writer - free thinker - factualist
some cages have no bars
Go directly to my Substacks or take a deep dive ↓
the person
from forensic accountant to writer
For fifteen years I worked professionally at a high level as a forensic accountant, judicial expert and university lecturer. When I got sick, it took me three years and over twenty medical specialists to finally get diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which an MRI would have shown in a day.During this period, I discovered the Western system only works for those who don't use it and worse, has turned against those in need. Bureaucracy has replaced humanity and protocols prevent independent thought, costing us ever more.These experiences altered my view on Western institutions. I now use my forensic skillset to write about bureaucratization and tightening control at the cost of freedom and social cohesion, and why it is absolutely crucial that we, the people, step up.
the vision
the method
my contribution to rebuilding common ground
Most of the news that reaches us today is accurate, and that is precisely the problem. That is because most of what we are offered are half-truths: an opinion, a column, a commentary, a profile, a factcheck, each built on fragments and a careful selection of facts that can be verified and usually hold up. Yet together they can paint a very misleading picture, for what we are shown is usually stripped of context and inconvenient facts. In other words, we almost never hear the complete story, just the convenient half.Half-truths are the most effective weapons of our time. They are the key factor in propaganda and indoctrination techniques. A kernel of truth is more credible than an outright lie and can steer opinions far more effectively. People will believe what you say, because what you say is true, without ever noticing you only told half of the story. The result, however, is disastrous for any open society, because half-truths divide. Multiple half-truths about any topic lead to multiple realities and multiple camps fighting over the same story, convinced the others are liars or conspiracy theorists. This polarization eventually overthrows any society from within and is the West's truest enemy today.The only remedy for half-truths is the full story, and that is where my articles begin. I chase fragments back to the source, reconstruct events, include the omitted facts and restore context. The result is a more complete and more nuanced view of a topic, one that culminates in shared responsibility instead of a quest for the next scapegoat. It is this fuller view that can form the basis of a shared reality, from which we can discuss real solutions and escape the blame game that offers none.
the articles
the prison we build ourselves
I maintain two free Substack platforms, one Dutch and one English, where I dive into the question of why open societies gradually lose their competitive edge and their freedom. How on the one hand the concentration of wealth and power, growing institutional control, censorship and propaganda hollow out our societies from within. And on the other hand, how our pursuit of safety and progress, and the abandonment of personal responsibility, has weakened our cohesion, pitted us against each other and made us complicit in our own decline.I follow this reasoning on two levels. In the Dutch Substack I analyse the effects of technocracy on daily life, revealing how outsourcing personal responsibility creates a web of rules that snares everyone and everything, and why not a single problem can be solved any longer.The English Substack examines the loss of freedom through decline and geopolitics on a global scale, and compares our current standing with the loss of hegemony of great civilizations in the past.Click on the buttons below to check out my Substacks, or try an article by clicking an image (English left, Dutch right)
the books
the future you fear is already here
I wrote a novel about the battle between equality and liberty, a battle Western civilization is losing to equality, at the cost of our individual freedom. The book is set in a post-nuclear world where inequality and risk-taking have been completely abolished, leaving a tightly controlled society where free thought and free will itself have become the enemy. Below you will find the English edition Coddled Children and the Dutch edition Curlingkinderen as well as the links to buy a digital or physical copy.
What happens when equality becomes tyranny?