Adulthood Negativity

The games of life...

I guess I was a normal little girl. I'd look at the way adults deal with things and everything seemed too complicated and difficult. Their games had much more complex rules and obstacles than the games I was used to. Why can't I just eat chocolate all the time? If wars are sad for both sides, why don't they just stop fighting? Why does God allow sadness in the world? All adults had similar answers "you will understand when you grow up... you still have much to learn... you don't know how the world works..." I was very suspicious. What else was there to know that I didn't? Obviously, if both sides refuse to fight, there's no war; if God is omnipotent and allows sadness he is not loving; if chocolate makes me happy I should eat it all the time! Why were adults always making things complicated? It fascinated me. So I promised myself that as I got older, I wouldn't let myself be easily caught into adult games of love, power, success, etc. I'd always remember the easiness and simplicity of looking at the world through a kid's eyes.

And so I did, the best I could. As I grew up I tried to maintain an objective look towards adult games in order to find out if they were really necessary. I noticed that not many other kids adopted the same posture though. Everyone around me seemed eager to learn the rules and enter the game. They'd rarely stop to wonder if the games were necessary or the reason some rules existed.

At school, subjects such as history and politics seemed like too much unnecessary complication and confusion to me. That's probably why I was always fonder of natural sciences, the inescapable truths about the world. For me, physics was pure simplicity, a bunch of complicated movements explained by this one little formula. Beautiful. I also never cared about the news, all the complex conflicts and problems explained with complicated words just didn't seem like the world I saw around me. My world was simple.

As years went by, it would become clearer that my way of seeing the world was quite different from those around me. It's as if all the others had built this adult mask in front of their eyes and would see this deep complication on everything, while my kiddie eyes were still almost intact. They would be so proud of making sense of the whole complication. "I understand the economic factors which lead to a nation's growth... I know exactly what to do so God takes me to heaven... I know how to successfully seduce a man and have him hooked on me..." They were really into the games, and as you would expect, not many people would take the little girl here seriously. She was too far behind for them. While they were trying to come up with newer and more complicated strategies, she was still wondering if strategies were necessary. Silly girl... The interesting thing is that every so often a friend would come to me asking for advice on adult problems. My advices were always along the lines of "you don't have to play the game, things are actually simpler than that..." to what they would say "I would be so much happier if things were as simple as you say... Why can't I see the simplicity the same way you do?" I didn't know, why can't they?

With many experiences like that, I came to the conclusion that the complication becomes more than just a mask before people's eyes. It actually gets inside their heads and eventually becomes part of who they are. It's not something you can just take off. Thanks to my skeptical point of view since little, I did manage to dodge most of the complication, but inevitably some became part of me, otherwise I wouldn't be able to live in society right now. But still, it's not like I fit in. I guess that's a natural consequence from not wanting to go with the flow. This made me feel alone with my points of view, because they didn't fit into any of the existing labels. It's true that from time to time people would listen to me and call me atheist, anarchist, but it never really convinced me. I felt that my point of view was not having a point of view, being always open to all the possibilities. Since people insisted on using words to define everything, I started defining myself as free - I have no labels or am static.

Free from complications, biases, rules - I try to make sense of the world with my own little head. One thing I used to do since little was to write down my ideas, which I'd not show anyone. That's because since early I learned the hard way from teachers and friends that I only made sense for myself. You might be wondering how did I end up writing a blog then. Well, the idea of putting my ideas out there anonymously was pretty charming. I'd keep on writing as always, have an online backup in case my notebooks catch fire or something, and might get other people's insights without feeling like I'm being judged by those around me. Perfect, to be Freeee!

Unfortunately, that's not how things happened. The first thing I did after writing my first post was to tell about it to everyone I knew, and that's how I started to lose my freedom. People I knew would give me their comments, positive or negative, both on the blog or in person. The difference in logic was becoming evident, I couldn't express myself properly and misunderstandings happened often. They would keep on calling me atheist, anarchist, bisexual, and it was all too fast for me. The adults were getting me little by little. All my easiness and simplicity were disappearing. I started to label myself in order to reply faster. I would constantly look for material which was close enough to my way of thinking in order to have more effective arguments, even if they didn't express exactly my way of seeing the world. If you want to speak up, people expect certain things from you. They poke you, support you... It's a whole new game with its own rules, and this new complication went undetected through my radar. I got caught, and I felt like it was me versus them. And little by little, I was becoming the anarchist, the atheist, the environmental fighter, the activist. What a leap!

So, for the past few months I've been living with a conflict inside myself. Have I finally found the balance between childhood and adulthood which allows me to to be free while making sense to others? Or am I losing my freedom? After a few episodes of heated discussions making people upset, I finally took a look at myself and saw a complicated difficult and unhappy adult. I wasn't really sure how or at which point it happened, so in order to organize my thoughts, I did what I usually do, write. And this post is the result of that.

Ok, so I've realized I've changed into this person I don't like. Where to go from now? Well, I want to be Freeee again. It's not as simple as I would expect though, all I have as guidance are my memories and old writings. In fact, it's being so hard that it gets me wondering if people who have been living in complexity for a long time would ever be able to see the simplicity if they wanted to. Complication is serious business.

Right now I'm under recovery, trying to keep a distance and organizing my thoughts. You know, this whole thing is tough, but I'm glad it happened. It feels nice to eventually look back at difficult times and be aware of how much it helped me to grow as a person. Living and learning, and always keeping an objective look towards myself. I learned for example, how different it is to give advice to someone who asks for it from discussing with people who are not willing to change their minds. The latter are usually very defensive, and if you don't take care, you might end up taking the same posture as them. Defending your position because that's your position, period. At the end of the day, I think the whole problem comes from having a position, trying to be static. You know what they say, people with good intentions are as bad as those with bad intentions.

I don't want to have intentions. I want to be Freeee, to go back to the happiness of simplicity. To see the world as it shows itself to my eyes. I'm not an activist, I'm not here to convince anyone. If one thing, I'm here as an example of innocent happiness.

Technology alone won't change anything

The greatest limitations of our time are not technological...



If you are excited wondering which are going to be the next technologies which will revolutionize the world, you might be looking at the wrong direction. Most of the limitations we have to overcome at the moment are not technological; there are much more complex barriers, involving money, power, and sadly, ourselves.

Doesn't the picture above make you mad about how things work in our world? Let me summarize the drama for you. Apple won't allow flash applications on the iPhone because they are afraid iPhone users might get too happy with all the fun games, videos and interactivity powered by Adobe, and everyone will forget about iTunes App Store. Makes perfect economic sense, even a kid gets it... Apple is already the leader of the smart phones market, making tons of money with their monopoly over the applications ran in their phone. Why to allow flash and lose a lot of money when they can continue having total control over what we do with our phones? (When you bought your iPhone you thought it now belonged to you, but the truth is that deep inside it will always belong to Apple. Oh of course you can jailbrake it, but keep in mind that Apple's ownership of what you do with your phone is protected by laws, so setting yourself free might put you in trouble with other big guys, the government... Typical...)

That's the world where we live in, where power and money always speak louder than every one's comfort and happiness. Is economics, capitalism really for our own good? Don't answer yet, I have another one: have you asked yourself why do you still have to pay expensive phone bills, specially when abroad? Skype has been out there for years, but mysteriously it hasn't been properly embedded to handsets. Is it really due to a technological limitation that we still cannot call anywhere in the world from our hand phones just paying an Internet fee? Humm...

If the whole mobile phone talk hasn't convinced you yet, once more I'll give the example of the electric car, because it can never be stressed too much. In 1996 General Motors developed the EV1, an electric car which ran as fast as any gasoline car but with the advantages of being incredibly silent, and costing less to charge than it would cost to fill with gas. What happened to it? Again there's a lot of drama, but the sad ending is the technology being bought by oil companies and simply taken away from the public.

Is technology what we are still missing? As Clay Shirky puts it, "The revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new tools. It happens when society adopts new behaviors." When are we going to stop waiting for Apple and Adobe to make some economic agreement, or for some big company to find out how to profit from Skype phones, or for some big car company to fight with the oil industry and go for electric cars? When is common sense going to change from "that makes sense, the company would lose money" to "that makes sense, it's so much better for everyone"?

Tradition explains all the craziness on Earth

The ET from How to Succeed on Earth needs more questions answered, this is the reply.

Yo dude! It's nice to hear from you!

Well, actually, I wasn't expecting to hear from you so early, you've got so many questions so fast! It reminds me of my first years on this planet, crazy times... But yeah, don't worry, I know where all these questions are coming from, and I know exactly how to make things a bit clearer for you. The key to understanding how people think on Earth is in a very weird concept of theirs called "tradition".

Tradition is basically the idea that old ways of doing things are safer and more reliable than new ways, because they have survived over time. Doesn't make any sense, right? But let me explain to you exactly the way they think. They tell kids not to question the elder because they have been here longer and therefore should know better. And the older an idea is, the less they encourage others to think critically about it, because it has passed some sort of "test of time". Yeah, they have a big trouble understanding that each new generation lives in an entire new world, and that as time goes by, it's important for the old generations to get updated, not for the new ones to be held back...

You must be wondering, just like I used to, how could they possibly have progressed the bit they have if most of their actions are guided by this tradition thing. Well, I took a look into their history and found out that the people who did contribute to progress in the past were exactly the ones who challenged the traditions of their time and shifted paradigms. No big surprise in there, it's obvious that if every one of them had simply followed tradition, no progress would have ever been made. The funny thing is that most of them, until today, haven't realized that.

They look back at those revolutionary people and instead of doing as they did, they try to do exactly as they said. Amazingly ironic, no? Instead of realizing that their actions are valuable exactly because they broke old traditions, humans think that the right thing to do is to transform their legacy into new traditions which should be followed and honored. The extent to which they do it varies from person to person, some don't really care, others try to follow it in strict or even funny ways.
And as you would expect, this generates war, sadness, misunderstanding and confusion for many of them.

Tradition usually follows progress in all areas of knowledge, from science to society. As an example, let me tell you about this guy who lived about 2000 years ago (which for them is a long time). Their historical records are questionable, but what matters is that a lot of people nowadays believe that this guy changed a lot of the traditions of his time. Among other things, he is believed to have said for the first time that all human beings are the same, and that you shouldn't do to others that which you don't want done to yourself. Pretty basic stuff, but revolutionary for the time, so you can imagine how messy the traditions before him were... But what lots of people are doing today is trying to live exactly how this Jesus guy said, without even stoping to wonder if everything he said has any value today. Instead of following the guy's example and questioning old ways of thinking, they go all traditional on him and behave on ways which are funny even for Earth standards. Yeah, of course most of the stuff he said doesn't make any sense anymore, but at that time he couldn't know better. The interesting thing is that thanks to tradition, many modern humans also don't know better.

So is everything making more sense now? All these things you asked me about: government, rituals, educational systems, religion, money, and many other ideas developed on Earth are barely questioned due to strong traditions, and the people who thought of them are constantly praised. Most humans grow up being taught that questioning adults is wrong, and at school they have no say on what kind of knowledge they are going to learn, so when they reach an age when their opinions are finally asked, it's usually too late for them to start thinking by themselves, being critical and inovative.

I hope this all helped. As to how to deal with this tradition thing, I advice you to go with the flow and follow one or other tradition never questioning anything. The ones who dare to criticize it usually go through a lot of trouble, because everyone around them is used to taking tradition very personaly and sometimes get very violent and irrational.

Let me know if you'd like me to explain something more specific! Good luck over there!

Sacrificing Convenience for the Environment?! - Blog Action Day 2009

It's not about doing it less, it's about doing it right.

We are used to seeing the environmental issue tightly connected to something very basic: convenience. We are constantly told that in order to save our planet, we have to fly less, cook more, drive less, plant more, buy less, recycle more, etc. We are asked to sacrifice all the comfort we've got used to for something more important - the Earth. No other option is given. It's not surprising that most of us continue to carelessly destroy our planet - we are simply not comfortable enough with the sustainable alternatives presented.

But are these really the only two options we have? To destroy our planet or to live without the conveniences which we believe make us happy? To answer this question, we have to think about two separated issues: Do we need conveniences in order to be happy? And can we only have these conveniences by destroying our planet?

Saying we need technological conveniences in order to be happy is to say everyone was unhappy 3000 years ago. Of course human beings don't "need" such things; happiness can be found in a variety of places. And that's the fact which most people involved in the fight for the environment count on: if it's possible to be happy without certain technologies, we just have to convince the modern man to abstain from certain conveniences. In fact, most of the efforts in getting people to help with the environment are about some sort of sacrifice. All we hear is that we should change our ways, and that's often presented as if we had to go back to a time when there were no cars, no planes, no industrial food. This is obviously a dangerous approach, and it has unfortunately been backfiring. Instead of caring more, most people say "if it's my convenience or the environment, fuck the environment."

One thing is for the ancient man to be satisfied with certain dreams 3000 years ago. Dreams of flying, of not needing to hunt for food, of having fresh water to drink in the desert. Another completely different thing is to convince the modern man that he should drive less, plant more, and be happy with ancient dreams. Yes, sacrificing wherever we can helps a lot, but putting the problem in these terms is not going to work fast enough on the modern man. Nature has taken billions of years to get where it is now; culture has taken thousands to get where we are now as well. The same way that we can't just grow back our devastated forests, we can't ask humanity to slow down as a whole. All we can do now is move forward. Replant forests, rediscover convenience. Which leads me to the second question...

Do we have to destroy our planet in order to have the comfort we'd like? No. And this is a fact. With already existing technology and technologies we are very close to obtaining, it's possible to travel fast, eat as much as we want, use all the gadgets we want - all in a sustainable way, for every single person on the planet. Fossil fuels have been technologically obsolete for decades, as we found out various smarter ways of producing energy which go beyond solar and wind power. The amount of raw product necessary to produce consumer goods can already be cut down if we give the consumer nicer ways to upgrade their old models. The environmental cost of food can already be drastically cut if we bring the farms to where people are. The truth is that for every sacrifice we are being asked to make, there's already a very convenient and green way of doing it.

Then why are we still asked to make sacrifices? Why are we told that we have to do it less, when actually all we have to do is do it right? Well, it's a long story, involving governments, corporations and irresponsible greed. And it is very well presented in Leonardo DiCaprio's The 11th Hour movie. Yeah, I was surprised when I saw his name as well, but actually this is in my opinion the best movie addressing the environmental problem out there. Particularly because it doesn't put us as the ones to blame or as the victims of our ancestors' choices - it puts us as the ones who are going to fix the world. It counts with the presence of many important names in various areas, including Stephen Hawking. Very powerful movie, highly recommended.

The bottom line is, let's stop talking about sacrifices - which might even help for now but won't work forever - and start talking about solutions. Let's demand for existing technology to be put in use now! Let's help each other to put it in use by ourselves without depending on big institutions. Let's progress respecting the only true limitation we have: not the economy, but the valuable resources of our planet. And please, pretty please, let's respond to those who tell you to make sacrifices by telling them it's a very beautiful thing to put the environment before their convenience of the body, but even better would be for them to put it before the convenience of the mind: stop being passive and do something. Thank you.

A few links to smart alternative technologies which should be put in practice now!

EV1: GM's electric vehicle
Sustainable Dance Club: dance floor that captures the energy of dancing
Energy-generating revolving door
Poo-powered buses
Human hair replaces silicon
... and more. If you look for it, you will find it! ;)

The end of Professions

In the future, making a living will be disconnected from making money.

Professionals do things not many people can do. Whether due to a natural talent or to a learned specialization, professionals are valuable because they are scarce. Not everyone can play football as well as a professional player, not everyone can build a rocket without spending years learning physics. Professionals make money out of their special abilities, and in our world, making money is making a living. So what happens when the scarcity of old professions is overcome by new technologies or social changes; when professions become obsolete?

Throughout history, professionals have come and gone along with the scarcity which used to make them necessary. Once we found ways of raising cattle, hunters weren't necessary anymore; when printing books became possible, scribes were dismissed; and so on... It's an inevitable trend that is still happening. Nowadays we have, for example, digital cameras, personal computers and internet, which help us easily create and share basically any kind of creative content, such as music, movies and pictures. This represents a threat to whole industries which have been developed around the scarcity of means of distribution. Are record labels still necessary between musicians and listeners? No. And the same is happening to professionals in various areas...

While the tendency of professions to disappear is good for the consumer, who gets less dependent on specialized people who want a lot of money for their services, for the professional this is seen as a threat. They usually spent their whole lives preparing to do some specific job, so they can make money, so they can make a living. And when they are not necessary anymore, they struggle to make themselves still needed. That's what we see happening in the music industry nowadays. Record labels are using the power which they obtained in a time of scarcity to try to prolong this very scarcity which made them powerful on the first place. They pressure governments to punish anyone who represents a threat to their traditional ways of doing things. It's not of their interest for us to move on to independency.

This power traditional companies have to prolong scarcity is frightening. And professionals in the music industry are not the only ones in danger. I believe that most professions there are nowadays, if not all of them, will become obsolete at some point in history when technology overcomes the need for them. Will we need doctors when machines can perform surgery even better than they do? I don't think so, but I bet they will try to convince us we do. Imagine, for example, if the technology to plant, harvest and cook food automatically and sustainable, without the need for humans, is developed. There would be no reason for anyone to pay for food anymore, which is a good, awesome thing! ...not for the powerful food companies, and they will fight against such things. Their interests are not our interests.

So exactly how far can technology go on replacing professionals? That's impossible to foresee, all we can do is wait. Will we not need architects, computer programmers, engineers in the future? Maybe not, maybe yes, maybe new professions will come up. However, what I think will happen is the disconnection of making a living from having a special ability. People will not be required to do something in order to live in society, they will be able to do something if they want to, and if they don't want to, they don't need to. Most people nowadays might think that in a world like this, no one would do anything and live a lazy life. Even though I don't see how this could be bad, I really think it wouldn't happen. Even without the money motive, which basically says "do something or live in the margin of society", people would still have many motives to do things. Why are millions of people dedicating so much time to help Wikipedia, post videos on Youtube, develop free software?

The desire to help others, to feel needed, or simply fame seem to be good enough reasons for people to contribute to society. I see a future where researchers find out new things for the simple pleasure of doing so. People will learn things they actually want to learn with the help of technological tools, and when they use this knowledge to create something new, they will use the same tools to spread their idea around. I see a future of empowerment for the masses, where traditional professionals or governments won't be able to prolong unnecessary scarcity anymore. How fast this will happen, is a matter of where most people are concentrating their efforts on at the moment. On whose side are you?

"Made in China" to the rescue!

Chinese fakes might rescue the interests behind technology: from corporations back to consumers.

China has been looked down as the land of pirated products for a while. Now, that's a bad image about to be turned into something good. With every big multinational company having at least one factory over there, the knowledge necessary to build any of the top consumer electronics in the world is accessible to Chinese engineers and factory workers. Although they have been using it to make exact copies of original models with cheaper materials so far, copies that are disregarded by the rest of the world for being of inferior quality, a twist is coming. And the big companies are afraid. The Chinese have now started innovating in ways the traditional companies are not allowed to. For the consumer, that's a good thing, at least for now.

The big shift can be seen, for example, on the cellphone industry. Some Chinese models now bring original features such as 2 slots for SIM cards, which allow you to use 2 companies at the same time, or free TV which captures the usual analog signals our TVs at home have been getting for free since ever. These are both very convenient tools for the consumer, but why are they not on the "proper" phones? What happens is that cellphone companies usually sell the machine at the same time as the service, and therefore, they have certain power of influencing which features will be included - or not - on new models. It makes sense for a company not to allow a second slot on your phone so you can't enjoy some of the competition's special prices, and for them to charge you for TV which comes through their network instead of allowing you to capture free signals. They have the power to put their interests above the consumers' interests.

The consumer is in a very vulnerable position, with big corporations controlling the final product according to their interests and pressuring governments to punish those who produce fakes. It means that the product which legally comes to us is not necessarily the top existing technology or the most convenient to us. It's just good enough to make us want to buy it. Technology has been hijacked by the powerful few, who develop it not thinking "what do people need?" but "what can we make people buy?" It might seem like we are lost, but the Chinese fakes give me hope.

The Chinese government seems to be wanting their country to follow the path taken by Japan and Korea after 1945, when they started developing their own technological knowledge by producing cheap imitations. The same way, controlling piracy seems to be the last priority in China at the moment. This opens way for the pirates, who don't answer to any big companies or governments, and are not asking for a lot of money for their ideas, to provide useful features. With these two advantages, the biggest gap still separating them from the dominant products is the inferior materials they are made of. It might seem that it would be better for everyone if this gap were to be overcome, but actually, it will all depend on the Chinese when the day comes.

Japan and Korea's path out of the imitations was to leave piracy and follow the global capitalist flow. If China does the same, it means one less hope for us to be set free from corporations and their interests. However, it doesn't take a lot of hope to expect history not to repeat itself. Taking into account that shifts in paradigm are the only constant in history, hardly the same path will be taken. Corporations making more money and getting more powerful without protecting everyone's best interest? China has the chance to change that. When the time comes, we can count on 1 billion of Chinese customers who are used to having their own interests translated into products not to allow corporations to have the final say on technology anymore.

The following is a funny video about how corporations couldn't care less about the costumer's convenience... Enjoy ^^

Ruuru wo Mamoru vs Jeitinho Brasileiro

Different ways of solving daily problems. Different ways of creating more problems.

I grew up in Brazil, and over there, a widely accepted approach to rules is the so called "jeitinho brasileiro", the "Brazilian way". This special way involves one or more persons facing a problem and coming up with a solution among them which doesn't necessarily respect the laws imposed by the government. If there's a will, there's a little Brazilian way. It's a very effective problem-solving tool in a country where laws and bureaucracy don't seem to be helping; but it can also be a big problem if people use it selfishly. The jeitinho brasileiro is constantly criticized by Brazilians themselves, who blame it for our under-development. If only we obeyed all the laws, we would live in a perfect unicorn land... people think.

When I turned 18, I moved to the ultimate unicorn land in the world: Japan. I summarize the approach to rules and laws by Japanese people in the expression "ruuru wo mamoru", meaning "obey the rules", or literally, "protect the rules". I had an idea about this approach before I came, and as most people, I thought it was a desirable way of thinking and it should be taken as an example. Disappointed I was after a few months here. With no doubt, society as a whole ticked like a clock. However, I got scared about what it did to individual people. Did I really want that for my country and for the whole world?

Ruuru wo mamoru is taken incredibly seriously by the Japanese in their daily life, and there's no space at all for the jeitinho brasileiro here. They have so much faith in the system they are in, that it seems like they wouldn't question it twice. Can you blame them? They "protect the rules" because the rules seem to be actually protecting them. However, I can't help but feeling that the price to pay is too high...

There's a daily life situation I like to use to illustrate my concerns about this almost blind rule following; I call it "the red light law", nothing related to prostitution though ;) Well, in Brazil, red traffic lights are usually respected by both cars and pedestrians most of the time. What happens is that, when a car is completely alone in a dark street at night, it's common sense that the car doesn't need to stop; or if someone wants to cross the road and they can see that there are no cars coming, they don't need to waste their time waiting for the green light. On the other hand, in Japan most people are ruled by "the red light law". The common thing to see here is a lot of people waiting for the green light to give them permission to cross, even though there are no cars around. They just stand there... waiting to be told what to do.

There's another situation which has been stuck in my mind since I saw it happening for the first time a long time ago. Back in Osaka, I was outside a train station late at night and the last bus going from there to a distant residential area was about to leave. That's when I saw a sarariman coming out of the station running like crazy towards the bus just to get there seconds after the bus left. He gets sad and sits down, recovering his breath and probably calculating how expensive the taxi back home is going to be. You know where the bus was during this? Ten meters ahead stopped at a traffic light. Stopped. I sat there staring at the scene, which took so long that the sarariman could have easily walked to the bus three times. Needless to say that he didn't, and the bus eventually left. In Japan, buses have an exact time to leave, and are not allowed to take passengers far from the bus stops. Laws are inflexible, and everyone is aware of that. Makes me wonder why in Japan the buses are driven by human beings instead of going on automatic pilot. The law in Brazil is the same: no picking up unless it's a bus stop - but drivers do that all the time!

These two are just examples of the differences in approach to law in the two countries. I hate generalizations, so I hope no one takes it as if I am saying all Japanese people do is following the rules instead of using their heads to make intelligent decisions which help them and others. I'm not saying all Brazilian people do is completely ignore the rules either. My point here is that, even though the common behavior in Japan tends to be seen as superior to the Brazilian one, the truth is that both have desirable points - and undesirable ones!

Every rule is there for a reason. In the two simple examples presented here: traffic lights are there to give both people and cars a chance to pass; and bus stops are there to make sure the bus won't need to stop constantly. Simple, any kid can see the logic in this. Being fully aware of these reasons, a Brazilian pedestrian wouldn't abuse the traffic lights and keep the cars from passing on their turn, and a Japanese wouldn't stand there waiting as if the red light represented the unquestionable truth that if you cross, you will die. Also, Brazilian bus drivers wouldn't stop every time they see a lazy hot blonde who doesn't want to walk to the stop, and Japanese ones wouldn't simply refuse to open the doors even though they are stopped on the traffic light.

Making people understand that certain behaviors are desirable for their own good is very different from imposing laws. Simply saying "do this!" is not only insulting to a person's capacity to understand what is good, but it also can spoil adults into behaving like kids who need to be told what to do. I don't think all human beings have to be like Brazilians and do as they please disregarding others, and I don't think all humans have to be inflexible like the Japanese and become incapable of deciding by themselves what is ok or not. I want the world to think. I want the world to exchange inflexible laws by simple guidelines which advice people rather than giving them orders. I wish the world saw how education is much more important than laws and punishment.