Tag: Politics

There are no rules

There are only people

As everyone else, I’m consuming an inordinate amount of news in this crazy period. At the same time, I’m also reading the masterpiece Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari.

One thing that he so clearly and insightfully states in the book, is that while there are objective mathematic equations and physical or biologica laws, there are no such things as objectively right ideas or objectively true institutions

I remember reading “If you cut open someone, you won’t find human rights in there” or a similar statement in the book.

Reading this book in this period has made me think about the news in a much more worrying manner.

The big takeaway for me is that there are no rules. All the checks and safeguards that we assume are not some unbreakable physical laws. They are just words on papers. All it takes is for someone to ignore them and for others to not do anything about it.

Democracy is not something magic that once instituted can never be taken away. Many countries have descended into weird kleptocracies. Wars have been started in very peaceful periods. It is all possible.

In the end, there are only people and their actions.

We can choose which people to support and which actions to take.

But one thing I’m beginning to think is that in the face of rule-breakers, people that follow the rules will have a very hard time winning.

The football (soccer) match example

Imagine a soccer match where one team suddenly starts grabbing the ball with their hands.

There are a number of people that could object to this based on the rules, but the same people could also not say anything.

It’s true that there are multiple checks, but it just takes a couple of people to nullify them very fast.

The referee could still award goals. The federation could still mark the match as a valid one. The media could portray them as “testing the limits” of the system.

In such a scenario, all the other teams playing just with their foot will have a pretty hard time competing.

You can escalate this however much you want, and can see a league where this team is the only one allowed to play with their hands, or the only one allowed to play — period.

I unfortunately don’t have a great conclusion to share here if not an encouragement to start seeing the world with a different set of eyes, one where everything is possible.

I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

Neo

Take control

While feeling all the uncertainty and sadness that’s coming from the elections results all around the world, I’ve been wondering just how much I’m impacted by it all.

I think that politics is an important aspect of our life and that people that go out there to truly serve their communities are heroes, but for some types of people this path just isn’t interesting.

It’s just like working in a big corporation.

Why in the world would you go to work for a huge company, owned by no one, where you have zero influence over it and which has all the influence over you?

But many people do, and many people like it. And many people like being in politics and only being able to change one thing every decade.

But that’s not good enough for the kind of people I’m thinking about.

Entrepreneurs don’t like it when a random majority of people decides for their future.

We like to take control of our own destiny. Make our own mistakes. And then learn, fast, to not make them again.

This, I think, is the reason why entrepreneurs feel this weird feeling of sadness even if they don’t really like or care about politics.

They don’t like the thought of not being in control, and having other people decide for them.

Well, luckily we can take control of most aspects of our life:

  • We can decide where we live, with whom we spend time with, where we work, on what and with whom.
  • We can decide how our mental cycles are spent, what we want to learn about, and how to use that knowledge.
  • We’re in control of what we buy and who we buy it from.
  • We’re in control of our financial life, of our emotions and ultimately of our future.

So, don’t think about politics — leave that to people who enjoy it — and take control of what you have the power to change. It’s more than you think.

Take control