I am in China ATM (not Armenia). For those not able to contact me anymore, email me at ricpans#hot...com.

CHARACTER
I am in my early forties (merd, déjà !). I've lived abroad for most of the time since 2000 to chase the dream to study animals. Holding tight my total respect for nature, I now do research on Chinese people. I am a researcher at university.
Living mostly abroad since the early 2000's, I have shaped myself to be as friendly and open-minded as possible. Yet I hold some reserved and strong Mediterranean character. Why have I been living abroad? Because my type of research does not allow me to feel accomplished in my home country (Italy). It has not been an easy choice to make in the first place, neither is one to maintain. However, since after the pandemic outbreak, I have been living back in Italy.
The thing is that I do not like conventions much (and conventional people also!), and this has reflected into what I chose to do as a job and the way this choice has conditioned my attitude towards life.
Having lived in 6 different cultures and 3 continents is probably what makes me feel most accomplished. The 7th most extraordinary milieu was in the South African savannah, researching monkeys and understanding how anthropocentrism is the epidemic we need to get rid of.

WORK
I do research; specifically, I study ‘evolution of cooperation’. First in primates, now in humans, I am after why social animals have become as such, despite the high trade-off paid to compromise the self with the need for others. This topic allows me to dip my thinking into the roots of sociality through a wide range of disciplines: Biology, Economics, Anthropology, Cognition, etc.
I very much witness the evidence that all species are part of a continuum, and humans are not that special compared to the others. In my thinking, I therefore tend to scale down our constant anthropocentric perspective of the world while scaling up this vision into an 'ecological holism', a unity.
To note that, in the industrialised world, I am against farming and domestication! Yes, you've read this correctly; if humans think to be fully developed in relation to food making, 20 or 30 years ago they should have given up this most invasive practice causing a modification of nature, nature which should never be controlled.

POLITICS
I consider myself an Italian sui generis. I am proud of my roots, on the other hand, though, I quite despise the way my country is run.
For over 20 years now, if it wasn't for the internet, applying for specific research positions, I would have never lived abroad. (The Erasmus programme also helped me a lot and that's the best policy of the united Europe) Now I work remotely online, so I can say I am as resident in any country as I am surfing the net.
Besides being leftish, I am mostly a libertarian of the net. Hopefully soon the internet will be blockchain based and decentralised as it used to be at its beginnings. This would allow transitioning away from its current oligarchic state, administrated by the big techs.
Freedom shouldn't mean anarchy, so I appreciate when some rules are strict, such as in countries like China where the unity tenet withholds a more important right than individual freedoms. Democracy is going through a crisis, especially in those countries lacking political schools. This crisis has become even more evident since our administrators are ignorant at dealing with climate change. This political situation vis à vis science has been exacerbated lately by some primitive handling of the pandemic (except for some notable democratic places like Taiwan or New Zealand – China also did well).
We live in GDP runned cultures, and that sucks! Our personal right to vote ends up being much more critical on a daily basis than during the elections. That's how we should always spend money, to patronise what we believe is just. I therefore base my shopping on sustainability.
Often being able to choose freely what to do in life, I became responsible and I gradually built up a tough skin, thickening up the longer I live abroad. Now I hope to ease off with some meditation practice. But all in all..., I am still a nuisance! Beware, you, naïve traveller!

PHILOSOPHY
My personal philosophy is to become a philosopher (!) and, through evolutionary biology, to ponder how this world turns around. By studying nature and people, by living abroad and travelling, I try to reach into and 'make' the world personal.
When I was younger I would have paid to be kidnapped by aliens to experience a new world. After having lived in a few places, I am content with what I have seen. And yet, I haven't got quite enough of it all...
In fact, with all the Chinese around me now, the ‘living on another planet dream’ has somehow become true. (But exotism has got a double facet often. I am pretty sure the local people have their perspective of things, and they rightly see myself as the alien in Asia, given their frequent watching when I walk on the road!)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I have been hosted in: Oslo, Palermo, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Pesaro (IT), Pisa, Zurich, Strasbourg, Mozambique, Belgium, Metz (FR), Epinal (FR), Bangkok, Philippines, Portugal, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, France, Turkey, Germany, China, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and counting...
I have hosted people from: France, Czech Rep, England, France again, Germany again, Portugal, Iran, Spain, Italy, US, Latvia, India, Hong Kong, Finland.
I met two of my best friends with CS. They are Ken Lin, a Taiwanese long time expat in Paris, and Jordy, a Jewish American long time resident of India.
I have been a CS member for very long. I am not aiming at having the longest profile ever though. Neither I am looking to host and surf as much as possible. I rather go for the small but good.
In Instagram I am "ricsnap"; tha's a useful "wondering nature" profile, without selfies of course.
In Twitter "@RiccardoPansin2"; not as useful for CS purposes but for science related info.

Interests

Cinema, photography, IT, bricolage, my work, travelling, and next should really be playing serious music again.
For long I have been feeling I waste my time if I don't entertain myself in a way that leads to expanding my culture. I guess the trick has been choosing something to do in life that really interests me, 'cause I am not a big history or literature fan. When I can I behave as a culture vulture, attending any kind of event and gig, but not much pop whatsoever.

• photography
• yoga
• cinema
• sustainability
• bricolage
• blockchains

Music, Movies, and Books

- Films: Kubrick, Mihaileanu, Sorrentino, Farhadi among the most known, independent directors - I used to go to the movies once a week in countries where I had art houses at my disposal. I hardly pay for cinema tickets of Hollywood blockbusters which often portrays American values I rather despise - based on the constant search of evils almost always not existing in the real world (didn't they win the Cold war also thanks to the Hollywood new army while acting as a contemporary type of world colonisation?!). Recent movies: La grande bellezza, The neon demon, and Juste la fin du monde. Damien Chazelle conversely is an American genius.
- Music: sort of Rock, Indie, Jazz, Classical and Contemporary classical; I very often listen to FIP Radio online, from RadioFrance.
- Theatre: going to shows quite often (I have a grandfather pianist and a sister actress).
- Books: work-related evolutionary theory books (also about 'morality'!) and, worth mentioning, one about bioethics (why we should donate 5% of our revenues to charity - by Peter Singer "The life you can change").
- Sports: snowboarding, cycling, Anusara yoga, skateboard a mythical electric Onewheel, and swimming and snorkeling.

Hosting CSers it's still like travelling. Alessandro Baricco wrote in 1993 in Italian in its monologue Novecento:
"Negli occhi di qualcuno, nelle parole di qualcuno, lui, quell'aria, l'aveva respirata davvero. Il mondo, magari, non l'aveva visto mai. Ma erano ventisette anni che il mondo passava su quella nave: ed erano ventisette anni che lui, su quella nave, lo spiava. E gli rubava l'anima. In questo era un genio, niente da dire. Sapeva ascoltare. E sapeva leggere. Non i libri, quelli son buoni tutti, sapeva leggere la gente. I segni che la gente si porta addosso: posti, rumori, odori, la loro terra, la loro storia... Lui leggeva, e con cura infinita, catalogava, sistemava, ordinava... Ogni giorno aggiungeva un piccolo pezzo a quella immensa mappa che stava disegnandosi nella testa, immensa, la mappa del mondo"
Alas, in the English version of the movie this part got cut out.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Having lived (and not just travelled) in five so different countries and cultures beside my native Italy!
Observing social animals interacting never stops to amaze me.
Monkeys playing, snowboarding, wolf-howling, the effect of meditation on the body. Practicing at attempting fasting, lately.
“The next major transition in evolution of human cooperation: the blockchains” written by me https://link.medium.com/Zj7ujjNE7S
Being the only white guy in a black community with hundreds of people partying at night.
I seldom wear glasses anymore: my eye sight improved thanks to nature and Africa!
Situation at a Turkish restaurant: mismatching the toilet with the male praying room and, just after, being served by a Syrian-Kurdish waiter while my Muslim friend recounts about the recent marriage with two wives.

Teach, Learn, Share

If your parents haven't taught you at the age of 5 or so, I could explain you why you should eat way less meat than you do.
Why I will not be interested in you, if you think it should be up to the governments and corporations and not yourself, now, to do something effective to stop global warming.
Most of all, I can explain you some meaning of life evolution by having observed monkeys and other animals for years.
I used not to be the best student you find in a class and yet, 15 years later, I saw myself sitting behind the teachers' desk in two different countries for a couple of months.

Countries I’ve Visited

Armenia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Laos, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, France, Italy, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom

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