tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89156182210827590102024-03-21T11:01:07.094-07:00From Russia with ideasGrigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-13332240473179318152022-12-20T22:31:00.004-08:002023-07-23T01:14:41.183-07:00"Referendum democracy" - how it can work<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> I believe
that the best society can be achieved with “referendum democracy” – a rule in
the Constitution, that a law can be accepted only with an online referendum (except
maybe situations of war). At first
glance, it may seem that such a system will not work, since an ordinary citizen
is a layman in matters of governing the country. But this will not be such a
big problem, since the referendums will be initiated by the authorities, i.e.
experts, and they only need to convince the population of their position (by
raising the level of education of the population for this).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">However,
for this system to work well, one more step is needed: a law on compulsory
post-school education. For example, each citizen will have to spend half an
hour a day studying materials that help understand the government of the
country, and in case of non-compliance, pay an increased tax. Possibly the following principle should be implemented: each citizen can choose what information he
will study, but he must justify why, as he believes this information will help
him vote more correctly, and this explanation should sound reasonable (this
idea develops 20 article of the United Nations Convention against Corruption). Another approach is electing </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">via the internet the </span><span style="font-size: large;">people, who will decide, which books and other materials should be suggested for such education.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">And then a
new problem arises: since the resources of the brain are limited, it is
difficult for a person to be versatile, and if he spends a lot of time studying
the issues of running a country, he will earn less in his main job.
Accordingly, a society in which the state forces everyone to study the issues
of governing the country will be more reasonable and less likely to make erroneous
decisions, but at the same time, it may militarily and economically lose
competition to societies in which such norms do not exist. Therefore, such a
society must export its way of life, perhaps even by military means. This is
similar to the idea of exporting democracy by military means, which I fully
support (“so that the barbarians do not conquer Rome, we must make Rome
everywhere”).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">I believe
that in perfect democracy the nation will not only make errors, but also study
with its errors. Besides that, for minimizing the profanation, two more
measures can be uses:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">1) When an
online referendum is initiated, a group of randomly chosen citizens should be
selected, and some money will be offered for them for studying materials,
important for this referendum. This group will vote, and the results of its
vote will be a good information for other citizens. It should be noted that a
sufficiently big sum of money should be offered for the members of this group,
so that the majority of selected people will agree to participate (otherwise
this group will not be an representative sample of the population);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<span face="Calibri, "sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2) For referendums initiated from the people (not
buy the government), two same equal referendums must be performed instead of
one, with an interval of 0.5 years; only if both referendums accept the initiative,
it will become a law.</span></span>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-44535446930660399462022-06-29T00:14:00.001-07:002022-06-29T00:14:07.182-07:00Contents<p> <span style="font-size: x-large;">I live in Russia and do not know much about the western countries and their customs, so, I excuse for any awkwardness in my blog and for bad English.</span></p><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">The aim of my blog is to promote the ideas of internet democracy. I believe that these ideas could really make the world better, if they are implemented.<br />Most impotant posts:</span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2021/04/why-people-do-not-change-their-views.html" target="_blank">Why people do not change their views</a><br /><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2017/12/about-brexit.html" target="_blank">About Brexit</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-medvedev-effect-about-propaganda-in.html">"The Medvedev effect" (about propaganda in Russia)</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2022/01/consumer-society-and-youtube.html">Consumer society and youtube</a><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2021/05/about-democracy.html" target="_blank">About democracy</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><a href="https://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2022/06/an-easy-way-to-rid-world-of-misanthropy.html"><span style="font-size: large;">An easy way to rid the world of misantropy</span></a></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2021/09/social-lifts-in-big-politics.html" target="_blank">Social lifts in big politics</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2021/10/friendship-vs-sectarianism.html">Friendship vs sectarianism</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-market-economy-and-reputation.html">The market economy and reputation</a><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><a href="http://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2018/03/bitcoins-and-freedom.html"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Bitcoins and Freedom</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-book-mechanisms-of-working-of.html">Internet democracy</a><br /><br /><a href="http://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2015/01/self-curing-society.html">Self-curing society</a><br /><br /><a href="http://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2015/01/criticism-of-book-cloud-democracy-by-l.html">Criticism of the book "Cloud democracy"</a><br /><br /><a href="http://grandrienko.blogspot.com/2015/06/personal-responsibility-of-power-and.html">Personal responsibility of power</a><br /><br />My blog in Russian:<br /><br /><a href="https://grandrienko.com/">https://grandrienko.com</a><br /><br /><br /><br />Comments to old posts are appreciated.<br /><br /><span>Previously this blog contained an article about Russia and Ukraine, but I decided to delete it, because it has become dangerous to live in Russia and write about politics.</span></span></div>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-21543185422200002162022-06-29T00:11:00.001-07:002022-06-29T00:11:51.240-07:00An easy way to rid the world of misanthropy<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span face="Calibri, "sans-serif"">Being a nerd, I have learned a lot of modern
literature about the social contract theory (theory of games, cooperation,
egoism/altruism, etc). This conception is revealed, in particular, by modern
biologists, who write that the ancient people lived, in fact, in an ideal
democracy, because they lived in small groups. 10,000 years ago humanity moved
from living in small groups to living in states based on a social contract. The
authorities in these states began to establish laws against the selfish
behavior of members of the states; but the tragedy of humanity was that since
the representatives of power are also selfish individuals, they have begun to
oppress those who do not have power, and then more and more immerse humanity in
their paradigm, in particular, modify moral codes for themselves.</span></span></p><p><span face=""Calibri","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">And I came to the conclusion that misanthropy in
society arises as a by-product of the fact that the social contract is not abided
by effectively enough. It may be difficult for me to formulate this exactly,
but I am sure that in principle this is true. Suppose you condemn people for
driving selfishly on the roads. But they also suffer from it, so they will vote
for laws prohibiting such driving. Those, in an ideal democracy, your attitude
towards others will be determined not by how they behave, but by what they vote
for. If in the future ways of forming morality in a person are developed (for
example, methods of upbringing), in a democracy, people will vote for this to
become widespread.</span></p><p><span face="Calibri, "sans-serif"" style="font-size: medium;">Near-perfect democracy is not so unattainable:
for this it is enough to write in the constitution the rule that any law can be
adopted only through a referendum (with the possible exception of martial law).
At first glance, it may seem that such a system will not work, since an
ordinary citizen is a layman in matters of governing the country. But this will
not be such a big problem, since the referendums will be initiated by the
authorities, i.e. experts, and they only need to convince the population of
their position (by raising the level of education of the population for this).</span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However,
for this system to work well, one more step is needed: a law on compulsory
post-school education. For example, each citizen will have to spend half an
hour a day studying materials that help understand the government of the
country, and in case of non-compliance, pay an increased tax. I believe that
the principle must be implemented: each citizen can choose what information he
will study, but he must justify why, as he believes this information will help
him vote more correctly, and this explanation should sound reasonable (this
idea develops 20 article of the United Nations Convention against Corruption).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">And then a
new problem arises: since the resources of the brain are limited, it is
difficult for a person to be versatile, and if he spends a lot of time studying
the issues of running a country, he will earn less in his main job.
Accordingly, a society in which the state forces everyone to study the issues of
governing the country will be more reasonable and less likely to make erroneous
decisions, but at the same time, it may militarily and economically lose
competition to societies in which such norms do not exist. Therefore, such a
society must export its way of life, perhaps even by military means. This is
similar to the idea of exporting democracy by military means, which I fully
support (“so that the barbarians do not conquer Rome, we must make Rome
everywhere”).</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><span face="Calibri, "sans-serif"" style="font-size: 11pt;"></span><p></p>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-85451461820506642612022-01-26T07:39:00.000-08:002022-01-26T07:39:09.354-08:00Consumer society and youtube<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">Currently in the whole word (except probably North Korea) the consumer society is dominating. This is shown, for example, by the fact, that most people are anxious very much about their revenue and prosperity. As far as I know, there was not such anxiety in 19</span><sup style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">century. The realities of our century, for example, are that during the wars people often suffer from economical sanctions more, than from the military operations themselves.</span></p><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> Some people are trying to find out why such a situation has appeared. I have heard such interpretation from some people in Russia: “previously they wanted us to become communist builders, and now they want us to become consumers”.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;" /><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> I think that in reality the reason for emergence of the consumer society is unexpectedly banal: such mass media, as TV channels and radio stations, are obliged to put a lot of advertisement in their content, because they do not have other sources of revenue. And the excess of advertisement forms the consumer society itself.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;" /><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> The first mass media were newspapers, which earned on direct sales. When radio and television appeared, these mass media appeared to have no such possibility of earnings – you can not directly pay for viewing a TV program. Because of that, TV and radio had to earn by the advertisements only. This problem in principle could be solved organizationally, in governments instituted a TV tax, calculated the ratings of TV channels and paid the channels a part of this tax, proportional to the channel’s rating. But this task proved too difficult for the politicians.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;" /><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><span lang="EN-US"> A good amateur video concerning the subject: "history of stuff":</span><br /><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM</a><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> In this video it is said, that the consumer society appeared mainly in 1950th. This was the time when television became popular, so this video confirms the idea of the connection between the consumer society and TV ads.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> It is great that recently </span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">the paid subscription has appeared at youtube. I suppose, when the humanity transfers from TV to paid youtube, the "power of advertisment" will end. However I see that youtube bloggers place ads in their video, so I hope a next step will be made - direct payments to the authors of the videos on youtube (or transfering from youtube to Vimeo).</span></div></div>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-27159827191771607952021-10-24T09:10:00.003-07:002021-10-24T09:10:10.985-07:00The market economy and reputation<p><br /></p><table cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="table-layout: fixed; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td class="td_headerandpost" height="100%" style="padding: 2px;" valign="top" width="85%"><div class="post"> In
market conditions, the larger the firm, the more profitable for it is
to take care of its reputation. One-day firms, in particular, can only
be small. It turns out that it is often beneficial for small firms to
merge into large ones, but in practice this rarely happens for a number
of reasons. However, there is another way: a large aggregator firm that
provides quality control of the work of many small firms, providing them
with a collective reputation. An example of such an aggregator is Uber,
which has brought together small taxi drivers, providing them with a
kind of collective reputation.<br /> I believe it would be a great good if
there were Uber analogues for nannies, housekeepers, repairmen,
electricians, etc. Such a company would take a share of the earnings of
these nannies and housekeepers, and in return, check the quality of
their work, and fire those who did not perform well. There is a kind of
paradox here - it is beneficial for an individual nanny to have her work
checked with the possibility of dismissal in case of poor quality of
work, since those nannies who pass the selection will have a good
reputation, and this is very beneficial for them. As an example, I can
cite ordinary taxi services: if there are many complaints about a
driver, the service fires him, despite the fact that he brought it
money.<br /> If there is an analogue of Uber for nannies, it will solve the
problem of fertility in Western countries, as well as the problem of
“Idiocracy”, since people will be able to combine education, career, and
childbirth (parents will outsource parenting to a good nanny).<br /> Further,
I propose a new concept: “socially useful commercial advertisement”.
This is a commercial advertisement that is useful and beneficial for
three parties: the advertiser, the media that hosts it, and the end
consumer. The principle of this advertisement is essentially based on
the same “taxi principle” described above - to terminate the contract
with unscrupulous advertisers for the sake of collective reputation.<br /> Suppose
there is a firm that makes cereal breads; these breads are good for
health, and the company knows about it. Further, this company offers
some media to place an advertisement, and offers to conduct a study
(expertise) on the impact of these breads on health. Because expertise
is expensive, the firm also pays relatively large sums of money for it.
Here again the mentioned principle comes up - not always “those who pay
the piper call the tune”. For the media, if it is large enough,
reputation is more important than this money, therefore it is interested
in conducting an honest examination; in other words, money is received
for the examination, but not for its result. And this is already
beneficial to end consumers.<br /> It can be assumed that many bloggers ask
themselves similar questions when they advertise. Obviously, it is more
profitable for a blogger to advertise a relatively high-quality product
than a low-quality one.</div>
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<td class="smalltext" colspan="2" width="100%"></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-8452235583880566152021-10-24T09:05:00.005-07:002021-10-24T09:05:39.174-07:00Friendship vs sectarianism<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I have developed a rather ambiguous attitude towards friendship. On the one hand, such qualities as honesty, kindness, adequacy, etc. help make friends (or rather keep them). But at the same time, there is an opposite tendency: educated and intelligent people, on average, are more lonely than ordinary people. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote about this.</span></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;">Friendship needs common interests. For a large number of people, such interests can be football, beer gatherings, fishing, etc. For intelligent people, such things are often not very suitable.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;">The problem of lack of communication is not common among the sectarians. I think people join sects not because their faith in itself makes someone happy; the reason is much more prosaic (although the sectarians themselves are not aware of it) - sects help people to unite, to acquire connections. In a sect, a person can find a wife / husband, rent or lease an apartment, etc. Since it is necessary to have large issues (“snakes in one’s head”) to join a sect, it turns out that large issues make a person more successful and adaptable.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;">The general idea of this post can be expressed as follows: for friendship, people need common goals and hobbies, but the lower a person's level of critical thinking, the easier it is for him to end up with all sorts of erroneous goals or unhelpful hobbies, thanks to which he will unite with those like him.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;">Schopenhauer wrote:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><i>Nothing betrays less knowledge of humanity than to suppose that, if a man has a great many friends, it is a proof of merit and intrinsic value: as though men gave their friendship according to value and merit! as though they were not, rather, just like dogs, which love the person that pats them and gives them bits of meat, and never trouble themselves about anything else! The man who understands how to pat his fellows best, though they be the nastiest brutes, — that’s the man who has many friends.</i></span></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><i>It is the converse that is true. Men of great intellectual worth, or, still more, men of genius, can have only very few friends; for their clear eye soon discovers all defects, and their sense of rectitude is always being outraged afresh by the extent and the horror of them.</i></span></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><i>A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.</i></span></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><i>To live alone is the fate of all great souls</i></span></p><p> </p>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-28604113428260263982021-09-13T10:17:00.004-07:002021-09-13T10:17:36.296-07:00Social lifts in big politics<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I am a supporter of democracy, but with one important caveat: I am not satisfied with the lack of efficiency in modern democracies of the West. Western countries now have too many problems, and local politicians, as a rule, do not even try to voice these problems.</span></p><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> I would like more people to discuss this question - is it possible to improve modern democracy? The main goal is whether it is possible to build social and political institutions so that smart people often come to power in a democracy.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> My idea is that participatory budgeting is needed: a system in which citizens of a country vote via the Internet on how to distribute the budget money. With such a system, ministers will be able to collect funding for their departments through the participatory budgeting portal, which means that they (ministers) will be less dependent on the president / prime minister and more on the population. Accordingly, rarer will there be a situation when the president / prime minister will alienate a too outstanding minister from power as a possible competitor for himself.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> The second point is that with participatory budgeting, people and organizations that brought a smart person to power will be able to make money on this. Suppose a party is created that declares its goal to find and promote people with outstanding qualities who will become good leaders. Having made a certain person president, such a party will be able to collect its own reward through participatory budgeting: the more this president becomes popular, the more the party will earn. I.e., theoretically, under such a system, finding and promoting an outstanding person will become a kind of business for party members.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1b; font-family: "Noto Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> If we assume that big money gives politicians the opportunity to come to power, then participatory budgeting can turn this to the benefit of society: a good politician will be able to make big money on popularity and real achievements (only with a time delay - first spend, and only then earn).</span>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-84206216658002955812021-05-25T10:49:00.001-07:002021-05-25T10:49:41.288-07:00About democracy<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> I live in
Russia, and many people around me call themselves opponents of democracy. Their
logic is simple - we can live pretty well without democracy. I will prove that
there are holes in this logic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Currently
in the world there are quite prosperous monarchical countries - Jordan,
Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, etc. But these monarchies are very different
from the ancient monarchies - Eastern despotism. This is explained by the fact
that in modern monarchies, which are adjacent to democracies, the authorities
must be good, otherwise they will be overthrown. In civilizations that did not
know what democracy in general was, there was such an oppression of the upper
classes to the lower classes that it is scary for the reader.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">When an
authoritarian (for example, a monarchy) state is in the neighborhood of
democracy, the authorities in it are afraid of revolution and therefore cannot
afford to exploit the population too much. They understand that if the
population lives worse than in the neighboring democracy, it will arrange a
revolution and change the government to a democratic one. In other words,
democracies exert an “ennobling” effect on neighboring authoritarian ones.
Despite this impact, these authoritarian countries often pose a military threat
to them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ancient
Macedonia was more civilized than ancient Persia, despite the fact that both of
these states were monarchies. This is explained by the fact that Macedonia
bordered on Greece with its democratic traditions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Another
example from history is Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Germany
was an authoritarian country in the neighborhood of democratic France and
England, and these countries exerted an “ennobling” influence on it; thanks to
the English and French revolutions, in 20th century Germany there was no
serfdom and other vestiges of the Middle Ages. And despite this influence,
Germany posed a military threat to England and France.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">One more
example is the confrontation between medieval Muscovy and the Novgorod
Republic. When the Novgorod Republic existed, the peasants both in it and in
the Muscovy were relatively free. But after the conquest of Novgorod by Moscow,
a gradual enslavement of the peasants began, which reached its peak under Peter
the Great.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If
democracy in the world is discredited, then the world will slide into the
second Middle Ages, and this possibility frightens me very much now. The
likelihood of such a scenario will be higher if in current confrontation
between Russia and Ukraine the latter is defeated.</span></span>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-85364694015544734292021-04-07T11:42:00.001-07:002021-04-07T11:43:03.460-07:00Why people do not change their views<p><span style="font-size: large;"> Each
person, when he/she is engaged in self-education, selects for himself such
sources of information, which contain information that fits into his/her
worldview. If he/she is an atheist, he/she reads books about evolution; if
he/she is a believer, he/she reads books about Christian wonders; if he/she is
for the Democrats, he/she visits the media of the Democrats, if for the
Republicans - the media of the Republicans, respectively. The information that
does not fit into his/her worldview causes unpleasant feelings for him/her -
cognitive dissonance; and to avoid these unpleasant feelings, he/she usually
denies this information - declares it a fake, “photoshop”, or he forgets it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I believe
that education makes a person more dogmatic, because the modern education
system only provides knowledge that fits into the overall picture (at least I
see such a situation in Russia).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We can
conditionally say that the worldview is formed by the books that were
accidentally read in the first place (or other sources of information).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is an
observation that believers are less likely to read the Bible than atheists.
This is due to the fact that atheists consider the Bible to be a set of fairy
tales, and accordingly reading it does not cause cognitive dissonance in them;
believers find facts in the Bible that do not fit into their picture of the
world, this causes them cognitive dissonance and they stop reading.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It seems
that this phenomenon has been intensified in the past few years. Roughly
speaking, previously a person used to watch the news to get new information,
but now he watches the news to get the confirmation of his point of view.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">It can be
said that a smart person is the one who is not afraid of cognitive dissonance,
or, more precisely, is ready to endure it until a new understanding comes (at a
deeper level of knowledge).</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-50580412225819122612019-10-22T03:23:00.002-07:002019-10-22T03:23:53.304-07:00How to overcome North Korea with their nuclear missiles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Attempts to negotiate with the DPRK
authorities by diplomacy methods, in my opinion, are doomed to failure, since
the DPRK authorities, in fact, deliberately use their nuclear missile program
as an instrument of blackmailing the Western countries. The goal of the DPRK
authorities is to use blackmail, “carrot and stick” methods to weaken economic
sanctions and possibly receive humanitarian aid for North Korea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> I
see one way to stop this activity of Kim Jong-un: an active information policy,
delivering truthful information to the people of the DPRK. To do this, autonomous
drones with loudspeakers can be used, which will spread anti-government
counter-propaganda in a fairly large territory of this country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> In
modern international law, the attitude to the "information war" is
not defined. It can be assumed that international standards do not prohibit
such a war. This can be illustrated by the example of another authoritarian
country whose authorities act irresponsibly: Venezuela. Obviously,
international standards prohibit the bombing of Venezuela by US aircraft;
however, no one forbids “bombing” the Venezuela with humanitarian aid boxes
along with leaflets, or for example gadgets that pick up satellite Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> The
Achilles heel of authoritarian regimes, such as the DPRK, is that
anti-government counter-propaganda may relatively easily lead to a popular
uprising against the government, since official propaganda by the authorities
misleads the population. North Koreans live in an “artificial reality” in which
US residents receive food on food cards. A significant part of the Venezuelan
population also lives in a world of illusions, for example, it believes that
the World Bank is to blame for inflation in this country. Counter-propaganda
should destroy such illusions with arguments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> My
words may seem shocking, but it’s important for me to convey this point of view
to the reader: I believe that if the government of Kim Jong-un in the DPRK
begins to lose power as a result of counter-propaganda, and it will launch a
nuclear strike on South Korea or Japan in attempts to maintain power - this
will prove to be useful <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for humanity in
the long run, since humanity in this outcome will receive an important lesson
and will be aware of the global danger of irresponsible authoritarian regimes. Nuclear
weapons might get replaced with something even more dangerous, and if humanity
does not become more responsible in general, it will destroy itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Currently
mankind is like a small child, who cannot comprehend that he can’t touch the
hot iron - only by touching and burning himself once, he will draw this
conclusion. It is hoped that over time the humanity will become more mature.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-48828275102222470492018-03-30T11:03:00.004-07:002018-03-30T11:03:27.989-07:00Bitcoins and Freedom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Currently in most countries, including
formally democratic ones, the freedom of speech is violated: main mass media
(TV) manipulate the social consciousness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems quite convincing for me that
independent mass media are in principle impossible. Such mass media must
criticize the power, but it is impossible to criticize the power without being
punished by it. At the same time, democracy can be real only when the mass
media in country criticize the authority.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that a kind of salvation for this
problem can be as follows: the owner of any popular mass media should get the legislative
immunity. If a blogger gets more than a million followers, he should become
immune to any prosecution. If such rule is implemented, it will become
important to break the legislative immunity of a blogger by posting “dislikes”
to him. Once again: there must be a website where any citizen can post a like
or dislike to any other person, and a person who gets a million likes less than
half a million of dislikes would automatically get the legislative immunity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am sure that the disadvantages of such rule
– the possibility for mass media owners to do some crimes – are mostly
unimportant in comparison with its main advantage – better freedom of speech
for the country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe that a more well-grounded salvation
of the problem of absence of freedom of speech is as follows: independent mass
media, which can criticize the power of a country, should be located in another
country. More precisely, in each country there should be placed the mass media
which will be able to criticize the power of another country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A very important point is that all these mass
media must have the possibility to earn by direct payments of their viewers of
readers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US foreign policy widely uses the
democratic peace theory: according to this theory, democratic countries usually
do not engage wars with each other:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory</span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This politics could become much more
efficient, if US imposed a kind of an agreement of a “common informational
space” with each country. This means, for example, that US mass media will have
the possibility to show their content to Russian people (and earn by direct
payments), while Russian mass media will have the same possibility to show
their content to American people (and earn by direct payments). This could be
the best possibility to achieve the freedom of speech for both countries.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people do not still realize that the
control of mass media gives a ruler the possibility to form any social consciousness
he wants. Some apologists of health promotion say that “we are what we eat”; I
don’t strongly support this thesis, but I believe that the thesis “we are what
information we get” is mostly true. When a dictator controls the mass media in
his country, he easily persuades his nation that the “enemies” of his country
are the main reason of all problems in the country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The propaganda does not rely on fake news;
the fake news is rather a “symptom” of the propaganda. The main way of
propaganda is passing over the silence and pulling the information out the
context. The reality is arranged in such a way that showing a part of a reality
to a viewer gives a way to persuade him in anything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means that a person who views a
propaganda from two opposite sources is able to remain unbiased. For example,
those Americans who watch Russia Today together with American TV channels are
more sober-minded than those who watch American channels only (while RT, of course,
is a propagandistic channel).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The freedom of speech can be reached some day,
if the Internet beats the television. In this case the whole world would
experience a mass sobering, and people will realize that a new society should
be built.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rise of cryptocurrencies helps to reach
this situation, because the cryptocurrencies would make the Internet
commercial, and correspondingly it will become more powerful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the moment there are some independent mass
media, which criticize the powers of big countries and earn via bitcoins. In
particular, the Wikileaks project is such a mass media. When Wikileaks started
publishing the information which discredited the US authorities, these authorities
blocked the flow of the crowdfunding donations which supported it. The banks
refused to send money to the Wikiliaks owner, web money like Paypal blocked
them too. The only way for the Wilikeaks to survive was switching to bitcoin
crowdfunding.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A similar situation exists in Russia.
Currently there are opposition projects which earn via the bitcoins: “Fund of
struggle with the corruption” of Alexey Navalniy, Wiki-project lurkmore.to
similar to the American Encyclopedia Dramatica, some Ukrainian channels on Youtube,
etc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, it seems for me that the Internet and the
cryptocurrencies will save the freedom in the world.</span></div>
</div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-42575566993083345762018-03-24T04:46:00.004-07:002020-11-17T10:16:55.737-08:00Consumer society and the bitcoins<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Currently
in the whole word (except probably North Korea) the consumer society
is dominating. This is shown, for example, by the fact, that most people are
anxious very much about their revenue and prosperity. As far as I know, there
was not such anxiety in 19<sup>th</sup> century. The realities of our century,
for example, are that during the wars people often suffer from economical
sanctions more, than from the military operations themselves.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people are trying to find out why such a
situation has appeared. I have heard such interpretation from some people in Russia: “previously
they wanted us to become communist builders, and now they want us to become
consumers”.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that in reality the reason for emergence
of the consumer society is unexpectedly banal: such mass media, as TV channels
and radio stations, are obliged to put a lot of advertisement in their content,
because they do not have other sources of revenue. And the excess of advertisement
forms the consumer society itself.</span>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first mass media were newspapers, which
earned on direct sales. When radio and television appeared, these mass media
appeared to have no such possibility of earnings – you can not directly pay for
viewing a TV program. Because of that, TV and radio had to earn by the
advertisements only. This problem in principle could be solved organizationally,
in governments instituted a TV tax, calculated the ratings of TV channels and
paid the channels a part of this tax, proportional to the channel’s rating. But
this task proved too difficult for the politicians.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same problem persists for the mass media
in the web. Despite there are such web money as Paypal, currently they can’t be
used for paying for viewing a content in the web. It’s a pity that we can’t pay
Google for cutting of the advertisement at Youtube. I suppose, the possibility
to pay for Youtube is not available because of some bureaucratic obstacles:
maybe, the US
laws do not include such source of revenue, correspondingly Google can’t pay
taxes for it, and without the taxes the revenue becomes illegal. In Russia in 75%
cases we can’t purchase new films, music, audiobooks in the web, and have to
download them from torrents – I suppose the reasons are similar.</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I expect, that if the bitcoins (or, more
precisely, the cryptocurrencies) will become the approved money, all these
problems will be solved automatically. The Web will become commercial, and
correspondingly its quality will become higher. People will pay with the
bitcoins for any content instead of watching the obtrusive ads, and the “power
of advertisement” will be overthrown.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> A good video concerning the subject: "history of stuff":</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM</a><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> In
this video it is said, that the consumer society appeared mainly in
1950th. This was the time when television became popular, so this video
confirms the idea of the connection between the consumer society and TV ads.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <b>Update 2020:</b> </span></span>the paid subscription has appeared at youtube, and this seem to be a great blessing. I suppose, when the humanity transfers from TV to paid youtube, the "power of advertisment" will end. However I see that youtube bloggers place ads in their video, so I hope a next step will be made - direct payments to the authors of the videos on youtube (or transfering from youtube to Vimeo).</div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">
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Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-50382493941496426682017-12-12T10:50:00.003-08:002017-12-12T10:50:46.034-08:00About Brexit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today I hope greatly that the Brexit will
succeed and England
will become independent of the EU, at least to significant extent. If so,
possibly England will become
the only country for me into which I will be able to emigrate from Russia.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Previously I thought that Ukraine could become such a country, but after
getting more information I became very disappointed in Ukraine. I
think, Ukrainian people are almost like Russians, with similar mental problems
and irrationality, though they probably have a more right ideology. One of the
visible cases of Ukrainian irrationality is their attitude to pro-democratic
opposition in Russia:
it seems that many of the Ukrainians do not distinguish between people like me
and “bad” Russians, which are responsible for the sufferings of Ukrainian
people. There are many other evidences of the Ukrainian irrationality, and nevertheless
I hope that a kind of “mass sobering” will eventually take place in Ukraine. Maybe
some day this “mass sobering” will happen in Russia too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am sure that the whole world is degrading
more and more. Many people in Russia
believe that the Europe is quickly degrading and going to fall, like the Roman empire 1500 years before. And if Britain
succeeds leaving EU, it will possibly become the place of birth of a new,
healthy society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Muslim migration is an evident problem of the
Europe. People from Muslim countries settle in
Europe and are not being assimilated into the European
ethnic majority; otherwise, the Muslims assimilate European people instead. The
Muslim minority have a greatly higher birth rate than the indigenous Europeans.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost
all terrorists are Muslims. I am afraid that the Islam can insensibly come to
power into Europe, because the European
politicians will be afraid of doing things which are not approved by the Muslims.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some European politicians say that the
Europeans should make some concessions to Muslime, otherwise their actions can
provoke terrorism. From the point of view of the Muslims, this looks like that:
“we settle in your countries and you should fulfill our wishes, otherwise we
will kill your politicians”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the point of view of the Russians,
another big problem of the Europe is the
“homophilic” politics. I am not a homophobe, but I think that gay parades,
where gays are publicly kissing and dancing naked, are big violence for
heterosexual people. People in Russia
call Europe “Gayrope”. I think that both sides
in this dispute are not right – the “propaganda of homosexuality” in the West
and the “Homophobic propaganda” in Russia.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is difficult for me to ground logically my
opinion, that the trend to give the gays the right to publicly exhibit their
orientation is a mine for the whole Europe.
However, I am sure that this trend was one of the reasons of the civil war in Eastern Ukraine. The results of the Eurovision contest in
2014 greatly discredited the democracy for Russian people, and
people in Donbass region got strongly anti-european political views. In our
web, this picture was often shown:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhov6l-Q2K65qXWuFR1cbo5Z7a-cMPxRcnHptyvnLP9zCGttxxFH23ZsYStvRvlVIVpjpzoxv4AC_kjCAX7YvZzh0unB_yG7MvfkumNu8ATQc6fT-bu5i8w6YOKzaKFjh9wCrzODr/s1600/6fa6f6b59d60.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhov6l-Q2K65qXWuFR1cbo5Z7a-cMPxRcnHptyvnLP9zCGttxxFH23ZsYStvRvlVIVpjpzoxv4AC_kjCAX7YvZzh0unB_yG7MvfkumNu8ATQc6fT-bu5i8w6YOKzaKFjh9wCrzODr/s1600/6fa6f6b59d60.jpg" /> </a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that there are many other timebombs
which can blast Europe and the entire Western
civilization some time later. The most fundamental problem is the following:
all nations in history, who lived in richness and comfort, became weak and were
eventually conquered by less rich nations. I hope that the humanity will
finally realize this problem and find ways to solve it. Some Russian bloggers,
respected by me, call the salvation of this problem as “moderalism ideology”.</span></div>
</div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-29002641190661857822016-04-12T04:10:00.001-07:002016-04-12T04:10:25.238-07:00Dr. Evil is preparing to take refugees from Earth to Mars<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://images.vfl.ru/ii/1460207097/afde16d5/12217655.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.vfl.ru/ii/1460207097/afde16d5/12217655.png" height="370" width="640" /></a></div>
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Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-64137274643271033072016-03-02T01:02:00.001-08:002016-03-11T02:09:04.806-08:00About religion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5LxHyJ_1_Ua8EEVNnpDeOJN1FABGnqQFTF870M5GPaDD22f9K6OJyeX0Lutad8PF3JJHuHCPTDyzZcXQMC1ywsbmwCuTtTcfn0cpU0L8z35wA29LbiXH03hC-sdMxkLqggTdPXDLU/s1600/EkqCAHku8w4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5LxHyJ_1_Ua8EEVNnpDeOJN1FABGnqQFTF870M5GPaDD22f9K6OJyeX0Lutad8PF3JJHuHCPTDyzZcXQMC1ywsbmwCuTtTcfn0cpU0L8z35wA29LbiXH03hC-sdMxkLqggTdPXDLU/s1600/EkqCAHku8w4.jpg" /></a></div>
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Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-13684260592613524822015-08-06T10:01:00.000-07:002015-08-06T10:01:19.077-07:00Smartphones have conquered the human's world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have translated into English some pictures I found in the Russian web:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhNIOGa7JuVJQrmlF2CSt6Fg-WFbEEwVky09Ntace-SsQ5P4ysUbL_91aMqubTSSevGfL-6KxCeYZrrI_6HvvI1U9Z5b-u3p51EX7O-Xb0IIYOlijIdVYokW117LZ5u69kjLiKSkh/s1600/Ksa3hqZkAAo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhNIOGa7JuVJQrmlF2CSt6Fg-WFbEEwVky09Ntace-SsQ5P4ysUbL_91aMqubTSSevGfL-6KxCeYZrrI_6HvvI1U9Z5b-u3p51EX7O-Xb0IIYOlijIdVYokW117LZ5u69kjLiKSkh/s1600/Ksa3hqZkAAo.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<!-- begin hidden container name=first -->
<a href="#first_l" onclick="switchDiv('first_t','first_l')">
<img name="first_l" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFij3OtveZjml4KzjzuJ7VtOiKR_jCCiS_hhPKvgUI6rYyxVUuZsMFBlfzVM0NmyDmRnpvD52bFjTIbgBw8jQ2V6691XYrwjh_l5147yJ8bm9suooObP1TtqrOfgZCqsfZRrqBN4n7/s1600/blue_down.gif" alt="read" border="0">
More pics
<div id="first_t" style="display:none;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9u48E0iib3LJ8e29B7A1YKawo5J4NLSFA4mpEDfI3uHH5cKHZcO8tpOMWzh5erZKVTRpFpWFtD2hkuRKOmi7rhca1t0gWWT6d7f8WqwJQHnLie6jK2-EjmcqlqDu8HiO2mJcF1rrl/s1600/2oCdUrZezqg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9u48E0iib3LJ8e29B7A1YKawo5J4NLSFA4mpEDfI3uHH5cKHZcO8tpOMWzh5erZKVTRpFpWFtD2hkuRKOmi7rhca1t0gWWT6d7f8WqwJQHnLie6jK2-EjmcqlqDu8HiO2mJcF1rrl/s1600/2oCdUrZezqg.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_HxBR7qiBCCBqnMoEtKYebp4s1zR3BZIxjzdcIeGM2yFl0Mv4ui1nMNeSqiLjSzZYIZCZMXn4vQxVnrFoZqf9RHDewKlLwZievZfSnwL1HX8R02lFgecJM6K_g5H5_5CNCFSeC31e/s1600/8EGW0b4vAO4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_HxBR7qiBCCBqnMoEtKYebp4s1zR3BZIxjzdcIeGM2yFl0Mv4ui1nMNeSqiLjSzZYIZCZMXn4vQxVnrFoZqf9RHDewKlLwZievZfSnwL1HX8R02lFgecJM6K_g5H5_5CNCFSeC31e/s1600/8EGW0b4vAO4.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEmuz8bjroJ3ZXHECl2Dnt4DibPmovyLgo2D6HtITo8BCbQwVtb4oYL7LEY_5v79GAv51T3F4l1g_xcQnvrhDvePkTbhSfQQaheio43KdrQFihj4T60u_Y6nD88WV8V1eaUueDClOp/s1600/94ylVoQozII.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEmuz8bjroJ3ZXHECl2Dnt4DibPmovyLgo2D6HtITo8BCbQwVtb4oYL7LEY_5v79GAv51T3F4l1g_xcQnvrhDvePkTbhSfQQaheio43KdrQFihj4T60u_Y6nD88WV8V1eaUueDClOp/s1600/94ylVoQozII.jpg" /></a></div>
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</div>Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-50895426580615502902015-06-30T09:49:00.002-07:002015-06-30T10:25:09.796-07:00The sleep of computer reason produces surrealism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/inceptionism-going-deeper-into-neural.htm">http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/inceptionism-going-deeper-into-neural.htm</a>l<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">An
artificial neural network was trained, adjusting its parameters. Then it was
run in “reverse” mode, to show what does it understand by, for example, the
word “dumbbell”:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Besides
that, a picture was fed to the network, and the network was asked to enhance
whatever it detected:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">More
pictures are here (they are quite psychedelic):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://news.artnet.com/in-brief/google-artificial-neural-networks-created-artworks-309782">https://news.artnet.com/in-brief/google-artificial-neural-networks-created-artworks-309782</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/google-neural-network-produces-psychedelic-imagery">http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/google-neural-network-produces-psychedelic-imagery</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://connery.dk/googles-billedgenkendelse-har-laert-sig-selv-inception.126012.html">http://connery.dk/googles-billedgenkendelse-har-laert-sig-selv-inception.126012.html</a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="http://haritonoff.livejournal.com/303035.html">http://haritonoff.livejournal.com/303035.html</a></div>
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Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-49583452985257317442015-06-14T10:00:00.001-07:002015-06-14T10:00:49.985-07:00Personal responsibility of the power and consultative branch of power<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US">I believe
that the idea of personal responsibility of the power can make the world really
better. I have heard about this idea in Ukrainian mass media; as far as I can
see, it is a component of the “Maidan ideology”. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>
is moving towards implementing this idea: the Ukrainian President has very much
power (as far as I can see), unlike, for example, the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> president.
In autumn 2014 President Poroshenko initiated pre-term parliamentary elections.
His aim was to get a loyal parliament, which is able to perform social reforms.
I hope, in future the Ukrainian President will get even more legislative power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">However,
giving the legislative power to the President raises new problems – one man is
not enough competent in the juridical subjects and can easily make faults. I
think that this problem can be mostly solved if the parliament obtains a
“consultative” function, so it is able to postpone a President’s decision and
impose the President some compromise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Besides
that, such “consultative” parliament, together with some other elected
representatives of power, will be able to make the President perform a public
report of his work. The parliament will be able to raise questions to the
President, and the latter will be obliged to answer these questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I suppose
that in order to implement this, a collective guarantor of constitution is
required, which is described in my book. This is very difficult to implement;
but I hope that in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:place></st1:country-region>
some of these ideas will be partly implemented soon enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-70385992741805473842015-05-31T05:21:00.001-07:002015-06-01T04:20:38.691-07:00The magnificent Elon Musk<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Elon_Musk_-_The_Summit_2013.jpg/220px-Elon_Musk_-_The_Summit_2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Elon_Musk_-_The_Summit_2013.jpg/220px-Elon_Musk_-_The_Summit_2013.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I am afraid
this information is already known by most of the visitors of my blog, but nevertheless
I’ll write about that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Elon Musk
is an American multi-millionaire, who was the cofounder of PayPal. Now he has a
lot of projects important for the entire world: in particular, he is the
founder of SpaceX, a company which constructs space rockets. It has developed
the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, which have already supplied a lot of
cargo into the orbit. Now Musk tries to create a reusable version of Falcon
(Falcon-9R), whose first stage will perform a soft landing. It is presumed that
if Musk succeeds, this technology will render the cost of space flights 5-10
times cheaper (at the moment, reusable rockets like Shuttle are less efficient
than the disposable ones).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The final
goal of Musk is the colonization of Mars by humans; he writes (and I fully
agree with him) that the colonization of space is needed to secure the humanity
against extinction (if a global catastrophe happens on Earth, caused by any
unexpected reasons related to technological progress, the humanity will survive
outside our planet and draw its conclusions).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As far as I
know, Musk has spent approximately 800 million dollars for the development of
his rockets, while the Russian government spent about 5.5 billions for the <st1:place w:st="on">Angara</st1:place> rocket family, and NASA spent about 30 billions
for their new multi-usable rockets (not finished yet).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Another
project of Musk is Tesla Motors: a company which produces efficient electric
cars. The car Tesla S has won several awards and is very popular, in particular
due to the battery swapping technology.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Musk has
made open the Tesla patents, so probably soon his competitors will create their
clones of Tesla cars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Besides
that, Musk is the chairman of SolarCity, a company which produces solar
batteries and charging stations. Musk has developed the Powerwall, a new solar
battery for home use. I suppose, it is possible that this technology will
change the world to no lesser extent than the shale gas. My main hope is that
such technologies will end the era or petrocracies like <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It is
written that Musk was once near a bankruptcy, but at the moment his companies
are thriving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Musk is one
of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>
“technocrats”, i.e. people who have earned billions of dollars with the
Internet. Among these people are Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, et al. Some of
these people have political activity – in particular, Zuckerberg and Musk once
took part in the FWD.us lobbying group which has a goal of immigration reform
(this reform would fight illegal migration, favoring migration into the US for
talented people). In 2013 Musk left the group because of some conflicts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I think, if
a man has earned a billion of dollars, he must be quite motivated to make the
world better. It is even strange that usually this rule do not work (maybe, the
reason is that the financial aristocracy in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> is involved in collective
responsibility). Nevertheless, it seems for me that such people as Elon Musk
are really able to make the world better, and these people have already become
more important than such people as Barack Obama. Such people as men belonging
to the Rockefeller or Rothschild families have more money and power, but unlike
the “technocrats” they are not popular. This is my personal view of the
situation, and I am sorry if I misunderstand important things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-39890701611928758042015-03-23T23:18:00.000-07:002015-03-24T09:32:04.073-07:00Giant UFO near the international space station<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US">An
impressive video of an UFO filmed near the ISS:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://youtu.be/MGfzMdDxijM">http://youtu.be/MGfzMdDxijM</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Of course,
this video can be a hoax. I found a discussion of this video at a forum, and most
discussers there assume that this is a hoax:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1003435/pg1&mem=">http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1003435/pg1&mem=</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
I suppose, currently we are unable to judge whether this video is real or it is a hoax (or maybe a lens flare/internal reflection). To make this judgment, we need NASA to answer 2 questions:<br />
<br />
1) Is the youtube video original (if no – then it is a hoax)?<br />
2) What did locators see?<br />
<br />
But NASA doesn’t want to work with this, because if they give a positive answer to the first question, they will need to thoroughly investigate what could fly there (maybe a space garbage, etc). If the answer for this question is no, many people will appear who will state that the youtube video is real, and the “official” video was edited by NASA. So, any answer will produce only trouble. Nothing can be proved. So this video should not be considered as a proof, but simply as a nice illustration.</div>
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Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-54822318730528346822015-02-26T01:40:00.002-08:002015-07-12T21:06:07.727-07:00A nice combination of beauty and intelligence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;"> Hedy Lamarr was an actress and also an inventor. She
invented a radio-controlled torpedo, which uses the frequency hopping to avoid
jamming. This technology helped <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>
to win the World War II. Because these inventions were later incorporated into Wi-Fi,
CDMA and Bluetooth technology, Hedy Lamarr is also called the inventor of Wi-Fi.</span></div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-61738283932786956252015-01-26T12:51:00.002-08:002015-02-01T09:42:07.857-08:00The Dunning–Kruger effect<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/">http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"> The investigations of Dunning and Kruger
found that incompetent people tend to overestimate their competence, unlike
more competent people. In other words, incompetent people are more confident in
their competence than the competent people (this is an exaggeration; it would be more correct to say that incompetent people think they’re much better than they
actually are).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"> Speaking more generally, it seems that smart
people are often less self-confident than stupid people. And I find rather
convincing the idea that smart men are often less attractive for women, than
common men (because women like self-confident men). Of course, intelligent men often achieve more success with women because their
intellect helps them to be successful in life. In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region> I have often heard the
thesis that nerds are less attractive for women than common men.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"> In the
second article the conclusions of Dunning and Kruger are criticized to some
extent, but they are not rejected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"> I have also
found an interesting graph; for me, this graph seems to be quite convincing,
though here is a mistake in the picture - Dunning and Kruger have got the Ig
Nobel Prize, not the Nobel one:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNNJPhnl0WacSHkC5Ji3GTVmsVSrSPSWdlSupMHKZh7MZ_xy3UXOo3ly30fZECeACIDqJLp4Vf3L9PVIwZ6DZbzJiOyuDaYAQEVsOi2sAbmcMw9fhMnD7S67fry7GhEIP9XA4X7RUh/s1600/Dunning-Krueger+effect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNNJPhnl0WacSHkC5Ji3GTVmsVSrSPSWdlSupMHKZh7MZ_xy3UXOo3ly30fZECeACIDqJLp4Vf3L9PVIwZ6DZbzJiOyuDaYAQEVsOi2sAbmcMw9fhMnD7S67fry7GhEIP9XA4X7RUh/s1600/Dunning-Krueger+effect.jpg" height="536" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is
interesting that this effect is </span>possibly less marked in <st1:place w:st="on">East
Asia</st1:place>. Wiki says that East Asians tend to underestimate their
abilities, and see underachievement as a chance to improve themselves and get
along with others. I have seen some mentions that the Asians are either more
intelligent than the Caucasians, or more prone to be nerds, or both.</div>
</div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-5912353456040155822015-01-26T12:46:00.001-08:002015-05-03T02:53:22.550-07:00Criticism of the book “Cloud democracy” by L. Volkov and F. Krashninnikov<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In my opinion, the book is permeated too much with the belief in democracy. Even I do not fully
share this belief. I think that currently in the Western countries there exists pseudodemocracy instead of the real democracy. Probably, the western
democracy worked enough well during the last 200 years, but for the recent 10-20
years it is not the case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The authors
write correctly that the local government in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
does nothing constructive (possibly this is not true with the USA</span>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The authors
write that the main problem of the monarchy is the “fortuity of birth”. I don’t
agree with this; I am not sure if in modern democracies the politicians are
more intelligent that a randomly chosen monarch or a randomly chosen citizen.
The main problem of monarchy lies in another field – if a human gets the
unrestricted power, he always uses this power excessively, and this power
corrupts him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Chapters
2-6 – mostly agree. Chapter 7 – not fully agree: only in theory the Internet gives
access to a diverse high-quality information, in fact one must search for it thoroughly,
and a common voter usually cannot afford this (not enough time, etc.).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The authors
write that the Internet offers the following advantage – one can visit a
social networking service and ask the classmates of a politician “what a guy
he was”. I must say that I partially disagree with this idea. It looks, to some
extent, like rummaging in one’s dirty underwear. The politicians will not
appreciate such interest to them, so less people will be motivated to become
politicians. Besides that, there is a fundamental problem that honest
politicians will often lose, because the level of education within the
politicians is much higher than that within common citizens. In particular, in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region></st1:place> the
politicians prefer not to tell whether they are atheists, because the
percentage of atheists among the politicians is much higher than among the
voters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Chapters
8,9 – rather interesting, but not sufficiently close to the subject. Chapter 10
– agree, the electronic signature is of course necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Chapter 11
– the examination for the knowledge of constitutional law, or a “symbolical
filter”, can be useful to some extent, but it will not change the things
radically: when a voter votes, usually he needs not the knowledge of the
constitutional law, but some other knowledge related to the subject. If an
economic reform is suggested within a referendum, the voter must have the
knowledge of economics; if a judicial reform – he must understand the
jurisprudence, if a prohibition of alcohol is suggested – he needs the
information about alcohol and economics, etc. Besides that, instead of the
examination it is simpler to include the course of constitutional law into the
school program.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The “live measurement
of the trust to a representative” – I think, this idea will cause more harm
than benefit (see below). The “matrix delegation of the trust” – in my opinion,
this is quite a silly idea (below). The “compulsory honesty” – in principle, right. But this can be implemented in a more easy way – let all sessions of the
parliament be taken down in shorthand and published in the Web, together
with the information about each deputy – whether he has come to the session and
what he voted for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Chapter 12:
the compulsory non-anonymity and honesty – this sounds good, but who will
gather and publish the information about politicians? Evidently, this must be
the work of mass media and amateurs (bloggers, etc.). I am not sure if the
mass media conduct anti-corruption investigations sufficiently often.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Chapter 13:
I think, the suggested system will cause more harm than benefit. Between the
elections, at least 4 years must pass (see below).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Chapter 14:
I think that the vote delegation in combination with the matrix division and
the possibility to recall the delegated vote at any time is a silly idea (see
below).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Chapter 15:
There are many unnecessary points, in particular, who is an expert? Currently
any person can become a politician or a journalist, and publish his position –
what is different between this and the work of an expert?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Now, the
criticism of the authors conception. Here is briefly what they suggest. A kind of
social networking service is created, in which all citizens are registered.
Every person can post an initiative (e.g., a bill) on this site, and if his
initiative gathers a sufficient amount of “Like” votes, it is shown for every
member of the site. Every person can write his suggestions. Then, the members
vote for this initiative and it is accepted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Every
member can delegate his vote to another member. The delegation can be either
full (members get the opportunity to use this vote at any voting), or
partial (in this case the second member can use this vote in a voting of a
specific field, e.g., science, culture, sport, etc.). One can delegate the
science to an academician whom he knows, etc. The member who has got the
delegated vote can delegate it to another member, the latter – to another and
so on. At any moment a member can recall his vote.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is
supposed that soon there </span>will appear “thousanders” and “millioners”, who have
gathered many votes. They will make the main decisions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What are
the faults of this scheme? Firstly, the division of the votes into categories
will lead to a situation, which described in a Russian fable “The swan, the
crawfish and the pike”: one delegate will hardly deal with the other, and
they will impede each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If
scientists will take decisions in the field of science, producers – in the
field of culture, and sportsmen – in the field of sport, each category will try
to get maximum funding for their own projects, i.e., they will grab the biggest
piece of the pie. Besides that, the categories will be periodically changed:
today we have the sport, tomorrow the “cybersport” , and then somewhat “parasport”
– who will regulate these categories? Then, who will decide which category an initiative </span>belongs to (take, for example, such initiative as the taxes for
costly cars or fighting alcoholism)? If some group of persons will
take these decisions, how can the abuse of their power be avoided?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In
principle, the vote delegation is not needed, because each man, when he votes,
can take into account the opinion of the other people. If you are voting in the
field of science, you will probably listen to the advice of a known
academician. When a referendum is conducted, usually the voters attach much
importance to the opinion of the President. Everybody understands that the
President is more competent than a common voter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Furthermore,
the possibility to recall a vote in each moment is a very bad idea, because it
will increase the profanation of politics greatly. Currently a good politician
can take an unpopular, but right decision, and there will be a chance that by
the end of the 4 years the voters will admit that this decision was right. In contrast, if the voters will be able to recall their votes at each moment, this
politician will be unable to complete what he has started. Probably almost
every initiative will arouse a lot of voices of irresponsible demagogues, and
this will inevitable lead to the recall of some part of the votes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Here is one
more moment. Nowadays, usually no politician gets an overwhelming majority of
the votes; mostly often the number of votes varies near 50%. If some of the votes
could be recalled, the initial “controlling interest” of votes will </span>inevitably be lost.</div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;">In general, this book is of course an utopia, but a
useful utopia which should be read.</span></div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-79283838566477771242015-01-13T09:02:00.003-08:002015-01-16T01:44:13.230-08:00Charlie Hebdo and the terrorists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> The terrorist
attacks of Charlie Hebdo are, of course, bad crimes. It is more correct to call
them not terrorist attacks but murders on a field of hatred. At the same
time, the magazine itself is not “white and fluffy” – it was really insulting
people, inflaming the national and religious discord. You may look, for example, at these pictures produced by this magazine (sorry for a link to vulgar images):</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCb1DpQ-zxN5CV8KWeBmx13CjepJRzqMY5FlcWfNs7QPXILXOqWGdFm87q8NTFF_6GXrM7Si_QlISOeNeQPwQpuuKx_W2TAwFvcqJolxQBNXifeMIbhBn8VWdia8jtxIe5TtTO-V1r/s1600/0_c900a_ae649788_orig.jpeg">Bad pictures</a><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> The magazine has protest
demonstrations and many trials </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">in its background</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> – it rises hatred not only from the Muslims. The
predecessor of this magazine, magazine L'hebdo Hara-kiri, was already closed by
the French powers for humiliating Charles de Gaulle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> The magazine generated a monstrous trolling, so a
monstrous answer to this trolling was produced. Of course, I don’t say that the
journalists deserve their deaths.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> As far as I know, the European leaders are talking their
usual rhetoric about the terrorism and freedom, and they are </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">just</span><span style="font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">unable to
pronounce 3 words: “threat”, “radical”, “Islam”. The Muslims will continue
to settle in </span><st1:country-region style="font-size: 13.5pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">
and other countries, until they eventually replace the indigenous population or
some great disaster occurs – for example, a civil war between the Muslims and
Christians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> This is how I see this situation from </span><st1:country-region style="font-size: 13.5pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Finally, one picture from the Russian web:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwewKsx4YI_36qKmbPzOxBPk2zD1M-2BNY_bXnVSdiyz1QN8NHWIE3mMHVHVEdgwJxiufnxOHRM89JNjB05LLP34lA1Pb0x0b5waY2Mf9jIMczY3xUFZLOn4J1-VvM74YtNMdA_7eD/s1600/0_c900d_2347c5c0_orig.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwewKsx4YI_36qKmbPzOxBPk2zD1M-2BNY_bXnVSdiyz1QN8NHWIE3mMHVHVEdgwJxiufnxOHRM89JNjB05LLP34lA1Pb0x0b5waY2Mf9jIMczY3xUFZLOn4J1-VvM74YtNMdA_7eD/s1600/0_c900d_2347c5c0_orig.jpeg" height="452" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Here at the left posters it is written "Charlie Hebdo", "Freedom of speech", etc, and on the sign at the right - "Donbass" (Donbass is the Donetsk region).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8915618221082759010.post-68112709113572184732015-01-13T01:32:00.003-08:002015-01-15T09:24:59.736-08:00A homeless man plays beautiful music<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">A reporter was
walking through <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Churchill Square</st1:address></st1:street>,
in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Edmonton</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Alberta</st1:state>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
when she heard nice music. She saw a piano outside of a building, with
a homeless man playing it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Then she
approached to listen more closely, and began to film the concert. The video of
his play was uploaded to youtube and quickly became a hit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The player
was a 43-years man who looked like he was homeless. His name is actually Ryan Arcand and he
was taken from his parents and placed in foster care as a 4-year child.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">His music:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTsMTIofG2Q">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTsMTIofG2Q</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S40rs4dLiWk">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S40rs4dLiWk</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Grigoriy Andrienkohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10871921625140429891noreply@blogger.com0