Perils of flying while brown

Salon has a beautifully written article on the Perils of flying while brown. I have nothing much to add except that I too was a victim to this widespread phenomenon. 

It is all Mitchell Johnson's fault. It so happened that Mitch had a glorious summer with the ball and wiped the floor with the Poms. His mutton chops were credited for his Ashes glory and I in a MoM1 decided that I would grow one as well. And it just happened to be that I got my new passport in that period and the photo on my passport has me sporting a menacing looking "Mitch Mo". The Mo that terrorised the English (and later the Saffers) made me a terrorist suspect. Quelle horreur.

I have travelled widely and no one has made airtravel more painful than the US. Despite being a brown man (clean shaven brown man if I may add), I have an Australian passport. But that counts for little for the TSA. Also to note, I am not Muslim. I still got pulled aside for multiple checks; twice in Sydney and again when I landed in LA. Random, they called it but the odds of me getting the number three times in a row is as remote as a treeful of Monkeys with the finished version of Hamlet that they have typed out one key at a time. 

As courteous as the TSA agents were to me, and they were really friendly, way beyond the call of duty, chatting to me about wine in Napa valley when I spoke of my time in Bordeaux, talking about the differences between NYC and LA (side note: LA, apparently rocks), etc. I simply cannot accept the "better safe than sorry" excuse that is often touted to support this profiling. I travelled to London not that long before and I wasn't frisked and prodded to get into the country. Long live the Queen. The US as a nation is like a paranoid schizophrenic; seeing enemies everywhere and danger in everything. I have much to say about their foreign policies and the Military Industrial Complex but suffice to say that other countries that have been victims of terrorist attacks too, as London has been and Madrid and Mumbai, and those cities and those nations do not possess the same amount of crazy. 

It is not about the inconvenience of a five minute delay but the humiliation of being a suspect for nothing more than the amount of melanin in my skin. The "Othering". The making you fear for your safety. The silencing in the name of freedom. (I almost didn't write this a month after my trip to US, coz the NSA may be (definitely) reading it). 

Anywayz, read the article from Salon. And NSA, please please don't spy on me. I am just a geek who once had a mutton chop tache.

1  Moment of Madness

Sapio-philia

I find intelligence the most attractive trait in friends/ prospective partners. I get a hard on whenever someone impresses me with an amazing insight, intellectual ability or their scientific prowess. (Example: I saw this incredible comic exposition of the cosmic inflation that blew my mind today). I like people who are passionate about their work... and they are rare. Even among PhDs you tend to find few. Nothing is better than a long, very stimulating conversation that challenges my thinking. 

I was discussing my sapiosexuality with a like-minded friend. She described that the brain is likely the biggest sexually selected organ and that there is some scientific evidence that it purely evolved due to sexual selection (See earlier post). 

She needled me with a "What about all the other people that do not have the same reaction, but still do have a brain?". I kinda made a faux pas by saying that obviously there is no evolutionary advantage to having everyone be attracted to the same thing. I don't know if the "obviously" is what stuck her nerve but she countered my pronouncement with "The hypothesis of Fisherian run-away does exactly ask this and several studies show that there can be an advantage to being attracted to the same thing. Just think if a large brain means you are better at solving problems and thus finding food and securing a territory this will certainly increase your reproductive success". 

This friend was doing her PhD in evolutionary biology with a particular focus on sexual selection and my knowledge of evolutionary biology, given my engineering background, is limited to that one time I read Richard Dawkins during a long layover in Singapore airport. I was getting schooled (and I was loving it).

Ah! the plot thickens.

I defended myself that it is good from an evolutionary point to be interested in a variety of traits. Vague terms like Biodiversity, evolvability, and genetic variability come to mind. But to give a layperson example, I'd have thought that if all women were interested in nerdy guys who have never done a push-up in their life and the gene becomes dominant overshadowing all the gym-nut types, what would we do when there is a zombie upraising that requires some folks with muscular genes to run and drive stakes and cross-bow hunt them zombies. Oooh! bad example. That is essentially me saying that you are better off dating a muscular guy instead of me (Yes, I was hoping to date an evolutionary biologist). Terrible example. Strike that. Let's suppose that brawny-ness won the gene-survival fight and all the single nerdy men and women took their high IQ genes to their grave, what would we do when the computers develop consciousness and want to enslave the human race. Who will press Ctrl + Alt + Del.

And that boys and girls, is how it is done.

Update: Despite my charm, I didn't get a date with her. But that was mainly because she was an exchange student and has already left our shores for Europe. 

Horseracing

My view of arranged marriage is that you pick a horse and then you show it to me and say "Is this one ok?". My problem with this arrangement is that I have no context to evaluate if it is. I have never ever been to a race and no clue about horses. I just don't know. One says yes because you like the colour of the horse or it has a funny name or it doesn't snort and balk when you go near it. It is based on intuition more than anything else.

Of course with a love marriage (I am not a big fan of this terminology because the opposite of a love marriage is then a love-less marriage) the choosing is not restrictive to a yes or no. The beauty of this analogy is that at the end of the day, no matter how you choose, it is still a gamble. You win some, you lose some. And you can never be 100% certain of your choice.

Extending the analogy, one of the reasons "western" marriages seem such a failure is because they don't think that it is necessary to bet everything you own to play the race. Some relationships are built for the long haul and some aren't. Changing horses mid-race is bad but gambling everything on one race is a bit reckless, don't u think? You don't want your life completely ruined if you lose a race.

One is absolutely free to believe in arranged marriages. Sure, let's say that it is the greatest bestest system. Or at least no worse than any other system. But please let's not pretend that someone is going to make an informed choice based on a few email exchanges. A trained psychologist wouldn't know anything about a person from these initial emails. Do you agree? So, let's just call the game what it is - it is a gamble. You are betting on a horse. And as a player, given the high stakes, all you can do is take as many variables as possible in to consideration.

Belief - God, astrology

It is fine to believe in God because by design it is an unverifiable hypothesis. Science has given us an account of cosmology (that does not depend on a divine creator). Anthropology has given us a credible account of the birth and value of organised religion. Modern neuroscience has illuminated us on scientific basis for the origin of faith. But they don't offer proof that God doesn't exist (or for that matter that he does). One could always say that it is what I believe in and that is that. 

All science can offer is an understanding of where we are and how we got to be. And in our understanding, which by no measure is complete, it is not certain that a God has to exist to create the Big Bang, to create life on earth or to create intelligence.  A universe created without a God would be indistinguishable with a universe with one. No self respecting scientist says that we know everything about everything. But to say that we don't know 'x', therefore God must exist is not a sound argument. It is exactly the same thing as saying we don't know what causes epilepsy, therefore the devil is causing it. (Now, I assume you don't believe that epilepsy is caused by demonic possession... but who knows you might have a theory that epilepsy may be caused by a brain anomaly but what caused the brain anomaly - demon)

Be that as it may, you are free to believe in a celestial teapot. I am not going to convert you, no matter how cogent my arguments. Faith by definition is the belief in something beyond reason. If there was irrefutable proof for the existence of something, then one wouldn't be asked to "believe" in it. Nobody says do you believe in gravity.

But astrology is a whole other thing. It is not based on faith. In theory, it should be verifiable. And I don't mean conduct a double-blind study and give astrologers horoscope charts and personality test results and ask them to pick which chart belongs to which person. Oh no! they did that and published it in Nature too. (It didn't show that astrologers had better than random chance). And it can also be shown that people "want to believe" especially when it comes to personality profiles based on astrology or daily predictions (Forer effect).

I don't mean that kind of science, valuable as it may be. I mean the basis of astrology. Astrology is built on the notion that the movement of celestial bodies affect the course of human events. That the gravitational pull of the planets has a significant effect on human destiny is scientific nonsense. Why? Because Physics. A nurse standing 1 m from the mother during delivery exerts more gravitational pull than Mars or Saturn. 

Our ancestors believed that stars caused events and it is in no way intriguing that they did so. It is a simple fallacy - Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The star moved and the king died. Therefore the star moving to this "constellation" caused adverse conditions for the king. 

It is intriguing that there is some correlation between predictions and reality. Some of it could be attributed to coincidence but not all. Some of it to confirmation bias but not all. But there isn't anything that I have read or come across that provides convincing proof or even convincing plausibility that astrology is built on anything more than discredited pseudo-scientific concepts, like the moon pulling on brain like on tides.

Now, I'd think the scientific approach would be to say "My null hypothesis is astrology is not true". (as mentioned above for 2 reasons - 1. our ancestors relied on astral movements to "make sense" of the world and 2. the assumption of planets exerting gravitational pull on events has no scientific standing). Now, if CERN released results from supercollider tomorrow that showed that Jupiter is benevolent and moon in  the third house means you will be good with words, the null hypothesis is falsified. I will stand in line with you to get daily horoscope predictions. But until something like that happens, my null hypothesis, as a scientist, is that astrology is hokum and i will not base any of my life decisions on it (entirely or partially or even a teeny tiny little bit).

Btw, I have been told by some to have an open mind. I don't know how to tell them politely that someone believing in something that has been the popular belief for 2000 years does not have a more "open mind" than someone who stops to wonder, "wait a minute, why do we believe this". My point being that one does not need an open mind to follow what has been conventional wisdom; it takes one to question the assumptions and conclusions. 

INFJ

To my friends who are in disbelief when I tell them I am an introvert 

INFJs are deeply concerned about their relations with individuals as well as the state of humanity at large. They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the Feeling function they most readily show to the world. On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-term friends, family, or obvious "soul mates."

So, how was your weekend?

1. I had to jump hoops (the bureaucratic kind) but it finally happened. I am now the proud possessor of a Motorcycle Riders Licence
2. Poetry is alive and well and lives at The Front in Canberra
3. Rev at Bar32 has music that is (by conservative estimates) gazillion times better than other clubs around the city
4. I love the Beatles. I do. Hey Jude is stuck in my ear
5. It is easier to dance with a girl than it is alone.
6. Ali Baba Kebabs taste better at 3 AM
7. Drinking $10-bottle red wine from a local winery off a plastic glass, sitting on a haystack while eating a wafer thin slice of woodfired pizza made from organic vegetables grown in a little vegie patch in a garden and a gypsy jazz band plays a song about the soup kitchen lady is what a bohemian heaven would (or should) be.
8. Great beauty exists around us. If we blink less, we can catch more of it. Probably.
9. Paul, if the unintended byproduct of your singledom is a weekend like this...

Mini samosas

Opportunities are like mini samosas, if you don't grab them when the tray does the first round, there probably won't be any left for you.

Wisdom

Sex is like money. The more you have it, the more likely you are to get more. The corollary is just as true. The less you have it, the less likely you are of getting any.

Stance

I have given it a thought and this is where I stand on the following issues.

I
support gay marriages
oppose the death sentence
believe abortion is a personal choice
disagree with the notion that economic inequality is a necessary evil
consider the separation of religion and state vitally important
denounce war
believe climate change is real as is evolution
reject the relation between truthfulness of an idea and the desirability of said idea
embrace the idea that it is better to have one's eyes open to the squalor around than to close one's mind and live in the Matrix
and
I definitely definitely love Jon Stewart's Daily show.

What does that make me?

Enemy

Fear is not my worst enemy; hope is.

Statutory Warning

Nobody is allowed to pity me but myself

Belief

There is a celestial guardian angel looking after each one of us. All living beings reincarnate. Heaven and Hell are places you go to after death.

I could cry myself hoarse on this subject and it would make no difference. I know. I actually tried it. Had this discussion (we'll steer clear of the 'Argument' word) with a friend and he was fully convinced that all the above statements were true. Needless to say, I didn't. We were posing as rational beings and therefore the weapon we used was logic.

It is said in the Vedas that we reincarnate. Vedas are ancient. Vedas also tell us that they are divine revelations to seers and they are the truth. If Vedas are true, then we must reincarnate and since their truth is self-evident (because if it weren't true they wouldn't have written that it is true, right?), we must reincarnate. Aah! Beat that.

My friend's line of reasoning was that it was impossible to refute with any sort of evidence that the statements were indeed false. Therefore they must be true. Q.E.D.

I am reminded of the case of Bertrand Russell's Celestial teapot.

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

Giving enough credit to my friend, he understood that this may be a sticky wicket to bat on and changed the rules. We no longer parried in logic. His new argument was that it was a matter of faith. These ideas were beyond the grasp of logic or reason. In fact logic and reason are obstacles to the proper understanding of it. Translated loosely, heaven exists if you think it exists. Isn't it amazing that mere thinking of something can conjure it into existence?

I don't think my friend should be allowed to have it both ways. Either it was a matter of faith and he just believed it and I didn't. If he cannot articulate why he believes it, he should not expect me to articulate why I don't. Or believing such things were a matter of logic and we could both trade arguments for and against and arrive at an understanding.

The problem, my friend was kind to point out, was that by questioning I lose all chances of finding out. Why can't you just accept it, he asked me. His charge was that I was not open to both possibilites. I plead guilty. I will stick my neck out and say that though it is possible that there is someone up in the sky looking after me, that I will reincarnate after this lifetime and that I may be deep fried in a huge pan of oil for such blasphemy, I think they are improbable.

Wisdom

They found my wisdom
prone

My father wondered
if it was because
I read in my bed

A friend asked
if it was because
of what I read
(and as it follows
what I followed)

The dentist said
it is horizontal
And it shouldn't be
Called it impaction
It must be extracted
he said with a smile
or was the smile my imagination

Operated upon
Uhoh! I thought.
But then,
who needs wisdom anyway?

The road not taken

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I stood there in the middle
Unable to take either.