What will we eat?

I attended social psychology class - Which asked a question - "we think killing humans is wrong but we eat animals. Are you discriminating against animals?" 

[Got me thinking  isnt that question discriminating against plants? They care for animals ok but plants are alive too. Do plants deserve rights as well?  Do plants have emotions, Do they feel? 
I feel very sad when I see a tree being cut, but I dont feel all that bad when I eat chicken that afternoon.  So... when I saw a course on coursera - What plant knows? I want to know what plant knows.]

https://secure.einterview.org/lifestyle/

The questions in the interview are the ones I ask myself many times.The interview  provokes introspection which is very good, but the questions are pointed, trying to push their thinking in a certain way - which is not good. Some how puts ideas in our head and may promote biased self introspection? I wonder. Are there flaws in their thinking?

Two arguments came to my mind.
1) Death is part of life. Nature produces in excess so that the weak are weeded out and the fittest survive. Evolution happened because infant mortality in nature is very very high. Is it really wrong to kill animals.  

2) Where does the line of "compassion"  start? When do species start qualifying for compassion? 
Animals are alive, people are alive, plants are alive, like someone else said on the thread insects fungii and bacteria are also alive. Does small pox virus not have a right to live? and polio?  where to draw the line?  
Some Buddhist monks do not kill mosquitoes who bite them. Jain people dont eat potatoes and ginger. Each person draws his own line, mine is humans/pets/wild animals are this side of the line and farm animals on the other side.

There is a saying Cow cant be friends with grass...  
If we dont want to eat anything then we would have to have chlorophyll in our skin and make our own food, once we start doing that there wont be any need for us to move or get around so we will grow roots and turn into plants and new life forms which will eat us will evolve :-) :-)

but still it is a moral dilemma ,I feel if we give back as much as we take from nature.. may be thats the solution. 
[from discussion forums on coursera ]

Chasing dream

First time in my life, I got caught in a chasing dream.

Strange chasing dream, I think it was triggered off by something I saw on TV. My friend some muslim/conservative punjabi type with a veil on her head was being forced to get married to somebody she didnt like or may be it was somebody really horrible. So I help her run away. Some men are chasing us. We are going higher and higher on a building.( Duh!) We hide under a water tank or on  a sajja or something. They almost miss us, but last minute they see us. Friend got caught. I jumped to the next house. ( why are they still chasing me? Wasnt it my friend they wanted?)  and again I start climbing. The men also start climbing, upto second floor and then up the tank, It was really scary, jumping off walls at that height and catching hold of things with finger tips. gives me the creepies even now. In almost every other chasing dream, at this point, I escape, The lion/ tiger/elephant/snake/knife man/psycho/gorilla  is caught, Or I just am too fast or something like that. But this time they caught me. :-( I dont like it at all. 

It wasnt as bad getting caught,  I was in the wedding later on, as if the whole chase was a childish thing. But at the start of the dream it wasnt.. it was some how crucial for her to escape..
like life isnt it? Once we are given a deal, somehow we start thinking the deal is okay...(which is not really a bad thing? )

Related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance 

social psychology on coursera

"I am a human being, It could be me."
All those experiments which show that in unusual circumstances( It is necessary to remember that it is unusual circumstances) people behave in ways which make us uncomfortable, or ridiculous or  make us feel downright horrified!!
Should remember, I am also a human being, That could be me.
Helps to remember that all people are being pulled by mental processes and patterns and so much pressure, most of us very very unfortunately cant help being what we are. Doesnot mean we have to accept it and say things like "Boys will be boys" NEVER!!  but remembering this makes me be less judgemental about all this.

 Social psychology and behavioural economics( basically the same thing) can be used to increase self awareness and see others/ourselves in better light.

I realised Social psychology is being used by charities in UK to increase donations. Text book techniques

They first start of  with "Door in the face technique"
- They say would you like to donate 15£ for so and so charity? I say no, then they say, can u please donate 3£?  because I have said no first I tend to agree and say yes.
- Once I m in they use "foot in the door technique."  you are already donating 3£, can u please just donate another 2£  for so and so cause.
Low balling - Once they get you to say yes, they will read out the small print. It is very embarrassing for us to say no later.

But people see it soon enough, techniques grow old very soon, like the petrol bunk cheatings.
If you are skilled you will be pioneer. like "Catch me if you can"  He worked because society was innocent. Then people catch up, someone finds a new way, few copy, all copy and it fails.
seduction is like that too,
Awareness, Awareness Awareness.
Awareness and attitude spreads. People used to say it is natural for men to beat their wives , to rape, just like today we say it is natural for people to be greedy, to be messy, to be take bribes.
I hope self awareness spreads by sprituality and also by social psycology. I m terribly impressed by social psycology. love it.

Milgram experiment

Sachin no, he only told me to do it, I didnt do it.
This takes on a whole new meaning now.
When 4 year old Joy came home one day, denying any wrong doing. I didnt do it, I didnt do it, That Sachin no, he only told me to do. :-D we found it very comical. We saw it as a blame game. Bugger has thrown a stone and broken a tube light!!! and now he is blaming it on Sachin! This was our catch phrase for blame game.. that Sachin no.. he only did it.  Its true kids do a lot of blame game, the dog tore the page, bird took he biscuit.. but now I wonder about Sachin.
What if Sachin did tell Joy? What if  Joy being a lil boy obeyed the Authority figure!
Have a look at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Reading about this is one thing, Watching the actual footage of the experiment,especially the 1960's footage!. Watching decent innocent people torturing themselves but still going ahead and doing it. It was very very disturbing.

How much are we obeying, How many times it happens that  I did it, but actually u did because Sachin told?? much much more than we realise.

stereotypes

Mumbai Gang rape and Udbhav Thakery makes a statement,  non maharastrians are responsible for all this. I thought Shiv Sena is at it again. At the time it was not even sure who the suspects were.Bigots! Bastards!

But just one day previously Me made a statement - Karwar is really nice and safe people are so decent, but lot of bihari/UP labourers are coming in for work.....Hope they dont spoil it... Udbhav is an idiot but  I m allright :P

Ingroup/outgroup bias, sterotypes, prejudices... each of us a typical case study for social psychology.

Atheists on FB

 ...There are people  like Richard Dawkings and some Dumb followers logically attacking religion and faith on facebook! Duh!?Accept it, people are not logical.  to think we give so much prominence to logic and its mostly useless in dealing with people.

Religion gives people a sense of belonging and community, Singing in choir is making old people healthier.
Religion gives people comfort.
Prayer gives people hope. God gives people a sense of well being. Sense of more control over events than they actually have.
I met this Chinese girl bought up as atheist wanting to convert to a religion after a breakup. The guy hooked up with a bar girl and this girl had to be taken to hospital for nervous breakdown. She thinks religion will help her cope better with such circumstances. She will take a log to float on , when flooded by emotions.
I also suspect people also like some structure and rigidity which comes with religion. Sometimes people like being told what to do, some rules.

Dry logic gives people heart burns :-p

Telling someone they are fool - is that the best way to convert people to your way of thinking? :-}

Sometimes very clever scientists fail to grasp basics of human interaction . As if I m any good, I do all this analysis, but I am exactly like RD in these things, I tell people logically - hey u are being stupid. they get angry and then I tell them -come on I was being objective :-)

Also , These atheist groups, with their own fanaticism and ideology are exactly like religions, They are divining people and encouraging herding tendencies. I think opposite of diving force of religion is something unifying. Instead of saying u are different, u should find something similar and say we are all same.

insight

They think that someone wearing a saree with the whole mid-riff showing is decent and ok, but jeans! u are totally covered from head to toe and its indecent! Crazy!
Indians are so stupid, totally illogical!! or They are hypocrites!

Finally realised it not about that at all, its not about exposure or decency or any such thing. Its the same old "us and them" saree is "us", so good! jeans is "them" so bad"

Its not Indian/western phenomenon, Its world wide..Like I said before Burqa is almost exactly like nuns habit, but in france burqa is banned but nuns habit is ok(I think)

Nobody thinks of all this logically, Anything which is not in their "us" bucket causes bad feelings in them. (and in us :-p)  Ashte.

We love to see familiar things. Familiar is comforting.We all hate change, it causes us a lot of discomfort.  Amma without bindi :-) Begum begum :-) as if I care about bindi, I just like my mothers familiar face with the red dot, in the same place in the same size. She changed bindi brand and I din like it.
 Love to try new food but if I mom makes even a small change to her recipe!! I m in flames :-D Why green chillies in cabbage palya, I want RED CHILLIE!!! X-( :-)
Those stupid principals which ban jeans in their colleges are probably also doing the same thing. Off course there are other factors ...