Working Hours, Machines and Unemployment

by Albert Frank

Machines such as computers and robots have been conceived to help man, not to give him problems. But, what happens? Currently they are causing unemployment! It is certainly not their fault, but this sad situation requires that we consider an alteration of the present system.

To do a specific task ten hours would have been required thirty years ago (as an example). Now, with the help of machines, five hours are enough. Therefore, for the same productivity, instead of 38 hours per week -- the predominant European standard work week -- only 19 hours are needed. (There will be a few more in total to take into account the maintenance of the machines.) This is magnificent: thanks to machines, it should be possible for people to work only half as long to get the same result. It should be a big success! (We won't digress here on a discussion of the problems of a civilisation of leisure.)

What happens in practice, however? Now we encounter imposed work hours -- the number of hours per week just to "be there" in the office, for instance, or a laboratory -- rather than what must be accomplished. And, thanks to machines, now one man or woman can, during the course of this time interval, produce what would have required two people -- one of the two of whom has lost his job in the name of efficiency! So, machines are now perceived as man's enemies! This perspective may seem simplistic, but there are so many examples: to produce an invoice, sell an airline ticket, print an article, etc..

And it doesn't seem to stop: Competition (with a capital C), the "taboo" of violating work hours to maintain the respect of peers, the fear (!) of being replaced by a machine that is "faster and more efficient". And what about the value of the shares of company stock -- if "we are not 'Number One', then what?" How many people are required for maximum "efficiency" (I don't like this term), if they were allowed to work at their own pace in executing the given tasks?

I will finish by giving an example from my own fond memories: In 1975, I was responsible for the schedules of the National University of Zaire, Campus of Kisangani. The yearly schedule required consideration of a mass of data. (This included lists of those on sabbatical, visiting professors, reorganizations, classroom facilities with class sizes ranging from 20 to 800 students per room, etc.. In one week, I had performed the scheduling of everyone at the university for an entire year. There were a few hundred Professors and students represented and all were satisfied.

When the Chief of Staff of the university and I convened, he said, "Albert, you performed an effort that would 'normally' have taken two months; therefore, I am giving you seven weeks of holiday." Life would be beautiful if it was always -- or at least sometimes -- like that, wouldn't it?

An early blogger.

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Hypermodern Disinformation

by Albert Frank

We know that the information given to us by the media is dangerous: Any fact can be presented in several ways, in several contexts, and can lead the spectator to different, and sometimes opposite, conclusions.

As an example, pictures of a fire, according to how the pictures are taken, the comments, the context, can lead one to think it’s just a little fire or it’s a real disaster.

Up to a few years ago, the spectator still had the possibility of saying to himself, " I’ll record these images, later I’ll look very carefully at them, and I’ll make an interpretation as near as possible to the reality,… "

Now, a big step (if we can say that) has been taken place: We all know that we have the technical capabilities - it’s possible and easy for a lot of people - to change some parts of a video, or even to fully create one, with anything on it. If it is well done, only specialists would maybe be able to realize the manipulation that has been done (for instance change one person's head with another).

I will only consider the following websites (I have read details there): Dailymotion and Youtube : If anyone accepts the conditions of utilisation (we know them: no incitation to hate, no racism, nothing pedophilic,…), anybody can send them a video, for free…and anyone can see them, also for free..

So, more and more often, we can see/hear affirmations (on any subject), together with " proofs," like this: "Look at the following video," with a reference to a video from one of the two above web sites. A big majority of spectators have no special reaction, they just say, "Here we see the facts, let’s try to understand them properly."

An example that I have seen recently (I am absolutely not into politics): A video "showing" the French President apparently a little drunk after a meeting with the Russian President (True? False? It does not matter. The video is there.)

I consider this new total possible disinformation (and the acceptance of it by most of the people) as a real horror.

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Afghanistan

by Brian Schwartz

A few days after the destruction of the World Trade Center, Tamim Ansary, a San Francisco writer of Afghan descent, wrote an impassioned letter to a few close friends. Within two days, that letter had been forwarded by e-mail to millions of people around the world. A few days ago, it was reprinted on the Fire list. In his essay, Mr. Ansary argued that "the Taliban ...are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan." I'd like to take issue with that.

In the late 80s, after a brave ten-year struggle, Afghan partisans achieved what many (but not me) thought was impossible: they defeated a mighty superpower. They then proceeded to fight among themselves. By the early 90s, the country was carved up, split between bands of corrupt, greedy warlords. The Taliban started as a small group of idealistic religious students centered in Kandahar. Within 3 years they had been swept to power on a wave of popular support, in much the same way as Khomeni had ousted the Shah ten years before in Iran. (There are similar events throughout the history of the Muslim world, one example being the Fulani jihad, which swept aside the secular rulers of many West African kingdoms in the first decade of the nineteenth century.)

Of course, once in power in Iran, Khomeni and his followers proceeded (despite some idealistic socialist reforms) to muck up the economy, increase unemployment, and alienate much of the population, especially the youth in a country half of whose population was born after the revolution. The Taliban were even more religiously fanatic than the Iranians. But I believe the reforms they instituted were generally supported in the smaller towns and villages where most of Afghanistan lives. When they first emerged in '94, I thought of them as the purest expression I had seen of the Afghan soul.

I have never seen a land as strongly religious as Afghanistan and the part of Pakistan abutting the Afghan border. I could almost feel it; it was as if the air I walked through was electrically charged. Always, the first question I was asked was "are you Moslem?" That was what really mattered. And there was a strange peace in that. These were not an angry people.

The Afghans --especially the Pathans-- are some of the fiercest fighters on earth, and their land has never been successfully conquered. Their villages are, as I said in my book ^* discussing the Pakistani border areas, "ruled by councils of Pathan chiefs and elders who follow a code of chivalry and honor called pukhtunwali. Its tenets are simple, and as easy to apply as the biblical eye-for-an-eye: welcome all strangers, grant refuge to all fugitives, and avenge all insults." (p. 100)

But in the end, the Taliban did betray Afghanistan...by supporting Al-Qaeda. The Afghans have traditionally been isolationist. Don't mess with us, and we won't mess with you; that was their credo. Osama changed all that. He persuaded them to sow the wind.

But I was there before all that. Here's what I wrote about my feelings when my visa expired and I had to leave: "I had come to love the Afghans and I was reluctant to leave them. They were a strong people, spirited and proud, and though they would shout at me in incomprehensible languages, and laugh long and loudly at my slightest clumsiness, and never allow me a moment's peace or respite, there was affection behind their banter, and I always felt welcome in their land." (p. 125)

* A World of Villages by Brian Schwartz (See the Reason and Rhyme "Books" section.)

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My Motto: Everybody Does It Is Not A Reason For Doing It

by Albert Frank

For many years, this has been my motto. I’ll try to explain why.

Already at the age of 10, I often noticed that when people where doing something I considered to be bad and I asked them why, the answer was “Everybody does it”.

From what I have seen (passively, as a witness only or more actively by asking more and more questions), it has nearly always been the same during more than 50 years with very few exceptions, and that is the most incredible part for me.

Of course, my first question was “Who are the exceptions to this?" That has become a horror for me – I’ll be more explicit later. The answer (from what I have seen): some (but certainly not all) chess players in their daily lives and in the way they play chess. There are also some (but certainly not all) “high I.Q.” people.

Before trying to explain my reactions, here are some examples, mainly very common, some historical (after a long search). Some are insignificant, some are horrible:

• Near a school, with a speed limit of 30 km/h, driving at 50. “Look Albert, I just follow the previous car, everybody does it.”
• Cheating when playing soccer. “The others do it also, and it is not cheating, it’s only to win.” – This was said to children on a soccer field. It makes me vomit…
• Cheating at exams at school (or for an i.q. test): “Now, with Internet and technology, everybody does it.”
• Driving when you are drunk, only a "little bit" of alcohol – 3 glasses of wine and a beer: "Look, everybody does is, so it can’t be dangerous.”
• We must recognise the authority of all the “big chiefs,” like the Pope or a State President: "Everyone recognizes their authority.” This was of course valid for Hitler too.

At a very young age, I began to be horrified, really horrified, by such things. As an example, I remember when I went to Rome with my father: We saw "Pie 12th" in the “Pope's chair”. My father said, “I’m not catholic, nevertheless there are things which have to be respected and applauded. "Everybody does it," - even if it was not explicitly said… All the “intellectual confidence” I had in my father disappeared then… I entertained ideas of suicide.

My life became worse and worse until it finally stabilised by my recognising the dichotomy: The sheep on the one hand doing and saying only what they could copy, often just what was said in newspapers and on TV. That was the vast majority. I would say more than 95 %, even though they would all probably strongly deny it. Slowly, I recognised that there are two distinct personalities:

• With this majority of sheep, I made no contact except indispensable practical things. With them I did not speak. I was “alone in my corner”….
• With the others, "the outsiders”: I loved to speak, to communicate - about nearly everything – I had long conversations… There were several real friendships as a great consequence of this!

Now, I have the opportunity to have quite a few (more than 10) really good "friends" (that’s a big word), and, none of them ever gives the excuse, “Everybody does it."

I have something to add: I have always tried to not be too "severe” with people of low standing (secretaries, for example); at the same time, I have been extremely severe with what I call “pseudo intellectuals” – like "Engineers" or "Ph.D's".

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Switzerland from a Bird's Eye View

by Frank Luger

There is no country quite like Switzerland, and no people even remotely resembling the Swiss. This statement is not intended as promotional propaganda for the tourism industry. It is based on personal experience, when in late 1966, after breaking through the Iron Curtain, I had to find my way from an Italian refugee camp to eventual political asylum in West-Germany; and so, perforce, see and feel Switzerland from the inside, rather than from the comfortable outsider stance of a well-to-do tourist. Still, it was a nice experience. Since then, I was there a few more times; and the same good impressions remained, throughout the past 35 years or so.

Flatten the mountains out with a giant rolling-pin, and the country would expand to three or four times its size. Crumpled as it is, altitudes vary from sea-level (at Locarno) to 15,215 feet, on the summit of the Dufourspitze, the highest peak in the Swiss Alps. In between, you can choose your climate, from mellow Mediterranean to frozen Arctic. Why, in the course of an afternoon you can travel backward through the seasons, as it were, from summer back to spring and thence to eternal winter, by going for a ride on the steep mountain railway that ascends the Jungfrau.

And the people who inhabit this country are just as varied. In the West they speak French and are Gallic in ethnicity, i.e. features, character, temperament, and culture. The conductor on the eastbound train from Geneva or Lausanne starts by saying "Tous les billets, s'il vous plaît!" when he asks for the tickets; by the time the train reaches Berne, he has switched to German and calls "Alle Billete, bitte!"

For we have meanwhile passed the language frontier and entered the region where German dialects are spoken -- a slightly different one in each region. The "frontier zone" is only a few miles wide, and it remains a mystery why, despite many generations of federal government and intermarriage, there has been so little blending and merging of the various ethnic elements, all over the country.

But that is just another of the characteristic features of Switzerland. The twenty-five Cantons or counties making up the Helvetic Confederation enjoy an amazing amount of autonomy; and they are so jealous of their independence within the Swiss family that some of them still officially call themselves republics! Far from attempting to unify the population, the Federal Government takes pains to preserve the natural demographic and ethnic order and thus prevent the creation of discontented -- and therefore troublesome -- minorities. This 'formula' has worked well-nigh perfectly for several centuries.

Right across the country from East to West runs the great Alpine barrier, culminating in the St-Gotthard massif. Strangely enough, the St-Gotthard, though traversed by only a single railway tunnel and a single road, is far less effective as a language barrier than the little stream that divides German-speaking from French-speaking Switzerland. The reason for this is mainly climatic: the Ticino is far sunnier and warmer than the regions north of the Alps. In springtime you may leave Zürich by train in cold fog or rain, run into snow as the train ascends towards Göschenen, the northern end of the nine-mile St-Gotthard tunnel, and emerge ten minutes later at Airolo into a world of bright blue skies and warm, golden sunshine. The urge towards the South is therefore quite natural. Having reached retirement age, thousands of Swiss from the North buy a plot of land in the sunny Ticino and build a house or cottage in which to spend the evening of their years. They take their language and their native habits with them, thus adulterating the true Italianatà of the Ticino, where sunshine and the lovely scenery are practically the only economic assets of the "natives." This "colonization" has been going on for generations, and in some parishes in the Ticino today the German-speaking now outnumber the Italian-speaking original inhabitants manifold.

Of late, too, wealthy Germans have been settling in the Ticino in ever-increasing numbers. Ever more advertisements offering "Building site for sale" and "House for sale in the Ticino" have been appearing in German newspapers as the relatively poor Ticinesi dispose of their coveted though unproductive property at good prices. The attractions of the Ticino are obvious: in addition to the mild climate and beautiful scenery, taxes are comparatively low, and the geographical location is fairly safe, even in the event of another war. It occurred to me that maybe I, too, would like to buy some land there one day, build a cottage, retire to the lovely Ticino and write books. Oh, well -- daydreams"…

The Swiss feel sad as they watch this development; many of the Ticinesi- especially those who themselves have no land to sell -- feel angry. A committee had been formed for the "defense" of Italian-speaking Switzerland, but there is not much that it can do. If the present "invasion" of German-speaking settlers, both Swiss and foreigners, plus wealthy foreigners from other countries continues, it is possible that the Italian language will have become the exception rather than the rule in a few generations.

There are a great many attractions in Switzerland, from ski 'paradises' to excellent cuisine, from the fabulous dairy products to banking advantages, you name it; but perhaps I should stop at this point and let you do your own explorations and discoveries at your leisure. You will find that each place has its story to tell, its celebrities to vaunt; but the overall effect of Switzerland is serene tranquillity, as well as great natural beauty and colorful lifestyles. True, in recent decades many non-European foreigners have somewhat diluted or watered-down traditional Swiss values; but the unique charm of the country remains nevertheless, throughout the years. Therefore, the opening statement of this brief article stands, despite the passage of many turbulent times all over the World.

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