Da globalisering var det eneste rigtige
Sommetider husker man et misbilligende blik der giver udtryk for at man ikke er rigtig klog. Sådan et blik fik jeg fra en fungerende næstformand for SF, Benedikte X, engang i 2004 da jeg var til et foredrag om fordelene ved globalisering. En norsk forretningsmand var inviteret til at fortælle om økonomisk fremgang ved at handle på tværs af grænser og overlade arbejdet til dem, der var bedst til det. Tallene svirrede, 1.5% vækst var målt ved hver handelshindring, der blev fjernet, nogle tal som man med minimum af indsigt i statistik måtte sige var højst tvivlsomme. Det tillod jeg mig at sige mens jeg snakkede uformelt med Benedikte, og det blik jeg fik var så nedgørende, så jeg husker det endnu 22 år efter.
Enhver tøven overfor globalisering blev dengang set som afvisning af frihandel, selv af venstrefløjen i dansk politik. Men faktisk var der allerede dengang tegn på at deregulering ville medføre en global finanskrise, idet långivning gik over gevind i med det formål at kunne sælge tvivlsomme værdipapirer til høje priser.
For tyve år siden var der således en udbredt naiv optimisme vedrørende globalisering; det ville gavne alle, og problemer med arbejdsløshed kunne løses. Vores sociale system blev fintunet og der blev sørget for at de, der havde specialarbejder jobs kunne blive omskolet uden alt for store tab, arbejdsgivere blev støttet, og derved kom de fleste helskindet ud af nedlæggelse af skibsværfter, maskinfabrikker og flere lignende, jeg kender selvfølgelig ikke alle områder.
Hvad man overså under globaliseringsbølgen var at effektivitet bliver betalt med sårbarhed. En optimeret forsyningslinie ser godt ud på et regneark, men betyder at der er mindre buffere, og måske ingen alternative leverandører.
Høj grad af globalisering formindsker forsyningssikkerhed og de enkelte lande kan rammes af både markedsændringer, politiske ændringer og logistiske problemer.
Globalization has had its heyday
Sometimes one remembers receiving a look that suggests one is simply out of step with the times. I recall attending a talk at the IT University in Copenhagen around 2004, where a Norwegian businessman representing a large Indian conglomerate spoke enthusiastically about globalization and market expansion. When I remarked that globalization also has drawbacks, a local representative of the Danish Socialist People’s Party reacted with visible disdain. At the time, any hesitation was easily mistaken for rejection. Yet even then, warning signs were visible — developments that would culminate in the financial crash of 2008.
Twenty years ago there was widespread, and somewhat naïve, optimism about globalization. Even Danish politicians embraced the idea that thinking globally was sufficient, assuming globalization would benefit everyone economically. In reality, it made some industries unprofitable and led to job losses.
Denmark responded by supporting those affected through retraining and social protection, easing structural transitions in sectors such as shipbuilding. This helped many workers adapt without being forced to relocate.
What was overlooked at the height of globalization enthusiasm was that efficiency can come at the cost of resilience. Deep global integration increases dependency — and with it, the risk of disrupted supply when markets, politics, or logistics fail.
7 år for Rachel
Efter syv år som kasserer i grundejerforeningen blev en flyttekasse med dokumenter endelig udskibet
Ved morgenkaffen checkede jeg som sædvanlig mail. Der var en masse mail fra grundejerforeningens nye bestyrelse, Birthe spurgte om hun kunne komme og hente Grundejerforeningens papirer.
Så jeg rigtigt? Jeg troede ikke det var alvor, da Lene igår spurgte om hvor meget arbejde det involverede at være kasserer i grundejerforeningen, men nu kunne jeg se sort på hvidt at der var en ende på arbejdet – jeg påtog mig det for 7 år siden fordi der ikke var andre ved generalforsamlingen, ja der var ikke engang nok til at bemande bestyrelsen.
Afslutningen på syv år var forude! nu kunne der blive tid til musik, skriveriet, til familien, haven og huset.
Okay, lidt støv i stuen og en bunke gamle studenotater er ikke ligefrem livstruende, men jeg vil gerne kunne glæde over mit hjem. Der er stakkevis af bøger og it-kursusmaterialer, som kan ryddes ud og gøre plads til noget mere dekorativt.
Igår ved mødet var jeg faktisk i tvivl om, hvorvidt Lene virkelig ville overtage. Jeg synes hendes svar lød mere som “Jeg vil gerne vide, hvor meget arbejde der er” end som “Jeg siger ja.”
Men Birthe gjorde det klart i den mail: Jeg kunne overdrage jobbet – de havde forstået at jeg faktisk er en del ældre og er svækket af sygdom.
Jeg gjorde, hvad jeg kunne, for at få bryggers og køkken til at se anstændige ud – det er dén indgang, jeg bruger; bordene blev ryddet, opvaskemaskinen fyldt. Jeg tørrede endda en dør af.
Præcis kl. 16:01 bankede Birthe forsigtigt på døren. Det var dejligt! så jeg hentede arkivkassen, der stod klar, befriet for spindelvæv og støv. Jeg bar den selv ud til hendes bagagerum, for tanken om at give den videre fyldte mig med en glæde, som gav mig Goliat-kræfter. Normalt undgår jeg tunge løft på grund af lændesmerter, og især fordi min Scheuermann-ryghvirvel ikke tåler overbelastning. Men jeg klarede det.
Det var en dag, der ændrede resten af mit liv.
The Handover: Seven Years, One Box
After seven years as HOA cashier, a quiet shift brings relief, dusted cobwebs, and the promise of reclaimed time.
When I got up and made coffee, I checked my email. One message stood out: a note from Birthe and Lene asking if they could come by and collect the HOA archive from me—the final act of taking over the cashier job.
This could mean the end of seven years of frustrating duties that have taken time from music, practicing, writing, and even from family, gardening, and house maintenance.
Okay, nothing in that last category is life-threatening—but I’d like to feel proud of my home. And I have plenty of old books and computer-course materials that could finally be discarded to make room for more decorative elements.
At first, I wasn’t sure I dared believe that Lene was really taking over.
At the meeting yesterday, I may have misheard her response. It sounded more like, “How much work is it?” than “I’m ready.”
But today it was clear: Birthe, Lene, and Tina had made a plan.
So I did my part. I cleaned the kitchen-entrance, cleared the tables, ran the dishwasher. I even wiped down a door. When something might be final, you pay attention to detail.
At exactly 16:01, Birthe knocked gently on the door. Voilà—the archive box was ready, dusted and free of cobwebs. I carried it to her car myself.
The happiness gave me Goliath powers.
Normally I avoid lifting heavy things—partly due to lower back pain, but especially because my Scheuermann vertebra doesn’t appreciate surprises. But today, that small symbolic weight felt light.
It may not seem like a dramatic day from the outside, but from here—inside this quietly humming life—it was a good day. The kind that gives you back a little energy, and a little time.
Consciousness First
or: Is the Universe a Relationship?
A few centuries ago, two thinkers disagreed about the nature of space.
Newton saw it as something absolute—a grand, invisible container where matter moves.
Leibniz saw it differently. Space, he said, isn’t a thing in itself. It’s a pattern of relationships.
No objects, no distances—therefore, no space.
That was already radical.
But in a quiet moment, sipping tea, we might wonder:
Is it even radical enough?
Is the universe still there if no one ever observes it?
It’s not the old riddle about trees falling in forests. It’s deeper than that.
It’s the reverse of saying that biology creates consciousness. Of course you can’t see and think if there is braindamage, but compare with a car: if you cut the fuel pump you can not say that the car is the fuel pump. It can not work without – true. But that which works, that which observes, is a person, a human. This leads to so called dualism views.
Can the universe exist without consciousness? Some physicists say: yes, absolutely. The cosmos runs whether we’re here or not. That is just as radical as saying “no consciousness == no universe”.
Philosophers, mystics, quantum theorists—wonder: Could it be that space is not just shaped by matter (Leibniz)? Would a universe void of Earth and humans have any meaning?
Perhaps the cosmos is a silent machine, enabling consciousness, but not creating it.
And here in North Zealand, a retired man stirs honey into his tea and listens to a podcast on cosmology. He falls asleep to Paul Sutter’s voice explaining why atoms aren’t miniature solar systems, and wakes with a quiet question in mind:
If consciousness isn’t added to the universe,
what if it was always part of the equation?
Bouillon, Fever, and a Half-Remembered Evening
There are days when everything seems to blur into a haze—not from forgetfulness, but from a body too busy fighting its battles to spare energy for clarity. Yesterday was one of those days.
I had been sick. Ill. Whichever word fits better for a fog that clings to body and mind alike. After answering a few emails and tidying up the kitchen just enough to call it morning, I gave myself permission to lie down. The nap wasn’t planned, but it came easily. When I woke again, I made some tea with lime and found a little food—what exactly, I can’t recall.
Around 19:30, I remember putting a pot on the stove with a bouillon cube—well, technically an oblong block, but it’s still called a cube. I set the heat to three out of nine, low enough, I thought, to avoid splashing or overboiling. Then I lay on the sofa again, just for a moment.
Three hours vanished.
At around 22:00, I woke up. It wasn’t the smell of scorched bouillon that stirred me—it was my stomach, coaxed into action at last by the laxatives I’d taken earlier. The room had a scent vaguely like chicken soup. I even wondered if the neighbor was cooking with their window open. But the smell was mine. The bouillon pot was blackened, dry, all water gone. I considered throwing it out. But I seldom give up on a good pot.
A little elbow grease and 33% acetic acid worked wonders. The pot came clean, and now it rests in the dishwasher, waiting for its final shine. Still, the incident wasn’t really about the pot, or the bouillon. It was about a state of mind—that thin line between “resting” and “losing track.”
Somewhere between frustration and fog, I resolved to make bouillon again—this time successfully. Hot liquid for the throat, and maybe for the immune system, too. It helped. I relaxed, watched some old crime shows, and finally went to bed, unsure if sleep would come.
Surprisingly, it did. Despite the afternoon naps and sluggishness, I slept deeply and woke at 08:25. After a trip to the toilet and a bit of aimless scrolling—tweets, YouTube, the usual—I drifted off again, this time while watching a documentary on hydrogen. Yes, even in illness, curiosity lives.
The video—Tales From the Periodic Table—explored hydrogen, deuterium, tritium, even the hydrogen bomb and Castle Bravo. I rewatched the end, then decided: Maybe this is as good as it gets today. Sometimes, that’s enough.
My body still feels strange—low-grade fever, tingling thighs (likely from the CIPN), a stomach that refuses consistency. But my throat is better. My nose is still congested, but the mucus has slowed. My ears are sensitive, especially when playing piano—the volume feels harsh at first, but softens after a while, as though my hearing has to warm up too.
Blood pressure was high earlier—140/77, even 150/77—but it settled at 120 after Carvedilol and Ramipril. Temperature peaked at 37.8°C after breakfast but started at a modest 36.5°C.
Despite all this, I feel something else: optimism. That elusive, inexplicable lift. And yes, annoyance too—because being “off” takes time I wish I could use elsewhere. But life doesn’t always ask our permission for such pauses.
Even so, the sun is shining. And somewhere in it all, I smiled.
How Does a Machine “Read” a Book?
(A gentle reflection on language, metaphors, and large language models)
The capabilities of computer programs have become almost invisible to us—we take them for granted. We care more about having a “modern” web interface (whatever that means) than about where the server is located or whether the network is being used efficiently. We live in a time of abundant computer power, and we treat it as natural.
That’s part of what makes the new generation of chatbots so fascinating. Many people, myself included, are surprised—and delighted—that we can ask them questions about anything from cultural history to philosophy and receive surprisingly coherent summaries.
Recently, a journalist spoke on the radio about these systems—using the correct technical term: LLM, Large Language Model. She explained that the LLM had “read millions of books.”
That’s where I stopped to reflect.
📚 But what does “read” mean here?
If a computer has “read” millions of books, does it now understand determinism? Integrationism? Pantheism?
Not exactly.
When we say the model has “read,” we’re borrowing a human word and stretching it far beyond its usual meaning. The system didn’t sit with a book in its hands. It didn’t form opinions, question assumptions, or compare one author’s voice with another’s. It scanned tokens—tiny chunks of language—and calculated how they appear together in billions of different texts.
We might more accurately say:
“The model has absorbed the statistical patterns of how words appear together.
It doesn’t know the story, or what it means.
It only knows how similar stories tend to be told.”
That is not to say it’s useless. Far from it. But it’s worth being clear about what it is we are interacting with—and what metaphors we use to describe it.
Because language matters. And when we use human metaphors too loosely, we risk misunderstanding both the tool and ourselves
Afterthought
OK – I haven’t posted for several months, I know, but I have literally 1000 pictures, some good, and a handful stories to tell. But first, let me say there is reason to write and talk more truth.
It is such a sad thing that a real analysis of economy can be turned, spinned, spun, so that it seems that the 34 times sentenced candidate and his hopeful supporters have any truth when they say the economy was better.
As Obama said: He, T, got my economy in 2016, that is how.
But there’s much more to say about economy, industry, work salaries, production, imports. Here I’ll just say that to evaluate economy it is necessary to look at many things.
American fox + Danish fox
Work in progress
Denne ræv står på en sten i min kusines have i Los Altos, San Francisco Peninsula, og ser sig om, – det er Vigén, som har fotograferet. Efter denne visit kom den tilbage med tre hvalpe, og jeg fik også video’erne med dem. En kunstner Amy Rattner, som bor i området, maler dyrelivet på halvøen, der er mindre end Jylland, men dog stor så der er meget natur og (vanskeligt beboelige) bjerg/bakker. Amy var glad for at få dyrebillederne.
This fox stands on a stone in grand-cousin Linda’s garden, Los Altos, San Francisco Peninsula; it looks around. Vigén took the photograph. After this visit it came back accompanied by three puppies. Vigén and Linda managed to take some video shots, which I’ve also got.
The pictures below are from Wikipedia, which writes about the Gray Fox: The gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), or grey fox, is an omnivorous mammal of the family Canidae, widespread throughout North America and Central America. This species and its only congener, the diminutive island fox (Urocyon littoralis) of the California Channel Islands, are the only living members of the genus Urocyon, which is considered to be genetically basal to all other living canids. Its species name cinereoargenteus means “ashen silver”.
By Charles J. Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133022731
U. c. fraterculus Tikal, Guatemala
Compare with a red, Danish fox, again picture from Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fox#/media/File:Vulpes_vulpes_ssp_fulvus.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fox
Eastern American Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes ssp. fulvus) observed in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario on January 2017. Photo: Joanne Redwood.
Juni – impression
Her er lidt opsamling – billeder fra min matrikel + et enkelt minde fra de mange gange, jeg tager til stranden for at se solnedgang. Det første billede er en glansbladet hæg, også kendt som Cherry, der giver et hårdt træ egnet til møbler; den betragtes som invasiv art eller landskabsukrudt, noget, som jeg ikke vidste da jeg fik dem fra min svigermors have engang for 38 år siden. Jeg er ikke sikker på at det havde afskrækket mig, for gennem 16 år havde vi fulgt denne art – og andre – i min svigermors sommerhus-have.
Det andet billede viser bl.a. en gul vortemælk, som næsten kan luge selv, dem skal jeg se at få delt, så de kan passe mine bede. De andre er storkenæb, geranier, der også er selv-lugende. En citron-melisse eller mynte har også bredt sig, men er ikke så tydelig. I forgrunden en jordbær mellem fliserne. Den har givet mange jordbær, men jeg fik ikke rigtig plukket og passet på, så der har været mange snegle – måske fuglene dermed også har fået mad?
American fox
Work in progress
Denne ræv står på en sten i min kusines have i Los Altos, San Francisco Peninsula, og ser sig om, – det er Vigén, som har fotograferet. Efter denne visit kom den tilbage med tre hvalpe, og jeg fik også video’erne med dem. En kunstner Amy Rattner, som bor i området, maler dyrelivet på halvøen, der er mindre end Jylland, men dog stor så der er meget natur og (vanskeligt beboelige) bjerg/bakker. Amy var glad for at få dyrebillederne.
This fox stands on a stone in grand-cousin Linda’s garden, Los Altos, San Francisco Peninsula; it looks around. Vigén took the photograph. After this visit it came back accompanied by three puppies. Vigén and Linda managed to take some video shots, which I’ve also got.
Last day visit to SF Bayshore Preserve
The last day of my 3 week stay with family in Los Altos, San Francisco, was a sunny day, and I had lots of time to return the car and find the boarding gate. I left just after noon and had 4 hours to visit the bird preserve at the San Francisco Bay; here there are nature which helps migrating birds from the north seeking southwards to California Bay in the winter.
The first part of the trip – after a picture of Linda’s and Vigen’s beautiful living room, – was Antonio Rd, which ends at the Bayshore Preserve. On the road I noted a Chevrolet pickup from way back, probably an enthusiast’s veteran car.
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