Prometheus

I know Prometheus came out ages ago, but I watched it this week and I feel like it is my civic duty to get this message out to everybody who has not yet seen the movie:

Don't.

Given a choice between this and any other movie, choose the other movie. Given the choice between this and two hours of quiet introspection, introspect away. Given the choice between this and watching paint dry... well, that's a tough one, but you should take a minute to carefully consider the artistic merits of paint.

Prometheus is cheap science fiction at its absolute finest, the physical manifestation of Sturgeon's Law. I can't even think of where to begin critiquing it.

Spoilers ahead, as if it matters.

Since it could broadly be classified as an attempt at sci-fi horror, let's start with the monsters. The most menacing thing in the movie was an oozing metal urn. Seriously. At that point, there was an air of mystery, and the unknown is inherently scary. At that point, the movie seemed to have genuine promise.

Then, having blown his entire special effects budget on fancy computer GUIs, the director opted to use some old props from some closet on the movie lot that had last been opened in the '80s as his "monsters".

Seriously, Ridley, an oligodactylous squid? A squid? And then (spoiler alert) a bigger squid? Wow, really pushing the boundaries of horror there.

In about twenty seconds of bad surgical procedure, Mr. Scott manages to turn a suspenseful, tense, dark, eerie movie into a joke. If I hadn't been wincing at the aforementioned surgical stuff, I would have laughed.

Speaking of which... It's sci-fi. We don't expect exacting realism. But you could have done so much more with that surgery scene. Iron Man sold itself almost entirely on techporn - little pieces of metal buzzing and clicking and doing other little-piece-of-metal things. And you managed to make an emergency surgery scene with a piece of surgery equipment that is acknowledged by characters traveling on a frikkin spaceship as being insanely rare high-tech equipment boring. How?

On the general topic of realism: Once again, it's science fiction, I get it. Realism is always, and should always remain, secondary to enjoyment. But can you at least Google the size of the solar system before putting in a throwaway comment about distance that instantly rips any educated viewer out of suspension of disbelief.

On that same topic: DNA. So Engineer DNA is identical to human DNA? You do realise that humans have an extraordinary amount of genetic variation, so much that there is no agreed-upon "human DNA", and, more importantly, if they had the same genetic code as us, they would look like us. Because that's how DNA works.

It wasn't like it was essential to the plot. Having DNA would make them our precursors, barring a ridiculously unlikely chance occurrence which I would have to put down to the universe having a sense of human. Hell, having even vaguely compatible biochemistry (as evidenced by the fact that their bioweapons work on us) would relate them to us. But no, you had to throw in a "fact" that could be debunked by anyone who understands high-school genetics.

On to the characters: The only character with any apparent depth is a robot. And to be entirely honest, I'm not even sure that the robot's depth isn't just because whoever programmed it set it up to randomly do evil things as a prank. It half seems like what David does is just in there because the director was futilely attempting to add more plot.

In fact, there are a lot of things in the movie that are entirely random: take the dead Engineers seen in the first half of the film. We never find out what killed them. We know that if it was their bioweapon, they would have been turned into more bioweapon-y stuff, and that the bioweapon would still be around. And then the Engineer at the beginning of the film. What happened to him? No clue. Why? No clue. It looked cool, so they threw it in.

Then you get zombie-dude, the first real monster. We don't notice any zombifying effect of the bioweapon at any other time. It's a random one-off that, like most of the rest of the film, tries and fails to be scary.

And of course we have the Engineer. You know, the member of a higher species that managed to genetically engineer an entire ecosystem, culminating in nothing less than the human race? A member of that same higher species who, upon being woken up by the remaining crew of the Prometheus, is suddenly a pointlessly rage-filled horror monster who not only literally tears the crew apart on sight, but deliberately tries to hunt one of them down. Why? Bad hair day, I guess.

I'm only willing to waste so much of my time even on critiquing this film, so I'm gonna wrap up with a comment on the ending. The end of the film, while dramatic, is an attempt to shoehorn the film into an existing franchise, in what I assume is an attempt to give it some kind of credibility by association. But the attempt at franchise-merging is maybe thirty seconds of footage throw in at the end of the film - right at the end; shoehorn and roll credits - and a company name.

More importantly, an attempt is made to make Prometheus an Alien prologue, Alien being the first part of a franchise in which absolutely no mention is made of the world-shattering events of Prometheus, and which, as I said above, shares a company name and about thirty seconds of bad special effects with this mindless attempt at a movie.

Drying paint is sounding more and more attractive by the minute. At least the fumes arguably provide some kind of mental stimulation.

A Defence of Chivalry

There is a large body of thought these days which condemns chivalry as being an old-fashioned, outdated or even chauvinist practice. There are two major groups expressing opposition to chivalry: The first group is that kind of "modern man", typically quite young, who tend to say things like "If they want equality, let them have equality"; the second is, of course, feminists and independent women who view chivalry as suggesting that women are somehow weak and need male assistance.

Chivalry can certainly be taken too far, a fact I only recently realised through the rational argument (Hi, Jess), scolding (Hi, Tayla), and sometimes outright yelling (Hi, Hannah) of my friends. Taken thus too far, it can definitely be annoying, and can indeed be chauvinist.

Even chivalry in moderation can have its origin in a chauvinistic mindset. Certainly, the origin of chivalry as a formal code emerging in medieval Europe involved significant chauvinism: hence the "damsel in distress" archetype and other artifacts of that era.

But for me at least, chivalry has changed a lot since then. This post originally started out as an attempt to define some rules of chivalry, but it didn't take long before I realised that that's not even possible any more. Lists of rules are largely useless for defining standards of behaviour; the world has gotten far too complicated for that. Chivalry is a mindset, a way of thinking which naturally leads to a certain way of acting.

It's not, as feminists sometimes assume, about "protecting the weak," although protecting the genuinely weak is certainly an important part of it. It's about appreciating women as gifts - speaking as a Christian, gifts from God. And no, feminists, that does not mean that I think for a second that I somehow own the women in my life; it means that merely knowing them, merely having them in my life, is a gift.

Take the oft-cited practice of holding doors open. I will hold the door open for a lady as a basic action of politeness. That's chivalry. I hold the door for guys as well. That's a non-specifically-named facet of politeness. Same with helping people up; I'll offer a girl my hand to help her up out of chivalry. I'll offer to help a guy up as well, because it's polite. The only functional difference is how I hold my hand out. (For the record, I've had my offer of a hand up turned down by maybe five guys ever, and by girls maybe thirty, forty times last semester alone)

There are, of course, some less equal and therefore more controversial practices associated with chivalry. Take jackets, for example. I was fairly, uh, militant about giving cold girls my jacket last semester, until my friends eventually managed to correct me.

Let's leave out the fact that guys can metabolise faster and therefore will get cold slower, since I rather doubt most guys factor metabolic rates into their chivalry. Let's also leave out the fact that statistically guys weigh more and therefore will take longer to be affected by the cold, since, you know, it's statistics and therefore only marginally applicable to real life.

Ladies, if a guy offers you his jacket, he's demonstrating the fact that he appreciates you as a friend/girlfriend/family member of your choice/beautiful woman and he doesn't want you to be cold. Take it or leave it (I previously had a problem with letting people leave it, but I'm working on it). But for crying out loud, don't get annoyed at the guy for just offering; he's being nice, he's being polite. Turn it down if you want to, give him one chance to insist just to be polite, and then maybe consider getting annoyed.

The next controversial aspect of chivalry is the whole "protect girls from bad guys" thing. Ladies, just in case you don't know, guys are bastards. I know one guy who I'd be willing to bet has no bastardliness in him, and he's seriously exceptional. And guys understand guys; it stands to reason. We can read their intentions readily and we know how best to deal with them. It's never been about an assumption that you're somehow too weak to handle it yourself. It's just that, being girls, you aren't as well-equipped to deal with guys as we are, at least not in that facet of life. Thus, we're there to look out for you.

Yes, I do believe that it's my duty to protect my female friends. I also believe that it's my duty to protect my family, particularly my younger brother (although by now he's more than capable of protecting himself), and indeed all of my friends, male as well. It's just that with my male friends, being male myself, there are very few - if any - threats that they can't protect themselves against that I would be any help with.

Finally, we have the issue of "don't hit girls," or however it was phrased when it was taught to you. Now, I don't think I've ever heard anyone except the most hardcore feminists complain about that one, but I'm going to discuss it anyway.

The objective fact is that women are more often victims and less often perpetrators of gender-related violence. This is one reference. Yes, it's Wikipedia, but you're welcome to research more deeply if you have an issue with the statistics. Also note the statement in that article that some experts think that statistics of violence against men may be proportionally inflated due to increased reporting rates and the inclusion of self-defence against abusive boyfriends/husbands in the statistics.

Through some combination of male and female psychology (and endocrinology) and the fact that the "average man" is stronger than the "average woman", men are more likely to hit women than the other way around. Testosterone is a nasty thing, especially when combined with anger. The rule exists as a failsafe; its absoluteness is there specifically so that it can override heat-of-the-moment anger.

Obviously it can be taken too far. Guys, if you're being attacked by a serial killer who happens to be female, if you get the chance, drop her. It's common sense. The rule exists to stop actions in anger from going too far; that's all.

So yeah. Chivalry isn't about strong men protecting weak women: it's an aspect of the greater area of politeness and common decency which is important enough to us to give it a name of its own.

Please don't pitchfork me. Ciao.

On Nice Guys Finishing Last

"Nice guys finish last." We've all heard it; those of us who have occasional moments of holier-than-thou hubris have probably thought it at least once. It's the ultimate self-satisfying cliché for self-described "nice guys".

And... That's kind of the problem. I don't know if the aphorism is true or not; for starters, quantifying "nice guy"-ness would be difficult at best. But true or not, it's a stupid excuse used to vent anger at the supposed unfairness of the world.

Let's start with confirmation bias. The world is flooded with reports of "I'm a nice guy finishing last", with almost none of "I'm a nice guy not finishing last". This obviously leads to a general impression of nice guys finishing last, but think about it; the nice guys who don't have the problem have nothing to complain about; it's common sense that we would hear less from them.

Now, to be honest, it wouldn't surprise me to find that nice guys do finish last. After all, being nice kind of implies having morals, and a lack of morals makes a guy much more comfortable with manipulating girls, and fellow guys, to get what he wants. Depending on your definition of "finish", that goes a long way towards explaining bad guys getting a head start. On a more benign level, a nice guy would probably do his best not to get involved in a relationship that would end badly for the girl; thus, fewer relationships; thus, "nice guys finish last".

So yeah, maybe nice guys do finish last. You know what? Deal. If your morals are really bugging you that much, drop them and do what you want. Being a good person has drawbacks. Surprise! Did you expect your morals to get all the girls? Like I said, it's up to you.

More importantly, did you really expect being nice to be, in and of itself, the only thing you need to bring to the table in a relationship? Come on, guys. Of course being a decent person is a good thing, even an essential thing, in a relationship, but you can't build a relationship solely on that. Grow up a bit and find something you can actually contribute to relationships, and then you might have the beginning of a basis for complaint about the unfairness of the universe.

Then, of course, we have one of the fundamental pillars of my personal philosophy: Yes, life is unfair. Way the world works. Deal with it, or... actually, yeah, dealing with it is pretty much your only option. All you can change is the amount of time you spend sulking about it beforehand.

---

This post was the result of a long chain of thought that was either begun or accelerated several months ago by this article. It's a pretty good read, and it expands pretty nicely on that last sentiment I wrote about.

On Relationships (as Physics)

How's this: Think of relationships as chemical bonds. All interpersonal relationships: acquaintances, friends, best friends, romantic relationships, everything. Sounds weird, but think about it...

In this model of relationships as bonds, people are particles. And people have valence: It's called, somewhat fantastically, the Monkeysphere. More scientifically, it's called Dunbar's number. You're welcome to look it up, but it's basically an upper limit on the number of people we can think of as fellow human beings; the number of meaningful relationships we can have. It's a physical thing, and it has to do with the size of a particular part of our brains.

But it also makes sense if you think about it: There is definitely an upper limit on the number of friendships you can have. There's also an equivalent to double/triple bonds, albeit more analogue. You can have many acquaintances, a good number of friends, a few close friends, and certainly not many romantic relationships. That last one isn't just a matter of social norms and/or personally morals. People who fake romantic feelings aside, nobody can deal with a large number of genuine romantic relationships. Thus, the valence of personal relationships.

It's also worth noting than different people have different valencies. Again, it's fairly obvious. Some people make many friends, but struggle forming close friendships; other have insular groups of close friends, but few acquaintances; some couples are so deeply into their relationship that they have almost no friends outside that relationship. And so on and so forth.

Observe what happens when you throw a group of previously unassociated people into a new situation. Pretty much what happened to me when I moved into res at the beginning of this year, but it applies to any situation where you have a bunch of people thrown into a new social environment.

In the beginning, there's not a single friendship or acquaintanceship. You have a whole cloud of particles, bouncing around randomly. Pretty quickly, people get introduced, make acquaintances. Little clumps form, small groups of people. They aren't very stable in the beginning; particles, people, break off, bounce around, find a new group to stick to.

Gradually, patterns start to form; not completely stable, but the changes get slower. You can see the outlines of the groups that will eventually form, even if they're still putative. At the same time, the groups start interacting; the "bridges", people connected to many groups, become apparent. You also see loosely overlapping groups; not quite close enough to form one group, but forming a sort of metagroup encompassing many smaller, still-distinct groups.

It's also around this time that you start seeing the beginnings of fault lines, in large enough populations. Two or more large metagroups form, with a distinct sparsity of bonds between them. Of course, they're basically never entirely separate, but the few bonds that exist will struggle to keep the groups together.

Over time, as a rule, the groups become less insular, and a distinct social network starts to form. Groups are still apparent, but more strongly interlinked, with the exception of the fault lines mentioned above. Bonds still rearrange occasionally, but rarely drastically at this stage. Some friendships wax, others wane, but the network is approaching stability.

Eventually, given a lack of outside disturbance, an equilibrium forms. Now, as any chemist can tell you, equilibria can be static or dynamic, although static equilibria are very rare. In this case, a static equilibrium means a social network that does not change (much). The gradual fluctuations of friendships continue, but the network remains stable.

Then you have dynamic equilibria: We all know that couple (perhaps more than one) who perpetually break up, get back together, and break up again. That's basically what a dynamic equilibrium is: Things are constantly changing, but it's always the same change. That particular example of a dynamic equilibrium is a particularly unstable one which tends to resolve itself one way or another with time, but there are more stable examples. That peculiar type of friendship that fluctuates between conjoined twins and mutual, vitriolic hatred; more "normally", friendships that appear and fade continuously, normally for a very long time.

Social networks are fragile things, though; although they very, very rarely shatter entirely, it can sometimes take only a small change in one part of the network to cause the entire network to subtly rearrange.

Add something new to an existing network; for example, a new romantic relationship between two people in the network. This subtly affects the friendships of their mutual friends, and those changes ripple out until their entire social network is vastly different.

Once again, this is something we're all familiar with from personal experience. In the particle metaphor, a single new bond forms, changing the valency of those involved and affecting the structure of the "molecule" around them. These changes affect the next "layer" of people, and the next, and so on. Often, the equilibrium is entirely broken, and it can take quite a long time for a new equilibrium to form.

The most drastic changes after a disturbance tend not to affect the more stable, tightly networked groups. This makes sense; the close bonds between good friends tend to survive even severe disturbances, instead, the network tends to fragment at weak points; weakly-linked groups separate and form new metagroups, for example. Here, the fault line effect becomes apparent; extremely poorly-linked metagroups break apart very easily. It's here that we see the polarization of groups, the "Them vs. Us" mentality which characterises highly fragmented populations.

All of this has a physical analogue: molecules, especially large biomolecules which best match the large networks people tend to form, tend to break at specific weak points under certain types of pressure.

That's all for now, but this is a pretty interesting idea for me, so more will probably follow.

On Racism

The universal conception of racism seems to explain it as stemming merely from extreme bigotry, from one group thinking they are better than another and acting on it. But while that certainly seems to have been the case in the past, and while bigotry is certainly still a large part of racism, it seems to me that in South Africa at least the actual causes are far more numerous and complex.

At its most basic level, the universal cause of racism, along with all other forms of prejudice and discrimination, is difference. In this case, difference of physical appearance certainly plays something of a part, but I personally would argue that differences of language, culture and worldview are far more important.

Off the top of my head, I can find three pieces of evidence to support this:

Firstly, in certain parts of South Africa, in certain social groups, the old Afrikaner/Soutie animosity is still alive - not quite as flagrant, as vicious or as strongly felt as typical European/African racism, but nonetheless quite present. Now, although it's probably theoretically possible to distinguish someone of Afrikaner descent from someone of English descent, physical appearance is for all intents practically useless in this particular vendetta.

Secondly, the phenomenon of self-titled "coconuts" (or, recently, "Oreos"), people of African descent with a stereotypically "white" western upbringing, being readily accepted into normally prejudiced societies or groups, shows that behaviour and culture play a large part in racial discrimination.

Finally, the same depression is apparent in non-racial contexts. The one that immediately springs to mind is the classic jock/nerd rivalry, but there are many others to be found with a moment's thought.

What does cause racism then? Beyond the simple description of "differences" mentioned above?

Although I'm certainly not a sociologist, my best bet is that it's a fairly simple process, something like the following:

You have two types of people, culturally speaking (and, coincidentally, racially speaking), in the same environment. By the natural ebb and flow of social situations, they will naturally form into groups. But a person of one type - for the sake of political correctness, let's call them Venusians - is going have trouble fitting into a group with the other type of person, whom we shall call the Neptunians (Political correctness is silly enough without me having to use the word "Martians").

It's not that they would deliberately ostracize him. It's just that he wouldn't fit in. He wouldn't be able to relate to them. They way they prioritise flord over fneerp, the fact that other people's klud doesn't seem to matter to them... And the language barrier would always be a problem. Technically he can speak Neptunian, but they can't seriously expect him to learn all nine tenses. They can all speak Venusian, but they can't pronounce their zaks right and he has to spend an extra ten seconds trying to understand everything they say.

Likewise for a Neptunian trying to fit into a Venusian group. They don't seem to care about flord at all, but they're absolutely obsessed with fneerp and they can get really uptight about their klud. And then there's the language barrier again.

It's nothing deliberate or malicious, but it's a fact of life that you're going to get two groups. Perhaps there may be more groups, but they will be visible as two supergroups, Venusians and Neptunians. And it's a fact of sociology that if you have two groups competing for resources, there will be animosity. It's the way we're programmed.

Thus far, we have enough to explain Afrikaner/Soutie animosity. But what about the bigotry, and the bigoted kind of racism?

So we have two groups beginning to develop a fair amount of mutual animosity. But one group is more powerful than the other - not intrinsically, but they have better technology. It's a short leap from "We don't like them" plus "We have power over them" to "We're better than them." Human nature again, I'm afraid.

So racism, as far as I can tell, doesn't start out with bigotry. Bigotry is a cross between a symptom and a stage of development of racism, but the real origin is far more simple and, depressingly, more a matter of human nature than of racists being intrinsically bad people.

Typically, this is where I would unveil my four-week plan for eliminating racism worldwide, but unfortunately I don't have one, and I'm not sure there is a simple solution, never mind one a medical student with a blog could figure out. Hopefully, though, this has been at least a little enlightening for someone.