David versus Goliath

I wrote this paper (originally called “David versus Goliath: Logical approach to analyzing religious conflict of the 90s”) in 2005 (finishing August 12^th), it is presented below largely unmodified. The only changes are a new formatting (no double spacing) and a break down into sections. The rest of the text and citation is still the original.

It seems that conflict is rooted in human nature. No matter how close the world gets, conflict still emerges. No matter how hard leaders try to promote peace, at times those conflicts still escalate to violence. During the Cold War people had a relatively easy time defining themselves, they were either part of the Soviet bloc, the West, or non-aligned. This made a stage for ideological conflicts between capitalism and communism. However, the days of the Cold War are behind us and this stage of ideological conflict is well dismantled. The conflicts that plagued the world from the fall of Rome until the Enlightenment are re-emerging to the spotlight. Religious conflict has taken over as the dominating source of violence in the post-Cold War world. The words of Josef Kuschel (Kuschel in Robinson 2), from the Bosnian conflict, sum up the current state of events: “there can be no peace among nations without peace among the religions!” With the Berlin wall having fallen only sixteen years ago, that post-Cold War era is indeed short, but important in the study of modern religious conflict. The 90s present us with a clear pattern to observe in the rise of religious violence. Communal religious violence in the 90s follows a clear four step pattern.

Looking at the religious conflicts of the 90s, a four-step recipe for religious violence can be derived. First, an organized religion surfaces to fill in the power vacuum left by a collapsed or weakened government. In religiously heterogeneous states the emerging religious powers start to clash. A spark pushes the conflict to minor violence. The violence, unchecked by outside forces, quickly escalates to communal religious violence. The procedure used focuses on the political science aspect of religious violence.

Political Science scholarship offers insightful theories to explain the complex interrelationships between religious violence and politics. For instance, during the Cold War period geo-political relations were often defined as bipolar, meaning there were two dominant superpowers in the world, and some neutral states in between (Huntington, 1999 35). After the fall of the U.S.S.R in 1991 experts expected the world to become unipolar led by the United States, but it became what Samuel Huntington dubs a uni-multipolar world (36). Basically it is a world where there is one super power, several major powers, several regional powers, and the other nations (37). The United States is the only superpower and can enter a conflict against any other power as long as it has the backing of at least some major powers (37). This is well displayed by the United States' recent action in Iraq where it went it with the backing of only some major powers, namely United Kingdom and regional powers like Turkey. In "The Clash of Civilizations" and later in the book The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of the World Order Professor Huntington establishes that modern conflicts appear at fault lines between different cultures (Huntington, 1996). Huntington (1996), and experts such as Jonathan Fox (Fox, 2003) agree that religion is one of the main, if not the main difference between cultures, and therefore is one of the major causes of conflict in the world. Thus religious violence can occur in regions split between different major religions, such as the Balkans and South East Asia, without major intervention from the hegemonic actors of the world. Communal violence can emerge at the boarders or religiously different regions and have time to escalate while the major powers try to organize themselves into coalitions. Such violence is seen through out the world and can be shown with examples from the 90s.

To get the full scope of large-scale religious violence in the 90s, several examples have to be looked at. Conflicts that make good case studies are ones where different religious bodies succumb to violence and some sort of ‘religious cleansing’ policy is followed. In South Asia the Indian provinces of Kashmir and Punjab and the southern country of Sri Lanka make good examples. In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is the most religiously troubled state (Searle 1), and can serve as case study from that region. Sudan will serve as an example of an African conflict. Lastly, the former Yugoslavia makes a good European example. The six major conflicts mentioned cover all major religions. Christianity is seen in Indonesia, Sudan and Yugoslavia and its cousin Orthodox Christianity present it Yugoslavia. The Islamic faith is present in all the listed conflicts but Punjab and Sri Lanka. Hinduism displays itself in Punjab, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, and its descendant Sikhism in Punjab. Even Buddhism finds a place in those six examples, showing itself during the violence in Sri Lanka. These case studies not only encompass the world’s hotspots and major religions, but also cover the major religious violence of the 90s.

Individuals might notice that some conflicts of the 90s that are publicly known and attributed to religious violence are not listed as good case studies, and that is because they are not true religious conflicts. In the Israel-Palestine conflict the cause is territorial, not cultural or religious (Haught 137). From when the conflict started, until the emergence of Hamas in 1993 there were no religiously fanatical groups playing large parts in the conflict (137). This was because Israel was not fanatical and neither was the Palestine Liberalization Organization (137). Although the two parties in the Israel-Palestine conflict are of different religions, the conflict itself is not religious in its nature. The same can be said for the violence in Ireland, if looked into historically. The dispute between England and Ireland started in the 1100s, while the Catholic and Anglican Churches split in the 1500s (63). Today, even though the participant’s religion does often decide what side they are on, the conflict is still a liberation conflicts and neither side pursues a 'religious cleansing' agenda (63). Of course, not all conflicts can boast a record of no ‘religious cleansing’.

India: Kashmir

Plagued by conflict before and through the 90s the Kashmir province of India has been a good example of communal religious violence. Even while most of India was under British rule, the Kashmir province was having problems. The province was relatively autonomous due to the British practice of ‘indirect rule’, but the Hindu monarchy was incompetent, self absorbed and did not have good relationship with the poor Muslim majority of the province (Bose 16). The only reason the province did not succumb to chaos was the strong British influence in the area. When the British pulled out of Indian peninsula, and two independent states of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan were created on 14-15 August 1947, Kashmir was given a choice of which of the new dominions to join (36). The Hindu monarchy forced the mostly Muslim province to join Hindu India, ever since then the Muslim people of Kashmir pushed for separation (36). Before the 90s, three wars were fought over the Kashmir province between India and Pakistan (Haught 55). In 1989 Muslim militants pushed for separation of the province, with up to 800,000 Muslims marching at one time with cries of “God is great” (pg. 56). Indian troops were unable to quell the rebellion and the bloody ‘religious cleansing’ and separation movements of Kashmir began (56).

‘Religious cleansing’ and violence stormed throughout 90s Kashmir. By 1994 9,000 people were recorded dead in the conflict by Indian authorities and 20,000 by Kashmir reporters (58). During 1996 to 1998, the rebellion calmed with all but one guerrilla group disbanded and the remaining one under heavy government scrutiny (Bose 107-136). In 1998, the year known as “South Asia’s nuclear summer”, India and Pakistan tested a total of 11 nuclear devices, hoping to bring deterrence and peace to the Kashmir region (140). However, violence escalated (140). Pakistani religious fundamentalists from the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba raided non-Muslims in the Kashmir region (140-141). The violence was not brought under control until Bill Clinton actively intervened in the affairs on 4 July 1999 (142). Sadly, in the 90s religious conflict is not confined to only one part of India.

India: Punjab

The Punjab province of India has been overcome by religious violence between the Hindus and Sikhs. Although the conflict reached its peak right after the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, it caused major bloodshed in the 1990s (Axel 5). Around 8,000 people were killed for religious reasons in 1991 and 1992 alone (Haught 53). The Sikh’s quest for Khalistan, or ‘land of the pure’, might have received little media coverage in the 90s, but it did not subside (52). With over ¾ of India’s Sikhs living in the province of Punjab, the province bore the brunt of the religious hatred against Sikhs and Sikh militant groups throughout the 90s (Purewal 2). As random as they seem, the events of Kashmir and Punjab in the 90s follow a clear pattern of religious-based violence.

The Kashmir and Punjab regions display the four criterions clearly. In 1998 the Indian government was lulled into a false sense of security by its nuclear weapons, and started to lose power in Kashmir, only to have a religious body spring up. In 1984, the government lost power due to the assassination of the prime minister only to have the Hindu and Sikh communities take matters into their own hands. The rise of tension was caused by Muslims and Sikhs rising to clash with the dominant Hindu community. The spark in Kashmir was a dormant one; the disregard of Muslim people by the pre-1947 monarchy. In Punjab the spark was the disregard for cultural differences. India attempted to control the violence, but was not powerful enough until the intervention of the United States in 1999. Today violence continues in Punjab, although the Indian government is doing a better job of containing it than the Kashmir conflict. The religious violence of South Asia is not only confined to the northern borders but is also present in its southern heart.

Sri Lanka

The teardrop nation below India, Sri Lanka, had a 30 year build up to the break out of religious violence. The Buddhist majority of the country believes that Buddha gave the Island of Lanka to create a “citadel of pure Buddhism” (Fox, 2002 449). The Hindu Tamils resented the religious discrimination against them (Austin 68). In 1948 the British left Ceylon after leaving India and a Buddhist-dominated government was established (Haught 108). In the late 1950s a Buddhist prime minister declared Sinhalese to be the only official language (108). Finally in the 1980s Sri Lanka was declared a ‘Buddhist Republic’ to avoid conflict with a Buddhist terrorist group (Austin 75). The drastic move enraged the Hindu Tamils, who formed the Liberation Tigers and rebelled (75).

Violence between the Liberation Tigers and Buddhists raged throughout the late 80s and 90s (Haught 108-110). In 1983, the Tigers ambushed an army patrol, Buddhist retaliated with the massacre of hundreds of Hindus; in response Hindus attacked Buddhist holy spots; a full civil war erupted (109). At first the largely Hindu India supported the Tigers and sent supplies until Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi switched to a state of neutrality (109). In 1987, India decided to send peacekeepers to separate the Hindus and Buddhists in Sri Lanka (Austin 69). However, India’s peacekeepers did little and the 70,000 man taskforce was withdrawn in 1990 after taking 2,000 casualties (Haught 109). After India withdrew its forces, religious murder, violence and cleansing snowballed (110). By 2001 a total of about 62,000 people were killed for religious reasons (Austin 75). The loss in Sri Lanka is devastating, but still predictable.

Sri Lanka’s religious violence follows a clear pattern. When the governing body lost power in 1948, from the loss of British rule, Hindu and Buddhist religions filled the vacuum. The Buddhist and Hindu religions started to clash from the beginning. In 1983 a fundamentalist spark from the Liberation Tigers sprung and started the fire of religious violence in Sri Lanka. After India’s failed peacekeeping in the 1987 to 1990 period the violence continued to escalate, leaving thousands dead in its wake. Through out the 90s the religious violence of Sri Lanka went unnoticed and unchecked by the rest of the world and only worsened.

Indonesia: East Timor

Another unpublicized religious conflict of the 90s is the situation in South-East Asia, mainly Indonesia. Religious conflict in South-East Asia largely depends on the violence in the world’s largest Muslim state; Indonesia (Searle, 1). The Island country boasts a population of 238 million people, the majority of whom are Muslim (CIA). The presence of religious conflict in Indonesia is caused by the weakening of the state (Searle 1). Violence in Indonesia today is mostly between Christians and the Muslim majority (Haught 169). In 1974 the United Nations granted independence to the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, only to have it invaded and annexed by Indonesia a year later (169). In 2000, a Muslim terrorist group, partially supported by the government moved into the province of Maluku (Searle 5). Christians in the area formed a counter-organization called Laskar Kristus: ‘Army of Christ’ (5). In 2 years the religious violence and cleansing between Christians and Muslims in the Indonesian province of Maluku and Kulimantan has left 5,000 dead and 500,000 displaced (4). Like the previous examples, Indonesia’s conflict was devastating, but predictable.

Like the previous conflicts a pattern is present in Indonesia. Religious powers emerged to fill the hole the lack of state power left. With Indonesia’s loss of power and control of its people, the Islamic and Christian communities took over. Fundamentalists then attacked, as seen by a terrorist group’s invasion of Maluku. Without the intervention of the Indonesian, or any other, government, religious violence escalated. The logical pattern leading to violence is not only present in Asia.

Sudan

The African country of Sudan was the site of another deadly Muslim and Christian conflict of the 90s. The first rebellions started in 1955 a year before the pre-scheduled leave of Britain (Haught 77). The Christians were afraid of Muslim oppression (77). However, the British still pulled out and a civil war erupted between the Muslims and Christians that lasted until 1972 and claimed 500,000 casualties (77). In 1983, a new Muslim president decreed Sharia for all of Sudan (78). Sharia is the Muslim law which justifies such things as amputation of limbs for theft (Allie). Christian’s were outraged by the government’s neglect of their rights and rebelled (78). In 1989, the government promised to stop the application of Muslim law in the south, but the government was not stable enough to do so and was overthrown by Muslim fundamentalists who established an Islamic theocracy (78). The fundamentalist government established close ties with the theocracy of Iran and imposed Islam on all the citizens of Sudan (78). In 1992 the United States finally recognized Sudan as a religiously extremist terrorist state (79). By 1994, around 1.5 million lives were lost in the 2^nd Sudan war and around 6 million were refugees in neighboring states (79). The turmoil in Sudan has been described as the deadliest religious conflict of the 90s (77).

Even the deadliest conflict of the 90s, however, followed a pattern. The government lost power in 1955 and 1989, the first due to British readiness to pull out and the second due to the loss of Muslim support and in both cases religions emerged to fill the power vacuum. The second case even formed a government. The Christian and Muslim communities began to clash. Without any intervention the tension quickly escalated leaving millions without their lives or lively-hood. However, this was a conflict between only two religious groups and was largely overlooked by the West because a three way conflict was already occurring in their own backyard.

Yugoslavia

Another deadly conflict in recent history is the collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars of its former provinces. Croatia and Slovenia were the first states to break free in 1991, triggering a war with Yugoslavia (Haught 28). The Catholic Church of Croatia displays the power compensation of religion and state very well. When the former Yugoslavia was in the Soviet Bloc, and state power high, the church was suppressed (Ramet 146). When Tito took Yugoslavia out of the Soviet Bloc in 1953, state power decreased and the Church was able to take more liberties (146). The Church gained more power as Tito began negotiations with the Vatican in 1965-1971 (146). In the 1970s however, Tito’s government saw stability and an increase in power, and the Church saw a loss of its liberties (147-148). When Tito’s government collapsed and another regime took its place, a power vacuum emerged and the Catholic Church as well as the Orthodox and Muslim communities rose up (Haught 29). Tension quickly built between the three sides and led to violence (29).

The bloody conflict of the 90s that is always associated with the former Yugoslavia was in a state of religious hatred and violence. As Haught wrote, “the only actual difference between Croats, Serbs and Bosnians is their religion” (Haught 26). The communists of former Yugoslavia managed to suppress religious violence for decades but with the communist collapse it reemerged (29). In 1991 Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence based on religious reasons (Robinson 2), but started a non-religious conflict that took the lives of 10,000 people (Haught 29). In 1992 Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina voted for independence (Robinson 2), and instantly faced armed resistance from the Orthodox Christians who were, “still fighting to keep Islam from spreading”, as Dusan Simic voiced (Simic in Haught 30). Serbia came to aid the Orthodox Christians of Bosnia, and under president Slobodan Milosevic called for the “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnia (31). The Serbians wanted to eradicate Muslim and Catholics in Bosnia (31). Croatia came to help their fellow Catholics and after a while turned on the Muslims, causing a three way conflict (31-33). The same “religious cleansing” was seen in 1998 against the Muslims and Catholics of Kosovo (Robinson 3). The conflicts of former Yugoslavia were very much caused by the clash of religious groups (Tovy 41). Although the devastation of former Yugoslavia is often attributed to the Serbs, it could be argued that the major world powers are also culpable for not acknowledging the logical and sequential line of events that lead to religious violence.

The Yugoslavian conflict displays all four hypotheses clearly. The loss of state power and rise of religious power is displayed well in the Croatian example. It is also seen when Yugoslavia falls apart and the state loses all power in 1992, and has to resort to religious power. The rising religious bodies in the Yugoslavian conflict were the Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim communities (Robinson 3). The catalyst was a dormant one, carrying over from before communist times (Haught 25). The violence went unchecked while the major powers disputed between themselves and death overtook Yugoslavia. Sadly, something as unexpected as Yugoslavia followed a precise pattern.

Conclusion

All the major conflicts of the 90s supported the four hypotheses set out earlier. The rise of religious bodies to fill the power vacuum left by governments that have lost power or collapsed is well shown. The best examples are when the British left Sudan and the Christians united, and when the communist regime of Yugoslavia collapsed and the country split in three. The clash of different churches is best seen in Kashmir, Punjab and Sri Lanka. The three South Asian territories clearly display the clash between the Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Buddhist communities. The sparks that pushed normal tension to violence are varied in the 90s. In Punjab the spark is displayed as cultural disregard. In Sudan the same spark goes as far as a fundamentalist coup and imposition of Islamic law. Unchecked religious violence and its drastic escalation is seen throughout Kashmir, Indonesia and Yugoslavia. In Kashmir the violence raged for a while without being contained. In Indonesia that same violence still rages. In the former Yugoslavia the violence was contained in pathetic ways and countless people died. Religious violence developed a strong noticeable pattern.

Throughout the 90s communal religious violence appears to have followed a distinguishable pattern. This pattern is evident in the examples illustrated above, but what world leaders will do with it is not. As humans settle into the second millennium the application of this pattern still remains unanswered; as does the haunting proverb: “those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it”. The world remains in the hands of its people and leaders. It is humanity’s choice what to do with the world and the planet can only hope that the new generation will find the right decisions.

Reference

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Round Table, pg. 67-75, 2002.

Axel, Brian K. The Nation’s Tortured Body: Violence, Representation, and the

Formation of a Sikh “Diaspora”. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

Bose, Sumantra. Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace.

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003.

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12 April, 2005

Fox, Jonathan. “In the Name of God and Nation : The Overlapping Influence of

Separatism and Religion on Ethnic Conflict”, Social Identities, pg. 434-455, 2002.

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Anherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1995.

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New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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To Ethnic War. Colorado: Westview Press, Inc., 1996.

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Tolerance.org. 26 June, 2002. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.

12 April 2005

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Southeast Asia”, Contemporary Southeast Asia, pg 1-11, April 2002.

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1994. Reviewed by Tal Tovy”, Religion in Eastern Europe, pg 40-42, Dec. 2004.

Men Look at Faces

A little while ago I made a post about what all guys knew deep down: men look at crotches.

“Women look almost exclusively at the targets face, while trying to gather information about the subject. Men, however, spend about half their time inspecting the face, and the other half inspecting the genitals.”

That study of course, was done with clothed subjects, but what happens when we are viewing pornography? According to a recent study when viewing pornography, men pay more attention to the face than women do. Surprisingly women concentrate more on the genitalia. The lead author states:

"Men looked at the female face much more than women, and both looked at the genitals comparably,"

Strange? I think so. I definitely want to see a follow up study.

Movie Review: AFTF

A couple of days ago I watched the authorized director’s cut of America: Freedom to Fascism (available on Google video). The Aaron Russo documentary looked like promising at first, but in the end was very dissatisfying. The documentary deals with how ever since 1913 America has been slowly turning fascist. Specifically the film talks about the illegality of income tax, the evil IRS and how bankers rule the world. The movie seems to be tailored to delusional capitalists that want to see someone more capitalist than themselves in hopes of feeling better.

The whole film is badly edited and badly composed. Random black screens with quotes and text are inserted through out. They interrupt the flow at illogical places and are never consistent as to the narrator reading them or not reading them. Aaron tries to narrate the movie himself, much like Moore does in his documentaries, except Aaron comes of as unintelligent, highly biased and flippant. The only good part of the film was not having to listen to the standard narrator voice at first. However, you soon realize that Aaron has no voice acting skill and his constant nagging becomes annoying.

As an interviewer and debater Russo lacks even the most basic competence. He forms arguments like “American has a central bank like the commi bastards in USSR” and then goes on about how it is bad to have a private bank running the United States. I don’t think he understands a basic principle of the communist central banks: it is controlled by the state and thus the people. When interviewing public figures he does not listen to them and gives himself more speaking time than the people he is interviewing. The point of interviewing a public figure and then showing more footage of yourself talking than the public figure escapes me.

To make matters worse, Russo constantly boasts about being a famous, award winning director. I think the random woman in the first street interview says it best:

“Russo: My name is Aaron Russo I produced the mo…

Woman: is this a joke; am I on a gag show?”

I do not recommend this video at all, and the only reason it has gotten any stars is because it is available for free on Google. Aaron Russo does not belong directing “documentaries” he is better as a random person on American are NOT stupid.

Steorn Orbo

An Irish company Steorn has claimed creating a machine that produces clean, free energy:

"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy... The energy isn't being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It's literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy."

The company has tried to sound official by publishing a full page challenge to the scientific community in the Economist. I have not seen the ad myself, but I am really disappointed with the editors of the Economist if they actually published that ad… I mean, how fake can you get? No much faker than this. For any readers that are not familiar with Physics, this statement is in direct contradiction to the first law of thermodynamics. The first law reads:

“The increase in the internal energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the amount of heat energy added to the system minus the work done by the system on the surroundings.”

Looked from another perspective, this means that a system can not gain energy without taking it from somewhere. Steorn claims that they have somehow found a way to do this, in other words, they claim to have created a perpetual motion machine. No patent office recognizes perpetual motion machines or anything else that violates the fundamental and well established laws of physics, and hence there is no patent for the full technology, although the company has claimed to have patented parts that make up the system.

The biggest reason this seems like a fake (other than the fact that they are claiming to have violated one of the fundamental laws of physics) is their finances:

In the period between 2002 and 2006 (dates for which they have all major expenses reported) they spent a total of 2,749,645 euro on research and development. Over the same time period, they spent 1,531,520 euro on management and marketing and 2,114,744 euro on administrative costs (total of 3,646,263 euro). In other words, they spent more money managing their pathetic little company than researching; a whopping 63.3% of their money was spent on managerial issues. Also, the 3 million euro budget is far too low to develop such a breathtaking technology so quickly. The company states that they are about 20 people, and if we do a quick calculation (assuming these guys don’t work for free, which is a safe assumption based on their capitalist intentions) taking that the average engineer of the caliber need to develop such an innovative idea is paid around 100k euro per year. We do a simple multiplication 100k * 20 people * 5 years = 10 million euro spent of just staff, while their total expenses are a mere 6,395,909 euro. To meet their spending, if they only paid their workers and did not pay for building rent or buying hardware or anything else to actual develop their technology, the average salary of the employees comes out to 63,959 euro a year.

To make matters worse, their team does not even look like scientists and has no credible people in it. The whole thing seems like a bad hoax and an embarrassment to anyone this company associates itself with. My first guess (from reading their “jury” deal) is that this company just wants to make some easy cash ripping off legitimate research facilities and stuff it up their capitalists asses, or pass it on to the IRA or some other crap like that. This is pathetic.

Men Look at Crotches

A kottke.org article led me to an interesting study done by Jakob Nielsen. The study delves into how to better present articles to an audience. It concludes many useful things for written articles such as including subheadings, bullets and good white space. More interesting however, was their findings in where different genders focus their attention when viewing images.

Women look almost exclusively at the targets face, while trying to gather information about the subject. Men, however, spend about half their time inspecting the face, and the other half inspecting the genitals. I find this amusing more than anything else.

The research into better formatting of content was interesting, but the section on men’s fixation on genitalia definitely held the most of my attention. I guess that tells us something about formatting data: include more interesting content.

DRM on Independent Content

About a week ago, I read a post by Kumaran on the reasons for DRM on independent content. He goes into some detail of the debate and outlines his stance as that independent music that could be non-DRM should be kept DRM’ed to avoid confusion with the Apple users. His opinion is largely based on small labels and if a major label does switch over to non-DRM music he believes that apple should go ahead and draw the distinction between DRM and non-DRM music to pressure other labels:

“An entire major music label's catalog of music on iTunes in a non-DRM'ed format is a significant enough of chunk of music that I think would cover enough people's music purchases to make it worth it. Of course, people will still probably get frustrated, but such a move would be made moreso to pressure the other labels into following suit.”

Digital Rights Management

In the context of the iTunes Store, DRM means that there are some restrictions on the way music can be used. Basically, the music can be copied to an unlimited number of CDs or iPods, but the digital version must always stay in a proprietary format compatible with iPods. Also, the digital version has some other restrictions on it (like only being playable on 5 computers, etc.). In the end, DRM in general give minor problems to the users, and do nothing against pirates. Pirates are still able to copy music to a CD (thus stripping DRM) and then from a CD to mp3 and distribute. However, DRM can not simply be exterminated, because Big Music backs DRM.

Gruber’s Solution

In a blog post, John Gruber proposes that iTunes could label DRM and non-DRM music much like it does with explicit and non-explicit music. By introducing a simple tag to the left of a song title, the confusion between the two rights could easily be avoided. Kumaran counters with:

“Yes, such a point is valid, however, the difference between DRM'ed and non-DRM'ed content is far more significant than the difference between Explicit and Clean content. Explicit and Clean content can pretty much be used in much the same way. That situation just isn't possible with DRM'ed and non-DRM'ed content being sold at the same location.”

DRM’ed and non-DRM’ed music can also be used in the same way… listened to. DRM or non-DRM does not change how a normal user (non-pirate) uses music. Either way, they get their song, put it on their iPod and enjoy listening to it. The only thing that is affected is the subtleties of sharing. Most users already deal with these differences due to the fact that they don’t buy all their music from iTunes but download some from limewire or indie sites like www.3hive.com . From Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Music:

“under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM.”

This slight sharing difference is much simpler than some more significant music differences users’ deal with. Some of their music is in mp3, some in wav, some in Apple’s aac, some in other formats (ogg anyone?). Some music is 8bit, some 16bit, and myriad other differences. I think it is naïve to think that iPod users will be confused or frustrated by the presence of non-DRM music in the iTunes Store.

To add extra motivation for supporting the difference between DRM and non-DRM music one has to consider the pressure of DRM labeling and artists opinions. Some artists pride themselves on the fact that their music is not part of the corporate system of mainstream music. Some bands enjoy their music being non-DRM and would like to see it that way on iTunes, so their fans can get their songs and share them any way they like. Also, by introducing a distinction between DRM and non-DRM music Apple can collect data and what music users prefer. Then they can turn to the big companies and start talking in their language of money but simply bringing up stats and saying: “look small label X made twice the money as equivalent small label Y by selling non-DRM music”. Maybe then Big Music would listen.

I think the reason Apple is really continuing to sell all their music as DRM is to hold on to their proprietary rights. Regardless of what Steve Jobs publishes as “his opinions” on DRM music, Apple is still a heartless capitalist corporation. By sticking to DRM, they make sure people can only easily listen to the music on their iPods and not competitors. This way iTunes Store and iPod become a bundle and exclusive “cool” society that other more open MP3 users can’t join.

Other Solution

The easiest way for users to easily see the difference between DRM music and non-DRM music is to just offer them in two different, popular formats. Continue to offer DRM’ed music in aac and offer non-DRM in the more common mp3 format. However, Apple would never do that… how would that continue their obscene profit margins? This might actually be civil.

Summary

DRM is independent content is wrong. If the independent content wants to be DRM free, then let them be. For the end user everything is the same, but the provider of content can sleep a little better at night, knowing they are not part of Big Music’s capitalist machine.

The Short Human History

Today, at Daily KOS I came across a very thought provoking article on how to think about the scale of human history. The article discusses human history in increments of a single human lifespan. It illustrates just how short human history is:

“Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., one the United States' great historians, is less than two lifetimes removed from a world where the United States did not exist. Through Mr. Schlesinger, you're no more than three away yourself. That's how short the history of our nation really is.

Not impressed? It's only two more life spans to William Shakespeare. Two more beyond that, and the only Europeans to see America are those who sailed from Greenland. You're ten lifetimes from the occupation of Damietta during the fifth crusade. Twenty from the founding of Great Zimbabwe and the Visigoth sack of Rome. Make it forty, and Theseus, king of Athens, is held captive on Crete by King Minos, the Olmecs are building the first cities in Mexico, and the New Kingdom collapses in Egypt.

Sixty life times ago, a man named Abram left Ur of the Chaldees and took his family into Canaan. Abram is claimed as the founder of three great religions. A few lifetimes before that, and you've come out the bottom of that dime. You're that close to it.”

In your lifetime alone you will add one more percent to the length of the human experience, a whole 25% to American history and more than double the length of the computer age. This really makes one lifetime seem a lot more important on the face of human history (as long as you don’t consider the vast number of people in one age category).

Beauty Function

Three computer scientists from Tel Aviv University have developed a new tool for retouching images. If red-eye reduction was impressive, then this is stunning. The software, appropriately dubbed “Beauty Function”, takes an image of your face, calculates your current facial proportions and proposes a more optimal configuration, displaying the associated image. In effect, it makes you look more beautiful (about 79% of the time, according to the developers’ data). The developers provide some sample pictures that have been transformed. The pictures are probably the best results of the program, and some are not overly impressive, however it is a very good work for an automatic algorithm.

The definition of beauty and ratios associated with it were experimentally derived. The scientists surveyed 300 men and women, asking them to rank pictures’ on an attractiveness scale of 1-7. The scores were tabulated and linked to the ratios of various facial features (such as eye size, facial shape, etc). Around 250 measurement points were considered when developing the algorithm. In the end the scientists came up with a mathematical function to transform an input ratio measurement into a more optimal configuration. The result is an image with a more beautiful face than the original that carries the specific features of, and can be identified as, the original person.

The developers see the biggest application in commercial products such as Photoshop and digital camera software. They hope that this facial modification catches on like red-eye reduction and becomes a common function used by both amateur and professional photographers.

Is digital face modification justified?

The developers try to justify the use of facial modification by saying “if magazines do it, why can’t we?” On the one hand, that is an acceptable argument. On the other hand, we are taking a bad principal and expanding it to everyone. Its nice to see a slightly prettier Jennifer Lopez or Christina Aguilera on a magazine cover, but how far will it go? At first we modify images, then learn how to alter video, soon we will be demanding virtual reality goggles that make everyone look prettier. A grand concept, but I think we should leave that to bear.

More useful applications

In my opinion a more useful application for this sort of technology is facial recognition and indexing for image search. This technology already exists in some forms. I also think using the technology in plastic surgeons offices (as the designers’ suggest) is appropriate too. I doubt the tech (in this form) will catch on widely in mainstream digital camera. It will most likely end up as one of the countless features in Photoshop and hopefully GIMP will quickly follow with an open-source version.

The eye of the beholder

One of the developers, Cohen-Or, states: “Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is merely a function of mathematical distances and ratios”. Is this really true? I agree until a certain point. Just like the preferred 7:10 ratio that men seek in women, I believe there are certain ratios and lengths in the face that a human looks for. These ratios are present to reflect a healthy individual and for a person to better pick an optimal mate. In the optimal selection though, I think a lot depends on the beholder. I don’t mean in the cheese classical sense.

I believe there is a more scientific reason behind “they eye of the beholder.” For the sense of smell, some experiments have shown that humans have a preference for certain pheromone that best match an optimal genetic match. For kissing, some studies have show similar results, implying that a kiss “tastes” better from a more compatible genetic match. I think the same applies to faces. Your phenotype is defiantly expressed in your face (that’s why you look like your parents), so why wouldn’t you subconsciously evaluate a person phenotype or genotype when looking at them? This means there are formulas, but the formulas vary between different genotypes. Thus a perfect “Beauty Function” can not be created.

The overlap that many people share when searching for a healthy and compatible face can be modeled. This model can take us closer to beauty but such a process can never hope to reach true beauty. Once you get beyond a certain basic template the individual compatibility factors take over and the highest end of beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Conclusion

In the end I think this technology will mostly end up being used by dating and porn sites. Both need to quickly and cheaply modify mediocre picture. Hopefully the system will expand to more useful applications, such as good search.

Currently, the developers have not offered a version to play around. They promised a web-app version of the program since August 16^th, but as off yet it has not been delivered. The only things we have access to is the sample pictures and demo video.

On a personal note: Wow, I was interrupted by two fire alarms while typing this post. As far as I understand the cause was a fault in the system. Usually my residence gets hit by a block of 2 or 3 fire alarms in a night. There was a real (minor) fire earlier today on the 4^th floor (when I was in class), so hopefully this past fire alarm was the last of the night.

Broke and Happy vs. Rich... and Happier?

Being broke is both a gift and a curse. Well, I guess it’s mostly a curse. Today I had a chance to experience first hand the curse of being broke. I stopped by the corner store after school. There I was, gathering some food, making my way to pay. I whipped out my bank card with confidence of that I was paid recently and therefore I have money. After 3 tries, I realized that I am still as broke as a hobo. I spent all my money in early October buying a present for a friend, and still my bank account is empty.
Originally the gift was going to be expensive for me, but not nearly as much as it turned out. I organized a big gathering with a whole bunch of people and I took pledges from them and they would give me the money later… not too great of a plan. Today I am still broke and a whole lot of people still owe me money. I can not really go and demand my money for to big reasons: it is not nice and I did not write down the names of the few people that paid me. My friends parents offered to cover any expenses that were too great from the gift, but that just is unacceptable. When you make a gift, you make a gift to the whole family and you can not have them pay for parts of their own gift. Hence, I will just have to burden the debt and hopefully 50 cents will get me by.
Normally I would not have a problem with being broke, but my dad is gone until the 14th. I will be out of food tomorrow: that means I need to survive for 5 days on 50 cents.
This raises a question: does money bring happiness? I am broke, and very happy that I gave my friend a good gift. However, I am also going to be hungry for the next 5 days and when I am hungry I am not happy. Also, if you think about it, its money that got the gift and money that made happiness in the first place.
I believe “money does not bring happiness” is a novel idea, but a misleading one. It implies that you can be broke and happy and I think that is very hard in the sort of society we live in. That being said, it does not mean that everyone should just clench their money. I have several friends who have lofty bank accounts to their name and they have no clue what do with them. Still they are scrawny in their spending and very conservative about their money. It might be the remains of my communist roots speaking, but I think that money hording is just wrong. I would understand if that was the basis of Capitalism and thus important to society. But money hording has no place in Capitalism. In Capitalism you float your capital value into all sort of investments, that is how net worth is made.
I do not understand the money horders, and I think I never will. I guess this new discovery has a big effect on the “Got to Love Your Work?” debate. The wind has now changed in favor of making money and then finding happiness. Hopefully, I will be able to make some sort of proper and meditated decisions and I hope that my lack of understanding when it comes to money horders will not damage my adulthood.

Mortality

Mortality is the concept that everyone has to die sometime. We spend our lives dreading and avoiding the topic. We are always immortal until proven otherwise and many never want to be proven wrong. In the end, (if you’re not religious or superstitious) you never will know if you are mortal or not. The only way for us to realize our own mortality is to lose someone we know and love. Today, I realized I am mortal.
Around 3 o’clock my grandmother called, to tell me that my great grandmother has died. It was not a surprising death per say, but it was still shocking. Even when someone is just shy of a century, you still think they will always be around. My great grandmother lived a simple life in a small Russian town. She grew most of her own food; her bread came from one set of neighbors, milk from another. Her son was always close by, living in the same house as her. I did not have particularly close ties to her and in my last visit she could not even distinguish me from my father due to failing health. I can not say I was a particularly wonderful great grandson, having only paid her visits a handful of times in my life. However, I still remember her, I remember her house, I remember how I build little dams on the stream nearby and I remember how we hiked through the woods. I am afraid that those memories will be lost one day, but until then I will cherish them. My great grandmother was a religious woman, and I hope heaven treats her well. Maybe she can see down and see the kind of lives we made for ourselves. I wonder if she would approve of what we have become.
This loss is a first for me in many ways. I have only lost two people to death in my life before today. One was my grandfather and the other was a family friend. My grandfather died from a heart attack before I can remember. Our family friend died on a trip mine after landing a relief plane in some third world country; maybe that’s why I have never been a big fan of “make poverty history” and such aid campaigns. My great grandmother, though, is the first person I knew well and can actually remember, that died. To me this comes as a loss, but not nearly as much of one as it will be to others.
I am worried about my grandmother, aunt and dad. My grandmother was the one that called me and told me the news. She sounded alright, but you could hear sadness deep in her voice. It was the sort of sadness you would expect after someone comes to terms with the loss of their primary caregiver. My great grandfather died in World War II and therefore my grandmother was raised primarily by her mom. I emailed my father with the news in hopes that he would call grandma and talk to her. I understand email is not the best form of communication, but he is in California right now and it was my only way to reach him. My aunt is with my grandma in Novosibirsk right now and hopefully they can handle the events together as a family.
My relatives are probably coping and planning a funeral as you read this. I will not be able to attend the funeral due to expired papers, but I hope it is a nice funeral. I think it would be wonderful if my dad could attend, maybe he can get a plane ticket and fly over after he returns from the States.
For now, I am still in Saskatoon, but now with a better sense of my mortality.

Got to Love Your Work?

Introduction
Millions of people across Canada, U.S and the rest of the world, go to work everyday, dreading what they do. Many of these people have no choices as to what they can do for employment and need whatever job they can get to support themselves and their families. On the flip side, some individuals had all the choices in the world and are capable of getting many different jobs, but still work somewhere they hate. They do things they do not like for money, but as Mrs. Davis, my English teacher said: “it’d have to be an awfully large sum of money to make me do something I didn’t enjoy.” The question before me today: “should an individual do what they are better at, or what they enjoy more.”

Background
I am one of those individuals that had, through out their life, hundreds of wonderful opportunities. I am relatively successful in school and come from a well off family. The chances of me being unemployed, on the street, and begging for food (out of necessity) are very low. When I grow up there will be a lot of jobs that can sustain me and many that I can prosper from. The big challenge for me is deciding if I should pursue what I think (on average) will give me more enjoyment, what I am better at, or what my parents want me to be.
What I enjoy and what I am good at are often diametrically opposed. I enjoy poetry and political science and many other humanities. I am good at Physics, Math, and Computer Science. I do enjoy physics, math, and computer science, of course, but I do not believe that I will enjoy them as careers. On the other hand I would enjoy things relating to political science much more, but my skill in them is significantly less. The third factor is what my parents want me to be, and what they were before. My mother wants me to be a doctor, so that I can take over her practice when she decides to retire. My father has a duel PHD in Mathematics and Physics and if I enter the science field I will always live in his shadow.

Better At
Doing something you are good at, gives you more chances to succeed in the field. Personally, I enjoy all the little glimpses of success I see. Being more successful also means more influence and more money. With more influence you can make a bigger difference in more lives, and thus make your life, and the lives of others, more meaningful. An increase in money means you can set up your family better and leave them more when you die. Usually money also brings more travel and easier access to different hobbies.

Enjoy More
An enjoyable job means you can put more effort into it. More effort could lead to more success and money just like a job you are good at, but it is less likely. On the bright side, if you really enjoy your job, then you will not need finances for hobbies. You job will become your hobby. A better and more enjoyable atmosphere at work makes for a happier person. That same happiness can be passed onto other people, thus benefiting your family. Influence can be gained because you would have more interest in socialization in your workplace. Workplace socialization, just like more effort, might give the same results as a job you are good at, but it is less likely.

Conclusion
The best option is having a job you are both good at and enjoy. That is not always possible though. In the cases when you can not have both joy and goodness in your career, you must take a risk and decide which way to go. In the end it is really a debate on if money can buy happiness. If money can buy happiness, then do what you are good at. If money can not buy happiness (as many allege), then get a job that you will enjoy.

Connections to Keep or to Lose

Introduction
I have not posted since a short post on Friday, so I guess my plan to post once a day has failed. However, I am still going to post regularly and keep to the plan outlines in my first post. This blog is primarily for my musings and to keep in contact with people, which is today’s topic.
Today in English class we talked about the importance of high school friends and the contact you keep with them. It was an interesting topic and I thought it would make a good blog entry and would be in the spirit of my web log. In class we dealt with such ideas as our ten year reunion and some little blips about who would become who. Obviously, I was most likely to be a drunken hobo on the street (which I am planning to do, but that is a different issue) in my class. Since I am enrolled in the advanced program, that was not to much of a prediction.

The “Advanced” Mentality
I have not really talked to any of my schoolmates about this to get their opinion, so the following is mostly my interpretation. In the advanced program we develop a closer bond than most of the other students, since we share many of the same classes and think from the same branches. We are mostly liberal minded (or democratic for all the Americans). Some are on the more conservative end of liberal *coughs out Phil’s name*, and others are very much left wing. The liberal minds could be from our “better” education or maybe the more free forming structure of our classes. I have never taken the time to analyze the program in enough detail and such issues are probably best asked of Jennifer W.
Through my four years in the program I have had time to analyze a general feel of the class. My assessment is not substantiated by exact case studies or extensive research but comes from the feeling deep in my gut. Personally, I think that feeling is a much better guide on a tentative matter like this. In general I believe the comradeship we form as classmates is undermined by our “smartness” and the competitive tension between us. As individuals everyone is solid and righteous, but as a program we are much farther from the human ideals.
I have seen many people sacked by their friends because they were causing an ineffective group dynamic. I am sure the same has happened to me many a time, but it is harder to be objective when looking at one self. To bring up an exact example: a friend of mine was working in a group with a bunch of other friends (I was in a different group) and he performed very much up to the standards required and even surpassed them from many angles. When the time came for group self-evaluation the group did not even take one moments hesitation from blaming all their problems on the one individual, just because that would raise their individual marks. To display my point with a more extreme example: if suddenly one of our teachers seriously offered to fail us (and had the actual legal means to do so) if we did not sabotage a friend’s project, most of us would not hesitate to do so or at least would seriously consider it.
I would like to think that I am different and would never stoop to such a low level. However, I am not completely sure that I can say that honestly, as much as I wish I could. Accurate self analysis, even though it is taught to us in the program, is extremely hard to accomplish. Many of my classmates might react with a rash: “I would never do such a thing”, but that reply would only raise the question of how good/bad their self analysis is.

The Better Mentality
The lack of quotation marks is not an omission my part, because I honestly believe there is a better mentality. Like outlined in the previous section the advanced mentality has many flaws with it. I think the best connections for the future are developed outside of the school’s social setting. Sports teams, clubs and good ol’ activities outside of school is what builds close ties. This is especially good for non competitive things. Surely the relationships you develop inside of school are good… but they are good for one thing: school. So if ten years down the road you have a question about math, you can go ahead and call your math wiz. If you want out of jail, though, I really do not recommend calling him with your “one” phone call.
To reinforce this point: there are plenty of people I socialize with only in school and about school. I might be interested in their day to day life (just because I am a nosy brat) but they have no interest in mine. People like that and I keep in basic contact. I might be able to help them in one area, and they can help me in another. If however socialization with such people is expanded outside a school setting a whole new field of contact opens.
To summarize, what you can use your connections for depends on where you made the connections. If you made them in school, you can use them for school. If you made them in sports, you can use them in sports. If you made a personal connection you can use them for personal things. Therefore, the best connections are ones made on a personal level.
The mentality comes in with a person’s willingness to make connections. The problem with being in advanced for four years is that you learn to over-analyze. When you go make connections with an advancee you are open to being over analyzed. Advancees are just an example; the main point is that one of the factors of mentality is level of analyzing. The second factor is the comfort level. If a person is fine and dandy where they are they are more bent towards conservatism and not making new connections. If the person is out of their element, then they are more liberal and have to make connections.
Hence the best atmosphere is one where there is little competition and everyone is new.

Application
Applications of this knowledge can be varied. For me, the biggest application is in choosing a University. I believe that the people you go to University with are much more important that the education from that University. All Universities (of the same level) have the same education but are attended by different groups of people.

Conclusion
As my mind runs out of things to spur out I have decided that this post has not really said much. It is important to keep all the connections you can, because it is good to have a variety of different friends. Each connection has its own traits and each connection has different demands, rewards and consequences. I think it is essential to keep all the connections that you can. For me, I think I will use this blog as the primary way of keeping in touch, because it is less demanding than email. So, if you are planning to read (and especially if you do not like my pink background) then add me to your Google Reader, or other RSS feed reader (http://devilfromrussia.blogspot.com/atom.xml).

Destructive Behavior

Today the blog will see a concise post. I am swamped with debate research and have to make my words short. Today Oliver and I released the first versions of “ProMessenger” on our schools U: drive. When we released the tool and it was rather effective. However, we found a problem with people (our own acquaintances/friends) indulging in excessive spamming. The issued raised a concern for me: why do people involve themselves in destructive behavior? There are many cases when people do things that do not benefit them just to be destructive. This destruction applies to anything from society to them. I would like to hear some feedback on the issue. Is there a reason for being destructive without benefits? Or are there always benefits?

Lecture vs. Trial

Introduction
In the past three days, you might have noticed a lot of changes to the layout of this blog. I am fooling around with html and learning it in the process. There are many things I still want to change but I am getting to where I want to be. The trial process and reading of my template has got me wondering. What is a better form of education, being told how to do something or learning by trial and error?

Lecture
The obvious benefit of a lecture style of learning is security. When you are being told how to do something before you ever try it, you are for less likely to make a mistake and damage something. I am not being advised by anyone as to how I should work with HTML, so if I make a big mistake and somehow republish my site with the mistake, I will be stuck with it. If I am explained something I will hopefully not make the mistake in the first place.
Being taught first also helps to pass on the wisdom of elders and warn you about bad habits. I learnt guitar by myself, without an instructor. Since I learn by trial and error and kind of doing things myself, I developed several bad habits. I do such things as strum away from the strings (which is technically more demanding than strumming with the strings) and I adopted many alternative grips with my left hand. With proper mentorship such mistakes could be avoided and no bad habit would be formed. I learn how to do everything with my habits and I am used to them, and they are very hard to change even though I know they are improper. A lecture approach to learning would allow you to avoid the pitfalls in the first place and do things in a proven way.
The lecture style does not leave any major points without discussion. Since the people who are teaching you already know all the big skill in what you are learning, they can cover all the bases. When I learnt guitar, I did not get big into theory and rhythm. Thankfully to my analytical background I naturally picked up more than enough theory while I learnt everything else. However, I still have troubles with rhythm. If you give me a drum, you will have to wait until a cold day in hell before I make a steady beat.

Trial
Trial is my preferred method of learning. I learn programming, video editing, guitar, biking, courting and more through trial and error. Surely the experience has not been without its hazards, but I found it more enjoyable. Like in my previous post I am mentioning where I am coming from to get my bias out there so you can analyze my information to a better degree.
Trial leads to more skill development. When you are being taught something, you are told to assume certain things so that the lecture process can be streamlined. With trial you have to prove everything yourself. The process of proving everything involved to do what you want develops a good learning skill as well as giving you a strong grasp over the information. Through out my education in the United States and Canada I have been dismayed many times by how students might know a certain rule or law but not know how to prove it. Without the knowledge of how the rules they use are proven the students are hampered to using it only in certain cases that have been taught to them and outside of that.
Trial is much better at tailoring to your learning style. Since you are the one responsible for what you try and what you are trying to achieve, you become in full control of your learning. I teacher can do their best to try and tailor a program to you as an individual, but since they never know what you are really thinking they can not do it to the extent you can yourself. This tailoring does not always get you to your final destination faster but it usually makes you a much better learner. I learnt programming and guitar much faster through trial and error and self-teaching than I ever would have if I followed the route of some of my more conservative counterparts.

Conclusion
I try to encompass both trial and lecture in my learning, but I find trial to be a much more advanced form of learning. I find that fewer people have mastery of trial than over lecture. A lot of people just go around asking questions hoping someone will answer them instead of really putting their noggin to work. Asking questions is not a bad thing, but I find using your head more rewarding. In the end, learning styles depend on the individual. Jobs are split among both trial based learners and lecture learners. The lecture students can make good factory workers, doctors, standard lawyers and other jobs that follow certain strict and often repetitive guidelines. They are an essential and biggest part of society. Trial learners are more suited towards innovation and hence fit better in science, corporate management, music, art and other fields that depend on new ideas and ways of doing things. To bring this back to my bias and to summarize in general. Lecture learners are the majority of society and make sure that everything that we have works like it suppose to. Trial learners are the minority and they are the ones that develop new things and move society forwards. I find moving something forwards or making something new more interesting than maintenance and therefore prefer trial learning.

Silly vs. Serious and White Lies vs. Dignity

Introduction
Today some facts came to my attention. Of course I will not mention details because I am hoping to not make this blog into a work of angst. I also do not want to offend any people directly. The issue I was faced with today razed two very important questions for me, and I am not able to effectively substantiate myself for either side. I can only provide my personal opinion, and if you want to add to it, then please comment. If your comments are well articulated I will add them to this entry. The first issue is what is better being silly or being serious. I am not implying to take the extremes of the spectrum, but rather what is better to be naturally silly with the ability to turn serious or naturally serious with the ability to turn silly. The second issue is distinguishing between white lies and their infringement of dignity. White lies apply to small lies that (to the person making them) seem to not be a big deal and are meant to comfort a person. Dignity or the recognition of it: is the realization that people should be told things upfront instead of beating around the bush or being lied to.

Silly vs. Serious
I find myself to be a rather silly or light-hearted person that can lean towards being serious. How well I am at being serious various depending as to who you ask. Some people think I am very much capable of switching easily to a serious mode when the time is right. Others on the other hand believe I am completely unmannered and have no sense of when fun stops and soberness should begin. I like to believe I am the first, but since the ladder exists, that is impossible. However, I also doubt I am the second extreme of the spectrum. Most likely I am somewhere in-between, or my change to seriousness is drastically different with different people. I can not be an accurate judge of such a matter; however I can defiantly say I am silly first. This bend towards lightheartedness makes me naturally biased toward the silly side and I will need all the help I can get to raise points for the serious side of the issue.
Silly:
Two days ago I was discussing movie selections with my dad and wondering what kind of movie he wants me to go rent. He said he would prefer a comedy and substantiated it with word that (roughly translated from Russian) shape the main case for vivacity very well:

“I would much rather laugh, than cry at a movie. I don’t understand all the people that pay money just to go and have a cry. Why would I want to be sad when I can laugh? Drama’s are always good, but they are nothing compared to some lighthearted comedy”

Being silly is essential to happiness, and happiness is essential to a fulfilling life. It is important to have the skill to be serious in urgent situations, but being exuberant at all the other times is essential. There is no meaning in all the things seriousness can achieve if you can not be happy about it. Being serious most of the time does allow you to be silly sometimes. All that means is that you can achieve more in your life and then enjoy it less.
Serious
Like I mentioned earlier I have a preformed biased against being predominantly serious. I understand that being serious makes it much easier to concentrate at the task at hand. The next step to that is that you can accomplish more than a silly person in the same amount of time. This could leave you more leisure time to enjoy what you worked towards, but I do not think that case is always true. I think the whole debate comes down to which is more important; what you have or how you use it. To dumb it down (and make much more sexual): “is it the size, or how you use it?” Of course it is easy to say that what you achieved is more important, but you need to remember that all men end six feet below the ground. Of course you can say that being silly is selfish that you only make yourself happy, while if you were serious you could leave more to your children and make their lives better.

White Lies vs. Dignity
As a person, I try my best to give everyone dignity and avoid white lies as much as possible. If you ask me something like “do I look fat in this dress” and you actually look fat I will state it. I do this for two reasons. One is to because I prefer to not have people blind me with their blind eyes and hence I try not to do the same to them. The second is because I am a very blunt person. I believe bluntness and frequent justified criticism is the only way to bring meaning to my praise. In my opinion praise is nearly worthless from someone who praises everybody. As you can see, I am very much biased towards the dignity side. I do not believe in lying to people just because I think it will not harm them and it will just make them feel better. Of course there are always exceptions in my mind, but that is my general ideal and way of displaying my bias on this issue.
White lies
The benefit of white lies is that they can be used to make people feel better or to avoid hurting them. However, in the end they are still lies, just not serious ones. I understand the benefit of giving people compliments through white lies or avoiding hurting them, but I think those only provide surface happiness.
Dignity
Treating people with dignity I think is essential. You have to avoid using white lies at all costs, because I think being direct and upfront is more rewarding in the end. You do not have to be extremely blunt but direction is essential. It will not give people a quick fix of happiness like white lies could, but I think in the long run treating people with dignity and being upfront is more rewarding. Plus, I find that a friend that can be completely honest with you is a much better friend then one that says lies as compliments.

Conclusion
As I outlined, I am a silly person that tries to treat people with blunt dignity. I believe the debate between silly and serious is not resolved in my mind. Even with my silly bias I can see a lot merit in both arguments. My arguments for white lies are fewer and in that case I think dignity wins. I will be happy to reevaluate my decision as time passes. I will update this post with any significant comments and maybe eventually write a follow with better formed opinions.