Seeing is believing, is ...?

The East German people's movement that resulted in the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 was significantly motivated by many East Germans being able to capture West German TV.
Saudis are the nr 1 per capita users of youtube in the world. How will this influence a society which does not allow night clubs, bars, mixed dancing, revealing cloths?

Aspects of Democracy: US vs Iran

For the presidential elections 2013 in Iran, voters had the choice between 8 candidates. For many aspects, the elected president's decisions need to be in agreement with political and social views of the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts. Members of this Assembly are elected by direct public vote for a 6-years term.

For the US elections in 2012, voters had the choice between 2 candidates. Since candidates cannot win an election in the US without massive funds contributed by big companies and corporations, the elected president's decisions need to be in agreement with the political and economic interests of those individuals that own/direct these businesses. 

Crowd sourcing peace?

If you pray several times a day, consistently, for your whole life - what do you expect?
happiness? peace? understanding? rest? health? wealth? auspiciousness? love?
And if all people of a whole country pray every day, several times - what would be the effects? And how much would the effects depend on the intentions of the prayers?

And if in a country almost nobody prays - what would be the effects?

Can peace be crowd-sourced?

link between chicken and urinary tract infection - or between low cost meat and high-cost health care

According to several reports, the use of antibiotics to produce low-cost chicken meat leads to the evolution of 'superbugs' - multi-drug resistant bacteria, which can cause a number of human diseases, including urinary tract infections. Such infections account for a 1-2 billion USD health care cost. It's a great deal: First large-scale poultry factories maximise their gains by selling sick chicken, and then pharmaceutical industry and health care providers get huge revenues from the sick humans. It's a win-win, except for those who don't have the money to buy organic produce or who don't have the guts to go vegetarian.

What's the colour of love?

What is the colour, the age, the style of 'romantic relationship' in the 21st century? Let's ask google.

According to google.com (Images), romance in the 21st century is overwhelmingly visualized and thus defined as the close tête-à-tête between a young white male with short straight hair, and a young white woman. Google is global, and, therefore, this image is seen worldwide, even in the most remote places. Interestingly enough, even searches in the more country-specific sites such as google.co.uk, or google.co.za or google.co.jp, display more or less the same set of images. There are overwhelmingly those of a happy young Caucasian couple in Western summer clothes embodying the epitome of romantic relationship. Why not a happy Mayan couple? Or a loving elderly Caucasian couple?

Just like the image of Santa Claus - an old white man in Coca Cola red all over the world - and just as we listen to pretty much the same tunes in bars in Bogotá, Bali or Boston, romantic relationships are, indeed, getting more and more globally normative. And they are rarely black or Asian, never Inuit.

How does it feel for all those whose images, and consequently existences, are not evidenced by Google? Shouldn't the representation of love reflect all facets, and shades, of the human race?

(copied from this webpage. See that link for more thoughts on this topic)

Do men drive better than women? Let's test it!

Men often complain that women are bad drivers, and that it's the women who get all the bumps and scratches on the cars. Now, that's easy to test! Let's got to Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive cars, and check it out.
That's what I have done - I went to Jeddah. There are only men driving - yet there is not a single car without bumps and scratches, and it is the worst traffic and driving I have seen so far. And I have been to France, Italy, China, Malaysia, Caribbean Islands, Africa....
Is there any country where only women are allowed to drive?
Or would a mixed driving population perform best?

Imams United

Although Islam is at its heart a religion that spreads peace and happiness, a few people use it to justify acts of extreme violence against innocent people. In so doing, these criminals not only achieve the exact opposite of whatever their political or moral motivations, but also produce a heinous and violent image of Islam. This image affects the vast majority of followers who are peaceful, and creates conflict between people and cultures.
I think the most effective and productive way to stop these acts of violence would be if the imams of the major currents of Islam united to excommunicate all those who commit these crimes. This would be a clear statement that such acts of violence and terror do not represent Islam, and would stop groups of violent people to use religion as a backing for crimes.

little feet

Your little feet. on steel. The world, an end, or a wet dream. Never shiver. A sliver in a friend's eye. Slowly. walk slowly. until. why never again. open my eyes. your little feet on cold. steel melting like ice in water. yesterday still burns, tomorrow's bombs on the belly of someone. someone little. on steel. still walk. a little.

Easy recipe to cut cancer risk in half.

In case you're worried about cancer:
We have cancerous cells in us permanently. However our body is actually very good in eliminating them, before they can create cancer. So what we need to do is to minimise the amount of cancer created and maximise our body's own defence. For this:
- Eat healthily (a diet low on salt, fat, sugar, milk, gluten, meat--especially red meat, alcohol, but high on greens, fruits etc).
- Avoid unnecessary exposure to cancerogenic substances (smoking)
- Some exercise (a bit of cardio, take stairs, cycle, etc..)
- Avoid chronic stress (yoga, vacation, breathing exercise, meditation, sport, regular sleep, etc -- however a concise and time-limited short-term stress is actually a good thing).
- Cultivate social support (family, friends, colleagues...)
The important part here is the synergy between these points. It's better to do a bit of all of the above, rather than, say, eating perfectly healthily but do no exercise at all.

Of course, this is all not surprising. What I find surprising, however, is that by following this easy recipe 50% of human cancers can be prevented--and this is much more efficacious than any drug on the market. Indeed, many drugs only allow a short life span extension, and come with a huge cost and side effects. Of course, in doing the above, you'll also substantially cut the risk of heart diseases, and even allergies.

The logic of cancer treatment

A Chinese friend of my Chinese friend has come from China to our hospital here in the US to obtain treatment for her cancer. Unfortunately, due to the particular mutations, normal treatments fail. She would need a platelet donor. My Chinese friend is willing to donate her platelets, however she is not allowed as a donor, because she's from China (and Chinese, just as many Europeans, are not allowed to donate blood)...

Recipe for instantaneous enlightenment

Many think that they can encounter the divine by reading or hearing stories about God, and firmly believing them. Many also think that humans are created as an image of God, and that due to our mind, we humans are the only species capable of enlightenment. However, rather the opposite seems true; due to our mind we seem to be the least likely species to experience God, so much so that it takes us one or more lifetimes (depending on who you believe) to shut up our mind and finally experience God. Words and believes are concepts of the mind. The mind, with its labels and concepts, memories, fears and needs, projects us away from what is, into the past and future.
To experience God, to experience enlightenment, we need to experience what is.
Here is how you can do it in an instant:
Imagine you are a cow. Feel you cow body, your cow head - a head without words and preoccupations. As a cow you can not label anything, because you do not have words. You do not anticipate anything, because you do not have words. Once you really have adopted the mind of a cow, look around you. Observe without labels, without conclusions, without expectations, without words. Simply be a cow and observe what is.

Do I have to believe in God to find spiritual peace?

I believe that god is an elderly Caucasian male who had a virgin give birth to his son, just as much as I believe that the world has been created out of the armpit of a giant turtle. Nonetheless, I do believe that the teachings of the prophets of various religions contain great advice and deep insights; if followed, these teachings will bring spiritual understanding and peace. Yet most religions claim that if you don’t believe in their version of divinity, the teachings of their prophets won’t help you. I have therefore been wondering for a long time if unshakable blind belief is an indispensable prerequisite for obtaining the benefits of any religion. If you question if Jesus was God’s son, or if it was God herself who dictated the Ten Commandments to Moses, or the Qur’an to Mohammed, are you then banned from paradise?

My current answer to this question is: no. In fact, the opposite is true. Blind belief creates barriers between all those who blindly believe something slightly different for the same reason. Blind belief leads to separation, which leads to hatred, whereas questioning and critical testing leads to understanding, which leads to unity. Separation is human, whereas unity is divine. Blind belief leads you away from god into worldly struggles for power, whereas searching leads you to spiritual understanding and peace.

The yoga sutras say that devotion is the quick route to enlightenment. If you don’t have a devotional practice, well you have to go the long hard way of knowledge (jnana). Both paths lead to the same destination. However devotion is not belief. Devotion expresses the loving thankfulness to a being that helps you on your path to happiness. You can be thankful to the pilot for bringing you safely from Paris to New York, then you can be thankful the cab driver for bringing you safely from the airport to your Brooklyn home, and finally you can be thankful to your own body for dragging your luggage up the stairs to the second floor and allowing you to finally rest in your sofa. Instead, religious leaders appear to suggest that you should believe that the pilot drops you off in your living room, and to convert or kill all those who take taxis.

Instead of believing, have faith that there is a path to understanding and experiencing the liberating simple truth. Trust that if you seek, you will find. And show devotion and gratitude to all those beings, who, over the course of millennia, have tried to assist others to find their way.

Blind belief can produce a fragile, and hence often aggressive, illusion of well-being. But lasting happiness results from discovering, experiencing and knowing the truth. For this, you have to struggle, you have to seek, you have to question, you have to reflect, and finally understand. This understanding can not be communicated with our words. Enlightenment can not be taught. Religions are only vehicles; the ultimate step to peaceful rest has to be done by you yourself.

insights gained from a mind lost

I was sitting in the hospital and looking at the limestone wall. I started thinking about the time when this wall was probably some part of a much alive sea floor, buzzing with little creatures in a long-gone world without consciousness.  And then I looked at me, at my hands, at the people queuing up in front of Starbucks, or concentrating on their smartphones, in our world of consciousness. If you lose your eyesight, your other senses will awaken, take over and become much sharper, more accurate; your awareness shifts. What happens if you 'lose' your most dominent sensory organ - your mind; what happens if you cannot think anymore. What would you awaken to, what world would you discover if you lose your consciousness - if you lose your self?

The American Dream #5: Freedom to be shot

In the US, people murder each other with guns at about 20 times the rate in other nations - amounting to about 1 firearms-death per hour. Despite this intriguing fact, the US National Rifle Association (NRA) - through proxies in Congress - has been able to push for language that prohibits governmental agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH, the US largest funding agency) from spending any money "to advocate or promote gun control". In other words, to assure the profit of a few NRA-associated gun-dealers, Congress has been made it impossible to obtain government funding for research that would evaluate the huge human cost resulting from the current easy access to guns, and, for example, uncover that guns do not protect gun owners from being shot in an assault. (see Branas et al.  Am J. Public Health, 2009). The most astonishing thing is that a big part of the US population truly thinks that owning guns is an expression of their personal freedom - rather than of the freedom to be shot by some random madman for the profit of a few.

If you think that obviously gun control does not work, watch this.

Post-Climategate Science - name me and I can die

Recently, Costello et al. have put forward the reassuring news that we can name (i.e. discover) most species on earth before they go extinct. Others however disagree, saying that Costello et al. fail to take into account synergistic effects that will lead to collapse of species populations, rather than to a gradual decline.

Scientists have published the reassuring news that we can now cryo-preserve tissues of species that are about to go extinct (currently about 40,000 per year). Although extinct in the wild, these species could be stored for the future. Others wonder of what value this would be, since the habitat and ecosystems of these species will not exist anymore in the future.

Global warming is only one dimension of climate change, and climate change is only one facet of the accelerating destruction of our planet, cause by us. And the destruction is visible, measurable, real.

Post-climategate science appears to have resigned itself to simply observe and document how we destroy our planet, and hence, inexorably, us.
Is it only me who thinks that this is all desperately sad?

Quo vadis Homo sapiens? -- running towards the abyss!

Taken from the recent book review of SW Running (Science 15 March 2013: Vol. 339 no. 6125 pp. 1276-1277) 

"Scholars around the world have been asking roughly this same question [about the sustainability of human development] since 1972, when the landmark Limits to Growth book appeared (3). More recent analyses—such as the global human footprint, planetary boundaries, and Gaia—address the question from various angles. Each has indicated that another half-century of the current trajectory of human development, consumption, and economic aspirations does not appear possible (4–7).

Smil's final recommendations [in 'Harvesting the Biosphere'] echo others: global population must be stabilized at or below 9 billion; agriculture has to become sustainable, no longer relying on fossil-fuel–based fertilizers and mining groundwater for irrigation; meat consumption must be moderated; and food storage and processing must be improved and wastage minimized. Crucially, the rich nations have to share global resources more equitably with emerging countries, as simply growing more does not appear possible.

Full of recent references and statistics, Harvesting the Biosphere adds to the growing chorus of warnings about the current trajectory of human activity on a finite planet, of which climate change is only one dimension. One can quibble with some assumptions or tweak Smil's calculations, but the bottom line will not change, only the time it may take humanity to reach a crisis point. Systems ecology teaches that the human population and consumption trajectories need a stronger feedback control than currently exists. Either we are smart enough to craft that feedback mechanism ourselves, or the Earth system will ultimately provide it. Unfortunately, the tragedy of the commons suggests that collective international actions to voluntarily reduce consumption are contrary to human nature."

In other words: we know what we'd need to do to save us, but we won't do it.

Homo sapiens is smart enough to know that he's running towards the abyss, but not smart enough to stop running.

Multi-Me: who am I / who are we?

My body is made out of about 70 % water, from diverse sources. The biomolecules that remain have been accumulated and derived from food coming from all over the world. My body contains about 10 times more non-human cells (bacterial & other microbes) than human cells. And there are about ten times more viruses in my body (mostly against bacteria) than bacteria. There are more then 100 x more non-human than human genes in me. Even each human cell contains an ancient bacterium (mitochondria) that gives me all my energy. The non-human organisms in me and on my skin govern what diseases I get, how fat I become, and what food I crave. It is known that biomolecules produced by my body's microbes affect my brain. In fact, we only begin to understand how much of my life & actions are largely determined by my microbes. For example, animal studies (in fruit flies) have shown that microbes also determine the choice of partner...
Moreover, most of my actions and reactions are heavily influenced by non-verbal communication (mostly unnoticed by me) between me and fellow humans, and - through epigenetics - also by strong life events experienced by my parents and even their parents. Typically, my brain only justifies a posteriori an action that has been decided beforehand, elsewhere.
Who am I - who are we?

The paradox of religions

Most new religions are created by persons who did not simply and blindly believe the precepts of their current religion. Rather, they spend much time and effort searching, questioning and meditating (on the human condition, existing religious customs, the mind, thoughts etc). This quest leads to a spiritual mystical experience, profound happiness and peace. Instead of concluding that searching, questioning and meditating leads to god, happiness and peace, the mystical experience is (poorly) translated into yet another religious framework, and followers are told to simply and blindly believe – or face hell and death.

“Seek me. Don’t stop until you find me. When you find me you will be disturbed; and when you are disturbed you will rule. And when you rule, you will rest.

Don’t look for me in the sky. Don’t seek me in the ocean. I am inside you and outside you.

I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attains.

Split a piece of wood: I am there. Lift up the stone and you will find me there.

One who seeks will find, and for one who knocks will be opened.”

(compiled & streamlined from a number of Gospels, including Gospel of Mary, Thomas, Q. see the Complete Gospels, edited by Robert J Miller)

The ultimate freedom: work in progress

First, be truly indifferent to, and independent of
- other's opinions about you (your actions, cloths, opinions, success, humor, intelligence, ...)
- your own body's and mind's illusionary desires and needs (chocolate, smart phones, jealousy, laziness, ...)

And then simply choose your actions according to what you evaluate to be the best rational option, given the best of your current knowledge, capacity, and moral standards.

Having thus chosen honestly what you considered best, given the data, simply do it.
Then sit back, stop worrying, and accept the results. Learn from the results, but don't worry about them. Worrying certainly won't improve things you can't influence. Worrying will only clutter your mind, and make you unhappy. If you are going to fail, lose or die, you may as well do so happily and with serenity, knowing you did the best you could.

The beginning of the way is love and goodness.

The American Dream #4: Burgers and Games - the wasted brain

The time and energy that Americans typically spend watching, analysing and memorising sport-related issues is gargantuan. Concerning sport, their analytic and predictive capacities, and their in-depth knowledge are stunning - yet completely useless. I wonder what could be achieved if all this time, energy and knowledge would be invested, instead, into a national think tank for improving issues that are central to our current situation: sustainable development and energies, poverty and inequality, geopolitics.
'Bread and Games' kept the Roman population manageable, but did not prevent the fall of the Roman empire - and so won't Burgers and Games.