Hero

You dont have to win to be a hero. You dont have to survive , be the last man standing. Those who equate  heroism with victory completely miss the point. A hero is on a plane completely different from others, one who puts his principles before his life.
One of best scenes in an otherwise tasteless movie (Inglorious Basterds) was this one. A German officer chooses to die rather than put the lives of his troops in danger. He is a hero and this scene from the movie will be remembered by me when all the other scenes have faded from memory.



Perseverance in the face of adversity.



Yes, of course he had to pay a price for being a hero. Being a hero ain't easy.




PS: This post marks the beginning of the phase wherein I test the "Sex and Violence sell"  hypothesis on my blog. 

Game Theory

Observing people commenting on cricket matches can be quite an enlightening experience, providing vital insights into human behavior. I observed many people come up with figures and data (selectively sourced, of course!) , find a pattern in them and then predicting a result based on the pattern. 
Here's an example: 

Both the years of 1983 calendar and 2011 calendar starts on the same day. 1983 world cup final date according to 1983 calendar is June 25 (Saturday)
2011 world cup final date according to 2011 calendar is April 2 (Saturday)
(To predict India's win in WC 2011)

"I stopped watching the streaming and India has started to get back slowly. I shall remain loyal to Cricinfo till end of the game. I promise!" 
(A fan attributing India's comeback during the match to his action of not watching the streaming match.)


Our brains are pattern recognizing machines. While this is good for us from an evolutionary perspective (eg: co-relating certain signals like a rattling sound with danger of a snake bite from a rattle-snake) , it also leads us to form false associations which form the basis of superstitious beliefs. 
For example, Event A may cause Event B and Event C to occur. Now, we might not notice Event A happening and see B and C happening together and conclude that B causes C or C causes B. Worse, B and C happening together could be completely co-incidental and we might form associations between them. 
 This fallacy of mistaking co-relation with causality is quite common among people and the habit of predicting a winner for a cricket match based on patterns found in unrelated/superficially related past data is just a manifestation of that.


Could this fallacy take troubling forms? 
Suppose a people come to associate sunrise with human deaths. In other words, a belief that to rise, the sun needs a particular quantity of human blood?
(Note: I am not sure if this was actually the reason for the Aztec human sacrifices, I am just guessing.)