(the J is for)

I'm not going to talk about the exact methodology (I don't want to give away my secret tech). I want to focus on the changes I would make in the world. After some thinking, I realised that, unfortunately, to make the world a good and safe place to live for all the good people of the world would require that I remove certain human rights and probably kill millions upon millions of people. 0th law paradox. The needs of the many vs the needs of the individual.

I'd like to put the needs of the many before the needs of any one individual. Currently, most of the world's democracies put the needs of the individual before the needs of the many. For example, in South Africa, an individual has a right to dignity. That's why ZA doesn't execute criminals anymore, because that is not a dignified way to die. Stepping on philosophical toes here. Right, let's assume that the death penalty is a very efficient deterrent to criminals. I'm not going to do that crime, because I'll get hung, drawn, quartered and be fed to deathrow inmates. So, in this HYPOTHETICAL world in which the death penalty would be a really good deterrent in most cases, would the killing of a few very bad apples be a bad thing? Their deaths would serve as an example, a reminder, a reinforcer. Less people would commit crimes warranting a death sentence, correct? Remember, this is a hypothetical world (I'm not backing this up academically) and this example might not be pertinent in reality, but should suffice as an example.

So why can't we as humans create a society in which we live for humanity and not for the human? Well, history, and science fiction/fantasy movies and novels have 'proven' that the leaders of such a world become blind to the real needs of the people (some even become corrupted) and humanity stagnates and dies off.

That got me thinking. What type of leader would I make in such a world. I would like to think that I can prevent my rule from degenerating into an Aristotlean tyranny, but then, I thought to myself, if I can maintain myself as a pillar of virtue and goodness, what would happen after my term, when I need to appoint a successor? Could I really find a successor worthy of following in my footsteps? What if I chose a poor successor who later became corrupt? Could I do that to humanity? No. Then I'd need to live on as ruler (remember, that under my rule, we'd be living in a technological wonderland), but the longer I rule, the harder it would become to maintain my goodness. Could I do it indefinitely? I don't know. So, if I managed to take over the world, it would probably be a lot better for a little while and then probably get a lot worse later on. Therefore, right now, taking over the world isn't quite yet worth my time.

I've been a member of LinkedIn for quite awhile now. It's always been interesting to see how my network grows. Recently, however, I've been noticing a particular LinkedIn user, ~Johan Victor, popping up all over my network. Who was this mysterious person with a ~ in his name? Why a ~?

Well, it wasn't long before I got an invitation from the ~ himself, asking me to join his network. He's a fellow Matie (i.e. studying at the University of Stellenbosch and just wants to help all other LinkedIn Maties by having them join his supah network. So I read his profile. Interesting read. Looks like he just wants to be the most connected South African ever. Well, what good would that do? I declined his invitation, because I want to know my connections so that I can comfortably recommend them to others. I couldn't bring myself to accept a complete stranger's invitation. Perhaps if one of my trusted connections sanctioned an introduction, then I may have accepted. What is the point of having a large network if you don't actually know anybody in it?

Don't trust strangers, children.

If one were to browse through my blogroll, you'd probably come across a lot of depressed individuals. I've had plenty of heated debates (arguments) about depression, weakness, disease, locus of control and the such recently. My whole social circle seems to be depressed except for myself and a scant few others. In one of the above-mentioned arguments, I was accused of being judgemental. Well, I always knew that I am, but being told explicitly made me think about it a bit.

Now I don't judge people based on the blasé gauntlet of steroetypes (sexuality, race, gender, fashion sense etc.), my prejudices are far more cultured, in my opinion: smokers, drunkards (you don't have to be an alcoholic to be a stupid idiot on a Saturday night), the overly overtly religious hypocrits, bad parents with badly behaved children under the age of 10 (especially the ones that run head first into my knees in shopping malls) and many more. Through continued discussion (arguing) I realised that I am prejudiced against people who make their problems my problems.

I am smoking. You eat secondary smoke.
I am drunk. I crash my car into your mailbox.
I am a sinner. I will redeem myself by berating your lifestyle choices.
I need to give up my kids to a social worker. You need to wash creme soda out of your shirt.
I am depressed. Pity me. You have to feel depressed too, otherwise you are uncaring and vicious.

OK, OK, maybe a bit overboard there. Apologies. Am I wrong about my prejudices? Is it wrong to not allow another idiot's vice/problem to become my vice/problem?

Go smoke outside - down wind!
Hand over your keys!
Glass houses, stone caster.
08000 55 555 - Childline. Call it.
Stop whining!

So this post might make me out to sound like somebody who shouldn't have as many do-gooder extras on my CV as I do. Well, most of the charitable work I do is there to inform and enable people to do what they need to do, but they must still be the ones to actually do it. No free handouts. God helps those who help themselves. I'm no Christian, but I will help those who are willing to help themselves. Those who don't help themselves will be exterminated by my morality police when I reshape the world in my image. GO QUANTUM!

I belong to a program known as MAP (Men As Partners). The purpose of the MAP program is to challenge the attitudes and behaviors held by men that compromise their own health and safety as well as the health and safety of women and children; and to encourage men to become actively involved in responding to gender based violence and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To achieve its goals, the MAP program was launched in eight of South Africa’s 9 provinces, ensuring a presence in almost every region of the country including urban, semi-urban, and rural communities (Source). To read more about MAP, just follow the link.

I am one of the MAP peer educators on Stellenbosch campus and it is up to us to think of and run interventions here on campus. I'm in a rather unique situation, being both student and teacher at the same time, so I have the potential to reach very different people with my interventions.

In August, I'll be teaching every 1st year in the BA faculty about Internet Search Skills. This could be a brilliant platform an intervention. There are some problems however. I help out giving a two-day workshop on the subject of internet search skills and I only have 50 minutes in which to teach the first years. That's a big limitation and I still have to get the MAP intervention across along with the actual work they need to do. I was aiming to teach them about using the advanced functions and syntax of search engines and introduce them to metasearch engines. Thus I could use what I search for as the intervention. Unfortunately, there's not enough time to allow them to absorb the necessary information and content of the search results. Does anybody have any ideas on how to not let this opportunity slip by? How can I make sure that it'll work?

Remember my comments on Easter? Follow this link to an article (16th of April) in the Sunday Independent. It offers an economists view of the actual cost of public holidays in ZA and a more plausible solution to my totalitarian take-over of the country's religious structure.

Most of the conflict around this world are religious in nature.

In South Africa Good Friday is a public holiday, as is the Monday following. For the country with the most progressive constitution, we sure go through a lot of effort to make the Christians especially happy (barring Ascension Day, of course). Why am I ranting on about this? Well, on Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of spending time with an individual whom just happened to be the most insensitive person in the world (when it comes to matters of race, nationality and ethnicity), but, at the same time, tries to overcompensate for this minor personality flaw and ends up insulting every non-white, non-heterosexual person "without meaning to". Grrrr. "Oh, you look Asianish, you must obviously know my good friend X".

Gee, aren't you cool, you know of a person of different race (than yours) and you're now talking to somebody whose racial characteristics are quite similar and thus they must know each other and you can make a new friend and show off how cool you are, because you're obviously a forward-thinking and very progressive individual.

Yes, and I believe that my foot is a good acquaintance of your ass too. Funny that.

Here my ten minutes have expired.

2 hours and 20 minutes later; the post continues:

So what is Easter about and what does it have to do with the above? Well, how many South Africans take their time off to truly reflect on the meaning of Easter? A spear in the gut and a spongeful of vinegar in the mouth? Death and rebirth? Forgiveness? Sacrifice? Chocolate? Commercialism and secularisation of a religious day? A time for sloth and relaxation? Ostracism of the non-Christian community?

It is my belief that no country, government or legislature should make any religiously significant date a national public holiday, unless, of course, they make every religiously significant date for every religion a public holiday. Naturally, making every such date a national public holiday would just cause untold havoc. That'll never happen. If we try to cater for everybody, we'll end up not catering for anybody. Alternatively, we could enforce a state religion and burn all the non-believing heretics. At least that type of non-sensical, emotionally-inspired persecution doesn't try to hide itself.

Race and religion are touchy subjects in South Africa, where they should all rather just be non-subjects. We shouldn't care about the colour of your skin or whom/what you worship. Yet we still put Christianity on its mighty pedastal of commercialism and put little friendly sidenotes here and there for those suspicious-looking Muslim/Islamic folk at the bottom of our supermarket specials boards.

It would be nice if we could all just simply ban all religions from the world. Unfortunately, that won't happen any time soon.

So why is Easter a waste of time? Firstly, we have too many public holidays in ZA anyway. It's going to be a real struggle for many to finish what needs to be finished. Do you realise that April is shorter than February (18 vs 20 work days)? Secondly, we kindly highlight that if you're not a Christian, then you're really not a South African.

Image Source: Helkom.

Still in Johannesburg and still helping out at the KLA course and guess what happened this morning - Telkom closed four of the venues lines. Thanks Telkom! This happened to us last year at another venue. Thankfully, the IT guys here at Bytes Technology Group are really good at what they do and got us on their secondary corporate line, so that I can now blog about how much Telkom sucks and continue helping with the course, of course.

Jacob Zuma; he may not be corrupt and he may not be a rapist, but that's not for me to decide. That's for the court to decide. I do, however, know this: Jacob Zuma had unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman, because he knew that the risks were minimal. This is sadly true. I recently completed my training as a MAP peer educator and so I may know a little bit more about HIV/AIDS than the average South African. For a patriachal bastard, the chance of contracting HIV through insertive vaginal sex is less than 0.05% per exposure, while for women it is at 0.1% per exposure (source: Health24 (I'll dig up a more official source when I get back home to my notes)).

The above statistics are very dangerous knowledge. Think about it. If more people knew the actual statistics, why would they have to use a condom every time they had sex? Jacob Zuma's actions and statement are slap in the face of the various condomize campaigns, especially as he used to work on an HIV/AIDS task force. Let me use an analogy: The chance of winning the South African lottery is statistically miniscule, yet people still try, because they believe they can win. If you believe in having sex without a condom, because the risk is minimal, but you believe that you can win the lotto even though the odds are even worse... do you see where I'm going with this?

Now Jacob Zuma is making the above statistics well known. Not good. He may not be corrupt and he me not be a rapist, but as a role model to many, he may be committing genocide through his actions and through what he is saying.

If anybody has browsed through my links, you may have noticed my link to my Linkedin profile. Linked in is a very powerful networking tool and it's definitely worth checking out. Anyway, under my profile, you'll see that I work part-time for Knowledge Leadership Associates assisting in giving an internet search techniques and tools short course. Tomorrow I leave for Johannesburg (bleh - I admit to being a backward quasi-Capetonian) to help with one of the courses. Then it struck me - why not use my blog as platform to show off my subject expertise. So, as my buddy, Minnaar, uses his blog to show off his mad-geek-tech skills, I'll be frequently posting handy tips and tricks for surfing the net.

Tip 1: Use Firefox. There's a link in my sidebar, but Google doesn't want me to tell you to click on that one, because I'll get money that way. This one here is safe.

The guy sitting next to me in the computer lab has just left to walk off somewhere again. He left his iPod, flash disk and laptop. The lab is pretty empty. I could just take his stuff (including his abnormal psychology text book). What's to stop me? The security cameras? Pfft.

Well, I'm not going to take it. Nor shall I berate him about his lack of responsibility. So is life.