essay | Creative Choice

“OMG!” look at these ads on Huffpost.

Advertising on "Huffington Post", December 6th, 2011
The 99% are 1%. The majority of the people is not on the streets, but sits at home watching sit-coms. And that is not just some politician's quote.

What is the real sentiment of "the people"? To get a good indicator, we would have to assess ...

6 December, 2011

Kamiel Choi

advertisements, essay, evil, existentialism, getting rich, Huffington post, occupy movement, perverse, security, vanity, Zizek

Minor Inconveniences

Caravaggio - The Sacrifice of IsaacCan we all contribute a little bit to make the world a better place? It sounds easy, and it feels good. There are thousands of web sites and campaigns clamoring people into donating a few percent of their wealth to the Good. There are even courageous politicians who dare ...

20 November, 2011

Kamiel Choi

Caravaggio, climate change, essay, inconvenience, politics, sacrifice, way of life

Humane Recycling

We love recycling. We promote every transition of the prevalent system of exploitation and resource depletion to something more in harmony with the planet and her fragile cycles. Recycling is a new way of being, and well understood it is a truly sustainable way of living together with the landbase and ecosystems that support us. ...

17 November, 2011

Kamiel Choi

Cradle to Cradle, cycles, essay, humans, recycling

Animals.

If there is any justice beyond human justice, the human race should be eliminated yesterday.

Picture of a symbolically tortured animal (homo sapiens "sapiens")Animal welfare activists don't shy away from coining their message in radical slogans. We all know horror stories of illegal PETA activists setting fire to legitimate pork factories or chicken ...

13 November, 2011

Kamiel Choi

animals, cruelty, essay, factory farming, Gail Eisnitz, PETA, Safran Foer, Smithfield, Tyson foods, vegetarian

Fast Forward

It's not something to say aloud, but I sometimes have a hidden desire to fast-forward history. I read a lot of projections and predictions about the future, some cynical, some knowledgeable, most admitting that we simply cannot know what is coming.

Except these few certainties like climate change, global competition for food ...

3 November, 2011

Kamiel Choi

essay, fast forward, futurism, history, projection, tape recorder

Pay Me Because You Like Me (not vice versa!)

I will put a little image right next to this line, on which you can click if you want to express your appreciation with real money. Directly, without having to stop reading, going to the bank, opening another website, writing a check, or sending the maid for some loose change to give to the poor ...

21 October, 2011

Kamiel Choi

donation, essay, flattering, flattr, internet traffic, pay, twitter

Hölderlin and Neil Young

Dreams and dreamers are of all ages. They are standing on the strong shoulders of their culture and bury their gaze in the stars. Let's say that again because I like it. They are standing on the strong shoulders of their culture and bury their gaze in the stars.

Perhaps you decided to ...

20 October, 2011

Kamiel Choi

dream away, essay, Hölderlin, Neil Young, revolution, romanticism

The Club of Fifty-Six

Some people die too young, they pass away much too early, before they have come to realize their full potential. For rock-stars, the viral age seems to be twenty-seven, age at which some of the most intensely expressive musicians died. We all remember Joplin, Cobain and Winehouse.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a creative ...

8 October, 2011

Kamiel Choi

apple, Beethoven, destiny, essay, Fifty-Six, inspiration, Lincoln, Steve Jobs

Non-destructive Travel

There has been a lot of fuzz about our "carbon footprint" and most articles on non-destructive traveling start and end with quoting our unsustainably high carbon dioxide emissions on international flights. The obvious result of these well-intended pieces is that readers can't hear it any longer and lose interest in non-destructive travel altogether.

The ...

24 September, 2011

Kamiel Choi

budget, budget travel, couchsurfing, ebook, essay, footprint, hitchhiking, non-destructive, organic farms, sustainability, Travel

Daily Social Media Fairness Sessions!

Imagine you're a wealthy shop owner and you hear about this "thing", this new technology that strongly amplifies every voice raised on it and thus promises to lure paying customers into your business. Wow, you think, I don't wanna miss this boat, and you ask how much it would cost. "It's free", some bearded hippies ...

10 September, 2011

Kamiel Choi

essay, facebook, fairness, grassroots, internet, social media, twitter

Towels and Hooks

Two things are important in public toilets and similar confinements we find ourselves in for distinctively private affairs and these things are towels and hooks. Why write about them? What can we possibly gain from it? If you're not interested in towels and hooks, stop reading and enjoy your day. It's about metaphysics, perhaps. These ...

9 September, 2011

Kamiel Choi

absurd, empathy, essay, hook, metaphysics, towel

Probability Practise, helping the Poor

Can we help the poor simply by increasing the probability that a skillful independent helper or her organisation finds them?

William Easterly, the development economist and author of "The White Man's Burden" makes a famous distinction between "Planners" and "Searchers". The Planners have led most of the development efforts over the past 40 years ...

26 August, 2011

Kamiel Choi

Charity Travel, essay, probabilty practice, silent voices, volunteering

Why I like cooking

This is not a recipe blog. There are far more knowledgeable cooks maintaining interesting blogs like this one

23 August, 2011

Kamiel Choi

cooking, essay, power, psychodairy, vegetarian

Imagine a Planet of the Apes

The premisse is interesting and not so far-fetched as it was at the time of the original movie, given what our laboratories achieve. So I expected an engaging narrative around hyperintelligent apes demonstrating how to outsmart the humans by being incredibly cooperative. I expected a visionary tale of wisdom making us silent in ...

21 August, 2011

Kamiel Choi

boring, essay, genius, Hollywood, planet of the apes, psychology

In favor of diversity, multifariousness, and heterogenity

There is an old joke about a German, a Frenchman and an Englishman telling each other the word for butterfly in their native tongue. "Butterfly", the soft-spoken English gentleman whispers and you could almost hear the movement of a perfect specimen in his voice. "Papillon", murmurs the Frenchman, and his friends are enchanted by the ...

29 July, 2011

Kamiel Choi

butterfly, diversity, essay, heterogenity, phonetics

Energy Saving – the Alaska Way

produces heat (and light)If you listen carefully you can hear some politicians murmuring about saving energy, suggesting we should ride our bikes more often, insulate our homes a bit, or unplug unused electronic equipment. Some brave public folks even go as far as invoking ideas that are anathema to consumer society, such as a slightly ...

11 July, 2011

Kamiel Choi

Alaska, creative, energy, energy saving, essay, fridge, humidifier, insultion, LED, lightbulb, preheat, thermostat

Fleeing from North to South

Boat refugees are a common phenomenon: Every few weeks the news of a vessel trying to make it to Italian or Canary shores reaches us northern Europeans. The direction of the refugees is always south to north (with the exception of Australia of course, that is dealing with desperate newcomers from the north).

Of ...

9 July, 2011

Kamiel Choi

citizens, essay, margin, marriage, political statement, refugees, Stranger, UNHCR

Review of 23 Things they don’t tell you

Last year, the Korean star economist and acclaimed "intellectual voice of the antiglobalisation movement" Chang Ha-Joon followed up on his best selling "Bad Samaritans" and "Kicking away the Ladder" with a smartly constructed volume named "23 Things they don't tell you about Capitalism". Meanwhile, a German translation has been published with the word "Lies" in ...

2 July, 2011

Kamiel Choi

23 Things, bad samaritans, capitalism, Chang Ha-Joon, essay, growth, infinite growth, mainstream

Fight the System for a Moulded Bell Pepper

Today, in the supermarket, my conscious was brutally raped.

I had intended to buy a trio of red-yellow-green bell peppers and had laid the colorful things, wrapped in crackling plastic, on the belt.
The evil cashier glanced briefly at it as it was conveyed toward her, then resolutely grabbed it and tossed it ...

1 July, 2011

Kamiel Choi

bell pepper, blind fury, essay, revolution, system, throw-away-society

Money should have a flavor

How to start a contempary reflection about money, a reflection that should both instruct and entertain because it is bound to the format of a blog post, because it will live as an entry among millions on an internet website with a narrow time window of readership that extends not much further than two weeks ...

14 June, 2011

Kamiel Choi

currency, essay, flavor, Money, power

Elevator Training

This is not about the intellectual skills needed for being transported in an elevator. If you are reading this at your workplace it is likely that you have successfully concluded an elevator journey this morning. This is about what could have happened during that short vertical journey. It is about reaping the benefits from that ...

5 April, 2011

Kamiel Choi

essay

The Art is to Mean it. Not just to Say it.

One of the craftsmen whom we first expect self-reflection from (apart from the philosopher, of course), is the poet. We would like to read a theoretical, tangible account of their motivation to write and why they think poetry matters.
Since my poetic aspirations were not all nipped in the bud by the frown that ends ...

Kamiel Choi

ars poetica, chimpanzees, Emily Dickinson, essay, poetry

The Real Stuff!

In our fast-paced modern world, everybody needs to "get stuff done", with that "stuff" most seldom referring to physical matter. We mean assignments, schedules, tasks, templates, revisions, writings, programs, sequences and we ensure ourselves that these "stuffs" are real by describing them consistently with tangible metaphors. We grasp them, wrap our heads around them, ...

Kamiel Choi

boulder, essay, functional, metaphores, real stuff, stuff

How to be successful. New Quick, and Easy Method: Avoid That Zero.

So that did catch your attention? I sincerely hope I can deliver, and that you will not gain nothing of this.

I am aware that with this article I place my humble feet in the footsteps of some giants of the self-help and life-coaching genre. This article will inevitably be conceived as a contribution ...

Kamiel Choi

arithmatic, essay, hero, life coach, life trainer, multply, reference, zero