Author Archives: Nikki

A Beautiful mind

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I learned about Nash equilibrium as part of a discussion on game theory in one of my freshman year courses. And while I had heard about the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, I hadn’t watch it and knew very little about John Forbes Nash, Jr.. I am really happy that I got a chance to learn more about this brilliant man by getting a chance to watch the movie which also inspired me to read a bit more about him afterwards.

 

The movie starts with Nash’s life from the time he gets into Princeton with a prestigious scholarship, and meets several other promising math and science students. And we see his relationship with his roommate, Charles Herman (literary student), having an influence on him early in his life. Nash’s brilliant ideas lands him an appointment in MIT. A few years later, Nash is approached by the Pentagon to help decipher enemy communication, and he amazes people with his ability to decipher some of the code mentally. Nash turns increasingly obsessive about searching for hidden patterns and also becomes more paranoid about being monitored/followed by the enemy. His obsession and paranoia is clearly demonstrated later in the movie during a guest lecture at Harvard where he suspects Soviet agents are after him and attempts to flee. We see him sedated and sent to a psychiatric facility, on he believes is run by the Soviets. We then learn that he is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. We witness his struggles with this devastating condition, and what is impressive is that he ultimately succeeds in sufficiently grappling with his condition and in utilizing his brilliant mind towards his game theory ideas. At the end, we witness Nash receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics for his revolutionary work in game theory.
I researched more about Nash after watching the movie, and read a lot of details that were left out about his life. Despite the fact that the movie was not an entirely accurate exposition of Nash’s life, I greatly enjoyed it. And the movie did an excellent job of depicting how Nash’s motivation to apply his brain power towards progress in mathematical thought helped him partly overcome a devastating mental condition.

 

 

Neruda

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The movie Neruda portrays the political aspects of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s life. The movie was more centered around the point in Neruda’s life when he hails communism despite the fact that the president in Chile is against the communist party. The president demands his arrest, turning Neruda into an underground fugitive, with an inspector who is following his trail. Neruda taunts the regime and the inspector on several occasions, where he is intent on making appearances and being in contact with the people. He moves people with his words and speeches about the suffering of the poor and virtues of communism. He makes a few unsuccessful attempts to flee Chile. Ultimately, Pablo chooses a path through the mountains bordering Argentina. The inspector follows him into the mountains but dies in an attack by locals. The ending was somewhat confusing to me (I may need to watch the movie again.) During his last moments, the inspector could still hear Pablo’s words on how Pablo is the person who created him. And when Pablo hears his name being called in the mountains, he goes towards the inspector and appears to know what is happening. In the end, Pablo manages to leave Chile. The movie portrays Pablo as the protagonist and the inspector as the antagonist, and each is a necessary ingredient in making the other character shine through. It’s almost as if one could not exist without the presence of the other, which may also explain the still confusing ending
Before watching the movie Neruda, I remembered that I had read one of his poems in my literature class and I did not know much about him. I was quite fascinated with how a poet can be remembered in the society for their political influence, and that there were many facets to Pablo’s life besides being a poet. Overall, the movie is a deep and moving portrayal of a window in Pablo’s life and character.

Dr. Strangelove

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Before watching this movie, our GRF Ty spoke to us about Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and how two powers with nuclear weapons can mutually guarantee to destruct each other. We also discussed whether massive retaliation (as advocated by MAD) is more or less effective as a deterrent compared to a flexible and proportionate response.

 

Dr. Strangelove is a satirical movie about the terror and absurdity of US and USSR policies during the cold war era. It is directed by the famed Stanley Kubrick, and casts Peter Sellers in three different roles (a British Air Force Captain, US President, and Dr. Strangelove). His most humorous role is reserved for Dr. Strangelove, an ex-Nazi scientist who serves the President as scientific advisor. The plot involves an insane US General who initiates a bombing attack on Soviet Union, under Plan R (contingency plan that allows a senior office to launch a strike if all superiors have been killed by a first strike by USSR). As part of the intense discussions between US and Soviet Union in war room, the soviet ambassador informs the President that the soviets have created a doomsday device that is set to detonate automatically should any nuclear attack strike their country. The device cannot be untriggered, and will encircle the earth in a radioactive cloud that will wipe out all life on earth and make it uninhabitable for 93 years. Dr. Strangelove points out that such a deterrent would only work if the other side knows about it, and the soviet ambassador responds that the plan was to announce it to the world in a week. The movie ends with one of the US planes dropping a nuclear bomb on USSR, which in turn triggers the doomsday device.
The movie does a wonderful job of using satire to point out the absurdity of using mutual destruction as a workable deterrent. It shows that any protocol or scenario can lead to potentially unforeseen consequences that can be detrimental to our existence. I both enjoyed the entertainment value of the movie, and also developed a better appreciation of a proportional response as a deterrent compared to MAD (which definiitely has an apropos acronym ;-).

La La Land The Land of the Unrealistic

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It is rare to see musicals today; after all this movie was made in 2016 and not the 1950’s. But there is one thing music and musicals do to us: they cheer us up. I watched La La Land for the first time last Sunday.

The film’s backdrop is in LA, so maybe it is more appropriate to write the title as LA LA Land. I also checked the definition of “la la land”: “Los Angeles or Hollywood, especially with regard to the lifestyle and attitudes of those living there or associated with it.” I never knew that … I knew the gist of what the phrase means, as described by its second meaning: “a fanciful state or dreamworld.”

The movie opens with a traffic jam, which is a sure way to bring the worst out in people. But this is a musical, so folks end up breaking into dance and song. And there is a sense of a place where everything is magical and dreams come true. Of course no musical is complete without a girl meets boy storyline … we meet Mia and Sebastian. She is a struggling actress, and he is a musician who aspires to open a jazz club. Certainly his ambitions are more nostalgic since there are probably few people who aspire to be jazz artists these days. But it is that nostalgia for a romantic time of the musicals that is embodied here. And the chasing of your dreams. The ending (five years later in movie time) was interesting. Mia is a famous actress, married with a daughter. She stumbles into a Jazz club that Sebastian has opened (so he also got to his dream). And the two of them are left imagining how things may have gone if their relationship had worked out.

There is one interesting line from Sebastian that striked me as interesting, more describing our lives and a hopeful view of the human condition in general: “This is the dream, it’s conflict and it’s compromise but it’s exciting!”
It’s was great to see a musical film that is recently produced. And it is not a redo of a broadway show; there were original songs developed for it. The cinematography and choreography were amazing. For someone young like myself who hasn’t grown up watching musicals, it was a fun entertaining movie that cheered me up.

Lack of unity

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Last Monday it was the first table talk I ever attended this semester. Our discussion at the table talk was centered around feminism and a book by called This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. From what I understood this is one of the very first books that tries to link across women’s writings from diverse backgrounds. I really liked the idea behind this book because I thought for women to find greater achievements for equality in society they all need to be united despite all the differences they might have. It kind of remains a question for me despite there exists a common ground for women of how do they identify as feminists, the ways that different groups were treated was completely different throughout the world. For example, to this day I do not know why is some countries women do not have the right to drive or vote or why does there exist such a high gap between salaries. I even heard one time heard some studies have even shown that women with the same qualifications are less likely to get the same jobs as men. I think the reason why women are not facing so many issues in the society like wage inequality is the lack of unity and anything that would contribute to uniting women is of great value. I sometimes have this sense of hopelessness for women to find greater equality in the society. However, I think the future will be better as I compare my experience with women of previous generations.

No one knows anything in the City of God

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The movie City of God pictures a slum called City of God in Brazil that is continuously affected by gangs that are in control of drugs and guns. At the beginning of the movie three of the people this gang seem to have good control of the slum. They loot and rob local businesses and share some of it with the members of the city in return of protection. One time they decide to rob a motel and tell one of the younger members Li’l Dice to serve as the lookout for the police. Instead what he does is that he shots everyone in the motel. This takes the police’s attention a lot and that’s when things start to get worse in the city of god. People tell the police that no one knows anything and a lot of innocent people become arrested and killed because of this incident.

 

Throughout the movie there are many instances in which children and very young people get involved with drugs and guns. At some point in the movie the neighborhood seems to have relative peace with the existence of one gang. It looks like both the nature of drugs and the presence of the police are making this whole community fall apart. One of the points that our GRF asked us to think about was that if it was better for that whole community to be under the control of one gang or for the police to try get control over the whole neighborhood. This question’s a hard one for me to answer. At first place, I would probably say for the police to take over. However, the police in this movie were so corrupt that they were making the matter much worse. Overall, I don’t think in long term for the gang to take control over the area would result in peace cause the gang was kind of destroying itself from inside.

 

The reason I thought this whole community was falling apart was because fear and the distrust between the people and the government. The fact that everyone is trying to hide everything they know because of the fear of a corrupt government was both making it worse for the people and the government. Closer to the end of the movie, the brother of one of the old gang Rocket members gets an internship with the newspaper because he takes a picture of the head of the gang Li’l Dice in the City of God where no one even dares to go. Rocket after getting the internship even secretly takes pictures of the police stealing Li’l Dice’s money and letting him go and Li’l Dice being killed. He eventually decides not to publish the picture of the police. Even when Rocket’s in a position that can reveal information decides not to; this is the whole reason everyone is suffering no one knows anything and everything has to remain a secret.

War of humans and machines

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This was my first time watching the matrix and I could definitely tell that this was totally relevant to what the modern society is going to face. In the movie the Matrix, the main character Thomas Anderson(alias hacker name Neo) starts getting puzzled by the fact that he’s getting this cryptic messages from the Matrix. Trinity contacts Neo telling him there’s a man called Morpheus that can tell him the truth about the Matrix. When he meets with this man he is asked to make a choice between the red pill which will allow him to know the truth about the matrix or the blue pill that returns him to his normal life and Neo takes the red pill. Morphues explains to Neo that The Matrix was some kind of computer simulation that humans were living inside and he and his team are trying to save humankind from this simulation.

Before the movie our GRF Magdala brought up this quote from Descartes “I think therefore I am”to think about while watching the film. This statement is based on Descarte’s philosophy that  was built on the idea of radical doubt( in which nothing that is perceived or sensed is necessarily true. The only thing that remains true that there is a mind or consciousness doing the doubting and believing its perceptions). While watching this movie there were many moments that reminded me of this quote. The point that the main character doubts why is he getting messages from the matrix(the thought that he thinks in a real world does not necessarily mean that it’s the reality)  or the fact human thoughts have the power of creating of a computer simulation that raised to the existence of completely different world.

As a CS major I could definitely see that what the movie was picturing is what a lot people are fearing about at the moment: A rise of an artificial intelligence that will overtake humans and a war that in which the machines have a higher chance of winning since already they have exceeded humans in many skills. This is the complete opposite of what happened in the movie in which humans won the war at the end. However, the movie wasn’t trying to say this, it was trying to convey the message that human beings like living better in a free world that is free from computer manipulation.

They call me Muslim

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This documentary made me again think that there is such a wide variety of ideologies between people who believe in Islam. The narrative of the film started by showing how banning hijab in France in public school has had deep effects on Muslim women. A relatively large group of women became deprived of the right of getting an education because this policy. Even though in some interviews with the French authorities they claimed that this law will prevent Muslim woman from being dominated, it did the exact opposite of making them more suppressed.

After interviewing Muslim women in France (which is secular country) who thought their freedom was taken away from them by the ban, they showed an interview with a Muslim woman from Iran (which is a theocracy) who thought that being enforced to comply with the society’s Islamic values had taken away her freedom. These two interviews had a lot of contradictions in their scenarios and what I thought was that it is not a good way of thinking, comparing these two. These two people were from completely different Islamic backgrounds and that was one of the reasons they had different experiences with Islam: one was a Sunni Muslim from Syria (Being Sunni was obvious from the way she was praying) and the other was a Shia from Iran (majority of population is Shia). These people did not have the same the same historical backgrounds and they did not live in the same societies. The problem is that our understanding of the world is relative and we learn in context. As a person who has lived in Iran before I thought I would relate to the second person better. Despite that I thought that I must try to understand the first person’s issues from her own perspective. After watching this film, I wished that we could have better understandings of people’s ideologies.

Cult movies: Fight club

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I always heard a great movie’s a one that raises questions not a one that answers them. Fight club was definitely one of them. I found it quite impressive how the simple fight club in the movie became into a professional crime group of the society. I was thinking all the time what happens that cults take shape. Maybe people have a need to adapt to a very odd ideology or maybe it’s just boredom with normal life. The main character of this movie was definitely bored with his normal life, so bored that he had insomnia and he started taking part in therapy groups with people that he didn’t have similar problems with and then he became the founder of the fight club.

Other than raising so many questions for me about cults and boredom with normal life, this movie also made me question whether this movie had a message in a wider sense about the society. The fact that the fight club had entire influence over the society made me think that maybe there’s a secret cult that has huge influence and control over the society or maybe we’re all part of a cult that we don’t know about. Maybe the cultish ideas make us so blind that we don’t see the people who suffer from cult practices. These thoughts kept occupying my mind all the time. At the end I thought the movie was trying to make people think of what would happen if power fell in the hands of people with cultish types of ideology.