IPI PAN Woodbury MBA - Innovation & Data Analysis

The Collapse of the West - part 2
Of course reading Macintyre is a totally different experience from flipping through pages of Fadi Lama’s book – profound philosophical reflection vs forecasts based on graphs of GDP growth. Still all those publications point to problematic phenomena within the Western civilization. It is worth noting that there are thinkers who contend the opposite, for instance Steven Pinker in “The Better Angels of Our Nature” or late Hans Rosling in “Factfulness”. It is also worth recalling that apart from the authors above many other writers in the past anticipated the demise of the Western spirit or predicted the crisis of modernity (e.g. Fiodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, Hannah Arendt or Charles Taylor).

Twilight of civilization is best detected by people abandoning their spiritual inspiration, husbands not loving their wives, mothers not caring about their children, youths not respecting the elders, education losing its meaning, virtue becoming neglected. Institutions matter a lot. However if passion is gone they turn to soulless edifices of former glory. Some people indicate that it is too early to talk about the lack of spirit in the West. The capacity to reinvent itself is still present. There are thinkers of various ideological perspectives, they debate and pit their approaches against each other. Moreover, it looks like we are at the brink of making a breakthrough in using the achievements of digital revolution in a much wilder fashion. The ways of rendering our world safer, richer, more affordable, climate friendly, etc. are being discussed. In such new world Fadi Lama’s the Money Powers would lose its exceptional privileges. It is too simplistic, however, to conflate the West with the Money Powers. The West is still passionate about other things, not only about the money. As Charles Baudelaire wrote:
“Be Drunken, Always. That is the point; nothing else matters. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weigh you down and crush you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please. But be drunken.”

MBA - Innovation and Data Analysis Program
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The Collapse of the West

Fadi Lama’s “Why the West Can't Win: From Bretton Woods to a Multipolar World” was published by Clarity Press in April 2023. The Author is an international adviser for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and a consultant in the fields of geoeconomics, industry and SMEs. Fadi Lama was trained an engineer rather than an international relation scholar. Still he has gained plenty of experience in interpreting geopolitics from the economic, demographic and other standpoints. His books reads as a collection of statistical data with comments. He divides the world into “Western Europe and their outgrowths in North America, Australia, and New Zealand” and “Russia, Iran, and China, the sovereigntist opponents of Western hegemony, as well as the Global South”. He shows keen interest in the industrial military complex and the Money Powers. His assertion is that “the Money Powers may have given up on global hegemony after a millennium of expansionism”. At the end of the book he concludes:
“The oppression inflicted by the Money Powers against humanity will now be directed internally. Until people in the Western Realm revolt against this miniscule parasitic financial “elite that oppresses them, and recover their civilizations and sovereignty, the best depiction of their future would be George Orwell’s statement in 1984:
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever”.

Since the time of Oswald Spengler and his famous “The Decline of the West” quite a few distinguished thinkers have written about the troubling state of the Western civilization and even its imminent collapse. Arnold Toynbee in the middle of the previous century argued that if the West was to decay and die it would be due to its inability to face new challenges (of course such a statement explains nothing as there remains the question of why the West would lose its hitherto remarkable capacity of fending off troubles and embarking upon new endeavors). James Burnham’s “Suicide of the West” was an important publication in the 1960s widely discussed especially in the United States. Alasdair Macintyre maintained in „After Virtue” that if human life were thought not to be related to transcendence and to have higher meaning then it would ultimately be impossible to converge on what ‘virtue’ stands for or why it should be regarded as indispensable and fundamental. More recent publications include “Disintegration” by Andrei Martyanov, “Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy” by Jonah Goldberg or “The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam” by Douglas Murray.

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Mamy święto, ale jak miło sobie przypomnieć nasze wyjście na musical w Teatrze Roma. "Uroczyste" rozdanie biletów i równie słoneczna pogada kończyła nasz czerwcowy moduł. Już czekamy na rozpoczęcie kolejnej edycji studiów MBA - Innowacje i Analiza Danych z naszym amerykańskim partnerem Woodbury School of Business.

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Would Soon We All Be Expendables?
This is truly scary. We humans are soon going to be eclipsed, which basically means overcome, trespassed, made redundant, unimportant, optional, even expendable. David Brooks (famous for his “The Road to Character” and “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”) captures our feelings well by saying “Hofstadter is essentially asking, If A.I. cogently solves intellectual problems, then who are you to say it’s not thinking? Maybe it’s more than just a mash-up of human expressions. Maybe it’s synthesizing human thought in ways that are genuinely creative, that are genuinely producing new categories and new thoughts. Perhaps the kind of thinking done by a disembodied machine that mostly encounters the world through language is radically different from the kind of thinking done by an embodied human mind, contained in a person who moves about in the actual world, but it is an intelligence of some kind, operating in some ways vastly faster and superior to our own. Besides, Hofstadter points out, these artificial brains are not constrained by the factors that limit human brains — like having to fit inside a skull. And, he emphasizes, they are improving at an astounding rate, while human intelligence isn’t”. Brooks’ whole article may readily be found in the Internet (The New York Times, July 13).

Thinking about the above we come to the ultimate question: when we look at our emotions, memories, desires, inspirations, ideas, hunches, intuitions should we really believe that they all would soon easily be replicated by an AI powered machine? So essentially there is nothing human in us? Our lecturers in the MBA – Innovation and Data Analysis program cannot answer this question. However, they may tell you what consequences for businesses and business strategies new technological breakthroughs bring about.
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A new book by Daniel Pink

Pink’s “The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward” came out last year. Since then it has been acclaimed as one of the best nonfiction books. Indeed Daniel Pink writes eloquently referring to research and real life examples. It is a pleasure to read his books. However, thoughts that are original and well-articulated are not that often stumbled across. Still one benefits a lot from spending some hours of one’s life living in the world of Pink’s oeuvre.

What has not been stressed is that Pink thrives on paradoxes. In his famous book entitled “To Sell Is Human” Pink discusses, among others, how to increase your power by reducing it. People who feel empowered are worse at taking perspective of other people compared to the low-powered individuals. This makes them less effective as salesmen. In his “Drive” he tells us that making payment larger will not automatically boost performance. People whose tasks involve even basic cognitive skills (as opposed to just mechanical work) are not motivated by money only. The question of remuneration should be sorted out and taking off the table. Then engagement, mastery and other drives could spur one to work more efficiently. When we read Pink’s bestseller “When” and think we would learn what the best time for getting married is we might be disappointed. However, we would find out that an afternoon nap is not counterproductive and actually helps you save time.

“The Power of Regret” smashes the view that regret is a negative emotion blocking our they towards a more fulfilling life. (In fact, if you think of this, some other negative traits of character may be converted into positive ones: if you procrastinate and put off drinking today to another day you may at the end become less addicted to booze.) Daniel Pink summarizes a huge project on regret dividing regret into four categories: foundation regrets (not investing in emotional, physical, financial security like education, health, saving), boldness regrets (being too shy, not using a given opportunity), moral regrets (not living up to standards of morality), and connection regrets (screwing up emotional ties with friends, family, or colleagues). Reading the book we will learn how to use regret in all four categories in order to lead a better life. As Pink says: “Our goal should not be to always minimize regret. Our goal should be to optimize it.”

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Future of Dollar

Recently we have seen dollar reaching parity with euro for the first time in 20 years. It looks like the US dollar is doing fine in the tumultuous times we all are in now. There are, however, distinguished voices that point to looming troubles for the dollar global system. According to, for example, Michael Hudson and Steve Keen, once the original Bretton-Woods agreements ceased to exist at the beginning of the 70’s with the demise of the gold standard caused by Nixon’s decision to end the US promise to convert dollars into gold a new petrodollar system came into being. Trade in oil (and some other commodities) was supposed to be conducted in US dollars. So if a country wanted to buy oil it was invited to borrow dollars and purchase the desired product. How such a country would cover the incurred debt was a different story very much guided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. For instance, the WB gave loans for developing agriculture in a way that assured specialized exports at the expense of domestic food security (diversity), which resulted in purchasing food from the USA and getting more dependent.

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Już nie możemy się doczekać kolejnego modułu studiów MBA - Innowacje i Analiza Danych. Wspominamy z nostalgią minione get-together dinner i czekamy już na kolejne. Aplikuj do 6 czerwca na moduł czerwcowy.

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Czy już tęsknicie za kwietniowym modułem studiów MBA - Innowacje i Analiza Danych? Już niedługo będzie czerwcowy moduł, na który już prowadzimy rekrutacje do 31.05. Tak, możesz zacząć studia jeszcze przed wakacjami. Sprawdź!

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To już ostatnia chwila by zgłosić się na innowacyjne studia MBA - Innovation and Data Analysis prowadzone w partnerstwie z amerykańskim uniwersytetem Woodbury School of Business. Kolejna edycja rusza już 12 kwietnia. Zapraszamy!

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Już dużymi krokami zbliża się kolejny moduł studiów MBA - Innowacje i Analiza Danych. Moduł kwietniowy tradycyjnie zaczyna się 12 kwietnia od wystąpienia Guest Speakera i potrwa do niedzieli 16 kwietnia. Dodatkowe aktywności oraz Get-together Dinner już zaplanowane!
Zapraszamy jeszcze do nowych zgłoszeń.

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Second Chance

In 2015 Robert Kiyosaki’s “Second Chance: for your money, your life and our world” came out. Reading it at that time was a strenuous effort. The Author repeats himself regularly. Moreover, he recites many ideas from his earlier books. Basically it was not a new book. It was simply a sort of auto-plagiarism.Of course some of his insights are valis. People, in general, are poorly educated in finance. Holding/using assets is, ceteris paribus, more advantages than working for money. Tough time are approaching. Such statements raise little objection. Also, Kiyosaki’s train of thoughts expressed in his first book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” has merit and allows us see things from a novel perspective. However, for anyone familiar with his real background all those moralizing stories about traditional work vs financially savvy activities are difficult to read. Kiyosaki made up everything. There is no truth in description of his past. “Second Chance” may, therefore, be a good read for people not familiar with Kiyosaki’s publications.

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Innowacyjny program studiów MBA - Innowacja i Analiza Danych, sam wybierasz jak studiujesz i kiedy uczestniczysz w zajęciach online, a kiedy rozwiązujesz case`y z innymi kolegami w klasie. Elastyczna formuła studiów pozwala na pogodzenie wszystkich obowiązków i niezależnie gdzie jesteś masz dostęp do studiów.
Rekrutacja na moduł kwietniowy zaczynający się 12.04 jeszcze trwa!

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