GOD BLESS AMERICA

God bless america

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Do you wanna be happy?

“It's not where you take things from—it's where you take them to.” ...Godard

A classic example of the prisoner's dilemma...

The prisoner's dilemma is a fundamental problem in game theory that demonstrates why two people might not cooperate even if it is in both their best interests to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs and gave it the "prisoner's dilemma" name (Poundstone, 1992).

A classic example of the prisoner's dilemma (PD) is presented as follows:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated the prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies for the prosecution against the other (defects) and the other remains silent (cooperates), the defector goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

If we assume that each player cares only about minimizing his or her own time in jail, then the prisoner's dilemma forms a non-zero-sum game in which two players may each either cooperate with or defect from (betray) the other player. In this game, as in most game theory, the only concern of each individual player (prisoner) is maximizing his or her own payoff, without any concern for the other player's payoff. The unique equilibrium for this game is a Pareto-suboptimal solution, that is, rational choice leads the two players to both play defect, even though each player's individual reward would be greater if they both played cooperatively.

In the classic form of this game, cooperating is strictly dominated by defecting, so that the only possible equilibrium for the game is for all players to defect. No matter what the other player does, one player will always gain a greater payoff by playing defect. Since in any situation playing defect is more beneficial than cooperating, all rational players will play defect, all things being equal.

In the iterated prisoner's dilemma, the game is played repeatedly. Thus each player has an opportunity to punish the other player for previous non-cooperative play. If the number of steps is known by both players in advance, economic theory says that the two players should defect again and again, no matter how many times the game is played. However, this analysis fails to predict the behavior of human players in a real iterated prisoners dilemma situation, and it also fails to predict the optimum algorithm when computer programs play in a tournament. Only when the players play an indefinite or random number of times can cooperation be an equilibrium, technically a subgame perfect equilibrium meaning that both players defecting always remains an equilibrium and there are many other equilibrium outcomes. In this case, the incentive to defect can be overcome by the threat of punishment.

In casual usage, the label "prisoner's dilemma" may be applied to situations not strictly matching the formal criteria of the classic or iterative games, for instance, those in which two entities could gain important benefits from cooperating or suffer from the failure to do so, but find it merely difficult or expensive, not necessarily impossible, to coordinate their activities to achieve cooperation.

Strategy for the classical prisoner's dilemma

The classical prisoner's dilemma can be summarized thus:

Prisoner B Stays Silent Prisoner B Betrays
Prisoner A Stays Silent Each serves 6 months Prisoner A: 10 years
Prisoner B: goes free
Prisoner A Betrays Prisoner A: goes free
Prisoner B: 10 years Each serves 5 years

"Seven Blunders of the World" by Mahatma Gandhi

"Seven Blunders of the World"


1. Wealth without work

2. Pleasure without conscience

3. Knowledge without character

4. Commerce without morality

5. Science without humanity

6. Worship without sacrifice

7. Politics without principle


—Mahatma Gandhi

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

How to Win Friends and Influence People
This is Dale Carnegie's summary of his book, from 1936
Table of Contents

1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
2. Six Ways to Make People Like You
3. How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
4. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

Part One
Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Part Two
Six ways to make people like you

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Part Three
Win people to your way of thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

Part Four
Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

How to win friends and influence people

Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living

Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living

At the start of the new millennium the Dalai Lama apparently issued eighteen rules for living.

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
1. Respect for self
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

textsnip

The Gambler's Fallacy

The Gambler's Fallacy

The Gambler's Fallacy is a powerful and deceptive false belief — if this fallacy were to suddenly disappear, many gambling casinos would go out of business.

Here's how it works — let's say we flip a fair coin, one that has an equal chance of coming up heads or tails. By definition, the probability for heads on the first flip is 0.5 or ½. Now think about these questions:

* If you have just gotten one heads result, what is the probability for heads on the next flip?
* If you have just gotten one tails result, what is the probability for heads on the next flip?
* If you have just gotten eight heads results in a row, what is the probability for heads on the next flip?

Contrary to a widely held belief, the answer to all the above questions is ... 0.5 or ½. Regardless of what has happened before, the probability for heads in the next coin flip is exactly the same.

This fallacy has its roots in confusion between the probability of a sequence of events and the probability of an event separate from the sequence in which it appears:

* The probability of tossing eight heads in a row is 2-8, or 1/256.
* But during the eight coin tosses, the probability of each new heads result considered separately is ½.

Casinos make vast sums of money from people who think, "I've lost repeatedly at this (roulette wheel / slot machine / card game), therefore my probability of winning must be increasing, so no only should I keep playing, but I should increase my bets." But in fact, a past winning or losing streak cannot change one's future odds of winning.

I've often wondered whether an education in math might cure the Gambler's Fallacy.

The Gambler's Fallacy

An Essay by Einstein -- The World As I See It

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

Albert Einstein (signature)

One Love By Boob Marley

Really Unusually Uncertain By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Really Unusually Uncertain
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
August 17, 2010
The New York Times


Over the past few weeks I’ve had a chance to speak with senior economic policy makers in America and Germany and I think I’ve figured out where we are. It’s like this: things are getting better, except where they aren’t. The bailouts are working, except where they’re not. Things will slowly get better, unless they slowly get worse. We should know soon, unless we don’t.

It is no wonder that businesses are reluctant to hire with such “unusual uncertainty,” as Fed chief Ben Bernanke put it. One reason it is so unusual is that we are not just trying to recover from a financial crisis triggered by crazy mortgage lending. We’re also having to deal with three huge structural problems that built up over several decades and have reached a point of criticality at the same time.

And as Mohamed El-Erian, the C.E.O. of Pimco, has been repeating, “Structural problems need structural solutions.” There are no quick fixes. In America and Europe, we are going to need some big structural fixes to get back on a sustained growth path — changes that will require a level of political consensus and sacrifice that has been sorely lacking in most countries up to now.

The first big structural problem is America’s. We’ve just ended more than a decade of debt-fueled growth during which we borrowed money from China to give ourselves a tax cut and more entitlements but did nothing to curtail spending or make long-term investments in new growth engines. Now our government owes more than ever and has more future obligations than ever — like expanded Medicare prescription drug benefits, expanded health care, an expanded war in Afghanistan and expanded Social Security payments (because the baby boomers are about to retire) — and less real growth to pay for it all.

America will probably need some added stimulus to kick start employment, but any stimulus right now must be in growth-enabling investments that will yield more than their costs, or they just increase debt. That means investments in skill building and infrastructure plus tax incentives for starting new businesses and export promotion. To get a stimulus through Congress it must be paired with spending cuts and/or tax increases timed for when the economy improves.

Second, America’s solvency inflection point is coinciding with a technological one. Thanks to Internet diffusion, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and the shift from laptops and desktops to hand-held iPads and iPhones, technology is destroying older, less skilled jobs that paid a decent wage at a faster pace than ever while spinning off more new skilled jobs that pay a decent wage but require more education than ever.

There is only one way to deal with this challenge: more innovation to stimulate new industries and jobs that can pay workers $40 an hour, coupled with a huge initiative to train more Americans to win these jobs over their global competitors. There is no other way.

But the global economy needs a healthy Europe as well, and the third structural challenge we face is that the European Union, a huge market, is facing what the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum, calls its first “existential crisis.” For the first time, he noted, the E.U. “saw the possibility of collapse.” Germany has made clear that if the eurozone is to continue, it will be on the German work ethic not the Greek one. Will its euro-partners be able to raise their games? Uncertain.

Keeping up with Germany won’t be easy. A decade ago Germany was the “sick man of Europe.” No more. The Germans pulled together. Labor gave up wage hikes and allowed businesses to improve competitiveness and worker flexibility, while the government subsidized firms to keep skilled workers on the job in the downturn. Germany is now on the rise, but also not free of structural challenges. Its growth depends on exports to China and it is the biggest financier of Greece. Still, “Germany is no longer the country with the oldest students and youngest retirees,” said Kornblum.

By contrast, America’s two big parties still cling to their core religious beliefs as if nothing has changed. Republicans try to undermine the president at every turn and offer their nostrum of tax-cuts-will-solve-everything — without ever specifying what services they’ll give up to pay for them. Mr. Obama gave us expanded health care before expanding the economic pie to sustain it.

You still don’t sense our politicians are saying, “Wait a minute; stop everything; we have got to work together.” Don’t these people have 401k plans of their own and kids worried about jobs?

The president needs to take America’s labor, business and Congressional leadership up to Camp David and not come back without a grand bargain for taxes, trade promotion, energy, stimulus and budget cutting that offers the market some certainty that we are moving together — not just on a bailout but on an economic rebirth for the 21st century. “Fat chance,” you say. Well then, I say get ready for a long phase of stubborn unemployment and anemic growth.

Quem mais ainda é de esquerda? by Alexandre Barros - O Estado de S.Paulo

Quem mais ainda é de esquerda?
17 de agosto de 2010 | 0h 00

Alexandre Barros - O Estado de S.Paulo

A esquerda completou 200 anos. Começou na Revolução Francesa. Eram os antimonarquistas que, na Assembleia dos Estados Gerais, se sentavam do lado esquerdo. Desde então, a esquerda foi mudando sutilmente de sentido, mantendo a ideia geral de que esquerda eram os favoráveis ao povo e contra os privilégios.


O progresso tecnológico que tomou impulso ali por 1850 e a Revolução Soviética de 1917 mudaram o mundo, mas, por inércia, perpetuou-se a ideia de que esquerda seria tudo o que era pró-povo. Era uma distorção, mas as desigualdades mantinham o conceito vivo, já apoiado na bengala.

A partir de 1950 o consumo de massa deu os primeiros passos, com o fim da 2.ª Guerra Mundial e a aceleração do crescimento nos Estados Unidos, na Europa do Plano Marshall e no Japão. A tomada do poder pelos comunistas de Mao Tsé-tung, na China, e a guerra fria engessaram o conceito, mas nessa altura ele já andava de muletas, e não mais de bengala.

A política brasileira manteve, entretanto, uma característica curiosa, herdada, talvez, do populismo getulista. Todos queriam ser a favor do povo e, encabulados, definiam-se como "meio de esquerda". As ditaduras latino-americanas iniciadas nas décadas de 1960 e 1970 ajudavam. No Brasil, ser de esquerda era ser contra a ditadura, e aí o conceito parou. Velhos políticos, como os nossos principais candidatos presidenciais, formaram-se nessa época e congelaram o conceito em sua cabeça.

O País passou por muita coisa e mudou, principalmente a demografia. O Brasil de 2010 tem mais que o triplo da população da década de 1950. E esse crescimento acelerou-se até 1980, quando as mulheres brasileiras chegaram à conclusão de que não era mais vantagem ter tantos filhos, apesar do que achavam igrejas, militares e governos, que nada faziam para reduzir o ritmo de crescimento da população.

Os 66% da população brasileira nascidos a partir dos anos 50 já pegaram o conceito de esquerda à morte. O crescimento econômico acelerado incorporava cada vez mais pessoas à sociedade de consumo, por mais básico que fosse esse consumo.

A mídia de massa mostrava às pessoas como viviam a classe média e os ricos. E todos queriam ser ricos. A esquerda não era o caminho. Quando Ronald Reagan disse a Mikhail Gorbachev, em Berlim, "sr. Gorbachev, derrube esse muro", o Muro finalmente caiu em 9 de novembro de1989. Aí o conceito de esquerda perdeu qualquer significado, inclusive no Brasil.

Curiosamente, ainda em 2010 os dois candidatos à Presidência da República mais bem colocados nas pesquisas, formados politicamente que foram durante o regime militar, continuam com a dicotomia maniqueísta. Parecem não perceber que o Brasil e o mundo mudaram.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, que, alegadamente, teria dito "esqueçam tudo o que eu escrevi", libertou-se das algemas. Lula só era "de esquerda" porque seus opositores assim o definiam. Ele estava fora da ideia de esquerda dos tempos da guerra fria. No dizer de um general importante do período 1964-1990, Lula sempre foi do sistema, isto é, ele lutou com as armas políticas aceitas e possíveis do fim do regime militar. Marina Silva é outra que não se encaixava nisso. Estava lutando pela sua floresta e era mais verde do que o azul ou o vermelho da guerra fria.

Mas os dois candidatos majoritários nas pesquisas seguem atraídos por conceitos que não fazem mais sentido. Em sua retórica de campanha batalham para responder à pergunta que o eleitorado não está fazendo: quem é mais de esquerda?

A candidata Dilma Rousseff (PT) - que num esquema tradicional seria chamada "de esquerda" -, curiosamente, porém, busca se afastar um pouco do conceito oco, enquanto o candidato José Serra (PSDB) se apega a ele, tentando convencer o eleitorado de que é mais "de esquerda" que sua principal concorrente.

Enquanto isso, em outros pontos do universo político, Aldo Rebelo, do PCdoB (SP), apoia e promove um projeto de lei para desengessar as regulamentações ambientais e facilitar o crescimento do moderno agronegócio brasileiro, e outros projetos essenciais para o enriquecimento. Uma postura totalmente inesperada para os que ainda se apegam aos conceitos anacrônicos de esquerda e direita. Eduardo Campos, do PSB, governador de Pernambuco, neto de Miguel Arraes, livrou-se da prisão conceitual e faz um governo tão livre quanto possível da dicotomia ultrapassada. Sérgio Cabral (PMDB), no Rio de Janeiro, filho de um comunista histórico, possivelmente ganhará em primeiro turno tentando ser um governador moderno.


Em São Paulo, o presidenciável José Serra, que insiste em se dizer de esquerda, quase não fala com o candidato a governador pelo PSDB, que faz questão de não ter nada que ver com esquerda ou direita, tendo chegado a ser apelidado de "picolé de chuchu", numa analogia com o que de mais insosso pode existir em gastronomia.


Quando será que os candidatos a presidente vão acordar e perceber o que o povo brasileiro já aprendeu: que a esquerda e a direita ficaram ocas? Elas não querem dizer mais nada. Com inflação baixa, crédito abundante e produtos para consumir, os eleitores de hoje são conservadores em relação a manter o que conquistaram ou ganharam nos últimos três governos - Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique e Lula.


Roucos de tanto ouvir isso, os dois candidatos mais bem colocados nas pesquisas bradam coisas que a maioria do eleitorado brasileiro nem sequer sabe o que querem dizer. Insistem em responder à pergunta: quem é mais de esquerda? Quando o máximo que o moderno eleitorado brasileiro, de 135 milhões de pessoas, quer saber mesmo é: quem mais ainda é de esquerda?


Acordem, Dilma Rousseff e José Serra, parem de se esforçar para responder à pergunta que o Brasil não está mais fazendo.




CIENTISTA POLÍTICO, É DIRETOR-GERENTE DA EARLY WARNING: OPORTUNIDADE E RISCO POLÍTICO (BRASÍLIA). E-MAIL: ALEX@EAW.COM.BR

Brucia La Terra... Godfather III song

Gian Campione - Brucia la terra
Cargado por ginagrigento. - Más video blogs y vloggers.





Title: Brucia La Terra

Brucia la luna n’cielu
E ju bruciu d’amuri
Focu ca si consuma
Comu lu me cori
L’anima chianci
Addulurata

Non si da paci
Ma cchi mala nuttata

Lu tempu passa
Ma non agghiorna
Non c’e mai suli
S’idda non torna

Brucia la terra mia
E abbrucia lu me cori
Cchi siti d’acqua idda
E ju siti d’amuri

Acu la cantu
La me canzuni

Si no c’e nuddu
Ca s’a affacia
A lu barcuni

Brucia la luna n’cielu
E ju bruciu d’amuri
Focu ca si consuma
Comu lu me cori
Title: Earth Is Burning

The moon is burning in the sky
And I am burning with love
The fire that is consumed
Like my heart
My soul crys
Painfully

I’m not at peace
What a terrible night

The time passes
But there is no dawn
There is no sunshine
If she doesn’t return

My earth is burning
And my heart is burning
What she thirsts for water
I thirst for love

Who will I sing
My song to

If there is no one
Who shows herself
On the balcony

The moon is burning in the sky
And I am burning with love
The fire that is consumed
Like my heart

Via Crucis by Bruno Tolentino

Via Crucis

A Via Crucis foi uma selvageria,
a Crucifixão uma brutalidade;
mas em três, quatro horas, acabou a agonia,
baixou a eternidade.

Eu vivo aqui, crucificada noite e dia,
carrego da manhã à tarde
o meu lenho de opróbrio e a noite me excrucia,
lenta, fria, covarde.

Ah, como eu preferia
que me crucificassem de uma vez, sem o alarde
de algum terceiro dia!

Mas toca-me seguir nessa monotonia,
a agonia de alçar-me do catre
e abrir de novo os braços, vazia.
(De As Horas de Katharina)

Niccoló Machiavelli, about BUREACRACY & BUREAUCRATS..The Discourses. 1517.

The institutions of a city never should place it in the power of a few to interrupt all the important business of the republic. -

my "Lucky clover"

The four-leaf clover is an uncommon variation of the common, three-leaved clover. According to tradition, such leaves bring good luck to their finders, especially if found accidentally.[1] According to legend, each leaf represents something: the first is for hope, the second is for faith, the third is for love, and the fourth is for luck.
Lucky Clover

I found my lucky clover in 1968 in my grand mother's house yard at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.. in the picture is a the real one -which has been in my possession for four decades.. my Grandma ... wrote the words describing the event personally..