Once every now and then – you discover a video on YouTube that really inspires you. This one, a speech in Charlie Chaplins 1940 Movie – The Great Dictator – is more prevelant in this day and age than ever. It’s amazing that almost 70 years on – it’s still touches on issues that humanity hasn’t solved. Despite all our advances, we still can relate to a speech more than 70 years old – from a man renown as a comedian – not one known for inspiration.

It speaks of hope, of greed, of the changes in the world that were so prevalent in 1940 and some would indeed argue that has been present in our current generation. Some of the most amazing speeches were written so long ago – and yet humanity seems to forget our history so quickly. This is one worth watching and one worth sharing and saving for your children to see.

Here is the full text:

I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an Emperor – that’s not my business – I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls – has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”.

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die liberty will never perish…

Soldiers – don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you – who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate – only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers – don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written ” the kingdom of God is within man ” – not one man, nor a group of men – but in all men – in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers – in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Most of the posts you will read on this blog relate to either technology, law or business and I’d thought I would change that today by discussing something in the realm of charitable endeavors that I believe in. Charity – by definition – is the act of giving to those in need who are non-relations of the giver. Relative to this definition, this means giving to a family member is not a charitable undertaking as such an act would been done regardless. No, charity must have that critical variable of non-relation to be truly a charitable undertaking. In social psychology, this typically raises the presumptive  notion of a charitable gift economy such that a valuable item or service is provided to a non-related entity without any explicit agreement or quid pro quo – that is, there is no consideration provided by the donee to the donor.

The question I have often asked myself is – does this work and is it effective? Are charity’s truly an optimum and effective methodology of providing assistance ? Evidently, the question must be answered in the affirmative – charitable institutions are by enlarge extremely important organisations to assist those in need – not because of the wealth they generate from donor’s but rather because they are effective distributive mechanisms which have large networks that are able to dispense resources to those in need quickly. In my opinion, most large charitable institutions should idealistically therefore be modeled on concepts two primary concepts. Firstly, that of pure altruism – the selfless concern for the welfare of others by being motivated to act without any reward – and secondly, that of duty –  the evident concern for others juxtaposed against the rationalization of one’s moral being. Indeed, I write should be because while many charitable organisations are hugely reliant on these two principles - they are by no means definitive.

Most charitable organisations required large donations to survive and only the second limb mentioned above is the one capable of manipulation – the moral being. In this light, there is no question that game theory is an important element to charitable donation paradox both the perspective of the charity and from donor’s. That is, the probability of a donor providing a valuable item or service to a charitable organisation is motivated and positively correlated by the choices of others around them. For example, this is highly prevalent in the corporate donor sector – a business will become a donor only in response to another business becoming a donor with the hope that their net benefit from the donation will ultimately be more positive than the first-to-move. Similarly, one person donating because another person is donating in order to achieve some greater outcome benefit. Evidently, such notions of giving are a considerable distance from those first core principle mentioned in the prior paragraph but are none-the-less a critical facet of the charitable-donor relationship due to the corporate sector typically donating the largest sums of money. Unfortunately however, while you might think this has a positive net benefit – it can also lead to a reduction in overall donations since game theory is an entirely reactionary model. This infers that one’s intentions and strategy are modified by others – which can lead to a reduction in net benefit if the first-to-move donates considerably less than what the second-to-move would have otherwise donated.

You might be thinking ? So what – the charity now otherwise has money it didn’t have prior – net win, game over. Evidently, yes – you’re right – there is a benefit to the charity in the short-term but the negative effect to the business can affect its long term donation strategy as the reactionary model can provide a disincentive to donate at all. This can result in non-donations if a nash equilibrium is reached – that is, each player knows all of the others players moves and changes in strategy’s such that no player wins. Of course, the primary assumption is that the business wants a net benefit – an argument correlated to shareholder responsibility, profitability and countless other factors – but primarily one which is answered, again, in the affirmative. In this regard and perhaps most importantly in respect to disincentive effects of the donation process, most corporate donation scenarios result in a pareto optimilaity situation such that one company will always be better off and one will always be worst off which can often lead to non-donations. Imagine, first-to-move Company A donates $1,000 and is a hugely profitable enterprise while second-to-move Company B donates $10,000 and is only small – the net benefit to B greatly outweighs that of A leading to A to question it’s donation strategy or being forced to donate more in response – again, a win to the Charity in the short-term but a potentially negative long term affect due to the circumstantial outcome to Company A. To put this in perspective, many of you may be familiar with the age old Prisoners Dilemma question:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated the prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies for the prosecution against the other (defects) and the other remains silent (cooperates), the defector goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

There are 4 outcomes – both silent for 6 months, A silent/B speaks – A 10 years/B free, B silent /A speaks – B 10 years/A free, A speaks/B speaks – 5 years. Evidently, the zero-sum-game presented is that neither should speak – but of course human nature is to question the strategy of the other and conclude that both are better off to speak than be silent since both are worse off if only one speaks. Such a scenario can easily be extrapolated to Company A and B above such that donations tend to be optimal if companies seek to act in equilibrium in donating – both potentially achieving net benefits without damaging the other while still positively benefiting the charity.

Of course, the common denominator in all this is the attribution to the economic value of the gift being provided and the analysis of game theory to donations. Evidently, if everyone were to follow the notion of altruism and duty then none of these such problems would occur. Indeed, while there is no doubt that large charities are needed and I donate to them - I truly do prefer the concept of Pay It Forward which is a merging of the two primary concepts mentioned above. For those that have not seen the movie of pay it forward – it is essentially a notion of altruistic signalling. That is, one temporarily reduces their value by increasing another’s with the expectation that the other will act in a similar way at some point in the future to a separate person again – this absolutely ensures that the flow of fitness travels directly from the one individual to the another. The notion of value is no way limited and can be simply measured in time or by purely economic means. Benjamin Franklin adequately framed such a notion in 1784

When you [...] meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro’ many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.

Of course, there are two fundamental flaws in the pay it forward model such that firstly, there must be a large and indefinite number of opportunities which exist regardless of form – and secondly, there will be those that simply do not pay it forward. I would argue that the first is not a large problem since there really are an indefinite number of problems to solve in the world while the second is highly correlated to duty. The primary reason I like the pay it forward model is that it is effective and morally gratifying – you perform a task directly for someone, and they in turn can provide a benefit to someone else. A simple example is purchasing a coffee for the person behind you and leaving a pay it forward note on the counter – the social morality and duty of the concept then falls into their hands – a moral obligation then associated to karma and the seemingly moral psychological and ‘karmic’ risk of not performing the act.

In conclusion, while this post seemingly has meddled together a number of different concepts – I think both options have their place. Large charitable organisations dispense to those who can otherwise not be reached and attack fundamental social fabric problems at a broader scale – while the pay it forward model is a direct model that provides immediate results to the donee. If more people chose to pay it forward, then I have no doubt that many more people would begin to donate to a greater number of charities purely from being a recipient of an act of random kindness for no apparent reason. It really is entirely uplifting to both grant and receive a gift – no matter how insignificant – from a total stranger. Try it yourself.

Very often, a video comes along which puts life in perspective. Luckily, the medium that is YouTube allows us to visit such moments in the mere click of a mouse button. The video I stumbled across while surfing around on YouTube was Carl Sagan’s – A Pale Blue Dot. A video devoted in some sense to the art of astronomy but in another – the tiny significance of the earth and all that humanity has done to it in the wider perspective of our universe.

Indeed, once you view this video – the enormity of the universe is vastly apparent and perhaps also the fragility of the human experience and all the sadness that the human race brings upon itself. Sadly, no other known animal seeks the narcissistic triumphs and extreme destruction that human kind does and while we have brought unspeakable wonders and advances upon ourselves – we have equivalently brought unbearable pain. I encourage you to view the video below and share it with your friends. In my opinion, the more people that put themselves in perspective – the better the world will become.

Text: The spacecraft was a long way from home.

I thought it would be a good idea, just after Saturn, to have them take one last glance homeward. From Saturn, the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail. Our planet would be just a point of light, a lonely pixel hardly distinguishable from the other points of light Voyager would see: nearby planets, far off suns. But precisely because of the obscurity of our world thus revealed, such a picture might be worth having.

It had been well understood by the scientists and philosophers of classical antiquity that the Earth was a mere point in a vast, encompassing cosmos—but no one had ever seen it as such. Here was our first chance, and perhaps also our last for decades to come.

So, here they are: a mosaic of squares laid down on top of the planets in a background smattering of more distant stars. Because of the reflection of sunlight off the spacecraft, the Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light, as if there were some special significance to this small world; but it’s just an accident of geometry and optics. There is no sign of humans in this picture: not our reworking of the Earth’s surface; not our machines; not ourselves. From this vantage point, our obsession with nationalisms is nowhere in evidence. We are too small. On the scale of worlds, humans are inconsequential: a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal.

Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you’ve ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings; thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines; every hunter and forager; every hero and coward; every creator and destroyer of civilizations; every king and peasant, every young couple in love; every mother and father; hopeful child; inventor and explorer; every teacher of morals; every corrupt politician; every supreme leader; every superstar; every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings; how eager they are to kill one another; how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity—in all this vastness—there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we’ve ever known.

The pale blue dot.

This is an excerpt from Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. It talks about the photo of the same name, Pale Blue Dot, taken by Voyager I on February 14, 1990.

You have two ears and one mouth – use them in proportion.

Why is this so important?

It’s so important, at least in my mind, because it can be successfully applied to almost every aspect of our lives. If you run a business, listening to your customers is paramount. If you are in government, listening to the populous increases your understanding before legislating or creating new policy. If you are a client-servicing business, listening to your clients and understanding their concerns and problems before providing advice is critical.

I am by no means suggesting that you merely listen and then take no action – indeed the quote when my grandfather says it to me – by no means directs this. Rather, it suggests that you should do more listening before you talk.

Don’t interrupt. Don’t put someone on hold. Don’t interject. Don’t talk over the top of them. Listen to people – then talk.

I am actively trying to achieve this daily as I really think it’s a positive step in the right direction for listening more about what people have to say – and then responding with relevant arguments. Many people I have discussions with tend to try and talk over the top of me and this is ultimately extremely frustrating. It’s a little like ‘hey you’ve had your turn, now it’s mine’. Of course, the better way to approach this is not to take such a view but rather simply take heed of this quote and listen more.

Since I’ve been doing this – the counter arguments are often more effective as I have listened intently to what someone is saying rather than forming thought patterns in my head – ready to hit back at a singular particular point or two points. By waiting and listening you are able to draw upon the whole argument – and most importantly, you are able to listen and feel like an engaging person in doing so. This helps the person you are talking too feel like they are contributing to the conversation and having their chance at speaking – rather than being cut off all the time.

People love listeners – they don’t love talkers.

So I am all excited to get modern warfare 2 for a little relaxation time when I get the chance [which is not often] – only to discover that an install on Windows 7 x64-bit is an absolute nightmare. It’s a ridiculous proposition that a Gaming Studio – Infinity Ward – would release a game without even testing it on Windows 7 – yet this is exactly what they have done, and this is why there has been a huge amount of backlash in respect to this game. However, in order to get things running on my PC I thought I would post something to assist those trying to install on a Windows 7 x64-bit build. I note that this is the setup that allowed me to get it working and this may not work for everyone [different hardware etc].

1. The first error I got was a “Failed to Run Install Script” error. To solve this, you must download and install Steam as a separate download first – then open Start –> Run and type “C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steam.exe” -install “CD Driver” – where “CD Driver” is “D:” or “E:” or “F:”. So for example the final line would look like – “C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steam.exe” -install “F:”. This will get the Game installed.

2. When I attempted to run the game after install – all I got was nothing but a blank screen which required me to do a reset. To resolve this problem, I needed to fix DirectX. Goto C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2\Redist\DirectX and run DXSETUP.exe. Install this file and Restart your PC

3. After restart, I got the same error again. So I searched around and found that I had to make the screen size 1024×768 for launch – so I had to adjust my settings for launch. This launched the game but presented me with yet another error.

4. Now I had the game started – but I received nothing but Garbled Text on load. So the game wouldn’t work at all. To solve this, I needed to update to the latest version of ATI Catalyst Software - but of course this is not supported in Windows 7 for my Graphics Card. When you attempt to install this on Windows 7 – it doesn’t get past the install splash screen. To resolve this, you must download a fix from MSFT to install ATI Catalyst Install Manager as Windows 7 has a problem with any sort of legacy card except the newest hardware. This solves the VC++ 2005 redistributable problems which prohibits installing and fixes the garbled text issue.

5. The game still seemed to have a “blackscreen” onload and so I thought that this problem might be related to the fact that it was in fullscreen – so I wanted to shift the game to “windowed mode”. To do this, you have to go into C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2\players and you will see 2 .cfg files called config and config_mp. Open both these files in Notebook [config is for single player and config_mp is for multiplayer] and find line seta r_fullscreen “1″ and change it to “0″. This will fix the game to run in Windowed Mode and you can change it back at any time. When the game starts [and this fix was a key for me] – ensure that you just change the graphics under “settings” to basically make the window full screen.

6. Another problem I experiencing throughout this entire process was a fairly common one such that Comodo Personal Firewall kept buggin me to accept the game as a permissible firewall program. I had to edit a Custom Rule in Comodo to allow the game to access the Internet.

So after close to 4 hours total – combining a 40 minute game install time and then all the time spent trying to resolve these bugs – I managed to the start the game. To be honest, it is completely unacceptable in this day and age to purchase a game and have to go through hoops to try and run it. I would definitely not have purchased this game had I known all issues were present from the start and quite frankly any future games that Infinity Ward produce I will not be getting.

As a consumer, they owe a legal responsibility to ensure that their products are tested on all relevant platforms before they sell the game. It’s so evident that their strategy was to release the game as quickly as possible in order to grab as much revenue as they could in lieu of Christmas and deal with the fallout as it comes. Whilst the official gaming merchandise says “Vista” – it was a fatal error to release the game without testing on Windows 7 and prepare a patch fix for immediate release. Instead, they have angered the very hand that feeds them and in this regards many gamers in the future will not purchasing Infinity Ward games.

While it’s a good game, it’s unacceptable to except a normal consumer to have to go through all this simply to get the game working.