Arquivo para a ‘Information ethics’ Categoria
Because Covid 19 is not over
08
Nov
Last Thursday (11/04) Hans Kluge, WHO director for Europe,
said 53 countries in the region are facing “a real threat of the resurgence of COVID-19” and encouraged governments in the region to take urgent action, in China the government even advised the population to stock up on food, the new wave is due to the delta variant.
In Germany, 66.5% of the population is fully vaccinated, but according to the RKI (Robert Rock Institute, responsible for the control of infectious diseases), there are more than 3 million people over 60 years old who have not been vaccinated and The risk is high, and last Friday it registered just 37,000 infections, a record number, while Russia registered 40,735 new cases and 1192 deaths related to the virus last Friday, according to the government’s own data.
France, Holland, Italy and England record high infections, Portugal has a high despite having the highest vaccination rate in the world (almost 90%) and only Spain did not have high infections.
In China, the outbreak, which is still small in number, affected several regions of the country, and the government even advised the population to stock up on food.
Brazil has 58.2% of the population fully vaccinated, while 76.3% have already taken at least one dose, the safety margin is still small for a general release that has already taken place, there is no more temperature control and agglomerations. worryingly, the country is still in the range of 300 daily deaths, and over 11,000 infections.
Vaccination continues, the country received this Sunday 1.1 million doses of vaccine against Covid 19 at Viracopos airport, despite some currents criticizing the quality of the vaccine, there are no scientific criteria for this criticism.
The ministry said the number by the weekend was 122.3 million people immunized, and the target population is 177 million people.
The additional dose for elderly groups, the so-called “third dose” reached 8.9 million additional doses, according to the Ministry of Health.
Looking at the European scenario, it is good not to relax and we must continue the full vaccination schedule, only one dose does not guarantee immunity, even in the case of Janssen, a booster dose is being applied.
Covid falls and worrying cases
18
Oct
Covid 19 already shows signs of decline worldwide, but there are still 
worrying cases such as Russia, the first country to launch a vaccine and had on Saturday (16/09) more than a thousand deaths from Covid 19, the reasons are several, the main thing is the low rate of vaccination, Russia reached 218,362 thousand deaths for a population of 145 million inhabitants.
The whole world has almost 48% at least one dose and just over 36% fully immunized, it is possible to consider that we are not out of danger, something around 60% would be desirable, at least until the end of the year for the Christmas parties , in Brazil the number of vaccinees is 73.4% at least one dose and close to 50% fully vaccinated, but the infection curve still drops very slowly.
The consequences of Variant delta are not yet known, in a balance made of the pandemic by neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, he stated that in Brazil we have not yet seen the face of this variant.
Winter is approaching in the Northern Hemisphere and the WHO intends to consider the possibility of a new pandemic, so that we are not surprised as this one has not ended, in November it will hold a World Health Assembly where it will study the possibility of a “treaty for pandemic”, it is necessary to consider greater solidarity and more effective combat.
The deputy director of WHO Mariângela Simão was emphatic: “there will be a next pandemic”, and added: “This is something we already know and which is inevitable, it’s a question of when it will happen” said according to the Instituto Paulista of Medicine.
Simão alerts that there is no approved vaccine yet for children, so there cannot be a national policy using vaccines that have not been approved for children under 12 years of age, and he points out that we only have one vaccine approved for use by adolescents from 12 years of age, which is the Pfizer.
He highlighted the importance of the Covax consortium that helped vaccination in poor countries, stressing the importance of donating 500 million doses from Pfizer, which will allow the entry of 200 million doses from Pfizer this year, France also made available the make donations and more countries are expected to help because, for now, it is the only vaccine for teenagers.
Will to power and civilizing childhood
14
Oct
A well-known concept of Nietzsche is the will to power, as a “natural”
driving force of man, we have already developed that the natural is different from the cultural, this being one of the infernal dichotomies as Latour said, the other is objectivity x subjectivity coming from rationalism/idealism of modernity.
In fact, this led people to expand from the primitive world, I would say in the infant civilizing age, the wars and empires of Alexander the Great, of which Aristotle was tutor, and later the Roman Empire, and the empires of modernity: the Portuguese, the French, Russian and American and the two world wars are in fact the great crisis of modernity, we were not able to overcome the civilizing childhood.
There were other great empires little mentioned in history: the great Manchu Qing dynasty of northern China invaded and defeated the Ming dynasty, it was a minority ethnicity but it dominated all of China and even had a brief restoration in 1917 and the great Mongol Empire was one of the largest in terms of area, reaching Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries.
One can think of potency as a form of growth to overcome both individual and civilizing childishness, so there is an act and potency, theorized Thomas Aquinas, but Nietzsche himself warns of this other sense: “the will to power is not even a being , not a becoming, it is a pathos”, so let us analyze the triad of classical antiquity: ethos, pathos and logos.
Pathos is in modern rationalism that also used by Descartes, in a different sense from Nietzsche from which the idea of pathology comes, which moves in imperfection, using Nietzsche’s own idea is not ontological, it denies being because it does not even ethos and nor the classic triad logos.
In Aristotelian rhetoric, ethos is one of the modes of persuasion or components of an argument, and this one gives meaning to being, being the link with the Logos that gives meaning to Being, giving credibility and establishing a truth that is not reality, because that is where the Logos draws the consistency of Being to oppose the Pathos-logical.
The Pathos lives in pure emotion, in irrationality, in deceitful imagination, he is responsible for the disorders of the Being, being in a way its denial.
The Pathology of two world wars has shown that humanity has not left its civilizing infancy, it is still a victim of itself incapable of conceiving Being as Ethos.
Renouce privileges and provide conditions for the poor
08
Oct
Alongside the problem of poverty and extreme poverty, the 
world lacks solidarity and compassion for the poor, according to Amartya Sen, another Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998, “poverty is the deprivation of capabilities”, so it is not about the disabled. or some system of privileges, but access to education, social and financial status, health, etc.
The contribution of Kremer, Barnerjee and Duflo (see previous post) is revealing because it addresses the multidimensional aspect, which goes beyond the lack of resources of poverty, and even further points to the ineffectiveness of government poverty, and among these measures they address that even microcredit has limitations.
The survey was conducted in 13 countries in The Economic Lives of the Poor study, the authors demonstrate that microfinance cannot increase investment, consumption, health and education conditions or empowerment. of women, so what is the solution pointed out.
They point to effects of strengthening and improving specific aspects related to poverty, such as education and infrastructure, and point to a study done in Kenya 2009 (Additional Resources versus Organizational Changes in Education: Experimental Evidence from Kenya), and another one done in India in 2007 (Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India), 2007.
Developed countries are also in line with these proposals, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) plans, but there will be no lack of polarized arguments that will say that it is about welfare or it is a proposal of the radical left, it is about overcoming the selfish and make sure that globalization has not looked at the social problem of humanity.
As it is difficult to overcome this vision, and this comes from afar, overcoming the vision of agreement of the rich and the poor and looking at the poor is also a Christian teaching, says the passage of the evangelist Mark (Mk, 10:21-23) to a rich young man who followed all the commandments and wanted very much to follow Jesus, He looked at him with love and said: “You only need one thing: go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me”, the young man is dejected and leaves, because he was very rich.
Erasure, invisibility and politics
07
Oct
It is not ignored in history the fact that the state, being a “possible”
solver of conflicts, has taken for itself the right to violence, which in the last instance is the right to kill.
Cameroon philosopher Achille Mbembe took this extreme of state power to develop his thesis on the state’s right to kill, calling this policy “Necropower”.
The essay was translated into Portuguese in 2018, and at the heart of this essay is a question about who can live or die in the contemporary world? Mbembe denounces that the role of States should have the defense of the lives of the most vulnerable as a principle, and not what is structurally done, which is the erasure of memory and the conditions of these lives.
We see that, beyond the erasure, there is a permanent invisibility of these people, by a layer that is linked to power, reaching the limit of not having civil registration and cultural rights.
Approached with regard to the forgetfulness (or social invisibility) and silencing made by the State regarding the historical past of these vulnerable groups, it is beyond the academic field, the social, cognitive and identity memory of what was experienced in the past and which is shameful not only through oblivion and invisibility, but made from a narrative opposite to its memory.
If we look from complex thinking, which etymologically means tissue together (complexus), the biological term “necrosis” refers to issues involving the biological death of bodily tissues or part of them, thus, one cannot think of the death of a part without let the whole body suffer, even though it does not look to see the tissue that is failing.
It is important to address the complexity of this concept of necropolitics and invisibility, because only it can address the problems involving racism, sexism and the erasure of different cultures (such as the indigenous, but there are many others in the contemporary world), the already known and unresolved economic dimension, which is access to social goods and services, joins the political dimension (the spaces of power), the construction of narratives and historicity of subjugating cultures (the psychological dimension) and the comprehensive cultural dimension.
Starting from the misery and invisibility of peoples, cultures and races, it cannot deny structural factors that are strong and prevent a more sustainable change of peaceful and harmonious coexistence.
Falling, but care must be taken
04
Oct
After a legendary pandemic fall in Brazil, Saturday the curve
was below 500 deaths in the last 24 hours, the deaths reaching almost 600 thousand since the beginning of the pandemic, indicate that there is still danger and the flexibility that is already happening for massive public events is worrisome.
It’s important to remember that on September 13th the moving average was 465.’ and then it went up.
We already explained last week that a “aftermath” is needed and that the proximity of the holidays and the end of the year can worry us, I remember the case of Portugal last year, which relaxed on these dates and had an increase in January, the countries that are in the beginning of flexibilization have really low rates of infection and mortality and the regions of contagion are observed.
The vaccination of the first dose already 40% (93,271,450 immunized and 147 million first doses), the vaccine delay rate in Brazil is 11%, according to the bulletin VigiVac of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil.
The Bulletin points out the states with the greatest delay, Ceará with 33% and the smallest Rio Grande do Norte with 5.4%, also note the absence for the second dose, in absolute numbers, São Paulo 1.25 million, in Rio de Janeiro 956.9 thousand people did not show up for the second dose and in Bahia 907.5 thousand people, the State with the highest vaccination is São Paulo with 79.20% in the first dose when it is not the only one and the lowest is Pará with 50, 91% took a dose.
Vaccines also had delays in delivery, Coronavac 33%, AstraZeneca 15% and Pfizer with a lower rate of 1%, which is why it has been the most applied in many cases in the third dose.
Pfizer entered more than 1 million doses this Saturday at Viracopos airport and promises to deliver up to 10 million on four charter flights that will arrive in the next few days.
Flexibility should advance in reliable numbers, taking serious control measures, for example, isolation in sporting events, in shopping malls and in means of transport.
The wisdom of pure thoughts
01
Oct
Simplicist is naive thinking, while simplicity is pure thinking, pure noesis.
It is not in the capacity for theoretical elaboration, in the bookish
culture that resists wisdom, it unites simplicity (which is not simplistic) and complexity in the sense of putting everything under the cloak of nature and the universe and understanding that there is original knowledge that is not simplistic, but they were elaborated in real contact with nature, so I reject the idea of naturalization.
Culturalization is what has taken over the natural and perverted it, said philosopher, writer and indigenous leader Ailton Krenak of the current pandemic crisis: “Earth is speaking to humanity: ‘silence.’ This is also the meaning of withdrawal.”
Much of Western culture is in crisis, because it has brutally seized nature and does not want to understand it and has difficulty understanding visible and clear signs, this crisis comes from before the current technological revolution, many philosophers at the beginning of the century XX pointed to her, and the silence asked by Krenak can also be what Theodor Adorno identifies as true contemplation: “The bliss of contemplation consists in disenchanted enchantment.” Theodor Adorno, I remember that this philosopher is neither mystic nor religious.
Ailton Krenak wrote “Ideas to postpone the end of the world” (Cia. da Letras, s/a), within an indigenous cosmovision, but aware that this is a planetary problem, he said in an interview with Daily Estado de Minas (03 /04/2020): “I don’t understand where there is something other than nature. Everything is nature. The cosmos is nature. All I can think of is nature”, denouncing that the way we live is artificial and not in keeping with human nature.
Interpreting the book by Davi Kapenawa, another indigenous leader, Viveiro de Castro and Danowski also see that our “cultured” and Western thinking is concentrated in the world of merchandise, and Kapenawa says: “white people dream a lot, but they only dream of themselves”, that is, with its own culture without being able to contemplate a wider world, where everyone is present.
These worldviews may seem naive, but they mean that we must always think beyond our culture, also the Christian worldview calls for this effort, and after teaching his apostles what the master himself should go through, and they still don’t understand, Jesus will make use of of a new metaphor for them to think in a purer and less culturalized way.
In chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark, seeing that they wanted to keep the children away from him, He says (Mk 10:14-15): “Let the children come to me. Do not forbid them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them. Truly I say to you: whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a child will not enter it”.
The world to come, in different worldviews, even if they seem childish, shows the crisis and exhaustion of cultural thought in our time, and the exhaustion of natural means.
The thinking between simplism and simplicity
30
Sep
Naive thinking ignores the complexity, relief and depth of things
see them in the superficiality of their appearance, while simplicity initiates a phenomenological process that begins with the appearance of the beholder and then develops a greater perception, in the words of philosophy, the noema, that complements the initial phase of the ability to feel, the noesis.
By defining complex thinking as having three principles: recursive, dialogic and hologrammatical, Edgar Morin thus explains this third that is inseparable from the other two:
“The hologram is a physical image, conceived by Gabor which, unlike ordinary photographic and filmic images, is projected into space in three dimensions, producing an astonishing sensation of relief and color. The holographed object is restored, in its image, with remarkable fidelity. This hologram is made up of coherent light (laser) and a device that makes each point that constitutes this image contain a sample of the system of interference lines emitted by the points of the holographed object” (MORIN, 2003, p. 34).
To explain and clarify certain phenomena it is necessary to use didactic resources that simplify them, however, this pedagogical task cannot mutilate the explanation nor make it absolutist.
There is nothing more complex than reducing it to the simple, as stated by Bachelard, there is no such thing as simple, there is only the simplified, which in most cases mutilates and deforms the phenomenon, inducing thought to an obscure liquidity.
Phenomena of nature are not easily simplified, often the pretension of mastering it even in scientific cases has revealed a perverse face, this has happened from atomic physics to modern communication technologies, it is necessary to predict and investigate adverse effects.
However, the simplicity of seeing the phenomena does not only depend on the culture, which is always diverse, but on the ability to reduce the idea (the eidetic reduction proposed by Husserl), where we go from simple appearance to the experience of consciousness about what it is informed by the senses and how the mind receives them, interpreting what is informed.
Simplifying always requires an analogy or a metaphor, we’ve already discussed it here, and that yes, it is necessary to be simple to receive “new” information with the disposition of a child, with an epoché, say philosophy, with a suspension of judgment, I would say, Cartesian thought .
MORIN, Edgar et al. (2003> Educar para a era planetaria: o pensamento complex como método parra aprendizagem. (Educating for the planetary era: complex thinking as a method of learning in human error and uncertainty). São Paulo: Editora Cortez.
Science with conscience
29
Sep
A tiny virus challenged us and put us in front of a serious pandemic,
a volcano that erupts and whose end even volcanologists and geologists still see as unpredictable.
The great mark of contemporary science is the end of certainties, the uncertainty principle first announced by Heisenberg and then certified by research in particle physics and astrophysics, Karl Popper developed the principle of falsifiability for science and Gödel’s Paradox says that no axiological system can be complete and consistent at the same time.
This should return us to humility, the Enlightenment does not mean that science has triumphed, but that it has discovered its limits and that it must give space to ethics and a humanism that completes man beyond his rationality.
Edgar Morin wrote “Science with a conscience”, presents a double challenge: it points out the ethical and moral problems that contemporary science has, whose multiple and prodigious powers of manipulation impose on scientists and citizens, and in a certain way, the entire humanity problem. political and private control of the discoveries.
According to Morin, the concepts of progress and knowledge that are related must be reordered, so progress is not reduced to the organization of economic development, and knowledge is not restricted to providing information, but also to overcoming theoretical social structures that condition their configuration to a way of thinking.
He clarifies on pages 9 and 10 that “the classic dogma of separation between science and philosophies, the sciences of this century all encounter fundamental philosophical questions: “what is the world? the nature? life? The man? reality?) and that the greatest scientists since Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg have turned into wild philosophers.” (MORIN, 2005).
Remember in the preface also the precept of Rebelais: “Science without conscience is only the ruin of the soul.” (p. 9).
MORIN, E. Science without a conscience. Editing revised and modified by the author. (Translation by Maria D. Alexandre and Maria Alice Sampaio Dória). 9th Ed. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2005.
The need to Aftermath´s Pandemic
27
Sep
Aftermath refers to that activity that authorities
responsible for fighting fires and tragedies carry out after the peak of the tragedy has passed, but still recovered, found in terms of a definition for periods that follow the tragedy or remarkable event, even when find the effects or consequences of it.
In Brazil, the data are worrying, because an announcement of flexibility in the measures of the pandemic was enough for the number of deaths to stabilize around 500 deaths daily and in some regions they are already growing, including the populous states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro .
An example of an aftermath, in addition to prevention measures until the end of the pandemic, is the research financed by FAPESP (Foundation of Research of the State São Paulo) and carried out by researchers at the Phycology laboratory at the Federal University of São Carlos (Brazil), which identified a new species of green microalgae of the genus Nyphrocytium that affects the lung of patients who died from Covid 19.
We are exhausted from such a long period of limitations, but it is important that we are careful until a final stage, which is still far away, and could reach the end of the year.
As we have already posted, Europe is entering autumn and winter promises to be harsh, as well as our summer in the southern hemisphere, the danger of new viruses and mutations of the current one must be observed, we see that in some countries, as is the case of Eastern countries, some cases already create a warning and take tough measures, but required, our liberalism can be costly.
At the opening of the UN General Assembly, Secretary General António Guterres, speaking of the general situation beyond the pandemic, but which includes it, said that we are in the wrong direction, the planet has never been seen “so threatened, nor so divided”, and stress : “we are on the brink of an abyss and we are improving in the wrong direction”, is a difficult warning, but necessary at this moment. 7
The functions of are fundamental for a time of global crisis, and there is no co-management of problems that are global, and that can expand to other areas, an already easy to be observed that is a social one, which was not properly faced, and now it’s urgent.
If we run away from a central, complex problem that involves the entire globe, we are not solving it, and we are making it worse, ineffective combating the pandemic and its consequences cannot produce good results, and those who receive political dividends are co-responsible.
We must face the aftermath of the Pandemic or we will not be able to prevent another fire.
