The Monty Hall Problem
Pick a door!
Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the other doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, ‘Do you want to pick door No. 2?’ Is it to your advantage to take the switch?
That is the way the “Monty Hall Problem” is usually stated. Marilyn vos Savant published the problem with essentially this wording in 1990. In the recent film “21″ the problem appears in this form. Unfortunately, when stated this way, there is no indication in the problem whether the the host always must open a door with a goat or not. That condition is crucial. Read more
Communism, a short history
As we all now know, Communism is a has-been, and no match for our system of government in the USA which is Fascism Democracy. Communism was started in the British Library by Karl Marx who wrote a long boring book and then died. But instead of Communism ending there and then like it should have, the Russians had a revolution and not knowing what else to do, became Communists. This lasted most of the Twentieth century but since there were no elections, the Politburo all got old at the same time and expired from simultaneous liver failure. As if this wasn’t enough, the USA elected a couple of movie stars as President and First Lady which caused the last vestiges of Russian Communism to die of envy.
So today only a few backward countries are Communist like Vietnam and China. Of course, if the USA hadn’t gone to war with Vietnam it probably would not be Communist today which is sort of ironic if you think about it. That just leaves China which really has a capitalistic form of Communism, if that’s possible (hint: it isn’t). Now the funny part is that China could easily take over the world by sheer numbers of people alone if it wanted to and make Communism the official state religion of all countries, but it is too shy to do so (at this point in time; stay tuned).
Oh, and there’s Cuba, but Cuba doesn’t exist, officially. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to proclaim that Communism is dead, because, remember that guy who wrote a book about history being over, entitled (not very imaginatively in my opinion) “The End of History”, and then, almost immediately, more History happened? So I don’t want to go there. Just to be sure, somebody should drive a wooden stake through the heart of Communism if they could find it.
But the future outlook for Communism is bleak. That’s okay with me since Communism produced more than its fair share of monomaniacal homicidal Great Leaders such as Stalin, Mao, and their ilk like Pol Pot. I mean, with a name like that the dude had to be a Communist, right? Or at least ilk.
What doesn’t kill me might make me weaker
A saying usually attributed to Nietzsche goes “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” For some things it is clearly true. Get some exercise and if it doesn’t kill you it will make you physically stronger. It may also be true in a psychological sense: weather an emotional storm, and perhaps you will have found a new inner strength that you can rely on later. But as a general rule? Give me a break. There are any number of things that are bad for you, but don’t kill you. And they don’t make you stronger. If you’re lucky, you might get back to the strength you once had.
For example, Nietzsche himself had health problems which caused him to resign his teaching position at about age 35 and which continued the rest of his life. Two strokes and pneumonia at about 53 definitely didn’t make him stronger and he died aged 54.
So forget about that hubristic slogan. Instead, I’d recommend doing something you’ve never done before, or going someplace you haven’t yet been. Experiences don’t have to be dangerous to be strengthening.