Lab Jornalismo 2050^®

The discussion related to advancements in artificial intelligence, especially regarding the risks of human labor being replaced by robots and the creative potential that may offend those who consider themselves the crown of creation, seems affected by the phenomenon of polarization.

I recognize that this analysis is simplistic regarding the facts. On one hand, there's a perceptible unease caused by a new lunar race undertaken by the market in search of prestige and future profitability, which inevitably influences academic research. If research was once conducted with free software, today it is increasingly dependent on paid resources. On the other hand, in a stance that deliberately ignores cybernetics, part of the intellectual community offers resistance to the advancements of communication development.

In this context, those who wish to effectively keep up with the technological progress of language models like GPT and Gemini must face a learning curve that will certainly disturb their peace. It won't be surprising if, soon, each individual operates their own language model. Services like Google's Vertex AI already allow for the creation of highly personalized robots for a wide variety of tasks.

However, considering specifically the Portuguese language, one perceives that language models like the ones mentioned have little ability to grasp subjectivities and linguistic nuances. After all, if not even a human being is capable of fully understanding what users publish on the internet, what can be expected of the poor robot?

Recently, while driving down Brigadeiro Franco Street in Curitiba, I saw five city employees cutting the grass along the sidewalk. One of them held the mechanical mower, while the others served as mobile posts, holding a screen around the gardener. I thought, at that moment, about the last 300,000 years of human evolution synthesized in the scarcity of mobile supports, reducing the extraordinary human body machine to a mere screen holder.

It must be acknowledged, therefore, that certain routine activities—such as summaries and text generation from videos or audio—must, obligatorily, utilize artificial intelligence solutions. Otherwise, the physical and emotional intelligence of human beings is wasted on unrewarding jobs. Only someone who has had to edit hours of television or radio programs would have the authority to disregard the help of AI in these tasks, although this would reveal a penchant for martyrdom.

There is one last reflection that seems important to me and concerns a frequent technical distortion. It is not correct to generalize all of artificial intelligence by taking a specific language model as an exclusive reference—especially its free versions. Using ChatGPT is not the same as using the GPT model directly. Similarly, using Gemini's chat differs from exploring all the potentialities of the Gemini language model. Maximum extraction of the potential of these systems requires personalized execution, and this is precisely one of the tasks we develop at Lab Digital 2050.

A former White House advisor has warned about the potential dangers of developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the risk of an arms race with China. According to him, the pursuit of control over AGI could lead to international conflicts. Experts fear that China might react aggressively to any attempt by the US to monopolize the technology.

The information was published by UOL on March 9, 2025, in the article Is Artificial General Intelligence arriving? It's hard to be certain. The article cites a document published by experts, including the former advisor, detailing concerns about an AI arms race.

Artificial General Intelligence differs from current AIs in its ability to perform any intellectual human task. This technological advancement represents a potential leap in the development of various fields but also raises concerns about its misuse, especially in conflict scenarios.

The document suggests that an attempt by the US to exclusively control AGI could provoke an aggressive response from China, such as a large-scale cyberattack. The experts argue that competition for AGI could destabilize international relations and increase the likelihood of conflict.

The concern lies in the possibility of AGI being used for the development of autonomous weapons and sophisticated cyberattacks, which could quickly escalate to direct confrontation. The experts advocate for international cooperation to ensure the safe and ethical development of AGI.

A recent study published in the *Revista Turismo, Visão e Ação* (RTVA) reveals that older managers with longer tenures in restaurants tend to be more risk-averse in their corporate decisions.  The research, conducted by researchers at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), analyzed data from over 2,000 restaurants in Europe between 2014 and 2016.

The study, titled "Influence of Management Team Characteristics on Risk Decision-Making: Evidence from the Restaurant Sector," utilized the Amadeus database and employed the least squares method to analyze the relationship between manager characteristics – age, tenure, gender, and team size – and the companies' level of financial leverage, used as a risk-taking indicator.

The results showed a significant negative correlation between the age and tenure of managers and their propensity for risk. Older managers and those who had held the same position for a longer period demonstrated a preference for more conservative decisions, opting to maintain the status quo rather than adopting innovative or risky strategies.

Contrary to some expectations, the study found no significant relationship between the size of the management team or female participation and risk-taking. Although previous research has suggested a possible influence of these factors, the data analyzed did not confirm this hypothesis in the specific context of the restaurant industry.

The authors suggest that the risk aversion demonstrated by more experienced managers may be related to the prioritization of stability and the reputation built throughout their careers. Familiarity with the sector and a concern to preserve accumulated gains may lead them to avoid decisions that represent potential threats to the business.

Implications for the Sector

The study's findings have significant implications for restaurant management. The research suggests that the composition of the management team can directly influence the strategy and performance of companies. Restaurants with younger managers may be more willing to innovate and take risks, while those led by more experienced managers may prioritize stability and financial security.

Next Steps

The researchers highlight the need for further studies to deepen the understanding of the relationship between manager characteristics and decision-making in restaurants.  Investigating psychological factors, such as individual risk tolerance, and analyzing data from a longer period could enrich the discussion and provide more precise insights for the sector.

I repeatedly fail. Even now, I failed in my intention to go to bed at 9:30 pm. For some reason akin to “what the hell! I don't sleep more than four hours anyway,” I surrendered to the drift of darkness. I fear a stern authority will weep to discipline me: “it’s not time to go to the bathroom.” Activities in general. The late-night chats have ended, covered in sand, disintegrated by a shock, incinerated. It’s a little sad. All that chaotic literature that brought me so many friends has gone mad, and speaks to itself in Mark's posts.

The book Maku sent me is well-written, of course, but it's read in super slow motion. The character begins to reveal herself through a desire to die. You don't find such honest people easily. Like toast with cream cheese and red fruit jam. It was the box, the jar. I switched to whipped cream. Whipped cream is foolproof.

This fractal, then: death and life explaining themselves poorly, speaking quickly and loudly, like Brazilian tourists with red lipstick and crossbody bags enchanting the world with smiling rudeness. My analysis, which follows, is sophisticated.

There are life’s discordances that are, it must be repeated, forces of nature. Discordances, in this text, are metaphorically Meryl Streep portraying Florence Foster Jenkins in the cinema, or any instrument that should vibrate a sublime "ooowooowooow," but ends up materializing Grandma Jephinha venturing off-key, without melody.

I like water because it doesn't waste time with stones or walls; it deviates, accepts a good tunnel, but, if necessary, breaks through everything. Water takes for itself lands that didn't even have a vocation for a swimming pool, resting there as a calamitous flood.

The regions of the world that are about to disappear need intellectual support to resolve issues of property, repatriation, and the return of predictable bureaucracies. You cannot erect an island on top of a two-story house; not even Japanese drainage cathedrals make a difference in the ocean. Such dangers equate our intelligence to nothing. Nature is one of the three notable sources of displeasure in Freudian psychoanalysis.

“And from all this out-of-tune instrument I was never an apprentice.” There's this verse in a Gabrielle Seraine lyric. And in her music too, when she sings “[out-of-]tune,” when she sings exactly “deceased,” the harmony shatters for a moment, like a little shit blowing a plastic flute. It's the valley before the peak, the “dark before the dawn.”

Flusser's Spirit

When the out-of-tune individual — the "medium" (of media, not of speaking to the dead) — emits noise, communication becomes clearer. Let's use the word "communication" as a future synonym for "spirit," a beautiful conception of Flusser's.

In the religions that deal with "spirits," note the similarity in the conduct of intentions: doors are opened and closed, people are stimulated to move their psyches, and even banal requests that are nothing more than predictable bureaucracies. One asks, promises, thanks, expels, infuses — all through the conjuring of human and intelligible words.

Accepting Jesus, renouncing Freemasonry, declaring victory, taking possession of the blessing, doing macumba for Dona Ida to die (children are very inventive) — all this requires speaking. From the spell of the Greek Father to the Seven Knocks on the Door of Grace prayer chain from Janine's people. Communication. Speech. Listening.

In some evangelical cults, faced with unsatisfactory communication, someone is likely to take on the role of the demoniac for the benefit of the group. The Catholic mass has so many communication resources that part of the sermon ends up being saved.

"Spirits" are an ancient, primitive subject. It was a way of keeping the dead nearby. Later, these dead became demons. History records in anthropological terms; I have here an original Frazer that I received from Luca. My point is: if spirits "are born" from domestic dead, it is natural that, before committing to events outside the home — speaking of spiritualist meetings, making wind — they are available in the family inventory.

Powerful but Foolish

There is power in psychoanalysis, in Transactional Analysis, in Narcotics Anonymous. But these endeavors require much more time, specialization, and opportunities for mistakes than can be achieved in a family, when a family is available. Family, of course, should be understood broadly.

A family that has understood the permanence of love, that has left the struggles for recognition for community practices, has a better chance of success in invoking powerful spirits.

The powerful spirit of the creator, for those who believe thus, has to make some difference. Is God dead? Don't be fooled. I write about communication. About conjuring, invoking, good communication. In the last line of the noise, "taking possession of the blessing," as well observed by Nina.

In Portuguese, "spirits" have been communication at least since 1976, when Cartola composed: "From each dead person, one will inherit only cynicism." From my tensioning, Flusser offers us a simplification: it's a lot of "spiritual battle" for little "talking like people."

Let's return. The relationship of the out-of-tune, the deceased — properly the word in question, noise, this thing that disturbs sleep — with clarity is not only poetry. The physics and computer engineering that support image generation proceed from the use of two very basic stages that do not harm each other.

To improve someone's skin in a photograph, you first need the caress of blurring, like a hyperope without glasses. Then, you have to add noise, something like an old TV without a signal. And then you can see better.

Thus, my suggestion for the group — laughter — is an appreciation of noise, along with a careful observation of the content of the disturbances. When this battery runs out, with more clarity, let us be arrogant in our pretensions of dignity.

Only I was going to write about something completely different. I'll make another post.

A journalistic suite is the continuation of a news story in new articles that update previous ones.  Something like: "Two people were injured in an accident"; then, "Men injured in accident undergo surgery"; further, "Men injured in accident discharged from hospital"; and finally, "Company responsible for accident involving injuries fined." All these sensational headlines relate to the same original event.

Not every type of news warrants a continuation. Some events and accomplishments have the momentum for a single appearance.  However, to appear once or several times in the newspaper, the "thing" must truly be news, which basically means it's not advertising or propaganda – but that's a topic for another time.

In terms of format, a suite is no different from a new news story. After all, a continuation only exists when a new fact is revealed. But it's in style, from what I've observed, that the "marmita das suítes azedou" – meaning why they've lost momentum in recent years.  ("Marmita das suítes azedou" is an idiom meaning roughly that the suites have gone stale or lost their appeal).

Let's take a police investigation as an example.  Journalism of both good and poor quality is interested in criminal stories. However, in both types of quality, a flavor of vice remains, perhaps originating from the pleasure of "scooping" (when a journalist is the first to report something).  It's a haste that hinders more than it helps: not infrequently, versions are presented that collaborate with a story one wants to tell, which may have nothing to do with what actually happened.

Telling the Whole Story

In the case of Armed man threatens Black youth in São Paulo, and police officer refuses to act because she's 'off-duty'; watch video (sense-based translation), for example. This is a story that quickly captured the attention of journalists and the public because a video proves not only the omission of a police officer but also her aggression against a young man. Here, whether the police officer was right or wrong is not under discussion. At the same time, due to the lack of suites, the broader context of the three-minute video was missing.

A story told because of its intriguing nature can yield minutes of viewership and an increase in website visitors. However, without continuity, it's shooting oneself in the foot. In 2023, the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report identified that Brazilians' trust in journalism is 43%, a decrease of 19 percentage points since 2015. Statistically, the downward trend may reach 41% in 2024. In this scenario, all resources of intelligence and integrity are welcome to improve these numbers.

Suites are an opportunity to assure the public that editorial choices represent, even if against the majority view, the vehicle's commitment to a story told from beginning to end, with all its nuances. For this, the editorial line as a whole, and even more so the reporters and editors, must approach investigative activity with the detachment of recounting things as they are, and not as they should be.

The air of novelty that a New Year brings seems akin to the effect of renewing vows. It is, let's say, an opportunity.  By analogy, a wedding ceremony itself is powerless to effect changes in a couple, in the sense of expanding trust and reciprocity, and the consequent happiness derived from these expansions. A ceremony in itself is nothing, but the couple's focus on achieving a better self-awareness is.  With the new year, it's very similar.

It is entirely understandable to disregard the commercial calendar's timekeeping when one's intention is a free and fruitful life. A personal history should not (but often is) subjected to the mechanics of exhausting work: vacations, recesses, and holidays. Things of this category are very welcome, of course, but almost always correspond to the logic of industry and consumption. Hence the proverb: "The more you have, the less you are."

In these contexts, buying a new outfit for New Year's Eve can be an ambivalent act. On one hand, there's the obligation of purchase, the competition established with other party guests. On the other, there's a legitimate inclination towards self-care, and for the outward appearance to match the novelty of the innermost self.

To change the year within oneself requires a certain degree of the ridiculous. That is, to cross the line of the ridiculous. Instead of a costume, to dress in what truly corresponds to who one is. It's not about *pretending* to be, it's about being in essence.  Something interesting is the fact that what one desires to be in the future can only be true if it is so right now. This is a very basic philosophical idea. It is also true that if something ceased to be, it is because it never truly was.

What I previously called ridiculous could also be called courage. To put on one's own shoes, to open one's chest: to think, speak, act, and celebrate from what one truly is, what always was, and will always be. But courage lies less in the behavioral aspect, which even a ham actor could interpret with utter cowardice, and much more in a permission for the individual spirit to communicate to the world what it came to do.

This article isn't exactly hopeful at a cursory glance. It tends to make more sense when, through difficult conversation, we achieve some freedom to think and act about wars without the interference of armies. After all, those who promote war can do nothing for peace.

I remember my first lessons on World War II. Well, how could I forget them? At the time, I found it utterly unattractive to learn the years in which it began and ended. I considered the dates meaningless due to my inexperience in relating events. Moreover, my young age didn't differentiate between what fits into one, ten, or a hundred years.

Generally speaking, and for the sake of argument, the Second War followed the First. And it was called "world" because those who named it so considered the entire world to be limited to themselves.  Elementary school knowledge that remains relevant today.

(Parenthesis: Those who lived through the 1990s know that, in terms of forensic pathology – people run over, stabbed, corpses in decomposition – television abundantly supplied us with violent images. In the city where I grew up, a woman drowned her two children in a well and then threw herself in after them. On the lunchtime news program, I watched the small bodies floating. Another case involved a daughter who, with the help of her girlfriend, killed her mother and grandmother. Not to mention the rape, murder, and robbery committed against an elderly woman living alone on Rua XV.)

Ultimately, those who died and those who killed had some kinship with someone close. They were, in any case, considered degenerate, not exactly counted as people. This is without mentioning national cases like the Candelária Massacre, the murder of Daniella Perez, and the murder of Índio Galdino. (End parenthesis)

This is my argument: it's difficult to impress a Brazilian child.

Those common murderers, though extremely dangerous, committed their crimes clandestinely. They were discovered, and then televised, arrested, lynched, or killed by the police. But what they told us about the extermination camps was entirely different, and often more terrifying. There was something wrong about multitudes being murdered in broad daylight.

The way it remains

What we know about the genocide of Jews is etched in black and white in our memories, both through photographs and the brilliant cinematic work *Schindler's List* (1993), directed by Steven Spielberg. Thanks to new technologies, some of these memories can touch us even more profoundly. Using digital resources, I myself colorized a photograph of child survivors of Auschwitz taken by Alexander Vorontsov.

It is difficult to look at them and say: “We despised their families to the utmost, we chose who would be enslaved and who would be killed and incinerated in our four gas chambers with crematoria.” Because that is precisely what we did, in the role of humans.  Shouldering responsibility for that atrocity is a lifelong burden, and I don’t believe there’s any other way to deal with it than to carry it, with shame and remorse, until my last day.  

Confronting this inhumanity, however, is not the same as stagnating in lament. It is precisely the opposite. And, to move forward even minimally, we must shed two convenient illusions. The first is that all responsibility can be attributed to the Führer. Let us, even if this discomfits us to almost unbearable levels, be consistent. No single man could have undertaken the Third Reich without assistance. In 1935, the Nazi Party enacted the racial discrimination laws, and Mr. Hitler was not alone – as official footage attests.

The other classic illusion is that the "world" of the Second World War did not prevent the genocide simply because it knew nothing.  Now then. Upon further reflection, I don't even consider it an illusion anymore – since not every illusion is necessarily a misconception – but rather a blatant lie.  With the illusion, we achieve a certain psychic relief, which frequently converts into proud satisfaction: "I would never have done something like that." With the lie, we maintained the idea that we possess a power that, in truth, we do not.

Lie

Since the Gulf War, another ridiculousity of the nineties, international military conflicts have also become television programs. This is not a figure of speech. Literally, wars are simultaneously television programs.  One needs little intelligence – sometimes not even that – to understand that the images we consume are the creations of a single person. Someone holds the camera, chooses when to press REC, when to stop, from what position what he sees will be viewed, what enters or does not enter the frame. In the case of AI-generated content, someone will have to write the prompt. In this way, the media product of war integrates the general arsenal of war. Those with more or fewer resources to create and propagate stories consequently have more or less war power. It is fair to ask what the destructive reach of a weapon of this kind is.

Since the spontaneous constitution of a public sphere, and its progressive and irreversible decay, public opinion has been used to legitimize or delegitimize the actions of the State. If I convince Brazil that I am "good" and the other is "evil," then Brazilians tend to pressure their government in a specific direction, the product of which varies from support on digital social networks to proposals in the United Nations Security Council.  Telling the best story, however, has nothing to do with telling the most accurate story. This quality criterion is restricted to citizens who are not easily moved by the appeals of the masses – people who, in each social circle, can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

On the path to the finally. So, if the world had known about the annihilation of humans in World War II, it would have acted to protect the Jews. I guarantee that with a clear mind, and three or four videos of the apocalypse in Palestine, one can guarantee with one hundred percent accuracy that it is a lie.

Weakness

Not even the adequate terms to address war crimes in Palestine have been used appropriately in different parliaments around the world.  The Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote that "the closer one looks, the more Netanyahu resembles Trump," in the worst sense. The article states that "about eighty percent of Israelis blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition government for the Hamas catastrophe, according to a poll by the Hebrew newspaper Maariv."

In Brazil, Congresswoman Carla Zambelli – a woman born to be a donkey and who will never become a mare – published an image depicting a US and Israeli eagle attacking a Palestinian rat. I am persuaded, by myself, not to expect this human project to grasp the enormity of its own bestiality.

Faced with nominal lists of thousands of civilians killed by Israel, the response of the “world” is so weak, languid, flaccid. Perhaps this is the moment for this awareness: we are incapable of preventing violence merely by knowing that violence exists. I am warning you now: in the coming hours, Palestinian children will be brutally murdered or maimed, and those who survive will have witnessed their families and friends explode. Knowing this changes absolutely nothing.

A few hours ago, a Palestinian boy went to retrieve a ball when a bombardment occurred directly behind him. His nephew’s back was injured. But the nephew is better off than Saleh al Qaraan, whose head was obliterated in the explosion.

Accustomed to daily encounters with animal posts on Instagram, I saw a tabby cat leap onto the lap of a Palestinian man, where the pale body of a dead child lay. The kitten nestled in, closing its eyes.  This, alongside the mother, who, with the dead baby wrapped in white cloth, refused to cease kissing it. Or the countless videos of children experiencing panic attacks within hospitals.

On an individual level, my work or yours against the war seems insufficient. We cannot count on, at least not now, the prudence of the wise finding a space on the world leaders' agenda. But whether or not we defend Palestinian civilians, now, at every opportunity, speaks volumes about what we have learned about our own wickedness.

We could, with more than sufficient justification, spend the remainder of our miserable lives profoundly lamenting war.  This wouldn't even seem inappropriate. Any human being who is troubled by murder has a high probability of being a decent person, even if they are grumpy. I propose yet another option: leaving the role of resignation to those who have retired from the work of creating the world.

It is naive to think that creation is a finished task. There is almost everything still to be done, especially regarding the consolidation of peace among peoples.  This text may contain more or less than the necessary elements for clear support. Therefore, I anticipate and assure you that I am open to discussing it. I will avoid references and share only what lives within me.

The lynching of the innocent Jesus is, without a doubt, a testament to love. It is from this founding act of peace that the wheel of violence has spun in emptiness for two millennia. If, within us humans, there was a need to lacerate a body for the execution of a rite of passage, that desire was fulfilled. If Western civilization is founded on this act, and it is, then we can progress to the consciousness arising from this act: "What have we done?"

I have little or no desire, in fact none, to subject my reason to the religious interpretations of religious texts. In my conception of God, it is not even in his nature to promote small things or to privilege small groups. With this, I hope to have made explicit my conclusion that, regardless of religious perspective, if the human sacrifice of Christ is present, then we cannot—under any amendment—condone murder. This is, here, a sociological and historical issue more than a mystical one.

The Abrahamic schism between Jews and Muslims is also a sociological and historical issue, though not solely that. Father Abraham, what have you done? To delegate this civilizational question entirely to the realm of religion is tantamount to abdicating civilizational progress as a whole. One hundred percent of viewpoints on war founded on individual transcendence are invalid for a peace solution.

For us Christians, smoking that pipe has left our mouths askew. So many sermons and songs mentioning Israel, destined to occupy a certain origin of our faith, that now, when a country with the same name is at the center of a geopolitical dispute, we are tempted to solve the interpretation based on promises from our religion.

If the Bible holds any validity for Catholics and Protestants, in particular—and it does—I recommend a careful reading of the Book of Hebrews—my favorite, both for its excellent literary quality and its contribution to faith.  Essentially, the text addresses the human system of violence containment that has failed miserably and presents a perspective of spiritual elevation through which every religious system unravels from a final sacrifice. This is when the ethnic, regional god of the Old Testament Israelites puts his universal plan into action. With the ethnic god, the ineffective methods of resolving human suffering also die, replaced by love.

This issue must be considered when constructing a Brazilian interpretation of the war in the Middle East. The influence of our religious beliefs on the political public sphere became even more noticeable in the last two presidential elections. If we want to make even minimal progress on the peace agenda, we must be able to redirect our individual emotions to more appropriate compartments. In this step, that which is undeniably transcendental must be subjected to a test of relevance: Does my perspective lead to murder? If so, that perspective should be accepted, respected internally, but disregarded for rational and public justification. One does not dialogue with murder. "Shall you kill?" "You shall not kill." End of discussion.

The guilt arising from murder, a problem we try to solve through submission to the divine plan of grace and other civilizational resources, may be nonexistent depending on the context in which death occurs. In wars, the murderer is integrated into an artificial mass formation, i.e., the army. In this adhesion to the army, the individual renounces his individual moral standard, which is replaced by the morality of the group. In this case, he can kill at will, without questioning why on earth he is doing it. Masses are dangerous formations, and their advantages, such as folklore, are nothing compared to their damage.

We have been steeped in violence for at least thirty-nine years, since I came into the world. To avoid losing sensitivity, I began to account for death using the International System of Units. In my calculations, we have had to bury approximately ninety-eight metric tons of human flesh provided by Hamas to the world. Competitively, Israel was even more generous in its banquet, serving us 450 metric tons of corpses—many still unburied. Complete solutions for the future of humanity, which resided in these people, have been reduced to rampant depression, when the brain turns off the light.

The stones of Passeio Público know that the nationalist and religious origins of the war quickly transformed into big business. Now, market rules prevail.  This was never about a weakened United Nations. It is the negotiating ability of nations that is weakened, making diplomacy our barometer. The pathetic US veto of Brazil's resolution proposing humanitarian aid, followed by the pathetic offering of a new resolution by the same United States, led to the veto by Russia and China. The Israeli ambassador called for the resignation of the UN Secretary-General. We have the United States and Israel conversing only between themselves, while the rest of the world watches in stunned silence.

The basic constitution of a public sphere is formed by private individuals discussing based on reason. Rebellion is not reason. Submission is not reason. Intuition is not reason. Impulse is not reason. It is too early to estimate a date, but not to affirm that, in the face of such a humiliating defeat, global diplomacy will have to evolve its communicative and deliberative practices. We will have to elevate individuals above us who embody our trust in problem-solving—intelligent, ethical, and above all, creative leaders in their proposals.

Does Israel have the right to defend itself? No, it has the duty. Is Hamas a harmless confection? It doesn't seem different from a Rio militia, except for the planning, better weapons, and an ancestral grievance. Are they equivalent institutions?  Regarding formal constitution, no. But in the decrepit character of murder, their results are not different, except for the sheer volume of bloodshed.

History records that Jews have been the object of irresponsible hatred perpetuated by numerous institutions. This hatred has manifested itself in different ways. Although it reached its apex in the Holocaust, it developed in more sophisticated—dare we say civilized—ways without losing its characteristic hatred. The creation of a state for this people, far from being mere acquiescence by the international community, does not hide the true purpose of countries keeping Jews away from their territories.

From the perspective of contemporary philosophy, the struggle for recognition lamentably culminates in the Jew. Exterminations targeting Black people, unrestrained foreigners, and all manner of unsubmissive individuals symbolically converge on the Jew. This interpretation is shared by authors who arrived at it independently. However, the Jew of the Bible, the Holocaust, and comedy is not the contemporary Israeli authority. This authority lacks unanimity even among Israelis themselves, let alone within the international community. Furthermore, an Israeli born in modern Israel is not necessarily Jewish.

If we have the liberty to question the historical content of the Pentateuch and other Jewish compendia—and we do—we can quickly arrive at the observation that their approaches disproportionately favor a messianic people who self-identify as chosen by God to rule over their brethren.  Broadly and specifically, a fundamentalist Jew, similar to a fundamentalist Muslim, believes they are licensed to do as they please, because God not only authorizes but commands it. The entire salvific work that culminates, for Christians, in the death of Christ holds no validity for these fundamentalists; thus, for them, the wheel of violence revolves around their own special navel.  While we shouldn't constrain another's religious belief—and we shouldn't—if that belief transgresses the civilizational code, we could at least count on the other's adherence to a discussion of the civilizational code.

The current Israeli government has the outward appearance of a state: it has a prime minister, elections, but its actions demonstrate that it is not a sufficiently developed democracy in its interactions with the world. This manifests as a refusal of dialogue.  It is necessary to observe the emotional aspects of the relationship between Israel and the world. Even if the motivations intrinsically linked to the ethnic god and the practice of territorial conquest ordained by that god have been superseded, the emotional vestiges of these experiences remain. It is understandable, though lamentable, that present-day Israel is connected to the belligerence of its historical past.

As for Palestine, it is the new Jew—considering the philosophy of recognition mentioned earlier. Taken to its extreme, the idea that the abused has an immense potential to become the abuser could apply to a group, or even to mass behavior. Ten years from now, when I recall this war, unless something even worse surprises me, the image in my mind will be that of a Palestinian mother screaming that her children were hungry when they were murdered. The Palestinian people are subalternized in many ways and by many interests.  Information about this people, presented in this article, is available as an annex on the YouTube channel Outras Terras Filmes (http://outrasterras.com.br).

Some time ago, I searched for Palestine on Google Maps and found it in the middle of the ocean. At the time, I concluded that the world had ended, at least a certain project of the world, upon finding a people I love so much and who love me, drowned in the hatred in which someone, somewhere, had drowned them.

 Today, after the murder of hundreds (the number is imprecise, but staggering) of Palestinians who were in a hospital, I realized that the world has ended for them, that the apocalypse, the end times, has arrived for those human beings. They witnessed shame, hunger, and then died.

Imagine with me. Suddenly, a foreign authority orders you to leave your home. Fleeing with nothing, your journey is one of thirst and hunger. Then you see rubble, dust, friends, and family sprawled on the ground, some dismembered, others unburied. Then you too die.

If this, which is true, does not also make it true that we have reached the end of the world, then what would constitute the end of the world? Natural disasters, however terrible, are at least honorable. No one can blame the volcano. Genocide with the support of religious groups is the end of the world.

The stance of the international community is insufficient. Humanity is excessively paralyzed in its reaction to wars; the powerful are not truly powerful. They are nothing more than men of the market! And a market of souls, as described in the Book of Revelation.

The invitation to transformation can stem from countless motivations. In business, for example, it might originate from the founders' or managers' need to increase productivity and, consequently, profits by creating a happiness-conducive environment. In government initiatives, boosting the morale of public servants and partners through a sense of security and recognition is a way to enhance creativity and accelerate project completion. These are legitimate motivations.  However, these plans tend to fail miserably, despite excellent intentions, if the issuer of the invitation doesn't demonstrate that they have undergone the same transformations they propose, and that these transformations have brought them closer to a good life.

The term "good life" can be viewed from numerous perspectives, from the wise to the theoretical. It can be explored through the lenses of philosophy, democracy, and critical theory (Habermas is frequently associated with such research), but we are concerned with its accessible and humane version: a life that has found a sufficiently good path to lessen suffering. A life that suffers less is a good life.

Maturity, which clearly has little to do with age, always demands greater coherence. Coherence saves energy, saves time. The coherent universe uses its power to create lights, small and distant stars.  Nature, coherent in its actions, doesn't think twice before unleashing the sea upon the continent when it must. One doesn't negotiate with a cyclone, with a volcanic eruption. Who has ever been able to schedule a meeting with the earth's depths and cancel an earthquake? The apparent chaos of the environment is, in truth, the coherence of life.

We, a fragile humanity facing the forces of nature and the suffering inflicted by others, learn, then, that coherence is an ally of life. It is coherent for an individual who believes themselves to be inferior to others to emit signals that organize the consummation of their perceptions. It is coherent for someone who believes, erroneously of course, that they are superior or better than others to construct scenarios that prove them right. The moral of the story is: every human life, wise to its very core, organizes the world to continue living. If the only way of life they have learned is one of subjugation, humiliation, and begging for affection, it is coherent to continue in that way, precisely to survive.

Civil defense, however, sends SMS alerts when the risk of severe storms is imminent. Receiving an invitation to transformation is like a civil defense alert. It's a warning that beliefs and behaviors are about to cause further harm. Is it possible to prevent it? Through coherence: most likely not. But it is possible to create contingency plans, future plans. It is possible to vacate dangerous areas of the soul, to move to higher, more sober, and refreshing landscapes.

As for me (in the following paragraphs, I choose not to use the traditional Freudian first-person plural), I no longer dare invite any brother (as I call other humans) to anything that might delay or interrupt their path.

Long before believing in improvements in the quality of analysis, research, or technique, I have a devotion to human freedom. It can go wherever it wants, and it will always have, whenever I am able and it is appropriate, my companionship.

If I possessed a universal truth, I would present it, and without any need for persuasion, it would be widely accepted. This is never the case, because what I understand as truth may make no sense whatsoever to my brother. But I have one truth or another, not universal, that is sometimes kind.

The truth is, I usually confess to my intellectual and political critics that I am in search of a map of coherence. And I can't wait to change my mind on what can be changed! In any case, I have accomplished the feat of being relevant to myself, which is a great deal. This saves me from falling for the rhetoric of imposters.

With this, I hope I have made it clear that I cannot, neither today nor in the future, promise that I have the revelation of a secret, an infallible method, a miracle that can bring laughter and money. I leave those promises to those who have experience with them: those who deceive and those who are deceived (and almost always pay, in money, for it). This does not, however, disqualify me as a salesperson. Under ethical conditions, as a telemarketing representative, I was the best at selling automatic debit payments at Tim Sul S/A, in some month of 2004, a year before starting my professional life in journalism.

When you hire me, you will remunerate me for what I can do for the transformation you seek for yourself and your business. And it will always be far more expensive than those who deceive. If coherence is a life differentiator, what more can be said of the market?

I am a little freer, and a little happier, today than I was yesterday. My realistic observation (although I am a serene pessimist) of life is a disillusioned sigh. When, at 15 years old, I suffered bitterly the end of a relationship that had been the best thing in my entire life, and that would never be repeated, because that was my only opportunity for happiness, and at that moment I only had to live in mourning until my solitary death, a friend who could have been my great-grandfather told me: “Vine, do you know what the advantage of being disillusioned is? It's not being deluded.”

At first, ceasing to believe in promises makes one uncomfortable.  Later, it becomes a lifestyle so sincere, so honest, so coherent. I stopped demanding that others be what I expect them to be. And I don't care when they demand that I be what I am not. It goes in one ear and out the other. I still suffer, but in a good life, one that suffers less. In the end, who would have thought, I am a happy man, to the extent possible.

In Transactional Analysis (TA), the nagging feeling of suspicion, that "something's not right," is termed the "Little Professor" ego state. A contemporary translation might be "Little Professor." This version aligns with Eric Berne's aim to make TA accessible to children. When the Little Professor is brimming with cathexis, with psychic energy, we become aware of something unspoken. Faced with this psychic fact, we might say, "I think you need a hug." And the other replies, "Wow, I've been waiting for that for days."

Since we are dealing with the human mind, countless elements contribute to any analysis. I want to make it clear that the mere existence of this subjective reading device, this ego state, does not guarantee that the assessment of the circumstances is accurate, or even real.

I've often repeated an arrogant phrase from a political journalist: "Offering opinions is fine, but being right is even better." When the minimal scruple of the human condition exists and is heeded, even occasionally, the capacity, let's say, for prescience, is enriched.  There's a price to pay for that.

"Discomfort is a frequent visitor," explains my TA supervisor, Maku de Almeida. As the quality of our observations improves and we discover that the Little Professor was right from the start, it's painful to admit that people we love so dearly still live miserably.

Godfather Pedro – the composite name for the dearly departed neighbor, Pedro Zotto. He and my grandfather, Jorge Camargo (Godfather Jorge in turn), built their houses in an undeveloped area of São José dos Pinhais, starting in the 1950s.  They were such close friends that, besides their houses standing on corners of the same intersection of Avenida das Torres, they purchased mausoleums side-by-side for their retirement. Godfather Pedro moved to his final address some years ago. While the husbands were exceptionally close, their wives waged a perpetual war. Although comadres (godmothers to each other's children), they never missed a single opportunity to create the most hilarious chaos.  "Very Crazy Neighbors," in their afternoon matinee. Their squabbles were so trivial that we always had the impression that, above all, the comical aspect prevailed.  Comadre Ida also moved to her final address.

Both families endured the hardships characteristic of those who are poor yet possess a certain dignity. They were plundered, primarily, by religious ideas, by terrible illusions. For a lifetime, they attempted to resolve matters with spells: candles, prayer chains, alongside considerable religious intolerance. The only ones who remained unaffected by such nonsense were the godfathers, and the children.

One of the children's games I would have loved to have filmed was their weddings. There were bride and groom, parents of the couple, godparents, and of course, the priest. Juarez would secretly borrow Comadre Ida's black dress to use as a cassock. They also held exorcism ceremonies. On one occasion, the father of a child from the neighborhood saw his son playing a demon and lashed out with his belt.  Not to mention the "macumba to die," which involved stones and some weeds.  The freedom of childhood very quickly transformed into cultural imposition, and the games ended.

I count the dead, not a few, who leave me with both longing and anger. One of my neuroses is blaming the dead for their deaths; I do not forgive them for leaving me without them.

Last Christmas, Godfather Pedro's great-granddaughter was held in Godfather Jorge's arms.  Jorge, as solid as an ancient oak, wept twice upon seeing the Zotto's old house demolished. And he wept again when he held the great-granddaughter, who is also his.

About thirty years ago, when the Christmas celebration was the same for those families of the heart, and the degeneration of life was in full swing, a relative of Godfather Pedro said to him a phrase that is repeated several times a year to this day:

—What a cursed Christmas, Pedro!