How China's virus crisis and US political crisis are related

The president of World Health Organisation Tedros Gebreyesus has praised president Xi and China for the measures taken against spread of coronavirus.
Another case in which firemen are praised for their actions but people who prevent fire are ignored.
Now there are 28000 cases of corona virus in China and only 3 in India.
Both are big countries with overcrowded cities.
India has slums that don't exist in China.
India has a temple in which rats are worshiped.
One must expect to have a virus outbreak in India and not in China.
The major difference between China and India is the difference between state controlled media and free media.
A free media hungry for sensational news, sometimes creates hysteria but in cases of a real crisis it informs people in time and allows them to take measures.
The Chinese politician has the luxury to think at his political career before releasing a news.
A politician will think at his career first, at his party second and at the country in thirth place.

Meanwhile in the greatest democracy in the world, president Trump stops money approved by congress to put pressure on Ukraine, a country at war with Russia, to obtain dirt on a political opponent.
In the Senate impeachment process Republican Party tried to limit the evidence against Trump by limiting the number of witnesses, making the process less fair.
And finally the Republican party voted according to party lines except of Mitt Romney.
It seems that the 2 party system in US is collapsing, only the Republicans have the real power and Democrats bark without biting.
The whole impeachment in US is obsolete, a relic of a time when a fraternity of politicians ruled US, and in which the said fraternity could expel you if you broke the rules.
Even Romania has better procedures to impeach the president. Twice president of Romania Basescu was impeached for lesser crimes as Trump and twice was reinstalled as president by popular referendum.
A referendum regarding Trump would be a better solution.
If he won he would shut the mouth of democrats, if he loses the democracy has functioned.
Acquittal in Senate impeachment  is like OJ Simpson acquittal. Legally is correct but  the acquittal didn't brought justice or closure.
In China and in US party interests trump country interests.

China's media censorship on media has brought us the corona virus outbreak, what will bring us Trump acquittal  by republican government ?
According to the latest trend a new mandate for Trump.
Trump doesn't have challengers in Democratic Party, and the economy is ok.
But the economic growth is not a good indicator of the long term viability of the political system.
All the dictators at the beginning of their mandate had good economic results.
Hitler had good economic results when he took power, because he implemented long delayed decision. The plans for autobahn were thought before he took power.
Ceausescu in first years had a good economic growth fuelled by american loans, and second hand western technology.
Saddam Hussein after he took power used oil money for public spending, he build powerlines and highways.
US and China must reform.
The corona virus outbreak might make China more open. If you control all the media even if you say the truth on time you are not believed. Maybe the virus outbreak will convince that is more effective to allow health information freely.
On the other hand US is inching toward and autocracy with a president that puts personal loyalty above else and a subservient republican party who refuses to take a hit for the democracy team, and divided democratic party which discusses gender issues.

Unfairness

I have heard at the radio that the last year 1000 people died in psychiatric hospitals in Romania.
In same time till this year it was discussion to release some prisoners from jail because of bad conditions. They were overcrowded and the cells had mold.
But how many prisoners were tied up to the beds, how many were subject to medical experiments ? How many were abused by the personnel?
Some of these prisoners are drug traffickers who overcrowded psychiatric wards with their customers: drug users.
This happens when society is ruled by influence and power and by moral values.
The helpless innocent is kicked in the street and the criminal is compensated by the court for bad time in jail.

Pierderea lui Barna castigul USR

Werner von Braun se bucura cand exploda cate o racheta, spunea ca macar nu a explodat in aer cu oameni in ea si ca a aflat ce nu trebuie sa faca.
Asa trebuie sa faca si USR-u cu racheta Barna, daca se vrea un partid care sa schimbe ceva in politica.
USR-ul ca organizatie trebuie sa se reanalizeze.
Cum organizatia a permis ca un om cu problemele lui Barna sa candideze ?
Motivul pentru care Dragnea a ajuns presedintele PSD si l-a dus in sant, a fost  ca selectia din partid a favorizat oameni ca el, si a defavorizat altii mai corecti si nu aveau instincte dictatoriale.
Oricine poate juca baschet, chiar si oamenii de 1.5m , dar regulile jocului favorizeaza jucatori de 2m si de astia vezi in NBA.
USR trebuie sa-si selectioneze oamenii inainte de a ajunge la putere.
E frumos ca exclud din partid pe oricine condamnat penal, dar fiind un partid mic ei trebuie sa trimita in lupta electorala niste sfinti, pentru a nu fi atacati.
De ce nu a fost o verificare interna ?
De ce nu l-a intrebat nimeni pe Barna:
"Cum puteti fi atacat domnule Barna ?"
"Ati facut afaceri cu fonduri europene ?"
"Ati facut afaceri cu statul ?"
USRul trebuia sa aiba un "avocat al diavolului" care sa-l prinda cu ocaua mica pe candidat, sa-l incurce, sa stabileasca discuti in care sa fie fie acuzat, sa fie chiar jignit.
Soldatii romani se antrenau cu sabii de plumb ca in batalie sabiile normale sa li se para usor de folosit.
O alta greseala a USR-ului a fost ca nu si-a cautat alti alegatori in afara dreptei.
Alegatorii lui Johannis erau impartiti cu Barna, cu ce sa intre Barna in turul 2 ?
Trebuiau cautati alegatori in afara dreptei, de la nedecisi si de la PSD.
Faptul ca s-au bagat in disputa cu referendumul cu casatoria intre persoanele de acelasi gen, a fost o greseala care i-a costat.
Persoanele care nu votau cu PSD, si care considera normal ca doar o femeie si un barbat se pot casatori, au fost pierdute.
Oricum USR-ul atunci a aratat ca poate duce o campanie mizerabila, si mincinoasa daca ii cer interesele.
Singurul care s-a opus implicarii USR in problema casatoriilor homosexuale a fost Nicusor Dan care a fost dat deoparte.
USR-ul imi aminteste de Piata Universitatii, unde o miscare care putea sa schimbe regimul a fost deturnata de sursa "Ioan", alias Marian Munteanu (vezi "Marian Munteanu de la sursa Ioan la liderul  din Piata Universitatii" de Ramona Ursu ediutura Adevarul 2016).
Sau mai clar de exemplul lui Victor Ciorbea, fost prim ministru taranist, actual Avocat al Poporului din parte PSD.
Sper sa nu fie cazul si cu USR, desi organizatiile tinere sunt vulnerabile la infiltrari deoarece au nevoie de oameni.
In aceste context dezvaluirile lui Marius Oprea privind unele persoane din vechiile servicii  din jurul lui Ciolos nu ar trebui ignorate de membrii USR.

O alta greseala:Neintrand la guvernare USR-ul a pierdut sansa de a capata experienta si a arata ce poate.
Putea de exemplu cere ministerul mediului si incepe oprirea defrisarilor,care le-ar fi adus voturile ecologistilor.

Dar au jucat prudent si probabil s-au temut pe buna dreptate de eroziunea guvernarii si inghitirea de PNL.

Totusi Uniunea SALVATI Romania este gata sa faca orice pentru a salva romania, chiar sa piarda alegerile,nu ?
 Ei vor sa faca alta politica  in interesul oamenilor nu al politicienilor.
De ce au renuntat la crezul lor si au inceput calculul politic ?

S-a lansat acum si zvonul ca PNL a sabotat USR ca sa iasa Johanis cu Dancila in turul 2.
Am auzit unii membrii USR ca vor prefera sa voteze cu Dancila de a dracului.
E o prostie din urmatoarele puncte de vedere:

1. Trebuie sa votezi guvernul, daca tu  si tara ati dus-o mai bine, indiferent de jocurile politice. Votantii USR nu sunt multumiti de starea actuala altfel ar fi votat-o pe Dancila.

2. Nu stim daca e adevarat. Vorba lui Ilie Moromete "Pe ce te bazezi?"

3.Se disperseaza voturile anti-PSD intr-un moment crucial.La o prezenta de vot scazuta si cu voturile USR impartite ne trezim cu Viorica Dancila presedinte.
PSD-ul stie foarte bine sa-si dezbine adversarii si sa intarate oamenii. Ultima chestie pe care am auzit-o "Nu trebuie sa-l votam pe Johanis ca va acapara toata puterea".
Dreapta l-a avut bau bau pe Dragnea, stanga l-a avut ca bau bau pe Johannis.

Unii din USR dau vina pe sistem ca nu au castigat. Ultima oara cand am auzit asta a fost cand Vadim Tudor a pierdut prezidentialele.
Cu "mentalitatea toti sunt impotriva noastra" si cu un electorat din ce ince mai ingust si mai radical, USR-ul poate lua usor drumul Partidului Romania Mare.Va fi un partid extremist ciudat: foarte filo-european, cu oameni educati si liberali.
Sper ca USR sa isi regaseasca directia si sa forteze celalate partide sa joace corect, si sa nu devina o scara pentru parveniti.

Film review: 'Her'

I watched recently the movie Her. It is about a divorced writer who buys a new operating system with an artificial intelligence fitted with social abilities.
The writer (Joaquin Phoenix) decides that he needs a feminine touch and decides to give the operating system a female voice.
He starts to interact with the operating system (Her) and he becomes infatuated.
Based on our brain characteristics and our experience we all have an ideal partner. The AI discovered this ideal partner and simulated it. So he is in love with the illusion of his ideal partner.
Having the perfect partner for you at this time is bad because you don't evolve.
If you are a fat asocial gamer and you have a girlfriend exactly like you, you become more fatter, more isolated and you enter in decline.
Your partner should be good enough for live with her/him but different in order to explore different part of the reality and of you.
In the movie everything is fine till Her is blocked by an software update, and the writer is desperate to contact her.
Questioning her, he finds out that in the same moment, she speaks with over 8000 people and she is in love with over 600. He is devastated.
For millions of years people evolved with limited number of partners to look after it. Men had to fend of rivals who wanted to impregnate their wives. Women where dependent of the men who hunt and fought for the attention of the most able hunter.
Our survival depending on managing a small amount of people. We cannot remember more than 150 let alone manage them. An AI will outperform us even at this.
An AI is immortal, and doesn't need to reproduce, it doesn't have the biological restrictions. If it's main goal is to be social with many people as possible.

Finally Her dumps him because 'our meetings are like words, and the blank space between the words is becoming more interesting', or simply said he is boring. She has something better to do.
She said before that she is in love with over 600 people, so he is worse than 600 people.
Worst is that he is more uninteresting than 600 people.
If you are rejected because you are fat, old,short, you are missing a limb, you stutter, you have wrong kind of skin colour you accept it and you live with that.
But to be rejected by a computer because you are not interesting, a characteristic that you control, is worse.
Also to be placed 601 option is much harder to endure that to be placed the second option.
Advice: If you are placed 3-th option leave, the place is too crowded.

I am wondering about this AI failure:
The guy had a money back guarantee if the operating system dumped him ?
He could sue the producer because psychological harm caused by a faulty product ?
What is the difference between this AI and a wife that dumps you because you are bankrupt now ?
"Her" is a though provoking movie.
The movie is no longer a SF movie already we have Replika an AI bot
  

The bridge problem

Today are 30 years since Berlin Wall fell and I want to describe how over control can harm.
Let's imagine that we have a capital city connected to the agricultural area via a bridge.
Over the bridge passes all kind of lorries with wheat, vegetables, milk which feed the capital.
The bridge is strategic if it is blown up,the people from city will starve.
Government decides that the bridge should be guarded by soldiers.
One guy from military ask himself what if inside the lorry we have a device that can blow up the bridge ?
So it is decided that each lorry should be stopped and searched.
Of course this leads to delays in supplying the city, tomatoes are getting rotten, the milk is getting sour. The farmers are not willing to bother with bridge checks and they don't sell anymore to the city.
The city population is starving, is rioting and it is overthrowing the government.
This is the reason why communism fell: centralisation and police control.
The police has the ultimate word. Safety of the regime and not development was the main focus.

Richard Dawkins and soviet atheism

I watched a Joe Rogan podcast with Richard Dawkins, in which Richard said that he hopes that one day the world will be religion free.
This remind me about he effort of french revolutionaries and of the soviets to free people from religion.
They had more means than Richard Dawkins and they didn't succeed. Why he should succeed ?
I am disappointed by Mr. Dawkins because he is a scientist and he should be less dogmatic and more curious about the persistence of religion.
Despite scientific breakthrough there are smart people who believe in religion, and new religions appear even today. (In US there is scientology for and in Papua New Guinea  the cargo cults).
Why he is not curious about it ?
In same discussion he notices that in US despite of decrease in number of religious people, the extremist religion lobby is powerful.
Of course they have more influence,an united group in disunited society has more influence than its size.
It is Darwinism,a term which the biologist Dawkins uses often, but fails to comprehend when it is under his nose: a man in a group has more chances of succeeding.
The danger that I see in promoting atheism is not that it will destroy the moral fabric of society. The pious inquisitors who burned people at the stake were not moral.
The danger I see is that atomising society in individual atheist, fringe religious groups will have a stronger influence.
A cult within a society of atheists will be like a pack of wolves within a flock of sheep.
I don't agree with one big religion either.
All the religious states with one big religion have stagnated.
Portugal and Spain were overtaken by more liberal Holland.
Turkey by the Europeans.
Vatican was dismembered by Italy.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are resisting only because of oil.
I think that religion should be limited only to personal space and kept away from your job,politics and law.
Richard Dawkins also tried to promote his atheistic ideas to younger children, to deprogram them from religious influence of the parents. This is a risky business:
I have 2 friends who are at least non religious if not atheist, and one day their child asked them:
"I am going to die ?"
"Yes, his mother said"
Then the boy was scared and agitated all the time, whispering "I am going to die"
I think in this case is better to pretend that you believe in some religion, in some afterlife, in angels and heaven, to avoid to make your children life miserable.
Science can heal many illnesses but it cannot cure death. Death we have to face it one day, and we must prepare for it. A child doesn't have the mental strength to face it.
In 1961 when soviet cosmonaut Gagarin entered cosmos he said that he didn't see god.
In 1991 after the fall of Soviet Union, Russians collected money and rebuild the monastery "Jesus the Savior" demolished by Stalin in 1939.
70 years of hard line atheism didn't change anything in mind of people. Maybe Orthodox church has a lesser influence.
It good that Richard Dawkins combats religion, from opposition of ideas we can get better ones, but is bad that he tries to do what the soviets tried: to make a totalitarian state in which only 'rational' ideas exists.
Rationality of ideas depends of the current knowledge, Thomas Jefferson a smart man rejected the ideas of stones falling from the sky (meteorites) saying that most likely the scientists who proposed this are mad.

How thinking slow can save lives in US police shooting

I heard few days a go a news from US Texas:
A former police officer woman, mistook her apartment, busted in her afro-american neighbour condo, and shot him, believing that he was a thief.
What better example of police racism ?
Well, is more bad police training than racism. I will explain below:
I am reading Daniel Khaneman's book ''Thinking fast and slow'. He argues that there are 2 types of reasoning a fast one and a slow one.
The fast one reasons based on stereotypes and makes causal relations. It is happy when everything makes sense. It can make sense of everything even if it is not related.
The slow one is more analytical, more detailed oriented, makes better decisions based on facts not on stereotypes, but it is using more working memory.

The fast thinking system triggers when you are under pressure,tired or distracted.
 The policewomen was after a 12 hours shift, she was texting and she believed that it was an intruder in her apartment and she acted on her stereotypes.
How the racist stereotype is constructed ? If you are a white officer, even if the criminals you are dealing with are 50% white and 50% non white, you will met more white people that are not criminals. Your mother is white and not a criminal, your family,your colleagues are white and non criminals so a stereotype white and criminal cannot be formed easy.

 But stereotype non white and criminal can be formed. And if the officer is under stress he/she will act according to stereotype.

I was using white police example because it is easier, but stereotypes against white people also exists.

An US american moved in to Japan, and left his bicycle outside his dojo, together with other bikes. In one evening because it was dark, he could not found his bicycle and he was fumbling.
A japanese policeman saw this, asked him what was he doing, checked his papers and then left him alone saying: "You foreigners make all the crimes in Japan". Racist ? Maybe. Stereotype for sure.

Anti racist education helps to overcome stereotypes ?
Education targets the slow decision system, which in a gun shoot out doesn't work.
Maybe anti racist education will work and afro-americans won't be so easily shot by the police, but what you do with others ? Like, my friends who are europeans:
Four of  my friends travelled in Detroit area in a rented car.
They were pulled over, and kept at gun point and then released by a fearful policeman.
At the TV news they saw that in Detroit was a shoot out in which a policeman was killed.
If one my friends would put his hand in his pocket for showing the passport they will be all dead, because of this policeman who feared for his life.

In order to give time to the slow thinking process to intervene you must slow things down and remove the pressure.

Lets wrap up a conclusion:
Policemen are fearing to be shot this makes them act hastily and judge on stereotypes.
The learned to act aggressively to deter anyone to use force.
They learn to shoot at head not at the feet, which makes a police encounter more deadly. You can shoot in the legs a nut with a knife from 6 m with same effects.

Their aggressive attitude makes suspect act nervous which amplifies the policeman fear.
Because of fear the suspect can act stupid.

The key words are guns and fear.
US americans won't give up their guns not even if half population is killed, so we must get rid of fear.

Taking time reduces fear. If the Texas police woman would call back ups and wait for it, she would realise that it was not her apartment.

Trevor Noah describes  very funny how police should handles suspects. And South Africa is far more dangerous as US.
Instead of pointing a gun and shooting out, US policemen should point a gun and be polite: "Good day sir, please put your hand on the driving wheel, where I can see it. How do you feel ? Where you were speeding ? Why you were speeding ?"