Fairness and the World Cup

I've had some rather spirited discussions lately on the "fairness" of the teams going to the World Cup with a colleague recently.

You see if you go strictly by the numbers it does not seem fair how they decide the number of teams that will advance to the World Cup by continent.  The best example is to compare Europe and Africa.  Both have almost the same number of teams overall - 53 and 52 respectively.  But, the big difference comes in the number of teams each continent will provide to the big event.  Europe will send on 13 teams and Africa only 5.  So by the numbers this seems so unfair.  But, is it really?

It all depends on what you are trying to achieve.  In this case how many people will try and watch let alone attend in person a game if you have a bunch of so-so teams no one has ever heard of?
European teams have a long history within the footballing sport.  For that matter Football was invented in England.  Some African teams have just a few years history and little or no governmental support or infrastructure.  Add that up and it is clear why FIFA chooses to send the number of teams that it does from each continent.  The one with the highest percentage of teams attending is South America.  It's in the 45 percent range.  Oceania has the lowest with a mere 4.5%.  Europe has a 25% ratio, Asia 10-11 percent and North America 10% and Africa about 10%.
Statically, and numerically this is not fair but, it provides for a quality tournament worth watching.



Let's examine why this works better then going by pure numbers in a bit more detail.  The easiest way to do this is to see a list of those that made the final since the World Cup began and the champions.

National team	Finalists	Winners	Runners-up
Brazil	7	5	2
Italy	6	4	2
Germany	7	3	4
Argentina	4	2	2
Uruguay	2	2	0
France	2	1	1
England	1	1	0
Spain	1	1	0
Netherlands	3	0	3
Czechoslovakia	2	0	2
Hungary	2	0	2
Sweden	1	0	1

It is very easy to see where the teams that win come from.  Europe and South America.
I'm not even sure how many times teams from Asia or Africa have even made it into the semi-finals.  The USA for example has begun to consistently make it out of group play to the round of 16.  They have been improving and down the road there may be a chance at making it to the final.  For the time being they become one of the many wild card teams that may play that perfect game and really give a contender for the cup a run for their money.

So there is that trade off.  Do you want to be fair numerically or do you want to have a quality game?

The quality of the game is more important to the world Cup then to say some other sporting events or activities.  For the World Cup you are looking for the very best teams the world over.  You don't want the best proportion of teams the world over, but, the best teams of the world.

In younger youth sports that do not have a financial incentive attached things change.  You might require fairness in the games played at school or by those still in primary grades.  This keeps things positive and helps get away from the "win at any cost" issue.

Now some start to say there should be fairness in hiring practices, school admissions, and other societal things.  But, what are you really achieving?  What is your aim in forcing things to be fair by some predefined criteria?

Brazil has begun to implement affirmative action when it comes to university admissions.  Federal university is free in Brazil (tuition at least) if you can make it in.  Thus there is a big process each year to see who can gain one of the few slots available for a specific area of study.  Many people take training courses there much like the ACT or GMAT trainings/testing here in the USA just so they have a change at passing Vestibular.   Now, what ends up happening is that the more well off families can afford to pay for such courses.  Poor families are highly under represented.  That does not mean poor people are not taking the test to see if they can get into university.  Thus they are starting to implement affirmative action.
A very large portion of the population in Brazil are of mix-race.  And the majority have some African blood.  Negros are highly under represented at university and then it goes down from there.... the more Caucasian you are the more you are likely to go to university. Not a guarantee but, statically the reality.
So with affirmative action you basically declare we have to have 10% of college applications, or students say be Amer-Indian or negro. Now this creates a different problem of fairness.  Are you being fair by saying if your race is X percent of the population therefore you automatically get X percent of the college admissions slots?


This leads to some people that might wonder - 'Did I get into this school simply because I'm ______ race?'
Now your not getting into school based on merits but, race.  And do you use merits after race since you will always have a limited number of slots?
One small problem you begin to find in Brazil is the number of people claiming they are negro to take advantage of the affirmative action but, at the same time looking white as heck.  They may have some African blood in them but, when do you cut it off and say you have to be at least 30% African blood or 45% Amer-Indian blood?  Is that provable blood or not?  Some people may look dark as heck and could qualify as Amer-Indian possibly but, can not prove one way or another their background.

These and many other issues arise when you begin to get involved in correcting social injustices by way of quotes and the like.  Abuse of the system will exist.  It could also do some good and right some wrong however, is their a better way to handle this.

It appears no one has found it yet since, places like Brazil are now trying affirmative action just like the United States did over 35 years ago.



Have you ever thought how it would be to have a color blind job interview?  One were the interviewer and interviewee don't even really see one another.  Where the voice and/or face are distorted or blurred.   Imagine how this changes the make up of a company.  because now a days you can't judge someone just by their name.
There are Garcias that don't seem Latino at all and McDaniels that are so Black their appear blue.  You can't judge a person just by their name.......



So we have to be careful with how fair we want to be!
For we can go to far to the other side in trying to right past wrongs or making up for racial injustice perpetrated hundreds if not thousands of years ago.  You might just say the Holocaust is an example of over stepping ones bounds to right a perceived wrong carried out years earlier.

We must guard against be fair for all the wrong reasons



Buaidh - NO - Bas

Trip to Brazil

I recently returned from a 3 week long trip to Fortaleza Ceará Brazil to visit with some relatives.

Many things have changed since we had visited 4 years prior.  For one the slow down in the world economy had occurred, and thus the repercussions were being felt everywhere.  However, from everything I've been able to read it seems like Brazil was one a roll starting back then and has been buffeted a bit from the over all slow down.  They did not have a house crash like the in the USA.  They don't have a massive debt debacle hanging over their head like Greece.  In fact they were having 6-7% growth as late as two years before.  It has markedly dropped off recently.

What seems to have changed so much in part is how expense things have become.   We found that toys in general are nearly double the price.  Oddly it includes products from Brazilian companies as well as brand names more familiar to us in the US.
Also we found that there has been an increase in car ownership.  Motorcycles for that matter too.  Thus an increase in the over all traffic in the area.  Since most commerce happens downtown it sure has made a mess of things.   The light at the end of the tunnel is the fact that more shopping centers are being built further out from the city center, and more super markets are being built.

Unfortunately, it is apparent that the infrastructure has not been keeping up with the changes.  The amount of additional traffic on the street where we stayed was just amazing.  Tons of people walking, or jogging early in the morning or just before dark to beat the heat.   Tons of extra cars, and the noise.  Lots of extra noise.

Another main thing that has changed is the perceived and real crime that is occurring daily.  It may not be as bad as some would lead you to believe, but, with just a few reports on TV about it you never know.  It has gotten so bad that some people will leave their cell phone home if they are going to certain parts of town which might include downtown.

Many people who want to take advantage of the beach do so at locations outside of town due to this phenomena.  The local beaches have been left to the unsuspecting tourist.  A said state of affairs though I'm not sure it is any worse then being in certain parts of Los Angeles or New York City.


There has also been an increase in the number of people traveling within Brazil.  This is in part due to the fact that there are now several budget air lines within the country.  Sadly, by all reports many of the airports have not been updated to handle the increased traffic.  In some cities that have gone off and built a new airport.  Then one of the budget companies will use the old one to help keep the airfare down.  This appears to be the case with AZUL, that was founded by the former head of Jetblue.
We happened to fly on GOL inside of Brazil and had a mixed experience.  These companies have helped to change the way things are done int he airline business in Brazil.  Both are less then 15 years old.  They are new millennium companies.  Thus taking people from using buses as the main mode of transportation between cities and changing it to flying.


Brazil is without a doubt a country in development.  It can not longer be called a 3rd world country.  It's been 2nd world country for quite some time.  it still has a long way to go and hopefully due to the World Cup in 2012 and the Olympics in Rio in 2016 things will change for the better.

Eles defitivamente estão um País em disenvolvemento.  Nâo pode mais dizer que estão do triceiro mundo.   O gigante finalmente acordo.   Infelizmente acordo com certas dores de cabeça.

Viva Brasil!  

Buaidh - NO - Bas

Day Light Savings Time

Since we just changed our clocks over the weekend there have been a pile of articles on the net about Day Light Savings Time (DST).

Most notable is the fact that in the United States and for that matter most every where else DST is has been in effect for around 100 years. Yes, for most if not all of the 1800's there was not DST. Though according to one article it appears Thomas Jefferson originally proposed the change way back when. It was not until World War I that any real traction since everyone was looking to save energy to support the war effort.


It is very logical what the benefits should be by move the clock around and have an extra hour of light etc. Per one article Thomas Jefferson mentions saving in the neighborhood of 100,000 candles by implementing it in France. So yes, you do have the ability to cut down on the number of lights that need to be one etc. I've even seen things that mention it helps the farm worker to have more day light hours and thus is beneficial to them as well. However, it is mentioned that the cows, goats or other milk providing animals do not run by some clock on the wall. The milking is set more by a biological clock that resides inside each animal. So any farm benefit might be negated in the long haul.

Most of the comments I've seen wonder why we even bother anymore, etc. Here in California we went from having sun in our eyes driving in the work during the 6 o'clock hour to now having it be completely dark. Big contrast. Can't say which is better. I guess the difference might be even bigger in place like New York city or Berlin or other northern cities. Since due to the latitude of these cities they have really long summer days and depending on the location very, very short winter days. So will moving the clock around for a mere hour actually make that much of a difference. It certainly would not do much of anything for those that are nearer to the equator. The days are about the same length all year round. Minor changes if that. In fact in Fortaleza Brazil (one of the cities hosting 2014 world cup action) they don't even bother. They keep the same time all years round in states like Arizona and Hawaii. Makes sense in Hawaii as it likely does not change much during the year.  Arizona I'm not sure their reasoning much all the more power to them. 

At times I wonder if it would be best to just stick the time at 30 minutes between the 2 times and call it a day.  That way you can get a bit of the advantages of both without needing to change things every 6 months.  Imagine the labor involved in trying to get things switched over on a regular basis.

It appears the federal government set a standard as to when DST goes into effect etc but, leaves it up to each state to decide if it wants to implement the change or not.  Thus the small patch work situation we live with.

So once again man has gone off and tinkered with nature at least given us the illusion that we have tinkered with nature.   For better or for worse in as much as many of us want to get rid of DST we are stuck with it.  So if you really want to get rid of it move to Arizona or how about relocating to Fabulous Fortaleza, Brazil where some of the best beaches in the world are located.

Buaidh - NO - Bas