That's Too Thin » General Problems

Old and New Old

Vitaly Pimenov — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:18:49 +0000

There were times I felt I have something to say and that was enough to start speaking. Today, looking back at everything I’ve written here regarding education, I see that it worths nothing, there were no work behind these words, no experience, no life, no vision, no passion, nothing but an illusion of “something I can speak of”.

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We were nobodies

Vitaly Pimenov — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:05:01 +0000

Someone in the mirror who was more real than was I.
Someone at the cafe who had more coffee to drink than words to speak.
Someone on the street asking for the rain to wash the world away.
Someone in the bedroom who can’t sleep because life goes on without him.
We were nobodies.

Photo by Peter Lindbergh.

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Time Transfixed

Vitaly Pimenov — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:19:46 +0000

Strangely, when I look at this painting, it reminds me of “zero vanguard” – cosmonaunts who were involved in experiments before 1961.

Time Transfixed. René Magritte, 1938

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Malcolm will return shortly…

Vitaly Pimenov — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:46:48 +0000

Paris

Culture

I heard some people were really surprised to discover Malcolm McLaren genius beyond Sex Pistols.

If only we could open our eyes more often. Maybe then we could learn to appreciate good people before they are gone.

Rethinking Education Pt.14: Laptops And Digital Teachers It is not about technology at all, don’t be surprised....

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Question of Convictions

Vitaly Pimenov — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:18:47 +0000

People convinced of something were always attracting my interest. Sometimes I felt kind of envy, sometimes curiosity. Because the way they have found their something was always obscure. There were times I thought there is no “way” at all, that people are just born with it. Or without. Me without. I was never convinced of anything. Convictions scare me. Most appalling tragedies of XX century were connected with convictions. But most striking scientific achievements were too.

Convictions look good on the third hand. They simplify the appearance. I guess they may help in focusing all the efforts on something. But the price can be high. And the oddest thing is the you can easily overlook the price.

The question stays on: should I have any convictions at all? Maybe humanness should be one?

Answering Davos Question “What one thing do you think that countries, companies or...

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Climate Change: The Invincible Enemy

Vitaly Pimenov — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:43:32 +0000

Some time ago I’ve read an article in Telegraph beginning with an advice to dump all shares of alternative energy companies if you own any. Author believed that evidence of fraud can change minds. Well, to change a mind there should be one.

“Climate change” designers had played very well with feelings of being in danger and other tools of mind control. And it will be very naive to suppose that a lonely speech can compete with mass media monster. I write with a goal to be aware, to analyze the meaning of confrontation.

The major confrontation is a classic one: on the left are rich countries with U.S. at the head, on the right are poor ones. Carbon dioxide emissions are a false front. For third world introducing a constraint on emissions is the same as introducing a constraint on the development of all kinds of industries. It creates a total dependency, sustainable dependency. Apparently it sets the scene for political control, for pulling the money strings. In the long run this is a rush for resources. Developed countries oversaturated with induced necessities became colossi with feet of clay. They implicitly but very strongly depend on owners of natural resources – gas crises had shown the situation very well. In such conditions many territories owned by poor countries became tasty morsels and the battle rages on. In the beginning there were weapons in exchange for resources, than atomic power plants and other technologies. Today they offer monetary support that means another dependency – on the external currency – that will create a temptation to level down internal currencies and further decrease competitiveness of internal industries because of labour migration.

And all this is due to climate change. The invincible enemy, one for all. Do you know which enemy is the best? One that does not exist. You can always pretend you are fighting, organize global conferences translated on hundreds of languages, issue laws, request financial support.

Because the enemy you are fighting is so global, so complex, so dangerous. After the fine-tuned media treatments nobody will doubt the importance of fighting with this invincible enemy. Nobody will raise objections, because we are all in danger. Nobody will ask “why?”, because “no nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change”. Nobody will think deeper, because we are already out of time. Nobody will listen the critics, because “the future of human civilization is at stake”. Nobody will take a scientific look because “this is not fiction”.

Otherwise, people now join movements to save the planet. Save the planet, the planet that is around for billions of years – doesn’t it sound stupid? TV shows that it does not. People buy printed T-shirts, get involved in countless discussions, scream on streets, smash shop-windows, set cars on fire. They are saving the planet. Haven’t they watched George Carlin?

Why don’t just say the truth? The truth is always around. Hardly there are much people who truly and studiously care about the nature. And it is natural, because people are educated that way. From the other hand mostly everybody cares about own comfort. And I think these panic is nothing but “don’t touch my comfort place of living” expression caused by fears and feelings of insecurity that are persistently forced in people with help of mass medias covering corpses in evening news.

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A bout de souffle

Vitaly Pimenov — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:16:01 +0000

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Best Before 1900

Vitaly Pimenov — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:13:51 +0000

If it could be possible to label shelf life recommendation on the ideas I would put “Best before 1900” on the idea of progress.

Progress is historically associated with society. In XX century mankind finally had its chance to see society in action.

No earlier century has witnessed as much killing. Population increases provided more people to kill; technological developments provided more efficient means to do so; and expanding media coverage informed more people about such killings and horrors as the century proceeded.

From An Age of Progress? by W. G. Moss

When I look at the portrait of John Bury, author of a classic work The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth written in 1920, I feel the presence of Victorian XIX century, colonial prosperity, steam ships, nobility, respectable people having time to dream ideas. This image has very little in common with XX and XXI centuries.

Yet silver-screens are still talking to us about progress and taxes to pay for it. Minds are in the grip of western thinking, or western religion if you will, a working model of control, but its shelf life is over it seems.

Society that consumes spoiled control model will go out of control at a certain time. And when it will happen simply replacing the control model will not fix anything, because problem can never be solved at the level it appeared. Upcoming debates at UN Climate Change Conference on CO₂ emissions and other topics will probably confirm above statement.

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Remarks on Philanthropy

Vitaly Pimenov — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:23:58 +0000

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

Jack London.

A thought came to me after reading Redefining Philanthropy: Introducing The Citizen Effect, gratitude goes to Amy Carol Wolff.

As a matter of fact I know pretty much nothing about modern philanthropy and non-profit organizations, yet intuition tells me that something is wrong here.

To begin, non-profits are biased towards helping poor people with their lives.
I haven’t heard of any non-profit that aims to help rich people with their lives. Why? Or maybe rich people do not need help? Well, they are human beings too, they suffer just like anybody else.

In a discussion Dan Morrison argued that poor people spend most of their time satisfying basic needs. But what do other people do most of their time? Just the same: they satisfy basic needs. But basic needs are different: for ones it is water, for others it could be whiskey. Eradicating poverty just means that basic needs will change. It has nothing to do with happiness.

Nevertheless many great people are involved in philanthropic activity and they succeed. And if we imagine a timeline we will probably notice that nowadays non-profit organizations are more successful than they have even been. Considering this fact from system self-organization standpoint among conclusions to made one will be about immunity.

Poverty and richness are diseases of society. Richness parasitizes society but at the same time controls it. That’s why society needs (and produces) enthusiasts to deal with poverty. I can see a sort of analogy between immunity and charity efforts. The stronger the disease the harder the work will be for immune system. And today people work really hard.

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Starbucks Lost in Translation

Vitaly Pimenov — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:39:25 +0000

In Moscow there are several Starbucks stores. But they are translated into Russian and the magic is gone.

You know, in Paris there is a Starbucks on Champs-Élysées. I once was there and was very much confused. Imagine: a Russian tourist in France goes to American coffee store, Korean assistant says with American accent: “Bonjour monsieur!”, tourists orders Italian cappuccino, gets the cup made in China and really doesn’t know what is that correct language to say thanks.

The only thing that was missing there was a group of antiglobalists. Yet I didn’t check it carefully.

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