Connexion
Michael von der Schulenburg: Alaska Meeting Was a “Game Changer”
Excellent discussion and correct preliminary conclusion. “Trust-building” was leitmotif, to halt the runaway train to nuclear war. Reality between the two who count are now materially different. Europeans stand alone, and will cast off by Empire. “The Peace” is gonna be imposed on the crazed Europeans, and others fueling Forever Wars. Russia is recognized as peer power that must be negotiated with, sans diktat or derision, as they hold the cards.
Argentina was in line to join BRICS, but new President Milei halted that process. India is entering a conflict with neighboring Pakistan on its own. Brazil does not want Venezuela to be involved in BRICS. There are all kinds of examples of countries inside and outside BRICS that indicate that the world is in flux. Countries are acting primarily in their own interests rather than reliably cooperating with each other.
Several countries are trying to take advantage of multiple partnerships without staying true to build friendships within those partnerships. It is a logical consequence of how we humans are still put things together, but it is not a true growth toward a truly multipolar world. BRICS will have to do something different from what the West has done for millennia, it has to start offering a real alternative.
You cannot force countries, so you will have to leave them free in their choices to participate in different partnerships. Flexibility is needed to accommodate electoral shifts in countries, for example. Participation in BRICS must be attractive, but not non-committal. This cannot be solved with all kinds of bureaucratic rules, controls and punitive measures. A reward system based on trust is an option.
I know many people are reluctant when it comes to a (social) credit score, but that depends mostly on how it is implemented. When a credit score focuses on punishment rather than reward, it drives fear and passivity. When a credit score is imposed from above, then countervailing power and intelligence disappear. I also think it is a dangerous tool, but perhaps it is needed for a while until humans themselves become conscious.
So how can you ensure that BRICS countries behave “properly” within their alliance? How can you get India to behave more like a BRICS country in a multipolar world than a Western-oriented country in a unipolar world? How can you get countries considering joining BRICS to focus on cooperation within BRICS rather than outside it?
Now what if a BRICS country attacks or undermines another BRICS country? Can you then remove that country from BRICS and does that make sense? Would that help, or not? What have we seen during the West’s sanctions? But something does not have to go wrong on purpose, because just as suddenly a country collapses due to perhaps a natural disaster or revolutionary elections. The other BRICS countries gain or lose confidence in cooperation.
Perhaps BRICS is in need of a reliable and anti-corruption-proof “trust score” system. A system without central management, so no bureaucracy and manipulation. Transparent and with immutable decentralized data, so public audits and using blockchain technology. Joint independent scorekeepers, so no monopoly among countries and companies but with the help of an open-source AI model.
A trust score purely based on objective criteria and hard agreements. A higher trust score means more favorable terms, for example, access to BRICS bank loans. A lower trust score is not exclusion, but fewer benefits. It should be an incentive for countries to “behave”. No one can influence another country’s trust score, there is no veto power and no country has more say than another.
Will such a thing work? Probably not. Human beings are infinitely creative and as long as human beings are focused on self-interest rather than the collective, human beings will find ways to corrupt any system. We shouldn’t really have a system at all, but without a system it is also misery. Therefore, perhaps a temporary system is still needed to keep us in line. Perhaps a trust score within BRICS could contribute to this.
Perhaps this will open the door to an examination of how BRICS can escape the trap that all the hegemons have fallen into so far. It should not become the West 2.0, with rules, control, bureaucracy and eventually that same corruption again. China is becoming an (economic) superpower and can it resist the temptation? The West should not be or remain an adversary, but needs just as much incentives to want to participate.
What I am looking for is a way for countries and people to become more aware of our common challenge of a better world for all. A multipolar world is only one step to that, much more needs to happen especially in our consciousness. There needs to be more trust. How are we going to make that happen? Without punishment, control and rules, but with reward, fun and challenge. It can be so much fun to work together.
Nico Cost
It is slowly getting to be hot summer in the tropics and the airconditioner is almost in full use. I don’t bake because it is too hot, but I do check out lovely baked goods and plan for the cooler months.
To my surprise, I found these cookies from my favorite Russian recipe site, https://www.russiaislove.com/russian-kitchen/332305-kurabiye-east-flower-cookies-recipe-photo
The description is correct. Shortcrust pastry is expensive, but I remember that we baked these by the bucket full during my farm growing up years in Africa. So, tell me, how can a shortcrust pastry become popular in Russia, and we baked them in Africa? The recipe is almost by the gram similar and I remember it with no need to look it up. We used vanilla extract and not vanilla sugar as that was not a thing where we were. These can also be spiced up with a bit of nutmeg, tiny bit of ginger and cinnamon and clove, but make sure the jam that you choose fit the taste of the spices. Generally we made them as is and used apricot jam. They must not overbake and take them out of the oven the moment the edges are brown.
There are other Russian favorites that I remember from my youth, specifically the many meat pies. (In my next life I’ll most certainly trace these connections.)
How Russian confectioners changed an ancient Near East recipe to make the most affordable shortcrust pastry in the country.
A popular legend says that the recipe for kurabiye cookies was developed by a servant of a Persian sultan long ago in the ancient Near East – so the name “kurabiye” probably derives from either a Turkic or Arabic word meaning “exotic cookie”. There are many variations of kurabiye cookies as far as the shape, but the flower one must be the most iconic. Authentic eastern kurabiye was a kind of expensive treat – it was made from pastry that had lots of spices such as cinnamon, cloves, natural vanilla and saffron. To make the production cheaper, Soviet confectioners removed the costly ingredients and added cheap vanilla sugar to give a richer taste. The pastry became so popular that confectioners developed a state standard recipe – GOST – and gave the cookies the name “Baku kurabiye,” because the ingredients and the shape were the closest to the traditional Azerbaijan recipe.
Today, kurabiye is sold in many bakeries and literally every single grocery shop in Russia. Still, many love baking it at home, and it is actually one of the fastest-made cookies recipes: you only need a few basic ingredients to make your shortcrust pastry and some fruit or berry jam for the filling.
But greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke
We're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start running away
Cause we're coming for you!
- Conor Oberst, "Land Locked Blues"
It's hard to believe 2020 is just around the corner. If the last ten years have taught us anything, it's the extent to which a vicious and corrupt oligarchy will go to further extend and entrench their economic and societal interests. Although the myriad desperate actions undertaken by the ruling class this past decade have managed to sustain the current paradigm a bit longer, it has not come without cost and major long-term consequence. Gigantic imbalances across multiple areas have been created and worsened, and the resolution of these in the years ahead (2020-2025) will shape the future for decades to come. I want to discuss three of them today, the financial system imbalance, the trust imbalance and the geopolitical imbalance.
Recent posts have focused on how what really matters in a crisis is not the event itself, but the response to it. The financial crisis of ten years ago is particularly instructive, as the entire institutional response to a widespread financial industry crime spree was to focus on saving a failed system and then pretending nothing happened. The public was given no time or space to debate whether the system needed saving; or more specifically, which parts needed saving, which parts needed wholesale restructuring and which parts should've been thrown into the dustbin. Rather, unelected central bankers stepped in with trillions in order to prop up, empower and reward the very industry and individuals that created the crisis to begin with. There was no real public debate, central bankers just did whatever they wanted. It was a moment so brazen and disturbing it shook many of us, including myself, out of a lifetime of propaganda induced deception.
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