Monthly Archives: February 2014

Those who are destroying our environment should face consequences for their actions

Today we have a mining system built upon bankruptcies. Whenever a mining company files for a concession for mining, they promise to take care of the excess waste from the mining. In many circumstances these are costly procedures. Therefore some individuals use a bankruptcy strategy. They mine for minerals and put the surplus into their own pockets. When they are done, they file for bankruptcy and society has to take responsibility for the continuous environmental afterwork.

This is bad for society as well as the environment.

All in all, modern mining management leads to everybody getting poorer, because of negative environmental effects, while a few persons consciously use the legal system to enrich themselves. As soon as one mining company is put to bankruptcy, the owners will start another mine somewhere else.

This needs to be stopped.

One way societies have tried to fix this problem is by demanding mining companies to stash away some money. To get their concession, the mining companies need to stow away money in a restoration fund. The problem with this procedure is that these restoration funds never seem to be large enough to remedy all damage done by the mining. Some abandoned mines keep on flushing toxins and poisons into fresh water reservoirs, every second, every minute, every hour, every day of the year. And the fund is never enough.

There is this saying about engineers in ancient Rome. Whenever someone built a bridge, they had to live under that bridge. If the bridge fell down, the bridge builder and his family died. Cause and effect. People had to take responsibility for their actions.

We should implement responsibility for actions in our modern world as well. When our environment is at stake, whenever contamination has dire consequences, as death of people and animals, those responsible need to put their own safety at stake as well.

Those who mine for resources and leave incurable wounds in our nature, need to face consequences for their actions. When water gets contamined, the responsible will have to drink that water every day. If the earth get polluted, those responsible for the pollution must live where the mine once was, for as long as the pollution lasts.

Some might deem these things as barbaric, but we need to take care of our common resources. We need water, air and soil to survive. We cannot promote those who destroy these common resources. We must inhibit their destructive behaviour instead.

For the sake of the poor man’s baby. For the sake of the innocent habitants. For the sake of our world. Let those who destroy our world face consequences.

Poverty leads to crime

Poverty leads to crime. The reason poverty leads to crime is that people have basic essential needs as food but also secondary needs like clothes, hygiene articles et cetera. When people have the need for something, and do not have another choice than to steal what they need, they will do it. When hunger strikes down upon people and they see that food is available in stores, hunger will force them to steal what they need.

The same is true when people need other things badly, which they cannot afford. Be it alcohol, cigarettes or soap, when the need is big enough these people will steal.

The reason for criminality is mostly because people see no other way out of their misery. When living in a poor neighborhood where everybody else is poor, those who are striving to keep ends meet on minimal wages are poor, and the only people not being poor are criminals, then the choice will appear clearly. Either you work your butt off, and most probably stay poor, or you become a criminal with a chance of getting rich.

People turn to criminality, because that is their only perceivable choice.

Right wing politics is about taking money from the poor and give it to the rich. The underlying moral is that rich are entitled to their riches.

What right wing parties miss, is that by making the poor poorer, the whole society becomes poorer, since criminality is such a destructive force. When society becomes poorer, even the rich affects since they too will be targets of criminality.

Therefore, there is a societal need to always fight right wing politics. We must always try to reverse the money flow back to the poor from the rich. In my opinion, the best way to do this is by implementing basic income guarantee.

To succeed you need others to believe in you

To succeed you need others to believe in you. I have found that this is the most important cause to success, yet it is often overlooked. The reason for this is probably because of the popularity to emphasize on the individual efforts as the major cause of success, since these are something the individual (who might buy self help books) can do something about.

But individual efforts mean nothing as long as nobody believes in the individual who puts in the labour.

Let me give you an example. Two sportsmen in the beginning of their career are equally good at what they do. They both go to a trainer to participate in the team he is leading. This leader believes in one of the sportsmen and not in the other. Who do you think will get more playing time? Training time? Advice?

Another example. Two persons apply for the same job. One of the persons is highly qualified for the job. The other person is a charlatan, who poses as someone qualified. Who do you think the employer will choose, given the fact that the employer believes in the charlatan? And even when the poser is discovered, do you think that the employer would go back to the highly qualified person he believed wasn’t as proficient as the poser?

A third example. Two equally bright students have the same teacher, and this teacher believes that one of them is smarter than the other. Who do you think will get more attention and help? The one the teacher believes is predisposed for learning, or the dumb one? Who will most likely get the best grade? In this case, we know for sure that the one the teacher believe is smarter will get a better grade, since this is a classic pedagogical experiment. Still we have millions upon millions of students and teachers worldwide, who believe that the single most important factor in succeeding in school is the student’s intelligence.

Some people believe that self-confidence is of importance in order to succeed. But self-confidence has minor if any effect at all on success. Rather, self-confidence is an effect of success. Think for yourself, if you observe someone you do not believe will succeed having enormous self-confidence, what would you most likely call that person? A winner? Or self-illusional?

Some people believe that the belief of others boosts that person’s self-confidence, which will make that person succeed. There are stories like: “It felt wonderful that someone finally believed in me, so I could let myself grow into my full potential”. I’m sure you have heard these stories. And I’m not saying that they are untrue. I’m saying that the effect of raised self-confidence is by no way comparable to the effects of another person actually helping the first person out.

And that is perhaps why selfconfidence is mistaken as an ability you need in order to succeed. People get self-confident when others help them. And those who get help are already halfway to success.

But this doesn’t mean that you should give up, just because nobody believes in you. Instead, take advantage of this knowledge. If you want to succeed, you need to convince people to believe in you, for them to help you out. Because everyone wants to be by the winner’s side.