Of artists and mass-hysteria

"Lord Ram existed"
"Islam is a peaceful religion"
"The world was created in seven days and Jesus is the son of God"

well, why the f*ck would i NEED a Right to Free Speech to say NICE things?

Of conferences and death camps...

(Oct 24th- Nov 1st)

Aim
In ONE week, do the following:
a. Complete a Transactions Paper
b. Complete the presentation for a Conference Paper
c. Write a Midterm exam
d. Finish a looooong Analog assignment
e. Herd a bunch of retard undergrads through a bloody transformer lab

Issues at hand
a. Flu
b. Sore throat
c. Scurvy
d. A trip plan in shambles

Apparatus
a. Peppered tea
b. Nescafe Richie with extra caffeine
c. Asia Garden take-home chinese
d. SSH remote access tool for working during late-cold-hours from home as the Polar Bears go into hibernation

Procedure
Get f*cked. Don't resist.

Results
Plodded through each task, barely finishing any.

Inference
MARS does lead a dog's life. And now he died a little.

One DIRTY post

I had the distinct pleasure of watching Team America: World Police, a marionette movie by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I must admit it out does SouthPark: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. The film, as expected, is a satire take on the U.S. - its powers that be, and especially its Left Wing. Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator wants to take over the world with his diabolical schemes, which Team America, a SWAT like commando force, resists. Film Actors Guild (FAG), a strong liberal political voice made of Hollywood stars including the likes of Michael Moore (described as a 'giant socialist weasel') and led by Alec Baldwin, stands in the way of Team America. A part of the climax is how Team America convinces the representatives of various countries of the reality about Kim Jong-il and the FAG, which supports him. Its a speech by Gary, a Team America member- down right simple, unpleasant to hear may be, but fully loaded with political philosophy (mostly of the SPR kind)- vintage TP&MS at work. It was so good that I decided to jot it down. Lets see if you can see what I saw. I must warn you though, what is about to follow might be too shocking to young children. Metaphors can't get any dirtier than this... ;)

"We[Team America] are D*cks. We are reckless, arrogant, stupid D*cks. And the Film Actors Guild... are P*ssies. And Kim Jong-il... is an Assh*le. P*ssies don't like D*cks. Because P*ssies get f*cked by D*cks. But D*cks also f*ck Assh*les. Assh*les who want to sh*t on everything. P*ssies may think they can deal with Assh*les their way. But the only thing that can f*ck an Assh*le is a D*ck... with some balls. The problem with D*cks is that some times they f*ck too much, or f*ck when it isn't appropriate. And it takes a P*ssy to show him that. But some times P*ssies get so full of sh*t that they become Assh*les themselves, because P*ssies are only an inch and a half away from Assh*les. I don't know much in this crazy, crazy world. But I do know, that if you don't let us f*ck this Assh*le[Kim Jong-il], we are gonna have our D*cks and P*ssies, all covered in sh*t. "

'விடை கொடு எங்கள் நாடே'- ஒரு வருடம்

24th August 2006 - A bemused bloke standing inside Anna International Airport, who was clueless as to what to do with his life.

24th August 2007 - A bemused bloke sitting inside a basement in Ottawa, who is still clueless as to what to do with his life.

One crucial difference...


... he didn't take a bath today.

First debacle in a long time... sheer bad luck... hail entropy!

'Dhamilnaattu' Police!

Puratchi Kalaingar has been finally put to shame- by the real thing!

I'm not a bad man

I'm just dangerously inquisitive.

Hence, I shall add some of my own (may be related to what is already given in the link):

1. With technology doing away with many types of interpersonal dependencies and creating some new kinds, is it possible that most of the present day forms social organization, including marriage, will become obsolete in the not so distant future?

2. Do we all, irrespective of our ethnicity, possess an inherent attraction (however small) toward people of fairer complexion?

3. Is everyone, some what racially prejudiced (both positively and negatively)? And is it some how related to, or gives rise to, skin-color-based sexual preferences?

4. (With respect to the history of modern democracy, including the most progressive of societies) Are women leaders more impulsive and show more unwanted aggressive behaviour than their male counterparts, rendering their reign highly controversial if not unpopular?

5. With the growing awareness and the spread of Gender Equality, as it is currently defined by most proactive agents, will chivalry be lost, as an act of insult to the capabilities of women?

6. Whenever a species becomes very successful, countering forces start to kick in and the exploding population is controlled. Most of these forces have been tamed through non-natural selection means by humans. Given this unchallenged supremacy, the onus is on us to conscioulsy overcome our immediate survival instincts and control our own impact on the environment. So are research and medical procedures dealing with the longevity of human life immoral?

Disclaimer: The above questions do not represent my personal views and are open only for a rational debate.

And I think I have an answer to one of the questions raised by Steven Pinker in this book, about which I'm reasonably confident-

Is morality just a product of the evolution of our brains, with no inherent reality?
Answer: Yes, yes and yes. Otherwise why would it change with times?
(Of course there are one or two unchanging building blocks of morality from which most of our sophisticated moral tenets sprout. But once we isolate them, its very easy to show their irrelevance by not attributing the material benefits incurred as a consequence of practising them)

3 DON'Ts of Libertarian

DON'T tell me what to do AND how to do it.
Because I DON'T give a sh*t.
And DON'T worry, I won't screw up.

All that was near and dear...

Life has sure come a full circle. One by one, everything that I have ever held close to my heart since I started to know the world around me has been decisively disabled and disintegrated. All that in a freaking 8 months, of solitude. This was ample time for me to become honest with my self and suspicious of everyone (and everything) else. I believe that's the first step to understand, well, almost anything.

Skepticism and distrust. You want to know who or what you are? Well, you just can't do without them. I have found them both here and for this reason, I shall forever be indebted to Canada even if I change to something else from now.

One of those many (now sort of getting monotonous ;) ) realizations came last week when the discussion on Canadian economy spread from the room to the lab with Dharmendra. And that was it- my days of carrying the red flag are over. I mean, I have accepted the points fired out by my opponents against state intervention in economy in the past for the argument sake. But it took me to come to that very Utopian dream of mine- Canada, a country with a successful industry regulated heavily by the government for the welfare of the people- to comprehend how fallacious that dream really was.

You could say the grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side is coming into play here. But that's exactly my point! It IS but natural for us NOT to be satisfied with what we have. And letting us be is what an economy, in order not to be in conflict with the natural order of things, ought to do.

Started off with Dharmendra telling me about a white guy he met on the road who was swearing at the Ottawa civic authorities when his car ran over a puddle in the road. Well, whats the big deal you would ask... we drive over puddles more that on roads in India. Well you need dig a little deeper to answer that puzzle. Meet Dharmendra's neighbours- a Somalian family who came here as refugees- and are doing better than him. The man drives car on hire for a living and he makes sure he DOES NOT earn beyond a certain amount, so that the government considers him eligible for welfare money- and that's a juicy 400-500 dollars per dependant you have in addition to a few other credits- all tax free (now that's a good reason to get frisky all the time!). And that's not all. You get a house for which you don't need to pay anything. You get all the assistance (read for free) from the government for doing any course or joining any class which you think will get you a job. And after you are done, no matter where you apply for a job, the company is obliged to give you a chance because you have NO job history.

How can the government afford all that? Well, that's the reason why some one like Dharmendra from a Hi Tech background drives a smaller and cheaper car than that Somalian lady. Imagine you are a native white guy and both you and your wife work 8-6 everyday at some reputed Telecom firm. You get your son ready for school every morning and then rush to office skipping the breakfast. Your daughter is only 3 and so you send her to a Day Care which takes enough money from you to adopt 100 orphans in Ethiopia. You get a little time to relax in the weekends after you are done taking your kids to the Ice House for their hockey lessons. You pay off the mortgage for your house, the insurance for your car which just happened to increase last month after you were pulled over for over speeding. After all this work at the end of the month the government is at the door- it takes off its hat and says "May I?", and respectfully bites off a huge chuck of your sweat and blood. And where does that go? Oh yeah to things like building roads and highways, paying for schools and hospitals, running the essential services and er... and to pay for the gas for the Toyota Camry the Somalian-lady-next-door- who-does-nothing-except-sitting-all-day-at-home owns. Swearing at the civic authorities fearing the prospect of paying for a change of tyres is the least that white guy could do.

When I was in the 9th grade(that's when we read about the Russian Revolution), if you had asked me if its ok for a guy who has exemplary skills and a guy who is not so blessed with talent enjoy the same kind of life, my answer would probably have been an emphatic 'YES'. Of course hard work can compensate for our weaknesses. But even that doesn't make sense sense here. The only thing which is common to the white family and the Somalian family I described above is that both would think "Why should I work?" Two days back I received a tax rebate of 425 dollars from Revenue Canada. More than the joy to see that money, I made me feel sorry for all those people of this country who were paying me. Who am I to deserve this tax credit? (Of course I could argue, to be fair to myself, against being subject to sales tax I have paid indirectly in the first place)

There are certain other factors which come into play here- like Canada's open handed welcoming of refugees from all parts of the world who immediately become entitled to all sorts of benefits offered by the state- a dead weight on the economy, if you say. Contrast this with the highly competitive Visas to the US, which has ensured over time, to increase the proportion of highly skilled and productive people in the work force there. But I believe this itself is a result of lesser welfare orientation in America, which causes the corporate self-interest to govern the immigration policies as well.

When the state pampers people, there would be no drive to work toward bettering yourself. Because you know you are not going to lead any better life if you do. Stagnation hurts. Sometimes more than misery.

You are a farmer/a miner/a fisherman/over 60/a scientist who wants to work alone on some fundamental problems without pressure from industry? Canada is the place for you. Else, look for greener pastures, presumably the US.

Monologued Tribute

'Periyar' falls short of expectations that 'Bharathi' created as regards the director, Gnanarajasekaran's capabilities. Though retaining the same autobiographical temperament as its predecessor, its as though the camera wasn't big enough to show more than one person at a time. That one person mostly being Sathyaraj donning the role of his role model- E. V. Ramaswamy, in this TN government-sponsored venture, which seems to be a desperate final attempt at bringing the masses back to romanticizing the glory of the original ideological foundations on which the Tamil political legacy has been built upon.

This movie could have as well been a soliloquy staged at some revolving theatre. No other character was really needed. At different phases of the protagonist's life, new faces just come, read out the dialogues as dictated by the director and leave. So painfully prose-like is its narrative. Yes, Periyar's life was an immensely huge repository of intellectual battles, life changing failures, history defining victories and conflicted relationships to be captured in 2 and a half hours of celluloid. But then, movie makers have time and again demonstrated how this can be done tastefully, while making the point that needs to be made.

The movie has its refreshing moments with vintage Sathyaraj using his well known satire comedy to take on God. Though mostly adult humor, it does well to bring out the skepticism that Periyar encouraged as a means of social reform. But if you ask me, that one dialogue of Prakash Raj in 'Iruvar'-

"Vinyaanaththa paththi ketta tamizhanukku theriyaathu, aana Yamanukku vaaganam yennanu ketta yerumakkeda enbaan"
("If you ask the Tamizhan about science, he wouldn't know, but if you ask him what's the mount of Lord Yama, he will immediately tell you it's the buffalo")

-carried more weight in it than the entire 'Periyar' movie.

Detachment (revisited)

When you are no longer sad or happy for being no longer sad or happy. period.

When government plays Robin Hood

One of those days when the routine complaining about how boring and stupid life is leads to some sort of trivial revelation.

I don't quite know much about how US economy works, so I take caution in making a general observation of the West, although I assume that Canadian economy is some where between the EU (extensive) and the US (limited) based on their respective government control over business.

Today, auntie walked down to get some chicken from the freezer in the store room and she rants about how difficult it is for her to make the ends meet.
"Intha naatula oru veettilla moondru peyar earn pannalum athu seri varaathu... inga kaasu save panna yelathu"
Vimal: "That's so true auntie... naan kooda pona summer co op kedaichchathilaa, appo kaasu save paanaumnu nenachchen anaa athukkapparam Car breakdown aayiduchchu, antha garage kaaran, vantha kaasa appadye pudingittaan"
Me: "Puriyala, neraya earn panna, intha oorla nalla irukkalaamnu nenachchen"
Vimal: "No, I mean you can't SAVE. Like about 50% of your whole goddamn income goes into taxes man. Imagine you pay 15% income tax and then 15% on everything that you purchase- thats easily half your income. You try to invest with the money you tried to save and there are taxes on that too. Better enjoy your life rather than saving... athuthaan inga irukkira vellayargal pannuvaargal."
Auntie: "Om... neraya peru rendu veedu vechchirpinam... anaa yenna pirayosanam... innoru veettulirunthu varura rentu income aayidum, athukku marubadiyum tax. So, oru veedu kaanum enraal athu mattumthaan vechchirkanum. Yevvalavu varumaanamo, avvalavu selavu adichcha, atha kaatti taxa kuraikkalaam"
Vimal: "Yeah, the more you spend on say 'official tours', the more tax deductible your income becomes. I know many people who go on a vacation just for that"
Me: "But where does this all end... I mean, every one spends all that he/she gets... this must end some where- infinite regress- who gains in the end."
Vimal: "Government. They all finally pay taxes to government for all that we get and all that we spend isn't it?"
Me: "But doesn't that mean the government should grow exponentially rich? I mean, the population is growing and more people work and hence more people pay taxes..."
Vimal: "They spend money too... see all this snow ploughing and stuff and not to forget the elephant in the room- the unemployed. Once you claim you have no income, government pays for you and your dependants".
Auntie: "Om... sila peru yenna solluvinam, income a RRSP la invest seithuvittal athulla tax kuraiva varum enru solluvinam. Anaa athulla yenna nedakkum enraal loan edukkumbothellam athulla interest pay pannonum. Apparam retire aana piragu RRSP kaasu tharum, appo government athu oru incomenu sollivittu retirement benefits tharaathu. So kadaisila yaaru santhoshama irukkinamnu sonnaal, yevan velaye illama irukkiraano, avanthaan" (laughs)

... made me wonder at the weird kind of equilibrium a free market economy (coupled with a welfare state) reaches. I mean many features that characterize a well-established developed economy are definitely found in Canada- a low inflation rate for example. Yet, I'm sure many people in India have more to spend at a time of need than Canadians (Seriously, who in Canada would be capable and/or willing to pay dowry for his daughter's marriage!). Of course culture definitely matters. I haven't spoken to any Indian family here which has come here to find a better living unlike the Sri Lankans who come as refugees and over time, become woven into the social fabric here. But I guess Indians who come to work here do save a lot, like their counter parts in the US.

Another lesson for the day- economy of a country is not what we read in books or online sources; at a more grass root level, you get to know how exactly a country functions by looking at what the people, preferably those from the subcontinent, do to survive there.

Detachment

A state when you CAN'T look at ANYTHING from other than a third person's point of view. period.

The Anthropic Principle of the Human Mind

For every issue, there is always

1. an Alarmist
2. an Advocate
3. a Sceptic
4. an indifferent evader
5. and a Conspiracy Theorist

Corollary: By the time one (or more) of the above is proven right, nobody cares anymore.

Happy Birthday Entropy!

An year passes by,

the indefatigable monkey continues to type relentlessly and my struggle against the Second Law of Thermodynamics continues...

Yours truly,
Mars

Right Wingers of India

I'm tired of making fun of you but you don't seem to be tired of making a fool of yourselves.

War of Gab

Since I moved into the new place, conversations and debates on the ethnic conflict in the island-nation spring up at the slightest provocation.

Once, it started with something as trivial as Raj asking me how I liked 300, which I had happened to watch the previous day. When I replied, "Yeah, a good enough movie... nice time pass", he was dumbfounded. He went on to explain that I feel so indifferent about a terrific war movie like that one because I have not known war from a close proximity. Then followed strategic and ideological comparisons between the Battle of Thermopylae and the struggle led by the Eelam Tigers(basking in the success of the new found Air Wing)!

Then came the usual awkward moment- Rajiv Gandhi... who invariably comes up in the discussions especially when I am around ("Hey! I'm not the Indian Ambassador to Canada!"). Vimal described how his father's shop in Jaffna was burnt by the Indian Army and how they later suffered at the hands of the Tigers as well. And at the end, he made a peculiar comment:
"As long as I was in Jaffna, I could see the war in its naked reality but not the politics involved. Now after I came to Canada, I see and hear the politics of Eelam but not the war therein"

I remember reading in some website not so long ago that
"War is a necessary evil. But politics needn't be".

Sometimes I feel, in reality its just the other way round.

And God said, "Thou shall not have sex"

For once, the representatives of all the religions in India have joined hands- against the devil called sex.

The latest India 360 chapter in CNN IBN discusses the growing calls for the abolition of sex education (brought in by the new CBSE curriculum) in various states, predominantly from (no prizes for guessing) the Sangh Parivar.

While the Right wingers in India never cease to entertain me, this time around the lime light was stolen by an unexpected candidate- Dr. U. R. Rao, former director of the ISRO. He demonstrates in this news item how bright and logically sound our scientists are. His argument- the illustrations in the text books are too explicit.

Of course, when we are studying female reproductive anatomy, what best suits the purpose is the picture of a woman dressed in five layers of arctic winter clothing and not a naked one, isn't it Mr. Rao?

--
PS:
Percentage of adult population afflicted by AIDS:

Germany- 0.1
India - 0.9


Level of sex education in schools:

Germany - condoms distributed to Grade 8 students
India - "Sex undermines our culture"


Vande Mataram, O soldiers of Hindutva, Vande Mataram!

All Play and No Work...

Quite contrary to what one would expect a sports-columnist in India to write in a National Daily after India's shameful performance in the WC, Nirmal Shekar had this to say in The Hindu.

The concluding paragraph, I found, was extremely moving...

"Today, seemingly, there is far too much at stake in cricket for it to be viewed as sport. Yet, that is what it is. The truth is, when our cricketers fail, in the larger context, it hardly matters. But when our politicians, public servants and nation builders fail, it does matter. If only we had demanded of these men and women — from the time of Independence — the same level of organisation, unwavering consistency and excellence that we always seem to expect from our cricketers, India would have joined the First World of nations long ago."

... for some reason, I was reminded of that joke in the movie 'Perazhagan', where a beggar uses a public telephone to call up his friend and ask for the score.

Rendezvous ... After Five Years ;-)

An easy way for those of you living abroad with high speed Internet to catch up with Indian Television (including Live WC 2007).

http://wwitv.com/ - Click India in the left tab and you have list of Indian channels. Doordarshan shows the matches. I thank Krishnan for sending me this link.

Now after making sure DD was working, I browsed through the list of the other channels available and my eyes lit up when I chanced upon CNBC TV18- the Indian chapter of the popular business news channel. With fingers crossed I clicked on the link, held my breath as the video started to stream into my WinAmp player... buffering 90%... 95%... 100%...

...bingo!

Very few in this world (now that I think about it, I guess only Vijay) would understand what exactly I'm talking about... it is the reason why I started watching News on TV with zest ... a story that goes back to my first year in college ... a story that goes back to the days when Headlines Today was still a nascent news channel...

... Now, with a little bit of research, I'm sure many in this world will understand what I'm talking about!

Science Vs Sexism

This article titled 'Biology Vs Law' by Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara, in CNN IBN blogs, though scientifically inaccurate and incomplete in some parts, brings out in gist, some fundamental flaws in Feminism or at least the way it is being interpreted in contemporary India.

One particular paragraph of the lengthy prose that made me ROTFL was the Supreme Court's definition of sexual harassment (which I was not aware of before):

(a) physical contact and advances,
(b) demand or request for sexual favors and
(c) sexually colored remarks or any other physical/verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature

the implications of the above is that the next time you propose or ask a girl out on date, you are punishable under law!

Cheap Work- Cheap Life!

One of the typical lazy afternoon conversations with Andrew...


A: You know what? This place sucks. I think I should find some university in some nice tropical place and go there to do my phd... live in a huge house... servants doing all the work... you had servants in India didn't you?

Me: Yes, there was a servant maid who used to clean the house and do the dishes.

A: How much did you pay her?

Me: (sheepish smile)Hmmm... you want me to tell you the figure in rupees or canadian dollars?

A: Dollars

Me: (Murmuring... 200 divided by 40...) about 5 dollars.

A: A day???

Me: No, a month.

A: What the hell are you saying!... thats about 3 cents an hour... How on earth did she survive...

Me: Well, she worked probably for an hour and a half a day at my place, used to go to other places to work after that. I think she worked in about 4 or 5 other places with about the same pay... And then you know this kinda salary suffices a bare life over there...

A: (Laughing) Are you justifying what you paid her?

Me: He he no... but when put into the Indian perspective yes... well, How much do you think an average middle class family makes a month there? The begining pay of an IT professional could be about (Murmuring ... 20000 divided by 40...) 500 dollars a month.

A: Is that enough seriously?... How would you rate your family?

Me: Middle Class

A: And there is a class lower to you which...

Me: ... that's the servant maid whom we pay 5 dollars

A: ... and there's a class above...

Me: ... yeah, those are the guys who pay us 500 dollars.

A: Yeah right, everyone has a Daddy... how much do those guys make?

Me: Hmmm... I don't really know. But I think they make about the same as the Daddys here.

A: Yeah, I have heard there are many firms over there who pay next to nothing...

(Long Pause)

Me: Don't you think that's the reason why people here are losing jobs?

A: Hmmm?

Me: I mean like an average IT professional in india would probably work 4 times more than his counterpart here and would probably cost 4 times less.

A: But I'm sure they have 4 times less brains (laughing). You see I'm guessing the work they do there is just repititive without anything new to think about and so they become the obvious choice for bulk jobs. There are far less number of people in here who work in technology related firms and yet they could be doing something far more productive.

Me: Yeah but you see...
.
.
.


PS: Andrew did not mean any ill and all the conversation was in the lighter vein.

Birth of Enlightenment

Happy Darwin Day to all!

(Charles Darwin, born February 12, 1809)



---
Height of eccentricity???...
















... or just a silly reason to have another cake? ;) !!!!!

Think you are too happy offlate and need some normalcy back in your life???

Watch 'Pokkiri' and 'Azhwar' back to back!!!

Anything and Everything Works!

The Cauvery Tribunal's final award after 17 years of trial has reaffirmed my conviction that no matter how inefficient a system, the ultimate purpose seeps through the crevices and does find realisation at some point of time...

Nothingness or Uncertainity?

The first known self proclaimed atheist, Baron d'Holbach(1723-1789), predates Charles Darwin's publication of his theory of natural selection(1856) by almost 70 years. There exist atheists even today, who do not really know or understand evolution.

The theory of Evolution by natural selection was the first ever scientific approach in search of a possible naturalistic explanation for the world around us and it's workings. And still stands as one of the most dominant such approach.

Then how did atheists come to be without knowing it? What was their basis for rejecting God, if not science?

In other words, how do atheists ignorant of Evolution tackle the question of 'Why we are here'?

Or are majority of the people who claim to be atheists(which includes many Marxists) actually agnostics?

Darwinian Politics!

KG fired me this strange info last week. Its veracity and applicability doesn't seem to have been universally agreed upon yet. Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed when I deliberated upon the implications of the hypothesis that political orientations could actually be inherited.

For one, Darwinian Natural Selection should be applicable. Let us assume that all the people in the world are subjected to a completely neutral and passive environment to grow up and given a completely factual form of education. The purpose is to annul any external influences. In which case, the political orientations would be governed entirely by the genes (this is kind of self contradictory because the very existence of right and left wingers would mean 'neutral' education does not exist, but we shall make this assumption anyway for the sake of argument). And let us also assume that half the people of the world are conservatives and half the people are liberals to begin with. If things are left as it is, one of the ideologies is bound to perish in the long run, of say a few thousand years. The ideology which would help mankind survive longer would be naturally selected. And finally we are left with a race which is entirely liberal or entirely conservative! The question then is, which one of the two ideologies would survive nature's ultimate Election?

After a brief contemplation I ended up ruling in favour of the liberals (now that's a surprise!). Well, I could very well be biased. So if you feel otherwise (or come to the same conclusion but using a different argument), please comment your views.

Before I present my solution, I'll define the terms involved for the benefit of the readers.

Natural Selection: It is the phenomenon which gives direction to evolution. To put it in simple terms, only those members of a population who are able to survive longer would end up spreading their genes. Hence, the population becomes stronger and stronger with each generation. The species then is said to have 'evolved'.

Conservatives: They are a class of politicians, who believe in upholding what they think are 'traditional' values (depending on the scenario, it could be religion, culture, ethnicity, race etc.). They are usually intolerant toward other traditions, always try to control the personal lives of individuals and are in constant conflict with foreign cultures.

Liberals: They believe in cultural and ethnic accommodation and usually uphold individual freedom.

Clearly, Conservatives lead a life of constant struggle, not only against Liberals, but also against other conservatives. This turns odds of survival against them. Of course, a lot depends on what kind of government is in power. If I was a native German living in Hitler's reign, I would choose to endorse his fanatical ways, and go about killing Jews and waging wars, if I wanted to live. Being a liberal would mean suicide in this case. But we need to look at long term implications here. A Nazi would have made more enemies in his life time than his victims. This would be true even if the Germans had won the war and were controlling the world now. There would be Anti Nazi terrorist groups all over the world (a situation similar to the one Americans find themselves today among Muslims all over the world). Sooner or later, the Nazis were bound to be annihilated. Now it could be unfair to label conservatives as Nazis. But their ideology does seem to be a distorted and milder version of that very fanatical movement. Be it the Sangh Parivar in India, the church-backed Republicans in the US etc.

I agree that the above argument is quite incomplete. The conditions assumed are quite idealistic. The contribution of Sexual Selection has not been taken into account. A lot also depends on the economic policies of the two groups which I haven't considered. Further, bringing in the now-small-but-fast-growing third class of Centrists could drastically change the equations. Comments are welcome.