Alexis Kouros

The future is not in the past!

Alexis Kouros

Torsdag, 5 Januari 2012 15:15

First, there are small earthquakes here and there. Then the crust of the earth starts moving. Los Angeles crumbles into the sea. Huge sand storms swallow large cities in minutes. Volcanoes start erupting and the oceans rise. A mega-tsunami throws aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy crashing into the White House, killing the president. He had just given his last address to the nation and was getting ready to leave for China, where the world leaders have secretly built high-tech Noah's arks to save the elite of the world from the global catastrophe that will kill billions of people. What has caused all these is a dramatic increase in the solar flare activity and a sudden shift in the earth's poles. This is how the world ends in Roland Emmerich's movie 2012.

According to the Mayan calendar, our world goes through cycles called B'ak'tun. Each cycle takes 144,000 days or 5125.25 years. We are now coming to the end of the 13th B'ak'tun, which will end on 21st of December 2012. There is no mention of the 14th B'ak'tun in the Mayan long count calendar, so some people have taken this as an indication of the end of the world. Emmerich's movie illustrates the destruction with apocalyptic special effects.

The 2012 phenomenon is another example of our obsession with the idea that ancient knowledge can explain the present and predict the future. The prophecies, however, are written in cipher or symbolic language, so all we have to do is decrypt them and we will know the future and how the world ends. We look for these secret messages everywhere, from hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, to the writings of Nostradamus and the holy books of all religions.

Isaac Newton, one of the best analytical minds of the past centuries, the man who first explained gravity and the laws of mechanics, spent much more time on occult studies than on science. In addition to alchemy and searching for the elixir of life, his greatest passion was to decipher the secret code of Bible. What a waste of such a great mind! How many other discoveries could Newton have made, if he had put all his time and effort on true science?

Even a great mind like Newton was a captive of the credulous fabric of our upbringing, where superstition, religion, pseudoscience and factual knowledge are amalgamated beyond separation. Chales Hapgood, a university professor whose theory of earths sudden pole-shifts was also a major part of the 2012 movies plot, spent a decade of his life "contacting" notable figures of the past, such as the Hindu god Vishnu, Jesus and Albert Einstein, through a medium.

Does the supernatural exist? Is it possible that the Mayans or other civilizations of the past had some deeper knowledge about the world and its future? Did some source of alien or divine wisdom grant some knowledge about the future to humans in the past? Is our future predetermined?

There is no doubt that searching and questioning is good. No question should be exempted or looked down at. These are all questions which are worth examining, but until proven otherwise, I would stick to lex parsimoniae, or Occam's razor, that the simplest explanation is probably the right one; or in Bertrand Russell's words: "Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities."

Human civilization is rich in knowledge and rational thinking, which could help us build and predict the future. As Newton himself taught us, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and our future - spare elements out of our control - is mostly a reaction to our combined actions.

Newton also explained the motion of the planets, according to which everything goes on in cycles. Galaxies, stars, planets, seasons, life, electrons ... there is no doubt that the universe has a rhythm and that rhythm seems to apply to the evolution of the human society. So if there is any truth in the Mayans calendar, it is that we are coming to the end of a cycle, and to me, that means a new beginning.

2011 has been a year of transformations all around the world. Financial meltdown, withdrawal of the US from two wars without any success, the awakenings of people in the Arab countries, the Occupy movements in the US and some European countries: all of these have one thing in common - they are all signs of the end of an era, signs of change starting to happen. There is no doubt that the tide is turning.

We are able to look at the past and see our social evolution from one primordial stage to another. We have studied and named those "ages": stone age, bronze age, iron age and so on. Our time has often been referred to as the age of information.

While it is easy for us to see the primitive elements of the human society when looking back, its hard for us to accept, that sometime in the future, if human civilization persists, people are going to look back to our "age" and perceive us as a primitive society, and I don't mean only in technological terms. But why is this hard for us to accept? Probably for at least two reasons: first, that would mean our way of life and social system is not perfect and developed to its potential despite our belief, and then it would mean that we need to change it, in some cases dramatically.

Hardly anyone would reject progress, but the systems are hard to change because some elements benefit from the status quo. That's why the systems are falling. Our societies are off balance.

So what would the people of the future, those of the next age and cycle think about our present civilization?

Here are a few thoughts:

The most important thing is our identity. Despite global interactions, lots of our behaviors are tribal, or even herdlike. We still don't realize that we are one single global community with a common interest.

Our belief in, and the actual use of violence will look primitive to our future generations. Use of aggression and war to resolve conflicts is going to become a behaviour of the past.

Our educational system is rigid and old fashioned even for today. We still put our youth on chairs with books and pens for the best years of their lives. The school system will surely look totally different in the future.

Our laws and punishments will look as primitive to the future generations as Hammurabi's laws look to us. We know that prison is not an effective mode of punishment, yet we have record numbers of people in jails in many countries. Putting someone who is not dangerous to others (e.g. a financial criminal) behind bars for years is ridiculous.

There are 44 kingdoms and at least 25 dictatorships in the world today. Even a ceremonial monarchy is a primitive trait. But both democracy and capitalism also have a lot to be improved. For one, they result in unfair distribution of both wealth and power, which in turn corrupt each other. For example, all the senators of the United States are from the richest 1%. So the "we are the 99%" slogan of the Occupy moment is not untrue after all.

Then far into the future, our understandings of some basic elements of our universe may prove totally wrong. Scientists are already questioning the existence of time. Aging and death, which we take as granted, will be seen as old diseases that plagued us in the past.

These are just my thoughts, but I'm sure that experts with wider knowledge or imaginative minds could add lots to this list. One thing is certain - we need to free ourselves from the past in order to see the future. We need a Vernean attitude to exploring the future. Jules Verne, another bright mind, born 100 years after Newton in the 18th century, had a different approach to discovering the future: instead of looking for prophecies in the scriptures of the past, he looked at the development of science and human behavior, and used his powerful imagination to project it to the future.

After years of painstaking research and deciphering messages hidden in the Old Testament, Newton put the end of the world in 2060, giving us a bit more time than the Mayans. So there is no rush, even if he was right. However the world ends every day, for those who die. But even if the planet Earth would disappear in an instant, it wouldn't make the slightest difference to the universe. Just like dust in the wind.

Don’t lead us to fear

Alexis Kouros

Söndag, 9 Oktober 2011 21:30

The date is 17 September 2011, just six days after the tenth anniversary of September 11. The place is Helsinki, Finland. Five men in black suits and serious faces are sitting side by side. These are not just any men, they are top-ranking officers of the Finnish criminal and security police.

In front of them is an army of journalists, photographers and TV cameras. The media has come to report the shocking news that these men are going to announce. A shower of flashes lights their faces and the clicking sound of camera shutters fills the air.

The first-ever terrorism-related arrests have just been made in Finland. This is a scoop that no journalist would want to miss. It will be the top headline for all radio and TV channels tonight and papers tomorrow. "Terrorism just moved one step closer to Finland," they are sure to write.

The officials' lips are tight. That is all they have said. The press struggles to put the fragments together with information from other sources. It turns out that two Somali citizens have been arrested for sending a small amount of money to Al-Shabaab, and probably recruiting one person to join the group.

Apparently, the Somali citizens have taken sides in a domestic conflict going on in their country - no threat whatsoever to Finland or Europe. Why is this made into such a big deal? Isn't that what NATO is doing in Libya under the mandate of protecting civilians? Al-Shabaab has links to Al-Qaida, but so do many of the anti-Gaddafi NTC fighters and commanders.

So what is the whole fuss about, with a press conference where the most common answer is, "we can't tell you"? The suspects have been monitored since 2009, so why arrest them now?

A week later, an interview with the security police (SUPO) director, Antti Pelltari, gives some clues to the mystery. SUPO had received funds to send informants to Nairobi and Addis Ababa since last year - and it's not sure that it will be granted again.

"With the €850,000 of extra money, we were able to ward off terrorism significantly also in Finland," he tells Helsingin Sanomat. "We don't have the fund in our next year's budget so far. I'm worried about how we can keep the level of terrorism prevention up."

In a similar case in July the police announced in a press release that in the first six months of this year more crimes have been committed in Finland than in the same period ever in the history of the country. "Rapes have increased 50% and robberies have become common," said the release. The police chief, Mikko Paatero, added that at the same time the number of police and their budget is being cut. Until Lasse Kärkelä, a sharp HS journalist noticed that the increase is due to modifications to the law and statistical changes. Also several other crimes have, in fact, decreased!

Interestingly, just a couple of months earlier - in another release - the police had announced that registered crimes in the country had decreased by 10,000 last year!

Could it be that, once again, the officials were spreading fear to get their funding?

Terrorism is "to rein by the use of fear". Who is the on in above mentioned cases who spreads fear, the two arrested Somalis or the officials with their press conference?

Fear has been one of the main instruments of controlling individuals and societies throughout history. "Behave, or the country will fall into the hands of thieves and murderers," kings and dictators have told their people for ages. Mubarak's police even changed clothes and looted people's homes in Cairo to reverse their revolution.

Fear of terrorism encourages us to give away our civil rights, to keep people in secret prisons and let them be tortured. Fear of crime makes us lock our doors and avoid strangers. Fear of disease and pandemics makes us buy medicine and queue for vaccines. Fear is also probably the most powerful marketing instrument in the hands of speculators who want to sell us "safety".

We live in constant fear. The polar ice may melt, nuclear war could erupt, Islam is coming, aliens could attack, asteroids could hit the Earth and the economy could collapse. Some of these fears and concerns are, of course, valid and a good reason for a call to action. Too often, however, the "outrage effect" is used to magnify one danger over others - although the reality is totally different.

During the last few winters, swine and bird flu epidemics have been used to terrify the masses into buying medicine and taking vaccinations, while harmful lifestyles and the old diseases like regular flu still kill more people than new epidemics. The chances of a Finn being hurt by a terrorist attack is almost zero, yet we are spending lots of money and resources on sending spies to Africa while no budget is being spent on preventing recurrences of school shootings, which is a far greater threat faced by our young.

Fear could be a healthy reaction in animals and human when well founded. When unrealistic, it is called anxiety and considered pathological. This state of social anxiety is used by our politicians and corporations for extortion or to herd us to obedience, or consumption.

However, the world has changed and you can't rule people by fear anymore. The Arab Spring proves this. Fear is the worst of motives to which only the weakest of leaders resort. Now, more than ever, we need hope. We need visionary leaders who show the way forward and turn our attention to the basic values of life, to love and peace, friendship and mutual assistance, to equality and tolerance.

Today we are all being frightened by the threat of a financial crisis. Our leaders and politicians repeat on daily basis that the situation is grave. Greece is going bankrupt. The euro may fall and the apples will dry on the trees. The masses will become unemployed and anarchy may erupt.

Well, the Greek economy is only 2% of the Eurozone. If we translate Greece into "American", it would be Louisiana. The state of Louisiana is defaulting even worse than Greece, yet there is no talk of the dollar falling. Attention: speculators at work!

Interestingly, one of the reasons Greece is defaulting is also fear. The Greek military spending is one of the highest in the world. The country spent over 10 bn euros on its armed forces in 2010 and was ranked the 3rd as the largest arms purchaser in the world in 2004. Funny enough, Turkey, the country against which Greece is arming itself, was one of the first to give financial assistance to the troubled country.

Well, Greece has given Europe many good things too. One of them is the great writer Nikos Kazantzakis. The epitaph on his grave at Heraklion reads: "I want nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."

Lucky the one, who can achieve this while alive.

Looking is not seeing

Alexis Kouros

Onsdag, 17 Augusti 2011 11:07

The pace of events is fast in our times. Tsunamis, wars, revolutions, the bursting of financial bubbles, far right terrorism and riots surprise us one after another. Nations are in debt, economies are in difficulties and nature is stretched to its limits. Economists can't forecast the financial front, and sociologists can't predict the turmoil of crowds. Even the accuracy of weather forecasts is down. Leaders are begging for predictability. What has changed? Why now? Why can't we predict our own human reactions in this age of information when we have more knowledge about everything than ever before?

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Wake up call

Alexis Kouros

Tisdag, 26 April 2011 19:15

They call it the "City of Minarets", but it could just as well be called the city of hatred, blood, rape and sorrow. Even 16 years after the bloody civil war, the air is heavy with contempt, and faces are long with grief. Bullet-ridden buildings on every block are reminders of a harsh time not long left behind. Right here in this city neighbours killed one another, women were raped en mass and civilians put into concentration camps. Snipers shot innocent children without a second thought. This is Sarajevo. This is Europe.

This is one nation. One ethnicity. And, no matter what they claim, one language. Serbs and Croats are Christians, and Bosniacs are Muslims, but honestly they are almost all secular. What makes neighbours, classmates and colleagues turn against each other so mercilessly?

This was nothing new to Europe. Genocide did not begin in Rwanda, and it was not invented by the Nazis. Such events are nothing new to Finland either. This young nation has its own scars. It's not more than two generations ago when this small nation of less than 3 million people at the time painted each other red and white. Then neighbours killed neighbours. Even brothers took different sides.

Hatred does not need a reason - it will find one. Hatred is not necessarily a reaction; it's a state of mind. It's a beast inside us. Now this beast is waking up from years of hibernation. Europe is afraid again. But what makes masses behave in such savage ways?

"In crowds it is stupidity and not mother wit that is accumulated". Since Gustave Le Bon, coined it in 1896, this sentence has served as dogma for many. The crowds may truly be ignorant. Only 55 percent of all Americans know that the sun is a star and a third of Russians think that the sun spins around the Earth. Then again, these are the nations that have pioneered space exploration, put satellites into orbit and sent probes to Mars. There is overwhelming evidence that contradicts Le Bon's theory. Research has shown that although ignorance dilutes wisdom in the crowds, a well-selected group will make better decisions than individuals most of the time. Here is the exception: when decisions are made on an emotional basis, herd behaviour could, and will, go disastrously wrong. Enter lynch mobs.

Fear is a strong motive and a dangerous emotion. Useful when well founded, crippling when groundless. Today, fear has spoken in Finland: Fear of change; fear of a new world and a fresh identity. A part of our society has voted for fleeing back to the safety and nostalgia of the past. The magnitude of this group has taken the rest of the nation and even Europe by surprise.

It would be unfair to leave unmentioned the fact that many of the criticisms raised by Persusuomalaiset are well founded. Finland has not always held her ground in EU negotiations. The government's EU policy has not been transparent and communication with the nation has been whipped airy in the crème of political jargon. However, offering oversimplified and emotional solutions to complicated problems - although pleasant to the electorates' ears - is misleading.

THE Rise of xenophobia in Europe and Finland is often explained by the increase in immigration. Although this may be of some influence, I strongly doubt this explanation. Often the most anti-immigrant and kainotophobic (afraid of change) places are those with the least immigrants and little in the way of change. New York, for example, remained international, multicultural, democrat and antiwar, even after 9/11, while the US "red states" (where people have voted mainly republican and multiculturalism is minimal) used the event as confirmation to embrace xenophobia and intolerance even harder. Shift of attitudes tends to be a much more important factor than external factors such as the movement of people.

Balkan history is, of course, complex, but resurrecting historical conflicts and differences to massacre your neighbours is not a natural course of action. Things could always take a different course with a little push or the lack of it. God is indeed in details. For the 4-year-long bloodshed, rape and concentration camps to start, there was one crucial tipping point: Slobodan Milošević was surrounded by a crowd of 15,000 Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo on 24 April 1987.

A man in the crowd shouted: "the police has beaten us".

"Nobody will beat you again," Milošević replied.

Serbian television aired the event later that evening. Ivan Stambolić, President of Serbia later said that after watching the footage that he had witnessed "the end of Yugoslavia".

Finland's "Milošević moment" happened in local politics in February 2009 when Jyrki Katainen, the acting leader of Kokoomus, said publicly that: "immigration should be openly discussed and ‘immigration-critics' should not be automatically denounced racist". A year later SDP's Leader Jutta Urpilainen pronounced her infamous sentence, "maassa maan tavalla", which immediately became the backbone of her party's immigration policy. Translated as: "When in Rome act like Romans", Urpilainen's phrase is in fact much more dire. The Finnish version of this idiom, as many reminded Urpilainen, continues as: "or get out of the land".

Both these sentences were as true as Milošević's announcement in Kosovo, but similarly the context, timing and geography of these words have had extreme significance, overriding their literal meaning. They all were opinion shifters. What Milošević did knowingly, Katainen and Urpilainen committed ignorantly. Hoping to get their share of Soini's hype, in fact they threw more coal into his engine.

Endorsement by authority is a powerful force that should not be taken lightly for both right and wrong. Our boy and girl on the top, Jyrki and Jutta, pulled their fingers off the holes in the dyke and the outcome is poured upon us.

Restraint is a major element of human civilisation. We hold back on everything from our animal instincts to the expression of our fears, thoughts and opinions uncensored and unsoftened. Without that restraint and self-control, our societies would undoubtedly fall apart. What happened in this last election was probably a shift in attitudes for some, but "freedom of expression" for most of the "protest voters". Except that this time, what is expressed freely in the form of a political will is, unfortunately, fear and ignorance.

But there is a bright side to this story. 80 percent of the electorate did not vote for steering the country inward and backward. The surprising progress of fundamental thinking has made this part of the society more active. Many have joined parties and lots of groups have been formed in the social media. We got our wake up call. Progress is not self evident, it needs to be cared for.

Guardians of an empty land

Alexis Kouros

Torsdag, 17 Februari 2011 00:00

This January, a 25-year-old snow-dropper from Espoo decided to sell all of his belongings and move to Thailand. He put an advert on huuto.net (a Finnish version of the ebay), which caught the attention of a journalist. "Ville fulfils his dream of which many share but don't dare to carry out," wrote Helsingin Sanomat. The snow dropper soon became a celebrity and his story became the most read online article in the history of HS.fi. In hundreds of comments, readers expressed their encouragement and wished that they could do the same.

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