by Peter Löcke //
Take a pencil and draw nine dots on a piece of paper! Arranged in a square! You can do it. Eventually I managed it too, although my drawing skills are limited. See the artwork scanned above. And now connect all (!) the dots with four straight lines without putting the pen down. I failed miserably at the actual brain teaser. One dot always remained. Unless I put the pen down again.
I was comforted by the fact that adult acquaintances also despaired at the task. We formed veritable think tanks, stared at the graphic problem, brainstormed theoretically and tried our hand at practical drawing solutions. In the end, we gave up with empty heads. As a result, our little think tanks only produced full paper garbage cans.
Perhaps a think tank is generally doomed to failure. The term originated during the Second World War. At that time, experts met in closed rooms in bug-proof locations, so-called tanks, to work on strategies and solutions for military problems.
Eighty years later, the role of think tanks has not changed significantly. Formally speaking, a think tank can be many things. A foundation, an association, a society, an NGO. They are unelected non-governmental organizations with growing political and financial influence on governments. Or is it the other way around? Do governments have a growing influence on think tanks? In my opinion, both explanations are correct. The scientists in the think tanks legitimize deliberate political decisions. Politicians, in turn, ensure that the think tanks are financially justified and socially recognized. One hand washes the other. A win-win situation.
Whether it's the many multi-million dollar NATO think tanks or the many energy transition lobby organizations such as Agora Zeitenwende, known for the Graichen scandal - these think tanks have a built-in flaw in their thinking. They already know the solution. They are not even looking for a different solution. All the think tanks remain within their own frame of mind.
Energy turnaround! Solar and wind power! That's the name of the solution. The only thing being researched and sought are arguments and studies to sell this solution to the public in a credible way.
The solution is called "Ukraine must win the war". Experts from NATO think tanks are presented to explain why there is no alternative to this solution.
It's like discussing a mathematical curve. Do you remember them from school? Difficult, I know. Normally, the student looks at an equation such as a fifth-degree function. They then determine the derivative functions, the zeros, the extreme and inflection points on the x and y axes. If, unlike me, you had mathematical talent, you could then determine and draw the solution, the graph of the function. How? By connecting all the points found to form a curve. Connecting the points.
Think tanks think like an inverted curve discussion. There are also such things in mathematics. Here the solution is fixed, here the drawn curve is fixed. As a rule, the topics of corona, climate, war and co. are an exponentially increasing fear graph. Limes infinite. The actual task is then sought. The variables and arguments for the fixed solution are modeled afterwards. In a closed thinking space, a box. By supposed experts from think tanks. By "the" science. Who dares to contradict these thinking experts as a non-expert?
In many respects, universities are now also closed think tanks. The student has to rule out paths of thought before embarking on the path of thinking. Prospective academics are told in which language and with which words they have to think. And which people they have to distance themselves from in order to avoid contact debt. At this point, I would like to quote the economist Heiner Flassbeck again from memory: "Students learn models by heart. But not their own thinking." In addition, German universities seem to have the same problem as the win-win double pass between governmental and non-governmental organizations. The state directs which research areas receive funding and which do not.
Well then. Perhaps thinking should not be manufactured like standardized workpieces on a factory floor. It takes the courage to think for yourself and the courage to leave your own frame of thinking. The latter is not so easy. That was also my problem when I couldn't connect the nine dots with four straight lines. I saw the nine points as a square and always stayed within the square when drawing the four straight lines. Why was that? That wasn't the specification. It couldn't work like that. A little neighbor boy had the solution. He knew intuitively that you had to go beyond the square framework. Out of the box. Connecting the points! See the artwork.