Mentality

Aphorisms

“If people begin believing in what they hear rather than what they see, telling them the truth gradually gets difficult.”

“Decreasing the interest rates is possible by decreasing the risks. Decreasing the risks decreases the exchange rates, decrease in exchange rates lowers inflation and interest rates decrease when inflation lowers. It is that simple. The only thing to do is to assess the issue technically and to establish the cause and effect relationship accurately.”

“Once interest rates were high and exchange rates were low. Then, interest rates decreased and exchange rates increased. Now, both interest rates and exchange rates are high. Risks were always high during all these periods. Unless you reduce the risks, you can get nowhere by playing with interest and exchange rates.”

“Students are our future. We should listen to their recommendations. We were students in 1968 and we had some demands just like the students in other countries. Everyone listed to their students, found solutions and made progress. Here, no one listened to the other and we failed. We should not make the same mistake again.”

“The Ottoman collapsed because of leaving the path of science and turning its back on enlightenment. One who ignores science is in danger of wolf!”

“The State should always take care of its patients, whether it has a Wealth Fund or not. Being a state requires it. The State is not a company; it does not seek profit, it protects its citizens, takes care of its patients, and cares for the benefit of the society.”

“Life changes and people change, too. If the people do not change despite the life changes, then there will be no improvement. Turkey lost an incredible time as it showed resistance to change until today.”

Mahfi EĞİLMEZ

Mentality!

Turkey’s problems seem to have reached a level that affects human life negatively. Although life is 100% more expensive when compared to the last few years, the problem is not an economic problem only. Inequality of opportunity, lack and obstruction of justice and problems with rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech and restriction of freedoms and the deformations in social, economic and political arena made the country uninhabitable.

According to research carried out by Yeditepe University and MAK Consultancy, 76% of the young people between the ages of 18-29 want to live abroad for a better future. Another research carried out by the SODEV and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Association Turkey Agency, 52.7% of young people who support AKP and 68% of young people who support MHP wants to leave Turkey.

Making constitutional amendments or reforms is no longer sufficient for solving our problems. If it were, tens and hundreds of omnibus bills enacted overnight would pay off and we would not have such bigger problems.

On the other hand, each problem has its solutions. However, first of all we should be honest and detect the problems in our country. Otherwise, years pass and making life easier for the people of the country and getting out of future anxiety would be a dream and everyone, except a small wealthy minority group, starts to get poorer. Years pass with current conditions and nothing positive happens in life.

For example, in this agricultural country, where agriculture seems to come to an end, potatoes and onions, which we buy at 10-12 times more expensive than their cost from the supermarkets, rot in the warehouses of the producers. When I watch such news on TV, I would wonder why they were not distributed to people freely. Now, we hear that these potatoes and onions will be bought by the state and delivered to poor people. Unfortunately, it is an indicator how poor the people became. On the other hand, we are a wealthy country; 2021 model Mercedes cars are sold at 500.000 Euro, but the poor gets potatoes and onions!

I would like to remind you the Constitution Referendum conducted in 17; did you forget the number of graves opened for voting? Four years have passed since the “yes” decision for the referendum, so why do we still have problems in this country?

For me, our people need a mentality change in order to distinguish between right and the wrong. Without a mentality change, Turkey’s problems cannot be solved with omnibus bills or by changing laws with continuous referendums.

I recommend three books for you to read:

1. How We Decide – Johen LEHRER
2. Efsaneler ve Osmanlı Gerçekleri*  – Halil İNALCIK (only in Turkish)
3. 2062: The World That AL Made – Toby WALSH

From the book “How We Decide”

The assumption that mankind is a rational being is faulty. Our brain does not work in that way. Mankind has pondered how it has made decisions from the first day a decision was made. The general opinion is that we are living creatures who are logical and act after thinking. Is this so? How do people decide?

Throughout human history, we may now give an answer to this question. We can look inside the brain and see how people think: the closed box is now open. However, when we looked in the box, we saw that we were not rational beings. The mind is a complicated network of different fields that are parts of the emotion-generation process. Considering that feelings and thoughts are mutually exclusive is one of the most fundamental problems. The purpose of this book is to overcome this artificial dichotomy and to give answers to these two questions: “How do we decide?” and “How can we improve these decisions?”

Voters who are strongly loyal to certain political parties can be given as examples on how people should not build opinion. The brains of these people are obstinate and self-enclosed; they already know what they believe. Their arguments do not change, no matter how much you try to persuade them and no matter how much information you provide them.

Such voters use their minds to preserve their addiction to the political parties they support. When they excuse the conflicts of the candidate elected, the inner reward circuits in their brains are activated and they experience a pleasurable intensity of emotion. In other words, self-deception makes them feel good.

Political party supporters seem to turn the cognitive wheel of fortune until they get the result they want, and when they reach positive feelings their loyalty to their opinions gets extremely stronger.

According to research, the reason that knowing more about politics does not eliminate political party bigotry is that voters only tend to internalize facts that confirm what they believe. In short, voters think they think.

Education is the solution.

Turkey left scientific education and accepted an education approach based dogmatism, absolute values that never change and that do not need further investigation, discussion or research. Moreover, the state could not offer equal opportunities in education to its citizens.

The Book “Efsaneler ve Osmanlı Gerçekleri”

When we look at Ottoman history references, we may see many exaggerated events and legendary figures. The readers are right to ask, “How shall we learn our own history if it is the case with the references?” Halil İnalcık, who is an important figure about Ottoman history, prepares a special report on 18 specific topics he investigated and names it “Legends and Facts in Ottoman History.”

Halil İnalcık begins his book with some important topics, like the contacts with the Greek during the Turkification process of Anatolia; the Turkish commander Çaka Bey, who conquered İzmir and frightened Byzantium; and the real story of Ertuğrul Gazi as seen under the light of the latest research.

The book ends with the 800 years of history of the Straits and Istanbul; the murder of Osman II; Kösem Sultan, the most interesting personality of the civil war era; the murder of Ibrahim I; the role of the Ottomans in the spread of Protestantism in Europe; and with Inalcık’s comments on Turkish History Congresses.

From the Book “2062: The World That AL Made”

The Economist estimates that there are 1.2 billion different faces that only Facebook scans, stores and recognizes. It is approximately equal to one of six people all over the planet. In 30-40 years, there will be a database somewhere that targets covering all faces. Even our pets are not safe. Google Photos started scanning and tagging cats and dogs in October 2017. When Google sees your poodle, it will look for you around it. I mean, when you tag your friend or pet on social media next time, do not forget that you reveal the identity of your friend, not only his pet.

As cities get “smarter” and the data of the inhabitants are collected and analyzed, we will be possibly tracked offline more frequently. Everyone will be tracked in their normal lives. For example, in 2013, we learned that the “smart waste baskets” in the City of London (an autonomous district in London, one of the world’s most important financial centers) tracked mobile phones.

We may tell lies with our digital personalities. We may pretend to be someone we are not. We may be connected anonymously. However, telling lies with our analog personalities is as difficult as our direct control on our heart rates and pupils. Imagine what a political party could do if it had access to everyone’s heart rates while we reveal these analog data to private companies?

You may disregard me when I say that the greatest existential risk facing humanity is not the Generation Y-Z. However, at a survey conducted among 50 Nobelists in September 2017 by Times Higher Education, an international university rating agency, climate, population growth, nuclear war, disease, selfishness, ignorance, terrorism, bigotry and Donald Trump were listed as greater threats to humanity than artificial intelligence.

Donald Trump has nearly 48 million followers on Twitter. However, it is estimated that nearly 14 million of them are fake accounts. New York Times has similar figures: It is estimated that 11 million of 41 million followers are fake. Nearly 10 million of Pope’s 17 million followers are also fake accounts. And what is worse is the Russian Federation President’s account. Roughly 60% of Putin’s 2.5 million followers, or 1.5 million of them, are fake accounts.

What do you think about the situation in our country?