Well, it turns out that Feb. 11 was the big day.

After about 18 days of protests, they finally got what they wanted. Mubarak has stepped down, and given control of the country to the “supreme military council”. However, I find it interesting to note how the regime has acted as we got to this point. What follows below is strictly my own recall of the events as they unfolded over the past two weeks. I want to write my thoughts here so that I can remember them for the future.

I’ve been watching fairly intently the recent protests in Egypt. It seemed (for me) that the earlier uprising in Tunisia was out of the blue. Granted, I don’t exactly pay very close attention to domestic issues inside other countries…

Regardless, I find revolution to be an interesting topic. Given that the U.S. was borne from revolution, its citizens tend to take an extreme interest in similar events around the world. We all decry autocratic regimes and call for revolt at the first sounds of corruption or grievance, and then love to point out conspiracies by those in power at the first sounds of revolution. It’s all great fun.

After watching Obama’s SOTU, I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about regulation. Specifically, I wanted to point out to him that I can understand the argument that regulations can be bad in certain cases.

One of the problems is that regulation is slow to change. It’s meant specifically to handle one set of problems. During the evolution of any system, the regulation continues to only solve that one problem. The only way to fix this is to update the regulation. Here is where it got a bit interesting. I compared writing regulation to writing software.

I might as well pose this question, as it has been on my mind for a while now. Sure, the answer is not necessarily cut and dry. However, there are definitely specific characteristics which could be considered necessary.

Of course, we’ve studied ad infinitum governmental aspects. Countries run by monarchies and despots don’t typically last forever, as our history has shown. Tentatively, it appears that we’re on to something with this (actually age-old) concept of democracy. This aside, however, I come to the real purpose for this post, and that is …

Humility. Some say that it is necessary for enlightenment. I wonder though; many people in this world live very one dimensional lives. They go to work, do their jobs, come home, take care of their children, and repeat the next day. They don’t have any money to live out their dreams. Better yet, they may have in fact belonged to families where superfluous thought wasn’t encouraged.

I don’t necessarily see the acquisition of humility in our society encouraged, but I wonder if it would really even make a difference if it was. I think that the need arises when people undergo some forms of mental exercise which benefit from its presence. We always forget though, that “normal” in our world usually involves leading fairly boring lives, where half of it is spent suffering, and the other half trying to make it better.

A homeless man appears with a very interesting skill. He becomes popular on the web, and his story drives companies to try to recruit him. He claims he has been sober for two years. Two weeks after his rise to fame, and employment by some known organizations, he admits to drinking and goes to rehab.

This makes the people who spoke for him, and were inspired about his story, look weak and naive. It definitely hurts the image of the products he promoted.

I have found that I can sort out my thoughts better if I place them in written format. It is so easy to convey incorrect or mistaken thoughts when using the spoken word. I will use this online journal to state my current thoughts.