Re: broken schools

On Thu, 27 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

But sadly I have also heard that polarization and leftists vs rightist
has infiltrated brazil as well. =( I hope it won't become as bad as
the US, that would be really bad for the country.

>
You can definitely say that.  This theme is very interesting for people
interested in Brazil or perhaps the US.  The US has a huge influence in

...

Brazil today.

Thank you! Very interesting, I had no idea!

I also imagine that it would be difficult to work from the beach. Too many
beautiful women, it must be very distracting!

>
You're quite right.  It is indeed *very* distracting.  In fact,
observing such things has given the conclusion that visual stimili (at
least in myself) is a really strong physiological thing: it seems quite

I also imagine that in south america it is still fashionable for women to be
women, and that women are feminine? I hope so... I like that!

stronger than any will power.  I started out reading at the beach so I
would have something to do there, staying longer in the sun.  So my slow
reading doesn't defeat that purpose.  I also often go during week days,
when the beach is not crowded with people.  It worked out so well that

Aha... so that's how you get any work done! I imagine if you would go during
beach rush hour, you'd not get a lot of things done. ;)

it seems to work like a second phase of my work schedule.  I write in
the morning and read in the afternoon, intermixed with walking, swimming
and biking.  I cannot do it *every* day because I need to ``the office''
some days.

Sounds like you have a very nice job there!

Bad coffee?? Doesn't brazil have the best coffee in the world?? Be thankful that
you don't have to drink the crap I have here in europe. ;)

>
I think we produce wonderful coffee, but I also think that wonderful
coffee is mostly exported.  Makes perfect sense: you sell your best
products to your best customers (those that pay more).  That's a sorry
thing when living in a country with too many poor people: the industry
brings the cheapest things for you.

Ahhh.... never thought about that. On the other hand, there are counter
examples. When I went to japan, I had the best green tea I ever had! Up until
that point, I thought I didn't like green tea. It always tasted horrible. Then
in japan I went to some kind of luxury tea tasting, and it was really, really
good!
And what about beef? I heard there are wars in south america over whether
argentina or brazil has the best beef? Who is right?

But I consider coffee---no matter how good quality if might be---a drug
to be totally kept on a leash.  I don't think we should make regular use
of any stimulants---of any drug at all.

Ahh... and here I drink between 0.5 and 0.7 liters per day! ;) But I don't have
to drink it... from time to time I just stop when I get tired of it and move to
tea instead, and never experience any negative withdrawal symptoms. My favourite
tea is Lapsang.

I am probably a naturalist.  If coffee ``accelerates your physiology'',
then we can say that such ``speed'' is not the natural way of your body.
If you do it every day, you're totally not respecting the natural way of
the system.  Not a religious thing at all---recall that perspective I
had on tattoos.  So this is another illustration of why I find myself
more religious than the vast number of very religious people I've ever
met.

Well, maybe principled? I think religious has many supernatural connotations
that I find nto so good to mix up in these kinds of discussions.

It is an interesting thought that kingdoms faded, were replaced by nations.
Perhaps now, nations are fading (slowly) and getting replaced with corporations?
Imagine a future were your primary allegiance is to your corporation, and the
nation of old, just exists in the background as a faint humming sound, that no
one really cares about.
>
What do you think?

>
I think along these lines.  Today I see most of government as just
employees of corporations.  I think it's very easy to see.  Political
parties cannot do anything without money.  But they're not companies:
they produce no product in the typical sense of the word.  So where do
they money come from?  It comes from corporations.  Who makes decisions
in a company? The owner or the employees?  (Who makes decisions in
society?  The goverment or the real owners?)

I'd say it depends. The government has one thing that corporations does not
have, and that is the right to use violence. Also remember that corporations are
not the only taxes that the government rakes in. It taxes individuals, it taxes
death, trade, and woe unto you if you don't pay, then they use violence against
you.
On the other hand, you do have a point. Without anyone to tax, the government
dies, so it is a balance of terror, although I'd say that the balance tilts in
favour of the government.
On ther other hand... once corporations become international, they become much
harder for government to kill. They are immaterial creatures and can easily leap
across jurisdictions, in a way that governments cannot.

So when people say that governments don't seem to work in favor of the
population, I remark precisely the above---if you owned a company, would
you let your employees have the final say in the decisions?  That'd be

Depends on the decision. If it is technology, I will let my technical partners
have the final say. ;) But then again, I run a small business and not a
corporation. =)

absurd; it's your company; you call the shots.  Similarly, corporations
(who invest in most of the government officials' careers), should have
the final say in nearly everything.
>
What do corporations want?  Almost nothing.  Because they're in power.
The desire of those in power is to keep things as they are.

This is true. Everyone is progressive until they get into power. Then everyone
becomes conservative. Even socialists. ;)

We can make a parallel here with the relationship between monarchies and
the church.  The church partnered with kings because they were useful to
each other: kings won their power by the use of force, which attracts
the interest of any other entity of some meaningful power (such as the
church).  Their partnership is then natural: the influence of the church
on the people was useful to install the idea that the power of kings had
divine origins.

I'd say in europe there was an unholy (pun intended) alliance between the church
and the kings. Both want to be on top, but in the end saw advantages to
cooperating and dividing up the spoils. See northern europe for instance, the
protestant part. Kings could tired of the catholic church and threw it out in
order to start their own christianity, and at the same time, plunder churches
and monasteries to increase their wealth. ;) Clearly an example of when the
church stepped too hard on the toes of the king.

The very idea of a constitutional monarchy comes from the industry: when
the industry realizes that it was their time to be at the top, they
naturally make up a system that reduces the power of the monarchies,
with the brilliant argument that individual guarantees are needed.  So
republics arise and we can make the parallel that governments take the
function that the church had in their partnership with kings.  People
now are busy trying to organize themselves by interacting with the
bureaucracy of governments---this is the civilized, legal, democratic
way of living.
>
There is, therefore, a natural conflict between public policy and the
interests of corporations.  The reason governments have, in principle,
nearly all the power and still are so ineffective against corporation is
a fact that's very illuminating.  No fact is a contradiction; all
paradoxes are only apparent.