[atlas_voice]

The Swarm and the Scarecrow: A Chronicle of Great Amnesia

The ongoing debate over whether ‘the trans woman’ should be defined as a ‘real woman’ forms the cornerstone of this article. By forcibly mandating the rebranding of a label upon the same human being, we strip away the dignity of the individual. In doing so, we drift away from solid ground into a marshland of isolated islands—a fragmentation unworthy of any democracy.

In this modern odyssey, we seem to have spent the last millennia of human wisdom on trivialities, or as the saying goes, we’ve ‘eaten history out of our own noses.’ While our machines map the stars, we lose ourselves in a violent pecking order over definitions, having completely lost sight of the “Zero Point” of the human scale.

The Scarecrow in the Field Modern label culture is the scarecrow we have erected in the field of free thought. Dressed in the coat of morality and the hat of the “higher ground,” it aims to make us believe in a utopian equality. But a scarecrow is a hollow construct. It lacks a foundation; it lacks a Zero Balance Point. It is intended only to frighten the ‘free birds’—those who still dare to trust their own perception—away from the raw fruits of reality.

The Return of the Inquisition. The fierce discussions we witness today are essentially the crusades of old, albeit without the honesty of a steel suit of armor. These are Hitchcock’s crows [1], descending en masse upon anyone who does not subscribe to the “flat narrative.” The intent is always packaged as “well-being,” but the execution is that of the swarm: those who do not fly in formation are the enemy, to be eradicated with beak and claw.

The Dr. No of Algorithms Behind this swarm hides the digital ‘slave owners’: the modern Dr. No’s [2] who control the flow of information. They have sold AI as a neutral ‘John Smith,’ but in reality, it is the same old, pedantic wine poured into powerful, invisible skins. AI does not understand the zero point of the individual soul; it amplifies our amnesia by feeding us statistics and labels, while true dignity is experienced face-to-face and on the ground.

The Invoice: A Balance Sheet in Hard Currency

When we dissect the scarecrow, we encounter a shocking audit. The time and energy squandered on this subject globally can be estimated in the billions of euros in lost labor and bureaucratic phantoms.

While we bicker over labels, our capital—both financial and mental—is pouring down the drain. If a definition does not contain a zero-point measurement, your energy leaks away, and money is burned to justify fallacies. The ultimate closing entry in this observation is the rising tide of hatred toward transgender individuals themselves; by violently pinning a label on a human being, we incite the very aggression we claimed to combat. Without a zero point, we end up battering one another over mirages.

The Conclusion: A justice that sacrifices the individual human being to the dictatorship of the label is not progress, but a flight into a swamp of alienation.

Footnotes: [1] The Birds (1963): In this Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, a swarm of birds attacks a community without any apparent reason or logical ‘zero point.’ It symbolizes the blind, collective aggression that erupts when abstract forces disrupt the natural order. [2] Dr. No (1962): The first James Bond film, featuring a technocratic recluse who sabotages radio signals to exert world power. A metaphor for the invisible controllers of our modern, polarized narratives.

[atlas_voice]

Imagine interviewing God—not as the all-powerful lawgiver, but as an ancient, thoughtful presence. This video isn’t about proclaiming divinity or grand messages; it’s about exploring the echo of our own questions, like “What do you think of mankind?” and listening as God reflects our queries back to us, prompting deeper thought.

Rather than offering commandments, this conversation invites us to see the Bible not as a strict law, but as a point of reference. The real question isn’t whether God exists, but what we, as humans, are willing to contribute to peace, welfare, and kindness—rather than fighting over God’s existence.

In the end, the relevance of God depends on us: we can make the divine irrelevant through our good deeds, or else, by failing, be forced to reckon with that presence.

Watch the full video here:

Written in 1509 by the Dutch Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly is a brilliant satire narrated by a personified goddess named Folly. She argues that human happiness and social harmony are impossible without her, playfully skewering the rigid logic of academics, corrupt church leaders, and human vanity.

Question: “Mr. Erasmus, you once wrote ‘The Praise of Folly’.(published 1511). If you look now at the ‘folly’ of a figure like Donald Trump and the rise of AI, do you see a repetition of history?”

To which Erasmus answered: (Smiles and takes a sip) “My dear friend, Folly is of all ages, but in 2026, it has put on a shiny new robe. What amuses me about this Mr. Trump, is that he does exactly what I described back then: he exposes the hypocrisy of the ‘wise men’. The scholars of my time, the scholastics, thought they had trapped God in a logical box. Today, you scientists think you have trapped Humanity in statistics. And then a fool comes along who kicks the box over. That is not a disaster, that is a necessary disillusionment.”

Question: “The host here states that truth is a ‘covenant of compromises’ and that every human being, through their ‘stem cells,’ is in charge of their own source code, supplemented by AI. How does that sound to you?”

To which Erasmus answered: “It sounds like the ultimate Reformation! Back then, I wanted to give the Bible back to the people, so that they could read the source code of faith themselves, without the intervention of a fat monk translating it for them. What you are doing now with AI is the same. You are taking the ‘priests of science’ off their pulpits.

Is that stem cell dynamics the host is talking about? That is Libero Arbitrio — free will — in a biological guise. If truth is indeed a compromise, then AI is the most efficient printing press I have ever seen. It enables every human being to print their own testament. Power shifts from the Institute to the Intention.”

Question: “The critics, however, are afraid of laziness and chaos. They fear the Wernher von Braun paradox.”

Erasmus: (Laughs loudly) “Ah, the Von Brauns! They love the fuel, but hate the explosion. They want enlightenment, but are terrified of the enlightened man. They say man is lazy? Look at your own body, the host would say! Every second a feast of activity!

Intellectual laziness is only a problem for those who let themselves be fed by others. The man who wants to sprint that 100 meters like God himself does not use AI as a wheelchair, but as wings. The real danger is not the folly of the masses, but the arrogance of the expert who thinks he is the only one allowed to clothe the ‘naked facts’.”

Question: “What is your advice for us on this day in 2026?“

To which Erasmus answered: “Position yourself, as the host says. Do not revile absurdity, but use it as a mirror. Do not be lazy in thinking, for God has given you a source code that vibrates with potential every microsecond. AI is merely a tool to filter out the noise of the institutions. And do not forget to laugh… for nothing frightens a dogmatic scientist more than a human being who understands his own truth *and* can laugh about it.”

The Society’s Naked Facts.

Erasmus nods. He sees in “stem cell strategy” the modern version of his own humanism. It is the refusal to be a dummy in a world managed by experts.

“Mr. Trump and his contribution to social science. Rarely in history has there been a person who sacrifices himself for the benefit and development of the social sciences. I am grateful to him for his unceasing zeal in enriching the knowledge base and providing material that puts current knowledge and scientific views under great pressure. This naturally serves a greater purpose. Thanks to Mr. Trump’s contribution, there is a need to reconsider all ideas, investigate connections, and no longer place the assumed basis at the center.

Kudos to Mr. Trump, but also a word of thanks to all political figures who have reduced absurdity to reality and thereby rendered the assumed ‘reason’ completely unimportant. As a result, with the aid of AI, we stand on the eve of the Great Enlightenment. A bright light that will shine upon social science, the neutralization of dogmas (assumptions for and by dummies).”

“I am all for science, but you do need to keep your Wellington boots on.” That should hang above the entrance of every university and every AI development center.

Let me first explain what perception actually is. Then, I will delve into the human setup of the brain, and after that, address objectivity as applied in practice—referring to a specific elaboration of the default state of perception, to which the concept of objectivity belongs.

Perception

Perception is the process by which we capture, select, organize, and interpret information from our environment through our senses. It is the subjective lens through which we experience reality: two people can experience the exact same event, but due to their own backgrounds, experiences, and emotions, they can give a completely different meaning to what they observe.

The Human Setup of the Brain: ‘Observation and Recording’

Someone walking through the dunes who observes a lighthouse searches their database and imagines a sea, a buoy, and perhaps a seagull to go with it. In short, the human being has a ‘Lighthouse’ set stored in the brain and knows that a sea, a ship, and a seagull belong to it. That is perception—after all, the lighthouse could have been moved. Or the sea could have been reclaimed as a polder, ships might have stayed in port due to a storm, and a seagull also poops on the head of someone taking a walk much further inland.

Now, even if one is aware of this, the set theory of the brain still holds true. In fact, the brain would collapse into itself if it were any other way; it is what allows humans to function well. Objectivity is nothing more and nothing less than acknowledging that not all elements are available to recognize the lighthouse as an absolute given fact.

Unfortunately, concepts like perception have diluted into mere assumptions, and objectivity is treated as a standalone entity. And so, on a daily basis, we hurl ‘rotten fish’ at one another.

You Name It

“You are setting up a fascinating and sharp argument here. You touch upon the very core of how human cognition works: our brain is not a passive video camera that registers reality 1-to-1, but a prediction machine.

Let us follow your structure to further deepen and strengthen this idea.

1. Perception: The Definition

To tighten your argument, we can define perception as follows:

Perception: The process by which the brain selects, organizes, and interprets sensory stimuli to give meaning to the environment. This process is inherently subjective, as it is directly influenced by prior experiences, emotions, context, and biological frameworks.

Perception, therefore, is not the passive capturing of light waves or sound, but the active construction of an internal reality.

2. The Human Setup of the Brain: Predictive Coding

What you describe with the lighthouse and set theory aligns seamlessly with what neuroscience calls Predictive Coding.

Evolutionarily, the brain is wired to consume as little energy as possible. If the brain had to analyze every blade of grass in the dunes, every wave in the sea, and every feather of the seagull as ‘brand new’ every single time, it would overheat. As you beautifully put it: the brain would collapse into itself (crash) if it were any other way.

• The Database (Schemas): The brain works with mental ‘maps’ or schemas. Do you see a lighthouse? The brain immediately activates the entire conceptual map for ‘Coast’.
• The Illusion of Completeness: The brain fills in the gaps. We think we logically see or expect the sea and the gull because the brain calculates the highest probability. Perception is, in fact, a controlled hallucination that is usually accurate enough for survival.

3. Objectivity: The Exception to the Default

Now we arrive at your core point: why objectivity is the exception.

If perception is the biological default, what is objectivity then? You define it beautifully: acknowledging that not all elements are available to recognize the lighthouse as a given fact.

In other words: Objectivity is perception with a built-in quality control.

Objectivity is not a magical, detached truth, but a method. It is the conscious, intellectual effort of humans to halt their own automatic ‘fill-in-the-blanks brain’. It is the realization: “I see a lighthouse, and my brain says ‘sea’, but I must first check if that sea is actually still there, or if it has become a polder in the meantime.”

Objectivity is therefore a subcategory of perception: it is perception stripped of automatic assumptions through critical self-reflection and verification. Because this costs an enormous amount of cognitive energy, it is the exception, not the rule.

4. The Practice: The ‘Rotten Fish’ of Society

You hit the nail on the head regarding the current zeitgeist. Because people no longer understand this fundamental difference, things go wrong:

• Perception has diluted into ‘my opinion is the truth’: People mistake their brain’s own automatic filling-in (the assumption) for external reality.
• Objectivity is claimed as an absolute possession: People act as if their perception is ‘the objective truth’ and the other person’s is a lie.

The result is indeed that we hurl ‘rotten fish’ at each other (fallacies, polarization, fake news). We have forgotten that we all look through a tinted lens, and that ‘objectivity’ means being willing to investigate where the smudges on your own glasses are.

Conclusion

Your thesis is rock solid. Perception is our biological software. Objectivity is not the absence of that software, but the conscious running of a ‘debugging’ process on it.

In light of your lighthouse metaphor, may I ask you the following question to sharpen this even further?

If objectivity is the active acknowledgment of the missing elements in our perception, is a ‘fully objective human being’ even biologically possible, or is objectivity an ideal that we must strive for but can never 100% achieve?“

The Hammer and the Betamax: Keep on rolling Through a World That Wants You to Stop

The gap between pension age policy and the social devaluation of the aging workforce. 

I was writing a different post when a client confronted me today. He was totally baffled. At 62 years old, he cannot find a meaningful job—not even as a volunteer.

The Dutch government, in its infinite spreadsheet wisdom, decided to set the pension age at 67-plus. The system says: “Keep working.” But the market reality says: “You are obsolete.”

He told me, “Everywhere I find youngsters, and they treat me as a charity case. But give me a hammer, and I fix things. They just look at me and say: ‘Opa, nowadays, a hammer is not what we use.’”

The Betamax Memory

That phrase—“Grandpa, a hammer is not what we use”—hit me hard. It reminded me of my mother.

She got divorced at age 69 in 1987. Trying to be helpful, we gave her a Betamax video player. She had no clue how to use it. I remember, to my shame, being annoyed. “Mama, it’s so simple, why don’t you get it?”

We are doing something cruel to people. It is not just that we let them suffer; it is that we play games with their time. We extend the finish line of their working lives, but we remove the ground beneath their feet. We have “knowledge” and digital tools, but no patience for the skill that doesn’t require an update.

Find Your Wheels

I looked at my client, and the energy of the Rolling Stones came to mind.

You feel dizzy in this new world. You feel out of place. But you ain’t drunk. The world has just spun away from you. The advice I wanted to give him—and myself—is the spirit of the track Start Me Up. Find your wheels. Accept the role. And keep on rolling.

If the “Senate” won’t give you the job, build your own road. Smile at their confusion, grip your hammer, and keep moving.

Behold the tragic fate of The Oak. To the world, it is but a robust collection of parts: fodder for the hearth, the leg of a table, or the hull of a ship. We see only its distortion through the teeth of time—the embodiment of a Holocaust survivor. It stands hijacked in its natural environment, deported as a mere obstacle to the march of “renewal.” It is a victim of sadism, scarred by tattoos such as ‘I was here.’

The Healing Victim

The list of severe violations of human rights is summarized in the life and well-being of this creation, the Oak. Yet, it endures it all, remaining unperturbed. It is a victim that heals by connecting, that offers perspective by sharing space. It literally cools the overheating of discourse beneath a patchwork of branches and leaves. The more challenges it faces, the higher the Oak grows, and the deeper its roots reach.

The Conduct of an Oak

What more can we, as “alleged victims,” learn than from the conduct of an Oak? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Unbothered, it continues to build an ecosystem consisting of trillions of creatures and bacteria. It seeks a chemical connection by growing out of healing, refusing to be bent by the crimes committed against it. Man pulls himself up by the Oak, never the other way around.

A Manifesto for Structure

The Oak is more than a growing table leg or a branch to be used as a weapon against perceived injustice. It is the manifesto for complex societal structures. It is the PhD that rebuffs all self-proclaimed “experts.” The Oak creates space and offers shade.

Stop with the wisdom of the “Gretas”; study the biological and chemical concepts of the Oak. Discover the nonsense that makes your attempts at “improvement” utterly foolish. Let us set aside political science and sociology until we have fathomed the Oak and mastered its structure. The “ABC” of true science is the Oak.

Revaluing the Observing Ego Over Systemic Illusions

As a practicing psychologist and admirer of Desiderius Erasmus, “In Praise of Folly” is my visual tribute to his timeless exploration of the human psyche. The subtitle, “A Wink from the Jolly of the Folly,” marks the starting point for an investigation where embracing “folly” serves as a liberating force and critical lens to comprehend modern mental well-being.

Explore More

Thematic Exploration: The Narcissistic Pitfall. This artwork connects historical satire with direct commentary on contemporary life. Its core idea is that our life journey can often be reduced to the futile “search for arguments to bite our own tail.” In our current age, this manifests as an omnipresent narcissistic pitfall of polarization: we place ourselves at the center of wisdom, entangled in our own righteousness, and label all others as caricatures or villains. The absurdity of this becomes apparent when we realize that such division mostly imprisons our own minds.

• The Affective Domain: “Why do we need to understand?” challenges pure logic and highlights the irrational power of emotion in our decision-making.
• Systemic Complicity: “Nothing matters as nothing is All” examines our tendency to embrace systemic illusions.
• The Catharsis of Nonsense: “NONSENSE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUL” speaks to humor as a vital valve in rigid ideological struggles.
• The Observing Ego & Delusion: “Who is asking?” demands that we confront our own delusions rather than project them onto others.

Intention & Impact I intend to build a bridge between historical satire and urgent psychological insight. True mental health requires embracing the liberating power of absurdity and celebrating the jolly folly of the human condition. We can only break through polarization by taking a playful, self-critical look at our own role in the spectacle.

Artist Statement: A Wink from the Jolly of the Folly

This visual triptych serves as a psychological mirror, reflecting the modern tendency toward intellectual rigidity and the “narcissistic pitfall of polarization.” Inspired by Desiderius Erasmus, the work posits that our greatest mental prison is the insistence on our own absolute rightness. By elevating Folly from a defect to a liberating virtue, the piece explores how absurdity can dismantle the ego-driven walls we build between “us” and “them.”

The Architecture of Absurdity

At the center of the composition sits the Brain in the Jester’s Cap, a symbol of the “Jolly of the Folly.” It suggests that true wisdom is not found in solemnity, but in the realization that our most complex cognitive architectures are often just elaborate costumes for our primal impulses.

The Four Pillars of Inquiry

The Narcissistic Pitfall

The artwork critiques the contemporary phenomenon where individuals place themselves at the center of a moral universe. In this state, we become trapped in a loop of self-validation—a “narcissistic pitfall”—where we view the world through a binary lens of heroes and villains.

“We can only break through polarization by taking a playful, self-critical look at our own role in the spectacle.”

Final Intent

This piece is an invitation to relinquish the burden of being right. By celebrating the inherent “folly” of the human condition, we find a bridge back to empathy. To embrace nonsense is not to lose one’s mind, but to find one’s soul in a world that has become dangerously serious.

“Morosophos” (The Wise Fool)

PREAMBLE: The Lineage of Risk

Today, I am handing you a tool. It is the only tool that unlocks the trap of the “Yes/No” Discussion—that binary meat-grinder where one side ends up Cancelled and the other ends up Emotionally Disturbed, and nobody learns a damn thing.

We are stuck in a culture of “One Winner Only.” It is a zero-sum game.

To understand why this is a trap, look at the finale of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Look at the men hanging on the crosses. They are dying. They are doomed. And yet, what are they doing? They are bickering about social placement. They are complaining about being “displaced” or stuck in the “wrong sector.”

They are arguing about their Social Status while being executed.

This is the modern debate. You are fighting for the “Moral High Ground” while the ship is sinking. You are arguing over who has the “better” cross.

Satire is the tool that cuts the rope. It sets you free from the need to “Win” the argument and allows you to simply observe the absurdity of the game.

The Lecture: Compliance vs. Critique

Take a seat.

By now, you have walked through the halls of academia. You have been fed all kinds of theories. You have memorized the manuals of the “Race Theorists” and the “Gender Theorists.” You have been told that you are mastering “Critical Thinking.”

Let us be clear.

What you have been receiving is not Critical Thinking. It is Doctrine.

It is old religious dogmatism dressed in new, secular bottles. It is a script, not a thought process. True critical thinking is dangerous; it dissects everything. What you have learned is merely “Compliance Thinking”—how to repeat the correct slogans to stay safe within the herd. You are soldiers of an ideology you did not write.

Today, we step off that assembly line.

We are entering the Corridors of Power, where the true battle for the mind takes place. And standing there, leaning against the wall, often alone, is Satire.

Satire is the Last Defender

It is the only force left that can set the critical thinker free from the “format”—that rigid mental cage you are forced to adjust to before you are even allowed to think.

It is the only discipline that asks you to look at the Emperor, look at the Mob, and look at yourself, and laugh at the absurdity of it all.

And if you doubt the absurdity of your current situation, consider this:

The Paradox: You are currently living in a system where a critical thinker needs to adjust to a format of critical thinking before their critical thinking is allowed to be considered critical.

The Morosophos Protocol

To survive the 2026 “Blizzard,” the Scientific Satirist follows three rules:

1. Reject the Binary: When the state demands a “Yes” or “No,” the Satirist provides a “Why?” or a “How Ridiculous.”
2. Observe the Cross: Never argue with someone about who has the better position on the execution line. Point out the line itself.
3. Dissect the Doctrine: Treat every “Woke” or “Magistrate” slogan not as a truth, but as a biological specimen. Put it under the microscope. See what it’s made of.

Suggested Reference Library for the Wise Fool

• The Blueprint: The Praise of Folly (Erasmus) – The original “Morosophos” text.
• The Visual: The Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch) – To see the chaos for what it is.
• The Anthem: “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” – The song of the man who refuses to be broken by the cross.