No, I won’t. Or only after crossing out the “please”.
Because I get annoyed by people abusing language.
“RSVP” is the abbreviation for the French sentence “Répondez s’il vous plaît” which translates as “Please reply”. Therefore, RSVP does not need an additional “please”.
That caught your attention, didn’t it?
And on the face of it, it’s true and backed up by facts and statistics:
Conclusion: Reading my blog keeps you alive.
“Damn. We should have read Andreas Moser’s blog.”
Or does it? You immediately sense that a few things are fishy here, even if you believe that I know each one of my readers personally and know that they are alive: Of the people who died yesterday, many had no access to the internet. If they also live in countries with higher mortality rates, their chance of death is of course higher than those of the bulk of my readers who are in the USA and Europe (see the flag counter on the right hand side). This increased mortality risk might have less to do with lack of wifi, but with lack of food or the danger of diseases or with a war. On the other hand, of the people who read my blog, some might be couch potatoes who never venture outside. They don’t have the risk of car accidents, of being shot or struck by lightning. But again, the reason for their longevity is not reading my blog, the reason is staying inside.
You see that just because two events (reading my blog and staying alive) happen at the same time or to the same people, there is not necessarily a causal connection, as long as there are other possible more causal connections (like the country where you live or the dangers that you are exposed to, in this example).
Correlation is not causation!
In fact, correlation does not even imply causation.
With a silly example like the one I have chosen, this is obviously clear. But keep this sentence in mind when you read or hear about the latest “new study” that tries to show a link between something and cancer or something and crime or something and divorce. This is especially true for the social sciences, because human interactions are so complex that they will rarely be open to monocausal explanations.
A few more examples that we come across regularly:
To be clear: What these studies pretend to show, could be true. But it could also be false. Even the opposite could be true. – Without the context of many other studies, they just don’t tell us anything of value.
More critical thinking, please!
I have some information stored on 3.5-inch discs, but I can’t find a computer that still has a slot for these floppy discs. With my old phone, I had taken some cool photos, but I can’t retrieve them because I can’t find a fitting data-transfer cable. On my old laptop, there is a lot of valuable information, but I can’t get it to run.
expires faster than yoghurt
And then I have some books printed a hundred years ago and passed to me through the generations. I can read them without any problem.
Sometimes, technology is not bliss, but loss in the disguise of bliss.
When you buy an e-book or download books on your Kindle, I-Phone, I-Pad or any other e-reader, think about how quickly some data storage formats of the past decades disappeared. There is nothing to indicate that the current formats will stay around longer. You may be investing – not for the first time in your life – in something that will have lost all of its value in 2 or 3 years and that will end up in the bin or a box in the attic.
no updates necessary
With a printed book, that won’t happen. And you can even pass it on to your children. – That sounds like the real future to me.
When I was in Kosovo in February 2009 for the first anniversary of Kosovo’s independence, I spotted this car draped is US flags in front of a mosque in the Southern (i.e. Kosovar) part of Mitrovica:
Of all the countries I have travelled, Kosovo and Serbia have been the only ones where the Muslim part of the population is very strongly pro-West, pro-USA, even pro-NATO and the Christian part of the population is predominantly rather hostile towards the West.
I like long train journeys because they provide me with the time to read books, magazines and newspapers.
Once, on a train in Germany, I was reading a newspaper or a news magazine. Across the table sat a man who was looking at me from time to time, so I decided to offer him one of my newspapers when he glanced at me again: “Do you want to have one of the papers to read?”
“No, I don’t read newspapers. They are a waste of time.” he replied, a tad too harshly for the occasion, and continued to stare out of the window.
“A waste of time compared with doing nothing?” I asked after a few minutes. The look I earned as a response was something between unfriendly and non-comprehending.
The rest of the journey passed in silence until the non-reader got off the train a few stops later, not without a friendly “Good Bye” from myself.
“Into the Wild” is the real story of Christopher McCandless, a young American who decided to roam the wilderness of the United States after graduating from university and who eventually died of starvation in Alaska, aged 24.
“Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me, Wayne. Arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory. But I finally got here. Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again, I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild.”
Such read the postcard that Chris had mailed to a friend on 27 April 1992. Four months later, he was dead. His dream had been to live in the wilderness of Alaska, without any contact with or support by the outside world. Chris stumbled across a derelict bus (pictured on the cover of the book, above) which he made his home. From there, he set out to collect food and hunt animals. Chris had neither taken a compass, nor a lot of other useful gear. If it hadn’t been for a helpful gentleman who had given Chris a lift on the last leg of his hitch-hiking journey to Alaska, Chris wouldn’t even have had proper boots. – One thing that he did have plenty of stock though, were books, among them works by Henry David Thoreau, Boris Pasternak and Leo Tolstoy. The entries in Chris’ diary also show the influence of Jack London.
self-portrait of Chris McCandless
“I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless you all!” is the entry in the diary, dated 12 August 1992. Chris felt that his body was weakening, that he was losing weight fast, that his end was near. On or shortly after this day, he died. Three weeks later, his body was discovered by a group of hunters. Had Chris still been alive, this encounter would have saved his life.
To die three weeks before a potential rescue and after having walked off into the wilderness a bit unprepared might be considered as a sad or silly thing. And maybe Alaska is really too dangerous for these kind of follies, especially for a kid that grew up in a Virginia suburb.
But one shouldn’t judge a life by its end or its duration, but by its content. Chris may have had a short life, but he certainly had a fulfilled one: After graduating from university, at age 22, he gave away all his savings to charity and went on a road-trip around the United States. The car was lost to a flash flood, so he continued by walking, hitch-hiking and jumping freight trains. He crossed into Mexico by canoe and got lost in the canals there. He lived and worked on a farm in South Dakota for a while. He spent time in Arizona and California, sleeping in forests, on mountains, next to rivers and in the desert. But all the time he was dreaming of the big adventure in Alaska.
the last photo of Chris McCandless
The strongest parts of the book by Jon Krakauer are actually not the last months in Alaska (which had to be recreated based on Chris’ diary and the evidence found at the site of his death), but the memories of people whom Chris had met on his travels, with whom he had caught rides, worked and stayed. I was especially moved by the generosity of strangers and by Chris’ friendship with an old man, whom he managed to convince to (also) give up the monotonous life and take up adventure. These two years of travelling sound like a heck of a time! No obligations, no limitations, no expectations (at least not somebody else’s). Just exploring the world, life and yourself. That’s a life! – In contrast to that, what most of us do is just “passing time”.
One annoying thing about the book: Jon Krakauer could not refuse to compare his own youth with that of Chris McCandless and insisted on writing about himself. Conveniently though, this is confined to two chapters of their own, which I could thus easily skip.
Let’s hit “the road” again!
Reading the story of Chris McCandless conjured up romantic feelings in me. I was reminded of many of my own adventures, from the Australian Outback to a hike along the Southern coast of France, from sleeping outside the city walls of Jerusalem because I had arrived in the city too late to find any open hotel to crossing the mountains from Lebanon to Syria in a snowstorm. But even more so, I realised how much I miss these adventures. – And I have vowed to take them up again! Living in England, I have decided to start by walking across the country, from coast to coast, this summer without sleeping in any man-made shelter.
“What’s the point?”, I could retort. Or talk about freedom, independence and self-determination.
But for now, I will just point you to the answer given by J. D. Salinger in his novella “Zooey“:
“I like to ride in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you’re married.”
And you get to read on trains even less.
The nuclear industry is keen on coming up with probabilistic risk assessments that show that a serious accident at a nuclear power plant can only happen every 20,000 years or so (admittedly this number is from a somewhat outdated report from 1974). Apparently, this is supposed to keep people’s minds at ease. But it shouldn’t:
This should not have happened. At least not yet.
This does not mean that once Chernobyl has happened, mankind will be safe for 20 millennia. It’s just statistical, so two accidents could happen in consecutive years (although according to these statistics, the next accident would then be – again statistically – 40,000 years away).
But I have a much more general problem with these risk assessments: I just don’t believe that anyone can predict the safety for the next 20,000 years of a technology that has been around for 60 years. I think this is beyond the capability of any statistical model.
I have recently been thinking about our abilities to predict the risks of technologies because I had just come across a study by NASA’s Space Shuttle Safety and Mission Assurance Office that examined the risk of the first Space Shuttle missions and found that these were actually 10 times more dangerous than the current Space Shuttle flights.
Especially in light of the recent catastrophe in Fukushima where the possibility of a combined earthquake and tsunami had apparently not been considered (which in itself is a bit odd, considering that Japan is [a] an island that is [b] quite prone to earthquakes], this report by NASA provides valuable lessons for the risk assessment of nuclear power:
And then there is of course still one fundamental difference: If a space shuttle explodes, the astronauts die. That is sad, but they had accepted that risk. – The radiation from a nuclear power plant however kills much more indiscriminately.
A warning to everyone: I don’t like it when you call or e-mail me and your first sentence is “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Even if it’s not posed as a question but as a statement (“You didn’t answer your phone, that’s why I e-mail you…”), the reproachful undertone cannot be missed.
Don’t disturb!
I could give all kinds of reasons:
But I won’t.
Because it’s none of your business. I don’t owe an explanation to anyone about what I do with my time. It’s my life. Nobody is entitled to my time or attention.
I am not a slave to anyone. And I definitely won’t become a slave to a little gadget, like too many people have become.
Sometimes, I wonder what aliens would think about us humans if they came to visit from another planet: They would notice that we have machines with us or on our desks that sometimes emit a sound, upon which the humans jump to attention immediately and drop everything else, whether it’s a book, their dinner or even a conversation. The aliens would have to come to the conclusion that we are controlled by these beeping machines. – And maybe some of us are, sadly.
Links:
Nach Wochen des Mordens, Bombardierens und apokalyptischen Schwadronierens durch den libyschen Führer Gaddafi hatte die Weltgemeinschaft in Form des UN-Sicherheitsrates ausnahmsweise mal selbst genug von den ewigen “Ermahnungen”, “Aufforderungen” und “dringenden Bitten”, mit denen sonst auf Menschenrechtsverletzungen reagiert wird. Vor wenigen Stunden verabschiedete der UN-Sicherheitsrat die Resolution 1973, mit der eine Flugverbotszone gegen Libyen verhängt und militärisches Eingreifen durch die UN-Mitgliedsstaaten gegen das libysche Militär zum Schutz der libyschen Zivilbevölkerung authorisiert wird.
Dies kommt spät; angesichts der bevorstehenden Einmarsch in die Stadt Bengazi durch die libysche Armee eventuell zu spät. Unter Berücksichtigung dessen, daß Russland und China, die ansonsten die “Nichteinmischung in innere Angelegenheiten eines souveränen Staates” über alles andere stellen, ihre Vetostimmen nicht ausübten, ist dies dennoch einer der raren Momente, in denen mich die UNO positiv überrascht hat.
Und was macht Deutschland, das derzeit einen temporären Sitz im UN-Sicherheitsrat innehat? Deutschland enthällt sich der Stimme.
Es geht um den Schutz einer Zivilbevölkerung gegen Bombardierungen, um die Unterstützung einer Demokratiebewegung gegen eine 41-jährige Diktatur, um die Abwägung von Menschenrechten gegen Staatensouveränität; und Deutschland enthält sich.
Hat Deutschland keine Meinung zu diesen Fragen? Vermutlich schon. Bundesaußenminister Guido Westerwelle begründet die Enthaltung des Landes, das gerne einen ständigen Sitz im Sicherheitsrat (und damit ein Vetorecht) einnähme, anders: “Wir sehen hier erhebliche Gefahren und Risiken”, sagte der Außenminister. “Deswegen können wir diesem Teil der Resolution nicht zustimmen. Deutsche Soldaten werden sich an einem militärischen Einsatz in Libyen nicht beteiligen.”
"Außenpolitik? Ich wollte den Job doch nur wegen der Reisen."
“Erhebliche Gefahren und Risiken” also. Für wen? Für Gaddafi? Das ist ja wohl der Sinn der Resolution. Die einzigen, die derzeit “erheblichen Gefahren und Risiken” ausgesetzt sind, sind die Menschen in Libyen, die versuchen, sich von einer grausamen Diktatur zu befreien. Oder meint Herr Westerwelle “erhebliche Gefahren und Risiken” für die deutsche Wirtschaft, falls Gaddafi doch an der Macht bleibt?
Die Zustimmung zu der UN-Resolution würde kein Land zur Bereitstellung von Flugzeugen oder Soldaten verpflichten. Nachdem Deutschland keinen Flugzeugträger hat, wäre ein deutsches militärisches Engagement derzeit auch gar nicht so gefragt, wie es der Außenminister darzustellen versucht.
Aber all das ist nicht wichtig, solange der bundesdeutsche Reflex funktioniert und demonstrativer Pazifismus sich in der Wählergunst positiv niederschlägt. So einfach und sicher, wie vor “Krieg” zu warnen und “Ohne uns!” zu rufen, kann man seine Umfragewerte gar nicht nach oben schrauben. – Daß für die Menschen in Libyen der (Bürger-)Krieg schon lange Wirklichkeit ist und wir ihn stoppen könnten, kann nur denen egal sein, die Menschenleben mit zweierlei Maß bewerten.
Und dabei hätte Deutschland eine besondere Verantwortung, nachdem auch wir an Gaddafi Militärtechnik geliefert und seine Einheiten ausgebildet haben. Jetzt könnten wir diesen Fehler korrigieren. Aber dazu bedürfte es einer wirklichen Außenpolitik.
