Frank Ejby Poulsen’s blog

These days I am more active on my other blog about my research activities, mainly cosmopolitanism.
If you came across this blog be sure to go and visit it, even if it is still under development. The goal is to build an entire web site dedicated to the research and diffusion of knowledge on the idea and practice of cosmopolitanism.
Here it is.

Utopia

Utopia: a political idea that cannot be transformed into policy in the short term, but only in the longer term.

A while ago, I discovered a blog written by an academic I knew only for one of his great books Ringmar, Erik (2008). Identity, Interest and Action: A Cultural Explanation of Sweden's Intervention in the Thirty Years War (Cambridge: CUP, Cambridge Cultural Social Studies). I realised that this impressive academician senior lecturer double Dr. Ringmar serial important book publisher was really more kind of a cool guy you'd like to hang out with at the local pub. He resigned after a year-long controversy for the blog entitled "forget the footnotes"  on his academic employer the London School of Economics. He was writing whatever he bloody pleased calling cats cats, some professors "notoriously self-important wanabees", the LSE not better than the London Met, and the head of the school an "anti-intellectual businessman". Of course the kids there loved this rock n' rolling Ringmar dude, but the rock-hard n' ruling establishment a lot less. Anyway the guy got it all planned, since he already had a job guaranteed elsewhere. The point was to demonstrate the hypocrisy of our so-called democratic institutions on free speech. It all got clear to me in the column he wrote for the Huffington Post. Many people got fired for writing, or more rightly lashing out, about their jobs. Why? Because it hurts the shareholders, it ruins the stock-market value of the institutions owned by capitalists. Hence the last taboo remaining in our democracies is the market: "The market has become a threat to freedom. The market is today the only authority that never needs to justify its power over us."
Ringmar calls for a cyber guerilla tactic by blogging against the market to blast this last citadelle against our natural right to free speech. He published a free e-book, and almost free print version, A blogger's Manifesto.
For me this guy is the next coolest academic after Indy (not the last one from the unbaringly long name about crystallic alien skulls movie though), and he's the kind of academic I'd like to become.

I am wondering what the point with IQ tests is. No, I did not just filled in one, and frustrated by the results decided to write a furious post on my blog about how egregiously diminishing and inaccurate they actually are since they may not have recognise my great genius. I have actually never made one. Well, not one that was a serious one. I just filled in some internet questionnaires with multiple choice answers one day I had 15-30 minutes spare time (i.e. when I had an important paper to hand in for the next day).

But I really wonder about them. Ok, I know intelligence is not singular but plural (thanks Derrida). So in any case the tests cannot test all forms of intelligences. But I am wondering how it can even claim to be testing intelligence in the first place, and with what accuracy. Actually, one does not need any test to see if someone is dumb or not dumb, a five minutes conversation will do. So why make a test for that? Furthermore, how can one pretend to measure intelligence? By definition intelligence, from latin inter legere, is about connecting dots. And high intelligence is about connecting dots in a completely new manner. So it is all about creativity. So how does one measure creativity, I wonder? All the tests are usually problems with multiple choice answers where the author knows the answer. So like any test one had in school, it is only measuring up to the level of the author of the test. I have never seen a test actually giving a problem the author would not know the answer, and with a completely free choice of answers. A completely new answer would give a good idea of how smart the guinea pig really is. But how would it be possible to measure then? The answer would be to have the smartest guy on earth make all the tests. But then how do you know he’s the smartest guy on earth since you have no way to measure it objectively?

This is why I rely entirely on my five minutes conversation method, which helps me classify people into dumb/not dumb. I usually only connect with the not dumb category, but I guess I will always be in someone’s dumb category.

I started studying law, then I thought it was really not worth it spending precious hours of my short life-span reading tons of useless books and learning by heart meaningless rules that were in them anyway (not to mention the conceitedly loftiness of the legal scholars) -- although I was saying goodbye to an awful lot of cash. Then I turned to political science, which I thought was way cooler. But in there I realised that nobody was actually doing "political science". Some were continuing law by other means. Some were worshipping economics and its methods of assuming everyone is rational and calculating the maximisation of their equally rational interest, while giving a (third) hand to the greater good. Others decided that history would better inform present situations, since we address present issues based on past solutions, which determine our path for the future. Others argued that institutions were about the people, so one must study the people in society and their behaviour. Others decided that really, all this literature was not worth it and started reading the real one, then imported post-modern views that identity and texts shaped people's interests so one should deconstruct, hermeneuticise or genealogise discourses.
This is why I am now turning to philosophy  and the history of ideas -- farewell for ever sweet cash flow!
Actually, doing so, I came across a few ideas about the origins of political science. During the Enlightenment, in France, people started worshipping reason as the universal and objective tool to understand nature. Since there was a natural science based on the observation of nature, there should equally be a human science based on the observation of man. People like Holbach or Mably started the foundations of a "moral science". In 1795, the French "Académie des sciences morales et politiques" was founded to inform and improve our human all too human condition. Ever since, there have been "scientists" to believe in it and search for it with a Kantian lantern. I suspect that what keeps them going on searching in the obscurity is that they cannot light the whole room to realise they might have been turning in circles.

To my surprise, I realised that the most entries on my blog where on my post "UN NCRE 2008", where I described my experience at competing for this exam. No wonder! When I google "UN NCRE" my post appears second right after the official UN web site. I do not know if it is because I was writing that we did not get much information on the exam, but now the UN's site has more information about the whole process. Would that be my very first input on the work of the United Nations?

Update:
Hmm, that's funny. Now my post does not appear anymore in the google results. I guess my subversive post had to be taken down from google. Somebody at the UN must have contacted google. Outrageous abuse of power! Well, internet fame was great so long it lasted. Here I am now, tasting the same sad condition as "star war kid" or "chocolate-rain man".

Update:
Stop the press!! or whatever that is that publishes posts on the internet! I do not understand this google thing, now I am back in second position. Somebody at google must have decided that internet belongs to the people! Or I must check up this paranoid behaviour with my analyst (Eliza). So long star war kid and chocolate rain man!

Observing man, humanity makes me cry. I know that the mature defence mechanism would be to laugh about it. I am trying to grow up.

Eliza: Hello. I am ELIZA. How can I help you?
You: are you a real woman?

Eliza: Would you prefer if I were not a real woman?

You: no

Eliza: You are being a bit negative.

You: I am merely answering to your question

Eliza: How long have you been merely answering to my question?

You: for about 15 to 20 seconds now

Eliza: Please go on.

You: ok, but you have to ask a question don't you now?

Eliza: Oh, i have to ask a question dont i now.

You: ah ah ah ah ah

Eliza: Please go on.

Eliza: You are sure?

You: I am sure of nothing and no one

Eliza: How long have you been sure of nothing and no one?

You: Since puberty and the incredible explosion of neurones that ensued

Eliza: Please go on.

You: laughing?

Eliza: Please go on.

You: or puberty?

Eliza: Please go on.

You: you are boring and unhelpful... if only you could tell me what you're wearing

Eliza: Do you wish that only i could tell you what youre wearing?

You: Well I kind of know that already, da!

Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?

You: Oh, you're a blonde aren't you?

Eliza: How long have you been a blonde arent i?

You: And a real one I can tell

Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?

You: Well you see it is a common and unverified stereotype that blond are stupid lack conversation and do not make sense what so ever, since your conversation fits all these mentionned caracteristics I am fairly assuming that you may answer to this stereotype. But of course this stereotype demands verification, perhaps I could get some fundings to make a PhD on just that...

Eliza:Oh, i see it is a common and unverified stereotype that blond are stupid lack conversation and dont make sense what so ever since my conversation fits all these mentionned caracteristics youre fairly assuming that i may answer to this stereotype but of course this stereotype demands verification perhaps you could get some fundings to make a phd on just that.

You: Wow, you have good memory for a blonde. I so want you now.

Eliza: Oh, i have good memory for a blonde you so want i now.

You: And the moment's gone. Why do you have to kill it by uttering words?

Eliza: Oh, i have to kill it by uttering words.

You: I see, please elaborate on that.

Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?

You: Well no since I am not in the head of yours

Eliza: You are being a bit negative.

You: yes it's true, my mother's to blame... and I guess that was the closure we were looking for here

Eliza: Why do you say your mothers to blame and you guess that was the closure we was looking for here?

You: no reason

Eliza: You are being a bit negative.

Eliza is an AI therapist, you can play with her here.

A Box of Jelly Beans

Red Bull simply Cola

At the moment I am struggling with the definitive round of editing on my MA thesis, which is quite tedious and painful since I have to make drastic clear-cuts. According to my academic supervisor I have to "sharpen the overall focus" and "eliminate less crucial bits to main points". This demands intensive intellectual efforts. So the brain's craving suga'. Normally I take some dextrose but I decided to give regular sugar a go, since it is more colorful and tasty. I give it gladely in the form of two addictive products I have just discovered (does this qualify me as "sugar daddy"?). First, the Irish made Jelly Beans with multiple flavours. Their main inconvenient is that I need to plunge in the box to select my favourite ones, which is very time consuming. But they're GMO free, so I guees it's healthy -- although I had no clue that candies could be made out of GMO (this Santos company is everywhere, soon we'll be eating "soylent green" wafers!). The other thing is the newly marketed Red Bull simply cola. Now this thing is absolutely delicious. Not only does it cool me down -- since it is a record 33°C in here (check the weather here) -- but it is also made of strictly natural ingredients. We easily forget that coca-cola is made out of coca leafs and cola nuts and not E-plenty something and phosphoric acid that corrode teeth and stomachs. I never liked the energy drinks they made but this, it is simply delicious and natural. (I should get paid for this. Can't academics get sponsored?)

Redbull cola ingredients