Cute yet dangerous

The newspaper Metro published this very interesting news on March 22nd, entitled "São lindos e ainda salvam o planeta", meaning They're beautiful and, on top of that, they save the planet. It basicly applauds the new environmentalists' trend to use cute and fluffy animais to raise people's awareness and help them  protect the environment in several ways.

You don't really need a degree in psychology to assertain that this is a good idea (in the sense that it will work). Nobody cares about some ugly bush or spider, but by all means please save the dolphins and the koalas! In fact I've already written about this issue previously in 2010, in the post "Who Cares?". Curiously enough, that post also emerged has a response to a news from Metro. Now that I think of it, I believe those were the only two times I've seen the term fluffy being used in a newspaper.

What I want to talk about now is not that irrational concern for cute species, but rather how using those images to make people more interventive may not be as harmless as it might seem at first glance.

I'd like to start by going a bit against the generally accepted theory that it's big corporate interests, in all their greed, that are destroying the planet while we all, in our best of intentions, stand powerless against them. There are many flaws to this reasoning. First, we should never forget that these big mean corporations are ultimately working for us. Sure, we all hate oil companies and how they're careless in their handling of oil and so on. But we also get furious when fuel prices rise. Or when clothes get more expensive. We all like to act as if protecting the environment is effortless and comes with loads of advantages and no cost. But, be sure of it, protecting the environment can be very expensive sometimes. As an example, I remember this time when a professor of mine was talking about this project he'd worked on, to install some power lines in Portugal. They had this (cheap) project to make the connection through air cables but then some environment protection organisation stood against it by arguing that it would be harmful for this local bat population. The court decided in their favour, and the cables had to be installed underground. This change made the whole project cost ten times more and of course it's us, consumers, who are paying for it. Another example could be Portugal's heavy investment in renewable energies over the last years, usually loved by the crowd. Thing is, it seems that, were we not to be using any renewable energies at all, our electricity bill would be 30% cheaper. That's a huge cost, when all hell runs loose after each few percents increase. Mind that I'm not defending that we shouldn't care about the bats or using renewable energies; I'm just saying we also need to be aware of the costs of doing so.

Another critic to that line of thinking is that, nowadays, we're far from powerless. Besides changing our habits towards more environment friendly ones, we can also fight those big mean companies through public journalism, by divulging their acts. In fact, internet has made bad publicity so poweful that it's precisely the bigger companies that are most likely to make big contributions and gestures towards environment protection. Of course one can question their motives, but the result is the same.

Back to the initial theme, those fluffy animais are dangerous because they make us blind to the downsides of their (over?) protection. Of course, as the Metro news reported, they're mostly used for higher purposes, such as saving their uglier brothers and sisters. Yet this means that we're somewhat being tricked and manipulated into helping a cause. And if the purpose of any action is ill-defined or hidden, how are we supposed to make just and informed decisions? As I've already tried to demonstrate, going as green as possible might not always be the right decision.

Some might claim that environmentalists are reasonable people with good intentions and so will use this "new" persuasion technique with care, parsiomony and responsibility. Still, as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Moreover, focusiing all important decision making in some enlightened few is both dangerous (everyone is wrong sometimes) and dictatorship like.

Other possible argument in defense of this behaviour is that our consumer habits and lifestyles have led us so far from being green that, even if we turn the meter as far as we can on the other direction, we still wouldn't be too green. Perhaps. Problem is, in all arguments, it's the most fanatic who make the most noise.

In the end, I guess we'll have to hope that reason and good sense will prevail over sensacionalism, both amonst environmentalists and ourselves.


Filipe Baptista de Morais

It's in Belgium

A couple of weeks ago I travelled to Belgium for a long weekend. Now, Belgium is quite a small country so it’s amazing the amount of stuff you can do in four days. In terms of prices, things are quite expensive (for Portuguese standards); staying over at a friend’s ensured the trip remained within budged.

Food is pretty good in Belgium, with the ever-present exception of coffee. Still, Belgian waffles and chocolate certainly help overcome that. Especially when you put them together. There’s also beer for every taste, so it’s (almost) impossible not to enjoy one.

It’s hard to judge the weather from a four days sample, but I hear it’s quite awful. Can’t really complain though, since it never rained during my stay (though it snowed quite a lot). Nevertheless, the sun does not seem to shine the same way it does in Portugal. Yep, you should definitely come here.

In what regards Belgian people, I’m afraid I didn’t find them very friendly. Helpful, certainly, but not really friendly. Could have been just a stream of bad luck though.

Despite not having a government for quite some time, things appear to run pretty smooth in Belgium. Of course when you come from Portugal every other place seems to display military-like organization. I recall using this software tool for train travels planning, available at their public transports’ (which are quite cheap by the way) website. I loved it so much that I made some nice comments about it to my Belgian friends. Of course 15 minutes after that I was boarding the wrong train, which ultimately led to my arrival in Brussels two hours after schedule and forced me to take a cab. Irony’s a bitch. I first thought I’d messed up somehow (I really didn’t want to blame that neat software tool), but I happened to meet some nice Czech women (psychologists attending some international conference, though they seemed more interested in partying) who had made exactly the same mistake. Guess I should thank the most nice and helpful (and gorgeous) ticket lady, for sorting everything out and letting me ride back to Leuven when the train was not supposed to be carrying passengers anymore.

Having given my overall impression on  Belgium, I’ll now write a few lines about each city/town that I’ve visited, in chronological order.

Antwerp. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Antwerp, since opinions seemed to diverge a lot. Now I can testify that it’s definitely worth seeing. The city pulses with movement and has this very modern appeal, while retaining some old beautiful buildings and its famous Cathedral of Our Lady. The city park (Stradspark), is also very pretty as is the square featuring the city hall and the statue of Brabo, founder of Antwerp. The area near the harbour is a must, and no tourist should pass by the MAS museum without going in. 1€ is all it takes to get access to eleven floors dedicated to an equal number of different and interesting themes, as well as a panoramic view over the city. Not far from it there’s a memorial to the deceased in both World Wars. Right next to it the sharp eyed reader will find a lovers’ heart (kinda like a lovers’ bridge, but instead of a bridged you have a heart). Most unfortunately,  I didn’t have time to visit the castle, also along the coast line. You’ll also find an amazingly high number of gay couples (mostly men) in Antwerp. Which, if you take into account that Antwerpian women are quite beautiful, should make it some kind of paradise for straight single men: odds are the city’s full of gorgeous and lonely women!

Leuven. I’d never heard great things about Leuven, so I only went there in order to visit a handful of friends.  True enough, the city lacks touristic attractions at level with the others’. Still, Leuven has this distinct and particular appeal. Perhaps because it’s mostly a students’ town, one really does feel “right” in there. The bars area is pretty nice, and it features the longest (combined) balcony in Europe. Though I did not have time to go there since it’s in the outskirts, the area around the faculty of biological engineering seemed quite nice. Bikes (and people riding them) all over the place also help establish that cozy feeling of belonging.

Bruges (It’s in Belgium). Just a few days before departing to Belgium I saw this movie, “In Bruges”,

since I’d heard it portrayed the city rather well. I must say it’s a pretty good movie, so I’d definitely recommend it whether you’re planning on actually going there or not. It’s funny that, while the entire movie seems to be a tribute to the city, the main character utterly hates it. In fact, when seriously wounded and in risk of dying, his thoughts are “Fuck man, maybe that’s what hell is… the entire rest of eternity spent in fucking Bruges! And I really really hoped I wouldn’t die…”. Despite the character’s thoughts, Bruges is quite the thing. Everything seems so beautiful and from another world, like time stopped in there centuries ago. It’s amazing how cars seem so out of place in there. I guess the best advice I can give to future travelers is to simply walk around and, if possible, get lost in there. Just make sure to go up the Belfry; the long, narrow (and I do mean NARROW) stairs are a lot of trouble, but the view is astonishing. We were lucky enough to be presented with this eerie mist, making it all seem some kind of fairytale. Exactly as in the movie! Animal lovers will certainly be in awe with the swans all over the water courses. It does live up to the designation “Venice of the North”, even it only features one canal. They say Bruges is really beautiful at night, but unfortunately we had to move on before sunset.

Gent. The city is quite similar to Bruges in its medieval look. In terms of interiors it may even be prettier: it features plenty of beautiful churches to see. It also had more canals than Bruges. Still, something's missing... perhaps that eerie mist that makes everything look so surreal. The castle is a real wonder, and you can climb all the way up and walk along the wals: you'll be rewarded with quite the view. It also has a Belfry, but I didn't go up that one. 

Tervuren. It's a really small town just outside Brussels. I didn't really go into the town, just the Royal Museum for Central Africa which is its main attraction. The weather didn't allow us to walk along its gardens, but the palace itself is quite pretty. Inside, you can learn a lot about Central Africa, Congo in particular. It has replicas of many of the existing wild life. It's also a great place to find different kinds of souvenirs.

Brussels. I must say I was very disappointed with something in Brussels... it's really hard to find someone who speaks (proper) English! I'd always been told that Brussels was an international city, the heart and capital of Europe, so that was definitely a turndown. Apart from that, I really liked the capital of Belgium The Grànd Place is amazing: you don't really know where to look since there are interesting buildings all around. The comic strips painted on the facades make a perfect excuse for walking all around the city; you can get a map with their positions and try to find and photograph them all. Sightseeing turns into some kind of amusing quest! It took me around six hours (I only had a short lunch break, but it was snowing heavily so that slowed me down) and still I missed some of them. The city parks are beautiful when covered with snow. The Manneken Pis, often used as a symbol of the city, was rather disappointing, even though I'd already been warned. It's funny how something can disappoint us, despite the fact that we're already expecting to be disappointed. Guess one can't truly expect to be let down... By the way, did you know there are two other pissing statues in Brussels, portrating a girls and a dog?  You can find chocolate shops all over the place; there's the big brands (Leonidas, Cote d'Or, etc... ) , of course, but I found it far more interesting to stumble into these small artisan shops and buy, say, a chocolate train. Finally, I'd definitely recomment visiting the Parlamentarium, the visitors' centre for the European Parliament. You'll need some time though: I spent around two hours in there and still half of it was left unseen.

Filipe Baptista de Morais

Triste

Não o posso assegurar com certeza ( na verdade até poderia, mas pareço padecer da preguiça crónica de que tantas vezes nós Portugueses somos acusados ) mas penso que estou a abrir um precedente ao publicar dois posts no mesmo dia.

Queria fazer apenas um muito curto comentário à entrevista a José Sócrates que acabou de ter lugar. Este não é um blog sobre política, pelo que não vou comentar o seu regresso nem as suas opiniões. Apenas gostava de chamar a atenção para isto. Sucessivamente durante a entrevista os jornalistas forçaram a mudança de tema, não adensando temas ( e até frequentemente cortando a palavra do ex-PM ) tão importantes como o sejam as PPP e o comportamento da dívida pública do longo dos anos. No final, terminaram a entrevista com duas questões, para as quais aparentemente tinham de guardar tempo em detrimento de outros temas menos importantes:

• Porque é que foi estudar Filosofia e não Ciências Políticas?
• Quem é que deve ter medo dos seus comentários políticos?

Quando se termina assim, nem vale a pena analisar outras perguntas que ficaram lá pelo meio, nem a condução do resto da entrevista. O estado do jornalismo em Portugal, ainda para mais num canal público, é triste. Extremamente triste.


Filipe Baptista de Morais

Animals

This short post intends only to divulge the new videoclip for Muse's song, Animals. The video was made by two Portuguese, Inês Freitas and Miguel Mendes, and you can check it here. Once again, it is sad that achievements by Portuguese are so easily overlooked by our own media.

You can see my extended interpretation of the song ( along with other things ), in the previous post "Alpha Species", published in October 2012.


Filipe Baptista de Morais

The Greater Good

Let me start this post with the famous Prisoner's Dilemma. It has many different formulations, so I'll stick with the first formal one I've seen, in a Game Theory course at the Technical University of Prague ( March 2012 ).

"It is 1930's. In the Soviet Union at that time a conductor travels by train to Moscow, to the symphony orchestra concert. He studies the score and concentrates on the demanding performance. Two KGB agents are watching him, who - in their ignorance - think that the score is a secret code. All conductor's efforts to explain that it is yet Tchajkovskij are absolutely hopeless. He is arrested and imprisoned. The second day our couple of agents visit him with the words "You have better speak. We have found your comrade Tchajkovskij and he is already speaking...
Two innocent people, one because he studied a score and the second because his name was coincidentally Tchajkovskij, find themselves in prison, faced the following problem: if both of them bravely keep denying, despite physical and psychical torture, they will be sent to Gulag for three years, then they will be released. If one of them confesses the fictive espionage crime of them both, and the second one keeps denying, then the first one will get only one year in Gulag, while the second one 25. If both of them confess, they will be sent to Gulag for 10 years."

Although at first glance the solution might seem simple ( both of them should deny ) that is in fact not true. Keep in mind that they cannot struck a deal, and thus must decide independently. Moreover, notice the fact, no matter what one decides, it is always more profitable for the other to confess. In order to fully realise this, consider you are the conductor. If Tchajkovskij stands strong and denies, you'll get 3 years if you deny as well. But, were you to confess in the same situation, you'd only get 1 year! Poor Tchajkovskij would spend 25 years at the Gulag, but that's hardly your problem. If, on the other hand, Tchajkovskij confesses, denying would mean 25 years for you, while confessing would mean you'd both get 10 years. Again, confessing is the smartest option for you! Of course the same reasoning applies to Tchajkovskij's situation, since they're exactly the same. Indeed, confess is the dominating strategy for both players and (confess , confess) is the only equilibrium point in the game. Non-technically it means that, if both Tchajkovskij and the conductor act rationally (eg: they act in order to get the best possible outcome for themselves and feel no pity or remorse for the other) they will both confess and thus be sent to the Gulag for 10 years, when they could get a much better outcome if they both denied.

The prisoner's dilemma can be generalised to any  2-players game where they both can choose to cooperate and defect and

• if they both cooperate (deny) they'll both get a reward (only 3 years in Gulag, as opposed to the 10 given by the rational solution);
• if they both defect (confess) they'll both be punished (10 years in Gulag);
• If only one of them defects and the other cooperates, that one will get a bonus even better than the one he'd get if both cooperated (only 1 year in Gulag), while the other gets a really bad outcome (25 years in Gulag). In this situation the first is said to have given in to tempation while the second is called the sucker.

Interesting as it is as a theoretical conception, one must wonder if the prisoner's dilemma actually ever occurs in practice. And it does. A lot. Consider for instance the issue of tax paying (in Sweden) and imagine there's some kind of magical way to evade taxes without getting caught. If you pay taxes, you get lots of benefits (education, health, public transports, etc... ) but you lose the money. If you don't pay the taxes, you get the same benefits without the nuisance of losing any money. This seems like the right thing to do then. Thing is, if no one pays paxes, then everyone will lose the benefits. This simple and somewhat ridiculous example intends only to show how an instance of the dilemma might look in practice. Other examples could be a typical duopolist situation, payment of fares on public transports, soldier on a battle's first line and the storage/abdication of nuclear armament.

The thing with this kind of problems is that they require communication and co-operation in order to reach the overall best solution. If each individual acts so as to maximise its own proffit, everyone will end up in a nasty situation. Still, it seems like the rational thing to do. And most of Economics is based on the assumption that people will act rationally, as the so called Econs. Even worst, we all know that people really hate to end up being the sucker, so in fact their irrationality will bias them even more towards the defecting solution. So, are we doomed to this worst possible outcome?

Maybe not. Most pratical insstances of the Prisoner's Dilemma occur repeatedly; that is, you are called to make a decision only once but over and over again. While this may seem a minor detail, it makes all the diference in practice. Going back to rational agents and Game Theory, the solution to the repeat game is not to defect all the time. Without further ado, let's speak about Axelrod's Tournament. In 1981 Robert Axelrod invited prominent game theorists to a computer tournment. The idea was that each participant would develop its own computer agent (with a given strategy) to play the Prisoner's Dilemma game. They would then play with each other for 200 rounds, and in the end they would count the points (each year in prison is worth one negative point). Just for the sake clarity I'll introduce three of the strategies used

• Tit for Tat: cooperates on the first round and then always mimics the other's last move;
• Random: cooperates with probability 0.5;
• Grudger: cooperates until the other has defected, then defects forever (it doesn't forgive the betrayal).

Twelve other strategies were employed, most of them more complex than these.
There are many ways to categorise these strategies; an interesting one if by dividing them into two groups: nice strategies and nasty strategies. The first are characterised by never defecting first (only in retaliation), while the latter defect first in at least some situations. You can therefore picture an agent following the first type of strategy as someone who is trustful, in opposition to someone with guile. Quite surprisingly the simple Tit for Tat strategy won the tournment*, reminding us yet again that complexity does not necessarily make something better or smarter (and believe me, people do tend to forget this a lot!) But what I really find worth mentioning is that the first eight places in the tournment were taken by the eight nice strategies present, which means that all nasty strategies scored below any nice strategy. This seems to indicate that, even in a rational sense, it could be proffitable to play nice in life. Maybe there is hope for Humanity after all...


Filipe Baptista de Morais

* The tournment was repeated with somewhat different rules some time later, yet this simple strategy won again.

Living on the edge

I've been on physioterapy as of late, recovering from a (minor) footbal injury. The clinic is organized into 4 or 5 small private rooms, then a larger one which holds the gym and where several patients can work out at the same time. It's funny to see how long-term patients tend to get connected to each other, simply by being at the same place at the same time over and over again. Kinda like what happens with hospitalized people.

Anyway, today was my last session and I was at the gym with 3 other patients when I realized something odd: they were all injured due to accidents involving motorbikes. I found it even more curious that, despite the reason being the injury being the same, everything else was different. There was this man in his forties, with some sort of back injury, an older one (~ 60), with a shoulder injury and, finally, a young woman in his early twenties whose surgery scar was clearly visible in her knee. Both sexes, three different age groups, three different injuries, one common cause. It does make you feel like it can happen to anyone.

While they were chatting about their accidents the physioterapists also realized this coincidence and mentioned that, in other clinics directed to more serious injuries, sometimes more than 50% of the patients are there due to motorbike accidents. Everyone made some comments on how nasty motorbikes were, but just 15minutes after that the patients were already talking about the newest models, which ones were prettiers and which ones they were going to buy. Apparently they were all going to buy new ones, since their previous ones were destroyed in the respective crashes.

One can't help but wonder what leads so many people to love motorbikes so much that they'll stick with one after a life threatening accident, which in all probably wouldn't be more than an inconvenient bump if they were driving a car. Is it adrenaline of speeding with the wind on your face? The joy of going around traffic jams? Is it because they're simpler to park? Or perhaps just because their cheaper? Whatever the answer may be, a more important question still seems to linger.
Is it worth it?

Way Up North

I've recently been to Helsinki, in Finland. Though it was a very short trip (4 days only), or maybe because of that, I thought it would make sense to open up a precent and write an account of it for my blog. I'll organise the post through bullet points, to call attention upon particular aspects of the trip I find worth mentioning.

• Snow is beautiful, whether in urban or rural environments. Finnish don't seem to agree on this though, and this is actually consired low touristic season. I can imagine that seeing it on a daily basis can make it somewhat less special; they also have to deal with its downsides: extreme cold. Even so I'm pretty much convinced that a higher awareness on this potential could lead to its better exploitation in terms of tourism. Then again, maybe Finnish shouldn't take financial advise from a Portuguese.
• Suomenlina. It's a fortress island really close to Helsinki (15min by boat or so) and I would probably elect it as the trip's highlight. Beautiful beyond words, the snow covered island is definately worth a trip. Amazingly, all museums and cafés were closed since it is not touristic season! Looking at some postcards of it, in the Summer, I must say it does not look so special...  we have similar things in Portugal. So screw touristic season, go there in March!
• I Helsinki main attraction.In the city itself there is also quite a lot to see, but you can easily look it up online or in a traveller's guide. I'd just highlight the rock church and the olympic stadium/tower. The first because it really is something interesting ( the church appears to be engraved in the rock directly somehow ) and the latter due to its higher panorama view over Helsinki. We were later told that a hotel in the center of the city had an even better view from its rooftop, but unfortunaly it was already closed by the time we arrived there. Nuuksio National Park, which I visited following a friend's advise, is also quite nice and peaceful in case you can afford the time ( ~1h from Helsinki ). The city also features a lovers' bridge, in case you're familiar with the concept and fancy it.
• Tallinn. The capital of Estonia is only 2h away from Helsinki by boat and I'd say it's a must. The city is beautiful but also make sure not to lose the boat trip in itself, in particular the departure and arrival times. Seeing the boat cut through the freezed water was also quite interesting.
• Food.  Food is actually not that bad around Helsinki; it is awfully expensive though. Elk and reindeer meat and salmon schnitzel is not something you're used to see in Portugal and they're quite good. I also tried this canned fish, muikku I think it was called, but I didn't really like (probably cause of the canned sauce). A Finnish friend of mine gave me this typical pastilles named Salmiak, which are somewhat salty and weird. Luckily, she had the foresight to accompany it with a Finnish chocolate bar to overrule the flavour, which I thank her for. I recommend you try the same procedure.
• People. Finnish are often portraied with the usual Nord stereotype: cold, unsympathetic people who resemble robots in terms of efficiency and lack of interest for socializing. It couldn't be further from the truth though! Well, I guess they are efficient. But other that the stereotype is way off; Finnish are actually quite nice and don't be surprised if they start talking to you on the bus or at the bar.

All in all the trip was great and I'd definately recommend it to anyone. And please do it in late Winter/ early Spring and not in the Summer!