Category: society

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Processed food

We eat a lot of pre-processed food. Our busy work schedules allow us to take only short breaks for meals in order to get more work done while in office or at work in general. The intensification of work has reached the next level and we move from pre-processed food to ultra-processed foods (UPFs). In medical journals and nutrition recommendations the warnings to not eat too much ultra-processed foods are abundant. The signs of obesity in societies reach higher levels from year to year. Especially younger people seem to be at higher risks to consume a lot of ultra-processed foods. Freisling et al. highlight the “risk of multimorbidity of cancer and cardiometabolic diseases” due to UPFs. The discussion between scientists is a lot on which UPFs are most harmful (beyond animal origin or and artificially sweetened beverages) and/or whether it is the combination of UPFs that additionally increases the danger of UPFs. Preventing the “too much of each” is probably the safest recommendation. Being able to read the nutrition information on the labels is already a difficult task. Just making the information abundant and very small print discourages most efforts to compare across products. Learning about basic human needs like food has never been more difficult. Combined with “shrinkflation” we have a hard time to make informed choices of what to buy and eat. There are many hurdles to overcome for a healthy meal.

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AI and Behavior

We start to analyze the impact of AI on our behavior. It is an important question to be aware of not only how we interact with AI (Link), but also what effect the use of AI (disclosed or not) will have on our social behavior. Knowing that AI is used might change our willingness to cooperate or increase or decrease pro-social behavior. The use of AI in form of an algorithm to select job candidates might introduce a specific bias, but it can equally be constructed to favour certain criteria in the selection of candidates. The choice of criteria becomes more important in this process and the process of choosing those criteria.
Next comes the question whether the announcement includes as information that AI will be used in the selection process. This can be interpreted by some that a “more objective” procedure might be applied, whereas other persons interpret this signal as bad sign of an anonymous process and lack of compassion prevalent in the organization focused mostly on efficiency of procedures.  Fabian Dvorak, Regina Stumpf et al. (2024) demonstrate with experimental evidence from various forms of games (prisoner’s dilemma, binary trust game, ultimatum game) that a a whole range of outcomes is negatively affected (trust, cooperation, coordination and fairness). This has serious consequences for society. The social fabric might worsen if AI is widely applied. Even or particularly the undisclosed use of AI already shows up as a lack of trust in the majority of persons in these experiments.
In sum, we are likely to change our behavior if we suspect AI is involved the selection process or content creation. This should be a serious warning to all sorts of content producing media, science, public and private organizations. It feels a bit like with  microplastic or PFAS. At the beginning we did not take it seriously and then before long AI is likely to be everywhere without us knowing or aware of the use. (Image taken on Frankfurt book fair 2017-10!)

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Stroke

A stroke is a very serious medical incident. The NIH defines it in easy language as the the moment in which “blood flow to the brain is blocked or there is sudden bleeding in the brain“. Thanks to a European HORIZON project  forecasting models are produced to estimate the likely incidence until the year 2050 by age and gender within Europe. The good news is major regional imbalances of incidence and mortality have been reduced and will likely be reduced across Europe. The challenge remains the aging of societies which necessitates to address the issue of strokes in each single region of the European Union. We know that the shorter the time to treat a stroke immediately after its occurrence, the better the survival chances and the better the prognosis for (partial) recovery.
In the US the widespread use of blood thinners which tripled over 30 years has not lead to the reduction of intracerebral hemorrhage (Link to studies). High blood pressure and arhythmic heart beat are major causes of this often disabling medical event. The study by Wafa et al. (2024) uses age-pyramids to demonstrate the effect that as European societies are aging the incidence of intracerebral haemorrhage occurs with increasing age and even more so for women than men of 80 years and older.
Prevention of high blood pressure through walking or careful endurance exercise seems even more indicated for an aging society.
Image below from Wafa et al. (2024), The Lancet Regional Health, Europe.

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Greedflation

The teaching of economics and socioeconomic policies has to deal with the topics around inflation and economic inequality for centuries. Greedflation has become a newly coined term for the rise of inflation due to greedy firms who use a window of opportunity to achieve extra profit margins or windfall profits. At a time of perceived price rises in many sectors, sectors that have no cost increases might still try to push prices higher simply because almost everybody else does so. Higher profits then show up in the reporting season of enterprises quoted at the stock exchange and the increase in inequality between wage earners and shareholders will rise. Greedflation is a summary term for it. The ECB European Central Bank has mentioned this and Reuters has reported on it as well end of June 2023. Since then a wait and see strategy has been adopted. Now in February 2024 we witness the wider spread of extraordinary profits of big firms not only in the fossil energy sector but also bog banks. The economies and societies suffer huge losses and a massive redistribution of capital. Subsidies introduced to lower the shock of the coronavirus crisis and the Russian aggression are unpopular to be scaled back. Employees and their trade unions have a hard time negotiating adequate wage increases whereas most companies use the momentum of seemingly general price rises to push profit margins. The translation of this mechanism to the political economy risks to jeopardize the support for capitalism and market forces in general. Another wave of increasing inequality endangers the survival of democratic societies. Countries with only a short experience of the functioning of market economies are at a particular risk. Germany’s decline into dictatorship in the 1930s after the severe economic crisis should be remembered as a major threat. Greedflation is a very serious and very real threat which we have to address with economic and social policies rather than waiting until the European elections have passed. Time to act, the thinking has been done. Evidence accumulates to make the political case.

Adolf von Menzel, The Petition, Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin
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Timeless Values

The declaration of human rights is more than 200 years old. However, the need to stand up for the defense of these rights needs many people to act accordingly. Political parties and courts are not strong enough to be the only defendants of democracy and human values. Solidarity across generations is another part of the struggle to defend democracy. In addition to the broad movement of “Omas gegen rechts”, the age distribution has been further enlarged with the “Uromas gegen rechts”. This most likely the generation with first hand life experiences from Nazi Germany and they should have reached an enlightened view of the horrors caused by the Nazi-regime. Unfortunately there are still some who continue to be prisoners in a fascist “brown” cage of mischievous memories. The great grandmother who was present at the demonstration was clear in her statement to stand up against right-wing extremism. (Image: With the permission of the lady I am happy to have evidence of the presence of super-agers at the demonstration in Berlin).

Berlin 2024-2-3. Demonstration
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Fighting Fascists

On february 3rd 2024 Berlin has seen the Parliament (Bundestag in the old Reichstag building) surrounded by young and old to raise their voice against the rise of right wing extremism in Germany. The broad alliance against extremism finds grassroots support from a very broad and diverse community. 1700 organizations have joined forces to send a strong signal that they are ready to act against the inhuman propaganda and persistent hate speech. The creativity to express the discontent in clear messages is impressive. Civil society is showing that diversity offers multiple benefits to find new ways to unite people. Great that European flags and balloons in Ukrainian colors where present as well. A movement of solidarity was felt with these people and that provides a strong message for the months ahead with so many elections taking place at the local, regional, national and European levels.

Berlin 2024-2-3
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Modernism

More and more people move into cities. A modern way of living is more accessible there. Besides abundant car traffic public services of transportation like buses and underground are within easy walking distance. Culture, science and education offer attractive opportunities for learning, working and leisure. Diversity is an additional asset most people appreciate of cities. The chances to live your very own way of life are much easier to achieve and thrive in as in remote or rural communities. “Birds of the same feather flock together “. It is easy to find likeminded people among a million people than among a hundred particularly if you’re a bit off the mainstream or avantgarde. The excitement of birds passing the city can reach the emotional force of Hitchcock’s famous movie “The birds”. Even in the modern world we not quite sure what these creatures are up to. Is it a swarm of drones? Are they out of control? Modernism has brought us many amenities, we have to make sure that we really are still in control.

Berlin Kleistpark 2024-1
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AI and We

Research is beginning to provide empirical evidence and experimental modelling results on the widespread use of generative AI. First results by Doshi and Hauser point at the individual benefits of using artificial intelligence but the widespread use of it is likely to narrow the scope of novel content. This research is particularly interesting because it deals with the micro level to macro level aggregation effects. It is fine for me to use AI. If it becomes a mass phenomenon, we expect in sum a negative outcome for society as a whole.
The example at hand deals with the capability to innovate or to come up with novel content. As more and more texts or newspapers are published with extensive use of genAI, the real element of creation will remain the domain of humans for quite some time.
In my opinion this is due to the difficulties for algorithms to differentiate between the positive and too risky negative aspects of innovative solutions. A query for AI might ask to come up with an innovative solution for auto-mobility of short distances. A human being might propose walking due to the additional health effects the AI might propose helicopter lifts. The not so stupid machine would need a lot of additional information about circumstances to generate useful solutions. Therefore it is not surprising that sometimes public transport apps propose to walk short distances rather than waiting for “delayed or unreliable services“ they provide themselves. Personal circumstances like mobility with children, other dependents or luggage are usually beyond the scope of the information base of the algorithms.
On the other hand, if the AI knows that 50.000 persons after an event want to take public transport at the same time the indication to walk or wait solves an aggregation problem of individual preferences to adapt to available capacities. Lots of issues to solve for AI and us or better yet, us and AI.
(Image creation: AI using Microsoft Dall-E Image creator: Prompt: a person with notebook in profile and in front of 5 other persons in Office with windows 26.1.2024, 8:24 PM)

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Shrinkflation

Shrinkflation is a hybrid term that combines “to shrink” with “inflation”. The trick is to keep prices at the same level for a product, but to reduce the weight or amount sold at a constant price. The intention of producers is to indirectly increase prices without touching at price tickets on products. As consumer you are likely to remember the price tag of a product, but much less the unit costs. However, the unit price is the basis for fair comparisons. In supermarkets there is an obligation to print also unit prices (€/kg or €/L) next to price labels. Comparisons allow information irrespective of package size. In shrinkflation the higher unit costs of a product will drive the official measure of inflation (Destatis, 2024). In Germany inflation for food had the top inflation rate in 2023, surpassing even price rises for energy.
On the one hand, shrinkflation is cheating on consumers to sell them less for the same price. On the other hand, oversized products that solicit higher consumption are part of the health and environmental problems we face. The obesity pandemic is part of the XXL consumption hype the food industry and supermarkets have created. In this respect, more expensive food (Eurostat info) potentially may trigger the rethinking of consumption and nutrition. “Eating better instead of less” has always been more expensive.
Besides the profit-maximising logic of shrinkflation, there is at least a small hope that behavioural changes might be triggered to consume less, to use less detergent in washing, less sugar drinks, smaller size pizza and so on. Shrinking our food intake is part of the solution for many problems. In the end cutting out most convenience food will save you a lot of money. As a side effect of such behavioural changes, eventually prices are likely to come down some time later again.

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Ideal City

Ideal City

Even beyond humans the issue of what constitutes the ideal city is a matter of historical as well as experimental significance. Science has recently uncovered a city like organization of habitats in the Amazon region (Link Science.org). The organization of the Greek city states has been the model for the development of democratic ideation. The Roman imperialism has thrived through the splendor of its cities and city lifestyle. No surprise that this continues to be a constant concern for humanity.
Rapid urbanization continues in Africa and Asia. Europe also struggles to keep pace with infrastructure development in every growing cities. Whereas the ideal city in the early Italian Renaissance was imagined without trees, we witness a renewed interest to bring back nature-like environments and architecture back into cities. Combining the best of 2 worlds seems possible. Redesigning inner cities remains a continuous challenge. It is much more than thinking about bricks and mortar. It is mostly about how we want to live, work and communicate together. Therefore, it concerns all of us. Paintings help us along in our ideation about where and how we want to live together. The linear views of the Renaissance appear hardly convenient after the experience of the 20th century.
(Image Gemäldegalerie Berlin, 2024-1, Raum XVIII, Ident Nr. 1615 “Ideal city” from ca 1490 attributed to Francesco di Giogio Martini and next to well-known ideal “Venus” painting by Sandro Botticelli 1490).

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Ethics of posterity

We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors; we are borrowing it from our descendants. (native American saying). Adeline Johns-Putra (2019) states this early in her book on “Climate change and the novel.” Her concern is how to think and write about the ethics of posterity. Approaches of ethics in the sense of parental care (for the planet) or motherhood environmentalism do not suffice in view of overpopulation of our planet. Shifting our identity away from toxic production and consumption is advocated in many novels. Science and science fiction offer many dystopian examples.
De Shalit (1995) wrote early on why posterity matters. It is not the standard of living of contemporaries that matters but we should consider ourselves as a part of a transgenerational community. The time horizon of our decisions matters. In pursuing arguments by John Rawls who re-established a contractionalist perspective on justice, we have to include future generations into our contractual obligations. Following this approach we might arrive at Brundtland’s perspective on the ethics of posterity which is called sufficientarianism in opposition to simple utilitarianism. In sufficientarianism we owe future generations a just and decent living or at least the possibility to have similar starting conditions. Shifting beyond the apocalyptic view of environmental disasters Adeline Johns-Putra (2019) brings to the forefront that we have to substantially lengthen  our time horizon both for consequences of climate change and for dealing with it, albeit the fact that most destructive practices operate much faster than the re-establishing of greater biodiversity.
P.S.:Thanks to the curators of the Lese Lounge Staatsbibliothek Berlin for ease of access to the literature.
(Image: Natur & Kultur in “Extreme tension: Art between Politics and Society” Collection of the Nationalgalerie 1945-2000“. 2024-1)

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On Justice

Justice is a topic a bit like democracy. Most people deem it possible to simply state something is just or unjust, democratic or undemocratic, black or white. Rather than such a binary perspective it is often more helpful to take the pains to differentiate the many facets of each term and the complexity to categorize or to subsume a case under one or the other label.
Additionally, there is an evolutionary perspective on these topics. Individual cases evolve in form of trajectories. The binary view of justice or no justice might become more clear or more blurred. The exhibition of the “Topography of Terror” in Berlin offers a well established and documented view of the NS-terror during the years 1933-1945. The examples of horrific injustices throughout the exhibition are abundant. To perform justice is a much more difficult exercise and encounters lots of impediments.
In January 2024 Christl Wickert presented her extensive research in archives which she published in the Metropol Verlag 2022 under the title “Keine Gerechtigkeit. Die ungleiche Unterstützung des KZ-Überlebenden Fritz Bringmann und des SS-Mannes Walter Filsinger nach 1945”. (engl. title and image below). Christl Wickert follows the life courses of the young Fritz Bringmann, prisoner in KZ Sachsenhausen and Neuengamme as of 17 years of age, and the life course of the SS member as of 17 years of age and SS soldier Walter Filsinger. Their life courses crossed at the concentration camp Neuengamme near Hamburg and perhaps later again in Hamburg Bergedorf. Whereas Fritz Bringmann had to struggle to get compensation for his injuries during imprisonment, Walter Filsinger managed through multiple manipulations of documents and dubious support from administrators as well as medical doctors to obtain war victim benefits.
From life course research we know that early disadvantages are hard to compensate throughout the following decades. This juxtaposition of 2 cases localised in the neighbourhood of Hamburg demonstrates this with full force. Injustice at the early stage of the life course is not compensated but rather magnified through the handling of each case through the proceedings of “administrative justice” in the institution building in the first few decades of the Federal Republic of Germany. The “thick description” as a scientific method is a lesson in unfolding as well as later on unravelling injustice.

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Air quality EU

On some days of the year there is a cumulative effect of bad influences on air quality in Europe. Cold winter temperatures increase emissions from heating. Outdated heating with coal, still important in Eastern Europe, causes high amounts of extra particles in the atmosphere. In January 2024 a train conductor strike in Germany irrespective of the good reasons for it, makes people take their cars. Road blockades by opponents to reducing diesel subsidies to agri-business add to the pollution situation on a specific day. Overall the population suffers and breathes additional amounts of cancerous particles. Particles settle as dust on crop producing soil, of which we all feed ourselves. This is a vicious circle, which we need to break in the interest of all of us, particularly for the more fragile people and children. The latter start to crowd the medical doctors with sometimes lacking the delivery of crucial medicines for this target group. Where do we go from here? Compromises are key, security of supply chain and allowing, not too much, time for transition periods.

source aqicn.com 2024-1-10
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Museum Orga

The cathedrals of modernity are under permanent scrutiny. The discussion in Germany was sparked by a recommendation of the scientific advisory council to the federal government (Wissenschaftsrat) to separate the Prussian heritage museums and institutions (SPK) in Berlin into separate entities that have higher autonomy to shape their individual profiles. Too much hierarchy blocks innovation and openness to new approaches that might not fit an overriding instance of decision making. The arts and sciences as well as their libraries need substantial degrees of freedom to flourish in their specific cultural and societal environment. The same discussion is currently occupying Paris and France, since overall the visitors after the Covid-19 crises have not yet come back to the same levels. Digitalization has opened up new opportunities and potentials to reach new audiences. This needed new resources even at a time of budget constraints. Museums have started to take their social functions more seriously besides their role to preserve the cultural heritage. Economic thinking in terms of scarcity of art works, competition between museums and cities or countries for tourism have entered the stages as well. Prices of entry and quantities of visitors have become additional concerns in the organization of the museum landscape. A lot to cope with and to balance multiple policy targets. Accessibility of those treasures is key. Opening up to broader audiences is costly but crucial to provide the justification of the public funds allocated. Great to see more complementary private investment in this exciting field. The prominent archers in front of the Berlin museums have moved ahead into a new round of competition in the organization of museums.

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Sleeping

Sleep is a process. That is why it is best to talk of sleeping rather than sleep. There exists abundant research on sleep and more and more acknowledge the process-like characteristics of sleep. The medical literature deals a lot with sleep apnoea, which constitutes a serious health condition. Time use surveys establish links between daily activities and sleeping for example. The social context is another influence on sleeping. Friends and family co-determine sleeping patterns as well. The latest better understood impact on sleeping depends on the use of technological devices before and during sleeping. Smart phones reveal themselves as not so smart if it comes to the quality of your sleep. At least this the result of the study on „bedtime technology use on sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness“. It yet another field in which technology is slowly creeping under our skin and we have to learn how to handle negative side effects before they endanger our physical as well as mental health. Bedtime routines or reading without a screen before falling asleep appears to be a worthwhile way to improve sleeping. Worth trying out again and again.

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Survivors

The survivors of war have experienced unimaginable violence and suffering. Once fighting ends the horrors of war live on in the memories of all survivors irrespective of which side they have been fighting. Almost all have lost someone or something they cherished before the outbreak of war. Käthe Kollwitz has depicted these horrific experiences in many examples of her art work. They speak to us today just as much as in the past. Berlin is a great place to learn more about her art. The image below is an extract from a drawing in poster form edited by the International Trade Union Federation from 1923 shown in the Brücke Museum in Berlin Dahlem in 2023.

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Helplessness

Learned helplessness is another which we have to be aware of as social scientists. It is far from surprising that for example giving birth has been transferred from the professional care and exercise of midwives to medical doctors and hospitals. This creates a kind of maximal security around the most natural of events that of child birth. Over the last few decades we have witnessed a pathologising of birth as high risk event. Additionally an emergencification has pushed costs upwards for social security systems as well. In numerous other domains like breast feeding industrial interests have pushed for replacement solutions which are worse than second best solutions.

In other domains like shopping we tend to believe that we need a car to assist us in the endeavor. It is mostly a choice of the least effort to use a personally owned vehicle to replace other solutions which demand more effort of organization like car or bike sharing options. The frequent result is “learned helplessness”. After years of getting used to the debilitating ease of use of navigation systems in cars and bikes we find it hard to put effort into a little self-organization. Learned helplessness will be a substantial burden on our health and social systems if we do not manage to reverse this trend. At times of increased skill shortages we shall no longer have the many helping hands needed to stem the powerful trend of learned helplessness.

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Communicate Broadly

Broadcasting before podcasting has been a kind of revolution in communication technology. The potential of mass communication was promising at the beginning with cultural practices spreading to wider groups in society. Let us take the example of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB). Suddenly the audiences grew enormously and it became a public duty to allow the participation of the masses in so-called high art. The foundation of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin had and has again such a mission. In a memorable address to the foundation of the radio Albert Einstein gave an historic address (Link). He praised the scientific method of discovery and the engineering skills that allowed the new technology to serve all people. The fascists in Germany were early in abusing the technology to manipulate society. Albert Einstein was well aware of this danger to society. His speech is a historic testimony before the waves of emigration began fleeing Nazi-Germany. The best brains were the first to sense the power of the new communication technologies to influence the masses. Broadcasting is around with us in even more invasive ways and many praise themselves to be influencers.

Albert Einstein 1923 Speech Radio Berlin
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Trending

Some cartoonists or scientists have a special capacity to sense and to explain upcoming trends. Put in a humoristic form the audience you are likely to reach will by far exceed the numbers you might reach otherwise. Loriot had a gift in this respect which is much acclaimed in Germany. Taking issue with the obsession of driving a car and all sorts of topics related he foresaw the trend to massive expansion of road traffic and what this trend, if extrapolated, will do to us. Mankind will change, men will no longer be kind. We return to animal-like behaviour and become slaves of the new technologies we create. Bad weather at least makes us rethink our mobility patterns.

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Pathology

The definition of disease, illness or disability are a matter of details of definitions. Mostly it is left entirely to medical professionals to define the limits of what shall be considered a disease or not. Pathology is the scientific discipline dealing with this difficult task. As in the scientific endeavor it is honorable to crown your research by finding or defining a new disease not necessarily finding a treatment for it, we have learned about new diseases at regular intervals. Attention deficit syndrome also known as hyperactivity is such an example. Many pupils have received treatments and some made splendid progress in their education due to early recognition of their condition as well as abilities. However, some children have received treatment with questionable diagnostic evidence or just to be able to fit into our modern ways of organizing our schools. We might frame this as a process of “to pathologise” persons or whole groups in society.

The American definition of what constitutes a higher than normal blood pressure or colesterol deviates from the one applied in many European countries so that sometimes the double amount of people should receive medical attention and treatment. From this it becomes more evident that even within the field of pathology there is a societal dimension to it. The “dry january” addresses the pathology of alcohol addiction. Smoking falls into a similar category but no smoke free month has been suggested yet. While it has become normal to overuse antibiotics we shouldn’t reproduce the same mistakes with other medications. We simply need a broader discourse about pathology and the societal origins and implications of it. From the Roman times we have amphitheaters and sacred buildings that we value today. Few sanatoria have survived but a few Roman baths as a preventative approach have survived in the British city of Bath or in the German city of Trier, both quite far from Rome. We should sometimes think more carefully before defining a disease. Not all are pathological. If it seems difficult to stem against the trend of “pathologising”. The ensuing overload of the medical system in consequence is a serious issue. The medical system will degenerate into a system to manage waiting queues with absurd, unequal and unnecessary adverse outcomes. Therefore, sociologists consider the pathologising of societies as just another kind of pathology.

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Emergencification

Particularly around holiday seasons across the whole year we observe the “emergencification” in modern societies. This not so new trend consists in the strategy to artificially create emergency situations in which it is considered reasonable to ask for higher prices. It appears to be just another kind of a “greedflation”, whereby extra profits can be reaped due to shortages of food or particular forms of energy. Medical services have also pushed for an emergencification of their services due to ever longer waiting queues for appointments and treatments. The strategy here is easily disclosed. (1) You decline any appointment earlier for inspection of cars, heating systems, office equipment or medical check-ups and sooner or later a “planned” emergency will arise, which allows you to charge higher prices than the routine in time appointment or treatment. This makes prevention of more costly interventions far more difficult. In sum, the costs to society as a whole rise by the simple way of emergencification.
Even using a repair platform, we did not receive a single offer for a more lengthy and costly repair of my 10+ year old car. Hence, we just wait for a breakdown with more serious and costly consequences. Unfortunately, the same holds true for many medical services. If you no longer manage to assure a timely consultation you are more likely to go directly to the emergency services of a hospital. This is then the costly, but only alternative left to you. In the artificially created emergency you have little room for negotiation and a choice of different offers and conditions. It is a shift in negotiation powers to the service provider. The emergencification creates a price inflation of a specific kind. Worryingly, this kind of inflation is well beyond the normal statistical measurement of inflation national statistical offices observe. In addition to the much debated “greedflation” we should deal with the emergencification as an additional price mechanism. Just ask about examples among your friends or in the neighourhood whether they have lived through an example of emergencification. The stories are abundant and full of surprises. The example I heard: “birth and death, both come as a surprise or emergency, and yet we have the whole life to prepare the latter one”. Part of image taken from “Loriot “on the pleasures of driving (2022. Subtitle:” I suppose the screen wipers caused the trouble”.

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Testing

In winter times we rely more frequently on test to find out about sickness. Covid-19 testing has proven pretty effective in this respect. Often it is preferable to test more persons positive if at the risk of having many false positives. False negative tests can have many fatal consequences. Hence we have to weigh the risks of both kinds of false tests. This applies to many other diseases and diagnoses as well. There is no certainty but only a probability of each of the test results. The true result may deviate from the observed or tested result. FF FT TF TT are the possible outcomes of (1) the underlying true or false outcomes, which can have test scores of true or false as well. Not much new here the rest is statistics or probabilities to be more precise.

The overall outcome of testing or true sickness for some only God may know. Cancellations of events may be the result of one or the other reasoning.

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Nachhaltigkeitskonzept

Ein Nachhaltigkeitskonzept gehört zum Bauen mittlerweile wie das Gelbe zum Ei. Die Einreichungen zum Realisierungswettbewerb eines Portals für das Deutsche Technik Museum Berlin hatten entsprechende Anforderungen zu erfüllen. Für ein Technik Museum können dazu die Anforderungen schon etwas höher sein und die oft geforderte „Technologieoffenheit“ oder die Diskussion darüber zumindest andeuten. Der Anerkennungspreis ging an ein Konsortium für die Einreichung 1110, die eine klare Übersicht ihres Nachhaltigkeitskonzepts vorstellten (siehe Auszug Image unten, Foto aus der Ausstellung 2023-12). Nachwachsende Baustoffe gehören zum Repertoire. Gleichzeitig sollte die Erhaltung oder gar Förderung der Biodiversität Teil der nachhaltigen Konzeption sein. Innerstädtisch ist die Rückumwandlung der Versiegelung der Böden eine wichtige gesundheitsfördernde Bauweise. Kühlung in den aufgeheizten Städten ist durch Grünflächen und Beschattung zu erreichen. Tolle Architekten sind das, die den Mut aufbringen den Stachel in die Wunde zu legen. Die Anwohnenden und Besuchenden würden es den Verantwortlichen jahrzehntelang danken.
Das sind längst keine abgefahrenen grünen Ideen oder Träumereien mehr. Paris hat es schon längst vor gemacht. Ganz nah beim Eiffelturm ist das „Musée du Quai Branly –  Jacques Chirac“ das als Neubau mit Garten vom konservativen Präsidenten Jacques Chirac eine grüne Naturoase mitten im Herzen Paris hat bauen lassen. Es ist immer noch eine Art Geheimtipp für Pariser in den zu warmen Sommermonaten. Berlin könnte wie mit der vom Pyramiden-Architekten Pei geplanten Eingangshalle vom Deutschen Historischen Museum mal wieder mit einem Nachhaltigkeitskonzept mit Paris gleichziehen. Gemeinsam können wir auch nachhaltig. Mit der vom Menschen und seiner Technik verursachten Erderwärmung haben die nachfolgenden Generationen noch lange genug zu kämpfen. Mehr Nachhaltigkeitskonzepte braucht die Technik. Das ist die wirkliche Herausforderung des 21. Jahrhunderts.

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Tears mastered

Not many authors find decent ways to write about sad moments and the mastering of tears. Can we master tears? Should we even try to? For authors the question poses itself of a different kind. How do I write about emotions in which a person bursts in tears or sheds a single tear. Even mastering tears or the delayed unmastered tears give rise to ample drama. Have you found a poet or author to whom you relate through the sorrows s/he expresses? Reading itself is a process of mastering tears due to the possibility to go through a wide spread of negative and positive emotions.
Towards the end of her life Cata Dujšin – Ribar wrote a poem that links to the imagery of the Norwegian poet Jon Fosse. Thanks to the exposition of her paintings and writing in the Zagreb City Museum Cata can become known to a wider audience. Hardly any traces in the internet of her writings in English make her even more of a local hero and an early female role model. The windmills are powered by the nothingness of our illusions.  The beauty of futility is revealed in our dream. She puts it so much better. The biography and work of Cata Dujšin – Ribar summarises to some extent the whole history and misery of the 20th century beyond the Balkan region in a few words.

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Selfie Museum

We have learned that games are not only played for fun. So-called serious games have found their way into health applications where we might learn while playing a game of how to integrate more walking into our life in the city. While walking after work I happened to pass the Selfie Museum in Zagreb. In fact despite carrying the name of museum it is more an assembly of scenarios in which you can realize many selfies in different settings that have been prepared for that purpose. Hence your production of photo shooting with yourself as the major character is facilitated and you no longer have to spend a lot of time on the setups. Call it a museum and you’ll have more visibility and visitors.

Styles of selfies have changed and shooting very short videos to post on tiktok is of course easy there. A real threat to huge and expensive cinema studios considering the enormous reach some of these selfies can reach. It is a bit like a theatre with multiple stages for everybody to use at moderate costs. Before long we shall come to realize the potential for many more interested in theatre to become actors and directors themselves. Democratize the world of theatre is the new social dimension here. Test yourself in another profession through playful interaction. Test and learn about other competencies. We are in the middle of the next wave of “gameification” previously reserved to people ready to accept higher risks of likely failure. The young can now take their parents to the museum and show off their culture and skills. Intergenerational learning has a new aspect as well. The sociology of the virtual has another phenomenon to evaluate.

Zahgreb 2023-12 Selfie museum
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Arms trade

The sustainability of war depends a lot on the availability of arms. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) publishes regularly updated data on arms trade. The report ranks countries who are the most important exporters as well as importers of arms (from 2018-2022). The lists show for exporters that the U.S has been at the top of exporters with 40% of the global export share followed by Russia with 16%. France 11%, China 5.2, Germany 4.2 come next on the list. Taken together Italy, Spain and the U.K. reach another 10% jointly of global exports. South Korea and Israel come in with shares of 2.4 and 2.3 respectively. The top ten serve allies but also more broadly the world arms trade and race. New dynamics have started to come into force. The Russian aggression and war on Ukraine territory will have an impact to the extent that Russia is probably exporting less and shift to a more importing state.
Among the importing countries India is leading the ranking followed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. More generally Asia and the Middle East were the most important buying countries. Importing arms might be interpreted as an indicator of perceived threat to a country. Long cycles of arms renewal may also drive statistics of arms trade, but new threats like cybersecurity and space technology have created new fields of potential attack and defence.
All in all, yet another rationale attributed to Clausewitz seems to play a role in driving the arms trade. “If you are perceived to be weak, an enemy will use this to attack”. Well, this also means that buying arms, producing or importing them, could deter a military aggression. That form of deterrence of aggression is known from the nuclear arms race as well. In the realm of conventional weapons, we have thought, it would no longer apply. We were mistaken in this respect. The dividend of peace has come to an end for many countries. The SIPRI report (2003, summary p.9) shows the continued rise on the global level of the arms trade. Why are we so scared of each other? Russia has reverted to imperial politics using conventional weapons. Containing such disrespect of internal law needs our full attention to avoid a spreading to other areas. The link of diplomacy and trade needs close scrutiny.

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Preference

In societies it is not easy to derive collective preferences of citizens. Elections every 4 years tell sometimes nothing on specific issues which were not debated or of sufficient relevance at the time of the election. Dealing with snow and slippery sidewalks is hardly an issue at all. However, the preference to clear roads meticulously rather than bicycle and pedestrian paths in a dead end road reveals preferences for „s‘heilig Blechle“ the holy tin box (car) in many cities. Our orthopedic units in hospitals are crowded at such times and those costs are hardly attributed to the source of human negligence for fellow humans. We would expect that aging societies start to address such topics but little change has occurred so far. Hence we claim airbags for pedestrians and cyclists😂. Preferences probably have changed already but implementation is slow and faces strong opposition as well. It’s always easier to lock frail persons into their apartments at such snowy times. It feels a bit like corona where it was also easier to restrict mobility for pedestrians and children than to deal properly with the virus. Aggregation of preferences in societies remains a challenge and sociology has a lot to offer in this regard.

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Energy Storage

News agent Reuters has published an analysis of the setback for short peak coverage of electricity by power plants fueled with gas. Conclusion: economically no longer viable. Investors draw back even from contracts already signed. What is the game changer technology here. Batteries that store energy just like the batteries of millions of cats that have a storage capacity to supply energy for a whole household for more than 2 days. Other giant batteries cost only half the price compared to 5 years ago equal to $150 per kwh. In five years solar energy doubled its share of energy production to now reach the same amount as energy provision by gas.
Reaching a critical turning point in energy generation, investors flock to the more profitable medium or long-term investment. Good news for the planet. Wind and the sun are all around us. We have only started to cover roof tops of office buildings, car parks and other shelters. Start thinking about your energy storage as of now and reserve a suitable space for it. Costs are coming down rapidly in a few years or maybe only a few months.

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Twitter Retreat

There are many migrating species in nature. Birds form a large part of the them. This follows a kind of annual or seasonal pattern. Depending on the migration experience and dangers some, sometimes many don’t come back. This seems to describe the migration experience of the tweeting bird called twitter. Changing the name from Twitter to X, whereby X for maths-oriented people stands for a variable name that can be filled with any value. For the cinema industry X stands for x-rated adult only content and has rather obnoxious content. This might hold for web content as well.
Online through “https://netzpolitik.org/2023/x-odus-immer-mehr-medien-machen-schluss-mit-twitter/ the disastrous consequences of harsh human resource policies and lack of political sensitivity can be followed. Multiplying biased opinions of right-wing extremists, the platform has been highjacked and many tweeting birds leave or have left already.
Leaving is not easy though. People and enterprises have invested substantial amounts of money into tweeting and software developers have created specialised features to make it easy to spread press releases or info via these add-on services. I myself benefitted from services to show my tweets on my webpage or to easily publish info or links to the webpage. As of now, with migrating away most of these investments will be lost. It was smooth and easy, but now we start this all over again with other comparable platforms and assistance from developers. Mastodon and Bluesky are on the rise as alternative platforms and most likely we shall use both for some time just like Netzpolitik and many others. If already 1/3 of users intend to leave Twitter/X the impact of big advertisers leaving the platform has even more impact. After all they pay for reaching potentially millions of platform users, but now they reach only a steeply biased subset of previous users. Deleting the Twitter/X app saves you from other potential unwanted monitoring or tracking. Only the addresses on Mastodon for example are a bit longer like @mastodon.social@klausschoemann. Decentral monitoring of illicit undesirable content has advantages and disadvantages. We shall have to monitor this a bit ourselves and contribute more actively to save such platforms from bad weather or seasonal migration.

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APP Circus

We are all keen to have as many APPs as possible on our Smartphones. Instead of collecting post stamps some of us collect APPs on our mobile devices as well as desktop computers. As with almost all so-called for free software, the APPs are not for free, we just pay with our personal information used for some usually not disclosed other purposes. On webpages we are used to at least confirm that we agree to the use. Alternatively, we should have the option to decline the use of transmitting personal information, user analytics or tracking. The organisation “Netzpolitik.org” has published a short overview article on the results of the research by  Konrad Kollnig published in Internet Policy Review. The main message is: even 5 years after the adoption of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) little has changed for the tracking and data collection in the world of APPs. Both Apple store IOS and Google Play Android are concerned.
In contrast to webpages APPs a vast majority of APPs, which we perhaps thought would provide tracking-free access to services, does in fact use “secretly” the tracking. Additionally, many APPs transmit personal information and credit card details even without encryption. A so-called middle man attack would “listen” to the transmission and potentially abuse the accessed information. The proof of the abuse of your financial details will be on the side of the consumer, completely ignorant of the potential threat from all sorts of APPs. This market is evolving with rapid speed and what used to be at the top in 2022 is no longer at the top in 2023.
Based on an online query for France on 2023-11-28 via www.appfigures.com the data reveal interesting market insights. Gaming is making a new push on the APP-market again. TIKTOK still remains fairly high up in the ranking. Conversion from free download to paid versions seems to work in several instances as well. It needs to be checked whether the paid versions do use less tracking and provide better overall security. A frugal use or regular checking whether you really need all those APPs you have currently installed on your device should reduce your very own cybersecurity risk. It seems like “Less can be more” – fewer  APPS, more security – is also valid in this respect.