With the sun at your back
It's been a few months since I was in Kroměříž for a Havelka and Plachetka concert and the next morning, with the sun at my back, I visited the Karel Kryl (1944-1994) Museum. I recall that Kryl left Czechoslovakia on 9 September 1969 for a music festival held at the West German castle of Waldeck, applied for asylum after two weeks and stayed in Germany for the next twenty years. I should also remind you that I was not a fan for many reasons, although I liked some of the songs and enjoy them because they are relevant today and will be tomorrow.
One of them is Democracy. A song he said he didn't think I'd ever write again. It's more like a little ditty, one of those that doesn't pretend to be taken as a song. It's a sigh at what passes for democracy at the moment. The song was first performed in Prague's Reduta and some consider it to be Kryl's most important composition ever, even though it was not a success with the audience.
I mention Krylo because of the words: Thank you for weakness, Jesus teaches me humility, Humility, humility for joy, Humility without submission, Thank you, thank you for tears: you teach me compassion, For the living, who, for the living, who grieve And cry for compassion.
The words touch me painfully at the time of the senseless, already lost war in Ukraine, at the time of the commemoration of the Holocaust (27 January), the failure to invite the representatives of the Russian Federation to Auschwitz, the end of the Battle of Stalingrad (2 February), the end of the Battle of Stalingrad (2 February).1943) by the Red Army with the historic victory over the German 6th Army under Field Marshal Paulus, and the beginning of a new part of the life of my mother-in-law (or wife) Nadezhda Vladimirovna, decorated with a high order for bravery and participation in the fighting.
It was she, her stories of life and struggles on the front in public and at home that burned deeply into my heart that, everything she needed to know to survive, she learned at kindergarten age. She reminded us that history knows no tragedies without blame, that history is not always fair, and that when people huddle together to form a mob, the dynamisms of the collective man - beasts or demons - are unleashed. Unknown to his mother-in-law, Krylov later wrote: Politicians are not trusted, politicians are controlled. One believes in God, one believes in nature, one believes in beauty, one believes in an idea, an idea. A politician is not believed in, and whoever believes in him is an idiot!
Inauguration
President Trump's inauguration ceremony was nothing but one big orchestra of symbols, gestures, numerology and symbolism that not everyone is able to read and interpret correctly. It's just that only people who have the ability, the will, and the ability to play multi-dimensional chess come up with this stuff. President Trump promised the deep state that he would defeat it with his symbolism. And that is happening and will continue with or without him.
USA, UK and Greenland
Immediately after his inauguration, President Trump announced a series of actions, some of which are designed to increase territory, increase security, or reduce the financial losses of the United States of America. In this context, I recall that President Trump seems to have forgotten that the United Kingdom has the right of first refusal to acquire Greenland in the event of a sale. This was reported by the Sunday Times, citing Tom Høim, the Danish Minister for Greenland Affairs from 1982 to 1987. According to Høym, under the terms of an agreement made more than a century ago, if Denmark were to sell Greenland, it would have to give Britain a right of first refusal. If Trump tried to buy Greenland, he would have to ask London first. In 1917, the United Kingdom demanded that if Greenland was sold, Britain should have a pre-emption right, Høym's publication quoted. As the newspaper explains, the aforementioned 1917 agreement was part of US President Woodrow Wilson's agreements to purchase the Danish West Indies, now known as the US Virgin Islands. The US bought them from Denmark for $25 million.
The trader advised Wilson to buy Greenland as well. Wilson was reluctant at first because he saw no value in the land. When he was finally convinced and wanted to buy Greenland, Copenhagen was reluctant to include the territory in the agreement with the Danish West Indies. The Danish authorities then received written assurances from the United States (Wilson) that Greenland would remain Danish forever.
But since Trump never seems to have heard of it, I expect a trade offer from Trump that the citizens of Greenland will not refuse, NATO and the EC will turn tail and hypocritically cheer the deal. I remind you that Greenland was a colony of Denmark until 1953. It remains part of the Kingdom. In 2009, it gained autonomy with self-government and independent choice in domestic politics, and Denmark has proposed to discuss Greenland at the next EC meeting.
Panama fell without a shot
After Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit to Panama, the Panama Canal came under Washington's control without firing a shot, with the following result: on the night of Monday, February 3, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, who also wants to live and enjoy life, stopped participating in the joint initiative with Beijing, One Belt, One Road.
Superintelligence
In the field of artificial intelligence, which has become a topic of the times, it refers to a hypothetical level of intelligence that vastly outperforms the smartest and most capable human brains in all areas, including creativity, problem solving, learning, and social skills. It is a term associated with the future development of artificial intelligence, where AI would become so advanced that it could surpass human capabilities at all levels. Superintelligence is an important topic in AI philosophy, ethics and futurology. I recommend Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, by Nick Bostrom. ISBN-13 978-0198739838, Oxford University Press, 2016. Trump will boost industry so that the US achieves general superintelligence before China.
Chinese Deepseek
The author of this paper will not describe the technological advantages and disadvantages of the Chinese product and its American competitors due to his lack of competence and knowledge of the subject. But in general, after first experiences, it can be argued that chatting with Deepseek is not chatting with a communist product, but that the chatbot will forward each request to a small number of specialized brains. This reduces computational and energy requirements and is an objective advantage over GPT Open AI. Using the Chinese cloud, it costs almost nothing.
I expect the US IT sector to have more problems because it is not clear how to solve them. What do I mean? If we're only talking about physical manufacturing, one solution would be to move manufacturing to Southeast Asia. But the problem is the specifics of IT and the role of IT for the US geo-economically and geopolitically. US agencies, including federal ones, and now in the Trump presidency, cannot afford to lose their flagship and dominance.
But the problem for the United States is that there is nothing to fight the Chinese with. The global games market is global, it will not be possible to ban the sale of Chinese games, and it will not be possible to ban AI development in China. Banning the use of certain Chinese or American products under the pretext of ensuring national security is likely to end in a fiasco bordering on certainty. Since, in general, if you can't win with your head, you will have to push with your elbows and use force, I expect media and financial wars with dead bodies on the way to the next stage of AI.
Europe in the shadow of Deepseek
When it comes to the future, it is impossible to speak objectively and concretely about Europe, let alone Germany or even the Czech Republic. Why? Here, we prefer to talk about the old car industry, inflation, fraud of all kinds and speculate about elections. Nobody asks why better artificial intelligence does not come from Germany? No one offers a vision and most are waiting for salvation and a saviour.
The whole thing reminds me of a story from the early days of space travel. Because of gravity, the Americans invested millions in developing writing instruments for their astronauts in space, while the Soviet Union gave their cosmonauts pencils! With this small example, let me state that the United States of America has never been the measure of all things. Only its enormous market potential has always set it apart from the rest of the world. In the meantime, however, everyone knows that even that is built only on credit, military power and threats. Technically the US has long been middle class not to mention the EU, and militarily humiliation follows humiliation, which will anchor direct US-Russia negotiations on Ukraine, without Ukraine and without the EU. Russia will be granted superpower status again by this act.
That is why I expect Trump, who differs significantly from his predecessor Biden and the self-proclaimed EU leaders mentally close to him, to quickly restore order in Europe thanks to his character, narcissism, which I wrote about in detail in the first election campaign, and perseverance. It will be to the advantage of the United States of America and everything will go quickly. Trump has allowed his European servants to visit tailors and have new tailored suits made. When they're tried on, the suffliers will come. They may already be hidden in AI goggles and a ring and will cue text, gesture and action when needed. Today, with AI, everything is simpler and without witnesses. Those who are reluctant will go on a long vacation as even non-profits will suffer financially and intellectually.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
On 27 January it was established in honour of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army in 1945. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz was the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp of World War II, where over a million people, mostly Jews, were killed. I am ashamed of the leaders of Europe for not realising and admitting publicly that the deed of the Soviet soldiers who liberated them is immortal and that no one has the right to downplay or ignore its significance.
This also applies to the UN and Mr Guterres. In his speech at the UNSC memorial ceremony on Monday, he honoured the six million Jews murdered during the genocide and stressed the dangers of growing anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial specifically, without a word about the role of the Soviet Union in the Second World War. He hypocritically said: We must confront these outrages. We must promote education, fight the lies and speak the truth.
I'd love to be wrong, but it's hard to imagine Russia giving up the opportunity to reward Western political hypocrites when the time comes. And that is coming no matter who all suffers. Why? People don't have time to learn anything anymore. They buy ready-made things from the merchants. And since friends are not for sale, they have no friends (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,1900-1944). Therefore, I ask with Euripides : Who knows if life is not dying and death is not living.
Unless we get rid of the illusion that the time of reward will not come, it will continue to be true that the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. Consent not required. February 2, 2025.
Jan Campbell
English 
Czech 
Spanish 
French 
Italian 
German 
Russian 
Chinese