Prometheus - from the viewpoint of Greek mythology

 

Please do not continue reading unless you have watched the movie. Spoilers ahead!

 After watching the much-hyped prequel to the Alien series, Prometheus, I will attempt to explain its storyline by drawing parallels to the original Greek myth of Prometheus.

(Elementary Greek mythology - please skip if you know it)

In the original Greek myth, humans once lived in a time where there was no fire, so were forced to eat cold food and shiver in darkness. The demigod Prometheus took pity on them, so he stole fire from the flame of Olympus and gave it to mankind, improving our lives greatly.

When Zeus found out about this he was infuriated. To punish Prometheus he chained him to a rock and had an eagle tear his liver out every day, being immortal, Prometheus' liver would regenerate at night, thus he would suffer eternally. In the end he was freed by Hercules (or killed by Kratos in God of War 2).

To punish mankind for receiving fire, Zeus sent the first woman to mankind, Pandora. Together with her was the famous Pandora's box, which contained all kinds of evil and pestilence. One day she opened it out of curiosity and all these calamities were unleashed on humanity, which has been suffering ever since. Only hope was left in the box in the end, which has provided the strength for mankind to live on.

(end of Elementary Greek mythology)

 In the movie, the gods were the Engineers, who started the evolution process on Earth culminating in humanity. Initially they guided us, as can be seen from the cave murals around the world showing us worshiping them.

Perhaps along the way a rogue Engineer gave us something we were not supposed to have, perhaps the spark of intellect necessary to proceed on our current path of development. This displeased the other Engineers, who then got ready to give us a gift of death - the vases containing the black liquid of doom.

Incidentally, the original shape of Pandora's box was actually not a box, but an urn as shown below:

Doesn't it look like the vases which contained the black liquid?

The vases never reached Earth for the Engineers themselves were overrun by some kind of outbreak, possibly some of them got infected and Aliens emerged. So when the last Engineer was awakened and he saw humans standing around him, he must have realized that we were not destroyed as per their plans, thus he instantly reacted to complete the original plan and wipe us out.

The question remaining is: what was the trigger for them to decide to extinguish humanity? My personal theory is that an Engineer came alone to uplift us from an ape-like state; the figure shown in the cave murals is a single Engineer, our teacher. The gift of fire is actually an intellectual spark which we were not supposed to get, hence the preparation to wipe us out once our progress was discovered by the other Engineers around 2000 years ago.

Another theory I have seen online is that around 2000 years ago, during the time of the Roman Empire, an Engineer patrol came by and observed us fighting among ourselves fiercely, so they decided to send down another teacher to guide us back to peace.

Unfortunately, we crucified him...

How to set up a system (1)

No I'm not going to talk about my job here, neither am I going to discuss information technology in general.

The system I refer to is the rules of society itself, written and unwritten, forming a system which encourages certain behavior.

Many people say that city people are worse than those from the village - less friendly, less helpful, and less polite. Yes this is true. But what is the reason for that? Is it because people who move from the village to the city magically get a reduction in moral values? Of course not; the reason is that in a small village, everyone knows each other, so good and bad deeds have direct repercussions. In a small village, help someone lift a heavy load back to his home, the next day when you need help that guy may appear and give you a hand. In the big city, you help someone and most likely you will never meet that person again. In a small village, you never give way for others to cross that narrow bridge and people will pin you down as an inconsiderate person, while in the big city you cut someone off on the road and most likely you will never meet that person again.

So we can see that in an anonymous setting where reputation does not matter, people tend to be more selfish. This effect is even more pronounced on the Internet.

Looking at the corporate world today, we can see that a huge amount of speculation and other such risky acts are going on. Why this shift towards instability? The answer is that in the past most businesses were family-controlled, so leaders would look at the long run, while now corporations on the stock market hire CEOs who do not have a stake in the long-term performance. So the logical choice for these CEOs is to take huge risks, since if these gambles pay off they get huge bonuses, while if they fail and the company goes bankrupt, they can always move on to another job.

In the same vein, if within a company the boss proclaims that the salesman who gets the most sales will get a holiday to Hawaii, I wouldn't be surprised if salespeople are not very keen on helping each other. On the other hand if he says that if the sales team hits target everyone will get a holiday trip, the level of cooperation would probably rise instantly.

And it is no surprise that in Communist countries productivity is low, for if everyone is paid the same no matter what the result of their work is, human nature causes everyone to slack. Communism would be perfect if we were angels; unfortunately we are not.

If life is a game, the rules under which we play it determine our playstyle. In my next post, I will discuss how to tweak rules to achieve certain effects in how people play the game of life.

Equilibrium and competition

Equilibrium, by definition is a state of affairs in which things are balanced. However, things can be balanced in a state which is nice for everyone or bad for everyone.

Unfortunately, in life the state which we all end up balanced in is often an unfavorable one. And we settle in that state via competition. For example, it would be good for everyone if there were no nuclear missiles in the world. But it would be even better for a specific nation if they had nuclear missiles but no one else had - everyone would have to kow-tow to that country. So one country starts building nukes and everyone else must follow suit or bow down.

Another example closer to home is high heels. Girls tell me that wearing high heels are pretty tiring and require more care when walking, and I can see that for myself. So if no girl in the world wore high heels, the net effect would be fresher feet and more carefree walking for women, obviously a good thing. But the first girl to wear high heels would enjoy a halo effect "wow her legs are so long and sexy!". So everyone has to follow suit.

The common effect we observe here is that there is a state in which things are better for everyone, but the first person/entity (or first few) to break that state will enjoy a significant benefit over others, leading everyone else to have to imitate or lose in the competition. Once everyone is doing it then there is no net benefit anymore, only burden.

In my humble opinion the only way to stop this terrible scenario is for all humanity to merge into a single entity mentally... but that is a topic for another day.

Stress

Many people say that the current era is the most stressful of all time. I am inclined to agree.

Yet that does not mean that our lives are worse than before. This is the richest age in human history in economic terms, and never before have we enjoyed more comforts of life, freedom or access to education and opportunity. Hundreds of millions in the developing world have been lifted out of poverty and hunger, while the developed world is largely at peace, with few gunshots being fired.

But all of us are stressed. Why? Do we work harder than ever before? I doubt it, as workers of old were exploited for longer hours than today, with far less pay. Farmers of the past did backbreaking labor for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, just to eke out a living from the meager soil. Slaves were whipped to death if they worked too slowly.

Looking closer to home, now the 5 day week is becoming increasingly the norm over the 6 day week, while living standards are steadily rising.

So why are we so stressed compared to the past? The answer is, because all of us now have a chance.

In the past if we were born in a poor village, the chances of making it were astronomically low. Born a peasant, stay a peasant. Born a noble, stay a noble. Both the haves and the haves not were stable in their position, hence those born in the lap of luxury could laze in glory, while those born to a harsh life were resigned to it.

Today things are different. A son of a poor family can grow up to shake the world, while the richest dynasties can fall from grace. Opportunity is everywhere, but we have to climb our way up. That generates the stress. So if you ask me would I want to go back to the old "relaxed" life where your destiny was largely set, my answer would be:

HELL NO.

Upwards

Today I was rock climbing for the first time in my life. After practicing on some easy beginner routes, I couldn't resist trying a slightly tougher one.

When I reached the halfway mark, I just couldn't find a nice place to place my left foot. My position felt strained, causing me to wobble a little. And there was no rock on my wall to put a foot on! Feeling frustrated, I started trying to pull myself up with my hands alone, but it seemed that I did not have any of Spiderman's powers.

As I was stuck in this conundrum, my friend shouted from below:

"JUST USE THE OTHER WALL".

I was actually climbing up a corner, so once I turned to my left the solution became apparent; I should just brace myself on a rock on the other side of the corner. So I did, and went up to reach the top.

After some reflection, I think in life I tend to keep bashing my head against the same door, either going through or giving up. But maybe, just maybe, if I turn and look in another direction, there might be another and less painful way of ascending.

But it's so hard to see it when you are trying your best to go up. So sometimes, I suppose one has to trust others - or you miss what is staring you in the eyes.

Why I hate photography

I don't normally dislike photography, on the contrary I have a great appreciation for the scenic pictures which appear in National Geographic, as well as a decent liking for photos of Jessica Alba, preferably in a bikini.

What I dislike are constant photography sessions during normal gatherings with friends. The incessant snapping of photos makes any sort of civilized discourse simply impossible to carry out. This situation has been made worse in normal life due to the presence of a camera in the phones of most people nowadays.

Say we have a gathering of 8 people, 4 of which are girls. I will calculate the total amount of pictures that will be taken:

Each girl will take out her camera phone and start snapping. First, they will take a picture of everyone else, which is 7 other people. Multiply that with 4 phones and 28 pictures will be taken. Add some variance here for "yerr, my pic not nice!' after demanding to see the photo, and perhaps another 10 will have to be taken, bringing it to a total of 38 photos.

After this, or perhaps before, some self-photography will take place. As the feat of holding the camera to take a photo of oneself is not an easy one to master, most girls will need 5 tries or so to get some decent pictures. Some girls have mastered this dark art, however such mastery often comes with an increased desire to take photos of oneself, so it ends up pretty much the same anyway. So 5 multiplied with 4 is 20 photos.

58 shots now.

However taking single pictures is not alone. Photos which involve a combination of people have to be taken in order to immortalize the gathering! (yea right) Therefore say pictures of 2 people together have to be taken, the total number of permutations of 2 among 8 people is 8 times 7, so 56. Now not all of them will take together, so maybe half of this number will be taken - 28.

28 plus 58 shots equal 86 shots, and counting.

Now, we must not forget combinations of 3 and 4 people. From my observation fewer of such shots are taken, perhaps 10 or so. The trouble here is that if one person in the shot feels that she does not look nice the shot has to be retaken, which is a very high probability occurrence. Moreover when several girls are facing the same camera a battle for position starts, which I call the "war of the small head". Basically everyone tries to lean back to make their face look smaller, which is not easy to do as everyone is doing the same. In the end an uneasy equilibrium is reached.

96 shots now, 10 of which took a rather long time.

One would now think that one could enjoy food at peace, but! They even take shots while you are eating. So for some people they have to stop and smile, wasting even more time.

So in one meal, including the final group shot, which is the only one I can tolerate, I estimate over a hundred photographs are taken. This is for a gathering of 8; if the number of attendees of the female gender are more the count can be even more frightful.

Lest anyone say I single out the girls for ire, I dislike another breed even more - the wannabe professional photographer, which is usually a guy. He carries an enormous DSLR and snaps photos of everyone in a vaguely stalkerish manner. The flash is incredibly annoying when one is trying to eat and make polite conversation but does he bother? No! I remember it was once considered rude to snap a photo of someone without asking first, but I suppose that piece of etiquette has died out with the dodos.

I wish he would go to Africa and snap lions feasting. If he flashes them enough the outcome might be very pleasant (for me at least).

Really with the double attack of the camera and the smartphone, the art of conversation is tottering out on its last legs. I rue the day when nobody remembers that people used to TALK at dinner, and the skill of chatting goes the same way as the skill of striking two pieces of flint together to make fire.

Friend Zone (and stock markets)

Most guys know about the dreaded "friendzone". It's a slowly sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you have just poured out your heart and soul to the girl of your dreams then she stares back at you with eyes wide not due to happiness but due to incredulity: "I thought of you like a friend... never felt that way for you" or worse "you are like a brother to me". The feeling is worse than when you got your exam paper back with a zero on it, worse than when you reached the airport and suddenly realized you forgot your passport, worse than when you are standing under the hoop and Shaquille O. Neal is bearing down on you.

Of course, to be rational it is no big deal, since you lose nothing, although the feeling is terrible. What you should remember is that being in the friendzone is somewhat like owning a stock which has dropped drastically and you know it will never go back up again.

Many traders go bankrupt because they hold on to a stock on its way down. "Oh but I paid RM10 per share for it, it has to go back up!" they think. Unfortunately life doesn't work that way - sunken costs should not be a consideration to base decisions on. The same applies to the friendzone; just because you have spent thousands of dollars buying a girl presents doesn't mean you shouldn't let go when it is clear that there is no chance.

As in trading, you should cut your losses and buy a new stock.

One concept in trading that is useful in terms of avoiding the friendzone is the "stoploss". Traders set a limit of say, 10 percent of the stock's original value, and if it falls by that much it has to be sold, no matter what they feel about it. So if you chase a girl you need to set a deadline, say after one year you haven't got her yet, it's time to pull out!