Limit

Every well-designed system has limits. Exceed them and the system fails. We apply this logic to software, to bridges, to aircraft. We do not apply it to society — and that is why society keeps failing. We need to put limits on bad things. We can be more indulgent with someone who stole a phone, a purse, or bread — because society may be lacking jobs, or in crisis, or at war. But if there are jobs and someone simply prefers to steal, then even if the amount is small, they must be punished in order to deter them from doing it again. There must be a limit — as there can be a threshold to define petty theft, there must also be a limit on reoffending. At some point, a person must go to prison and follow an education programme designed for their type of crime.

There must also be other limits — such as how much a person should have to spend on shelter or basic food. It cannot be the case that eating requires half a basic salary, or that shelter requires a full one.

We are in an era of technology, complex and efficient systems, variables, and limits. Engineering thinking does not seem to have reached politics. To prevent a programme from failing, we set limits — and if we want to change a limit, we work on improvements that allow the system to function at the new level. We must apply the same thinking to society in order to improve people's lives. Instead, we use variables, limits, and technology — and our brightest minds — to generate more money for investors, even when that goes against the public interest.

Tú

¿Qué hay entre el yo y el tú? No la unión —eso es el nosotros—. Sino la intersección: lo que ya éramos antes de encontrarnos. Tú se refiere a una segunda persona cuando yo es la primera. Nos referimos al tú como algo externo, separado —a menos que sea un siamés unido a su hermano, aunque incluso en ese caso nos referimos a ellos como dos seres, y el uno se refiere al otro como tú—. Todos los que no son yo son tú como individuos; pero como grupo que no incluye al yo, son ellos. Los subgrupos de ellos, mientras no incluyan al yo, siguen siendo ellos, aunque no estén todos los tú. Y de forma similar, nosotros es el yo con algún tú —aunque no estén todos los tú—.

Visto desde la teoría de conjuntos: la unión de los tú es ellos, pero ¿cuál es la intersección? Hablamos solo de la parte que es común a ambos. De forma similar, tú y yo formamos la unión que es nosotros —pero ¿qué es la intersección? En ambos casos son las partes compartidas entre el tú y el yo—. Las partes en común.

Si lo pensamos desde las tres áreas de desarrollo: en lo físico tenemos en común el oxígeno, las células, la carne, la sangre; en lo mental, la lógica y los modelos mentales; y en lo espiritual, una misma luz. Sin embargo, un átomo de oxígeno puede parecer igual a otro —pero son dos distintos. No es lo mismo.

Libro

Hay tres pasos entre un libro y la sabiduría: información, conocimiento, aplicación. La mayoría se queda en el primero. Leer libros no te va a convertir en más sabio solo por leerlos. Los libros son información; esa información necesita convertirse en conocimiento, y el conocimiento debe ser aplicado con inteligencia. Eso por una parte. Por otra, el conocimiento puede ser verdad o mentira —puede estimular la creatividad, el amor, el servicio y la búsqueda de la verdad, o puede estimular la rigidez, la indiferencia, el victimismo y la mentira—.

Una forma simple y directa de decirlo es que si metes basura en tu cabeza, solo puede salir basura. Y para evitarlo, creo que es muy importante aprender sobre lógica, sesgos, ética, filosofía e historia —desde un punto de vista analítico y reflexivo—.

Un libro puede ser una ventana a un mundo de conocimiento acumulado durante toda una vida, puesto a disposición de la humanidad. Así, el conocimiento acumulado se facilita a las nuevas generaciones para que progresen sobre el camino andado por sus antecesores. Y he aquí la clave: deben aprender de los errores y los aciertos del pasado.

El libro ha sido, es y seguirá siendo un contenedor de información. Es poder pasivo —necesita ser convertido en activo—.

Cabinet

A cabinet should be like a team of heroes when the people need salvation — salvation from tyranny, corruption, insecurity, and the destruction of public services. That is the role in troubled times. But in times of peace, they can be the heroes of stability, progress, and improvement.

The members of a cabinet must share a common purpose, goals, values, and mission. This means there are certain matters on which they cannot afford fundamental disagreement — and that is the mark of a good cabinet. They can disagree, but once they have chosen what to do and how to do it, they must act in agreement on the why. That common reason must be what keeps them together. They must also be willing to try different approaches. You can help, disagree and not help, or go against — but going against is a signal: either that person should not be part of the team, or the team may be doing something wrong. That doubt is healthy, in the sense that it reflects a conscience alert to doing good. Because keeping the humility of knowing we could be wrong is essential — otherwise it becomes hubris, and in hubris we are blinded and in decay.

Purpose, goals, values, and mission must not only be the core of the cabinet but of the whole people. If the people and their leaders are not aligned, they are not yet one. And to build a society of brotherhood and wisdom, they must be aligned in the same good values, goals, and purpose. A cabinet of heroes is not one that wins battles alone — it is one whose purpose is so clear, and so shared with the people, that the whole society becomes the hero.

Foreman

People in power need persons who get things done. And in every hierarchy there are more than two levels — those at the top use a foreman to control and manage the others. People who had slaves to work the fields or mines used slaves who were put in charge of overseeing the rest. These foremen received perhaps a bed instead of sleeping in a group; they got the first portion of the slaves' food — but not the same food their owner ate. Perhaps they could have some of that food as a gift when they reached a milestone, but it could not be always. The separation was always maintained. The foreman received very little and made promises to serve and control others — but he would never become one of the owners. Sociologists call this the intermediary class — close enough to power to enforce it, far enough away to never share it.

Similar structures are still present today. There may be a few exceptions, and these exceptions are used as the promises and small rewards that motivate foremen to follow orders and act as the middle layer that does what the upper class wants. They even protect those above them by their own initiative. They are an indispensable part of keeping hierarchies in place. And they have the power to tip the balance in favour of the top or the bottom.

Utter

Being in an utter state of flow is something that should be taught. I think most people experience it only by chance. We try to do something and maybe we get there, maybe not — but we do not do it deliberately. We are more inclined to be distracted. Is this a phenomenon of the last couple of centuries? Perhaps in the past it was easier — in the sense that we now feel there are too many devices, and we act as though they were extensions of ourselves. Maybe the distractions of past centuries came instead from fantasies of the imagination. And those would have been the result of boredom. And from that boredom, imagination and creativity surged — producing great inventions and great discoveries.

I think of it as a line from -10 to 10: one extreme is utter distraction, the other is utter flow. Over the last couple of centuries, the average may have shifted towards the negative side.

But further back in the past, were there not also fewer distractions? Perhaps the difference between BC and AD centuries is that more people now have the opportunity to be creative, and have access to environments and tools that ignite and fan the fire of creativity — better conditions overall. And that is why there are more discoveries and inventions. Ancient times were more about survival, about finding food.

Colmillo

Los colmillos los asociamos con vampiros gracias al cine —aunque desconozco si, anterior al cine, la literatura ya había influido en el imaginario colectivo con la descripción de los vampiros y sus colmillos—.

Recientemente, viendo la serie Dexter, en uno de sus capítulos aparecía un asesino en serie que extraía un colmillo de cada una de sus víctimas como trofeo. Creo que le llamaban el Ratoncito Pérez —aunque debe ser por la traducción al español; en la versión original seguramente tenía otro apodo—.

Un colmillo es una pieza dental asociada a los carnívoros. Tigres y leones los usan para herir a sus presas y sujetarlas. Las serpientes, para morder e inyectar su veneno.

No me suena que colmillo tenga otro significado más allá del literal. En inglés, colmillo es fang, y su plural, fangs.

Posiblemente un antropólogo sepa más sobre colmillos —los usan para deducir información a partir de restos de animales—, lo que me lleva a pensar también en los paleontólogos y los dentistas. Aunque supongo que un dentista diría poco más allá de lo básico. Es solo una suposición desde mi ignorancia en esas áreas. Lo que sí me parece más claro es que un informático tiene menos probabilidades de saber algo al respecto, a menos que tenga alguna relación indirecta —como un videojuego o cualquier otro software que involucre colmillos—.