A while back first potential hints arose in scientific circles that our universe is not a 4 dimensional space-time manifold but rather a hologram on a 2 dimensional surface, like an infinite sheet of paper. This would mean our most fundamental concepts like space and time would be revealed as nothing more than an illusion. Astonishing. 

However it seems like mainstream media as well as the public have nothing to say about it. No philosophical discussions, no attempts at rethinking our place in the world. No one really cares. If a spaceship landed at Champs-Élysées with Gautama Siddharta, Jesus and Mohamed coming out proclaiming they're ancient aliens from the Orion constellation which came to revisit Earth, this wouldn't be half as astounding as the Hologram theory. I can't overstate enough how profound this insight into the potential nature of our reality is. Despite that most people would still rather read about Dennis Rodman visiting Kim Jong Un.

MY ANCESTORS ....

Human beings perfected the art of exploiting various special statuses they hold in society. Retired people will be heard bitching how "this generation has no manners" and how no one takes care of their needs these days, despite them giving their best years to provide for current generations, homosexuals will always feel persecuted, and would probably invent homophobia, if it didn't exist. Religious people are the champions of this art, one might even say they came up with it. A sure way to see an adult turn into a petulant child is by defaming their religious iconography. 

All of these pale in comparison to another expertise of social status exploitation that people masterfully incorporate into their every day life;  exploiting perceived historic injustices that got bestowed upon "their people" in the past. Black people will rave about their ancestors being slaves.  I call that the Spike Lee modus operandi. They will stipulate that these horrible things which were done to them in the past are for certain a reason enough for being especially socially sensitive towards their heirs in the present. Native Americans will tell you all about their people being murdered by colonizers through various ingenious methods accompanying the run-of-the-mil slaughter, such as chickenpox infested blankets. It goes without saying that even their present day offspring deserves to be pitied and compensated over their ancestors losing ancient lands of their people. Koreans will never forgive the Japanese for 2nd World-war atrocities  as Korean girls were forced to prostitute themselves to the Japanese soldiers. As such decdentants of these exploited sex workers should obviously get some kind of compensation for unimaginable suffering of their grandmothers. Modern day Jewish people will more than likely mention Holocaust at some point while you're having coffee with them. This plight affected their community so deeply that surely, even people who were born three generations after the Holocaust are still reeling from the consequences. 

Don't get me wrong, I would never deny terrible things that were done in the past. People are just evolutionary driven animals, who steal, cheat, connive and murder for their own self interest and interest of their local family, tribe, ethnic group or national state. There is no honour among apex predators. We have since improved as a species in general, mostly thanks to the humanism and renaissance movements in Europe as well as civil liberties that first got postulated during the French Revolution, liberties which today seem self evident, but before the great insights of such thinkers as Kant and Rousseau almost sounded contradicting and illogical. These advances will never erase all the horrors of the past, but maybe they will serve as reminders, so such things might never happen again. "Never Again" reads a monument standing where unspeakable horrors of Dachau once happened. 

However, what does all this have to do with modern descendents of people that got wronged in the past? Do they deserve to be treated with beyond-the-reasonable-norm respect and special social considerations just because they belong to a particular ethnic, political or religious group that at one point in history got wronged? I don't believe so. I fail to see a causal connection between an individual living in 2013 and his ancestor that got wronged on account on his race. If anything I see this as modern day people exploiting the plight of their forefathers. What do contemporary black people have to do with ancient slave trade? What do distinguished socialites in TelAviv have to do with people who died painfully of typhoid related causes in Auschwitz? Just about as much as I have to do with ancient long-forgotten indigenous tribes of the Balkans whose genes I probably carry, which probably got massacred by Slavic settlers long centuries ago. Pretty much nothing I would be justified to bitch about in the 21st century.

Every human being deserves to be treated with dignity. But don't ask for unwarranted respect for something you had nothing to do with. It does not concern you personally. You can be proud of your heritage, but don't go pleading for special considerations because of it. You want respect, go out and earn it. You are the only one that can make a purpose in your life. Not your ethnicity nor your culture or religion. Only you. 

RENAULT WORLD TOUR

I had this rather amazing idea to travel around the world with my venerable 97 Renault Mégane. I wrote to Renault about it and I an the middle of an amusing correspondence with them (which might still be going on, if they ever answer me)

This was my original letter to them:

Dear Sir or Madame,

My name is Mitja Iršič. I am writing to you in order to present you with a proposition for cooperation, but first, allow me to reveal a few important details about my love affair with your products.

My dad first bought a good old Renault 4 in the eighties, which served us well for nearly a decade before we sold it off to an elderly couple who still uses it to this day. He bought a second Renault – a used 1997 Mégane Classic – in 2000. I inherited it a few years later and it is still my daily vehicle of choice 13 years later. With 203.000 kilometres behind it – a lot of them in heavy duty stop-and-go traffic – the old girl shows no signs of letting go. The K series 1.6 liter 4-stroke under the hood is purring like a kitten just like it did almost 17 years ago when some lucky Frenchman first turned the key on the production line in Douai. In nearly two decades of service, I only changed parts of the exhaust, the battery, brakes, rear shock absorbers and the timing belt. Below the threshold of even normal wear and tear.

The clutch remains as is. Front shock absorbers, various pumps, seals, electronics, radiator grille; just about every part's manufacturing stamp is dated back to either 1996 or 1997. It never failed to start early in the morning, even in temperatures that would make Antarctica feel like a tourist resort in the Seychelles. It never left me on the side of the road somewhere in Germany, waiting to get picked up by an ADAC truck, with a bunch of smart-ass Germans telling me to buy an Audi. In short, you gentlemen made a fine product all those years ago.

Now that this is out of the way, let me tell you about my proposition. I want to take my Mégane  and drive it around the globe! I would start in my hometown of Slovenske Konjice in Slovenia and travel across Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, People's Republic of China, then hop on a ship to Los Angeles and drive all the way to New York after which I would take another ship to the Atlantic coast of France, driving to either Paris or Douai where the Mégane  was made back in the 90s and where its 3rd generation is still made today. As you can imagine, a trip like this is expensive and I have already contacted several local companies here – some from your own supply chain – who would partially sponsor me, and this is where you come in. I would like you to back me up as my main sponsor. Not only that – I would like to be actively involved in the marketing of your brand in Europe and beyond, even after my trip is done. I am after all endorsing your product, your build quality, workmanship and engineering prowess with my proposed adventure. In these days of plastic planes with exploding lithium ion batteries, freezing computers and failed spacecraft, what resonates more in the mind of the consumer than an Average Joe showing them that a product can last for decades of every day (ab)use? Of course, skeptics might say something in the lines of "but this is an old simplistic car without modern electronic gimmickry that always goes wrong". However, the way I see it – it is precisely because of cars like this that the story of brand reliability gets written. I am a graduated jurist, however I have been working in marketing for years and I therefore possess thorough understanding of the matters concerning brand image and awareness.

 After all, even today's Mercedes buyers often still cite their grandfathers W123 as their inspiration to get a new E class. Not to mention the K series engine which got its introduction in the Mégane  I would pull my stunt in is still used in your line of cars today as you well know (although with many modifications). The same men and women still screw together today's 3rd generation of the car as well as others in the model line-up. The same engineers design and extensively test it. The same corporate structure is responsible for its distribution and awareness across the globe under the same brand. So my Mégane  is after all a testament to your abilities. I want to promote these abilities. What is more trust inducing than the promise of good, solid nuts-and-bolts engineering that a brand can provide? Renault’s current advertising motto is "Quality Made", is it not? Let’s show that this always was and continues to be the case. Let me help you in this endeavour with my small contribution. Sponsor me. It will be more effective than a thousand ads with dancing robots and SUVs jumping over fake crests. It will be something real people can identify with.  Something which would make them purchase a brand new Renault instead of a Peugeot or a Ford because … “… did you see that old Mégane  driving through a dusty old gravel road in Kazakhstan? Now that’s quality.”

In conclusion, please find attached a few pictures of the car itself as well as my resume. I will disclose a detailed plan of my project in case you respond and are interested in my proposition.  I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

Mitja Iršič

Renault surprisingly replied! I never expected anything more than a randomly generated message. This is what their girl Vanessa wrote: 

 

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in Renault.

Thank you for your proposal regarding the sponsorship of your project, and for inviting Renault to participate in this initiative.
We regret that we are unable to take up your offer. Renault has decided to base its public relations strategy around core business themes : road safety, automobile sports, and environment. Although your project is interesting, our involvement would not be consistent with the PR strategy outlined above.
We appreciate your understanding, and wish you the very best of luck in the organization of this action.

The Renault.com Team
Vanessa Delettre
RENAULT
Corporate Communications

Since they were so nice I've decided to reply them back:

Dear Vanessa,

Thank you very much for your reply to my proposal. I was expecting either nothing at all or some randomly generated thanks-for-your-interest-in-Renault BS. Thus I really appreciate an actual response.

However I would like to point out some parts in your reply with which I have issues with in hope it might improve your PR strategy in the future. On the other hand you can take it as useless layman advice.


You said your "core business themes" are road safety, automobile sports and environment. Fair enough. But I would like to dwell a little further on these themes.


Road safety: Sure it is an important point of interest for any roadcar manufacturer, but at the same time it is not a selling point in this day and age when pretty much ANY car on the road gets 5 stars in the EuroNCAP. It surely is one of those outdated features of advertising, sort of like promoting a car that has electronic injection, is it not?

Automobile sports: Renault surely has a pedigree in the pinnacle of motor-sport ever since the 70s and it should be celebrated. However at the same time, is making it a core business theme for a brand which has always been renowned for making comfortable family cruisers really a sensible thing to do?

Environment: It is a sad fact that pretty much no one cares about the environment outside  of countries where they actually offer some financial stimulus for environmentally conscious vehicles. So targeting customers with environment is the same as targeting them with new laser welding techniques in production. They simply do not care.

I am not saying what you labelled as your "core business themes" are not be advertised at all but at the same time I am convinced your average customer would appreciate reliability above all of them, especially in these times of an ongoing financial and social crisis in Europe - which is your key market. It will also put me in an uncomfortable position, if -  while traveling around the globe in the Megane - I get interviewed by TV stations around the world and they ask me why I am not backed up by the factory that made it. I would not want to explain to them that reliability is "not one of your core business themes". Since you were kind enough to actually reply to my proposal I will just tell them I never contacted you.

Lastly don't take these issues that I pointed out as me trying to tarnish the work you are doing. I am convinced you are experts in your field and will continue to spread the message of the brand in EU and beyond.

Sincerely,
Mitja

I am still waiting patiently for their reply. I expect it somewhere between 2050 and the end of space-time.

 

AIRBUS

Ever since I can remember I always wanted to work for Airbus. With my profession that would be just about as achievable as winning the lottery five times in a row, but I still sent them a sappy CV as a long-shot. I'm expecting a call from John Leary any day now. :-)

The sappy letter:

As a child one of my favourite places to visit was the Maribor Airport. It was and still is a small-town airport. Then in the days of decline of Yugoslavia it rarely saw any traffic, with just one Swissair DC-9 doing touch-and-gos every other day as part of flight training. Yet that sole DC-9 and high-pitched spooling of its Pratt&Whitney JT8D turbines was enough to get my imagination going. I would imagine it going to exotic far away locations after each take-off, despite knowing it will just make a go around and land in a few minutes. I would put myself in place of those lucky engineers and line-workers  fortunate enough to assemble this marvelous colossal feat of engineering. It was then that I got hooked for life on civil aviation industry.

Why do I love it? Well it's a number of things. First it's an industry which allows common people to experience the awe-inspiring engineering perfection of modern state-of-the-art machines costing as much as 300 million euros for as little as 100 euros they pay for a ticket. It brings an average person closer to the cutting edge of human technology. In this aspect aviation is absolutely unique.  Hardly anyone has a chance to experience the acceleration of a formula 1 race car, yet almost anyone with 20euros in their pocket can take a no-frills flight, listen to the whine of a multi-million dollar turbo-fan jet engine as it spools up on take-off and see our world as it was never intended to see. There is no other activity in history of mankind that has been longed for quite as much as joining birds in the sky.  It seems like we have an inexplicable natural urge to see the world from above, despite our roots in the African savannah which placed us firmly on terra firma.  We gazed enviously at birds of prey soaring elegantly over mountains and canyons, until our endless drive to join them pushed us towards finding a way to subjugate the laws of science.

The way we managed to subjugate them, is in fact what I love about aviation the most. Many pioneers of flight were killed. First flight of the Wright brothers was in fact shorter than the length of a modern airliner. Yet we persevered. Steps were slow and painful, but we  overcame them one by one. Per aspera ad astra. Today's aviation knowledge, much like any other human endevour, stands on the shoulders of giants - not just of aviation, but of science as a whole. Extraordinarily sophisticated modern commercial airplanes like the Airbus A380 could never leave the drawing boards, if they didn't bring out something special in humanity. An understanding that giant industrial undertakings like this can only materialize if we work together.

An Airbus A380 was designed, manufactured and put into production by engineers from various European countries, whose grandparents and even parents slaughtered each other during the bloodshed of WW2 just six decades ago. Yet projects like these united them, their talents, dreams and visions into one singular drive towards perfection. Designers in Broughton, UK and Toulouse, France were working hand in hand with their peers in Hamburg, Germany, to create a monument of contemporary European Union. These men and women are a symbol of our true greatness, as a species. A small but significant peek into what we can achieve when we work together as brothers and sisters united in overcoming ambitious challenges  we set for ourselves. But also a glimmer of hope that these kind of international collaborations might pave the way to humanity of tomorrow - humanity that knows no ethnic, political or social prejudice and works together as one species. Thus I hope aviation and other human endeavours on the edges of scientific discovery will help us get that one step closer to this elusive multi-cultural dream which is so easy to embrace and understand, yet so horrendously difficult to achieve in a divisive world we live in. This is why I love the aviation industry. This is why I want to be a part of your team.

JOSIP BROZ TITO

Only two things can happen to an ethnic group which was subjugated for centuries by foreign oppressors. It can either grow tough and resilient (think Basques or the Jewish) or it could become addicted to having a »master« watch over it. A dear leader. A demigod which can do no wrong. Sadly Slovenes fall into the second category. 

30 years after our »dear leader« died people still worship this mass-murderer/tyrant/dictator like he was the second coming. »Everything was so much better when Tito was around« I hear people shout ignorantly. »We all had jobs, we all had cash, everybody was kind and generous, stress was nonexistent. I wish we had Tito back then everything would be absolutely fab, we'd all get laid twice daily, once in the morning and then right after dinner.«

Just for once take off your rose tinted glasses and remember the economic collapse of 1988 (what else would one expect with artificial full-employment and semi planned economy), the unjust taxes we paid to Belgrade, only a handful of (domestic-only) brands one could buy in small undersupplied town shops, paying for new (domestic-only) cars in advance, then waiting years to get them (often only to realize after recieving them, that they came preinstalled with many life-threatening deficiencies), being enforced with Serbo-croatian as the dominant language, the innate fear people had of the army and it's institutions of oppression. Sure we weren't really like North Korea or even like Soviet Union and it's satellites, but we were bloody well close in some instances (the army machine was no less ferocious and political opponents of the system would either end up dead or doing hard labour in prison camps).

All the »good« deeds people remember were hollow. Everybody had jobs? That's economically impossible to sustain in the long run . We were all equal? First of all... that's totally against natural order of alpha-male hierarchy where the capable individuals excel and lead the herd. Second of all... like hell we were equal. There always were and always will be people with vast privileges in any society. At least capitalism doesn't hide it behind the hypocrisy of promised equality. It's a baloon waiting to burst once. The working class was in charge of the economy? My ass. The communist party was in charge. And that was nothing but another manifestation of absolute power which was corrupted all the way to the top. Nepotism was the name of the game back then and for the most part, connections which emerged back then are still in effect even today. Third... hello? Smith's invisible hand pwns any idea of socialism/communism. It's been proven time and time again during history. Socialism is just an attempt at absolute power through means of diversion.

Sure Tito is a »layered« personality as some people like to put it. But all the so called »good« he did will never, ever excuse him of being a war profiteer, documented mass-murderer, tyrant and a person who was indirectly responsible for the slaughter that happened in the Balkans 25 years after his death. I'm sure he knew what would happen in this Slavic melting pot once his foreign-debt ladden fairy tale crumbled into pieces. It was an inevitable scenario. I have this personal theory that he started off as a devoted, deluded communist in the 20s but soon discovered he had a robust power to charm ignorant masses (like most charismatic dictators did/do) and he just took this cult-of-personality game as far as he could. Which was pretty damn far. And as we know... power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

So. People. Wake the fuck up and stop condoning (or heaven forbid even glorifying) this fucker. It pisses me off. Remember him as a 50 year long tragedy bestowed upon our nation. A tragedy which left us stagnant, forcefully drowned in Serbo-croatian culture, nationally raped and economically exhausted, with a 20-year old development deficit compared to western European countries. Every time you start wondering why an average Austrian earns 3000EUR a month while you live off 800EUR, remember him and go spit on his grave.

THAT'S SO GAY!

I hate Gay Pride Parades with a passion. I think they're insulting to gay people and do more damage to the gay community than combined gang of religious extremists, conservative hypocrites & people who think two guys/girls/hermaphrodites kissing is just icky. It's very simple, really. You wanna be considered as normal, integral part of society? Then stop perpetuating the myth that all gay people are sexed-up, pierced- nippled S&M enthusiasts who consider whips and chains a mandatory part of their going-out attire. If you do that then everybody - even the moderates - will treat you as deviants. 
I think the best thing I can do to show solidarity with gay people is not really give a shit about who they sleep with, nor equalize their whole persona with their sexual orientation. These parade goers should learn how to do that as well and stop treating their sexuality as the pivotal part of their existence. It's only a tiny part of who they are. There's more to them than who they sleep with and their "pride" over their sexual habits. Just like there's more to straight people than knocking someone up. They'll realize that one day and only then will the (moderate part of) society accept them more freely.

WHY I THINK THERE IS NO INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

PublicFriendsOnly MeCustomClose FriendsEmployment office of the Republic of Slovenia, department of immigrationSee all lists...University of Maribor, Faculty of LawII.gimnazijaGovernment of the Republic of SloveniaUndisclosedUniversity of Maribor, Faculty of LawMaribor, Slovenia AreaFamilyAcquaintancesGo Back

Since four different people in recent times asked me if I believe there's other intelligent life in the universe, I think the time has come to write a short note on my thoughts regarding this topic.

Once I resist the urge of being a smart-ass and asking "What OTHER intelligent life. Is there intelligent life in the first place?!", this would be my answer:

Me:  "No, I don't think there is."

Fellow conversationalist with no life: "But there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe and every one of those has billions of stars, that have billions and billions of planets rotating said stars."

Me: "Sure. I never said life itself is an Earth exclusive kind of a deal. In fact I'm convinced it exists elsewhere in the universe. But you're forgeting one thing. Just how rare is intelligent life in the sense of technological capabilities? Lets be clear here - when we're talking intelligence we're not talking about apes, elephants, whales or dolphins - smart as they may be they'll never design internal combustion engines or space stations. Evolution itself has proven quite clearly - with it's own track record - that life certainly does NOT need intelligence to thrive. Just like it doesn't necessary need elephant trunks. It could be a useful adaptation. But hardly necessary. Life on Earth's been doing just fine for two billion years, while remaining stuck evolutionary in the microorganism stage. It took 2000 million years for some sort of basic complexity to develop- then came the plants, then came primitive animals... then in "recent" history some basic intelligence developed in SOME reptilians and SOME mammals - while it still wasn't the dominant force of survival - reptilians that thrived were genetically nothing but featherless chickens with brains of similar capabilities. If an (extremely unlikely) event hadn't have happened 65 million years ago wiping out dinosaurs and giving our mammalian ancestors a shot at survival, the Earth would more than likely still be reigned by giant reptilians. After that extinction event (which happened in relatively recent evolutionary history) our ancestors the mammals were allowed to thrive in a similar way as dinosaurs did before that. And it still took 60 million years for first primates to evolve and out of many, many species of those only one managed to eventually (after another extremely unlikely event of discovering fire), become technologically advanced. All this was pure chance. Tossing the coin a million times and getting heads each and every time. Thus in my opinion technologically evolved life is such an extremely unlikely event, that it's impossible to happen anywhere else in the universe even if there are almost countless number of planets that could support life. Here's a simpler way of looking at it: throughout 4000 million years in which millions of species of animals came and went, only one subspecies of a species managed to become inteligent enough to develop technology.

Fellow conversationalist with no life: "But isn't the aim of evolution to constantly improve living organisms so they could cope with harsh environments they find themselves in?"

Me: "No. The aim (if one can call it that) of evolution is survival. An organism can survive with various mechanisms, intelligence being one of them - but obviously not a very important one, since it developed so late. Intelligence is redundant more often than not (and in our own case - it might even be detrimental, since it may lead to our demise). Not only that - even complexity of life can be redundant - sometimes simplicity is the way to go and evolution works in a reductionist fashion - like with moluscs, which once were much more compelexed animals than they are today.

Fellow conversationalist with no life: "What about UFOs?"

Me: "UFO is short of Unidentified Flying Object. I see unidentified flying objects in the sky every day. Never do I deduct that they're spececrafts with creatures from another world piloting them. Just as if you see a guy in a big foot costume on the street, your first thought would be, that this is infact a human wearing a costume - you wouldn't take a leap of faith and presume you've just disovered a new humanoid species.

Even if the impossible did happen and technologically advanced life evolved on some distant planet in our galaxy, interstellar travel is pretty much physically impossible - given the speed of light limitation (sure sci-fi writers would make you believe aliens use theoretical worm holes, but no one mentions the fact that they'd be burned, crushed, atomized and reduced to basic physical particles by even getting close to one). There is no possible way for interstellar travel - maybe to near-by stars. But it would take generations and it would mean a suicide mission since it's high probability most of those stars have lifeless planets."

Fellow conversationalist with no life: "What about reports of encounters of the 3rd kind, where people actually claim they've been abducted by aliens?"

Me: "There are people every year who claim they've been possessed by demons, kidnapped by Elvis, levitate in mid air or heard voices from God in their head. People lie and make stuff up. No one ever brought an object back from the alien space ship. Not to mention - a lot of those people claim aliens raped them or they even had consensual sex with them. Of course all these aliens are humanoid by design - two legs, two arms a head and apparently...even similar sex organs. Interesting that evolution on another planet would go for the SAME design as here on earth, despite the fact it's been very creative otherwise in our own evolution (really what's the similarity between a dolphin and a human? And we're both highly related mammals, with a common ancestors as close as a thirty million years ago).

Fellow conversationalist with no life: "Despite the low likelihood there still has to be SOME possibility a life on another planet would reach a stage of technological capabilities..."

Me: "Yes indeed. There always is SOME possibility for anything. Just like there's a possibility I'll win the lottery 100000 times in a row. It's a very small possibility but a possibility non-the-less. You just have to judge if this possibility is enough to warrant any credible scientific notion of another technologically evolved life out in the universe. In my opinion it's not.