’s Law showed not one but three parallel lines.
The standard market view is that we have Wireline (cables, optic fiber pairs) and Wireless and that wireless (with your laptop or smartphone) will sooner or later overtake wire connections. That view is false. In practice “wireless needs wires” , which means that wireless on local area’s / plants / offices and lecture halls drives demand for wired wide area links. And contrary to wishful thinking of telco’s Nomadic wireless with Wifi is about 80% of all wireless. Nomadic means that you move between several locations during the day and sit stationary at a desk to use your smartphone, tablet or laptop. The 20% real mobile use with Public Wireless like G4 (UMTS), G5 and G6 mobile comms will allways be slower than nomadic because of the extra protocol overhead for handover between basestations and billing.
If nomadic is charted properly for more recent figures my guess is that it explodes rather in parallel with the wireline speeds now in 2024 and beyond. Confirming that Endholm trend is the recent rollout of Wifi 7 which is more formally known as the standard of IEEE 802.11be. The implementations of this new standard is rather new since many network providers and users have just rather recently switched to use wifi 6 or wifi 6E (IEEE 802.11 ax).
Improvements of wifi 7 are: * maximum capacity of wifi 6 is 9.6 Gb/s and wifi 7 can transport 46 Gb/s * lower latency * a number of frequency bands (in 2.4 & 5 & 6 GHz) at the same time (multilink operation for access points) * from 1024 to 4096 QAM modulation * Preamble puncturing (less overhead) * more stable in case of momentary congestion * distance ??? * Wifi 7 Mesh capability???
My expectation is that new application like VR and AI (see above) will boost demand for Wifi 7 and faster fiber links, so that makes for instance Apple Computers decision to postphone (pun intended) wifi 7 for their next iPhone maybe next year rather silly. The network industry expects that in 2024 233 million devices will support wifi 7 and in 2028 that will be 2.1 billion. I expect that the next MacBook (laptop) of Apple has WIFI 7 implemented.
Prof. Dr. Ir. Sander Bais, from The Amsterdam University (UVA) author of many books, has written three new books about Quantum Physics called “The Power of the Invisible” – The Quantessence of Reality – I highly recommend these to you. It can be understood very well since these books are written very masterfully. For students as well as any interested person.
You can order them from the Amsterdam University Press or from Amazon books. And for students in remote places these books became available downloadable online as eBooks (PDF), see the Amsterdam University Press site.
And…. I think it is time to organise another Solvay Conference to gather the present breakthrough thinkers!
Opinie van ir. Jaap baron van Till prof.em. Medeondertekend door dr. Matthijs Pontier en Mark Anthony van Treuren, leden van de piratenpartij.nl
Grote consternatie bij (vorige) regering, ministeries en werkgevers. Wat is er nou eigenlijk aan de hand? Waarom heeft ASML aangekaart dat ze uitbreiding in het buitenland overwegen en is BosKalis voor een groot deel al verhuisd naar Abu Dhabi? VNO-NCW heeft verklaard dat mogelijk zelfs tien grote beursgenoteerde bedrijven overwegen hun hoofdkantoor te verhuizen naar landen met een minder slecht vestigingsklimaat. Maar het zijn er veel meer dan tien. Ook mergers & aquisities in waardeketens kunnen een rol gaan spelen. Ons land is een internationaal knooppunt. Dan moet je ook niet verbaasd zijn over internationale “transfers”, om in voetbaltermen te spreken.
Er zijn dus meer bedrijven die overwegen te vertrekken en daar scenarios over maken. Waarom? De echte drijfveren kunnen hele andere zijn dan die men richting politiek aankaart.
Ook een aantal van hen noemden mij meerdere overwegingen om fysiek en/of juridisch te verhuizen. Behalve de fiscale, regel-gevings en politieke onvoorspelbaarheids-redenen, die in de kranten al genoemd worden denk ik dat er een paar onderliggende issues zijn die in Den Haag nog niet begrepen zijn.
Er is een wedstrijd gaande in de wereld om technisch bekwaam talent aan te trekken en die vaardige slimpies een zeer diverse en leerzame omgeving te bieden zodat ze blijven bijdragen aan innovatief vakwerk en waarde creatie. De beste die er zijn en die met een heel divers team van andere specialisten kunnen samenwerken. Zeker, dat geldt ook in de gezondheidszorg, en andere bedrijfstakken waar nu gebrek aan personeel is omdat de echt effectieven nog niet op prijs worden gesteld. Ja, die toppers zijn voor een groot deel uit het buitenland, so what? Migranten massaal weren? Zou heel erg stom zijn. Al jaren zijn vele verpleegsters in Zwitserland gaan werken. Xenofobie ? Waarom hebben we dan geen probleem met voetbalelftallen die grotendeels uit topspelers bestaan uit Verwegistan. Omdat ze goed spelen!
Het bijna geheel ontbreken van technisch inhoudelijke kennis, ervaring en concensus over gewenste toekomst scenarios, dat wil zeggen lange termijn algemeen belang policy richtlijnen in Regering, parlement en ambenarentop. Waar wil Nederland in 2030 zijn boterham mee verdienen? – zoals Henk Volberda terecht vraagt. Laat je dan eens bijpraten door technische jongens en technische meisjes die dat wel in hun mars hebben. Veel van onze kinderen is trouwens al lang verhuisd naar TikTok en ChatGPT.
Van een industriële maatschappij zijn we nu in een ‘dienstenmaatschappij’ beland die aan het digitaliseren is, met heel veel transities en plotselinge veranderingen. Dat maakt velen onzeker en verlangend naar vroeger of minimaal “alles moet zo blijven”, op zoek naar zekerheden en voorspelbaarheid. Daardoor staat onze overheid bijna op alle beleidsterreinen stil, in Pauze. Met een vermoeide elite en instituties die gefaald hebben, zie de toeslagenaffaire en het Groningen instortingsdossier. Terwijl we juist zo moeten organiseren dat we veranderingen aankunnen, moderniseren en creatieve oplossingen bedenken en met complexiteit kunnen omgaan. Dat kan met behulp van opdelen van organisaties in kleine goed verbondendecentraleteams. Helaas moeten we dan snijden in het aantal “managers” op kantoor, remmers in vaste dienst, die als overhead zeer weinig waarde creëren en veelal geen kikker van de kant kunnen duwen. Het levert enorme besparingen op als deze werkverschaffing gestopt wordt. Die kunnen dan in het Groeifonds van de overheid ten behoeve van innovaties en modernisering gestopt worden. En dan kan de “innovatiebox” juist vergroot worden. Een aantal van de organisaties op bovengenoemde lijst heeft dat decentraliseren al gedaan en werkt aan modules die in elkaar kunnen worden gezet. En ook in de krijgsmacht van Ukraine heeft dat noodgedwongen plaats gehad. Daar kunnen we wat van leren. Aan het front worden immers innovaties uitgetest en gebruikt. Nieuwe dingen in Europa vaak in de Nordic landen gestart maar die hebben betrekkelijk kleine bevolkingen. Dat maakt ons land meer ideaal als testgebied voor technische doorbraken, maar ook voor grote events, popmuziek en sociale media. Er is hier een populatie van prettig gestoorde mensen die niet om toestemming vragen voor iets nieuws.
Ook is nog niet bij iedereen doorgedrongen dat deze succesvolle organisaties als kern niet een product of dienst hebben maar een proces. Dat wil zeggen dat ze steeds bezig zijn met een volgende innovatieve verbeterings-stap, vaak met doorbraken die dingen mogelijk maken die anderen nog niet doen waarvan “iedereen” zei dat het onmogelijk was. Doet Elon Musk ook steeds. Waarom? Ze zijn in een race met concurrenten die vroeg of laat na kunnen doen wat zij nu kunnen. Dus wordt er met grotere snelheid door-ontwikkeld: verbeterd en nieuw uitgevonden; sneller dan de concurrenten kunnen namaken. Dat is wel een onzeker en riskant proces, zeker voor bankiers en andere financiers in de EU. Onzekerheid. En je hebt er moedige en geniale jongelui voor nodig om trots onmogelijke dingen aan de praat te krijgen. Deze organisaties willen niet ondergaan wat Kodak en Nokia moesten doormaken: blijven steken in een product range die ingehaald en overvleugeld wordt. In de VOC tijd werden ook risicovolle reizen gemaakt, maar de steden die de schepen financierden hadden een cashcow zonder onzekerheid: graantransport vanuit de Oostzee. Buffers dus. Ook vanwege grote fluctuaties door varkenscyclus productie overschotten en vervolgens weer te grote vraag. In Noorwegen hebben ze om die fluctuaties te helpen opvangen daar een fonds voor ingericht vanuit hun olie en gas baten. Anti-cyclisch investeren door overheden!
Ook deze issues zal de “Operatie Beethoven” moeten adresseren, opgetuigd als ministerieel topoverleg naar aanleiding van de hartenkreten van ASML Ik hoop dat ze er oren naar zullen hebben. Zo niet, dan verspeelt ons land zijn welvaart en welzijn. Een beter vestigingsklimaat zorgt voor waardevolle bedrijven, met internationaal denken en doen, maar ook toegankelijke infrastructuur en culturele voorzieningen waardoor mensen hier graag willen wonen, experimenteren en duurzaam samenleven.
12 maart 2024, JvT#
PS: 22 maart. Tot verbijstering van velen heeft onze 2e Kamer in meerderheid gekozen om het Groeifonds, bestemd voor financiering van -opstarten van- innovatieprojecten op PAUZE te zetten. Dit is een klap in het gezicht van een aantal bedrijven die al heel veel tijd hebben gestoken in het voorbereiden van de papierwinkel van gezamelijke projectvoorstellen. Dit is wonderlijk en geeft een onbetrouwbare indruk van onze regering en parlement. Vertrouwen was toch iets wat hersteld moest worden? Waar gaan wij in de toekomst ons brood mee verdienen? Met vergaderen?
Very important to understand what is happening NOW and about our FUTURE. As a historian Blom is IMHO a beacon for Euro Civilisation (NL: Beschaving).
In the interview he refers recent book he wrote: “De Onderwerping – Een geschiedenis van de verhouding van de mens tot de Natuur”. Also available in German and Italian. Blom told me that an English version is under preparation. One of the descriptions of this book is as follows:
In his book, the author examines the question of how homo sapiens were able to maneuver themselves into such a precarious situation. The search for an answer takes him far back to Mesopotamia. Here they appear: Gilgamesh of Uruk, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, to name just a few names. We have thus entered the space that represents the home of the Bible. Of course, this book didn't fall from heaven. The influences of the environment are diverse (e.g. the history of the flood). Right in the first Bible. In the book, man is given the task of "subduing" the earth (in the original: forcing it down! Gen 1, 27). The order given from the highest authority does not fail to have its effect. It continues to shape our thoughts and actions right up to our present day. Philosophers contributed appropriate argumentative aids (cf. Ms. Bacon, R. Descartes). Just as a root system branches deep into the ground, so does this thinking: slavery, colonialism, the oppression of women... The list can be extended. Because such thinking has become second nature to us, we are often no longer aware of it. A new, enlightened way of thinking is needed. The play is over. The theological backdrops must be dismantled. The book contains a clear diagnosis. Appropriate therapy should not take too long to arrive.
A community is in decline when it is not interested in the future. I am interested in that and so are many young people. Therefore I try to define Scenario’s based on what Philipp describes, see my upcoming Blogs. I do have the impression that the European Pirate Parties (piratenpartij.nl and piratenpartei.de) have this shift in basic philosophy as their core ideas and drivers to take action.
Here is a very impressive article written by George Monbiot in the Guardian that clarifies who is behind a number of authoritarian national regimes, and why. They enforce Neo-Liberalism, which in essence extracts value for themselves from where ever they can, at the expense of (enslaved) people and Nature. It sounded very attractive at the times of Reagan and Thatcher, since it is a great driver of economic activity and wealth creation, but now in 2023 people start to realise that it only enriches the top 10 %.
They get seriously rich in income and wealth and get even richer and wealthier each year. Much beyond the inequality of success that the Mandelbrot-Zipf ranking would forecast. The first ten are not about the same and there is nearly no dynamics of getting upwards and getting downwards in success. The chart of best tennisplayers does have that ranking but obviouly the wealthiest persons in the world cling to their extreme and growing wealth, and do not want upward movement by new champions aiming to replace the top ones.
The reality is that millions of people all over the world start to understand this anomality and furthermore Neo-Liberalism is running out of steam. It does not work anymore. It is outdated just like colonialism (value extraction from countries that your nation occupies). The oligarchs are a sad bunch of loosers. Because we are starting to realise that the oppression and slavery are mostly unnecessasary. If poor people are given a fair income for their work and if a basic income is implemented (removing the constant fear of not able to make ends meet) the result is very positive. They do volunteer jobs or new jobs.
In its place we have to change to a situation where we create value by combining, cooperation and innovation. This needs diversity of skills and different views on the issues, so the opportunities are more clear and synsrgy can benefit all contributors.
So fortunately the political/social/economic focus in the world is shifting from [Capitalist Neo-lib. Value extraction for a few rich people at the expense of the workers and Nature] to { Value Creation by Combining} = (Synthecracy) towards a new golden age of cooperation. Power will shift hands too, unstoppable into the hands of the value creators themselves instead of the hands of their old slavemasters.
jaap van till, TheConnectivist
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WHAT LINKS RISHI SUNAK, JAVIER MILEI AND DONALD TRUMP? THE SHADOWY NETWORK BEHIND THEIR POLICIES
By George Monbiot`* – The Guardian Jan.2024
The Atlas Network’s dark-money junktanks are behind neoliberal policies around the world. And you may find its leaders on a resignation honours list near you
There are elements of fascism, elements borrowed from the Chinese state and elements that reflect Argentina’s history of dictatorship. But most of the programme for government announced by Javier Milei, the demagogic new Argentinian president, feels eerily familiar, here in the northern hemisphere.
A crash programme of massive cuts; demolishing public services; privatising public assets; centralising political power; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations and oligarchs; destroying regulations that protect workers, vulnerable people and the living world; supporting landlords against tenants; criminalising peaceful protest; restricting the right to strike. Anything ring a bell?
Milei is attempting, with a vast “emergency” decree and a monster “reform bill”, what the Conservatives have done in the UK over 45 years. The crash programme bears striking similarities to Liz Truss’s “mini” (maxi) budget, which trashed the prospects of many poor and middle-class people and exacerbated the turmoil that now dominates public life.
Coincidence? Not at all. Milei’s programme was heavily influenced by Argentinian neoliberal thinktanks belonging to something called the Atlas Network, a global coordinating body that promotes broadly the same political and economic package everywhere it operates. It was founded in 1981 by a UK citizen, Antony Fisher. Fisher was also the founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), one of the first members of the Atlas Network.
The IEA created, to a remarkable degree, Liz Truss’s political platform. In a video conversation on the day of her “mini” budget with another member of the institute, its then director general, Mark Littlewood, observed: “We’re on the hook for it now. If it doesn’t work it’s your fault and mine.” It didn’t work – in fact, it crashed spectacularly, at great cost to us all – but, thanks to the UK’s media, the BBC included, which continue to treat these fanatical corporate lobbyists as purveyors of holy writ, they’re off the hook.
Last year, the IEA was platformed on British media an average of 14 times a day: even more often than before the disaster it helped inflict on the UK. Scarcely ever was it challenged about who funds it or whom it represents. The three peers nominated by Truss in her resignation honours list have all worked for or with organisations belonging to the Atlas Network (Matthew Elliott, TaxPayers’ Alliance; Ruth Porter, IEA and Policy Exchange; Jon Moynihan, IEA). Now, like US supreme court justices, they have been granted lifelong powers to shape our lives, without democratic consent. Truss also put forward Littlewood, but his reward for wrecking people’s lives was blocked by the House of Lords appointments commission.
Nothing has been learned: these corporate lobby groups still mould our politics. Policy Exchange, which, as Rishi Sunak has admitted, “helped us draft” the UK’s vicious new anti-protest laws, is also a member of the Atlas Network. We might describe certain policies as being Milei’s or Bolsonaro’s, or Truss’s or Johnson’s or Sunak’s, but they’re all variations on the same themes, hatched and honed by junktanks belonging to the same network. Those presidents and prime ministers are just the faces the programme wears.
The dark-money junktanks, and the Atlas Network, are a highly effective means of disguising and aggregating power. They are the channel through which billionaires and corporations influence politics without showing their hands, learn the most effective policies and tactics for overcoming resistance to their agenda, and then spread these policies and tactics around the world. This is how nominal democracies become new aristocracies.
They also seem to be adept at shaping public opinion. For example, around the world, neoliberal junktanks have not only lobbied for extreme anti-protest measures, but have successfully demonised environmental protesters as “extremists” and “terrorists”. This might help to explain why peaceful environmental campaigners blocking a road are routinely punched, kicked and spat upon, and in some places run over or threatened with guns, by other citizens, while farmers or truckers blocking a road are not. It might also explain why there is scarcely a murmur of media coverage or public concern when extreme penalties are imposed: such as the six-month prison sentence handed in December to the climate campaigner Stephen Gingell for slow-marching along a London street.
But the worst is yet to come. Donald Trump has never developed a coherent platform of his own. He doesn’t have to. His policies have been written for him, in a 900-page Mandate for Leadership produced by a group of thinktanks led by the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is – you got there before me – a member of the Atlas Network. Many of the proposals in the “mandate” are, frankly, terrifying. They have nothing to do with public demands and everything to do with the demands of capital.
When Friedrich Hayek and others first formulated the principles of neoliberalism, they believed it would defend the world from tyranny. But as the big money poured in, and an international network of neoliberal thinktanks was created to develop and articulate its demands, the programme that was supposed to liberate us became a new source of oppression.
In Argentina, where Milei has stepped into the vacuum left by the gross misrule of his predecessors and is able to impose, in true shock doctrine fashion, policies that would otherwise be fiercely resisted, the poor and middle classes are about to pay a terrible price. How do we know? Because very similar programmes have been dumped on other countries, beginning with Argentina’s neighbour Chile, after Augusto Pinochet’s coup in 1973.
These junktanks are like the spike proteins on a virus. They are the means by which plutocratic power invades the cells of public life and takes over. It’s time we developed an immune system.
The Connectivist 