World Peace

World Peace
Why there is still no peace in this world?

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

- John Lennon

The differences between people bring instability, suffering, hatred and violence in this world. Whether it is a difference in culture, race, sex, age, opinion, belief, interest, hobby and how much they earn, they all play a big role bringing all the devils in this world. It is ironic that the very things that make this world colourful, interesting, dynamic and fun place is the very things that make this world miserable, sad and sometimes intolerable place.

Of course some may argue that this is nonsense. But the facts stand out clearly: most wars are largely attributed to racial and religious difference, most crimes are attributed to income difference, most street fights are attributed to opinion difference...

There is a saying that everything has got two sides, just like a coin, and maybe all these sufferings, crimes and violence are what we have to pay for everything else that the difference between people offer to us. But, hang on a minute, there is a coin with 2 heads or 2 tails! So, can we not have all the goods that the difference between people offer to us and nothing else?




I think, the differences between people are the primary causes of frictions between individuals and a group of people, however it does not suffice to explain and excuse all the violence we have seen and we are seeing today. We cannot get rid off the majority of the differences between people, because many of them are simply natural that people are born with it. I am not just talking about the race and sex, but how they are going to grow up and what they are going believe in and interested in. But we can dampen those differences and smooth them over, either by trying to make people difference-blind or trying to make people more tolerant about differences, that means to respect each other.

Unfortunately, it is not the easiest thing to do in this world. People love talking about national sovereignty, the-one-and-only-god and they love to be proud of this-and-this country's citizen and having this-and-this religion. I am not saying these are bad things, but they can get extremely dangerous if they are put above everything else coming to the point that people are prepared to do anything without their own judgement.

We, as human beings, have come long way from the caves to the cities. We have come long way developing our society, learning about everything that surrounds us. However, we haven't made as much progress on world peace as we have done in other areas. The violence continues all over the place, the crimes continue, the wars in Middle-East and Africa continue. If we start respecting each other more, becoming more patient, then I believe the world will be a better place.

Let's respect each other and
Let there be peace!

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

- John Lennon

Social Science

Social SCIENCE? Having a laugh or what?

"Economics is not a Science" - George Soros

1. Why so called "Social Science" is not a science at all:


• They use "equation" when they really mean "approximation".
• They use "theory" when they really mean "proposition".
• They use "prediction" when they really mean "speculation".
• They use "determine" when they really mean "estimate" or even worse "guess".



• All the "theories" they claim are NOT a theory!
  - Their theories do not work, while mathematical theories do work.
  
• All the "laws" they claim are NOT a law!
  - Their so called laws can be broken while natural laws cannot broken (at least under the right circumstance).
  



2. Why so called "Social Sciences" are alchemies and can never achieve the same status as Natural Sciences

I had always bothered with the word "Science" in so called "Social Sciences", as I believed they were not science. And when I found out that George Soros doesn't believe that economics is a science, I was delighted. Furthermore, he had given an explanation for why it can never be a science: "reflexivity". It is quite simple, so called "Social Sciences", or I prefer to call them as "Social Studies", are more or less the studies of human behaviour as an individual or as a society, hence the name "Social Studies". However there is a big problem: the subject and the object of these studies are the same! Therefore most of the attempts to explain the behaviour of us is likely going to change our behaviour, making the explanation (or they like to call it "theory") obsolete.

I believe his explanation is perfectly acceptable, yet I am troubled by the fact that many academic institutes are adopting more and more mathematical approaches to their studies, as to become more scientific. Meantime those mathematical models are becoming more and more complex with ever increasing errors and uncertainties. It is ironic that so many are more and more relying on these mathematical models despite their ever lowering power of prediction. Now most big companies and firms will demand their employees to make decisions solely on those models. So all the nice intuitions and nice explanations of the "social studies" with common sense go out of the window. There was a little surprise for the current financial crisis for those who still keep their intuitions and common sense as the current financial crisis is largely as a result of these faulty mathematical models, which worked so well over the last 3 or 4 years, that some people actually started to believe in these models completely. But when you add these uncertainties and errors over the period of time, they could be huge.

But "reflexivity" is only one of the many reasons for why so called "Social Sciences" cannot be science. Another reason is the problem with uncertainty as I have mentioned earlier. Natural scientists take uncertainty as a fact and always take it into account and make limitations on their models and predictions. So uncertainty in the model of human behaviour has got to be big, even bigger for a group of people. Another reason will be chaotic character in some behaviours of large groups of people.
Finally, there are so many things (variables, quantities whatever you wanna call them) in social studies that simply cannot be quantified and hence cannot be modelled.