Back in 1952, an author named Ray Bradbury published a short story called:
“A Sound Of Thunder”
In it, a hunter named Eckels pays 10,000-bucks to travel 60 million years back in time with a company called Time Safari.
Now in the story, Time Safari takes hunters back in time so they can hunt the legendary Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs.
But there’s a catch...
They don’t guarantee your safety - and they DO NOT guarantee your return.
Also, since even the smallest change you make to the past will have consequences in the future, the time travellers have very strict orders.
Only walk on the path made by the company.
And only shoot when the company says so.
Anything else you do could change the future for better or for worse.,,,
Would you go on this adventure?
Anyway, long story short.
Eckles gets terrified by a T-Rex, he runs back to the time machine through the jungle instead of on the path, and waits for everyone to get back...
But when they get back and see the mud on Eckles boots - they know something terrible has happened.
That the future may have been changed forever...
And they were right.
When they exit the time machine back into the present day, they start noticing things are strange and different.
The man at the front desk is a little different to when they left. And so is the smell in the air. And so are the signs and letters on the wall!
Eckels quickly looks down again to his muddy boots and...
"Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead."
The Butterfly Effect
People used to think that life today is a product of very big events in history…
A war, an election, a natural disaster, or maybe some major new trend.
But is it true? Is the world really created by those events?
Well if you think back to the story above. It’s not actually the case.
Eckles didn’t blow up the forest, or set an entire jungle alight, or kill everyone and everything in sight...
No. He just stood on one small little butterfly.
One tiny little creature...
That was it.
And that one butterfly slowly changed the entire course of history.
You see, the Butterfly Effect states that even an event as small and insignificant as a butterfly flapping its wings will eventually add up until something major happens...
So this whole idea that big events create the world isn’t actually true.
Think about it...
What causes those big events to happen in the first place?
Isn’t it usually a lot of small things that add up?
How The Butterfly Effect Will Undoubtedly Change Your Life
What about you...
Do you maybe have a goal or dream that seems way too big, or far too out of your control to be possible?
Do you maybe feel like some of the small things you do on a daily basis just don’t matter?
Or do you maybe feel like you have no real effect on what happens in the world?
Well, think again.
Because just like the Butterfly Effect, all the little choices that you make on a daily basis will without fail affect you, and also the world as we know it.
Either those little choices are going to add up positively. You’re going to become the person you truly want to be. And you’re going to make an impact on many many lives...
Or your little choices will be negative and will add up negatively…
...and they’ll take you farther and farther away from your true potential and the impact the world needs you for.
What Little Choices Are You Going To Start Making Today?
One way or another you’re going to affect the world. And it’s ultimately up to you what choices you’re going to make. So here are some ideas:
Little Choice #1: You decide to wake up 15 minutes earlier than usual every single day to do that extra bit of personal development.
RESULT: Three months from now you are much happier and you’ve grown as a person.
======
Little Choice #2: You decide to save money you sometimes blow eating out and you buy a book to read instead.
RESULT: You discover something that completely transforms the way you live your life or do business. And things are never the same again.
======
Little Choice #3: You decide to stop doing something that you know you shouldn’t be doing. And instead, you focus on building a new healthier habit for 90 days. (like exercising, or changing your diet a little).
RESULT: You have way better self-confidence and self-esteem. And you feel motivated and ready to do more and be more.
======
Write this down.
Your efforts will seem small. Until they’re impossible to ignore.
How are you going to implement this story into your life?
when was the jungle published 在 Dan Lok Facebook 的最佳貼文
Back in 1952, an author named Ray Bradbury published a short story called:
“A Sound Of Thunder”
In it, a hunter named Eckels pays 10,000-bucks to travel 60 million years back in time with a company called Time Safari.
Now in the story, Time Safari takes hunters back in time so they can hunt the legendary Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs.
But there’s a catch...
They don’t guarantee your safety - and they DO NOT guarantee your return.
Also, since even the smallest change you make to the past will have consequences in the future, the time travellers have very strict orders.
Only walk on the path made by the company.
And only shoot when the company says so.
Anything else you do could change the future for better or for worse.,,,
Would you go on this adventure?
Anyway, long story short.
Eckles gets terrified by a T-Rex, he runs back to the time machine through the jungle instead of on the path, and waits for everyone to get back...
But when they get back and see the mud on Eckles boots - they know something terrible has happened.
That the future may have been changed forever...
And they were right.
When they exit the time machine back into the present day, they start noticing things are strange and different.
The man at the front desk is a little different to when they left. And so is the smell in the air. And so are the signs and letters on the wall!
Eckels quickly looks down again to his muddy boots and...
"Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead."
The Butterfly Effect
People used to think that life today is a product of very big events in history…
A war, an election, a natural disaster, or maybe some major new trend.
But is it true? Is the world really created by those events?
Well if you think back to the story above. It’s not actually the case.
Eckles didn’t blow up the forest, or set an entire jungle alight, or kill everyone and everything in sight...
No. He just stood on one small little butterfly.
One tiny little creature...
That was it.
And that one butterfly slowly changed the entire course of history.
You see, the Butterfly Effect states that even an event as small and insignificant as a butterfly flapping its wings will eventually add up until something major happens...
So this whole idea that big events create the world isn’t actually true.
Think about it...
What causes those big events to happen in the first place?
Isn’t it usually a lot of small things that add up?
How The Butterfly Effect Will Undoubtedly Change Your Life
What about you...
Do you maybe have a goal or dream that seems way too big, or far too out of your control to be possible?
Do you maybe feel like some of the small things you do on a daily basis just don’t matter?
Or do you maybe feel like you have no real effect on what happens in the world?
Well, think again.
Because just like the Butterfly Effect, all the little choices that you make on a daily basis will without fail affect you, and also the world as we know it.
Either those little choices are going to add up positively. You’re going to become the person you truly want to be. And you’re going to make an impact on many many lives...
Or your little choices will be negative and will add up negatively…
...and they’ll take you farther and farther away from your true potential and the impact the world needs you for.
What Little Choices Are You Going To Start Making Today?
One way or another you’re going to affect the world. And it’s ultimately up to you what choices you’re going to make. So here are some ideas:
Little Choice #1: You decide to wake up 15 minutes earlier than usual every single day to do that extra bit of personal development.
RESULT: Three months from now you are much happier and you’ve grown as a person.
======
Little Choice #2: You decide to save money you sometimes blow eating out and you buy a book to read instead.
RESULT: You discover something that completely transforms the way you live your life or do business. And things are never the same again.
======
Little Choice #3: You decide to stop doing something that you know you shouldn’t be doing. And instead, you focus on building a new healthier habit for 90 days. (like exercising, or changing your diet a little).
RESULT: You have way better self-confidence and self-esteem. And you feel motivated and ready to do more and be more.
======
Write this down.
Your efforts will seem small. Until they’re impossible to ignore.
How are you going to implement this story into your life?
when was the jungle published 在 堅離地城:沈旭暉國際生活台 Simon's Glos World Facebook 的精選貼文
🇩🇰 這是一篇深度報導,來自歐洲現存最古老的報紙:丹麥Weekendavisen,題目是從香港抗爭運動、香港聯繫加泰羅尼亞的集會,前瞻全球大城市的「永久革命」。一篇報導訪問了世界各地大量學者,我也在其中,雖然只是每人一句,加在一起,卻有了很完整的圖像。
以下為英譯:
Protest! The demonstrations in Hong Kong were just the beginning. Now there are unrest in big cities from Baghdad to Barcelona. Perhaps the stage is set for something that could look like a permanent revolution in the world's big cities.
A world on the barricades
At the end of October, an hour after dark, a group of young protesters gathered at the Chater Garden Park in Hong Kong. Some of them wore large red and yellow flags. The talk began and the applause filled the warm evening air. There were slogans of independence, and demands of self-determination - from Spain. For the protest was in sympathy with the Catalan independence movement.
At the same time, a group of Catalan protesters staged a protest in front of the Chinese Consulate in Barcelona in favor of Hong Kong's hope for more democracy. The message was not to be mistaken: We are in the same boat. Or, as Joshua Wong, one of the leading members of the Hong Kong protest movement, told the Catalan news agency: "The people of Hong Kong and Catalonia both deserve the right to decide their own destiny."
For much of 2019, Hong Kong's streets have been ravaged by fierce protests and a growing desperation on both sides, with escalating violence and vandalism ensuing. But what, do observers ask, if Hong Kong is not just a Chinese crisis, but a warning of anger that is about to break out globally?
Each week brings new turmoil from an unexpected edge. In recent days, attention has focused on Chile. Here, more than 20 people have lost their lives in unrest, which has mainly been about unequal distribution of economic goods. Before then, the unrest has hit places as diverse as Lebanon and the Czech Republic, Bolivia and Algeria, Russia and Sudan.
With such a geographical spread, it is difficult to bring the protests to any sort of common denominator, but they all reflect a form of powerlessness so acute that traditional ways of speaking do not seem adequate.
Hardy Merriman, head of research at the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, is not in doubt that it is a real wave of protest and that we have not seen the ending yet.
"I have been researching non-violent resistance for 17 years, and to me it is obvious that there are far more popular protest movements now than before. Often the protests have roots in the way political systems work. Elsewhere, it is about welfare and economic inequality or both. The two sets of factors are often related, ”he says.
Economic powerlessness
Hong Kong is a good example of this. The desire among the majority of Hong Kong's seven million residents to maintain an independent political identity vis-à-vis the People's Republic of China is well known, but the resentment of the streets is also fueled by a sense of economic powerlessness. Hong Kong is one of the most unequal communities in the world, and especially the uneven access to the real estate market is causing a stir.
According to Lee Chun-wing, a sociologist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the turmoil in the city is not just facing Beijing, but also expressing a daunting showdown with the neoliberal economy, which should diminish the state's role and give the market more influence, but in its real form often ends with the brutal arbitrariness of jungle law.
'The many protests show that neoliberalism is unable to instill hope in many. And as one of the world's most neoliberal cities, Hong Kong is no exception. While the protests here are, of course, primarily political, there is no doubt that social polarization and economic inequality make many young people not afraid to participate in more radical protests and do not care whether they are accused of damage economic growth, 'he says.
The turmoil is now so extensive that it can no longer be dismissed as a coincidence. Something special and significant is happening. As UN Secretary General António Guterres put it last week, it would be wrong to stare blindly at the superficial differences between the factors that get people on the streets.
“There are also common features that are recurring across the continents and should force us to reflect and respond. It is clear that there is growing distrust between the people and the political elites and growing threats to the social contract. The world is struggling with the negative consequences of globalization and the new technologies that have led to growing inequality in individual societies, "he told reporters in New York.
Triggered by trifles
In many cases, the riots have been triggered by questions that may appear almost trivial on the surface. In Chile, there was an increase in the price of the capital's subway equivalent to 30 Danish cents, while in Lebanon there were reports of a tax on certain services on the Internet. In both places, it was just the reason why the people have been able to express a far more fundamental dissatisfaction.
In a broad sense, there are two situations where a population is rebelling, says Paul Almeida, who teaches sociology at the University of California, Merced. The first is when more opportunities suddenly open up and conditions get better. People are getting hungry for more and trying to pressure their politicians to give even more concessions.
“But then there is also the mobilization that takes place when people get worse. That seems to be the overall theme of the current protests, even in Hong Kong. People are concerned about various kinds of threats they face. It may be the threat of inferior economic conditions, or it may be a more political threat of erosion of rights. But the question is why it is happening right now. That's the 10,000-kroner issue, ”says Almeida.
Almeida, who has just published the book Social Movements: The Structure of Social Mobilization, even gives a possible answer. A growing authoritarian, anti-democratic flow has spread across the continents and united rulers in all countries, and among others it is the one that has now triggered a reaction in the peoples.
“There is a tendency for more use of force by the state power. If we look at the death toll in Latin America, they are high considering that the countries are democracies. This kind of violence is not usually expected in democratic regimes in connection with protests. It is an interesting trend and may be related to the authoritarian flow that is underway worldwide. It's worth watching, 'he says.
The authoritarian wave
Politologists Anna Lürhmann and Staffan Lindberg from the University of Gothenburg describe in a paper published earlier this year a "third autocratic wave." Unlike previous waves, for example, in the years before World War II, when democracy was beaten under great external drama , the new wave is characterized by creeping. It happens little by little - in countries like Turkey, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Hungary and Russia - at such a slow pace that you barely notice it.
Even old-fashioned autocrats nowadays understand the language of democracy - the only acceptable lingua franca in politics - and so the popular reaction does not happen very often when it becomes clear at once that the electoral process itself is not sufficient to secure democratic conditions. Against this backdrop, Kenneth Chan, a politician at Hong Kong Baptist University, sees the recent worldwide wave of unrest as an expression of the legitimacy crisis of the democratic regimes.
“People have become more likely to take the initiative and take part in direct actions because they feel that they have not made the changes they had hoped for through the elections. In fact, the leaders elected by the peoples are perceived as undermining the institutional guarantees of citizens' security, freedom, welfare and rights. As a result, over the past decade, we have seen more democracies reduced to semi-democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes, ”he says.
"Therefore, we should also not be surprised by the new wave of resistance from the people. On the surface, the spark may be a relatively innocent or inconsiderate decision by the leadership, but people's anger quickly turns to what they see as the cause of the democratic deroute, that is, an arrogant and selfish leadership, a weakened democratic control, a dysfunctional civil society. who are no longer able to speak on behalf of the people. ”The world is changing. Anthony Ince, a cardiff at Cardiff University who has researched urban urban unrest, sees the uprisings as the culmination of long-term nagging discontent and an almost revolutionary situation where new can arise.
"The wider context is that the dominant world order - the global neoliberalism that has dominated since the 1980s - is under pressure from a number of sides, creating both uncertainty and at the same time the possibility of change. People may feel that we are in a period of uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, but perhaps also hope, ”he says.
Learning from each other.
Apart from mutual assurances of solidarity the protest movements in between, there does not appear to be any kind of coordination. But it may not be necessary either. In a time of social media, learning from each other's practices is easy, says Simon Shen, a University of Hong Kong political scientist.
“They learn from each other at the tactical level. Protesters in Hong Kong have seen what happened in Ukraine through YouTube, and now protesters in Catalonia and Lebanon are taking lessons from Hong Kong. It's reminiscent of 1968, when baby boomers around the globe were inspired by an alternative ideology to break down rigid hierarchies, 'he says.
But just as the protest movements can learn from each other, the same goes for their opponents. According to Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, Russia has been particularly active in trying to establish cooperation with other authoritarian regimes, which feel threatened by riots in the style of the "color revolutions" on the periphery of the old Soviet empire at the turn of the century.
"It has resulted in joint efforts between Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Venezuelan, Belarusian, Syrian and other national authorities to develop, systematize and report on techniques and practices that have proved useful in trying to contain such threats," writes Chenoweth in an article in the journal Global Responsibility to Protect.
Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, commentators at the New York Times, point to the social media as a double-edged sword. Not only are Twitter and Facebook powerful weapons in the hands of tech-savvy autocrats. They are also of questionable value to the protesting grass roots. With WhatsApp and other new technologies, it is possible to mobilize large numbers of interested and almost-interested participants in collective action. But they quickly fall apart again.
The volatile affiliation is one of the reasons why, according to a recent survey, politically motivated protests today only succeed in reaching their targets in 30 percent of cases. A generation ago, the success rate was 70 percent. Therefore, unrest often recurs every few years, and they last longer, as Hong Kong is an example of. Perhaps the scene is set for something that might resemble a permanent revolution in the world's big cities - a kind of background noise that other residents will eventually just get used to.
"Since there is still no obvious alternative to neoliberalism, the polarization that led to the protests initially will probably continue to apply," says Lee of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. "At the same time, this means that the anger and frustration will continue to rumble in society."