Dude, It is not about the Nuts!!!!

I just came across the following video from a Facebook post on the page of one of my friends.  You have to watch to understand the big difference in the ethical background of the discussion between the two persons.

I am so sure that the old folk left the scene and still did not get what the officer meant.  It is not about the nuts!!!  Believe me if I tell you that even such a very simple argument from the officer is very difficult for many people to understand here.  It is not about the nuts!!!   The officer mentioned that several times but still the old folk repeats that he will not bring in nuts again.  What made me realize that he did not get what the officer meant is the fact that he still blamed it on his wife that she brought the nuts in.

Just watch and Enjoy (English Version)

As Usual, We Read Half What is Written

Weeks ago, a friend of mine shared on my facebook page a ranking about Lebanon being in the top 5 countries in the quality of Math and Science education.  I checked the data and it turned out that it comes from a report published by The World Economic Forum’s 2013 Global Information Technology Report. 

For the first glance I got excited and started researching this fact. Searching online, one sees Lebanese blogs posting about the findings and referring to the original report.  However and as a mathematician, I had my doubts and I thought about investigating this issue in more details. The first thing someone should do in this case is simply visit the original report.  You can visit [Here] for the report.  Most people unfortunately who wrote about this report on their blogs or even thought about doing so, visited only page 213 of the report that summarizes all the statistical results and thus  concluded what they concluded. 

Looking into the individual statistical models, on pages 24 and 25.  One can see the following:

1. Lebanon is ranked number 10 for the quality of the educational system
2. Lebanon is ranked number 4 for the quality of math and science education

However, when someone looks closely at the table, one sees in both cases, it is what Lebanese perceive their country in terms of both qualities.  The questions that were asked to people in all the countries of the world were the following:

1. How well does the educational system in your country meet the needs of a competitive economy? (p.324)
2. How would you assess the quality of math and science education in your country's schools?(p.325)

I am sorry for the disappointing news but even as a first look it makes me doubt that Finland could even make it to the top 5.  There is a general impression among the Lebanese that our system of education is excellent but I would be very careful in making such statements specially in Math and Sciences. 

The Difficulty of Change

Behavior is tied up to our psychological infrastructure which is tightly governed by our belief as human beings.   We as human beings live and die for our beliefs but we mostly do not recognize that many of us have self destroying beliefs that create a shaky psychological infrastructure which can show up in our behavior.  Thus a real change in behavior cools down to real change in belief which is deemed difficult.

We as emotional people face difficulty in changing our beliefs (this is not what I am asking for) and thus our thoughts and our behavior can sometimes clash.  For this main reason, we complain about certain aspects but when it comes to taking a decision about this same aspect, at many instances we  choose the orthogonal choice.  For example, most of the people in this country complain about politics, about politicians and their practices.  Yet, when people have the chance to seriously transmit their complaint or have the chance to affect a change, they refrain and their behavior is pulled back by their beliefs.

So what can we do?

Accept responsibility, accept differences and try to find solutions based on those differences.  Do not expect change in behavior because of the difficulty or even the impossibility of the change in belief. Rather ask for a change in the governing system that has to be compatible with the people's beliefs and then eventually things will sort out. 

As a result, there will be no change if we do not face our differences and create a system compatible with such differences.

Image from Oregon State University

The Demographic Reality in Lebanon

Find the link to the demographic reality report about Lebanon that was conducted by the Lebanese Information Center-Lebanon (LIC-Lebanon) in the three different languages; Arabic, French and English.  The report discusses the Lebanese demographics and concentrates on four main points; Emigration by sects, fertility rate by sects, residing population by sects and projections by sects.

• Arabic Version  
• English Version
• French Version

Moreover, check all the media related activities that were released about the report.

• MTV News
• LBCI News
• Annahar Newspaper
• Daily Star
• Mercator Net
• Now Lebanon
• Lebanese Forces Website
• AlKalima Online
• Catholic World News
• Terra Santa

More Interesting Facts about Lebanon

In this post, we mention more interesting facts about Lebanon.

1- According to Sc Imago Journal and country rank, Lebanon is ranked as the 68th nation in terms of the number of publications in the year 2011 with 1,446 publications in all subjects.  Although, the number one is the US with 519,573 publications but the comparison here is invalid due to different factors (population size, educational standards, wealth, etc...).  One good relative measure would be Switzerland whose population is as twice as it is in Lebanon with 33,272 publications and ranked at the 18th position.  Moreover there are only 12 higher educational institutions in Switzerland compared to 32 in Lebanon.

2- A Gallup poll made in 2009 about the importance of religion in the daily life of people, 89.5% of people in Lebanon answered positively compared to 65% in USA, 40.5% in Germany, 29.5% in France and 26.5% in UK.  Needless to say that all Arab countries scored in the 90's with 100% in Bangladesh.

3- Lebanon is ranked as the 128th nation in terms of corruption along with Togo with a score of 30/100 where 0 is perceived as highly corrupt.   The corruption perception index ranks countries based the level of corruption in their public sector.

4- In the global competitiveness report 2012-2013 published by the World Economic Forum, Lebanon is ranked as the 127th from 144 for infrastructure global competitiveness with a score of 2.5/7 where infrastructure is defined as a basic requirement in that report. 

Lebanon and Facebook

According to Facebook demographics, there are 1,594,040 Lebanese Facebook users.  It actually calculates the number of accounts that are being signed up from Lebanon through the IP addresses of the users' machines.  The interesting part is that it measures the rate of penetration from Lebanon as 38.64%.  Now Facebook demographics mentions that in the US, there are 167,431, 700 American Facebook users which measures the rate of penetration as 53.97%.   (rate of penetration is percentage of the population using Facebook)

According to accurate studies, there are around 3,100,000 Lebanese inhabitants. (Many sources mention that there are around 4 million but those sources are not deducting the immigrants registered on the electoral lists). If interested I can refer you to many sources about the actual number of Lebanese residents.  The number of users is measured to be 38.64% where mathematically speaking, it has to be around 50%.  Facebook demographics uses the fact that the population size is around 4,100,000 getting their info probably from CIA World Fact book and for this reason, they give Lebanon a rank of 72 which is actually not true.  According to the mentioned facts, Lebanon will be in the highly active nations in Facebook use.  
Why did I mention the US numbers?  Because as I am writing this, the population in the US is estimated to be around 311,000,000 which actually gives an accurate measure of rate of penetration and tells us that Lebanon is close to the US (US is ranked number 1).

What is the problem?  Why do I care that we are ranked at 72.  Is it because I am proud of people posting their pictures, their daily activities? No.  Facebook uses these figures to estimate the impact factor of media on a given population.  Thus big businesses in Lebanon will pay pennies to get their ads on Facebook at the time that they can reach very high number of users.

Do I want Facebook to make more money from Lebanese businesses?

Well no but I am happy I figured that out.

Fake Liberalism

According to Wikipedia, liberalism (from the Latin liberalis) is a political philosophy or worldview founded on the ideas of liberty and equality.  "Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and a right to life, liberty, and property."

As one can tell, the concept of liberalism is an evolutionary concept that requires certain maturity level and a clear understanding of what is going on around.  Every single word in the definition mentioned has different interpretations and has led to the development of the rule of law worldwide and specifically in the civilized world.

 However, this word is repeated by many people in our society and mentioned under the political view of so many facebook users without really giving this word a good clear thought.  Yes, the concept of liberalism versus conservatism can be place or time dependent  This means, one could be conservative in the US and liberal in Lebanon but this only happens if some views have developed further in one place and still at late stages in another.  This also means that one can have a positive opinion about something till a certain limit and a negative opinion about the same thing if that thing reached the limit that one has already determined.   Also, one doesn't have to be completely liberal or completely conservative where one can actually pick and choose from the two concepts that best fit his/her way of life as long as no contradiction arises at any point.  However, trying to cling to one concept has the serious price of really understanding the deep definition.

Unfortunately, the whole discussion about liberalism in Lebanon is reduced to sexual liberalism which I also believe is a real scam.  Forget about gay rights, women rights, pro-life/pro-choice, free trade, small government/ big government, etc... The people's narrow understanding of a liberal is reduced to the degree of his/her sexual awareness.  Moreover, many of those who claim sexual liberalism contradict their own views when confronted with cases that goes in harmony with the definition of liberalism and touches sensitive issues about their personal life.  For many people, claiming sexual liberalism is nothing but a tool of seduction and a technique of self marketing as a civilized person with an open mind.