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Die Farbe Rot

rot

Es gibt Menschen, die eine Farbe sehen können, die für die allermeisten Menschen unsichtbar ist. Nennen wir diese Farbe der Einfachheit halber Rot. Für einen Mensch, der diese Farbe sehen kann, ist diese Farbe und alles was diese Farbe hat, unübersehbar. Doch wenn dieser Mensch versucht mit anderen Menschen über das zu sprechen, was er oder sie sieht, sehen die anderen Menschen nichts. Rot und alles was rot ist, ist für die meisten Menschen einfach nicht da, durchsichtig, unsichtbar.

Ein Kind, das die Farbe Rot sehen kann lernt schnell lieber nicht darüber zu sprechen, um nicht als Außenseiter zu gelten, als jemand, der Dinge sieht, die gar nicht da sind. Es braucht Beharrlichkeit und Mut um immer wieder aufs neue mit unbekannten Menschen über etwas zu sprechen, was niemand sonst sieht. Wenn man Glück hat, findet man irgendwann jemanden, der Rot sehen kann und sich nicht angewöhnt hat, Rot zu ignorieren.

Man muss erst gemeinsame Worte finden, um über das sprechen zu können, was man sieht. Dann und erst dann kann man beginnen darauf zu vertrauen, dass es Rot gibt; kann man sich sicher werden, dass man sich Rot und alles was rot ist nicht nur einbildet.

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Wie das Digitale die Welt verändert

What are digital Cultures? The DCRL-interview-series “Questions”
The term “digital cultures” is all-encompassing and at the same time vague. The purpose of the interview-series QUESTIONS of the DCRL (Digital Cultures Research Lab) is to start specifying the broadness of the term by asking researchers as well as practitioners in various fields to further define the notion and its implications. In a five-minute time slot, the interviewees answer four standard questions:

What are digital cultures?
What are the potentials of digital cultures?
What are the dangers of digital cultures?
What lies beyond digital cultures?

Team DCRL: Martina Leeker with: Dominik Baumgarten, Irina Kaldrack, Jonas Keller, Sophie Köster, Tobias Schulze, Daniel Sonntag
Video DCRL: Jonas Keller, Daniel Sonntag
Date of interview: 21-August-2018

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How to overcome bullies

A bully can see the world from only one perspective, from its own. Therefore the bully has no doubt about what he or she sees. If the bully is talented to formulate his or her view, the bully becomes convincing for people who like to follow a leader.

Bullies need people who follow them.

People who have the talent to doubt will not follow a bully. The bully knows this and uses the people of doubt as targets. This makes him appear stronger in the eyes of his or her followers.

People who doubt have the talent to see things from more than one perspective. People who see more than one perspective doubt the bully and often doubt themselves. This makes them look weak and indecisive in the eyes of those who follow, compared to the force of the simple truth of a bully.

Recently I had an encounter with an intelligent bully. It went on for quite a while, but in the end I – we – succeeded.

What I learned – five rules to overcoming a bully

  1. Trust other people.
  2. Say what you see.
  3. Don’t be afraid that what you say doesn’t make sense to other people. Don´t simplifying just to tell a convincing story.
  4. Do not be afraid to say things that are not correct, but be aware that you might perceive things that are not correct.
  5. Listen to others. Most likely you can’t see all the relevant aspects yourself. Spend energy on understanding what others mean, even the tyrants themselves.

The key is communication. And remember, communication is not just speaking, the biggest part is listening.

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Wie man Bullies überwindet

Ein Bully kann die Welt aus nur einer Perspektive sehen, aus der eigenen. Daher hat der Bully auch keinen Zweifel an dem, was er oder sie sieht. Wenn der Bully talentiert ist, seine Sichtweise zu formulieren, wird der der Bulli für Menschen, die gerne einem Führer folgen, überzeugend.

Bullies brauchen Menschen, die ihnen folgen.

Menschen, die das Talent haben Zweifel zu haben, werden einem Bullie nicht folgen. Der Bullie weiß das und benutzt diese Menschen als Zielscheibe. Das lässt ihn in den Augen seiner Anhänger stärker erscheinen.

Menschen die zweifeln, haben das Talent, die Dinge aus mehr als einer Perspektive zu sehen. Menschen, die mehr als eine Perspektive wahrnehmen, zweifeln am Bully und oft zweifeln sie auch an sich selbst. Das lässt sie in den Augen von denen, die folgen, schwach und unentschlossen aussehen, verglichen mit der Kraft der einfachen Wahrheit eines Bully.

Kürzlich hatte ich einen Streit mit einem intelligenten Bully. Es zog sich eine ganze Weile hin, aber am Ende hatte ich – hatten wir – doch Erfolg.

Was ich gelernt habe – 5 Regeln, einen Bully zu überwinden

  1. Vertraue anderen Menschen.
  2. Sprich aus, was du siehst.
  3. Hab keine Angst, dass das, was du sagst, für andere keinen Sinn ergibt. Vermeide es, komplexe Dinge zu vereinfachen, nur um eine überzeugende Geschichte zu erzählen.
  4. Hab keine Angst davor, Dinge zu sagen, die nicht korrekt sind, aber sei dir bewusst, dass deine Wahrnehmung falsch sein könnte.
  5. Lass Dich von anderen korrigieren. Sehr wahrscheinlich kannst du nicht alle relevanten Bereiche selbst erkennen. Verwende Energie darauf, zu verstehen, was die anderen meinen, sogar die Tyrannen selbst.

Der Schlüssel ist Kommunikation. Denke daran, Kommunikation ist nicht nur Sprechen, der größte Teil ist Zuhören.

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The kids are wiser than their parents

The generation of the children is wiser than that of the parents. The children are able to understand more complex interrelations and their urgency. And not only that, the children also have the ability to organize themselves so that they can draw worldwide attention to the problems they have identified to create the pressure to act.

The elders never really understood what MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Snapchat were all about. Suddenly it becomes clear what motivates the children to become so intensely involved with the Internet and all the new forms of media. Why screaming teenagers worship YouTube influencers who became famous for makeup tips and other nonsense. It isn’t about what these Influencers were talking about, it is fascinating how they do it. Some kids are able to get across the new communication channels better than others. And those who do is best are taken as role models. The stars have something up their sleeve that the others want to learn. And within a few years, children were able to develop the ability to communicate through electronic media at an intensity never before seen in human history.

Communication is the exchanging of information. And that works in both directions. This is immediately clear to the kids, where as we, the older generation, had to go to universities to learn it as theoretical knowledge. Kids use the net, which didn’t even exist in our time, not only as a broadcasting facility that can reach millions of people, but also as a source from which they draw their information. And also in this respect they are vastly superior to the old. While the majority of the elders still get caught up in echo-chambers, which leads to the loudest screaming idiots being chosen as political leaders, the kids (who themselves are still too young to vote) use the same net to acquire a more comprehensive understanding of the true concerns of the world.

I’m not talking about the one kid in your head who only sits in front of a computer all day playing computer games. I’m talking about the entirety of the kids who have also learned to play networked computer games and are now able to use the net in a way that is still incomprehensible to us older people. Instead of playing with networked computers, we played with Lego bricks as kids and became great engineers.

With the technology that the engineers of the parents’ generation have built, the kids today develop the consciousness to recognize the big pending problems, to differentiate them from the less important issues and to act purposefully and in the required haste. And from the point of view of a representative of the parents’ generation, I can only be amazed at how quickly the kids managed to select representatives from their ranks and to charge them with so much weight in such a short period of time that they are in a position to represent their common interests in the world’s highest bodies. And not only at eye level (which would be remarkable enough in itself) – these representatives with their 16 years of age are brighter, more thoughtful and in every respect wiser than the representatives of the generation that is currently running the world out of control.

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