All posts by Axonn Echysttas

Mentatul.

Government 2.0

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Fake news, profiling & converting voters using social media^, rigged elections, media cartels owned by those in power (or that would lie to get the power), demagogy… the list can go on and on. Democracy today means that those that lie best or have plenty of money, get to steer our society. Actually, it has been so since a long, long time ago. But we now have the opportunity to set democracy free, if we make the right use of the technology at our disposal.

The Internet has seen better times. It was and still is a gateway to knowledge. The problem is that the information found on the Internet is often far from accurate; sometimes it’s horrendously false. From a highway to enlightenment, it has become a stormy ocean where one’s mind can be forever lost.

Fortunately, the Internet as a platform is still extremely powerful. We know it has some problems, but people all around the world are working to improve things. Along with newly emerging technologies, the Internet can still be our ladder towards the next stage of social evolution.

The purpose of any post in the Futurology^ category is to launch a wild, boundless speculation regarding what the future holds regarding a certain concept. To get things going, here are some of the things I imagine can be happen in the near future (coming decades) given a possibly unavoidable technological evolution of democracy. Feel free to submit your own ideas in the comments below. With your approval I may integrate these in the article, giving proper credit.

  • The way election campaigns are currently organized is one of the main problems of democracy. Because the people with the most money can reach out to the largest audience and can organize the flashiest campaigns, it all revolves around wealth, which is not always a proof of wisdom and intelligence. Wealth can be obtained through opportunity, or worse, through inheritance, which offers no guarantee that the receiver of the wealth can wield it responsibly. However, fixing the broken election system is totally within our power.
  • One of the good things that emerged during the past decades from the capitalistic competitive environment is the number of ways through which we can measure performance. There are countless tools for determining a person’s skills. Politicians shouldn’t even be allowed to enter an election if they cannot pass an interview that shows they can qualify for a given position.
  • Even more importantly, winning an election cannot be a blank check for getting any position in a government. A candidate vying for a position dealing with mining should have passed the relevant interview. Of course, a candidate can pass several interviews for several different areas, but never should a government hire a lawyer to deal with agriculture.
  • If we, the people, don’t want corporations to decide our society’s future, then we should take responsibility and change the broken election system. Goodbye donors. No party or candidate should be allowed to receive any funding from commercial entities or power brokers during an election campaign (or any other time for that matter).
  • Election campaigns will be redesigned to be much cheaper and paid entirely by a neutral, society-funded technocrat organization. Goodbye massive costs, millions of printed fliers and throw-away promotional material. Hello standardized and equal promotion for all candidates. All election-related financial transactions shall be documented in transparent, public records: open for challenge and debate.
  • A standardized election campaign means that all candidates should be given a precise, limited and equal amount of resources. This will include air-time on public channels, online and offline promotion. Candidates will have to adhere to a standardized way of stating their message: focused on previous accomplishments (proven and verified) and future plans (a public online space will be created where such plans can be fact-checked against budget and reality).
  • Today, with the help of Big Data^, we can assess the performance of politicians in a neutral way. Just look at how this software^ can find the best people to support a given law. Given enough data, software will be able to perform impartial screenings for an increasingly large number of candidates. Think millions. Just imagine that your highly skilled work colleague can one day receive, from a computer, a suggestion to candidate for a governmental position based on his skill, not on how many friends he has in a political party or the power of his dad’s commercial empire.
  • Earlier, I mentioned transparent financial transactions during an election campaign. Actually, everything should be transparent. All transactions that the government does should be easily accessible for any citizen. All contracts between government and companies that work for it should be open for public debate, because, in fact, these companies work for the taxpayers.
  • In case you haven’t been living under a rock, you probably heard of cryptocurrencies^. Enter crypto-voting. Sierra Leone just had an election where blockchain^ technology was used. Using blockchain, election results can be seen and validated in real time. It’s also much harder to steal an election (and can actually be made impossible if implementing relatively simple checks such as random people cross-checking other people’s votes). This system also reduces the costs of organizing an election and, in my view, can be used to facilitate what I call continuous voting.
  • Continuous voting means that anybody can change their vote at any time. Voters would simply log in with their ID and change their votes for any number of positions that are elected by the public. Politicians will be part of a market where every citizen owns one vote token per vote area (one vote for the education ministry, one vote for the local police chief and so on). This means that a politician would lose the safety blanket of a mandate, which is exactly the amount of responsibility that is required from any person in a leadership position. Mandates, after all, belong to an age where elections were expensive to organize. It also means that any citizen could own hundreds of vote tokens that entitles them to vote for a large number of positions. The vote tokens would be given by a system that automatically allocates them based on the citizen’s address (allowing a person to vote for all positions that influence their life).
  • Taking this further, direct democracy could be implemented by having laws as crypto-mandates: the more people buy in, the more power a law will have. This could remove the need for traditional politicians altogether. Rather than politicians, you would get something more akin to project managers that promote a law and try to get buy-in for that law.
  • The system could be expanded to include a public polling option not only for laws, but even for contracts. I’m referring here to the deals between government and companies that perform services critical to society (cleaning, public transport, etc.).
  • Taking this even further, we could imagine how instant direct democracy will look like. When a law reaches the support it requires, it could go into effect much sooner. For example, people could vote about speed limits in their community and see the effects immediately applied on connected traffic displays. A “thermostat”-like behavior would be implemented, to make sure that a law doesn’t “flick” on and off from one day to the next.
  • Depending on law, applying the changes would take a reasonable amount of time. For example, budget laws would apply only as soon as the affected institutions can adapt to a change in budgeting (within reasonable limits). This might mean less job safety, but would drastically increase a society’s ability to answer to its economical environment, which would, in turn, translate into better performance. With proper social protection measures, this can translate into an adventure where all members of society take part, together, in the well-being of their greater family.
  • Using such systems, a city could easily revoke the contract with any company if people realize it provides poor quality. No more deals behind closed doors, no more lying to get a contract with the government only to quickly drop in quality and siphon taxpayer money.

The Futurology Disclaimer: I do not claim that my ideas are original. I’m sure these suggestions are just scratching the surface of what can be achieved, but hopefully they’ve scratched enough to get somebody inspired to come up with more. I’m also sure many of these ideas are already being worked on by several organizations. If any of the ideas listed by anybody on this page are original and will benefit any organization, I expect credit to be given where it’s due.

Version history:

2018-03-31 – 1.0 – Written.

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Autechre – Eutow

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Don’t be deceived by the soft, airy beginnings of this song. A monolithic, dark-shining bass line will soon emerge. Assisted by rather traditional percussion, the deep, sweeping bass line is subjected to an array of risky acrobatics that are a pleasure to behold.

The song comes from Tri Repetae++, one of Autechre’s most critically acclaimed albums. The band’s beginnings are filled with such electronica gems (Amber is another excellent LP and so are the Garbage, Anti and Anvil Vapre EPs).

YouTube (decent quality):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KsRIM4Jx4Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KsRIM4Jx4Q^

For Spotify Users (high quality):

https://open.spotify.com/track/2Y1z54YDD3qkrPvxW5NhJZ^

For Deezer Users (high quality):

http://www.deezer.com/track/29372361^

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Romans Sure Knew How to Cook Concrete

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“A bunch of half-sunken structures off the Italian coast might sound less impressive than a gladiatorial colosseum. But underwater, the marvel is in the material. The harbor concrete, a mixture of volcanic ash and quicklime, has withstood the sea for two millennia and counting. What’s more, it is stronger than when it was first mixed.”

I’m quoting from the article below:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/07/04/ancient-romans-made-worlds-most-durable-concrete-we-might-use-it-to-stop-rising-seas/?utm_term=.f37807445b83^

Unsurprisingly, we still have a lot to learn from ancient cultures, even when it comes to technology. Sure, it can be argued that the Romans half-invented this super-strong type of cement, half-stumbled upon it by chance. From what we know, they were far behind us when it comes to understanding complex chemical reactions, but as the saying goes, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”.

In any case, here’s to the advancement of strong materials, mother nature, chance and new technological opportunities for us to survive a rising ocean and who-knows-what we might bring upon ourselves in the coming decades.

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Massive Attack – Teardrop

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This is one of the songs that a lot of people can recognize from the first second. Yes, from the very first, single second. The percussion is nothing if not iconic. For the few that won’t recognize the song at first listen (or simply don’t know it) the percussion doesn’t hint much at the sweetness that will soon follow. But the listener won’t have to wait long until her soothing, beautiful, vulnerable, angelic voice can be heard. The melody flows steadily as she tells us words of love, words of courage, words of wisdom.

It’s one of Massive Attack’s most popular hits, and for good reason. It comes from Mezzanine, one of my all-time favorite albums and also one of the band’s most popular (again, for good reason).

“Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
Fearless on my breath
Gentle impulsion
Shakes me, makes me lighter
Fearless on my breath
Teardrop on the fire
Fearless on my breath

Night, night of matter
Black flowers blossom
Fearless on my breath
Black flowers blossom
Fearless on my breath
Teardrop on the fire
Fearless on my

Water is my eye
Most faithful mirror
Fearless on my breath
Teardrop on the fire
Of a confession
Fearless on my breath
Most faithful mirror
Fearless on my breath
Teardrop on the fire
Fearless on my breath”

YouTube (decent quality):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7K72X4eo_s^

For Spotify Users (high quality):

https://open.spotify.com/track/67Hna13dNDkZvBpTXRIaOJ^

For Deezer Users (high quality):

http://www.deezer.com/track/3129748^

This Weekly Song entry has been brought from the FaceBook archive of Weekly Song^. This exploration was originally started through a FaceBook page, about 13 months prior to launching Mentatul. Slowly but surely, the entire FaceBook archive will be brought here.

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Wise Quotes Pill for 2018

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Some years ago, I began passively collecting random bits of wisdom; quotes I would come across while roaming the web or during daily interactions with friends and colleagues. I didn’t limit myself at including only quotes from famous people. I collected from the anonymous, from the ancient unknown and included even original or quirky sayings I heard during some conversation. My collection of quotes is growing slowly but surely.

Today, I’ll share with you some of the best quotes I came across when browsing through a small section of my collection. Of course, should you want to have a look at the whole collection, you can always find it here^ (Note: I only upload the collection once a year so the link will lead to the file as it was at the publishing time of the latest “Wise Quotes Pill” article).

 

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

 

“Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.”

– Benjamin Franklin

 

“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”

– Thoreau

 

“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

 

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.”

– Ambrose Moon

 

“Our scientific capabilities have outrun our spiritual capabilities. We now have guided missiles and misguided men.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

 

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them – words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think.”

– Stephen King (Different Seasons)

 

“Our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be.”

– Henri-Frédéric Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Prédéric Amiel, 1889

 

“You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

 

“The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small.”

– Lao Tzu

 

“If you want to know the past, to know what has caused you, look at yourself in the present, for that is the past’s effect. If you want to know your future, then look at yourself in the present, for that is the cause of the future.”

– Majjhima Nikaya

 

“We are born in one day. / We die in one day. / We can change in one day. / And we can fall in love in one day. / Anything can happen in just one day.”

– Gayle Forman

 

“Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”

– Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

 

“I have found that great ideas come when you have a great desire to have them.”

– Charles Chaplin

 

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

– Ray Bradbury

 

“Your state of mind is the most important factor in the outcome of your life.”

– Ziad K. Abdelnour

 

“It’s funny because we ask God to change our situation, not knowing he put us in the situation to change us.”

– Unknown

 

“This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”

– Alan Watts

 

“One of the hardest decisions you’ll ever face in life is choosing whether to walk away or try harder.”

– Ziad K. Abdelnour

 

“Time decides who you meet in life, your heart decides who you want in your life, and your behavior decides who stays in your life.”

– Ziad K. Abdelnour

 

“For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice.”

– Dr. Michio Kaku

 

“The greatest wisdom is to realize one’s lack of it.”

– Konstantin Stanislavsky

 

“Alone but happy, happy but alone…”

– Adrian Nastase (not the former prime minister of Romania)

 

“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.”

– Anthony Robbins

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Insane Clown Posse – Hellalujah

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Say hello to the lovely crazy clowns. As is the case with hip hop, the awesomeness of this song is in the lyrics and boy, do these guys have a bone to pick with organized religion (more precisely, TV preachers). As usual with Insane Clown Posse, the text is rather violent, but deliciously (and well-deservedly) so.

Also as usual with this group, the musical arrangement is excellent. The song is almost like a short movie. The music is often interrupted by staged segments from a made-up TV show but everything is produced so well that it integrates seamlessly into a “sad but true” story.

“Who am I? I’m not the Devil
I can take you to my level
Above the rocks, above the earth
Tell me what your soul is worth
How much money do you make?
How much will you let me take?
I will give you tranquilty
Just send your wealth and checks to me
Life is going to expire
And your soul will burn in fire
You will perish in the thunder
Unless you call my hotline number
God has asked you to make me rich
Me and my fat-whack gaudy bitch
On your T.V.’s late at night
Send those checks and I’ll guide you to the light

God had called me and then stopped by
And he told me you’re gonna die
Unless you buy my holy water
Check, cash, or a money order
This is true, don’t question me
I’ll even send you shit for free
It’s only ten bucks for the call
And I’ll send a prayer, no charge at all
Put your lips up to the screen
Close your eyelids and intervene
Your lips to mine, now send the cash
And while you’re there, you can kiss my ass
Take your paycheck and send me half
And I’ll send you God’s autograph
I’ll get Allah’s and Buddha’s too
Even Zeus, I don’t give a fuck who
Just send me that money

Your total’s twenty-two eleven
For your set of keys to heaven
Make the checks out in my name
Me or God, it’s all the same
Bring your crippled ass to me
Pay my usher the holy fee
I’ll bless your legs and bless your chair
Then wheel your bitch-ass outta here
Now a special ceremony
This part don’t cost any money
Drip a drop of blessed water
Now I fertilize your daughter
Even though I fucked a hooker
Took your baby girl and shook her
You still buy everything I sell
And I’m living well
See you in Hell!”

YouTube (decent quality):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6R5lpQjUdw^

For Spotify Users (high quality):

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Yy2q9vG7T1D0GN0BZGzdR^

For Deezer Users (high quality):

http://www.deezer.com/track/3040093^

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One More Hyper-car for the Hyper-consumerist Empire

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Diversity is beautiful. It’s the reason why our planet is so different than everything else we’ve encountered so far. Humans have added to the diversity through art and technology. But what if there is a boundary after which adding more diversity becomes ugly?

Some people don’t have running water. Some people start their day thanking that their home wasn’t blown up. Some people struggle in a hospital bed. Some people build cars like these:

http://www.automobilemag.com/news/mercedes-amg-project-one-hypercar-revealed/^

And some people buy them.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to be able to afford such a car. It’s “good diversity” to be able to use technology to build masterpieces like the one above. But not until we’ve done some progress in fixing our society. Not while there’s still people undergoing extreme suffering. We have bigger problems to tackle and issues to consider before we can play around on the race track.

Do I blame the engineers that build hyper-cars? Of course not. Besides being a former Formula 1 fan, I know that these people are only doing their job. I do blame, however, a society that doesn’t encourage these bright minds to work on fixing bigger, more meaningful problems. It’s a paradox:

In order for society to begin to want to fix itself, society must first fix itself.

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Proem – Place Gun To Head

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Oh, how I wish I could rename this song. But I can’t, not only because of my respect towards the artist, but because I prefer to tune in to whatever somber reality that the melody perhaps wishes to remind of. With such beautiful music, even dark images can be deprived of their negative energy and interpreted in an objective way, respectful towards the diversity of life and the many paths it can take.

Musically, what we have here is a minimal ambient track that makes excellent use of syncopation. It’s all part of the grand design which has the melody meander in a soothing flow.

YouTube (decent quality):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgJXZRwbfvk^

For Spotify Users (high quality):

https://open.spotify.com/track/0PGy1hV7iaBtzezPbhmvwh^

For Deezer Users (high quality):

http://www.deezer.com/track/69628153^

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We Don’t Live in a Computer Simulation (Is That a Good Thing?)

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Every now and then, somebody is amazed at the ever-increasing power of computers to simulate reality. The accuracy of these simulations increases every year, in step with the increase in computing power. This has led some to extrapolate that eventually we will reach the ability to simulate an entire Universe, perhaps even including conscious beings. And if so, what if we’re a simulation ourselves? According to new research, this is, in principle, impossible due to, you guessed it, the most mysterious of phenomena: quantum effects.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/physicists-find-we-re-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation^

The article above presents this as good news. For me, this is neither good nor bad news. Actually, thinking of myself as a simulated object never dulled my sense of reality, nor my respect for life. And besides, if I’m simulated then perhaps there are some mighty creatures watching over my destiny. What I experience right now sure doesn’t feel fake so I couldn’t care less about the technology behind it. In any case, theories come and go and who knows what the future holds? Probably not even the simulators ;).

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Rag’n’Bone Man – Human (Acoustic)

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A stellar vocal performance is what makes this song shine. Even though the instrumental is perpetually in the background, it is in such harmony with the singer that it gets pulled right up on the stage with equal rights. There’s more creativity in the song’s use of piano and guitar than there is in most contemporary songs that feature twice or more instruments.

“I’m only human
I’m only, I’m only
I’m only human, human

Maybe I’m foolish
Maybe I’m blind
Thinking I can see through this
And see what’s behind
Got no way to prove it
So maybe I’m blind
But I’m only human after all
I’m only human after all
Don’t put your blame on me
Don’t put your blame on me

Take a look in the mirror
And what do you see
Do you see it clearer
Or are you deceived
In what you believe
‘Cause I’m only human after all
You’re only human after all
Don’t put the blame on me
Don’t put your blame on me

Some people got the real problems
Some people out of luck
Some people think I can solve them
Lord heavens above
I’m only human after all
I’m only human after all
Don’t put the blame on me
Don’t put the blame on me”

YouTube (video version, not the same song as below):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wKzyIN1yk^

For Spotify Users (high quality):

https://open.spotify.com/track/70fdF045x3n1ahv7MG6Z4H^

For Deezer Users (high quality):

http://www.deezer.com/track/138127647^

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