Explaining the conflict in Gaza using Memetics!

As a French, Israeli, Californian, and now that the conflict quiet down, here is how I explain the conflict using Memetics.
This shows my position on the suffering of the Palestinians.

The 2 reinforcing memes infecting the people of Gaza, and especially the Hamas, are:

• All my problems are due to Israel.
• Israel can be destroyed.

While there may be a small base for truth on the first one, the second meme is complete non sense.

For the first one, it's actually mostly false. Before Israel, Palestinians had a very bad quality of life. They were never free, they never were a nation, they always were very poor.
Today, they are a lot richer than their Arab neighbors (and they used to be a lot richer until the intifada of 2000). And, they have something that no neighboring country has: Democracy!
Now it's a democracy controlled by Jews, and that is unacceptable for them.

Since 2000, they are really going down. Palestinian quality of life is degenerating fast. You may say it's because of Israel, and it's true.
But, it's not because Israel is actively trying to make their life miserable, it's because Israel is de-engaging itself from Palestinian affairs. They de-engaged from the West bank, and completely left Gaza.
Left by themselves, the Palestinians are going back to look like the other Arab states around Israel: Poor, no democracy, and a religion crushing any hope of development.

With less Israeli involvement, Palestinian quality of life is going down.

Still, the mind virus infecting the Hamas is: All my suffering is due to Israel!
it has nothing to do with the incapability of Arab Muslim to organize themselves into a viable society.

Now, the main point of this blog, is the second meme.
Spend some time picturing what it means: You'll need to destroy a democracy of 7 millions people and throwing somewhere (where exactly) 6 millions of them.
Now, if you keep thinking it is an option, you are a disgrace to humanity!

For peace to rise, this meme should be squashed, completely.

If you are a friend of the Palestinians, you have to tell them, again and again: Israel is never going to disappear. Stop your nonsense, and try to find another way to peace.

And here, I have in mind some of my French friends: Each time you are insulting Israel, and supporting Hamas in their current behavior, you are supporting this crazy meme.

You think you are telling the Hamas: You are right, your suffering should stop!
But what the Palestinian understand is: You are right, Israel should be destroyed!

This non sense is what generate the war! This non sense is what generate Palestinian suffering!
European and the international community need to stop fueling this meme.
Now, to destroy a meme you need to treat it as a disease. The Palestinian culture is infected by it! Never blame the victim for their disease!
Don't blame the people for their mistaken belief, but permanently, constantly and strongly attack the belief.
Everyone needs to repeat with force: Israel will not be destroyed! Jews will not leave this land!
To keep believing it, is the road to suffering for the Palestinians. They are bumping their heads against a brick wall!

That's why removing the motto from the Hamas foundation document is critical. An organization that is funded on a hateful impossible goal, will keep bringing suffering to the people of Gaza.
Ideas (memes) is what is generating this conflict. They should be the ideas we combat and fight!
If you want to help the Palestinians, stop supporting Hamas crazy ideas. You should support them, but stay strong in front of their ridiculous beliefs!

Now, on that last point, Israel (and especially Bibi in time of quiet) is really doing a bad job. By his action, Bibi is actually reinforcing Hamas belief. He keeps telling everyone that Israel is in mortal danger, he keeps acting like he is scared of the people in Gaza.

Israel needs to project the confidence that he rightly has: Israel will always be there, and the Hamas is not a threat but an annoyance.
This is how the Palestinian in the West Bank were treated, and they do not believe anymore in the destruction of Israel.
They still believe they are suffering because of Israel, and still believe that violence can help, but they accepted the existence of the Jewish state.

Hopefully, there will be another movement in Israel that will start acting correctly, and spend energy destroying the base for the crazy ideas of Hamas. Hopefully they'll remember that blaming the victim of an infectious disease is not the way to go. Hamas is a sick ideology, and it should be fought without blaming the people.
So, if my friends in Europe start helping in this effort, may be one day there will be peace!

Can microwaves shape Space-Time?

For quite some time, I'm thinking about this First Quantum Gravity Solution particular resolution of Einstein General Relativity equations. It's actually a link in My sources of this blog since 2008. It represents the space-time deformation caused by a single photon.

The main question is: Are we living in a boring, fun or cool Universe?
What's important about a photon, is that it has energy like any mass, and it travels at the speed of light.
Since the scientific community expect gravity to propagate at the speed of light also, a photon cannot have a gravitational impact in front of him.
If it did, there will be a "gravitational shock wave"! Basically huge accumulation of space-time deformation.

Anyway, the equation is fully solve and the amazing result is:
The impact on space time of a photon is only on the perpendicular plane of the photon momentum vector.
It means that a photon generates an anisotropic deformation of space time.

When I saw the results from NASA about the emDrive, I thought about this again.
Can this anisotropie be used to create acceleration.

Here is my thought experiments:
First let's imagine 2 flat circular perfect mirrors very close to each other. In between theses mirrors a huge quantity of photon bumping back and forth.
Space-time around this object will look this:

No thrust will appear here expects that the mirrors will get bigger :)

Now if you bend the mirrors in a spherical or parabolic shape, there may be a way to concentrate the deformation in front of the mirrors.
So, the mirrors will naturally fall in front of the sphere. There will be thrust/acceleration.
Even placing a small mass at the concentration point may help the forward movement.
Like this:

I'll love to know what's wrong with my thought experiment? :D
There should be a back of the hand calculations, using the EM energy set in the drive, converting this to a static mass, and seeing the impact of such mass as a gravitational attraction.
You may get the same ridiculously small impact out of huge amount of energy :D

Healthcare in the USA? A dirty European newcomer point-of-view!

When people ask me "Where do you come from?" I’m answering, "I'm a French Israeli Californian".
Usually it generates a small laugh and no more questions, about cultures or habits.
Sometimes I get: “How do you like it here?”

I’ll love to answer an unconditional “A lot, thank you!” but I have to say, it’s very hard.
One of the reasons is the American healthcare system. But much worse than this, it's how Americans are dealing and talking about this whole issue of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. It is very disturbing for me.

I’m coming from two countries that are clearly ugly socialist empires for most Americans. Still, in theses countries (and so, for my entire life), I never linked my family health issues with my financial status.

Let me be clear, like every human being, I’m worried about my health and especially the health of my children.
Like every normal family we had to interact with doctors, specialists and hospitals many times in our life. During all this time I never considered the costs of it.

My daughter has Celiac disease and when I learned, it really worried me. Today, thanks to my wife, instead of being an issue it became a blessing. But, during this whole process, I never worried about money. And in France today the health system pays for the extra cost of Gluten Free food!

And since I’m here, it’s horrible!

After my son fell and got a deep cut above his eye, that needed stitches, we went to the ER. And even with the amazing health insurance coverage I got, we needed to pay $500 of out-of-pocket. So, I heard myself joking “Next time he can bleed to death!” How can you live like that? Kids hurt themselves. And every time it happens: Oups! Here goes the saving for our next vacation.

Naturally, I talked with the locals, to try to understand how it works. And, almost all them, started to complain about Obamacare and how it is hurting the middle-class. They talk about illegal immigrants sucking the system.
Like you can see in here:
"So illegal immigrants get health care without paying for it, but citizens face the choice of either buying expensive health insurance or paying a tax," Coburn and Barrasso wrote. "The cost of illegal immigrants‘ health care in the emergency department of hospitals will be shifted to Americans with insurance."

They are totally valid financial argument, and in France and Israel there were also people abusing the system. For any system you put in place. There will always be abusers!
And frankly, from experience, the white males with hypochondria are bigger abuser than illegal immigrants.

Anyway, what’s annoying me here, is that we are talking about health. Yes, there are immigrants with Cancer. It looks like they love it to have Cancer. They woke up one morning:
Now that I’m an illegal immigrant in the USA and I have Obamacare: It’ll be great if I’ll get Cancer!

They don’t get it! You cannot make a money decision when health is involved. Sorry you’ll have to die, we are broke. Are we back to the Middle Ages! I missed the memo?

Actually, I lied before about never worried financially. A friend of mine (he was an employee in the company I co-founded), discovered that his mother had late stage stomach Cancer. There was almost nothing he could do at the stage, except one drug that had really good results. But, the National Insurance did not yet approve it.

So, he needed to pay more than $5,000 a month, to buy this drug from his own pocket. What kind of choice is that? Sorry Mum I need the money, you’ll die!
He used his savings (we helped), she got better, and finally, he sued the National Insurance to prove they were wrong. Then he organized a protest to reform the approval system (it was too slow and under high budget constraints) at the government level. we helped in the protest, and it worked.
Israel National Health Insurance system got better. It made me feel good. Politicians actually listen and cared.

I have this very bad feeling: Nothing close to this can happen here. In America if you are poor, you die, it’s normal.

Basically, the question is not financial, the question is:
Are the USA rich enough (like Europe, Israel, …) to have citizens that worries about health, because being healthy is better than being sick, and not because it’s going to cost?

What disturbs me is that I know why America Health care system is like this.

Health is the most important part of life. In the USA employers have the power to influence your health.
Imagine yourself as a father of 3 kids that rely on your health insurance. Do you think you are going to risk anything that may get you fired? Can you protest your work conditions?
Now, as I’m actually an employer of American citizens, I can feel this power and leverage I have. It’s disgusting me!

If you are a good person, stop complaining about Obamacare, make the people that do not pay their shares (the 1%) understand that American citizens wants to live like all the others healthy rich citizens of the world: Without financial worries about health!

The solution is clear. Just go to www.wolf-pac.com and act!

Our Digital Extended Phenotype

The way we interact with the web today is becoming an extension of ourselves, it's our Extended Phenotype as connected human beings. Like Richard Dawkins book describe it in his book The Extended Phenotype, I feel like what we do on the net is part of ourselves, and what we see on the net influence who we are.

We feel connected to things that are way out of our body sphere of influence. Like the famous tweet from a quite funny American in February: “Only Australians are crazy enough to complain about mowing the lawn in the middle of night when there is 10 inches of snow outside!”

Our posts, our pictures, our friends are linking us to this thing that is “us on the web!”. It grows in size, it grows in influence, we have a strong urge to check “its” state every time we start to be a little bit bored by our real life.

Since the beginning, a lot of “troll” use this extension of themselves likes it does not have any moral limits.

But, because of the growth and the quality of these web connections, the actual human impact of our actions on the web is a “real” impact. More and more of us start to “behave” on the net and follow the Wil Wheaton's rule.

I love my new extended phenotype, and I'm getting ready for big impact!

Quantum State Machine in a Loop Quantum Gravity Spin Network

The title may look scary but in fact is a very fun game that I'm playing for the last 6 years: Writing "Game of Life" software that will simulate physics elementary particles.
I started writing code to play this game 6 years ago, and now I reached a point that it plays very nicely. That's why I'm making it public.
The full article is here, and here are some highlights:

• I found repeating stable pattern moving at constant speed whatever energy level
• All patterns have energy inversely proportional to their size
• Massive and massless particles appears naturally from rules of stabilization
• Charges patterns and chirality of the shapes appears also from the rules

I'm really enjoying playing with this code and I hope to motivate someone to give me feedback ;)
Anxiously waiting to know if you find it as cool as me?

My Reason Rally Experience: Angry by Compassion!

My experience at the Reason Rally 24th March 2012 was truly amazing. It was my birthday, and I can say: I had the most incredible birthday!

The story starts on Friday, the day before, when I saw that the Reason Rally organizers were launching a contest for the VIP seats.
I participated with my last post with some little hope.
In the middle of night, Saturday at 1:00 AM I got a mail from Jason Gross from center for inquiry that I won a seat! Wow, amazing time!

Waking up at 7am going with my friend Dean Marbury @TheDudeInSF, we did the way from our hotel and actually arrived too early :)
But we had a good time, and the rain did not arrived yet.
Finally, from 8am to 6pm we were on the National Mall ground, under the rain, experiencing this great show.

I was a little scared that there will be too much bashing, too much negative thoughts expressed on stage and in the crowd. But, guess what, exactly the opposite happened.
The speeches were emotional, inspirational and extremely positive. All the speakers and musicians gave so much joy and hope, just amazing.
It was an emotional blast!
And the crowd was so fun to be with I could not believe it!

The Reason Rally is not a conference or some lectures, where you get knowledge about what it means to be a "non-believer", but it was an emotional expression of the movement.
Still, I got one new piece of wisdom during the show.
I read before the great blog of Greta Christina about Why Are You Atheists So Angry? and if you are a moral person, you cannot disagree with her.
But during the Rally one more thought came up: Atheist are not angry about what religious people are doing to them. They are not angry to selfishly protect themselves, they are angry because religious dogma is generating a huge amount of horrible suffering to OTHER religious people.

Atheists are angry by compassion.

• Where is the compassion of the Catholics for their own community members that suffers child abuse?
  Catholics should up in arms against the church for theses crimes.
• Where is Christian compassion for those teenagers, push to suicide, after being told their gay soul is worthless!
• Where is the compassion for the millions of AIDS victims in Africa?

Conclusion: ”Angry by Compassion” is my new Meme :)

Because I was afraid that anger will be controlling the show, I wrote in the middle of the night (from Friday to Saturday) this small text addressed to all my fellow Atheists that gathered under the rain:
"
The protective mother (especially if she is Jewish), will tell you: "You cannot change the world. Go with the flow and you'll have a better life".
Steve Jobs and startup entrepreneurs will tell you: "The ones, who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do".

Both miss the point!

The point is: The world is changing, the world will change.

The real question is: Do you want to participate in this change, or play catch up for the rest of your life!

We are here because we see our world changing. And we know it is not changing for the better. We don't believe, we don't have faith, we KNOW that only reason and rationality can make our world a better place.

Irrational emotional behavior of fundamentalists have no place in public discourse. We are here to remove emotions from our laws, our politics and the public decision making.

But we cannot make the mistake to think that emotion can be replace by reason. Talking rationally and reasonably to emotionally driven people will led us nowhere.

We need to be reasonably emotional!

We need to show how good we feel when we read or listen to Carl Sagan words!
We need to show how amazed and excited we are when we learn how we came to be!
We need to show our deep good feelings when science is telling us how our physical, biological and neurological being came to be!

All the amazing scientific progress keeps providing us food for thought and for our emotions.

We should show the world that, when emotion and reason are in synchrony, you are a better person!

We can and should show anger when religious bigots are pushing homosexual teenagers to suicide, or protecting pedophile priests.

But, the goal is: Let's hammer the point:
"A reason driven society is a better society!"
Let's change this world!

Thank you.
"

Here I am in the VIP crowd:


Image source

And for the "cerise sur le gateau" I met Shelley Segal which sings with so much emotions, I'm moved every time I hear her.


And also Aron Ra, which can calmly point any irrational thoughts promoted on religious channels (a lot of work he got :)


And finally in the evening, Thunderf00t which spends a lot of his smart brain cycles on exposing the "scientific" behavior of faith ;)


Need some sleep!!!

Why I'm going to the Reason Rally

On the 24th of March 2012, there will be the biggest event of secular people in America at the Reason Rally.
It will also be my 41st birthday :)

It took me time to decide if I will be a good birthday present to spend a full day standing in Washington DC with tens of thousands of people!
But when I saw the amazing list of speaker that will express their view for a secular (and hopefully a secular world), and felt the great spirit of the people that will gather there, my choice was made: I will spend my birthday with a HUGE bunch of friends :)

I thought a lot about what I could say to the people I'll meet there. The main question I want to ask Richard Dawkins, Sean Faircloth and other: What can we do, all of us here on Washington ground, to make this world a better place, a place with more reason?

My personal answer: Religion appeals to the emotional brain, the current US election are not driven by reasonable pros and cons but by pure emotional content. Emotions cannot be the driving force of the rules of our society. We need to bring back the debate to our reasonable brain.
Now, talking rationally to an emotionally American Christian extremist is completely useless. We need to talk about the amazing emotions of our rational life.
I personally feel extremely good when my reason, my logical analysis of the world match my emotions. Being reasonably emotional is an amazing feeling. It is way stronger than the "intellectual dishonesty" that religious people needs to have to keep their faith alive.

We need to show the world about how the emotions of reason are way stronger, easier to express and more stable than the irrational beliefs.

Basically if we can show the world that being reasonably emotional is a better way of life, we will make this world a better place.

Hope I'll meet a lot of these guys there, and, if you are undecided, join me to the reason rally!