Conserving energy

After I propose to stop smoking, using recycled paper notebooks and using better supermarkets plastic bags, I was forced to think of a fourth means of contributing to the preservation of nature.

So, we lived the time of the risk of blackout energy of the Cardoso government, nothing more obvious thing to do: save energy.

Okay, but how? Not washing our body? Living in the dark? Do not watch TV or internet?

No, I could not think of anything very sophisticated at the time, because I lived in a cubicle that did not consume very little electricity.

The only sensible action that I thought was replace my common incandescent bulbs with electronic bulbs, most economical, durable and expensive.

What was the result? I do not know. There are no real ways to measure the impact of isolated individual actions like this.

Then, my life was increasing, I was moving to bigger houses, buying more electrical gadgets and today, I paid a fortune to use energy. I do not know if we still live so intensely the risk of blackouts in Brazil, but that time was important for learning the Brazilian people in general, who became more rational in relation to electricity.

Still using electronic lamps, now a little cheaper. I think people should even do your duty and save what you can, but I think there are limits and there is no way in the end, we must build more electrical plants. This somewhat resembles these games administration of cities and farms, such as Sim City or Farmville, but what more can I think? What will live forever in the same level of consumption?

Sure, new technologies will reduce energy consumption through more economical products, but in the meantime, we consume without fear of blackouts.

This reminds me of a story I once saw in TV in these news programs at lunchtime, when we normally see local reporters doing unimportant matters, but curious.

A reporter bothered to mention the theme of the popular economy. How can people be economical. And of course, the thing descended into the anecdote. Soon, there was talk of the Avars, the miserable, the hand-to-cow, those kind of people who save not only out of necessity but for pleasure or addiction.

This is a serious matter and we'll discuss it in the future, but back to the story, the reporter came, through clues from neighbors, at a poor and simple man, a resident of those little towns in countrified areas, those that living in simple houses with used worn and old furniture.

It was not just a matter of saving, but of addiction, but a kind of addiction coming from a simple drug addict  and worthy of compassion, because really simple and with not much money.

The person in question, a thin old man sixty years old, more or less, looking worn out by life, was proud of his habit. Finally, the reporter asked for an example of their diligence in saving.

The old man then came the little room of his house, grabbed the clock hanging on the wall and turned it around. He then placed two small batteries in the device and it started working. The reporter asked what that meant and he said that batteries cost money. Soon, there was no point getting the clock running, showing the time for no one and consuming the battery if the resident was not in home. So whenever he comes out, he took the batteries, and when he returned, replaced batteries, adjusted clock pointers and life went on.

There is a profound lesson to be learned in this story.

Super 8 and the best of worlds

After getting curious about the poster of Super 8 film, I researched a little about what would and, well, it was a Spielberg movie, talked about a train that derailed and something like an alien that would follow.

Ready. That was enough for me. I love things about extraterrestrials.

The movie hit theaters yesterday and I went watch it.

My wife was disappointed. I, yes too, I can not deny, but not quite. Let's look at why.

In fact the alien spider-shaped (ops!, should not say anything about the rest of the film not to frustrate the expectations of those who have not watched!) Is only a secondary character. What is cool, and this is clear in the movie all the time, is that something is happening in 1979 and it was before the digital age. It is a flood of nostalgia and it's pretty cool.

My wife lived her youth and adolescence in the '90s, so could not miss a walkman or firecrackers and made ​​models of trains for kids. But I, yes. I also made ​​my models so I understood the message of the film.

Yes, kids today are missing something important when it ceases to do many of the older things we did.

On the other hand, the kids of today enjoy certain things that we'd love to enjoy when we were kids. Who would not want to have Internet and video games like today?

So, I concluded, the best of worlds, perhaps, would be a combination of the two best times. Yes, powerful gaming, but also cool places, cool activities, which currently do not have and not do anymore. I doubt very much that the kids today would dare to record a video like the kids in the movie, or do things that we, I, my brothers and our friends, we would in real life.

What we did?

Oh, a lot. Nothing that looks like what a kid does today.

We were terrible!

Jani Lane: Too Young To Die

It is with regret that I got the news of the death of Jani Lane, the former lead singer of rock band Warrant.

Yes, I know that hardly anyone knows about this band, the Warrant. I also know that nobody cares about Jani Lane. Another drug addict who dies due to abuse and wild living, they say.

But things are not quite like that.

I am of the generation that grew up listening to heavy metal in the late 80s. I loved the hard rock of bands such as Warrant. They, the hairy rockers could even be drug users or addicts beverages, hooligans, but no matter. This was and is part of rock 'n roll. But they were our idols.

The Warrant was never a very famous band outside the United States, but even so, who was a fan of hard rock music knew them, and they had a great  poser look. Many did not like, but many liked. I loved it.

But Jani Lane is, personally speaking, even more important.

People think of rock as people inaccessible. Yes, they are even, when they are at the height of his fame, and many of them continue to flee from ordinary people for all life. But not Jani Lane.

Roni, my younger brother, left Brazil in 1993. Jani Lane left Warrant in 1992. They two met sometime between 1993 and 1998 in Winnipeg, Canada. My brother lived there and knew who was Jani Lane.

One day, Jani was playing in a bar in Winnipeg in the vicinity of where my brother lived. And then, Roni went to the show. The bar was small and the public was not very big. At the end of the show, Roni had the opportunity to talk personally with Jani Lane. I do not know what they talked about, nor how long. But Roni told me about this meeting with great pride, because, after all, Jani Lane was a great singer from a great band that had great success and sold several million records. It's not everyday that we find people like that. And is not every day that people like that allow ordinary people like me and Roni, to approach and talk like normal human beings.

After this meeting, I always had great affection for Warrant and Jani Lane. I bought their albums, now in CD format, which did not exist here at the time they were successful. Of course I dare not rock every day. In fact, I have many sounds I buy CDs and keep more fondly as a reminder to listen to every day. So, I got the CD and Warrant consider this a tribute to the band. They did a great sound.

Now, after years, I have 41 years. Roni will be 39 soon. Jani died at 47. It was a little older than us.

He was a guy who was not in the media, but it does not matter. It was and will always be the Jani Lane, the guy from Warrant, the guy who played in Winnipeg and talked to my brother like a normal guy.

And now he's dead.

A guy too young to die.

Jani Lane, here is my tribute.

Now, you too are eternal!

New look

I changed the look of this blog. Now, use a pastel, which resembles paper, which inspires me to write more and better.

Any kind of notebook, either on paper, such as 3M Post-it, or digital, such as Outlook, the Windows Taskbar, and others, like the IPad are all in that tone of brown old paper. This is a delight.

Now, my blog is like that.

Good reading.

What are diskettes?

I said one of these previous posts I had multiple computers over these past seventeen years. So, there are much tings stored in the form of bits.

because I am curious, I remembered that I still have boxes with old diskettes of 1.44 mega, those old squares. Incidentally, my computer still has a drive that reads it. Something unnecessary and outdated, certainly, when a single and cheap flash drive with 2 gigabytes can store data equivalent to about 1,400 little bums diskettes.

But I still have them: 43 of them.

One part is in two plastic boxes, each seven disks. I read all obviously doing a virus scan, because these old things are not necessarily safe. In all, I read 14 floppy disks, but they were all empty. Mere relics of a time gone by.

What to do with them?

Throw in the trash? Use in an emergency? I do not know.

Maybe I shoot some pictures of them and then put it in the trash.

Some have labels with file names. What do they remind me?

That's all that's left to do: remember how we use it, as objects of remembrance.

Farewell, floppies.

The third attitude

The third ecological attitude that I proposed to myself in my 1999 Ecological Agenda was to recycle packaging (bags) plastic to garbage.

What we have here?

First, as I said before, here is the good faith and gullibility of a good citizen trying to do their part in saving the world before the global catastrophe of the destruction of nature.

Now, plastic, poorly degradable, existing in millions of shopping bags certainly represents a threat to nature. It no makes no sense to simply throw plastic shopping bags in the trash. It is possible that we use them a few times, or at least that retain and recycle them.



And, although I do not believe much in this whole story about these damn little plastic bags, did my part. Today, just have a large plastic bucket where I joined plastic bags day after day, year after year, so that if, and certainly when, they are thrown all together in a single day and collected by the usual garbage, they will certainly be exploited by those who have to use them, or be mixed with the rest of the garbage, and have the same fate as if they were not joined, but thrown in the trash every day, as I had never proposed to myself the task of recycling it.

The third attitude, gentlemen, is a meaningless idiocy.

So meaningless that the correct solution was given by a law that simply prohibits them.

And I know that this law was only possible because many before me tried to do exactly as I did, and reached the same conclusion: there is no way of giving a target environmentally friendly to these damn little plastic bags.

I even thought about solutions, but nothing has inspired me to go ahead. One of these days I talk about some ideas that I had to put an end to  these little plastic bags .

Then I saw that the problem was deeper.

It seems a joke, but it was just a joke that made me think about it.

Want to know the joke?

It is to laugh, not cry...

Fat, mysterious and cannibal brain

After studying a little about the human brain, it seems he is very, very mysterious. Then, suddenly, he surprises us with this news of a study done by researchers at the Department of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York, published in the journal "Cell Metabolism", that he can eat himself if we were to lose weight. This is surprising, though disappointing.

Surprising, because I never imagined that a body could consume themselves to save the organism as a whole. All right, we burn fat, muscles and everything else in case of need, but eating the brain itself? This is very bizarre.



Then it makes sense he sacrifice himself, if the goal is to save the whole. There are even cases of people with brains nearly absent. It is also bizarre that we can survive with a minimum amount of neurons, which cut off chickens, or acephalous cockroachs, or like humans with tiny brains as lizards.

On the other hand, it no makes sense to accumulate resources to the point of staying obese, with clogged veins and die of heart attacks. What is the logic to accumulate so much?

But the most interesting is the consciousness. Whence come, how acquires identity and personality?

Speaking more personally, because I am who I am and not someone else? Best: Why I am a person and not a cow or a fish?



Speaking further, why be who I am today and not yesterday or tomorrow? How to unravel the mystery of consciousness?

I tried "The Mystery of Consciousness" by Antonio Damasio, but the entropy does not leave. I have to back up and fix squeaks and make financial transfers and payments. Keep running modern life has a tremendous cost in time.

I need to read Damasio. I need!

Entropy and creaking cars

I try to be productive, but it is not easy.

Yesterday I spent all day running from shop to shop to solve minor problems in my car, which is not new, nor perfect.

First, yesterday, a flaccid sound and squeaks in the tire front right. Flat tire? We stopped at a gas station and calibrate the tire. But the noise continued.

Untied cap? Could be. I avoid, but eventually end up rubbing the tires on the curb, in the rush to get out of the way in the crowded streets of the modern world, where there is one car for every two human beings.

I take the hubcap and the noise decreases, but not at all. I look for a mechanic the next day. And so I do. I go to the first store. Change all caps. Then go to one second store and change a light bulb. Then I go to a third store, and we have stirred the suspension, the exhaust, but nothing. The creaking continues. Let's go, because it is night. We tried a fourth store at a mall, and there they try a fourth way, and say the problem is over, but we're leaving at ten o'clock at night and the damn creaking continues.

In the meantime, I could have made ​​great strides in a lot of important areas of my life, but did not.

Taking care of the car is urgent.



But is it important? Now, all the textbooks about time management are clear: we must distinguish the important from the urgent. I say that the manuals need a little more depth. This distinction simply did not work yesterday.

It did not work because life is not easy.

There is not a single administration manual that talks about entropy. And the manuals do not talk because this is not a concept of social sciences, but sciences of nature, physics, more appropriately.

But without understanding the entropy, it is difficult to understand that we must pass floss daily, as we keep our cars safe, but not let us save the world.

Only the entropy explains the continuity of life requires effort, much effort.

If administrators and economists knew more about the concept of entropy, life could be better.

Urgent things are important. Are urgent precisely because they are important!

Or not?

Me and my computers

I have said about my books, but I must tell about my computers.

I bought my first PC in 1994. Then I bought another in 1996. After another in 1999. Then another in 2006. Then another in 2007. Altogether, I had five computers.

Each one has a different story. Apart from dozens of machines which used in many places where I worked. My relationship with the computer, then, has lasted seventeen years. It is no small thing.

How it all began?

It started a long time ago, with concepts that are part of the culture of an era, dating back even to 70's.

It is curious that we have no notion that we're putting bricks in building something big and important, even though we know that the informatics and the computers are part of a revolution that we know to be happening. Build something without a plan is both exciting and scary.

Informatics is a matter to which we are not stop talking abundantly here.

Many books

I have many books. Really many. Almost 1400 of them on paper and almost as much in digital format. There are nearly 3000 books.

How this came to happen in my life? This mountain of things to read in a short and troubled life?

It's that I bought no them all at once. They were gradually being bought.

They are years and years buying books.

But I read them all? No, of course not. But anyway, I read very, very much.

The interesting thing is that I do not buy books by chance. I do not buy only to buy. I have a method. I buy and read books in a certain order.

A book pulls other. A subject pulls other. A theme pulls another. A curiosity pulls another. A problem arises another. A novelty leads to another. A project takes another and so, I'll buy and read books without stopping.

But what was my first book?

It was she, herself, the Holy Bible.

Of course, the Bible was not the first book I bought, but it was the first that I read.

My first book, my right, was Adventures of Xisto, but even that was no bought, but earned.

The first book I bought was not exactly a book but a magazine, about electronics!

There are so many stories behind so many books ...

I have to tell all.

Unfinished truths

I've always said here about the past, my past, past the place where I lived, the past of mankind.

I also said that perhaps only the History, as organized science and with its own methods, is capable of allowing us to organize our ideas and our mass of information and record everything to the world, if we wish so.

But beyond History as a science, there is the History as a collection of narrated facts. They are exactly the historical facts that are the object of study by History as a science.

So I sought some help in both stories. And they have generated more questions than certainties. Let's see.

I sought a book called "What is History?", by a  renowned British historian Edward Hallet Carr. But it is not easy. There is much doubt about what is a historical fact, and the questions are multiple.

Also sought an Atlas of Human History. He begins not with History but with the Pre-History. Mankind existed long before written records on which is based on the traditional History. Our past is written in the rocks, the fossils, the bones, in the unfathomable.

Thus, the methods of the science of History is not encouraged me to go deeper into the question, because I am not a historian, although the subject is fascinating, and the facts of prehistory (because we humans are shaped by an accumulation of facts which go back thousands, millions of years) did not allow me to go beyond what already had some notion, that we are descendants of a series of common ancestors, etc.., because I am not an anthropologist.

Our past is not a lie. He is a unfinished truth.

Edward Hallet Carr died without completing a second edition of his important book. Much of the introduction of the issue at hand should have a commentator who is responsible for ensuring the intellectual legacy of Carr, who left only to this second edition a pile of boxes of clippings and notes and drafts that leads to the conclusion that much more could still be said, improved and enhanced on the theme of History as science, which is not surprising, but that a person's life, however much alive, is still too small to play forward even relatively small projects, such as a second edition of a book.

And today I read an article about anthropology, actually one of many that are advertised week after week, about a new discovery, a new fossil, a new dental arch, a new subspecies, finally, one more link in the chain of ancestors lost in time and in the rocks around the world. Our history as a specie is still an unfinished truth.

It is also my life a unfinished truth? I do not know, but I have to understand this business of "unfinished truth."

Philosophize a little about Ecology

This was my first text on Philosophy of Administration.

***

Ecological Attitudes in 99

There are in our mass culture a desire to persuade, manipulate.

An event can be analyzed under any dozens of approaches, and I could focus on a simple act, like buying a calendar, as a mere act of consumption without further implications, but I can not help analyzing this act under a point peculiar sight: the Philosophy of Administration.

Why do I focus specifically on the act of buying a calendar, and not in another, like smoking a cigarette or take a bus, or take out the trash? If we think we can take anything and analyze it from any angle, then why buy a calendar? And why an administrative and philosophical approach? Well, it is necessary to make a choice.

Let's see.

The acts and things are infinite in number, and points of view, too. As a simple mathematical exercise, the combinations "things x points of view" also acquire infinite proportions. What makes an arrangement "thing x point of view" especially among an infinity of them, is that I made that choice. The act of buying a agenda is special interest to me in particular because of the implications that this agenda has caused. And the administrative and philosophical approach is chosen only because I am an administrator, and think from this point of view to me is a pleasurable act and more exciting than just an professional act.

Aside from I being an administrator, I am, or better, I perform, several other roles in society, and can adopt a different approach and one other act or thing to consider, but do not feel so motivated. So it would be a waste of time trying to adopt another point of view and another one theme. Sure, I could not tell in advance whether this view is the most useful, or if there is another more productive. The question of the utility does not matter much here, since without motivation, it would not be right or guaranteed that I would be able to provide something useful from another point of view. The only guarantee I have is that, motivated, have a greater chance of producing something than being unmotivated. If I were to produce something, it is to check the post, if not useful, at least enjoyable to read. If it is pleasant, or useful, or both, my time writing was not a wasted effort. I'd rather do something nice, but not necessarily useful, than something useful and unpleasant at the time of writing. Moreover, try to be useful to the world another way, if I can not be writing. Writing is, then, for me, more pleasant than a leisurely useful work. But if it can be useful, great, although it is a collateral gain.

When I say that I analyze things from the viewpoint of the Philosophy of the Administration, I do it because it is a point of view that gives me pleasure, and under which it can be more lucid, creative, inspired, so to speak. I would not have so much to say or think from another point of view. But that view is this? What is the Philosophy of  the Administration?

Of course, as an administrator, I am a professional who attended college and completed the ritual required to perform officially a profession. But there is no profession of philosopher of Administration. Officially, I can manage, but philosophy is a very different thing.

Is there some problem in an administrator to philosophize on your work area? Maybe, if he does not master the art or technique of philosophizing. Then, a professional philosopher would be more suitable to philosophize on the Administration, but then a problem arises: Administration is a technical matter that requires years of study. Can a philosopher who does not know Administration philosophizing about what he do not know?

On the one hand, lack to administrator the technical of philosophizing. On the other, lack to philosopher a body of knowledge on which to philosophize. Someone with training both in administration and in philosophy would be the ideal person, meet the qualifications required to call himself a philosopher of Administration. In theory.

In practice, we need not go that far. Owning a Business Administration course is a formality that does not give the guarantee to run well at all, nor is it an obstacle to the act of administering whatever. Administrators fail day and night, unceasingly, although administrators, and Bill Gates did not need a Administration course to  get where he is. And the same is true of philosophy. Colleges put out of their classrooms thousands of Philosophy graduates every year, and we not seen armies of Platos or Sartres revolutionizing the world. And not really allowed to think. And the world continues to change with or without the help of philosophers. Ideas come and revolutions occur from as many different minds, most of them belonging to people who have never attended a school of Philosophy.

So what prevents me from philosophizing? Or put it another way, which enables me to philosophize, since I must admit that a minimum of technique is necessary to think correctly?

In fact, there is no impediment to philosophize about whatever it is, and the Internet is filled with millions of websites and forums about Philosophy, Administration, of all, where billions of people think about billions of issues. Aside from the pleasure of thinking, which is a gain to whose think, is there any gain to one who reads? I mean, the fact of thinking much does not mean to obtain as a result something interesting or useful worthy of going public. So what facts lead me to conclude that my ideas, in particular, are better, more interesting or useful than the billions of others scattered across the on-line ocean?

Well, no facts beforehand can ensure the quality, so to speak, of my thoughts, but if there is any quality, it can only be evaluated and recognized if it comes to the world. While thinking, the most original idea, most revolutionary or useful to be what it is: a thought. It is inaccessible, unknown and therefore does not exist to the outside world. We need it, the idea, is verbalized, written, published, to it can be assessed. I can not be judged as a philosopher, without first exposing my ideas.

But why expose them? Why not just think them and save them to myself? Is it necessary to publish them? Well, not all. Not everything that we think is worthy of note. Some thought things should even be banned from the mind that thought. No. In fact, not all is good. So if I public something, is because apparently this is something already passed the scrutiny of some quality filter. This filter, I admit, there is.

The mind is a volatile screen. We think all the time, but not everything is posting in our memory. Imagine that during a dream,  is told the secret of something really rare, like a map of a very valuable treasure, the possession of which depends only to find it. The map we see the dream is real, clear and perfect, but it is complex. Upon waking, I know that the dream is a dream, but why not register the complex map in a real sheet of paper? You never know...

Ideas are, in some respects, such as treasure maps. They, like dreams, exist only in our mind. They, like maps, are complex and need to be passed to the paper, at the risk of losing the details. The ways of thinking are intricate, complicated, forked, faint. While we think, the reasoning is clear, but one minute of distraction and he dissolves like smoke. It is urgent and wise annotate them, reasoning and ideas, to fix it permanently.

But is the conclusion valuable? Or, put another way, does in the x of the map of the dream there is even a buried treasure? There is no way of knowing unless trying our luck and digging.

It is true that we can not always test our ideas, nor we can find for our treasures revealed in our dreams. The real world has real treasures, they know where they are, but we can not reach them, as we have wonderful ideas, however impractical. But we must not lose the map. One day, when technology allows, we comb the bottom of the seas in search of galleons full of gold and silver. One day, when possible, we will have cold fusion, lunar colonies and back in time. Good ideas and good dreams can not be forgotten. They worth themselves as future promises. They challenge us to try. They are in themselves valuable treasures.

Someone, an anonymous professional, decided to include in my 99 Ecoagenda a page titled "Ecological Attitudes in 99." What led him to this?

As I said earlier, there is in our mass culture, a desire to persuade, manipulate. Suppose this anonymous worker, when designing my agenda, was imbued with the most sincere sense of ecological awareness. Imagine that he is aware of the seriousness of the situation on the planet, decided, after much deliberation, it is not enough to do our part and inform the world about the seriousness of the situation. More is needed: we need people to change their habits. We must do something and that we do now. Yes, you know that the world is in danger, but so what? What are you waiting for action? What will you do now to help against disaster? What will you do to stop now, the black way of the situation? So stop whining and act! Make, in its Ecoagenda, a list of environmental attitudes for the year to come. Enjoy  opportunity you are at the beginning of the year, are planning your future, are organizing your time, and prepare your list of good deeds.

So, I suppose, was born the third page of my agenda. Fruit of the good intentions of anonymous professionals from socially responsible companies. This sounds correct and there is not much to discuss, except that, as a philosopher of Administration, I have to think a little further on the subject. As a philosopher of  Administration, I see hidden connections, fallacies, implications, errors and hits in this simple schedule page, and I will dwell in it.

Ecology is a global issue, and if it does not matter, should interest deeply every manager, if not all human beings on the planet. Sounds familiar? Yes, but the reasons which lead me to think this way are not necessarily those that lead the average citizen, or ecologist, to think the same subject. Again, the approach I take to Ecology is the philosophy of  Administration. What is this approach? It's a different approach adopted by the ordinary citizen. But what the focus of the common citizen?

The ordinary citizen, at least in the XXI century, live surrounded by information absolutely massive, incisive and relentless. If we approach any human being, anywhere on the planet, and ask whether he thinks the world is going well, and that the world does not present environmental problems, will be answered with a look of amazement: as the world goes well? How can it go well? As we have no problems? Of course, evident that we have problems. Everyone knows that. Children know, know the elderly, the urban and rural population knows well. As we all know this? As a perception can become so universal and unanimous? Ecological problems seem so certain as the sun shining in the sky: we all see, all feel, all confirm, and crazy is he who denies. I deny them? No, of course not. I see with my own eyes. How to deny them?

Would be the case that, as geocentrism, be an environmental problem an universal error? We all know that the Earth revolves around the Sun and the sunrise and sunset only means that the Earth rotates around its axis every twenty-four hours. But we like to think and say that it is the Sun revolves around the Earth. It is more convenient and intuitive. The reason is A, and we accept A, but we like to feel and think B, we know rationally be just an illusion. Romanticism? Maybe.

The ecological problem is an illusion that we intuit wrong? Would, indeed, the world has never been so safe and harmonious? Will humanity, indeed, the blessing for the planet and, polluting it, balancing an equation that never aligned itself, delivered to a Darwinian past of pure chance? I would not know the answer to that question.

What is certain is that common sense intuit to the contrary, and struggle to rebalance a world being destroyed, whose cause is human, and personalized. Common sense intuit, and information flows is that we are guilty, I, you, personally, to the cosmic drama of the Earth. We are guilty, and we feel this guilt, and make with this guilt a motivator for us to do something for the planet. We have to do something urgently. It would be too selfish to see the world going to sink and stay after watching passively, comfortably wedded to our habits of harmful consumption. We must do something and this something obviously means sacrifices. As in religion, in ecological theology there is no space for salvation without sacrifice. For the sake of greater justice the blame should fall on others, whether these other governments, companies or the devil, but we have to personally do our part. And we accept this guilt as a fait accompli, although not always we do specific acts necessarily according to this guilt, because, sometimes even we don't know how we are contributing to the boat sink. I did not began to sink the boat, but I have to get my bucket and do my part,  otherwise, I sink together. They say the simple fact that I is on the boat makes me guilty for he was going to sink. I wonder how this is possible, and if it would be the case of my own weight to be helping to sink a boat overloaded. This may be the case, but deep down, I can not see the connection between merely existing innocently and be blamed for the end of the world, but yet I willingly accept the blame for exist, my share of guilt, democratically distributed, and try with my small bucket, help save the ship. This is common sense, but why do I accept in silent my democratic share of blame?

In general, because I do not want to be seen as the selfish, the villain. I know that, in the end, if the boat sinks, the guilty will pay the price for failure, and I know everyone will pay, because all are guilty, just that they exist, but I also know that the selfish will take a greater punishment, because the boat could have been saved if these same selfish would have helped. I do not want to be an opportunist. But how can we be opportunistic if, by being selfish and not helping, we will perish together with the others? What is the gain of the selfishness, if the selfish also dies in the end? Dying rested? So may he rest forever.

Is that the disaster is not for today or tomorrow. It's for the day after tomorrow, and hopefully for next week. But next week, I will no longer be on the boat, I hope.

But there is no way out of the boat. The boat is the Earth, the Earth itself, and there is no escape. And even if the disaster is for a hundred years, and we are no longer here, it is wrong to let our children and grandchildren pay the price for our neglect. And even if we have no children and grandchildren, is even more wrong than the  children and grandchildren from others, who fought for the salvation of the world, pay the price for my negligence alone. Anyway, even if I, a villain, ardently wishes to end the chaos, it is not easy to admit my intentions publicly to a future grandmother, admitting to her that I want the chaos to his grandchildren and great grandchildren to come. You can be selfish and even the villain, but not publicly. There are limits to selfishness and  mankind does not admit unpunished selfish when it comes to ecology. The price is too high to admit traitors. Thus we are compelled to do something for the cause, are socially forced to take our bucket and at least pretend to do our part, though deep down, we may be worshiping the arrival of the inevitable chaotic end.

And so, our anonymous  professional, moved by altruism or fear, or even coerced by his boss, created a page urging us to ecological action in 1999.

Many do not read it, many read, but did not make the list of good deeds. Many have made the list, but not followed through. Many followed the list and stop there. And many have been fulfilled the list and went ahead. The anonymous professional was, then relatively successful in its purpose.

But what he did, after all? Why he did not merely do their part? He actually did more.

He does not show us that he is doing his part, because we do not know who he is and if he is responsible, ecologically speaking, in his private day-to-day. What he did, and we know for sure he did was encourage us to act. He told us, tried to motivate us, tried to convince us, or even tried to convert us, evangelize us. If he practices what he preaches is another question. Finally, ecological information does not mean ecological action, as reading a book about a marathon does not make us move a single step.

Motivates us? Maybe. Command? Very likely.

But we obey? Almost always, no.

We act? Rarely.

We feel guilty? Indeed, in 99% of the time. The action in the world of information is rare, but guilt is certain.

Propagation of information is not the same as the propagation of action, I conclude, and in this finding, we're not talking about ecology, but of psychology, sociology and even Administration, Policy and Marketing. We penetrated even in the field of mathematics, if we allow ourselves to go a little deeper into the issue.

Why the anonymous professional, aware of his ecological duty, not merely to do his part, without preaching to other about their duties, intruding thus into other people's lives?

"But", say the anonymous professional in his own defense, "but I'm just doing my part, and it includes informing."

Right. Do your part, but know that your part is subdivided into two other parts: action and inform. Act and report. That was the task of the disciples at the beginning of Christianity: to preach good news. And it worked. The idea is to act, and then propagate the action by using information.

But why not just acting?

Obviously, it seems that the simple act is not enough. What good is our anonymous professional been ecologically correct, he and he alone, in a world full of ignorant of their environmental responsibilities?


There are actually a thousand reasons to inform, to preach and evangelize. Reasons ranging from the most altruistic to the selfishness. And there are a thousand ways to spread some information. Ways that range from the most meticulous, artful, efficient and planned to unintended, unwanted, distorted and disastrous. Information, in a sense, is not under the control of anyone. An act can be interpreted in different ways, and seen the wrong way, even an oil spill, as in the case of the Exon Valdez, can be interpreted as an greener act. The interpretation of information is that gives it meaning. And unless you live in a cave, there is no way not to be seen, and thus have their actions, ecological or not interpreted by others who see it. View is to receive information, and who sees, interprets. Things propagate themselves. The secret lies then in the interpretation.

But our anonymous professional was not simply seen and interpreted. He planned. He purposed to inform and convince us to act. Why?

Because, is common sense, the ecological problem is too big to be solved by just one part of humanity. Not only governments, not only ecologists, not only industries, not just the heroic citizens. All, united, and only all united is the condition, without which you can not save the world. But why the problem requires much effort to be solved?

Because it is immense. He is  immense because a huge amount of people, for a long time, helped to provoke it. There is a clear intuition that a large amount of people doing the wrong thing for a long time in order to cause a big problem, if not corrected, will end up with everyone. Unless corrected, but as it is a big problem, the fix requires a lot of people doing the right thing for a long time. It seems obvious.

Hiroshima in the same category of problems? And Chernobyl? And the Exxon Valdez? Maybe then the Sahara? Or, the Armistice of 1918? Could it be that every problem must follow this same equation?



I'm not suggesting sleight of hand, but almost.

The connection cause-problem-solving is not as obvious as it seems, and when we got in this connection, we're not talking about Ecology, but the Philosophy of Science. For common sense, the ecological problem is obvious. For Philosophy, not so much. For the administrator, well, we still have not addressed the ecological problem from the point of view of the Administration. Even touched on the relationship. Until now, we limit ourselves to an approach from the point of view of common sense. But is the case that we face the ecological problem as a management problem? I think so, but first we need to clarify what I mean by management, and I then justify my belief that the ecological problem can be seen as an administrative problem. Actually, I think that can be seen as more than a single problem. The ecological drama can be sliced ​​in different directions by the administrator, and have those slices analyzed by the philosopher of Administration. Maybe it's time to think better about what we mean by the Administration. Again, there is the Administration from point of view of common sense and the Administration from point of view of the Philosophy of Administration. First things first, from simple to more complex, in content and in time.

***

Original date of creation of the document: Thursday, September 7, 2006, 19:00

We'll talk in more detail on almost all issues discussed above, but not now.

Now, let's change the subject.

Management and Ecology: the confluence of the waters

I graduated in Business Administration. Therefore, I am a trained professional in the field of economics, which is a branch of social sciences.

As a good scholar, a good reader, a good curious, I always thought that one time or another in my life I had to face the dark field of knowledge called Philosophy.

I have not studied Philosophy during the time when I attended college administration. So if I wanted to learn something about Philosophy I should be on my own.

So over the years, I was buying and reading books of Philosophy.

Oops! I must not lie. I was actually trying to ... just trying to read books of Philosophy.

Reading a book is one thing, to understand a particular subject is quite another. Soon I begin to understand some rudiments of Philosophy, not for lack of reading, not for lack of time, nor the intelligence, that I consider reasonable. Is that the issue is thorny and I even picked out a few books very hard. But worth the effort.

Fusion was made ​​between Administration and Philosophy.

Now, I thought I could start writing something about the Administration, but what?

So I bought a book about Ecology. After all, I thought that everything that my little Ecological Agenda 1999 said it seemed a tremendously silly.

I do not know. I always had this impression. There are some things in life that can not convince me that things are really genuine. It is always the impression that they are scams, frauds, lies and attempts to deceive us. That sounds like a kind of nose for conspiracy theories. And that's it. I'll talk more about conspiracy theories at another time, but the idea was it. Ecology has always seemed a scam, a big lie.

So with the book of Ecology in hand, I went ahead. But I do not went from the first page.

Already in the first paragraph the author, an icon in the business, promptly announces that Ecology and Economics are sciences whose names share a common origin, ie, the echo of Greek origin, meaning house, home, and are sciences that should be interrelated, but are not.

Ready! I found a seam, a niche, a research opportunity, to deepen.

And what did I do? I joined Administration with Philosophy and began to think something like Philosophy of Administration. Then I decided to philosophize about the connection between economics and ecology.

This set of confluences has not happened in almost anything. I mean, things are always more difficult than I imagine. I bring up to now only three confused short texts and some draft with some pertinent questions.

But as I said, philosophical issues are complex things. Even a small phrase can contain much hidden things.

As I said, the texts are available on Scribd, but they deserve a more detailed attention here.

Welcome to the world of Transadministration.

Passwords of life

My precious schedule, my precious information can not be at the mercy of a hard drive that can fail at any time.

So I thought I'd leave some important information in a online storage site.

Well, these websites, like anything else on the Internet, requires a password to have access to our data.

Then imagine that someone has access to all our online information simply because we do not create a password secure enough?

So the solution is to create strong passwords. But strong passwords are difficult to remember. The solution is to write them down somewhere. But where? On paper? Not a chance. In the micro? Yes, but a list of passwords need a password itself.

So a long time I have used a very small program to store passwords. He is very efficient and safe, but if it fails, I'm in serious trouble. Relying on a computer program that we do not know how it was created and who created it is one of the most complicated things that exist.

So I lost a good time reading on how the program works, who created and how it was created. I have been searching how safe I'm with him.

There is a staff in the security world that says that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

This slogan is true and deep.

Digital security is a fascinating subject and I'll talk about it much in this blog.

Space is not enough in the world

I am struggling with a problem that I thought it would be trite, but it is: a lack of physical and virtual space.

The lack of physical space is obvious. We are paying an absurd rent in an apartment not too big and it's crowded. Many things, many books.

I thought, moreover, certain that I could replace paper books for digital books. It seems that a single flash drive the size of a finger can hold my entire library that occupies an entire room, correct?

But not quite.

Indeed, the pen drive can contain the entire library, but if I lose the flash drive? Then I lost my entire library.

So, I have several flash drives.

Sure, but where I'll read the books ?

I read on the screen of my PC. So, my computer, where there is much more space that a pen drive, may well have a copy of all my library, right?

Not so much.

I bought my computer about five years. At the time he had a 80-gigabyte hard drive. At the time I thought it was an absurd place. But it was not.

Today, there is little space in it. Somewhere around 15 gigs. It is a small space, because the operation of the micro starts to get slow, it takes time to find things. It is distressing to know with so little leeway.

Then we have another serious problem.

A disk of 80 gigs with 65 gigs in use can not have a copy on a USB drive. I need an external hard drive.

Then has more. Copy 65 gigabytes of information to wherever place takes a long time, and can not be done every day. And then, what's so important in these 65 gigs?

I do not know, but every day my 80 gigas HD looks smaller and more crowded.

This lack of digital space takes time and leaves me spellbound.

We'll talk about it much on this blog, you can be sure.

Amy Winehouse: Too Young To Die

I told in one of my previous posts I saw a book about people who died young. And I wove my respects to them.

Now it's time for another tribute. Now is time to salute Emy Winehouse.

Yes, Amy, you were young, too young to die.

Sometimes it may seem opportunistic, but no. I actually was already a big fan of Amy before she died.

I love rock, but also like a lot of other styles. I like music, like good music, without distinctions and labels.



Enjoy Amy means before to enjoy all a vast musical legacy left by countless masters.

I always heard the divas of jazz. Who never heard? But, music, like sports and advices, is to be experienced. A sport is to be practiced, a council is to be lived and a song is to be heard.

I heard a lot of divas of jazz. I say it is not easy, because we are not accustomed to strive to establish our ears and learn to enjoy something that is excellent, but requires skill and effort.

Try to listen, for example, Aretha Franklin. It is not easy. It's harsh, is smooth, it is bitter. But it is perfect.

Thus, we are striving and learning to enjoy what the world has as best to offer. So when we are accustomed with divas' sing, instinctively know when we hear one.

Amy was so.

Forget the looks, forget the hype, forget the drugs and forget about awards and video clips. Concentrate only on the sound.

My wife and I spent long hours traveling across the country listening to this all, but learn to feel a particular fondness for Amy Winehouse. Your music helped make it less harsh our long and tiring hours on the road. I personally, when alone, preferring to put the song "Love is a losing game" to repeat endlessly. His voice was softer hard times and the heat more bearable. I never tired of hearing it, and as for Amy, I knew she was still alive, but dangerously pushing her luck.

I know, we know, we all know that we expected more from her. We expected, optimistic, that all would be ended well and that we would have her for many years. But we underestimated the fragility of life, human frailty. We have seen in real time the sinking of a young woman as we have seen a reallity show, believing that everything was nothing more than another marketing ploy, a balcony over the media, another factoid to keep her in evidence in the spotlight. But we deceive ourselves.

We lost Amy and now is late for any consideration. We do not end up with drugs, we will not save the world and will always remember her untimely death as more a matter of disappointment with this way of life jerk in which people live today, based on a consumerist, superficial and destructive culture. Disappointment, without further consideration, because, of course, nothing will change.

So it remains salute her, recognizing that she lived as a true diva and certain that their songs will be with us for a very long time, because they shine as works of excellence. It certainly will be with me for long time, I have no doubt.

Amy, I salute you.

Now, you are eternal.

Rock seventies

Yesterday I had the opportunity to buy a DVD in Americanas Stores here in Ribeirão Preto, in Santa Ursula Mall. I say this because I write this blog not only to the world, but for me too, to after a few years I can remember I had a life like any other, and not only labor and sorrow. Yesterday, just to confirm, I did not suffer one bit. It was a normal day.

I bought a DVD with 70s rock. There were big names of which I had heard and even knew a few songs, but never seen on video.

Black Sabbath, who had heard something.

Kiss, that I love, with the classic "Rock and roll all night".

Deep Purple, I've seen live in Goiânia.

Slade, with "Cum on feel the noize", that I had heard  long time ago.

Grand Funk Railroad, who had never heard nor seen.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, with the classic "Sweet Home Alabama", which I love, had seen the video and knew the lyrics perfectly.

T. Rex, who I had heard talking about, but never seen nor heard.

MC5, ditto.

David Bowie, who knew the legendary in '70s, but only heard and saw in the '80s, and a little bore, by the way.

Suzi Quatro, I knew nothing.

Alice Cooper, like Bowie, but way cooler.

Peter Frampton, that I love, with "Show me the way."

Talking Heads, with their typical nonsense over the '80s to '70s.

And finally Ramones, who knew in the '80s.

You know what? I thought the look of  everyone the cornier thing  in the world, but in same time the most authentic thing in the world, while the most chic thing in the world.

And the sound?

Kiss is a show, it's fantastic and are eternal.

I loved Lynyrd review, and as the backing vocals are beautiful!

Black Sabbath is really a classic, as well as Deep Purple with their basic guitars.

I loved the old fashioned Slade. The singer looks like a werewolf. But it's a nice guy, singing a lot and music is very great. It is shocking to see the mismatch between powerful sound and  naive and innocent visual. What a deal! I loved Slade!

And I loved listening to Frampton again. Since my seven, eight years I've heard their music. They are in everywhere. He sold millions, broke all sales records at the time and was "the guy". Then disappeared from the scene. He was a legend.

I see Rick Sambora from Bon Jovi and remember that weird tube, the talk box, and no denying it: rock inspired by Frampton, and the best. No extremes of Radicalism, of Puritanism, of Satanism. Only a good sound to take a road, to enjoy the energy and lift the mood. Rock's it.

Long Live Peter Frampton.

Advices

I read a lot. I always read.

I come from a family of simple people. I had no parents with a lot of instruction. As I grew older, I learn more from books than by the teachings of others. Of course, the books are written by people, so I learned things with people, but not directly.

The books are then as my advisors. And I am a dedicated student. Always have been.

But giving advice is one thing. Following a advice is another.

Someone saying that you must do this or that is correct, but does not mean it will be easy for one who accepts the advice. Being disciplined with our learning is a hard work.

A lot of work.

Now, for exemple, I am struggling with my backup. This is the third or fourth time I talk about backups in this blog. This backup bothers me and scares me.

It is not simply a matter of paranoia. It's a safety issue. Preserving our data is a security issue. As I said in previous post, we can not live without our computers, and if they lose, we lose part of our lives together.

Moreover, how can I do anything productive today that does not involve the computer? Try to think in something that is a task and does not involve internet, technology, computers?

It's hard.

So how can I venture to do something knowing that I can not finish it and see everything lost for any problem? This is unacceptable. I've been through this before and I know that when it comes to computing, it is better to do nothing than to do something and then lose everything by not having a copy of what was done. This blog is  evidence that even a simple post that is lost while typing is an inestimable loss. There is no contesting the urgency of saving volatile digital data.

In any case, this awareness that I need digital security is a awareness that is part of a greater consciousness that tells me I have security not only digital, but in all aspects of my life. Physical security, financial security, emotional security, all sorts of security.

No, I'm not a coward. Not so. It is that I am too old to ignore the risks of the world. I do not fear losing my safety, but even so I stand waiting my security go, in any aspect of my life. Living is just this: keep yourself whole until  we can, until our last breath.

Then there is another problem. In so far as I know I need to take care of my safety and do not care, I can not fool me. Here is not the story of self-deception. I know I'm being careless with something in my life and it is foolish to think that I'm lucky and nothing will happen to me. If I careless of my safety, I worry.

But I can not worry. Worry does not solve anything. Worry is like fever we feel when we are deseased. It signals something wrong with us. The solution is then not continue worrying, but to uproot the causes of our worry.

But back to the advices. How do I know that any advice is useless and counterproductive?

I know because I read, I studied Dale Carnegie and his book "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living."

That's the problem. I am a disciplined student. I read, I learned and now I apply what I learned in my life.

Coincidentally, I read a sentence in those days, a Chinese saying: "Think of the best, prepare for the worst and move on."

It is the same teaching, the same lesson, the same warning.

Then I have a degree in business administration. Get a common manual of administration and will see the famous SWOT method. What says the method? Go, get out your strengths, leverage them. Take your weaknesses, minimize them. Analyze opportunities and external threats and it is ready, you already have a diagnosis for their strategic planning. SWOT is easy to recommend. Minimize weaknesses, not so.

But things only happen to others.

Two days ago landed the last American space shuttle, Atlantis, on his last trip, and last of all U.S. space shuttle project. It was with relief that we saw a big project end well with a soft landing and no explosions. Who does not remember the Challenger and Columbia?

Now, Norway account their dead, just the quiet, peaceful and rich Norway. Not that we are alarmists. Is that bad things happen to everyone, even to good people, even with the peaceful people.

So, it is best to follow some advice and minimize our risk to we can maximize our potential? Yes, of course, except that everything is too much work, too much work to be taken seriously. We run the risk of fail, because there are too many threats, vulnerabilities and other risks too. Is it really worth all this effort?

I do not know, but I feel that there is something that still does not fit. Is missing a balance in all these advices. I smell something missing but I can not define.

I have thought about moving amoebae, but it is still early to draw conclusions.

Wait ...

Nice to meet you, I'm your intranet ...

Hello, nice to meet you, I'm your intranet ...

With a sweet smile, so it presents to the world my personal intranet. It sounds chic and sophisticated?

As well, an intranet?

Oh, that's a nerd thing. Ah, this is also something of a writer.

Yes, I have a small intranet, a site of my own, where I put in order a lot of things. My intranet is a strong competitor against this blog, because not everything I write I have interest in disclosing to the world immediately. Rather, the idea cooking on low heat over the months on my personal PC, to then go have a presence in the online world.

It is the evolution of concepts. First, we write with paper and pencil, then with pen, then with typewriters, and then we went to the computer. On the computer, we start from DOS Edit (at least I start ...) to Notepad, then to the World, then to Internet pages. So everything must end in an HTML format in somewhere site. And when it got cool and we want to do something more beautiful and definitive, we use PDF files. This is the cycle.

Thus, people typically use the World doc files to keep your things more or less organized, but nothing like an intranet controlled by the Front Page to be really professional.

Now, to the facts.

My intranet gives me some work. It is important, but it takes time and requires some mental effort to be organized.

She is not versatile in terms of organization such as Outlook, which we have explained here, but it allows a clearly very important.

I have a routine of life, and I also have a routine in front of my computer.

We can not live without the internet. So often we sit in front of the PC and then open our browsers, for news of the world in general. Today, for example, the main story is about the terrorist attack in Oslo, Norway.

Then we go to any other sites. I, in particular, use Microsoft Internet Explorer. He has a favorite links bar. My favorites sites are arranged in sequence in my window. First, I enter the site of UOL, to read news. Then go to Google and read more news. Then take a look at Orkut, and Facebook.

This is where that enter the intranet.

I could spend hours browsing through thousands of interesting pages, but what my duties and obligations?

They are forgotten in Outlook, which is not an application for the internet. So what I thought? I thought about using my intranet as a reminder to take care of my things in Outlook. So, after seeing my favorite sites, I go from the Facebook link to my intranet link.



My intranet just gives me the warning: take care of your routines, open Outlook, do a backup, consider the millions of pending little tasks  that promised to yourself realize.

And finally, when I'm not happy with something on my intranet, just one click and add or edit a page directly to the Front Page.

This is a good routine.

Then, there is this blog. But no matter. What matters is that we can not live without computers, we can no longer live navigating as if we were live a thousand years and we can not miss the millions of resources that provide us with all these technologies. If I can be more efficient and responsible with use of my time through technology, that is.

My intranet, then, is there, ready to remember everything.

Gradually, we know her better.

Recycling and the power of ignorance

In my green agenda I listed my second  item through which I could contribute to a better world, for a world more environmentally tolerable. My item 2 says only: agenda printed on recycled paper. What I mean by that?

My green agenda, as paradoxical as it seems, is not made with recycled paper. So that was my first idea. I should think of the trees, in nature, on air quality. I thought my next diaries, notebooks, paper should be made with recycled paper. So I would save the world from destruction.

Does this make sense? Does. If I spend the rest of my life using paper made ​​from other recycled paper, I will spare many trees, which will remain alive oxygenating the planet.


But why only recycle paper? Why not recycle all that I am able to consume, and it is possible to be recycled?

Recycling is a great idea. She is a great idea because it refers to a natural process that is already running by nature since a billion years. In nature, recycling matches the buzzword of Lavoisier, that nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed.

But look! Pay attention!

Who was Lavoisier?



He, see Wikipedia, is considered the father of modern chemistry. It was he who coined the buzzword of "nothing is created ...". However, only did so after much study. Now, many buzzwords are coined by countless people, with or without much study. So what's the merit of Lavoisier?

His merit is that his buzzword was correct. Today, with over two hundred years of research in chemistry and physics and other sciences of nature, his statement remains as an unquestionable truth. So what can we say of Lavoisier? That was a lucky person? That was a genius?

Well, here's what Wikipedia says:

Joseph-Louis Lagrange, an important mathematician, a contemporary of Lavoisier said: "A century will not suffice to produce a head equal to that brought down in a second."

Lagrange was and still is considered a genius. So we have a genius talking about another.

But look better. Lagrange states that Lavoisier was a genius of those who come around once every century or more. Mankind has to wait ages to get a head that can be made to fall in one second.

Why Lagrange said that?

Because in fact the head of Lavoisier fell into a second, guillotined during the French Revolution. Let's see what Wikipedia says:

He (Lavoisier) lived at the time they began the French Revolution, when the Third Estate (peasants, burghers and merchants) would take the power of France.

He was killed by it, because it was so poorly regarded by the people, who thought that, being of a noble family, Lavoisier, also participated in the corrupt system full of taxes on society.

He was beheaded after a summary trial on May 8, 1794.

Then, Lagrange was right. Just one second of ignorance by losing centuries of work from the nature and  decades of tireless and genial human effort.

I'm condemning the French Revolution? No.

But I'm making a connection between this text and the previous one, which I quote disbelief in humanity, quoted by João Ubaldo Ribeiro.

"The dog bites the hand that feeds him," the saying goes. How is it possible to feed hopes in a  humanity that plow their best heads?

If so, have hope in humanity is an exercise in faith.

But look a little more! This saying, "Dog bites the hand that feeds him," I know a popular saying, but from where? From what mouth it was delivered? From which culture emerged? I do not know, but I went on Google.

Try it you too. It is a thankless task. But if you're smart, you will read another, as instructive as this. You will read, as a comedy, that "the noblest of dogs is the hot dog: it feeds the hand that bites."

It seems a joke, but it is not.

So, we do not fear the collapse of the planet due to lack of paper. We can always resort to recycling, this clever mechanism that allows us to use something ad infinitum. And do not worry, because Lavoisier taught us that nothing is lost. You may want more and more with your consumerist impulse, because as much as you want, will not be able to consume all that is offered, because the universe is greater than your greed. See! There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on Earth! Farte yourself, because we can recycle!

And do not bite the hand that feeds you: always praise Lavoisier, our genius that, more nobly than just a hot dog, fed us with his wisdom, though he had to pay with his head and his life for the opportunity to serve the  ignorant mob.

The power of ignorance scares me, but then again maybe Lavoisier is the answer: a day, who knows, over the next centuries, because geniuses are rare and time-consuming things, a genius who will examine the nature of ignorance and be able to recycle human minds. And then, become ignorant in nobles, and some light will shine for humanity in the millennia to come.

For now, defend yourself!

Beware the guillotine! It is much more dangerous and imminent that the lack of oxygen and trees for our dear agendas.

Beware the power of ignorance.

Disbelief in humanity

There are chances that draw the attention for not seem chances, but meaningful coincidences. These days, one of those coincidences occurred to me. And it seems to me significant.

On the one hand, I and my ruminations. On the other, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, the famous Brazilian writer. The intersection: disbelief in humanity.

But how did this intersection? Then, what is the significance of it? Finally: what consequences?

I am a person who likes to read and write. So whenever I can, I follow the literary national, international scene, finally, I like literature. I like so much that in 2010 I was in Paraty city, near Rio de Janeiro, to participate in the FLIP, the Book Fair of Paraty. However this year I did not go. Could not: appointments, important tasks, life changing, other concerns. But I could have gone. There not seemed, however, so  interesting the names of guests. Lie: I did not get time to see the names. My ignorance: I do not read anything about modern literature. No time. Summary: I did not go.

 

But the news I read. And one of them caught my attention. João Ubaldo Ribeiro, who I knew that was and is a great Brazilian writer, Immortal of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, but whose books I do not have any and never read them. João Ubaldo Ribeiro had already his supposed texts widely disseminated on the Internet. Who has not received an email with the text "Wanted manpower to build a country," with those powerful statements, that we, brazilians, are a smart people and here the thing is hopeless?

Until then I did not know that the text "Wanted ..." was not his. I read the text about ten years ago, but I thought it quite hard and honest.

And then, the news of FLIP corroborate this my impression about João Ubaldo, that, despite I knowing nothing about his literature, I had him as a person, a citizen very wise and fearless in his statements. After he assess the Brazilian people as sly trickster, he was going now with this: the pessimism in the face of humanity.

 

This was a big chest, great courage, great honesty.

But it went no beyond this simply reading, this simple statement released by all the newspapers and magazines across the country.

What the hell, a phrase taken from its context can mean something quite different from what it really means in context. So, to not take John Ubaldo like a gritty guy based only on a short text and a line of impact, I decided to research some more.

I found via Google that the text "Wanted manpower to..." is not his, as he confirmed on one occasion some time ago. If the text is not his, that's fine. The text itself is not the problem. The problem is an intellectual, a national figure to say what nobody wanna say, but in deep down everyone knows. There is not the issue of the Brazilian trickery that is the question here, but the courage to say it and criticize it.

Yes, because it is easy to criticize politicians. Difficult is to call rascal a common housewife. This requires honesty and courage.

But João Ubaldo did not do it.

So, left the phrase about the pessimism in relation to humanity. Pessimism in what context?

 

I did not found the video recordings with his speech on FLIP, but I found the transcript. In fact, he was brave. It was even a hard phrase to say, but he said and took the credit for it.

But he is neither the first nor the most famous, nor the last of the pessimists. Then, why this his statement was so important?

It was important because this is not what is expected of a Brazilian, even more now, with the economic fervor. But, even more, it was important becausein this same day, I came to a painfully similar conclusion, by other ways and by other reasons.

I and João Ubaldo Ribeiro have some power over the destinies of the world? He maybe, I certainly do not.

So what does it matter if am I or not pessimistic about humanity?

And then, what does it matter to the rest of the world?

Oh, the hypocrisy! Ah, the famous and bloody cognitive dissonance!

I need to talk more about it all...