My Thoughts to the World

We often think of civil war as a violent split—one faction of society breaking away from another. But I’d argue that civil war can take a quieter, more internal form. The current federal government of the United States, under the leadership of Donald J. Trump, has taken actions that resemble a war on its own institutions. Key democratic pillars—such as the Department of Justice, the judiciary, and the rule of law—have been undermined through politicized appointments, public attacks on judges and prosecutors, and refusal to comply with oversight mechanisms. These aren’t isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern that echoes authoritarian shifts seen in places like Hungary under Viktor Orbán, Turkey under Erdoğan, and Israel under Netanyahu’s successful judicial overhaul campaign. These actions threaten to slow innovation, weaken economic growth, limit public services, and degrade overall quality of life for lower class people. This quality was already under pressure due to widesprea...

There are fake people everywhere. When you scroll through social media, most feeds you see are highlights of people's life. Some people can make a beautiful post on their social media while simultaneously saying terrible things to the people closest to them like their close family or friends.  This dissonance of realities can be really stark. I have a few close examples of this in my life and I find it difficult to understand. I know that people have a strong desire to be accepted by other people but why not focus on the people physically next to you as opposed to focusing so much on upholding a virtual appearance, where most of those people may not really care about you. I had a student last semester that had a very disrespectful attitude towards me and her fellow classmates but would take pictures posing in class, presumably to post on social media. I would think to myself, what is the point of upholding some virtual appearance when the people around you, due to being disrespectf...

I can't believe it's almost been a year since I became a father! There have been ups and downs throughout but the experience has been overwhelmingly positive. My daughter is just at the age where she can stand on her own and enjoy simple things like going to the park and social events with friends, family, and our community. I can already see her personality coming out little by little and she is, and hopefully will continue to be, a wonderful person. My first identity is now being a father, and being a scientist has shifted into my second identity. I am thankful to be a university professor since it does give me more flexibility to work from home and at least be around for parts of the day, plus I get four months off teaching, giving me more time to be with my daughter. 

Dear Friend: One of my best friends has been battling cancer for over two and a half years. This friend is especially dear to me since we share a special chemistry that few people experience in their lifetime. He is an incredible person and one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever met. He lives in the UK, which is a 10-hour flight from LA. I was lucky enough to visit him this summer and spend a couple of weeks with him and his lovely wife, who is also very dear to me. We had an incredible time full of laughter, long walks, and great conversations. Before the trip, I told myself to make the most of it and save the tears for later. Sure enough, on the bus after saying our goodbyes, I couldn’t help but cry most of the way to the airport. Thanks to technology, we stay in constant contact, and I hope he can win the battle against cancer so we can create more memories together. Life’s Suffering: When I went to Asia in 2018, I learned a great deal about Buddhism. At its heart, it is a p...

    There is a natural human desire to survive and live forever, but all life eventually comes to an end. Life by definition includes death although some exceptions like cancer cells and  Tardigrades are found in nature. I believe that when we die, it means the end of our existence hence I do not believe in an afterlife. For a long time, this made me sad, since I grew up Christian and thinking there is a heaven. More recently, I see death as a positive thing nowadays, since it is the end of suffering and the only path to real eternal peace. I do value life more than death and desire to continue to exist, especially for my family who needs me, but I no longer fear death nor see it as a negative as I used to view it. Death is a necessary part of life that we will all go through eventually, so you just have to enjoy life as much as you can while (and if) you have good health.      If there is an afterlife, I would guess that there would be suffering there too,...

For a long time I have been suspecting that there is something false about life. I  remember watching the movie The Truman Show as a kid and for a a little while I thought my life was a show, that I was being observed and monitored somehow, that goes beyond my ability to detect. Since learning about simulation theory, it has slowly crept into my philosophical views of life, shifting my epistemology, ontology, and has even my axiology. This has led me to some mixed thoughts that seem to contradict each other:  The nature of reality doesn't matter. Simulation or now we may all be cogs in a wheel with little to no free will, as human behavior is dictated by evolutionary biology, genetics, the expression of those genetics, environment, nurture, social forces, and other factors that lead to our actions. Our ideas of what reality is or isn't has no effect on the reality we are limited to perceive.  A simulation would make theology true and atheism false, since the creators of ...

  I am a new father as of December 7 to a wonderful baby girl. I have felt a profound love for her while my wife and I were pregnant, but now I am head over heels for her. I wish nothing more than to give her the best life possible, which includes making hard decisions to benefit her. Her birth has triggered a huge shift on my mindset, and I want to be able to provide her with all the opportunities possible. I am so thankful to have her in my life and I am ready to do anything to make sure she will have the best upbringing possible. I hope she serves as a unifying force for my wife and I, so that we can provide her an environment where her parents love and respect each other. I hope to mature as a man and human being, since I recognize my faults and weaknesses and hope to become a better example for my daughter to follow. 

  I wish that all human beings were more caring of other people independent of ethnicity, culture or beliefs. I am firmly against the apartheid system that Israel has carried against the Palestine people, and the obliteration of Gaza.  The genocide of innocent women and children that Israel is carrying out for the whole world to see, will be remembered as one of the most cruel acts of violence from one group of people to another in the history of mankind.  I would never blame Jewish people for the atrocities made by the unpopular government of Israel and their horrible leader benjamin netanyahu. There are many Jewish people that are praying for a ceasefire, but the person calling the shots, netanyahu, wants to eradicate all Palestine people. He is a truly evil man akin to an adolf hitler in my opinion. He is a world leader none of the US presidents have got along with, with both Trump and Obama despising the man. The part that makes me feel particularly guilty is that the...

It turns out that we are all born with morality and it is a core innate attribute we all have. Studies show that infants as young as 3 months have the ability to make moral decisions, which may come at great surprise as traditional theories have always argued that morality is learned as opposed to innate. There are two main outcomes I think are most interesting, when it comes to this topic, and will discuss their vast ramifications. The first outcome shows that infants generally rather see people being helped than not being helped. The second outcome narrows down the scope to who do infants rather be helped or not helped, and it turns out that infants prefer those they cant relate to don't get helped. It is hard for me to explain these studies as I am not a psychologist, but the implications are that humans naturally, without considering nurture (good parenting), prefer that those who they can't relate to get less assistance. These findings explain how the human is evil towards...

  I got the privilege of going to the Hollywood Bowl in LA to see a concert by the LA philharmonic called Mozart Under the Stars. The concert was great and I felt a kind of peace that I needed at the moment. Today, as I was scrolling YouTube, a video about the Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges appeared calling him the Black Mozart. I ended up watching a few videos on Joseph Bologne (this one was my favorite) and I learned that he had a significant impact in our history while sadly being someone most people have never heard of. I wont go into his biography since you can watch the video or look him up, but I'll say a few things. Joseph was the son of a wealthy white man and his black enslaved woman, making him multiracial. He was one of the greatest people of his generation and was acknowledged for his talent despite facing a huge amount of racism. He was one of the greatest musicians and swordsmen of his time, a leader in the French revolution, and influenced the minds of...

  One of my favorite Nas rap songs is "Life is what you make it." Everything that I have been able to accomplish is because of (at least) two reasons: 1) I've had a burning desire to be a scientist since I was a child and 2) I have been lucky to have the support of my parents along with great teachers and mentors that have guided me. I want to focus on the first point in this blog. Albert Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge because you have to first imagine where you want to go, in order to be able to work towards that direction. If you can't imagine where you want to go, then you will probably end up having a job you find miserable. I recognize that I was lucky to be able to imagine myself being a scientist at a young age, where as other people spend much more of their lives trying to figure it out.       So how do you figure out what you want to do in life? There is no real answer to this, since everyone is different. If you reall...

Open AI's ChatGPT has blown me away since I first used it back in December 2022. I was using it to plan a trip to Africa and Europe and it handled itself incredibly well, giving me a lot of valuable information. Then I used it to see if it could handle one of the assignments, I had given my class and again, it was able to generate a well written and articulated response to my Open AI's ChatGPT has blown me away since I first used it back in December 2022. I was using it to plan a trip to Africa and Europe and it handled itself incredibly well, giving me a lot of valuable information. Then I used it to see if it could handle one of the assignments, I had given my class and again, it was able to generate a well written and articulated response to my assignment. Today, as I was working on a document I needed to finish for work, and I really didn't even know where to start. I was just about to go ask one of my colleagues about how to do it and then a thought hit my mind, why no...

 As a social constructivist, I believe that most knowledge is socially constructed. However, I have concluded that there are three forms of knowledge: 1) Empirical Knowledge, 2) Social Knowledge, 3) Self-actualized knowledge. Below I will briefly summarize them: 1) Empirical knowledge can be thoughts (or symbols) based on experiments or observations of nature that can describe and predict some phenomena. In principle, this type of knowledge should be generally accepted by all people, due to clear cut evidence needed to support any claims based on empirical knowledge. However there are many people that reject empirical knowledge due to having other beliefs (Self-actualized knowledge) that they feel are more “true” to them, even if there is no empirical evidence for them. By definition we are all ignorant until knowing truth, so for many people, a lack of empirical knowledge comes from the lack of interest in science or understanding the true nature of our universe. 2) Social Knowled...

     The recent events going on all over the world may have deep consequences for all of us. Ukraine and russia are in a war that is already putting a large strain on food and energy prices on the whole world. Topping this off, we are currently set to have some of the lowest crop yields in 2023 due to the need for valuable fertilizers needed for food production. At the time of this writing, the stock market is taking a huge hit and the federal reserve raised interest rates by 0.75% with further rises expected ahead. Like in everything, the economic turmoil is relative and may pose an opportunity for people like my wife and I who are still moving up the economic ladder and have little investments. For others, this recession (if not depression) will negatively impact their lives directly with the increase in unemployment and hit to retirement accounts.      Worse than the hit to the economy is the increased threat to democracy as people become desperate for c...

     I am writing this blog because of the past week of events, when russia began to invade Ukraine. I've never been to Ukraine, and by the looks of it now, I will never get see it in the way it was russia destroyed it. I find it so difficult to believe that human beings still wage wars with one another causing irreversible death and destruction upon one another. Vladmir Putin is a ruthless imperialist DICKtator and I hope his actions lead to his demise. I hope that Ukraine can survive the russian invasion and protect their democratic liberties. I am also worried about Taiwan, which will likely be invaded by China soon, spurring further chaos and disorder across the world. I really hope these escalations don't lead to another world war, but only time will tell. What is certain is that we are living in a breaking point of history and the world may become more dangerous than ever.      The only upside to this conflict, up to the time of writing this blog, is ...

  This blog is about my reflections on the history of immigration in the US and my own situation of trying to bring my wife to the US. The history of immigration to the US goes far beyond the Eurocentric history often taught in schools. Immigration policies acted as filters for whom would be allowed to enter the country, allowing pathways for white Christians' from Europe and blocking entry for the rest. It wasn't until 1952, that non-White immigrants were finally legally allowed to enter the country and immigration policies began to shift. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, was a landmark bill that eliminated the racial quota, replacing it with a category system that favors people who have relatives in the US and specialized professional skills. Since 1965, the number of immigrants from non-Europe countries sky rocketed, and now make up most of the immigrant population. Immigration policies still have a long way to go, until they are more equitable, and I am livin...

 Living abroad has really improved my perspective in life, mostly because the limits of culture are plain to see. Culture shock was not new to me, even before traveling abroad, because I had experienced culture shock as a teenager within the US. I spent most of my childhood living in a very diverse part of the US, where most of the people in my neighborhood were people of color. Then I moved from a neighborhood full of people of color into a neighborhood full of white people, which was a huge culture shock for me. I remember trying to make friends with my white neighbors, and most of them ended up bullying me (presumable due to being the only non-white person present). Luckily my high school was somewhat diverse, so I found nicer white people and other people of color to befriend later on.      Getting back to the point, my time traveling has really allowed me to see the limits of my own form of being and how dependent that is to the culture one belongs to. We are al...

 Living in Mexico for two years has given me a broader global perspective of the inequity between richer and poorer countries. Living here has taught me the true worth of the dollar, since my middle-class income in the US makes me upper class in Mexico and in many other socioeconomically similar countries. The real global value of the dollar is often hidden from most Americans since many don't travel abroad or follow international news. I can see the inequity between richer and poorer countries and how COVID is exacerbating the inequity, right before my eyes. Due to COVID, the economy in Mexico is currently suffering and the government is having a difficult time vaccinating their population. At the same time in the US, the pandemic is somewhat under control and many restrictions have been lifted and people have started to return to their normal lives. The story of the US is the same for many other wealthy countries that have the potential to immunize their populations rapidly. Unfo...

     I'll be honest, I never cared the least bit about politics before my first international trip to Europe in 2017. In Europe, I found that people speak a lot about politics, which was the topic of many of my discussions with strangers. After having so many interesting conversations about US politics with Europeans, I came to realize just how important politics really is and how little I knew about it. After returning to the US from Europe, I immersed myself in several political classics like Plato's The Republic and Marx's Communist Manifesto along with following different channels that talk about politics, geopolitics, economy, and history on YouTube. I really wanted to gain some insight as to why different countries have different systems and the history behind them and how they got there. As a result, geopolitics has become one of my favorite subjects to study.      I think that everyone should be more informed about domestic and international politic...

     I grew up in a religious household and most of my family actively practices Christianity. I respect all religions and believe that people have the right to believe what they want. However, I am no longer religious because I have concluded that religion, as well as most human forms of knowledge are socially constructed over hundreds of thousands of years. This social construction includes every language, custom, and social norm that exist.  Additionally, from my travels, I realized that religion has a geopolitical purpose and has historically been used by world leaders to unite and maintain control over their populations. Moreover, I believe religious ideologies are fundamentally sexist, since in many world religions, women do not have the right to lead and must obey some form of submission to men. Religion also upholds racist ideologies, in many ways. Also have you seen a black angel in Christian or Catholic art, I know I haven't. Without racism, how do you expl...