WHAT WE LEARNED IN 2020

Approaching to the end of the year 2020 I want to urge you to make a brain storming to better understand what will  be the consequences of the pandemic. How the world will reshape itself for the future of the humanity. 

It is very sad for me to say that the world has not been successful in fighting the Covid19 pandemic. My personal view is that the pandemic should have be handled by medical science competent personalities while was driven by politicians. In normal times it is their duty to manage the world but when it comes to medicine no any politicians can say any world.The very first instinct that living creatures have is to struggle to stay alive. Anything else comes afterwards. During these hard times what politicians continue to think on how to be re-elected thus how to avoid any kind of confrontation with measures to be taken if it is against their followers.

It looks so odd that the world couldn't unite under one umbrella in the struggle to fight against this desastrous virus in finding remedies to cure and produce preventive vaccines. In every corner of the world researchers raced against time while a shared wisdom couldn't be established. Commercial concern was in front of the health. 

A quite important part of the world population lost their jobs and spent their saving in order to survive. Good managed affluent countries helped better to those who are in trouble but always staying within their country borders. Populist administrators aggravated the situation of the suffering people in every walks of life.

I know that the early the measures taken , will reduce the escalating losses. The first vaccinated countries will produce early herd immunity hence they will stop the detriment of the existing industry. 

It is proven that having the biggest airports, the longest bridges ,the best highways, the tallest skyscrapers , the biggest army did not have any tiniest contribution to ameliorate our situation against this atrocious plague. Psycological repression will last long in our mind if we succeed to survive.

Prevailing populist regimes in most part of the world failed very badly. The shutting down of the sanctuaries and the weakness of the clergy was disturbing.Thinking on the goodness and benevolance of the Redcross centuries ago establishments, today's  clergy fall into disgrace due their stagnation and despair.

The extreme travelling greed will be suppressed surely  for a while. Extreme imported food dependencies will be maybe reviewed. Rich underground resources worth nothing if you don't have a good medical research centers and scholars to fight against.

The importance public health and preventive medicine is much better understood. Children were the most affected by staying away from their habitat. If we succeed to vanquish this pandemic we have to put our utmost effort  to the children to catch the time lost. 

Avram Aji

19.12.2020

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO

I learned this adage at my primary school in sporting lessons as Atatürk's one the most famous sayings. But I encountered afterwards in many other older books than Atatürk's era realizing that he just repated it in various occasions while it became like one of his aphorismas.I remember to encounter it ,in Grigory Petrow "The Land of White Lilies" than I realized that this adage was quite older than his age. Now that I encounter its Latin version than there is a good probability to be dated to Roman era..

My parents had chosen St-Joseph as a secondary school for me. Most of the teachers were French priests. The most part of the education was in French obviously... Although it can be accepted now as old fashion the education was marvellous with a lot memorization .The directorate was sending reports every week, we had exams every day. There was an intense follow up to all parents. But almost a half a century before sporting was very important in this school. The first day and the first lesson was creating volleyball teams . We kept on playing all the time in all breakes.Almost there was no way to escape learning and practicing.

Although I was not very good at school I learned to play tennis afterwards and keep playing joyfully.
Cycling and swimming also are my favorites to exercise. Although I agree on the importance of excersizing I have never been fan of watching matches on TV.

Last year with the recommendation I got of a friend I read the book named "FEELING GOOD" of David Burns who is giving the details of psychology  and many kind of disorders. Than after I learned that some characteristic  traits like to be shy or over excited are just psycological disruptions. My view to the life changed . Now I am thinking that the most important thing in life is to keep you psychology at the best possible state and level. Only after you can have a fulfilling life.

Psychology must be taught in schools intentionnally and we must be aware of our feelings all the time and in case of any kind of disruptions we have to find a way to heal and prevent depressions and advanced sicknesses by the intervention of specialists...

I am thinking that if you are not in full concious of your feelings and thinking healthily your body will reflect . For instance an obese person is not someone who eats a lot, we must suspect of his or her psychological state as well.. The same may apply for heavy smokers too..

Avram Aji
11.07.2020

AMAZING MINDS

In my lifetime I came across with few persons with amazing  minds which I  admired all my life. I am reading the book PEAK of  Anders Erricsson where he made a deep research about very cleaver persons and also organized experiments whether an advance skill can be obtained by intentional practice. 

First I would like to tell you about the persons that I met personally with extraordinary minds.

Charli is a school friend of mine . He was a year ahead of me . He used to play guitar and sing quite well although music remained just as a hobby all his life. He still can play and sing you long hours without any kind of paper and notes in front. He is able to memorize all the lyrics , chords and the tones of the songs he likes.
Surely he is putting some efforts to learn it by heart but afterwards he is unbelievable.

My wife used to work in a bank. She had such a good memory that
all the clients and their accounts were in her mind all the time. One day she had a phone call from a distant branch in a different city of his bank . A client of her was requesting to retrieve an important amount of money through this branch. My wife immediately started to describe on the phone the traits of her client. Sure the applicant was not him but a swindler and his ID was fake. He was captured and sent to jail.

I joined a trekking group by the intervention of a good friend of my. Izmir is surrounded by many mountains ranging from 1500 to 2500 m high. Even we were doing the same route to the same peak I was never aware of the direction we had to take while the the guide in front was like wandering in the center of a city. The map and compass was embedded in his mind.

Avram Aji
12.07.2020

My wife and I were dining at a fancy restaurant in Izmir when a group of youngsters arrived and sat just across from our table. There were ten of them. After a while, the waiter came to take their orders. These ten individuals separately ordered different menus and drinks. The waiter simply listened without taking the tiniest note. I remained quite puzzled and finally dared to ask our waiter how he was able to instantly memorize the orders of ten different people. He replied, "This waiter is exceptionally skilled at memorization."

20.09.2023

CONNECTED

With a recomndation of a friend I started to read Cal Newport's new book DEEP WORK. The most striking question at the beginning of the book was : "Does it really help my work to be constantly connected.".

How often do we have to be connected? Difficult question..

Long distance communication started with letters carried by travellers and improved by the professional operations by post offices . The time elapsed to carry the information inside the envelope   was related with its distance. The farther the receiver the longer time was needed.

This continued until the invention of the telegramme. Samuel Morse sent an information at electric speed in 1844. But still there was the need of a postman to carry the message to the receiver by foot taking hours..

Than came instant voice communication by Graham Bell telephone in 1876. Followed by mass broadcasting invention by Gugliemo Marconi the radio in 1895.

Telex machine was a distant teleprinter not as fast as voice communication but you have message printed onto a paper that you elaborate. The machine was working even in off hours. Its speed was at the beginning equal to the person typewriting skill. 10 finger writing was important as you were paying the telex connection by seconds. Two way communication was possible.  Machines improved to a quicker transfer of information by pre-punched tapes working similarly to Jacquard loom automation. In nineteen seventees the computerized telex machines allow the messanger to pre-write his message to the screen and send it afterwards. Massages started to be stored in machines in spite of paper.

The messaging speed increased tents of fold by voice-electronic combination devices known as facsimile. In a ess than a minute you were able to send a4 page writing or drawing or photographs.

You still need a machine ,electric power and telephone connection.

In eighties "pager" was able to send instant messages to portable smal rechargeable devices. The message was delivered by phone to the post office operator. Than was transferred to the pager in a minutes . Alerting you by beeping and trembling. This invention freed people to stay at the office waiting a call. In spite hiring a secretary ...

Internet connection of the personal computers through telephone lines by dial up system was the last stage in messaging at electric speed. Making the communication ever cheaper and quicker.

In nineteenninties Cellular car phones was than allowing to make a phone call while driving and making communication easier and freeing people of dieing batteries. As batteries improved cellular phones shrinked to a level to be carried in a pocket.

The appearance of first smart phones at beginning of the new millenia made people read their messages throughout their mobile phones tiny screens.

I recon the first smart phones beeping when a new message was received.How a showy was in the community!

Let me return the the book  that I was reading , where the author now is pretanding that such a speedy messaging is making us less productive and less creative because such continuous poke of messages are distracting us and making difficult to be concentrated in a difficult tasks.

Avram Aji
24.06.2020

MODERN FEARS AND BIASES

We are accustomed to hear and read various disasters all over the world constantly. Fires , hurricanes, landslides, avalanches , floods , pandemics , eruption of volcanoes, tsunamis , earthquakes , wars, terror attacks , murders are the main subjects of actual social media and press. Adding conspiracy theories in it makes them much more attractive. 

Under so much misinformation from our surrounding the new generation became fearful of the following: 

-MEDICATION , MEDICINES ,VACCINES : debilitating the immune system , creating worse side effects in a long run.

-MICROWAVE OVENS : spreading carcinogenic waves.

-FERTILIZERS ,PETICIDES AND RESIDUES: excessive usage is a fact. But organic farming is far to suffice 8 billion world. Residual effect is exaggerated and exacerbated by scholars, private laboratories and coward authorities.

-GMO GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM : carcinogenic

-HIBRID SEEDS

-DETERGENTS AND OTHER CLEANSING SUBSTANCES : polluting the environment

-PLASTIC RECIPIENTS AND PARAPHERNALIA 

-CONVENTIONAL SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION SYSTEM : not very proper

-NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS : spreading radioactivity

-WIND TURBINES, killing birds, making noise

-5G INTERNET WAVES , disrupting brain

-HYDROELECTRIC POWER STATION , changing the microclimate

Most of the above list articles are not within the scope our expertise if not all. Newspapers, TV's and social media can only atract followers if only delivers  outrageous information, hence none of us will be interested to hear about there was not any earthquake today nor any car accidents , explosion , rape , murder . We are under attack of bad news only most of the time.

Let's think about the electricity that we consume. None of the powers stations are free from environmental disruption. Coal burning is polluting the air, Hydroelectricity is changing the microclimate, nuclear fission is producing radioactivity and there is no safe place for its residues, wind turbines are killing the bees , while producing solar panels there is an invironmental residues et cetera..

But it is sure that we can not live without electricity. Can we ?

Avram Aji
11.06.2020

TRUTH - Hector Macdonald

This is a marvellous , and very recently published book. I highly recommend to everybody. There is not only one and eternel thruth but different views in every fact. Below you have few fragments.

THE QUINOA REDISCOVERED...

The writer start with the fact quinoa consumption icrease in recent years. Gluten intolerance and coeliac patients were extremely enthusastic of this new cereal not hurting them but beingly highly nutritious.The consumption exploded and trippled its price. Poor Peruvians an Bolivians were not anymore able to buy it

Few sensitive Europeans were thinking lik: “The more you love quinoa, the more you hurt Peruvians and Bolivians”

The income of the farmers trippled. Those who used to have only Quinoa in thier daily life started to rejoice the variety of different foods.

THE INTERNET   TRUTH

“The Internet makes the world’s knowledge widely available.
The Internet accelerates the spread of misinformation and hatred.”

“Competing truths inform our mindsets, and our mindsets determine our subsequent choices and actions. We vote, shop, work, cooperate and fight according to what we believe to be true. Some truths stay with us for life, determining the most important choices we make and defining the very nature of our character. Whether we are faced with a police shooting, a company mission statement, a group of refugees, a presidential candidate, a holy book, a scientific finding, a contentious statue or a natural disaster, our response–which may be dramatic, transformative or violent–will stem from our mindset.”

BREST CANCER AND PREGNANCY  CORRELATION

“To keep things simple, we can think about three types of communicators:
Advocates: selecting competing truths that create a reasonably accurate impression of reality in order to achieve a constructive goal.
Misinformers: innocently propagating competing truths that unintentionally distort reality.
Misleaders: deliberately deploying competing truths to create an impression of reality that they know is not true.”


JOHN KENNEDY

“Gross National Product, ‘It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

Avram Aji
11.06.2020

CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND ITS IMPACT TO THE FOOD SECTOR

Some scholars are naming the actually ongoing “Covit 19” pandemia as the third world war. This is very sad situation. We know that during the first and second world wars more than hundred million people died and enormous amount of assets destroyed.

Due to the measures taken to prevent the contagiousness of this lethal virus,  traveling between countries and even cities ended. Those who are able to work from home were sent and confinement became the new life style for most of us. We do not until when and how the lightening or lifting the will occur. Staying at home for such a long period is not sustainable.

To stay alive we need primarily food, water and shelter. This is the lowest stage and the foundation of Maslow hierarchy. Governments are bewildered . No country had any preparedness for such plague. I have difficulties to understand how easily the Spanish Flu of 1918 has been wiped out from humanity memory while fifty million died. There is no any commemoration day nor any statue but just void. Such as never happened. The Black Death of the fourteen century appear in history books and in many articles.

Nouriel Rubini who has explained clearly the 2008 financial crisis now has published a list of outcome of this pandemia which looks very depressing and gloomy. Starting from huge amount of unemployment , the bankruptcy of giant companies , deficiencies of the governments. Will whole world unite to fight against cruel enemy ? I wish they could …

I want to make a brain storming with you on what can happen and what solutions can be find.

As the disaster is not like an earthquake or eruption of a volcano or a hurricane the existing shelters are in place. Now the major issue is the food production and the distribution chain. The demand did not diminish. As the world population remain to eat 3 times a day. But now mostly at home instead of restaurants .

1) As there are many layoffs along with an increasing amount of unemployment , the income of many families diminished considerably if not exhausted totally.  Hence they will be more hesitant and thrifty in their expenditure.  They will restrict themselves from delicacies for sure. At this point we can easily predict the caviar and champagne sales will die away . The exotic fruit demand will extinguish.

2) It is very common that farm workers move temporarily to assist to harvest in many parts of the world. Now due to movements restriction this will not happen in general . Hence we may expect replacement of local workers higher wages or the crop will be left to vanish at the field. Hence the price of the produce will be more costly thence expensive.

3) Foodstuffs travel from one country to another very frequently during the last decades. Some countries are very dependent to imported foods. Truck transportation is quite essential in Europe and north America which is now a difficulty. Railroads are not ready to take its place or support much. Airline companies are far to take any share due the high airfreights.

4) In view of above difficulties we can come into a conclusion that a price increase is very likely to happen if not already in place.

5)The marine traffic slowed down considerably due to the lack of industrial products demand which is creating a delay in deliveries. We may presume that existing stocks are lowering day by day.

Avram Aji

30.04.2020

THE WISDOM PARADOX - ELHONON GOLDBERG

I heard about this book wile watching a Youtube video of one of favorite doctor and writer Sinan Canan . He said that in this book the author -who is neuroscientist doctor- discovered the shrinkage of his his own brain while making MRI scanning during the years while aging.

The book is full of quite scientific description of brain and its neuro activities during aging. What the researcher  discovered that in recent syposiums held in brain neuroscience , some parts of the brain continue produce neurons despite natural beleif of NNN "no new neurons" after adult periods. Here I want mention few of them. 

Encaged rats having plenty of toys, ladders et cetera develop larger brain compared to ones deprived of it. It has been detected that some part of the brain get bigger of cab drivers, as well as bilingual persons, musicians and jugglers  brain enlargement has been detected. 

"The left hemisphere of our brain decays faster than the right"

"The right hemisphere benefit more from mental exercises."

"The better education is protective factor for brain decay by aging as these persons work more mentally than brawn."

The musical passion of many scientists -like Einstein violin - can be that tacitly they discovered the beneficial side of enhancing their brain in general. 

Avram Aji
30.04.2020

WHY WARS ENDED IN EUROPE

I am having big difficuties in understanding the Brexit , the separation of UK of the EU just for economical motives. While this gigantic institution is latest administrative and managerial breakthrough of humanity. 

Wars mainly faught for territorial  control. Obviously these territories may be rich in natural resources .

Putting aside the Yugoslavian civil war era , Europe entered into a long lasting and sustainable truce since 1945 the end of WW2. 

Imperialism of the last centuries was based on colonialization of undevelopped territories and sucking their natural and human resources. Slavery was not sustainable anyway which ended centuries ago.

After the massive destruction of two world wars Europeans came closer to end up the existing conflicts by making concessions on:

1)Territory 

2)Capital

3)Human resources

In a long term rich and developed countries can not prosper and even exist surrounded by suffering and poor countries. They only have the choice to elevate the economical level of the latters and mostly unwillingly share their knowledge and wealth.

Kuwait-Iraki war, Yugoslavian civil war , Cyprus ambiguity , Noth Korean and Iranian  greed on having nuclear power , Palestine -Israeli conflict maybe recited in this context.

But this high level supranational EU governance may continue only by stabilization the incomes internally as well globally. The flux of unemployed flock is unavoidable. Not only within the EU territory but from all over the world. Hence you can not maintain your prosperity by closing the borders and building walls. Walls was the most ancient invention which did not really work even for China...

The 50 States of USA couldn't absorb Mexico to create equilibrium. No country want to share their wealth for prosperity with his neighbor.. Neither EU went beyond Bulgaria. Neither Russia aggregate the URSS again.

Everybody knows that it is not sustainable.

Avram Aji

12.04.2020

CORONAVIRUS DIARIES 24.03.2020

WILL THE CORONAVIRUS BE THE CAUSE OF THE END OF HUMANITY?

This pandemic showed us the the apocalypse is not far away us. Today the world population is growing by 200.000 person per day. Hence the actual loss of 17.000 in 3 months must not really frighten us. But today 1 billion people stayed at home confined to prevent the propagation of the virus.But they did not stop eating neither heating their homes, washing their cloths...On the other hand we did not use our car neither used the public transportation. Couldn't go out for dinner, neither wedding parties was held...

Not all these people were retirees thus we must admit that there has been an important loss of the actual workforce entailing loss of income. How long we can stay at home? The Wuhan experience is 50 days. In China this is much easy - we know the extreme working conditions and miserable life style - but when it comes to the western world 50 days is very long time. 

Flights came down to one tenth , tourism is in its historically worst situation but there are billions of people making their living with these activities. The cost of the petroleum oil is higher than the actual cost of mining . We have to take into consideration the plummetting consumption which will squeeze producer countries .

Actually the food chain is working satisfactorily.. We see the shelves full in our local groceries..God forbid if this supply chain slow down people will start hoarding which will bring the scarcity of foodstuffs.

The decrease of the incomes will force people to spend less, avoid any kind of indulgence , luxury goods will be unnecessary .

Today the main aim must be to keep the food  supply chain working. For those who live in large cities they have no chance for farming . They either have to move to the countryside or find a labor which can be done at home.

How long you can keep children inside of our homes? How we will continue to educate them ?

Until these people who lost their job find another way for making their living governments have to finance them. Budgets are already upside down. But we can not leave them to starve. 

Without tax income , pension of the retirees are at risk. 

It is time to rethink all the humanitarian system from the beginning... 

Avram Aji

24.03.2020

CORONAVIRUS DIARIES 23.03.2020

Today is 23rd of March 2020.. This will be my 3rd confined at home... Obviously it is not easy to be adapted to live in a small area. Thanks God I have a lot of hobbies and up to now I think psychologically I am fine. 

I have started to think about what are today's outcomes of this pandemic.

1)The world is not as big as I was thinking. A malign virus , despite various preventive actions can travel all around the world within 3 months. 

2)I was always imagining that the actual level of the medicine of the world is such advanced that any single new born disease can be controlled by scholars , pharmacology industry is so advanced that they can find solution swiftly.

3)We are accustomed that mostly babies and children are the most vulnerable to diseases. But this coronavirous proved the  contrary. 

4)Giant companies like airlines, petroleum refineries , car factories , hotel chains are more in danger than the small ones when a worldwide issue occurs. I do not want even to think about the losses they incur daily...

5)Retirees are  the least affected of this pandemic -although dying more than youngsters. Surely staying at home is quite boring and depressive but you do not much think about on how to make a living...Children already are grown up and you do not have much responsibility beside your partner.

Avram Aji

23.03.2020

HOW RICH I AM

This may be sounding quite intriguing question to everybody. We come across everyday with thousands of information on wealthiest people and their proportion against poor population in the world.

You feel sad to hear the billions of dollars budget surplus of the affluent countries while the suffering gargantuan  crowds all around the world from poverty.

In this situation I am having difficulties to classify myself on this scale. Am I rich or poor? 

In this essay I want to evaluate what is richness exactly? At what level the amount of money you own that the excess does not make sense. The main target in our life is to be happy. But we know that happiness is not something that you can feel all the time. You may want to have a nice new modern car. But once you own the happiness you feel start to fade day by day. In a year your new car does not add happiness in your daily life. But when you think the fist day that you bought it it sounds amazing. The marvelous smell of the varnish  and leather couches were magnificent. But what happen after a year. The car is the same car. But our feelings are not the same .

The same happens when you buy your dream house whether or not you will be paying mortgages for 30 years. Our nice feelings disapear soon over the nice clothing we buy or the marvelous appliances we own at home.

When you go to a vacation to marvelous hotel with myriads of amenities. The first day you fell attracted to all . You feel like wanting to eat everything  lying over the open buffet . But within few days you find almost nothing appealing  there. What a dazzling change we experience in a two day or so.

Maslow hierarchical needs chart may assist us in finding what we need exactly and what is the excess.. Food and home are essentials that we understand easily . But how big a house must be? How much food we have to consume . What is obesity? Why we do not stop eating after satiation?

Avram Aji

10.02.2020

GDP or PPP - WHERE WE SHOULD LOOK FOR WEALTH COMPARISON

I am struggling nowadays to read the long and very detailed recent book "GROWTH " of VACLAV SMIL . Needless to say it contains magnificent comparisions and charts of various inventions of machines and its impacts to societies during centuries and even milleniums.

In the section where the writer is analyzing GDP progress of various countries during centuries he is trying to demonstrate that GDP is not a good indicator to discern not only the development of the countries,but also wealth distribution and happiness of the citizens. Another proposed indicator is the PPP which stands for "purchasing power parity". 

On the same subject Nicolas Taleb gave various better examples in his famous  book BLACK SWAN .  

"Round up randomly 1000 person in a stadium and check for their average weight. If you add the haviest men the world into this conglomerate his contribution to the average would be vanishinly small as %0.6 . This what Nassim dub as MEDIOCRISTAN. But when you calculate the average their income of this 1000 people and add to the conglomerate Bill Gates who owns 100 billion dollars than everybody in this group become millionnaire. And Nassim dub this fact as EXTREMISTAN. "

As long we stay in Extremistan realm the  "average" indicator is loosing its value and meaning, thence not giving a good overview on what we are looking.

Not all citizens living in countries with high GDP do not have necessarily a good life. Not even the average people !

In his book of "4 Hours Workweek" Timothy Ferris is demonstrating clearly this abyss of inequality while suggesting to live where PPP is lower while your income remains in wealthy nations average.

The new fashion among very rich Indians is the flamboyant wedding ceremonies held in Istanbul -spending millions of dollars- .But let us think about why they are not helding it in Paris or London ? There you have to spend three to four times more for the exactly the same spectacular  entertainment. 

Avram Aji

04.01.2020