Invisible face of prejudice

Lately I've been having a recurrent thought about the problems of the world. I feel they are usually about statistics related ignorance. Prejudice is intimately connected to that perception, but not in the way most of its critics usually describe. In fact, the opposite case is the true one. The reason why that happens is that those who openly defend prejudiced views are usually quite stupid and irrational.

Thus, it seems to make sense to attribute these very characteristics to prejudice itself. But while the moral condemnation of prejudice generally has solid base, the statistical one has not. This knowledge is key, not for prejudice to be spread out, but for it to be contained. Prejudice is hard wired in humans. It's intrinsic to our cognitive process. We learn quite early in life that our species is unique because of our rationality. That's not even a half truth. We are indeed capable of rational train of thought (in highly variable degrees). However, this rationality is always mixed with plain instinct, but also, and in a very unconscious manner, several layers of prejudice.

This makes it much less of a moral flaw than a cognitive limitation. Every second, we're exposed to tons of raw data. Our current neurological hardware wouldn't possibly be able to process that rationally or even consciously. So while we are able to place our focus on a specific issue and voluntarily make effort to solve it, this is applied to a tiny part of the problems we face everyday. The vast majority is tackled in a semiconscious and automatic fashion. For these, there's no voluntary action. That doesn't mean solution is random or magic. We possess several structures in our brains that are capable of super fast and accurate action. So do many of the so called inferior creatures. We share this mechanism for movement coordination for example.

It would be quite overwhelming, if possible at all, if we had to rationally deal with all relevant physical variables that allow us to drive a car. But obviously this is done unconsciously, and quite precisely so. Driving is such a great example because it's absolutely unnatural. There's no possibility of drawing from instinct when dealing with a 20th century man made machine, which proves there's something else at play.

This doesn't apply only to movement related tasks. The same also happens with a wide array of interactions we have with others and the environment. That's when prejudice comes in. It is mostly a mental shortcut, allowing complex scenarios to be evaluated and acted upon with a great deal of precision and speed. For these mechanisms to be selected by evolution, they don't need to be flawless. The trick is to save time and energy while providing descent enough results. This extra time and energy can be far more useful than, let's say, a 10% improvement in situation diagnostic precision. 

To sum everything up, my point here is to show two things: first of all, we're not as rational as we think we are. And second, prejudice is, together with other automatic mechanisms to process data, the reason why we can afford doing this quickly enough, without getting hurt or killed. 

That said, I feel the only way we can fight prejudice is to understand its purpose and utility. Purely saying it's bad is too simplistic and hardly adds any meaningful value to combating its harmful effects. The way out of this imbroglio is not only prejudice related knowledge, but its meta-knowledge. Bringing social justice to the world must indeed be in mankind agenda. But advocating for mere prejudice elimination is almost as innocuous and stupid as prejudice itself may appear to the more spirited minds. 

Pseudo scientific essay on Tindering

Tinder is getting increasingly popular. It's a great way to conciliate digital era autism with the wish and need to meet people, for friendship or something else. It has a greatly simple user interface in which you are presented with pictures of girls or boys or both. All you have to do is swipe to the right if you like what you see, or to the left if you don't. If the main pic is not enough to convince you, it's possible to tap it and check further pics and a self description the person might have entered. Filters are also simple: age, and how far people are from your GPS location. Fun part is that other people are doing exactly the same on their phones. If you both like each other, the app notifies the two of you, and then you can chat in the app or exchange contact info to meet in real life.

Everything is very simple, and because of that it's also very easy to spend a lot of time doing that process. Rejection always occur below the line, so no body feels bad. And even if you're a shy person, you can interact with hundreds of people (potentially thousands if you're really fast), because you can reduce your judgement time to a matter of seconds.

Can we learn something about human romantic relationship with this experience? I think so. Otherwise, at least it will be fun. Let me give it a try by making some basic assumptions and proposing some hypotheses.

This way of selecting people you feel attracted too is very natural and very artificial at the same time. As with normal real life interaction, the first thing you evaluate is appearance. But in the case of Tinder, you're summarized by a single picture. Upside for your rate by others is that you can be very editorial about it (people usually are in very peculiar ways). It means you can pick your best picture ever, the best angle, clothes, light and this will be you in the platform. Downside is that everybody does it, so the photos of others you're evaluating are also potentially very much edited. While it's great to look your best when putting yourself on display for others to say whether they find you attractive, this highly edited character can generate cognitive dissonance when the real date happens. People can feel mislead, as it's usually the case with food advertising.

Let's now suppose you're a guy, and you start playing around with the app. These are all the possible scenarios you can come across:

1- Person is actually attractive to you
2- Person is not actually attractive to you

Within both cases, you'll find the following situations that regard perceptions:

a. The photo takes you to the same conclusion as real life meeting.
b. The photo makes you reach the opposite conclusion.

Not having met that many Tinder people live, I don't have enough data about the distribution of 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b. In my really limited sample of 3 people, I've met one 1a and 2 2bs.

Since sample is too small, let's keep within the app. In a short period, you'll start identifying some interesting patterns in the photos:

1- Contrary to the old apps that theoretically did the same thing as Badoo, Tinder has a much higher percentage of users you actually find attractive (in the app). This is basically due to the fact it has become fashionable among those people you feel you would like to meet.

2- You can just make two choices, either rejecting the person or liking her/him. However, as one might logically expect, your call is not that easy to do. Because a low percentage of the users' pictures show either very good looking or really ugly (these are perhaps 25% of total users you are exposed to, very attractive folks corresponding to 5% and very ugly ones to 20%). Probably this split varies according to the country. I've actually checked it in several locales, and in fact this is not really equal across geographic regions (reason to be explored later on).

3- Then while these roughly 25% of the pictures are very easy to evaluate, most of them are not. There are many reasons for that, such as how photogenic a person is (which is related to attractiveness but not necessarily). Technical quality of the photos can also influence very much this judgement. Low quality, distorted and inadequately sized photos will be usually perceived as less attractive, even being totally unrelated to a person's actual look.

But apart from that, photos are a very narrow example of one's look. Exactly because all these factors can influence perception, reality of your evaluation from a photo can be very different from the one you'll have when meeting the person face to face. Thinking about this distribution, Tinder user interface is quite helpful. In the evaluation flow, besides like and reject, you can also get more info, as I've mentioned above. When you click on this option, you'll get access to a bunch of other photos from the person, as well as his/her auto-description.

This extra context can be really helpful in making a more accurate evaluation of how much that particular person seems attractive to you. But there's still the editorial aspect of them. Anyhow, if a person appears attractive in several different contexts and angles, chances are her appearance is not that influenced by these factors.

4- Photos have themes that can be observed very often. In the case of girls, maybe the most common pic is a kissing pose. You can see that so often that it seems they've arranged some sort of coordination scheme. Pictures with wild animals like lions and tigers are super common as well. But you can equally find travel pics, skydiving, cars and motorcycles. It's interesting that in San Francisco Bay Area, women use to pose with friends. So quite often, you don't know who you are judging. After thinking the matter through, I didn't reach any conclusion about why someone would do that.

While themes can be curious, in my opinion other patterns related to the photos chosen for one's profile are much more intriguing. The level of sexual insinuation on them changes a lot. My hypothesis is that it relates to ones intention when joining the platform. But these are not as straight forward as they may seem.

This is only one aspect of how people pick pictures to represent them to their target audience. Because the idea is not just delivering the best possible self portrait. Photos also show one's personality, intentions, preferences and so on.

Social and economic status also play an important role in the game. In countries where the gap between the rich and the poor is not as huge as in Brazil, I'd suppose showing off status signs like cars or expensive trips is not that important. This is the case at least in California, but I'm not sure about the rest of the country, which is also highly unequal in many dimensions. But here in Brazil there's a great deal of elements in the picture that aims to place the person at a particular socioeconomic level.

An additional peculiarity is that here, people from different socioeconomic groups usually go to separate bars, restaurants, clubs, etc. Which means that by going to these specific places, you're already making sure you won't meet people from other economic background. One could argue this is not a very open minded mindset and be right about it. But this is not necessarily discriminatory. It can be just the natural desire to meet people that share a larger common ground, since this really helps further integration.

But in Tinder that doesn't happen that much. The filters for age and distance from your location can provide a bit of this selection, but still much less than the common modus operande would. So even if users demographics are distorted to a higher income due to the need to possess a smartphone, popularization of these devices guarantees you're going to come across many people that have much less money, education, and opportunities to travel than yourself. Maybe that explains why travel photos are so popular.

While all these observations are very peculiar, the fundamental question about the app popularity still remains: what are people really looking for when they use Tinder? I'd say the first reason is basically instant gratification. Each match shows you a picture of someone you've rated as attractive and that has done the same to you based on your picture. Apart for any future perspective, this is pleasant in itself and even addictive to a certain degree.

Second, it's very convenient. Real socialization takes time and effort. You need to go somewhere, spend money, put yourself on the spot if you are a guy. Tinder removes all these obstacles for you. Socialization comes at a very low cost and on a very large scale.

What's the problem them? Why people feel kind of uncomfortable by using the app? I see two main reasons for that:

first one has to do with the utter lack of social economic preselection, which can make Tinder seem like a place you wouldn't normally go. Even in the unrealistic case you'd find everybody attractive, issue is you need to have some degree of communication and depending on the differences in background, that can be virtually impossible. Second one is another speculation of mine since I don't have much data apart from what I've heard from female users: guys can be too aggressive, direct, and sexual, which might feel uncomfortable to some girls. When something like that happens, people tend to overgeneralize, creating a biased perception of the whole game.

However, there's some truth in this perception and it's rooted on the very core of the app functioning. As in real life, if you're not a particularly good looking fellow, the chance to find someone interesting is highly correlated with how many girls you approach. But the great disadvantage is there's no visible rejection. Together with the low engagement the channel provides to its users, average male behavior can end up being less polite, further reinforcing the impression of a somewhat weird and wild place.

Regardless of these down sides, I believe the main drivers for people to meet online are stronger than ever and this habit is not going away. I don't think this is particularly problematic. The invention of the phone and the fact people could call each other didn't make them stop meeting altogether (otherwise birthrates would have dropped much more dramatically than they actually did). But I feel the underlying conditions in which Tinder thrives are indeed a bit concerning. The app may not be the reason why people socialize less. However, its success is probably a consequence of that, among other things.

So while I think apart from the weirdness of it, one can find super interesting people by tindering, I think we should make sure to spend enough time with those we already love and a reasonable amount of time caressing our phones in search for someone new.

Power abuse several flavors

Brazilians, especially upper middle class, feel our country is very special in terms of the absurd stuff that happens around here. Usually I tend to disagree and attribute this perception to both the usual egocentric view of the world coupled with a limitless ignorance about it (going to Miami every now and then to waste money doesn't really count as knowing the world, sorry.)

But I do think we have peculiar features around here (tending to nag my grandfather and his book about nonexistence of such a thing as national character). Anyhow, I'm not trying to become chief of department at the University, so unlike him I can just throw ideas in the air.

I feel we're walking paradoxes. We have the smallest bikinis in the world (and also the pubic hair management system that goes with it). They are famous worldwide. Brazilian girls sexiness is like a national export product. And still we're very much used to morally judge and condemn women who have an active sex life. This leads me to think we don't really value the insinuating beauty of our girls. We treat this as a male consumption product, objectifying women. Instead of empowering them, their beauty and attractiveness become a sort of sordid prison (although possibly with a great view).

As with girls derriéres on our sunny coast, people's prejudices are also often out there in the open, despite an also very generalized self-consciousness and will to please others (yeah grandpa, talking about the cordial man here). Curious thing is that these constant contradictions create anomalies such as our extreme right politicians. These guys are a perfect condensation of the nasty side of our culture. So much so that a reelected federal congressman named Jair Bolsonaro has the balls (or not) to say at an open tribune he just wouldn't rape a fellow congresswoman because she doesn't deserve it (meaning she is not attractive enough for motivating him to do so).

Well, in this case I've got to admit this seems a little too much. Maybe people in power say that in Sudan. But it's a war zone, and killing and raping are best practices in these circumstances. My take is that power abuse happens everywhere. It just assumes different shapes and colors, but it's very much always the same. It can occur at high level companies, promoted by both men and women, at the congress, or a battle field.

Some people struggle for life to understand how the hell the holocaust has happened about 75 years ago. Others have the nerve to deny its existence, which is not only idiotic given the amount of hard evidence available, but also despicable. I'm not slightly interested in this later group. But for the struggling one, my point is that the answer is as simple as power craving. It's always around the corner, and it's highly appreciated and rewarded by our society because it retrofits its logic, creates more wealth for the already wealthy, thus maintaining the status quo. It fuels discrimination and inequality.

I'm dead sure power seekers might have been useful at some point of our evolution. Now they are probably our biggest risk of being wiped out from the face of the Earth. And unless the rest of us that hate power do something about it, they might end up getting what they want.

Meditation, Health and Happiness

People with emotional issues are often sent to psychotherapy, and not the right kind of it. Today I wanna show why this is not the right way to go.

Science
Let's start with science. There's no scientific basis for the effectiveness of these therapy types on the most common emotional disorders. The ones tested and approved are Cognitive Behavioral based. They are short. Not for life. This article on NY Times captures these differences quite well. Meditation, like CBT, has been widely studied and has proven benefits on the brain. That reflects in gains in mood, attention, creativity and happiness.

Money
Deep psychotherapy is highly expensive and because it has no proved effectiveness or expected time to last, most health insurances won't cover it. That's especially awful when you're sick and really unsure about your income. Therapists usually negotiate the price, which is also not something you'd like to do when your fragile and afraid of losing your job. Meditation is free (although you may pay once to learn a technique). You can also learn from a friend. Free of charge.

Time
DP is not convenient. You have to schedule an appointment, which can be really hard, go there regularly, and that can take time and strength you don't have, precisely because you're overwhelmed with emotional issues. Plus it can last forever. No estimate about when you'll get better. Meditation can be done at your convenience, wherever and whenever you want or need. And if you have the discipline to do it often, it will work.

Being in control
With DP there's dependence on someone else. This person, even a fantastic one, also has bad days, gets sick, goes on vacations (usually when you feel you need them). Meditation is always with you. It's up to you. It depends on you.

In conclusion, if you're sick, reach out to a psychiatrist. That may help. Pick the right kind of therapy. One that's really effective. And meditate. Always.

So this is Christmas

In Brazil, Christmas starts earlier every year. At least for our shopping malls. Inspired by them, I'm also going to consider it's already that time of the year.

Too many people get really sentimental. I think it's natural for several reasons. Main one is that everything stops, and dust settles on everyone's life, no matter how busy it has been during the year. Then it can hit you: the fact you've spent most of your time at work, solving somebody else's problems instead of being with your loved ones and helping them out. And if that was the case with you, it means you were lucky enough to have a job, to be able to sell your time and skills for money, and to buy yourself a slice of descent life.

Anyhow, feelings may emerge from that change of pace, and you may actually remember a lot of things you so successfully managed to forget during almost all the year. When that happens, some people write beautiful messages to their loved ones, full of good wishes and hope for the future. I don't have anything against this approach and I really endorse demonstrations of true feelings. I think if you're able to tell your dearest people you love them, you should really do so.

But this year I'm going to break this tradition and address people I despise first. Why? Because I believe even being just a few, these folks can make too much damage. So if my wishes to them come true, everybody else will be much better off.

I need to take a step back and briefly describe these folks. They are unfair, opportunistic, power driven, and coward. It's common for them to take credit for others' work, since they don't do much themselves. They are not really smart, in intelligence or knowledge terms. Maybe because of that, they are great at selling certainty to others. If they were smarter, they'd naturally be aware of their own ignorance, which would prevent them to impose their arrogance to others, usually taking advantage of privileged conditions and better opportunities. They are very good at defending those better results they get as a consequence of their hard work and skill. Many of these folks won't even reproduce and pass over the genes they consider so superior to everybody else's. Still they are capable of creating great negative social impact, despite being logically so insignificant.

What I wish for this people is simple: I want them to go back to where they really belong. I think this usually happens sooner or later. The problem is that when later is the case, others will suffer. More so when for some reason they don't have adequate means to defend themselves. I don't want these horrible people to necessarily die or suffer, although I have to confess sometimes these desires populate my dreams. I really want them to be disarmed, to lose the means to do harm in their own best interest. If this happens, they will also automatically stop taking ownership of resources that they haven't even helped producing. This will certainly reduce inequality, which is bad by definition, but even worse because of the way it's unfairly produced.

With that, all my beloved friends and family will have a truly Merry Christmas. Not only them, but everybody else struggling to make a living while high class parasites stand on their ways, covered in idiotic certainties. That's my dearest wish for Christmas, New Year and for everyday we all have the privilege to inhabit this blue planet.

Sincere question

This blog has been created mostly to allow me to share some answers about which I had been thinking for so long and finally got to a descent level of clarity on. Depending on how you look at it, I've got to admit it's quite naïve. But it's also so like me. To get deeply inspired by new feelings, ideas and experiences and think that it would be so wonderfully possible that other people could be part of a chain reaction, bringing about collective enlightening, so to speak. Well, today I think it's already safe to acknowledge this hasn't happened. At least yet (I can't help it!).

Anyhow, today I'm coming here to get an answer from someone, God, the Universe, you name it. Or at least a sincere attempt to get to one. The question is tough and despite practicing a technique that could lead me to skip this question, to avoid burning out, I feel I want a second opinion. Here's the deal: all my factual observations, both of myself and scientific research have pointed out to a quite uncomfortable and unfair realization. Maybe society doesn't do it on purpose (most people certainly don't), but the fact is there's a sharp asymmetry between the amount of effort and dedication required from a disabled individual to achieve material outcomes that can be considered ridiculously small if you keep all variables constant, changing only disability (I know, I've repeated that ad nauseum).

My question is, what's the correct attitude towards that? I've learned with my own experience that acceptance has a great power to reduce suffering. It's totally obvious that from a subjective perspective, that's the way to go. But then there's a small detail: when I accept something like that, automatically the level of sacrifice I'm willing to make is drastically reduced. Because I know I'm not going to make it getting remotely close to where I theoretically could. What's happening to me right now, and I think quite logically, is I've just stopped valuing all those earthly things that I've tricked myself with to prove I was a perfectly capable and normal human being. Now I know I'm a perfectly capable and normal human being, but I also know there will be cumulative barriers on my way that will make it appear otherwise to the average external observer.

Should I enjoy the fruits of my painfully acquired wisdom to limit my useless suffering? Or should I act like a hero of some sort and face the world head on, knowing I've already lost? Both answers appeal to different parts of my deepest soul. Justice is a word that albeit usually biased and distorted, is still resonating with some primal desire I've got, which makes my blood turn to steam. On the other hand, I know physics, and it's pretty clear to me what happens when someone tries to stop a train with bare hands.

There are days in which my patience is gone and I get so sick of being treated as something I know I'm not that I just want everything to end, because this is what's going to happen eventually anyways (to everyone, by the way). But then something else emerges like a stream of lava and makes me crave facing all that as if there was a really large reward somewhere. Is there a right answer here?

Saddest thing

Don't wanna indulge in sadness. There's hardly any good in doing so. But this aspect is relevant, and maybe its awareness can improve someone else's life. Disability can bring a very special kind of loneliness. It's not that being disabled implies in not having friends, although this can happen as well. Loneliness I'm talking about is a much deeper one. So much so, that if not acknowledged, it can really destroy someone's life.

What does being together mean? What are the reasons behind our social nature and our almost constant attraction to other people?

Maybe all of them spring from our animal basic needs such as food, sex and shelter. We're one of the species that rely the most on social groups for these needs to be satisfied. In primal settings, a single human hunter was a very easy target to better physically equipped predators. Not only that, but these fellows could also be an easy pray to other humans. Total intra-species competition would make the whole humanity weaker and more prone to be extinct. But our huge brains have allowed us to drop this idea of total war and join forces collectively, thus becoming a very powerful multipurpose machine. Somehow people realized the results of fighting the environment and other men at the same time would yield less average benefits than collaborating.

But this has happened thousands of years ago. What about us? How do we relate to each other in this hypertrophied highly specialized society? Maybe all this sophistication we have today is just the natural historical evolution from a very well coordinated hunting machine.  Maybe the basic principles that have made us stick to each other are still out there, but they just have a different external appearance, exactly because of all this sophistication and complexity.

In any case, it seems to me that the most fundamental ingredient for these social systems to work is that individuals have the ability to see themselves in others and in the whole society at large. When someone sees herself in another person, they are no longer two entirely different entities. They become a new organism, that will act on its own needs which in turn will get individual needs satisfied as well.

This is true for a group of friends, for a family, a city or even a country. In all these cases, people need to identify with each other, so they can collaborate to reach common goals. Trust is born from the awareness that the person in front of me has similar feelings, desires and needs (empathy). Therefore we have a common ground upon which we're going to build a collective existence together that is much more interesting and richer than what each of the individuals could provide for themselves in isolation.

Interpersonal bonds are stronger when people share a larger common ground. This can potentially maximize alignment and make agreement something more natural. It's not impossible to have a good friend that lives a totally different life compared to yours. But in this case, identification is different and mutual exchange can be limited and asymmetrical, making bonds weaker (at least friendship ones). This is also truth in terms of distance. It's usually much easier to maintain friendship with people that are physically close to us, because that facilitates the sense of availability we feel from them, and enlarges the common ground we have with each other. Very often people are close friends during school and grow steadily apart as they get engaged in different social environments.

Besides being physically close, common experiences are hugely important to build affinity. Maybe because of the evolutionary background mentioned above, we tend to feel safer and happier when we can share our experiences. Not necessarily because others can actively do something about a problem we're facing (although that can also be the case) but because sharing makes us feel stronger and more capable to tackle all the problems in the world.

This might make up for a good explanation about why rehabilitated disabled people can feel so bad and lonely, even being in much better absolute conditions than the folks that never went through this process. Rehabilitation is hard work. It hurts, it can suck all your energy, but usually it delivers a great deal of functional improvement compared to doing nothing (depending on the nature of the underlying condition).

Issue is we are social beings. It is rarely enough to perform better in daily activities. Performing them differently (in time or fashion) from the way most people like us do means losing the possibility to share similar experiences. Of course it's better for me to be able to move slower and with a cane than not to be able to move around at all. It's quite stupid not to acknowledge that. But this doesn't take social needs into account. So it creates the surreal experience of being a massive success and a huge failure simultaneously. The "mere physical issue" thesis is blown away at this point. Someone can be smart enough to make it in all intellectual tasks that generally lead to some degree of material success. But then there's common ground. While this person can theoretically perform all the necessary activities in a job description, the perception part and also the self-motivation part are usually not fulfilled.

This adds up to the unequal quality of the world we inhabit. You can indeed train a somewhat disabled person to perform all the tasks needed to live a good life in society. But the fact they will be done differently and thus won't let easy identification happen will create a gap that theoretically didn't necessarily have to exist. In other words, the worst thing about disability may not be disability itself, with all its pains and difficulties. It may well be loneliness. Because maybe you're able to do so many things but at the same time you are too different. Your life is very different and because of that you can't really see yourself in others and usually they can't see themselves in you either.

Making the huge effort for being capable and capability itself make you go only a small part of the way. The rest of it, albeit physically possible is socially unattainable. This is the paradox of rehabilitation and, in my opinion, it's the saddest thing about disability.