The Landslide to Come

Our Friday blog topic for this week is politics. Not a subject I have great familiarity with apart from reading the newspaper headlines posted on boards as I walk home or in my news24 rss feed at work. However, as the new election approaches things are becoming very interesting.

Since the end of Apartheid the ANC have ruled South Africa with a majority and near total control. There recent ousting of Mbeki, their own president and the fact that many members have now left the party to form their own new party, COPE, show the signs that the times are changing. The faith entrusted to our current leaders is slipping, maybe just a little for now, but the landslide could come.

This loss of faith does not come without good reason. The ANC are in all honestly a complete shambles. The recently ousted their own president and the president of South Africa, a man trusted with the job by the people of South Africa, in favour of Jacob Zuma, a man waiting to stand trial for corruption. Now in most democracies anyone associated with corruption would most likely stand down, since with such allegations surely no one would trust them enough to consider voting on them. Never mind the fact that he has been given charge of the ruling party, and will most likely be their presidential candidate in the upcoming election.

That alone should be enough to shake most people’s faith. A recent poll shows that many do in fact believe Zuma is guilty, more than half of the ANC’s supporters. Despite this Zuma still claims that he knows the ANC will win the election, but wants a majority so huge that they will have total control. Control which will allow them change the quality of life for the better.

They have had fifteen years since Apartheid to do this and yet they have not even managed to put a dent in the tasks. Now things seem to be getting worse. Food prices are rising uncontrollably and cholera outbreaks are killing people. Inaction against AIDS has led to thousands of deaths and thousands of houses promised to those desperate for somewhere to live stand incomplete.

COPE, the new party, formed because members of the ANC felt that the ruling party to which they belong were failing in their mission to improve South Africa. A failure clearly highlighted for me by the fact that the party leader is waiting to stand trial for corruption.

COPE still seems disorganised and not entirely ready to compete with the established dominance of the ANC but their formation provides a clear shift in the balance of power. In the past those who suffered under Apartheid had little option but the ANC. Sure there were plenty of other parties but none that really provided them with an option they would be willing to take.

Now COPE gives them an option. Those frustrated by the ANC’s repeated failures have an alternative. Not only that but the split within the ANC, with many members speaking out over their repeated failures has shown the people that there should be discontent, that just maybe the ANC are not the right people to lead them anymore. They may have won the war against Apartheid, but they are losing the battles that follow.

Don't forget to check out Brett's blog on the same topic. Get it here http://balthosabyss.blogspot.com

An Alternate Meaning in Dreams

Many people take there to be meaning in the strange visions of dreams. I have seen the huge volumes that claim to allow you to identify the symbolism within your nightly dreams. Yet I have also heard the other view; that dreams are the pieced together collection of thousands of random neurons firing as you sleep.

I believe the truth as always lies somewhere in the middle. Most people take the meaning of dreams to be held in the elements they contain, in what they dream about. However, we can see that if our dreams are made up of random neurons firing then what is in our dreams is entirely random. Surely there can be no meaning in those elements individually if they are simply random.

I take my meaning from a different viewpoint. If dreams are our brains desperate attempt to reconcile random brain activity then maybe there is something in the way we choose to piece together the bits. If thousands of random thoughts are firing as I sleep, some memories of past events, maybe someone I know or a place, something that happened that day or maybe even just an emotion, my brain could interpret these things in a million different ways. So why then does it choose to piece it together into the single dream I have?

Well if dreams are an attempt to make sense of these random thoughts then it’s only logical that our brains would piece them together so as to make the most sense to us. So maybe there is no meaning in dreaming of my mother, or home, or my lunch from yesterday. Maybe though if I dreamt about walking home and my mother giving me said lunch that has meaning. In the way I interpret the relationship between three random thoughts. Seeing my mother as a caregiver, providing security at home and whatever else we may choose to read into it.

Most dreams are far more complex than this simple example. They combine the entire menagerie of our thoughts including our sub-conscious. If we look carefully at the interplay of our dreams we might be able to find hints at those thoughts we hide from even ourselves. It is not in what we dream that we may find this meaning, but rather in how we dream it.

Blog about Blogging: The Riptide of Competitive Inspiration

So, yesterday friend and I came up with a bit of a blogging game plan. Since we are both often a bit lethargic about putting up new blog posts we have decided to, once a week, agree upon a topic and then both write a bog on said topic. Nothing like a little competition to motivate you.
This is the first of our co-topics, a post about blogging on the same topic. There might be a million things I could write about but a nagging little part of my mind keeps thinking: I wonder what he’s writing. Just a little part, but enough to be distracting.

Anyway, the dual posts each week could make for very interesting reading. Between us we can come up with some unexpected and brilliant ideas so at the very least we should have interesting things to blog about.

Now that I think about it though, from a philosophical and psychological side it could also become very interesting. Sure our friendship might have been formed on a whole stack of common interests, but aside from that we have vastly different personalities. The difference can be seen even just in the way we write. He crafts each sentence, almost word by word, often leading to very poetic but sometimes chaotic and meandering stories. I on the other hand, am a little more plot driven. Maybe less poetic but also a little less wild.

So from that perspective, together with how our views and feelings on each topic combine with our writing it could make for some interesting insights into our minds. Could be fun. Let the games begin.

Oh and it you don’t read Brett’s blog, check it out here: http://balthosabyss.blogspot.com

Whatever Happened to Optimism?

Has anyone else noticed that modern society is decidedly pessimistic? It just seems that no matter what is going on in the world everyone seems to latch onto every tiny thing that goes wrong and forget about anything good. The media are especially guilty of this. The phrase “No news is good news” has suddenly become eerily prophetic of any news report these days. Good news is simply glossed over in favour of the new horror story of the day. Any news that is reported is bound to be bad.

And as my primary example of this sorry school of thought I put forward the fans of Liverpool Football Club. Never mind that Liverpool have made massive almost unbelievable improvements this season, all Liverpool fans seem to be able to think of is failure. They look at a brilliant season and do not see the achievements of their side; they see poor decisions from a manager even when those decisions have led to victory. They see only crisis where they should see accomplishment.

Why take something good and try to suck all the life out of it by picking apart the tiny failures? Rather look for all the good bits even if there might be a few bad spots. That way we can enjoy the world even with the few sorrows it holds. If our optimism continues to drain the world will surely become a very dark place.

A Grievance with Independance

For all our modern advances in medicine, government, technology, civil rights and the standard of everyday living there seems to be a certain something else, just below the surface that is sending the world spiralling toward the abyss. We may not all acknowledge it but I think deep down we all feel it. War, crime, poverty all grow worse every day. It’s not that these things never existed in the first place, as long as there has been man there have been wars. It's just that these things seem to be getting worse.

I have often thought of the reason for it and greed is often among my reasons. A new idea has struck me though, one that is not attributable to any individual but to us all as a whole. The book I am reading now is a fantasy story set around a close knit tribe. As with humanity in the past they all depend on each other for survival. Any disagreements between the members of such a tribe are weighted by their contributions to their society. As the saying goes do not bite the hand that feeds you.

This kind of mentality is all but gone from modern society. We all exist as independent members of society. Of course we are actually dependant on a lot more these days. It takes more to bring us food, power, clean water and such than in simpler times. It is just that now we are so far removed from those people on which we are dependant that we do not even notice them. These people have also become replaceable these days. If your baker dies, there are probably ten others in the same area. Actually you probably have never even seen the man who bakes your bread, which just proves my point.

With this new found independence our mentalities have changed. We no longer care for the circumstances driving other people’s actions. We see only their actions, the outcomes of their life and sometimes not even this much. If we see a mistake, it is no longer weighed against the effort taken to get that far or all the past good that that person has accomplished. We see only failure and we simply think to ourselves, there is someone out there who would have done this properly.

Of course the reverse is also true. We are often so far removed from those who depend on us that we do not often consider them. In the past a hunter was valued by his people and at the same time knew that if he did not have a successful day his people would go hungry. Now we tend to think, it can wait one more day. We are not motivated to help those people we do not know.

This kind of a shift toward independence serves to remove us from the motivation and responsibility our every action might warrant. We do not feel the impact of our actions because we do not know those people who are affected and they do not know us.

Of course in our modern era it is impossible to move back to this sense of community in that same way. Because of industrialization and the huge scale of life these days we can never be close to all those we depend on. I will never know the man who built my iPod. But maybe in some smaller way we can move back toward that mentality.

We all have groups to which we belong. We have work colleagues, teammates, friends, family, clubs, churches. These all have a community mentality to some degree. If we could only expand this to our everyday thought. I think it all boils down to one truth that we have all forgotten. “Love thy neighbour.” It doesn’t even have to be that hard. Just know your neighbour. Say hello. Ask him how his day was. Know how he contributes, and value his presence for it.

The legacy of Evolution

I was reading today that researchers have built software that allows a robot to adjust to changes in its body structure and relearn certain tasks. The software uses neural networks, a technique which mimics the human brain, along with genetic algorithms which allows for learning to take place. These techniques have been used before but until now the task off adapting to changes in its own structure has proved infeasible.

With this new software the robot can detect changes to its own structure and then adds a new collection of neurons to its existing "brain" and uses these to learn its new task, building on what it already knows.

For instance, if the robot starts with two simple, un-jointed legs and six neurons it will use these to identify the best possible way to walk. Once it detects no more improvement in its learning process it will lock these neurons in place. It has learnt how to walk.

Now, if we add a joint to each leg the robot, using its previously learnt algorithm, will suddenly detect its walking is no longer as effective. Since it already knows the best way to walk it realises its body has changed. It now creates a few new neurons and begins to learn again. The key idea behind this is it does not start from the beginning. It still remembers how to walk, and simply learns what to do with its new bits. It builds on its knowledge.

This technique has also been used for sensors and several legs all with success. The key drawback mentioned by other researchers though is that this can result in an unnecessarily large number of neurons. The same tasks could be done with fewer, although relearning everything each time is too complex.

However, this talk of unnecessary neurons immediately made me think of our own brains and the supposed 10% we use. Maybe all that extra brain power is the relic of our evolution. The neurons that originally learnt to breathe in water and swim with fins. Now without purpose they sit idle, the legacy of our past.

Special: Football

I would like to mention two main things today. The first is the current rules regarding penalties and cards. To me both seem ridiculously stupid in their current descriptions at times being simply way too harsh a punishment and at other times simply not being enough of a punishment to stop players making "professional" fouls.

Firstly, the current penalty law which gives a penalty kick for fouls in the box. Way too often the fouls that occur in the box are near the edge with the player being fouled not even in a position to make an attempt on goal. In these circumstances a penalty is not a fair punishment because one team is being given a free chance at scoring simply because a foul occurred within an arbitrary area of the field. In all likelihood for most of these fouls had it occurred just slightly further away it would not be a penalty and the free kick would be far fairer punishment.

Of course the opposite is also true. Often players in good positions lining up a shot or having gone past their man are taken out just outside the box. In these cases the free kick given outside the box seems a ludicrously light punishment since a clear chance to score has been denied to a player.

Surely a far simpler and better solution would be to simply forget about the box with regards to penalties and simply give a penalty whenever a player is denied a definite goal scoring opportunity as decided by the referee. I don't think this will by any means remove all controversy. We will all still argue over what situations are definite goal scoring opportunities. For instance Steven Gerard from 25 yards might be a scoring opportunity if he is lining up a shot, but the same might not be true for other players from the same distance.

What I do think this ruling will accomplish is to stop players going done in nothing positions looking for a penalty. Rather they will strive to create that opportunity to score because that is the only way they will be able to do it. It will also mean that defenders are far less paranoid about defending inside the box, even when a player has his back to goal and is going nowhere.

My second issue is with yellow and red cards. Being a Liverpool fan I am of course deeply upset over Lucas' red in the derby this week. I find it completely stupid that he is sent off for two nothing tackles one of which was never in a million years a yellow. The whole game Everton players had been in late, at least 15 or 20 times and yet only the occasional yellow card was shown. Steven Pienaar made at least three tackles worse than any that Lucas made, two of which were on Lucas himself.

That red card completely swung the match and I think it does so in a way that is just not good for the game. Teams should not win a match because one player made two niggley little fouls when their entire team has been doing it the entire game.

Of course I was not very upset to see Lampard sent off on the weekend for what on second viewing should not have been a red either. Off course in that game Liverpool were dominant anyway and if anything the red just made Chelsea hang back a little more making it harder for Liverpool.

I think an approach more like rugby would work better than the current system. If a player makes a few stupid fouls or maybe one that is a little dangerous give him ten minutes of the field. The aggrieved team is given an advantage, but not one that will often instantly decide the match as a red card often does. Of course bad fouls must still be punished with a red where tackles are particularly bad or a professional foul is committed.

Then linking back to the penalty idea, often we see a red and a penalty given for a last man tackle or the like. If a player was rather given ten minutes off the field when a penalty is also given it would be far less of a match ending moment.

These simple adjustments to the rules I think will make the game a lot more fair and also improve the way the players go about the game. It will reduce diving and remove the fear and nerves from some tackles. The impact of refereeing decisions will also be reduced to a degree which is what you want. You don't want the whistle deciding a match, you want the players doing it.

Behind Already

Ok, its Febuary already and as with almost every year I'm already behind on my list of goals for the year. I set myself the task of blogging three times a week and since this is my first post of the year I'm already thirteen or fourteen behind.

Forgetting the past though, I'm going to try once more to step up to the challenges I have set for myself, starting with this blog. So this is how its going to be. One post monday, one post wednesday, one post friday, plus a few bonus ones thrown in to make up for a poor January. In terms of my themes for this year, I'm thinking along these lines:

• Monday - World Affairs/Views
• Wednesday - Philosophy
• Friday - Science/Technology/The Universe

Of course this may change over the year but for now thats my plan and I'm sticking to it. See you friday.