Lets go racing

Last weekend (at least that was when I started writing this post, now its several weeks after the even and we've learned that Vettel has won the Drivers Championship) was the inaugural Korean Grand Prix. Having a chance to see an Formula 1 race live was just too good to pass up. Surprisingly those in charge of bringing F1 to Korea chose to build the track on a peninsula on the south west coast of Korea, rather than in the north near the heavily populated and much more developed Seoul region. It worked well for me though as the race was now going to take place a mere 150 kms from my home. There would never be a better opportunity to see the F1.

The race itself had been besieged over the past several months due to construction delays. They had decided to build the track on a swamp, which required that they wait nearly a year for the land to drain before construction could begin. Then in the months leading up to the race the construction crews were beset by 53 straight days of rain which delayed construction to the point that the track only got final F1 approval 13 days prior to the green light and racing. The normal time frame for such an inspection was 3 months. So going in we knew that there were going to be some hiccups, but having lived in Korea for more than two years, one gets used to such things. The important thing was being able to see the race.

The track having been built in a somewhat isolated part of Yeongam (near Mokpo), the race organizers made shuttle bus services available to bring people to and from the track. Our group waited at one such location which was to be serviced by a shuttle bus every ten or so minutes. After waiting for more than a half hour we were told that the shuttle service had been discontinued. So we started to walk.

It would have been about 10-12 km walk and there was no time to waste as qualifying was only an hour away. Luckily the generosity of Koreans came to the fore once again, as people who were driving to the track stopped picked us up and drove us the rest of the way. It would have taken us forever to reach the track on foot.

The roar of the engines racing by was amazing. It was a sound you could feel. It was exhilarating.

Unfortunately, after that things were rather underwhelming. The stands that we had tickets for weren't finished so people were being packed into different seating areas. All the walkways around the track were dirt and gravel so when it rained everything became a mud pit.

When race day came we were told that our stands still weren't completed and that we would have a choice of where we could sit as a result. Fortunately this setback worked in our favor as we were able to get great seats that would allow us to see nearly half the track.

There were a lot of things wrong with the track and the organization. I will not dispute that but I had a great time.

I went into the weekend wanting to see an F1 race and that is exactly what I got to see. It would be easy to focus on all the things that went wrong, but in reality what went right simply overshadows all of that.

I can't wait for my next chance to see an F1 race live.

Running the numbers

Came across an article recently that provided the following information:

ATLANTA - One in five sexually active gay and bisexual men has the AIDS virus, and nearly half of those don't know they are infected, a federal study of 21 U.S. cities shows.

Experts said the findings are similar to earlier research, but the study released Thursday is the largest to look at gay and bisexual U.S. men at high risk for HIV. More than 8,000 men were tested and interviewed, and 44 percent of those who had the virus didn't know they had it.

Overall, less than half of 1 percent of Americans have the AIDS virus, according to a calculation by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research and policy organization in Washington, D.C.

But gay and bisexual men continue to be infected at much higher rates, said Jennifer Kates, Kaiser's director of global health and HIV policy.

Two numbers in this article made me wonder. The first was the rate of infection amongst homosexual males. The second was the overall infection rate amongst the American population. It just didn't seem to make sense.

Conventional wisdom says that 10-12% of the human population is homosexual.

So if you were to look at the US, using a population of 300 million and 10% of those being homosexual, the homosexual population of the US should be 30 million.

Now assuming that there is no gender bias concerning homosexuality, 15 million of those are men.

We are told that "one in five sexually active gay and bisexual men has the AIDS virus."

So that means that 3 million homosexual men in the US have AIDS.

That is 1% of the US population and doesn't take into account the heterosexual community of 270 million people.

However the Kaiser Family Foundation (a research and policy organization in Washington, D.C.) says that "overall, less than half of 1 percent of Americans have the AIDS virus."

So just one small portion of the US population (homosexual men equaling 5% of the US population) already outpace this calculation.

Concerning HIV infection routes:

The World Health Organization estimates that [U]heterosexual transmission has accounted for 75% of the HIV infections in adults world-wide[/U]. The remaining 25% are primarily due to the use of contaminated blood and blood products, needle sharing by intravenous drug users, and homosexual/bisexual transmission. Heterosexual intercourse has been the dominant route of transmission in Africa, Asia, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. Indeed, in the United States, AIDS ceased being primarily a disease of gay men in the early 1990s. Data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the proportion of new cases reported among homosexual/bisexual men decreased from 47.3% in 1993 to 43.3% in 1994. While the rate of AIDS among American gay males decreases, there has been a recorded increase among women and minority groups. Women accounted for 18.1% of total AIDS cases in 1994, up from 16.2% in 1993. In the same years, the number of American Blacks with AIDS increased from 36.1% to 39% of total new cases, while Hispanics with AIDS increased from 17.7% to 18.7%.

So if heterosexuals account for 3 times as many infections as homosexuals, what are we looking at?

So 20% of homosexual men have contracted AIDS. Women are infected at a lower rate so a safe estimate might be a 1% infection rate amongst homosexual females (iv drug use and other transmission vectors) which would add 150,000 to the AIDS infected homosexual community.

So the estimated total for those infected with AIDS amongst the American homosexual community would be 3.15 million people.

Now if there are three heterosexual people who have AIDS for every one infected homosexual person (based on WHO numbers) we are left with a total infected population of 9.45 million heterosexual people. Add in the homosexual community numbers and you get a total of 12.6 million. This is greater than 4% of the US population and far far above the listed the "less than half of 1% of the US population" as stated by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

So what should one believe?

Then comes this study from Britain which says:

More than 480,000 people or one per cent of the UK's adult population regard themselves as gay or lesbian while a further 245,000 or 0.5 percent say they are bisexual, according a study published by the Office for National Statistics.

The data has been collected by the new Integrated Household Survey (IHS), which is the largest social report ever produced for the ONS.

The 450,000 individual respondents to the survey provided the biggest pool of UK social data after the national census, the statistics service said.

So if we do away with the conventional wisdom of 10% and use this more recent 1% estimate, the numbers would break down like so:

Members of the homosexual community: 3 million
Number of AIDS infected gay men: 300,000
Number of AIDS infected gay women: 15,000
Total: 315,000
Number of AIDS infected heterosexual people: 945,000
Total number of infections: 1,260,000

This infection rate would be much more in line with the "less than half of 1% of the US population" (1% of 300,000,000 = 3 million, 0.5% = 1.5 million) as stated by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

So it would seem that either AIDS infection rates are far far more than estimated (1000% more) or the percentage of homosexual humans is far less than commonly assumed.

Just interesting to look at the numbers.

Matrix theology

A couple friends and I were talking the other day about the Matrix and I had an idea that I wanted to explore. I thought I would do so here. I'm just spit balling this. Trying to remember the movies as best I can while working out my idea. I hope it makes some semblance of sense.

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When one looks at the Matrix, it is impossible not to see Neo as a Christ-like figure. A being who died and rose from the dead, through which the saving of humanity becomes possible.

Looking at it from that perspective one can follow Christian themes throughout the movie.

I'm not saying that the Wachowski brothers were writing a Christian allegory for the 21st century, but I am willing to say that the world which the Wachowski's created in the Matrix trilogy is rich enough for people to delve deeper and to explore it from different perspectives.

So you have Neo as Christ, who after his resurrection informs the powers of the Matrix that he is going to show the people "a world without you." Now if we take the Christian allegory forward, the main opposition to Christ is Satan. So if Neo is Christ then whoever is controlling the Matrix would be Satan.

Christ came to free humanity from enslavement to Satan by showing them the reality of their existence. Neo will now free humanity in the same way.

Which leads us to humanity. When we see humanity, they are essentially dead. Alive in a biological sense but in no way able to live their lives with fullness. They are kept enslaved to the machines through the Matrix. Never able to perceive reality but constantly distracted and lied to so as to keep them from questioning the reality of their existence.

But there are some who are able to break the veil, to perceive the Matrix. To see the Matrix for what it is, a system of control that maintains their enslavement. People such as Morpheus, who herald the coming of the One who will free humanity from bondage and end the war. From the Christian perspective Morpheus is John the Baptist. Calling forth people to believe in the coming of the savior. Like John, Morpheus is ignored and discredited by those with authority.

The way that Neo or people such as Morpheus are able to free people from the control of the Matrix is by showing them the reality of the Matrix, but in the end it is the slave that must choose to be free. In the Matrix, even Neo must be saved, but it serves the purpose of showing the incarnation of Neo. When simple mortal man is able to enter into the Matrix and alter it to meet his own needs. He has in essence become a god within the Matrix and over time outside the Matrix as well.

The Matrix is like the spiritual world. A world that we are blind to. A world we are kept from seeing by those who would seek to keep us in bondage. God operates in the spiritual world but is kept hidden from many by the distractions of this world. We are kept looking everywhere but there so that we don't question reality and by questioning realize that there is so much more than what we see or feel. Just like those in the Matrix. Yet there is something within humanity that is like an itch that reminds us of something more than what we see.

So Neo is able to free humanity from the Matrix. We are told in the movies that since the emergence of Neo as The One, there have been more people saved from the Matrix than at any other time. Neo is able to make people aware of their true reality and allow them the opportunity to exercise their choice to be free or to be a slave. Many are freed. We see that some even when knowing the truth still wish to be blind (see Cypher).

But what choice?

We are told from the Architect that the first few attempts at the Matrix failed miserably. The problem lied in the fact that humanity had no choice, even if it was only available to them on the barest of subconscious levels. There still needed to be choice. People needed to be able to exercise free will even if they never did, the option needed to be available to them.

Free will is a problem for the machines, but it is necessary in order for humanity to thrive. So they allow for free will but build in a system of controls through which they attempt to divert the blowback from the freeing of humanity. Humans are freed and end up in Zion. Over time the exercise of free will manifests in a systemic anomaly which produces The One. The One is then subverted to the cause of the machines by allowing freed humanity to be destroyed in large part while only saving a few in order to maintain the opportunity for the exercise of free will.

So humanity's history under machine enslavement is a cycle of freedom and slavery. Once too many become aware and pose a risk, they are done away with so that humanity reverts to slavery and beginning the cycle once more.

We can see a parallel in the nation of Israel. Whose history as laid out in the Bible is one of adherence to God and falling away. Restoration and betrayal. Over and over again, the nation of Israel goes through this cycle. Sent into exile; restored to Israel. Exile. Restoration.

But the cycle ends with Neo just as it does with Christ. Rather than choosing to be subverted to the cause of the machines, Neo ends the cycle through an expression of love. John 3:16 ringing any bells?

Again, I'm not arguing that the Matrix is a Christian allegory. There are a vast array of elements that are integrated to make up the whole. I do think though that Christianity is a part of it though and one can see distinctly Christian elements in the movies.

Another element would be Smith as Satan. Smith becomes the god of the Matrix whom Neo must fight and defeat in order to secure humanity's salvation. We are told in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that "the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." The final climactic battle between Christ and Satan as seen in Revelations is played out for us on the big screen in a rainstorm.

The thing that saves humanity in the end is self sacrifice. Jesus on the cross.

We can see that Smith has power in the Matrix but it is limited. He can see things but he can't necessarily understand them. He is blinded to his eventual downfall. We are told that Satan knows scripture, but despite this he will still be defeated much like Smith who with the power of the Oracle could see much but understand little. So what he saw as his moment of triumph was in actuality his moment of defeat.

Its a fun exercise and one I think I could take deeper if time permitted.

At least its something to think about.