"History suggests that once a country crosses the threshold of negative population growth, there is little that its government can do to reverse it." This line is an excerpt from a 2023 NYT article: Can China Reverse Its Population Decline? Just Ask Sweden. Another 2023 quote: "The negative population growth trend cannot be reversed, but behavior and expectations...
Accountability vs Responsibility
The paradoxical origin of misogyny
17 Mar, 2023
Contemporary views on misogyny are quite simple: men are sexist and responsible for misogyny. No further action - let alone research - is deemed necessary. The objective fact that (nearly) all men are raised by their mothers does not even raise any suspicion. "According to a new study by researchers at the University of the Basque Country in Spain, mothers...
The Skill-Will matrix
16 Mar, 2023
Last week, I was thinking of a new topic that includes 4 dimensions: ability (I can), willingness (I want to), permission (I may), and execution (I do). My research revealed the (unfamiliar) Skill-Will matrix that appears to have been developed by McKinsey & Company for Identifying employee skill gaps. various sources Of those 4 dimensions above, willing and...
Time efficiency
31 Jan, 2023
Recently, I received a Dutch article that translates like: the ones trying to live more efficiently, will lack time for anything. The solution is, however, quite simple: stop or silence smartphone notifications. Also see recent WSJ article: How fixing notifications changed my relationship with my phone. Our obsession with time efficiency has increasingly resulted in...
When (not) to apologize
19 Dec, 2022
The Dutch Cabinet has pledged to apologize for our history in the slave trade. Today is that day. A few centuries ago, our ancestors transported (most) slaves from Africa to their destination. Slave trading was done by Arabs (with the help of African tribes) and still continues today. Actually, today's slavery is even bigger than before. That weird fact seems...
Reparations
15 Nov, 2022
Several people and/or countries demand reparations for past wrongful acts (eg, climate change, slavery, WWII). In case of countries, these demands often feel like blackmail or extortion. In case of people, these demands often lack causality due to time elapsed (eg, centuries). Moreover, there is an indirect and implicit claim of a collective sin, like the Germans...
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