Jens Oliver Meiert

Politics (2)

Highlights From “The Crowd” (Gustave Le Bon)

“Crowds are only cognisant of simple and extreme sentiments; the opinions, ideas, and beliefs suggested to them are accepted or rejected as a whole, and considered as absolute truths or as not less absolute errors.”

#38 ¡ ¡ misc

On Codes of Conduct

On the idea, the wish, the vision of us treating each other well.

#37 ¡ ¡ misc

Highlights From “Free Thought and Official Propaganda” (Bertrand Russell)

“Our system of education turns young people out of the schools able to read, but for the most part unable to weigh evidence or to form an independent opinion.”

#36 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Survival of the Primitive

Is ours a highly evolved culture?

#35 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Highlights From “The Communist Manifesto” (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels)

“This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves.”

#34 ¡ ¡ philosophy

What Happens When You Email Each of the 1,380 Members of the German and European Parliaments

Over the last couple of months I have emailed, each individually, all the 631 members of the (departing) German Bundestag as well as 749 members of the European Parliament (I was short two MEPs).

#33 ¡

Freedom = ƒ(Money)?

No, this question is not new. However it’s one I want to ponder with you because it much seems like something truly terrible has happened over the centuries.

#32 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Highlights From Martin’s “The Behavior of Crowds”

“When most of our neighbors are motivated by certain ideas, those ideas become part of the social environment to which we must adjust ourselves. In this sense they are ‘real,’ however ‘crazy.’”

#31 ¡ ¡ misc

Highlights From Dewey’s “How We Think”

“The very importance of thought for life makes necessary its control by education because of its natural tendency to go astray, and because social influences exist that tend to form habits of thought leading to inadequate and erroneous beliefs.”

#30 ¡ ¡ philosophy

The Simple Answer to Our Terrorism Problems

How about we stop invading countries and murdering people. How about we allow those who are too afraid to live in freedom to live in supermax prisons (for free). And how about we finally remove from office who ever proposes to violate a human right.

#29 ¡

Highlights From Lippmann’s “Public Opinion”

“Who actually saw, heard, felt, counted, named the thing, about which you have an opinion? Was it the man who told you, or the man who told him, or someone still further removed? And how much was he permitted to see?”

#28 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Foreigners Are Heroes

Foreigners to our countries—expats, immigrants, refugees—are heroes. Foreigners, people like you and I, add to our lives and our cultures. Foreigners deserve our respect and our support.

#27 ¡

On Socialization

Several months back, to myself, I noted how we may have all already been what we’ve later wished to be: for example, authentically curious, open, unbiased, worry-free, joyful, happy, confident, loving. Then, I thought, came socialization.

#26 ¡ ¡ philosophy

A Digital Charta

When we think about it, although we live in a time of rights violations we don’t lack good intent, nor good law. That leads us to a particular initiative, the Digital Charta.

#25 ¡

The Great Neglect

What is most important for us to learn in our lives? Are we learning it? Teaching it? On “one of the greatest motive powers in the world,” and “the noblest of possessions.”

#24 ¡ ¡ misc

Highlights From Emerson’s “Nature”

“Each creature is only a modification of the other; the likeness in them is more than the difference, and their radical law is one and the same.”

#23 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Highlights From Paine’s “Common Sense”

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.”

#22 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Highlights From Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”

Launching a new series of highlights and factoids from public domain books, classic or not, that had piqued my interest, and perhaps excite yours. Here from American polymath Henry David Thoreau.

#21 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Can We Prevent Terrorism?

That terrorism can never be prevented is actually very important to understand to also understand our political leadership.

#20 ¡

198 Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Action

Just when one wonders how many options there are exactly.

#19 ¡

Humanity and “The Other Manifesto”

On a wish for more work on a vision, on values, on principles, on goals actually worth striving for, on utopias, on a good future, a good cause, a good world for all of us.

#18 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Endless Peace

Amidst all the wars we never wanted but our governments and industries wage and participate in regardless of our will, we threaten to lose sight of our goal. That goal, surely, is peace. That goal, clearly, is durable peace. That goal, indeed, is endless peace.

#17 ¡

Rules for the Media: Independence, Transparency, Accountability, Comparative Reporting

I’ve suggested to opt out of following news for the simple reason that news rarely constitute reliable and actionable information, and in the spirit that even ignorance may be preferable so to at least keep an open mind. Now, what would make me change this view?

#16 ¡

Media: The Choice Between Misinformation and Uninformation

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”—Our media, generally speaking, are not trustworthy. They are not trustworthy because of conflicts of interest…

#15 ¡

On Conspiracy Theories

These days, many a serious inquiry into significant events leads to something marked a “conspiracy theory.” Use of the expression “conspiracy theory” has gone as far as to be used as a blanket dismissal…

#14 ¡

Business Practices, Reframed

Ideas for the next performance review.

#13 ¡ ¡ management

On Guidance

Why we urgently need better guidance, need to give better guidance, and get out of the way if we ourselves, when in position of authority and leadership, can’t give good guidance.

#12 ¡ ¡ management

The 1% Hypothesis of Mass Surveillance

A few weeks back I read this security article about how it’s odd that no one has ever suspected and detected anything related to all that mass surveillance we learned about through Edward Snowden. In particular, physical manipulation of devices…

#11 ¡

No

Have we stopped killing yet?

#10 ¡

News Headlines I Want to Read

A brainstorming with assumptions and implications. We shouldn’t use our creativity to come up with ever horrid scenarios; we could use it to envision awesomeness.

#9 ¡

A Population Control Primer

An incomplete, roughly sorted sketch of actions, methods, and developments that don’t serve us, that instead divide, distract, confuse, manipulate, exploit, demotivate, control, and dominate us. We have a lot of work to do.

#8 ¡

On Taking Life

We cannot accept killing. The default must be to respect, to cherish life. We should get help to those who suggest to take lives. Eight theses on a most critical matter.

#7 ¡ ¡ philosophy, misc

Electronic Data as Evidence

We need better defenses against assaults on our rights and privacy. In a world in which most happens electronically, one such defense gets surprisingly little attention: Everything electronic can be forged.

#6 ¡

On Net Neutrality

We need net neutrality, and we need to insist on net neutrality. Everywhere, not just in the United States. Throttling Internet access, or charging select content providers extra, much appears like a brazen combination of profiteering, extortion, and, effectively, censorship.

#5 ¡

On Privacy

A few theses on a critical subject. The most important ones: One cannot be free without privacy, all living beings have a right to privacy, and we shall punish intentional violations of privacy.

#4 ¡

A Social-Philosophical Journey in 25 Quotes

I was reviewing my Google+ posts the other day. In there I rediscovered a good number of quotes. What connected most of them were my studies. And when I looked at them I found they sort of tell a little story.

#3 ¡ ¡ philosophy

Surveillance Kills Democracy

I meet people who think that mass surveillance, as with NSA and GCHQ spying, is okay because they don’t have anything to worry about. The argument is either that they don’t have anything to hide or that what they’re doing is not important enough…

#2 ¡

Dark Days for Germany

Yesterday, on the historically significant November 9, the German government approved a law that requires telecommunications providers to retain all customer communication data for a period of six months, and allows authorities to gain access to stored communications…

#1 ¡