Thought Leader

The dynamics of complex systems: ‘Flight Behaviour’

5 February 2019 Bert Olivier

Most people don’t know what complex systems (the word ‘complex’ is important) are, despite the fact that everyone one is enmeshed in several such complex systems every minute of the day and night. One such complex system is language, which we use more or less all the time, except when we sleep, and even then,…

comments (0)

| views (3474)

Breaking down South Africa?

28 January 2019 Bert Olivier

In 2015, it was reported that Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, speaking to followers at Nongoma, criticised black South Africans for not building further on the country they had inherited from the National Party, opting instead to destroy or break down infrastructure, in this way cancelling out the (economic) progress made during a time when the…

comments (0)

| views (3614)

Ag sies man! They took toilet money!

22 January 2019 Avishkar Govender

In India, the caste system controls everything, even with the modernisation that has made parts of the caste system illegal. It regulates occupation, vocation, profession and education by determining who gets what opportunity. It determines association, such that the freedom of association is limited insofar as not enabling cross-caste association. In India it is the…

comments (0)

| views (2570)

Sleepwalking into a geophysical storm?

19 January 2019 Bert Olivier

In a recent article titled ‘The perils of short-termism: Civilisation’s greatest threat’, by Richard Fisher, he makes the following sober (and sobering) remark about the people — our children and grandchildren — who are likely to be alive when the iconic year, 2100, dawns: All the decisions we make, for better and worse, will be…

comments (0)

| views (3138)

‘Dark technology’ and human ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’?

5 January 2019 Bert Olivier

In the later 19th century there was a protracted debate among thinkers of various stripes about the question, what ultimately determines human actions — ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’ — a debate that is still going on today. But while it was then influenced by the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, on the one hand, and empiricist…

comments (0)

| views (3778)

What parents can do to make up for gaps in our basic education?

5 January 2019 Mandela Rhodes Scholars

By Lehlohonolo Mofokeng Here is a reality many of us do not want to talk about: our basic education encourages surface learning than deep learning. One of the reasons I encourage my learners to enter for Accounting Olympiads is to show them that our content is weak; by consequence, disadvantages them when they enrol at…

comments (0)

| views (3716)

‘Ubuhle bendoda, izinkomozakhe’ and the trouble with paying lobolo

27 December 2018 Psychological Society of South Africa

By Refiloe Makama “Men are never ugly”. Nnu Ego makes this statement in Buchi Emecheta’s novel, The Joys of Motherhood, set during the colonial period in Nigeria. In a scene between two friends, the protagonist Nnu Ego had recently lost her first child, and Ato, her childhood friend comes to comfort her. In a memorable moment,…

comments (0)

| views (3606)