All wisdom found outside the rational mind has consistently received a bad rap, particularly during the last fifty to one hundred years. Much attention was given to academics, researchers and […]
Year: 2023
The End of Short-Term Thinking
All institutions and companies have short-term thinkers and long-term thinkers. Short-term thinking is the prioritization of obvious, easy gains over lasting value; it is a form of self-sabotage and short-sightedness. […]
The Conditionality Curse
Freedom is the absence of conditionality. In this industrial, mechanical, technical era, however, conditionality is the ever-expanding center of existence. All of our appliances and software revolve around the concept […]
When the Worst Won
In a kakistocracy the worst of all people are in charge. This Greek word can be applied to any governed entity, a country, an institution, a company, et cetera, and […]
Heroic Historians
Without a somewhat accurate, reliable account of our common history we can’t work towards a better future. Sometimes time will tell. Sometimes time will set the record straight, but time […]
Between Coincidence and Conspiracy
There is one specific article by Edward Snowden that has been inspiring me since its publication in August 2021. It’s called Apophenia – How the Internet Transforms the Individual into […]
From Individual Power to Collective Shame
In 1919, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays (1891-1995) founded America’s first public relations firm, applying psychoanalytic discoveries to promote consumerism and to use latent sexual energy to manipulate the masses […]
It’s Human Nature?
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed […]
Building the Non-Lie
It’s harder than it seems to build a truthful venture atop the ruins of a World of Lies. Whoever has had the courage to start such a new venture is […]
The FBI and the Why of the Blue Sky
The biggest censorship case in modern history is that of the brilliant Austrian-American psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), who worked closely with Sigmund Freud. On August 23, 1956, the FBI burned […]
Myths and Constitutions
Freedom and power are oftentimes inversely related, similar to the way social norms and moral codes can be inversely related. In times like these, when causes and consequences are continuously […]
“Oh, What’ll You Do Now?”
On Action in the Face of Destruction I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’ Bob Dylan, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (1963) Is it comforting or worrisome to […]
I’ve Closed My Substack
Yesterday I migrated most of my ‘Old Revolutions’ Substack content here to my own website. If you are subscribed to my publication Old Revolutions on Substack you don’t have to […]
Addiction Cure Suppressed
The strange disappearance of books and articles on baclofen Drinking heavily, you abandon people–and they abandon you–and you abandon yourself–It’s a form of partial murder but too sad to go […]
Dutch Debate is Dead
Debate Remains Dead. And They’ve Killed It. A popular song about the Covid restrictions was ‘We’ve Lost Dancing’ in 2021. In The Netherlands, we certainly lost much dancing during these […]
Assumptions are Dangerous
Especially for the Targets of PsyOps: You & Me Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make — bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake — […]
Revenge of the Epistemologists
How to Acquire Knowledge? What can we know? Perhaps not an uncontroversial question nowadays, yet an important one. Right after his speech at the Heritage Foundation Tucker Carlson said that, […]
On Indifference and Identity
When Moral Relativism Becomes Nihilism Back in 2007, Argentinian native Máxima Zorreguieta, who married Dutch crown-prince Willem-Alexander in 2002, angered many Dutch people by saying she ‘searched for the Dutch […]
All Talk, No Action
Journalism Since the Great Financial Crisis In early 2009 I attended a memorable panel discussion at Columbia University’s Journalism School in New York. A handful of elite journalists who were […]